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25
24
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1359/45953/SSmithRW425992v10003-0002 copy.1.pdf
2b2498c35c56b9b3f87fd35ee89aa604
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Smith, Bob
Robert Wylie Smith
R W Smith
Description
An account of the resource
125 items. An oral history interview with Bob Smith (b. 1924, 425992 Royal Australian Air Force) photographs, documents and navigation logs and charts. He flew operations as a navigator with 15 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Smith 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
2019-03-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Smith, RW
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
A Tour of Operations with RAF Bomber Command No XV/15 Squadron Mildenhall
Description
An account of the resource
The third book of memoirs by Bob Smith.
Covers his operational tour and bombing operations.
Creator
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Bob Smith
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Heinsberg (Heinsberg)
France
France--Beauvoir-sur-Mer
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
United States
Michigan--Detroit
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
France--Châlons-en-Champagne
France--Caen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Flensburg
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Sylt
France--Somme
France--Aire-sur-la-Lys
France--Amiens
France--Gironde Estuary
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Brest
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Braunschweig
France--Falaise Region
France--Royan
Poland--Szczecin
Great Britain
Scotland--Glasgow
Russia (Federation)--Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai︠a︡ oblastʹ)
Sweden
Denmark
Sweden--Malmö
Netherlands
Netherlands--Eindhoven
France--Le Havre
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Düsseldorf
France--Calais
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Europe--Kattegat Region
Norway
Norway--Oslo
Denmark--Frederikshavn
France--Strasbourg
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Emmerich
Netherlands--Nijmegen
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Cologne
Belgium
Belgium--Antwerp
Germany--Essen
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Belgium--Charleroi
Germany--Leverkusen
Netherlands--Veere
Germany--Castrop-Rauxel
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Aachen Region
Germany--Düren (Cologne)
Germany--Jülich
Germany--Fulda
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Osterfeld
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Australia
Victoria--Melbourne
New South Wales--Sydney
Queensland--Brisbane
Scotland--Inverness
England--Blackpool
England--Colchester
Germany--Merseburg Region
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Text. Personal research
Format
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98 printed pages
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription
Identifier
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SSmithRW425992v10003-0002 copy
1 Group
115 Squadron
149 Squadron
15 Squadron
186 Squadron
195 Squadron
218 Squadron
3 Group
5 Group
514 Squadron
6 Group
617 Squadron
622 Squadron
75 Squadron
8 Group
90 Squadron
aerial photograph
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-17
B-24
Battle
Blenheim
bomb aimer
bombing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
Distinguished Service Order
escaping
flight engineer
Gee
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
ground crew
ground personnel
H2S
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Ju 88
killed in action
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 3
Master Bomber
Me 109
mess
mine laying
Mosquito
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
prisoner of war
propaganda
radar
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Feltwell
RAF Honeybourne
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Lindholme
RAF Mepal
RAF Methwold
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Sealand
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Uxbridge
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Weston Zoyland
RAF Witchford
RAF Wratting Common
RAF Wyton
Spitfire
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
target indicator
target photograph
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
Window
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1320/20094/PHarrisonEW1903.2.jpg
2011302897f6ecc744cfecee49b3e1ea
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1320/20094/AHarrisonEW190914.2.mp3
3daf9b1a0421b30fecba37afbca2052e
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
Harrison, Eric William
E W Harrison
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Eric Harrison (b. 1925, 2204970 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 195 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Eric Harrison and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
2019-09-14
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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Harrison, EW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Warrant Officer Eric Harrison of 195 Squadron at 2.30 On Saturday 14th September 2019 at his home in, or near Bolton, Greater Manchester. And also with me is Phil Harrison, his son. Eric, if you wouldn’t mind please for the record would you just give your full name and service number and date of birth please?
EH: Yes. My full name is Eric William Harrison. I was born on August the, 25 08 1925.
BW: And whereabouts were your born?
EH: I was born in a place called Heywood.
BW: Near Manchester.
EH: Near Manchester. My father had been in the ’14/18 war but he had been [pause] discharged because of mustard gas inhalation and he never recovered. He died at the age of forty.
BW: Did you, did you know him? Were you familiar with —
EH: Oh yes. I knew him but he was a sick man.
BW: And how many others were there in our family? Were you —
EH: I had two sisters. Another brother.
BW: And were you the eldest?
EH: Yes. I was the eldest.
BW: What was it like growing up in, in Heywood?
EH: Oh, we had a wonderful mother. Our mother was the mainstay of the family.
BW: And what —
EH: Without her we would never have existed.
BW: And was she working or did she spend her time —
EH: No. No.
BW: Looking after you as a family.
EH: She looked after us. Did washing for people. Did sewing for people. It was hand to mouth. In those days things were a lot different than they are today. Welfare wasn’t quite available at the same rate. If any.
BW: But she took work in for people.
EH: Yes. She did washing and all sorts of things and ironing. Wonderful mother.
BW: And where did you go to school?
EH: Well, I went to school to play because I thought that’s where they went. I didn’t know you had to learn anything. I didn’t know. I was about eight before I realised. Eight years of age before I realised you were going there for a reason. I thought you went to play, make gangs and all sorts of nonsense really. But I think schooling really clocked into me when I was about twelve, I think. Roughly I was about that age before I realised that one of the teachers who was called [pause] a nice chap and we were doing practical drawing and he said to me, ‘Have you ever tried drawing, Eric?’ And I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well, you’ve got a wonderful gift for it and you should develop it.’ And I set up with set squares and t-sets and I can do drawings of, extended drawings and so on. And I still, ‘til lately but that stopped me. All those, these drawings in my house and well, he’s got a couple I think and, but I’ve enjoyed painting. Water colour painting. But he was very good. But he was the one who set me on the road to becoming interested in art. I don’t think, without that I wouldn’t. Because of art it brought me on to read and read what you need to know about angles and figures and figurations. So it was like a development from one to another ‘til when I was, I left school at the age of fourteen and that was when the war started in 1939. And what did I do? Well, I went, I thought, well what do I do now? I’ve got to go to work now and everybody said, ‘Get yourself a job that gives you a pension at the end of it,’ in those days. So it was the gasworks, or the ironworks, or the steelworks, or the mills, or where they had a pension at the end. So anyway, I went and was working at the gasworks. I got a, I became a so called gas fitter but then I realised I was making no money out of it because I had, I was more or less the bread winner of the family which meant that, well life was tough and we had to [pause] So I packed that job in. I went making cabinets for the War Ministry and I was earning thirty five shillings a week which was a lot of money in those days. Having gone from eleven shillings a week to thirty five shillings a week was enormous strides, and that was making cabinets for sides of, when the Army and the Navy, for bedside, bedside tables and things.
BW: Wooden ones. Not steel ones.
EH: Wooden ones. The wooden ones. Yes. Of course. But that’s, like I said I did that for a couple of years. Then it got the war, my time had been threatened with the call up and so forth. And then I thought, I realised that I’d better do something about this Air Force thing.
[recording interrupted]
BW: This is Brian Wright carrying on with part two of the interview with Warrant Officer Eric Harrison of 195 Squadron at 2.45 on Saturday 14th of September. So, Eric we were listening before to you describing the journey down to London on the train.
EH: We arrived at 5.30 in London after a long dour hassle. It seemed forever. However, emerging out of Euston Station on to Tottenham Court Road at 5.30 in the early hours, in darkness of course, and wandering along I met a lonely character. I said, ‘Where’s Lord’s Cricket Ground?’ because that where the journey I was making to and he said, ‘Well, you’ve quite several journeys to go. You’d better get the underground at — ’ he mentioned some underground. It was all a foreign language to me. However, on the other side of the street I saw my image of myself. A person of about the same stature carrying a gas mask, a little bag of tricks and I thought well, I wonder where he’s going. So I went across the road quietly, I introduced myself and he said his name was Clark and he was going to Lord’s Cricket Ground like me. So at least I had a companion from then on, and we struggled our way through London and eventually at quarter to eight that same day we arrived at Lord’s Cricket Ground. The gates opened and in we went. Several hundreds of other people were there and once inside we had to form into groups. They called us out in to various divisions and we were taken for breakfast. Well, that was rather a funny one because we had to get into some sort of assemblage and march in threes down to London Zoo where we had breakfast. There were no animals in the Zoo, they’d all been taken out but nevertheless they used the Zoo in 1943 as a feeding place for potential RAF officers which, I mean it’s a starting point isn’t it? So, that was, that was genuine, and for a fortnight we marched up and down the streets of London at 6 o’clock in the morning going to breakfast, 6 o’clock at night going for our evening meal. And of course darkness fell upon us and the guy at the forward unlucky enough to be carrying the lamp because it was the corporals who, who made the life bearable. They’d bless you every night and put, tucked you up into your beds and they frightened the life out of me, and they would issue these red lights. One for the lad in the front and one for the lad in the back. But however, we managed and during that fortnight we had our hair cut, teeth pulled, shoes measured, ankle socks taken away, and so forth and so on until eventually like, like spick and span new boys. And after the, and I was stationed in a billet and it was a palace of varieties called St Johns Wood. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it but they were, and in those days they’d been accommodated by the RAF. Taken. Taken over and were looked after by the likes of, and we had to spend at least a two hours a day scrubbing and cleaning them. And I mean cleaning them because they wouldn’t let you touch the doors or, it had to be clean. What a life. Anyway, at the end of about a fortnight what was left of us who survived the ordeal managed to get on to a train going to Bridlington. A slow train via Doncaster and here I don’t know about trains. I don’t know a lot about trains. I hadn’t been on very many. If any. But when it chugged in at 4 o’clock in the early hours of the morning at Doncaster and the lads wanted the call of nature they opened the door and fell out. There was no platform there. There were these carriages again. Just open the door. Just fell out. They thought there was a platform. They were like me. Numbskulls. They hadn’t any sense. Had led a sheltered life you see and, however we chugged back to, back on the train and rubbing our ankles and what have you we eventually got to Bridlington. Pouring with rain. We were allocated houses in two, two at a time and I got on with the guy I was with. He was called John. Call him John. A Scots lad. And we had one room in this house in Bridlington. We hadn’t to go in any other room unless we were told to by the [pause] which was, you could understand in a way. So for about another three or four weeks we marched up and down Bridlington front dressed only in ankle socks. A ground sheet tied around your neck and your funny little hat on with your white flash. Didn’t you look a right sight marching up and down the front at Bridlington? All barbed wire on the front. You couldn’t climb over it of course. They wouldn’t let you escape. But we managed to work out, this Scotsman said to me one day, we were, he stayed with me, we were taken for a twenty mile run along the coast up to Filey, and then come all the way back down again. And he said to me, ‘Hang on a bit. Hang on at the back.’ I said, ‘What for?’ He said, ‘Well, let them all go.’ So when we, I set off and this John fella, I can’t remember his surname, he said, ‘Look, when they’ve gone jump in this field at the back here.’ So off they go and we jump in the field. We crossed the field. We wait for them on the other side coming back because they was like over that field to the top, run around and came back all the way down again. So we joined in again at the bottom when they all went past. We did that for about four days until we got caught and we got a hullaboo by the corporal in charge, because he knew about it. They’re not that silly you know. They, like another corporal put me on a charge, just diverting a little bit but talking about corporals. They were like Adolf Hitler had one. I think he was a corporal. And these fellas in the RAF with two stripes on they frightened me to death because they was, ‘Airman. Do this. Do that.’ I think they were air marshalls really. But anyway whilst at St Athan I was taking a cup of tea back to my billet surreptitiously and a corporal spotted me and shouted my, ‘Airman.’ And of course I was put on a charge and I was sent in front of the station warrant officer who said how dire this was against my, my good name was besmirched by being caught with the tea which we weren’t supposed to take to the billet. So what could I do to put this right? I’d have to go on Saturday at 12 o’clock to the mess. The mess. ‘Report to the orderly sergeant at 12 o’clock and he’ll give you duties to do.’ So eight of us funnily enough turned up at 12 o’clock. I thought I was on my own. There was about eight of us, and we were taken to this sort of small hangar. Not a great big hangar but big enough. At the far side of the wall was like a vent and we were told to sit down and get these shovels and buckets and then someone shouted, ‘Right lads,’ and they opened the vent at the back of this wall and lorries were there with, full of spuds. Tipping spuds down into this building and we were there peeling spuds ‘til 5 o’clock. Spuds. Eight of us. In buckets with water. What a game. Anyway, we got, that was another, that’s another just breaking up but that’s how they treated you and that’s part of the [pause] anyway that’s, so after, after those days we went on to what they called the mechanical side of things. Learning about engines. Because I didn’t know whether I’d passed to be a flight engineer. To be taught whether I’d passed or not was another matter.
BW: Did you put down on your form you wanted —
EH: No.
BW: To be a flight engineer.
EH: No. They decided by your tests at Padgate what what you were going into. And I wanted to be a pilot. They said, ‘I’m sorry. We’re full up.’ They were all queuing up like a candidate waiting to. They said, ‘You’ll have to wait.’ So they said, ‘We want flight engineers.’ So I said, ‘Well, I’ll be one of those then.’ That’s how we started really. So anyway we went from Driffield, a lovely sunny morning in January down to Weston Super Mare. RAF Locking it was called. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. L O C K I N G. RAF Locking. And there we were taught the rudiments of engines, carburettors, things that fly like butterflies and Tiger Moths and other [laughs] and we had to have a, sit an exam at the end of this four week stint to see if we’d learned anything because some of us just were like playing about and it was just a game. But anyway they whittled us out slowly until eventually after about four or five weeks we were sent across the water, the River Severn to St Athans. That is the biggest RAF camp I think in England or the British Isles anyway. I don’t know how many men it housed but there was a lot, and I’m talking thousands. And when we got there I think that we were Group 101 or Group 106. I’m not sure of those numbers but that was our site number. Whatever you call it. The entrance number, and we then we were designated to sheds as I call them. Nissen huts or, and some of the pranks that went on in there you would not believe. However —
BW: This would be still late 1942. Thereabouts.
EH: It is. ’43 I was in.
BW: ’43.
EH: ’43. And we got into the RAF St Athan which was what? It was about the end of January I think when I went in there. The end of January I think it was. That might tell us something. There’s a date on that pass test. What’s the date test? Go back one. I had to pass an exam to, to get that book.
BW: The logbook.
EH: Start at the beginning.
BW: The logbook.
EH: Yeah. The marks I got. Does it give a date?
BW: It says flight engineer course, Number 4 School of Technical Training, RAF St Athan. That’s Lancaster 1 and 3 exam results and that’s —
EH: No date.
BW: Yeah. 23rd August ’44.
EH: That’s the one. That’s right.
BW: So you were there.
EH: I passed out.
BW: All the way through.
EH: Right from January right to August.
BW: ’44.
EH: And that, that was six months roughly. Six seven months. That was it, and it was a course that was 8 o’clock in the morning you started on your duties until half past five every night. You didn’t get home any earlier than that. So you were having your evening meal if you were lucky at 6.30 and the reason for that was you didn’t want to do anything. That was all you were fit for.
EH: Eat and sleep.
BW: The next time you went to bed the bells were going. You were six, 5.30 the clock went off waking you up in the morning. And they had you running and doing everything. You can see of that list of names that I showed you with that those names.
BW: This is a list dated July ’43.
EH: They were the passes. Not all those lads passed out of eighty in that 106 course or 101 whichever it was.
BW: Yeah.
EH: They’re the ones who passed.
BW: Now, this states on it and I’m assuming these are chaps who’d been —
EH: Allocated aircraft.
BW: Allocated to aircraft.
EH: That’s right.
BW: So someone’s got Halifax.
EH: That’s right.
BW: Others have —
EH: Yeah. They knew where they were going.
BW: Catalina and —
EH: And most of them were gone by 4 o’clock in the afternoon. And the ones that failed I’m talking, let’s go back to those. We were in a hangar and we were called to assemble. All in our and all the officer said, ‘I want you gentlemen when I call your name out you go through that door over there.’ What? You didn’t know what was, who’s passed or what but anyway calling the names out. Out. Out. So eventually, this was about midday if it was that I’m told that they went out there, were given a quick lunch, boarded a bus and they were marked off down to Enfield in London. All failures. I don’t know what they were going to do. All failures. There would be no brevet. I’ve still got my little brevet with the E on it. But that was the height of —
BW: And how did you come to leave St Athan? Were you put on a bus as well or were you just told to go by train and report somewhere?
EH: Aye.
BW: The next —
EH: As I can recollect, I think it was, I was going down to [pause] I’m trying to think where I went to.
BW: The next entry in your logbook is 1653 Conversion Unit.
EH: That’s right. That’s the one.
BW: Chedburgh.
EH: Chedburgh. It’s a funny name isn’t it? Chedburgh. And I went there and did a bit of flying on Stirlings of all things. Fancy going, when you’d been trained to fly a Lancaster then you suddenly find yourself on a Stirling. It’s a totally different piece of equipment altogether.
BW: How did you find the Stirling?
EH: Terrible. Frightened to death. Used to have to wind the undercarriage down.
BW: And was that what you had to do?
EH: Yeah.
BW: As s flight engineer. To wind the undercarriage.
EH: Yeah. Wind the undercarriage down or up whichever way you need. Part of your duties. Up and down. Used to take about ten minutes. And they said, ‘Wheels upright.’ It was, I mean the engines were reliable but the rest of it was a bundle of, well terrible. That was my version. And we nearly, nearly bought it in one of those one night. We landed and the, one of the wheels locked, front wheels locked, skidded and off we went down the pan, off the runway, over the grass. Ended about a yard off the sergeant’s mess I think it was.
BW: Yeah. There’s a number, there’s a number of day flights.
EH: Yeah.
BW: And night flights. I understood that the Stirling was from a crew perspective roomy.
EH: Oh yes.
BW: Not so much comfortable but room.
EH: Roomy. Plenty. Yes. I’ll give you that. There was more room. You could move about better. I mean the Lanc, if you lay down nobody could get alongside. Have to wobble over but, but at least you knew where you were with a Lanc. Once you’d found out where the oxygen bottles were and what was, where the main spars were and things you got, you got the hang of it. But it was mainly that paper’s not much thicker than what they were made of, you know. In fact there were twelve rivets on each little panel and it was the twelve rivets that were holding it together. That held the thing together. Not the panels. The panel were just covering the [pause] you could lean on them and they would move. Never put your hand up when we were flying because it was so cold your hand would stick to the ice. No. It wasn’t, wasn’t a nice [pause] but the aeroplane itself, Lancaster was a wonderful aeroplane. It did it’s bit anyway. You could rely on it.
BW: And you started flying with a couple of pilots here. One of whom we’ll come on to later is Fitton. The other one was Flying Officer White.
EH: He was a coloured fella. Yeah. Flying Officer White. Yeah. Nice chap. But —
BW: You say he was coloured. Do you know where he came from? Did he come from the Caribbean?
EH: No. I haven’t a clue where he came from. No. But he was a nice chap. Very well spoken. I can recall that with clarity.
BW: And there was one flight you’ve noted in here where you jettisoned four hundred gallons of fuel.
EH: Yeah [laughs] We did that a few times over the, over the North Sea.
BW: Do you recall?
EH: You couldn’t land with all that fuel on in a, in a crash situation. That was one, I mean one of the last flights I ever did was the worst. One of the worst flights I ever did. That was later on. That was 1951. The Battle of Britain display.
BW: And from there you moved on in November ’44 here to Number 3 Lancaster Finishing School.
EH: Finishing School. That’s where I met the crew. Yeah. That’s right.
BW: So how did you crew up then?
EH: Well, that normally, well normally —
BW: I mean you were assigned to people in training but what happened on —
EH: Well, my meeting I was travelling from this Feltwell and the train I was on broke down as they do. I was only travelling like a distance of about eight mile on this train to get to Cambridge where I could catch the train to get to Feltwell but I’m late. Not that I, I make a habit of it. But I’m late. So consequently all, I’m making for this little [pause] what’s the station called?
BW: Feltwell.
EH: Feltwell. And there they’re going to crew up. I know that I’m going to, I’ve got to go to a certain building, so I dashed in to the RAF camp. That’s where this building was. You know, two mile down the road and in there you’ll be alright. I run down this street in the camp passing all the billets. Get to this one building where they’re all coming out. Crews are coming out. I thought where’s my bloody, where’s my crew? I can’t think of a crew at all. So just as I’m giving up hope and thinking, well I’ve shot my bolt and I’m [pause] this six weary guys sort of limber up on the side there and I thought I wonder who they are? And this bomb aimer shouted to me, ‘Are you a flight engineer?’ I looked at him. I thought he was being funny and I said, ‘Well, yes. I suppose so.’ He said, ‘Come here.’ They introduced me to Keith then. Keith. ‘This is Keith Burnett Fitton. Don’t forget the Burnett.’ I said, ‘Pleased to meet you.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m Eric W Harrison.’ They said, ‘No. You’re not. You’re called Rick.’ And I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Because Humphrey Bogart was called Rick.’ And I thought, oh. And that’s how I came to be called Rick. And I had to be called Rick. And that’s how I was introduced to the lads. The navigator who was Harold. A lovely lad he was. And Pat came from Belfast. And the funny thing is now, the names have gone and the sad thing of this, this life story is that we met in a funny sort of way. Like I just told you. They’re all, everybody’s got a crew except this one wandering around looking for a flight engineer. I’m the guy. But when we come to say our farewells it’s disappointing because we’d done our tour, finished our last trip and they all said, ‘Right. Where are we going?’ So the officer came and said, ‘Well, we’re looking for volunteers to go to Japan and bomb Japan. We’re forming a new squadron. Would you be interested?’ So we all looked around at each other. Well, we’re trying to kill each other we might as well see some more.’ So, we all volunteered to go to Japan and he said, ‘Right, well tell you what go and have fourteen days holiday, enjoy yourself and come back to [pause] what’s the RAF station called?
BW: Wratting Common.
EH: No.
BW: Feltwell.
EH: I was on Wratting but I’m not going back to there. I’m going back to the main squadron of that group. Do you know it? The main squadron of that Group. The idea was to form a new squadron there. We weren’t, after ten days or so we were going. So we’re all, we’re all joined up with this like. We were going to be bombing the Japanese so that meant our formalities now, going home on leave was like just packing bags and, ‘See you in a fortnight lads.’ We all went out the door like, as you could that door and disappeared. Because he was going via Cambridge, he was going down to London, well two went to London, two were going to Scotland and I was going up to Sheffield. No. York. Making our way, and we just said, ‘Cheerio lads. See you in a fortnight. Bye.’ Never saw each other again. The next thing I got was a telegram to say report to Wheaton RAF camp on a driver’s course.
BW: And that’s at Blackpool.
EH: Near Blackpool. Yeah.
BW: Kirkham.
EH: That was what in, so I went in in I think it was July. Late July I was sent to Kirkham and for an eight week driving course. Big lorries, AEC lorries. Passed. Then they said, ‘You’re on, we’re going to send you overseas.’ So the next thing I was posted to Blackpool. Blackpool to Clyde. Clyde on to an old rickety ship going back to America which had been one of these converted warships that never did. Just a bag of rust really but it had, it had a kitchen full of food. I’d never seen so much food in all my life and I’m talking about pre-refrigerators. There was at least six. Big. As big as that window there and you opened them and it was full of food. Can you imagine how much food there was there? Shanks of this and that meats. Anyway, we were on there for a fortnight until we went at the Azores. They shuffled me off to the Azores. That was another fun and game.
BW: Was it?
EH: I don’t know whether you know whether the Azores is. It’s in the middle of the Atlantic.
BW: I know it. So coming back to the point at which you’d met the crew at, at Feltwell. There was a number of sorties that you flew there. A handful daytime.
EH: Definitely.
BW: And two or three nights.
EH: One of them, I’ll tell you one I can tell you about. Whether it’s in there or not, I don’t know how many hours it were. We took off. I think it was a Stirling. We were doing a night exercise flying north and we were, at night time of course and we’d done this exercise so many hours north, stopped, turned around to come back and our navigator Harold said, ‘There’s something’s gone wrong here.’ I said, ‘Why?’ he said, ‘We’re further away from home than we’ve ever been.’ I said, ‘Well, what do you mean?’ he said, ‘Well, we were supposed to have turned around, and been flying back home for the last hour,’ he said, ‘But we’re nowhere near it.’ And what we didn’t know was that the wind had turned around from this way to that way and blowing us further that way than if we went that way. We were doing a hundred and ten I think. The aircraft was being blown back by a hundred and forty so we’re not going anywhere until we realised that if we carry on like this we’ll have no petrol. I informed them. I said, ‘Look, we’ve got to either get down or — ' What it was we were flying at the altitude, the aircraft couldn’t do eighteen thousand feet. It wasn’t doing it any good. The air war rarified. Anyway, we came down to about two thousand feet I think. We were a lot better. We did get back to base fortunately, but that was another one.
BW: So you weren’t there that long.
EH: Oh no.
BW: In you logbook it was less than a week but you moved from Feltwell to Wratting Common to begin ops at the end of November.
EH: Yeah.
BW: And you mentioned prior to recording that you’d known or, or perhaps even done a couple of sorties on 115 Squadron. What do you recall about the transition for you from base to base, but also from the formation of the squadron because it was pretty well a brand new squadron when you joined it?
EH: Yes. It was. Yes. But what you’ve got to realise is that we’d never flown with bombs on board or a full load of petrol. When we did our exercises one way or another, even doing our little bombing they were only about four pounds in weight these miniature bombs we carried we had to go and practice dropping bombs. I used to think it was cock-eyed but anyway that’s what the bomb aimer used to have to do. Go and practice bomb aiming. Used to take the gunners out to sea to go and shoot at a marker out in the sea. Going around da da de de the mid-upper gunner and the rear gunner shooting and the bomb aimer. All three of them shooting, trying to hit this target which they never did and bullets were going everywhere. Anyway, that’s another story. Quite funny. But we had a laugh. We did joke about it but this business of learning how to fly heavy stuff we never, no one taught us that there’s a difference taking off with a fully loaded aeroplane and one that’s only lightly loaded. We thought it was all the same, you know. Just off you go. When you touch the accelerator of your car it goes. A lot of it, you just drive it like that. Anyway, this particular target of Homberg we were, it was a daylight raid taking off at around about 8 o’clock in the morning.
BW: On your logbook it’s, the first one to Homberg was in —
EH: Yeah.
BW: November 28th
EH: Yeah.
BW: And that’s timed at 12.58.
EH: 12.58, we were. That was the time we were supposed to go. We didn’t go. Just when we got in the aeroplane a rocket went up. A red rocket. Off. So we thought well what’s gone wrong? Didn’t know. Nobody said anything, like we didn’t have comm like mobile phones like you’ve got today. It was all very, ‘I wonder what’s going on.’ So the WAAF came with a list, with the, from the van said, ‘We’ll take you to the sergeant’s mess. You can have a cup of coffee.’ So this was 12 o’clock. So by 1 o’clock we were at, eventually they said it could be starting again around four. Oh. So we all lumbered back on to the aeroplane, all eager to like to shuffle on not knowing what, what’s going on. We’d been to briefing. Seen all the, done all the necessary and, but what, what we didn’t know. The one thing we didn’t know was that between the original briefing at 12 o’clock and our 4 o’clock spasm, they’d moved the runway from the three thousand long runway to the two thousand eight hundred runway. We didn’t know that. Nobody said they’d moved the runway or anything. Just, follow that. So what happened when you started the engines up and the ground crew gave you the ok, you know off you go. And you have to, you come out of dispersal, taxi on to the runway, the what do you call it?
BW: Taxi way.
EH: Taxi run. You get in your queue because there’s more than one and off you go. So tch tch tch and eventually it’s our turn to chug on to the runway, green light comes on and off we go. I have to call the speed up. So I’m shouting, ‘Twenty. Twenty five,’ The throttles were fully open like. Really going. [banging] That’s, do you want to go and see who’s at the door, Phil?
PH: No, it’s somebody outside.
EH: No. It’s your mum knocking at the door.
PH: She’s there.
Other: It’s not. I’m here.
EH: Oh. Who’s knocking at the door then?
[recording paused]
EH: Anyway, I’m reading the speed out. Keith’s hanging on to the [pause] Don’t forget, this is our first trip. Sprogs. Like bits of kids. I’ve got, I’ve got my hands full throttle. I’m saying, ‘We’re not fast enough.’ And in the distance you used to have to see the end of runway like. It says, “All aircraft turn right.” It’s only a ten foot sign like but it’s got a bit of barbed wire hanging from it. It’s about as high as that. No higher. And it had a board on it, is said, “All aircraft turn right.” And barbed wire hanging off. But I thought, I’d just, Keith looked at me and realised that we had this extra boost and between us we made a grab for it. I’m on the left, left hand side of it to move it to forward and it gave us immediately, immediate I can’t tell you how quick but you could feel the difference from sort of eighty five mile an hour to ninety five came just like that. It was as though somebody had shot you from behind. Fortunately we’d about, I’m guessing from forty or fifty yards to go and Keith pulled his stick back and literally dragged it over the fence with the wheels. But we took the barbed wire and the piece of wood. I don’t know where it went to but we took the wood for about two or three hundred yards while it banged against the aircraft on side. But we touched down in the field on the other side of the road. Just touched. I mean when you’ve got a sixty ton aeroplane touching down it like, it leaves a little bit of a mark. But it touched down and nobody said anything. All frightened to bloody death. It was, it was the rear gunner Jock who said in his broad Scottish, ‘God,’ he said, ‘Has anybody got any underpants because I’m bloody — ’ I won’t say what he said. But he said, ‘Because I’ve left it all over the place. ‘He said to Keith, ‘Will you stop doing that? Don’t do that anymore.’ And not a word was said, not, but I mean we literally you were only allowed to use that for three minutes but it took us from eighty five mile an hours immediately to ninety five to a hundred and five and away. But without it we’d have been, I don’t know where we’d have been. It’s got, I mean like afterwards we said a bit of a [unclear] try this, you know and it wasn’t, it was a bit nicer times than that but that was the introduction. And we didn’t didn’t tell anybody about it other than the ground crew. We got back to the ground crew and said, the barbed wire was still hanging from the undercarriage so the ground, told the ground crew to would they look after the undercarriage for a bit because there was some barbed wire hanging from it. But that was the end of that story. Never heard any more about it until about, I think somebody must have known something because it was only when Keith got his DFC. Suddenly he was a flight sergeant. He went from a sergeant one week. The next week he was a flight sergeant. And the next week he was a pilot officer. All within about a month. Then he got the DFC. In other words you only give Distinguished Flying Crosses to officers. Not to other ranks. So someone wanted to make, I have a feeling it was him. That man there.
BW: This is Farquharson who was your —
EH: I think he, he was our air commander —
BW: Flight commander.
EH: He may have heard about the ruckus that we had. Don’t forget, our first trip.
BW: And that was to Homberg and that was unsuccessful on the first one. That was not —
EH: Yeah.
BW: For any of your efforts.
EH: No.
BW: That was simply because the weather.
EH: Weather.
BW: Under, undershooting the target. But you had to go back there the next night.
EH: That’s right. Yeah.
BW: And the squadron was more successful and in general over the period of time you were flying with them they got a bit of a reputation for accuracy and accurate bombing.
EH: That’s right. Yes. Yes. Yes, we did.
BW: From there through December you were flying regularly. Reasonably regularly.
EH: Yeah.
BW: Most of your ops were daylight.
EH: Yes.
BW: There’s fewer and fewer —
EH: Yeah.
BW: Night raids.
EH: They were trying to do what the Americans did in those days. Farquharson thought we could we’d better chance of survival in daylight. And I mean we used to fly into each other at night. There was at least three or four every night flew into each other because of night flying. You’d no lights on you. No candles in jars you know or things like that to warn other aircraft that you were dangerous. And if you hit one of them it made a mess.
BW: Just thinking about your role as a flight engineer and we’ve got a, a couple of photos of a cockpit layout and you mentioned some of the controls that you used. What, what sort of things would you have to do to prepare for a mission? What? You mentioned briefing but what other things would you have to do?
EH: Pre-eminent, pre-start, do the engine start up. See that they’re ok. Check the mag drop, and all the rest of it to see that the magnetos are working satisfactorily and you could check those by switching them off and watch the rev counters go down on the others. The rev counters. But it was, do you know it’s a long long time ago now and I have to think hard and long now. But I admit I used to know those instruments. I could tell them almost like the back of my hand.
BW: Were there any rituals you had as a crew?
EH: No. I had the flaps, he had the —
BW: Superstitions or anything?
EH: I checked the, I put the fine tune, make sure it was in fine tune. Fine tune on those and put the undercarriage down. Put the undercarriage up. And see to the fuel. Sorting out the fuel, balancing the fuel out was important as well. It’s no use having a load, petrol in the mid-wings and none in the, in the, you had six tanks. Three in either wing. The middle, the big one had five hundred and eighty gallons and the middle one had three hundred and eighty three gallons, and the little one at the end had a hundred and fourteen gallons. And you used to have to start up on the middle one. Middle tank in each case and take a hundred gallon out and then you could transfer the hundred gallon out of the far tank into the middle tank and then eventually use all that in the middle tank and then go on to the big tank which is a five hundred and eighty gallon which is central. Keeps the aircraft more balanced rather than have a hundred and eighty gallon stuck out there. It’s a problem where, because if you got hit and you lost your fuel you’d be able to balance it and not struggling with the aeroplane. But the other, in those days they had a, you could put the pilot in automatic control as aircrews but what you had to watch was the, there’s a little container with a red light in, or a blue light or a green light on top. If it was red don’t use it because it wasn’t going fast enough to keep the gyro going and it was driven by air and it used to get wet inside and so the it was a bit not very, it did its job from time to time. One of the times we were doing a manoeuvre, well we were being shot at and there was the gunner shouting, ‘Starboard. Starboard. Starboard. Go.’ Corkscrew. It’s not a very nice thing to do in an aeroplane, this corkscrew. And anyway, we did it but then we sort of went out of control for a little while. The aeroplane seemed to want to go on down [laughs] because we were still in, the reason was again novices. We’d been in this automatic control and unless you knock that out you’re in automatic control. Even though you’re doing this and doing this a little bit and it’s helping but it’s not doing it as it shouldn’t. Consequently Keith had forgotten to knock it out of this particular. I mean, good Lord, we’re human beings. We make errors. But they were a good crew. I admired them immensely.
BW: And at this stage most of the trips while they’re being done in daylight are relatively short.
EH: Yes.
BW: We’re talking about four or five hours. There are the odd —
EH: Yeah.
BW: Longer trips of say seven or so hours. Your first night one was to Merseburg.
EH: Yeah.
BW: Which was an oil plant out in east Germany near Leipzig which was quite, quite a long trip. What do you, what do you recall of —?
EH: No. No. I can’t. It’s just, it’s a bit of blur now to me. More or less. Apart from the odd incidents that I can recall.
BW: Towards the end of December there is, there’s a couple of interesting destinations and they’re interesting really for what, what was happening on the ground and also in one of the later ones what happened in the air. December 26th daylight raid.
[unclear]
BW: St Vith.
EH: St Vith.
BW: St Vith. That was in support of the Battle of the Bulge.
EH: I think it was.
BW: From roughly. From the flight times you’d have been there late afternoon. Probably around dusk.
EH: Yeah.
BW: And being a flight engineer you had a good position from which to view out of the window beside the pilot that —
EH: We had the dome at the side.
BW: Were you able to see much on the ground at all?
EH: Not really. No. No. I must, I mean being honest, no. I would say it was puffs of smoke and that’s all it was really as far as we were concerned at this height. We didn’t see a great deal. But it was, it was frightening.
BW: Did you get much anti-aircraft fire?
EH: Because they were shooting. Somebody used to shoot at you and that becomes another ballgame. When you’re like flying in an aeroplane going to Mallorca and there’s another guy in another plane trying to shoot you down it gets a bit [pause] but that’s how it is. Another thing was that we, our gunners knew that the chances of hitting the fighters that were coming after us were a bit slim anyway. And when we went on training exercises like I say up to the North Sea they’ve, got to shoot this candle in the wind sort of thing on the water, coloured lights, coloured verey lights they wouldn’t get within about fifty yards of it. So when you think about a Messerschmitt coming in at three hundred mile an hour, chances of hitting it was very remote, but we tried. We did our best.
PH: I think Brian’s just trying to say dad if you can recall specific to the mission anything that would be really useful. That’s all.
EH: I can’t remember, Phil I’m sorry to say.
PH: Ok. Well, that’s fine.
EH: The only, the only thing that’s of any note was, like I say flying at night. Total darkness. I don’t know what night it was but we all but met our Waterloo because we knew we’d been in contact with another aeroplane because the engine noises were different. And we came back and it was the following day when we were told by the sergeant in charge. He came down in his [unclear] took us up the squadron. He said, ‘Come and have a look at this.’ We couldn’t see anything at first. And they’d bent back.
BW: The propeller blades.
EH: The propeller blades. All bent like. All three each side. But on one side a little bit more. Looked like we’d skimmed across. Where we touched I don’t know but it went dark and gone, and you think, what was that? Then there’s like this strange noise and they make a strange noise propellers when they’re not feathered properly. But that was, we didn’t know any different. It could have hit us. We would not have known. But that’s about as near as it, it’s not nice sometimes when you stop and think how far are we off? That far. That far. They wanted another little bit.
BW: An inch or foot and it could have taken the whole engine out.
EH: The whole lot away. Yeah.
BW: There was a point after that raid on St Vith when the commander, if you like Farquharson commended the flight and the squadron on the accuracy of the bombing.
EH: He did. Yeah.
BW: Do you recall him giving a sort of a briefing or anything?
EH: Oh yeah. We was called to the hut and given a briefing, ‘Well, done lads, you know.’ Yeah. But there was so many things happened. It’s like, it’s almost like a blur now.
BW: There was one notable raid as well at the end of December, on New Year’s Eve actually to a place called Werewinkel, and you mention, you touched on it earlier there were, I think three aircraft lost on that raid.
EH: Yeah.
BW: And you were talking about near misses. I understand two of them were hit by bombs from other aircraft.
EH: And dropped. Yeah. That’s another one. Yes. That is another danger. You can’t imagine it can you? Another aeroplane being above you and they open their bomb doors, drops their bombs and hits you. It did happen. It was frightening sometimes. All you got was a flash underneath you or, and you thought what the hell was that? It was total darkness some nights and lights light up very fervently and meaningful. And you feel the vibrations from it in the air if you, oh that was. And the other, the other frightening thing was when I came back to daylight raids occasionally I can’t recall exactly when but they used to try and shoot us down, you know [laughs] with guns at eighteen nineteen thousand feet and you’d be driving along. Whack, whack. That was only like that far away but by this time we had this way and I’d gone that way. Like it’s shrapnel but it did hit the plane several times. Bits of shrapnel and one, you know the bubble on a plane, the? I was looking out like, with the side of the aeroplane.
BW: Yeah. This is the bubble on the side of the canopy beside the engineer.
EH: There’s a bubble right at the side by my, engineer looking out and the plastic was cut on the side of the bubble, on the outside. Just a piece scratched it, and my head was that far away from it. So imagine. We were doing two hundred and fifty mile an hour. How fast was the piece of plastic going? we used to [unclear] to be honest. So it was close but —
BW: One of the aircraft on that later raid was actually shot down.
EH: Was he called Marshall?
BW: Yes.
EH: Yes.
BW: Were you?
EH: I didn’t, I didn’t.
BW: Did you see it?
EH: That to me appalled me when I heard about it. I knew that the aeroplane had been shot down, but I didn’t know what had happened to them. It was only after the war I’m on my laptop years and years later. [Keys tapping] It comes up that they were all rounded up by the local people and shot. The crew. Marshall and his crew were all rounded up. All baled out. Whatever that target was you were talking about —
BR: At Werewinkel. The marshalling yards.
EH: Yeah. Well, they got, they jumped out and they survived but then they were shot by the Gestapo in, when was that? January? March?
BW: December 31st ’44.
EH: Terrible isn’t it? So when people say well the Germans were treated worse than us, just a minute, you know. Death’s death whichever way you take it.
BW: And one of them, one of the aircraft on the raid was seen leaving on two engines so they’d been hit presumably.
EH: Yeah. Oh yeah.
BW: Limping.
EH: Oh yeah. You could limp. You could get home on two engines. If you could balance it by putting, throwing out the rubbish you don’t want. And there were some very strange occasions.
BW: And then in January there’s a couple of other raids. Sort of night raids and a couple of day raids and one to Duisburg which was aborted but that must have been part way through because there’s a number of hours logged on it. Did you turn, did you have to turn back?
EH: Yeah. Came back.
BW: For some reason.
EH: I think that was the one that we had a rear gunner that was standing in for our permanent rear gunner, mid-upper gunner. I think this fellow was a Londoner called Robinson and we didn’t realise but he was frightened to death, and he knew all about lacking moral fibre. He said, and it’s a sad indictment sometimes when you think about putting somebody up against a wall and saying there might be a bullet in it, there might not be but anyway he, we’d flown that particular, was it Duisburg?
BW: On that particular one [pause] yes. Which was, that was in January.
EH: We’d flown about an hour and a half and we were over Holland somewhere and we were at about eighteen thousand feet and getting ready for flying over Germany to Duisburg and Keith the pilot always about every twenty minutes go around the crew. Just his, it was his way of checking on us one by one. Bomb aimer, engineer, wireless operator, navigator. He would go through the ritual and he was happy then that we were ok. And this particular night, darkness don’t forget and he called this gunner Robinson who was sat in the turret and called his name out and he didn’t answer. No response. So he called out me to go and take the, and we had those little lamp torches that clip on, and you could go down the aircraft in the dark and I found him and he was slumped. Like that. Not looking out at all. And I put my arm through and found his neck and I could feel a pulse. So I said, I called on Keith I said, ‘He’s, he’s not dead but,’ I said, ‘He’s not responding to any of my acknowledgments.’ So he said, ‘Well, can you release him?’ Well, have you tried releasing an eleven stone fella? I had to climb [laughs] I’m not a big fella, but I was stronger then then I am now and I managed to unhook one belt and then the other one and lowered him down on the canopy of the aeroplane. And there I checked him again to see, and it was at this point he, I didn’t realise but he was still plugged in by his intercom. His intercom which is still plugged in to the, which I never gave a thought to but I was talking to Keith on my intercom and what do we do with him? He said, ‘Well, can you lower him?’ You know and stretch him out. I said, ‘Well, have we got no smelling salts, we’ve got no, like what do we do?’ So Keith said, ‘Well, if he’s not responding we can’t just leave him like that we’ve got to go back.’ So then [noises] I mean two hours of flying time and going back is a waste of space. A waste of time. But Keith said, ‘Well, I’ve got to make a decision,’ because at that point the bomb aimer said, ‘Look Rick,’ he called me Rick, ‘Can you manage to open that bloody door and tip him out? That’ll wake him up.’ And that was like, I said, ‘We can’t do that.’ You know. There’s no way we could even consider that. So that was kiboshed and eventually we were marched into the, the flew back, told to divert to get rid of fuel over the, over the North Sea. Get rid of the bombs that we had on board. Then we came back to base and immediately the ambulance was waiting for him and climbed on board and took him out. Navigator, Harold said, ‘I think he’s dead,’ because he’d checked him. He said, ‘I think he’s dead.’ That’s where this dead thing comes out. He thought he was dead. Anyway, he was carted off to hospital, Ely Hospital and two days later we were, had to go in and acknowledge that you know he’s a friend and go and see how he was getting on. So we went round to Ely Hospital, got there, steps in and on to the ward [pause] Redcoats. Over there. And they, as soon as we got in, ‘Who do you want to see?’ This fellow, ‘Robinson.’ ‘Are you Fitton’s crew?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Can’t see him. Embargo on you. There’s going to be a charge against you for —’ [pause] What charge would you have against us? There was only but the thing was he knew what Pat said word for word. You know, it was like verbatim it was.
BW: Shall we tip him out?
EH: So he wasn’t unconscious at all. He knew everything that was going on. He was just frightened to death, and I can understand looking back on it. I mean like I say, if someone points a gun at you, has it got a bullet in it or has it not? It’s death, [unclear] isn’t it? But there we are. Yeah.
BW: And you say he’d been with another crew and was a stand in for you.
EH: He was a stand in one. Stand in. Yeah.
BW: So there was probably other raids that he’s been on that something affected him.
EH: Yes. Something could have done. But I heard that, we heard later that the charge against us was dropped. Farquharson, who was, who came to tell, not told me but told Keith the pilot that it had been kiboshed. They’d listened to all the noise, dopped it, finished. But Keith got the DSO.
BW: DFC.
EH: No. He had the DFC first. Then he had a DFC, DSO. Distinguished Service Order.
BW: Right.
EH: He died at the age of, have you seen his picture to look at?
BW: This is his picture. I was going to ask you about him.
EH: Oh, that’s not him. That —
BW: This is Bill Farquharson.
EH: No. I’ve got a picture and a bit of history of Fitton.
BW: Oh, is he on this crew picture here?
EH: There you are. That’s Fitton there. Keith.
BW: Second on the, second on the left.
EH: That’s him. He was our pilot and a good pilot too. There’s one of these pictures on here that’s got the crew. I don’t know. You might not want to.
[recording paused]
EH: To the Azores when I came back in 1947. This is another funny little incident. In 1947 I was returned to the RAF encampment at Driffield which was an RAF bomb station where they kept bombs piled high on the runway. No aeroplanes but loads of bombs and after the war some bright spark in parliament said that, ‘I think we ought to get rid of these bombs and mustard gas. It could be dangerous.’ In other words it could blow half of Yorkshire up if they’re not careful. So they set to and collected a number of drivers like me up and down the country to drive eight wheelers. What we had to do was we had prisoners of war on the camp and there were some of them were very good prisoners of war. I mean I got to know one or two Germans especially very well and you could trust them and they were good people. It’s a damned shame they ever went to, but anyway, anyway they used to load these AECs with bombs and I and other guys would take these lorries at night. 7 o’clock at night off over Bowes Moor, over Yorkshire and down to Carlisle where they would dump the lorry and bring an empty one back. That was our duty. But in the meantime I’m also looking after two huts with German prisoners in. That was my duty as well, and like I say we got to know the wants and requirements of the Germans. They, they were and in those days they were released to go into the towns, you know provided they would wear clothing with blobs on and then you would know that they were German prisoners of war. But that was a distinguishing mark about them but anyway so I’ve done that. I’m back in the RAF. I thought what do I do now? So I signed on again. I thought, well, I’m not going to do this bombing business with the AECs for three years. So anyway, I got a letter from the RAF Command saying I would be sent down to St Athan. A retraining course. That’s why I’ve got two retraining courses in there. I went for a six week renewal course to fly Lancasters again. And then from there I went to Little Rissington. And then I went from there to Hullavington, and then I ended up in Manby, RAF Manby. In the meantime I was doing all sorts of, well I got to know one or two of the gentleman officers like Downey [pause] like, my memory’s going again. But Downey in particular was a very close friend of mine. I could associate with him on a one to one basis. He was, when he died I was rather sad. But he was a good chap. Anyway, I set about pulling myself together and married Joyce, and one thing another until eventually we married in 1949. And then we set, I set flying. I decided that I was going to stay in the RAF because this Downey wanted me, I could have been become, I was back to warrant officer and he wanted me to become an officer and he’d recommended that I [pause] just a matter of saying yes or no. But what happened was an incident happened that changed the whole kaboodle really for me. We were practising for Battle of Britain displays end of August. This time of year. But the Battle of Britain was in September and we were practising on our squadron at Manby and what the, what the drill was, I think it was eight aeroplanes or nine this side would all feather their two starboard engine and keep the port engines going. So we’d all dive and it was just a bit of nonsense really. But being we’d done this exercise practice so we got closer and closer like the red arrows sort of thing coming around but this was Lancasters but with two engines stopped and especially the starboard inner. Well, when you know a bit more about what the starboard engine does it runs the hydraulics and it runs the big pump on the hydraulic side so if you lost that one you’ve lost a pump. A big one. Wheels. Hydraulic. Anyway, we were going along and we’d done a couple of shoots up of the aerodrome. Only practising. Climb about five thousand feet then shoot down to about a thousand. All eight or nine aeroplanes close together and that was we were going to do that over London. Don’t ask me why but anyway, I’m the engineer on four of the occasions. Just pilot Downey and me and no one else. Just two of us. Off we go. So this particular day Downey comes up to me, he said, ‘I’m sorry, we’ve got a visitor, Eric.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘There’s someone taking your seat. Some group captain or something.’ Some obstropulous fella. I can’t think of his name. ‘Group captain —’ somebody, ‘Wants to take your place in the Lancaster to say that he’s done the Battle of Britain display.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ So I’m, three of us now. I’m at the back of him. The pilot, him sat down there, me at the back of him. So we do our practice, climb. Off we go and we were four or five thousand feet and a plane behind us calls up and says whatever aircraft number or letters we were. He said, ‘You’re leaking petrol. We’re breaking away because we can’t take any more of it. It’s dangerous.’ ‘Understood.’ So we said, ‘Petrol?’ So I’m looking at all the, I’ve got fifteen pounds of pressure and I can’t see any fuel coming out. Nothing. Can’t see the wing at all and can see no leakage and I’ve got, I’ve got no signs of the engine. Well, it’s off. It’s not running. So I thought, so we were on the port inner and port outer. It went [makes noise] So this chap, all decided, the aeroplane, these aircraft pull away and pulled away from the and then leave. We’re on our own then. And then suddenly pow. One flash and the part of the aeroplane nacelle is slowly flying off. Ping. Panels are going, and there’s flames underneath what we can see. So I make a dash to try and get the feathering button but this fella’s in the way because if you look at that it’s up there in the right hand corner.
BW: Yeah.
EH: Anyway, I managed to pull his head to one side to get the feathering buttons going, the extinguisher buttons going, sorry. And then I said to the pilot, I said, ‘I’m going to have to get the engine going,’ I said, ‘Otherwise — ’ He said, this group captain lowers the undercarriage. Puts the undercarriage down. He said, ‘We can land. There’s the airfield.’ We were doing about three hundred mile an hour. When you hit the ground at that speed with a Lancaster it’ll not do you any good at all. So I said, ‘No, you can’t. It’s only got one engine that’s on the port side but it’s got a small pump so unfortunately we didn’t get the wheels down very far so the wheels slowly came back up again and this flame’s shooting out of the back of us. And anyway, this, the fire extinguisher did put the flames out so I pressed the buttons on the other side as well under the starboard outer engine and I got that engine going. So I got the starboard engines going and the two on the port side. By this time we had turned away from Manby and were out over the North Sea and so Downey’s is calling to get a fix back to base and he was asking us were we alright? Do we want, what can we do? Well, what can you do with a flaming Lancaster on fire? And it isn’t flames coming back. Just smoke. And every now and then a panel flying off and its hot. So we eventually chugged along and back to base. Undercarriage down. Get the undercarriage down and make sure it is down because this group captain said, ‘Oh, it’s down now.’ And I said, ‘It’s not down now.’ We have, we had some, we’ve got lights in front in red and green. And when it’s on red they’re not down. He wouldn’t have it, you know. Anyway, I got, so in the meantime I thought what happened was as well we have a hatch above the Lancaster. I don’t know whether you know it. In the case of emergency for getting out. So when he said, ‘I’m going to put the undercarriage down and land.’ I thought we’ll never bloody land this thing, you know. ‘At this speed,’ I said, ‘We want all the help we can get. What have we got? What are our chances?’ Well, that’s one way out. So I knocked the hood off the top of the, it was about that big. We could have climbed out if necessary. But that was the saving grace. Anyway, eventually landed with this thing, and the ambulance was there and the fire wagon and we chugged along and I could, I could literally see the wing dropping because we were that hot with flames in the, on the main spar. Anyway, it sagged about there. So, I came out of the Air Force then. I decided, that decided me then. I’d had my stint. I’d had my few crashes and I had my few dittoes, and propellers bending back and I thought well it’s time I looked after my good lady and so I set out in business eventually. In all sorts of ways. I ended up in Preston in a company called Preston Brakes in Moor Lane. I don’t know whether you know Moor Lane.
BW: I do.
EH: That was opposite.
BW: I used to get my car serviced there.
EH: Did you really?
BW: When it was a garage.
EH: When it was a garage. Well, we took over after the garage and we filled the petrol tanks with concrete because [unclear] I can’t think of anything else. So that was me out of the RAF.
BW: So you’ve covered your sort of post-war period, and I had a look through your logbook. I wanted to ask, I wanted to sort of come back to your time in early ’45 because the squadron flew a raid.
EH: Yeah.
BW: A night raid in mid-February to Dresden but yours is crossed out.
EH: Yeah.
BW: Were you scheduled to take part?
EH: I didn’t do that but that was done by a clerk.
BW: Right.
EH: I don’t know why. I can’t give you the answer. Don’t forget like I say I did not have that control over that book.
BW: You handed it over and somebody else filled it in.
EH: I just signed at the bottom.
PH: Did you fly Dresden or not, dad?
EH: Oh yeah.
PH: Oh, you did.
EH: Yeah. The aircraft’s there in the —
BW: Because its logged. The time that was well that that the mission took. The raid took nine hours.
EH: Yeah. It was a long time.
BW: Was, was recorded. So while we see it recorded and seemingly crossed out it actually took place but —
EH: I think it applied to all of our books. Because what happened, I can’t recall exactly, but someone said that we were in our aircraft for the night was E-Easy and it wasn’t E-Easy it was F-Freddie whatever. And we were allocated another aeroplane in another logbook.
BW: Which is —
EH: [unclear]
Other: It’s the back of your chair, Philip.
EH: So it was one of those. I know we went. I night have lots of lights and lots of, and a lot of cafuffling at the time on the various squadrons as to why we’d, why was Dresden bombed but I don’t know the answer of it but that was, but as I say those books were not in our control.
BW: Do you recall anything of what you were able to see from —
EH: No.
BW: From above on that?
EH: Just a long time sitting in the sky. One was like another after a while.
BW: There was one further entry further down towards the end of February. “Starboard inner hit and feathered.” Do you think that was when you probably collided with that other aircraft and you had to stop one of the engines?
EH: It might have.
BW: It was a daylight.
EH: I think that was earlier in the month. That was a dark raid but I mean in those days you didn’t report everything. You had toothache you kept it to yourself. If you wanted your hair cutting well you did what you could.
BW: There was one incident February 25th on the raid to Kamen and you encountered fighters.
EH: Yeah. Well, they were all over the place. Yeah. Well, some of the time it was a bit hairy. I mean you didn’t get the DFC DSO for nothing. Somebody recommended him for that and I think Farquharson was the mainstay of it.
BW: It’s, it looks as though from the entry you were hit again. An engine feathered.
EH: Yeah.
BW: So obviously the attack has been close. Not quite successful because you managed to get back.
EH: Yeah.
BW: And brought it back.
EH: Yeah. I’m still here. No holes in me. At least I don’t think so.
BW: Do you recall what might have happened at that stage? You know, the interaction between the gunners. The conversation on the intercom.
EH: No. As time went on this is a strange phenomenon. We first met and there was Rick, I was Rick and Pat, he was and we all sort of if you were gelled together. And as the raids went on we, we sort of got on together. For example, Harold the navigator and I played Hangman’s Bluff on a piece of paper while we, these are the sort of things. And we had our bits of fun with the bomb aimer who was a, he came from Tonypandy. A Welshman. Came from Tonypandy and we used to pull his leg. So we had this sort of feeling for each other with affection. But as time went on we were given a gramophone box to play records by the, by the Salvation Army. So two people liked it, three people didn’t. So it started a little bit of influx and from then on it was like I would say Pat the bomb aimer who was the elder of all of us took a sort of, he wanted the war to finish so he could get to South Africa. He wanted to go to South Africa, and he couldn’t away fast enough. And as soon as, I don’t even know what happened to him. Not a clue.
BW: When you mention the crew I’m looking at a photo here of you standing next to a Lanc.
EH: Yeah.
BW: Marked A4 and you’re, you’re knelt.
EH: Yeah. I’m knelt down.
BW: On the left hand side. Second from the left.
EH: Yeah.
BW: And the pilot’s directly behind you.
EH: Yes. He is.
BW: Who, who else is on the photo?
EH: That is Tom Wilkinson the wireless operator on my, on Keith’s left.
[pause]
BW: And Keith was the pilot.
EH: Keith Burnett Fitton was the pilot. Yes. Tall, six foot two New Zealander. Him.
BW: And who’s next to him directly under the A?
EH: That’s, I’m under him. Yeah.
BW: Who’s next to him? Under the A.
EH: That’s the, sorry that’s, that’s the bomb aimer. Pat. He was an Irish name. I can’t think of it. He came from Belfast.
BW: And who’s on the end? By the —
EH: He came from Glasgow. The rear —
BW: The rear gunner.
EH: He was the rear gunner. He was, he came from Glasgow.
BW: And that would be Jock.
EH: Jock. We always called him Jock. We never gave him any other name. [unclear] and you’d say. ‘Alright Jock, I’ve got the message.’ [laughs] had to —
BW: Probably as well he was in the rear turret. Nobody could understand him.
EH: He was a good lad. He was a typical Scots lad. And this one there was the navigator and he was called Harold.
BW: And you’re next to him on his right shoulder?
EH: And next to him is the mid-upper gunner. Yeah. He was called Taff. He came from Tonypandy.
BW: And you said that photo was taken by the WAAF driver.
EH: Driver. Yes.
BW: Who came to pick you up.
EH: Yes. It was all, looking back on it, it was simple. She drove. She drove the Commer van, backed it up and she got out with a box camera. She said, ‘Would you like to have your photo taken?’ I don’t know whether we’d done a few trips by this time. I think we had. And we said yes. So that’s how it all, that’s the only photograph we ever took. I’ve got one, I’ve got one of me somewhere. I’m holding a Tiger Moth by the propeller. I had to guide it in the sky.
BW: And then towards March, mid-March there’s a few other raids. Only a couple of night ones one of which the rear turret went u/s.
EH: Yeah.
BW: Unserviceable.
EH: Yeah.
BW: Which suggests that you aborted that raid on Dortmund.
EH: How many hours was it?
BW: It’s down as three twenty.
EH: No idea.
BW: So you got a fair way out.
EH: Out.
BW: Before you had to turn around and come back.
EH: Well, I can’t recall them all. Like I say those notes were always put in by clerks.
BW: Yeah.
EH: On the squadron.
BW: And then hydraulics shot away by flak.
EH: Yeah.
BW: On a daylight raid and Gee caught fire. Well, Gee was the navigator’s.
EH: Gee was the navigator’s.
BW: And that was pretty close to you because it’s directly behind you.
EH: Very.
BW: Over your left shoulder.
EH: Doesn’t have to be, mind it doesn’t have to be a bullet through it, it could just set on fire. I mean they’re not as good as they are today. These equipment. The equipment we used, I mean Gee when I first saw that in the aeroplane I said to Harold, the navigator, ‘What’s this box of tricks?’ He said, ‘See these little, I can send these little blips along.’ I said, ‘Well, what does that tell you?’ ‘I can tell where I am.’ I said, ‘Get away.’ He said, ‘Watch.’ Duh Duh duh. Set it. And it puts a picture on the screen then at the back of it. ‘There we are,’ he said, ‘We’re over in, somewhere over in Holland somewhere,’ he said, ‘How did you know?’ Do you believe that? He said, ‘Yeah.’ And he could manoeuvre the plane on those early Gee. Do you remember that do you? I can’t remember. Just like a small television set. Because you only had one wire across there and a wire across there and one and a little blip and then you could impose the screen and pull these two together or wherever you wanted by, if you knew how to work the damned thing. I didn’t. Too complicated for me but Harold, he worked on it. He knew all about it.
BW: And you always got to your target at the right time.
EH: Oh, we did. He was a good lad. Always got us there and back again. And he, that lad, I’ll just tell you this, Harold on the right. He’s now passed on unfortunately, but he, like Keith decided to leave the RAF and went back to New Zealand in 1949. But later in ’49 he got fed up and re-joined the RAF again in London. Came, they both unknowingly came back to London and saw each other by chance. What’s the odds of that? Going to New Zealand, coming back and anyway they both joined the RAF again. Keith became a flight lieutenant and Harold became a flying officer but he was then sent to somewhere near Doncaster as a training officer for navigators did Harold. And for some time he was teaching people how to use navigational equipment, and he was flying of all things Wellingtons. Not Lancasters. Wellingtons. And one night they were on a training exercise and for some reason, I don’t know the full story but I’ve got a cutting where it was in the paper where this plane with Harold in it comes down with a bump and crashes and three people are killed on it. And Harold goes, having got, excuse me, having got out of the aeroplane rushes back and saves two lives. Takes two, managed to drag two people out who lived and he was awarded the George Cross. Oh yes. Awarded the George Cross, which I’m rather proud of myself because I knew him very well. We used to play housey housey. He was a good lad. A nice lad. Harold. I’ve got letters from him somewhere.
BW: Right. You mentioned also just coming back to Bill Farquharson because there’s an obituary here of Group Captain Bill Farquharson who you mentioned.
EH: Yeah.
BW: And he’d been awarded —
EH: Yeah.
BW: A couple of medals.
EH: Yeah.
BW: But you’d flown with him.
EH: Yeah.
BW: A couple of times. It says in your logbook says you went to pick him up.
EH: Yeah. I knew him to talk to like I’m talking to you. He was a nice chap. He was born in India of Indian parents, or English parents in India and he was a nice chap.
BW: Would he give you the briefings before you went on operations?
EH: No.
BW: That was somebody else.
EH: Oh that, you mean when they used to —
BW: Sort of the crew briefings.
EH: Oh, crew briefing. Yes, he would. He’d come in and give us a briefing. Tell you the, here’s another, another funny little thing. It’s nothing to do with bombing or anything else, but we were on a daylight raid and we were going to somewhere over southern Germany on a bombing raid in daylight. We were climbing and we were in total cloud and had been from about ten thousand feet all the way up as we climb up eighteen thousand still in cloud. I was about nineteen thousand feet or thereabouts, we break and it’s beautiful sunshine. And guess what’s on our left hand side? A flock of peewits. A flock of peewits flying in the same direction as we’re going. Over there. About twenty or thirty of them. Nineteen thousand feet above the cloud. Now, that’s a true story if ever. Peewits. Lapwings.
BW: Well, they know your navigator knows where you’re going so they’re following him.
EH: That was in March sometime that was. I’d never, never heard of anything like that in my life. Very strange.
BW: And you passed me a photo.
EH: That came out of a book I’ve got.
BW: Yeah. This one of a Lancaster from 195. 195 Squadron. What, just tell me what you recall of that.
EH: It’s upside down.
BW: It shows one that’s been shot up.
EH: Well, it’s out of control. The pilot’s gone. That tells me the pilot’s, I mean if the pilot had anything about him he would have the plane straight but that plane’s upside down. That’s why it’s like this, rolling out of control and the pilot’s either dead or injured. And you can’t, I mean when the pilot’s in the seat and the controls have gone say to the left or to the right, getting them back again is like a herculean task. It’s, well you’ve got to be very strong. If you’re not in the, if you’re in the pilot’s seat you can manage it but when you’re at the other side trying to manoeuvre it’s very difficult. But those poor devils never, didn’t have a chance.
BW: Am I right in thinking that as a flight engineer you were trained to take over the aircraft if the pilot was incapacitated?
EH: Yes. I had to do training. I had flying training, and yes I used to do that quite a bit. Keith would say, ‘Here, take over.’ But he’d, he’d settle. He’d settle it down for me like and so there was no, or on a general descent. [pause]. He was a good pilot.
BW: Did he actually get out of the seat to let you sit in the pilot’s seat?
EH: No. I don’t think he ever did that. No. No. I can honestly say he never did that. But he would let go off that and hands off and say, ‘Go on take over, Rick.’ He called me Rick. Sort term. Sort of thing out. I said switch the pilot off, auto pilot and it’s on manual now. As long as it’s on manual I can manoeuvre.
BW: What did it feel like to have control?
EH: Oh, it was, it was great. I mean we used to go in the link trainer which was like a, like an aeroplane but did all the —
BW: Crude simulator we called it.
EH: Yes. It was crewed out like with all the runway there and clouds here and so you had all the, all the visions that you could. Yes. It was, the last one of my duties. Every other day we’d go link training in case. Thank God I was never asked to fly in any length of time. I did a little bit but it was limited let’s put it that way. In fact, I was frightened to death. No. I wasn’t. I think what happens is that [pause] I would say it’s like a bravado exercise in a way. You, after a while of this, I mean when that looking back on the first trip we did we were frightened to death. And I mean frightened to death. We didn’t know what we were doing properly. It was all scrabbling about, but not being, I mean we got away with it but after that as we gained confidence, we took it in our stride. Like as I say, flaps and it was all.
BW: It became second nature.
EH: Yeah. I wouldn’t say bravado but you were more confident in what you were doing, and it just shows you that with training it is possible to overcome this shyness. Disability. But it’s a bit frightening. When your life’s in jeopardy you think twice sometimes.
BW: By the same token as a flight engineer on those instances where the aircraft’s been hit or the engines become u/s.
EH: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: You’ve taken the right action and enabled the pilot to bring —
EH: Yeah.
BW: The aircraft and the crew home.
EH: That’s what you do. That’s part and parcel of your duty. Yeah. Keeping the oxygen going and keeping the petrol flowing. We had this, going back to that reason in the aircraft blew up with the engine and this again is part and parcel of, I wouldn’t call it stupidity, but it’s [pause] there are rules to be obeyed and there are rules which you can wave a little bit but what happened was after that landing we made after the North Sea excursion and back to base and the wing was over the [pause] I was on the squadron talking to the sergeant in charge of the hangar at that time. I said, ‘Have you fixed that?’ He said what a bloody mess it was. He said, ‘Do you know what it was all about?’ He said ‘Every aircraft on the squadron is grounded.’ I said, ‘What for?’ He said, ‘Well, two modifications should have been carried out and they’ve not been carried out on the whole squadron.’ I said, ‘Nothing to do with petrol?’ He said, ‘No.’ And do you know what? If you ever find it the pipe, petrol air frame it’s got three rubbers in it. Three rubbers. The outer rubber, the inner rubber and one inside, a plastic inside that and what happened on, we only had two. An outer rubber and a plastic inner and the plastic on this specific occasion had shrunk so where the jubilee clip was supposed to be holding it together it had shrunk. The middle had shrunk and allowed all the petrol on the fifteen pounds worth of pressure. Squirts everywhere and ignites and that’s what caused the problem. So all the aircraft were grounded and they all had to be modified. They all, they all, it had been a modification from AV Roe’s that had not been carried out. We got away with it.
PH: Just.
EH: Just. Yeah.
BW: Yeah. [pause]
EH: I’ve bored you to tears haven’t I?
BW: Not at all, no. One of the other things that I wanted to ask you and I think it happened after you had left the squadron your tour seems to have ended on the 13th of April but the squadron continued to —
EH: Oh yes.
BW: Take part in things like Operation Manna —
EH: I never went back.
BW: And Operation Exodus, but you’d gone by that time.
EH: Gone. I was at Kirkham, driving a lorry. Or learning to drive an eight wheel lorry. I had my stripes up. I meant my —
BW: Yeah. And you were expecting to go out to Japan to the Far East.
EH: Eventually.
BW: And the Far East.
EH: Yeah. Yeah. That’s where we were going to go. We were told that was what was on the menu for us when we came back from our leave. But in the meantime some of us got a message. The wireless operator got a message to go to India. But I got one to go on a driving course and go to the Azores. I think that when the war was over there was this aircrew gut, or a glut of people wandering around doing nothing. What do we do with them all? We can’t demob them all in one go. So send them here there and everywhere. Some went to the Bahamas. Some —
BW: You mentioned that you continued in the RAF and you stayed in for another three years.
EH: Yes.
BW: You signed on and came out in 1950.
EH: ’51.
BW: ’51.
[recording paused]
BW: So you came out the Air Force in 1950.
EH: ’50.
BW: And you were married.
EH: Yeah.
BW: The same year.
EH: To Joyce. No. 1949 I married.
BW: 1949. I beg your pardon.
EH: Well, I tried to get a job at ICI but they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t let me. So I ended up as a manager of a wireworks. Superintendent at Connolly’s in Blakeley [pause] By then was working very hard looking after all these ladies who were on these machines. Providing them with plenty of wages. I thought this is not for me. I saw an uncle of mine outside this, at lunchtime and he said, ‘Why don’t you come to my factory down the road? Small and Parkes who make brake linings for lorries and trucks.’ I said, ‘Brake lines?’ He said, ‘Oh they’re always looking for people.’ So I went down one dinnertime and knocked at the door and the commissioner he said, ‘What do you want lad?’ I said, ‘I’m looking for a job.’ ‘I can see that,’ he said, ‘I know a chap who is looking someone like you.’ He gets on the phone and eventually a fellow came. Smart lad like you and said he was a chief inspector and he said, ‘I believe you’re a bit of an engineering lad.’ I said, ‘Well, when you say engineering,’ I said, ‘I’m the lad that starts the handle at the front,’ you know. I said, ‘That’s about it.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he pulled the micrometer out of his pocket and he got this piece of paper, ‘Tell me the thickness of that piece of paper.’ So I did. I do it like you do. 007 or whatever it was. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘When do you want to start?’ I said, ‘Are you serious?’ He said, ‘When do you want to start?’ I said, ‘Well, what about the other side of it?’ He said, ‘Tell you what I’ll pay you nine seventy. Nine pound.’ I was on four pounds something at the other place. They offered me nine pounds. I forget what it was. And I went, the following week I was working at Small and Parkes. I ended up as a rep for them eighteen years later. Eventually I broke away from them and started my own business in Preston. Preston Brakes and supplied Preston Corporation and all the other BRS, and all the other users for a number of years until I retired and you get old, weary. Then this takes over. In the meantime I started painting. But I enjoy the painting. Do you do painting?
BW: I don’t because I don’t have the time for it.
EH: No.
BW: But my wife is more, much more talented than I am and yeah she does it from time to time. So you’ve sort of come full circle because that’s where you started out in college aged fifteen.
EH: In a way it was, yes.
BW: You took it up in later life.
EH: I ended up in my latter days doing painting and drawing. Yes. That was a teacher that said, ‘You could have a career. You’ve got something about it.’ And I thought, [pause] but we all go down the various roads and lanes of life and whatever the obscurities are we just jump over them as best we can.
BW: You’ve been involved with the Bomber Command Association. Been a member with them for a while.
EH: Yeah.
BW: And you attended the Green Park Memorial ceremony.
EH: Yes. I went there and I went to Lincoln when that was opened.
BW: Was that for the opening of the Spire?
EH: Yeah. They opened the Spire. That’s wonderful that.
BW: That was a good day. It was a day like today actually. Bright and sunny wasn’t it.
EH: Yeah. And they’ve got those plates, half moon plates. I’ve seen those with all the names of the aircrew.
BW: Yeah. These are the steel walls with the names.
EH: Of those that died. Yeah. And I suppose the idea is to put all the hundred and twenty five thousand names eventually should go on these names, on these plates so that they are all, all the hundred and twenty five thousand have been recognised, because when you think about it I mean I know that bombing people isn’t, isn’t an answer, but war is terrible. War isn’t nice. It’s an amalgam of all sorts of yakety yack, but —
BW: What are your thoughts about the Memorial Centre itself? The Bomber Command Memorial Centre at Lincoln where you’ve been. Have you seen it since it’s opened?
EH: I haven’t, I’ve not seen it since it was opened when Phil and I, Phil took us down. No. But I got to go up there and all about it, and aircrew. And the, I think it’s, I think it was a good. I think it was a long time coming and I think when you consider as, that out of a hundred and twenty don’t forget you had to volunteer to get in to that. You weren’t conscripted. You couldn’t walk in and say, ‘I’m going to be a pilot.’ You had to go through all the rigmarole of testing, and if you were good enough and eventually some of us were and a hundred and twenty five thousand of us made it, of which I think fifty odd thousand were killed which is quite a few. Not making the grade. But, but whether you say bombing Germany was a good thing or a bad thing I’ve got an open mind. I know the Germans killed a lot of Jewish people. That was terrible and I think that we, we were being bombed long before we started bombing them. Liverpool, Hull, Manchester, London were all being bombed long before we started bombing them. And Churchill said that for every ten pounds worth of bomb they put on us we’ll put a ton on them. And we tried to. I don’t say it was right but —
BW: You’re happy that they’re being commemorated. The aircrew that served.
EH: Yeah. Well, I think, I think they should be because I mean it was an ordeal for them. I mean, I’m not saying I was brave. Far from it. I was more of a robot. A robot really but I think, I think you gained strength as you went, as time went on. At the beginning was, and a lot of rookies didn’t get very far down the line for one reason or another.
BW: Well, I think that’s everything covered and —
EH: Let me ask you one thing. Has it been worthwhile your visiting?
BW: Of course. Yeah. Absolutely.
EH: I’ve not wasted your time.
BW: No. No. It’s fantastic, you know.
EH: Do you believe me?
BW: I’ve got the records to prove it so, yeah. So thank you very much for your time.
EH: It’s been my pleasure. Lovely.
BW: And for doing the interview. Appreciate it.
EH: I appreciate it.
BW: Thank you.
EH: I’m glad that Philip’s heard it now because he —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Eric William Harrison
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brian Wright
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
2019-09-28
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
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AHarrisonEW190914, PHarrisonEW1903
Format
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01:48:55 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
Eric William Harrison joined the RAF in 1943 and trained as a flight engineer at RAF Locking, RAF St Athan, and RAF Chedburgh, where he flew Stirlings and recollects that they were a terrifying aircraft compared to Lancasters. Harrison formed a crew at the Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Feltwell, despite arriving late due to a broken-down train. In November 1944, he joined 195 Squadron stationed at RAF Wratting Common. He details the difficult take-off on their first operation due to inexperience operating an aircraft fully loaded with bombs and petrol. Harrison highlights the dangers of night attacks, noting specifically an operation to Vohwinkel on the 31st December 1944 where two aircraft were lost to bombs dropped from above. He also recalls an operation whereupon discovering that the gunner was unconscious the pilot opted to return to base and release their bombs over the North Sea. Despite volunteering to serve in the Far East, Harrison was later stationed at RAF Driffield, RAF Little Rissington, RAF Hullavington, and RAF Manby. He recollects an unfortunate flight during a Battle of Britain display that convinced him to leave the RAF in 1950. Finally, Harrison details his career after demobilisation, painting during retirement, and his appreciation of the recent commemoration for Bomber Command.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Somerset
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
Germany--Wuppertal
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-11
1944-12-31
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
1653 HCU
195 Squadron
aircrew
bomb struck
bombing
fear
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
perception of bombing war
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Driffield
RAF Feltwell
RAF Hullavington
RAF Kirkham
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Locking
RAF Manby
RAF St Athan
RAF Wratting Common
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/484/8367/PBunceFSG1609.1.jpg
4fe6a915da9d42b5678afa0adccd7080
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/484/8367/ABunceFSG161108.2.mp3
c0704c95f5fe0c449e29736dbba3fd70
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
Bunce, Sidney
Frederick Sidney George Bunce
F S G Bunce
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bunce, FSG
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Sidney Bunce (b. 1925, 3006260 Royal Air Force) notes, service material and four photographs. He served as an engine mechanic with 115 Squadron at RAF Witchford and at RAF Wratting Common with 195 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sidney Bunce and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the eighth of November two thousand and sixteen, and I’m in the village of Thornborough near Buckingham with Sid Bunce, and we’re going to talk about his time as an engineer in the RAF. So, what were your earliest recollections of life Sid?
FB: My early recollections, well, I was born in Lower End, Thornborough and, from then on, I stayed there until I was, ten years old and then by this time I had a brother Harold, he’s eight years younger than me, and er, we moved out of the Lower End into Bridge Street in Thornborough, and, Mother died in September nineteen thirty-six. I stayed with my Father, my brother he was, he went around to the police house where my Grandparents on the Baker side, my Mother’s side, they lived, and he was bought up with my Grandparents and an aunt, who was still unmarried and living there [pause] I was, I started school at Thornborough and I stayed there until I was eleven years old and took the eleven plus, and I, and I failed the eleven plus in so far as I got half way through, and in those days, I think if you, there were so many, erm, seats set aside at the [unclear] school, so that if you, if you got, if you didn’t get the full, er, the full marks that were required you could pay to go to school, but obviously my Father he couldn’t afford to do that. So, I went to what was called then, the Buckingham senior school, I stayed there until I was fourteen. When I left school in July, the war broke out in September nineteen thirty-nine, I wanted to be a motor mechanic and one Saturday afternoon my Father and I went up on the bus from Thornborough to Buckingham and saw a Mr Ganderton, who had a small garage. Unfortunately, the job had gone by the time we got there, so, went up to Cantells in West Street where my cousin Cyril worked as a shop assistant, and from there, he, my Father asked him if he knew of anyone who wanted a boy, and he said, the only one he knew of was Bert Campion who was a manager of E C Turner. He said, he wanted an errand boy, and er, so, we went to see Bert Campion and he asked me a few questions and er, I, he asked me when I could start, and I started work there on the Monday. I had about, I think it was, [pause] roughly about four months and I used to have to do the rounds, the deliveries, on a, each day in any case, and on this particular Saturday, Mr Campion he said, I want you to go across to Adcock’s and I want you to get a white jacket and an apron, and I did that and when I got back he said, I’m going to start you off serving in the shop, so for about a month, or so, I can’t remember, about a month anyway, he, only had one shop assistant and he sacked him and he put me into the, promoted me into the, as a shop assistant. I was very grateful to him in actual fact, because he taught me the bacon trade, and if you, I think if you gave me a side of bacon I could still, I could still bone it and cut it up as a, anyway, I stayed there until, I started to work there at eight shillings a week, that’s 40 pence now isn’t it, and by the time I was sixteen, I was getting a pound a week, and one of my best pals he was at a different place earning more money than I, but eventually, when I started work my Father was concerned for what I would do for a midday meal, because I was working in Buckingham, and I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Buckingham, and I went there for my lunch, from then until I went and joined the air force. But, [pause] I was upset in so far that I wasn’t earning very much money, and eventually my uncle said that they wanted a boy up in the garage at the United Dairies at Buckingham, and I started there, and I was in, I started in the garage. I learnt to drive on a milk lorry, I used to round on the milk, collecting milk and from then on [pause] Where have I got too? [pause] Yes, I started work at the United Dairies and I stayed there until I was called up in the air force, but in between times, the ATC was formed at Buckingham and I joined the ATC, and er, when I was seventeen I volunteered for aircrew, but I wanted to be a flight engineer, and actually the flight mechanics engine course which I did, I believe that was one of the training for flight engineer. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I didn’t, I was put on the volunteer reserve, told to wait for my call up, and I was eighteen on June the twelfth and I was in the air force on August the twenty four, joining at Padgate where I did what we called the square bashing and after that I was er, went to Blackpool, stationed at fourteen eighteen, er, 48 Osborne Road [unclear] shore and erm, we were taken by bus or coach to Squires Gate where we did the training as a flight mechanic engines. When I, it was an eighteen-week course and when I passed I was posted to 115 Squadron at Witchford. [background noise] I stayed there until 195 Squadron was reformed and they took our flight, C Flight of 195, er of 115, and called it A Flight of 195 and after the squadron was fully operational, for a month there were two squadrons operating out of Witchford, and then, 195 Squadron was transferred to Wratting Common. Theres an interesting story about that because there’s a Wratting and there’s West Wickham and other villages, and apparently, this is true anyway, at erm, when Wratting Common was opened in 1940, 1943 they called it West Wickham, and from my understand, the signals were getting crossed with High Wycombe, which is Bomber Command Headquarters, and so they renamed it as Wratting Common. I was there until the end of the war, when we were, when 195 was disbanded, from then I went to Mildenhall for a month, then I was put on an overseas posting, went to Blackpool, but did, was taken off before we were drafted out. Then I was posted to Wing and when Wing was closed down I moved to Silverstone, and we were the last unit in Silverstone when they closed Silverstone. We went up to Swinderby and then that was the end of my service, I went to Kirkham and that was where I was demobbed on April the first 1947.
CB: Okay, we’ll pause there for a moment
[recording paused]
CB: So, that’s a good trail of what you were doing. When you joined the RAF you’d been in the ATC so how did that prepare you for what you, what came next?
FB: Well, in actual fact, I joined the ATC because I wanted to go in the air force, I didn’t want to go in the navy, into the navy I’m not a lover of the sea, not sailing anyway, and as far as the army was concerned and after what I’d seen of my poor Father went through in the First World war, in his health. I was interested in aircraft anyway, and so I joined the ATC. We had a very good warrant officer in charge, Mike Westly, he was a very good instructor and taught us the basics of learning to, er, foot drill, not rifle drill, we didn’t have anything to do with rifles, and so of course when I went on my interview for the air force I didn’t have any problems at all with the foot drill. Rifle drill came quite easy, and it, think it really put me on a good footing for service in the air force, in the air force
CB: So, when you were doing your initial training, erm, then what did you actually do in that initial training at Padgate, activities? You had to do the drill, but what did you do overall?
FB: Well, erm, [pause] let me see
CB: So, it was learning about the RAF?
FB: Yes, we had to, you know, get kitted out and obviously we had to do our spit and polishes, record it
CB: Of your boots?
FB: The erm [pause] I remember we have to make sure with our shoes that they were highly polished and the buttons, we used to have to clean our buttons and [unclear] issued with erm, a kit for cleaning and also for, if I remember rightly sort of doing simple needlework, in so far as sewing on badges or whatever, that kind of thing
CB: And cleaning your
FB: We had some, we had some sport, that actually, that, if I remember rightly, that was an eight week course, yes, eight week course, actually we were there, I was there ten weeks, but that was the fact that we didn’t start training straight away, for whatever reason, I don’t know, I also know that Warrington was the nearest town and we weren’t allowed to go in there, apparently there’d been some problems with the Americans, [laughs] think fighting or whatever, something like that, so I think it was actually, we were put out of bounds, I didn’t miss that anyway. But after the, after that, if I remember rightly, we came home on seven days leave and then had to report back to erm, Blackpool
CB: So, Blackpool was the base for technical training for you, for engineering?
FB: Yes, well yes, Blackpool, we were bused down to Squires Gate into the airfield, and we did our training in one of the hangars, which consisted of, that was eighteen-week course, it composed of fortnightly VV’s as they called it, verbal verification, and the first fortnight we were given [laughs] a lump of metal and a file, and we had to file this lump of metal into whatever shape we were told to do, and that lasted for a fortnight, and after the fortnight you had a verbal verification. So, asked various questions on the, what you’ve been doing for that fortnight, and if you passed you went on to the next stage, if you failed you stayed on and were put back for another fortnight, and if you failed you were kicked out. Fortunately, all of our entry, not one failed. But, after the first fortnight, um, oh I’m a bit hazy on how it worked now, but the next, the next fortnight you had another verbal verification and you had to get a percentage of the questions asked, right and then you went on to the next stage. And I well remember, that eventually, we got to where the stage where we had to dismantle an engine, and one of our entry, he always had the top marks, most of us used to struggle through, and get through the minimum marks required to continue. He was always on top and he, and when we came to taking the engine, dismantling the engine, and we were taught how to take it apart and put them all in sections so that you knew when you went to replace it and put them back, he, he was hopeless, but anyway he did manage to get through and eventually at the end, the last fortnight, I was, erm, revision, and so, we revised all that we’d been trained to do and erm, then you had to go and, if I remember rightly, there was all these various parts out on benches and you had to identify them and what they did, and all the rest of it, and I passed out as an AC2, which meant, the majority of us did, but this, this, funny enough, this chap who wasn’t very good at dismantling engines and reassessing them, he passed out as an AC1 [laughs] and he went straight on to train as an instructor. But, I was posted to 115 Squadron [pause]
CB: So, you come to the end of the course and what do they do as a formality in documentation and parade?
FB: Do you mean, I can’t remember having anything, anything to say that you, I can’t remember, I don’t think we had anything to
CB: I was just thinking of when you get posted to a squadron, they want to know you’re competent, and you might do that with a passing out certificate
FB: I can’t recollect having a pass out certificate
CB: Might be in your service record, we’ll have a look. Okay, so you passed out there, there was a marching parade was there, to mark the end of the course?
FB: Er, oh yeh, well of course, so yes, we were [laughs] during the course at Padgate, then you had the parades
CB: Yeh
FB: On the Sunday, you had the parade on Sunday and so forth, and the band, I used to like, we had a pipe band, I used to like marching behind the pipe band rather [laughs] than a brass band or a silver band
CB: So, you are formed up on the parade square, there are separate sections, and the ones who are passing out are supported by the following courses, is that right? And then you get reviewed by a reviewing officer [pause] and then you march past and the reviewing officer takes the salute, is that right?
FB: Oh yes, we had to march past and salute, yes, I think that was [pause] as far as I remember, and that’s all it was
CB: And then, after that, did they give you a bunfight?
FB: No
CB: Nothing, just disperse
FB: No, we just passed out and got on with it
CB: Yeh, how soon did you then report to the squadron, 115?
FB: I came, yes, but I think I came home on seven days, I think it was seven days leave and then [pause]
CB: So, when you
FB: Yes, I had to, I had to report to RAF Witchford [pause] now I had, had a railway pass obviously, and had to go from Bletchley to Cambridge [pause] I can’t remember the next station
CB: Cambridge up to Ely
FB: Ely, that’s right. Oh yes, then we, we picked up, erm, a lorry
CB: What was the rank and status that you had then?
FB: I was AC2, AC2. While I was at Witchford, I had to, for erm, sort of erm, promotion if you call it that. I had to, an interview and was asked various questions on, well, what you knew and what you were capable of, and I passed for that, and I was AC1. I was still AC1 when we left Witchford before Wratting Common, and there again, one of the sergeants after we’d been there, been there a while, I took another exam if you like, and I passed that and became a LAC, and I was an AC for the rest of my service
CB: When you arrived at Witchford, what process did they put you through in linking you with the squadron?
FB: Well, one, obviously gone on parade and I can’t remember, but I was sort of allocated to this group with a, I’ve forgotten the sergeants name now, but erm, so I joined this, I joined this, basically the group, the small group was responsible for two aircraft, you know the pans were sort of, not too far away from one another, based round the airfield, and
CB: The pans are where the aircraft are parked?
FB: Actually stand, yeh, yeh, and as I was a sprog, newly trained, the sergeant, he put me with an older fitter, not much older, but name of Malcolm Buckingham, and we worked together on the same plane, from then right through until the end of the war, but, the sergeant, he was a very, very, very good sergeant, he knew exactly what you were capable of and he wouldn’t let you do anything until he knew you were capable of doing it, and the one of the things that you did have to make sure of when you was pulling the chocks away, to take, that you run backwards and not forward otherwise you [bang noise] you run into the propellers. Well, we did our daily inspections, DI’s, and obviously we did all the checking. If there had been any faults reported, minor faults that we could do, out on the flights, we did, if they were major they used to have to go into the hangars. But, when, as far as the operations was concerned, when, if you, normal working time was erm, eight till five, but if you were on what they called take off, you still worked from eight till five, then you went down to, well to have your meals, but you had to get back on to the air, onto the airfield an hour before take-off [pause] The crew, when the air crews were bought out and left in their different planes, I worked on A4D-Dog and the other one was A4C- Charlie, they were the two planes, but basically what happened, the aircrew came out and obviously they would have a look around, to check that everything was okay, and also inside, and when it was time to start up, one of us used to get up under the undercart, as we used to call it, under the wheels where the [unclear] gas pumps were, and there was two [unclear] gas pumps, there was one for the starboard inner and one for the starboard outer, one for port inner and one for the port outer, and you jumped up and one of you went up there and primed it, the other stayed on the trolley where the batteries were on the trolley, and when the skipper was ready to start up, he used to, well, obviously they were all, all, night operations, so if it was dark we used to get the skipper to just put his Nav lights on and off, so when I used to do the priming and when I used to press the button, and the start all four engines up, and they did the run up, we used to, when we were doing the DI’s in the morning we used to take them up to about three thousand revs a minute and then test the mags, switch each magneto off one at a time, and if there was a revs drop more than one hundred revs, then we had to do a change, a plug change. When they done there, when they done they’re run off, well, we used to take and pull the chocks out and away they went and we used to wait up there until all of them had taken off, and then as far as you were concerned you were finished until the following morning. But, if you were on all night as they called it, then the same procedure happened in as far as I you get up an hour onto the airfield, an hour before take-off and when they’d all gone you were able to go back to your billet or to the NAAFI, you couldn’t obviously, you couldn’t leave the airfield, and then you were told what the ETA was, and you would get on up to the airfield, an hour before they were expected back. I used to say to erm, well you, the, whoever you, whoever you see [unclear] I used to say to them, ‘flash D in morse, or C for Charlie’, then you knew which pan to put them on, and when they came and you put them on, on, on the pan, you used to get the ladder out, and they used to come out and you used to ask them if there was any snags, and if there were any snags, then you went and reported them to the flight office. After they’d gone, you used to go back and put the locking bars in, chocks underneath and shut it up and that was your, then you were finished, then you could go back and you had the following day off
CB: When you talk about locking bars, these are the effectively the clamps that stop the control surfaces,
FB: Stop it, yeh
FB: So, in the wind they wont
FB: That’s right
CB: Flail around
FB: That’s right
CB: Right, okay. Now as an air mechanic, what was your specific role, because everybody mucked in, but actually you had a specific, which was engine was it?
FB: Oh, engines
CB: Yeh
FB: Yes
CB: Right
FB: So, you see there was erm, there was two engine mechanics if you like
CB: Yeh
FB: And, a rigger for air frame, sort of for each, and obviously the, all the ancillary, so the armourers, the electricians and all of those, and of course did their own, their own job [pause]
CB: For each aircraft, so that there would be a Chiefy, he’d be a flight sergeant?
FB: Well
CB: Or what? ’Cos the gang effectively
FB: The gang, it was a sergeant
CB A sergeant, yes
FB: Sometimes there was two sergeants and a corporal, it just all depends how it was, but erm, yes, there was a sergeant in charge of you
CB: Yes
FB: In your little gang
CB: So, in the team, the gang, you had a sergeant, two engine mechanics, a rigger, an electrician?
FB: Well, there was a, yes, an electrician and of course
CB: And the armourer
FB: But when they bought the bombs out
CB: Yes
FB: The armourers, they, they obviously, they did the bombing up
CB: Yeh
FB: Winching up into the bomb bays
CB: So, the bombs came on trolleys?
FB: [inaudible]
CB: How did they get the bombs up into the bomb bay?
FB: Well, they put them, obviously the bomb doors were open
CB: Yep
FB: One of the armourers would go up into the plane and they sort of winched them up, they’d draw them up on
CB: An electric winch?
FB: Yes, draw them up on that, and then when they were secured, erm
CB: Where was the winch operated from?
FB: More often, but it all depends what the target was going to be, where they were going, but generally it was, it could be a load of incendiaries
CB: Yep
FB: And then perhaps a four thousand pounder or an eight thousand pounder, and then they got larger, but that was generally the load. Sometimes it would be thousand pounders, it just all depended on what the target was going to be and obviously the crew would never tell you where they were going, you wouldn’t expect them to, but they might say where they’d been but very, very, very rarely, you could get a rough idea where they may be going or what area, because of the bomb load and the fuel load, because depending on, I think if I remember right, erm, Berlin it would be almost full tanks, if I remember right, I think the Ruhr, depending where it was, sometimes it would be about seventeen fifty gallons, coming er, coming nearer to home it would be fifteen, yeh, fifteen hundred gallons, if I remember when we were [unclear] up for D Day, we were doing two ops. We used to have to get up at four o’clock in the morning er, and get up on the airfield, 1944 that was a really cold winter [laughs] we had to, well, the engines, we didn’t, we weren’t too badly off because we’d put a load of lanolin grease on the leading edges of the props and the erm, main plane, but the poor old riggers they used to have to go and de-ice the Perspex and all the rest of it [laughs] What that consisted of, we engine ones used to have a can of antifreeze, a drum of antifreeze and a stirrup pump, and the airframe, they used to have to go up onto the, onto the, on the main plane obviously, and erm, they used to have to spray the Perspex to clear them, that was quite a job
CB: What did they do? How did they clear them, they didn’t just scrape them did they?
FB: No, it was just a stirrup pump, you see, you spray it
CB: Yes, but what were they spraying? Was that antifreeze as well?
FB: Oh yes, because they got to clear the you know, the cockpit
CB: Yeh
FB: And the mid upper gunner, and all the rest of it. Tail end Charlie he was [laughs] I wouldn’t have wanted to do that job
CB: The rear gunner?
FB: Hmm, no
CB: You mentioned about the leading edges, so on the props and on the leading edges of the main plane
FB: Lanolin grease
CB: Right, yeh, right, so you spread that on with your hands or best with stick, yeh, okay, and that worked, did it?
FB: Oh yes, that worked, yeh, yeh
CB: What about things like the Peto head, you really couldn’t put anything on that could you?
FB: No, no
CB: Okay, so starting, you’ve got a trolley ack
FB: Yeh
CB: How do you go about starting?
FB: Well
CB: So, the trolley ack being the trolley accumulator
FB: Well, that’s plugged in, its, its plugged in, as I say you go up
CB: Into the engine bay, is it?
FB: Hmm
CB: Right
FB: Then, one of you, as I say, went up on the on top of the wheel in other words
CB: Yes
FB: Undercarriage, and there are these [unclear] gas pumps, and when they, the skipper was ready to start up, you used, you used to prime them, er, basically it was more like a choke on a car I would think, but you used to give them, they probably need perhaps about six or eight pumps, each pump, and while you were doing that, of course the, your mate, he was pressing the button to, where it was plugged in, to turn the engines over
CB: What was this stuff that gave the extra urge, it wasn’t an ethanol something, what was the material, what was the erm, fluid that you were pumping in to give it that surge of
FB: Oh, that was, that was petrol
CB: It was just neat petrol?
FB: Hmm
CB: Right
FB: ‘Cos you got your, obviously you got your blowers as we used to call it, it’s at the trunk, that erm, built it up
CB: Yeh
FB: You got your mixture and, away she went
CB: So, what was the engine starting sequence?
FB: Erm, you start the starboard engine, starboard engine, inner engine first
CB: Right, what
FB: Where the hydraulics are, so if that didn’t, obviously if you hadn’t any hydraulics you didn’t have brakes or anything else. And er, [unclear] it all depended on what, on what the pilot wanted to do, but that one was first, then probably it would be the starboard outer, because if you started off on that side, well obviously, you’ve got to go round to the other side to start the others up, so, yeh
CB: So, you moved the trolley ack each time or was there one trolley ack each side?
FB: Well, no, you moved it and plugged it in
CB: Yeh, okay
FB: I nearly always went up on, I nearly always went up on the wheel and did the pumping
CB: Now, this is pretty close to the propellers, so what was the procedure to make sure people didn’t walk into a propeller?
FB: Well actually, when er, when all the engines were running and they were ready to move off, you had to make sure that your chock, it was no good you see, you had the rope
CB: Attached to the chock?
FB: From the, attached to the chock
CB: Just to explain, the chock is holding the wheel
FB: But, the point is this, it was no good if you, where the knot was
CB: Yes
FB: Where it was knotted, it was no good putting the knot and straight through there, because you wouldn’t move them, you could not pull it out, ‘cos normally the wheels would move just a little bit onto the chock you see, so what you had to do, you put your chock and you run your, from here, round the front of the chock and back there, and then when you pulled it, you see, that pulled it out like that, if you did, you couldn’t get it out, if you did, it was a straight pull, it had to go round and pull it out
CB: Right, so, the
FB: And when you did that, as you pulled it, you ran backwards, no good running forwards, you ran backwards and that was it
CB Right, and there’s a chock each side of the wheel?
FB: Oh yeh
CB: And when
FB: There was, just in front of the wheel, but each wheel had the chock obviously
CB: Not just at the front
FB: Yeh
CB: Okay, at what point would the chocks normally, would they have been put in? When would the chocks normally have been put up against the wheel?
FB: Oh well, you put the, when the er, a plane for instance would come back afterwards, you, you put the chocks on straight away
CB: When its landed?
FB: When its landed, yeh
CB: So, the plane is a light at that point and when you start it up its heavy because it’s got the bombs and the fuel on, so that pushes the tyre down onto the chock
FB: Well, just
CB: Making it difficult to pull away
FB: Yes, as I say it was straight pulled, it wouldn’t come
CB: No
FB: You had to do it then and there
CB: Right
FB: Yeh
CB: So, at that point what does the ground crew do as the aircraft starts up to taxiing?
FB: Well, the er, as I say, when er, when er, they started up, done the run up, it was out turn to go off round the perimeter track to the runway, then erm, those of you there, you always used to stop until they’d all gone off
CB: Watch them go?
FB: And er, well, there’s a little bit I’ll tell you about
CB: Okay
FB: Er, later on, erm, what else, as I say, if there were any snags, but you went back to the flight office anyway
CB: Right
FB: When both planes were back, and you went and you reported, and of course the crew had been taken off for debriefing, and, when you, when your two planes are back you were finished, you could go back. You used to go back and have a meal and then go into bed and have the rest of the day off
CB: Yes, I’m just trying to get the sequence here because, to give people an idea of just how it went. So, at take-off, you, they’ve done the run up, checked and tested the engine, run up, chocks away
FB: Yes
CB: And then, what do you do as a ground crew, do you watch them go and then go for meal or how did that work?
FB: Just watch them, yes
CB: ‘Cos the
FB: I think everybody, I was taken all round the circuit
CB: Yes
FB: We always used to stop and watch them go off until they’d all gone. There was one incident [pause] obviously they, when they took off they used to go round and then they used to rendezvous where they had to go before [unclear] rendezvous to go out on their raid, and one night there was a [laughs] an awful crump and er, they erm, there was a four thousand pounder, something had gone wrong and it
CB: A cookie fell out?
FB: It fell out, yeh [laughs] oh dear, well, these things happened. The worst thing that happened, I’ve got it, I marked it there to show you. German night fighters used to, would follow them back. When I was with 115, they shot two of our planes down, because obviously they didn’t always come back together, they’d come at intervals and you stayed there until your two planes had come back. Fortunately, touch wood, old Buck and I, we never lost a plane, but that was exceptional er, I suppose, but this particular night they, you see, what they did when they came back, well, they had to wait their turn to land, and so, obviously they used to do a circuit, and it was on one of these circuits that this plane was coming in to land and er, this night fighter shot it down, they were all killed, they all lost their lives, both crews, they both, but at different intervals, the same night, we lost two
CB: What was the reaction of their individual ground crews to the loss of their aircraft?
FB: well, I don’t really know because I never lost one, but I suppose they’d be, I presume they’d be allocated another, I don’t really know about that
CB: I wondered if it was spoken about when you were in the NAAFI or somewhere, or did people ever talk about it, or did they just keep on?
FB: No, no, they didn’t talk about it, no
CB: Right, now what about accommodation, what did you have in?
FB: We were in nissen huts
CB: Right, how many in a nissen hut?
FB: Oh, what would it be [pause] one, two, three, four [pause] about twelve I think
CB: And how was the nissen hut heated?
FB: Oh, a stove, a coke stove [pause] Ah, [emphasis] we used to have a stove, up in the, in the erm, [pause] in the hut, where we, you know, kept the tools and all the different stuff in there, there was a stove in there, to sort of, keep it warm, and [pause] there is, have this coke, I mean, sort of filled it up, lit it and basically that was [pause] I mean for a lot of the time, for a lot of the morning anyway, erm, you was still working, you know, you were doing your DI’s you see, daily inspection, coal was off and of course with the Lancaster, you had to get up on these gantry’s because there was no, it was different to when I was on Wellingtons, had to, when I got round to [unclear] and Silverstone, I mean you could get on there, used to slide down the back, down the main frame on the Wellington [laughs] we used to get up there, on a Lancaster you couldn’t, oh dear
CB: So
FB: 44, that was a cold winter
CB: So, how did you deal with the cold on the flight line, in other words, out on the dispersal?
FB: Well, you, you see, you had mittens on because you can’t really feel with gloves on, it, you had to keep your fingers sort of [inaudible] [laughs] the weirdest thing was ever, if you had to do a plug change, and if you happened to drop a plug down in the trunk, of course they were v engines, you see, you could drop one down there, and that used to be a dickens of a job to get the blooming thing back out [laughs] to put it in, ah, but, at least they say live and learn, and you did
CB: You talk about a plug change, that’s because you’d get misfire was it or was there a sequence where you changed all the plugs?
FB: Yeh well, if the er, if the, obviously your magneto, it’s like a dynamo, in so far as supplying the spark
CB: Yes
FB: But if er, they dropped back there, then obviously, it’s erm, you wouldn’t need a, it wouldn’t need a, very doubtful it would be the magneto, so it would be a plug or plugs, that weren’t firing properly to do that. We didn’t have a lot of trouble, I mean that old Merlin, it was a lovely engine to work on, no problem at all really
CB: In what way was it good to work on?
FB: Pardon?
CB: In what way was it good to work on?
FB: Well, it was [pause] the construction of it, mind you, everything it was bonded, so, when you, when you took your coverings off to do your, check them, you had to check them, every one of those, and if there was, if there was any bonding broken, then obviously that had to be replaced, you see, it was for erm, obviously for the electricity, for it was a static electricity, you didn’t want anything like that, with the petrol, I mean that was a hundred octane petrol, so that was green and that was pretty horrible [laughs] oh dear
CB: Did anybody get fires on the ground?
FB: Fires?
CB: Engine fires or any kind of?
FB: No, erm, now where was that? [pause] I think that was at Wratting Common. The plane had been, been in the hangers for overhaul or whatever, I don’t know what, and the, they’d obviously had the under propeller off for some reason or other, and when they bought it out and they started it, it come off, flew off, erm but I only, I didn’t actually see it, I heard that it happened, but er, say, that plane A4D-Dog, that’s the one where this crew did a complete tour of ops, actually, that went on to do a hundred and five ops
CB: Did it
FB: But, by the time that stayed behind on, because it was on C-Flight, by that time, er, when we were, 195 was reformed, we had worked on it, Buck and I worked on it and I think they had done, either fifty nine or sixty ops, but that went on, on the history of it, to do one hundred and five, which erm, when, well when the, of course I was at 195 at Wratting Common then, but erm, when the Dutch, when they were in that, after the invasion had started and they were liberated, we went on what they called Manna, which was dropping the food supplies to them. So, we went on that and then after that, when that had finished, we started bringing back the prisoners of war
CB: Operation Exodus
FB: Yes
CB: Okay, let’s just pause there for a moment, you just have a breather
[interview paused]
FB: There’s one thing
CB: These gantries you had to use?
FB: We never had to do was wear a ring
CB: Ah
FB: Because if you wore a ring and you slipped, that would rip your finger off, you see, so, I never wore a ring anyway, I’ve never ever worn a ring in that case, but you never wore a ring. It’s like a lot of things, its common sense, I mean, there are things but obviously you shouldn’t do but if you do, well you suffer by it, really. We used to, well, I mean, oh crikey, I was only eighteen [laughs] eighteen, nineteen years old, I mean, we used to clamber up them no problem at all [pause]
CB: How safe were these gantries you used?
FB: Oh, they, they were safe enough, if I mean er, it was just a matter of climbing up on the, onto and getting on the platform, yeh they were safe enough, you didn’t have, well I didn’t hear of anyone getting injured by falling off them or anything like that
CB: So, on the flight line on the dispersal, you had a team of people we talked about just now, what would make it necessary for the aircraft to go into a hangar?
FB: If they had a major, for instance if there, had been on a raid, and they were badly shot up or anything like that, well, obviously they would go in, into for repair, er, if an engine, well, if anything really, but engines in particular, if there any major fault or [unclear] then you couldn’t do that, that was somethings obviously, you could do minor repairs on the flights but if it was a major repair well it had to go into the hangar because you just wouldn’t have the facilities or anything else to do it
CB: What about engine changes?
FB: One thing you used, well, as far as engine changes were concerned, I never experienced an engine change because as I say, the planes that I worked on we didn’t lose any, that Malcolm Buckingham and I worked on, but erm, I remember, if, if, if they had been out on a raid and they couldn’t get back to their base, [background noise] there was at Woodbridge, there’s two airfields, one was the Americans on and the other one which was what, we used to call them the crash land station, basically it was one plane that couldn’t get back to their main airbase, but they could get down there, and they used to go down there. And, what happened in that er, base, although obviously I never experienced it, but if a plane didn’t get back to, for instance, Witchford or to Wratting Common, if they didn’t get back there then the crew that serviced them they used to go over to service them and put them right and then they flew back to the base
CB: And, did that ground crew take, erm, road transport or did they get flown there?
FB: I think they took road transport. I’m not too sure about that because as I say I never experienced it but that’s what happened
CB: How many times did you have the opportunity of flying, in the aircraft you serviced?
FB: Well, no, if erm, if we are doing an air test you could go up if you wanted to, but it just all depends
CB: Why were air tests conducted, what was the purpose?
FB: When you went on an air test, obviously they would test the engines, so what they used to do, was, switch one off, off at a time and you know, get the reaction of erm, for instance mag drop, things like that. They used to try and test all four, one at a time, and then they would feather them, you know, and of course when you feather them, then of course you un feathered them to start them up again and all that and the old Lanc, that would fly on one engine, but obviously it was forever losing height, but they did these air tests just to see that everything that had been done was working as it should do. I didn’t go on many, but erm
CB: Where would you sit when you went up on an air test?
FB: Well, of course, with the full crew there, you would sit on the floor kind of thing [laughs] that weren’t very comfortable
CB: No, thinking of the
FB: And the poor old, the rear gunner, he was the worse off really because he was so far away from the rest of the crew you see, you’ve got your pilot and then your flight engineer, er, your bomb aimer observer and then of course the wireless operator had got his own little bit and the navigator [pause] [unclear] because er, well it depended on where they were going, but you get eight or nine hours, stuck up in one of those and [pause] no, I don’t think its er [pause] It’s marvellous what they did actually
CB: You said you originally wanted to be flight engineer but once you got on the flight line
FB: I must, I must admit that when I’d done my training and I went out on a and saw what was happening, I thought, well I thank my lucky stars I don’t, of course I was on the volunteer reserves, so if ever they did want a [pause] sort of a flight engineer, I suppose I would have been called up, because the flight engineer, as I say, the flight engineer as far as I can understand, their engine training was similar to what we did as a flight mechanic engines, it was just the extra, erm, you know with the checking the fuel pumps and that, switching the switch in the tanks and er, and I think that they did a little bit of basic flying if the pilot, you know, got injured or killed or anything like that, to take over, and er, but, so no it must have been. You could tell and get quite a good idea of, I mean, no target was easy, I mean there was always a danger there, but you could get a pretty good idea, if they were quite chirpy when they came out it was one of the not so difficult raids they were going on, but if it were Berlin or anything like that or, always they were very quiet which you could understand
CB: Yeh
FB: ‘Cos they not only had to put up with night fighting, there was anti-aircraft guns, must have been horrible
CB: How often did your two planes return with damage?
FB: Er
CB: And what was it?
FB: [pause] Do you know I can’t remember, if they ever did come back with any damage that I worked on [pause] no, I know that was when we were at er, at Wratting Common, about 1944, one night I heard, when, when they started sending these erm, oh, doodlebugs over, but er, they sounded, their engine, it sounded like an old two stroke engine struggling up a hill, [laughs] up a hill, kind of thing, and er, and of course the thing was once the engine cut, they come down, and this particular night, I went to the Nissen huts and there was some windows at the end, but not the end in between sort of thing, and actually saw this old doodlebug going and the engine cut, and it went down and it fell, and it fell just outside of the airfield [laughs] oh dear, it was an experience
CB: What was the most frightening part of your service, which would you say?
FB: Most frightening? [pause] I don’t really know, I do recall one thing that was happening, now when they were winching, winching erm, [unclear] it was a four pounder,
[unknown inaudible]
FB: Four thousand pounder, I think that was when
CB: A cookie
FB: Loading a four thousand pounder up, and it dropped, and we ran, we ran, and then we suddenly realised that if it had gone off, if it had gone off, we wouldn’t have been there, but er, the trouble was with the, if the incendiaries fell, I think they only had to drop about nine inches before they, and they were in long canisters, and there was a sort of bars that when, I suppose, that when the bomb aimer pressed the tip, then I suppose these bars fell away and then they just fell down in a cluster, I don’t know
CB: And er, you saw the, you were there when the crew got in the plane to go
FB: Oh yes
CB: And you were there when they came back, what sort of erm, relationship did you have with your ground crew with them?
FB: Very good, very good, yeh
CB: And so, did they talk to you when they landed?
FB: As I say, they, [unclear] what they, you used to say, ask them if there were any snags, if there were they told you what they were, but erm, they didn’t say, they didn’t say a lot, I mean, they were just waiting for the lorries, or whatever they were using to take them back for debriefing and they would say they were tired and I don’t know what they experienced, you know
CB: Quite
FB: So, but er, other times, I mean, if they, sometimes they would come out, because they weren’t, if I think, I think that what they used to say that happen one day, two raids and then down one, of course they had the leave as well, they didn’t all have the leave at the same time, so they would, they er, say if the erm, pilot was on leave or something, there’d be another pilot take over. Quite often what happened, with a crew, when they come out and then, there was a new crew had been, er, sent to Witchford, the pilot would go as a, I think they call it, a second dicky or something like that, but they used to go out, they were taken out on their first raid
CB: Just the pilot?
FB: To get the idea that and what it was all about
CB: What about the social life on the airfield?
FB: Well, what we used to do if er, [pause] when you, well you see, you used to get up and have your breakfast and then get up back onto the flight, er onto the airfield and do your work, and in the evening you could go to the NAAFI, or down into the village into the pub, which quite often that’s what we did do, and erm, [pause] I can’t remember the other, we had a cinema, I can’t even remember going to the cinema anyway, probably we did, and of course we spent a lot of time in your billet writing letters, you know, home and that kind of thing
CB: Did they run dances?
FB: Erm, [pause] no, not that I’m aware of
CB: Right, so Witchford we’ve talked a lot about, what was the difference, when you went to Wratting Common?
FB: The difference? [emphasis]
CB: Was your accommodation different or the same?
FB: No, no it was still Nissen, still Nissen huts, much about the same as at Witchford, ‘cos erm, 115 of course that was one of the most successful and er, and suffered some of the heaviest losses during the war, but, at Wratting Common, I of course, I was nineteen, 1944, when we moved into, into er, Wratting Common, I can’t remember, I didn’t have all that long at Witchford actually, I’ve forgotten though. It was definitely 1944 when we moved over to Wratting Common anyway
CB: Yes, so, you were at Wratting Common until
FB: The war ended
CB: The war ended, that is to say the war in Europe
FB: Yes
CB: Ended
FB: Yes, yes
CB: Okay, and so
FB: I think we, I think, [pause] I think it was 1946 when we actually disbanded
CB: The squadron disbanded? Yeh
FB: [pause] I’ve got some [background noise] [inaudible]
CB: And so, everybody stayed with the squadron and until the squadron disbanded, is that what you mean?
FB: Yes
CB: Yeh [pause] we are just looking at timings. So, what happened, er, we can look that up later, what happened when they decided to disband? How did that get announced?
FB: Well, as, [laughs] as far as we were concerned, they said we were disbanded and that’s one thing I always regretted because I’d always worked with Malcolm Buckingham and we never exchanged addresses or anything else, meaning we didn’t keep in touch
CB: Did you never?
FB: No
CB: Know what happened to him at all?
FB: No, and when I, when we were on holiday, he came from a little village called Grundisburgh near er, that’s not that far away from Woodbridge, and we went to on holiday to er, Yarmouth or something, well down that way anyway, and I drove round, well, that was us and the two children, I drove round to this little village, and er, I went into the pub and I said does anyone know a gentleman called Malcolm Buckingham, and they said, oh no, never heard of him and that was as near as I got to actually ever finding him. The other one I palled up with, which is on the, on one of those photographs is erm, he was a Scotsman, ‘McKay the Jock McIver,’ and he lived at Thurso, and he used to get an extra days travelling for the distance he had to travel, but if the three of us were off duty at, at you know, we used to go down, generally used to go down the pub and have a pint or two and a sing song and that, ‘cos aircrew used to down in there as well you see. And erm, it was alright in the NAAFI, we used to go, you could go in the NAAFI. If I remember right, sometimes, and I think that was towards the end of the war anyway, if I remember right, they used to have this ‘housey, housey.’ as they used to call it in the old days, bingo, you know and that, but I think mainly we used to just go down the pub and have a pint. [laughs] I was trying to look see [pause]
CB: So, so you had no control over your demob, they just decided when that would be?
FB: Well, you, you had your group you see, I was fifty-five, when I, my group, when I got demobbed
CB: In your grouping, yeh, which was, so you were demobbed on the first of April 1947
B: 1947, yeh
CB: What did you do then?
FB: Well, I came home and erm, you had accrued, erm, what was it? Fifty, I think fifty-six days, fifty-six days leave, er, yeh, and I think owed fifty pounds demob money [pause] it all depends, I think, but erm, fifty-six days leave, I think that was a, er, minimum, I think it probably, if you did more service than that or where ever you’d been, they may, I’m not sure about that, that may possible have been longer, but I think fifty-six was a, sort of a general thing
CB: What did they give you in the way of clothing, when you were demobbed?
FB: Oh yeh, you handed in your suit and you got kitted out with the, well, with shoes, socks, pants, vest, shirt, erm, now I think I’m not sure whether you could have a choice of a suit or these sorts of flannels and a jacket, I can’t remember, what did I have? I know one thing, that when I, when I joined up at Padgate, of course we had to send er, send erm, civilian clothes home, and mine never, mine never ever arrived, they were lost, which I think happened quite often, but er, yeh
CB: So, you got your leave, you come back, then what?
FB: I think I, yeh, I think I had a fourth, two months and then I went back to the United Dairies because they were duty bound, or anyone went back to their old job, or wanted to go back to their old job, I think the companies were duty bound to take them for six months. So, of course, I went back and er, [laughs] Jack Hancock, he said, ‘are you coming back in the garage with me?’ and I said, ‘I’d like to go driving if you’ve got a driving job,’ and that’s what I did. I stayed there until I was thirty four, and that was November nineteen fifty nine, I moved then, the only reason I moved was for more money, and I’d got a brother in law who works at Calvert, and he used to say, ‘you want to get on, you’ll be far better off coming to work for Calvert driving,’ and I said, ‘ah well,’ I said, ‘the problem is you get up on eight wheelers and you’ve [laughs] got to do nights out, and he said, ‘well, that won’t hurt you will it?’ But, anyway, that’s what happens, you started off on the small lorries, on the little old Albion’s
CB: [inaudible]
FB: G wagons, they were about two, what was it? two and a half thousand bricks, and then you went up onto the D, and then a K, then a L, and eventually onto eight wheelers. I had ten years on eight wheelers, I came off, my father in law had, had a stroke and er, and Mum she, she passed away, and he was living with us and, well, they were both living with us for a time, and er, he was getting a bit of a problem at night, they was having a bit of a problem dealing with him in the night, and erm, we’d got the two children of course, so I asked if I could be excused nights out, and they said, no you, that would cause a precedent if we do that, and the only answer to it is if you don’t want to do nights out, is you’ll have to come off eight wheelers, so I said, that’s what I’ll do then, but erm, I went on the stores like, the stores wagon and various jobs around the yard, and erm, when the old chap, when he died, but, see we used to start work at six until half past five, we used to do eleven hours a day, that was Monday to Saturday, and then we went down to five days a week, and erm, and eventually, ‘cos there was no motorways when I started at the Calvert, there, there was that short stretch of M1 that had opened in. I think that was in June nineteen fifty nine, I’m not sure and we never used the M1 anyway, but when they built the M4, and the M5 and the M6, we used all of those, and er, [pause] you had, before, before they were built and opened you had to stop to, wherever you were going, you had to stop on your, the route that you were supposed, for instance, if we were going down to, down into Wales, well, we used to go from Calvert to Oxford, from Oxford we used to go then into Cheltenham, Gloucester, Chepstow and then wherever in Wales it was, of course when they opened the M4, we were able to go from Calvert to Swindon, get on the M4, went down straight there, and so, and of course you used to get, when you were on nights out, you used to get your night out money, well er, when these motorways were opened, what would have been night out journeys, it was still night out journeys as far as the company were concerned, but you could get back almost to, you could get back to Aylesbury or Weston on the Green, depending where, and you could thumb a lift home and get back in the morning or whenever, and you used to get your night out money, well of course the company soon got wise about that, and so what we, there was this particular, this big map put in the driver’s room, and there was Calvert there like that, and then there was a five mile radius, up to hundred miles radius, and so, the farther you went, the more you earned, the more you were paid, and but, a lot of them soon got wise, and they thought if they could get two shorter journeys allocated to them, then they could do two journeys and they’d get twice as much money, you see, but I never bothered, by this time I was about fifty one, fifty two and I said to them, I said, to them one day, I’ve had enough of this cowboy driving and I’m going to find another job. As luck happens, I’m out every night, there was, you were put, the list and where you were going the following day, well, on the Friday, on this particular Friday, there was a notice on the notice board advertising a vacancy for a garage maintenance clerk, and I said to Tom Ridgeway who was the foreman at that time, I said, ‘I’m going to put in for that job Tom,’ ‘well,’ he said, ‘you can put in for it, whether you’ll get it or not I don’t know but you’ll have an interview anyway,’ and anyway I got the job and I went, and went onto the staff and I didn’t earn as much money, er salary weekly, but there were one or two perks and the best one actually, it was a non-contributory pension scheme, so when I, when I finished with them, I came out with a lump sum and a small pension, which I obviously still get, so that did me a lot of good in many ways
CB: But had that pension started when you first joined?
FB: When I first joined you paid in, you had to pay in for a pension
CB: Oh right
FB: You had to pay in for a pension
CB: No, when you became staff
FB: That was sort of one of the perks really, because
CB: Non-contributory, right. So
FB: So, I had, well I had twenty-seven and a half years all told, seventeen as driving you see and ten and a half with the garage maintenance staff
CB: These eight wheelers were difficult to handle without power steering, were they?
FB: Er?
CB: The eight wheelers were difficult to handle without power steering?
FB: Yes, there was no power steering on the ones I drove. I came off the road and they went over to these Volvo’s [unclear] were the ones we, they were good but you had this big old engine by the side of you in the cab you see, and it went thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, but erm, the later ones, by this time I was already off the road, but they, they did have power steering, the old eight wheelers, I used to, I never, I never, really did enjoy going down into Wales especially in the winter time, er, because they were, you know, they were building sort of up on the side of the mountain, I supposed you call it, I don’t know or whatever, but that used to be a job turning round ‘cos what we used to do, you see, you used to go down and the, they’d take, take anywhere they wanted the bricks and you set up and er, with the, before they started with the erm, forklifts and that, er, it was all unloaded or off loaded, and you had seven thousand bricks on an eight wheeler, and so, what they used to call the stick up, which was one, one row in the centre, down, and then over the side, you build it up, and then three [unclear] we used to call them, and so you used to take off half, and then turn round and take the other half off you see, well, when you were on, on the these, it needed a bit of moving, handling [laughs]
CB: I can imagine. Before fork lifts, how did you load, who loaded the trucks in the first place?
FB: Oh, the, they, the night shifts used to do that, they were mainly, mostly they were nearly all Italians, they used to be up at erm, Aylesbury, and then they, they said that er, where the old royal, when you went up to the hill, where the old royal hospital was, the other side of the road there, that was, and they used to say the Itie, erm, Italians, and someone, when I got out of bed they [unclear] can’t hear you [laughs] I don’t know, but yes, and they had a place over, oh, Bedford way, somewhere I think. [pause] It was well organised, it was a, it was a good company to work, they used to, when I came everywhere, they used to say, you keep your nose clean and you’ll be alright [laughs]
CB: Well, the pay was quite good there, wasn’t it?
FB: Oh yeh well, the first erm, when I left the United Dairies, I think I was getting ten pounds a, yeh, ten pounds a week, and the, and the first pay day I had at Calvert, and that wasn’t a full, that wasn’t a full week, and I had erm, fourteen pounds, and as you, and as you worked your way up from the small to the eight wheelers, and course eight wheelers, that was top, top rate of pay, but erm, the last week that I was actually driving, and of course by this time they started this erm, radius miles, that first, that was the last week that I was actually driving, that I earned one hundred pounds for the week, but erm, some of them used to earn that, it all depends, as I say, whatever journey they gave me I did, I didn’t rush around to try and get another journey here and there
CB: Right
FB: What I did was, whatever time it took me I did, and that was it, you know, I said, as I said to my wife, I’ve had enough of this cowboy driving and that would have been used to it
CB: This is London Brick company?
FB: That was London Brick company, but before as you see, they again, that was a well-run company, a well-run company, but when Sir Ronald Stewart retired as chairman, it seemed as it going downhill, I can’t remember who took over from him, but I don’t, and they started with training on all the systems, they had sort of a foreman and, well, had a foreman and a charge hand but then they, then they used to have a manager, and a manager and so on and so forth and all this, and I remember that they, the London Brick company, they put in a bid for it to buy Ibstock, which is Leicestershire, and that was, that was turned down, and not many months later, Hanson, put in a bid for London Brick, and that was turned down, and it was turned down two or three times and they had, they put in another bid and that was the sort of final bid, and there was a deadline when it had only got to be accepted or rejected for good. Now, I don’t know if it was true or not, but there was this er, rumour that went around that 48 hours before the deadline, that Hanson didn’t have enough shares to buy it, but it said, now I don’t know whether it was true or wasn’t true, or not, but they reckoned that one of the directors sold him his shares that gave him enough to get the, to get the owning of, and from then it went downhill, because, although the man’s not alive now, but he was nothing more than an asset stripper. He closed, he closed er, London Brick erm, and New Longville, closed that, at Calvert where they’d started doing this landfill, erm, he retained the, he retained the ground, but he shut, he sold the, and that was two, Shanks and McKeown
CB: The dump, he sold too?
FB: Yeh
CB: Shanks and McKeown
FB: For landfill, for landfill
CB: For landfill, yeh
FB: Yeh, er, then of course, Calvert went, everything [emphasis] is gone, Stewartby which is the main yard, you used to have a stores, where they used to run from the Calvert to Bletchley, well, Newton Longville to take stores or collect stores and that, to Stewartby, that’s gone, apparently Stewartby from what I’ve heard is that erm, the reason why Stewartby closed mainly, was because, like, I mean, always getting complaints, even when I was working, that erm, depending on the wind direction, they get a lot of these erm, fumes and that, even overseas
CB: Yeh, in Scandinavia they were
FB: Scandinavia, yeh
CB: Yeh. When did you retire?
FB: I erm, [pause] nineteen, wait a minute, nineteen eight [pause] I started in fifty nine, so fifty nine, eighty eight, nineteen eighty, nineteen eighty eight, [emphasis] yeh, nineteen eighty eight and when they, when they started erm, closing down, making people redundant and that, well, I had to go to the labour exchange which was in School Lane in Buckingham at that time, I had to report there and that basically was a, they knew, I mean they knew I was, they knew all about it at the labour exchange, but, you had to go, report there to ensure that you, your stamp was made, you know
CB: Yeh
FB: Until you was sixty five, and I went there and wait my turn and they gave you a form and filled it in and said to come back in a fortnight. Well, I went back in a fortnight and they gave me another form and it said, do you want work, have you sort work, what wage do you want, what hours do you want to work? All this and I came home and I said to my wife, I said, ‘I’m going to find myself a little job because,’ I said, I hadn’t received any money in that time, not from there anyway, and so, as luck happens, there was an advert in, about the only time they ever advertised, a little firm, erm, Greens at Wicking, and they made these sort of these wooden er, light fittings
CB: Oh yeh
FB: Clusters and clock cases and things like that, and they were advertising in the advertiser on that Friday, and er, I phoned up and I said, ‘it seems like you want some labour,’ ‘oh yes, can you come over and have a chat?’ and er, so I arranged to go at two o’clock on that Friday, same Friday afternoon, well I got over there, funny enough, one of the, one of the sons, I didn’t tie it up but, I played cricket for, and I was secretary of the club for Thornborough for eighteen years, and Brian Green, he had just started playing cricket, more or less as I was coming towards the end of my cricket career, so, when I got over there, I saw, I went to the office and saw Sally, as it turned out, and she said, ‘oh, I’ll go and find,’ and she found Michael, well, Michael and Tony they were twins, and they were identical twins, but Tony he didn’t, he didn’t work there, he used to go over occasionally, he’d got his own business or something, anyway I went there and he took me into the, into the factory and erm, and they’d got these machines, you know, for cutting up wood and all the rest of it, and I wasn’t very, I wasn’t very impressed with it, not really, and Michael said to me, ‘let’s go over in the office then,’ and over in the office he said, ‘what do you think?’ and I said, ‘no, I don’t think that’s for me, thank you,’ he said, ‘we’ve got a little seven hundred weight van,’ and he said, ‘ we’re looking for someone, we keep getting these youngsters that come in to drive and we can’t trust them, they don’t know whether they’re coming or going, erm, would you consider that?’ and I said, ‘well, I don’t know.’ Anyway, I took it on and they’d got these outworkers, so I used to take stuff out and deliver it and the following day, used to pick it up and take some more out and that kind of thing, and then I used to have to deliver when they sold stuff, I used to, I used to go down to, well I used to go down in Essex quite a few times, Yorkshire, Birmingham, I used to go there Birmingham quite regularly and get stuff, and take it and so it all worked out very well and I, and I got to, by this time, I had my, I was due to have my holidays and I was seventy, and er, now Laura Ashley was one of their main customers and they were also one of the their best, because they were always sure of getting their cheque monthly, where as some of the others, they had to wait for the money, you see, anyway, [laughs] so I went on holiday, and Michael phoned me up on the Sunday that I was due to start back to work on the Monday, and he said, ‘Sid, we’re short of work,’ it was sort of a [unclear] seasonal sort of thing, now I’d been working flat out from about September right round to the May, June time, and then it used to slack off again, and then it used to build up again, in sort of like, Christmas trade they used to call it, so anyway I was due to start back on the Monday, Michael phoned me up on the Sunday afternoon, he said, ‘Sid, we’re short of work,’ he said, ‘we haven’t got much for you,’ but, he said, ‘we’ll give you a ring when we get, you know, when we have got some work,’ and so I thought, that’s a good opportunity to go, quite a lot of work I wanted to get done around here, and I’d got the allotment and all, and all the rest of it, and so I said to Bet, ‘I think, er, I think that, I’ll call it a day,’ so I wrote to them and said that I’d thought I’d put it in writing, and I wrote and said that I’d decided that I’d retire, I was seventy and thanked them for, you know, the work and all the rest of it, and two or three days later, Brian, Brian rang and he said, ‘you sure you’re not going to come back?’ and I said, ‘yes, I’ve decided to pack up,’ he said, ‘we’ve got plenty of work for you now , we’re expecting you back,’ but I didn’t go back
CB: You’d had enough
FB: I’d had enough, I was seventy
CB: Yeh
FB: And I thought, well that’s it
CB: How long have you lived here?
FB: Since the bungalow was built in nineteen seventy-eight
CB: Oh, have you really, yeh
FB: It’s a, these six bungalows, three either side and they actually they are council, er, let for senior citizens or old age pensioners, whatever you call it, and we were living in a four bedroomed house, number twelve up the road, and by this time, Dad had died, my mother and father in law had died, Geoff had, Geoff had gone to Imperial College, London, in the university, and Jill, she was going to Loughborough, and there was us two living in a four bedroomed house, so I wrote to the council and I said, would it be possible to, possible to rehouse us in a smaller, either a two bedroom or possibly a three bedroom house, and what I got back was a letter saying that they weren’t selling bungalows and they weren’t selling four bedroom houses, well [laughs] I didn’t want either, but anyway, they started building these bungalows and my pal who was on the council, he said, ‘I know you want to move, why don’t you put in for one of these bungalows because they said, five of them have gone, but there’s six and they’re supposed to be for local people you see,’ he said, ‘five of them have gone, but there’s one that’s still open, why don’t you apply for it?’ and I did and originally they said I wasn’t old enough, but in the end they did sell it, er, did let it to us, and when the right to buy came, I applied to buy it
CB: Because you’d got the continuity
FB: So, we bought it and that’s it
CB: Yes, that’s good
EB: You alright?
CB: We’re having a rest now, thank you
[interview paused]
FB: The most memorable time?
CB: Your most memorable time, memorable time, in the RAF would you say?
FB: [pause] [laughs] Well, I don’t know [pause] I should possibly think was when that aircrew completed their thirty ops, because that was, when I first got on 115 Squadron, if they managed to do seven, they were doing very well, so I think possibly that would be one of the stand out things that, I mean that. I can’t remember anybody else, not while I was there
CB: So, you were looking after two aircraft, one did thirty but you had a series of others, as the other aircraft
FB: Well, yeh, because, in actual fact, if you [background noise] [pause] that would, that was D-Dog, that was one of the, that was the one that Malcolm Buckingham and I worked on
CB: Yeh, that
FB: And that’s the one that did, the crew did their thirty ops on
CB: Yes
FB: Er, and that went on as I say, to do hundred and five, but er, by the time we left, it had done, I think it was sixty ops, and the rest of them of course, it was done after we left
CB: ‘Cos you got another crew, after thirty?
FB: Yeh
CB: After thirty, thank you, brilliant
FB: This one, that’s up there, that
CB: Your pictures on the wall
FN: That’s, that’s C-Charlie
CB: Yes
FB: C-Charlie, er and they were the two planes, you know, on the two pans as I was explaining. I don’t know how many operations that done, but that down there, what was it? Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, that done thirty, by that time [pause] [background noise]
CB: [inaudible]
EB: 1947
CB: Now, in the war, when you were in the RAF, did you ever have any serious illness and what was it?
FB: I had, I had pneumonia while I was in, at Witchford, I spent er, what did I, a few weeks in Ely, Ely hospital, and I was excused oversea duties for six months, ‘cos I didn’t go overseas anyway, but I was, and the other thing was that, yes, on January the 25th 1947, I had, I’d had an invitation to go to Bet’s sister Margaret’s wedding
EB: Why she wanted to get married
FB: And, I, and I at that point, I was a senior fitter on our flight and I couldn’t get a weekend pass, which as it turned out was just as well, because on the Saturday afternoon, I was sat on top of an old Wellington, doing a plug change [laughs] and I curled up, there was a young national service chap on the other one, I forget his Christian name, but Gaskins he was, a Londoner, and I said to him, we’ll go, we’ll go down into Lincoln and have a little bit of a celebration, [laughs] being as I can’t go over to this wedding. I slid down the main as I, slid down the main frame and as I straightened up, I had this pain across, and the sergeant he said
CB: Across your stomach
FB: Yeh
CB: Yeh
FB: He said, ‘what’s the matter with you?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve got the cramp or something, I think?’ he said, ‘go on in the hut and stay there until we knock off and go down to tea,’ which is what I did do, and I said to old erm, Gaskins, I gave him my mug and I said, ‘get me a mug of tea, I’m going to get into bed,’ so I went to my hut and lay, and got into bed and he bought me this mug of tea, and I hadn’t got it down many minutes before I felt sick, and I shot out of there and ran into the ablutions and I heaved up, and I kept on, and went back into there every now and again, and kept repeating, repeating all the time, and he says, ‘well we shan’t be going down for a drink tonight, I’ll go across the sick bay and get the orderly to come and see you,’ and he did do, and the orderly said, ‘oh I’d better get the MO,’ he [laughs] tannoyed for the medical officer and they took me over to the sick bay, and he said, ‘oh you’ve got appendicitis,’ so they took me off to [unclear] hospital, and it was snowing, it started snowing you see, it started snowing , anyway, and I got to [unclear] anyway they operated on me and I’ve got an awful scar here, where I had a stitch abscess, and they sent me home er, on, I had a fortnights sick leave but I had to get into Buckingham every, every day to have this dressing changed, that was a bit of a problem, but er, but also, [laughs] when I was discharged to come home, I got down to Bletchley, station, railway station you see, and the old porter he said, ‘no trains to Buckingham until tomorrow morning,’ I said, ‘I know, I know that,’ I said, I’m going to,’ ‘well,’ he said, I don’t know whether you’ll have any luck because,’ he says, ‘we’ve heard that the road is blocked, somewhere along that road,’ and I said, ‘well, the army,’ of course there’s Bletchley Park, that we didn’t know anything about, but there was Bletchley Park, well, they were running from there to Whaddon and also to Lenborough
CB: What, the army trucks?
FB: Yeh, well, with the signals, you see, you know, and they would always stop and pick you up if you wanted it, you know, wanted a lift, and there was just one went past me, and that was before I got anywhere near to the Whaddon turn, and he went straight past me, and I never saw anything else, [background noise] and I walked and from Bletchley, what is it, to Thornborough, it’s about eight miles, I think it is about eight miles, something like that, but when I got round to Singleborough turn, the straight bit there, I could see this shape in the road and it turned out, it was one of the Coop tankers in there, and of course the, where Bet lived at Greatmore it, you needn’t open the gate, you walked straight over ‘cos it was about five foot deep, you see, it was, anyway I got back in, I got back home, I think it was about two or three o’clock in the morning, something like that, and rattled the door and my Dad came [laughs] ‘cor, he said, what’s happened to you?’ I said, ‘well, I’ve walked from Bletchley,’ and so, got into bed, and as I say, every day I had to go into, to have this dressing changed
EB: He walked four miles
CB: Can’t have done him any good to do that?
EB: No
CB: Because this, 1947 was one of the worst winters
FB: It was
CB: In living memory, wasn’t it?
EB: [inaudible]
FB: Well, there was still snow under the hedges in May
CB: Was it, in Rutland we couldn’t get out of the village for seven days
EB: Oh gosh
CB: Amazing
EB: Where was that?
CB: That was in Empingham
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 Sidney Bunce
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-11-08
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABunceFSG161108
PBunceFSG1609
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Sidney Bunce grew up in Buckinghamshire and worked in a butchers and a dairy. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force aged 18 and trained as a flight mechanic engineer. He served with 115 Squadron at RAF Witchford and at RAF Wratting Common with 195 Squadron. He talks about his daily life as a mechanic until his demobilisation in 1947. After the war he drove for United Dairies and the London Brick company.
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
Format
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02:01:44 audio recording
115 Squadron
195 Squadron
demobilisation
fitter engine
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
medical officer
military living conditions
military service conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
RAF Witchford
RAF Wratting Common
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/994/10625/PMasonAE1801.1.jpg
5aedc13910da354d8b89320351ae81db
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/994/10625/AMasonAE181023.2.mp3
efa3bb5397a48a6ce2df16b26b5e9996
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
Mason, Bert
Albert Edward Mason
A E Mason
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Bert Mason (1925 - 2020). He flew operations as an air gunner with 195 Squadron and Air Gunner with 195 Squadron and served on Earl Mountbatten's staff.
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
2018-10-23
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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Mason, AE
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: This is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing – do you like to be known as Bert?
BM: Bert.
DK: Can I call you Bert? Bert Mason at his home on the 23rd of October 2018. So if I just put that down there. I might keep looking over. I’m just making sure it’s still going in case, the batteries don’t run out or anything.
BM: So it’s operating.
DK: It’s operating, yeah.
[Other]: Would you like a table or something?
DK: No, no I think it’ll be all right.
BM: I’ll just move some things over.
DK: It might be better if I just sort of point it at you. What I wanted to do is just move that as it’s electrical and might interfere. Okay, if I could start then Bert, what were you doing immediately before the war?
BM: Well, I joined at seventeen and three months so there wasn’t a lot to do. In actual fact the history of it is interesting. I applied for a place in the local grammar school, called you know, King John’s College, and I passed. And then the Luftwaffe came along and demolished it. So at that point I thought well what do I do now? So I then went to work for a light engineering company in Southsea, a company called, I’ve forgotten what they were called, [additional words in room indecipherable] Eldon Brothers I think they’re called and they were specialists in motorcycles and they were commissioned by the Ministry of Supply to collect motorcycles, make sure they were refurbished right standard and supply them of course for dispatch riders and believe it or not, is that still running?
DK: Yes, we’re okay.
BM: Believe it or not that became a reserved occupation would you believe, for a couple of years or more, so that’s basically what I was doing. I got a bit cheesed off with that after a while. I might say while I was doing that, I was big for my age and at fifteen I was driving ambulances you know, for Portsmouth, you know, what was then because the National Health thing, there wasn’t the National Heath then, but anyway I did that for a while and then I volunteered for the RAF at seventeen and three months, that was in July 1942, but they had a scheme running, if I go too fast for that thing -
DK: No, that’s okay, don’t worry.
BM: They had a scheme running called the Preliminary Aircrew Training Course. You may have heard of it, you may not, it was quite unique. Their idea was that people like myself, whose education was interrupted, had an opportunity to go to a technical college or some advanced form of education throughout the country, prior to actually going into the RAF itself. So I went to Rotherham, I was there for about six months, then after that I joined the RAF proper on, in July 12th, a date we remember cause we got married on that date, [cough] July 12th 1943, and then went to, I think it was St Andrews first off.
DK: Just going back a bit, was there a particular reason why you chose the RAF?
BM: Yes, there was. When I was dragging people out of bomb damaged buildings it sort of came to me, how do you strike back, you know, this sort of situation? And I thought well the only force, the only one of the forces at that point that was in a position to strike back was the RAF. So I shot off, put my name down. My father, who was a staunch Army man, was horrified, because he had it all worked out I would join his old regiment, you know. But that, that didn’t come to anything.
DK: Had your father served in the First World War then?
BM: Yes, he had. In fact I was born in Germany, in Cologne. My father was part of the Army of Occupation on the Rhine. So that was near Cologne. I was there for, I’m jumping around a bit here I’m sorry, but you can analyse it, I’m sure. But I was there for the first five years, you know, living in Cologne, in fact the first language I ever spoke was German. I had a German nanny and she and I used to prattle on in German and my mother and father didn’t have a clue what we were talking about.
DK: Can you still speak German or have you?
BM: Yes, yes, up to a point. I’m not as fluent, obviously as I was. And that came, well, we’re jumping a bit. I’ll come back to that later, So I joined the RAF under the category of PNB which you know is the pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, and then of course had the initial training at St Andrews, which we were talking about just now, then went from there to Bruntingthorpe for the OTU, and then from there to place called Wigsley, you’d know it, because it’s in Lincolnshire, for the Heavy Con Unit.
DK: Can you remember which OTU it was?
BM: Yes, Number 8.
DK: Number 8, and that was at Bruntingthorpe.
BM: That was at Bruntingthorpe, near Rugby.
DK: And the number of the Heavy Conversion Unit.
BM: Yes, I remember that, number 16. HCU. That was at Wigsley.
DK: Number sixteen Heavy Conversion Unit, at Wigsley.
BM: And that was Wigsley, okay.
DK: Was the OTU then your first experience of seeing aircraft close up? Had you flown before then?
BM: No, I had no experience really of flying and certainly not in military aircraft or any form of aircraft for that matter, so yes, it was my first experience. It gets very involved after this and I have to stop and think. The, after, yes, after the Heavy Con Unit, there came, as I said, I was in the category of navigator, I was trained as a navigator but along came the RAF and said you are now in to the tail end of ’43, going in to ’44, the RAF came along and said if you chaps want to be in the big show – this was the big sell, you know – you better think about remustering, because if you remuster, you know, we can get you in fairly quickly, but you have to take a different category, otherwise you’re going to Canada or South Africa, you know, for the navigational training, and it might be eighteen months and by the time you come back from that, the war will be over. That was true enough, the war would have been over. But a lot of us, myself included, in our crew, we had a flight engineer who was an ex pilot, we had a wireless operator who was, well the Aussie crew consisted of the wireless operator, the pilot and the bomb aimer. And the rest of it was made up of Brits, so we were four Brits, three Aussies.
DK: And did you first meet your crew at the OTU?
BM: Yes, that’s when they put us together.
DK: And how did that work then? How did you get your crew together?
BM: Well what happened of course, they had all these loose bods flying about, not flying about, moving about, they put them all up at this one station, and left it to them to organise themselves into crews. Didn’t, didn’t sort of delegate, you had to sort yourselves out.
DK: And do you think that worked quite well?
BM: I think in our case it worked admirably, we’re still here! [Chuckle] Yes it worked very well. The bomb aimer, chap called Doolan, you know, sought out me first, I don’t know why, I was probably the tallest in the room, sought me out first and said my skipper is an ex flying instructor, chap called Phil Gavins, great pilot.
DK: Phil Evans?
BM: No, Gavin.
[Other]: Phil Gavins.
BM: Phil Gavins. That’s my prompt over there! Phil Gavins, and what, it’s worthwhile just to spend a moment on that. He came over to the UK in the early days of the war, thinking that he was going straight into ops thinking that was his thing, but he was so good that they immediately made him an instructor, and for two years he was an instructor. At the end of those two years he said to the RAF, either you put me on ops or I’m going home!
DK: And he was Australian?
BM: He was Australian. Flight Lieutenant. Wonderful chap. Anyway, they realised he meant it, so they promptly put him on ops. He then sought out an Aussie who was a bomb aimer and said go and find us a crew. So that brings us back to where Doolan, Tim Doolan was his job was to find the crew, so he came to me first, said come and join us, I said sounds good, he took me, he introduced me to Phil Gavins, we got on like a house on fire: no problems.
DK: And had you already been trained as an air gunner at this point?
BM: Not at this point. Not at this point. This is where it gets you know, sort of, a little bit messy because once we had sorted ourselves into crews, I won’t go into how the others were selected, but once we got the crews sorted, then it became a case of categories, and the categories came into it, and it then became obvious that we had too many of the PNB characters and not enough, you might say, of air gunners, wireless ops and flight engineers. So we spent the next three months getting ourselves sorted into the right categories.
DK: Oh right. So it was sort of done rather oddly the other way round, instead of training for one of the categories and then going to the crew, you got into the crew and then trained into the categories.
BM: Crew first. That’s how it worked.
DK: I’ve never heard of that happening before.
BM: No. Well I said it was unique and it was unique. I think the influence of Phil Gavins probably played its part. He was quite a senior bloke in the RAF and he was also a buddy of Wing Commander Kingsford Smith, now Kingsford Smith was an Aussie and great reputation et cetera and those two were quite pally, because they were Aussies and came from, both, Melbourne and that’s how it happened. And I think it was a case of Phil Gavins stood back in the wings for a while, you know, I think he went to Wigsley, ahead of us, to get familiar, at that time it was Stirlings, when we went to Wigsley initially it was Stirlings.
DK: At the OTU, what type of aircraft was it?
BM: At the OTU it was Wellingtons.
DK: Wellingtons. So your first flight then was in a Wellington was it?
BM: Yes.
DK: And what did you think of the Wellington then, as an aircraft?
BM: Thought it was wonderful. It was great. You could stand in the astrodome and watch the wings in that. Virtually you could.
DK: Not sure I’d want to do that!
BM: At first you’re worried about, but then you got used to the idea; it was a unique construction as well, as you know, no we liked the Wellingtons. We didn’t like the Stirlings so much because after we finished our OTU we then, we finished on Stirlings, we were given a week’s leave and when we came back - Lancasters were in their place. We didn’t know anything about it, we thought come back to the Stirlings, but no, Stirlings had gone and Lancasters were there.
DK: And did you have any flight in the Stirlings before they went?
BM: Oh yes, yes. We did, two ops, three ops I think, on Stirlings.
DK: On the Heavy Conversion Unit?
BM: That’s right. But they were practice and training flights than anything else.
DK: And where were these operations to on the Stirlings?
BM: Mostly just on the Ruhr, I think from memory Dusseldorf was one, I can’t remember the others but, they were, because they were the Stirlings you didn’t pay too much attention to them, you’re just happy to get back, you know, because the Stirling, mind you, you could get shot up remarkably well and still come back. Probably more than the Lancaster actually, but that’s by the way. When we came back, we only had three ops on the Stirlings, so when we came back we were the Lancasters.
DK: And your ops in the Stirlings you’re the rear gunner are you or the?
BM: No, mid upper.
DK: Mid upper gunner, right.
BM: In between, I skipped that of course, I went down to Stormy Down, Stormy Down the air gunner training school, and trained there as an air gunner, so I was almost [emphasis] qualified as a navigator, so I was, on our flight we had two navigators, two air gunners, two of everything it seemed. Because Phil Gavins was a great person for everyone needs to know everyone else’s job, and he insisted on that, and I had some flights, not operationally, but some flights in training where I was actually at the controls and not just me, that applied to the crew.
DK: And just going back to your air gunnery training, is it something you took to was it?
BM: Well remarkably, I mean you know, air gunners are trained with shotguns as well, you know, to get them to feature in allowing for firing in advance of the target and things like, familiarisation, that’s what it came down to. Surprisingly I came top of the class, you know, because my, out of I think, thirty six points that you could get, I got thirty five. So I was pretty good with a shotgun.
DK: Wow! Crack shot.
[Other]: Still are, he still can!
BM: Then we got down to the real business where we came from Heavy Con Unit, we did lots of training flights on Heavy Con Unit, I think we were there in total about six weeks.
DK: And these were sort of cross country?
BM: Yeah. Mostly. And I was appalled at the number of aircraft we lost on cross country training too, fog and everything else, it had the knack of sending out in weather which I don’t think you would ever be sent out on the squadron. We lost too many aircraft in training, in my view, that’s me there. Then off to Wratting Common. Do you know the name?
DK: I know the name, yes.
BM: You’re one of the few people who do!
DK: Is it Cambridgeshire?
BM: Yes. It’s on the border of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk isn’t it.
DK: [Indecipherable]
BM: I was 195 Squadron. You’ve got a note of that haven’t you.
DK: Yes.
BM: 195 Squadron, 3 Group of course. Then we got into operations proper.
DK: And what did you think when you arrived on your operational squadron, at the base itself. What did you see when you turned up there?
BM: Well it was all exciting, I was what, then eighteen I think, yes, just, so for us it was a case of: we were in the big show, you know, let’s get up type of thing. And of course we did. So it was very exciting indeed. But what we learned from it very quickly, we were in a nissen hut, and three crews in a nissen hut and of course during the course of the time we were there, there were seven changes, in other words we lost seven crews from, we were the only one, the original crew, that still remained in that nissen hut. And we lost South Africans, Rhodesians, Canadian and of course Brits, naturally, and that was it really. So what we learned, a point to make here, what we learned is don’t get involved because you just couldn’t get too involved with people because if you did, you never knew if they’d be there when you got back. A typical thing would be go on a raid and when you got back, you’d go to bed and somewhere during the night, about three o’clock in the morning or even later, the SPs would come and in start picking up peoples’ kits from around you and taking the kits in to, you know, personal control, personal kit, and they were the people who weren’t coming back. And that, initially that got to you, as you can imagine, but after a while, you became, funnily enough, you became immune to it.
DK: Yeah. Can you remember your first actual operation on the squadron?
BM: Yes, I can cause I can always remember the Intelligence Officer, you know, making a funny, that he thought was a funny. It was a marshalling yard, and it was called Bad Oldesfloe, I’ll say it slowly: Bad Oldesfloe. So when he got up there and having given us all the spiel about targets, weather and everything else involved, he said right chaps, I want you to come back and tell me it’s now Bad old and very slow! That was his joke, but I always remember it because it was so corny. [Chuckles]
DK: Didn’t go down well then.
BM: No, it got a titter, but it didn’t get anything beyond that.
DK: So, on your operations then you were the mid upper gunner again were you?
BM: Yes.
DK: So can you just talk a little bit about how an operation would work? What you did when you got up in the morning sort of thing.
BM: Yeah, well obviously the ops, the briefings were different, you know the air gunners and flight engineers sometimes, [indecipherable], but the air gunners and wireless ops were briefed separately. And so you got up in the morning and you’d really no great demands on you, except to make sure that your guns were working et cetera and everything was okay in that respect. Then more or less you’re at a loose end, if you’re lucky you could get two or three hours of shuteye, but the navigators and the rest of the crew would go to the separate briefing where they would be briefed on waypoints and things of this nature, [indecipherable] at the target, what to look out for in terms of opposition, where to expect flak, where to expect searchlights and things like this. So our day, compared with their day, was relatively slack, But because you’re all keyed up anyway, excited, we used to go and perhaps kick a football about, you know, or play squash – in my case I played squash - and basically that was about the strength of it. But all the excitement was there, until of course it came time for you all to go for the final briefing where you were all briefed together and that usually, would be about, depends where you’re going, usually that would be about six or seven o’clock. So you all get briefed together, then go back and get kitted out, pick up parachutes and everything else involved and then you went to the aircraft, sometimes you sat in the aircraft for a couple of hours and that was a very harrowing time. Because you’re virtually biting your nails you know, because nothing much was happening. Because often, according to weather the actual op would be cancelled and that was bad too, because having got all keyed up for it, then you’d go back, relieved in one sense but at the same time, you know, sort of thinking oh, what was that all about.
DK: And are you sat in your gun turret at take off?
BM: Yes.
DK: And you’d remain there for the whole operation probably?
BM: Yes. Yes.
DK: This might sound like an obvious question but what was your role as an air gunner?
BM: Well if you’re the mid upper gunner, you had the role of, if you like, weapons controller because you can see, from the mid upper turret, you can see virtually three hundred and sixty degrees; tail gunner can’t. He can only see about a hundred and eighty degrees. So if you’re over a target or reaching a target your job naturally is to look out for enemy fighters and if you saw enemy fighters you would control the flight as it started. So a typical – funny how you remember these things – the typical thing might be, if you spotted a fighter, you know, you’d go through to the skipper straight away. [Operational voice] “Skipper, fighter fighter, port quarter up, or down, whichever, usually up, port quarter up, range six hundred”. You’d wait a little, “attack commencing, corkscrew port – go!” So you control the corkscrew. That was your job. The tail gunner didn’t because he couldn’t see enough, and you were the person one who could, so you used to control the corkscrew. But once the corkscrew started then the pilot took over.
DK: Did you practice this procedure of corkscrew?
BM: Yes.
DK Did you ever have to use it while in an attack?
BM: We used it over Kiel with good effect, we used it over Berlin with good effect, and we used it over, I was going to say Peenemunde, but we didn’t do that, there was a third occasion we used it. We didn’t do Dresden, we didn’t do Hamburg, I’m pleased to say, and we didn’t do Cologne. Funnily enough I was pleased about that cause I was born there and I didn’t want to be bombing where I was born. I’m trying to think the third place we used it; doesn’t matter.
DK: And can you remember actually seeing these German aircraft attacking you then?
BM: Yes, you can.
DK: And do you know what they were?
BM: We were credited with a kill over Kiel. Because, well the rear gunner and myself happened to psyche in on, well I think it was a raw [emphasis] German pilot, because the pilots, the idea of the corkscrew do you? You do. Well the idea of the corkscrew course is that you turn in to the attack and then you turn and go down again the opposite direction and then you start to come up. Now if the German behind you comes in he’ll follow you, theory wise, he’ll follow you in to the first turn and then he’ll pull up as you’re going into the second turn because he’d overshoot you. And this particular pilot pulled up too soon and he exposed himself to the rear gunner and myself and all we saw was lots of flame, lots of smoke and spiralling, so presumably it was a kill.
DK: And can you remember what type of German aircraft it was?
BM: Fokker 190. Yeah. They were pretty deadly, you know.
D: And you think it was, a lot of it was down to the inexperience of the German pilot?
BM: I think it was because by this time, don’t forget we were into ’44 now and because by this time they were running out of experienced pilots. So, I think it was a trainee pilot who just didn’t realise that was the wrong thing to do. And whether it cost him his life or not I can’t be sure.
DK: And so how many operations did you actually fly all together then?
BM: With Stirlings? Did you say three?
[Other]: All together.
DK: All together.
BM: All together.
[Other]: Twenty nine.
BM: Twenty nine.
DK: Twenty nine. So that was twenty six.
BM: Plus three.
DK: With 195 Squadron and three with the Stirlings.
BM: That’s right, yes. Yeah.
DK: And what was it like then, coming back, no, no, I’ll just go back a bit there.
BM: Certainly David.
DK: What was it like first of all being over the targets? You’ve reached the target, you’ve been attacked by a night fighter, what was it like, did you see over the targets themselves.
BM: Well, over the target you had so much flak, that you actually didn’t have fighter attacks over the Target. Why? Because they were scared of being shot down by their own ack-ack, as you can imagine, but over the target the flak was, you know, was horrendous, you had these crunches of shells bursting right and left of you and on you; that was you know, pretty terrible, I must say. And you can smell, you know, the cordite, it, and, not could you smell it then, when you got back into your base it was still in your coats, the smell of the cordite. But the flak was intense and that was as deadly as the night fighters frankly in my view.
DK: And could you remember the searchlights?
BM: Yes, we were one, two, three, four times we were coned. Berlin twice, murderous over Berlin, but four times we were coned, and again the experience of our pilot, if it hadn’t been for Phil Gavins I don’t think we’d be having this conversation quite frankly. You know, he managed to, he kept going straight at the deck and we thought god the wings are going to come off and all credit to the Lancaster, it’s amazing the punishment they could take in evasive actions like that, and he’d be zig-zagging as well at the same time. Once you got coned, you were lucky if you got out of it. He developed a technique for searchlights: he’d dive for so long, bank first quite sharply to starboard and then dive again, and bank quite sharply, port, about this time the searchlights were weaving about trying to pick him up again and he found, and he only did it by experience, he found that that was the most, the safest way of being able to get out of it. And we did obviously. We’re here.
DK: Could you, during your operations, see other aircraft or were you very much alone?
BM: Oh yes. Oh very much so. One of the biggest fears was being, having bombs being dropped on you. We were lucky, we had a new Lancaster which was capable of getting up to about twenty four thousand feet. I say capable, that’s with a full bomb load. Because if you’re at twenty four thousand feet you’re reasonably secure, that people weren’t going to drop their bombs on you. But I shudder to think how many people were lost, you know, because of being, friendly fire we call it these days.
DK: Can you remember how many times you actually went to Berlin then?
BM: Three times.
DK: Three times. And what was the feeling then as, pull the curtain across and you see how far east you’re going?
BM: Well, the weather of course has a lot to do with it as you can imagine and the number of times that we went and it was bright moonlight, and why they sent us out in bright moonlight. I wasn’t on this trip, but a good example is Nuremberg, you know the story of Nuremburg, bright moonlight.
DK: I’ve spoken to a couple of aircrew flying that.
BM: We were lucky, one of our crew had appendicitis and we couldn’t go or something. Otherwise we would have gone to Nuremburg. But it was fatal, it was [emphasis] fatal to go out in bright moonlight; they called it a Fighter’s Moon.
DK: So, you want weather, you don’t want the weather too bad, but you don’t want the weather too good either, do you.
BM: If you’ve got thick cloud there’s always a danger that you’re going to have a collision, you know because by this time you start out stragglers and all close up at the target, and as they all close up of course airspace becomes a bit congested and the number of times that I’ve looked out and found a Lancaster doing this within, you know, sort of within feet of you, type thing. Halifax as well.
DK: Bit scary then was it, somebody looking.
BM: You needed your wits about you the whole time.
DK: So was your aircraft ever damaged at all?
BM: Yes, shot up quite a bit, but because like all Lancs, they got patched up very quickly.
DK: Was the damage serious on any occasion?
BM: Yeah, Kiel, in Kiel we were shot up and when we got back and walked round the aircraft and had a look we couldn’t believe it. You know, bits were missing, big chunks were missing and you thought how on earth did it keep flying?
DK: I was going to say that, coming back to your operation’s finished and you’re flying back. How did that feel as you left the target and on the way home?
BM: Well at one time you’d think that’s it chaps, it’s all over, we’re home, safe and sound and the Luftwaffe got this trick of waiting at your base for you, you know. In fact, our daughter lives in Silverstone, and she lives there because she’s a motor fanatic. Formula One fanatic et cetera. But I had to tell her once, she kept on about Silverstone, and I said look, you don’t realise, I found Silverstone long before you did because I was diverted to it in 1944, early on, and the reason is, coming back to what I was saying, there was a gaggle of night fighters at our base and we’d already had three Lancs who thought they were safe that had been shot down and we were diverted to Silverstone. So we stayed Silverstone overnight and I had to tell her you aren’t the first person at Silverstone!
DK: And what would happen then, at the end of an operation as you get out the aircraft?
BM: Yes, well of course your legs are shaky, stiff as hell, you badly needed a pee, as you can imagine, that was important, sometimes it was just under the aircraft, sometimes you could wait till you got back to the Mess.
DK: You never used the chemical toilet on the aircraft then?
BM: Well moving around a Lancaster is very restricted space, and moving around on any aircraft but on the Lancaster in particular and you’ve got the big bulwark in the super-frame that you’d have to clamber, mid upper gunner’s up there and if you had to get to an elsan you had to go right back, you know. No, it’s better if you can hang on to it, and we did.
DK: So you got back, what happens then?
BM: Right, then you go for debriefing; that’s a very important part. As you got to the mess, firstly you had your operational breakfast. Because they didn’t debrief you until you’d had something to eat. So you had your eggs, you’re privileged to have your eggs and bacon as an operational crew.
DK That was a bit of a privilege then was it, your egg and bacon?
BM: Yes, yes, so we had our eggs and bacon, then you sat down with the intelligence officers, there’s usually more than one, usually two, sometimes three, and depending on where you went and the value of the target. Some targets they knew very little about and they wanted to learn about so they’d keep you there for ever, questions about what was the ack-ack like, what about night fighters, searchlights, everything else. All the questions kept coming and by this time you’re dead tired and all you want to do was get back and get your head down. But that was a very necessary part of it. Took about an hour and a half.
DK: So that’s an operation then. What did you and your crew do when you weren’t operating? Did you socialise?
BM: Keep fit.
DK: Ah. Right, okay.
BM: Keep fit. My skipper, Phil Gavins, was a fitness freak and he, [pause] not basketball, can’t call it basketball, what’s the, the male version of basketball?
DK: That is basketball, isn’t it, netball is the -
[Other]: Netball is the ladies.
DK: Basketball, yeah.
BM: It’s not netball. Oh dear. They have tournaments all the time now. Anyway, when we weren’t flying he’d have us doing something to keep fit. A lot of it of course was. Come on Prue, you’re supposed to prompt me. It’s not basketball.
[Other]: Sorry. Just trying to think myself.
DK: I think it is basketball. Cause netball is –
[Other]: Netball’s the ladies. That’s the only one I know!
DK: It must be basketball.
BM: Anyway, we got good at that, the squadron champions, played very well indeed. So that’s what he had us doing, why, and I was playing squash, and the two things, that and squash together kept you very fit and I think we were probably the fittest crew at the base. I’m quite sure of that.
DK: Really, so you didn’t go off base and socialise out, off the base at all?
BM: Well, towards the end of the war, you never knew when they’d suddenly declare an op, so they tended to keep you on base, you know, have you handy as much as anything else. There was a time early in the war once every two weeks but these were two nights, three nights on the trot, you know, so it was a case of Bomber Harris was determined to keep up maximum effort. And to do that you had to have the crews available.
DK: And as the war’s coming to an end then, how did you feel about that, the war’s end?
BM: Well we didn’t know it was coming to an end, obviously! As far as we’re concerned we were doing a daily job and sort of lucky in my case, came back, they weren’t so lucky so you didn’t count your chickens as it were, you were just very grateful you come back, and you became in the end almost believing that you were invincible. I know it sounds silly, but you thought to yourself crikey, I’ve done this, I’ve done that. You ticked off all the places you’d been to.
[Other]: Indestructible you mean.
BM: Sorry?
[Other]: Indestructible.
DK: Indestructible.
BM: Indestructible or invincible we thought, but indestructible will do. She’s allowed to prompt me! [Laugh] Yes, so towards the end we had our squadron commander, you know, had us build, would you believe, a swimming pool. So we created at Wratting Common a swimming pool which was about forty two feet by about thirty two feet so it was quite massive. Then we ran out of water! [Laugh] He didn’t stop to think. I’ll get them to build a pool, and we all did this, Phil Gavins incidentally was a builder, so he was more or less in charge, supervising any construction, at this stage was just the point. So that occupied him, and because it occupied him, it occupied us, you know, we were, it was immediately compulsory in that effect.
DK: So the make up of your crew then was the pilot was Australian?
BM: Yes.
DK: And the bomb aimer who was Australian.
BM: Yes. Wireless op was Australian.
DK: And can you remember his name?
BM: Phil Holden.
DK: Right. And the Flight engineer?
BM: Ah, flight engineer, Phil Richardson he was a pilot, Brit.
DK: And the wireless operator?
BM: He was an Aussie.
BM: And do you remember his name?
BM: Holden.
DK: Holden. And the rear gunner then.
BM: Jack Earnshaw, he was a Brit.
DK: He was a Brit. So that’s three British, four Australian.
BM: Yes. Then there was Shorty Brown, who took over as navigator.
DK: Right. And he was British as well then.
BM: He was British.
DK: And how did you get on then, how did you work together, was it?
BM: Well that was one of the, if you like, one of the highlights of the crew, we were just like a family, you could have said we were related almost, you know, because just talk about brotherly love, it existed in a high degree in all of us, you know, we played together, we worked together, we drank together as you can imagine and whatever we did, we did together. And it became, talk about bonding, you know, when I, we look back on it even now, I think to myself, how could seven people who’d never known each other develop such a close relationship. And they did.
DK: And presumably as the war’s ended you just got posted away.
BM: Well, the Aussies went home, you can imagine, and the rest of us went about various jobs after the war proper. Now, in my case, I, I don’t know how it happened but I got my name down for Tiger Force. Where in fact we thought that we’d done our share in Europe and that was it and we’d be demobbed and that was the end of it. Not a bit of it. No, no, I was still very young and so still had years on my side as it were, so they said oh no we’re going to put you down for Tiger Force.
DK: Did that come as a bit of a shock then at the time?
BM: It did! Cause we didn’t, they were going to give us Lincolns, I say going to because it didn’t happen, going to give us Lincolns, and what they did for us is to fly us out to Mauripur in India, which is Karachi, fly us out to Mauripur, wait there for the Lincolns to arrive, and then we, as experienced crews, and they only took experienced crews [indecipherable] they didn’t take any new entrants at all. Why? Because we were gonna have to fly alongside the Americans based on Okinawa, to bomb Japan, and what they didn’t want was raw recruits, you know, showing up the RAF if you like, against experienced Americans. So that was the idea. Anyway, the Lincolns, some of them came out, not many, others didn’t.
DK: So you almost got to the Far East then.
BM: Yes.
DK: You got as far as…
BM: Do you want me to carry on? That gets interesting after that. So. Yes. Well, anyway. So we to Mauripur to wait for the Lincolns to arrive, and in the meantime, the American dropped the atom bomb. Now I think then, stupidly, okay pack up your bags and home. Not a bit of it! They said your demob number is down here, and we’ve got people who’ve been in Burma and India and else involved who’s demob number’s up here so they’re going home first and you’re going to stay out here until your demob number comes up. The only thing is they don’t know what to do with us, as you can imagine. You’re not bombing anyone, you’re not killing anyone: so they didn’t know what to do with us, so I won’t, I’ll spare you the in between bits, I spent three months in Mauripur, three months mark you, playing bridge. And I’ve never played bridge since: and I never will!
DK: Did you?
BM: Morning, breakfast: bridge. Tiffin, bridge, afternoon, dinner, bridge, evening, bridge back to eleven o’clock, eight thirty in the morning, bridge! And it went on like that for three months.
DK: Did you get quite good at it?
BM: Well I was, in fact I could probably have played for the country by the time I got back. However, I went down to Ceylon, I was posted to Columbo, to Number 4 Base Postal Unit, let it register with you, Base Postal Unit, in Columbo. Why was that? Because by this time I couldn’t stay as aircrew, so by this time I was remustered as clerk, general duties; and I was a postal clerk. This is funny now, because more interesting later. So I had, what did I have? I had civil training, you know, as a postal clerk, just three weeks, just to make sure that I knew what a postal clerk did I think, as much as anything. So while I was at Columbo, I was only at Columbo for four or five months, probably, about that. By that time the demob numbers got lower and lower and they said right anyone with a certain number is going up to, had been posted to India. And I was posted to Air Headquarters, Delhi, India. This is where it gets interesting. I was there for about two days and I had a message: Mountbatten wants to see you. I thought they’re having me on, you know, [chuckle] why would Mountbatten want to see me? Right, Mountbatten wanted to see me, I was ushered into the great presence, and there was Lord Louis, he said: “hello, I hear you got postal training.” I said, “well y-y-yes I have.” “Good, so you know all about this distribution of mail business.” I said, “well I know what should happen,” he said, “good, because it’s all a bloody mess out here,” he said, “we’ve got people at SEAC, South East Asia Command, who haven’t seen mail for about three months,” he said. “We need someone to take it over: you’re in charge.” Just like that.
DK: For the whole of South East Asia.
BM: For the whole of South East Asia Command. I had my own private Dakota, my own crew, and I could fly to all the outposts, you know, and check out their postal arrangements, and I was to do it on a non-stop basis, just to make sure that this was actually happening and I was attached to Mountbatten’s staff for the best part of fourteen months, doing this.
DK: Did you get a promotion out of it?
BM: I was acting Squadron Leader because I had people I was giving orders to: Flying Officers, Flight Lieutenants et cetera and so on, and I was going to an air base and saying to them, you’ve got to do this, that and the other and they would say who are you? I was Flight Sergeant, who are you, you know, to give us instructions? So I went back to Lord Louis. It’s not going to work. Why isn’t it going to work? Cause nothing as far as he’s concerned couldn’t work, you know, why isn’t it gonna work? I said well, I said if you, would you take orders from a Flight Sergeant? “Oh,” he said, “we’ll soon sort that out!” Press a bell, in came his, what do they call it? Well anyway.
DK: Aide
BM: Aid de Camp came in and he said Acting Squadron Leader. [Chuckles]
DK: There and then!
BM: Acting Squadron Leader posted to you know, South East Command, all these piss parting as he called it, all these piss parting post officers make sure they know that they’ve got an Acting Squadron Leader coming to see them, but I never was a squadron leader, after the war I thought it might stick, but it didn’t.
DK: So were you quite impressed by Mountbatten then?
BM: Yes. If you wanted someone to talk at length about Mountbatten, I could because he was an absolutely wonderful character.
DK: So do you, once you got this posting did you see a lot of him?
BM: Yes, daily basis. I tell you why – perhaps I shouldn’t talk like this about Mountbatten – but he was a rug collector, rug collector, you know. Course he had a private home, as we know, in Romsey, which he wanted to furnish, and he loved the Indian most miserable rugs - I became an expert in rugs - rugs which were twelve foot by eight in the old money, twelve foot by eight and he loved those, and I used to go round picking them up for him with transport of course, bring them back and then send them back to the UK in diplomatic mail. [Laughter] Great big packages, rolled up of course, as much as they could, and then sent back to the UK, diplomatic mail, Lord, Earl Mountbatten.
DK: So these, you were flying these back then were you?
BM: Of course! He had his own private aircraft, as you can imagine, transport.
DK: Did you ever fly with him at all anywhere?
BM: Never did. No, never did. No, I met him at airports and briefed him on things I was I was doing, and he actually briefed me on what he was doing as well: can’t stop, I’ve got to see these so and so’s, you know, blah, blah, blah. But I found him a great character, I enjoyed my time with Mountbatten.
DK: It must have been a shock then, when he was murdered.
BM: Oh, I think I felt it as much as anyone did. Tragic that was.
DK: So how long were you on his staff for?
BM: Fourteen months.
DK: And at that point did you come back to the UK?
BM: I came back to the UK just as the India, the parting of the ways you might say. Pakistan and India was being, you know.
DK: Partitioned.
BM: The things that I saw, I can tell you that I’ve been down to Delhi Station and I watched trains come in with four thousand mutilated bodies on board, when they’d been intercepted on the way from Pakistan to Delhi, and it was tit for tat. It worked the other way as well, you know. But the amount of massacres that there were, you know. Initially it was bandits robbing the trains, but then after that it became more partisan.
DK: Sectarian violence.
DM: Yes. Well, is that holding up?
DK: Yep, no, we’re okay.
BM: There was one occasion where I had to go to, down to Delhi station, rail station and, oh I know what it was, one of our drivers, RAF driver, one of - Garry’s as they were called - one of the drivers had run over what we called the mefloquine boys and these were the chaps who, skin went yellow because of constantly taking you know, tablets that turned them yellow, but they were Buddhist priests, that’s what we were thinking of, memory fails you at times, Buddhist priests, and he ran him over and killed him. And this driver was trapped, and trapped is the right word, in the station master’s office and the stationmaster phoned Air Headquarters and said I don’t know what to do, there’s a mob gathering outside and if I try to get him out, you know, we’re going to have, I’m sure, a killing on our hands. And it could get very ugly can you do something about it? Now we had on our station about thirty Gurkhas, you know. And of course we had great respect for Gurkhas, and my CO there, what was the Air Headquarters Postal Unit, said, chap called Flight Lieutenant Wesley, and Paul Wesley said take a half a dozen Gurkhas in a Garry, go to the station and this is what you do, and I’m grateful to him, he said you’ll go in and get the driver and as you come out, get the Gurkhas to beat him up, you know. So I said beat him up? One of our own blokes? And Paul said it might save his life, because if the mob see him being physically beaten, of course the Gurkhas had what they called lethis l e t h i they were sticks which were copper bound, like a quarterstaff but much shorter and they had these sticks which they all carried and if they didn’t draw their knives, you know, then they used to use these sticks and they could do a lot of damage with. So we got this chap, and I said to him bite a stiff upper lip cause you’re going to take some punishment, he said I don’t mind, I don’t mind if it’s going to save my life.
DK: He understood why as well then.
BM: So we marched him out and he made a big show of shouting and yelling and screaming as it were, you know, marched him out, and he got unceremoniously pushed in the back of the truck and the Gurkhas got in, theoretically still hitting him, but they weren’t, stopping short of actually making contact where they could and so the mob cleared, you know, and we drove through the mob. It cleared reluctantly I might say, but they accepted what they were seeing as punishment, you know, so we managed to get him, he was on the next flight back to the UK. So there was no question of tales getting back, you know, to, as to what happened. So that was that.
DK: What did you think of India at that time then? It must have been quite an amazing place in some ways.
BM: Well it was a hotbed of violence, there was absolutely no doubt about that, and I must say, that there were a lot of immature British Army officers who were giving the wrong instructions and as a result a number of people, a number of Army units fired on Indians that they shouldn’t have done, or needn’t have done, let’s put it that way and all that did of course was add to the feeling.
DK: Provoked the situation.
BM: It did, and it became very ugly. And I recall, when we, I came back from Bombay, and they had a big march of the, and it was purposely chosen that the march of all the Brits who, left in India, there weren’t many of us, about four hundred of us by this time, left, the services this is, civil service as well. We all marched to the docks with the SS Mooltan, always remember the ship, the SS Mooltan was waiting for us, but lining the whole route: Gurkhas. All the way along, about every eight feet or so, there was a Gurkha, and they must have rounded up all the Gurkhas they had, you know, left in that particular territory and they lined the route, and got us safely to, you were asking about the tension like, got us safely, you were asking about what the tension was like, got us all safely to the dockside and we got on board and came home. But we could hear the crowd al swelling and Jahin, Jahin, Jahin. “India for the Indians,” you know, that type of thing.
DK: So you were one of the last to actually leave then.
BM: We were the last.
DK: The actual last.
BM: We were the last, yes. Cause the civil servants were flown out from the airports, you know. Mountbatten of course was immune. He was giving them their country so he was okay.
DK: And is that something you look back on, in India, as, with pride, or bit of a messy period?
BM: I think it was inevitable that it happened, I think it happened too soon, my own private view and after all, after the amount of time I spent there and in the situations that I spent there, I suppose my opinion was a good as anyone’s you think about it. Cause you could analyse what was happening and take stock of the situation probably more than the average person. Yes, it happened too soon, it could have waited because the carving up of the territory, in my view, was a bit messy.
DK: And that’s what led to the massacres you [indecipherable]
BM: Because it wasn’t done properly. I don’t blame Mountbatten, because he started out with a set plan, but then the government, Labour Government in this case, drafted in some civil servants to, if you like, put the civil service stamp on it and the people they drafted in had no experience of India. But the civil servants who were there had been in India for twenty years or more. Why on earth didn’t they leave it to them. You, know. To get it right. No, they brought them home and replaced them.
DK: Those already out there would have had all the local knowledge, wouldn’t they.
BM: They were, they were. But they felt, the thinking was, that they were there, and had been there during the time of the occupation, that they would have been tarred with that brush, you know, they’d have been part of the old regime. So they thought by bringing them back and replacing them with fresh people, you know, that that wouldn’t be the case, but the fresh people just didn’t understand it.
DK: No. So you’ve come back from India then, is that when you were demobbed? Finally.
BM: Yes, I was demobbed in March I think it was, 1947. Yes.
DK: And what did you do after you left the RAF?
BM: Well, I became, initially, I became a motor mechanic because I’d had some years in light engineering motorcycles and things like this and became a motor mechanic for a very short period. Then I became a salesman with automotive parts and things like this, very much uppermost and then I went on from that to engineering, I worked for a while GKN, you know, names that you’d be familiar with, people like Firth Cleveland, GKN, Boscombe Engineering and so on. A number of light engineering to heavy engineering companies, and then I went into exports, where my German came in. And so I had some twenty nine years, I’m ninety three, so I had twenty nine years in exports.
DK: I was surprised that while you were in the RAF your knowledge of German wasn’t used a bit better. Did they know you spoke German?
BM: Oh yes, it was used, for instance when the wireless op was getting messages in German, he’d switch them through to me and say Bert, what’s this bugger talking about. [Laugh] And so I’d listen to it for a while, cause it’s easy to switch it through when you’re flying, I would listen to it for a while, I said he’s giving our position to an absolute n-th degree, you know, because he’s picking it up from that radar. We had an advanced for, at this time which was great, the GH it’s called, ground honing, you’ll know about it of course. GH had one great flaw, it also reversed the track so what happened was that you’d be picking up your position on the ground and the ground was relaying your position to the air, so you put night fighter, fighter squadrons were able to hone in on you because of your honing. So we stopped using that after a while.
DK: And did you remain in touch with your crew after the war?
BM: Yes, in fact we had a couple of reunions at our home, [number of comments in background] not here, but bigger house we had, they came.
[Other]: Was it Kent they came?
BM: Glenpronus Avenue
[Other]: Oh yes, they came there, yes.
BM: And we kept, of course, Christmas cards and bits of news and so on.
DK: You never got out to Australia to see them?
BM: Yes, we did, yes we did, but that’s when I was working for GKN. I was sent out there to sort out some things.
[Other]: We, they met us, didn’t they, at the airport.
BM: Yes. Gave us a conducted tour and when you’ve been flying for eighteen hours the last thing you want is a conducted tour of Sydney!
[Other]: We were dead tired, but we had to go!
DK: There’s no other members of your crew still alive then?
BM: No, I believe [emphasis] I’m still the only member alive.
DK: And all these years later, how do you look back on your time in Bomber Command? All the history and everything that’s gone on since.
BM: Well I think mixed feelings, you know, because obviously when you look back and you thought about what you did, and what it was all about, I think the mixed feelings are that war is useless, as far as I’m concerned war serves no purpose at all, all it does is set one person against the other and when you think of the carnage and everything else you only have to look around you now and see what’s happening in places like Yemen and so on, to realise: total destruction. But when you think about why we did it, we did it because there was a definite purpose: Hitler had to be stopped. And the RAF at that time, in my view, they took pride in what the RAF did. I was appalled, I didn’t know at the time, but I was appalled at the extent of our losses. I mean fifty six thousand, you know, just incredible. And the thing I think now, thinking back on it, they never told us the extent of our losses, had they have done so, I wonder if we’d have gone on as we did. I just wonder.
[Other]: We’ve got very good, two very good friends haven’t we, Germans. Two males.
BM: Yes. We’ve got some good friends, German friends.
DK: So your Germans friends then were alive during the war then?
[Other]: Was Siegfried alive then?
BM: No Siegfried’s younger than us. And Kurt was younger than us. Kurt was -
[Other]: An Austrian.
BM: He was an Austrian but he was part of Hitler Youth!
[Other]:Oh yes.
BM: He was fifteen and part of Hitler Youth.
[Other]: And he’s such a lovely fellow. We’ve got him. And then there’s’ Uta. My friend, and her father. Bert was bombing Germany, and he was bombing us. Isn’t it stupid.
BM: Yes, Coventry. We used to fly in opposite directions, you know. He was a navigator with Dornier 217s I think.
DK: And is he still alive?
[Other]: No, he isn’t. No.
BM: No, he’s dead.
DK: So you visited Germany quite a lot then did you?
BM: We have done. Well, I told you I did twenty nine years in exports and when you’re working for someone like GKN and Firth Cleveland you’re making frequent trips. I used to spend six months of the year, for one period particularly, six months of the year out of the country.
DK: When you were in Germany did the war ever get mentioned at all? Something spoken about?
BM: [Laughter] Occasionally. Yes. We had, it’s a funny and it’s not part of what you want, but we took a holiday in, where was that place in Itia?
[Other]: In where?
BM: Italy, that we use to go to?
[Other]: Sirmione.
DK: Lake Garda.
BM: Lake Garda, Sirmione, we took a holiday I Sirmione and in the same hotel was a German couple and they got to hear us talking and decided they’d like to make friends with the Brits. So it all started out we had dinner with them a couple of times, he then hired a boat and said I’m going to take a trip round the lake, do you want to join us and I said yes, certainly, that’s kind of you so we joined them. And off we went and beers on board and, you know, all sorts of refreshments et cetera, schnapps and what have you, and after a while what did you do in the war. So I said I flew in the RAF. Terror fliege! Terror fliege! That’s what they said. Terror fliege! I said no, not terror fliege, I did a job he was with ack ack as it turned out, so before long it was the ack-ack being revived against, you know, the terror flieges and that was a very short boat trip, all I can say! [Laugh]
[Other]: We never got on with them at all.
BM: No, we came back very quickly. They didn’t talk to us after that and we didn’t talk to them.
[Other]: But we’ve stayed friends with the others.
BM: But I’ve met up with engineers from places like Siemens and AEG and people like this and we’ve had these sorts of discussions, but generally speaking people said it’s history.
[Other]: Well we had to do it, didn’t we. I mean what else?
BM: I mean Siegfried’s a good example, we met him in Makrat, in Spain on holiday and we’ve known them ever since, in 1962 so we’ve kept that relationship going the whole time.
[Other]: And she saved me, Bert was putting, I was very badly burnt, we didn’t know what we were doing, and I was badly burnt on my back and Bert was putting oil on top and she came over, that’s how we met, she came over and knocked the bottle of the, bottle out of his hand and practically knocked you over!
BM: Put you under a cold shower.
[Other]: Picked me up and put me under a cold shower.
BM: She’s a big girl! [Laughter]
[Other]: So that was, you know, just to show that it’s.
DK: Okay that’s great, I think we’ll stop there.
BM: Have I talked too much?
DK:, No, that’s been absolutely marvellous,
BM: Are you sure?
DK: No, great. Thanks for that.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Bert Mason
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
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
2018-10-23
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
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AMasonAE181023, PMasonAE1801
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:09:22 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Bert Mason was born in Germany and worked in light engineering and driving ambulances before joining the RAF in 1942. He started training as a navigator before joining a crew and became an air gunner on 195 Squadron at Wratting Common. He tells of operations: preparing, flying, escaping searchlights and fighters and then debriefing. At the end of the war he went to India and Ceylon, working for Lord Mountbatten. After the war Bert went back to engineering, travelling all over the world.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-07
1943
1944
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
India
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Northamptonshire
Germany--Bad Oldesloe
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Anne-Marie Watson
195 Squadron
3 Group
air gunner
aircrew
Fw 190
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
navigator
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Silverstone
RAF Wigsley
RAF Wratting Common
searchlight
Stirling
Tiger force
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2293/41592/LThompsonPR1624398v1.1.pdf
a10ecc9fa7b985fa3910d4af21e4825f
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
Thompson, Peter Robert
Thompson, PR
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns Peter Robert Thompson (b. 1923, 1624398, 198100 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 195 Squadron.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mary Thompson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-14
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thompson, PR
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
Peter Thompson’s Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LThompsonPR1624398v1
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Thompson’s Log Book as Wireless Operator from 17 September 1943 until 11 July 1946. His training started at No. 2 Radio School and No. 3 Air Gunnery School. Posted to No. 4 AFU, 11 OTU, 1653 CU, 3 LFS, and 195 Squadron for operations. After the war transferred to Transport Command, 1332 HCU, 246 and 511 Squadrons.
Served at RAF Yatesbury, RAF Castle Kennedy, RAF Madley, RAF Westfreugh, RAF Oakley, RAF Westcott, RAF Chedburgh, RAF Feltwell, RAF Wratting Common, RAF Llandow, RAF Riccall, RAF Dishforth, RAF Holmsley South, RAF Lyneham.
Aircraft flown were Dominie, Proctor, Anson, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster and York.
Carried out 28 operations with 195 Squadron to Homberg, Gelsenkirchen, Neuss, Oberhausen, Hamm, Merseburg Oil Plant, Cologne, Vohwinkle, Ludwigshafen, Krefeld, Wanne-Eickel, Munchengladbach, Dortmund, Kamen, Nordstern Oil Plant, Berlin-Potsdam, Heligoland, Bremen, Bad Oldesloe. Also flew 2 Operation Manna flights and 1 Cook's Tour.
His pilots on operations were Flying Officer Evans, Flight Lieutenant Moon, Flight Lieutenant Bird and Flight Lieutenant Easterman.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-11-20
1944-11-21
1944-11-23
1944-11-29
1944-11-30
1944-12-04
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-15
1944-12-28
1944-12-31
1945-01-01
1945-01-02
1945-01-05
1945-01-06
1945-01-07
1945-01-11
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-01
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-23
1945-02-25
1945-02-28
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-14
1945-04-15
1945-04-18
1945-04-22
1945-04-24
1945-05-01
1945-05-02
1945-05-25
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Hampshire
England--Herefordshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Bad Oldesloe
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Potsdam
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wuppertal
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
Mike Connock
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain, Royal Air Force
11 OTU
1653 HCU
195 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
Dominie
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
Proctor
RAF Castle Kennedy
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Dishforth
RAF Feltwell
RAF Lyneham
RAF Madley
RAF Oakley
RAF Riccall
RAF West Freugh
RAF Westcott
RAF Witchford
RAF Wratting Common
RAF Yatesbury
Stirling
training
Wellington
wireless operator
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/776/9971/LBrittainJT2227748v1.1.pdf
fe533e91cb625c3200e59506715352f3
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
Brittain, John Taylor
J T Brittain
Description
An account of the resource
42 items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Taylor Brittain (2227748, Royal Air Force). After training as an air gunner at Morpeth and conversion and training at Silverston, North Luffenham and Feltwell, he was posted to 195 Squadron at RAF Wratting Common in February 1945 and flew on operations as a mid upper gunner on Lancaster. The collection consists of his flying logbook; official documents; letters to colleagues and his mother; photographs of people, events, places and aircraft; as well as an album concerning his boat.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Whitehouse and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brittain, JT
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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 Brittain's flying log book
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for J T Brittain, air gunner, covering the period from 20 may 1944 to 14 July 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Morpeth, RAF Silverstone, RAF Turweston, RAF Chedburgh, RAF North Luffenham, RAF Feltwell and RAF Wratting Common. Aircraft flown in were, Anson, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. He flew a total of 13 operations, 8 Daylight and 5 night, Targets were, Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen, Kamen, Wesel, Datteln, Kiel, Heligoland, Bremen. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Brown. He also flew 4 operation Manna to Rotterdam and The Hague, and 3 operation Exodus to Juvincourt.
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
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
LBrittainJT2227748v1
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
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Northumberland
England--Northamptonshire
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Suffolk
England--Rutland
England--Norfolk
England--Cambridgeshire
France--Aisne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Bremen
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Netherlands--Hague
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Juvincourt-et-Damary
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1945-02-03
1945-02-04
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-25
1945-02-27
1945-02-28
1945-03-05
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-14
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-09
1945-04-10
1945-04-18
1945-04-22
1945-04-29
1945-04-30
1945-05-02
1945-05-05
1945-05-17
1945-05-19
1945-05-23
1945-05-25
1945-06-02
1945-06-18
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.
1653 HCU
17 OTU
195 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Feltwell
RAF Morpeth
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Silverstone
RAF Turweston
RAF Wratting Common
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1320/25674/LHarrisonEW2204970v1.2.pdf
5f467d1f57572be2ae091fc75af0390a
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
Harrison, Eric William
E W Harrison
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Eric Harrison (b. 1925, 2204970 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 195 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Eric Harrison and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
2019-09-14
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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Harrison, EW
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
Eric Harrison’s RAF flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
E W Harrison’s RAF Flying Log Book for Navigators, Air Bombers, Air Gunners and Flight Engineers, from 2nd October 1944 to 12th January 1950, detailing training and operations (1944-45), and instructional duties (1948-50), as a flight engineer. He was stationed at RAF Chedburgh (1653 HCU), RAF Feltwell (3 Lancaster Finishing School), RAF Wratting Common (195 Squadron), RAF Little Rissington (Central Flying School), RAF Hullavington (Empire Flying School) and RAF Manby (RAF Flying College). Aircraft in which flown: Stirling, Lancaster I, Lancaster III, Lancaster VII, Harvard, Tiger Moth, Lancastrian, Prentice, Auster, Anson, Hastings and Lincoln II. He flew a total of 31 operations (11 night, 20 day). Targets in Belgium and Germany were: Altenbogge, Bocholt, Cologne, Dortmund, Dresden, Duisburg, Erkenschwick, Gelsenkirchen, Gneisenau, Homberg, Kamen, Kiel, Krefeld, Merseburg, Neuss, Oberhausen, Rheydt, Scholven (Buer), St Vith, Vohwinkle, Wanne Eikel, Wesel and Witten. His pilot on operations was Flight Sergeant Fitton.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Leitch
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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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
LHarrisonEW2204970v1
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
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
Belgium--Saint-Vith
Germany--Altenberge (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Bocholt
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Oer-Erkenschwick
Germany--Rheydt
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Witten
Poland--Gdynia
Germany--Wuppertal
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1948
1949
1950
1944-11-20
1944-11-21
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-08
1944-12-11
1944-12-12
1944-12-26
1944-12-27
1944-12-28
1944-12-31
1945-01-01
1945-01-06
1945-01-11
1945-01-15
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-01-22
1945-02-03
1945-02-09
1945-02-18
1945-02-19
1945-02-22
1945-03-08
1945-03-10
1945-03-12
1945-03-17
1945-03-22
1945-03-27
1945-04-09
1945-04-13
1653 HCU
195 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lancastrian
Lincoln
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Feltwell
RAF Hullavington
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Manby
RAF Wratting Common
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1912/36078/LBrittainJT2227748v1.1.jpg
35c1d4fb5c5cbacc6a0650d20038c313
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
Hayhurst, Jose Margaret
J M Hayhurst
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
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Hayhurst, JM
Description
An account of the resource
108 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Jose Margaret Hayhurst (2073102 Royal Air Force) and contains decorations, uniform, documents and photographs. She served as a radar operator in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Whitehouse 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
Log Book Extract
Description
An account of the resource
A summary at the end of John Brittain's log book detailing which units he served and which aircraft were flown.
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. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two printed sheets with handwritten annotations
Identifier
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LBrittainJT2227748v1
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
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
1653 HCU
17 OTU
195 Squadron
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Operational Training Unit
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Feltwell
RAF Morpeth
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Silverstone
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1083/11541/APriceSTG151001.1.mp3
1421d71d473b33c64ebc651fe2bbf2aa
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
Price, Sam
Samuel Thomas Gwynne Price
S T G Price
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Sam Price (b. 1925, 1819421 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 195 and 35 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Price, STG
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
IL: Recording on the 1st of October 2015 at the home of Gwyn Price in Colerne in Wiltshire and Ian Locker conducting the interview. Right, Gwyn tell us a little bit about your early life and how you joined, how you became involved in Bomber Command.
SGP: Yeah. I was born in 1925 so we’re talking about some seventy odd years ago when I did my first operation. So, although the mind is reasonably clear and I’ve had a look at things we really have to go back and give you the background. My rural background. Farming community. No — no electricity, no gas, no water, no sewage. Everything done on the range. But plenty of food and not an unhappy life. A very happy life in fact and I feel that with my later experiences that you make the most of what you’ve got and it was an ideal start because there was a determination to keep one foot going in front of the other if nothing more. I was always interested in flying and my main aim was to become a pilot in the Royal Air Force. I enjoyed the —
IL: What sort of age was that Gwyn? Sorry.
SGP: Well, when I was about fifteen — Grammar School ATC. I joined the Grammar School ATC and actually did all my proficiency exams. Did better at that than my academic subjects and became a flight sergeant which was a bit unusual to get that high. So I was then committed to join the Royal Air Force. And when I became seventeen and a quarter I, without anybody knowing I shot off to Birmingham for interviews and hoping to be a pilot. But the situation then was such, this is ’43, there were a lot of pilots being turned out and so I was offered a flight engineer. Which, in retrospect was a very good place to be because I eventually ended up on Lancasters and sat in the right hand seat and did a lot of flying and all the rest of it but — so there I was accepted as a flight engineer in 1943. Because of my age I was deferred until I was eighteen and a quarter which was the 7th of January 1944. And then my world, you have to — from a rural background, never really been out of the county very much, very quiet and laid back and shot into London for all my pre-RAF equipping and inoculations and films on sexual behaviour. People fainting all over the place [laughs] And some people fainting with the sign of a needle. And we suffered all through that and then went off to Newquay to start our initial training which was a three months course initiating us into the history and the aims of the Royal Air Force and the background. Plus all the navigation, engineering and all sundry things. Plus physical exercise. Lots of, beautiful down in Newquay. Very, got very fit. Sitting on the side of the cliff there breaking down Bren guns and things like that. And eventually came out. By this time I think we were beginning to feel a little bit like servicemen. And so then I went off to St Athan for my engineer training. Flight engineer training which was a six months course. And this was extremely complicated in you, you went from talking about engines from the autocycle right the way through to Rolls Royce, Merlin, V12s plus all the, the other equipment. Electrical engine, hydraulics. Oxygen. All the other systems in the aircraft and I eventually decided I wanted to be in a Lancaster because the Lancaster engineer sits by the side of the pilot and I felt then I would have a good chance to get some flying in. So, I passed out in October, practically on my birthday, nineteen year old birthday in 1944. And then shot off to do a little bit of Anson training. About ten hours. A little pilot training on the Anson before I then joined up and went to the Heavy Conversion Unit, Lancaster Heavy Conversion Unit to start my training as, on the job as it were, as a flight engineer. I then only did, let me, I should go back and say that passing from a cadet to a sergeant flight engineer my pay went up from three shillings a day to twelve shillings a day which was a ginormous jump. I’d always been a saving man and I sent a shilling a day, sorry. Yeah, a shilling a week home and saved that so I had a car at the end of the war. But there you go. So, we’re on our way. Flight engineer training. I did twenty four hours training as a flight engineer and then I was then considered fit to join a crew. And this was very, for a poor old engineer you had the boys coming in with their crews already formed, flying Wellingtons, pre-Lancasters, where seven crew were required. And the engineers sat like wall flowers on the side waiting for a crew to say, ‘He looks a decent sort of chap.’ ‘He looks like he might be sensible,’ or whatever. And I didn’t get picked for a while. I think I was probably too good looking actually [laughs] They didn’t want, they didn’t want any, they wanted a dour, down to earth engineer who would sort things out. Eventually this big Aussie, God he was big. Bob Newbiggin. Big Aussie. About six foot five and huge. He was the surf swimmer for Australia. He was in the “Guinness Book of Records” eight consecutive years. He was surf champion of Australia. A lovely chap. And he looked at me and the rear gunner was a bit older than the rest. A bit, he had a bit more savvy. He said, ‘Well I think he looks alright.’ [laughs] And I said, ‘Well, you look alright.’ So, so this Bob Newbiggin’s crew was formed. And then off we went and we did only thirty three hours training as a crew before we started our operations. We were declared fit for operational service which, when you think about it was not very much. After serving the Royal Air Force and flying about, nearly five thousand hours afterwards I realise how green we were at the time and, but how we managed despite that to cope with the difficult situations.
IL: So, had Bob Newbiggin and the rest of the crew been flying together for a while or were they — ?
SGP: They had, they’d only been on Wellingtons and formed a crew. They’d only probably done about fifty hours together.
IL: Right.
SGP: As a crew. So that formation but they had in fact had that advanced experience that I hadn’t had so I had to fit in with these other chaps you know.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And I’d better say a little bit about myself. I used to read my bible every day which was a bit, the lads used to say, ‘Are you coming?’ I’d say, ‘No. I’ve got my scripture reading to do today.’ [laughs] And I didn’t drink very much at the time. I was a good boy. That changed a bit later on but, so anyway we all got on very well and then, in fact we were posted to 195 Squadron at Wratting Common in Suffolk.
IL: Right.
SGP: A beautiful area but of course we were at the — 1944, the winter was severe. We had snow on the ground and there was icing everywhere and it was really, really difficult. And we were living in Nissen huts. Metal huts. Yeah. You know N number, about twenty in a room. Two whacking great stoves burning coke and coal. Absolutely red hot. Talk about health and safety. It just hadn’t come in to being in 1944. They would have gone mad then. The thing would have never got off the ground. Anyway, we were comfortable enough in our way you know. And we were then waiting for our first operation. So, on the 14th of December we were and I’ll go through the operational briefing which was very important. So we’d all go down to the briefing room. Already equipped. And sometimes you’d be selected for a flight and sometimes you wouldn’t. And you would have the CO and all the navigation, signaller, engineer leaders, gunner leaders, all there briefing on any particular trip on any facets that might affect the individual crew members. And a big curtain. A curtain was drawn. Secrecy was tight until then. The curtain was drawn and then you were given a target for the night. Well, it was so vague actually I haven’t even got the name of the target. First target. But because we got half way across, got airborne, fully laden, half way across the North Sea and it was aborted so we had to drop our bombs in the sea and return saying, ‘Oh.’ Oh. Amazing that we were feeling miserable that we hadn’t gone and completed our first operation. Which gives you an idea of the calibre of the people and their attitude to the war.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: We would, we then and now I have no regrets about what I did. And I think when you think about the way the Germans indiscriminately bombed our cities. You had your V bombs. You had your doodlebugs. There was no way that they could be targeted specifically at military targets. It was just pattern bombing. So we never felt any regret about this. Either then or now. And so we were a bit miserable on that occasion. A little bit post the briefing. You then, you had to go. The navigator would plot out his route. Because every, every aircraft was planned to operate individually which was very important. And then the signaller and myself and everybody else would be all briefed in the briefing room. And then the old truck used to come round, pick us up and drop us off at the dispersal point. And this particular one was a daylight flight and my role after all the crew went in the aircraft up the rickety old ladder that we had into the aircraft I would have to go around and check everything. Check all the things were tight. No, no cowlings aren’t loose or anything of that sort. No leaks. All the de-icing paste on the leading edge of the wings and the props was all done. So that we were all ready. And then I do say this and it’ll cause a laugh. You had, always had a last pee on the tail wheel before you went in, for good luck. So I did that and away we went. And then the crew did all the starting up procedures and everything else and pre-flight checks which were very thorough and then eventually taxi-ing out with all the other aircraft and you’d get your green light from the caravan at the end of the runway and away you’d go. And when you think about it we were probably laden with about two thousand seven hundred and fourteen gallons of fuel plus about twenty thousand pound of bombs, four thousand pound plus two fifties and that sort of thing. And so sometimes you were scratching a bit when you were getting off but then away you went and then you were individually working your way to the target. Now, in daylight it wasn’t too bad because you obviously could see people most of the time if the weather was fine and you could obviously avoid them. We did have a system to confuse the enemy radar where we’d drop what we called Window and they were long metal strips in packages. We’d throw, put them through the chute and they would spread all over the air below.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And confuse the radar. But the only trouble with that is that in daylight you could see these piles in front of you and they would tend to get in the, in the oil cooling radiators and overheat the engines. So you’d do the up and down, up and down until the crew said, ‘No. No more.’ [laughs] you know, ‘No more. We can’t have any more of this.’ Anyway, that was a little bit of an aside. So, at night and I’ll go through at night because —
IL: So, because, because presumably most of, most of your operations were night time because obviously Bomber Command was doing the night time.
SGP: Exactly.
IL: And the Americans were doing the daytime.
SGP: Exactly.
IL: Weren’t they?
SGP: Yeah.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: We did a lot of daylight over France supporting the army on the second front and all that sort of thing. So we did quite a lot of daylight ones as well but the majority of them were night.
IL: So were you fighter escorted during the daytime?
SGP: No.
IL: You were on your own.
SGP: Only the, only the Americans had escorts. They had N number of guns, God knows how many fighter escorts and they carried very little, very little in the way of bomb load.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: But Flying Fortresses [laughs]
IL: Yeah.
SGP: There was a song about that but I won’t go into it.
IL: Is it a rude one? [laughs]
SGP: Carrying a teeny weeny bomb. Anyway, the night trips, you can imagine you would take off in a stream, one after the other and then you’d all be heading your own way. Planning your own trip. And so, what happened then if you were in heavy cloud, you’re getting iced up, ice was flying off the propellers on to the fuselage, cracking on the fuselage, and St Elmo’s Fire flashing around. All these sort of things were new to us and I was always concerned about temperatures of engines and things like that. But then you, the thing you have to remember is we didn’t have any naked lights in the aircraft. All the, all the instruments, flying instruments were just luminous dials and with the background a little bit of radium light. And they, I I used a little torch with a pinpoint light from it to do all my logs for the fuel consumptions and all the rest of it. And the navigator was in a blacked out little cabin there behind with his light on the desk. So there was absolutely no light in the aircraft. Absolutely black. So there was no light in the other aircraft either. So you wouldn’t see them. The only thing you would see are the exhaust flames and suddenly you would see exhaust flames and you wouldn’t be too far away then. And some of them were very close. And if they were navigating to get there on time some were probably a little bit ahead so it would be crossing the main stream to be back on time. This sort of thing. So, it was pretty hazardous and if the cloud, you were being iced up and the turbulence was bad and all that sort of thing it was pretty — that’s one of the biggest things was to look out. Just keep the eyes peeled. So, so that gives you a little bit of background of what it was like at night. And I might as well get on now to the difference because at night you’d be flying along in darkness and suddenly the target area would be as light as day. Lit up by fires, by all the flares put down by the Pathfinders and everything that was going on. And you could see all the other aircraft flying around, all the bombs coming down and you’d unfortunately see some aircraft being hit at the time and going down. That sort of thing. And all the stuff coming up as well. I shall never ever forget what it was like ever because it was so surreal. You, you’d go from total blackness into this light and you’d think everybody, you could see everybody you know and it was very unreal, but [pause] So we got our next flight. Let me have a [pause] was, was on the 24th . We did a flight to Bonn and this was heavily defended and we were well tasked, you know, to experience what I’ve just told you about. Both the night flying and the difficulties and also the light over the target area.
IL: So, Bonn was your first night flight?
SGP: Yes. Yeah. And I’ve gone over the [pause] we completed that trip without any trouble and then went on to —
IL: You say it was heavily defended so, you know. Do you mean sort of flak, or —?
SGP: Oh yes.
IL: Fighters? Or —
SGP: Oh yeah. Flak. I didn’t, we didn’t personally see any fighters.
IL: Right.
SGP: Except on one which I’ll tell you later.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Because that was a bit close. But I suppose we had two major problems. One was a little bit later on over Kiel. No. Can I just have that for a minute —
IL: Oh yes. Please do. Please do.
SGP: Yeah.
[pause]
IL: Do you want me to pause for a second.
SGP: Yeah. Pause.
[recording paused]
SGP: We completed five further operations in six days. And the last one to a place called Vohwinkel. And we were, came back to base. The cloud was thick down to base so we were diverted to East Moor in Yorkshire. And I just want you to picture N number of aircraft all being diverted to East Moor. All stacked at five hundred foot intervals up to over twenty thousand feet. All desperately trying to get in and land and the weather wasn’t very good there either. So, we found ourselves in these orbits. Carrying on orbit, orbit, orbit until you were gradually coming down five hundred feet at a time and eventually you were the one five hundred, just five hundred feet and you were then in to land. And they got us down very well. But I thought about it. We’re in this cloud, continuously in cloud all the time but just going on instruments flying around in the orbit and if anybody had had an altimeter wrong or something like that only five hundred foot is the difference between the heights. But anyway, we landed ok and the next thing wasn’t so good. East Moor had only been given a short notice of us arriving. So, we’d had quite a long trip of about six hours. A bit tired out and a bit wound up with the, being diverted and having the towering let down procedure thing. And we arrived in our little huts and all they’d done, God bless them was to put piles of blankets on each bed. With no heat or anything. So [laughs] so we had to make the most of it. And that was the calibre of people we had those days. I should really go back to the beginning because I missed it out at the start. We came from a generation where we had great respect for the history of the country and our, what we’d done throughout the world. And that was still there then in the 44’s. We were very much in respect of the monarchy and the parliamentary democracy that we had and to the extent that even if you were at home we used to stand up when the national anthem was played. So, coming from that background it was a place in history that we accepted and we took it on for the, for everybody really. Because it was in defence of our country which we loved, you know. So, going back that gives you a little bit of a feeling for how we felt at the time. But after the, after the Vohwinkel one we completed eleven operations and then we were selected for the Pathfinder force. Well, we all thought, we were asked if we would be happy to go and we said, Bob said, the pilot said he’d be happy so we all decided we’d be happy to go to the Pathfinders. And then [pause] the, we, we went on our first flight which was a trip to Duisburg. As a Pathfinder. Now, the Pathfinder situation was that you had to go down to about eight thousand. That sort of height. Master bombers sometimes went lower than that and he circled continuously so their problem, they had a bigger problem than us. But we would go down and at least circle the target twice at something like eight thousand feet. So, what you had was, you had things coming up and you also had rather lethal things coming down from all our, the main force going through in their hundreds, sort of thing. Dropping bombs. In fact, our last squadron we had one tail turret taken off by a four thousand pound bomb. Clean straight off but the aircraft got back to base but the poor old gunner didn’t, obviously. So, and we circled around a couple of times and buffeted around. Anyway, we got our flares away because you’d, what you did was you identified the target where the flares were and then re-centred them on the, on the coloured lights that were down on the ground. And we did that a couple of times and we tore off home. A little bit wondering whether we’d done the right thing by going on the Pathfinders side [laughs]
IL: So how many, for a raid how many Pathfinders? Just the one or —
SGP: Oh no.
IL: For each squadron.
SGP: No. You had quite a lot.
IL: Right.
SGP: You had a master bomber.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Who would be there, technically going there and identifying the target and putting down the, the first indicators and then the main force would drop on those indicators. And then you had what they call visual centre’ers who’d come along and replenish the flares so that the rest of the force coming through would have a target to aim for. If it was, the weather was bad and you couldn’t identify the target you had a visual, a marker chap who would have his H2S equipment to identify it through the cloud and then put what they called Wanganui flares. And they would be suspended in the air and you would drop on those.
IL: Right.
SGP: Which was, subsequently these sort of things were done more by the Mosquito because they had Gee and the navigational equipment that was more accurate. And they would be up at, say twenty eight thousand feet. Above everything really. And they would drop their markers accurately on, it was worked out on Gee and they would drop their markers. And that was very accurate. They, they did a lot of that towards the end of the war. But, so, so we, we completed that and the next thing is after five more operations we were over Kiel and we dropped our bombs and immediately we were locked on by three, coned by three searchlights. And we were totally blinded. Couldn’t see a thing. Absolutely unbelievable. Well, Bob then, he went like a maniac and we, we went down and out and around and whoa, and we ended up, we got away from them and we ended up over Kiel harbour and it was amazing. It was almost like heavenly sent as it were in that we went from chaos in one minute, light and chaos and then immediately to peace and tranquillity. And we were only, we were down to five thousand feet by this time and we felt a bit vulnerable sitting there on our own, you know, with no — so I wasn’t too keen on saving any fuel that night so it was full bore and away. But we got away with it and that was up to Bob. He did, he did a marvellous job and I was standing up at the front looking to see what was going on. And that was, so that was that. That was probably our most frightening experience. And then, almost our last flight we were on, enroute to Bayreuth and we suddenly had a Junkers 88, head on, come over the top and nearly took our canopy off. It was so obvious it was a Junkers when it was overhead. And the noise and he was gone and what I said in my little book was we didn’t know whether he had run out of ammo, was short of fuel, was tired and realised the war was nearly over, and thought we’d give them a fright but we won’t damage our aircraft. So we got away with that. I mean he could have taken off our canopy off.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Without any trouble at all, you know. And we were a bit apprehensive about that. Whether he was going to come back or not but he never did so we went ahead and completed the target.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: Then on the 24th of April the CO asked for volunteers for a flight engineer on a crew where they had lost their engineer. And it was to drop medical supplies to prisoners of war in a place called New Wittenberg. And I said I’d go. So the crew said, ‘Don’t go Gwyn. You know what happens when you have an odd bod in the aeroplane. Nine times out of ten you get clobbered.’ And anyway, I was a bit pig-headed I suppose and I said, ‘Ok I’ll go.’ We were in fact told, the war wasn’t over then, we were told that there was a, the Germans wouldn’t in fact attack us on the way. Well it turned out there was three aircraft involved and I was in one of them. And we went across Germany. Lovely night. Clear blue sky. Not blue skies, moonlit sky at about five thousand feet. Quietly going across, found the target, dropped all our supplies on the target and then came back without any problem at all. In fact, I did a lot of the flying that night actually but, which was a good experience. And then that was it really. That was my last trip of the war. And —
IL: So you were still a flight engineer at that point?
SGP: I was still a flight engineer. I was at, I became a [pause] I got accelerated promotion. In fact, I would have been, I was on the list for a commission and then the war ended and that was the end of that. But I was a warrant officer at the, at the end of the war. And so that was the end. I should like to say that I’ve always said that the lads who went ahead of us were flying in inferior aircraft. Not good navigational equipment. Not able to get the heights and that that we got and operated under extreme difficulties compared with us. We had a really good aeroplane. Good navigational equipments and carrying a good load of bomb. But the point I’m trying to make is that even on the last day of the war we lost a crew. And he was a very well decorated man. He was in headquarters and he came down to the squadron, booked himself out to do a trip and he picked up all his men. They were all in the eighty, ninety operations and he, they decided they would have this last op but they got shot down and all died.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: Right at the end of the war. And I mean, you know so there was no safe operations.
IL: No. Absolutely.
SGP: And so that was it. That was my, my sort of war if you like. And after that I’ll go into the post —
IL: Oh no. I —
SGP: War era.
IL: Just, you’ve obviously you know, as a crew you became, I understand that, you know crews became very close. Tell me about the rest of the crew.
SGP: Yeah. I think we were, we were all very quiet. Nothing —
IL: Even the Australian?
SGP: Yeah. Yeah. Bob. Yeah. Well you did have a little bit where you had Bob was an officer and we were other ranks. The navigator was an officer and the bomb aimer was an officer. And the rest of us were other ranks. So there wasn’t the same sort of get together.
IL: Right.
SGP: Although we did get together. We had fine times but we were all very quiet crew and we operated together as a crew very well. Really well. Without making a fuss about it, you know.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Just getting on. Getting on with the job. And I think that’s the point I’d always make. People ask me were you ever frightened? And do you know I was only frightened if I had a fuel calculation wrong or the oxygen was queer or the hydraulics or something or this and that. You were so involved with the operation, your own operation that nothing else mattered really. You had to, I suppose that was the responsibility of both the crew and to the operation itself that you felt like that which seemed to put everything else to one side. I can’t say that ever, even when we were crashing all over the sky over Kiel with the searchlight on us I didn’t, I didn’t feel any fear then. I think, was it because we were too green to be, to have fear? Because everything was new and was to some degree was quite exciting actually. I don’t know. A lot of people go, go and say they were frightened actually but I will, I will say one thing. As a crew you have all you boys up the front and your two gunners down the back. One mid-upper gunner and one tail gunner. Now, we always felt sorry for the tail gunner. He was out on his own. His, he was away from the centre of gravity of the aeroplane and the centre of pressure and whatever. So everything we did with the aeroplane it would be accentuated back there. I don’t know how he managed to draw beads when you were doing a corkscrew on an aircraft coming in is anyone’s business. And what he did on the night that we were flying all over the sky trying to get out the searchlights I don’t know but he quite got on with it. But we always felt that the rear gunner was a bit special because, one he’d be stuck in the tiniest little cockpit. A little area. Doors behind him. And that was it. He was in there. And he’d have an electrically heated suit. Sometimes he was burning on one side and freezing on the other. Icicles. Condensation. Unbelievable. I mean we did a couple of eight hour trips to the eastern front and he’d be sitting there for, well it would be longer than the eight, the actual flight times were eight hours. By the time you got in and got all your checks done and everything else you were talking about another eight and a half hours or more. Which is a heck of a long time to be sitting in that, those conditions. And so we always felt a little bit sorry for him. By and large we were, we had a reasonably heated environment in the cockpit and from the ground up at night we were always on oxygen. Daylight we went on about ten thousand. But it was reasonably comfortable and we had a nice bottle with a chromium plate with a little lid on the top where we could have a pee if we wanted. And I’ll tell you a funny thing.
IL: For eight hours you need it.
SGP: I’ll tell you a funny thing. Bob, our skipper was desperate for a pee about halfway across one trip. So I said, ‘Ok Bob. I’ll hand you the bottle.’ And if you can imagine, apart from having long johns on, flying suits on, parachute harness on, seat harness on, trying to organise yourself to cope with that. And he tried desperately. In the end, as I said in my little book I think he must have tied it in a knot but he never said anything about it afterwards [laughs] So, no. We, we I think we were always good friends. And I mean I still call the, Frank, the signaller, but he’s not well at all now. He’s older. He’s about ninety three now.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: And he’s just been taken into hospital. He had a fall. And he’s the only one I know who’s alive. And I was looking at the goodwill tour which I’ll talk about later on because they were things that happened later on. I was looking in the book and there was a little note there from a P Farmer and she was the wife of our, our Farmer in the back cockpit. And she’d seen the name Jack Stratten, who was a Newfoundlander, bomb aimer, who flew with us.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And she’d seen his name mentioned. She was writing to this chap to see if he was the chap who flew with Bob Newbiggin and Eddie Farmer the, her husband, who had unfortunately died. And she was trying to get, I only looked, I only found that last night and I’ve been trying to pick up the threads ever since and Frank’s the only one that I’ve been able to contact. So that’s sad you know. Because we did [pause] but I suppose in a way we took it in our stride. I I took the whole thing in my stride and I had a longer term ambition to stay in the Air Force. The rest, none of the rest of the crew stayed and they all went back to civilian life. So, I had plans to be a pilot and so my next, I’ll go through, have a little break. I’ll go through my next period of service.
IL: Yeah. That would be —
SGP: After we’ve had a little break. It’s getting a bit hot in here.
IL: Yeah. It is actually. Might have to open the door for a second. Just, just suspending the recording.
[recording paused]
SGP: Rather than talk about military matters and flying and all the hazards associated with that you want to know a little bit about my personal background. And I’d like to put on tape my wife and I and our association for over sixty five years of married life recently. And it started off when she was evacuated from Liverpool to Herefordshire and was evacuated to my little village of Eardisland. It’s a lovely little chocolate box village of Eardisland. Very quiet. Nothing ever happens. And so she came down and then I eventually went off to start my service with the Air Force. And eight years later I was home on leave. I was actually taking part in the tug of war match for the local village and Muriel and her friend came down. And the, one of the neighbours who knew her said, ‘You know that’s Gwyn Price?’ She said, ‘Oh no. It can’t be him. He looks too young.’ [laughs] Which was always a problem I’ve had actually [laughs] And anyway what happened was we just chatted a little bit together and then there was an outing laid on by the village for a bus to go to a local village to a dance. And I didn’t know this but I turned up in my bow tie and everything else at the bus stop and immediately walked in behind Mu as I call her and sat down by her side. And from that moment on we never left each other, you know. The moment was done and the die was cast. And what I found out later was a friend of mine had actually bought the ticket to take Muriel. And I don’t know but I didn’t feel too bad about that actually [laughs] And after two years and I was on my way to, we courted for about two years and then I was on my way to Singapore and I said, ‘Well, we must get married.’ And the Air Force didn’t recognise you were married until you were twenty five. So, I actually bucked the rules and married just before I was twenty five. And so we were married and that’s the, that’s the start of our married life. And I’ll go to our association. From then on she became an Air Force wife. And we would never be anywhere without our wives because we spend so much time away from home. And I’ll go through all the times I’ve been away. And months on time. And they’re there running the home, looking after the kids, organising everything, looking after finances. Everything. And without a good wife it wouldn’t last which proved its point. So that’s my little bit of fill in. Social life in the middle of my Air Force history. Can I go on now to the —
IL: Oh yes. Please do.
SGP: The next point really is I’d completed twenty eight operations with, eleven with the main force and sixteen with the Pathfinders and then on the 24th of April, before the end of the war — no. Sorry. I beg your pardon. Not the 24th of April. On the 30th of April, before the war was peacefully declared we were geared to drop supplies to the Dutch people who had been starving under the Germans. They were really, they were eating rats and tulip bulbs and everything else and they were really, really in a bad way. Well, hundreds of RAF aircraft, Lancasters were filled up with food. Not any parachutes or anything like that. Just filled in the bomb bays filled with food. And we were, planned to do this and on the 30th of April we carried out an operation out at, in Holland. And I shall never forget this because we came in low from the sea at about a hundred feet and lo and behold there was a little hillock on the coastline and we couldn’t believe it. There were Dutch people there waving flags. Kids and everything else. Waving. And we could see the German soldiers standing there with their rifles down below. And you know, they obviously knew it was over then but we came in and dropped our supplies and then, that was known as Operation Manna. The Manna from Heaven. And ever since then there’s been this association with the Dutch people and the people who operated on Operation Manna and I’ve been there and feted by the Dutch people. I’m talking about fifty years later. And people, old people would come up, put their arms around you and cry. It was so dramatic that they were in desperate straits. The other important thing is and I think this is a reflection on our teaching in the schools. The youngsters were all taught this and were involved in carrying on this knowledge and this history, historical period. And I found that interesting because I find that even my own children are lacking in knowledge of World War Two and what was happening and who was doing what and where. And there’s a general feeling that the British Empire never did any good. And I really do feel strongly about that because I just ask one question. Can you name me one colonial power that was, one colonial nation that’s better off since the colonists went? Is this racist?
IL: No. No.
SGP: I don’t think it is because I’m, I’m rebutting what kids feel and what they generally feel today. What did we give to India? We gave the railways, we gave them a diplomatic service and we gave them the English language. Now, where would the Indian nation be without the English language? I don’t think they’d be as far ahead as they are. I know that they have got their social problems. They’ve got their peaks and lows in terms of riches and poorness but I do, I do have a bee in my bonnet about what we did. And I’ll say a bit more about that when we go to the Congo when I was with the United Nations in the Congo war. So we, we did our drop and Operation Manna was something that’s lived on in the memory of the Dutch people and it also was for us, was very emotional. We’d been dropping bombs on the Germans. Then suddenly we saw how the Dutch people ignored the sentries and were standing out there waving their flags and I thought, and the kids and everything. I thought it was very emotional for us. We felt really very emotional about it and very pleased to be able to help them. And talking about the food supplies because we were all free dropped on the ground. And they talk about the margarine and the sugar and all the rest of the stuff that came down. Scrape it off the grass or whatever. They were so appreciative and that’s stuck on. I mean, we’re talking now, they’re still, in fact doing it you see. Appreciating it and thanking us for it. But so that was Operation Manna and then we had all these hundreds of bombers. Lancaster bombers and we were totally employed then on bringing back our POWs from all over the place. From Belgium, Italy. We had Bari in the south. We had Naples. Pomigliano was the airport there at Naples. And we were in and out. Hundreds of aircraft on the undertaking and we could only carry twenty or so people and they were all sitting on the, on the metal floor in the cockpit. But I probably shouldn’t say this but we used to take Italian prisoners of war out and then bring our own boys back. And I won’t say what the treatment, how the treatment differed between the two because I’d probably be had up.
IL: Oh you wouldn’t. So how did it? How did it differ?
SGP: Well we gave our boys blankets and comforters and we also stayed at a reasonable height where they wouldn’t suffer from an oxygen lack or anything like that [laugh] We were naughty then but of course we were, we were getting over the war actually. It had been a trying period. And the other thing we did apart from all this, carrying all the troops around that was great because we felt we were humanly doing something very important. And we’d get our boys up in to the cockpit and if they were coming back and to see the white cliffs of Dover after four or five years of prisoner of war camp was too much. They all broke down without exception and it was very [pause] but they were so happy as well and had to work it out that way but so that was that and so, that was that. Then we amalgamated with 156 Squadron and primarily to represent Bomber Command in all the celebrations that one does after a war. The Victory Day fly past over London. The VJ day flypast. The Battle of Britain flypast. So we had twelve Lancaster aircraft in white and doing formation flying over these cities. And then we were, we were then ready to go to the good will tour of America. And so we took off from Graveley which was our base in Huntingdon, near Huntingdon and shot off via St Mawgan to the Azores, Newfoundland and then all around America. From right down from, from New York to Colorado to California to Texas. Washington. Giving exhibition.
IL: So was this with the same crew? With the same crew that you’d had?
SGP: We only had the amalgamation of the 156 and 35 didn’t come without its pain because obviously some people, they only wanted half of each squadron.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And we lost everyone except myself and my rear gunner. And the navigator came with us as well. So there was three of us on our crew. And we had another pilot who, in fact was then a Flight Lieutenant Harris who was an ex-master bomber pilot.
IL: Right.
SGP: A very good pilot. And so we joined up with him and flew all around the States. And had a very good time. They feted us but I don’t know whether I should put this in but we found, this is talking about 1946 we are talking about how parochial they are. They read their local papers but their international knowledge and even knowledge of World War Two was unbelievably bleak and barren if you like and they were, you know, they were, amazed to see people, other people who had actually been involved in the war other than the Americans. And this was something that we weren’t very comfortable about because I mean we always get the state where the Americans win the war but they, they’re load of bombs dropped was much less than we dropped. And they also — are you were getting near to the end of your tape?
IL: No.
SGP: Ok.
IL: I’m just checking.
SGP: Yeah. We all get blamed for targets that shouldn’t have been bombed. You know what I’m talking about.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: But the Americans also had a daylight bombing of that, of there as well. I can’t think of the name at the moment. I can’t remember. I’ve gone a bit queer. But so that was one thing about the American tour that I was a bit, we were a bit shaken by really because I mean we were so involved with the war the whole people, the whole nation had been subjected to all this bombing and everything else and the terror attacks and what have you. The Americans didn’t have any of that.
IL: No.
SGP: They didn’t have any of it. All they got was their films and their propaganda, you know. Then of course on the lease lend they made sure the British empire wouldn’t last forever.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: And this went on but I mean that’s a side issue which maybe is my view rather than anything else so.
IL: Just one, just on the war so how do you personally feel about this lack of recognition that you’ve had? Not you personally but, you know —
SGP: No. No.
IL: That Bomber Command has had.
SGP: I should, I will stick my neck out and be quite positive about this in that we only have one man to blame for that and he’s the honoured man Winston Churchill. Winston gave Arthur Harris, Bomber Harris, our great bomber commander the authority to break the will of the German people and Arthur Harris went out and we helped to do that. At the end of the war Churchill didn’t want to know. It was bad publicity to have this hanging around his neck. So, Bomber Command and including Bomber Harris and our Pathfinder chief, none of them were awarded at all. They weren’t given proper recognition and we felt very bad about that because they were, they were good commanders and we thought the world of them. And I think politically it wasn’t, it wasn’t to his liking you know to pursue that glorification if you like, in brackets again, of the war effort by the, by ourselves. That I think has pursued us down the years until we had the Memorial in Green Park which is —have you been there?
IL: I haven’t but I —
SGP: It’s a marvellous Memorial. It’s late but it’ll stand the test of time. It’s wonderful. The architecture. The setting. Everything about it. And I went to a political party meeting recently and I suppose I told the MP there. I said, I had a little bit of a go at him on this because it was not only Winston Churchill but every other prime minister since then. They ignored it. And he said, ‘But we did give you money.’ I said, ‘But nothing like enough to cover the cost.’ It was all done by voluntary subscription. And so I don’t even pinch any glory from that side of it, you know. It’s a political argument. I think it was lost and I do feel strongly about that and I think all my friends do as well.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: Who served at that time. But better late than never and another one is coming up in Lincoln.
IL: Yes. Well tomorrow.
SGP: Which will be good. Yeah. I was hoping to be there actually but you coming in the [laughs] No. It wasn’t that actually. It was a little bit longer. The journey was a problem in itself and it’s a day, it would have probably have taken two days or something. But I’m sorry I’ve not been there, you know. But so that’s what I felt about that. So then I left the squadron and I did a flight engineer’s instructors course. I did a little bit of flying as a screened engineer and then went on and flew about fifty hours on the Lincoln which is the bigger version of the Lancaster. And then the phone call came, ‘You’ve been selected to go for tests for a navigator or pilot.’ And so I went down there and went through about a week of pretty strict physical and mental tests. And then we were all brought out on the parade ground and we were also, I was hoping I wouldn’t be a navigator. I couldn’t stand that. Anyway, I was picked as a pilot. I was selected as a pilot so my day was made and my aim was achieved. I still had to qualify. Go through all the tests and pilot training etcetera but from that moment on I was happy and I started my pilot training and —
IL: Did you, so did you train on the Lincoln?
SGP: No. No. No.
IL: Right.
SGP: We started, oh gosh I started on the only aircraft I think that has ever been, that I would really call an aeroplane. That’s the Tiger Moth. Because it was such fun. And I mean we used to sit up there with our heads out in the winter with the scarves around and the goggles on hanging from your straps in the freezing air. Cutting your engine. Then doing vertical dives to start the engine again. All that sort of thing. It was a fun aeroplane. The only thing was it wasn’t like the Stampe aeroplane which is like a Tiger Moth which the French have.
IL: Yes.
SGP: And that had an automatic [pause] Oh God. [pause] Carburettor. Carburettor sorry, which would allow it to turn upside down and still fly. Keep the engine going where the Tiger Moth would cut out straight away. If you were upside down too long it would just cut out. But no that was a fun aeroplane. So we, we started on that and did quite a number of hours on the Tiger Moth and then we went on to the Harvard. And the Harvard was a wonderful aeroplane too. A wonderful trainee aeroplane and eventually with all the hard work we had nine months of solid training and then you’re going through everything from meteorology to navigation to everything, you know and plus all the tests and everything else. Plus all the flying. It’s quite a, quite a tough, a tough course. Anyway, I eventually passed out and they decided that I would be more a transport man. So I was, I started training on the Wellington which was the old wartime aeroplane with geodetic construction and all the rest of it. And I had a very interesting training on that because I think probably the only person who ever had two airspeed indicators fail. One at night and one in the day. So I had no airspeed at all. I was just flying along on the seat of my pants, you know. And they came up and said, ‘Do you want somebody to come and, come and side by you?’ I said, ‘No. No. I can feel the aeroplane. I can fly.’ Fly the inside. So I landed both happily. I got an above average assessment at the end of the course for that. So, after that I started on the Dakota which was going to be my operational aeroplane and that was a wonderful aeroplane and I eventually passed out on that and went off to Malaya. And of course there was a war on in Malaya. In the emergency, 1950 ‘53. And the, Singapore still hadn’t recovered fully from the Japanese invasion. Changi Jail. We were based at Changi Airfield which was near Changi Jail. And the place was pretty dire, you know. And we were supporting the army in the jungle of Malaya and flying a lot from Kuala Lumpur and Penang. And I mean, health and safety. Oh gosh. I can’t think about it now but we used to do all sorts of things. The army, because I know they’re cutting their way through the jungle and eventually getting tired and wanting to form a little camp with a dropping zone. DZ.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And they would pick them in the most awful places. Sometimes at the end of a valley. We could hardly turn around. I mean we had a wing tip to get around. And I was on one trip and it was on the side of a hill. I was coming in from the valley side, concentrating on the DZ and at the last minute the trees were coming towards me on the top of the hill. So I had everything open, a little bit of flap and I just went over the top. That was the sort of situation we found. In fact, that situation was probably more dangerous than anything I’d ever had during the war. And the other stupid things we used to do we had a big base at Ipoh which is North Malaya. And we would fly from Kuala Lumpur. It was always cloud covered at Ipoh so you couldn’t get down in to drop your supplies for the troops on the ground for distribution. And so what we would do, believe it or not, we’d fly, and at north of Malaya there was a little valley opening and a railway line used to work its way through the mountain up to Ipoh. And we’d go up through there, windscreen wiper on, raining, coming down and you’d wind yourself up, hardly any room for the aircraft to go up and eventually come out at Ipoh at the end underneath the cloud. Drop your supply and then you climb out to sea and you’d be ok. But little things like that, that I mean it wouldn’t happen today I don’t think. Even on operational circumstances it wouldn’t be on. But we had lots of flying out there. We used to travel from Ceylon as it then was or Sri Lanka now. And I had a two months — married my wife in the August, she came out by troop ship on the, on the, in the January. Seasick all the way because we got these boats as reparation from the Germans. They were all designed for river boating [laughs] so they had very little keel on and the sick, unbelievable sickness. Anyway, she came out. She was sick all the way and within a week I was off to Ceylon for two months. That was the beginning of our Service married life. And this was life in the Service. So, I was on air sea rescue out there and then we would go out the other way through, right through Indo-China as it then was. Through Saigon, [unclear] up to Hong Kong. And Hong Kong then was a small [pause] Kai Tak, the airport, the RAF airport there was small. You may know it or not know it.
IL: I do know it.
SGP: And you had Lion Rock up here.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And we’d come in over, along the valley on the south west side and over Kowloon and then you’d do a [pfhtt] straight down, chop everything and land and then the sea was at the other end. And then the Hong Kong Island on the other side. So that was interesting. So that, we were on San Miguels then. the San Mig which was very popular and very, very nice. So I experienced there — weather. I’ve taken off in pouring rain from Hong Kong island, from Kai Tak not from Hong Kong Island.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: From Kai Tak. Pouring rain. Could hardly see the end of the runway. Windshield wipers going like this. Targeting a non-directional beacon on the top of Hong Kong Island in cloud and just climbing like mad hoping that, the indicator going mad and you were trying to keep up and hoping that nothing failed otherwise you’d be straight in Hong Kong Harbour. And it was sort of things like that that made life interesting. So we would then go on to, up to Okinawa and then off to Iwakuni in Japan. And we were up there in the 50s which wasn’t that long after the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs. And we were landing at Iwakuni which was quite close to them. So we had a good sight of the devastation that was there. Of the land and the houses and everything else. So that was, made us aware of how powerful — ok Japan houses, Japanese houses were not that resistant to that sort of treatment but it was all vaporised really and it was very, made one aware. We had our group captain [pause] not Townsend [pause] Who was our man? Famous man. A hundred operations.
IL: Not Leonard Cheshire.
SGP: Cheshire. Yeah. Leonard Cheshire. Leonard Cheshire was on one of those flights.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: And they’d made him, he’d done over a hundred ops and got a VC. And he was then seriously worried by using that type of bomb. But there you go. It’s frightening. But so on one trip coming out of Okinawa I’d just got airborne and my port engine seized and it’s from sea to sea at either end. So I had to do, I did a quick dink around and came back in on a reciprocal. Landed. So that was one of the interesting things that we had. And the other route we used to go to the north would be through Labuan in Borneo and then up through Manila. And we were then on Valettas. I transferred to Valettas because the Dakota went out and I did about four hundred on Dakotas out there and about eight hundred then on Valettas. But the Valetta was a different animal. They had the Hercules engines, Bristol engine, and as soon as you get in very cold air the oil cooler would, all the oil would get thick and it wouldn’t run through the engine. So you had to do the opposite. You had to slow down, put revs up and fly at the slowest. And I was going up there just north of Borneo over the sea, engines coring. We call it coring. When you get overheating and you do the opposite to what you would normally do and eventually you get the temperature back down and away you go. So that was one little flying incident. So after that tour I was then made a command flight safety officer at Upavon.
IL: Right.
SGP: I was the trial and command flight safety officer. So I had two and a half years there which was good fun. And I went to [pause] where did I go after that? [pause] No, I’d bet, can I, can I rescind that?
IL: Oh yes.
SGP: Can I rescind that?
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Well can we —
IL: Please do.
SGP: Restart. I jumped ahead of myself on the last. On the command flight safety officer. My next, in fact, in September ’53 I was put forward for an instructor’s course at the Central Flying School at Little Rissington. And then passed through that course flying Harvards and Provosts and was then posted to Ternhill in Shropshire as a flying instructor on the Provost aircraft. I qualified on the Meteor jet and completed the instruction at Ternhill, posted to fly Hastings aircraft at Colerne. This required a lot of time away from home and one of the main trips and the most memorable trip that I did was to, in July of ’58 I flew out to Kiritimati Island. Or Atoll. In the middle of the Pacific. Commonly known as Christmas Island — for transport support for the hydrogen operation, Grapple Zulu which was carried out at the Atoll then from a Victor aircraft. I’d like, just like to say to get out to Christmas Island it took us ninety hours flying in the Hastings. Eighteen days. And so we then arrived from, finally from sort of Brisbane to Fiji to Kanton Island and then up to Christmas Island and then if you get the idea of the space from Fiji was about five hours flying. Six hours. Then up to Honolulu, Hawaii was another six hours. So it’s a long, you can imagine. It’s a little spot. Coral Atoll, in the middle of the ocean. Obviously an ideal place for an atomic explosion. Or a hydrogen explosion that was then. Anyway, on the day of the explosion we were all on the tarmac with our backs to the blast, in flying suits and covered up. And the aim was that it would be dropped from a Victor aircraft and exploded about ten thousand feet. And then when we did anticipate, because they had old buildings and that on the island to see the reaction of the, of different constructions to the atomic bomb. The experience then was something I’ll never forget. We were on the ground. Sitting on the ground with our back to the explosion and hands over the eyes, eyes tightly shut. And yet the light from the explosion was obvious to us even in that situation and then the blast of air coming through was tremendous. And the power happening about thirty miles away was unbelievable. And I’ll never forget it. And then of course when it was safe to do so we turned around and looked at the mushroom cloud which was going, going up at that time. You could see the immense power in the, in the cloud. And the thing which I think there was a bit of naivety about the effect of radiation. But we had two Canberra aircraft with sniffer things on the, on the wings and one of them was in the cloud for about fifteen minutes. Another one flew through it which was less time. And in reflection, on reflection I don’t know what happened to the pilot or what effect it had on him or the other pilot. But of course a lot of people have suffered and there’s been a big fight about the effect of, the effect on one’s skin and cancer from, from the explosion. I’ve only had about fifteen lumps taken off so far and only one was cancerous [laughs] but then that involved five years in Malaya, Christmas Island for months, Ceylon for months, Congo for months and so my, my skin’s been exposed to a lot of sunshine which is not a good thing now. I’ve even got problems coming up. I’ve just had a few taken off my face actually.
IL: So, were you given, was there any radiation protection? Or was it just flying suits?
SGP: Nothing at all.
IL: Nothing.
SGP: Nothing at all. I’ll tell you an interesting story and this is about a doctor. I, I knew this doctor because he was at Farnborough and they’re all a bit mental there anyway because that’s why they’re there. They’re prepared to try anything. I know, I know he had, one of his tests was air sickness. He wanted to test it out. So he would get his mate with a flying machine with an aerobatic ace and he’d have a couple of eggs and, just before the flight, and he’d sit there with his stopwatch and his bag seeing how long it would take him before he was sick. But that was one of his, that was one of his little things he used to get up to. And then they, they he managed to contrive to have a railway track and they had a thing on wheels that had a rocket behind it and these rockets were actually dud ones. And they didn’t know what they were going to do with them. Whether they would go off or fizzle or disintegrate or whatever. I mean it just shows the way they — to see the acceleration. The effect of acceleration on the human body. And that was one. Well, I think he topped it in Christmas Island because he had some special glasses with, that were flicking at a fraction of a second. Timed for when the bomb went off. Looking at it to see what effect it would have on his eyes. And I was standing by to fly him up to Hawaii to a medical, you know, to get treatment. But in the event it wasn’t too bad so obviously he wasn’t exposed for very long. But I mean, his name was Whiteside, a super chap and there were three things I could say. He wasn’t on his own. I mean he was just I think a bit mad actually but he was still prepared for the interest of science to sort of expose himself to such terrible risk. So that was it at Christmas island. We used to fly around there. The frigate bird was obviously getting, we were flying all over the place. We used to be clobbered on take-off. They were a bit of a pain really. And then we had crabs who used to come and, on the island to lay their eggs and things or whatever and thousands used to come and you’d just drive over them because they were just too many. They were everywhere. And it was a very small island, Atoll, you see. And anyway that was an experience that, you know stands out in the memory. And of course, going up to Honolulu. It was very nice up there. Waikiki beach was very nice [laughs] and the food was nice and we’d go around to all the pineapple places. So we used to have a break up there. But then we, I had about three months out there and then we were back and I had one more job which was of interest and I flew the body of the Columbian ambassador from England to New York. And I think it’s probably the worst flight I ever had in my life. I took off at Colerne here on the short runway which was very rarely used, in a blinding storm. Got to Northolt and let down there totally down on the ground, pouring with rain, landed and thought I was going to run off the end because I was aquaplaning down the runway. Stopped there. Took off the next day for Iceland. Reykjavik. And with the body on board of course by this time. He wasn’t worried. No, I shouldn’t say that. However, we landed in Iceland. The weather to Goose Bay in Greenland was diabolical so they said, ‘You can’t go yet.’ So we were in and out of the aeroplane. Eventually got off. Landed in Goose Bay. By the time we refuelled the oil had gone solid and we had to go into the, into the hangar to warm the lot up and eventually got the engines turned over and got airborne. And by this time there were people in New York waiting for us to be there, you see. Waiting for time scale with the reception party and everything else. And then lo and behold we had one hundred knot headwinds going down the east coast of, the west coast of Canada and America and arrived in New York at 2 o’clock in the morning. Terribly late and where the guard of honour took off the ambassador and then we managed to get some sleep after that. The next day we had an engine failure and couldn’t, had to have it fixed before we could turn back. And we had just the same sort of weather all the way back. It was one of those trips you remember very clearly.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: So that was primarily one to think about. Then I did do an attachment to Accra in Ghana as OC Accra. We had one Hastings aircraft there supporting the Ghanaian troops under the United Nations banner. In the Congo. Operating in the Congo. And I went into what was then Leopoldville which is now Kinshasa and I was amazed. You know right in the middle of, I wouldn’t say the jungle that would be —
IL: Yeah.
SGP: Implying whatever, that Africa’s a jungle which it isn’t. But you go to Leopoldville, it was a city. A beautiful city. Wide boulevards with trees. Just like a continental city. And a lovely university on top of the hill. A small aircraft that did DDT spraying every day so it didn’t get any mosquitoes. Beautiful. And what happened was the Belgians said — at midnight tonight you can have the Congo. It’s all yours.
IL: Yeah.
SGP: And they moved out lock, stock and, well not lock stock and barrel. They moved out to a man at that time. Left all their houses. We saw villas. Beautiful villas. I mean ok you could make an argument about they were living well but villas with all the tables laid and everything else. They just walked out. And their big mistake was they’d not really promoted anybody above artisan class. So there was nobody really in that sort of echelon to take over power of the country. But then, as so often happens and it’s the one thing I feel about the colonial reign was that because we were able to organise and run a country with very different ethnic people involved we tended to put a ring around. We got it everywhere. You can talk where you like. You can go to Kenya, you can go in to Iraq or anywhere like that where colonials put a ring around. In the Congo you had the people up in Luluabourg in the north who were totally opposed the south. And as soon as the Belgians went they wanted to take over the north. And since then of course the country has really gone down. It’s the richest mineral wealth country in the world and yet it’s in a terrible state. Roads and everything else. There’s been so much corruption and money taken out. It’s, it really is very sad but I mean I experienced that as part of the United Nations and I think, well perhaps it wasn’t perfect for everybody in the Congo when the Belgians were there but at least there was the rule of law as it were. And I believe the people respected it, you know. I mean a lot of people in India didn’t want the Raj to go because the place was organised and run but, and the same happened in Kenya. I mean Mugabe, he drives me up the wall that fellow because there was so many, so many things that, they’ve killed more people than we ever killed there. Opposing tribal, tribal situation. Anyway, I don’t want to go, that was my one little trip to the Congo. And then I did a flight to Gibraltar and that was the end of my flying at Colerne and you know, down the road here, on the Hastings. And my next trip believe it or not was to Singapore again. I came home and said to my wife, ‘We’re going to Singapore,’ and she nearly had a fit. She said, ‘I’m not going back to Singapore.’ She didn’t like the heat.
IL: No.
SGP: And the humidity. Although we had some extremely good times there. Had lots of very good friends. The kids said, ‘Oh great. Going back to Singapore.’ Well, the one, the first child, Debbie was born in Singapore on the first tour. So anyway, we went back out as I went as OC, the transport operations in Seletar. And of course, the upshot of that was that I got myself involved with the Borneo campaign and I went out with the commander out there. And in fact, I was the assistant to General Walker who was the army commander. And we arrived, we’d had a [pause] not a Valetta [pause] oh the big plane. Oh God, my mind’s going. Anyway, we all arrived in Brunei. The first night our accommodation was on a boat on the side of the river there. In the harbour. Not very comfortable. But eventually we set ourselves up as a headquarters in Brunei. And for a habitation, I shouldn’t say this really, but we went into a girl’s private school. Into their accommodation. You won’t believe this. We got in. We found the beds were lice ridden. All around the beds, we all went around with all sorts of things like lighters and things like that to kill all these bugs off. We eventually got ourselves reasonably comfortable there but we did have one chap who came over to visit us and we kept one bed specially for people we didn’t like and then a good skinful of Tiger Beer. Not a very happy lad in the morning. Anyway, that’s by the by. Now, we eventually moved down to Sarawak. To Kuching. Sarawak. And I was OC of the transport so I was, I was tasking all the transport aircraft. There were Pioneers and Valettas and Beverleys. Beverleys the aircraft. It was the Beverley that flew into [Lap?] and took the airport to start off with.
IL: Right.
SGP: That was the beginning of the war and they just got in and the troops got out and sorted it out before anybody else could do any damage to the airport. But so I was tasking the aircraft, mainly twin and single Pioneers and helicopters. And I had an interesting request from an army commander. They used to go up and down the Rajang River with twin outboard motors belting out the longboats you know. Up there. And he got a chief up there that he was wanting to get onside. And so he asked for a helicopter to go out and take the chief for a ride. And I said negative. I’ve got too many operational tasks for that. So he came blazing back down as fast as he could on the Raja, on the River Rajang in this outboard motors and had a go with this commander. The commander said, ‘Not a chance mate. You’ve had it.’ So that was that but the other thing was you get involved with the natives, the local people when you go up and so we all went down to a longhouse up on the sticks with a big hole in the floor for any business that one wanted to do. And you’d sit all around talking to the people. And out would come, the rice wine would come around in the cup. Well I’m not ultra fussy but I’m a little bit fussy [laughs] You come and you see the flies floating on the top and the globules of rice. Things look horrible and you have to take a drink otherwise it’s very unpopular. It’s like eating the sheep’s eyeballs in Arabia or wherever which I couldn’t, I wouldn’t cope with that either [laughs] And but we, we had that was in the interesting aside. They were head-hunters. They were in their loincloths. Very, very good chaps actually. We had no trouble with them. And so that was technically the end of my, my time out in in the Far East on the second tour. Because then we came back home. Then I came back to be command flight safety officer at Upavon. And that was a very interesting time because one had to look at the safety operation of the aeroplanes. And the war was over. And there was a greater pressure, if you like on operating, operating aircraft within safety measures. I mean we’d operated out of Colerne, for instance for years. Fully laden and everything else. Never had a problem. Then they produced Operation Data Manual which required that if you had an engine failure on take-off you’d never be able to cope at Colerne. So they were, Hastings were banned from Colerne although we’d been operating for years just because this Operation Data Manual. And we had the Argosy aircraft come out and the power on that was terrible. When you put the Operation Data Manual you could hardly carry a mouse. And the Beverley wasn’t a lot better so that was one of the things I had to watch was the safety. And we produced a magazine every month which obviously was a bit of a pain because you could never get enough people to put in contributions, you know. So you were always having to scratch at the last minute to complete your [laughs] your book. So, so where are we gone now then? We’re up to —
IL: You were in Upavon.
SGP: We’re up at Upavon. After that I was selected to go to the Ministry of Technology to do a project manager for simulators.
IL: Oh right.
SGP: And I got in the back end of the Belfast liaising with the companies concerned. And also the VC10. And I had a complete management on the navigation and the signals simulator. And I was kept on, in fact for five years to finish that. And that turned out to be a very good training aid for the RAF and they were very pleased with it. So, so that was that really. And after that I, I decided I wasn’t sure about what I was going to do but I felt that the mahogany bomber wasn’t quite me and I did my last tour as a personnel officer at Andover with Transport Command and finished. Retired from the Air Force in [unclear ] after doing thirty one years in the Air Force.
IL: Gosh.
SGP: Which I think was, I enjoyed every minute because the big, apart from the operational flying side of it the sport side was attractive to me and I used to play rugger regularly and cricket. And we used to play badminton, squash and all the games, tennis but rugby was my game. I played on the Padang at Singapore. In the, in the heat but I went out as a young flank forward on the open side usually so I was tearing around a bit. And the Tiger beer didn’t do any good. I came back as a front row forward and they didn’t like that very much.
IL: No. It’s —
SGP: I remember playing the police force and I eventually got my arm was hanging like that. My one leg had gone and I thought, ‘I think you’re getting a bit old for this lad [laughs]
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: So we, we packed it up but, and also from the flying in the Lancaster which I didn’t mention, if you can imagine health and safety again I had a seat which dropped down from the side of the aircraft. It had to be moveable. The bomb aimer had to get through. Our escape hatch was just down below us. We had to dive down and a way to go. And so it had to be moveable so it used to fold up just a single seat. A little bit of foam on it and then you had a belt behind you. Yeah. You put a bar up. Put a bar up in front of you to put your feet on and that was your seat [laughs] And I never really thought much about it actually but if we came to a sudden stop I’d be probably, I’d be probably in the next parish [laughs]
IL: Right.
SGP: So there was no, there was no security there. But after that I had a lot of back trouble for a long time. and the RAF at that time had one cure for back trouble. That was lie on your back. PID I think it was called. Something about rest and something.
IL: That’s the current, that’s the current feeling. That’s not the current feeling is to keep going but it was for a long time.
SGP: Three weeks I was on this bed in Cosford in the RAF hospital there. Getting more and more uncomfortable. Not being able to do anything. You know. Back end wise as it were. And eventually they let me up to go to the toilet which was a great relief. But I came out a lot [pause] much worse than I went in, in fact. So uncomfortable and of course on nothing in the way of a mattress. It was just hard. And they wouldn’t let you turn over. You would lie on your back permanently for three weeks. That was hell. And I thought well I can continue, I had continuous manipulation on the back at Nocton Hall and places which used to be another hospital when I was up there. And eventually when I came down here to Colerne I went to Headley Court. Headley Court cured me because the first thing we did I was going there with the sciatic nerve trapped and dragging my leg along. The first thing you do, it was a lovely summer and you get down on, you’d be playing cards and you’d have a penalty — push-ups. So you’d be lying on your tummy on the floor. You’d either have to push up or lift your legs up and they continuously did that. Strengthening the back. Tuning up the back dorsal muscles. Whatever. And also heated pool. And we just had inner tubes. Quite a deep pool. You couldn’t stand up in it and you would have to hang from those. And you didn’t dare move. Just total relaxation. And that plus it’s a lovely place, Headley Court. I don’t know whether you know it. It used to be a house.
IL: I do know it. My brother in law is a physio. Well, was a physio, in the army and he was head of rehab there for a while.
SGP: Was he? Marvellous. Wonderful place. I saw people coming in who were smashed up. Really literally smashed up and they walked away. And it was continuous help and aid and wonderful. I’ve never had a problem with it since. You know, it did the job and manipulation didn’t. I’d have the manipulation, go home and I’d lean across and it would pop again. But, but having said that I now have mobility problems so, but the Service are looking after me well in that respect.
IL: Good.
SGP: Yes. It’s been a fascinating life and, and by and large the family have enjoyed it. It’s given us, I’m talking now about a country lad, farming stock. Rural background with they say two h’s Hertford and Hereford hardly anything ever happens. And Hereford is one of them. Hardly anything ever happens. So, it’s quite a remote place and I’ve moved on I suppose from that into where we are today and we’ve lived a very good life and a very comfortable life actually. And I, I thank the Air Force for that. The only regrets I have is as you say the boys who died, fifty five thousand of us didn’t get recognition earlier and I think that’s very sad. And it’s sad that it should be a political gesture that caused that to happen, you know.
IL: Absolutely.
SGP: Yeah. But so here we are. We’re back to square one and how do you think it’s gone?
[recording paused]
SGP: A little reflection. I really intended to start this talk on the basis that I didn’t ask to be a part of this reporting system. And I was asked to do it. And I didn’t consider my service, my number of operations, my general service as any more remarkable than anyone else’s and the fact I was doing a job that I enjoyed was, was fine and I, I wouldn’t like to think that I’ve been courting publicity in putting my history down on record [laughs] Ok.
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Interview with Sam Price
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Ian Locker
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-10-01
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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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APriceSTG151001
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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01:38:25 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
Gwyn Price was living a rural lifestyle until he volunteered for the RAF. His dream was to train as an RAF pilot but since there was a surplus of pilots he chose to train instead as a flight engineer. On operations Gwyn observed the surreal feeling of one moment being in pitch darkness and the next being in the bright light over the target. On one operation they were coned by searchlights but managed to get clear by the skill and quick reaction of the pilot. On another occasion, their aircraft had a near miss with a Ju 88. When Gwyn left the squadron he became an engineer instructor but later retrained as a pilot; he went on to fly in the Far East and the Congo. He flew a large number of different aircraft including Hasting, Provost, Valetta, C-47 Meteor and Harvard.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Christmas Island
Hawaii
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Surrey
Hawaii--Honolulu
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
195 Squadron
35 Squadron
aircrew
bomb struck
bombing
C-47
crewing up
faith
flight engineer
Gee
Goodwill tour of the United States (1946)
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lincoln
memorial
military living conditions
military service conditions
Nissen hut
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Colerne
RAF Graveley
RAF Wratting Common
searchlight
training
Wellington
Window
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Brittain, John Taylor
J T Brittain
Description
An account of the resource
42 items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Taylor Brittain (2227748, Royal Air Force). After training as an air gunner at Morpeth and conversion and training at Silverston, North Luffenham and Feltwell, he was posted to 195 Squadron at RAF Wratting Common in February 1945 and flew on operations as a mid upper gunner on Lancaster. The collection consists of his flying logbook; official documents; letters to colleagues and his mother; photographs of people, events, places and aircraft; as well as an album concerning his boat.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Whitehouse and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brittain, JT
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Sgt. Brittain J.T.
Sgts Mess.
195 Sqdn.
RAF Wratting Common
near Cambridge
Cambs.
23/4/45.
Dearest Mum
Many thanks for your letter of the 19th. I certainly hope that for your sake G.Pa is able to return to Rhos.[?]
Glad you were able to get in at the Cumberland as, from all reports, it is still excellent. Very pleased to hear that the shirt is so good.
We went to Heligoland
[page break]
a few days ago. The island was lost in clouds of smoke and was absolutely pitted with craters. It was the biggest prang I have ever seen and there was no opposition whatever - not even flak - There were 1000 Lancasters over the target and they dropped over 5,000 tons of bombs on the island which is only 1 mile long x 600 yards wide!!! - We bombed the U boat pens and also 20,000 troops who were there en route for Kiel and district.
Yesterday we went to
[page break]
Bremen to bomb the town before Monty moves in!!
Yes I wrote to Phil 10 days before his birthday, so hope it arrived in time.
I am still trying to get Bruce fixed somewhere but no luck yet - By the way he sends a wag of his rudder!!
Would you mind asking Joyce Barratt to the party as she would even things up a bit in the younger end of the party - After all we don't want older people altogether - do we?? Ask Dad if he
[page break]
[page(s) missing]
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 from John Brittain to his mother
Description
An account of the resource
Starts with domestic matters. Writes about recent operation to Heligoland which was unopposed. The attack involved 1000 Lancasters dropping 5000 tons of bombs on submarine pens and enemy troops. Mentions that he was on operation to Bremen the previous day. Concludes with catch up with family and friends.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-04-23
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page handwritten letter
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
EBrittainJTBrittain[Mo]450423
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--Cambridgeshire
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Germany
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Bremen
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-04-18
1945-04-22
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Joy Reynard
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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
John Taylor Brittain
195 Squadron
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Lancaster
RAF Wratting Common
submarine
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/776/9930/EBrittainJTBrittain[Mo]450518-0001.jpg
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32a5eb938e9a186cf2f0368be128fff6
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
Brittain, John Taylor
J T Brittain
Description
An account of the resource
42 items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Taylor Brittain (2227748, Royal Air Force). After training as an air gunner at Morpeth and conversion and training at Silverston, North Luffenham and Feltwell, he was posted to 195 Squadron at RAF Wratting Common in February 1945 and flew on operations as a mid upper gunner on Lancaster. The collection consists of his flying logbook; official documents; letters to colleagues and his mother; photographs of people, events, places and aircraft; as well as an album concerning his boat.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Whitehouse and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brittain, JT
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[RAF Crest]
Sgt. Brittain J.T.
Sgts Mess.
195 Squadron
RAF Wratting Common
Cambridge
Friday. 18/5/45
Dearest Mum.
Hope you had a good journey to [one indecipherable word] and that the weather is behaving itself as well as usual.
We have been very busy flying 8 hours a day since Tuesday!! We have been collecting Allied
[page break]
prisoners of war from Juvincourt near Rhiems [sic] in France. It seeems quite strange to [underlined] land [/underlined] over there as opposed to [underlined] bombing [/underlined]!!
The civilian population are terribly short of the essentials - soap, food, cigs and those things. We can get literally anything for a bar of soap - But as the Yanks have been there for some time it is
[page break]
wisest to remove oneself before they get too amorous!!!! Savvy??!!!!!! Many thanks for your letter which has just arrived. The boys send their regrets that they couldn't get to the party, but as you said they all stayed over the VE holidays at their homes.
What did you think of Auntie [one indicipherable word] news re Joy and the
[page break]
[page(s) missing]
think of anything else to say just now so
Cheerio
All the best
Have a good holiday.
Love
John.
[underlined] PS [/underlined] The parcel hasn't arrived yet!
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 from John Brittain to his mother
Description
An account of the resource
Writes that he has been flying 8 hours a day repatriation allied prisoners-of-war from Juvincourt near Reims in France. States that the civilian population is short of essentials and that anything can be had for a bar of soap, although as the Americans had been their for some time it was wise to retreat before becoming amorously involved. Sends regrets that 'boys' did not get to party because they were in own homes over 'VE' day.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-05-18
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page handwritten letter
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
EBrittainJTBrittain[Mo]450518
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
France
France--Juvincourt-et-Damary
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Joy Reynard
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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
John Taylor Brittain
195 Squadron
Operation Exodus (1945)
prisoner of war
RAF Wratting Common
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Brittain, John Taylor
J T Brittain
Description
An account of the resource
42 items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Taylor Brittain (2227748, Royal Air Force). After training as an air gunner at Morpeth and conversion and training at Silverston, North Luffenham and Feltwell, he was posted to 195 Squadron at RAF Wratting Common in February 1945 and flew on operations as a mid upper gunner on Lancaster. The collection consists of his flying logbook; official documents; letters to colleagues and his mother; photographs of people, events, places and aircraft; as well as an album concerning his boat.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Whitehouse and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brittain, JT
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[RAF Crest]
Sgt. Brittain. J.T.
Sgts Mess
195 Sqdn
RAF Wratting Common
Cambridge
Sunday.
Dearest Mum.
Many thanks for your letter and card, I must apologise for not writing before this. We have been to France and back 8 times in 3 days collecting ex-prisoners of war and the day before yesterday we had an innoculation against typhus, which has
[page break]
left us with rather sore arms! The innoculation is to immunize us against catching typhus from the prisoners. I think that we are definitely staying in this country for the duration, and that we will be flying in this country only. We have heard that we will probably be taking troops to India and bringing back time expired men - but it's only a rumour!!
I have sold the car for £80 and bought a Standard
[page break]
[underlined] 16 [/underlined] H.P. for £ [underlined] 75 [/underlined] (absolutely dirt cheap) I am getting a few things done to the 16 and then am going to sell it at, I hope, a profit!! I shall probably be coming home in it next leave, which, by the way is on the 19th June, and I may write to ask you to put an advert in the paper a day or two before that - I'll see.
Now for items of news - The cake was given to me by Jack for a 21st present, but
[page break]
as he had another one we could eat here I decided to send it on to you as I thought it might be useful at [one indecipherable word]! However I am glad you enjoyed it - They certainly are good aren't they! The rest of the crew gave me a set of two hair brushes which I have sent as they are too good to keep here.
Bruce is no longer with us - I had to get rid of him as the Group Captain would not let me keep him in the billet - I gave him
[page break]
to a farmer in Haverhill who is training him as a gun dog!!
When we were in France the other day we had a chance to look round, what little remains of, the village of Juvincourt. The people, few as they are, seem very friendly and I had quite a chat with one old girl who told me what devils the Jerrys were. She told me that they, the Jerrys, used to hang the Jews of the
[page break]
village upside down in the local well, fire at them, then lower them into the water, and then make the villagers drink the water!!
We haven't been into Rheims as we haven't stayed long enough, we are hoping that we will be able to get there before long. I am enclosing a few foreign notes which I was given by a prisoner. The ones I got in change were from buying a drink in the local grocery shop
[page break]
in Juvincourt.
Well, no more news now, hope you enjoyed your meal at the Saracen's Head.
Tons of love
[underlined] John [/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 from John Brittain to his mother
Description
An account of the resource
Starts with apology for not writing but has been constantly flying to France to repatriate allied prisoners of war. Mentions typhoid injection to prevent crews catching it from ex-prisoners. Writes that he believes they will stay in UK but rumours of trooping flights to India. Discusses motor car deals undertaken. Catches up with family news and mentions he has had to give up his dog as Group Captain would not let it stay in service accommodation. Writes about meeting French women on local visit to Juvincourt who related experience during occupation. Mentions that they are hoping to get into Reims before long. Says he is enclosing some foreign notes he was given by a prisoner.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-05-27
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven page handwritten letter
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
EBrittainJTBrittain[Mo]450527
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
France
France--Juvincourt-et-Damary
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Joy Reynard
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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
John Taylor Brittain
195 Squadron
animal
anti-Semitism
Holocaust
Operation Exodus (1945)
prisoner of war
RAF Wratting Common
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/776/9966/EBrittainJTBrittain[Mo]450601.jpg
2592e801d43f0d707ba42b90c05f88a0
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
Brittain, John Taylor
J T Brittain
Description
An account of the resource
42 items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Taylor Brittain (2227748, Royal Air Force). After training as an air gunner at Morpeth and conversion and training at Silverston, North Luffenham and Feltwell, he was posted to 195 Squadron at RAF Wratting Common in February 1945 and flew on operations as a mid upper gunner on Lancaster. The collection consists of his flying logbook; official documents; letters to colleagues and his mother; photographs of people, events, places and aircraft; as well as an album concerning his boat.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Whitehouse and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brittain, JT
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Sgt. Brittain. J.T
Sgts Mess.
195 Squadron
RAF. Wratting Common
Cambridge
Cambs.
1/6/45.
Dearest Mum.
Many thanks for your letter of panic!! As you say there should have been a letter for you in the next post. – Hope you got it ok. and that everything is clear now. I think that the P.O.W. business is now finishes, or at least practically. We are now [inserted] what another!! [/inserted] on a sort of cooks tour of Germany. By air of course, we are flying over moat of the bomb scarred areas of the Ruhr etc.
[page break]
You’d better put we right about a few dates – there seems to be an awful lot of important ones in June!!. Here are the ones I want.
Your birthday – or is it July?
Date of going to London?
“ “ [Date of ] 25th Anniversary? – 9th??
How along are you staying in London??
The date of my leave is June 19th, everything being well of course.
I don’t know whether I shall be able to use the car on this next leave, as the petrol situation is very difficult.
Well, Mum, I am stuck for anything to say just
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 from John Brittain to his mother
Description
An account of the resource
Writes that prisoner of war repatriation task is now over and that they now going to do a sort of Cook's Tour of Germany including the Ruhr. He goes on to discuss upcoming dates for birthday, anniversary and leave. States he may not be able to use the car for leave due to petrol situation.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-06-01
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EBrittainJTBrittain[Mo]450601
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--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-06-01
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
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
Claire Monk
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
John Taylor Brittain
195 Squadron
Cook’s tour
prisoner of war
RAF Wratting Common
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/776/9967/EBrittainJTBrittain[Mo]450514.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Brittain, John Taylor
J T Brittain
Description
An account of the resource
42 items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Taylor Brittain (2227748, Royal Air Force). After training as an air gunner at Morpeth and conversion and training at Silverston, North Luffenham and Feltwell, he was posted to 195 Squadron at RAF Wratting Common in February 1945 and flew on operations as a mid upper gunner on Lancaster. The collection consists of his flying logbook; official documents; letters to colleagues and his mother; photographs of people, events, places and aircraft; as well as an album concerning his boat.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Whitehouse and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brittain, JT
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Sgt. Brittain. J.T
Sgts Mess.
195 Squadron
RAF. Wratting Common
Near Cambridge
Cambs.
14/5/45.
Dearest Mum.
Arrived back safely after a completely trouble free journey arriving in camp at 8.15. We picked up Bruce up at the kennels and as you can imagine he was delighted to see me.
We are going out to France tomorrow, landing, and picking up 24 prisoners of war!!! Last
[page break]
time the squadron went they were stranded for 2 days arriving to bad weather !!!
I rather think that this squadron will be staying in this country and doing this sort of work – I hope so anyway.
Well no more news [deleted][indecipherable][/deleted] so cheerio for now, I’ll write to Bryn next week time.
Tons of love
John
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 from John Brittain to his mother
Description
An account of the resource
Writes about return journey back to camp. Says they are going to France the next day to fly up to 24 prisoners of war back home. Mentioned that last time they did this they were stuck for two days in bad weather. Speculates that squadron will stay in this country.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-05-14
Format
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Two page handwritten letter
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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EBrittainJTBrittain[Mo]450514
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--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05-14
Publisher
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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
Claire Monk
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
John Taylor Brittain
195 Squadron
animal
Operation Exodus (1945)
prisoner of war
RAF Wratting Common
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/674/10078/AArmstrongGR170720.2.mp3
55817c13ad0fb13379065a9f931fa4e0
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
Armstrong, George Rex
G R Armstrong
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with George Rex Armstrong (1925 - 2019, 3225057). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 195 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-20
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
Armstrong, GR
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JW: Right, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is John Wells, the interviewee is Rex Armstrong. The interview is taking place at Mr Armstrong’s home at [redacted], Donaghadee. Also present are Mrs Elisabeth Armstrong and Mrs Helen Wells. The date is Thursday, the 20th of July 2017 and the time is 2, 14.20. Right, Rex, can I ask you to, well, thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed first of all, can I ask you tell me a little bit about your early life, where you were born and what you did before you?
RA: I was born in Belfast [unclear] fire station.
JW: Well, when were you born and what was your date of birth?
RA: We moved from Belfast to Donaghadee whenever I was four year old. Went to school in Donaghadee, the school was right on the seafront in Donaghadee there and when I got old enough, I wanted to get out to work and I went then to one of the early [unclear] in Belfast and I served my time in it and also whenever I got my time done, I went and worked in County Down Railway for a while and went then in to [unclear] worked my way [unclear] computer factory, making computers and I worked my way up into, to manager, a manager in it there with three factories and I was put in charge, well, eventually was put in charge of one of them, and I worked there until the place closed up eventually and I went and I worked in another place and making drums, tent [unclear], things like that.
JW: Was that before, at what stage, was that before the war or was that after you left the RAF?
RA: No, I went into the, I think the [unclear] the RAF, my brother I think, you know, I looked up to him, ‘cause he was doing the second tour of operations and I was only starting my first
JW: What was your brother’s name?
RA: Ted, Edward.
JW: So, Edward.
RA: Edward Armstrong.
JW: Edward Armstrong. Right.
RA: He was called after my father ‘cause he was older than me and he did two tours of operations.
JW: And your father, what did your father do?
RA: My father worked selling [unclear] cars, Vauxhall cars.
EA: He was in the RAF too. He was in the RAF.
JW: And--
RA: Then, when they were bombing Belfast, I was in the fire service and soon as the raid had finished, I was up in the fire service, Belfast told them to put the fires out.
EA: He was sixteen.
JW: And your father was a fireman?
RA: Father was a fire [unclear], I was a fireman too, I joined fire station, my grandfather was in charge of the station, that was just before the war.
EA: Joined up.
JW: So, can you tell me a little about how you came to join the RAF?
RA: Yeah. My brother was joined in the RAF and he did one tour of operation and I’d thought that I liked what he was doing so the day that I was eighteen, I went up to Belfast to join up and I joined up in the RAF and I was called up just about a month after, less than a month and I was called up and I went to England to London and started training there [unclear] and went from there to Wales that was where I did my training and I did a course and passed out and that and then was, went to another place in Lincolnshire and it was, it was mustering the crews and what you want? You’re in, in the aerodrome and you’re all lined up and marched in and whenever they said halt where you were, the pilot was just right at your right arm and he came down and he was from [unclear], he was from Bradford I think it was he was from and he said, hi, how are you, would you like to join the RAF? And [unclear] part of my aircrew? And he said, I said, yes, I’d like to join, and he said, where do you live? And I said, you wouldn’t know, wee village [unclear] Northern Ireland called Donaghadee, and he says, Donaghadee? And I said, yes, and he put his hand in his pocket and brought out this photograph and a photograph of Donaghadee and he would have been policeman and he was sent over to Northern Ireland on a course and he had this photograph down the harbour in Donaghadee and then so I, I liked him and joined up in his crew and we did the tour of operations at twenty raids and then you get a rest.
JW: Can you tell me a little about the process, you know, what was involved in a raid?
RA: [unclear] What was involved?
JW: Can you talk, have you any one that sticks out in your mind?
RA: I, can honestly and [unclear] did say I enjoyed it.
JW: Yeah.
RA: I think that being only eighteen years of age, you were still a wee boy there really but I did enjoy it.
JW: What was your, I mean, you were in a different aircraft, you weren’t always with the same aircrafts.
RA: I was always with Lancaster bombers.
JW: Lancaster. But not the same aircraft every time.
RA: Not the same aircraft, but that was what I was on. Lancasters, I did all me ops on Lancasters.
JW: Where did you operate from? What was your base?
RA: My base was, first base was Lincolnshire, the second place I think it was [unclear] place, [unclear] Midlands.
JW: Was Wratting Common, I believe.
RA: Wratting Common.
JW: In Essex.
RA: Yeah, that’s where I was at Wratting Common.
JW: How long were you there for?
RA: Pardon?
JW: How long were you there for?
RA: I was there for, I suppose doing a tour of operations, I was there for about nine months and whenever you do, when you do the twenty raids you’re rested and come home on leave for, I think it was, a fortnight and back again.
JW: I believe that you, what squadron were you on?
RA: Sorry?
JW: What squadron number were you on?
RA: 195.
JW: 195, yeah. Do you remember the names of your crew?
RA: Yes. [unclear] name was George, I [unclear]
EA: Just the names, he wants the names, Rex, whenever the time comes.
RA: George.
EA: Scooley, is that the only one you can remember?
RA: I’ve forgotten.
EA: Aye.
JW: He was the skipper.
EA: Mh?
JW: He was the skipper.
RA: George Scooley, his name, he was a policeman. Whenever I joined up as a crew, George Scooley was the captain and the pilot and whenever I joined up, you marched into the, you marched into the hangar and whenever you were called halt, guy who you’d be standing aside, that was gonna be your captain or crew man and he picked me and he asked me where I came from and I told him, I come from Northern Ireland, he said, whereabouts from Northern Ireland do you come from? And I said, I come from, I said, you wouldn’t know, a wee place called Donaghadee, he put his hand on his breast pocket uniform and pulled a photograph out, he says, you know, that was a photograph of Donaghadee, he had been over here on some course or other for the police.
JW: I believe you may, you were involved in the raid on Dresden, is that correct?
RA: [unclear]
EA: He didn’t hear you.
JW: Were you involved in the raids on Dresden?
EA: Dresden. He can’t hear you.
RA: That was, the raid on Dresden, that was, I think that was the worst raid that I’ve done and I’d done twenty altogether but Dresden was probably the worst.
JW: How, what was your, when were you told that you were going to raid Dresden?
RA: [unclear] sorry?
EA: He can’t hear you. Repeat.
JW: Yeah. Can you tell me more about the raid on Dresden?
RA: It was the worst raid that, there was an awful lot of bombs dropped and we dropped a lot of bombs too and-
EA: [unclear]
JW: What was it like looking down, could you see Dresden as you approached?
RA: Yes, you could. To me, it was two runs, [unclear] two runs ‘cause the full bomb load, and went in and dropped half the load and then once you flew over the line of where you bombed, turned round, come back in and dropped the other half. Dresden was probably one of the worst raids.
JW: Yeah. Were you, would, the briefing before Dresden, do you remember that?
RA: Vaguely, [unclear], forgotten all about but that was a big raid.
EA: [unclear]
JW: Yeah. Do you remember Operation Manna, in Holland, when you were dropping supplies to the Dutch?
RA: Yeah.
JW: Can you tell me anything about that?
RA: Yeah, that was quite enjoyable flying over Holland and dropping, dropping food to the Holland people ‘cause they were starving and we dropped food to them and that was it, we were flying over, and we were so low that the skipper said to me, what time is it? And I [unclear] gonna look at my watch, and he said, not there, there and we were looking level at the town clock and you don’t [unclear] look up or look down, just look out and there is the time, that was [unclear] enjoyable but.
JW: Do you have any stories from when you were dropping for Operation Manna, dropping cigarettes? I believe you had a story about black marketeers?
RA: Somebody had written out on the ground and written down [?] drop your cigarettes here.
JW: How many days did that last for? Did you do more than one sortie?
RA: [unclear] I think we did it for a week.
EA: [unclear]
JW: And I believe there was also another operation which was Operation Exodus which was
RA: Bringing prisoners, bringing people home from the war, yeah, I can remember that.
JW: That would be a happy one.
RA: Bringing prisoners of war back.
JW: Where did you go to pick yours up?
RA: Mh?
JW: Where did you pick your prisoners of war up from?
RA: I picked them up, I forget where it was, it was in France but we picked them up if I remember right [unclear] in Germany, bringing, I know when the war was over we, our own soldiers and [unclear] women we took them on a Cook’s Tour over Germany and to let them see what the place looked like.
JW: That was your own groundcrew.
RA: Mh-mh. Yeah, they were the first ones.
JW: And when were you demobbed then after, was this long after that?
RA: Demobbed, I suppose six months.
EA: Yes, I suppose six.
JW: A flight engineer’s position on a Lancaster, could you see out or were you in the dark most of the time?
RA: Yeah, I could see, no problem.
EA: [unclear]
JW: But you, could you see out, see where you were passing?
RA: Yeah, could see ahead.
JW: Yeah.
RA: Looking in front of you.
JW: And after the war, you, would you like to tell me what you did after the war?
RA: After the war [unclear] I went back, I was serving my time in County Down Railway when I joined the RAF and.
JW: So, did you go back to them to finish your apprenticeship?
RA: Mh-mh. [clock chimes] Yes, but I had to go back to finish my apprenticeship.
JW: And then, did you work for the Ulster Railway then or did you go, did you move onto another job?
RA: I went, I finished my time there on the County Down Railway.
EA: And then you went to [unclear]
RA: And I went to [unclear] firm that was computers and I worked with them for I don’t know years and I worked my way up in the factory [unclear] was three factories, they had Belfast and one of them, I worked my way up to the manager of the factory so where assembled the machine, computer machines, tested them.
JW: Can you tell me a little bit about your brother Edward?
RA: Ted?
JW: Ted, yeah.
RA: Yeah.
JW: He was, what did he do in the RAF?
RA: He was a flight engineer, same as I was, and he did two tours of operations and had forty trips.
JW: Did he take part in any particular raids that you can remember?
RA: He bombed Berlin two or three times and [unclear]
JW: Yeah. What squadron was he?
RA: I forget.
EA: 61.
JW: Can you tell me which squadron he was in?
RA: I forget the number it was.
EA: Six.
RA: 61?
EA: 617.
JW: So, can you tell me which squadron your brother was in?
RA: 61. 617.
JW: 617, yes, which was I think, the Dambusters squadron.
RA: Mh-mh.
JW: But he didn’t take part in the raid.
RA: No.
JW: And he, he survived the war?
RA: He survived the war.
JW: Right. Well, Rex, thank you very much for sharing with me your memories and what we’ll do is they will send a copy of transcript of the interview and also a copy of this CD once they’ve downloaded it into the database.
RA: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with George Rex Armstrong
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
John 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
2017-07-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AArmstrongGR170720
Format
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00:33:13 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
George Rex Armstrong served in the RAF as a flight engineer. He was born in Belfast and grew up in Donaghadee. Decided to join the RAF because he wanted to follow his brother Ted, who flew forty operations with 617 Squadron. Mentions being in the fire service as a young boy during the bombing of Belfast. After completing his training, he was posted to 195 Squadron at RAF Wratting Common. From there he flew a tour of twenty operations on Lancasters. He was involved in Operation Manna and Operation Exodus. Remembers his worst operation, which was to Dresden.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Schulze
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Northern Ireland--Belfast
Northern Ireland--Donaghadee
Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
195 Squadron
aircrew
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crewing up
flight engineer
Lancaster
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Wratting Common
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/745/10745/ACockbillDFA171008.1.mp3
db5752c8519a065771ad0856ae6002c8
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
Cockbill, Denis Francis Albert
D F A Cockbill
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flying Officer Denis Cockbill (1924, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 195 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-08
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
Cockbill, DFA
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
LD: Right. This is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Laura Dixon and the interviewee is Denis Cockbill. The interview is taking place in Penhale on the 8th of October 2017. Right. Hi Denis. Hello.
DC: Hello.
LD: Could you tell me just a bit about your early life before the Bomber Command?
DC: Before the Bomber Command.
LD: Yeah.
DC: Well, I was born in Newport.
LD: Ok.
DC: In 1924. I went to school in Newport. Went to the Grammar School. And my father worked as a, he was a clerk in the steelworks. And I had twelve months. Before, when I left this school I had twelve months. I only volunteered for the Air Force because I’d been bombed. Near misses a couple of time. I thought I’d get my own back so I joined the Air Force. So I was in the Air Training Corps. So when I was seventeen I volunteered as aircrew. I was attested because it’s quite tough, you know. You’ve got to be really fit and what have you. I passed that and they said, ‘Right. Pilot. Navigator, Air bomber.’ Which was the normal what people wanted to be. I didn’t. I wanted to be a wireless operator because my CO in the Air Training Corps was an ex-Merchant Navy radio officer. And he’d got me interested in radio. For instance when I went to the radio school they said, ‘In two or three months you’ll be doing eight words a minute.’ I could already do twelve so I walked it. So, I joined the Air Force when I was eighteen. Actually, I was three months late because the day I should have joined the Air Force I had an appendicectomy. So I was three months later. And three months on the squadron could have saved my life. Right.
LD: Ok. So a wireless operator. What do they actually do? Are you based on the plane or on the ground?
DC: Oh no. Aircrew wireless operator. Aircrew. Two years training.
LD: Oh ok.
DC: Ten months in radio school. Two hours of Morse a day.
LD: Right.
DC: You either learned it or you go around the bend and some did of course. See.
LD: Yeah.
DC: It’s like learning another language. You know, I mean I haven’t used it for donkeys years now but, you know what’s your Christian name?
LD: Dixon.
DC: No. Your Christian name.
LD: Laura.
DC: Laura.
LD: Yeah. Laura.
DC: De da de dit de da dit dit da dit da dit de da dit. That’s in Morse.
LD: Right. Ok. Wow.
DC: You don’t forget.
LD: Really. Oh, ok. So how long would a mission last for?
DC: Well, if you had a short mission two or three hours. The longest one I did was Berlin I think which was about eight and a half hours.
LD: Ok.
DC: Sat on oxygen all that time. The gunners were the worst off. I could move around. They couldn’t. They had to sit there for eight and a half hours.
LD: Wow. So, what other, apart from Berlin what other places did you go to?
DC: Actually, because I [pause] I mean I was fifteen when the war started so in three years I was eighteen. So when I joined the Air Force it was 1940, end of 1942. So the worst part was over. And I was two years training. So it wasn’t until the end of 1944 that I joined the squadron. War was over. So I was lucky. Fighter escort.
[pause]
DC: Right.
[pause – pages turning]
DC: Let me get my glasses.
LD: Ok.
[pause]
DC: That was the first trip I did which was Gelsenkirchen. It gives you the time. Take off at 0600 and we landed at [pause] no. It was five hours. That was in the, in the Ruhr and it was one of our worst trips. We were holed. We lost an engine and managed to limp back. My navigator had a bit of flak just miss him. So that was one. Then there was, then we did Kiel. And we sank, we sank the Admiral Scheer. And that was in red. It was a night trip. Then we went out again during the, on the same one on that day. That was 9th. On the 13th we went out again. Then I did Berlin. Heligoland. Bad Oldesloe.
LD: Never heard of that.
DC: That’s in the Ruhr.
LD: Oh.
DC: That’s in the Ruhr. That was what? Six hours. That was the longest trip you see was this one. No. Berlin. Where’s Berlin? [pause] Eight and a half hours at night time. And then we did, oh this was when we dropped, have you heard of the Manna raids?
LD: I was going to ask about that. Yeah.
DC: I was on that. In fact, if, of because logbooks aren’t filled in always by us. These were filled in by somebody else, “Spam Raid,” “Flour Raid.” And these were counted as operations because we were flying over enemy territory. Germans, if they’d opened up four hundred, five hundred feet high they couldn’t have missed us. And we dropped. I did, I did three I think [pause] I thought I did three. Yeah. One. Two. No. I did, I did two actually. That was Manna. Then we did Exodus which was bringing prisoners of war back from France. And we also did later on from Italy as well. So, yeah. Was that what you wanted?
LD: Yeah. Ok. So what was your relationship like with your fellow crew members?
DC: Oh excellent. It had to be because we were, we were, it was we were a team.
LD: Yeah.
DC: And if you had one bad apple in a team it doesn’t work. And the biggest problem of course was when you were crewed up. Do you know how you crewed up?
LD: No.
DC: Well, in a Lancaster there’s seven. The pilot, flight engineer, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator and two gunners. Right. So when I, when I did my, finished my training and I got my wings and everything I went to eventually I went to what they called Operational Training Unit where you crew up. You meet. You get your crew. You get the crews together. Right. And what would happen you’d get an intake of say twenty wireless operators, twenty pilots, twenty navigators, twenty flight engineers and forty gunners, because there were two gunners in a plane, eh. They put you in a hangar for the morning with coffee and say, ‘Right. Crew up.’ Now, you were with all these people you’d never met before. Right. And you’ve got to decide who was the best. Which is very difficult. And the best one to get of course is the pilot because he’s the one that flies it. Nobody else. If he goes we’ve had it then. And you just mingled around and get talking and actually on the way there in the train I was sat on a train with a bomb aimer and he was just joining up as well so we clicked altogether. We had two of us, see.
LD: Ok. So what would you do —
DC: And then there’s, there’s a story of the pilot. He was short of a bomb aimer. Got all the crew but a bomb aimer. And he saw the bomber walking around. He said, ‘Are you crewed up?’ And the gun aimer, he was a gunner actually, he said ‘Are you crewed up.?’ And the gunner said, ‘No.’ So the pilot said, ‘Would you like to join my crew?’ And the gunner said, ‘Yeah. Ok. But,’ he said, ‘I’m a bloody awful gunner.’ And the pilot said, ‘That’s alright. I’m a bloody awful pilot.’ [laughs] So they gelled.
LD: Yeah.
DC: You’ve got to gel.
LD: Ok. So what did you do in your spare time when you weren’t flying? As entertainment? What would you do together?
DC: The NAAFI. Cakes and buns. The cinema, which was very popular. And, yes, loafing around as normal. Playing football and probably snooker if you had a snooker table there. And if you had time to go out down to the local village. To the pub if they had any beer.
LD: Ok.
DC: That’s about it.
LD: So, can you tell me more about Operation Manna. Because —
DC: Yeah.
LD: It must have been a lot different from dropping bombs.
DC: Could you switch it off a minute?
LD: Yeah. Sure.
[recording paused]
DC: Sorry about that.
LD: No. Ok. I’ll just. You know, we’ll I keep some of that for the recorder. So —
DC: Yeah.
LD: Talk about Operation Manna. It must have felt —
DC: It should have been on the recorder, shouldn’t it? What I just told you.
LD: It was but I can repeat it anyway. Or, you know, repeat bits of it. So, you know you’re dropping food and not bombs.
DC: That’s right.
LD: That must have felt different from your usual.
DC: Oh yeah. It was brilliant. And I mean the Dutch were out. All the flags. We went out on D-Day, just before D-Day and there were orange bunting and flags and they were waving and cheering. It was fantastic. In fact there was a Manna, Manna Association. Every, once every five years we went over there and we were feted by the Dutch people. They thought we were fantastic. In fact, I got, I got a medal.
LD: Oh ok.
DC: Do you want to see it?
LD: Yeah. Sure. I’ll stop this now.
[recording paused]
LD: Course not. No. It’s interesting. So, with Operation Manna do you know how bad, how bad the people were?
DC: Oh, yes.
LD: How bad the starvation.
DC: Well, what happened, how it came is about is our troops were pushing through the low countries and they decided to leave the bulk of the Netherlands under the control of the Germans because they’d already blown some of the dykes. And the fear was if we attacked they would blow all the dykes and Holland would be completely under water. Which would be no good at all. So we left them alone. But it was one of the worst winter. A very, very bad winter. And because nothing was getting in or out including food people were starving. And eventually about over twenty thousand died of starvation. Mainly the young and the very old. Now, we knew about this and eventually we made an agreement with the Germans. Eventually. It took some time. That we would fly our aircraft at a very low height. We had to fly very low because it wasn’t on parachute. It was just double hessian sacks with the food inside. If you dropped from height it would damage. So we had to fly very low. And the agreement was reached. They agreed that we could do it. So, we did. The first trip was cancelled. Probably because some disagreement. And when we did, we flew, the gunners were already armed and when we flew over the coast you could see the Germans behind their guns. Five hundred feet. If they’d opened up they couldn’t have missed. We lost one aircraft in two weeks. We don’t know what. It just disappeared in the North Sea somewhere. But over the period we dropped almost seven thousand tons of food and saved lives.
LD: Ok.
DC: You meet a Dutchman and say Manna they love you.
LD: That’s lovely. So did you keep in touch with any comrades in the years after the bombing?
DC: I did. They’re all gone. I’m the only one left.
LD: Yeah.
DC: My last crew member was our flight engineer. He died eighteen months ago.
LD: Oh. Ok. Oh.
DC: My pilot was an Australian. We’re in, I’m in touch with his family but only recently because we were very reticent. We don’t talk. I never spoke about my war at all. My father never spoke about his war which was a great pity because I was born five, six years after the end of the First World War. My father was injured at Passchendaele. He got the military medal. We don’t know how because his records were bombed in the Blitz. And he never spoke about it, about his war, at all. I never asked him. I wished to God I did.
LD: Yeah. It’s a pity.
DC: And my son said [unclear] saying to me, ‘Write a book.’ So, what they do when I go out with them they take a tape recorder. Because the things I say now I’ve never said before.
LD: Yeah. Ok. So, with your, could you tell me about your primary school visits and the kind of reaction that you get?
DC: Oh, excellent. Excellent. What happens, they don’t do it any longer by the way but they used to bring school children in from South Wales and Gloucestershire to the Drill Hall in, they do it all over the country but here it was the Drill Hall in Chepstow. And they come for the day and the Drill Hall, the museum would be rigged out like war time kitchens and all this sort of thing. And in the Drill Hall they’d have war time posters and all the equipment and the ladies would talk to them about that. And then they’d bring them all in for us to talk to them.
LD: Ok.
DC: And some of the questions you get from these kids.
LD: Yeah.
DC: How many did you kill?
LD: I don’t know.
DC: No. They were fantastic. And it stopped now unfortunately which is a great pity. Because school people, it’s amazing how many youngsters [pause] May, if I may call you a youngster. How old are you?
LD: Twenty two.
DC: I was still flying —
LD: Oh yeah.
DC: When I was your age. You’re still to me a youngster.
LD: Yeah.
DC: And there’s a lot of things that you don’t know about my war. I didn’t know anything about the First World War. Henry the fifth in history we got up to, I think. Nothing about modern stuff at all.
LD: No.
DC: And the kids today don’t.
LD: No.
DC: I mean, I was in, we were in Hendon. The Air Museum at Hendon and, with my family. I mean we were in front of the Lancaster and I was saying about various experience. Eventually we had a whole crowd around us and one chaps said, ‘We learned more off of you than the staff.’ And one, one chap said, we said about the Americans, what they did. If it hadn’t been for the Americans we’d have lost Two World Wars. And bearing in mind they lost thirty five thousand in their Bomber Command. Even people like Clark Gable. Have you heard of Clark Gable?
LD: No.
DC: Film star.
LD: No.
DC: Well, he was, he was a gunner on them.
LD: Right. Ok.
DC: They didn’t have to. They didn’t have to.
LD: Yeah.
DC: And one of the visitors said, ‘Were the Americans in the war?’ Where’s he been?
LD: How old, so how old was he? Was just —
DC: Oh, I don’t know. I can’t remember now. Probably forty. Fifty. Something like that.
LD: Oh right. And he asked that. Oh. Ok. Can you just repeat what you said about the girl from Holland that you, that you met?
DC: Yes.
LD: Yeah. If you could just repeat what you said about that. Yes.
DC: Well, the, the talk to the schoolchildren that were in the Drill Hall in Chepstow. And the first one I did rather than talk about dropping bombs to school children I tell them about Operation Manna because I’ve got a very good print of the actual aircraft doing it. After the first one Anna phoned me up and said, ‘There’s a lady that lives in Itton, and she was at school in Holland. So can you talk together?’ So we, we met eventually. We met at the next talk. I knew who she was but she didn’t know who I was. And I had a, behind me the big print of a Lancaster dropping food covered up. So eventually this lady got up and started talking about when she was a school girl in Holland. And her father was taken away, or almost taken away. And they had no food. They had to chop up furniture and people were starving. And then one day she said big aircraft came over and instead of dropping bombs they dropped food. And out of her bag she picked out a picture she drew as a child. You know. Of an aircraft dropping food. And I was listening to all this. So when she finished I got up and I said about this lady who saw these aircraft dropping food. So I whipped the cover off the picture. I said, ‘It could have been that aircraft. And I could have been in it.’ And she burst into tears. The teachers burst into tears. And ever since then all my future talks were, we were a double act. Very good. And we still are friends.
LD: Really?
DC: I still take her to lunch now. Yeah.
LD: Oh. So she lives —
DC: She lives in Itton. Only ten miles away.
LD: Oh, lovely. Oh, ok.
DC: We never met until — never met until —
LD: Yeah.
DC: The talks. That was about twelve years ago. Thirteen years ago.
LD: But she moved here.
DC: No. She —
LD: Oh.
DC: Well, she moved here.
LD: Yeah.
DC: After the war. She was a teacher of art in [pause] in she came over as a au pair actually and finished up as a schoolteacher in Bristol. And then they liked, the Dutch like Wales.
LD: Yeah.
DC: There are a lot of visitors. They don’t like, because there’s no hills in Holland.
LD: Yeah.
DC: She bought a house in Itton, which is in the Wye Valley. Very nice.
LD: Oh, that’s lovely.
DC: That was in the 60s.
LD: Yeah. Ok. So, how do you think the Bomber Command is being perceived now. Like how —
DC: Dreadful.
LD: Right. Ok.
DC: When I get and if I meet somebody I’ve never met before and I say I was Bomber Command the usual reaction is Dresden. Which incidentally was a legitimate target. The fact that we dropped bombs and killed people. But it was all out war. No mentions are made of what the Germans did before. We started it and so when I give my talks to school children as I say I talk about when we saved lives and not when we took lives. Nobody knows about that. Which is a great pity.
LD: Yes.
DC: And you’ve got to bear in mind that Bomber Command lost more on a pro-rata basis more than any other branch of the armed forces. One in three were killed. Five thousand. Well, I think a hundred and fifty thousand flew in Bomber Command. Fifty five thousand were killed. Ten thousand prisoners of war they managed to get out which was very unusual. Five thousand killed whilst training. Can you imagine when you’re training you’ve got the aircraft and they’ve come off the front line so they’re probably clapped out to start out with. The crews on them are on a learning curve. How would you like to get on an plane in say Cardiff to fly to Spain or somewhere and they said to you, ‘By the way the pilot’s never flown this before and he’s on his own.’ Would you go?
LD: No.
DC: We had to.
LD: Yeah. Oh wow.
DC: So, a lot were killed in training you know. Of course air, air collisions as well. I mean, I mean can you imagine a night bomber raid with say eight hundred aircraft all flying with no lights.
LD: No. No. But there were no problems with your particular craft that you, do you remember any injuries or any problems?
DC: Oh yeah. Well, we got shot up on our first trip to Gelsenkirchen. Lost an engine and the shrapnel in the aircraft and a piece just missed the, the pilot was, the navigator was standing up, it went through his legs. Other than that I was lucky. I didn’t do many trips. We only did ten. Whereas to complete a tour was thirty trips and not many did that.
Other: Tell, tell Laura about the how Ted lost his position on the vic.
DC: Say that again.
Other: Tell the story of how, tell Laura the story of how Ted, your skipper lost his position on the vic and he was flying along the line in the [unclear]
DC: Oh well. That’ a long story, John.
LD: Oh, no. Yeah. Sure.
DC: Well, most of my trips which, towards the end of the war we had fighter escorts. In the olden days they had no fighter escort because they couldn’t fly that distance and it was over enemy territory. But as our troops were pushing forward we had fighter stations in France which would give us cover. So on a daylight we would have fighter escort. And on one trip we did it was a daylight trip. Probably eight hundred aircraft. And we were called a GH squadron. We flew on radar. Even in those days. One aircraft out of three had this equipment and it was, it was a cathode ray tube in front of me and you’d have two lines with two scrobes. One above. One above. And you would, we would pass back the windspeed to a base in England. They knew the height we were flying. They knew the speed we were flying. And they knew the bomb load. So they could commute, compute the exact spot where they dropped the bombs. And what they would do then they would send signals out on this cathode ray. Where these two scrobes were they were like that and they slowly get together. When they got there you dropped the bombs. There was only one aircraft had this. The other two were followers. They’d watch him. Right. So the bomb aimer, as they got nearer the bomb aimer would open the bomb doors so they’d open their bomb doors. When he dropped his bombs they dropped their bombs. So in twenty minutes you got eight hundred aircraft dropping their bombs on the target, you see. Now, we were on this one trip. We were a follower. In other words we were one of the ones behind. Right. Now, you take off. Eighteen aircraft take off on the squadron. You’ve got letters on the side of the aircraft. Right. So, you knew who your leader was so you look out for that letter aircraft to follow him. We took off and couldn’t find him in the melee. So my pilot flew down the bomber stream. There was the bomber stream. He flew down the bomber stream looking for our squadron and we couldn’t find him. So as we got near the target there was one vic of three that was slightly out of formation so he pfft underneath and he was in between. And these other aircraft were, ‘Get out. Get out.’ You know. So, we flew behind him, dropped on him, dropped bombs and then, when, when we dropped the bomb we just pushed off on our own.
LD: Wow. Yeah.
DC: So things were quite funny as well.
LD: Oh, that’s good. Yeah.
DC: That what you mean, Steve?
Other: Yeah. And the other one was the where you got the Spitfire escort coming back on that first trip. And the mid-upper —
DC: Oh, that was Gelsenkirchen. Yeah.
Other: Yeah. And you were so pleased to see them.
DC: Another, when we were shot up on this Gelsenkirchen it was a daylight and we lost an engine. We lost an engine and a half actually. Now, she’ll fly on two engines but slowly lose speed. Lose height. We were about twenty thousand. Now, it was a lovely clear blue sky and we had to leave the formation. And once you leave the formation on your own, you know you’re set up for any night fighters. Any fighters of course. So we had, I had a verey pistol above me and the instruction was that if you need assistance you fire off a green. If you are in dire problems you fire off a red. So we said to Ted, we were on our own and we had fighter, we couldn’t see them. They were way above us of course. The Typhoons and the Spitfires and the Mustangs were the best aircraft. Anyway, we said to Ted, ‘Don’t you think we ought to get some fighter escort?’ ‘No. No. We’ll be alright.’ Anyway, eventually we convinced him. I fired off a green and within twenty seconds we had two clipped wing Spits on our wingtip. And that was, the pilot hit the roof. The gunners never saw them. If they’d have been German we’d have had it. Anyway, a lovely feeling flying back with two Spits on your wing. When we got, when we got to the Channel they disappeared. That was nice that.
LD: Yes. Yeah. Ok. So, anything else before I leave? Anything you can think of. Any other stories or memories that we haven’t touched yet?
DC: No. I mean —
LD: No. Ok.
DC: It was, you know, you know I’ve told you how we crew up. And when we got back you know we had what we called the flying breakfast. But every time we took off we had bacon and egg and what have you which you couldn’t get in the wartime, see. Right. And when we got back the same thing. And the joke was you’d say to anybody opposite, ‘If you don’t come back can I have your breakfast?’
LD: Oh right.
DC: So you had a sense of humour.
LD: Yeah. Yeah. That’s true, yeah.
DC: We had a sense of humour.
LD: Yeah. Yeah.
DC: No. I know I shouldn’t say this but in some way I enjoyed it. I was young. No commitments. Flying. How many people flew in those days? I must admit when I flew first I was airsick by the way which wasn’t very clever. And when we did fighter affiliation [laughs] do you know what that is?
LD: No.
DC: Fighter affiliation is when you go up on a, on a training flight with gunners and you’re attacked by a Spitfire as if it’s a German and you take evasive action. And evasive action, if he’s seen coming from the port which is the left to you, ‘Enemy aircraft port. Corkscrew port.’ And the air, the pilot would throw the control column up, kick the control column and the aircraft would do that. And then he’d pull it up and he’d do that. So you’re doing that all the time. And if you suffer from airsick that doesn’t do any good.
LD: No.
DC: Now, the first time we did that was on a Wellington on training. And because the aircraft was very old he wasn’t allowed to do more than a thirty degree bank. In other words it would, I was sat there, I did nothing. I just sat there you see. But we couldn’t fly out without a full crew even then. But with, on the Wimpy it was gentle so I just sat there no problem. When we converted on the Lancasters and the first time I went up on the fighter affiliation I still sat there like this. I heard the aircraft, the pilot, the gunners say, ‘Corkscrew starboard,’ or port, ‘Go.’ The next thing I’m on the roof because I lost all gravity. I was on the roof. My pencils would be flying around in, there was dust in the air and when he pulled it up I couldn’t move see. And then I felt sick.’
LD: Oh no.
DC: And the elsan toilet down the back of the aircraft [laughs] So when we did, when we did future ones the pilot would call me up and say, ‘Taff, get down the elsan.’ [laughs] So, but the aircraft weren’t that wide at the bottom with two metal stanchions you see. So you go down. The elsan’s there. The rear gunner turret there. The elsan’s there. So you stand like this and you wait until you hear, you’re on the intercom. ‘Corkscrew. Port. Go.’ So immediately your legs come up so you daren’t be sick then. But you’ve got to make sure the lid of the elsan’s on [laughs] So then when he, when he pulls it up that’s the time to lift lid bluuugh. And once you’re sick you’re fine. It’s when you’re not sick.
LD: Yeah.
DC: I remember, I remember not long after the war we took what we called the Baedekers. We took the ground staff on a low level tour of the Ruhr to show them the damage we’d done. Now, on came these WAAFs with flasks of coffee and cakes and God knows what. And it was June. Just after the war.
LD: Yeah.
DC: Hot. And if you’re flying low when it’s hot you get updrafts. So we sat there. They don’t sit, they didn’t see much. They were sick all the time most of them. And I had a job to make sure I wasn’t as well.
LD: Yeah.
DC: Yeah. It was good fun.
LD: Yeah. It sounds good fun.
DC: So we enjoyed it as well.
LD: Yeah. I suppose if you’re young and you’re excited then, yeah. Ok.
DC: And of course I was commissioned eventually so I was walking around with the officer’s uniform with wings up you know. You felt good.
LD: Yeah. Ok. Well, if that’s, if there’s not anything else than I think we’re pretty much done. Ok. Well, thank you.
DC: Ok.
LD: Very good. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Denis Francis Cockbill
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Laura Dixon
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
2017-10-08
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
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ACockbillDFA171008
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:29:06 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Born in Newport, Denis volunteered for the Royal Air Force as he was tired of bombing, wishing to get his own back, he joined the Air Corps at 17. Wishing to train as a wireless operator because of his interest in radio technology, he officially joined the Royal Air Force three months after his 18th birthday. Having to train for two years, Denis joined an aircrew in 1944, flying Lancasters. He attests that learning radio communication was like learning a new language and that he has never forgotten it. He recounts several operations in which he flew over enemy territory, including flying over Berlin, an operation which took eight hours. He also recalls several experiences during his time, including near-misses, as well as Operation Manna and Operation Exodus. He gives detailed information about Operation Manna, stating that he also joined the Manna Association and travelled to the Netherlands once every five years for a celebration. Denis states that his relationship with his crew was excellent and believes that it had to be because they always worked as a team. He recalls that he completed ten operations in total, but believes he was lucky to survive these, recounting a specific experience in which he was escorted by Spitfires. He admits that he rarely spoke of his war, following his father’s example of the first world war, until recently. He now invites primary school children to learn of his experiences. He continues to give combined talks about Operation Manna with a Dutch lady who survived the Second World War. He believes that the representation of Bomber Command has been terrible, naming Dresden as a legitimate target, but he also prefers to talk of saving lives through Manna and Exodus. He states that the general public does not understand Bomber Command’s losses.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Netherlands
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1944
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
195 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crewing up
Gee
Lancaster
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
perception of bombing war
recruitment
Spitfire
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/776/9923/CBrittainJT-170725-010001.2.jpg
5d8d6e64155684ed91e455b843d56095
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
Brittain, John Taylor
J T Brittain
Description
An account of the resource
42 items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Taylor Brittain (2227748, Royal Air Force). After training as an air gunner at Morpeth and conversion and training at Silverston, North Luffenham and Feltwell, he was posted to 195 Squadron at RAF Wratting Common in February 1945 and flew on operations as a mid upper gunner on Lancaster. The collection consists of his flying logbook; official documents; letters to colleagues and his mother; photographs of people, events, places and aircraft; as well as an album concerning his boat.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Whitehouse and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brittain, JT
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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
Map of Cooks Tour June 1945
Description
An account of the resource
Map (Newcastle to Prague) showing route from Cambridge to between Rotterdam and the Hague, marked with arrows 'supply dropping areas'. Route continues to Wesel, Onsnabruck, Bremen, Hamburg, Hannover, Bielefeld, Hamm, Dortmund, Essen and return to base. Captioned '2/6/45 - Cooks tour, start engines 09.30 - take off 09.37, set course 09.40, return to base - 15.50'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-06-02
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One map with appended data
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Map
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CBrittainJT-170725-010001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Bielefeld
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Netherlands--Hague
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-06-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
195 Squadron
Cook’s tour
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Wratting Common
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/776/9964/PBrittainJT17420001.2.jpg
a064ba04e638c6e7c79c8528b351ee68
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/776/9964/PBrittainJT17420002.2.jpg
77ee779d2d27cdc0beb9a06ba8b8a16d
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
Brittain, John Taylor
J T Brittain
Description
An account of the resource
42 items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Taylor Brittain (2227748, Royal Air Force). After training as an air gunner at Morpeth and conversion and training at Silverston, North Luffenham and Feltwell, he was posted to 195 Squadron at RAF Wratting Common in February 1945 and flew on operations as a mid upper gunner on Lancaster. The collection consists of his flying logbook; official documents; letters to colleagues and his mother; photographs of people, events, places and aircraft; as well as an album concerning his boat.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Whitehouse and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brittain, JT
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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
195 Squadron RAF Wratting Common, 1945
Description
An account of the resource
Over 200 personnel sitting and standing in seven rows in front of a Lancaster. In the background a hanger with doors open. A enlargement show a portion of the photograph with an airman identified as John Brittain ringed in red. Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted in a wooden frame and an enlargement of a section
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBrittainJT17420001, PBrittainJT17420002
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--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
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.
195 Squadron
aircrew
hangar
Lancaster
RAF Wratting Common
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/776/9969/MBrittainJT2227748-170725-04.1.pdf
2cff8d1f5beef8cb4bf4c2b8d4e7d8dd
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
Brittain, John Taylor
J T Brittain
Description
An account of the resource
42 items. The collection concerns Sergeant John Taylor Brittain (2227748, Royal Air Force). After training as an air gunner at Morpeth and conversion and training at Silverston, North Luffenham and Feltwell, he was posted to 195 Squadron at RAF Wratting Common in February 1945 and flew on operations as a mid upper gunner on Lancaster. The collection consists of his flying logbook; official documents; letters to colleagues and his mother; photographs of people, events, places and aircraft; as well as an album concerning his boat.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Whitehouse and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brittain, JT
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Extracts from 195 Squadron Operations Record book covering John Brittain's operations
Description
An account of the resource
Extracts cover thirteen wartime bombing operations and four Operation Manna supply drops as well as three post war prisoner of war repatriation flights. Details include number of aircraft involved, weather, bomb load, marking seen, operational assessment, enemy activity and casualties. Eight operations were by day and five by night. Targets were Dortmund (twice), Gelsenkirchen (four times), Heliogoland (twice), Kamen Oil plant, Wesel, Datteln, Merseburg and Kiel. Supply drops to Rotterdam and The Haque and repatriation flights to Juvencourt in France. Extracts from his log book have been added to the pages.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Scanned or photographed extracts from the original Operations book, cropped and inserted into an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Printed as PDF.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MBrittainJT2227748-170725-04
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Merseburg
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Kamen
Netherlands
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Netherlands--Hague
France
France--Reims
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-02-03
1945-02-20
1945-02-22
1945-02-25
1945-02-27
1945-02-28
1945-03-05
1945-03-07
1945-03-14
1945-04-04
1945-04-09
1945-04-18
1945-04-22
1945-04-29
1945-04-30
1945-05-02
1945-05-17
1945-05-19
1945-05-23
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.
195 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
prisoner of war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1773/31271/PFOMetheringhamAF19040029.1.jpg
69cbafa8fb56c48d34bcf98210da33b6
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
RAF Metheringham collection
Description
An account of the resource
131 items. The collection is from the Royal Air Force Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre and contains photographs of aircraft, aircrew, other RAF personnel and places. Includes some target and reconnaissance photographs. Many items are concerned with 106 Squadron at RAF Metheringham and RAF Syerston.
The collection has been licensed to the IBCC Digital Archive by the RAF Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre 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
2019-01-31
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
FOMetheringhamAF
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is property of the Royal Air Force Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
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
Card with Lancaster dropping food parcels
Description
An account of the resource
Ground to air photograph of a Lancaster flying to the right dropping food parcels with cheering crowd at the bottom below. Submitted with description 'A card with a photograph of a Lancaster dropping food parcels. Printed on the card: "Operation 'Manna', April/May 1945 REMEMBRANCE AND FRIENDSHIP BERGEN N.H. 1939-1945" Handwritten at the top of thre card: "195 Sqdn JE-C, Wratting Common. First Sqdn to drop food over Holland in the region of The Hague. One of my a/craft in C Flight. Des Richards NCO I/C Elect. 'C' Flight Nov 44 - July 45'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-04
1945-05
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph on card with text mounted on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFOMetheringhamAF19040029
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--Suffolk
Netherlands
Netherlands--Hague
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-04
1945-05
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 property of the Royal Air Force Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
195 Squadron
Lancaster
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Wratting Common
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1320/31588/PHarrisonEW1906.1.jpg
254f0c9bebadffe8b6fbdce5baec2113
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
Harrison, Eric William
E W Harrison
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Eric Harrison (b. 1925, 2204970 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 195 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Eric Harrison and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
2019-09-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harrison, EW
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
Eric Harrison with crew
Description
An account of the resource
Seven aircrew in flying equipment, posed in two rows in front of right side rear fuselage of a Lancaster. From information kindly provided by the donor. 'Eric with crew No 195 Squadron 1944'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHarrisonEW1906
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.
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
195 Squadron
aircrew
flight engineer
Lancaster
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1320/31592/MHarrisonEW2204970-151002-04.1.jpg
059eea2be2ebcef8970cba6d44ff1c47
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
Harrison, Eric William
E W Harrison
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Eric Harrison (b. 1925, 2204970 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 195 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Eric Harrison and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
2019-09-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harrison, EW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
W. Ketteridge Sgt. Lanc III
V. Critchley zzzz[sketch]
Gaven.
Spike HALIFAX III
Sgt Clarke Lanc III [symbol]
Bert Mercer Hali III
B. Griffiths (Bill) LANC
G.A. Bancroft (George) Stockport, Hali III
Maurice Hewlett Hali III
George Allen (Kal’s) [symbol]
P.F. Bolderstone Hal III
Johnny Matringam [symbol] HALI III
Raymond R. Jewel (Catalina)
Anthony R. Seaman [symbol]
E.D. Hutchinson (Hutch) [symbol]
Ted Davies [symbol]
J.W. Hendry.
E.W. Hendison Lancs. 195 Sqd.,
[underlined] JULY 1943. [/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
Flight engineers course signatures
Description
An account of the resource
Signatures of fellow course mates with Eric on his flight engineers course.
Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-07
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One sheet of signatures
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
MHarrisonEW2204970-151002-04
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-07
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
David Bloomfield
Sally Coulter
Angela Gaffney
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Workflow A completed
195 Squadron
aircrew
flight engineer
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1912/36027/PHayhurstJM17020003.1.jpg
94311d3438c80f2b861e2a725ee0c419
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
Hayhurst, Jose Margaret
J M Hayhurst
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
2017-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Hayhurst, JM
Description
An account of the resource
108 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Jose Margaret Hayhurst (2073102 Royal Air Force) and contains decorations, uniform, documents and photographs. She served as a radar operator in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Whitehouse 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
Jose Hayhurst's Uniform Badges
Description
An account of the resource
Four cloth badges from Jose's uniform - a 195 squadron crest, her sergeant's strips, and a wireless operator's sleeve badge. There is also an air gunner brevet.
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
Physical object
Physical object. Decoration
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four cloth badges
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHayhurstJM17020003
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
195 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
ground personnel
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2179/38407/CCuthillCR-180818-010007.1.jpg
738ec5b5a17467ac23a11dd373e5e4dd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2179/38407/CCuthillCR-180818-010008.2.jpg
b6a48ce266f61e2479e44018c3766db8
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
Cuthill, Charles
Cuthill, CR
Description
An account of the resource
27 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Charles 'Charlie' R Cuthill (574146, 56121 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs, documents and dog mascot.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Matt Nichol and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-18
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
Cuthill, CR
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
Route map - Ludwigshafen and Osterfeld
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Osterfeld
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Description
An account of the resource
Outline map of England and north west Europe. Shows separate routes to Ludwigshafen on 5 January 1945 and Osterfeld on 11 December 1944. Both operations by day. Includes bomb load for both. On the reverse note 'Captain's of a/c map belonging to Ron Chapman 195 Sqn, Witchford'. Includes comment 'Marmalade, marmalade, British troops in vicinity .... marmalade, marmalade, Master Bomber?, searchlights against the clouds, firts wave [.......] No marker ot T.I's, 109 and 110 passed below going opposite direction, orbited once, [..] much flak [...] another turn then marmalade'.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-12-11
1945-01-05
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
Map
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One map with handwritten notes on reverse
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CCuthillCR-180818-010007, CCuthillCR-180818-010008
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
195 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
navigator
RAF Witchford
searchlight