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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2047/33336/LBiltonGHA175723v1.1.pdf
16f63e7fb0b27a19684d3564ed2f2c0a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bilton, George Henry Albert
G H A Bilton
Description
An account of the resource
Nineteen items. The collection concerns George Henry Albert Bilton (b. 1923, 175723 Royal Air Force) and contains an oral history interview, his log book, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 428 and 434 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anthony Bilton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bilton, GHA
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
George Bilton - observers and air gunners log book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LBiltonGHA175723v1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending temporal coverage. Allocated
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Observer's and Air Gunner's Flying log book for George Bilton, flight engineer, covering the period from 18 August 1943 to 1 August 1946. Detailing his final flying training, operations flown, instructional postings and flying in transports. He was stationed at RAF Croft, RAF Topcliffe, RAF Middleton St George, RAF Woolfox Lodge, RAF Warboys, RAF Upwood and RAF Wyton. Aircraft flown in were Halifax, Lancaster, Anson, Wellington and C-47. He flew a total of 34 operations with 428 and 434 Squadrons. Targets were Dusseldorf, Ludwigshaven, Stuttgart, Berlin, Kiel, La Rochelle, Copenhagen, minelaying, Trappes, Aulnoye, Lille, Villeneuve, St Ghislian, Le Crepiet, Disemont, Boulogne, Beinnies, Caen, Hamburg, Acquet, Foret de Nieppe, Paris, St Leu d'Esserent, Foret de Chantilly, La Breteque, Brunswick, Falaise and Brest. His pilot on operations was Wing Commander Watkins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
1944-07
1944-08
1943-11-03
1943-11-18
1943-11-26
1943-11-27
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-02-03
1944-02-04
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-02-21
1944-02-22
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-03-03
1944-03-04
1944-03-06
1944-03-07
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-04-09
1944-04-10
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-29
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-21
1944-07-01
1944-07-06
1944-07-18
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-08-01
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1945-06-05
1945-06-08
1945-06-23
1945-06-29
1945-08-17
Creator
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Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Denmark--Copenhagen
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Aulnoye-Aymeries
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Creil
France--Falaise
France--La Rochelle
France--Lille
France--Nieppe
France--Paris
France--Soligny-la-Trappe
France--Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
156 Squadron
1651 HCU
1659 HCU
1664 HCU
29 OTU
428 Squadron
434 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of the Boulogne E-boats (15/16 June 1944)
C-47
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Croft
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Woolfox Lodge
RAF Wyton
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2047/33328/ABiltonGHA960623-0001.1.pdf
68edbe099b5e26f2922404b2fb056c11
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2047/33328/ABiltonGHA960623.1.mp3
3f3f5cac621761fcd3088cee74a5d0fd
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bilton, George Henry Albert
G H A Bilton
Description
An account of the resource
Nineteen items. The collection concerns George Henry Albert Bilton (b. 1923, 175723 Royal Air Force) and contains an oral history interview, his log book, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 428 and 434 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anthony Bilton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bilton, GHA
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Music]
I: Were you born in Hull?
GB: Well, outside of Hull at Anlaby.
I: Which year were you born?
GB: 1923. October.
I: And what did your father do for a living?
GB: He was a coach builder for, well it’s now British Railway but first of all Hull and Barnsley. Then it was taken over by the London Northeastern and he built the coaches and the waggons. He was with them all his life.
I: Did you go to school in Anlaby?
GB: Anlaby Church of England School. And then the last two years I was at Hessle School when they closed the Church of England one down. I left school 1938.
I: So you were fourteen.
GB: Fourteen. Yeah.
I: Did you get a job?
GB: Yes. I went and got a job as an apprentice furniture salesman.
I: In Hull.
GB: In Hull. At Harry Jacobs Furniture.
I: Were you doing that when war broke out?
GB: Oh, I was still with them when war broke out. I was with them until I went into the Forces in 1942.
I: What was your reaction when you heard Chamberlain make the declaration that we were at war with Germany?
GB: Well, I think it was a bit too young and didn’t know anything about it but I volunteered for an ARP messenger boy and I was accepted and that kept us busy on a night time. Even with practices.
I: Where did you volunteer for it?
GB: Anlaby House which became the Central Headquarters for the ARP in Haltemprice. It is now the headquarters of Beverley Borough Council. The same house.
I: What kind of work did you have to do as an ARP messenger boy?
GB: Well, if any of the telephone lines were broken in a raid we had to go out and take messages from one post to another.
I: By foot?
GB: No. On our bikes.
I: Did you have a uniform?
GB: No. Just a steel helmet and an extra special gas mask. That’s all.
I: What was extra special about it?
GB: Well, it was more like the Services one. Not like the ordinary civilian gas mask.
I: What was the difference between the two?
GB: Well, it was heavier and, well and you just, you didn’t have the mask at the face. You had a small canister at the side.
I: So you didn’t have the protuberance.
GB: No. That’s right.
I: Did you have an arm band to show who you were?
GB: Yes. ARP messenger, that was all and the steel helmet with M on.
I: What did M mean? For messenger.
GB: For messenger.
I: Did you get paid for it?
GB: No. It was all voluntary. No. Nothing at all. You, you, when the sirens went you reported to Anlaby House and you stayed there until the siren all clear and then you went back home.
I: Whereabouts did you do this work?
GB: In Anlaby. The farthest we ever had to bring a message was from Anlaby to Cottingham when the lines were down.
I: Did you enjoy doing it?
GB: Oh yes. I did.
I: Could you have thrown it up any time you liked?
GB: Any time you wanted you could decide to finish and that was it.
I: Was there competition to get these jobs?
GB: Well, there was about four of us and that’s all they needed. They all went in the Forces and of the four there was one killed.
I: How did that happen?
[pause]
GB: It was a lad called John Harding. He was killed in Italy about a month after the war. He went all through the desert, all through Italy and he was killed about a month after the war moving shells from the artillery.
I: Were there any incidents that happened to you after you had done the messenger work?
GB: Not really.
I: That you can recount.
GB: No, there was, it was very very quiet in the area of Haltemprice. All the damage that was done was done in Hull. I think we had what five bombs dropped in the village of Anlaby and they were unexploded.
I: Whereabouts did they drop?
GB: At the, two or three hundred yards from Anlaby House down Woodlands Drive in a snicket.
I: A snicket being a cut through.
GB: A cut through. Yes. They did no damage. The Army came, found them and exploded them.
I: Was anybody injured?
GB: No. There was no injuries whatsoever.
I: When did the bombs drop on Anlaby? Which year would that have been?
GB: That was in the big raid of 1940. May the 8th 1941.
I: ’41. Any others that you remember that dropped in Anlaby?
GB: None at all. There was only the five.
I: Did you ever see the damage in Hull?
GB: Yes. I used to work in Hull. The place where I was employed in Jameson Street was completely gutted during the 1941 raid.
I: What was the name again?
GB: Harry Jacobs Furniture, Jameson Street.
I: What else did you see of the damage in Hull?
GB: All of Jameson Street were moved. Our offices were down Osbourne Street and that was severely damaged. You could see all of Paragon Square which was Hammonds at the time was gutted. There was a terrific amount of damage done and especially in the Stoneferry District where the oil mills were and the flour mills around it.
I: Did people come out of Hull to Anlaby to get away from the bombing?
GB: Yes, they did. They built a camp down Lowfield Road in Anlaby for displaced personnel from the raids and there was one built on Priory Road just outside Cottingham which was taken up by people who had been bombed out. Those two camps after the war housed the young couples who got married and they had no housing. When I got married in ’51 I finished up in one of those converted accommodations for a year before I got a house.
I: What were they like?
GB: Alright.
I: Just describe them.
GB: Well, they were two little bedroom. You had a small bedroom, small living room and there was a small like kitchen for cooking and doing your washing. In Priory Road where the camp is we spent a year in there didn’t we before we came to Cottingham. There were no housing at all and they were in use for about ten years before they were finally closed down.
I: What was the standard of accommodation like?
GB: Poor. Single bricks. Very damp. Corrugated roof.
I: Wasn’t it later used to house Poles?
GB: That’s correct. Yes.
I: Now, can you tell me how you came to be in the Air Force?
GB: I volunteered for air crew in, when I was eighteen in what we called a Selection Board. And I was accepted as a wireless operator air gunner.
I: When you, which year would this have been?
GB: That was 1941. I was eighteen in October ‘41 and I volunteered then and went down for an interview at Padgate. I went through the examinations. Then my medical and then the Aircrew Selection Board and I was accepted for training as a w/op a g.
I: Why did you volunteer for it?
GB: I was, I should have made a very very poor sailor and my father always said, ‘Don’t go in the Army.’ He’d had enough.
I: So you wanted to exercise a choice before you were directed.
GB: Before I was directed.
I: But you were. Did you become a w/op air gunner?
GB: No. There was, they had a tremendous influx of people wanting to be w/op a g’s and I think I’d been waiting about four months to go in and they were short of flight engineers for training so they asked me if I would like to take a test board and become a flight engineer for training. And I accepted that instead of waiting. So I was called up in August ’42. Went to Blackpool. Did my initial training footslogging and I stayed in Blackpool then for about ten months doing a flight mechanic and a fitter’s course. Passed out AC1 flight mechanic and AC1 fitter and I went down to St Athans for six weeks to do the Halifax course and I waited then in August ’43 and I was posted from St Athans up to Number 6 Group, a Heavy Conversion Unit 1664 which was then at Croft and I crewed up with a Canadian and English mixed crew on August 1943.
I: In that training did you run into any problems?
GB: None at all. The only time I got jankers was for failing to carry a bayonet whilst on duty [laughs] and I got seven days CB for it and I swore never again to do any punishment.
I: What happened to you on the CB?
GB: CB? Well, you reported at 6 o’clock after you’d done all your schoolwork for three hours of square bashing. Fifty five minutes square bashing, five minutes off with full kit. Saturday you scrubbed the NAAFI out at Squire’s Gate and it was a huge one. Sunday you reported after Church Parade on the hour every hour until 10 o’clock at night. That was enough. No more. So I kept my shoes clean after that.
I: Did you resent the punishment?
GB: Not really. It taught you to behave yourself.
I: What did you think of the quality of training that you got?
GB: Very good. The instructors were very good. I had no complaints whatsoever against any of the instructors. They were always fair and they helped you whenever. All the way through the course.
I: Were you taught what you had to know or did they miss any?
GB: Well, I think the original entries for flight engineers were given far too much training on engines. You didn’t have to become a fitter to become a flight engineer as they found out later. They shortened the course to about a twelve week course where it took me nearly a year. You didn’t have to be a qualified flight fitter engine to become a flight engineer.
I: What did a flight engineer have to do in a bomber?
GB: Look after chiefly the control of the engines, the petrol consumption, know the hydraulic systems and all the emergencies. Assist in take-off and landing.
I: If the pilot had been hit would you have been able to pilot it?
GB: It would have been a struggle. As a Halifax flight engineer you didn’t have any pilot training. You were never on the controls whereas in a Lancaster you were. You acted as a second pilot for take-off and landing but on a Halifax bomber the bomb aimer assisted in take-off and landing.
I: Now, you said that you were posted to 6 Group. Can you tell me about what 6 Group was?
GB: 6 Group was the Halifax group financed by the Royal Canadian Government. They provided all the aircraft and the crews were mixed. I had three English and four Canadians in the crew. The pilot was, pilot, navigator and the two gunners Canadians. The wireless operator, the bomb aimer and myself were the English members of the crew.
I: How was the crew formed?
GB: Well, I met the crew. They’d done their Operational Training Unit course and they were posted up to Croft and ten crews and ten flight engineers were told, ‘Sort yourselves out.’ And they picked me and I accepted them and I went with them. You weren’t allocated. You weren’t told, ‘You fly with that man.’ Or, ‘You fly with them.’ You were left to individually sort yourself out which crew you wanted to go with. So if you met a sergeant in the mess, you know you knew him and you had a drink or two before you crewed up you went to him.
I: How did you like serving with Canadians?
GB: Oh, they were very good. Very friendly. They didn’t have the bull. The discipline wasn’t as severe on the Canadian group as it was on the English groups.
I: Can you give an example?
GB: Well, I mean you mixed freely with the, when I was an NCO you mixed freely with the two officers. The Canadian officers. No trouble at all calling you by your Christian names.
I: Now, what was your first operational squadron?
GB: My first operational squadron? Well. I lost my first pilot. We went to 427 squadron and Sergeant Dresser went on his second second dickie trip and never came back.
I: 427 was your first.
GB: First squadron at Leeming. So we were a crew without a captain.
I: When did you join that squadron do you think?
GB: We joined 427 Squadron 4th of September and we left on the 23rd of September. We were posted back to 1659 Conversion Unit Topcliffe where there was another pilot waiting for us.
I: So did you do any operations —
GB: None at all.
I: At that base?
GB: No. None whatsoever there. As I say the pilot never came back from his second, second dickie to Frankfurt.
I: So you were posted to a new squadron.
GB: No. A new Conversion Unit for a new pilot. A new pilot by the name of Watkins, a flying officer who had been instructing in Canada for nearly two years. He’d been, come over and we crewed up with him on the 24th of September with Flying Officer Watkins at 1659 Conversion Unit Topcliffe and we went through our month training with him again until the 7th of October ’43 where we were posted to 428 Squadron, Middleton St George.
I: And it was then you started operations.
GB: Operations. Yes. The first operation we did was the 3rd of November.
I: Can you describe what you remember of it?
GB: Very very little. It was Dusseldorf and everything seemed to be on top of you at the first you know. You didn’t take it all in. All I seem to remember is a little bit of flak and the flares going down for target indicators for bombing. Everything happened so fast on your first two or three trips that you hadn’t adjusted to operational flying. I learned more on my second op. We went to Ludwigshafen on the 18th of November.
I: What happened then?
GB: Well, first of all we got coned over the target. We got the master searchlight on us which was a bluey colour and he followed us and we got out of him after a lot of evasive action and as soon as we got out a fighter opened up on us and we got a good hiding. The rear gunner was severely wounded. The IFF that we had was damaged. Monica, which we had was damaged. All the trimming wires for elevator and rudders were cut. We had petrol tank wires cut from one, two and four tanks. All hydraulic pipes were cut. We couldn’t close the bomb doors. They were fully opened. We were in a mess and we got hit about twenty one thousand feet and by the time the pilot got control we were down to fifteen thousand. We had no navigational aids and the navigator brought us back by straight navigation of the Pole Star. We were off track coming back when we crossed over Ostend at fifteen thousand feet and they hit us with everything.
I: They what?
GB: Hit us with everything. They opened up with everything they had and we couldn’t take any evasive action. We just had to go through it.
I: This was the flak.
GB: Yeah. There was flaming onions coming up in between the tail plane and the main plane. It was rough. And then we crossed the coast and we still didn’t know exactly where we were so the skipper called up. The emergency call sign then was Darkie and Woodbridge accepted the call and we did a full emergency landing there.
I: What was the emergency landing like?
GB: It was very rough. We couldn’t get the undercarriage, it came down but I couldn’t lock it down. We tried everything. Put in to a shallow dive, pulling out to see if we could just pulling into a shallow dive, pulling out to see if we could just jerk it that two or three inches to make it lock and we couldn’t do that. We were all in the emergency positions coming in to land and just as they pulled up to do a belly landing it just threw it that little bit forward, the wheels, and they locked. So we were alright. We came out. The rear gunner we, we’d patched him up. We’d pumped morphine into him and he went to Norwich Hospital. We never saw him again. He was very badly wounded in the head. And we spent the night there and then an aircraft flew us back the next morning to our base at Middleton St George.
I: What was the date of that?
GB: 18th of November.
I: And which Halifax was it? What was it called?
GB: NA O-Oboe. We were just off on a night operation at 16.45 on a trip which lasted seven hours and five minutes.
I: Did that put you off wanting to go on operations after that experience?
GB: Not really. We were in operations again on the 26th of November. We took two spare gunners and we went to Stuttgart and we had a reasonable trip. We had no fighter trouble but when we went to a diversionary raid being done on Frankfurt and the Germans had laid what they called you know the fighter flares, the path the Mosquitoes were taking oh and it looked rough. We bypassed it and Stuttgart was quite you know quite a normal trip. A bit of flak. No fighters. But I think that got the confidence of the crew back.
I: When you went on these trips to Stuttgart and Ludwigshafen could you see other planes being hit?
GB: Not on those two. No. I never saw anything anyone shot down over Ludwigshafen, Stuttgart or the first trip Dusseldorf.
I: How did your next operations go?
GB: Well, the next operation was January the 20th 1944, Berlin and that was a rough one.
I: Can you describe it?
GB: Well, at one part the Germans had laid a flare path for fighter flares and they were among the bomber stream and we were going down. You could see the fire from the German aircraft and a small amount coming from our aircraft. The Allied aircraft and then you’d just see a ball of fire and it would hold steady for a minute or two then it would just go in to a dive. That was quite an experience to see it. When we got to Berlin we were in the first wave and the target indicators were a few seconds late and we got caught in predictive flak because we were the first wave. We had no cover from the metal strips. The tin foil that we threw out. It didn’t affect, it didn’t help you it helped the people behind you and we were a little bit off. [pause]
I: Which was the worse? This Berlin one or the Ludwigshafen?
GB: Ludwigshaven. Ludwigshaven was the worst. I mean we got a lot of shell, a lot of holes, a lot of damage. This Berlin it was just that you were in the predicted flak. We didn’t get hit. We didn’t have any fighter trouble. Berlin, Ludwigshafen I’ll never forget it. Never.
I: Was Berlin a particularly dreaded place to go to?
GB: It was, yes. It was such a long, it was such a long stooge. It took us eight hours fifteen minutes. It was very tiring and it was overpowering on the target area because it was so heavily defended. There were so many searchlights. I think on the first one we lost about forty odd aircraft that night.
I: You said which particular Halifax you had. Did you always have the same one?
GB: No. That was Halifax NA U-Uncle on that Berlin trip.
I: Was there any competition to get the best aircraft?
GB: No. It was just what you were allocated. Our pilot later became a flight commander and he took any aircraft. I mean I think we were nearly always in a B flight when we flew aircraft.
I: What does that mean?
GB: Well, you had A flights and B flights.
I: As part of the squadron. To make up the squadron.
GB: The mark up the squadron. Yes. And the A flights were the first half of the alphabet and so the second B was the second half. We were either V-Victor, Q-Queenie, or O-Oboe later on that we flew in.
I: But was there any, ever any feeling that the more senior people were getting the best aircraft?
GB: No. No.
I: Or the best ground crews?
GB: No. The best ground crews were on operational squadrons. I thought so anyhow.
I: But was there any difference between the different ground crews that you had in your squadron?
GB: No. They were all first class. They all did a first-class job. The aircraft were always in good condition. We never turned back from thirty four trips from any trouble whatsoever.
I: What was the next operations that you had to do?
GB: Well, the next two I did were two mine laying stooges. One was to Kiel which was a quiet trip and the other one was down to la Rochelle which was a very long stooge. Eight hours ten minutes. That was the fourth of February ’44. Then we went to Berlin again on the 15th of February.
I: Was mine laying usually a quiet job?
GB: Yes. Well, it was a very hard job because you were by yourself. There would probably be about twenty aircraft you know to lay mines and you were on your own. You had no cover whatsoever. I mean the tin foil that you threw out didn’t help you. It more or less showed the Germans where you were because you were always ahead of the tin foil you were throwing out. There would be about twenty. Probably twenty two twenty three aircraft would go down to La Rochelle and lay two mines a piece. In between the island of la Rochelle and the mainland.
I: Did you ever call those gardening operations?
GB: They are gardening operations. I did the La Rochelle. I did two La Rochelles in February. One on the 4th and one on the 21st and then on the 25th I did a mine laying stooge to Copenhagen Sound.
I: Well, what was your next Berlin operation like? Was it any different from the first?
GB: It was the same as the first. A lot of flak. A lot of fighter activity but we never had an attack. That day, night we were diverted to Shipdham which was an American base and we were there for three days for bad weather. Our base was closed down and we stayed with the Americans. Had their hospitality.
I: What was the date of your second Berlin raid?
GB: 15th of February. We took off in NA Q-Queenie. We took off at 17.20. We were airborne for six hours fifty minutes.
I: What did you fear most over Berlin? Was it the night fighters or the flak?
GB: The night fighters. The flak no. It was the fighters. We were always looking out for fighters. You didn’t want, you didn’t want to battle with them you wanted to get out of their way because the armaments that we had was four 303s were just like peashooters to their cannons if you could see them and get out of their way. That was the main thing.
I: And then after Berlin? That second Berlin operation.
GB: After Berlin we did as I say two mine laying stooges to la Rochelle and Copenhagen Sound in February. Then March we started with another gardening operation mine laying to the mouth of the Gironde River which was seven hours fifty minutes. Then we started the pre-D-Day marshalling yards in the March of ’44 and it was the marshalling yard at Trappes. Now that one we had an absolute full bomb load, I’ll never forget it of eleven thousand five hundred pounders. We had eleven thousand five hundred and fourteen hundred gallons of petrol and it was made up of seven five hundred pounders and six one thousand pounders. That was the heaviest bomb load we’d ever taken and after the operation the marshalling yard at Trappes was never used again. It was, it was quite an easy trip. There was very very little flak. It was very light. No fighter trouble. We came, we did five hours forty minutes and there was bad weather at the aerodrome and we were diverted to Harwell. And we spent the night at Harwell and we left the next day back to base.
I: Now here you’ve given me a sheet headed “Target Token” relating to this Trappes raid on the 6th of March 1944. Can you tell me what this sheet signifies?
GB: Well, that is the marshalling yards there. Those are early flares, the photograph flares that we dropped to illuminate the target so we could take the photograph. Well, from that they could photograph from the headings that we were on. They could tell you exactly where those bombs straddled the target and the whole load went right across the marshalling yards.
I: So you’ve got the copy of the photograph.
GB: Of the photograph. Every crew member was presented with a copy of the photograph.
I: As a means of congratulating.
GB: Congratulating. More or less that you’d got the whole fifteen bombs right across the marshalling yard.
I: Any other marshalling yard operations that you did?
GB: Well, I know the next one we went to was, the next operation I did was another gardening trip to Kiel. We did the mining to the entrance to Kiel harbour. The next one was on the 25th of March. We went to Aulnoye. That was quite an easy trip. A marshalling yard. No trouble. Then on April our skipper had been promoted to squadron leader and we were posted 434 Squadron where he became B Flight commander.
I: Where was 434 Squadron?
GB: At Croft. It was a satellite aerodrome of Middleton St George. It was one that was built during the wartime use whereas Middleton St George was a peacetime aerodrome. The next marshalling yard we went to was Lisle. That was a quiet trip. That was on the 9th of April. We went on the 26th of April to Villeneuve St Georges. A French target. On the 29th we had a short gardening trip to the Frisian Islands. The mines we were laying were supposed to be for a convoy that was coming through. We laid the mines and the convoy was coming through. There was quite a bit of flak from the flak ships. That was then —
I: Were you hit?
GB: No. It was, we had no trouble. We seemed to be lucky again. There was a lot of flak from the flak ships but we had nothing. No holes whatsoever. Come to May, the 1st of May we went St Ghislian. And then on the 27th we went to Le Crepiet. They were quiet trips. Five hours and four and a half hours we did. On June the 15th we flew in J-Jig on a daylight to Boulogne and you could see the flak there. When we were going in there was one aircraft coming out with the whole of his starboard wing in flames. We never knew what happened to him.
I: Was that the first daylight raid?
GB: That was the first daylight I’d done. Yes.
I: How did you feel about that compared with the night raids?
GB: Well, you’re more confident because you could see what was happening and you knew you had fighter cover. It was just the flak but then flak you got used to. It never really bothered people unless you got hit with it badly.
I: What was the date of that bombing operation?
GB: 15th of June.
I: So this was after D-Day.
GB: After D-Day. I was on leave on D-Day. We were. And the next operation was to Disemont on the 21st of June.
I: What was the target in the Boulogne raid?
GB: On the Boulogne raid we were dropping bombs that exploded as soon as it hit the water to cause waves to go into the fence to destroy their MTB boats and that.
I: Do you think it worked?
GB: By all accounts yes. The reports we received afterwards it had been a successful raid and the docks got a good pasting as well. In July, we started off the 1st of July we went to a place called [Benayes or Beugnies] and when we got there there were no PFF markings so we bombed on Gee. There was quite a bit of flak and we lost all hydraulics and had to, we had to land using emergency undercarriage but I could never close the bomb doors. They were open all the way back and all the way for landing. And we had to use full emergency for getting the undercarriage down and the use of the flaps.
I: When was that?
GB: That was the 1st of June. We went in Q-Queenie that night.
I: 1st of July.
GB: 1st of July, sorry. They sent us back to the same target on the 6th of July. To [Benayes or Beugnies]. We went on G-George that time and it was a quiet trip.
I: Where is [Benayes or Beugnies]?
GB: It’s in France. All I can —
[recording paused]
GB: And after that I went to Caen on a daylight and on a night operation on the 18th of the 7th took off at 3.30 in the morning. That was when they started the big push and their breakthrough at Caen.
I: Was that a particularly big raid? A mass raid.
GB: Yes, it was a mass raid. They practically destroyed Caen that night and the Army moved forwards and they never stopped moving after that.
I: Do you have any memories of that raid?
GB: Yes, all I can remember was it was a dead easy raid. Flak not bothered. No fighters. No nothing. Just like a cross country.
I: Were you aware of all the other planes?
GB: Yes. They were all, they were all so close together. All bombing on one area. You could see them even though it was that time. Just two hours. It would be about 5.30. just dusk coming on.
I: So you didn’t have any opposition.
GB: Nothing at all. Nothing whatsoever. It was just like flying from here to Jersey on your holidays. No opposition whatsoever.
I: Do you think you hit your target?
GB: Well, we must have done because the Army never stopped moving. They took Caen. The next job after that it was a rough one. It was Hamburg. That was the 28th.
I: What happened then?
GB: Well, we were in the second wave and we were a bit late and we were at the scheduled height of bombing at seventeen thousand feet. There was somebody else above us and they dropped their bombs and we had, on our bombing run we just had to dive starboard to get out of the way of his bombs or we should have got the lot because they always had separate heights for bombing and we were late. Two minutes late. We were at seventeen and the next wave was at seventeen five. That was it. There was quite a bit of flak at Hamburg. That was the most terrifying thing. A full bomb load up there. And the skipper just dived starboard and we were on the bombing run. Where our bombs went we don’t know.
I: Was it common for planes to be hit by bombers above them?
GB: I don’t think so. I think it occasionally happened but this was too close.
I: What about collisions between bombers?
GB: I never saw any. Never saw any at all. I think they did happen but they were very few and far between.
I: And then —
GB: And then after that August was a very busy month. Our skipper had been promoted because our original wing commander, Wing Commander Bartlett had been lost. He’d been shot down and killed in action and our skipper was promoted and became wing commander of 434 Squadron. On the 1st of August we took J-Jig to Acquet in France. There was no PFF markings so the full bomb load was brought back. We brought the whole load back. On the 3rd of —
I: How dangerous was it to bring bombs back?
GB: Well, they weren’t fused. I mean they weren’t fused until you were bombing. Didn’t press the selector switches so they would be alright. It was just that we would have a heavy load for landing. After that on the 3rd we took J-Jig again to le Foret de Nieppe which was for fuel dumps. On the 4th of August again in J-Jig again we went to caves that were just outside Paris where the V-2 rockets were assembled and that was heavily defended with a daylight op and we were hit by flak. We got a few holes. We were caught in predictive flak. We were diverted on the 4th to Dalton.
I: Was this a V-2 place or a V-1 place?
GB: No. A V-2 place where they were assembling the, where they assembled where they assembled the rockets.
I: And where was it?
GB: Just outside Paris. Some from what we could understand from the briefing they were more or less mushroom caves and that. And then on the 5th we went to St Leu d’Esserent. On the 8th we went to a fuel dump just outside at Foret de Chantilly and that was hit and there was black smoke when we left up to fifteen thousand feet.
I: What do you think you hit there at Chantilly?
GB: It was a fuel dump. And on the 9th we went to Le Breteque. On the 12th of August we went to Brunswick. To Germany. On that raid according to recent record was a complete failure as everyone bombed on H2S as there were no markers went down so we bombed individually and there was no concentration.
I: Did you feel at the time that it was a failure?
GB: Well, it seemed to be a failure because there was no concentration of fires or anything. Then on the 14th we did the Army coop where the German divisions were trapped at Falaise. Now that was a very easy trip. There was no opposition whatsoever. The only thing wrong was that the Canadian group bombed their own troops. The Canadian Army had advanced past the markers and of course there was a few killed.
I: Was yours one of the bombers that dropped on the Canadians do you think?
GB: Hmmn.
I: Right.
GB: It wasn’t the Air Forces fault. It was the Army had advanced past the markers. And the last trip I did—
I: And that was what? That was the 14th was it?
GB: That was the 14th of August. We took off at 12.40. It was a five hour ten minute job. And the last trip I did was the 25th of August. We went to Brest to soften it up so the Yanks could take it. And that was quite easy. There was no trouble at all. I think they were more or less giving in. And that was on the 25th of August. There was bad weather back at base and we got diverted to Thorney Island. We spent the night at Thorney Island and then came back the next day and we were told that was it. We had finished our tour.
I: Had you done thirty?
GB: We’d done thirty four and one sea sweep. The skipper, the navigator and the bomb aimer were each awarded a DFC and myself, the wireless operator Jackie Bennett from Newcastle and Jimmy Silverman the rear gunner were granted a commission. That was our reward.
I: What happened to you then?
GB: Well, after that I was posted down to Bruntingthorpe which was 29 OTU and I was instructing on engine handling. I did very little flying. And a week at Blackpool on an Air Sea Rescue course which I thoroughly enjoyed. I only flew twice in the six months I was at OTU. I was never keen on Wellingtons.
I: Why not?
GB: Well, the Wellingtons were clapped out [laughs]
[pause]
GB: Then I went, I volunteered to go back on a second tour and I went in April ’45 with a Flight Lieutenant Kennedy. He made a crew up from 29 OTU and we went to 1651 Conversion Unit at Woolfox Lodge.
I: Why did you volunteer for a second tour?
GB: I didn’t like 29 OTU and I didn’t like what bit of flying I did do.
I: Why didn’t you like that OTU?
GB: Well, there was a little bit of too much bull. The group captain in charge was an ex-Cranwell boy and I think he thought it was still 1938 and not 1944.
I: So you preferred to risk your life.
GB: Yes.
I: Than have the bull?
GB: Have the bull. Yes.
I: Did you go back on ops in the end?
GB: Well, we did our conversion unit on to Lancasters and we were picked out unfortunately to go to Warboys for PFF training so by the time we’d finished the PFF training the war had finished. They had special training at Warboys and then we had to go through another course of automatic gun laying turret which was new to the gunners. By the time we’d finished those courses the war had finished. We finished up at 156 Squadron at Upwood and that was quite enjoyable because we did [pause] took ground crew on what was called a Cook’s Tour. We used to fly them over Germany up the Ruhr and show them all the damage that they’d helped to do in maintaining the aircraft. I did two of those Cook’s Tours in in June and we did a little bit of flying. I did an air test for the Royal Aeronautical Establishment. Another Cook’s Tour. We did a postmortem to Denmark where they did an actual like on operation to Denmark to see how the German radar system worked and that was on the 29th of June ’45. That was a five and a half hour.
I: Testing the radar defences.
GB: Yes. Of the, that the Germans had. Then we just did local flying and then for three days we were dumping. The 21st, the 24th and the 27th of July was dumping incendiaries in to the North Sea that were no good. And in the August of ’44 we, the 1st of August we did a passenger trip to Frankfurt and Nuremberg taking crew, ground crew in and bringing ground crew out. And we had a trip which made me want to go back to Italy when I got married but on the 15th of August ’45 we went to Bari in Italy and we had three days. Well, we crammed twenty of the 8th Army boys into a Lancaster fuselage, gave the a sick bag and put their kit in the bomb bays and flew them home. That was thoroughly enjoyable to see Italy.
I: Can I ask you about the difference between Lancasters and the Halifaxes. What did you feel about flying in the two?
GB: Well, on a Lancaster the flight engineer did the work of a second pilot. He did the throttles, looked after the undercarriage controls, flaps and everything. But as regards flying I still like the Halifax. Especially the Halifax Mark 3 with the Hercules Centaurus engines. It was a marvellous aircraft. There was more room in it. It could carry a bombload of twelve thousand pounds but it couldn’t carry the big bombs because they hadn’t the depth of the bomb bays. But I still liked the Halifax. I think it was because I did all my operations in them and I got through a tour with them.
I: Did the Halifax have any disadvantages?
GB: I don’t think so. Not the later ones. The one of the first lots, the first ones had a tendency to stall but they altered that by doing, altering the rudder system.
I: What did you learn in the Pathfinder course?
GB: I took a bomb aimer’s course and learned how to drop bombs [laughs] That’s the only difference.
I: How did you do that?
GB: Well, they give you a concentrated course on dropping practice bombs and that was the only difference.
I: Now, can I ask you some general questions about operations in the war. what was morale like amongst the bomber crews as far as you personally experienced it?
GB: Very good. Very high indeed. I only ever knew one person who went LMF and he was a member of our crew but everyone else that I knew enjoyed the life. It was a good life. I mean admittedly it was very very dangerous but it was a clean life. You came back to a clean bed and you came back to good food and you were treated well. You were given leave every six weeks. You were. You had extra rations when you came home. It was a dangerous job but they looked after you and discipline wasn’t severe on bomber squadrons. That was on the Canadian group anyhow. But aircrew was quite relaxed.
I: Could you see signs of LMF in this chap?
GB: No. No, we couldn’t. It was only the second trip after we got a good hiding and he never said anything on the night when we did the emergency landing at Woodbridge. When we came back the next day I met him in the Sergeant’s Mess in the afternoon and he said what had happened and I never saw him again. He was off the squadron as quick as that.
I: So you couldn’t think of any reason why he should have gone LMF.
GB: No. None at all. He was the mid-upper gunner and that was just it. He just threw the sponge in.
I: What did the rest of the crew think about him going LMF? Did you have sympathy or did you look down on him?
GB: I don’t think they looked down on him. They were just pleased that he’d gone so quick and nobody could dwell on the subject. And when we got two new gunners and as I say we were away within seven days of that operation on Stuttgart 18th to the 26th and we got two spare gunners. And after that we got two permanent gunners.
I: Were the aircrew superstitious? Did they have any lucky charms or anything like that?
GB: Yes, I’ve still got my little St Christopher cross and three us was always emptied our bladder on the starboard wheel before we took off. Myself, the rear gunner and the wireless operator.
I: This was a superstition was it?
GB: Always did it. Always, whether it was a daylight or a night op. Whether the groupie was there or anybody it was always emptied against the starboard wheel.
I: And did other crews do that?
GB: I think other crews always went in in certain order. Pilot first and like that.
I: What were the briefings like? Can you describe the scene when you got the briefings?
GB: Well, when it was the Berlin and you looked up and everyone said, ‘Berlin,’ everyone, ‘Oh.’ That was it. Then you just stepped back in silence and let them all give you the information. The German targets when you saw them when you saw the red lines leading you knew you were in for a warm night. The French targets everyone [clap] was happy.
I: They clapped.
GB: Well, there was that and a cheer when they said Caen or St Leu d’Esserent like that. I mean compared to the German targets they were easy. The only targets that we didn’t really like, the whole crew, was the mine laying duty because they, the majority of them were so long and there were so few of you you felt so exposed. I mean the Germans would probably leave you alone but then the next time they’d probably lose four five aircraft out of twenty odd. They would really come down on you like a tonne of bricks than leave you alone. When they hit you they hit you.
I: What do you feel about the criticism that has been lodged against Bomber Command since the war?
GB: I think its people who have got no idea about a war. They have no idea what the targets were like. Bombing had to be done. It was the only way of offensive against the Germans and I don’t think they take in to fact the amount of damage that we did do. The amount of people that were tied down. There was over a million people tied down in German defence. There was thirty thousand anti-aircraft guns and over, nearly ten thousand of those were eighty eight millimetre. Now if those eighty eight ten thousand millimetres had been used on the beaches of Normandy the Channel would have been blood red. They had, the German defences had all the ammunition they wanted up to within six weeks of the war. They were never short. They rationed the Army but they never rationed the local defence. And after all we did reduce production and if you reduced production by twelve and a half percent of the Tiger tanks it’s a heck of a lot because there was nothing could touch a Tiger. So I think the criticism has been very unfair because the boys went through hell.
I: When you were at these stations how and where did you spend your spare time?
GB: Well, at Middleton St George and Croft we used to go into Darlington and we all had one particular pub. The Fleece. And that’s where we spent our time. At the Fleece. But I was up there about eight or nine years ago and it’s been knocked down. The Old Fleece pub.
I: Did you put any kind of trophies or anything like that up in the bar?
GB: No. No, we just went there to drink and sing and other things.
I: Were there any breaches of security with people telling girlfriends about —
GB: Not to my knowledge.
I: Ops.
GB: No. No. If you were going up there for a night out you didn’t know anything because the station would be closed if there was a full ops on. There would only be probably only a few ground crew but the aircrew wouldn’t go, be allowed out. So most of the telephone lines were shut down. Were closed. You couldn’t make outside calls if there was ops on.
I: Did the German Air Force ever attack these airfields.
GB: No. Not to my knowledge. Not whilst ours.
Now, I think after the war had ended you went out to Burma.
Burma, yes. On 267 Squadron at Mingaladon. The squadron was keeping the airways open taking mail and passengers flying from Mingaladon in Burma up to Dum Dum at Calcutta. And then from, back again and then from Mingaladon to Bangkok. Bangkok, Saigon. Saigon to Kai Tak which is the aerodrome for Hong Kong on the mainland of Kowloon and they used to fly down to Singapore.
I: This is Dakotas.
GB: On Dakotas. Yes. And the flight engineers were all remustered as air quarter masters on those trips looking after the baggage and the passengers and I had about fifteen of the lads under me. We used to take them out on these trips which they thoroughly enjoyed going up to Calcutta. Spending a day in Calcutta and then coming back going down to Hong Kong. We had a thoroughly enjoyable time.
I: What kind of passengers were you moving?
GB: Well, RAF and Burmese and if you were coming from India you used to bring down the Indians who were coming down on business trips or anything like that. Used to bring our own people down to [unclear] and look after the stores. Generally taking mail across to Bangkok, Saigon.
I: So you were a bit like an airline.
GB: A bit like an airline. Yes. A bit rough and ready. I did one or two. I went to Saigon and worked with Saigon. Wanted to look around during the night time but we were informed that all personnel were on curfew and had to be in by 9 o’clock. And the biggest shock I ever had was walking into the hotel where we were billeted to be given a salute by a Jap prisoner of war with a rifle and fixed bayonets.
I: When was this that you were in Saigon?
GB: 12th of February ’46. Then from Saigon we’d go to Kai Tak which was the aerodrome for Hong Kong on the mainland and the people of the mainland which was a British colony I’ve never known people so friendly to see us. We were taken into cafes and restaurants and you could have everything you wanted.
I: In Hong Kong.
GB: In Hong Kong. But what I was surprised about Hong Kong is that they had everything on show and sale and the war had only been over for five months. You could go in and buy a Rolex Oyster watch. You couldn’t see them in Europe but they found them. They could. You could buy anything you wanted.
I: Were these Chinese who were —
GB: Yes. The —
I: You in Hong Kong.
GB: In Hong Kong where they were first class.
I: Coming back to Saigon did the Japanese soldiers do their job well?
GB: Yes, as far as I know they had no complaints. They guarded us well. But the trouble was just beginning to start then. There was just a bit of discontent amongst the Saigon people I think. It was just beginning to start with the Viet Cong. Just beginning to get unruly.
I: What did you see of disorder there?
GB: Nothing at the night time. That’s when it happened. During the day everything was normal. It was on a night time when they used to come and try and interfere on the aerodrome but we were in the town itself so we saw nothing.
I: So they were trying to attack the aerodrome.
GB: Trying to you know disrupt it more or less.
I: Did you see any French military presence there?
GB: Well, last I was there the only French presence was two Corvettes in the harbour. There was no French troops whatsoever. If the French had spent a little more time in French Indo China as it was then instead of parading around Europe they might have been in a bit better position out there.
I: Did you feel in much danger in Saigon?
GB: No. Not really. I wasn’t there long enough and the short time where the trouble was we were in the hotel out of the way.
I: You were telling me about 29 OTU at Bruntingthorpe was it called?
GB: Bruntingthorpe.
I: Where is that?
GB: Just outside Leicester.
I: And you were telling me about the excessive bull there that drove you to apply for a second tour. Can you give any examples of not —
GB: Well —
I: Without mentioning the group captain’s name any examples of the kind of bull that went on there?
GB: Well, we had once a month we had an officer’s dining in night where all the tables were put in the shape of a horseshoe with the group captain in the centre and then going left to right from squadron leader. From wing commander, squadron leader, flight lieutenant, flying officer down to pilot officer which was pre-war bull. Not wartime discipline. And then he would hold a full parade of the whole OTU and every officer and every airman would parade on the main runway and would march past the rostrum as though they were the guards which again goes back to pre-war. It should never have been done in wartime RAF. But the Australians didn’t like it because we had a lot of Australians go through there and they objected strongly. And in the Officer’s Mess we had a very big organ by a very well known organist. The organ, keyboard and the sound box system was flooded with beer. The Mess notice board all the Mess board notices were burned down by the Australians. The group captain had his own hook for his hat and coat with a bolt right through the wall. The peg was pulled out. Also, part of the wall [laughs] In fact they did so much damage the group captain closed the Officer’s Mess bar for a week. All because of bull.
I: Did you approve?
GB: No.
I: Of what the Aussies did?
GB: Yes. I did. But no one was allowed in the Officer’s Mess after 5.30 unless they were in full dress. No battle dress. I came back and I’ll tell you the exact day. We’d, I’d been out a cross country to check the pilot for engine handling on the 19th of February ‘45 and we took off at 12 o’clock and we’d been diverted to Husband Bosworth. And by the time we got back it was 16.35. I was pulled up for entering the Mess in battle dress and not allowed to have a meal, my evening meal until I had changed. And the evening meal finished at 19.00 hours which is 7 o’clock and I didn’t get in as I say until 16 —
I: Twenty five you said.
GB: That’s how bad, that’s how bad the bull was.
I: You also were telling me about another job you had I think in ’46 of having to deal with airmen’s possessions who had been killed.
GB: Yes.
I: In accidents.
GB: That was the, I did that at 29 OTU. The last job I had was on for in the July 1946 was Dakota KN585 was hit by lightning and crashed in to the Irrawaddy Delta at Bassein. The death roll was twenty two. By the time we got the bodies they were four days old and I had to [pause] another flight lieutenant and the local police identified the bodies and arranged burial which was a very distressing thing to do especially as five days later I was on my home.
I: How were the possessions dealt with?
GB: Well, most of the possessions that they had I had to burn because they’d been on the bodies and they had been five days in the swamp and they smelled terribly and there was very very little went home. And of the twenty two they had no identification. They were all just interred with no headstone. No one knew who they were. They were interred at the European Cemetery at that time in Bassein. They would later be moved to the War Graves.
I: But you were telling me about your special problem you had with the possessions of Australians.
GB: When I was at 29 OTU. Yes. With the letters I mean the Aussie boys would have two or three girlfriends and the trouble was sorting out the letters to make sure that the right ones went home and the other ones were destroyed. Of the, we had two crews killed whilst I was there. Eleven men died.
I: Would any of them leave wills?
GB: No. There was no wills. I never found a will in the, any of the airmen who I buried. I went through their personal effects.
[Music]
Dublin Core
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Title
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War Memoir - George Bilton
Description
An account of the resource
Talks of early life at school and work in Hull. Volunteered as ARP messenger and described duties and air raid damage in Hull. Volunteered as aircrew and initially selected for wireless operator/air gunner but later asked to change to air engineer. Trained in Blackpool and RAF St Athan. Crewed up with mixed Canadian British crew on Halifax HCU before being posted to 6 Group 427 Squadron. His pilot did not return from a second dickie orientation sorties so crew went back to conversion unit to crew up and train with new pilot. Then posted to 428 Squadron. Subsequently transferred to 434 Squadron when pilot promoted. Completed tout of 34 operations on Halifax. Gives detailed description of individual operations, experiences and activities. Describes flying in Halifax and discusses moral, discipline issues, operating with Canadians and other general comments. Did instructional tour after completing operational tour, offered commission, did not enjoy it and volunteered for second tour but curtailed by end of war. Comments on tours after war including one in Burma including dealing with casualties in from a Dakota crash in Egypt.
Creator
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G H A Bilton
Format
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Oral history
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABiltonGHA960623
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
Royal Canadian Air Force
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Hull
England--Lancashire
England--Blackpool
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
England--Durham (County)
England--Leicestershire
Burma
Germany
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Stuttgart
England--Berkshire
France
France--La Rochelle
France--Lille
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Caen
Germany--Hamburg
France--Paris
France--Creil
France--Falaise
Germany--Braunschweig
France--Brest
England--Sussex
England--Huntingdonshire
Italy
Italy--Bari
Denmark
Denmark--Copenhagen
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Chantilly Forest
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Julie Williams
427 Squadron
428 Squadron
434 Squadron
6 Group
aerial photograph
Air Raid Precautions
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb aimer
bombing
C-47
civil defence
Cook’s tour
crewing up
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
military discipline
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Croft
RAF Harwell
RAF Middleton St George
RAF St Athan
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Warboys
RAF Woodbridge
target indicator
target photograph
training
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
Window
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1772/31069/MCleggPV[DoB]-150819-04.pdf
f455e2dd94dd4a5af08ae3e4cb11a33d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1772/31069/MCleggPV[DoB]-150819-04.pdf
f455e2dd94dd4a5af08ae3e4cb11a33d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Clegg, Peter Vernon. Aldborough Dairy and Cafe
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains advert for Mudd's choicest butter, details of Aldborough Cafe, photograph, newspaper cuttings and many pages of visitors signatures. an index of visiting Canadian and American airmen, some notes on signatures and details of the death of those signing the book.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Clegg, PV
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] DETAILS OF THE DEATH OF THOSE SIGNING THE BOOK [/UNDERLINED]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 7th 1942]
Athol Herbert JENNINGS F/S RCAF Killed Aug 28th/42 408 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
408 Sqn – Hampden I – P1244 EQ-Y – Op: Kassel
Sgt A H Jennings Killed
Sgt L G Chaston RCAF Killed
Sgt C H Thompson RAAF Killed
Sgt J W Todd Killed
T/o 2005 Balderton. All are buried in Hannover War Cemetery.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 7th 1942]
Sydney Clarence CAMP Flt Sgt RCAF Killed Jan 15/42 51 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 8th 1942]
Eric John RICHARDS Sgt RAF Killed Jan 15/42 51 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
51 Sqn – Whitley V – Z9424 MH-R – Op: Emden
Sgt E J Richards Killed
Sgt H C Needham pow
F/S S C Camp RCAF Killed
Sgt G S Booth pow
Sgt W D Muirhead pow
Sgt R J White Killed
T/o 1758 Dishforth. Shot down by a night-fighter (Uffz Zipperlein, 4./NJG1) and crashed 2215 between Achtkarspelen and Rottevalle (Friesland) the latter being 4 km N of Drachten, Holland. Those who died are buried in Smallingerland (Rottevalle) Protestant Churchyard.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 8th 1942]
Roderick James CHISHOLM F/S RCAF Killed Jan 6/42 35 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
35 Sqn – Halifax II – R9439 TL-A – Op: Emden
Sgt S E Davies Killed
Sgt H Thomas Killed
P/O T J Taylor RCAF Killed
F/S R L Bradshaw RCAF Killed
F/S R J Chisholm RCAF Killed
Sgt A Squires Killed
T/o 2319 Linton-on-Ouse. Lost without trace. All are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. Sgt Davies hailed from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 8th 1942]
Frank OLIVER DFM F/S RAF Killed Sep 30/42 51 Sqn
(No details known) [Squadron with Coastal Command, May - Oct 42]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 9th 1942]
Douglas FORBES Sgt RAF Killed Mar 8/43 61 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
61 Sqn – Lancaster I – W4903 QR-P – Op: Nürnberg
F/L C A Giles DFC RAAF Killed
P/O K D Babington-Browne Killed
F/O F Richards Killed
P/O B J Gunter Killed
F/S G Mitchell Killed
Sgt E Carr Killed
F/S D Forbes Killed
T/o 1930 Syerston. Believed crashed in the general vicinity of Fürth, a large town just to the NW of Nürnberg. All were buried at Fürth on 10 March, but since the war their bodies have been taken to Durnbach War Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 10th 1942]
Jack Vage KERR F/S RAF Killed Oct 16/42 51 Sqn
(No details known) [Sqn with Coastal Command, May - Oct/42]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 10th 1942]
Frank Lewin LUFF Sgt RAF Killed Aug 12/42 51 Sqn
(No details known) [Sqn with Coastal Command, May - Oct/42]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 10th 1942]
Norman VINER Sgt. RAF Killed Jan 21st/42 51 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
51 Sqn – Whitley V – Z9311 MH-J– Op: Emden
P/O B Sides Killed
Sgt D A Richards Killed
F/S B L Hart Killed
Sgt N Viner Killed
Sgt J J Clarke Killed
T/o 1734 Dishforth. Lost without trace. All are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 13th 1942]
William Moreton JAMES Sgt RAF Killed Jul 12th/42 51 Sqn
(No details known) [Sqn with Coastal Command, May - Oct/ 42]
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 4 – Date of entry January 23rd 1942]
Stanley WOOLHOUSE W/O RAF Killed Oct 3/43 51 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
51 Sqn – Halifax II – HR728 LK-D – Op: Kassel
F/L W T Irwin Killed
F/O J A Grundy Killed
P/O W J Watson Killed
F/O J J Dawkins Killed
F/O R T Watkinson Killed
W/O S Woolhouse Killed
Sgt J Dixon Killed
Sgt J F Gordon Killed
T/o 1810 Snaith. Crashed at Wietersheim on the E bank of the Weser, 4 km SSW of Petershagen. All are buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery. F/O Grundy was an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 4 – Date of entry 27th January 1942]
Arthur Hugh Steyning BROWN P/O RAAF Killed Oct 16th/42 51 Sqn
(No details known) [Sqn with Coastal Command, May - Oct/42]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 4 – Date of entry 28th January 1942]
Douglas Ronald FREEAR Sgt RAF Killed Apr 10/42 158 Sqn
(No details known)
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 4 – Date of entry January 28th 1942]
John David William STENHOUSE F/S RAF Killed Mar 1/43 51 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 4 – Date of entry February 15th 1942]
Ronald Arthur Bertram WILLMOTT P/O RAF Killed Mar 1/43 51 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
51 Sqn – Halifax II – BB223 MH-C – Op: Berlin
F/S J D W Stenhouse Killed
Sgt C Avery Killed
Sgt W Colangelo RCAF Killed
Sgt A Beauchamp Killed
F/S R A B Willmott Killed
Sgt A Howe Killed
F/O J B Duncan Killed
T/o 1830 Snaith. Shot down by a night-fighter (Lt August Geiger, III./NJG1) and crashed 0008 Voorst (Gelderland), 5 km NW of Zutphen, Holland. All are buried in Voorst General Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 5 – Date of entry February 20th 1942]
Alan Kenneth FARLAM W/O RAAF Killed Aug 14/43 19 OTU
[crew and operation details]
19 OTU – Anson I – N9671 XF-P – Training
W/O A K Farlam RAAF Killed
F/O H H Kirby DFC Killed
Sgt E S A Gray Killed
Sgt F J Pellatt Killed
Sgt R Brown Killed
Sgt K Ashmore Killed
T/o 1435 Kinloss for a navigation training detail. At approximately 1505, the Anson was seen diving, with both engines running at full power, from 4,000 feet and failing to recover before hitting the ground roughly a mile E of Arbroath airfield, Angus. An examination of the wreckage revealed that most of the fabric had peeled away from the starboard wing. All rest in cemeteries scattered across the United Kingdom and it seems likely that the funeral for W/O Farlam of Neutral Bay in New South Wales was arranged by relatives as he is buried in Surrey at Cheam (St. Dunstan) Churchyard, Sutton and Cheam.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 5 – Date of entry March 18th 1942]
Edward Maurice TAYLOR Sgt RAF Killed Jun 17/42 24 OTU
[crew and operation details]
24 OTU – Whitley V – BD358 – Training
F/S W T Rushton Killed
P/O L Rowlinson Killed
Sgt G E Hibben Killed
Sgt E M Taylor Killed
Sgt A F Alcock RCAF Killed
Sgt Harris inj.
LAC H G Foot Killed
AC2 J Murray Killed
T/o 1525 Honeybourne for a navigation exercise involving the crew, which was made up of a screened pilot and wireless operator, four trainees and two passengers, in overwater flying. At 1955, the bomber returned to base and was seen, while on the cross-wind leg, to lower the flaps. As it did so, so the nose appeared to rise quite sharply. Immediately, the flaps were retracted and the Whitley continued with its approach but as it turned finals, and the flaps were once again lowered, the nose pitched up and the aircraft stalled, plunging to the ground on the boundary of the airfield, where it burst into flames. Those who died rest in various cemeteries across the United Kingdom. This was the first major accident involving an aircraft from the unit since its formation in mid-March 1942.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 6 – Date of entry July 28th 1942
Roderick John HEATHER P/O RCAF Killed Mar 12/43 427 Sqn
(No details known)
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 7 – Date of entry September 18th 1942]
Thomas Donovan COPELAND F/O RCAF Killed Mar 11/45 434 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
434 Sqn – Lancaster X – KB834 WL-Y – Op: Essen
F/L R J Fern RCAF Killed
P/O W T Jones Killed
F/L A G Rowe DFC RCAF Killed
F/O T D Copeland RCAF Killed
F/O J R Latremouille RCAF Killed
F/O G Scott RCAF Killed
F/O J A H B Marceau RCAF pow
T/o 1138 Croft. Hit by flak and crashed within seconds of completing its bombing run, plunging into the target area. Six bodies were later recovered from Plot B at the Süd-West Friedhof and taken to the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery. F/O Marceau RCAF was very badly wounded and was to undergo many years of hospital treatment. Apart from 37 year old P/O Jones, who had served previously with 419 Squadron, the crew were on their second tour of operations.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 8 – Date of entry September 19th 1942]
Eric Raymond PRICE F/O RAF Killed Oct 22/43 77 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
77 Sqn – Halifax II – JD121 KN-O – Op: Kassel
F/O J S Barber Killed
Sgt D W Stribley Killed
Sgt R O Hand Killed
F/O E R Price Killed
Sgt I M Smith Killed
Sgt J Pretsell Killed
Sgt H A Weber RCAF Killed
T/o 1802 Elvington. Crashed at Tietelsen, 9 km SE of Brakel. All rest in Hannover War Cemetery.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 8 – Date of entry October 14th 1942]
Peter LANE Killed Jan 18/43 97 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
97 Sqn – Lancaster I – R5575 OF-L – Op: Berlin
Sgt G H Rowson Killed
Sgt P Lane Killed
Sgt J E West Killed
Sgt J Bell Killed
Sgt J C Brittain Killed
Sgt G A Axup Killed
F/S H C Beebe RCAF Killed
T/o 1703 Woodhall Spa. Crashed in the Waddenzee. Sgt Brittain's body was recovered on 9 April and buried a week later in Ulrum General Cemetery. The rest are named on the Runnymede Memorial. At 40, F/S Beebe RCAF was amongst the oldest RCAF airmen to die on operational service with Bomber Command.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 8 – Date of entry October 23rd 1942]
Arthur Lawrence FAIRBROTHER Sgt RAF Killed Feb 15/44 77 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
77 Sqn – Halifax V – LK726 KN-O – Op: Berlin
F/O G Bodden Killed
Sgt J L Green Killed
F/S N F W Gooding Killed
Sgt W H Beere Killed
Sgt R C Hall Killed
Sgt J Smith Killed
Sgt A L Fairbrother Killed
T/o 1730 Elvington. Crashed at Buskow, 7 km S of Neuruppin. All were buried at Buskow on 17 February, since when their remains have been exhumed and reinterred in the 1939-1945 War Cemetery at Berlin. Sgt Fairbrother's service number indicates he was accepted for pilot training in the pre-war volunteer reserve.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 8 – Date of entry November 27th 1942]
Derek VOLLANS Sgt RAF Killed Apr 15/43 425 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
425 Sqn – Wellington III – X3763 KW-L – Op: Stuttgart
P/O A T Doucette DFC RCAF Killed
Sgt A Jones Killed
P/O J O L Desroches DFC RCAF Killed
Sgt D Vollans Killed
P/O G P H Ledoux RCAF Killed
F/S P P Trudeau RCAF Killed
T/o 2107 Dishforth. Crashed at Mussey-sur-Marne (Haute Marne), on the W bank of the Marne, 8 km S of Joinville, France. All rest in Mussey-sur-Marne Communal Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 10 – Date of entry January 17th 1943]
William ("Bill") HENDERSON P/O RCAF Killed Apr 14/45 419 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
419 Sqn – Lancaster X – KB866 VR-M – Op: Kiel
F/S C C Maclaren RCAF Killed
Sgt G A Livingston RCAF Killed
F/O D W Wincott RCAF Killed
F/O C R Loft RCAF Killed
WO1 W Henderson RCAF Killed
F/S E R Wightman RCAF Killed
Sgt G J Jones RCAF Killed
T/o 2022 Middleton St. George similarly tasked. Lost without trace. All are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. At 36, F/S Wightman RCAF was amongst the oldest Canadians killed on bomber operations in 1945.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 12 – Date of entry February 21st 1943]
James Henry ("Smudge") EVANS F/S RCAF Killed Aug 10/43 405 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
405 Sqn – Halifax II – HR872 LQ-K – Op: Mannheim
F/L K MacG Gray RCAF Killed
Sgt D A Black RCAF Killed
F/O A J Middleton RCAF Killed
Sgt J H Evans RCAF Killed
Sgt H King Killed
Sgt C W Pickering RCAF Killed
Sgt J Hanna RCAF Killed
T/o 2252 Gransden Lodge. Shot down by a night-fighter (Lt Norbert Pietrek, II./NJG4) crashing 0100 at Awenne (Luxembourg), 9 km NW of St. Hubert, Belgium. All are buried in Florennes Communal Cemetery. F/S Gray RCAF and F/O Middleton RCAF both came from Medicine Hat in Alberta.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 12 – Date of entry February 21st 1943]
William John Ross DAVIES F/S RCAF Killed March 5/43 426 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 12 – Date of entry February 21st 1943]
Cyril Randolph TRASK P/O RCAF Killed March 5/43 426 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
426 Sqn – Wellington III – BK401 OW-M – Op: Essen
P/O C R Trask RCAF Killed
P/O C E Chapman Killed
Sgt W J R Davies RCAF Killed
SGT N F Paterson RCAF Killed
Sgt G Walen RCAF Killed
Sgt R E Williams RCAF Killed
T/o 1910 Dishforth. Lost without trace. All are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.
Note. A reliable private source in Holland indicates this Wellington may have crashed in the IJsselmeer, 10 km E of Amsterdam.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 14 – Date of entry April 17th 1943]
Albert Frederick HOPLEY F/S RCAF Killed May 14/43 426 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
426 Sqn – Wellington X – HE697 OW- – Op: Bochum
Sgt J A Thomson RCAF Killed
Sgt A F Hopley RCAF Killed
Sgt J P O Ethier RCAF Killed
Sgt N Hudspith Killed
Sgt T F How Killed
T/o 2334 Dishforth. Shot down by a night-fighter and crashed 0253 near Nederhorst den Berg (Noord Holland), 16 km SE of Amsterdam. All are buried in Amersfoort (Oud Leusden) General Cemetery.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 13 – Date of entry March 31st 1943]
Sidney Leon MURRELL D.F.C. Flt/Lt. RCAF Killed June 22/43 405 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
405 Sqn – Halifax II – JD124 LQ-P – Op: Krefeld
F/L S L Murrell DFC RCAF Killed
Sgt A W Nichols BEM RCAF Killed
P/O F W Hodge RCAF Killed
P/O J H T J Lemieux RCAF Killed
P/O R A Livingston DFC RCAF Killed
F/S E D Rowe RCAF Killed
Sgt R L Robinson RCAF Killed
T/o 2336 Gransden Lodge. Crashed in the vicinity of Mönchengladbach, where all were laid to rest in the Städtfriedhof on 24 June. Sgt Nichols RCAF now lies in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery; the rest have been taken to Rheinberg War Cemetery. F/L Murrell RCAF was a Texan from Gainsville.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 16 – Date of entry July 3rd 1943]
John Henry STEVENS Sgt RAF Killed Oct 3/43 44 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
44 Sqn – Lancaster III – ED433 KM-V – Op: Kassel
P/O H G Norton RAAF Killed
Sgt J H Stevens Killed
Sgt S D Stait Killed
Sgt F Thompson pow
Sgt E E Greenfield Killed
Sgt W A Whalley Killed
Sgt R G Martin Killed
T/o 1831 Dunholme Lodge. Crashed in the Söhrewald, 10 km SE of Kassel. Those who died are buried in Hannover War Cemetery.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 15 – Date of entry May 7th 1943]
Donald James ELLIOTT F/O RCAF Killed Jan 1/44 405 Sqn
(No details known)
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 17 – Date of entry July 16th 1944]
Lloyd William Wesley JONES P/O RCAF Killed Jan 22/44 427 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
427 Sqn – Halifax V – LL139 ZL-D – Op: Magdeburg
S/L D M Arnot DFC RCAF Killed
W/C A N Martin RCAF Killed
P/O R A N Rondelet RCAF Killed
P/O L W W Jones RCAF Killed
F/O W V Thom RCAF pow
P/O R Dawson Killed
P/O L S Gray RCAF Killed
P/O R O Nickerson RCAF Killed
T/o 2000 Leeming. Attacked at 19,500 feet by a night-fighter while clearing the target area. The order to abandon was given, but before the crew could react, the Halifax exploded, throwing clear F/O Thom RCAF. The others are buried in Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery. W/C Martin RCAF was the CO of 424 Squadron and had been attached for operational experience. P/O Rondelet RCAF was a Belgian, born on 21 November 1915 at Seraing in the SE suburbs of Liege.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 17 – Date of entry July 24th 1944]
David Neville COTTON P/O RCAF Killed June 29/44 427 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
427 Sqn – Halifax III – LV938 ZL-A – Op: Metz
WO2 A J King RCAF pow
Sgt H Morgan pow
F/O W A Wilson RCAF pow
P/O W M Pookay RCAF evd
F/S R E Mowbray pow
F/S S K Vallieres RCAF pow
F/S D N Cotton RCAF Killed
T/o 2145 Leeming similarly tasked. Hit by flak and crashed at Juvincourt-et-Damary (Aisne) some 24 km SE of Laon. F/S Cotton RCAF is buried in Juvincourt-et-Damary Churchyard.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 18 – Date of entry August 26th 1943]
Nick VENBER P/O RCAF Killed May 1/44 420 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
420 Sqn – Halifax III – LW476 PT-J – Op: Somain
F/L E Northern DFC RCAF Killed
Sgt L S Franklin RCAF Killed
F/O F W Morrison RCAF Killed
WO1 N Venber RCAF Killed
F/S C H Lines Killed
Sgt W H Young RCAF Killed
F/O A H B Hall RCAF Killed
T/o 2115 Tholthorpe to bomb rail installations. Presumed crashed in the sea. F/O Morrison RCAF is buried in Cayeux-sur-Mer Communal Cemetery, F/O Hall RCAF rests at St-Valery-sur-Somme Communal Cemetery, while the other members of crew are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 19 – Date of entry August 27th 1943]
William Edward MARTIN Sgt RCAF Killed Dec 11/43 26 OTU
[crew and operation details]
26 OTU – Wellington III – BK440 – Training
F/S A Merridew Killed
Sgt S Wilson Killed
F/S N Doherty RAAF Killed
Sgt E W Brown Killed
Sgt W E Martin RCAF Killed
Sgt A W Ellis Killed
T/o 0645 Little Horwood for a navigation sortie. Exploded 0800, or thereabouts, and crashed near Park Farm, Hindolveston, 8 miles ESE of Fakenham in Norfolk. Five were taken to Cambridge City Cemetery, while Sgt Brown is buried in Rushden Cemetery. In the years since this tragedy, various items of debris have been recovered from the fields and the more important pieces are now with the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum at Flixton.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 23 – Date of entry January 4th 1944]
James Archibald WILSON Sgt RCAF Killed Jan 21/44 419 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
419 Sqn – Halifax II – JD466 VR-E – Op: Magdeburg
F/L A G Hermitage RCAF Killed
Sgt J A Wilson RCAF Killed
F/S R H Walton RCAF Killed
F/S W B Tobin RCAF Killed
WO2 J B Chess RCAF Killed
Sgt R Shields Killed
Sgt R W Edwards RCAF Killed
T/o 1941 Middleton St. George. Crashed at Borne, where all were buried on 26 January. Since the cessation of hostilities, their bodies have been brought to the 1939-1945 War Cemetery at Berlin.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 23 – Date of entry January 4th 1944]
James Coulter COPELAND P/O RCAF Killed Dec 6/44 429
[visitors book entry. Page No. 23 – Date of entry January 4th 1944]
William Edward Heaton BARTY P/O RAF Killed Dec 6/44 429 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 23 – Date of entry January 4th 1944]
Stephen Lawrence NOREJKO P/O RCAF Killed Dec 6/44 429 Sqn
429 – Halifax III – MZ900 AL-K – Op: Boulogne
F/O J M Prentice RCAF
F/S F P Platt
F/O T A Wilson RCAF
F/S S L Norejko RCAF
Lt F M McRoberts USAAF
F/S W E H Barty
F/S J C Copeland RCAF inj
T/o 0714 Leeming similarly tasked. Hit by flak which damaged both starboard engines. Unable to maintain height, F/O Prentice RCAF put the bomber into the sea off the French coast. F/O M Lanin RCAF in Halifax III MZ303 AL-R witnessed the ditching and he remained overhead until an ASR Walrus, escorted by two Spitfires, arrived on the scene at 1019. All were picked up, F/S Copeland RCAF being slightly injured. Overladen, the Walrus was eventually met by an HSL which took the crew in Newhaven. P.T.O. [See next entry]
[page break]
[crew and operation details]
429 Sqn – Halifax III – MZ463 AL-J – Op: Osnabruck
F/O J M Prentice RCAF Killed
F/L H D O/Neil RCAF Killed
P/O E S C Clark RCAF Killed
F/O T A Wilson RCAF Killed
P/O L Norejko RCAF Killed
Lt F M McRoberts USAAF Killed
P/O W E H Barty Killed
WO2 J C Copeland RCAF Killed
T/o 1619 Leeming. Lost without trace. The six RCAF members of crew, along with P/O Barty, are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial while Lt McRoberts USAAF is named on his country's memorial to its airmen with no known graves. It will be recalled that six of the crew had been involved in a dramatic ditching incident while operating against Boulogne in September. Apart from F/L O'Neil RCAF, who was flying his first sortie, all were about two-thirds of the way through their tour.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 23 – Date of entry January 7th 1944]
Frederick Peter CAMMAART P/O RCAF Killed Apr 23/44 424 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
424 Sqn – Halifax III – LV780 QB-M – Op: Dusseldorf
WO2 W F Vornbrock RCAF Killed
Sgt L Walters Killed
F/S J S Laird RCAF Killed
WO2 F P Cammaart RCAF Killed
Sgt L Hanson Killed
Sgt J J Renning RCAF Killed
Sgt F P Morrisey RCAF pow
T/o 2230 Skipton-on-Swale. Crashed near Goirle in Noord-Brabant, 4 km S of Tilburg, Holland. Those who died were buried in Goirle Roman Catholic Cemetery, but since 1945 the four RCAF members of crew have been taken to Bergen op Zoom Canadian War Cemetery. Sgt Walters had been born Lionel Cohen and he came from Golders Green in Middlesex.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 24 – Date of entry February 1st 1944]
William Henry PARKINSON F/O RCAF Killed May 9/44 432 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
432 Sqn – Halifax III – LW594 QO-G – Op: Haine-St-Pierre
P.O S A Hawkins RCAF Killed
Sgt H Ibbotson Killed
F/O A I Raetzen RCAF pow
Sgt M B O'Leary RCAF pow
F/O W H Parkinson RCAF Killed
Sgt G Hand evd
Sgt R B Haxton RCAF evd
T/o 0130 East Moor similarly tasked. Shot down by a night-fighter (Oblt Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer Stab IV./NJG4) and crashed 0332 at Grand Reng (Hainaut) a small Belgian town on the border with France some 16 km SE of Mons. Those who died lie in Gosselies Communal Cemetery, where all 102 graves are for airmen who died in Bomber Command service between July 1942 and May 1944.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 24 – Date of entry February 3rd 1944]
John Tengate TUNSTALL Sgt RAF Killed Jan 7/45 550 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
550 Sqn – Lancaster I – NG363 BQ-P – Op: Munchen
F/O C J Clarke RCAF Killed
Sgt J T Tunstall Killed
F/S H E Miell RCAF Killed
F/O A L Coldwell RCAF pow
Sgt L O Precieux Killed
F/S F W Bradley RCAF Killed
F/S L A J Gauthier RCAF Killed
T/o 1815 North Killingholme. Those who died rest in Dürnbach War Cemetery. Nineteen year old Sgt Precieux was the son of Jules Henri and Marie Alicia Fanellie Precieux of Phoenix on the island of Mauritius.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 25 – Date of entry February 4th 1944]
Stanley Allen HAWKINS F/O RCAF Killed May 9/44 432 Sqn
(See Page 24 et seq. for details with rest of crew)
[visitors book entry. Page No. 25 – Date of entry February 8th 1944]
Douglas Anderson HENDERSON P/O RCAF Killed Feb 21/45 427 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
427 Sqn – Halifax III – NR288 ZL-F – Op: Worms
P/O W R Wilson RCAF pow
Sgt J F W Taylor Killed
F/O L Webster RCAF Killed
WO2 R R Stuart RCAF Killed
F/S D A Henderson RCAF Killed
F/S L O Foisy RCAF Killed
F/S A J McLeod RCAF Killed
T/o 1623 Leeming. Those who lost their lives are buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 26 – Date of entry February 18th 1944]
Robert Fitzgerald CONROY F/O RCAF Killed Mar 24/44 429 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
429 Sqn – Wellington X – HE593 AL- – Op: Düsseldorf
F/S R F Conroy RCAF evd
Sgt G A Leitch RCAF Killed
P/O G R Densmore RCAF Killed
F/S G A Nelson RCAF Killed
Sgt J Burns RCAF Killed
T/o 2300 East Moor. Outbound, and while climbing towards 19,000 feet, shot down by a night-fighter. Three are buried in Eindhoven (Woensel) General Cemetery; Sgt Burns RCAF lies in the Canadian War Cemetery at Groesbeek.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 27 – Date of entry February 28th 1944]
James Coulter COPELAND P/O RCAF Killed Dec 6/44 429 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
429 Sqn – Halifax III – MZ900 AL-K – Op: Boulogne
F/O J M Prentice RCAF
F/S F P Platt
F/O T A Wilson RCAF
F/S S L Norejko RCAF
Lt F M McRoberts USAAF
F/S W E H Barty
F/S J C Copeland RCAF inj
T/o 0714 Leeming similarly tasked. Hit by flak which damaged both starboard engines. Unable to maintain height, F/O Prentice RCAF put the bomber into the sea off the French coast. F/O M Lanin RCAF in Halifax III MZ303 AL-R witnessed the ditching and he remained overhead until an ASR Walrus, escorted by two Spitfires, arrived on the scene at 1019. All were picked up, F/S Copeland RCAF being slightly injured. Overladen, the Walrus was eventually met by an HSL which took the crew into Newhaven.
(Above F/S also signed the Visitors Book on an earlier page (23) on Jan 4th 1944)
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 27 – Date of entry February 29th 1944]
Robert Roy CAMPBELL F/O RCAF Killed May 13/44 419 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 27 – Date of entry February 29th 1944]
Burdel Frank EDWARDS F/O RCAF Killed May 13/44 419 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
419 Sqn – Lancaster X – KB713 VR – Op: Leuven
P/O B F Edwards RCAF Killed
Sgt J R Carruthers Killed
F/O R R Campbell RCAF Killed
P/O P Dewar RCAF Killed
P/O R S Smith RCAF Killed
P/O J A Webber RCAF Killed
P/O H E Oddan RCAF Killed
T/o 2200 Middleton St. George to bomb rail yards. Outbound, crashed and exploded at Reninge (West-Vlaanderen), 10 km SSW from Diksmuider. On 16 May, P/O Smith RCAF was buried in Coxyde Cemetery, the others lie at Adegem Canadian War Cemetery.
Note: P/O Charles SURLES is listed as having been killed the same day as F/O PRITCHARD. He must have been in the same aircraft shown here as he was in Pritchard's crew. He was an American citizen from Louisiana.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 33 – Date of entry July 12th 1944]
Gordon Featherstone PRITCHARD F/O RCAF Killed Aug 17/44 420 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 33 – Date of entry July 12th 1944]
Charles Pittman SURLES P/O RCAF Killed Aug 17/44 420 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
420 Sqn – Halifax III – MZ687 PT-L – Op: Kiel
F/O G F Pritchard RCAF Killed
P/O R H Davis RCAF Killed
Sgt E A J Proud pow
F/O F W Moffit RCAF Killed
F/O D I Block RCAF Killed
WO2 D B H Lorenz RCAF Killed
F/S K G Boucock RCAF Killed
F/O A G Roski RCAF Killed
T/o 2101 Tholthorpe. Crashed in the North Sea from where Sgt Proud was rescued two days later. Of his seven comrades, F/O Moffit RCAF and WO2 Lorenz RCAF are buried in Kiel War Cemetery while the rest have no known graves.
Note: P/O Charles SURLES is listed as having been killed the same day as F/O PRITCHARD. He must have been in the same aircraft shown here, as he was in Pritchard's crew. He was an American citizen from Louisiana.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 34 – Date of entry August 11th 1944]
J P ("Benny") BENOIT WO2 RCAF Baled out Aug 3/44 433 Sqn. Survived.
[crew and operation details]
433 Sqn – Halifax III – HX275 BM-S – Op: Bois de Cassan
F/O R H Simpson RCAF
Sgt W Purdie
F/O R Woodhouse RCAF
F/O C M Dandy RCAF inj
WO2 J P Benoit RCAF
Sgt R E Budd RCAF
Sgt O M Brown RCAF
T/o 1031 Skipton-on-Swale similarly tasked. Hit by flak while turning from the target area, F/O Dandy RCAF being slightly wounded. The flying controls were badly damaged and at 1440 the crew baled out, no further injuries being reported.
Note: "Benny" BENOIT from Toronto, calls himself "The Parachute Kid" – for good reason! Where he landed is not known.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 37 – Date of entry September 19th 1944]
Thomas Abercromby WILSON F/O RCAF Killed Dec 6/44 429 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
429 Sqn – Halifax III MZ463 AL-J – Op: Osnabruck
F/O J M Prentice RCAF Killed
F/L H D O'Neil RCAF Killed
P/O E S C Clark RCAF Killed
F/O T A Wilson RCAF Killed
P/O S L Norejko RCAF Killed
Lt F M McRoberts USAAF Killed
P/O W E H Barty Killed
WO2 J C Copeland RCAF Killed
T/o 1619 Leeming. Lost without trace. The six RCAF members of crew, along with P/O Barty, are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial while Lt McRoberts USAAF is named on his country's memorial to its airmen with no known graves. It will be recalled that six of the crew had been involved in a dramatic ditching incident while operating against Boulogne in September. Apart from F/L O/Neil RCAF, who was flying his first sortie, all were about two-thirds of the way through their tour.
Note: F/O Wilson was in the same aircraft that included the three other crew members that appear on Page 23 previously (and Page 27)
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 25th 1944]
William ("Bill") Gordon McLEOD F/O RCAF Killed Apr 10/45 433 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
433 Sqn – Lancaster I – PB903 BM-F – Op: Leipzig
F/O R J Grisdale RCAF Killed
Sgt W A J Thurston Killed
F/O I B Zierler RCAF Killed
F/O W G McLeod RCAF Killed
F/S J M Hirak RCAF Killed
F/S F G Seeley RCAF Killed
F/S D W Roberts RCAF Killed
T/o 1317 Skipton-on-Swale similarly tasked. Hit by predicted flak just short of the AP. A fire was seen to break out in the starboard inner engine, though the flames were soon quelled. Height was lost, followed by a small explosion which turned the Lancaster onto its back. Diving steeply, the bomber hit the ground and exploded. All are buried in Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 25th 1944]
Ernest ("Bill") William WATSON F/L RCAF Killed Jan 16/45 420 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 25th 1944]
Quan Jil LOUIE F/O RCAF Killed Jan 16th 45 420 Sqn
420 Sqn – Halifax III – NA192 PT-Q – Op: Magdeburg
F/L E W Watson RCAF Killed
Sgt A K Parker Killed
P/O C W Way DFC Killed
F/O Q J Louie FCAF Killed
P/O W J D Partridge RCAF Killed
F/S D J Jacobi RCAF pow
F/S T Lynch RCAF pow
T/o 1846 Tholthorpe. Those who died are buried in Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery. F/O Louie RCAF, for whom no details of his next-of-kin are known, had the unusual Christian names of Quan Jil. P/O Partridge RCAF was the son of the Revd A M Partridge of Napanee, Ontario.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 31st 1944]
Sydney Dolton HEWSON F/O RCAF Killed Dec 28/44 428 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 31st 1944]
Robert Allan EBBER F/O RCAF Killed Dec 28/44 428 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 31st 1944]
Arthur Allen DIXON F/O RCAF Killed Dec 28/44 428 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry November 2nd 1944]
Albert Thomas LE BLANC F/O RCAF Killed Dec 28/44 428 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry November 2nd 1944]
Keith Oscar McDIVITT F/O RCAF Killed Dec 28/44 428 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
428 Sqn – Lancaster X – KB798 NA-G – Op: Opladen
F/O E W Page RCAF Killed
Sgt G F Owen Killed
F/O S D Hewson RCAF Killed
F/O A A Dixon RCAF Killed
F/O R A Ebber RCAF Killed
F/O K O McDivitt RCAF Killed
F/O A T le Blanc RCAF Killed
T/o 0300 Middleton St. George. All are buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 40 – Date of entry December 17th 1944]
John STREET P/O RCAF Killed Mar 2/45 408 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
408 Sqn – Halifax VII – RG472 EQ-T – Op: Koln
F/O H R Sproule RCAF pow
Sgt A D Dennis RCAF pow
F/O J E Moran RCAF pow
F/O V D J Mousseau RCAF pow
F/S J G Paxton RCAF Killed
F/S J Street RCAF Killed
F/S V T Hunt RCAF pow
T/o 0721 Linton-on-Ouse. Homebound, when hit by flak which killed F/S Paxton RCAF and F/S Street RCAF. The other members of crew baled out just moments before their aircraft exploded and fell near Bad Godesberg on the W bank of the Rhine, SE of Bonn. The two airmen who died were first buried at Bad Godesberg, since when their remains have been taken to Belgium and interred in Hotton War Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 42 – Date of entry January 23rd 1945]
Harold Keith STINSON, D.F.C. Sqd/Ldr. R.C.A.F. Killed Feb 1/45 433 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
433 Sqn – Lancaster I – NG460 BM-A – Op: Ludwigshafen
S/L H K Stinson DFC RCAF Killed
P/O E H Thompson Killed
F/O D J McMillan RCAF Killed
F/O A W Belles RCAF
P/O J T McShane RCAF Killed
P/O R Pierson RCAF Killed
P/O R J Thompson RCAF
T/o 1523 Skipton-on-Swale. Bombed the AP at 1928 from 17,000 feet and was hit by flak. On return the Lancaster entered turbulent weather while in cloud and control was lost, two of the crew managing to bale out from 2,000 feet before their aircraft crashed near Low House, roughly 1,000 yards NW from the town of Driffield, Yorkshire. The four RCAF officers are buried in Harrogate (Stonefall) Cemetery; P/O Thompson rests in Hampstead Cemetery, Cricklewood.
Note. These were the first casualties sustained by 433 Squadron in 1945 and it was also their first Lancaster write off. Three more would be lost before the end of the war, from which not one man survived.
[Source of information: Bill Chorley's 'Bomber Command Losses' Volume 3]
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
Details of death of those signing the book
Description
An account of the resource
Listing by page of visitors' book of personnel who had signed and were subsequently killed with details.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
Germany
Germany--Kassel
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Nuremberg
Scotland--Moray
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
England--Worcestershire
England--Durham (County)
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Kiel
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Mannheim
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Magdeburg
France
France--Metz
England--Buckinghamshire
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Munich
Belgium
Belgium--Haine-Saint-Pierre
Germany--Worms
Belgium--Louvain
France--L'Isle-Adam
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Netherlands--Zutphen
Netherlands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Mussey-sur-Marne
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-08-28
1942-01-15
1942-06-06
1942-09-30
1942-03-08
1943-05-08
1943-05-09
1942-10-16
1942-08-12
1942-07-12
1943-03-08
1942-10-16
1942-08-12
1942-01-21
1943-10-03
1943-10-03
1942-10-16
1942-04-10
1943-03-01
1943-03-02
1943-08-14
1942-06-17
1943-03-12
1945-03-11
1943-10-22
1943-01-18
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1943-04-14
1943-04-15
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1943-08-09
1943-08-10
1943-03-05
1943-03-06
1943-05-13
1943-05-14
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1944-01-01
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1944-06-28
1944-06-29
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1943-12-11
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1944-12-06
1944-09-17
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-05-08
1944-05-09
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1944-05-09
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-12-06
1944-05-12
1944-05-13
1944-08-16
1944-08-17
1944-08-03
1944-12-07
1945-04-10
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1944-12-26
1944-10-31
1944-11-02
1944-12-27
1944-12-28
1945-03-02
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Twenty-eight page printed document with handwritten annotation
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MCleggPV[DoB]-150819-04
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
PV Clegg
158 Squadron
19 OTU
26 OTU
35 Squadron
405 Squadron
408 Squadron
419 Squadron
420 Squadron
424 Squadron
425 Squadron
426 Squadron
427 Squadron
428 Squadron
429 Squadron
432 Squadron
433 Squadron
434 Squadron
44 Squadron
51 Squadron
550 Squadron
61 Squadron
77 Squadron
97 Squadron
Anson
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
Halifax
Hampden
killed in action
Lancaster
Operational Training Unit
RAF Balderton
RAF Croft
RAF Dishforth
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF East Moor
RAF Elvington
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Honeybourne
RAF Kinloss
RAF Leeming
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Little Horwood
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Middleton St George
RAF North Killingholme
RAF Skipton on Swale
RAF Snaith
RAF Syerston
RAF Tholthorpe
RAF Woodhall Spa
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1767/31030/PHarrisonRW2103.2.jpg
68ba54b381a50cb1b3a6a5dddfe026ed
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1767/31030/AHarrisonRW210227.2.mp3
f89cbb8d1f788819921f73e1430e9eeb
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, Reginald Wilfred
R W Harrison
Harrison, Reg
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Reg Harrison (b. 1922, R155986, J25826 Royal Canadian Air Force) and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 431 Squadron and was known as 'Crash' Harrison because he survived four crashes during training and operations.
The collection was 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
2021-02-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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, RW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RH: I’m ready for take-off then.
DE: Yeah. I’ll do a very quick introduction and then, then we’ll start properly. So this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive with Flight Lieutenant Reg Harrison. My name is, is Dan Ellin. This is recorded over Zoom. Mr, Mr Harrison is in Saskatoon, Canada and it is Saturday the 27th of February 2021. It’s 10.30am in Saskatoon Canada and it’s 4.30pm in Lincoln in the UK. So, Reg, thank you very very much for agreeing to do this interview with, with me this morning.
RH: My pleasure and my honour to do it.
DE: Thank you. So, right from the very very start could you tell me a little bit about your early life and how you came to volunteer for the Royal Canadian Air Force please?
RH: Yes. Well, I was born on a farm and we farmed near [unclear] Saskatchewan. Do you know where Regina, Saskatchewan is? Ok. Well, it’s, it’s towards central Saskatchewan and we were about probably a hundred miles away in the east of, of Regina. And when I did my Service flying at Yorkton we were flying Cessnas then but they started the station with Harvards. So the Harvards, we were only about seventy miles from the airport so the Harvards were always flying over. We didn’t have a tractor or a car so I was sitting behind six horses and as soon as the Harvards came over and doing their aerobatics I stopped the horses. Horses are pretty smart. It didn’t take them very long. As soon as they heard a plane they automatically stopped. So cut it short we didn’t get as much farm work done as we should because I sometimes sat there for about twenty minutes before I started them up again. So when I got embarkation leave, some of the neighbours came over to bid me farewell and I heard my dad say, ‘Well, we don’t like to see him go but I have an idea we’re going to get more farm work done.’ So, to make a long story short I only had my grade ten and I, I took my grade nine and ten by correspondence because we didn’t have a High School. I don’t know what you’d call it in England, I forget but, I had to go to Public School. I went to Public School at Lorlie from grade one to grade eight. Took correspondence course from the Department of Education to do my nine and ten. And then they said, ‘Well, in order to be a pilot you had to have your grade twelve.’ And in 1941 the Royal Air Force were getting short of pilots, so the powers that be decided well there’s a possible pool of, of pilots that only have their grade ten, maybe partial grade eleven, partial twelve. If we set up what they call Educational School, Pre-Enlistment Schools they called them, and if they passed a medical and a physical then they could enrol in this Pre-Enlistment School. So they set that up in 1941 and in the Fall of, after harvest was finished, I went to Regina to the Recruiting Centre and I had my medical. I only weighed a hundred and eighteen pounds so I was pretty skinny then but rather wiry I guess. I managed to pass the medical, and they also gave me an aptitude test. Coming from the farm I didn’t know very much about the big wide world, but maybe the aptitude test might have been easy because I managed to pass that. And then that school started at the end of October and lasted until the end of April. If you successfully completed that course then you got credit for your grade twelve, last two credits. And then you were sent to what they called a manning depot and that’s where all pilots, navigators, well they weren’t navigators then we were just called, we were just called airmen. AC2s and you stayed there for several weeks. You learned to march and you got all your inoculations and all that sort of thing. And then if you wanted to train as a pilot then they had what they called a Ground School where you took meteorology, physics, preliminary navigation, and so on. And they had that in Regina and that lasted for ten weeks. And then after you’d done that the pilots then were sent to Elementary Flying Schools, and in Saskatchewan at that time they were using Tiger Moths, Gypsy Tigers. You later switched over to Cornells but they used Tigers. So, about the time they were, they were starting those in the Fall it was, most of the fellas that I knew would get posted to Regina Elementary. But in 1942 they had a very large crop in Saskatchewan so my dad contacted the authorities and asked them if, they, I could come home for six weeks to help with the harvest. Which I did. And then when I got back to the station they said, ‘Well, there’s no room at the Regina Elementary so we’re going to send you to Virden.’ To Virden, Manitoba. So I then went to, I went to Virden. I started there in, in late October, and I finished that course just about the end of December. Went home for Christmas and then, but before that when I’d finished the elementary they asked me where I wanted to go for my service flying which I was surprised. I thought well they would tell me where I might go. And I said, ‘Well, what choice do they have?’ They said, ‘You can go to Dauphin, Manitoba, go to Brandon, Manitoba or you can go to Yorkton. I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I think I’d like to go to Yorkton.’ He said, ‘Why do you want to go to Yorkton?’ I didn’t tell him it was close to the farm. I said, ‘Well, if we happen to get a forty eight hour pass the bus connections or train connections would be easier for me to get home.’ So they said, ‘Ok. We’ll give you the warrant and you can go to Yorkton.’ So when I got to Yorkton I was very surprised to find that the fellas that had gone to the Elementary School in Regina, I figured they’d be halfway through their course but they hadn’t even started because in 19 — in that winter of ’42 there was a lot of blizzards and snowstorms, and the flying was set back. And my friend Buddy who I’d met at the, at the Pre-Enlistment School he was also there and that course had just started. It was about a week into the course and they thought well I could catch up so I joined that course. And that course lasted, it was started in January and we got our wings the last week in April. And we get, everybody gets ten days embarkation leave. I went home for ten days, and then I caught the train at [unclear] Saskatchewan and so I have pictures for you. I’ll send those to you, and they show me standing at the station. Then I had to change trains in Melville. What we called the Trans-Continental. That would be similar to your train that would go from Kings Cross to Edinburgh, and it would only stop at the main stops. I think that one from Kings Cross if I remember correctly it had about seven or eight stops. I know it used to, it used to stop at Doncaster and it would stop at York and it would stop at Newcastle on Tyne and so on.
DE: Yeah. The distances are totally different aren’t they?
RH: So that particular, what they called the Trans-Continental it would leave Vancouver and it would take seven days to get to Halifax. So that gives you an idea.
DE: Yes.
RH: How large Canada is. So I got, changed trains and got on that train at Melville and then it took about almost four days to get to Ottawa. Then when it got to Ottawa my friend Buddy, he boarded the train. Then it took us another three days to get to Halifax. And then I think we were in Halifax about, possibly three weeks. But we didn’t go over in a convoy. The convoys took about almost a month. Well over, maybe a hundred, a hundred and thirty ships in a convoy and under normal circumstances the U-boats were sinking at least twenty five to thirty ships. And they told us that we were going to go on the Louis Pasteur. That was a French liner that had been converted to carrying troops and we said, ‘Oh well, how about, we’re going alone. How about the U-boats? They said, ‘You don’t have to worry about the U-boats because this Louis Pasteur can go faster than U-boats,’ which it turned out to be so. It took us four and a half days to cross the Atlantic. Then we landed in Liverpool on July the 1st 1943.
DE: Can we, can we just go back a little bit? Could you tell me what, what was it like the first time you flew? And what it was like going solo for the first time?
RH: That’s, that’s an interesting question, Dan because when I was ninety three years old one of the CBC reporters had met me at an Air Show and unbeknownst to me she arranged, she arranged for me to go for a flight in a Tiger Moth. And one of the fellas near Saskatoon he had a runway right beside his house. It was on an acreage. And he also owned about five planes and I went back in a Tiger Moth when I was ninety three years old. And it was, in a way it was a, in some ways it was a strange feeling but otherwise it brought back a lot of memories for me. But he said to me, ‘When did you solo?’ I said, ‘I’ve no idea but,’ I said, ‘I’ve brought my logbook. Let’s have a look.’ And it turned out that I soloed on Remembrance Day in 1942. And I probably, I think the average would be about eight to nine hours, or ten hours before they sent you solo and I look at my logbook and I think I had, I had about nine and a half hours when I went solo. But I really liked flying and actually when I was about twelve or thirteen years old I had a flight. It was in the wintertime and I had a flight in a small aircraft. In our Public School they had a furnace that needed some repair so the chap from the furnace company came, rented a plane and came out and landed in a field near Lorlie. And then while the furnace was being repaired he came over into town and, and wanted to know if anybody wanted to go for a ride. It cost five dollars and I asked my dad. I said, ‘Dad, could you loan me five dollars?’ He said, ‘Why do you want five dollars for?’ I said, ‘Well, I can go for a ride in a plane.’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t have any five dollars,’ he said, ‘I might not even have enough to buy these groceries,’ he said. But the storekeeper overheard the conversation and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I understand that you’re a little bit of a trapper and you’ve been catching —’ what we called weasels and so on, and he said, ‘Do you have any?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I do,’ I said, ‘I’m going to get ready to shift them to Melville.’ He said, ‘What do you think you can get for them?’ I said, ‘Well, I hope to get maybe seven or eight dollars.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll loan you five dollars on the understanding that when you sell those pelts,’ he said, ‘You’ll pay me back.’ So that’s, that was my first flight when I was twelve years old.
DE: Fantastic.
RH: And it was cold too because it was an open cockpit. I remember that [laughs]
DE: Yeah.
RH: So then, of course as you well know Dan when you get to, when you get to Liverpool or wherever you land in England everybody goes to Bournemouth. All the, all the, all the aircrew go to Bournemouth. And we discovered there that there were a lot of beautiful hotels and that’s where the, I guess you would call the rich people went there for their holidays but they, they made sure that all their pictures and all their expensive furniture was removed from the hotels. But I remember Buddy and I, we stayed at what they called the Royal Bath Hotel and we were there for probably maybe three or four weeks, and then the pilots had to go to an Advanced Flying School to take what they called a BAT School, Beam Approach Training. One thing I should mention is that when we were flying in Canada, night flying, all the towns were lit up. Aircraft had navigation lights on. When we got to England I can vividly recall that train ride from Liverpool to Bournemouth. It was at night. I knew we were going through towns and you couldn’t see a light. Everything was blacked out. And then we discovered that night flying you couldn’t have any navigation lights on. So in addition to the blackouts and no navigation lights we also discovered that the weather in England wasn’t as conducive for flying as it was in Saskatchewan because we had lots of sunny days. In the Midlands when you were flying we had, I suppose you’d call it quite a bit of haze because there was a lot of manufacturing done in Birmingham and Sheffield and those things. So flying was much more difficult. I think that’s why they started the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Furthermore, there wasn’t enough room left in England for, for all their training.
DE: And also, you know there’s, there’s not the Luftwaffe to worry about either if you —
RH: Pardon?
DE: There’s not the Luftwaffe to worry about either if you’re training in Canada.
RH: Oh no. No. I think that was, I think that British Commonwealth Air Training Plan really contributed a great deal to the success of the war.
DE: So did you go on to multi-engine aircraft in Canada?
RH: Yeah. When we went to Yorkton they’d switched over from Harvards to what they called 172 Cessna Cranes. They were twin engines because then they didn’t need fighter pilots like they did in the Battle of Britain. They were short of bomber pilots. So they switched a lot of the service stations over from Harvards to Cessnas, and Canada leased a lot of aircraft from the United States. And those were flown back again after the war.
DE: Ok. Yeah.
RH: So when we got to, Buddy and I went to Church Lawford in Warwickshire. I think it’s, if I remember correctly it’s not that far from Stratford on Avon.
DE: No. It won’t be. No.
RH: I had an aunt that married my Uncle Harold and she came from, from Warwickshire, near Stratford On Avon. But that, that course it was of course beam approach training, and I often wondered when we were at Yorkton why pilots had to take Morse Code. I thought well the wireless operator would have to do Morse Code. Why did the pilot have to know Morse Code? Well, I soon found out why that was required because then you had to use, you had to use the beam, the Morse Code to get lined up with the beam. And that of course was used when the, if you had to land in the fog when the ‘dromes were equipped with FIDO. And for our very first trip, this was much later, our very first trip in a Lancaster where we did have to land on FIDO but I’ll tell you about that later because that was over a year ago and I’d really forgotten what the damned signals were. So when we were at, when we were at Church Lawford [pause] every time Buddy would, Buddy was engaged to, to his High School sweetheart Jean Woods, and he wrote to her on a regular basis and every time he’d write to her, he called me Harry, I guess short for Harrison, called Harry, ‘Well, Harry you’d better put a footnote on this letter to Jean.’ Of course my usual reply was, ‘Well, I don’t know Jean and I don’t know what to say.’ And he would always say, ‘Well, you never know. Some day you might meet her.’ And the last day we were there I have a picture, I’m going to send you a picture of Buddy and I. And we had a little Welsh gal that looked after us. Polished our shoes and all that, so we thought we were really in, in royalty when we had that kind of treatment. That didn’t last very long after we left that station. And he said, ‘Well, I’m writing another letter to Jean.’ I have a picture of him licking the stamp to put on the letter. He said, ‘You’d better put another footnote on this,’ he said, ‘Because when we get back to Bournemouth,’ he said, ‘We’re going to get posted to OTUs,’ he said, ‘And we might not end up at the same one.’ So I used to say, ‘Well, I’ve told you before Buddy I don’t really know what to say.’ He said, ‘Well, just put something on this. You never know. You might meet her.’ So, when we got back to Bournemouth I think we were only there about two weeks when we got posted and I went to Ossington. That was number 82. I think if I remember correctly it was near, it was near Sherwood Forest and we were going to start flying there and then. They had a course that wasn’t finished so they had a satellite drome called Gamston so we, we did our flying from Gamston. But I found that the Wellingtons, they were, as you know they were geodetic construction and they were very sturdy aircraft. Well-constructed. And I found them I guess an easy way to say it was somewhat heavy on the controls but they were, I wouldn’t say they were easy to fly but they were quite a little bit more, certainly more effort than the, than the Cessnas and the Oxfords that we were flying and I found them particularly hard to fly on one engine. But I managed to get through that course and looking there, I looked to see what my rating was and I got, I got above average so I guess I didn’t do too badly. In fact, I got that, I’m not bragging but I got that in most of the training that I did. And that, that course lasted, I, it was a fairly long course. I think it lasted about three and a half months, and then we got posted to a Conversion Unit and we went to, we went to Dishforth which later as you know became, became part of 6 Group. And that’s where 431 Squadron and 44 Squadron were, were stationed. And it was all, all it was part, it was two of the fifteen squadrons that made up 6 Group and that was, that was a Canadian group.
DE: Yeah.
RH: They’d been advocating for some time to have their own, to have their own, their own group.
DE: So —
RH: And —
DE: When —
RH: That was —
DE: Sorry. Sorry.
RH: Ok
DE: I was going to —
RH: Go ahead.
DE: I was just going to ask when did you crew up?
RH: Pardon?
DE: When did you form, when did you form a crew?
RH: Oh, now that, I’m glad you asked that question because that’s very interesting the way they did it. They put us all in a big hangar. An equal number of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers and we weren’t in the hangar very long and this tall chap came over to me and he said, he introduced himself, he said, ‘I’m Hal Philips,’ he said, ‘I came from Vancouver,’ he said. And I introduced myself. He said, ‘You got on the train at Melville didn’t you?’ I said, ‘Really,’ I said, ‘How did you know that?’ He said, ‘Well, my wife and I got married on my embarkation leave and she said, ‘Well, I guess we’ll have, the honeymoon’s going to last seven days,’ she said, ‘Because it’s going to take seven days to go from Vancouver to Halifax.’ So, that’s how I got my navigator. And I said, ‘Well, Hal, we’d better look around for a bomb aimer.’ So we looked around and we saw a chap sitting down smoking a cigarette and we went over to him and we introduced ourselves and he said, ‘Well, I’m Gordon Dumville,’ he said, ‘I come from Saskatchewan. From Rocanville.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I know where that is. In south east Saskatchewan.’ I said, ‘Do you come from a farm?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Are you crewed up yet?’ He said, ‘No. I guess nobody wants me.’ I said, ‘Well, would you like to fly with us?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to fly with somebody. I might as well fly with you.’ So then we said, ‘Well, we’ll need a, we’ll need a wireless operator.’ So we looked around and we see somebody with, with a w/op badge on so, or a wing I should say so we introduced ourselves. He said, ‘I’m Bob Hooker,’ he said, ‘I come from Big River.’ That’s kind of interesting because where my youngest daughter lives now we go right through Big River and she, they live on a lake front property about eight kilometres from Big River so that brings back memories. So then we said, ‘Well, we need, we need a rear gunner.’ So then we saw some gunners in a group and one chap seemed to be by himself so we introduced ourselves. And he said, ‘Well I’m, I’m Kenny Taylor,’ he said, ‘I come from, from a farm near Mayerthorpe, Alberta.’ So it turned out that he was the youngest in the crew and I was next to, I was next to Kenny as far as age goes and my navigator was probably, he already had a degree in agriculture. He was probably seven or eight years older than I was and my, and Bob Hooker was also about the same age. And so that’s how we crewed up.
DE: Ok.
RH: And then —
DE: I was just going to say when did, when did you get your flight engineer because he’d have been RAF rather than Royal Canadian Air Force, wouldn’t he?
RH: We got, we got our flight engineer when we went to conversion.
DE: I’m sorry, I’m —
RH: We did, yeah we had a five man crew on Wellingtons and we didn’t need an engineer.
DE: I’m jumping ahead. Sorry.
RH: So, yeah, so we got the engineer then when we went to the Conversion Unit and the Conversion Unit didn’t last more than about three weeks. And I, excuse me I’ve got to have a drink of water.
DE: Cheers.
[pause]
RH: And they, they gave us an instructor who had just finished a tour, and I, I could tell that he wasn’t too enthusiastic about being an instructor. And so he did the first couple of circuits I guess and then he told me to take over. We were flying Halifax 5s with inline engines and I understand they used to have a lot of glycol leaks, Merlin inline engines. And on my first landing I didn’t do a very good job. I couldn’t keep it straight. So he stopped the aircraft and he said, ‘If you bloody well want to kill yourself,’ he said, ‘You bloody well go ahead,’ he said, ‘You’re not going to kill me.’ So we taxied the aircraft, told me to taxi the aircraft up to the flight. We did that and he got out the aircraft and left me there. And then a flight commander came out and he got in the aircraft and did a circuit. Told me to, no actually he told me, he told me to do a circuit and we were coming in to land, the aircraft was moving around I guess too much on the runway, he said, ‘Take your damned feet off the rudders.’ You don’t, he said, ‘You don’t need very much rudder control on these aircraft.’ He said, ‘Try another landing.’ So we did another landing and I suppose the reason I kept my feet on because I wasn’t very tall. I was about five foot six and he said, ‘I think you need a cushion or something behind you so you can reach that. But remember you don’t need much rudder,’ he said, ‘On these aircraft.’ And that was the problem that I had. So after we got that solved then as I say, that course only lasted about, about three or four weeks. And then while we were there it was interesting. They said, ‘Well, if you finish this course without killing yourselves,’ that was not too encouraging [laughs] They said, ‘Just hope you don’t get posted to Croft.’ We said, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘Well, Croft throughout Bomber Command is known as the jinx station. Everything that happens always happens at Croft.’ Well, I often think back and after I’d been there, finished my tour with my four crashes I guess I added to their reputation. [Laughs] So, when we, when we got to, to Croft I think we were only there about, well we got there on the 12th. I remember that. We got there on the 12th of March and on the 15th of March there were five crews arrived that day. They’d had a few losses. Five new crews. And they had told me what crew I was going to fly with and one of the pilots that had come to the station the same day he came to me and he said, ‘Well, I know pilot —’ so and so, he said, ‘Would you mind switching places with me?’ And I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t matter to me, I said, ‘I really don’t know any of the, any of the crews.’ So he said, ‘Well.’ I said, ‘You go and speak to the flight commander and see if he ok’s it.’ So he did. And so I ended up going with a Flying Officer [Feldman] and his crew and I discovered that he came from Quebec City and was a very good hockey player and he played with what they called the Quebec Aces. And the, the —
Other: Sorry. I’m just plugging this in. Sorry, Dan.
DE: Ok.
Other: Don’t want to lose power halfway through.
DE: Oh right. You’re just plugging in the power cord. Ok. Thank you.
RH: So, so the target that night was Amiens and we were, we were bombing the large transport, I guess you’d call it a transportation centre. The Germans were bringing up a lot of supplies in preparation I suppose for the, for the allied landings. And there wasn’t a jump seat there so I stood up about halfway and he said, ‘Well, you’d better go and sit down on the step,’ which I did. It was a sort of a routine trip. There wasn’t very much flak or much searchlights there and when we, when we were coming in to land, excuse me [pause] coming in to land he told me, I was standing beside him, I wanted to watch him land, he said, ‘Go back to the crash position.’ Well, I didn’t go. I stood back about three or four steps so he couldn’t see me because I wanted to see him land. And unbeknownst to the crew they had a five hundred pound bomb left in the bomb bay and when the aircraft touched down the bomb didn’t drop off. The runways were a bit, they weren’t very level there so the aircraft always bounced a bit. We got just about to the end of the runway and then the bomb dropped off even though the bomb switch was off. The bomb was still live. We never heard the bomb go off but it woke everybody up on the station and I suppose from the concussion, the bomb literally blew the plane apart. There wasn’t anything left from the wings. The fuselage was gone, the rudders were gone and it was like a movie scene. I, I suppose I was knocked out momentarily because in a Halifax you’re about twenty six feet off the ground. So I don’t know what my trajectory was but I expect that the bottom of the aircraft blew out when the bomb went off and it killed the two gunners instantly. And the rest of us, I suppose literally blew us out of the aircraft because I found myself lying on the ground and I remember opening my eyes and I thought I could see stars. And then I thought, my first thought was jeez, I must be in heaven. There was no sound. And then all of a sudden I started to get wet and, I, my first thought was oh I must be bleeding to death. Well, it wasn’t. What had happened, when the bomb exploded all the gas lines were punctured or fractured, and then the hundred octane gas was flowing towards the exhaust. They were still pretty hot from the flight and then they all burst into flames and then there was a big wall of fire. And I picked myself up, I was still sort of dazed. It was dark but it was getting lighter as the fire rose, and I started to run. This is a bit fresh, I don’t know whether I should tell it or not but I tripped, and I tripped over, someone’s head had been decapitated and there was no helmet on and he had a mop of, I remember he had a mop of beautiful curly hair. I kept on running and I saw someone else running and heard someone else yell, ‘Help.’ And the pilot was almost out of the, the cockpit was left, one wing was fully intact. Another wing was only partly there, but the pilot was almost out but he had those, the old type flying boots on where they, they were fleece lined with the zipper all the way up. That’s when they, later on they changed those into more of a boot with a zipper on. Then if you bailed out because when they were baling out the fire, when they baled out when the parachute opened they were losing one or both flying boots so they made a new type of flying boot. So this chap that was, I didn’t know the crew, the chap was running. He called me and so we, we both tugged on the pilot and pulled him, pulled him away from the aircraft. That part wasn’t burning. It was just the rear part of the wings and that that were burning. And then of course, I guess it was the oxygen bottles started to explode and the verey cartridges and there were a lot of explosions around. And then, then I think I think the ambulance arrived then and took us to the hospital. And then nobody seemed to be injured but I had a sore arm and so they said, ‘Well you’d better, you’d better go on.’ They told me it was a bad scrape. So I went to my aunt and uncle’s in Hull. They lived in Hull, and I was there about the third day and my uncle who had been in the, survived the First World War he, one day he was home for lunch and he said, ‘Let me have a look at that arm.’ So he looked at it and he said, ‘By Jove, I don’t like the look of that,’ he said. There’s an anti-aircraft battery. As you probably well know, Dan, next to London Hull was one of the most bombed cities in Britain. All the east I remember from history that there was a lot of, a lot of lot of shipping done from Hull, and all that was left there were just concrete. All the docks and everything were gone but there was just enough room for the trawlers to come in. They used to go out at night and do their fishing and come in with their catch in the morning. But there was still an anti-aircraft battery in the outskirts of Hull so I got on the bus and went out there. It was called Sutton. I went out there and I saw the medical officer. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You’ve got phosphorous burns,’ he said, ‘How did you get those?’ So I told him about the bomb explosion. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Those bombs,’ he said, ‘There’s lots of phosphorous in those,’ he said, ‘That’s where you got your burn,’ he said, ‘That needs to be looked at right away.’ And he said, ‘I’m a little short of bandages,’ he said. I suppose they had, quite a few people were killed in Hull. So he, he said, ‘I’m going to put a fish dressing on your, on your arm.’ And he wrapped it up in newspaper, tied it up and he said, ‘You’d better get — where are you stationed?’ I told him. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’d better get back on the train as soon as possible and get back to the station.’ So I went back to my aunt and uncle’s and got the clothes that I’d taken there, and went to the train and then of course I had to take the train from there. I had to change in York to get back to Croft. Then Darlington. Then up to Croft to the station. Of course in those trains you know you’ve got six people in the compartment and three on each side looking at one another, and pretty soon people started looking around and sniffing. They could see I wasn’t carrying anything. They thought they could smell fish so I had to, I had to explain to them where the fish smell was coming from. [laughs]
DE: Oh dear.
RH: I don’t really know what the fish dressing did but apparently as the doctor said that was the best thing to do. So to make a long story short I saw the medical officer and he said, ‘Well, where do you want to go for treatment?’ Well, they might as well have asked the [unclear] because I didn’t have a clue where I should go. So he said, ‘Well, I’d better send you to Basingstoke.’ Of course that was a big, I remember my dad saying that was a big hospital in the First World War. And at that time they had a lot of casualties. Especially tank casualties from Italy. And when I got there I was so embarrassed because I was walking around and I saw fellas bandaged there with, you know some of them were blind, and some of them had their arms grafted to their face and I just felt so. They kept me there for a week. They just didn’t have enough time to deal with me. They did, dressed my arm and then they finally sent me to East Grinstead. And then I was there for, I had pinch grafts done on my arm. Dr Tilley. He was a Canadian doctor. He was the one that, that did my, my pinch. He did a pinch graft. They tried a flap graft first but that didn’t work so then they did pinch grafts. Took pinches from my, from my upper thigh and then grafted it on. So I was there for probably nine weeks and then I went back to the station.
DE: What had happened to the, your crew during the nine, ten weeks that you were —
RH: That [laughs] that’s interesting. When, when I got back to the station I thought oh well they’d have found another pilot. I’ll have to, I’ll have to get another crew. Well, I guess it turned out they didn’t know how long I was going to be away and the crew were still there. I don’t know what they did for the time I was away but they were there waiting for me. So I think, I think we did maybe one or two cross countries to get climatised I guess again, and well actually that would have been my, several weeks, almost two months before I’d flown or since I’d flown. And then we did, we did eleven trips without any, I wouldn’t say without any difficulty but some of them were, what the word for exciting is. I don’t know whether that’s the right word or not but they were all very different. And on the way out to, on our thirteenth trip on the way out to the aircraft, the lorry used to take us out, if I remember correctly I think the lorries were large enough to take two crews which would be fourteen airmen. And my rear gunner, Kenny Taylor, the youngest in the crew he was very quiet and I said, ‘What’s the matter, Kenny? Don’t you feel good?’ He said, ‘Well, skipper. Physically,’ he said, ‘I feel ok,’ he said, ‘But do you know what trip this is?’ I said, ‘Yeah, it’s twelve, er thirteen. Why?’ ‘Gosh,’ he said, ‘I sure don’t like, I don’t like thirteen,’ he said, ‘Can we call it 12a?’ I said, ‘Kenny, if it’ll make you feel better then it won’t be thirteen. It’ll be 12a.’ I don’t know whether Kenny had a premonition or just what, but when we got the green light to take off I got at least three quarters of the way down the runway and the port inner engine suddenly stopped and I had about eighty, it was just prior to lift off. About eighty to eighty five miles an hour, and the engine stopped suddenly and the aircraft veered off the runway. Then it’s pitch dark. It had been, we’d been, the flight had been delayed at least a couple of times and then when we took off it had quit raining but it was dark and I didn’t know if I throttled back if, I was the fourth aircraft off out of nineteen or twenty. The other aircraft, I knew they were slowly inching their way to the take-off point on the perimeter track. I couldn’t see them. I didn’t know if I could get stopped. I knew if I didn’t get stopped and crashed in to one what a horrible site that would be. So I pushed the throttles through the gate and when I did that I had more than full power on the two port engines and suddenly the aircraft, I did gain a bit of altitude. The, the right wing went down and then the aircraft started to shudder and I still had enough control. I remember straightening the aircraft out. I yelled at the crew to brace for impact. My bomb aimer was standing beside me. The last thing I remember is telling them to brace themselves and I don’t remember anything else. But I got over those aircraft and just off the edge of the drome there was a farmhouse and a barn and there was a stone wall around, around the house. The barn was attached to the house which was quite common in England. And we crashed into that wall and then when we, we were probably I don’t know how fast we were going. Maybe eighty, ninety miles an hour. My bomb aimer went forward into the instrument panel and I don’t know how I ended up with the cockpit split open. I don’t know how I got out but they found me lying on the wing. I was knocked out. My wireless operator and mid-upper gunner apparently pulled me off the, off the wing. And the navigator and the rest of the crew apparently were wandering around, around the aerodrome. And I was still unconscious but the bomb aimer, he was still conscious, and there were, he had a serious head injury and they were going to take us to a hospital. I think it was Northallerton. They couldn’t do anything at the, at the base hospital. So I, I woke up on the way to the hospital and I knew, I’m pretty sure that Gordon was still, was still alive then because they operated on him. I think it was Northallerton. But he didn’t, he didn’t survive the operation. But then I ended up with a broken nose and probably twenty or thirty stiches in my face and a badly bruised thigh so I was in the hospital for probably about ten days. [pause] So then they when I got out the hospital they had got another bomb aimer to take Gordon’s, take Gordon’s place, and we continued our operations. And on the seventeenth trip it was, we went to Brest, and I remember when we were going out to the aircraft I remember my wireless operator saying to, to my two gunners. He said, ‘Well, we’re, we’re going to Brest,’ he said. They told us at briefing it was, expect to encounter a lot of flak because the, Brest and Hamburg were where the German U-boats were being serviced, and he said we could expect a lot of flak and probably a few night fighters. He said, ‘I hope we get back from this trip ok.’ I think it was Kenny or Maurice said, ‘Well, why?’ He said, ‘Well, we’re going on leave. We’re going on leave tomorrow,’ he said, ‘So, I hope to get back.’ And I, whether which one was it? ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Well, the skipper, the skipper will get us back ok.’ So I never gave it another, I never gave it another thought. But then when, I suppose, I’m not sure just where we were, whether we were halfway back to England then we ran into this heavy rain. And as we got closer to the, to Croft, the wireless operator had told me, or I asked him, I said, ‘Have we got any diversions?’ And he hesitated and he said, ‘No.’ And then the second time he called up he asked about the weather. ‘Got any more?’ I said, ‘No.’ Then he said, ‘Well, aircraft from 3 and 4 were being diverted.’ I said, ‘Well, better, better listen.’ So he called up three or four times, and I kept asking if he’d had a diversion. He said, ‘No,’ he didn’t have any. But I don’t know how he, how he missed the diversion but when we got back to base it was still pouring rain and it was heavy cloud and I think there was only one. Only one person on duty in the control tower and he said to me, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You can land,’ he said, ‘But I’ll put on all the lights that we can,’ he said, ‘And come down to about eight hundred feet and see if you can, see if you can see any lights.’ Which I did but I couldn’t see any. And he then said, ‘Well, climb. Climb to thirty five hundred feet and stand by for further instructions.’ Well, they always say that you can’t fly by the seat of your pants, and I’d been flying for at least two hours in this heavy rain and thick cloud and I decided, well I’m pretty sure we’re going to, we haven’t got much fuel left. We’ll probably have to bale out although I never said anything to the crew. And he said, ‘Climb to thirty five hundred feet.’ So I remember it was easier to turn to port to do a slow turn than it would be to starboard. So I did a slow climbing turn with just enough RPMs on to gain some height and I suppose I was getting calls from the control tower, and while I was doing this slow climbing turn I must have been unconsciously pulling back slightly on the control column because all of a sudden the navigator yelled at me, he said, ‘Skipper, what’s happening?’ Just as he said that all of the navigation equipment ended up in the cockpit and then the aircraft started to shudder and I knew instantly what had happened. That the aircraft was almost on its back because the cloud was thick and I had no sensation in that position. I shoved the throttles forward. At the same time I pushed the stick forward. I still have that feeling of the aircraft shuddering but I caught it in time and then I got it into a dive and I pulled as hard as I could and finally got, got out of the dive. And apparently the chap in the control tower had been calling and he went outside and he could hear the aircraft so I don’t know how close we came to slamming into the ground. But then I said to myself well to heck with this I’m not climbing to thirty five hundred feet, I’m climbing to five thousand feet and I did. I kept the throttles at full force and the perspiration was pouring off me, and I climbed to five thousand feet and in the meantime he was calling up wanting to know where I was. Well, in that kind of weather I’m sure we didn’t know exactly where we were and he finally said, ‘Well, the only drome open is Silloth on the west coast.’ And I asked the navigator, I said, ‘How far is that? It sounds like it’s a long way.’ I think it was just on the very west coast. Right on the, I suppose it would be on the Irish Sea. I’m not sure. But I know it was an OTU because they were, they started flying Hudsons there, and I know they had a lot of, they had a lot of crashes there. But anyway we didn’t have very much fuel left and I said to the crew then, I said, ‘Well, it looks like we’re going to have to leave this aircraft. We’re going to have to bale out.’ So I said, ‘We’ve gone through the bale out procedure.’ I said, ‘When you leave your position,’ I said, ‘Let me know because,’ I said, ‘I’m going to be the last one to bale out.’ So [pause] they, they did. They all let me know when they were, when they were gone and then it was my turn to go. And you’re probably aware that the pilots had the opportunity of wearing a chest type chute or a seat type chute and as soon as I found that out I thought gosh that doesn’t sound very good. My chute’s down in the nose and the bomb aimer’s job is to give me my chest type chute if we have to bale out. What if the bomb aimer gets injured, we get attacked by a night fighter or we get hit with flak how am I going to get my parachute? So I used to carry my parachute. It weighed about almost thirty pounds I think with all that silk that was packed in there. I used to carry it in. I remember getting over the main spar. It was a bit difficult but I carried it in and it fit really well into the, into the cockpit seat. And then after I got in there I would strap it on, and then I’d put my waist, my Mae West on top of that. I did that every time. But when it was my turn to bale out which I’d never tried doing before because when we got back from a trip we just undid the parachute and I carried it out. So I moved across the cockpit and then I got hold of a rung with my right hand. Then when I figured I was clear of all the levers I let myself go. There’s three levers come at forty five degree angle and the last lever came up between my leg and my parachute harness. And I’d already let go of the rung and then I found myself dangling there and when I, before I baled out I put in the automatic pilot and I trimmed it so it was slightly nose down because I knew that it was a sparsely populated area but I didn’t know how far the, the aircraft was going to go. So I thrashed around and I thought egods, I survived the, survived the trip from there but now I’m going to go down with this aircraft. And I don’t know how long I thrashed around but finally I heard, I heard a crack and the lever broke. I suppose with my weight and the weight of the parachute the lever broke. I remember falling. There were three steps to the escape hatch and I remember falling down three steps and I remember hitting my elbow and I actually rolled out of the aircraft and I saw the, I saw the, I remember seeing the rudder of the aircraft and then I started to roll over and I found my rip cord. I gave it a yank. Of course nothing happens when you first pull it. And then this chute opened with a real jerk and I swung to the right, came back and I hit the ground. So I really, I really have no sensation of falling in a parachute. I’ve asked skydivers at air shows, ‘How close do you think I was to the ground?’ They said, Well, you were probably less than a thousand feet. Might have been about eight hundred feet when your parachute opened,’ because I remember hitting the ground really hard. But by this time the rain had stopped but it was real foggy and I remember sitting on, sitting on my parachute and I thought well at least I’m alive. And then I wasn’t sitting there for very long and it was real still and I heard a whistle. And as you know, we had a whistle on our battle dress that we had to use in case we were ditching at night. And I heard this whistle. So then I dropped my whistle and I blew back. And then I heard someone. Someone shouting, ‘Where are you?’ And I said, ‘I’m over here.’ Somebody said, ‘Where’s here?’ [laughs] I remember that so distinctly. And finally after calling back and forth my mid-upper gunner Maurice Content, he came from Montreal, he had a bit of a French accent but he was a really great guy. He was probably about seven or eight years older than I was but he said, ‘Skipper, thank God we’re alive.’ I said, ‘Yes. Thank goodness we are.’ I said, ‘I wonder how the rest of the crew made out.’ Then we heard another whistle. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Somebody else is alive.’ So then after more blowing whistles, and some more talking, here our rear gunner Kenny shows up. So at least there’s three of us alive. And so I remember we, I don’t know which one of them said, ‘Well, we’ve got an escape kit that we’re supposed to use if we bale out over enemy territory. Let’s open it and see what’s in it.’ [laughs] So we all opened our, our escape kits and of course there was some chocolate in there and there was a compass in there and a little map. Some I think had a little package of dressings and so on. I remember we ate our chocolate and then I remember Kenny saying to me, ‘Well, skipper. What are we going to do now?’ I said, ‘Well, I guess we’re going to have to start to —’ by this time then the fog had sort of started lifting and it would be, I think we baled out about, hit the ground probably about 4 o’clock in the morning and this would be about, well we sat there for a long time and finally the fog started to lift. It’d be about, somewhere about nine and nine thirty and then I said, ‘Well, we might as well go back in an northeast direction,’ because that’s where we came from. So we started to walk. And as you probably know we were in what they called the Fells district, and some of them call them high hills. Some actually call them small mountains but they seemed like mountains by the time we walked up one, they were and the grass and heather was at least up to our knees and we had the new type flying boots on. They’re fleece lined and they come up to just about your knees and then they actually made like a shoe, and then if you bale out over enemy territory then you can rip that top off and then you’ve got a boot. And but we didn’t do that. We walked and then about eleven or, ten or 11 o’clock the sun came out and it was, it turned out to be a really hot day which you, you get very few of those in England unless it’s, unless it’s in southern England you’d have more of them but not in, not in that part of the country. But anyway we walked all day. All we saw were sheep. We never saw any habitation. We didn’t see any buildings and we were getting tired and hungry and about 7 o’clock in the evening Kenny, my rear gunner, he said, ‘Skipper, I think I can see a building.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘You must be hallucinating, Kenny,’ I said. ‘There’s no buildings around here.’ ‘Skipper,’ he said, ‘I’m sure there’s a building there.’ I said, ‘Ok. Let’s go and see if there is one.’ So we started walking. He told me where he could see it. Maybe his eyesight was sharper than mine but we kept walking. Sure enough there was a building there. As we got closer and there were lots of sheep around and it turned out that it was a shepherd and his wife. That that was their summer home and they had got probably hundreds of sheep. When we got there we saw at least three or four sheep dogs. And then what we thought was the hired man but it turned out later, I found out later that it was their son, and their name was Blenkinsopp. I could understand his wife but I could not understand [laughs] I could not understand and he actually when he saw us coming I guess whether he thought we were German airmen but he had, he had this pitchfork over his shoulder. I remember his wife, I could understand her, saying, ‘No,’ she said, ‘They’re Canadians.’ So they had this, this hut was stone wall but there was a, I don’t know whether it was a dirt floor or what it was. It seemed like a dirt floor but it was kind of solid. And then I remember looking up and they had bacon and hams hanging in a beam across there. I remember seeing chickens running around there and then we could smell bread. She’d just baked bread and she said in her accent, ‘I suppose you lads are hungry.’ We said, ‘Well, yes we are.’ So she made us some, cooked us some bacon and eggs, and she had some biscuits for us and I think she made us tea. And then the shepherd which we thought was a hired man, later it turned out to be his son he spoke to them and they had a horse and a cart and I saw him take off on this with this horse and cart. Just the son. And seemed a long time but about midnight an RAF van showed up and we got in the van and it took us to the Penrith. And when we got to the, it was the hospital and when we got there here the rest of the crew were there.
DE: Jolly good.
RG: And I, I have no idea how they, how they got there but they were all there. And the navigator apparently had, he had of all the sparsely populated area he’d landed on, he’d landed right on a stone wall. I don’t know whether it was part of Hadrian’s Wall or what it was but he’d landed on it. He landed on a wall and he had two fractures in his, in his upper vertebrae but he could still walk but that showed up after. And another one had a badly sprained ankle. But they were all alive. And then I guess they’d notified the, notified the station and later on during the day a Lancaster showed up and transported us back to Croft. But when I got my records from the War Records Branch in Ottawa I got this, that was after what they called the Access To Information Act. When it expired I think it was twenty five years after it expired, then you could request documentation. So I remember writing to the War Records Branch in Ottawa to get copies of my war records and I got an envelope and I’ve measured it. It’s twenty two inches long and it’s fourteen inches wide and over an inch thick. So when I looked, looked through that there were thirty five, they had two Boards of Enquiry. One in to the, in to why the bomb exploded even though the bomb switch was off and then of course was a large investigation over the crash on take-off because the very first thing they did was send the engine to the factory. And apparently when they took the engine apart there was no fuel in the fuel lines to the engine. So their conclusion was that the engine failed due to fuel starvation. Whether there was an air lock or what but that was their determination and, and then the, what else [pause] I’ve lost my train.
DE: It doesn’t matter. I just, so did you and your crew all get the little caterpillar badge for, for using your parachutes?
RH: Pardon?
DE: Did you get the little tiny caterpillar badge from the Irvin Parachute Company for, the little pin?
RH: Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. Got that. Yeah.
DE: And do you know what happened to your aircraft after? After you managed to bale out.
[pause]
RH: That’s, that’s another story. In 1984 I went to, I went five times to Guinea Pig reunion at East Grinstead. Apparently, the English, they met every year. The Guinea Pigs that were remaining. Well, I say England. Britain now let’s say because they came from Wales and Scotland. And the Canadians, they formed their wing, because there were about seventy five Canadians that were treated there and I think there were enough Australians also to form a wing. But they were mostly British. They’d be a few maybe Poles or French and so on. But all together I think there were close to eight hundred treated at the, at the Burns Centre at East Grinstead and then we all became a member of the Guinea Pig Club. And that’s, that’s how it got its name. The plastic surgeon he was a New Zealander.
DE: McIndoe.
RH: Pardon?
DE: McIndoe.
RH: Yeah. That’s right. McIndoe. One morning he was going his rounds and they were, they had this Englishman in the bathtub in the saline bath because they’d discovered that the Battle of Britain ones that had baled out and landed in the Channel or the North Sea, that their burns were, that they healed quicker so it must be the salt water. So that’s how they treated them at East Grinstead. The first thing they did was put them in a saline bath. So the story goes that McIndoe poked his head around the door and said, ‘Good morning,’ and the Englishman in the bathtub, he said, ‘You know, sir,’ he said, ‘We’re just a bunch of bloody guinea pigs.’ And Sir Archibald McIndoe said, ‘Oh,’ he said ‘that’s interesting,’ he said, ‘We should form a club and call it the Guinea Pig Club.’ And that’s how it got its name. Because I think they’ve done a documentary on that.
DE: There’s books written and all sorts. Yeah. So, you were going to —
RH: Because I —
KA: Tell him about, he asked about when they found your plane.
RH: Oh yeah. That. Yeah.
KA: Right. Tell him about that.
RH: Yeah. I’m going to tell him about that. So, so in ’84 when I went to the, when I went to the reunion in East Grinstead there was a lady there from Carlisle and her brother, their name was Hutchinson. He was one of the very badly burned airmen and I think they were having a tea and she said to me, where, wanted to know where I came from and she wondered what station I was from and I told her then about the bale out. And she said, ‘Oh, well that’s, that’s not so far from Carlisle,’ she said, ‘Tell me the whole story,’ she said, ‘And I’m going to write it up and put it in the local paper.’ So she did that and then there was a business man there by the name of Peter [Connan] and he got interested in that story and took my address and wrote to me and said, ‘Well, the next time you come to England to visit your relatives,’ he said, ‘Come to Carlisle,’ he said, ‘And I’ll take you out to the crash site.’ He said, ‘I know,’ he said, ‘I’ve written two books now,’ he said, ‘And I’m on the third one.’ He said, ‘I’m researching aircraft that crashed within a hundred miles of Carlisle.’ But he said, ‘I have details of your crash and,’ he said, ‘I know where the aircraft is —’ For I don’t know how long it was but the RAF, the area where the plane crashed I think it was an earl that owned all the land and he wouldn’t let anyone near the aircraft unless they were from the, from the RAF. And so he took me as close as possible to where the, where the aircraft had had crashed. And he belonged to a Rotary Club and took me to one of their luncheons. And then about four years ago I got a letter from a fella by the name of Philip Smith who lived in Newcastle on Tyne and he said, “My friend and I,” he said, “We’re doing research on aircraft that crashed in the general area where —” he said, “I was born.” He said, “I came across your crash,” he said, “In my research,” He said, “Your plane crashed about forty miles from where I lived but —" he said, “I’ve moved now to Newcastle on Tyne,” he said, but he said, “I’ve been out to the, I’ve been out to crash site and,” he said, “There isn’t anything left,” he said, “As far as the plane goes. The scavengers they’ve taken everything.” Because I guess the earl sold [pause] I forget his name now. He sold the property. But he came to Canada to train and he was a Spitfire pilot. And I can’t, I can’t just, at the moment I can’t remember his name but he was an earl. And, so Philip Smith, he sent me pictures and he gave me the name of the, he’d been visiting the farmer and his wife and their, and at the moment I can’t think of the exact name of the town where they are but they’ve taken over. They’ve taken over the area or the farm where the aircraft crashed and it was in a boggy area and apparently it went almost straight down and the engines apparently are still in the bog. But of course there isn’t anything left now of the plane but the farmer’s wife, it’s not agricultural land, the grass is almost two feet high and they have cattle and sheep because it’s so hilly and there’s no, there’s no agricultural crops grown. And the farmer’s wife’s name is Edith, her husband’s name was Geoff Wilkinson and she went out in their quad. She said, ‘Philip has been out several times,’ she said, ‘So I decided one day I’m going to get on the quad and I’m going to go out and see what I can see,’ because all there is left is a crater but it’s covered over now with grass. But they took pictures of it and showed me exactly where the aircraft was and she said, ‘When I got there,’ she said, ‘I stuck my hand down rabbit holes,’ she said, ‘And I ended up with about thirteen or fourteen pieces,’ she said. ‘So I put them in a sack. I took them home and I laid them out on the kitchen table,’ she said, ‘And I took a picture of them,’ she said, ‘And I’m, I thought you might like to see them.’ [laughs] So, I’ve, I’ve got a picture there so I’m going to write to you and I’m going to send you one of those pictures.
DE: Oh smashing. Thank you.
RH: Because it’s interesting to see and then when on one of the visits that Philip Smith made out there he found, he found an article that there were numbers on it and he wanted to know if I knew where it came from. And I could see there were white numbers but there was a lot of mud and things caked on it. So I cleaned it up and I got out my pilot’s handbook and I looked. It looked like it might have been something to do with the fuel gauge so I looked at the engineer’s panel and I found that this, this, it was actually the shape of a, it was flat but it was indicating how much fuel was in a particular fuel tank because I got it cleaned up enough I could see all the white numbers and they corresponded with the numbers that when I, you know when they had them all numbered in the, in the Halifax handbook. I showed the engineer’s panel so I was able to write back to Philip and tell him that I’d been able to able to, able to identify it and I still have that. I’ve got it taped on there. So then when we got, when we got back to, when we got back to the, we got back to the, from, from the bale out about five days after that they told us that the powers that be thought that the crew should go to London, to the Central Medical Board to be examined. And of course when we got there we saw psychologists and psychiatrists and they were all wing commanders, I think. Coming from the farm I wasn’t that well versed with psychologists. I didn’t really know they existed. But we had some really interesting questions posed to us and I answered them the best I could. So to make a long story short we were there three days. When we got back to the station they called me there. The squadron commander called me in and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We got the results from your visit to the Medical Board.’ And he said that, ‘We’ve got good news and bad news for you,’ he said, ‘The good news,’ he said, ‘You and your rear gunner are still considered fit to fly but the rest of the crew they’re not fit to continue flying. So we’ve decided that even though they’ve only done seventeen trips we’ll give them credit for a tour. They’re entitled to the ops wing but then they’ll go back to Canada. But if you and your rear gunner want to join them you can also get credit for your tour.’ So, I gave Kenny the news. As I say he was the youngster in the crew and Kenny said, ‘Well, skipper. If the rest of the, if the rest of the fellas on the squadron know that we’re fit to fly and we don’t continue flying they’ll think we’re cowards.’ And I said, ‘Oh, my gosh,’ I said, ‘That would never do, Kenny.’ And at the time they were converting the squadron to Canadian built Lancasters, so the squadron commander, Wing Commander Mitchell, he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘If you and your rear gunner want to continue flying,’ he said, ‘We’ll give you a couple of hours flying with the Lancaster,’ he said, ‘And we can, no problem getting you a new crew,’ he said, ‘We’ve got a lot of orphan crew members around here.’ He said, ‘They’ve lost their crew. They were either in hospital or something, but they’re trying to finish their tour and they’re having a difficult time to get another flight.’ So he said, ‘We’ll soon get you a new crew.’ So my navigator had a very good friend named Abby Edwards. He came from near Toronto and he was a dentist. He was probably about my navigator’s age. He came to me and he said, well, at the time my nickname was Crash and he said, ‘Crash,’ he said, ‘I’ve got about six or seven trips left,’ he said, ‘Can I finish my tour with you?’ I said, ‘Abby, you know what my record is,’ I said, ‘You might never finish your tour if you fly with me.’ [laughs] He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I know your record,’ he said. He said, ‘Your crashes you were in,’ he said, ‘They weren’t your fault,’ he said, ’So, I’d like to finish my tour with you.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s fine.’ So he became my navigator and then they made up a crew for us. [pause] And then I still had Squadron Leader [Frankie Gulliver] for my flight commander and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Go and sit in that brand new Lancaster,’ he said, ‘And familiarise yourself with the, with all the controls,’ he said, ‘Not much different,’ he said, ‘From the Halifax,’ he said, ‘But,’ he said, ‘Sit there for a couple of hours,’ he said, ‘And then,’ he said, ‘We’ll do a couple of circuits and bumps.’ So I get, I can’t remember how long I sat there but I finally went back and I told him, I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I think I’ve got a good idea where everything is.’ He said, ‘Ok,’ he said, ‘Get your crew,’ he said, ‘And we’ll do a couple of circuits.’ So I expected he would get in to the seat and fly. ‘No,’ he said, ‘You get in there,’ he said, ‘And you fly.’ He said, ‘I’ll just go with you for one circuit.’ So, I got in and I was really surprised at the way the Lancaster handled. It was, I just can’t describe it but it was so smooth on the controls and I made a reasonably good landing and he said, ‘Ok,’ he said, ‘Take your new crew,’ he said, ‘And go out to do some air to sea firing,’ he said, ‘And do a short cross country,’ he said, ‘And then you can come back,’ which we did. Then two days later we went on our first op.
DE: Ok. So you’ve, you’ve flown a couple of different Marks of Halifaxes and now you’re flying Lancasters. There’s, there’s lots of people —
RH: Yeah.
DE: That argue, you know which they liked best and which was best. What’s, what’s your opinion?
RH: Oh, the Lancaster was, it was, for me it was much smoother and easier to fly. But I also, I’ve read many books where it said those that had to bale out over enemy territory that more people found the Halifax easier to bale out of than the Lancaster. Just the way it was designed I guess.
DE: Yeah.
RH: Same as, same as the Mosquito but apparently it was very difficult to escape from too.
DE: But you, as a pilot you liked the Lancaster.
RH: I liked the Lancaster. But I will say this about [pause] like I flew the, I flew the Halifax with the Merlin inline engines and I did my tour with the, with the radial engines. With the Hercules radial engines. They were very powerful but they discovered that you know they were very hard on fuel, so you couldn’t carry as many bombs. Well, you could carry probably twenty three hundred gallons of petrol if your tanks were full but they used, they used a lot of fuel on take-off. So we didn’t have any difficulty over the target on the first trip but when we were getting, I’m not too sure how far we’d be from there but the wireless operator said, ‘Well, we’ve been diverted to Tuddenham and it’s equipped with FIDO.’ Oh my God, I thought, my first trip in a Lancaster and now I’ve got to land on FIDO. Well, number one, when I was sitting in the aircraft I never looked to see where the little box was to turn it on so that I could get the Morse Code signals.
DE: Oh, for the —
RH: To get myself lined up with the runway.
DE: For the BAT. The beam approach.
RH: Yeah. The beam approach training. And then when I finally found the box to turn it on I turned it on and then it had been over a year since I’d taken a course and I could not remember the signals. The signals to port were different than the starboard and they always told us, ‘If you get into an emergency don’t panic. If you panic you won’t think of anything.’ Well, I don’t know how long I sat, well sitting there, I was in the ruddy, somewhere within the circuit and I finally [pause] it came to me. I knew that one side was dit dit dit. The other was da da da. And I finally got, I remember crossing the beam twice in my circling I guess the aerodrome and then I finally got the signals figured out and got myself lined up with the runway and then of course you’re still in fog and I get down to seven hundred feet, a thousand feet, nine hundred feet and I thought egods where is that? Where is that runway? And about eight hundred feet you break through the fog because they’ve got this hundred octane fuel forced through these pipes eh with holes in and blazing away. There’s two walls of fire and I thought egods I’d better keep this damned aircraft between these walls of fire because I glanced out to my port side and I saw a Halifax blazing away. Now, to make a long story short I got the aircraft down and taxied over to where they were dozens of aircraft there. I don’t know how, you know how many were there but there were certainly a lot of aircraft. I think they had, if I remember correctly they only had about three stations equipped with FIDO. But this was Tuddenham. It was a large drome, equipped at Tuddenham and we stayed there. And then about 10 o’clock I think, the fog had cleared and then we, then we headed back home. I think it was two days later we went to, we went to Duisburg which had been bombed several times. And when we were on the bombing run, just started the bombing run we got hit with flak and it hit the port, the port inner engine but, there was a small fire but the engineer was able to extinguish the blaze but almost at the instant the mid-upper gunner yelled at me. He said, ‘Skipper, there’s a Halifax shooting at us. What’ll I do?’ ‘Are you sure?’ He said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I can see the bugger.’ I said, ‘Well, shoot back at him then.’ And you know, I don’t know whether it was, it seemed like it was almost hailing, you could almost hear the bullets hitting the aircraft and then the firing stopped. And then we found out later that their guns had jammed but when they got back it was their first trip. We discovered that when they got back to the station they claimed they’d shot down an unidentified four engine German night fighter. Well, [laughs] as you know the Germans didn’t even have four engine bombers. I think they had Dorniers and Heinkels as their twin engines. I don’t recall them ever having a four engine bomber. But that’s what we turned out to be.
DE: Oh dear.
RH: An unidentified four engine German night fighter. So we got the bombs dropped and went to close the bomb doors and they didn’t close all the way. And of course I didn’t, I had no idea why they didn’t close. Then when we got into the circuit went to put down the, put down fifteen degrees of flaps, and then went to put down the undercarriage and we’d only got one wheel. And I remember flying the Halifax that there was, there was an air bottle there charged up to I think about twelve hundred pounds pressure to use that and the engineer knew where, where it was. Tried that. Couldn’t get the wheel down and then he said, ‘Skipper,’ he said, he said, ‘There’s a crank here somewhere,’ he said, ‘Maybe we can crank it down.’ I said, ‘Well, try cranking it then.’ Well, he couldn’t. Couldn’t get the wheel down. So I told the control tower. I said, ‘I’ve only got one wheel.’ And they said, ‘Stand by.’ And finally they came back and they said, ‘Well, you can’t land here on one wheel,’ they said, ‘The runway’s not long enough. We don’t know what’s going to happen to the aircraft after you land so —’ They said, ‘You’ll have to go to a crash drome.’ So, they said, ‘Stand-by.’ You know. They finally came back on and said, ‘You’ll have to go to Carnaby.’ Well, that was on the, you probably know where that is, that’s on the east coast and actually not that far from Hull where my relatives lived and we had enough fuel to get there. And when I was in the circuit I said to control tower, ‘Have you got any instructions how I can land this brand new Lancaster on one wheel?’ And there was silence. Came back and said, I forget what they called the, referred to me, not as skipper but I forget the word they used, ‘You’re the first one that’s tried landing on one wheel. We’ve had lots of belly landings,’ they said, ‘But we haven’t had one landing on one wheel.’ But they said, ‘We know that you’re going to ground loop so we’ve got three flare paths. We’ve got one with like,’ they were all hooded, of course. ‘We’ve got one to the right with red lights. We’ve got one in the centre with amber. And then we’ve got one at the port side with, with green.’ So they said, ‘We’re going to put you in the centre. We’re going to put you in the centre flare path.’ And this was right close to the North Sea and as I turned in one of the engines started to sputter so I knew that we were getting a bit short of fuel. So I came in probably a little bit higher and a little bit faster than normal but as soon as I touched down I suppose the weight from the aircraft was too much for the one oleo leg and it snapped off. And then the aircraft started to spin. I don’t really know how many, I don’t know how many times it actually did but we went right across the green flare path and we ended up, we ended up on the, on the grass. I’ve got several pictures there. It shows the Lancaster sitting on the grass. So this was still dark and when we went out, when it was daylight we went out to look at the aircraft and what had happened when they, when the Halifax started shooting at us all their bullets hit the hydraulic lines. It punctured the hydraulics and we slowly lost all the hydraulic fluid. But if they had been about three or four feet higher it would have killed the navigator, the wireless operator, they would probably have killed me, the rear gunner. Maybe the, maybe the mid-upper might have survived. But if they had been that much higher. So that’s how close it, how close it came. So, then we, we went to the, I don’t know how we got to the station in Hull but I said to the crew, I said, ‘I’ve got a cousin that works in an office not, not very far from the station,’ I said, ‘We’ve got, we’ve got an hour and a half to wait for the train to York and then we’ve got to change trains in York.’ I said, ‘I’m going to slip over to see if my cousin’s working.’ So I went to the office and there was a young lady there. She said, ‘Can I help you?’ And of course I’m in my flying gear. She said, ‘Can I help you, sir?’ And I said, ‘Yes. I’d like to speak to my cousin.’ ‘And who may that be?’ I said, ‘Mary Graham.’ ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I’ll call Mary.’ So I still see my Cousin Mary and her eyes were that big and she said, ‘Oh, my God,’ she said, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve crashed again.’ [laughs]
DE: It must have been, it must have been quite good for you having family in Hull. So I guess you could go see them when you were on leave and things like that.
RH: Oh yeah because my dad never did get, like after he survived the First World War. He came out to Canada in 1912. Went back when they needed engineers and got married in 1917. Got I think about three or four days leave, and he never did get back. He lost, he actually lost two brothers in that war. Strange because they named me after both of them. Reg. Reg and Wilfred. And then when, when we [pause] had my little visit with Mary of course she went home and told her folks what had happened. And when we got, got to the station and got on the train and changed at, changed at York and then got back to the station. Then I think it was the next day Wing Commander Mitchell by this time, Group Captain Turnbull, he’d been transferred back to 6 Group Headquarters and I’m not sure if it was Northallerton or Harrogate, it was either one of those where 6 Group was located but he was transferred back to 6 Group Headquarters and Wing Commander Mitchell was put in charge of both squadrons. He was the station commander then in charge of all, and they brought in another wing commander from the RAF to take his, take over his place. And then Wing Commander Mitchell called me in to his office and he said, ‘Well, Crash,’ he said, ‘You’ve cheated the Grim Reaper four times,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a feeling,’ he said, ‘That you’re not going to be lucky the fifth time,’ he said. ‘So we’re going to screen you,’ he said, ‘And you won’t be doing any more operations. But,’ he said, ‘If you like flying the Lancaster,’ he said, ‘They’re establishing a new special duty squadron over in Middleton St George,’ he said. ‘Not sure what you’ll be doing but,’ he said, ‘They’ll be making trips to France which is now clear of the Germans,’ he said. ‘So if you want to join that squadron,’ he said, ‘They have lots of room for you.’ So he said, ‘You can think about it for a few days.’ I thought about It, and I thought well I won’t be doing any more ops but I said. ‘Maybe my luck will run out,’ I said, ‘Even though I’m not on ops,’ I said, ‘Maybe something else will happen to me because,’ I said, ‘I seem to be jinxed.’ [laughs] So, I decided. Oh, I said, ‘Maybe I’d better get screened.’ So that was, that was the end of my flying career.
DE: So how many ops had you done at that point?
RH: Pardon me?
DE: How many ops had you done at that point?
RH: Nineteen.
DE: Nineteen. Ok. Thank you. Are you ok to carry on or would you like a wee break for a, for a little bit?
RH: No. I’m fine. I’ll have another drink of gin [laughs]
DE: Oh, you’re lucky [laughs] I’m on water.
RH: Yeah. I think I am too.
DE: Ok [laughs]
KA: Have you shown them the book?
RH: Eh?
KA: Have you shown the book?
RH: Oh. Can you see this book?
DE: I can see it says, “Flight.” If you lift it a bit higher. Ok.
RH: Ok. So that book that just came out recently and it was written by Deana Driver, and she once said there’s been, actually I should go back. She, she and her husband ran, she and her husband ran a printing business. Can you hear me?
DE: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.
RH: And so she had [pause] I guess I have to go back to the Canadian Snowbirds. You’ve probably heard of them. Canada’s air demonstration team.
DE: We have the Red Arrows.
RH: Did you?
DE: Yeah. The RAF display team are called the Red Arrows. They’re stationed, well they practice over my house.
RH: Oh yeah.
DE: So yeah. Yeah.
RH: But anyway when they were formed they reactivated 431 Squadron. So then I’ve had a connection with them ever since and been to their station at Moose Jaw. That’s where they’re training NATO pilots. But then when, when the Governor General visited Saskatchewan in 2018 for her training as an astronaut she took some of her flying at Moose Jaw flying Harvards. So the Snowbirds said, well and she wanted to visit the station. They said, ‘Well, we’ll put on, we’ll put on a special show for you.’ And unbeknownst to me the fella in Saskatoon that had organised, he’d organised numerous air shows and there’s another photographer there. He had interviewed numerous veterans and done videos and they’d arranged, they’d arranged with the, with the Snowbird commander to make me an Honorary Snowbird. So after the air show I thought well we’ll be going back to Saskatoon. They said, ‘No. We’ve got a, you’d better stick around for a while because we’ve got something else to do.’ So then I saw people gathering around and people with cameras and much to my surprise the Governor General was there and the commanding officer and then they had a beautiful plaque and the Commanding Officer, Colonel French presented me with this plaque and made me an Honorary Snowbird. So I have a picture taken with the Governor General on my right and I’m in the centre and the Snowbird commander’s there and I’m standing right beside the Governor General and I thought, gee I wonder if I should put my arm around her [laughs] I suddenly thought well better not do that I said, because Prince Philip, he has to walk six blocks behind the Queen and the Governor General is representing the Queen. I said, you’d better, you’d better not do that [laughs] After they’d presented me she said, she had a bit of an accent and she said, ‘Oh, they tell me you used to fly the Lancasters.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘What were they like to fly?’ I said, ‘They were a lovely aircraft to fly.’ I said, ‘Your excellency, if you go to Trenton,’ I said, ‘There is one Lancaster that can fly and one in England,’ I said, ‘If you go to Trenton I’m sure they’ll let you fly the Lancaster.’ ‘Do you think so?’ [laughs] I said, ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m sure they’d let you fly it.’ So I’ve often thought it was a good thing I didn’t try and put my arm around her. So where were we now? I got sidetracked.
DE: Yeah. You had just been screened so I guess it’s —
RH: Oh yeah.
DE: It’s, it’s from there and the voyage home I suppose.
RH: So then, well then of course I stayed around the station for a while. I went back to my aunt and uncle’s to, [pause] to say goodbye to them, and then went to Warrington. That’s where they all went to turn in their gear and so on. And when we, I was only there for one day and then it came [pause] oh I guess what you’d call a storm but anyway the weather turned really cold and all the pipes froze. They had hundreds of people there, and you had to return all your gear. And then they said, ‘Well, it’s going, everything is shut down because all the pipes are frozen. We can’t get anything done so where ever you came from you might as well go back.’ So I went back to Hull for another three or four days and said a second goodbye to my aunt and uncle. Then went back to Warrington. We had to turn in our helmets and flying boots, and I thought well I’m not going to turn everything in. If we didn’t turn in we had to pay for them. So I thought, well I survived four plane crashes I’m taking something home with me. So I took my flying boots. They said, ‘Where are your flying boots?’ Well I said, ‘I forgot.’ I said, ‘I left them with my aunt. I left with my aunt and uncle.’ They said, ‘Well, you’ll have to pay for them.’ So, ‘Ok. I’ll pay for them.’ And I often wish I’d kept my darned helmet, you know. Because when, over the years I’ve gone to numerous schools and so on and I often wish that, I used to take my flying boots to show them and that but I often wish I’d taken my helmet. But I didn’t. Then to make a long story short I, you remember my Buddy saying, ‘Well, you might meet Jean?’ Well, when we got to, when we got back to Canada I think it took us about another four, four and a half days but I got seasick. I never did going over but I got seasick. In the Irish Sea there was a bad storm and I was so sick. It’s the strangest feeling. I just wished the ruddy ship would sink I got so sick. Even though I’d survived the war. That’s how sick I felt. And I think we got, probably got tossed around. I don’t know how long. I was sick for about two days. Anyway, we got back to Canada. We landed at Lachine, Quebec and I wired my folks in Melville and told them at the farm, told them when I would, possibly when I would get there but I would let them know when I arrived at Melville because I’d decided I wasn’t stop at Ottawa because I didn’t know what I was going to say to Jean. I got cold feet. I’d never had to do such a thing so I figured she’d be upset and I phoned. I phoned, it was a Saturday afternoon and Jean wasn’t at home. Her sister Angela answered the phone. She said, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Jean’s not here,’ she said, ‘But when will you be arriving in Ottawa?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry, Angela,’ I said, ‘But I’ve wired my folks and I won’t have time to stop.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Jean’s going to be disappointed because she wants to talk to you about Buddy.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘But I won’t be able to stop.’ So I hung up the phone and it wasn’t long before a little voice said to me, ‘You know that’s pretty darned selfish of you. Your good friend, Buddy, he never even gets to the squadron and he’s killed in his last trip at Conversion Unit. The least you can do is go and see Jean.’ I wrestled around with it for at least an hour more and then I said, yeah, I guess I’d better go. So I phoned. I phoned back and Jean was home then and she answered the phone. She said, ‘Well, my sister told me that you weren’t going to be able to stop.’ And I said, ‘Well, I changed my mind, Jean,’ I said, I said, ‘I’m going, I am going to call.’ She said. When will you be arriving?’ And I said, ‘Well, there’s hundreds of airmen here and they us told it will be several days before they get everybody sorted out. All the trains.’ I said, ‘I’ll let you know when we’re going to arrive.’ I think it was three or four days before, before they got it sorted out and of course we had several stops before we got to Ottawa. We stopped at Montreal and other places. And then when we got to Ottawa this was a large station full of airmen getting greeted by families and so on and I’m sitting on my kit bag and my uncle had given me a nice leather case to bring my flying boots back. So I looked across and I saw two women and it looked like they were looking at a picture. I thought gosh, that might be Jean and her sister so I got my kitbag. It was heavy. Dragged it over there. And it was cold. It was the 28th of January ’45. And when I got closer I said, ‘Are you ladies looking for someone?’ They said, ‘Yeah. We’re looking for Flight Lieutenant Harrison.’ Oh, I said, ‘I’m a flight lieutenant. My name’s Harrison. Maybe you’re looking for me.’ So that’s how, that’s how I met Buddy’s Jean. And you know I often thought that he was always so emphatic when he’d say, ‘You never know. Some day you might meet her.’ And I often thought that then maybe he had a premonition that he wasn’t going to make it, eh? So anyway I was going to stay two days and I stayed four. Went back for holiday for ten days and that in ’45 and then the same in ’46. And December the 23rd ’46 we got married. And then my —
DE: Wonderful.
RH: My girls often say to me, ‘You know dad, if you hadn’t listened to that little voice we wouldn’t be here, would we?’ [laughs] I said, ‘No.’
DE: Yeah.
RH: But it’s a strange thing you know when, when I think about it and I should say too you know when I got back to the farm everything was quiet. It was like living in a different world and I, I thought then you know why didn’t I stay another year or so over there and join that special duties squadron because I understand that they were flying a lot of the prisoners of war back. Making trips and I’d often wished, but then I’d think well maybe I did the right thing because even though I wouldn’t be facing the enemy something else might have happened because my flying career was jinxed [laughs] But what really has bugged me and all through these years, my navigator and I were recommended for a DFC. And I know that because after the raid on Sterkrade when Croft lost eight aircraft on that raid, it was we were bombing a synthetic oil refinery and unbeknownst to, unbeknownst to the authorities the Germans had opened a night fighter ‘drome about thirty miles from Sterkrade. And we were attacked that night just after we left the target. We were attacked by a Messerschmitt 109 and my mid-upper gunner got credit for shooting him down. I think he was either inexperienced or I was just coming out of the corkscrew manoeuvre and my rear gunner saw him coming in. He missed us on his first run. He was coming in the second time and the rear gunner yelled at the mid-upper and told him where he was. The mid-upper gunner got a real good shot at him and that plane immediately went into a steep dive so he must have hit the pilot with his first burst. And then after the loss of those aircraft and they also, 431 also lost five aircraft on one night on raids to Hamburg. And they called me in and Frankie Goldman said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’re going to be a deputy flight commander,’ and I said, ‘Frankie,’ I said, ‘I don’t know anything about office work, I said. I came from the farm,’ I said, ‘I haven’t got a clue what to do as a deputy flight commander.’ He said, ‘You’ll learn on the job just like I did.’ So I was about, I think I was only on the job about four or five days. One afternoon the phone rang about 2.30 and I was in A Flight, and I didn’t give my name, I remember saying, ‘A Flight.’ The other end of the line was, ‘This is Flight Lieutenant Nicholls. I’m the adjutant at Middleton St George and I’ve got recommendations on my desk for gongs for Flight Lieutenant Harrison and Flying Officer Philips.’ He said, ‘I’ve got all the information I need on Harrison,’ he said, ‘But,’ he said, ‘Before I send them up the line for a final approval,’ he said, ‘I need more information on Philips.’ I said, ‘Flight Lieutenant Nichols, this is Harrison speaking.’ I said, ‘The wing commander’s in his office. I’ll transfer your call.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘By all means do so.’ I transferred the call to the wing commander. That night in the mess Al was writing home to his new wife and I might have been dropping a line to my folks at the farm, or I’m not sure. Looking at the pilot’s, I always had my pilot’s handbook with me and that night I said to Al, ‘Oh, it looks like we’re going to get a gong.’ He said, ‘How do you know?’ I told him about the phone call. Well, to make a long story short after the, after the crew were screened and just before, I think it was after the first trip on the Lancasters I looked on the Daily Routine Orders and there were three airmen that got the DFC and one was my navigator Al Philips. And I had an idea right away why my name wasn’t there. Because after the bale out the group captain called me in. The flight commander said, ‘The old man wants to see you.’ So I went to see the group captain. He said, I saluted him, he said, ‘Sit down. I’ve got something for you to read.’ So he had an endorsement in my logbook. Said at the top “Carelessness.” The gist of it was that my navigator also had one in his book and the wireless op. “This pilot in conjunction with the navigator knew that aircraft from 6 Group were being diverted and should have known that he had, that he’d be able to land at Croft.” So he said, ‘I’m placing this in his logbook,’ he said ‘Due to carelessness.’ Well, if I had ever known that any aircraft from 6 Group were being diverted I would, I would never have gone.
DE: No. Of course not.
RH: You know. So I, that’s why I never received my DFC. But anyway —
DE: So you were, you were, you were talking about this time when you were attacked by night fighters. Did any of the aircraft you flew did you also have the, the mid-under gunner?
RH: No. They never did. And you know what I never realised. I think I don’t think the authorities knew for quite some time that the German radar, you know they had the two types. They had the type where they, and mostly the women operating these three radar stations and they used to zero in on individual aircraft. They would relay that information to a night fighter, tell them where the aircraft was and then he was to let them know when he could see the aircraft and then he would get underneath. They had cannons on those night fighters as well as machine guns. They would get underneath the aircraft and he would aim the cannon at the gas tanks. Yeah. And if they were on the way to the target he didn’t get too close because he didn’t know what, what the bomb load was. And they had a, I understand they had a special tip on their cartridge and when it hit the gas tank the whole aircraft would be a mass of flames. Because quite often you’d see a big orange ball in the sky and that meant that it had been attacked and hit by a night fighter. They were probably, some of them were probably incinerated. But then the other method they had what they called the lone wolf. Right. So they would just, they would know where the bomber, they would be directed to the bomber stream and then they would just be on their own then. Then when they spotted a bomber then they would, you know come in for the attack. [pause] But I think, I think the closest estimate that I have I think there were close to the figure of all the bombers that were lost about eighty percent of them were shot down by night fighters rather than flak. And have you ever, have you read the book called “The Red Line,” the raid on Hamburg?
DE: I’ve read —
RH: No. Nuremberg.
DE: I’ve read several books. Yeah. Yeah.
RH: Have you read that one?
DE: I’m thinking, I think it’s one of the ones behind me.
RH: Oh, it’s an interesting one. That’s the night they lost ninety five bombers over, and then lost eight in England. And the wind changed a hundred and eighty degrees and they overshot the target. Did hardly any damage to the target they got so lost. And at the very bottom of that book it said the most costly and bloodiest raid of the war.
DE: No. No. It was. But you were, you were on operations in ’44 weren’t you?
RH: Yes.
DE: So after that. Yeah.
RH: Yeah. That was before when they, yeah.
DE: So did you do a mixture of targets? Because I suppose some of those were in support of the Normandy campaign and in France as well as in Germany.
RH: Yeah, we did.
DE: You said you did —
RH: We did quite a few of them in France, you know. Before, before D-Day, and after D-Day. We were on the Falaise Gap one too. Where they bombed short. Oh God, I can remember everything was timed right down to the minute and that’s when the Marauders had been in early in the morning and, and they’d, they’d, but they bombed things in a quarry and then, then the Canadians and the Poles moved into the quarry and then there was still a lot of smoke and that in there, and they had inexperienced crews on that raid. And I could, I can still see that Halifax. It was a Halifax setting up to meet and open the bomb doors and I said to the navigator, ‘How much farther have we got to go?’ And he said, ‘We’ve got about almost three minutes. We’ve got at least two and a half minutes. Why?’ I said, ‘Well, there’s a Halifax right up on my port,’ I said, ‘I can see all the bombs. I can see all the numbers on the bombs,’ I said, ‘And he’d got its bomb doors open.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We’re not there yet,’ he said. I said, ‘Well, they’re —’ and I said, ‘I’m going to pull away from this because he was almost over my wings.’ And shortly after that the bomb, he let the bomb load go and then when that happened and we were bombing on yellow TIs that day and they sent a Lysander up firing off yellow cartridges to stop the bombing. I think it ended up with, it was either nine or thirteen bombers dropped their bombs short. Killed quite a few Canadians and Poles. And then when we got back to the station there was a message. All pilots, navigators and bomb aimers report immediately to the briefing room. And then of course they, they developed the pictures and we could tell quite easily the ones that had bombed short. But they should never ever have sent because the only escape route there was for the Germans to the east because the Americans were there to the west and then the Canadians and the British and the only escape route that the Germans had was the east. And I, it was a sultry day and a hot day and I remember looking out and there were, there were actually horses and that there. I suppose they were short of fuel that were pulling maybe some of their guns and that. But there were lorries and tanks. The whole countryside was littered with vehicles and trucks and tanks and streams of soldiers on the, on this escape route to the east. I’ll never forget that raid. So, that’s a few of the highlights of my, of my flying which I must say, Dan was entirely different than sitting behind six horses on the farm. And you know when I, there’s many a time when I look back and wonder how I ever, how I ever did it. Eh? Because when on the farm I knew very little about the big wide world. And then when you got over there every day was different. You learned something every day. It was just almost as if you were picked up and dropped on another planet or something. Life was so different.
DE: So did it change you?
RH: I think that it, I think it changed me in many ways. I think during that, for well the eight months I took the pre-enlistment course, I think during those four and a half years I think, I know I learned more about life in many aspects than I would have at any other time in my life. And I think what bothered me more than anything and I never realised it at the time that all the fellas that I trained with at all the different stations and different stops they made, Ground Schools and Flying Schools never thought that just over half of those fellas never came home because the loss rate in Bomber Command was fifty five percent. Somewhere between fifty five and fifty six percent. And I know for a fact, that for a fact because I had a picture taken just the day after we got our wings and there are four of us in there and I’m the only one that came back. There were thirty, thirty two I think got their wings that day and seventeen never came home. So that’s what it averaged out to. And you know, I often think when on Remembrance Days the thought occurred to me that for most people Remembrance Day was just a day in their life, eh. But for families that lost loved ones they had many Remembrance Days throughout the course of the year when the loved one that they lost had a birthday.
DE: Yeah.
RH: Or Christmas, or Easter or other occasions. And most people, you know they, they just have no idea. I’ve always said that there’s no glory in war. War is hell. More so for civilians than really the military. The military at least have, they have some opportunity to shoot back or that, but the civilians don’t and when you think of the millions that died in the Second World War. It was the First World War too. But I heard so many horror stories from my dad about the First World War that I was never going to join the Army and I didn’t like the water so [laughs] I think the only, the only place left for me is go in in the air.
DE: Yeah. There’s so many people like you, I think have said the same thing, ‘I don’t want to be in the trenches like the, like the infantry.’ And yeah. One chap said, ‘I can’t swim so I’ll join the air force.’
RH: That’s exactly how I felt [laughs]
DE: Yeah.
RH: Yeah. I think about the First World War. I never realised until reading the Legion Magazine probably a few months ago the number of horses and mules that were lost in that war, eh? Something like two hundred and seventy thousand. I often wonder how they ever fed them. But I also never realised that Canada sent several shiploads of horses over there, and those ships wouldn’t be really fitted for transporting horses and I understand they sent veterinarians with them but a lot of the horses were dead before they got there.
DE: Yeah. And some would have been, some would have gone down because they would have been torpedoed as well so —
RH: Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
RH: Yeah.
DE: So, just, you know really quickly what, what did you do after you got married? You didn’t work on the farm then.
RH: Well, that’s interesting because I hadn’t, like I didn’t, I really didn’t like farming. I had allergies and working harvest time, and the grain dust and that it used to bother me and I never really, to be truthful I never really wanted to farm. So when, after I’d been home I got discharged in April. I think April the 14th ‘45. I had to go to Winnipeg. Get discharged. Then when I got back I thought well I’ll go to the university. Maybe I’ll take a course in agriculture. So I went. I saw the, I had an appointment with the Dean of Agriculture and he said, ‘Well, Harrison,’ he said, ‘We’ve got over two hundred, most of them ex-Air Force and some Army,’ he said. ‘They’re all going to graduate,’ he said, ‘And I don’t know. I’m sure there’s not enough jobs for them,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what they’re going to do,’ he said. ‘You told me that you had an application in for the Public Service and you could have an opportunity to go to work for the Veterans Land Administration which would be settling veterans on farms. So —’ he said, ‘If I were you I think you should take that job,’ he said, ‘Because I’m sure that all these fellas that are going to graduate from agriculture there’s not going to be enough jobs for them so —’ I took his advice, started to work for the Veterans Land Administration. Not only did they settle veterans on farms they also built houses for them and then if you didn’t want to farm or didn’t want to build a house they also had what they called Re-establishment Credit. You got seven dollars a day for every day you served in Canada and fifteen dollars a day for every day you were overseas, and then you could use that for buying furniture and so on. So that’s how I used mine. But I think the Federal, the Canadian Government, I think they had one of the best, one of the best programmes for veterans that came home from war. So that, then I worked then for the veterans. I worked from November ’45 in Regina until, when I got back from, from marrying Jean they called me in the office. They said, ‘Well, we’ve got good news for you. Oh,’ I said, ‘I’ve got a, have I got a promotion?’ ‘No. We’re going to transfer you to Saskatoon. To the District Office. You’ll have the same, get the same salary as here.’ So I started working in Saskatoon in January ’47 and retired in 1984. So I probably worked for the Veteran Land Administration for thirty eight and a half years. I started near the bottom of the ladder when I was one of the younger ones and kept my eyes and ears open. And a lot of them had university degrees but I worked my way up the ladder and when I retired my job was Regional Director for the Far Western Provinces so I often thought well I probably just as well there as if I’d gone to university.
DE: Yeah. Probably did.
RH: So, I just, I think those, for the times that I spent in the Air Force I think in many ways the times they were the most exciting. Sometimes the most interesting and I have to admit sometimes they were a bit scary. So I have, I guess you could say I had mixed feelings about the war but overall for me they were favourable because I was just, it was just luck I guess that I survived some of those plane crashes because they weren’t normal.
DE: No. No. Quite.
RH: Plane crashes.
DE: Yeah. Your nickname was well deserved I think.
RH: Yeah.
DE: So, we’ve been talking. Well, you’ve been talking and I’ve been listening for well over two hours so I’m quite happy to end there. Just there’s, there’s a couple of other questions that I always ask before I end an interview and, you know the first one is there any other story that you have in mind that you can think of that you’d like to tell before we, before we wind this up?
RH: I just wanted to ask you when, when Kevin goes back to my place when he has time and takes pictures like when you walk into my place I have a hallway. I’ve got lots of pictures of, of aeroplanes and so on, but in 1944 the Canadian press went around to all the Canadian bomber stations and they took pictures. You may have seen them but they, they were, oh here’s a book. They took pictures of, of all the squadrons and there you can see them. You can see them all standing on the top of the Halifax. And —
DE: Yeah.
RH: So that shows how much, how strong those things were built, eh?
DE: Yeah. Yeah.
RH: Because now when you get on an airliner the first thing they see is, ‘Don’t step here.’ [laughs]
DE: Yes. Yeah.
RH: Yeah. So, so what, what I plan to do is I’m going to, I’m going to get your address from, get Kevin to give me your address and then I’m going to, I’m going to send you a copy of this. This article was written by a, by a Mr Gray and I met him at a, at a Allied Air Force reunion in Toronto in September 1990 and he was a retired High School teacher, also a former RCAF pilot and he had a, there was another teacher there too, a High School teacher who also a pilot. So when they had a going away luncheon on the Sunday he noticed my Caterpillar and my Guinea Pig Badge. He wanted to know how I got those and I told him the rest of my story and he said, ‘Did you ever write a book?’ I said, ‘No. I never considered myself a writer.’ And apparently he, he liked to write and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Would you mind if I wrote up your story?’ And I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I’ve got all my documentations. Copies of all my records.’ I said, ‘They came in an envelope,’ I said. I measured it. It was twenty two inches long. It was fourteen inches wide and well over an inch thick.
DE: Yeah.
RH: So I said —
DE: Well, I would —
RH: I said, ‘Thirty pages,’ I said. ‘Thirty five pages in the, in the Board of Enquiry into the crash on take-off,’ I said, so —
DE: Yeah. Well, I mean anything you could send like that would be absolutely wonderful and I’ll have a chat with Kevin about how we can get copies of photographs and things.
RH: Yeah. So what I, what I’ll do when I, when I go back to the offices, go back to the offices, there’s the endorsement. So I’ll send you a copy of that.
DE: That would be fantastic. I think we’ll stop the recording but we’ll keep chatting for a little bit longer.
RH: Ok. Yeah. I’ll get one of those books too and send it to you. As they say, ta ta. Ta ta for now, love [laughs]
KA: We’re done.
RH: We’re done.
KA: Good job, Reg. Holy smokes man. You talked for a long time.
RH: Too long, eh?
Other: Ok. Here. I’ll stop 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 Reg Harrison
Interview with Reginald Wilfred Harrison
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
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
2021-02-27
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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02:21:35 Audio Recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHarrisonRW210227, PHarrisonRW2103
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
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
England--Northumberland
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Warwickshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Hull
Manitoba--Virden
Ontario--Ottawa
Saskatchewan--Regina
Saskatchewan--Yorkton
Ontario
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942-11-11
1943-04
1944-07-05
1944-07-06
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
Description
An account of the resource
Reg Harrison grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and enjoyed watching aircraft when they flew over. He had his first flight as a youngster when he was lent five dollars by a shopkeeper. He volunteered for aircrew as soon as he was of age and began his training as a pilot. He had four crashes which earned him the nickname, Crash. The first incident took place while he was on his second dickie trip and the aircraft crashed. He and another member of the crew then heard the pilot shouting for help and returned to get him out of the aircraft. Reg sustained burns and was treated at East Grinstead Hospital. On their thirteenth trip his rear gunner was worried and suggested they call this trip 12A rather than thirteen. They crashed on take-off. On another occasion he and the crew had to bale out over England. Again, on another occasion while on an operation they came under fire from a Halifax who had mistaken them for a German aircraft. They just managed to get the stricken aircraft back and crashed at RAF Carnaby.
When he had leave, Reg would often go and visit his family who lived near Hull. He completed nineteen operations before he was screened, as his Wing Commander felt that he had been lucky too many times and might not be so lucky the next time. Reg has always been mindful of the loss rate in Bomber Command. He has a photograph taken a day after he got his wings. Of the four airmen in the picture he was the only one who returned home.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Steph Jackson
431 Squadron
434 Squadron
6 Group
aircrew
bombing
Caterpillar Club
crash
crewing up
FIDO
Guinea Pig Club
Halifax
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
love and romance
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Carnaby
RAF Croft
RAF Dishforth
RAF Gamston
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1763/30609/SJenkinsonLP1316403v10046-0001.1.jpg
7f36315e71fa8ff2912150b85e64c134
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1763/30609/SJenkinsonLP1316403v10046-0002.1.jpg
edd98d13dfcf9e29a2f490eef8924cd7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1763/30609/SJenkinsonLP1316403v10046-0003.1.jpg
4a842a986c6af0ed8868b06701464ed5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jenkinson, Peter and Leslie. Philip Jenkinson
Description
An account of the resource
56 items concerning Leslie Philip Jenkinson who served as a mid-upper gunner on 10 Squadron Halifax and was shot down on 6 September 1943 and taken prisoner. Collection contains documents, research, memoirs, maps, correspondence and photographs.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-24
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Jenkinson, LP-PR
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined]LOSSES ON MUNICH RAID 6/7 SEPTEMBER 1943[/underlined]
[underlined]9 SQUADRON LANCASTER III ED975 WS-Y[/underlined]
CRASHED NEAR HORNCASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE 0435 – CREW SURVIVED
[underlined]10 SQUADRON HALIFAX II JD166 ZA-G[/underlined]
2 KILLED 5 SURVIVED
[underlined]10 SQUADRON HALIFAX II JD364 ZA-T[/underlined]
LOST WITHOUT TRACE 7 KILLED
[underlined]12 SQUADRON LANCASTER I ED392 PH-D2[/underlined]
CRASHED IN SEA NEAR SPURN POINT AFTER ENGINE FAILURE 2 KILLED 5 SURVIVED
[underlined]76 SQUADRON HALIFAX V EB250 MP-R[/underlined]
2 SURVIVED 6 KILLED (CREW OF 8)
[underlined]77 SQUADRON HALIFAX II DT793 KN-E[/underlined]
LOST WITHOUT TRACE 7 KILLED
[underlined]78 SQUADRON HALIFAX II JD454 KY-E[/underlined]
5 KILLED 2 SURVIVED
[page break]
[underlined]102 SQUADRON HALIFAX II JB921 DY-B[/underlined]
3 KILLED 4 SURVIVED
[underlined]106 SQUADRON LANCASTER III EB819 ZN-[/underlined]
7 KILLED
[underlined]156 SQUADRON LANCASTER III ED926 GT-[/underlined]
LANDED SAFELY BUT STRUCK OFF CHARGE AFTER SEVERE DAMAGE CREW SURVIVED
[underlined]156 SQUADRON LANCASTER III ED990 GT-[/underlined]
7 KILLED
[underlined]156 SQUADRON LANCASTER III JB177 GT-[/underlined]
4 KILLED 3 SURVIVED
[underlined]158 SQUADRON HALIFAX II [/underlined]
3 KILLED 4 SURVIVED
[underlined]427 SQUADRON HALIFAX V DK255 ZL-[/underlined]
7 KILLED
[underlined]427 SQUADRON HALIFAX VLK928 ZL-[/underlined]
5 KILLED 3 SURVIVED (CREW OF 8)
[underlined]428 SQUADRON HALIFAX V DK196 NA-Z[/underlined]
1 KILLED 6 SURVIVED
[underlined]434 SQUADRON HALIFAX V DK251 IP-F[/underlined]
7 KILLED
[underlined]434 SQUADRON HALIFAX V DK262 IP-R[/underlined]
7 KILLED
[underlined]TOTAL[/underlined]
19 AIRCRAFT LOST
87 KILLED
29 POW
6 INJURED (9 SQUADRON 1 ESCAPED INJURY)
7 UNINJURED (156 SQUADRON LANCASTER ED426 GT-)
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Losses on Munich raid 6/7 September 1943
Description
An account of the resource
Lists squadron, aircraft type and serial number, reason for loss if known, number killed and number survived. Consists of 19 crews from 13 squadrons with 6 Lancaster and 13 Halifax.
Format
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Three page handwritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
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SJenkinsonLP1316403v10046
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Munich
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-09-06
1943-09-07
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
10 Squadron
102 Squadron
106 Squadron
12 Squadron
156 Squadron
158 Squadron
427 Squadron
428 Squadron
434 Squadron
76 Squadron
77 Squadron
78 Squadron
9 Squadron
crash
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 5
killed in action
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
prisoner of war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1400/27143/SJonesHB1866363v10046.1.pdf
f819a48ae9c636456c8e85f2b51cca9e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones, Hugh Brenton
H B Jones
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, HB
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Hugh Brenton Jones (1925 - 1944, 1866363 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 51 Squadron and was killed 18 December 1944. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Rea Camus and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Hugh Brenton Jones is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/214965/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[inserted] EVIDENCE OF COLLISION [/inserted]
[underlined] HALIFAX 111 NP934 [/underlined]
[underlined] AIR27/493 [/underlined] No. 51 SQUADRON ORBs January-December 1944
Halifax 111 NP934MH-V (F/O D N Twilley) took off from Snaith at 02.58 to attack the primary target. Nothing has been heard of this aircraft since the time of taking off and it is reporteed [sic] missing.
F/O B M Twilley Reported missing from operations.
[underlined] NOTE:- [/underlined] Information received from 2nd TAF. via H.Q.B.C. the effect that this aircraft was found in a woods at position 0.5099 South of Charlerot (sic). Two persons identified (F/O Twilley and E/O Cassini). The crew of eight killed.
[underlined] CONCLUSION from the above information
4 GROUP [/underlined]
1. Halifax 111 LV818 F (F/L G W Body) 10 Squadron
This aircraft was not heard of since taking off. Is this the aircrew lost in the battle area by unknown cause?
2. Halifax 111 NP934 MH-V (F/O B M Twilley) 51 Squadron
This aircraft found in woods South of Charlerot (sic). This is therefore one of the aircraft lost in Belgium by unknown cause.
3. Halifax 111 NR248 is not recorded in 51 Squadron’s ORBs
Halifax 111 NA294 MH-A (W/O W A Bates) 51 Squadron
This aircraft was seen to dive at full throttle and blow up in mid air at position E8923 (east of Koblenz – what was it doing this far east?). Is this the aircraft outstanding?
4. Halifax 111 NR239 J (F/O W L Lynd) 158 Squadron
This aircraft made a crash landing near Brussels. This is therefore the unknown Halifax from 158 Squadron and the other aircraft lost Belgium by unknown cause.
One therefore needs to try and find out more information on the following aircraft:-
Halifax 111 LV818-F and Halifax 111 NA294 MH-A
Are these the aircraft that are recorded as outstanding and lost in the battle area?
Is the aircraft from 578 Squadron that crashed AOT the same as that wrecked in a taxying accident?
What has happened to the aircraft outstanding?
[page break]
[underlined] HALIFAX 11 NR118 U [/underlined]
[underlined] AIR27/1865 [/underlined] No. 434 Squadron ORBs with Appendices June 1943-June 1945
On return all aircraft were diverted due to weather conditions at base (Croft). All aircraft returned safely to base later on in the afternoon with the exception of aircraft “U” NR118 with pilot Can. J21853 F/L J M Parrott who became airborne at 02.50 hrs and has sin [sic] not been heard from.
Halifax “U” NR118 (F/L Parrott) took off from Croft at 02.50 since then nothing has been heard from it.
[underlined] AIR28/176 [/underlined] Stations: Croft ORBs August 1943-June 1945
“X” of 434 Squadron claim one ME 109 shot down and destroyed.
We regret to report the following aircraft missing “U” of 434 Squadron.
[underlined] AIR14/3470 [/underlined] Bomber Command Aircraft Losses K Reports No. 6 Group Nos 1-1[missing number] December 1944-March 1945
Report No. 6G/h Report on Aircrew landing on allied occupied Territory
Squadron: 434 Station: Croft
Aircraft: Halifax 111 (sic) NR 118 U
This report is based on the story of the sole survivor (P/O Herbert Browne (RCAF) No. J90827) of the crash who is still very shaken and nervous as a result of his experience. His recolloction [sic] of events, times and places is not very clear and there may be some inaccuracies.
Shortly after having set course and while flying down England at 8[missing numbers] feet the pilot (F/Lt J Parrott) remarked that he wasn’t feeling well but was well enough to carry on. The aircraft climbed over the channel to the briefed hight [sic] of 17,000 feet. The crew kept asking [missing word] pilot if he was alright. He claimed he was but the crew noticed the aircraft was weaving as though he was unable to hold it steady. The air bomber (F/S A Kurtzhals) left his position and set [sic] beside the pilot so he could help him if necessary.
The aircraft was still weaving but they carried on and according to the Navigator (F/O S Pearce) were only three minutes late.
Weather was clear, visibility good, no ground defences and no enemy fighters were seen.
The Wireless Operator (P/O H Browne) went off the intercom, in order to listern [sic] in on the Group Broadcast (6.30 hrs (by this time they should have been over Duisburg)). Suddenly the Navigator jumped to his feet and folded his seat back, the wireless operator immediately took off his helmet and reached for his parachute, and at almost the same time the aircraft noised [sic] straight up and then fell over on one wing. Browne does not know why Pearce left his seat or why the aircraft nosed vertically up. Browne remembers no more from this point until he recovered consciousness falling free through the air. After pulling the ripcord he lost consciousness again. He recovered consciousness hanging from his parachute in a tree. It was still dark. After walking some time he came to a quarry, and finding himself in Belgium he was taken to a small town. Browne was then taken to Charleroi which was a long drive from the small town.
[page break]
[underlined] REPORT ON AIRCREW LANDING IN ALLIED OCCUPIED TERRITORY. [/underlined]
Squadron – 434 Station – Croft (64 Base)
Letter – U A/C No. – NR118
Type – Halifax
Mark – III
Date – 17/18th December 1944
Target – Duisburg
Pilot – Parrott, J. F/Lt J.21253 4 Ops. Killed in crash.
Nav. – Pearce, S. F/O J.27503 4 Ops. Killed in crash.
W/Op. – Browne, H. P/O J.90827 10 Ops. Injured. Now in U.K.
F/Eng. – Janzen, L. Sgt R.98704 4 Ops. Killed in crash.
A/B. – Kurtzhals, A. F/S R.110453 4 Ops. Killed in crash.
M/U/G. – Divitcoff, A. F/S R.209473 4 Ops. Killed in crash.
R/G. – Olafson, G. F/S R.192540 4 Ops. Killed in crash.
[underlined] Interrogator’s Comments [/underlined]
This report is based on the story of the sole survivor of the crash who is still very shakon [sic] and nervous as a result of his experiences. His recolloction [sic] of events, times and places is not very clear and there may be some inaccuracies.
[underlined] Surname [/underlined] – Browne [underlined] Number [/underlined] – J.90827
[underlined] Christian Names [/underlined] – Herbert [underlined] Nationality [/underlined] – Canadian
R.A.F. (R.C.A.F.)
Shortly after having sot [sic] course and while flying down England at 8000 feet the Pilot remarked that he wasn’t feeling well, but was well enough to carry on.
The aircraft climbed over the channel to the briefed height of 17,000 foot [sic] and the crew kept asking the Pilot if he was alright. He claimed he was but the crew noticed the aircraft was weaving as though he was unable to hold it steady.
They thought he might be short of oxygon [sic] but a careful check of the oxygen system failed to support this theory. As an added check the Pilot used the oxygen bottles but no improvement could be noted so the A/B left his position and sat beside the Pilot so he could help him, if necessary.
Although the Pilot claimed he wasn’t feeling too badly, the Navigator suggested to him that they should turn back. This the Pilot refused to do and when the Navigator repeated his suggestion the Pilot refused again saying that if he did he would be sent to Sheffield.
The aircraft was still weaving but they carried on and according to the Navigator, were only three minutes late.
Weather was clear, visibility good, no ground defences and no enemy fighters were seen.
At this time the W/Op went off the intercom, in order to listen in on the Group Broadcast (0630 hrs). He was nervous and worried, so kept watching the Navigator who was naturally still on the intercom.
Suddenly the Navigator jumped to his feet and folded his seat back, the W/Op immediately took off his helmet and reached for his parachute, and at almost the same time the aircraft nosod [sic] straight up and then fell over on one wing (not definite whether to port or starboard.) The W/Op states he does not know why the Navigator left his seat or why the aircraft nosed vertically up. Not being on the intercom, he couldn’t hear anything that might have been said, and so, just reacted automatically when the Navigator moved.
The W/Op remembers no more from this point until he recovered consciousness falling free through the air. His head was cut and bleeding and his ‘chute was only clipped on one side. He completed hooking it up, pulled the ripcord and lost consciousness again.
He recovered consciousness again hanging from his parachute in a tree. He somehow got out of his harness and down the tree, losing consciousness again on the ground.
[page break]
[underlined] 2. [/underlined]
When he recovered consciousness this time, it was still dark, so waiting until it became light, he started to hunt for help. His head was covered with blood, trousers badly torn and both boots had evidently come off when his ‘chute opened.
After walking some time he came to a stone or sand quarry, and finding a workman, was able to ask for help, using his phrase card.
From here on things were very hazy, but he dimly recalls being taken into an office, finding out he was in Belgium, that the Belgian police arrived first and later a Doctor who took him into a small town and treated his injuries.
Later the American Military Police arrived and took him to Charleroi in an ambulance. He has no idea where this small town is except that it was a long drive from there to Charleroi.
The next morning an American Army Officer came in to see him. He stated they had found the crashed aircraft and there were six bodies in it. Five were identified by various means but they were unable to identify the sixth. The W/Op asked the names of those identified and then supplied the name of the sixth member of the crew, the M/U/G, F/Sgt. A. Divitcoff.
After a time in different hospitals, Charleroi (one week), Rheims (one week), 170th General Hospital, Le Mans (very doubtful as to the location of this hospital) he was sent to Paris (66 No. Rue du Fauberg, St. Honore) and finally back to England.
[signature]
(M.G. Elloker) Squadron Leader,
Base Intelligence Officer,
No. 64 (R.C.A.F.) Base,
[underlined] ROYAL AIR FORCE. [/underlined]
[page break]
[underlined] AN ENQUIRY INTO THE CRASH OF HALIFAX III NP934 OF 51 SQUADRON ON 18 DECEMBER 1944. [/underlined]
Squadron identification letters of 51 Sqdn. were MH and this particular aircraft’s letter was V, hence MH-V.
Crew – F/O B.M. Twilley (pilot)
Sgt. R. Holden (navigator)
F/O F.W. Cassini (bomb-aimer)
F/Sgt. R. Hall (wireless operator)
Sgt. R.C. Challinor (flight engineer)
F/Sgt. H.B. Jones (air gunner
W/O H.W.J. Hildebrand (air gunner)
This crew was on its 20th operation. On this occasion the aircraft was carrying F/O E.H. Baron, a new pilot on the squadron who was there for experience before operating with his own crew. The target was DUISBURG. Two aircraft from 51 Sqdn. were lost that night. I was the only survivor of the other aircraft, MH-A, and I undertook this enquiry on behalf of Mrs. R. CAMUS, the sister of F/Sgt. Jones, who was only 4 at the time of her brother’s death. My own aircraft was attacked and set on fire by a Junkers 88 flown by Leutnant [sic] Walcher soon after the bombs had been dropped on Duisburg.
MH-V took off from Snaith at 0258, and I see from my own diary that MH-A took off at 0300, so we were next off after F/O Twilley.
On an earlier raid on ESSEN the bomb-load consisted of one 2000 pound high-explosive bomb and 12 SBC’s (Small bomb Containers) each containing 90 4 pound incendiary bombs, and the load on this occasion was probably much the same.
The route to the target was Base-Reading-Brighton – across the Channel to France and Belgium – then NE. towards Duisburg. The Bombe [sic] – Command report of this operation states that 523 aircraft were despatched and 8 were lost. Amongst details given it states that “two collided and crashed over Charleroi.”
Information that I have gathered from various sources leads me to believe that the two aircraft were MH-V from Snaith
[page break]
and NR118 from 434 Squadron at Croft. There was one survivor from NR118, P/O H. Browne, the wireless operator, who came down by parachute into territory held by British forces. His de-briefing report should be studied, as it gives a good idea of what actually happened
The crash occurred at 0610 on 18 December, and as the time on target was about 0600 it would appear that both aircraft had bombed and were on their way home.
As you see from the report, the pilot of NR118, Flt. Lt. Parrett [sic] was in some distress, having complained early in the flight of feeling unwell, which caused much worry to the rest of the crew, and they were understandably nervous. It seems to me that either Flt. Lt. Parrett [sic] had a sudden attack of whatever was troubling him, possible appendicitis, or his nerve gave way under stress, and he was barely in control of the aircraft. Seeing another Halifax on a collision course, he pulled up [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] sharply stalled, fell over onto one wing, and plunged down. A consideration of the facts that I have gathered leads me to say that this is the only likely explanation of the incident. I cannot see how the wireless-operator was the only one to get free – the navigator would have been the first to go (which is why I was the only one to get out of our aircraft), then the bomb-aimer then the wireless-operator third.
The details concerning F/O Twilley’s crew came to me by courtesy of Eddy Daivier, whose letter is enclosed, as the aircraft concerned crashed in the vicinity of where he lives.
Henry Wagner
[page break]
[underlined] FINDINGS FROM LOST AIRCRAFT ON THE DUISBURG TARGET ON 17/18 DECEMBER 1[missing numbers] [/underlined]
[underlined] AIR14/2791 BOMBER COMMAND and AIRCRAFT LOSSES K REPORTS MISSING AIRCRAFT RERISTER [sic] 1943-1945
Records 4 missing aircraft from 4 Group
5 missing aircraft from 6 Gtoup [sic]
Namely
4 GROUP
10 Sqn. Halifax 111 LV818
[inserted] X [/inserted] 51 Sqn. Halifax 111 NP934
51 Sqn. Halifax 111 NR248
158 Sqn. Halifax
6 GROUP
424 Sqn.
426 Sqn. Halifax V11 LW209
432 Sqn. Halifax V11 NP699 O
432 Sqn. Halifax V11 NP701 G
434 Sqn. Halifax 11 NR118 U
These are borne out in the following records:-
[underlined] AIR14/3457 [/underlined] BOMBER COMMAND REPORTS ON OPERATIONAL SORTIES
September-December 1944
4 Group (1/10, 2/51, 1/158)
6 Group (1/424, 1/426, 2/432, 1/434)
[underlined] AIR25/94 [/underlined] GROUPS: No. 4 BOMBER GROUP ORBs January-December 1944
8 aircraft failed to start
14 aircraft Abortive not over enemy territory
1/10, 1/51 Missing (A/P G)
1/51, 1/578 Crashed AOT (A/P H, A/P G)
1 aircraft Outstanding (A/P/H)
[underlined] AIR24/303 [/underlined] COMMANDS: BOMBER COMMAND INTELLIGENCE REPORTS ON OPERATIONS
APPENDICES December 1944
Records 9 losses and goes on to say 3 aircraft are missing.
[underlined] Aircraft Destroyed [/underlined] 3 were lost only 2 of these losses were observed. I was caused by fighter over the Ruhr and another by target flak. But 6 other aircraft were wrecked beyond repair. 2 collided and crashed over CHARLEROI. 2 crashed in Belgium and a third in the battle area, and one was wrecked in a taxying accident. This force was heavily engaged by fighters. They were intercepted over the target after the first 10 minutes of their rather prolonged attack and were effectively attacked on the NW leg out of the Rhur at least 5 Gruppen of fighters were up against them. However, only 9 aircraft were lost with another 1 wrecked beyond repair. No returning aircraft was seriously damaged by enemy action on this night.
[underlined] A Chart shows [/underlined]
4 Group missing 1 + 3”
6 Group Missing 1 + = 1 + 2
Key: “ = 1 a/c Battle area Unknown cause
2 a/c Belgium Unknown cause
= = 1 a/c near Rheims Collision
1 a/c Charleroi Collision
This is borne out by the following records:-
[page break]
[underlined] The crash of Halifax H C U ZK-EB 205 (Zulu king) 15th April 1944 [underlined]
S H J Pearce survives plane crash 15th April 1944, five aircrew killed plus three civilians. House demolished. (archive picture) and archive documents of the crash.
John Tynski (survivor) gives his fascinating account of the accident. See Letter. (Tynski now lives in Nova Scotia Canada. (archive pictures of John Tynski at Dishforth Yorkshire) +enlistment photos of the other crew members.
Tynski and Pearce taken to the military hospital North Allerton Yorkshire, (archive documents gives a full account of the injuries.)
Henry Powell (English) flight engineer taken to his home town of Balham/Streatham where he is now buried.
Canadian crew buried at the Stone fall cemetery Harrogate (archive photograph)
Civilians, Mr and Mrs Stone taken to Thirsk mortuary. (listed on website for civilians killed during the war).
Mr McNulty (Irish farm labourer) also killed when he happened to be passing after a night out down the local pub.
Engines from the bomber blocks LNER railway line, causing long delays.
[underlined] S H J Pearce killed 18th December, 1944 [/underlined]
After recovering from his injuries Harry Pearce reports for duty with the 434 Bluenose Squadron Croft, Yorkshire.
Pearce teams up with his new crew (archive photograph crew in front of Halifax, “Pubwash” Missions included [underlined] Julich [/underlined] 16/11/44 [underlined] Munster [/underlined] 18/11/44 [underlined] Castrop Rauxel [/underlined] 21/11/44 [underlined] Neuss [/underlined] 2711/44. [sic] (archive documents of those missions)
Final Mission, Duisberg 18th December 1944. Combined forces of 523 aircraft.
T/O Croft Yorkshire 02.50 crashed Pesche, Belgium at approx 6.15 am (one survivor Herbert Brown Wireless operator) See statement
American army denies any knowledge of other crashed aircraft (see Brown’s statement).
Bodies taken to “Les Fosses” buried at approx 4 pm the same day. (archive documents)
Bodies re-interred to Leopoldsburg Commonwealth cemetery Belgium 1947.
Herbert Brown survivor gives his statement of events. (archive document)
Air Ministry asked to supply information to the cause of the crash, by concerned relative (archive document)
Air Ministry responds with a watered down version of event’s [sic] (archive documents)
Air Ministry holds back vital information as to the cause of the crash.
Four aircraft of 434 432 10 & 51 squadrons have crashed in unexplained circumstances. 28 men killed.
One of those killed only 18 years old. [inserted] X [/inserted]
Of those bodies recovered, they were also re-interred to the Leopoldburg Commonwealth cemetery Belgium, where they all occupy a corner of the cemetery including Harry Pearce’s crew.
All aircraft crashed over allied territory, with no reports of engagement either from the ground or enemy aircraft.
Civilian, French, (old lady) blown out of bed by the explosion, suffers a heart attack and dies when she discovers the severed hand of an airman on the floor that was blown through the window (archive document)
Body of Douglas Mole, (10 sqdrn) Found 1948 after being discovered in woodland. His son David only one week old in when his father was killed. (archive Document)
David Mole now lives Darlington County Durham with his wife Ann.
Max Krakovsky pilot (432 sqdrn) survives. Changes his name to Carson after the war.
[page break]
Remains of airman found beside engine when dug-up 1953 (thought to be those of Zadorozny 432 sqdrn (archive photograph of zadorozny
Jean Bodart (witness) describes the scene of devastation at the crash site. Bombs strewn around, the body of one of the aircrew laying in road, engines almost buried. (letter written July 2003)
Engines, still lay buried at the crash site today.
All relatives of the crew traced,
Memorial took place 8th May 2003, in attendance relatives of the pilot and air gunners sister.
Pearce’s brother to visit crash site in 2004 with the possibility of Harry Pearce’s daughter (1 year old in 1944).
Wreckage of the aircraft collected 2003 from the crash site. Including live ammunition
Aircraft crashed three kilometres from the historic site of Adolf Hitlers headquarters at Bruly .de Pesche.
[underlined] interesting facts about 434 bluenose Squadron [/underlined]
434 Squadron bluenose was formed in Halifax Nova Scotia, many of its recruits came from a seafaring background.
Squadron was named after the famous “Bluenose schooner” as depicted on Canadian 10 cent coin. Its name originated a as a [sic] derogatory term used to describe Nova Scotian’s as Bluenose. for the colour of their noses, due to the cold Canadian winters.
Propellor spinners painted bright blue as a personal mark of the bluenose Squadron, this was to the annoyance of the Air Ministry who referred to them as those upstart colonials.
Lord Haw-Haw a German propagandists and traitor, said of the Bluenose Squadron, after a particularly successful raid:
“The RCAF had gathered together in this single squadron- the Bluenose- the worst pirates, thugs, murderers and brigands from the prisons of Canada
Lord Haw Haw was hanged for treason after the war.
The 434 Squadron suffered particularly heavy losses during the war, the numbers 13 seemed to play a part in their bad luck. 434, the 13th Squadron formed, when the first man reported for duty on the 13th day.
Harry Pearce and crew documented in Alan Todds book “Pilgrimages of grace” as the last Halifax loss from “Croft” of WW2.
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
Halifax III - Evidence of Collision
Description
An account of the resource
A report on what happened to Halifax NP934. Information collated from operational record books, RAF reports, Herbert Browne's report (sole survivor of NR118 crash), Henry Wagner's report, analysis of the losses on the night of 17/18 December and SHJ Pearce's accidents on 15 April 1944 and 18 December 1944.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven printed and two handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJonesHB1866363v10046, SJonesHB1866363v10047, SJonesHB1866363v10048, SJonesHB1866363v10049, SJonesHB1866363v10050, SJonesHB1866363v10051, SJonesHB1866363v10052, SJonesHB1866363v10055, SJonesHB1866363v10056
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium--Charleroi
Germany--Koblenz
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Jülich
Germany--Castrop-Rauxel
Germany--Neuss
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany
Belgium
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-12-18
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
10 Squadron
158 Squadron
4 Group
424 Squadron
426 Squadron
432 Squadron
434 Squadron
51 Squadron
578 Squadron
6 Group
aircrew
bale out
bomb aimer
crash
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Ju 88
killed in action
Me 109
mid-air collision
navigator
pilot
RAF Croft
RAF Snaith
wireless operator
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones, Hugh Brenton
H B Jones
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, HB
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Hugh Brenton Jones (1925 - 1944, 1866363 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 51 Squadron and was killed 18 December 1944. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Rea Camus and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Hugh Brenton Jones is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/214965/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
The Crash
[page break]
[newspaper article in French with black and white photograph]
[inserted] The Engine of Hugh’s plane is now in a museum in Laroche, Belgium. [/inserted]
[page break]
This is the story that a young man from Pesche lived in 1944:
On December the 18th 1944 at about 6 a.m., I was getting up to go to work when I saw a huge fireball followed by a big explosion, a big boom.
I was quite confused: what was the matter? I thought about it and I imagined that it was a collision between two planes. When everything calmed down, I left to go to work.
About two hours later, I talked to two cyclists who were coming back from the impact place: they confirmed that there had been an aircrash but they didn’t seem to know much about it.
I decided to go there to learn more about that story. I wanted to see by myself what happened. I saw a heap of scrap iron which was spread on at least 2 km and a member of the crew was lying on the road, disembowelled. That was awful. I wandered around the crash and I saw two big pieces of the cabin. I realised it was a bomber because there were three large bombs just there and I saw an enormous wheel, bigger than me!
I supposed that there were other aviators lying around.
As I was working on a nearby field, I found the impact of the two big engines: because of the shock, they were nearly burried [sic] in the ground. the next year, the mine clearance service discovered more than twenty bombs burried [sic] in the ground. We didn’t know that and the field had been ploughed since then!
I was 18 years old at that moment. It really struck me. I think about it from time to time: it will never leave me.
Jean Bodart
8, Rue C. Denis
5660 Pesche
[inserted] Wittness [sic] to the crash [/inserted]
[page break]
[black and white photograph of man standing beside the wreckage of an aircraft]
NP 934
[page break]
La Guerre Aerienne dans la Region de Charleroi:
One of the two was the Halifax 111 NP934 piloted by Bernard Twilley. The plane carried a crew of eight men. The flight officer, Edgar Baron, on an initiation mission, flew as second pilot.
The Halifax collided, perhaps on the return journey, with one of its counterparts probably of 434 Squadron.
Twilley must have lost control of his plane which crashed at Montigny-le-Tilleul in the Bois de Prince above the hamlet of M de Bomeree.
The eight aviators perished in this crash.
The second plane would have crashed a little further away and six out of seven crew members were buried at La Fosses.
[page break]
[map]
[page break]
Your brother was one of the youngest (if not the youngest) airmen of 51 squadron to be killed during world war 2. He was an air gunner on a Halifax Mk3 Heavy Bomber – NP934 MH-V. We became involved in the research after seeing a post on an Ex-RAF notice board from an Eddy Davier who had been trying to trace the crew for over 2 years.
Eddy lives in Thuin a small village in Belgium near to where your brother’s plane came down. It all started for him when he got talking an old man in the village who told him that a bomber had crashed in the woods between Montignies-le-Tilleul and Gozee during world war 2. Eddy decided to find out as much information as he could and write a book so the young people of the town wouldn’t forget.
Here is one of his many posts searching for the crew ………….
My name is Eddy DAIVIER, 39 years old and I’m living in BELGIUM. The 18 december [sic] 1944, a bomber crashed near the town where I’m living. It was the halifax [sic] NP934 MH-V from 51 squadron. It took off from Snaith at 02.58 to ops to Duisburg in Germany but it never see Germany. It crashed into a wood south of Charleroi in Belgium. All crew members were reported killed. Flying Officer Bernard Mark TWILLEY was the pilot of this bomber and the others [sic] people died were Edgar Harold Baron, Roy Challinor HITCHEN, William John HILLEBRAND, Hugh Brenton JONES, Roberts HALL, Carl Winston CASSINI and Ricard HOLDEN. I’m not a full time writer but my wish is to write a little book to help the inhabitants of my town to never forget. I looks information about this crew or about life at Snaith between september [sic] and december [sic] 1944. I hope perhaps to find veterans who knew these people, it’s important for me to imagine who was their life.
Here are the crew and operations list.
Halifax Mk. III – NP934 MH-V
Crew.
151201 Flying Officer Bernard Mark TWILLEY (Pilot)
149632 Flying Officer Edgar Harold BARON (2nd Pilot)
1383970 Warrant Officer Harold W.J HILDEBRAND (Air Gunner)
1866363 Flight Sergeant Hugh Brenton JONES (Air Gunner)
2203456 Sergeant Roy Challinor HITCHEN (Flight Engineer)
1457899 Flight Sergeant Roberts HALL (Wireless Operator)
154240 Flying Officer Carl Winston CASSINI (Bomb Aimer)
1671139 Sergeant Richard HOLDEN (Navigator)
Operations.
10 September: Le Havre
11 September: Nordstern Oil Synthetic Plant
12 September: Munster
14 September: Wilhemshaven
15 September: Kiel
17 September: Boulogne. Crash take off. Sergeant DUNCKLEY died.
[inserted] X [/inserted] 14 October: Duisburg
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Crash of Halifax NP934
Description
An account of the resource
A section of six pages referring to the crash of the Halifax.
Page 1 simply states 'The Crash'.
Page 2 is a report of the crash in French and an eye witness report in English by Jean Bodart.
Page 3 is a copy of a photograph which appears on page 2. A man is standing on the fuselage of the Halifax.
Page 4 is a translation of the French report on page 2.
Page 5 is a copy of a map showing five marked locations. There is one circle near Charleroi with 'Twilley - 51'.
Page 6 is a second copy of the report and research by Eddy Daivier.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Five printed sheets and one photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJonesHB1866363v10026, SJonesHB1866363v10027, SJonesHB1866363v10028, SJonesHB1866363v10029, SJonesHB1866363v10030,
SJonesHB1866363v10032
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--Charleroi
Belgium--Thuin
Germany--Duisburg
France--Le Havre
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France
Germany
Belgium
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-12-18
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
434 Squadron
51 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
crash
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
navigator
pilot
RAF Snaith
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1400/27105/SJonesHB1866363v10007.2.jpg
05a714ad0a24e8d0ef0625070046f135
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones, Hugh Brenton
H B Jones
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, HB
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Hugh Brenton Jones (1925 - 1944, 1866363 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 51 Squadron and was killed 18 December 1944. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Rea Camus and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Hugh Brenton Jones is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/214965/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hugh Jones Grave
Description
An account of the resource
A collage of three photographs and a cloth 434 squadron badge.
Photo 1 is the base of a memorial stone with a Canada sash and a floral bouquet.
Photo 2 is the cemetery where Hugh was buried, now a field.
Photo 3 is the memorial stone surrounded by flowers. On the stone is a Halifax model with 'In Memoriam 18-Dec-1944' and 'Halifax R.C.A.F. WL-U'. There are four flagpoles with German, Canadian, British and RAF flags.
There is a cloth crest badge for 434 Squadron.
The montage is annotated 'Cemetery Les Fosses Today. This is where Hugh was first buried. Local people cared for the graves as id they were their own. When the bodies were re-interred in Leopoldsburg the locals washed the boy's bones by hand'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three colour photographs and one cloth badge
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
SJonesHB1866363v10007
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium--Charleroi
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
Belgium
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.
434 Squadron
final resting place
Halifax
killed in action
memorial
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22582/MCurnockRM1815605-171114-019.1.pdf
1f88b4a4c56b2deab06a0dc38c56e8c2
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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Ex-RCAF The Camp July 1983
Description
An account of the resource
Ex-Air Force POW Association news sheet. This edition covers a planned five-day reunion planned for August 1985, a planned convention of the National POW Association in Hamilton, a planned reunion at Toronto for RCAF and RAF veterans, a reminder that two in five Canadian men volunteered in World War Two, the National Council representing 14 groups of veterans and ex-POWs, a post-mortem on a bomber's demise and stories from ex-POWs
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The RAF ex-POW Association
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1985-08
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Eight printed sheets
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eng
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Text
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MCurnockRM1815605-171114-019
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Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
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Canada
Alberta--Calgary
Ontario--Hamilton
Ontario--Toronto
Netherlands--Arnhem
Ontario--Aylmer
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Ontario
Alberta
Germany
Netherlands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
102 Squadron
106 Squadron
4 Group
405 Squadron
415 Squadron
419 Squadron
427 Squadron
428 Squadron
429 Squadron
431 Squadron
433 Squadron
434 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Blenheim
bomb aimer
Catalina
Halifax
Lancaster
Me 110
memorial
navigator
Pathfinders
prisoner of war
RAF Abingdon
RAF Driffield
RAF Leeming
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Pocklington
RAF Skipton on Swale
RAF Tholthorpe
shot down
Spitfire
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 7
Victoria Cross
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22571/MCurnockRM1815605-171114-018.2.pdf
016c5b36e006bb2bf9b025c8d8d14b3a
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Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Curnock, RM
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2016-04-18
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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
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ex-RCAF The Camp Jan 1990
Description
An account of the resource
News-sheet of the ex-Air Force POW Association. This edition covers POW's in Perpetuity, the Red Cross, a new memorial at Plymouth Hoe, Geoof Taylor -author, advance notice of a reunion in Vancouver, lost members, ex-POW histories, Obituaries, a message from the President, Gen from around the circuit and photographs from the 1989 Ottawa reunion.
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The RAF ex-POW Association
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1990-01
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16 printed sheets
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eng
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Text
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MCurnockRM1815605-171114-018
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Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Great Britain
England--Plymouth
France--Dieppe
Canada
British Columbia--Vancouver
Ontario--Ottawa
Germany--Koblenz
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Luckenwalde
Ontario--Toronto
Alberta--Edmonton
Belgium
France--Fresnes (Val-de-Marne)
France--Saint-Nazaire
Alberta--Hinton
Germany--Berlin
England--Cambridge
England--Oxford
England--Southampton
Germany--Cologne
France--Le Havre
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Lübeck
Manitoba--Brandon
Switzerland--Geneva
United States--Mason-Dixon Line
England--Skipton
France--Falaise
Manitoba--Winnipeg
Germany--Essen
Virginia--Norfolk
Italy--Sicily
Italy--Calabria
Italy--Naples
Italy--Florence
Austria--Spittal an der Drau
Poland--Toruń
Poland--Gdańsk
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Europe--Elbe River
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Germany--Mühlberg (Bad Liebenwerda)
Italy
Poland
France
Virginia
Ontario
Alberta
Germany
Austria
Switzerland
United States
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Devon
England--Hampshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Oxfordshire
Manitoba
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
10 Squadron
214 Squadron
4 Group
40 Squadron
405 Squadron
408 Squadron
415 Squadron
419 Squadron
420 Squadron
424 Squadron
425 Squadron
426 Squadron
427 Squadron
428 Squadron
429 Squadron
431 Squadron
432 Squadron
433 Squadron
434 Squadron
6 Group
air gunner
aircrew
B-17
bale out
Beaufighter
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bomb aimer
Caterpillar Club
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Dulag Luft
escaping
Goering, Hermann (1893-1946)
Halifax
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hurricane
Lancaster
Me 110
memorial
Military Cross
navigator
Operational Training Unit
P-51
Pathfinders
prisoner of war
RAF Alconbury
RAF Biggin Hill
RAF Digby
RAF Hendon
RAF St Eval
Red Cross
Spitfire
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 4
Stirling
strafing
training
Typhoon
Victoria Cross
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22419/BCurnockRMCurnockRMv1.2.pdf
dd6c1f8bb85b78fcd0c5a2ab7464a67a
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Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Curnock, RM
Date
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2016-04-18
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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
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[photograph]
Richard Montague Curnock
My War Story
[page break]
[underlined] CONTENTS [/underlined]
Page Number
Foreword 4
World War II begins 5
Samuel William Curnock 7
Dick's War Begins 10
Dalcross 10
Wellesbourne- Warwickshire 11
Heavy Conversion Unit - Dishforth (York's) the crew is completed 13
Tolthorpe - Squadron station 14
Our First Mission 15
The Second and Final Mission 16
Prisoner of War-number 2108 17
Stalag Luft VI - Heydekrug 18
Kriegies 10 commandments 20
Torun Stalag Luft 357 25
Oerbke near Fallingsbostel 27
The Long March 27
19th April 1945 28
The end of the War nears 31
Military Transport Training 33
Horsham 34
Egypt??? 35
To Italy 36
On the Road to Bari 39
Mercy Mission to Egypt 43
Dakota back to Italy - Treviso 46
2
[page break]
Reunions 49
Appendix 1- RAF flying log book 52
i) Gunnery course results 52
ii) Gunnery training 53
iii) - vi) 22 O.T.U 54-57
vii) - viii) 1664 Conversion Unit 58 - 59
ix) 425 Squadron 60
x) Flights to visit Bob in Egypt 61
Appendix 2 - Berlin cemetery plan 62
Appendix 3 - The March 63
Appendix 4 Red Cross map of prisoner of war camps
i) Long march route and map correction information 65
ii) Long march route 66
iii) Blue cross in circle marks where Dick was shot down. Red
cross near Frankfurt where he was moved to 67
iv) Red line shows route taken by Dick. Torun (Thorn camp) 68
v) Poznan - Stalag Luft XXI D 69
vi) Stalag Luft VI - Lithuania 70
3
[page break]
Foreword
The following writings are a combination of Dick's recollections as he remembers them in 2013/14. Also within are additions (in blue) from earlier recordings by Barbara, and information taken from his Wartime log (given to him by the Red Cross when in his first POW camp). And from his RAF navigator's; air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book.
Richard Montague Curnock (in his own words January 2014)
I was speaking just recently to Shirley and Steph about the anniversary of the shooting of the 50 POW's that attempted the escape from Stalag Luft 3, as I was at that time also a prisoner in another camp and was recounting how we took the news of this wholesale murder of our fellow airmen, also what the Germans retaliated with was an excuse for their prisoners over in North Africa having to sleep in tents (which anybody knows most troops lived that way in the desert) they took all our mattresses off the bunk beds, which left us with about five or six bed boards only and one blanket too sleep on, also we had two tables and a few chairs to each room, these they also removed.
All this happened whilst we were herded out of huts on to the parade ground where we were surrounded by hundreds of the German army in lorries with mounted machine guns, also the troops were on the ground with machine guns also lying on the roofs of the huts were virtually surrounded and all you could see guns pointing your way.
4
[page break]
[underlined] World War II begins [/underlined]
Guess it is time for me to start this saga of my war time story, which started when it was announced that Hitler had not replied to our letter stating of no reply had been heard from them by 11am on 3rd September 1939 then we would be at war with them, no reply so we were at war again.
I was a fifteen year old and had been working for a year and half, the first twelve months in a piano shop on Belgrave Road, was sacked for not dusting the violins and bows that hung on the walls "enough times".
My day started at 8.45 washing the front of the shop which was on a corner, so had two large windows and tiles along under the window, then dust all the pianos and they needed polishing regularly, sweeping regularly, attending to customers who wanted to pay for the their [sic] pianos which they paid for weekly. Pianos were priced at the lower being 12 pounds for an upright and 15 pound for an over strung, we had a special made for a customer a baby grand, the wood used was walnut and cost 35 pounds was on show for a week.
[photograph]
Dick, Sam, Bob and Mary, Minehead Street. 1940-1
Next job was making boot polish and paint that was used in the boot and shoe industry. My job was delivering the product to a lot of factories in Leicester and as far as Wigston and Oadby on a bike with a large basket over the front wheel, which held quite a lot of cans, they weighed nearly as much as I did that's another story.
5
[page break]
[photograph] [photograph]
Dick in ATC uniform 1941 Bob, Dick, Sam and Mary (1941)
6
[page break]
[underlined] Samuel William Curnock [/underlined]
[photograph]
Samuel William Curnock RAFVR: newly qualified sergeant pilot 1942
Brother Sam was already in the RAF and over in Canada training to be a pilot and I had then joined the Air Training Corps on third September 1941 as an aircrew cadet, brother Bob I believe was waiting to go into the RAF as a trainee pilot, I believe that during his tour over there Sam was killed in a flying accident at Gibraltar in 1942 (26th September 1942).
7
[page break]
[photograph]
Our flying crews have their recreation room at the United Kingdom landplane base
Sam (second from left) in a recreation room
There was nothing to how the accident happened but that the aircraft crashed into the sea at Gibraltar with no survivors. The pilot was a senior captain, Sam was a second pilot officer and they had an officer wireless operator. We were led to believe it could have been sabotage but no one knew.
It was then I decided I would get in the RAF quicker if I re-mustered as an air gunner instead of waiting for my pilot navigator course to come through.
In 2009 Peter and Jayne received a phone call from Jonathan Falconer who was researching Sam Curnock, the extract below gives more information on the circumstances of Sam's death than the family had ever known before.
Extract from "Names in Stone"-Jonathan Falconer.
Sam had volunteered to join the RAF in October 1940 on his eighteenth birthday, just as the fortunes of the RAF seemed to be swinging in its favour after the desperate air battles of the Battle of Britain in the summer months. He learnt to fly on Tiger Moths at 7 Elementary Flying Training School, Desford; Leicestershire. Before sailing to Canada; for further flying training at 73 Service Flying Training School; north Battleford, Saskatcheqan [sic] .
Sam qualified as a pilot and returned to England. With a shortage of flight crews for civil aircraft he was transferred in May 1942 to fly transport aircraft with Britain's national airline; BOAC.
in September 1942, Sam was Second Officer in the four-man crew of Whitley MK V, G-AGCI, which was operated by BOAC on its route between the UK and Gibraltar. Thirty-three year old Capt Charles Browne was in command of "Charlie-India".
8
[page break]
Charlie-India had flown into Gibraltar from England on 10th September 1942 and the aircraft's Master had stated in his Voyage Report that the aircraft was tail-heavy for the landing. The aircraft left again for England on 13th September, but her Master decided to turn back after only 25 minutes, reporting that Charlie India was now flying nose heavy.
Not long before his death, Sam was second pilot in a BOAC Whitley that crashed in England on take-off due to engine failure. He was uninjured and managed to walk away from the wreckage. In the fortnight that remained before her fatal crash, Charlie-India was the subject of several engineering inspections and three test flights after report by several pilots of nose and tail heaviness during flight. These problems appeared cured, but on 19th September the Master reported that Charlie-India was underpowered during take off and the initial climb, and unstable in flight. A further detailed inspection was carried out and another test flight was arranged.
To add to Charlie-India's woes, on 24th September the twin Bristol Hercules engines of an RAF Beaufighter was run up on Gibraltar's tarmac, tail on to the BOAC Whitley. The powerful propeller wash from the two radial engines caused damage to the trailing edge of the Whitley's elevators and the rudder trim tabs. Engineers made temporary repairs to the elevators, the damaged trim tab mechanisms were replaced, and a test flight was arranged for 3.56pm on 26th September.
With Charles Browne in command and Sam and the rest of the crew, Charlie-India took off normally from Gibraltar's east-west runway at 3.56pm and climbed out over the Bay of Gibraltar to about 300 feet, whereupon Browne eased the Whitley into a left-hand turn. Then something went badly wrong because the aircraft assumed a power glide attitude and continued in a shallow dive until it struck the sea at 3.59pm, sinking almost immediately in more than 900 feet of water.
Naval vessels were on the scene within minutes. Apart from a few small items of wreckage floating on the surface, the aircraft was not recovered. There were no survivors from her crew of four, and no bodies were ever recovered.
BOAC's technical investigators launched an immediate inquiry into the crash and on 29th October 1942 they made their report. Its conclusion was based more on informed speculation than hard fact, but in the absence of any wreckage or survivors this was the best that could be hoped for: "The precise cause of the accident cannot be determined, but a possible cause was an uncontrollable elevator trimmer tab due to a fracture in some part of the actuating mechanism .... There exists a possibility that subsequent to the take off one or both of the elevator trimmer tab mechanisms fractured, with the result that the Master was unable to maintain longitudinal control of the aircraft."
9
[page break]
[underlined] Dick's war begins [/underlined]
22nd March 1943; When l was 18 and 11 months I was called up (RAF (V.R) volunteer Reserve) and was sent a rail warrant for travel to London and Lord's cricket ground which was the Aircrew Receiving Centre (A.C.R.C) for al! aircrew candidates were we were kitted out and billeted in hotels all around the St Johns Wood area, loads of marching around going from one lecture to another with lots of marching exercises around the hotels, and in between times you were taken to a medical centre for inoculation, stand in line both arms bared, left arm two injections one inoculation right arm then out to the street, where there were bodies al! over the place, some bodies flat out other holding their arms and moaning. When they managed to get all of us in some semblance of order, we marched back to our hotels, but swinging of arms was painful and was not done with any energy.
After our initiation into RAF life we were on a train to Bridlington to learn navigation, armaments mathematics- aircraft recognition plus as always plenty of marching from one lecture to another, one other pastime was Morse code and the Aldis lamp, this was done with someone being sent to the end of the breakwater with an instructor with an Aldis lamp and they sent signals to the rest of us on the beach in twos, one reading the signal being sent and your friend writing it down, we used got some very weird messages at end of a session.
My next stage of training after Bridlington was Bridgnorth where unfortunately there was an outbreak of scarlet fever and German measles and unfortunately I happened to catch German measles and was put into an isolation hut, one of many for the recruits who had caught one of the diseases. I was put into a room of my own and had two weeks being looked after very well by a WAAF nurse during the day, and my night nurse who looked after me exceptionally well and was a lovely young lady. And as my condition improved she brought a radio into my room and we managed to have a dance and then she would tuck me up for the night with a cuddle and kiss goodnight.
After two weeks it was back to work where we did have a lot of lectures about armaments - aircraft recognition - Morse code with mathematics also but mainly armaments, how to dismantle a machine gun and also put it back and hope it worked alright.
Aircraft recognition was a priority knowing which the enemy was and which ours. My time spent with aircraft recognition at home kept me getting top marks in every exam we did, we had night vision exams where pictures were shown on a screen as if you were in a turret and had to identify the aircraft shown, my trouble was the fellows around me were always asking me what the aircraft was, the instructor stopped me helping them, he said that they would not be any use unless they got to know themselves. From then on I was removed from my seat and had to sit by the light switches turning them on and off as required. After finishing this course my instructors gave me a very good report and should get on well.
[underlined] Dalcross [/underlined]
Dick RAF flying log book information can be seen in appendix 1
My section was then sent on leave for a week after which we had to board a train to Scotland, destination was a place called Dalcross (near Inverness, Moray Firth) which turned out to be our Initial Flying Training course on Avro Ansons.
10
[page break]
Pilots converting on to twin engine Airspeed Oxford after training in Canada. This was now 17.7.43 and my course here lasted until 28.8.43 (appendix i) and ii)). The training consisted of being taken up in Avro Ansons six training gunners and an instructor we took it in turns to sit in the turret which had one gun in it attached was a camera which we had to train on a fighter aircraft which made a dummy attack on you, all exciting stuff, except when the fighter was late arriving and you had to fly round and round a church steeple, that was when my last coffee and biscuit decided to reappear, this happened three times, each time I was sent to the sick bay and gave an explanation of what was happening, I was given a glass of horrible liquid and told to report back for more flying. This occurred twice more by that time my stomach stopped playing around and settled down to the rigours of flying.
We also had firing with the one gun at a drone towed behind another aircraft and our bullets had colours on the tips so that they could record the number of hits. Our results were pathetic as the guns would only fire two bullets at a time and then jam so you then had to rearm it; we also used camera guns with which we had more success.
It also happened to be a training camp for pilots on night flying on airspeed oxfords.
Bob had by this time gained his pilots wings in Canada and was back in England and was posted to Dalcross near Inverness. I think this was during July 1943 and August 1943 to train on twin engine Airspeed Oxfords. Neither of us knew we were there until one evening we were going into Inverness and just happened to be walking down the road to catch the bus into town when I spotted Bob who was as surprised as I was; from then on we spent a bit of time together until he was posted elsewhere.
I continued at Dalcross to become a Sergeant air gunner had quite a good report from all the training staff and was given above average report from most of the tutors, not that it helped much as the ammunition we were using had a wide flange on the bullet casing as it was American and caused it to stick, you could only fire a couple of rounds and then you had to re-cock it again, life was hard on us.
[underlined] Wellesbourne- Warwickshire - meet the crew [/underlined]
18.9.1943. (Appendix iii) t [sic] vi)) My next posting was to Wellesbourne (Warwickshire) the Operational Training Unit to start being crewed up with members of a crew. The procedure was for the pilots to have a chat with the navigators, wireless operators, bomb aimers and air gunners and then ask the ones he wished to be his crew if they would join him Charlie (Chuck) Stowell, the pilot picked Bob Friskey as navigator then Eugene Fullum our wireless operator, the next was our bomb aimer Gordon Dinsmore, which left the rear gunner, which I believe was unanimous decision by them all that was me. We then spent our time getting to know each other; that is we went out at night doing a spot of drinking and rather a lot of talking or the other way round.
11
[page break]
[photograph]
Bob Friskey, Eugene Fullom and Chuck Stowell
[photograph]
A copy of the only photo of the crew: Back row: Bob Friskey, Gordon Dinsmore
Front row: Eugene Fullom, Dick Curnock, Chuck Stowell
This was at Gaydon the satellite airfield to Wellsbourne, here we started flying as a crew in the Wellington bomber, doing practice bombing at targets on the coast and various places also we had
12
[page break]
fighter aircraft doing dummy attacks during which I had a camera gun and it recorded my success against these attacks we also did firing at a draught [sic] towed behind another aircraft, with our bullets being painted different colours so they could count the number of hits we scored. This proved to be very hap hazard as the ammunition we were using was American and every second round got stuck in the breech and had to be manually ejected so our scores were very low. We did quite a lot of cross country flying for the navigators to gain experience a lot of it at night time.
We also did a lot of circuit flying at night so that the pilot could manage to get us back to the airfield safely. Some nights were a bit bumpy as he misjudged his height, my head used to get a lot of knocks on these occasions and the skippers name was anything but "Chuck".
[drawing]
Picture drawn by Dick whilst a prisoner of war
[underlined] Heavy Conversion Unit - Dishforth (Yorks) - the crew is completed [/underlined]
14.1.1944. ( appendix vii and viii) We moved on next to a conversion unit which meant going onto four engine aircraft this was at Dishforth (near Ripon, Yorks) 1664 Heavy conversion unit. The aircraft was a four engine Halifax bomber for which we needed two extra crew; a mid upper gunner and a flight engineer. These we met and we all moved into a hut so that we would could get know each other. The mid upper gunner was a Canadian from a farming background a rather slow on the uptake but we got on well together. The engineer was from Salford a tall lad and red haired. The mid upper gunner was Wesley (Wes) Skerick and the engineer was Ginger Wheadon.
13
[page break]
[photograph] [photograph]
Ginger Wheadon Wes Skerick
At this stage we were beginning to get to know each other and in the evenings we were usually down in mess having some light refreshments, Bob Friskey didn't very often come, as he had not been married very long and took to writing to his wife almost every evening, so the rest of us went into Burroughbridge [sic] the nearest town to have a few beers, this we managed quite well with a another couple of Canadians from another crew who Chuck knew, and we each bought a round of drinks which lasted us most of the evening.
[underlined] Tolthorpe - Squadron station [/underlined]
7.2.1944. (Appendix ix) We then moved from Dishforth on to our squadron station which was at Tolthorpe near Easingwold still up in Yorkshire. It was the only French Canadian squadron from Canada, although all spoke English there was a lot of French spoken between most of the other crews, also most of the senior officers were from French ancestors. They could get very aggressive to each other as happened one evening later on.
Here there were four squadrons of Halifax bombers with around 60 planes. The squadrons with mainly Canadian or French/Canadian crews were:
[picture of 425 Squadron crest]
420 Snowy Owl
425 Alouette (the Lark- Dick's squadron)
431 Iroquois
434 Blue Nose
14
[page break]
We did lots of night cross country to various parts of the England to give the navigator, targets to find and which would be our target to bomb later on, also we had a bombing range which we had to find and drop practice smoke bombs on and from a certain height, some pilots tried to drop from a lower height so that they were getting better results and a higher percentage of hits. Not our pilot he said we would go as high as the aircraft could climb and then drop our bombs, which we did, only to be told on our return we were still too low, to which the skipper said that the Wellington couldn't climb any higher, and the rear gunner had a tin of drink in his flying suit pocket that was frozen no more was said on the subject.
We as a crew were sent to a camp which was to improve our fitness, which we didn't think was necessary as we all felt fit and well, we were allocated a hut and promptly forgot, we went for meals regularly and were not called on to do anything apart from eat and sleep, Eugene Gordon and myself walked around the fields and found where they were growing swedes, carrots, turnips, so we borrowed a few and cooked them on our stove in the hut and with other bits from the cookhouse and had some good meals in the evenings. Fortunately we were only there for about 10 days, and then were sent to squadron.
The squadron was from Canada and had only been in England a short while and we joined it at the end of January 1944 in which time we got to know the aircraft we to fly in, it was a Halifax MK3 K.W.U for Uncle. Unfortunately for us we only did about 14 hours training on our aircraft.
[photograph of Halifax bomber]
Halifax Bomber
[underlined] Our First Mission [/underlined]
February 24th/25th we were called for a briefing and found we were due to fly a bombing trip to a place called Swinefurt [sic] , a long trip to the south of Germany which would be an eight hour round trip but unfortunately the port outer engine decided to cause a problem and stopped altogether, we couldn't climb to our bombing height due to lack of power and could not carry on at this low height, so the skipper decided we had best abort and return to base dropping our bomb load at sea. Which we did, and landed back at air station about three hours after take off. Not a good start at all, but the fault was found to be a blockage in the fuel pipe to the engine.
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[underlined] The Second and Final Mission [/underlined]
February 25th/26th we were on our second trip which was a bombing raid on Augsburg (North West of Munich) to bomb a factory making ball bearings for tanks, from which we failed to return. Our aircraft was hit by anti aircraft fire and both the engines on our left side were put out of action and caught fire. The noise it made when the shell hit our left side was like a firework being let off inside a dustbin. Then the next thing was flames coming past my turret Chuck our skipper came over our intercom asking if we were all uninjured which he did by calling each one by name. Then he said that we were not going to keep going, so had to bale out, each one of us saying we understood, good luck and made ready to bale out. What to do first I thought, disconnect my intercom, then the oxygen tube, think we were flying at a height of around twenty four thousand feet so would I have enough oxygen to keep going to get my parachute which was in a rack in the fuselage and then get the panel open in the fuselage floor for myself and mid upper - which was Wes to jump out. We shook hands and shouted good luck and looked down through the hatch to see the flames from the engines flying by so put my leg out and flow of air pulled the rest of me out!!
Suddenly everywhere is quiet, you are supposed to count to ten before pulling the ripcord to your parachute by the time I counted up to four I didn't hear any noise so pulled my ripcord and was instantly jerked upright, with my flying suit collar up round my ears and it was very quiet.
My thoughts whilst drifting down were varied and very worrying to say the least, it had my thoughts in turmoil.
Below was a patchwork due to snow and could have been fields, but from a height of 20000 feet there was no telling what it was going to be. My thoughts of a church spire came to mind or there was an industrial town down there with factories with tall chimneys also electric power cables, or a town with tall house and me hanging from the roof. The later [sic] was near to it as I came down between two poplar trees and I landed in a town house garden in an apple tree. I had my parachute hanging up in the tree, which I decided to pull down but it must have snagged and a piece ripped off and was left hanging in the tree what I had pulled down and bundled up and slipped under some buses [sic] . I then decided to find a way out of the garden; so removed my flying kit as I would be very conspicuous walking around in it. At that time I was just in my battle dress getting very cold, I then found a road running alongside the garden, so jumped over the wall onto a road started walking past some large houses all about five stories high, I had landed in a large residential area of a town. Then the siren for what I presumed was an air raid starting, so I walked up another road to miss people around that area, then the siren started again and people started running around (I discovered later that they had two sirens at the start of a raid and also two all clears) by which time I was back to where I had landed in the garden. So I hopped back over the wall and decided to put my flying suit back on as I was feeling very cold.
What to do now I thought; sleep seemed the best option or wake someone up and tell them who I was and call the police. I ended up curling up and sleeping and was woken by a squirrel running around me and then two elderly ladies coming our of the house next door and saw a piece of my parachute stuck up the tree, they shouted and ran back indoors and about 10 minutes later a policeman came down the garden path with a little pistol pointing at me and said hands up or words to that effect. Which I obliged, he then told me to take off my flying suit and go in front of him where
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he had left his cycle, and for me to put my clothes on his bike and we walked into the town to a police station. There were lots of people in the police station a lot were ex army with battle scars but quite polite, except one old boy who should have been in a home for the elderly along time ago, saying we would never win the war by sending us over to spy on them.
[underlined] Prisoner of War -number 2108 [/underlined] (Appendix 4 - iii) -Red Cross Map of prisoner of war camps)
I was then escorted to the Gestapo headquarters in the town which I discovered was Darmstadt (South East of Frankfurt) (on this journey Dick cut up his parachute with his penknife so that it couldn't be used by the Germans), and there met up with Wes, Eugene and Gordon whilst waiting there a rather irate man came in and picked up a chair and was going to hit Eugene with it, but fortunately I was able to stop the blow hitting Eugene with my flying suit, we found out later that Eugene had fractured his spine, releasing himself from his parachute harness whilst still hanging along way from the ground, which meant he had to go to a hospital so we didn't have any further contact with him.
Wes, Gordon and self were then taken by two armed guards to a building being used by the Police and handed over to Dulagluft Interrogation HQ on a tramcar with civilians on board who looked at us rather hostile, good job we had a couple of Luftwaffe guards with us, on the way through the streets there were a number of bodies hanging from lampposts turned out to be American airmen shot down on an earlier raid, quite a jolt to the system.
At the Interrogation HQ all our belongings were taken from us and we were then put into a cell with only a bed and a chair in it, no windows and an electric light on all the time, so you didn't know what part of the day or night it was. Dick became prisoner of war number 2108.
Then every so often an officer came in and said he was from the Red Cross and he would make sure that my parents would be notified where I was and was alright, but was being held in Germany as a prisoner of war and would be able to write once we had been sent to a POW camp. This treatment went on for quite a time you didn't know what day it was or time of day, we were fed soup and black bread and had brown water which they said was coffee, two or three times I was taken out and interviewed by an officer who told me who our commanding officer was and he had a daughter, had I met her, and then proceeded to tell me about the Halifax bomber but it wasn't doing much damage and we were losing them at a fare [sic] rate every night. When after a few days we were taken into the camp and given an American plastic suitcase in which was all manner of toiletries and clothes -a pair of slip on slippers, a towel, a face flannel, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, pyjamas, packet of pipe tobacco and a pipe, packet of twenty cigarettes, some vest and pants, a bar of chocolate a meal can opener, also an American army shirt.
We stayed there for a short while until they had enough bodies to fill up a lot of cattle trucks to take us to our next camp. I was then issued with our name and prisoner of war number, mine being 2108 and made of metal, we still had only our battledress uniforms and it was February so felt the cold. (Appendix 4 - iv)
Then one morning we were paraded on the square with our cases and marched off to the railway yard where our train awaited, there was no difference between first and third class, you were just herded along and pushed up into a cattle truck 20 prisoners into each end of the wagon (The wagons had written on the side - 40 hommes or 8 cheveaux, this became part of the POW insignia after the war),
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with the centre section for the guards, so each wagon was divided into compartments by a wire netting wall. There were no toilets so you had to wait until we had been shunted off the mainline and were then allowed to do your do's sitting on a log which was alongside the railway line, at first it was very embarrassing but after three or four days you didn't bother just got on with it.
We had a stop each day for a bowl of soup and drink of so called coffee. Forgot to mention that each truck had a guard sitting on top of the wagon and must have been covered in smoke from the engines. Sleeping was almost impossible with twenty people in a small space, but you managed you might have had feet by your head or a bottom, because the only pillow you had was your plastic suitcase.
I didn't keep a record of how long the train trip was but was told it was ten to twelve days, we passed through a couple of large stations but could only see out through the gaps in the sides of the trucks as the guards closed the doors, were surprised at one station when we went slowly past a train of open trucks packed with people they were either Jews or displaced persons being taken to places of forced labour, we couldn't pass them anything so had to just let them pass without being able to speak to them.
[underlined] Stalag Luft VI - Heydekrug [/underlined] (Appendix 4 - vi)
We finally arrived at our destination Heydekrug (in Lithuania) and Stalaf Luft 6 which meant in German prison camp for airmen. This was in East Prussia on the Baltic coast and was built on sand, so that tunnels couldn't be dug in the sandy soil, that didn't stop some of the hot heads from trying. Only one was tried and the Germans had some idea this was happening and brought a motor roller in to run up and down between the huts, it found a tunnel starting out between two huts and it sank into the sand about six feet and was stuck for two days, when they finally tried to move it, they couldn't start it as a lot of the parts had somehow gone missing, the Germans never did the same trick again.
All the crew members met up again here, except for Eugene, who was in hospital. The camp was divided into 3 compounds, two of which contained 2,000 men, the third being smaller held 1,000 men. Dick was in one of the larger compounds, with 60 men to a room. Dick and Ginger were in the same hut, the other crew members elsewhere.
We had some good men who cold [sic] turn their hands to anything and make things out of bits and pieces, one being a clock which went backwards made from an old gramophone. Also we had radios I think there were two, both were built inside Dixie's which was an eating and cooking pot.
We had some well educated lads with as a lot of early aircrew were from college undergraduates who were in the call up age range, so they started up classes in the camp on a variety of subjects, and you could qualify for a degree as the Red Cross got permission from the Germans for this to happen. One of the POWs that made use of the books was Peter Thomas, who became a Welsh MP after the war and later Lord Thomas.
My only inroad into anything like this was to draw in our POW book, we were issued with, like a diary was the drawing of the aircraft they flew in and the air force inscription over the top; and I charged one cigarette for each drawing, not a lot but helped out. I believe a number of people at home sent me cigarettes through the Red Cross but only two tins of tobacco got through to me, these were St
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Bruno and they lasted me some time. They would have lasted longer but I used to roll some into cigarettes and fellows used to drop by for a couple of puffs.
[drawing of book]
One of Dick's drawings
Dick also found a talent for needlework. He unpicked the silk lining from his flying boots, and made a cravat, with the RAF crest embroidered on it.
Cigarettes were used as currency for buying food, if and when the Red Cross food parcels arrived, they were divided up and were allocated, as 1 parcel between seven or ten men, not a lot, but as some kriegies didn't want some of the item they sold them for cigarettes. (Kriegies was short for Kriegesgefangenen which is the German word for prisoner of war)
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[underlined] Kriegies 10 commandments [/underlined]
[drawing of scroll]
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We had radios which were hidden in various places. In our hut we had the men who looked after the radios. One evening after being shut in, lookouts kept watch whilst repairs were being done. Suddenly someone shouted Goons up. An officer with three men plus an Alsatian dog walked in, the tables were cleared very quickly, everything dropped into a carton and passed down the lower bunks, it arrived at my bunk and I had nowhere to pass it to so I hid it under my knees under a blanket and picked up a book to read. The dog came sniffing around but kept on going by, when I sort of came too I found my book which I was supposedly reading was upside down. Good job the dog didn't notice it.
[drawing of hut interior]
Inside one of the huts in a camp
Mornings started with the overnight latrine bucket having to be emptied, not a nice job we had a rota in the hut and two of us had to take a 30 to 40 litre container almost full and take it and empty it at the toilet block you invariably finished up rather damp and needed a good wash.
Next it was the guards shouting "RAUS!" get out the parade ground for morning head count and anything that the Germans thought we should know, like how well they were doing in the war but didn't say where.
After the head count which could take quite some time, they couldn't agree on the figures and had to do it again sometimes it was our own faults [sic] for moving around whilst they tried to count us.
Finally all was right so off for breakfast the German rations were not very plentiful. It started with what they said was coffee, first in the morning, but what it was made with didn't question, but it was hot and with adding powered milk you drank it, it had to be fetched from the cookhouse in metal jugs.
Dinner was usually a soup of some sort could just be potato or sauerkraut and on a good day you were given corned beef which was send to the camp from Argentina, another soup was swede with potatoes, we were also issued with a fish cheese which was not very palatable but you ate it.
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Bread, black was issued per day, it varied in the amount which was either 6 or 10 persons sharing a loaf which was about 8 or 9 inches long about 4 inches wide and could be 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 inches deep that is they were thicker one end than the other, so one can imagine trying to share it out to either a combination of three or twelve.
Then to the cookhouse for our very large cans of ertzats [sic] coffee I still don't know what it was made of but it was wet and warm and washed down your breakfast if you ever had any. You were dreaming about eggs and bacon and toast and marmalade but didn't make a habit of it.
The next part of the morning was spent washing and shaving or not then cleaning up your space and making it tidy, then any washing you had to do for which you had to boil water which meant finding some material to burn, bed boards were used but there was a limit to how many you could sleep without and still have a straight back. As I previously mentioned classes were being held in huts all around the camp during the day also we had the parade ground on which was played sports, football, rugby, rounder's and also they had physical exercises for those who wanted it, we had a stream running through a part of the camp which was used to see who could jump it in one go! If not you had a free foot wash and legs and shorts!!
During the evenings one of our newsreaders would come in the hut, with days news that had been listened to on one of the radios (Daily Express reporter Cyril Aynsley was one who took it down in shorthand), some of us would keep watch at the door and be ready to stop the reader if any Germans happened to be about.
Most nights it was a nightly ritual to have a walk, around your section of the camp and have a chat with anyone and everyone. Then back to your hut for a late evening drink of tea or coffee which entailed lighting up your blower to boil the water. When we then had to either get to bed or light a candle and try and read but not for long.
[cartoon drawing of brew up]
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[photograph of washing facilities]
Washing facilities of Stalag 357 Fallingbostel
Our washing and shaving facilities were very limited, with some of the camps having the washing troughs in the open, ours were inside, just a trough with cold water running along it with holes in it about 18 inches in between to allow the water to run out into another trough below. If you wanted hot water it meant you had to get the blower out find some paper - cardboard or wood to burn to get some hot water. Wood was hard to come by unless you used your bed boards, which left you with another bend in your back. So it was usually a cold water shave and not everyday.
There was a shower room but this was situated about half a mile from the camp and we were taken there under guard once in about six weeks, why it was so far from the camp no one knew.
We were searched on leaving the camp and again when we returned, what they thought we would steal from room which only had showers and all in one large room. The water was switched on for about 10 minutes so you had to be quick.
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[letter confirming POW status]
Letter received by Dick’s Father, from the Chaplain at Tolthorpe
We were allowed to write home one letter and two postcards each month, which I think most of us took the opportunity, although it took quite a long time for the first ones to come from home. My first on arrived on August 14th having been sent from home on May 28th in all I think my mail total for my stay in Germany was a total of 42. 34 from Mum and Dad and a further 8 from friends and the caterpillar club confirming I had become a member.
[photograph of family] [reverse of photograph]
Family photo Dick received, the reverse shows the German censor’s mark
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There was a lot of aircrew arriving in the camp that they had to get two large tents and add them on to the rows of huts, each one held a further hundred men which didn't help our food rations. Not long after this we were told that we were to be moved into Germany.
[underlined] Torun Stalag Luft 357 [/underlined] (Appendix 4 - iv)
The place was actually in a part of Poland which had been the Polish Corridor and was Thorn or Torun Stalag 357. So we had to get packed up and ready to go in two days as the Russians were headed our way, so it was take the essentials, our pots and pans and the blower which was used for heating water mostly; any food plus your blanket and toiletries any spare clothes, some of the Canadian families had sent things over which were ice skates and baseball bats, most of which were left behind.
A wind up gramophone was smashed up plus all the records, and on the walk to where we had to board our cattle trucks which was about two miles away the road or more like a country track for carts was littered with discarded equipment people decided they could do without.
Once we were at the train which was waiting us at the trackside, no station. We were herded into the cattle trucks, 40 persons per truck; 20 bodies in each end of the truck. The centre used for the guards. They also had a guard sitting on top of each wagon wearing goggles and had a machine gun.
This trip took us about five days and nights on a slow train to Torun (on the river Vistula), and one wasn't very clean and tidy upon arrival.
The others at Heydekrug that were being shipped by boat from the port of Memel had a very bad time on the boat as they were herded into the hold of a boat and spent between five and seven days on board in horrible conditions on the way to a camp in Germany.
Our trip by train took about five days of shake rattle and very uncomfortable and one stop a day for the toilet, and sad to say we had to use a corner of the truck to relieve ones self.
We arrived at Thorun, which was a large camp mainly army prisoners and we were crowded into huts about 120-140 per hut and the meals we had were very poor in quality and quantity. We were only there for 6 weeks and once again were on our cooks tour again, back into our 40 hommes or 6 cheveaux carriages with a small amount of straw spread across the floor which had large gaps between the floor boards and no central heating, and again another train journey of six days to our next camp which was Fallingshostel [sic] which was about 80 miles north of Hanover. This again was an army camp but now accommodated American air force as well as us British and was split into three separate camps which also included a Russian compound. (Appendix 4 - i) and ii)
Also around this time I wanted some shoes as mine were about paper thin and I managed to get a brown pair of American army boots which was just what was needed if we were going for a long walk.
The huts were the usual having two tier bunks down each side of the room and a further rows [sic] up the centre of the room, with a large stove in the centre which wasn't used as there was no fuel for it.
The cookhouse supplied us with what was called coffee and made from what we really never found out what, but we called it coffee because it was brown. The food from the cookhouse was mainly
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some sort of soup, mainly potatoes with some sauerkraut like cabbage added. Sometimes we would have a ration of corned beef which the Argentineans sent over in bulk for us and very good too. We did also had what the Germans called cheese, but it tasted very fishy but never quite found out what its origin was our supplies of Red Cross parcels were getting few and far between with so much disruption on the railway.
Where they originally intended to have one parcel person per week, we were now having to make do with one parcel for ten men and had to last them a week or longer until more arrived.
Being closer to some large towns we now had the sounds of bombers targeting them at nights, we also had some low flying Mosquitoes shooting up the railway not far from us.
We all stood outside the hut watching when one of the guards shouted at us to get inside; of course no one moved so he took his rifle off his shoulder and put a bullet in the chamber. But forgot there was one already in, so it sent a round flying out onto the ground. The old fellow looked at us shrugged his shoulders picked up the bullet and left us to watch.
[photograph of prisoners]
Prisoners of war watching allied aircraft - inside Fallingbostel
Life here was not very good as there were too many of us cramped into huts, we did have an unusual game some evenings - because as it got dusk we had some large flying insects around, about an inch to inch and half long with a hard shell body. We used to wait them and then hit them with a wooden stick, scoring two points for a certain hit and one point for a probable; you had to produce a body for the two points. But there wasn't any prizes for a high score only a mess of squashed bodies.
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[underlined] Oerbke near Fallingbostel [/underlined]
The news we had from the Germans was that during the next couple of weeks we would be leaving camp and would be marching north to a holding area somewhere near Hamburg.
Our last camp at Oerbke near Fallingbostel was very large and housed British soldiers - some Russians also American airmen, the war was drawing to a close and the Russians were approaching us from the East and the Allies from the South so the beginning of April 1945 we going to be made to leave the camp in sections and carrying all our possessions. (Appendix 4 – i) and ii)
[underlined] The Long March [/underlined]
There is more information on the Long March in appendix 3
Whatever a holding area was meant to be for and why they would want us there was never discovered. There was a lot of speculation that they were going to drive us into the Baltic and drown us or otherwise just put us in barbed wire enclosure and leave us, but they didn't.
Instead we were marched out of the camp early April to begin a long trek northwards. The first lot we were marched out of camp April 6th in parties of about 500, everybody loaded with bags and blankets a box of food, a water bottle and all your clothes which didn't amount to much. I was glad that I had been given a new pair of army boots, also an overcoat, French army blue but very thin and not very waterproof but better than nothing. We covered varying distances each day, the weather varied from wet and windy to very cold, and we were not sure where would be sleeping the next evening.
It turned out that first night which was rather wet with rain, our accommodation was a field, no trees or high hedges to shelter us so it was rather a nasty start to our walk, which was on rough tracks through farmland and we managed to collect some vegetables from fields we passed although the guards were told to shoot anyone found doing it, which meant just about everybody.
Our second night was under the stars in a field.
It was on our third day we arrived in a village and were taken in to the church for our nights lodging sleeping anywhere you could lay out on the pews and under them and in the aisles. We had to boil water outside for our tea, on our blowers.
As we progressed each day through the county we saw American aircraft by their vapour trails going on some bombing mission.
There were some days after marching or should say walking, or hobbling, that we would finish up in a farmyard, this was welcome as we soon found eggs about. Some lucky lads found barns that were not in use as the cattle were in the fields; this allowed chicken and sometimes a small pig to enter the barn which was quickly turned into a meal.
One occasion was a nice bit of garden behind a barn that was full of ripe rhubarb, must have been about 10 feet wide and 14 feet long, within a very short time it was clear, the farmer was furious, he got an officer who said he would punish any prisoner found with stewed rhubarb. He walked around
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with the farmer looking in every saucepan or a fire, in which lo and behold they were full of stewing rhubarb, he just shrugged his shoulders and that was it.
Later in the month we had to cross the river Elbe by a railway bridge, but as we approached it there was a column of tiger tanks coming over and their tracks were breaking up the road as they passed. Our guards suddenly vanished into air raid shelters and circling over the bridge was one Spitfire. With the Germans firing at him with machine guns mounted on the ends of the towers at the ends of the railway bridge, but they were nowhere near hitting him as they fired miles behind him. They were useless.
When it quietened down and the tanks had all gone our guards came out of their air raid shelter and herded us across the bridge.
We must have covered a fare [sic] distance as we have been walking every day from the 6th April and it is now midway through April and the weather is improving, but our lodgings don't improve, the villages we go through gave us drinks of water and now the guards turn a blind eye.
It must have been mid April that was about the 18th April that we stayed at a farm that was rather run down and neglected. Cow sheds were filthy and hadn't been cleared so no one could sleep in them so we were in the open up against walls. I was itching around my waist and found that it was lice, so I needed a good wash, but where so had a look around and discovered a duck pond covered in greed [sic] weed, there had to be water under the weed, so clothes off make a hole ain [sic] the weed and lower myself into about 8 inches of water and a foot of mud, it was wonderful and I got rid of a lot of the lice.
We stayed one night in a farm where the farmer had a stable for a couple of horse, on a walk round with another chap, I found this stable and it had a water tank on top, so we had a look and found a pipe leading down from the roof with a large tap at the base, we hurried back for our toiletries and towels. I said you sit in front of the tap which was about 4 inches across and I will turn it on, which I did, and oh dear the water came out with such force he shot backwards across the cobbled floor on his bottom. He said you wait until it is your turn. It was a wonderful feeling to get your self refreshed.
[underlined] 19th April 1945 [/underlined]
Still moving North on about the 19th April we were informed that at our next stopping place we were going to get a Red Cross food parcel, one parcel per man at a place named Gresse, this was very good news as it was about three weeks since we last had one.
We were walking through a rather large forest for quite some miles now and were informed that on the other side we would be issued with our parcels.
We had been living on soup some overnight stops and now and again ertzats [sic] coffee reputedly made from acorns.
So to be handed a parcel for your self was out of this world and very much needed. So we came out of the forest along a track which was about 18 feet wide and had about another 6 or 8 feet either side which was about a foot lower and then a few trees sort of along the edge after them were fields and quite a lot more trees.
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At this time we were having a rest on the track starting to open up our parcels, when we heard some aircraft flying parallel to us about half a mile away. They sounded like Hurricanes so could be ours so kept sorting our parcels, when we heard these load explosions coming down the road towards us. The aircraft turned out to be our own Typhoons equipped with rockets and cannons plus machine guns and anti personnel rockets.
I flung myself down and into the ditch which was only shallow and behind a plant which was about a foot high and about eight inches wide. it was just something to hang onto. The guard who had been sitting by a tree had been wounded and next to me an Aussie Sergeant wireless operator had been shot through his head and chest, my nearest bullet hit my boot heel, as I felt it but it just left a line across the heel.
The two others I shared everything with were Ginger Wheadon and Alec Laing, who were no where to be seen. So I decided to walk back and found Alec not far away but very shaky. So told him to stay put and I would look for Ginger, on my way back up the track, I was giving drinks of water to people who had been wounded and were waiting for treatment either shock or wounds, but couldn't find Ginger.
There were people calling out for their friends, I came across one fellow sitting by a tree with the lower part of his body a mess, although he asked me for a drink as if nothing was wrong. Just as I had given him a drink a couple of his pals came and took over whilst I carried on my search for Ginger.
At one hedge I passed there were legs sticking through so I hopefully looked on the other side, but hastily moved on as they were all there was.
There were quite a few bodies lying about on the track but not Ginger, someone suggested I looked in the fields near where we had been; a lot of men had run across them, so I did and found him but he had been hit in the chest whilst running and was dead.
He must have left his belongings in his haste as I never found them.
In Dick's Wartime log book he wrote on April 20th 1945 - "to our engineer Ginger Wheadon. Ging was killed by a bullet from a Typhoon whilst we were resting during a march on April 19th 1945, he was killed instantly. We are trying to get some of his personal kit to bring home for his Mother and Mary his girl. He was buried at a village of Heydekrug, 4km from Gresse where we had just drawn food parcels. He was buried by our Padre and a parson. The time of his death was about 12 noon.
Having looked after one or two other badly wounded lads, l went back to Ginger only to find that all his kit had been taken and his pockets empty. Some thieving B……. had pinched everything he had on him.
I only hope the food choked them and all the other things brought them the worst luck possible."
The count was 35 POW were killed also 6 of the German guards.
I searched around and found one of our seniors who I gave him Gingers name which apparently someone else had already done so after finding his name and number on his dog tags. So I returned to where I had left Alec and we moved on down the road to the next village where we stayed for the
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night in field with a couple of barns in it but some good thick hedges to bed down under and found a barn with some straw in which we used as bedding.
Dixie Deans our camp commandant spoke to the officer who was in command of the Germans guarding us to let him go through the German lines accompanied by a German officer with a safe conduct note, to then contact the Americans, and let them know that there were 20,000 allied prisoners on the line of their advance and to advise them to let their airbase know of this situation. This was done and Dixie Dean and his accompanying German officer cycled back through the lines and after sorting out the burial of our lads in the churchyard at Gresse.
They were buried in a mass grave and the German priest held a service for our lads and also the guards that were killed. (After the war the RAF personnel killed in this attack were reburied in a new Commonwealth War grave cemetery outside Berlin see appendix 2).
The injured where taken to a hospital at Boizenburg for treatment, and no doubt sent home for further treatment.
Our English Padre was to march on with the others as he would not attend the church service as it was not his parish.
That was April 19th 1945 which will always be remembered as it was just a few days before my 21st birthday which I very nearly could have missed, that was a dream that haunted me for quite some time.
We constantly saw American aircraft around but they were mainly bombers heading Hamburg way we did pass an airfield that had JU88's on it but it had been bombed and most of its aircraft destroyed.
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[War Graves Commission citation]
Ginger's burial place, to the right of the building in the distance (see Appendix 2 for cemetery map)
[underlined] The end of the War nears [/underlined]
We carried on Northwards and the farms that we stayed in were larger and did have some decent barns, but were rather a lot bodies and not everyone got in a barn. Alec and my self usually found a well and stayed out with the weather now being quite good. My birthday on the 26th April was nothing special I think maybe I had an extra piece of chocolate and maybe made a cigarette with my pipe tobacco and smoked it all myself, otherwise we usually passed them around.
It's now the beginning of May the weather is quite good and there are lots of American aircraft leaving vapour trails, we think Hamburg or ports in the North were their targets.
We settled down on the 2nd May in a small outhouse with no windows or doors just three walls and a roof that would have let in more rain than it kept out and wondering what tomorrow would bring.
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When we woke to a fine morning and made a drink someone said look all our guards have gone during the night, so we then went to find what our next move was.
We were told not to go out on the roads running North as there were German panzer troops still in that area, this information we got from an officer in jeep which came on ahead of the English and American troops who pushing the Germans back in this area.
We were then informed by Dixie Deans that we were to find some means of transport and make our own way South to Luneburg where our troops had built a pontoon bridge over the river Elbe and from there proceed to a German airfield situated near Luneburg, which had been turned into a reception area for POWs.
The area around the airfield became littered with vehicles we had acquired including a fire engine, a few tractors some civilian cars, horse and carts, motor cycles and a couple of buses.
My mode of transport was in one of the buses so had a comfortable ride to the reception centre.
May 8th 1945. The road we had to use to get the river crossing was littered on both sides with German and English military vehicles which had been bulldozed off the road so that others could get through to the pontoon bridge at Luneburg.
We spent a couple of days here being subject to a delousing period that incurred someone with a spray gun putting it down your back and front and also each trouser leg.
After which they took your particulars and you were given an identity card with your name, number, rank, and squadron number and told to find a bed in one of the huts and report back in the morning. If we had anything which we didn't need there was a bonfire on which we could get rid of old clothes not that we had much. But some of the prisoners had picked up guns and ammunition on the way which they decided to get rid of, there was a lot of exploding ammunition going off all night and the next day.
We had a breakfast of coffee and a slice of toast and then had to go on a parade ground and form up into groups of around 40 to await the arrival of aircraft for our homeward flight to England and a POW reception centre at RAF Cosford in a Dakota, used as transport and troop carrier the workhorse of the air force.
Here we were met by nurses and WAFs and again given the treatment of delousing, then a check over by doctors and lots of questions as to how you felt. Then it was a sit down meal, but our stomachs would only take a small amount, l can't remember what was on the menu but I know I could only manage a little, and a nice young WAAF sat with me and talked me into eating a little more. I really couldn't eat anymore, but had more tea so I could keep her talking with me.
We were then subject to being kitted out with new uniforms and glad to be out of the old stuff. The only [sic] I kept was my American army boots which had walked many miles or should say kilometres over German countryside, they lasted a good many years as my gardening boots. They still have the mark on the heel where a bullet from a typhoon clipped it when we were shot up.
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We only stayed at Cosford long enough to be kitted out and given some idea of how would carry on until our number for demob came up.
I had still about a year to do so was given a choice of ground trades which was, clerk in accounts, pigeon keeper or store keeper. What a choice is that it I asked and said that I didn't like any of these and wanted to be assigned to the transport division either as a driver or in admin. The Officer said he would put my choice forward but didn't think I would be lucky as so many had chosen transport as an option. So it was then we had to collect our travel warrants and any pay we had coming plus identity cards and ration book.
It was now late May and a start of long awaited leave which was for about four weeks to get me back into being fit again, I arrived from Cosford at London Road station and a neighbour who was a taxi driver happened to be at the stand and so he shouted over to me to get in his car. After putting my bags in and much hand shaking from other people I was on my way home. Mr Shuker talked all the way and got me up to date with what had been happening in Minehead Street, and upon arriving there he slowed down and hooted so people could know that he had arrived with a neighbour. There was quite a lot came out and gave me a cheer, and upon arrival at home I [sic] most of our neighbours were there with Mum, Dad and Mary. It was quite a homecoming with lots of hugs and kisses from all the close neighbours, it was something I’II never forget.
It took a while to get used to a normal bed and home routine but it was good to be home.
My two pals Ken and Derek who were both in the air force Ken was an engine maintenance engineer at fighter station, while Derek was a Corporal in the RAF police service. They managed a spot of leave whilst I was home so we spent a few days together.
The first evening they took me down to our local pub which was the Blue Moon. This was the first time for me to go out for pint.
Ken and Derek ordered pints, but I said that mine had better just be a half, which was just as well as when I got up to go the bar to order another round my legs gave way so I didn't have any more. So Ken and Derek took me home, I could manage to walk but not very steady, I guess that my system hadn't had any booze for quite some time but would get around that problem in time.
[underlined] Military Transport Training [/underlined]
My leave seemed to pass very quickly and very soon a travel warrant arrived to say that I was being posted to Melksham, and it turned out to be a course for Drivers-motor transport, I was told previously that there was no chance for this as so many had tried but were told they had no chance. Lucky me as my Aunts and Uncles all lived around this area at the village of Wingfield, so I would have some place to go at weekends.
So up one morning and off to catch the train for Melksham and becoming a driver for the air force in what sort of vehicles one wondered.
It turned out to be initial training was on vehicle maintenance as you had to be able to keep your vehicle in road worthy conditions at all times.
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We had a very rigorous course on engines and ensuring they were in good running order with oil and water checked daily, there were lectures every day on subjects such as Highway Code road traffic signs and use of hand signals and being courteous to other road users.
Our first driving lessons were with British School of Motoring civilian instructors driving mainly Austin cars, each car had three learners with tutor and took it in turns at the driving. I had some goes at driving but this was a trifle different as you had to double de clutch as if you were driving a vehicle without synchromesh gears. One instructor was very strict and if you didn't get it right he had a wooden mallet with which he used to clout your knee with, it worked well, my leg went up and down like a yoyo, after just one tap.
If you passed you then passed on to RAF instructors to learn the different types of vehicles you would encounter, these were classified as Hillman Minx used a lot by junior officers, then on to 15 cwt hundred weight [sic] for light loads, then three ton vehicles used for ration collection and general work. Progressing then to the lorries, eight ton and ten ton lorries and the five and seven ton cranes, last of all came the sixty foot long trailers for carrying aircraft when dismantled for repairs.
Having mustered [sic] this little lot you had to pass a driving test on a three ton vehicle and one of the other larger vehicles. After passing all this you had a written test on all subjects and if all was well you were given a driving certificate and were now an MT driver.
What was nice about this posting that every weekend I could spend on the farm with my Aunt and Uncle it was called Sparrow nest farm and they kept cattle for milking, and I was not at all good at milking but helped out fetching the animals in for milking and taking the milk churns on a tractor and trailer to a platform on the roadside ready for the lorry to collect which was twice a day.
Alternate weekends were spent in Wingfield village with Aunt Hilda and Uncle Bill and Granddad who was Aunt Hilda's Uncle, he and I used to play cards in the evenings and he used to beat me at cribbage quite often even though he was missing a lot of his fingers on both hands due to wounds in the First World War.
One morning I awoke and on looking out my bedroom window overlooking a field there was a white object there in a corner, so when l got up I said to my Aunt I'm just going to see what's in the field, and when I got there it was a mushroom the size of a dinner plate, yes I had it for breakfast.
Another time Granddad and I were walking down a lane when a rabbit ran out from the hedge, I had a walking stick which I threw towards it and it stopped running because I had killed it, broke its neck and so we took it home and Auntie skinned it and it made us a dinner.
I used to catch a bus from camp to Wingfield but Uncle Bill always took me back to camp on his motorbike and no crash helmet.
[underlined] Horsham [/underlined]
When I finished at Melksham I was posted to Faygate near to Horsham, it was a maintenance unit, where we were sent out to dismantle aircraft that were not required anymore.
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My vehicle that I was allocated turned out to be a six wheeled lorry a left over from the last war, a
1918 model it would not start on the starter motor so had to be towed.
I got up into the drivers seat to which there was no door only canvas panels which just hooked across also the whole cab was just canvas. The steering wheel was about 2 feet in diameter like a bus, the gear lever was about three foot tall and the handbrake was on the right side and about four feet tall, I wondered what I had let myself in for.
They towed me out of the gates with a three ton Bedford lorry on to a main road and I managed to get it started. They then left me and said over to you and don't forget that this vehicle has not got synchromesh gear so you have to double declutch on all gear changing.
After about two hours and 15 miles later I had mastered it all and found my way back to the unit.
There were no facilities for accommodation on the camp so we had to be billeted at Horsham and commute every day by train. But we were away quite often for three or four days, we spent two days at Monston [sic] airport dismantling an Avro Anson that had overshot the runway and went through a small plantation of trees, which left it a write off, so my band of lads reduced it down to a scrap heap. We had to stay there awaiting the vehicle to collect the parts so had an extra day there.
Over [sic] next trip was down to Boscombe near to Bournemouth and we were told we would be there for four or five days as we had to dismantle quite a lot of spitfires which had been made redundant at Christchurch airfield. So we had to look for accommodation in Boscombe, which we found in a Salvation Army hostel and had five days there.
I parked my lorry in the railway goods yard as there would be someone with a vehicle there to give you a tow in the morning. The old lady surprised me one morning and started first time on the starter motor but that was the only time.
That was my only trip with her as t was assigned to a brand new three ton Bedford lorry. It was the same that we trained on at Melksham and I was to use it to collect all the supplies for the officers mess also all the others so had quite a decent job, also whenever we had rations to collect I was
accompanied by a WAAF which was a nice change from a load of lads.
I was checking tyre pressures and as these vehicles were equipped with its own air pump driven by the motor it was quite simple, but as I was checking one of the front tyres the wind blew the drivers door open and I stood up and hit my head on a corner and finished up flat out, not very long though but decided I had better go to sick quarters and get patched up as it was bleeding a lot. I passed a few people who asked if I was okay but I just said yes and they carried on. At sick bay they patched me up and I went back to finish the job and the motor was still running. So switched off, locked up and retired to the mess prior to catching the train.
[underlined] Egypt??? [/underlined]
Next day I was back into camp and was informed that I was moving on. It was that I was being posted to Egypt, l made a request to see our commanding officer who was an ex aircrew Squadron Leader, saying that I wasn't happy being posted abroad and that I had done my bit for the country and thought it most unfair as there were lots of people who hadn't left England.
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He listened to me and yes, he saw my complaint but he didn't think he could alter the decision and if I gave it a bit of thought, look at it as a holiday paid for by the Government for what you went through. So, yes that sounds reasonable and I'll go along with that, and thanked him. He said he wished me well and try to enjoy your cruise. He would have liked to have joined me, he said.
Went home for a spot of leave and got ready for my next forage into the unknown.
I was then sent a travel warrant for an air force camp situated at Newhaven to be kitted out with my overseas uniform, two khaki shirts and shorts plus long trousers and socks, then some inoculations for tropical diseases then were claimed ready for travel.
We were then told we would be travelling by the Medlock route that is from Newhaven to Dieppe in France by boat and thence by train down to Marseilles where we would be shipped across the Mediterranean to Egypt.
After the trip across to France at night we then continued through Switzerland and snow, it was very cold, but the villages on the mountainsides looked like the one on postcards very romantic amongst the snow. The French trains were not the cleanest but must have moved a lot of British service men since the war had ended over here.
At Marseilles we left the trains at the docks and boarded an American Liberty boat for the next part of the journey. We were shown into the first deck which was fitted out with beds in tiers of three the whole width of the ship and about forty or fifty foot in length. I managed to get one of the lower ones. When we settled in I was told and shown to the bakery, and was put in charge of 6 airmen which was very good as we had very new bread at our meal times. The six airmen worked well and we got along very well with the American crew.
We set sail in the evening and had a quiet evening up on deck, the weather was calm so after supper decided to turn in but couldn't sleep, the motion of the ship wasn't helping me and it took ages for me to eventually nod off.
Our second day went well and my lads and I ate well, but this next night we had a storm and Liberty boats are welded together not riveted and creaks in every joint. I wasn't very happy but just kept lifting the bows up after it went down in a trough. Didn't get much sleep and was glad to reach Alexandria and then taken to a camp at Damunbur and it was very hot and our accommodation was in tents that were built over three foot deep dugouts which gave you a bit more head room than just a tent. We stayed here for about three weeks.
[underlined] To Italy [/underlined]
But apparently there was nothing for us in our line of work required here so we were shipped back across the Mediterranean to Naples in Italy, where we stayed for a couple of days. We made the most of it seeing a part of the world and some of the Roman era, also there were plenty of young and very beautiful senoritas.
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[photograph]
Stanco, Dick's dog
We stayed in Naples for two days and were then told that we would be moving on to any [sic] airfield a few miles outside of Udine in a northern village of Potsuolo, which was the desert air force headquarters known as D.A.F.H.Q. Here were 3 squadrons which flew Mustang fighters. We were attached to DAF headquarters transport section and did all the movement of materials and stuff. This was very good as it entailed collecting the rations from stores which was about twenty miles away, but the roads in places was awful and stony. One item was an open top tin of jam which an Italian was carrying in the back, unfortunately a back tyre exploded like a bomb going off, my poor Italian thought he had been shot as he was covered in jam. After changing the wheel we continued back to camp.
[photograph]
Potsuolo
Another job we had was taking personnel up to our leave hotel up in the mountains for a week at a time and the driver stayed with them and drove them to scenic places, one of which was a lake about thirty miles trip, but was well worth seeing. It was but the road was very rough running along the side of the mountains our wheels were on the very edge of a few thousand foot drop and were running on
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a log which had been built into the road where the edge had fallen away, very bad for the nerves. Other places were when crossing over the bridges from one side of the mountain to the other. These were just planks of wood about three inches thick and about ten or twelve inches wide about fourteen feet long spaced about six inches apart on wooden beams. There was just enough room to get the vehicle around the ends onto the bridge, I only bent the tool box that was on the chassis when we were going.
[photograph]
Dead Slow Ahead!
It was a wonderful place called Cortina quite scenic we stayed for lunch and then I decided to return knowing it was a long way back and I would be on the outside looking down into the valley.
I said to the chap sitting next to me when we get to the logs set into the road edge, tell me how much room I've got your side, his remark was that my side mirror was about two inches from the rock wall which meant when I looked out that my wheels were running on the top of the logs, my legs shook a bit but I thought we came through this way so should be okay going back hopefully.
[photograph]
Dick's leave hotel in Forni Avolti, to the left of the church with a cross marked on the roof
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The hotel was very good and there were quite a few locals and there was a lady there with her daughter, the mother worked in the hotel and her daughter who was about 10 or 12 decided that when a few of the locals and us went for walks she would come and hold my hand and look after me, her name was Tina. We walked across one field and the melting snow had made a three or four foot wide stream down the grass, there was about twelve in the group and it was decided to jump instead of finding a place to cross. We all decided it was no problem just a short jump should do it, but it didn't. I think we all had very wet legs far the rest of our walk, but we all enjoyed it.
[photograph]
Tina and Friends
Most evenings there were four musicians who would play for us, sometimes a good old sing song of tunes of the times, and that led into dance music which was very tiring, as the girls that worked there kept going most of the evening and made sure we kept up with them. Lana the Austrian girl if she got hold of you your feet hardly touched the ground. But they were all good fun. The week passed very quickly and it was drive them back to camp and back to work.
Every other week we were duty driver for a day, which meant servicing the commanding officers vehicles; that he wanted to use that day. You had to knock on his caravan door and go in and ask him which of his three vehicles he required that day. From a jumble of blankets a voice would say either Merc or Jep or Util, which interpreted was either Mercedes or Jeep or his Utility, so you checked all three to make sure you got it right. You were busy taking officers to meetings and also running them into town to various places sometimes just so they could do some shopping.
[underlined] On the Road to Bari [/underlined]
Some days I was office boy handing out jobs to the drivers, this I didn't like as I would rather be out driving, and I was very lucky, our M.T officer who was also ex aircrew said he had a job for three vehicles to go down to Bari, where they were closing down an airfield and we had to bring back the furniture from the officers mess. Would I like to be one of the drivers? Of course that would be very nice, he then said and I shall be going as well to make sure we bring back the right things. So my friend another ex aircrew now a driver and the third driver was a corporal who had spent quite some time in Italy and knew his way around. We also had three airmen armed with rifles as guards, on to each vehicle so we had all the bodies required for the trip.
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[photograph]
On the Road to Bari
So it was up early one morning, pack the essentials for the trip which we had no idea how long we would be, so we took a change of clothes for it [sic] we went out in the evening at some stage of the journey.
Out [sic] first stop was at Rimini which was a holiday resort on the coast and there was an air force station there where we could find a bed for the night.
We left Udine and passed by Venice into Padova then for Ferrari, the roads were quite good but the towns and villages had been taken quite a bit of damage. From here we headed for Ravenna on the Adriatic coast. It again was a holiday resort; like most places took a lot of damage, then on to Rimini and a well earned rest. Out [sic] mileage for this leg of our journey was approximately 432 kilometres.
Some of the vehicles we passed on the way were rather weary, the loads they carried were unreal some were the width of the lorry but finished up twice the width at the top. The tyres were smooth and the engines were held together with bits of wire. The Italians were noted for have good mechanics, we had one of them in our section who could just listen to an engine running and get to the cause of the trouble straight away.
Back to our trip, we left Rimini the next morning after checking our vehicles and filling up with petrol heading for our next stop which was to be Rome. Our next road was heading inland across Italy into the more agricultural part of Italy, the traffic was very mainly bullock carts with four of them in the shafts pulling very large loads which hung over the sides and took up a lot of road space. Also we kept passing a lot of women and children carrying canes on their heads and shoulders, l thought that if one turned to chat with another it would cause chaos down the line if we hit them.
One thing that we noticed was the lack of bridges crossing the roads, mostly the countryside was very flat and were either agricultural or cattle. The towns and villages we passed through were a bit showing the signs of war damage and were trying to get back to normal. In the villages there were always lots of children on the streets and all were begging for chocolate, no doubt remembering the times the Americans were there.
We reached Rome in the evening and found the army barracks were we to stay the night, we all decided we would have an early night as tomorrow was a shorter trip and we could spend a little more time in Naples which we did. The road from Rome was fairly good although there was plenty of damaged buildings everywhere and not much building taking place although it was mainly getting the
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places ready for residents to return to repair jobs mostly. Although in Naples we found that the night life was very much alive, and we spent a few hours around the night clubs, and the officer and we two warrant officers were quite happy after consuming numerous bottles of wine with some very good food. And so to bed quite happy, not looking forward the next day's trip which was going to be a long one.
Up early the next morning and had a good breakfast and refuelled our vehicles and away on the road to Bari which is situated on the North coast of Italy, known as the heel of Italy. The road out of Naples was very busy with most vehicles having enormous loads and engulfed in a fog which we were glad to leave behind and over to our right was Mount Vesuvius but only a trickle of smoke from it. We were then heading North East and the road was less busy, and was pretty rough, villages we passed through had been very heavily damaged. We stopped for a meal or I should say a sandwich, and a family in a nearby house were having their spaghetti, there was an old lady with a plate full which was devoured in a very few minutes, guess she was hungry.
[photograph]
Still on the Road to Bari
We pressed on as it was starting to look like we were going to head into some rather wet weather, we did, and finding the place we wanted was not easy. The leading lorry with our officer and corporal driving, found what they thought was the right track to the airfield which turned out to be a very narrow road just wide enough for one lorry. After about a mile the road finished and we were left with the prospect of reversing all the way back to the main road in the pouring rain. There was no where we could have turned round as the fields had been ploughed on both sides. So about half an hour later three very wet headed drivers, a very wet officer and a guard who had walked back along the track with torches to guide us. We found the right road and got to our destination, and a good hot meal was very welcome.
I seem to remember that we didn't need much rocking to sleep.
We found out the next morning after breakfast that what we were collecting was a lot of electrical equipment which was too valuable to leave and could be useful elsewhere along with quite a lot of furniture from the officers quarters some of which turned out to be large mirrors about 5 foot high by 3 foot wide with a very ornate surround, and I don't recollect whether they survived the journey, it would have been very lucky if they had. Our three young guards did alright and had an armchair for the ride back. After we had packed everything into the lorries it was dinner time, so we had a very
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good meal and washed down with some very nice wine, and decided to stay the night here and start at 8am the next morning, so we had a look round Bari which had a good port for ferries to Yugoslavia across the Adriatic. Retired to our beds ready for the start back.
The trip back to Naples was uneventful but in Naples our guards had their hands full keeping loads of youngsters from climbing up the sides of the Lorries and stealing anything. Most of what we had was furniture which was stacked on top of the wireless equipment so they left empty handled.
It was evening time when we finally arrived in Naples so didn't go very far around the town just had a drink or two and then retired to bed.
Next morning it is up and away on our next leg to Rome where we hoped to spend a little time looking around the place as there is plenty to see, and walked around the centre of the Coliseum where the gladiators did their acts, and I was glad that I wasn't acting in it, and I think the lions that did an act had already eaten that day.
[photograph]
Coliseum Rome
Later on we found a good restaurant where we had a good meal washed down with a very good Italian wine, and walked back to our billets in an army barracks and so to bed.
Not looking forward to our next trip as it is a long run and not very scenic from Rome up to Rimini, mainly farming country and only a couple of towns on the way, the one consolation was that it stayed fine all the way.
Rimini was an army controlled town so there were lots of tanks and all types of weaponry around and we stayed in army barracks that night and we were up early the next morning as it was a long trip back to Udine.
We took the road out of Rimini for Rarenna along the coast, hence our next town was Venice where we stopped for a short rest and found a restaurant for a meal which was steak mushrooms and tomatoes washed down with a red wine, very nice too.
We were then only a couple of hours from our destination and our own beds. The whole trip had taken us about ten days, but that said the items we brought back was it worth it.
Overall we had a good look at how the Italians lived and were good mechanics, as they managed to keep their Lorries on. the road tied together with lots of wire and a lot more faith.
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We had a football team made up of NCOs and we played against teams from other ranks and also from the squadron that was stationed here. I was given the position of right wing and was usually up against a six foot left back of the opposing team, I don't think we won many of our matches, but it was a bit of good fun.
[photograph]
Military Transport Football Team
It is now getting into September and we are still living in tents, and have had a lot of rain recently and the camp was rather badly flooded, my other occupant and I were lucky our tent survived the storm, we had a lot of tents blown down and the roads were flooded and it took quite a while for everywhere to dry out.
Our leave hotel in Grado on the coast was popular and we ran an evening bus most nights, and it was one of my jobs as a driver to take the bus down to the town at 5pm and collect them again at 10pm from the town square. Most made it in time and on my trips we seemed lucky and didn't have any missing bodies, most of them were quite happy. I had four days leave and stayed in our leave hotel, very nice food and comfortable beds also there were grapevines where we had breakfast, so grapes were on the menu every morning. First thing after breakfast I went down the road and at the store shop used to buy a melon and take back to the hotel and have a waiter cut a square hole in it and put in a good portion of wine then put it in the fridge and have it with our evening meal, very nice finished the meal with it.
[underlined] Mercy Mission to Egypt [/underlined]
it was around September 15th that I had a call from the office of the Adjutant to tell me that I had been given ten days leave to go to a hospital in Egypt where my brother Bob was ill, and it would help him return to good health if he had a relative to see him. I was staggered and amazed as I had no idea of his whereabouts and that he was ill.
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18.9.1946. So I had to sort my kit out what I would require and managed to pack it in my small side pack. I then had to collect the pass and papers needed and so to Udine airport, arrived there at an early hour as flight was at 9.00am in a Dakota aircraft next stop Rome. Had a hotel for my overnight stay and very nice too, good food and bed and a very good night sleep.
My flight next morning which was to be about nine hours leaving Rome at ten past seven in the morning and we landed in Malta at 9.45 to refuel the aircraft had a drink there then left for our next stop which was El Adam in North Africa. Only stayed fifty minutes again to refuel and left at 4pm for our next stop at Almaza which we arrived at 6.30pm which was my stopping off place for Cairo.
I was driven to the Heliopolis hotel and shown to my room and then taken to the dining room and had a good meal.
I was very hot after being quite cool in Italy so changed into my shorts, but it was still very sticky hot, so decided to have an early night see what tomorrow brings.
! was up early as the night was very hot and I didn't get much sleep. I had a good breakfast and had to sit around and await my transport to the hospital.
20th September a car arrived and I was driven to the Helmieh hospital, where I was taken to meet the colonel of the hospital, who welcomed me and hoped my presence would help in Bob's recovery. He then told me I was to be accommodated at the Sergeants mess of the main hospital. There were numerous sections to the hospital, a fracture unit, dental unit, isolation unit which Bob was in eye and ear unit, it was quite a large place.
I was issued with a pass the [sic] to the isolation ward in which Bob was in with note to say the above named warrant officer was permitted to visit his brother signalman Curnock in isolation ward 1 and full preventative measures should be taken.
The sister I gave the note to just laughed gave me back the note, took me by the arm and gave me a hug, and said how lovely it was that I was able to have leave to go there, and then she took me to see Bob. He was surprised as he had no idea where I was, but he was very thin, white, and I looked like an Indian next to him as in a photo of us together.
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[photograph] [photograph]
Dick and Bob at Helmieh hospital, Egypt
My time at the hospital was spent on visits to Bob every day, having a game of snooker with some of the other members of the mess, or at other times some of the nurses and sister would ask me to escort them into Cairo to do a spot of shopping which I did quite willingly.
My ten days leave passed rather quickly, but when I rang the air booking centre in Cairo, I wasn't on any of the flights so had to wait another week. In fact it was the 25th October before my flight for Italy was finally here, so I had about 6 weeks of a 10 day leave.
Each unit had its own Sergeants mess and most evenings there was entertainment in one of them. Once or twice a week there was horse racing in one of them, and in the dental mess one night they had a Derby meeting, the horses were bid for at the start and I bought number two for two pounds after bidding against the colonel. And it won the race and I was twenty two pounds richer for a while, but lost a bit on the following races, good fun though.
The other entertainment was a quiz night which was quite hilarious, with answers to some questions quite ridiculous but funny. Others had classes which were well attended by all, as we had lots of nurses and sisters to make a good evening of it.
At another sergeants mess they held a bingo night with some other entertainment as bingo wasn't very popular.
In the sergeants mess some of them had nicknames, one was known as bash he was a boxer in Civvy Street; we also had a slash as he was always cutting himself when shaving, so I had to have one and was known as the parachute kid.
We had a snooker table in the mess and I had plenty of practice on it as I had quite a lot of time to fill in.
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Time passed and I finally had my seat booked for my return to Italy. So then I had to say my farewells to all the friends that I had made during my stay and to Bob of course and also I went to see the colonel and thanks him for all they had done for Bob and also making my stay a pleasant one.
[underlined] Dakota back to Italy – Treviso [/underlined]
So on the 26th October my flight was at 6.30am so was up early for the return journey. One of the sergeants had said the night before that he would take me to the airport as he was duty driver for that day. So once again I joined up with a Dakota of the South African Air force at Almaja airport stopping at El Adam to refuel then on to Malta where we stayed the night. The next day we were away at seven am on the last leg to Rome.
At Rome airport I was informed that the personnel of the 239 Wing Desert Air Force; had been moved to a place called Treviso so that where I was being sent. They said my kit had been transferred already so I had to get to this place, but found out that I was booked on a flight to an aerodrome just outside of Treviso.
[photograph]
Sergeants Mess Treviso 1945, Dick and friend
There was transport at the aerodrome and I was taken to our sergeant mess which was a town villa in Treviso and was shown to my room and where I was reunited with my kit bag.
This was luxury after living in tents for a long period with wash basins and baths and there were ladies to do your laundry and any repairs to your clothes.
I certainly enjoyed having a nice hot bath and retiring to a good bed and hoped that I wasn't to be moved again, as I had had enough of travelling for a while.
At Treviso it was usual routine doing runs into town and around the airfield, towing petrol trailers around to the aircraft for refuelling. Also fetching blocks of ice for the bars of the officers and sergeants also messes of other ranks. By the time you got back to camp there was a lot of water in the back of the truck and you had to lift blocks of wet ice into the various messes, a cold job.
From Treviso it was only a few miles into Venice and we spent a few weekends there, and got to do a lot of walking, you could have a gondola ride but they charged the earth, so we usually walked.
St Marco's square was very popular with lots of shops and cafes around. There was an abundant supply of jewellery shops and also the square had hundreds of pigeons, making it quite messy.
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There was a bell tower in one corner which had a large bell on the top. Apparently an Italian gent decided to inspect it too close and his head flattened by the bell hammer, very nasty.
There were lots of bridges over the canals and as you went into the centre where they had warehouses it was a rather different place, the canals were not so dean, and people living alongside them just threw rubbish out of the windows, not a good healthy environment to live in.
We found a very good restaurant in Treviso down a back street a very smart little place, who did beef steaks, which you could pick from a large selection and then you could see them being cooked and you then selected what you wanted with it.
Time passed very quickly at Treviso and was January before we realised suddenly that our demob numbers would be coming up soon. And it was January when we were told that some of us were going home and that we could be going to Villach in Austria to catch a train for the trip across Austria, Switzerland and France and home.
The day arrived when we were notified that we had reached the final week in Italy and would travel by train to Villach, and thence start our journey home. We cleared with all the necessary forms as was needed, paid any mess bills and said our farewells to rest of the transport department and was then taken to the station.
It was an uneventful journey to Villach where we had to stay overnight and there was thick snow there and rather cold with long icicles from roves [sic] of our huts.
[photograph]
Villach - with icicles
I met up with some of the other lads who had travelled with me on our trip out earlier, when we were leaving; waiting on the road for transport to the station a whole lot of youngsters arrived with sledges, so all we had to carry was our small kit, the kit bags were loaded on the sledges and so on to the station.
Our train was in and so we went aboard with kit bags on the corridors and rest of our kit on the racks, it was then that we all got into the spirit of finally going home. The trains were French so the toilets had no seat, just two places for your feet and a hole in the middle, not very comfortable.
With it being January everywhere was very white with snow and I took some pictures of the mountains as we passed into Switzerland which was wonderful. Coming out of a tunnel on the
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mountainside and there was a village and it appeared to just be hanging on. It went on like this from many miles as we went through Switzerland and into France.
[photograph]
Switzerland from the train
We stopped in Paris station for a hot drink and a sandwich and managed to have a wash and brush up before our next stop which was to be Dieppe and a channel crossing to Newhaven.
The trip over was uneventful but the sea was rather rough and there were one or two heaving stomachs to prove it, and we arrived in the dock, and then when we had sorted out our kit bags from a very large heap, the train was waiting in the station to take us to the demob centre, which was at No 101 Dispersal centre at Kirkham in Lancashire.
This was the place where you returned to civilian life once again. It is now the 21st January 1947 about to sort out from a large selection of shirts, underwear and suits and find some that is a reasonable fit. After which you went and tried on the items you had selected and handed in your uniform, well most of it, l remember that there was a shirt, a pair of shorts and some desert socks along with the boots that I wore during our sight seeing tour of Germany. Then you had to see numerous sections who dealt with your pay due to you and the amount of leave which turned out to be eighty days from the 21st January 1947.
You then had to collect your travel warrant, your pay also was entered in the back of your service release book and you had to collect it from the post office when it was due, and they would date stamp it in the back of your pay book.
My return home was a wonderful feeling after all my travels. At the station the neighbour of ours who had a taxi cab saw me and had me in his cab very quickly.
Upon arriving at Minehead Street the first thing I saw was the street still decorated with flags and bunting after the end of the war in Japan and not for me.
Mr Shuker sounded his horn and slowed down and there were a lot of people came out to welcome me home and of course Mum, Dad and Mary and our close neighbours were all waiting and I was smothered with their welcome.
And so I looked forward to a nice long holiday and getting used to civilian life once more.
48
[page break]
[underlined] Reunions [/underlined]
Dick's mother (Arabella Curnock) had welcomed several of the Canadian crew members into her home, and had corresponded with members of their families back home in Canada during the war.
Bob Friskey's wife Isabella in Abbotsford also wrote to Dick and Barbara after their marriage, as well as continuing to correspond with Dick's mother. It was from them that the news came that "Chuck" committed suicide some time after returning home.
Rob died sometime after, but Isabella continued to write to Dick.
Wes and his (Scottish) wife Mae made contact again sometime in the 1970s, when Dick received a phone call at the Thurmaston plant of Thorpe and Porter where he worked. The call was from the railway station in Leicester where Wes and Mae were - accompanied by the youngest of their five sons!
Dick went to pick them up, and they stayed overnight with [sic] at Queniborough before carrying on their journey to Scotland. Wes and Mae paid a short visit to Dick's mother, as Wes had stayed with her during the war when on leave.
In 1984 a lady who lived on Upperton Road (Mrs Tobin) was clearing out a house on Minehead Street (no 59) which was formally the Curnock family home. Amongst the papers was an unopened letter from Eugene Fullum in Montreal. She looked in the phone book and found a R Curnock and rang and this got Dick and Eugene back in touch.
[photograph]
Eugene and Dick 1985 (Leicester Mercury photo)
Eugene came over the UK in 1985, and when Dick and he met it was the first time they had seen each other since the police station in Germany the day after they had been shot down.
49
[page break]
[photograph]
RAF Prisoner of War insignia
[photograph]
Gordon, Eugene, Dick, Wes, 1987 Reunion
50
[page break]
[photograph]
Dick in the rear gunner position of a Halifax bomber; at Elvington, Yorks. 2004
[photograph]
Dick exiting the Halifax, the last time he did this, the Halifax was on fire and he was about to parachute into enemy territory
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[page break]
Appendix 1 – Dick’s RAF flying log book – 17.7.1943 to 25.8.1947
i) Gunnery course results
[document]
52
[page break]
Appendix 1 - ii) gunnery training
[flight log book document]
53
[page break]
Appendix 1 – iii) 22 O.T.U.
[flight log book document]
54
[page break]
Appendix 1 – iv) 22 O.T.U.
[flight log book document]
55
[page break]
Appendix 1 – v) 22 O.T.U.
[flight log book document]
56
[page break]
Appendix 1 – vi) 22 O.T.U.
[flight log book document]
57
[page break]
Appendix 1 – vii) 1664 Conversion Unit
[flight log book document]
58
[page break]
Appendix 1 – viii) 1664 Conversion Unit
[flight log book document]
59
[page break]
Appendix 1 – ix) 425 Squadron – shows the last mission Dick flew to Augsburg
[flight log book document]
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Appendix 1 – x) Flights to and from Egypt to visit Bob
[flight log book document]
61
[page break]
Appendix 2
[drawing of Berlin War Cemetery]
Ginger Wheadon is buried in 6.B.19
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[page break]
Appendix 3 -The March - source Wikipedia
"The March" refers to a series of forced marches during the final stages of the Second World War in Europe. From a total of 257,000 western Allied prisoners of war held in German military prison camps, over 80,000 POWs were forced to march westward across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany in extreme winter conditions, over about four months between January and April 1945. This series of events has been called various names: "The Great March West", "The Long March", "The Long Walk", "The Long Trek", "The Black March", "The Bread March", and "Death March Across Germany", but most survivors just called it "The March".
As the Soviet Army was advancing, German authorities decided to evacuate POW camps, to delay liberation of the prisoners. January and February 1945 were among the coldest winter months of the 20th century in Europe, with blizzards and temperatures as low as -25 O C and even until the middle of March, temperatures were well below 0 O C Most of the POWs were ill-prepared for the evacuation, having suffered years of poor rations and wearing clothing ill-suited to the appalling winter conditions.
In most camps, the POWs were broken up in groups of 250 to 300 men and because of the inadequate roads and the flow of battle, not all the prisoners followed the same route. The groups would march 20 to 40 kilometers a day - resting in factories, churches, barns and even in the open. Soon long columns of POWs were wandering over the northern part of Germany with little or nothing in the way of food, clothing, shelter or medical care.
Prisoners from different camps had different experiences: sometimes the Germans provided farm wagons for those unable to walk. There seldom were horses available, so teams of POWs pulled the wagons through the snow. Sometimes the guards and prisoners became dependent on each other, other times the guards became increasingly hostile. Those with intact boots had the dilemma of whether to remove them at night - if they left them on, trench foot could result; if they removed them, they may not get their swollen feet back into their boots in the morning or, worse, the boots may freeze or be stolen.
With so little food they were reduced to scavenging to survive. Some were reduced to eating dogs and cats and grass-anything they could lay their hands on. Already underweight from years of prison rations, some were at half their pre-war body weight by the end.
Because of the unsanitary conditions and a near starvation diet, hundreds of POWs died of disease along the way and many more were ill. Dysentery was common; sufferers had the indignity of soiling themselves whilst having to continue to march, and being further weakened by the debilitating effects of illness. This disease was easily spread from one group to another when they followed the same route and rested in the same places. Many POWs suffered from frostbite which could lead to gangrene. Typhus, spread by body lice, was a risk for all POWs, but was now increased by using overnight shelter previously occupied by infected groups. Some men simply froze to death in their sleep.
In addition to these conditions were the dangers from air attack by Allied forces mistaking the POWs for retreating columns of German troops. On April 19, 1945, at a village called Gresse, 30 Allied POWs died and 30 were seriously injured (possibly fatally) in a "friendly-fire" situation when strafed by a flight of RAF Typhoons.
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[page break]
As winter drew to a close, suffering from the cold abated and some of the German guards became less harsh in their treatment of POWs. But the thaw rendered useless the sledges made by many POWs to carry spare clothing, carefully preserved food supplies and other items. So, the route became littered with items that could not be carried. Some even discarded their greatcoats, hoping that the weather did not turn cold again. As the columns reached the western side of Germany they ran into the advancing western Allied armies. For some, this brought liberation. Others were not so lucky. They were marched towards the Baltic Sea, where Nazis were said to be using POWs as human shields and hostages. It was later estimated that a large number of POWs had marched over five hundred miles by the time they were liberated, and some had walked nearly a thousand miles.
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Appendix 4 – i) Stalag Luft 357 – long march route, and camp numbering correction information
Red Cross map of prisoner of war camps
[map]
65
[page break]
Appendix 4 – ii) Stalag Luft 357 and long march route
[map]
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[page break]
Appendix 4 – iii) Blue cross in circle marks where Dick was shot down. Red Cross near Frankfurt where he was moved to
[map]
67
[page break]
Appendix 4 – iv) Red line shows routes taken by Dick. Torun (Thorn) camp shown
[map]
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[page break]
Appendix 4 – v) Poznan – Stalag XXI
[map]
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Appendix 4 – vi) Stalag Luft VI – Lithuania
[map]
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[page break]
26th April 2014
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
My War Story
Description
An account of the resource
A memoir written by Dick Curnock. It covers his wartime service and also his service after the war for the RAF. It covers his brother Sam and his accident as a pilot. Dick started his training at Lords in London, Bridlington then Bridgnorth and Dalcross. Next move was to Wellesbourne where he crewed up and practised bombing from a Wellington, then Dishforth for conversion on to Halifaxes. His squadron was 425 at Tholthorpe and he undertook night flying training. On his second operation he was shot down near Augsburg. He was taken prisoner and interrogated before being transferred to Stalag Luft VI. He describes his life there. As the Russians got nearer they were transferred by cattle truck to Stalag Luft 357 at Torun. Next they were subjected to the Long March in April 1945. During this the flight engineer, Ginger Wheadon was shot by an RAF Typhoon. After being liberated and returning to the UK he served briefly in Egypt then Italy as an RAF transport driver. During this time he went to Egypt to visit his brother, Bob who was ill in Cairo. Eventually he was demobbed from Italy via Austria and Paris.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dick Curnock
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-04-26
Format
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71 printed sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BCurnockRMCurnockRMv1
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.
Austria
Austria--Villach
Canada
British Columbia--Abbotsford
Québec--Montréal
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
France
France--Paris
Gibraltar
Germany
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Darmstadt
Germany--Schweinfurt
Great Britain
England--Bridlington
England--Horsham
England--Leicester
England--London
England--Melksham
Italy
Italy--Bari
Italy--Cortina d'Ampezzo
Italy--Naples
Italy--Padua
Italy--Ravenna
Italy--Rimini
Italy--Rome
Italy--Udine
Italy--Venice
Malta
North Africa
Poland--Toruń
Germany--Lüneburg
Poland
Lithuania
Poland--Żagań
Lithuania--Šilutė
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
England--Christchurch (Dorset)
Québec
England--Dorset
England--Leicestershire
England--Yorkshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Bradbury
22 OTU
420 Squadron
425 Squadron
431 Squadron
434 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
animal
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
arts and crafts
bale out
bomb aimer
C-47
Caterpillar Club
crash
crewing up
Dulag Luft
final resting place
flight engineer
ground personnel
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hurricane
Ju 88
lynching
mess
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
P-51
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bridlington
RAF Cosford
RAF Dishforth
RAF Elvington
RAF Gaydon
RAF Inverness
RAF Manston
RAF Tholthorpe
RAF Wellesbourne Mountford
Red Cross
sanitation
service vehicle
sport
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 6
strafing
the long march
training
Typhoon
Wellington
Whitley
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force