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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/7/13/ADerringtonAP150715-01.2.mp3
2af1448baa606754816904ab2f0786c3
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Title
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Derrington, Arnold Pearce
Arnold Pearce Derrington
Arnold P Derrington
Arnold Derrington
A P Derrington
A Derrington
Description
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Two oral history interviews with Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington DFC (- 2016, 187333 Royal Air Force), a navigator with 462 and 466 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Derrington, AP
Date
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2015-07-15
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and I am conducting an interview with Doctor Arnold Pierce Derrington and we are in his house in Cornwall and we are going to talk about his experiences over the years in the RAF but starting off in his early days and then after the war with his civilian career. Today is the 14th July 2015 and I’m asking Derry to start in the early days. What was your background Derry and how did all of that progress?
DD: Well I was a child in Devon. I came to Cornwall at the age of eighteen months to live at St Erth. That’s still my model village and I was there until about 1930 and the family had grown by then and we moved to Marazion near St Michael’s Mount and I had my childhood days there. Very happy memories of Marazion and I still see friends from there and still hear from there.
I had a friend living nearby in a place called [?] and he was a navigator too. He’d been a clerk in an agricultural merchants and the, he went into the air force, and did a tour with Coastal Command and was posted to Rhodesia where he was an instructor. When he died eventually I spread his ashes from a lifeboat in Mounts Bay. But he and I were childhood friends. We were little rogues really because his father was a policeman and the father was very incensed sometimes. Some man came to him and said someone’s put water in the petrol of my motor tank in the tank the petrol tank of my motorbike and it turned out that we two boys had done it. Very embarrassing for the policemen. That boy’s sister is still alive. She visits me occasionally.
And at Marazion I was at the county school at Penzance and never dreamed I’d be flying. I saw Alan Cobham’s Air Circus. I’ve got his little notebook here. It’s in that blue container there. Do you have it? Alan Cobham’s book. That’s it. And I have a very dear friend I haven’t seen for seventy seven years. I went to that air display with his parents. And that was an air display that flew around with trailers behind the planes saying where the display was taking place and we were talking recently about that actual airfield which is between Marazion and Haile and my mother said, ‘Don’t you dare go up flying’ and I was offered a free flight and I did say no but within ten years I’d done a tour and got a DFC. It’s amazing how things go on isn’t it?
Now, where do we go from there now? I was at Marazion in the LDV or Home Guard and when I went to college at Exeter I decided to join the LDV there. And after a month or so the University Air Squadron was opening up in Exeter and I joined that and I was at St Luke’s, Exeter which was a teacher training place and until the last two or three years there were a few of us around but I’m the last one of them still going strong. One of the chaps Archie Smith from St Austell was on the county council with my wife. She was a councillor and had a very good career about it. She ended up with an MBE.
Well I went on then to University Air Squadron from this Home Guard lot there and I’ve even got a greeting telegram somewhere from a relation congratulating me on joining this University Air Squadron. I could dig that out if you want to see a picture of it I expect.
And well it was good training. We had a, a, a commanding officer called Searle who was the head of the physics department at Exeter and he had an adjutant called Crosscut and the main chap we met from an interesting flying point of view had the Croix de Guerre. He was a rear gunner. He was badly scarred.
And from the University Air Squadron I was attested in Weston Super Mare in June 1942 and that same month I joined the air force at Lords Cricket Ground. Our first payday, first money I’d earned in my life cause having been University Air Squadron I was a leading aircraftsmen and we were very superior indeed to the AC plonks. They only got a half a crown a day. And after a short time at Lords I was posted to Manchester to await overseas posting but they discovered that I needed corrective goggles so I was sent down to Brighton Aircrew Dispersal Wing, ACDW and had a very happy time there staying in a huge great hotel, sleeping on rough beds at the Hotel Metropole. And there was another one The Grand there was well and the [air?] parade still took place in those days and we saw some of the rather shaky soldiers who came back from there.
And from ACDW I was posted to grading school Ansty near Coventry. I was made into, well I did fly in a Tiger Moth but I was made into as a navigator and I’m very glad I was because it kept me going during the very horrible times that we were doing operations. I had my head down getting on with the job. I did look out a time or two but it was so horrific I got back to my base very soon and from the grading school I went to Blackpool waiting for overseas posting and from Liverpool I sailed to South Africa. It wasn’t straightforward because we were afraid of the submarines that might have damaged us so we went across the coast to America and then back again to freestone, Freetown and then from Freetown down around the Cape to Durban. We didn’t get off the boat at all. I was on gun duty on oerlikons.
When we got to Durban we went to a transit camp called Clairwood and there we were thrown an empty linen case and told to stuff it with grass because that would be our palliasse bed and the toilets, they were like huge great egg racks. I think there was accommodation for about eighty. And they fed us very well. It was very nice. The novelty of South Africa was interesting indeed. I met very interesting people there who worked in the Red Shield Club and they invited us into their homes and there was one family called Thornton who had a son same age as myself training as a doctor. I’ve heard from him right until recently when he died. And when I moved away from East London to Durban, Durban to East London we did some training in the air force work there. I went up there to do night flying at a place called Aliwal North and that was a place outside the town of Queenstown. It was a very strange volcanic rock there with a big flat top called [?] and there was [?] Association and I was a member of that for a long time and correspondence kept on.
And I met a dear man who was flying beside me called Harry Dunn. Because my name came in the alphabet first before his I was graded as first navigator he was graded as second navigator. And well I did turn out to be a better one than he did because I came top of the course. But Harry came to me when we went to our next stage up at Queenstown almost in tears. He said, “My maths is no good at all. Will you coach me?” Harry was out with the girls and drinking and didn’t bother at all really. He was good company but very happy go lucky.
And well we both got through and he came back with me on the same troopship back through Tufik (?)in the Red Sea. And the Germans were still in Italy and we had a lot of women and children on board who were being repatriated from India. They were service families. And they weren’t going to take any risks. When the Germans were clear, after a fortnight in Tufik we came back through the Mediterranean and home in time for Christmas 1943. And we were very popular because we brought back things which were normally rationed.
I bought a lovely Omega watch in East London for seven pounds ten shillings and well the same watch these days is nearly two thousand pounds. I lost that but that’s another story. I’ve bought another Omega since. I navigated on that one all the way through. They issued us with proper watches but I was delighted with my Omega. And I believe I had to hand wind it. I’d rather forgotten but recently I’ve seen the certificate when I bought the watch and apparently it had to be handed in to be oiled every year. Well mine never got any oil on it at all and I navigated on it pretty well. I was very happy with it. Delighted with my Omega.
Now where have we got? Oh yes. We were posted after Christmas leave, to West Freugh to acclimatise to British conditions and we flew up and down the Hebrides. Very fascinating indeed. I saw Iona which has a church which is the same pattern as our village church here in Pendeen - cruciform. And after going to this unit at West Freugh Harry got posted off to Transport Command and I was posted to Bomber Command. We were told, ‘write your wills. You won’t be here in six weeks time.’ I thought I’d find out how Harry’s going on. No reply. Wrote his parents – no reply. So I thought, well that’s it. I still have a lovely photo of him.
And I went on from West Freugh to, let’s see, OTU at Moreton in Marsh. Operational Training Unit. And that was on Wellingtons. In the meantime Harry had gone to Canada and became a fur merchant after the Transport Command experience as a fur merchant like his father was. And twenty or fifty years later on his conscience was pricking him because he had borrowed a book from an old aunt living near Bath and he came back to England from Canada to take this book to her. She was dead. Had an uncle ten miles away. Went to see him. He was dead too. So he thought I’m so far west I’ll go down Penzance and see old Derry. He didn’t tell me he was coming. I didn’t know where he was. I hadn’t forgotten him. And that day my wife and I were taking an old lady to hospital so we weren’t there in order to see him and Harry caught the train back to [?] to stay or he hoped to stay with a [sugar bidder[?]] there that he played rugby with before the war. When he got to the a [sugar bidder[?]] house he was out but the caretaker said, “Come on in and have a meal. He’ll be back in the morning.” and he was telling his tale of the book and going down to Penzance to see an old navigator friend. And that caretaker said was that navigator called Derry Derrington. He said, “How did you know that?” “I sat beside him on thirty one operations in bomber command. He was my navigator. I was his bomb aimer.” That dear boy has died since but his wife is still alive.
So after being at West Freugh Operational Training Unit there we crewed up, six of us, because we only had Wellingtons. We weren’t on a four engine outfit so we needed a flight engineer later and we gelled as a crew very quickly. Our pilot was an Australian called Les Evans, a dairy farmer’s son and he came from a place called Kingaroy in Queensland. And Les Evans was a very good pilot. He had been an instructor. We were all good chaps. We were never, there never was as good a crew as we are. Charlie will think so too. Charlie was friendly with another gunner called Dennis Cleaver and those two had crewed up together and they were looking for somebody to join and my pilot, Les Evans chose me for his navigator. I was delighted. Didn’t care whether he was Australian or Chinese or whatever he was. He was a dear old boy.
And after Les Evans, he and I were together, we chose the oldest wireless operator we could get and that was Tom Windsor. Tom was thirty one. We thought he was our grandfather [laughs] and Tom was a good old boy with the girls. One of the joking things which Charlie and I still talk about he used to say, “I’d like as many shillings,” and what that definitely meant we don’t quite know but we could guess all sorts of things. We were quite youngsters really in our early twenties. Tom was thirty one.
And well, we had Jonah who was in antiques with his brother. I was a trainee schoolmaster just qualified. Tom Windsor was a bookies clerk and Charlie and Dennis, the gunners, were both fitters and there were six of us. And we did OTU work at Moreton in the Marsh on Wellingtons and that was good. I saw my area where I live here from the air for the first time. I had been to see Alan Cobham’s Air Circus and did a flight - very limited indeed, but this was very wonderful to see our area from the, I suppose it was about ten thousand feet.
Well from the OTU we were posted to a Heavy Conversion Unit to get used to a four engine aircraft and we picked up an engineer who had been on the Queen Mary - Jock. Dear boy. Scotsman. A wee haggis we called him and he was good. In fact we had the most hair raising experience when we were doing a flight near the Isle Of Man because he had to change the petrol tanks over every so often in order to balance the aircraft, trim it up properly and he needed to go to the elsan and whether he was there longer then he should have done or what we don’t know but two engines cut out on us and I as navigator had to hold the escape hatch open, I did, ready for the crew to bailout and we got, Jonah, no Jock the engineer came back quickly, switched the right tanks over and she picked up and there we were again but we were very dicey indeed in those days.
Well we started our tour of operations. We were posted from our Heavy Conversion Unit to Driffield in Yorkshire just about twenty miles north of Hull. A lovely peacetime station. And the pilot did a second dickey, that is to give him experience. In the meantime we did all sorts of training to keep us well and fit. And on from there we started our own tour. And the first trip was an easy one cap griz nez. It was to do with army cooperation.
The second trip is one that was probably the most momentous in our lives. It was to a flying bomb site. Now on our back from leave we’d gone through London. We’d seen the headlines - Pilotless Aircraft over England and well those were the V1s and we didn’t know what that would mean and we were told this was a highly secret operation. We were not to talk to anybody about it at all and we were going to hit this target over, in daylight, at minute intervals. And as we were going down the country toward Beachy Head some silly bounder flying alongside us pressed the wrong button and what the crew were saying among themselves mentioned the name of the target. And that was [?] for the Germans. My pilot could see that every other aircraft was being shot down and he climbed an extra two thousand feet after Beachy Head [?] and did a shallow dive on the target. That gave us that bit more speed and we got there that split second before the minute was up but the flack came up and the Germans shot down one of their own fighters on our tail. Oh the gunners were quite screaming about it and we really felt we were getting acclimatised.
Well we got back from that we knew we’d got an aiming point. I’ve got a reconnaissance photograph of it here. It’s in my file which I’ll talk to you about later. That big fat file there is a list of all the things we did. All the, and I think it’s quite unique because the Australians were such a happy go lucky mob they didn’t collect them from us to shred them like most other people had done. I’ve got a complete unique set of operations and I know that we did well. We were good at wind finding and we did PFF support because we used to broadcast the wind that we found that was used by the master bomber.
Now where did we go from there? Well we did thirty one ops. Mainly over the Ruhr - Happy Valley, Flak Alley - all sorts of names for it and we got hit a time or two but we luckily came back and a lot of our dear chaps didn’t. I got back from a week’s leave and found seven complete crews wiped out. And they were dear boys. They were a jolly lot. They were mad as hatters. Motorbikes going around the mess, footprints on the ceiling. My speciality was doing forward rolls on the top of billiard tables or else in the fireplace. I’ve been told this later but I don’t remember it. And one chap flying with us he was the navigation leader he smoked his pipe through the side of the oxygen mask which was a little bit risky I think what do you think? Would you fancy doing that?
CB: No.
DD: No. No sensible person would I’m sure. In the middle of my tour I came home once and I thought I I’ll go up and see how my dad was getting on and I found him lying dead in the garden beside a bonfire. He’d had a stroke at the age of fifty four. That was, I was the oldest one of four children and my brother and I are the only two in our family now left but that was a great shock to me. It was the first dead person I’d seen and I was very saddened about it. I determined I wasn’t going to do any more flying when my tour was up although we were invited to be PFF people but I explained that I was the eldest of four and I couldn’t go back again and it wasn’t held against me. I was with a very fair lot.
The Aussies were a mad, happy lot. I got on wonderfully well with them. They were dears. And I never knew them do a bad, evil deed with anybody at all. They were wonderful. You’ll see pictures of some of them and some of the targets we had in my main logbook there.
Well we did get through our tour. I say the general thanksgiving every day for our creation, preservation. Preservation deeply underlined because we were preserved from all sorts of horrible things and we were able to save ourselves and our country by what we did. My Charlie, the rear gunner has a grandson I think it is who’s a Member of Parliament. There’s a photograph of him up there and I’ve got a letter of his in my general logbook here saying, ‘If I can do a much for the country as you chaps in Bomber Command then I shall feel I’ve done well.’ He’s a Doctor of Medicine as well as a Member of Parliament and I believe he had an increased majority at the last election. Charlie’s very proud of him. Charlie comes down this way on holiday occasionally. He was staying at a place called Mousehole not far from here with his, this man’s brother owns it and Charlie and his wife were down and we had some wonderful times together.
Earlier on I was talking about my friend in Canada who was, who met my bomb aimers crew over in Effingham near Goring and when this Harry came at one time he gave me my computer. Do you know it?
CB: I do.
AS: It’s a whizz wheel.
DD: A Dalton.
AS: A Dalton computer, yeah.
DD: A Dalton mark 3. While we were training as navigators this was our bible AP1234. There is an AP4567. I’ve seen it but I can’t get another copy. Anyhow, where I got this I don’t really remember but it was a precious book.
Well the tour was horrific. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world but I wouldn’t wish anyone else to have done it. And the crew were magnificent. We never had any quarrels or arguments. Les was a wonderful leader and well the mid gunner was a bit dicey sometimes but he was a jolly old boy and he loved singing too. We got on well. Talking about singing I’ve got a list of some of the ribald songs we sang.
We had lots of waiting around and because I live in the sticks down here in West Cornwall it took a long time to travel from Yorkshire to Cornwall. Twenty seven hours usually, stopping in London overnight very often, that I couldn’t come home on a forty eight hour pass. The time would be spent all with travelling and I passed my time away by doing this. This was my engagement present for my wife. This I did on an engineer’s bench in Air Force Station Driffield. The Song of Songs. In the back it says where it was done. Bound and written out by Arnold P Derrington between October and December 1944 at Driffield. I’m very proud of the title page of it. And I gave this to my wife and it will be my daughter’s eventually and this is the main title page. There.
CB: Wow.
DD: The Song of Songs. And I have bound a book before under ideal conditions but that was done on an engineer’s bench. The leatherwork as well and it’s very precious as you can imagine.
CB: What prompted you to do that?
DD: Pardon?
CB: What prompted you to do that?
DD: Well the language in it is very lovely and I felt it was a suitable engagement present for my wife.
[pause]
I’m wondering what is the next thing to talk about?
CB: Would you like to have a break?
DD: Hmmn?
CB: Would you like to have a break?
DD: No.
CB: Ok.
DD: No.
CB: So you said it was horrendous on operations so could you describe a typical operation that was hairy please?
DD: I got a diary which is totally illegal. There’s a black book over there somewhere. That’s it I think
[pause]
Yes diary of an RAF career after the 20th June ACRC etcetera. A tour of operations. An illegal document. Well its written, there’s quite a bit of detail there and I used it on one occasion for the people who are writing a history of our squadron. You see a book there, a big heavy book. That’s it. And my grandson Adam, who is going to have this stuff was so delighted he bought a copy for himself and, I was given a gratis copy and the two chaps who wrote it one is called Lax he was an ex air commodore and the other man there, a hyphenated name he was a chemistry professor very near where my daughter who lives in Australia. I’ve never met these two chaps but I’ve just had phone calls from them and with extracts from our diary and other things o sent them they got fifty references to us as a crew in that book. What’s it called again?
CB: To See the Dawn Again.
DD: To See the Dawn, yes. Well number, operation number eighteen. After much lighting, lightning the usual restless night I woke to a lovely morning. No signs of movement. Today is St Luke’s day. What happy memories it recalls. Possibly too many of us over the world - Canada, Africa, India, Gib West Indies and dear old England. Have I longed to, how I’ve longed to be on the cliffs today. Hanging around in the morning. FFI in the afternoon. Promise of pay then wait. Nothing doing. Draughts and roll call. Detailed for more, for move off tomorrow. I can’t read my own writing. Five weeks have elapsed since I heard from Helen and another five weeks will pass before I hear anything more. [?] I hadn’t done any operations that day.
CB: So this was a diary that you kept in addition to your logbook was it?
DD: Yes my logbooks are rather scruffy looking things.
CB: Yes I saw it on there.
DD: The South African one.
CB: Right.
DD: If I’d had it in England it would have had a rather nice blue cloth cover instead of a plain cover like that.
CB: Right ok. What prompted you to keep the diary?
DD: Oh just being [fussy?] and breaking regulations sort of thing.
[pause]
DD: I ought to be reading my own writing but I can’t.
CB: Well off the top of your head though what would you say was the most hair raising experience you had in a raid?
DD: Well even in the last raid we did. It was the 27th of December and we were going to the Ruhr and I’d had flu and I didn’t feel like flying at all. It wasn’t a case of LMF and it wasn’t a case of jitters it was a case of finishing near the end of the tour but I just did not feel well. My pilot Les said come on you’re alright you’ve always done well for us so far on previous occasions and off we went and I got taken sick and Jonah was sitting next to me the bomb aimer and I could tell him what to do when I couldn’t do it myself. And then I passed out and the heating failed at minus forty four. And we had to come down and I just vaguely knew what was happening. We had to come down to ten thousand feet because of the oxygen shortage. The heating had failed and the oxygen failed as well. And we had bombs being dropped by our own chaps up above and they were shooting at us down below and the fighters on our tail but I was able to work out the courses for the pilot. I’m sure you all know what the preparation is beforehand and there are estimated courses and things which one should take and as a navigator I’d worked that out in the briefing beforehand and I just read off from those and applied variation and deviation and gave the pilot those courses and we got through where we were going and whether we hit the target or not I don’t know because I handed over to Jonah, the bomb aimer. And on the way back I was feeling very unwell indeed and this was all due to the flu business I think. Anyhow, we did get back and thank God for that. That was a very hair raising situation to be in. I didn’t like feeling unable to do the job I had to do.
It was a very necessary job but a very horrible job and when I think we were trained to kill it’s a very revolting thought but if we didn’t do it we would have had much worse done to us as a nation and so I was very grateful to have got through my tour and because we were the only pommie crew amongst a lot of Australians they didn’t discriminate against us. Maybe we were favoured all the more I don’t know but they were dear fellows. We loved the lot of them and a very sad time it was when some got lost. There’s a recording of so many names of people who were lost after an operation.
That was a bit hair raising. Anything else you’d like to ask me?
CB: Yeah in practical terms was after the pilot was the navigator the most worked member of the crew?
DD: Oh yes and I was glad I was occupied like that. I didn’t see some of the horrible things that were going on but I had to record things. I had to give him new courses if need be and my main job was wind finding and I was able to do that well and our winds that we found were picked up, were broadcast so PFF could pick them up. And we were helpers of PFF we weren’t direct PFF people but PFF support was the denomination that we were given.
CB: So what is PFF?
DD: Pathfinders.
CB: Pathfinder right.
DD: Yes. They could wear a very special little golden wing.
[pause]
There’s a little map showing Elvington and such places we were talking about. You’ve got it alright?
CB: Yes thank you yeah.
CB Now on your plane.
DD: On?
CB On your Halifax did you have H2S?
DD: Oh yes.
CB: How did you use that?
DD: Yes.
CB: How did you use it?
DD: Well there was good screen to pick up the shape of towns and if a town had particular projection on one corner we could take a bearing on that and know where we were and I’ve got one chart in my, the big book which you can look at later on and I’ll show you a map which was specially adapted for H2S work. Gee was our main help and I’ve a Gee chart there. That gave us position line and we took a fix every six minutes and that was very handy because six minutes is a tenth of an hour and we could use the decimal point to move whatever our speed was. It was my job to find out what speed we were going. If we were getting to a place too early we’d have to do a dog leg beforehand. Do you know what that means?
CB: Just a weave.
DD: It was an equilateral triangle.
CB: Oh right.
DD: And you flew sides of it instead of a third and you just dodged with a piece across the bottom and you could lose two minutes or three if you would but that if you did that you were taking a colossal risk because you were crossing the main stream coming along. We were pretty close to each other sometimes.
CB: You couldn’t see them could you?
DD: No and there were times when you felt the slipstream of other aircraft almost as if the plane had hit a brick wall. She juddered because of it. Can you imagine that?
CB: How did you do your wind finding?
DD: Joining up the position on the ground to the position in the air and taking the vector that you got between the two you could work out the speed and the direction of the wind. The angle between the air position and the ground position gave you the direction of the wind. The length of the vector a quarter of the time you’d been working in the air you could work out the speed. It was done, this computer, are you aware what it was like? We had a red and green end on the pencil. It’s a laptop.
[pause]
DD: Had you seen one of these? No?
CB: No.
DD: No? Well speeds are set like that, went around that way and you put your wind on and you take a reading off against this point here and you know what angle we were working on.
CB: So this is the navigational computer mark 3, the Dalton Computer.
DD: And this was the circular slide rule converting centigrade to fahrenheit. Nautical to statute miles and so on. And my dear old friend on Transport Command brought that home from Canada for me.
CB: Oh did he? So it wasn’t standard issue in -
DD: Yes.
CB: The RAF? Was it?
DD: Oh yes.
CB: Oh it was. Right.
DD: Have a good look at it.
CB: Yes.
DD: And in that navigation manual there it tells you how to use it.
CB: Yeah.
DD: It talks about the duties of a navigator as such in that book too. The Navigator’s Bible.
CB: So back on operations a lot of it was the Ruhr. How did you actually find the target?
DD: Oh well the Pathfinders had been ahead normally and dropped flares. In daylight of course. It was a matter of the bomb aimer having taken near the target he’d then take over when we were say within ten miles of it, whateve,r and the target, when the PFF marked it, they had different methods of dropping flares. One name, I almost get nightmares about it - Wanganui. That was the name of an island near where Pathfinder Bennett lived. I’ve seen it from the air. Charlie Derby who you’ve met had been right around the south island of New Zealand and so had I. We went out at different times and stayed with Les Evans and his family. Les Evans has been here and stayed with us too. And Wanganui was the, when they dropped three different colours of flares and the master bomber would be overhead circling, looking down at the target and he’d give the bomb aimer instructions, drop your bombs to the right of the yellow flares or whatever. Yellow flares, red flares and green flares. Those were what we used.
And just to explain that Les Evans was an Australian but he emigrated to New Zealand.
DD: He married a New Zealand girl.
CB: Oh right.
DD: And he moved to Auckland.
CB: Right ok. So when you weren’t on operational flights what were you doing?
DD: Well keeping, getting as near to the right track as possible to the next turning point and we didn’t fly directly there. I can show you some little dots on little charts I’ve got there. Show you the operations we did and I’ve drawn them on straight lines but we never flew directly to the targets. This was in order to fox the Germans and we did all sorts of zigzags and shapes like that. And we also dropped window. Do you know what that is?
CB: Yeah.
DD: There’s some bits of window in my main big heavy blue book there. One of the wireless operator’s jobs used to throw out leaflets, propaganda leaflets. One thing which is rather saddening I had a lovely collection of leaflets and on one occasions when I was talking to a group somebody pinched them. I’ve got a few leaflets left but not the main lot that I did have.
CB: A collectable item.
DD: I suppose so yes.
So when you’re flying to the target you’re in a stream.
DD: Yes.
You’ve no idea where the other aircraft are. You said there were a number of issues, things that happened and you were glad you weren’t watching them because you were navigating so what sort of thing was that?
DD: Well it was up to the gunners and the bomb aimer went down into the nose. And they were keeping their eyes open for other aircraft too. We had no lights on of course as you can imagine and the pilot of course was alert to see that he was avoiding any other aircraft and you could feel the slipstream of other aircraft sometimes. It was quite a jolt at times to feel that but I still stayed at my post as navigator recording what was said by other people if it was necessary to record it and also making sure that I could easily feed the pilot with the course to steer once we’d been to the target.
I have rather an interesting business happening. Every October I go to a place called Porthleven and that’s where Guy Gibson was and I was flying at the same time as Guy Gibson but not actually on the same operations as he was and the people of Porthleven, he was there as a boy they’ve got a plaque up on a wall near the town clock which is away on a wing beside the harbour and because I’m a flying fellow I get invited over to it each year and they come and collect me for it and it’s a wonderful occasion. Very heartrending. And people reminiscent of their experiences of Guy Gibson as a child living in the town. Porthleven is about thirty miles from here I suppose. Out towards the Lizard Peninsula.
CB: As a crew, as a crew you did everything together.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: So when you weren’t flying what were doing?
DD: Writing that book you saw. Difficult to say. Ordinary sort of things. We visited local towns and did a bit of shopping. We weren’t a drinking party.
CB: Did you have many tasks to do on the airfield though?
DD: No.
CB: When you weren’t flying?
DD: Orderly Officer sometimes.
CB: Ahum.
DD: I was orderly officer on one occasion and a boy came up to the table and collected his pay, a corporal, and he’d been a boy at school with me. This was when I was at the Operational Training Unit and I got a message over the tannoy would Corporal Mitchell report to the Ordinary Officer. Got the fright of his life. Sounded terribly officious and when he saw me he just melted completely. And he was a boy with me at St Erth. His father was a carpenter and the president of the little band in the village and he was in that band.
CB: Now as you finished your operations.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: Then what happened?
DD: I got posted to Operational Training Unit as an instructor at Moreton in the Marsh and I decided then it would be a good time to get married and we lived in a village called Blockley which wasn’t far from the airfield there. It was an interesting little village. The plumber was called Mr Ledbetter.
[laughs]
The butcher was called Balhatchet. The chemist was called [Milton?] and I might think of a few more in a minute but, and the vicar was called Jasper. I was confirmed in Blockley.
CB: And what did you actually do as an instructor? Did you -
DD: Well, I didn’t fly then.
CB: Go up in the Wellingtons much
DD: I was a ground instruction.
CB: Right.
DD: And the young fellows who were going through were just needing, they were glad of my operational experience and one student who came through was a squadron leader who’d been with me in South Africa. He was a regular I think. I can’t think of his name now.
CB: And why would he be there?
DD: Oh to take a tour of operations. He hadn’t done any operations beforehand. He, he’d been a navigational pilot instructor. I can’t think of his name at all.
CB: No. So he was a pilot instructor as a pilot.
DD: Yes.
CB: But why was he getting navigation -
DD: He wanted -
CB: Training from you?
DD: To do a tour.
CB: Right.
DD: A tour was normally thirty one.
CB: Ahum.
DD: I believe Charlie who you met he had to do an extra one and he did it with a crew he had some illness or had flu or something and couldn’t go on operation with us and he said that they were a ropey lot. They were smoking. They were falling out among themselves and they were no, no sense of duty at all. But we were a very agreeable wonderful lot together and it was an experience that I can’t define. Closer than brothers. Our lives depended absolutely on each other and we relied on each other totally. Absolute trust. Absolute frankness.
CB: So what was your feelings at the end of the tour when you were all dispersed?
DD: When I was?
CB: When everybody was dispersed to other places.
DD: Well we wanted to keep in touch. We kept in touch with each other. I went to Dennis’ wedding at one time down at Llanelli and Dennis was a good old singer as I was saying. He had been a rather broad Oxford dialect beforehand. Now he’d become quite a little Welshman.
CB: So how long were you at the OTU as an instructor and what happened at the end of it?
DD: Well I was approached by someone who said, “You are an experienced navigator. Would you like to become a full time navigator?” I took the staff end course at Shawbury which was not far from Shrewsbury and right near there a place was called Church Stretton and the hill Caradoc which is the bungalow name here was overlooking where we were flying from. And the doctor who lived in this house before me came from that home district and he named this house after that hill called Caradoc which is a [?] in Shropshire.
Church Stretton has been rather precious to me because I had an aunt who lived there. She had a Breeches bible and she gave it to me which I’ve now handed to my son. My grandson Adam who will receive all my air force stuff he was married to a girl who came from there so we went back there to his wedding. And so church Stretton has been a little bit meaningful to us.
We had very good instruction there and I flew up to Reykjavik in Iceland. Went up on astro and came back on LRN Long Range Navigation.
CB: When you said you went up on astro that was because you were using the astrodome.
DD: Yes.
CB: And the sextant
DD: It wasn’t very, it wasn’t very accurate.
CB: But using a sextant.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: How often?
DD: A proper sextant.
CB: How often did you use sextants?
DD: Very rarely.
CB: On operation?
DD: I got I knew how to use one but it wasn’t used very often because it did need really precision and Gee and H2S gave us that. We could be much more precise than just map reading and well we were so high sometimes map reading wasn’t so easy and of course sometimes there was no character in what the land was below us.
CB: So how did you feel about using Gee because -
DD: Oh Gee was ideal. Yes the Gee screen gave us the position lines which we plotted and the more the angle between two position lines got nearer to a right angle the more precise it was. If it was shallow and less then say fifteen degrees it was little bit too inaccurate so we attempted to get position lines that would do that. In the book that I’ve got there the big heavy one you can look in that. Maybe you’d like to turn over a different pages in that and talk to me about that.
CB: Yes.
DD: But we, I stayed there after Shawbury, went back to Moreton in the Marsh again and I think I was offered the chance, “Would you like to come back in to the air force. Full air force.” No I didn’t wish to. I wanted to settle down to married life and family life and I did but I did ATC cadet work and that was very rewarding indeed.
CB: So -
DD: One of my cadets is still a local farmer here. He was a farmer’s boy and he was such a good cadet he was given something that in 1950 or so was a great privilege - a free flight to Singapore. I still see him and he still remembers the joy of being able to do that sort of thing. He went back to farming again.
CB: When were you demobbed and where?
DD: In September 1945. And my son David was born in that month as well. I was demobilised, where was it now? Harrogate I think. I’m not really sure. Harrogate I think.
CB: Right. I think in a moment we’ll pause for a break but just talk to me please a little more about H2S because that was sort of a mixed blessing.
DD: Well it was very good. H2S - just a code name for it, gave you on your screen a fluorescent picture of the ground below and towns stood out more so than anything else and if a town had a particular projection you could cotton on to that in order to get a bearing from it. And you’d rotate the screen [phone ringing] in order to – can you answer it please?
Tape mark 5308 the telephone begins to ring and the interview answers it for the interviewee – not transcribed.
Tape mark 5348 TAPE THEN REPEATS UNTIL MARK 1.47.20
CB: Derry we were just talking about the fact you were on 462 and then 466 squadrons
DD: Yes.
CB: At Driffield. Could you just explain how that evolved with the two squadrons?
DD: Well I started off with 466 all together but, and then 462 had been in the western desert and were posted back to England to take special duties. They were going to have a station of their own later on so we were transferred from 466 to 462 for that interim time. When 462 was built up to be a good squadron size then we were posted back to 466 and I can’t remember the name now but 462 went to not Swanton Morley
CB: Foulsham
DD: Faversham was it? That’s it so they were posted to that. They were a complete squadron on their own and you can read about it in the book by Mark Lax and the professor of chemistry. It’s possible that Mark Lax may be coming over to see me in late autumn this year. I’ve invited him. Whether he will or not I don’t know.
CB: So what’s his involvement with the squadron?
DD: He was just interested writing its history.
CB: Right.
DD: What his Australian Air Force career was I don’t know but he was an Air Commodore.
CB: And what age is he?
DD: Oh I should think middle fifties I should think.
CB: Right.
DD: They’re both younger than we are.
CB: So that covers that extremely well thank you very much and what were, oh final point. What were special operations?
DD: They might have been gardening which of course is laying mines in shipping tracks that was called gardening - code name for it. It could have been dropping food to needy people in certain areas that were damaged, overseas that is not in England. Those were their special duties.
CB: Right.
DD: They weren’t torpedo dropping but I did have a friend who was on Swordfishes dropping but that would have been a special duty but that was left to the RNAS which later was embodied in the RAF.
CB: Thank you. I’ll stop it there and pick up later.
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 Derry Derrington
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington grew up in Cornwall and joined the University Air Squadron at Exeter. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 and completed training at RAF Ansty, South Africa, RAF West Freugh and RAF Moreton in the Marsh, where he trained as a navigator on Wellingtons. He was posted to RAF Driffield where he served with 462 and 466 Squadrons. Most of his operations were over the Ruhr. He discusses H2S and Gee in detail. He was later an instructor at RAF Moreton in the Marsh and was demobbed in 1945. He kept a diary of his time in Bomber Command.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-14
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:56:20 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ADerringtonAP150715-01
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Heather Hughes
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
South Africa
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Warwickshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtownshire
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Gee
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
love and romance
memorial
navigator
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Driffield
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Shawbury
RAF West Freugh
sanitation
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/18/1559/LDarbyC1897788v1.1.pdf
fcd4a4bcfdac0e065595002419fce2ec
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
Darby, Charlie
C Darby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Charlie Darby (b. 1924, 1897788 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a poem and two photographs. Sergeant Charlie Darby flew 30 night time and daylight operations in Halifaxes with 466 and 462 Squadrons from RAF Driffield as a rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charlie Darby and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, C
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
Charlie Darby’s observer's and air gunner's flying log book
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDarbyC1897788v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Saint-Vith
France--Brest
France--Calais
France--Le Havre
France--Watten
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Jülich
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Koblenz
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Netherlands--Oostkapelle
Netherlands--Westkapelle
Germany
Netherlands
France
Belgium
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-08-24
1944-08-25
1944-09-09
1944-09-11
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-25
1944-09-26
1944-09-30
1944-10-15
1944-10-23
1944-10-29
1944-10-30
1944-11-02
1944-11-04
1944-11-16
1944-11-18
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-12-06
1944-12-21
1944-12-26
1944-12-28
1944-12-29
1944-12-30
1945-01-02
1945-01-05
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Observer's and air gunner's flying log book for Sergeant Charlie Darby, air gunner from 22 January 1944 to 16 January 1945. Charlie Darby was stationed at RAF Castle Kennedy and RAF Driffield where he flew Anson, Wellingtons and Halifaxes Mk 2 and 3. He took part in 30 night and daylight operations over Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands: Saint-Vith, Boulogne, Brest, Calais, Le Havre, Watten, Bochum, Bottrop, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Hannover, Jülich, Kiel, Koblenz, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Magdeburg, Münster, Neuss, Oberhausen (Düsseldorf) Sterkrade, Opladen, Osnabrück, Wilhemshaven, Oostkapelle, Westkapelle. His pilots on operations were Flying Officer Evans and Flight Lieutenant Stuart. Operations include V-1 sites and army cooperation, with details on anti-aircraft fire, searchlights and attacks by Me 109 and Me 110
1658 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Me 109
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Castle Kennedy
RAF Driffield
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Riccall
searchlight
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/18/1560/MDarbyC1897788-150717-01.1.jpg
2e57698d502400816d32f45eaeab07ec
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
Darby, Charlie
C Darby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Charlie Darby (b. 1924, 1897788 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a poem and two photographs. Sergeant Charlie Darby flew 30 night time and daylight operations in Halifaxes with 466 and 462 Squadrons from RAF Driffield as a rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charlie Darby and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, C
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined]Ode to an air gunner[/underlined]
If I must be straight rear gunner
then please God grant me grace,
that I may leave this station
with a smile upon my face.
I may have wished to be a pilot
and Joe along with me,
but if we were all pilots
where would the Air force be.
A pilot is only a chauffeur
and he’s there to fly the plane,
its the Gunner who does the fighting
though he may not get the fame.
It takes a man to be a Gunner
to sit out in the tail,
when the Messerschmitts come at you
and the slugs fly like hail.
But we’re in here to win the war
and ‘till the job is done,
let’s forget our personal feelings
and get to work behind the gun.
[underlined]You’ll Get Your Reward[/underlined]
An A.G. stood at thee Pearly Gates,
His face was worn and old,
He meekly asked thee Man of Fate
“May I come into thee Fold?”
“What have you done?” St. Peter asked
“To gain admission here”.
“I was a Tailend Charlie on a Halifax, Sir
For thee best part of a year.”
Thee Pearly Gates swung open wide
As St. Peter rang the bell.
“Come in,” he said “and welcome lad,
You’ve served your time in Hell.”
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
Ode to an air gunner
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Poetry
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MDarbyC1897788-150717-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Describes the role played by the air gunner and his attitude toward danger. In the afterlife, the air gunner goes straight through the Heavens's gate as his wartime suffering is considered equivalent to expiation.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Charlie Darby
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printout
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.
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
arts and crafts
military ethos
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/18/1563/ADarbyC150630.2.mp3
da9e5105946763a779ff81714d32e118
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
Darby, Charlie
C Darby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Charlie Darby (b. 1924, 1897788 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a poem and two photographs. Sergeant Charlie Darby flew 30 night time and daylight operations in Halifaxes with 466 and 462 Squadrons from RAF Driffield as a rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charlie Darby and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, C
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: Right, so my name is Chris Brockbank and I'm here to interview a gentleman on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre and the interviewee is Mr Charlie Darby and we've got here his wife Barbara as well and ably assisted and interrogated by Tony Lee their son-in-law.
CB: Okay Charlie it's running now, so here's Charlie Darby and please tell us about your life, Charlie.
CD: I'm Charlie Darby, I was born on the 26th May 1924 from a family of six boys, three girls and went through normal schooling. Went to work at fourteen [pause] er and when I became seventeen I was directed labour a government scheme that you had to fall in line with. If you didn't, there were two other choices: down the mines or prison. So, I took the job on which was at Mirdam [?] Ways, High Wycombe dismantling Churchill tanks. And I stuck at that for eighteen months and I just did not want to know any more about it [laughter]. So there was only one thing to do; that was to volunteer for the forces. And that's how I became to join the Royal Air Force. Now, having joined the Royal Air Force, or rather prior to that, I had to have an attestation which I took at Houston House, Houston Square in London. Got the result, I was passed to go into aircrew. Now, I waited my call up which came the 20th of September '43. I had to report to St John's Wood, London, for two weeks initiation. The same day of joining, I had to go down to Lord's Cricket Ground to get kitted out. And from there, I went to Bridlington ITW (Initial Training Wing) for eight weeks training. From there, number 3 EADS Bridgnorth, another eight weeks, from there, that was EDA Elementary Air Gunnery School. From there, to a place in Scotland, I don't know where they got it from but I was there. [background laughter] A place called Castle Kennedy. Never did see the castle. Eight weeks there was the AGS which I successfully passed and I was made aircrew and presented with brevet and I then awaited call to my next station which was Moreton in Marsh Gloucester, 21OTU and this is where we crewed up. There was one day we were assembled on this bit of green, [cough] and three officers came and approached us NCOs and my pilot, navigator and wireless operator were the three officers. And Les, my pilot, approached, we accepted and we found out afterwards: 'How did you do this, Les?' 'I went to each section and looked at your, your pass marks' and that's how he took judgement on us. Because we had our names on our breast and he knew where to go, he knew the names he was looking for. So therefore that is the way we crewed up. But, you never had an engineer, that came at a late a stage er at Heavy Conversion Unit. Which is what we did, er, [pause] yes just after that. But prior to that even, still in Yorkshire, we went to a place called Acaster Malbis and did a battle course. That was living rough, think that was the only, the occasion arise, you got adapted to it. Anyway, we went on to Riccall, near Selby, to 1658 Heavy Conversion Unit and did our first flying on four engines. And from there, we went to my operational station of Driffield where 466 was. Did er, training from there prior to operations [pause] yeah but-
CB: Okay we'll stop there for a mo. What I'd like to ask you to do please, Charlie, is to explain so we can understand what's coming next, how you were trained, so what happened at your initial training and in your gunnery training? So, how did that go?
CD: Dis-dis-discipline and er squad marching [pause] that it?
CB: Okay.
CD: Only two weeks of it.
CB: Right, then gunnery? So you had initial gunnery and then main gunnery.
CD: Initial training wing a little bit more extra started to pick up Morse code.
CB: Right
CD: That's something we had to know as a gunner to help the navigator. We had to know Morse at a simple rate of eight words a minute which was what occults and pundits flash at the rate of. A pundit flashed two red letters which were the letters of the aerodrome but an occult flashed one letter in white, that gave a navigator a bearing. So if you saw an occult flash, you called up your navigator and told him 'occult flashing so and so'. And then I guess I've got the bearing, we're not, we're about a mile off track. That sort of talk. Right then that it?
CB: And you're gunnery, so how did the gunnery training go?
CD: Very good.
CB: So what did they do initially?
CD: They started off with -
CB: Shotguns, was it?
CD: Yeah, yeah, started off with a point two two, a little pallet of a shot. At short range, yes, did quite a lot of clay pidge shooting, er, learning deflection. And from there, we didn't, we didn't go on to the main guns until we got to um [pause] er OTU. We were there on Wellingtons, oh may I add that, at this stage we haven't got a flight engineer. That came when we met with four engines, 'cause you didn't need a flight engineer on a Wellington.
CB: No.
CD: A pilot did all his -
CB: Yeah
CD: fuel changing. So we are now at Riccall on heavy conversion work. The normal day light, night time, cross countries, air-to-sea, air-to-air, firing and er -
CB: Were you firing live or with a camera gun?
CD: If we having fighter attacks you had a cine camera twenty-five feet of camera. And they assess you on the radical [?], on the film. To see whether you were on target or not. Er -
CB: And they had towed targets, did they? They had towed targets for you to shoot at?
CD: Yes the drogues I forgot that.
CB: Drogues
CD: I forgot that, I should have come up with that and erm -
CB: So that was live ammunition?
CD: Castle Kennedy, yes, at Castle Kennedy we were on Ans- I sh [?], I can't think of it all the time -
CB: That's alright, that's okay
CD: I can now, we were on Ansons, and an Anson took six gunners up at the time. And the one that sat next to the pilot wound the wheels up. Twenty-three turns, I might add. [laughter] Anyway, the drogue was towed by a Martinet, just above you, in front of you. So all you had level with you and behind was the drogue. Now, each gunner had a colour and the tips of those bullets for the space of two-hundred rounds I would think at the time, blue, red, etcetera etcetera. So if you were blue, they knew you were blue, bad aim [?]. And if you fired at this drogue, they'd count the number of blues and cut them in half, because it's going through the drogue, it's making two blue marks so it's gotta be halved. That's how they assessed how many hits you had. [pause] er this -
CB: I'll just stop you a mo. [beep] Right, so we're restarting now, with Charlie.
CD: I was -
CB: Johannson [?] wheels.
CD: At Castle Kennedy AGS and we were six to a plane. Six to an Anson. And the last one in sat next to the pilot who and then you had to wind the wheels up for him and [pause] I er, rather premature in that respect whereby I started to wind the wheels up far too soon for the pilot, not 'No no no!' he said 'I have not trimmed it yet'. By the way, he was a Polish pilot [laughter].
TL: Now carry on.
CD: And now, I finally passed the exam to become an air gunner and I went on leave waiting for posting to 21 OTU Moreton in the Marsh. This is where we crewed up, man-to-man, assembled on the grass. People approached one another, and that's how crews were formed. [pause] er less, a flight engineer, as you didn't need them on twin engines air craft. That was selected when you went to RCU - HCU - (Heavy Conversion Unit). The one we went to was 1658 Riccall, near Selby, Yorkshire. This was where my pilot selected his engineer, from thereon, we were fully crewed. Went on to four engine training, did the right exercises, then went from there to squadron. We were put to Driffield where 462 was, 466 was rather, beg your pardon, and in the time of pre-training operations, 462 came from out of the desert and reformed at Driffield. Ah, by the time we got operational, our first operation was with 466 and then, the time we come to our second operation, 462 was formed. Australian, yes, these were Australian squadrons by the way, and when we got through our second operation, 462 were ready formed up and started and we did our second op on their inauguration on the squadron. From there on, we did our operations. We did twenty-three in all on 462. And they were then posted down to Foulsham in Norfolk, on RCM work (Radio Counter Measures) which was in 100 Group. As we had only seven to do, they put us back on the 466, it wasn't worth sending us down there to do seven operations. They switched us back to 466, and there we completed our tour, which in January 1945. Now, the nitty gritty bit is, I ended up going into hospital halfway through my tour, which put me behind my crew. So, it eventuated that I had one trip to do at the time when my crew had done the last trip which was Hanover one the 5th of January. From there, I was placed on a battle order the next night with a crew strange to me by the name of Flight Lieutenant Stewart. And it was a hair raiser, [laughter] things like we were just set course, and one shouts to the other 'Throw the cigarettes up then, I threw them up last night!' Now, our pilot’d had gone beserk if we'd have smoked on an aircraft. With hundred octane petrol about, not good is it? Not good for life. However,[background noise] I managed to get through that operation [background noise] I went on these then I had to report to ACRC Catterick (Air Crew Receiving Centre) as we were being made redundant to be put on a ground staff job. Thus, what we did to the day I was demobbed.
CB: So, just going back now, to the HCU.
CD: Yes.
CB: When you're at the HCU, how did the programme go to create a crew that was operational?
CD: We did the right designated exercises to do, so many affiliations with the fighter, at night and day, to resemble an operation. Now, coming back to my initiation at squadron, we were on a cross country, a daylight cross country, which took us the last [pause] part of the er, cross country. We took a leg up to Belfast. We turn off at Belfast down to Fleetwood, near Blackpool. Well, we got to Belfast the while, the flight engineer said 'We're going down to the Elsan, Snowy' That was the pilot's nickname, Snowy. Okay, so we get down there and all of a sudden four engines cut. [laughter] 'Jock [?], where the hell are you?' [laughter] 'Down at the Elsan], Snowy', 'For Christ's sake, get back here soon! Sooner than that' he says. [laughter] We were icing up, because there were icicles on my gun that night outside, and everybody was getting to stations of bail out [background laughter]. We are now over the Irish Sea, heading towards Fleetwood, and Jock rushed back quick as he could and changed over and all the four engines picked up, just like that. In that time, all four engines had cut and we'd lost 5000 feet, fell like a tree. Everything righted itself. The explanation was for the engineer was he thought, he thought that the dials indicators were frozen. He said he checked them before he left his post but they were showing still fuel in the tanks but it wasn't so. [laughter] However, all was fair, we managed to get back to base, and that was the start of operations for you. That was a lift that, wasn't it?
CB: Now, were you mid-upper or were you tail-gunner?
CD: Rear. I was tail.
CB: Right, so did you come to choose that yourself?
CD: Well -
CB: How did you decide which position to be in?
CD: I favoured the dr- rear to be honest, and, we don't come on to operations. We are now, our second operation, the first on 462, was the flying bomb site at a place called Waddon [?] just the side of Dunkirk. And we did that one Friday evening and daylight. Succeeded with that, got to, I think, number seven. We went, we were designated to Kiel, U-boat pens , that was a night trip, very bad weather round the target area. But coming back we somehow had a fracture of the oil pressure. We're coming back over the North Sea and the pilot realises that he's got one wheel down and one up. The whole of the distance across the North Sea, he was up and down up and down with the good wheel hoping for something to happen. After about an hour, it succeeded. It dropped the good wheel and they both went back together and that was solved, just like that. That was Kiel. Now, we're coming now into September, we went to a place called Neuss in the Ruhr - N E U double S. On leaving the target, a hazy target as well because there were plenty of fires. Dead astern of me was this 1-1-0 or 2-1-0 it didn't matter, literally identical but for a small [inaudible] unrecognisable one from the other. Oh, I butted on here because, going back to my training, the instructor would always say to you 'traverse your turret'. Now after, between there and becoming operational, I sat sometimes and thought a lot. Now, if I'm round there, he could be coming from there, I can't see him. So, I decided in my mind, I'm just gonna sit there, and look. You pick things up and you cover a bigger area than you would by doing this. Because, by doing that, he could be there, it only takes seconds. You wouldn't know anything about it. So that's what I, I kicked that one out of the window and I always sat dead astern, looking dead astern, and looking for everything that's coming from those quarters, because that's where it comes from. And coming back to this, where I sighted this 1-1-0, 2-1-0, whatever, if I'd have done what my instructor had told me, I probably wouldn't be here now. To the point that I saw him, and I kept my eyes on him, and I had already informed the pilot 'prepare to corkscrew' it's gonna be port because he was dead astern of us and they're at our height [?]. So I let him get nearer, and then I gave the order to corkscrew which was to port. Now, there's one advantage there by going to port, it helped the pilot who was sitting on the port side, as he goes down to come back up, he can see going down and he can see going back up. Didn't fire, I always held fire because on your ammunition belt, every fifth bullet was -
TL: Tracer.
CD: Tracer. And with the speed of the guns firing eight hundred rounds a minute, that tracer becomes a red line and it immediately gives your position away. And that's one thing you should not do, give yourself away. [phone rings] You, you er, you er, [background noise] [pause] yes, you must not give your position away. I'm there to defend the aircraft, I don't attack, I only attack with bombs, so therefore, you do not [phone pings] put yourself in that situation by what they call firing in anger. I didn't believe in it and I never ever would but I never did it. And I think on those, on those terms, puts us on the right side of success. You getting through?
CB: This was in the night, was it?
CD: Eh?
CB: This was in the night this 1-1-0, 2-1-0 were coming at you.
CD: Yeah, at night, yeah. But in the day light totally different. They can see you, you can see them.
CB: Exactly.
CD: You adopt a different attitude then.
CB: Do you think he'd seen you?
CD: Hum?
CB: Do you think he had seen you?
CD: Oh yes, without a doubt. He had probably honed onto us. He was going that fast, it was this [pause] a matter of seconds, eight seconds, and it was all over. He never fired, by the way. So it just shows you how things happen so quick and once we did that, to start down on the corkscrew, it went, Dennis ran right us and said 'There he goes' I said 'I know Dennis I've been following him all the way along.' As we went down on the corkscrew, he went over the top of us. Now, my pilot comes up and we're in a bubble of corkscrew, I won't, I won't say the complete statement but he said 'Let's go back up and see where he is' I says 'You stop down here'.
TL: Or words to that effect.
CD: Plus a few more syllables. [laughter] Deathly hush, deathly hush because I chewed him. [laughter] And I, I'm now saying to myself, 'What have I said?' Sat in that turret thinking ‘I'm really heading for it now’. Not a word was said and between there and getting back to base, I made up my mind, if he doesn't say anything, then I won't. Let it just calm away. That's just what happened. Nothing was said. I think, I think, in a nutshell, he knew I was right. Well, I know I was right, because we were told in training, back in training, a pilot is always the captain of the aircraft but in a situation where you're under attack, he takes orders from you. That's why I did it, that's why I said it. But, having said that, I still, I still blinkering [inaudible], what am I heading for [laughter] because I could really have been brought upon the coals about this. But no, it petered out.
BD: You dropped your bombs.
CD: Yeah.
CB: What do you think was in his mind?
CD: Well, being a naughty, I think he being a bit of a daredevil. Or, he was making a joke of it. But it was the wrong time of day to make a joke! [laughter]
CB: So what other incidents did you have that were-
BD: What about when, when erm, chap shot the mid-upper, nearly shot you?
CD: Yes, I'm going back to pre-operation training-
CB: Right.
CD: At Driffield. After a daylight operation, beg your pardon, a daylight wide cross country, we had to go out into Bridlington Bay, do some air-to-sea firing at nought feet. He's shooting the foam to get deflection. He said, my mid-upper said, 'Do you want me to fire first?' I said 'Yes, okay Dennis' so he fired his five hundred off, he said 'I've finished now' and I went to go traverse round onto the beam to start mine, and I heard this zoom, and there's an on and off oxygen dial just slightly above my head to the left that hit that and went somewhere in the turret [laughter]. What was it? It was a cooked round from one of Dennis's guns. When the guns finished firing, they should always stop in the recoil position so they're clear of a round. So every time a breechblock goes forward, it takes a round with it up the spout of the gun. Hence, what they call a cooked round. The bullets in the barrel, the heat of the barrel sets it off. That's what happened. I did not fire one shot [background laughter]. It was straight back to base, to get inquiries on it. The gun, the gun was faulty. It er, it should have stayed at the recoil position but it just did not. Hence, the cooked round.
CB: So of the thirty operations you did, how many were in the dark at night, and how many were daylight? Roughly?
CD: Twenty-three daylight and seven night, I did.
CB: Other way around?
CD: No beg your pardon, that's wrong.
BD: It's the other way round.
CD: Twenty-three on 462, seven on 466. No, I did fifteen on each. Fifteen daylights, fifteen nights. At one stretch there I did ten in nine days I think it was.
CB: And how often did you have to use your guns?
CD: I didn't. I say, I did not fire in anger. I made my mind up on that one. This is the trouble with, I think, I may be wrong, but I think that by firing away willy nilly at something they got a hold on you. You see that tracer? Why expose yourself?
CB: What was the purpose of the tracer?
CD: If you were guidance. Give you, give you a guide to what you were shooting at. And, I would never, ever fire in anger. And I think, in my mind, I think that's where we lost quite a few aircraft. Not saying I'm right, but I would think it inclinates that way.
CB: How often were the aeroplanes hit?
CD: How many?
CB: How often were the aeroplanes hit by flack or fighter?
CD: Varied. I, there was one instance at a place called Bochum this was on November the fourth, fifth, where I saw one of ours over the target. It was on fire from wingtip to wingtip and it came to pass in the aftermath and later years that it turned out to be Joe Herman and with the descriptions that I know of now, that resembles Joe Herman's aircraft. The one where he finally went out last but it was blown out. The plane then blew up. I never saw the explosion, but I saw it from wingtip to wingtip. On our course, it wasn't spiralling out of control, it was still going along you know. But I can't keep looking all, too long, you've gotta look after yourself. So it was a question of just that and concentrate on your own, you know, it's, and that's what happened. It blew up. And it blew Joe out of the aircraft without a parachute. And, he went down, down, down, grabbing at anything possible. And he finally grabbed something and it was the legs of his mid-upper gunner on his chute. They went down together and they were talking to one another on the way down but he said 'Just prior to hitting the ground, I'll release myself' which is what he did, and he broke his leg doing it. Vivash [?] came out of it alright. And, er, but the others had already bailed out, they were the last two to go and Harry Nott the flight engineer was, he he was asked, told to put the fires out, the small one in the fuselage. Well, he did that but then the whole kaboosh was alight, wing tip to wing tip. So he bailed out and he hid in the forest for five days, eating anything he could put his hand to. But he decided to cross the Rhone [?] and that's where he was caught. He was made prisoner of war and the other three, four, Vivash and Joe heard gunfire. It came to pass over latter years but quite recently in this day that the, the blokes were shot by Gestapo. That was, one bloke was Underwood he was the bomb aimer, Wilson, someone else and, how this has all come about now whereby I've got young enthusiasts of 462 and 466 that have taken me up in the last two years back to Driffield and has encouraged me to go with them and tell them all the things that I've been telling you now. And Paul Nott was the great-nephew of Harry Nott the engineer on Joe Herman's crew. Now, Paul, as an enthusiast he is, he's a private pilot himself. He had this painting done by someone in Shrewsbury. He flew up and collected it. Went over to Aces High in Wendover and had it framed. And now he's got it hung in his office at Ascot. In my plane he's put above it between two searchlights because I told him I saw that plane on fire. It could onl- the description that he gave was identical to what I saw it could be no other. And that's how it's now become we're close friends with the Australians, Tiana Adair the lady. Her father was a pilot I think he was, and all these things of years gone by have all come together with someone being a relative of someone. And this is what has happened. I went, only this April on Anzac day (April the 25th) and we went to Driffield Gardens and we had the memorial which we dedicated in 1993 and Joe, Harry Arnes and myself, he's a prominent air gunner and he was on his second tour. Incidentally at Driffield he was on his second tour and I've met him twice since and last year we laid the wreath at the Gardens memorial and he came this year again but he had to get away quickly because he was going the next day to Drongen in Belgium to another parade. So, things went well. So the point, yes, it renewed our old way of living as regard being air crew in World War Two.
CB: So what was your pattern of living? What was the pattern that you went through? You got up in the morning.
CD: Yes.
CB: What happened?
CD: You went to, you went to your section and did a DI on your, on your turn (daily inspection). You cleaned your, you cleaned the Perspex with special Perspex polish to cut out all spots from the engine you get exhaust oil splashes the like and believe you me if you got any like that you think well that's an aircraft that one and that spot of oil on the air on the Perspex. So it was down to you to keep your turret clean. It's your vision, you rely on it. So-
CB: What about the guns?
CD: Yes.
CB: What about the guns? How did you clean those?
CD: You clean those with what they call four by two.
CB: Wooding?
CD: Yes, a cloth, like a flannel. You had a pull through. We cleared the flannels. Yes.
CB: So after the DI, then what?
CD: Well, you went back to section. And then if the battle orders come out, you look up and saw upon the jar the DROs and you destined. Report to briefing at so-and-so time. From there on things worked.
CB: What's a DRO?
CD: Daily routine orders.
CB: Right.
CD: Sorry.
CB: Okay.
CD: And each section line pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, went to their respective section, did a flight plan after briefing. And the gunners, engineers just sat and wait and report to parachute rooms at such-and-such a time. From there on it was on the, the bus to the perimeter track to dispersal point got up your aircraft. In my case, set my guns to fire. There's a fire and safe on each gun so you had to put it on fire, from there on hold it there.
CB: 'Cause you got four 303s you didn't have the retro fitter point fives [?]
CD: Yes I had round a minute they fire. So you got three thousand two hundred a minute. But you'd never fire it for a minute, just short sharp bursts. Yes, so-
CB: So what time would you normally be going on a raid? Did it vary a lot?
CD: Anytime. Any time of day, yes. Daylights. When we, when the, [pause] when the [pause] erm, the army was for-, going forward in France, we were always bombing the French ports because that was the last of the resistance from the guards, the German army, and they were really dug in, they were very hard to get out, suss out. And [background noise] to do a daylight, early morning, you were up at one o'clock, two o'clock. You were called by someone in the guard room came round your billet woke you up. From there on breakfast, briefing, the [inaudible], airborne, drop your load and back you come. Now, as I say, that varied, as my log book shows. Any time of day, any time of night. And I might add, every time we came back and entered the debriefing room, there was always that man stood there by the, by the tea urn [laughter] and the biscuits. And the station padre, no matter what time of day or night, he was always there. Something I noticed, it always sticks in my mind, how dedicated that man was. Yeah.
CB: How did the crews feel about that? How did the crews feel?
CD: Well about like, about the same as me I think. Such dedication, this, this is what went through all aircrew as well. You know, you had to do that to survive.
CB: What was your crew like?
CD: Very good, very good. My, especially my navigator, he was quite exceptional. And Tom, the wireless op, yes, good man. Lost him quite young, he was, he was the daddy of the crew. We were twenties and he was thirty-one. And he died when he was forty-two, back in '54. Terry and I and the bomber, we went to his funeral in London. Yes. And pilot, Les, he came over on two occasions. He was married to a New Zealand girl. He got married, lived in Australia, and his home town of Cowgill [?] Cowgill [?], yes. And she wanted to go back home, she couldn't stand the heat. This he did, [background noise] and when we went and met him on our fiftieth wedding anniversary, my son-in-law, daughter, two sons and two grandsons put us on an air ticket and we had two weeks in Brisbane with her cousin, the other two weeks in North Island New Zealand with Les my pilot and his wife. But sadly since then, they've both passed on, and my wife's cousin. And at that stage, we're now left with one two three four five. In turn, they've all died off to the point now that where there is only two of us. That's Derry, my navigator and myself.
CB: As a crew, what did you do when you weren't flying?
CD: My first and foremost job was and I did it every day like a nut, I used to write to her, yeah.
BD: Her?
CD: Every day. Can you imagine that? I think I should put it on a rubber stamp because it's the same old things I would say [laughter].
CB: We're talking about Barbara here.
BD: Yes.
CB: And what a lucky lady she was. [laughter]
CD: Yeah, well there you go you see.
CB: We're just going to stop for a cup of tea now.
CD: Okay.
CB: And pick it up in a minute. [Beep]
[At 50:20 there is a break and the recording seems to start again on another day]
CB: Right, my name is Chris Brockbank, listeners, and we're now on the 7th of July and we're with Charlie Darby and Barbara Darby and Tony Lee their son-in-law. And we're just going to pick up on where we finished up last time really which was the end of the war. And then we'll pick up on some other items. So, Charlie, we came to the point where the operations finished, what happened next? You'd done your thirty.
CD: After leave.
CB: Okay, so how much leave did they give you?
CD: Oh, there was about six weeks.
CB: Right. Yep. And then what?
CD: We then had a telegram to report to Catterick on ACRC [background noise] (Air Crew Receiving Centre) as we were going to be made redundant, they would issue us with a ground job. And, that was it. I went in on to a course called aircraft finishing which was a coating of paints and so forth, putting on [inaudible?] on aircraft. I went on a course down to Locking in near Weston-Super-Mare for that. And along came the end of the war. And from there on I just went from pillar to post, station to station, and things were never, did never happen as regards that course. So as I've told you earlier, we were just a person not needed.
CB: How did you feel about that?
CD: Well, depressing.
CB: Was all, were all the crew members together?
CD: No, no, we all went respective ways. My pilot is now already on his way home, all’s finished with him as far as that was concerned. The re-, Derry, the navigator, went to Morton in Marsh as navigation instructor. My other gunner, he went down to Wales-
CB: What was his name?
CD: On the bombing site-
CB: What was his name?
CD: Dennis.
CB: Dennis.
CD: And in the end, he turns up marrying a Welsh girl and that's where he stayed. And that's where he died, in Wales. Don, similar aspect, but then he went on the, the er Elizabeth Line.
CB: Was he the bomb aimer?
CD: No, he was the flight engineer.
CB: Right.
CD: [background noise] He went as a steward on the Queen Elizabeth and something else. Arthur, the bomb aimer, he went on a bombing site. He was sol- a practice bombing site. He was sole charge of that, somewhere up in the Midlands, and that just about covers it.
CB: And the signaller-
CD: The wireless op-
CB: Wireless op, yeah-
CD: I never did know what he went in to. And then, as I said before, shortly after that he died, not many years after this.
CB: He was the one who died - he was the grandpa of the crew and died at forty-two?
CD: Yes that's correct, yes.
CB: Right. Now, your rank when you were flying most of the time was flight sergeant?
CD: No sergeant.
CB: Sergeant.
CD: Sergeant.
CB: When did you become flight sergeant?
CD: About, it came in about a year's time, a step up.
CB: Okay. And then you became a warrant officer, when was that?
CD: Yes. That warrant officer, that was between '46 and seven. Immediately I got it, immediately they took it away. That sort of time.
CB: And put you back to what?
CD: Sergeant, basic sergeant.
CB: And what happened to your pay?
CD: Still the same.
CB: You still get flying pay?
CD: No, no. The rank of whatever.
CB: But the flying pay stopped when you stopped flying did it?
CD: So I. Yes. I think so.
CB: How much did you get paid? Do you remember?
CD: I think it's something like fifteen shillings a day. Something like that.
CB: And then the flying pay. How much?
CD: [Pause] Tough to say.
CB: Okay, doesn't matter. Now, going back to the early days-
CD: Adding to that, mind you-
CB: Yeah?
CD: We had a donater by the name of [pause] he was, er-
BD: Nuffield?
CD: Pardon?
BD: Nuffield.
CD: That's right, Lord Nuffield. He gave money to operational aircrew and you received that every leave you went on while operating. To the, to the tune of fifty shillings, something like that, every six weeks. And that fund is a trust fund still running today. Yes. I had the pleasure of meeting him once on the golf course up here at Flackwell Heath. Yeah, anyway that's another point.
CB: After the war?
CD: After the? No. No, during the war.
CB: Oh.
CD: It was on my first leave in '43. Amazing isn't it?
CB: Yeah.
CD: Then were we? I was on a ground job, yes, but it didn't materialise as I thought it was going to do. Like Dennis, Arthur, they had a distinct job of doing something on a bombing range. Well, that didn't happen as far as I was concerned. It just didn't have an end to it. I was in the end just doing silly jobs. You can't describe really.
CB: So how did they - when did they demob you? And what was the process?
CD: They demobbed me in '47, May '47. I had to go to Lytham St Anne’s near Blackpool where I was issued with civvy clothes and came home on leave, the something about leave, and then that stopped. In other words, go and get a job.
CB: So what did you do?
CD: From there, I went into Hoovers. Hoovers Limited. It was like engineering. In the time I was there in twenty years my, my bit of fire service experience before I joined up came to light again as they had a fire crew within the works and I was able to join that. Which is what I did.
CB: That was as an extra? Or full time?
CD: That was during the work time. Any fire on the building, you went to it at the same time the local fire engine was coming up. Yes. We were paid a, extra and they used us funnily enough to collect the wages every week. Down in the town, down the bank because we were insured as firemen so that allowed them to insure - to use that same insurance for us to go down the bank and collect the money. Every Friday, I had to wear a mackintosh. Along, along, a - with weather like this or even hotter, I had to go and pedal into work with my mate 'What the hell you got that mac for?' I says 'It might rain, you know?' I dare not tell him the secret was I had to wear a poacher's jacket underneath which held all the paper money. And we used to go down to the bank, the man used to taxi us, conveniently had his business right outside the bank where he drove out of and he came out. We could see him coming, we went out the door as he pulled up by the pavement and we go on in one movement and all way. It was all done. And people working next to me never ever knew what I was doing.
BD: Did I?
CD: I think I told you whilst I shouldn't have done.
BD: Ooh God.
CD: Yeah. [background noise] The money I've carried was nobody’s business.
CB: So, you worked there twenty years?
CD: Yes.
CB: So that gets us into the later 60s. What did you-
CD: ‘67.
CB: ‘67, what did you do then?
CD: I still kept in business when back to BroomWade where I did the tank work. I did precision grinding there. And then I moved to a small business in Beaconsfield, Oppermans, did work for Martin Baker. I told him [inaudible] for he had yet to see. And then from there, I went on franchise work, from the bakery, the local bakery. And he made me redundant. From there, I decided to set up myself, then I went painting, decorating. I went on a course created by Margaret Thatcher to encourage people to do that sort of thing. And I was tax-free for a year, wasn't I? I think.
BD: Forty pound a week.
CD: Something like that. And after a year, it stopped. But then I was, I'd established a little bit of a business, enough to keep me going. And this is what I did to the end of my working days. I was working right up to seventy-five, even longer I think.
BD: And now you've stopped.
CD: Even longer. And that was it. And now we're at this stage and I'm still working.
CB: Quite right. [laughter]
CD: They say when you retire, you'll be able to play bowls, yes [laughter] no way.
CB: Let's go fast backwards to when you joined.
CD: Yes.
CB: So, when you joined, where was it, and what type of people were there who joined with you?
CD: What, people with me?
CB: Yeah. To the RAF.
CD: Well, we were only there a fortnight.
CB: Yep.
CD: At St John's Wood. So you didn't get a lot of time to get personalised. Bit more introductory, check you out on your health. You had to see the dentist, he was the other side of Hyde Park [laughter] it's true.
BD: It must have been a big job for this.
CD: And did a fortnight there at St John's Wood, then went to Bridlington, ITW (Initial Training Wing).
CB: So, what sort of people were with you, were they all Brits? Were they people from abroad?
CD: Yes, all Brits.
CB: Okay. And what sort of backgrounds? Were they technical type people or office based or what were they?
CD: I wouldn't know to be honest.
CB: Right. So when you got to -
CD: Pretty general like me.
CB: Okay.
CD: Workers in the day.
CB: Yeah. And at Bridlington, then what? What were they like there? What sort of people?
CD: Well, as I say, a bit strict on the instructional side. But they have to be, don't they, to deploy discipline? Early morning start, 06:30 parade, it was very, very civilised. We paraded down by the Spa Hotel which was our mess deck, in other words. The ball- dance hall floor ballroom was the mess. And the theatre side of it was used for Morse code and semaphore flagging, flag and signals. If the weather was fine, would they use the beach. You stood at one end, and he stood the other, about a mile away, and you did your exercises there. Small arms fire, shop frontage people that have sold up or what and they've taken it over because they took over all the, all the boarding places for holidays. That were taken over for us to be housed in. And each course was sixty strong, you kept that sixty all the way through. And that was eight weeks there, seven day leave. Next place was Bridgnorth, number three EAGS. You did a bit of squarebashing there.
CB: So EAGS was gunnery school?
CD: Elementary Air Gunnery School.
CB: Air gunnery school. And what was the elementary training? Was that with shotguns or what was it?
CD: Yes, shotguns. You didn't get to the big stuff 'til later.
CB: So shotguns and clay pigeons?
CD: Clay pigeons, yes. We did quite a lot of that, especially at the next station, AGS. That was the one in Scotland, Castle Kennedy. And that's where you went for your rigorous- The main subject to think about was aircraft recognition. Because, if you didn't know your aircraft, you could be shooting at one of your own. So you had to, you had to know the characteristics of all aircraft and when you sat in the classroom, they would put up on the screen a flash of a sighting of an aircraft no matter what distance, not close up, never close up, and, a hundredth part of a second and you had to write down on a sheet of paper what it was. And you were told afterwards so that was a vital subject. It was before, it was placed before, learning the Morse code. You had to know your aircraft. It happened so many times, people had been shooting their own. Not by me! [laughter] Success at the end, having passed, as you saw in my log book, eighty-one point five percent out of one hundred. I finished third of the sixty. The remarks were above average as you saw.
CB: Yeah. Now, did some of the course of sixty not get through?
CD: Some, well, they, I don't know what they did, they just, they're not required for aircrew.
CB: That's what I mean, they weren't all selected for aircrew because they couldn't see or shoot. Was it?
CD: No, no. You went for that and from the word go.
CB: Right.
CD: Their testing found you out.
CB: That's what I mean. Yes.
CD: Yes. Sorry.
CB: Yeah. So, what I meant was, it was a very high standard-
CD: Yes.
CB: [Background noise] And some of the people didn't pass so they went to other jobs.
CD: Yes, for whatever, ground job, it’d be anyway. But one, one day, at the AGS I was called before the gunnery leader. I thought 'What the hell does he want?' Referring back to our last interview, I mentioned about firing at drogues, didn't I?
CB: Absolutely.
CD: And they recorded your hits by the colour of the paint on the tip of the bullet. Now, I was called before him and he said 'I've called you in,' he said 'because you've got an exceedingly amount of extra bullet marks.' I said, he said, 'What's your answer to that?' I said 'Well' quick thinking, I said 'Well, it can only be one thing, I'm must be nearer the drogue than I should have been.' And I said 'I'm not in control of that, that's the pilot's job.' 'Good answer,' he says and it ended like that. Now, I get pulled up, it doesn't make sense to me, I get pulled up for having too many hits. [laughter] Does that make sense? No. But that's what happened, that's what passed. He accepted what I said, but he had to, I had no other answer.
CB: What sort of range was the drogue being towed at from the aircraft you were in?
CD: Well, about one hundred yards I suppose, maybe a little bit more. It was always above you. The martinet was the one in front of you, it was a long tow rope for obvious reasons. [laughter] I'd be shooting the martinet down! [laughter] Yes, that's how it worked and the pilot of your plane, he did that. So you got more movement to make more deflection so it made it harder to hit the drogue.
CB: So, could you just describe what is deflection shooting?
CD: Well, deflection shooting is, you have two moving targets, the object and yourself. So, you've got to lay it off in front of the actual movement of the object. You never aim straight at it for obvious reasons. It's that. So you had to be in front of it and it goes into it. Now, the most common attack on an aircraft by a fighter is the curve of pursuit, what they call the curve of pursuit attack. From, from the b- er, the quarter, it comes in like that now-
CB: In a curve.
CD: You have to lay off your aiming point in the front of it, always. That is deflection.
CB: Right.
CD: And a good idea of that registering up there is doing a lot of clay pigeon shooting. Because, when they shoot those clays out, you've got to be in front of it, although you're stood still, your arms are moving. You've got to fire in front of it. There's no good aiming dead on it. You must - that's allowing the speed of the object and the speed of your bullet to be there at the same time. And that's how you register your hits. That's my term of deflection.
CB: So after you'd been at the AGS and passed that, you then went to the OTU?
CD: Malton in Marsh, after about a month's leave was a, a little [background noise] an extra for what you've done. We reported there, and after I suppose about two weeks we were all assembled on this big piece of green, some people went in hangars, and that's [background noise] where you selected your crew. Always the pilot, he was always the one that approached because he's the leader of the aircraft. And I say, he came, Les, the pilot, Derry, and Tom they were three officers. They came and approached us fellows who were stood all as one and Les, the pilot, as I said earlier, he went to every section and checked on the pass marks and the remarks of any individual and it turned - and it came to pass, he was looking for me because I'd got my name on there, everyone got their name on there. And Dennis, [background noise] because he'd been with me from day one, and Arthur the bomb aimer and that's where I met him and we were pretty close together there and it made it easy for Les. Well, he literally asked us all three stood together, if you get what I mean? Flight engineer comes into the, into the quota when we go on to four engines. Because on one engine, you didn't need a flight engineer. So, that was made easy by him, by doing what he did.
BD: Sorry.
CB: So Les had done an initial selection of his navigator -
CD: The crew, correct.
CB: And bomb aimer.
CD: Yes.
CB: When he came to you, he was an Australian.
CD: Yes.
CB: But, when you were in the hangar, he checked on the scores, you said, but he didn't know where the people came from, or did he?
CD: Well, yes, it would be English on your papers.
CB: So-
CD: Your service number would show that anyway. An Australian Air Force number was different to us.
CB: Because at that stage, they were, were they, Royal Australian Air Force, whereas originally, they joined the RAF?
CD: No, no they still come in as R double A F.
CB: They did?
CD: Yes. Yes. They came here with their Air Force number from Australia where they trained. Yes. Dennis, my other gunner, he came in with his ATC number. That started with 301, seven figures. Mine was 189, seven figures. I used to pull his leg, I says 'With a number like that, you want to get some in' [laughter] Yes. Anyway, I couldn't run that one too long.
CB: Just expanding a bit on the OTU before we have a break.
CD: Yes?
CB: You've now got the crew.
CD: Yes.
CB: Les has. When you started training, each of you is doing something different, so what were you doing as the gunner?
CD: Doing the exercises that was required. You saw in my log book, exercise one 'till three, whatever. Yes.
CB: So did they -
CD: Air-to-air, air-to-sea firing, pretty well the same as the other stations.
CB: Yeah.
CD: We were still on learning Morse and we were getting taught the essential aim of oxygen, why it's so specially needed. We were shown the proof of that by six of us getting into an oxygen chamber, compression chamber, the instructor outside looking through the port hole. And one of you not wearing the oxygen, the other five wearing it. Now the instructor would say this is the proof of what that oxygen does or if you haven't got it, it does it the other way. And we will show you now. And the man that hadn't put the mask on is now getting a bit dreary like. He said to the one sat next to him go to his pocket, take out his pay book. He looked down, he didn't, he didn't know he had taken that that log book. Afterwards, when they put him back on oxygen, and he'd come to his senses, and the fellow said 'Did you see him take anything from your pocket?' and he said ‘no’. That's, that drove it home, so essential that oxygen was. Now, [door creaks] talking on the oxygen side, we, especially at night, we always had oxygen on from the ground and going up. Normally, you can leave oxygen off up to ten thousand feet, but rather than make the contrast high up we did it at ground level. But you were okay without oxygen up to ten thousand feet, so they told us. But especially on operations you had it on, it comes on automatic anyway on four engines. With the, with the Wellington, you had this, this situation of get putting the oxygen on yourself, i.e. before getting into the turret there was a circle in, up here on the oxygen line and that had a cotton reel pushed in to close it off when not needed. [laughter] And that cotton reel is tied on a piece of string and you pulled the cotton reel up away and it just dangled and you then got the flow of oxygen. Then in the turret, you got on off tell tale. But one night, we were on a cross country and after about quarter of an hour I'm, I'm feeling, I'm a bit, I'm a bit drunk - a drunkenness had appeared you know? Light headed. And it suddenly dawned on me I hadn't pulled that cotton reel out before I got in the turret. Honest. I'll letcha go. So when he opened the door and pulled out I came round. None of the others ever knew, I just didn't bother to tell them, would have felt ashamed to. [laughter] And one, there was one exercise we had it was called a bull's eye. It involved, it was on Bristol and Derry, we had been together now what, a week I suppose, green horns, and it came to pass we got there and it was all over Derry was about quarter of an hour late. And that worried him stiff. ‘Derry boy’, the nav leader said to him 'Go and have a good drink, Derry, don't worry about it.' And from there on, Derry used to have his half a pint because he never drank before he met us. He was a lay preacher, he'd been a lay preacher for fifty years after that [laughter] but he liked his drop of sherry. [laughter] So I bought him a bottle when we left. And yes that was it, we were too late for the bull's eye. And then from there, we're going on up into the Yorkshire area now. We had to do a f- two weeks at a place called Acaster Malbis about three miles outside York. It wasn't an aerodrome it was just a plain battle course training. They took you out in the day, live it rough. One night we went out, we had the choice, we stopped at a farm, we had the choice: sleeping in the barn or under the far wall. It was a nice hot day, like one last week, not as hot as that but it was a hot day, so we proposed, [laughter] we proposed to lay under the brick wall with our ground sheets. [unclear] in the barn, went down the pub, had a couple of drinks, came back, slept under the wall, woke up the next morning, oh that bloody great cob horse stood over the top of us [laughter], oh dear. The things that went on. Did that a fortnight, then we went down the road, not far, to a place called Riccall 1658 HCU (Heavy Conversion Unit) and that's where we picked up with our, Les had a choice of flight engineer. Which is what he did. Got together, now we're now fully at strength, seven personnel starting on four engine aircrafts. Going through all the courses again, exercises, cross countries, day and night, fighter affiliation, mock attacks. Used to do that with cine camera, twenty-five feet cine camera. And then, as I say, cross country. We did, we did one and it took us up, I told you before I think, it took us up to Belfast, and the next leg back was to Fleetwood and from Fleetwood over to base, straight across. And we got to Belfast, Jock, the engineer says 'I'm go down to the Elsan, Snowy.' Okay, we barely got down there before all four engines cut. We were at freezing alt - we were icing up, had icicles that long on my guns. Daylight, cloudless sky, yeah, eighteen thousand feet, icing up. He just about gets down to the Elsan to do his necessary and they cut. All four engine cut. 'Jock where the [pause] are you?' 'I'm down in the Elsan, Snowy.' 'Well for Christ's sake get back here quick as you can' [laughter] Back goes Jock [inaudible]. He switches his tanks over and then all four had picked up just like that. But, in the meantime, we had dropped five thousand feet. Fell like a tree. Twenty-five tonne of aircraft, won't stay there, will it? [laughter] So, we were all prepared to ditch because we were over now over the Irish Sea but it didn't have to happen. Eventually got back. [background noise] On another occasion, we did a cross country, we had to go out into Bridlington, Bridlington Bay and fire air-to-sea. From Bridlington to base it's probably about twelve miles, so, nothing, just- And Dennis fired his five hundred first, he said 'I'm finished now', I said 'Okay' and I went to swing round to, to port beam, port quarter rather, and I heard this zutt. I looked up there and there was the mark, the bullet's gone I don't know where. Left me in a state of [laughter] 'What's up?' they said, I said 'For Christ's sake, something’s gone wrong here.' And it came to pass on me that Dennis, one of his guns was faulty [background noise] it stayed in the forward position. When going forward, it takes a round on the face of the breechblock into the, into the [background noise]
TL: Barrel.
CD: Barrel [laughter] into the barrel, hence, the heat of the barrel ignited the detonator the pull it [?]. Should I have gone onto the beam a fraction earlier it could have been - we marked it on getting back to base, it could have been anyone there. It was there, you see. Because it went round with the turret, it [pause].
CB: So on that -
CD: That was the obvious conclusion of it.
CB: Right.
CD: And it was called, commonly called, a cooked round.
CB: Right. So when you landed, the ground crew then-
CD: Well, we were notified then what had happened, and little doubt had then to recti- probably the recoil spring on a rod, it was a long rod like that, and the recoil spring was over it. It's probably that that snapped at the. You see, a browning [?] gun can fire eight hundred rounds a minute, for a solid minute which you never did fire a solid minute. But that was the rate of of shot. So it [unclear] the mechanism, it's amazing how it works at that rate of knots. And well you can think of many things I suppose, it's probably more technical than what I can think it can be to suggest yes that did it. But no, no-one came back to us so we assumed its righted itself in their knowledge.
CB: I think we'll take a pause there, because you've done well and we'll start another track in a minute.
CD: Yeah my tongue tells me that.
[Beep, background noise]
CB: Right, we're restarting after our tea break. And what I'd like to ask you to do please, Charlie, is to talk about a raid. So, how did you prepare the raid and, the sortie, how did it work?
CD: Well, you were first brought up on battle order, then you knew you'd got to go and do so-and-so so-and-so, then the respect of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers. After briefing, which we all went to, after briefing, they went to their respective sections and did their flight plan. Other people like the flight engineer and gunners you just sat and waited because you had nothing to do until you get to the aircraft and then you prime your guns ready to fire in action if any. You went for operational meal, then to briefing, then to respective sections and wait for take off time. In that time, ground staff are loading up with bomb, required bomb load, to each aircraft. You go to parachute room, collect your chute, empty your pockets and wait for the liberty bus to take you to your respective aircraft. Get aboard, do your pre-flight checks, pilot so-forth, gunners, breach your guns up, put them on to fire, when you press the slot to put them on safety, you get airborne and you put them back on to fire, and you were ready for any action, if any. Some occasions, it was a straightforward flight, on other occasions completely opposite. Lone situations and situations you can see from other aircraft but you never ever know what is the problem but you saw it happen, you know what I mean? I.E. the one about the Lancaster. Coming off from the target, a gas incursion. It was flying very strangely, it was veering here and there which gave it the impression there was something wrong with the works. I.E. the rudder for instance, I don't know, it's pure guesswork. There was no smoke, no flame, this this was the foxing part of it all. Anyway, it suddenly went up and over onto its back, and went down into a dive, and in that time, four parachutes came out, unfurled. And went further down and not much further it just disintegrated [?] no explosion whatsoever. It just, just fell apart. Now on the chutes, shown so, it guess the ultimate. On another occasion, the one on Bochum, where I saw Joe Herman's plane, that was alight from wingtip to wingtip. It was still on course, still able to go, it was below us, but still with us, and I had to take my eyes off him because I've got to look after my aircraft, our aircraft, so there wasn't much chance to sit and gaze. So therefore, I never saw the explosion which happened. Three, four, four of the crew have already bailed out. This is in the aftermath, it's all in the squadron book. Harry Nott, the uncle, the fellow I know and recently Paul Nott, his great nephew, who lives in Hartford, he's one of the enthusiasts of the squadron, young enthusiasts, and it tells you what really happened when Joe went for his chute. The plane exploded. It blew him out the aircraft, and he just floating down, grabbing at anything that he could put his hands to. Suddenly, he grabbed this fella, his mid-upper I think it was, he grabbed his legs, and they both went down together on the chute. They arranged it, prior to hitting the ground, that he would release himself from his legs to lessen any dead fall. And they did that, but in that throw, he broke his leg, Joe, the pilot. Anyway, he got, he got the piece of the parachute and Vivash had got an injury to his ankle. He rips some of the parachute up, and wrapped it round his foot but then they decided they'd got to give themselves up, he couldn't try to escape with a broken - he broke a bone up here as well as one in his leg, so they were forced to give themselves up. They heard gunfire and it came to pass that, they found it out since the war, one of, one of the, it must have been a farmer, he had a horse and cart with one of the crew on it. He was injured. I think it was the bomb aimer, it wasn't the bloke called Underwood, Australian. And in the presence of I think there was an army bloke, a German army bloke, and up came a Gestapo. And he didn't mince his words whatever, he just pulled out his gun and shot Underwood. That is the glowing report from the farmer with the horse and cart. They, those two, heard gunfire so went seems the match what really happened. Yeah, there's four of them who were eventually in one cemetery from that particular instance, incident. [pause] Others, there was one after we'd finished our operations. One was coming in at Driffield one foggy morning in April '45. It was on the circuit over at Kirkburn Grange which was a farm right on the circuit of Driffield. He went round and he asked permission again because it was thick fog and they requested him to go to Carnaby just up the road, ten miles up the road, to a crash landing site. He said 'Well, I'll give it another try.' He did. At this farm, there were cops of about three hundred yards, and narrow too, about three hundred yards long, and he hit that, ploughed right through it. Right by the farm house. And the present farmer in '83 was the son then. He was five years old and he didn't know a thing. That plane exploded, what, just at, about fifty yards from the house. We went over there on the '83 reunion, in a cab [?] of cader [?] cars and the squadron leader Riverton [?] he went with us and he took the Halifax book and presented it to the farmer. He wondered what was happening I think. Coming there was [?] about six or seven car loads of us. [Laughter] Anyway, we went to the site and I took a photograph of it from memory out of the book. And I wasn't far out. I leaned over the hedge of the ploughed field and I took that photograph and it was as I say as near as I could get it. But I've loaned the book out to someone with that photograph in it and I can't think who. No, that won't have gone [?]. If he'd have taken the orders right, and accepted from the control tower go to Carnaby things would have been different. But no, he wanted to do it again. Inexperienced pilot apparently, and he got people on there with DFCs, people on their second tour no doubt. [background noise] It just blew into pieces. [pause] I told you the one -
CB: Any other trips you remember when you were doing the bombing of Northern France for the flying bombs?
CD: Yes. What?
CB: What height were you and what sort of experience did you have with those?
CD: Well, that was only our second one you see and I [laughter] erm [pause] there was - it didn't happen in our squadron, but we got to know that one of the aircraft on that raid, one of the crew, must have been the engineer I would think, he's the only one who seemed to walk about, and he lifted the, the inspection panel to look and see the bombs go. It - he unscrewed the panel, got down on his knees and looked down through and a piece of shrapnel hit him in the throat. The thing, hard luck story there to the point, you're going about two hundred miles an hour and something comes up through a hole about that big, and hits you in the throat. It, now, that was the crew, it wasn't on our squadron but we got to know about it. There's another incident you see I would never ever have known about it other than getting it from our people. And [pause] that's encouraging [?]. One of those two days that we did, went there consecutively, I forget which one it was but turning, we had to turn round onto the target. And I looked round to see where we're going and this block barrage it was like that just a solid black wall of flack. At our height, dead heights, and I said to myself 'Christ we've got to go through that?' Only we did, somehow. I have said to Les the pilot afterwards he said 'I just climbed above it.' Well I didn't know that at the time you see, still had flack going around you at various heights but this block barrage, well it was just like looking at that screen. It was a massive black wall of flack bursts. I don't know how many guns had to do that, probably about fifty rapid firing. I don't know, pure guesswork. But, that was an incident and I, I don't know whether that was the same one when I saw that Lancaster do what it did because we went there two days running, yes. Seventy years ago it's tough to remember what day it was so. That was that incident. [Pause] er.
CB: Which did you prefer, flying at night or flying in the day?
CD: Well, safety wise, well obviously day light. Because when these turning points as I was saying in that Bockholme one that Bockholme bay was seven-hundred and forty-nine aircraft. And you all, you're all converging on Aufitnez [?]. You're all coming at different angles so, I had it written down here. [pages turning] [pause] First turning point whereby all aircraft were coming in at all angles to turn off onto the next heading. [cough] Incidentally, all navigation lights are turned off so you're in a complete darkness which helps towards a hazard. Within our crew, we found an idea to help to overcome this. Derry, our navigator, would call up and notify us, the gunners in brackets, ten minutes before turning point and ten minutes after the turning point. This about covers the time it takes [cough] seven-hundred and forty-nine aircraft to pass through. We, you could do a raid of a thousand bombers in a quarter of an hour over the target. So that ten minutes each side of that turning point served a good purpose. [background noise] But there was this raid where I saw two aircraft collide at the first turning point, Orford Ness .
CB: And what happened to them?
CD: Well, they just hit one another and that was the end of the story. Just a vivid blue flash.
CB: Oh was it?
CD: And a black pall of smoke to follow.
CB: You couldn't see-
CD: Joe Her- incidentally, Joe Herman saw that same one. That happened just off the North, from Orford Ness in the North Sea. Yeah.
CB: So you didn't see them before they collided, just the explosion 'cause it was in the dark?
CD: No no no it was just above us too.
CB: Was it?
CD: So you wouldn't see it above us.
CB: No.
CD: No, you couldn't help but see it. Just a blue flash.
CB: Yeah. So if we go forward a bit, you've now completed the sortie and you've landed. What happened next?
CD: [background noise] You go to debriefing. First person you saw, and always saw every time no matter what day or night was the Padre, the Station Padre. He was stood there just inside the door with the tea urn and the biscuits. And welcomed us back. And then we went and sat in our crew at one table, crews at another table, [background noise] and you systematically interviewed and told what you saw, [cough] things happened. The navigator was always logged in so as, right that aircraft went down at so many degrees east or whatever. And the others gave their remarks and that was it. You went down to the mess had a return meal, no matter what time of the morning or night. From there to bed.
CB: Was it as standard meal, you always got something?
CD: Egg, bacon and chips. [laughter] Yeah, egg, bacon and chips.
CB: Okay.
CD: Some used to craftily get in there and get a meal and weren't on operation. They, they sussed that one out. So the WAAF behind the co- the hot plate, had a list of all the crews that were in operation and they used to ask you your name and if you weren't on there she didn't give you a meal, which is fair enough. How other way are you going to defeat it? And that's not all they did, tried to do, they did until they found it out. Yeah.
CB: So you've had your debrief, you've gone to bed, how long were you allowed to rest or sleep for before you had to do something else?
CD: We, you just got up and if it was too late a day to go and do a daily inspection then you didn't do it. You were probably on battle orders again the next night. I'll give you an instance, [background noise] they were very, the discipline to help the individual himself rather than not break his morale, they let discipline slide a bit. Whereby there was none of this saluting when you passed an officer and all that, as it was in training. I remember once in training at AGS, Dennis and I were walking up to the section and there were two officers coming down the drive. I says 'We'd better sling them one up, Dennis.' 'Oh, bugger him' he says, 'Bugger him' he says. I went up and he didn't. He got seven days [laughter]. 'That's alright for you.' I says, 'All you had to do, Dennis, was that.' Anyway, we came back to twelve noon again, and then, simple as that. That's strict discipline, that, you see and that, that didn't occur in- I'll give you the instance why. We had a billet inspection by Wing Commander Shannon, Dave Shannon, and we're all stood at the end of the bed, waiting for him and his entourage to come in and inspect, and Bob Elliott, the Canadian, he was in that far corner and he's still in his bed, he'd been on ops the night before. So immediately Shannon went straight over to him you see and he woke him up. [laughter] Elliott went like that on his poliasse, paliasse rather, 'What're you doing on that bed?' he said, 'I was on ops last night, sir', Oh well, alright, well get up and sweep this bit of bed fluff up.' [laughter] That's all that happened. Now, if he'd have done it the army way, he'd have blown the bloke to hell, wouldn't he? So they never, they never inclined to go down that road. In the army, his feet wouldn't have touched the ground. You know that. He'd have been in the glasses. But no, he just laid him back there 'I was on ops last night, sir.' 'Well alright, get on and sweep this bed fluff up.' I was stood down the other end, yeah, heard it all. That, that was the sort of discipline on the squadron.
CB: 'Cause we're talking about-
CD: We had to be at a level otherwise you'd have broke, you'd have broken up-
CB: Yep.
CD: You know what it is.
CB: Yeah.
CD: I don't have to tell you, do I?
CB: So, the accommodation is an H-Block.
CD: Yes.
CB: At Driffield.
CD: Yes.
CB: So that’s real comfort, relatively.
CD: Yes.
CB: Then you go to Foulsham, when did you get there?
CD: I remember, Nissen hut, wasn't it? I've got an old photograph of it in that other book, pimpernel book.
CB: Was that, what was the condition of that like? Comfort?
CD: Well Nissen hut, you had that all the way up in your training. [pause] I had a tortoiseshell stove and a mirror on the hut [laughter]. I always picked the bed away, yes, picked the bed away from there because they would all sit along the edge of your bed near the fire. [laughter] So I kept well away. But, oh, I had an incident at Bridgnorth. There was this farmer bloke, he was a farmer really, all Gloucestershire boy, you know. And he'd been out and had a few and he came back I was, I was half asleep I just got into bed. I hadn't been out. I never ever went out anyway, I was always religiously learning up, swotting up all the time. Plus, the letter writing, it all takes your evening up, doesn't it? So, I got into a habit. I never ever went out. Anyway, this night he comes back a bit worse for wear and I think he had a bit of encouragement from others and [background noise] he came and tipped my bed up. What does one do? I got straight up and hit him one. Only hit him once, honest to God, yeah, yeah. 'Oh uh buh' [?] he went, I thought 'Yeah.' I had every right, didn't I? And he had my left. [laughter] That was one of the incidents.
CB: What was the food like in general?
CD: Pretty good. Yes. Pretty good. Another, another incident there at Bridgnorth, you remember that advert, Chad? It was a head looking over a wall and a long nose hanging over the wall. Well, our, our instructor was a bloke called Firth, and he was, he was Jewish and he'd got just one of those conks you know [laughter] and in the ablutions up over the taps was: 'Beware, Corporal Cashew watching you' and that he was Corporal Cash, beware Corporal Cash is watching you pissing [[laughter]. Nobody was ever pulled up, what could they do about it?
CB: Banter.
CD: Another instance, going back off a weekend leave to Locking [?], Weston-Super-Mare, we always used to-
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Interview with Charlie Darby
Description
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Charlie Darby joined the Royal Air Force in September 1943 and recounts in great detail, his training as an air gunner/wireless operator on Wellingtons and Ansons at RAF Bridlington, RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Castle Kennedy, RAF Acaster Malbis and RAF Riccall. He explains how he crewed up at 21 Operational Training Unit, RAF Morton in the Marsh, before being posted to RAF Driffield with 466 Squadron, where he served as a rear gunner. He recounts operational experiences, including an operation to Bochum. He discusses discipline and living conditions. At the end of the war he was transferred to ground work and moved between a number of stations before being demobbed in 1947. He worked for Hoover and other companies before setting up his own engineering business. He recalls what happened to his crew after the war and his participation in the unveiling of a memorial in Driffield Gardens in 1993.
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2015-06-30
2015-07-07
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Bethany Ellin
Heather Hughes
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01:57:04 audio recording
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eng
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Sound
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ADarbyC150630
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Bochum
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Atlantic Ocean--Irish Sea
England--Orford Ness
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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.
100 Group
1658 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
demobilisation
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
memorial
military discipline
military ethos
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Acaster Malbis
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bridlington
RAF Carnaby
RAF Castle Kennedy
RAF Driffield
RAF Foulsham
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Riccall
sanitation
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/7/3394/ADerringtonAP150715-02.1.mp3
6cd1f162411f8a65aa035d4d1151c5ab
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Derrington, Arnold Pearce
Arnold Pearce Derrington
Arnold P Derrington
Arnold Derrington
A P Derrington
A Derrington
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington DFC (- 2016, 187333 Royal Air Force), a navigator with 462 and 466 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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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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Derrington, AP
Date
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2015-07-15
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AS: It’s 15th July 2015. My name’s Adam Such. I’m a researcher for the International Bomber Command Centre and this is the second half of an interview with Flight Lieutenant Derry Derrington former DFC, former navigator on 466 and 462 squadrons RAF.
Derry first of all good morning thank you for allowing me to come back.
DD: My joy.
AS: Great. I’d like first of all really to take you back to briefings. I know that they weren’t all exactly the same but can you give me a general idea of how long they’d go?
DD: Well a briefing used to last about three quarters of an hour at most. Sometimes it could be done in a quarter of an hour and once we had the briefing the navigator would settle down to make out what his flight plan. Do you know what a flight plan is?
AS: Roughly. But if you’d like to go through it.
DD: It’s on every chart and every log I’ve got here and you’ll see that we knew the complete journey that we had to make and it wasn’t always direct. It would appear that it should be but we had to do all sorts of diversionary courses in order to fox the enemy and I’ve got a chart that I want to give you which shows every target we went to with, as it were, a straight line going from Driffield or our take off point was called Flaxfleet and it wasn’t a straight line as my chart shows but it’s easy for anyone to notice and we didn’t go in straight lines like it appears to be. I’d like to give that to you now while I think about it.
AS: Ok.
[pause]
AS: Now I now have your chart in front of me with your thirty one missions on it.
DD: Yes.
AS: Yeah, as you say straight lines but the doglegs would be quite substantial I suppose depending on where the -
DD: Well depending on the time. We could always lose time. We couldn’t pick it up unless the pilot really stepped on the gas but two minutes was the most that we have to, we mustn’t get there too early or we had to lose some time but we didn’t do that very often but of course once your jigging around like that you’re crossing the path of other members of the stream of aircraft and you were taking a risk. You’ve got to be very alert. You don’t want collisions in the air.
AS: Back, back to the briefing where we started did, did the whole crew go just to one briefing or was there separate briefings for pilots and navigators.
DD: No it was a total, all the crew was there for it and they went back to do whatever they wanted to do with their equipment but we had to sit down and work out our flight plan and the flight plan was a very handy thing because it depended of course on the forecast winds of that time. They may have changed completely by the time we would do the operation but they would have been just about five or six degrees difference perhaps from one course to another and it wasn’t just a case of the calculation course you had. You had to work out deviation and also each aircraft was tuned differently so that you had to amend the calculated course that you were going to steer. You applied correction and deviation but that was the navigators job to do that and well it took some time with the computer working out the courses that we had to go but the bomb aimer might have been with me on these occasions. Jonah our bomb aimer was quite keen and he would be watching what I was doing. And we were great pals. They were wonderful crew to be with.
AS: After, after the briefing and you’d worked out your flight plan it’s, what happened then? I mean
DD: Well.
AS: We hear about the operational meal, the operational egg. What -
DD: Well we had, some of the chaps said they had a good meal beforehand. I only seem to remember a good meal afterwards [laughs] they gave us plenty to eat. Two Eggs on My Plate is, I believe is the title of one book written about our experiences in those days. But they did feed us very well with a good old fry up.
AS: Then out to the aeroplane.
DD: We felt we were very privileged people because in those days were the days of rationing.
AS: Then out to the aeroplane. How long before take-off would that, would that be?
DD: Probably two hours, two and a half hours or so before take-off. And it wasn’t a case of being waved off we just were there and we went and didn’t know who was waving us off or what we were just intent on being there and doing our job.
AS: You were, were 4 Group, in, in Yorkshire.
DD: I was - ?
AS: 4. In Number 4 Group.
DD: 4 group yes.
AS: Now that’s between the 6 Group North.
DD: Yes.
AS: And the other groups South. Did you climb out directly on course or or did you have to avoid the other aircraft from -
DD: Well we had a collecting point to move from near Spurn Head, a place called Flaxfleet and we didn’t set course from the airfield as such we were out warming up and going around, flying in orbit around the area but we wanted to be at Flaxfleet by the time of take-off. TOT time of take-off or time over target TOT. And we set off from there and well we were on the alert all the time to see we weren’t too near other aircraft. I say we - especially the gunners. They were the eyes of the plane and the pilot.
AS: Once, once you had formed up and I presume for daylight operations there was more of a coming together than, than at night time?
DD: You mean the aircraft flying close to each other?
AS: Yeah.
DD: I suppose there must have been. Most of our operations were night time, dark, in the darkness but we did some daylights. The Yanks were daylight people. They didn’t do too much dark, night time flying but we were day and night. And our trips were not quite as long as some people spent a long time. I suppose the maximum length of time you’ll see from our logbooks the maximum length of time on any of our operations was approximately eight hours but some people had time longer than that.
AS: Yes, I -
DD: We didn’t have any very long drawn out operational time. I’m amazed we did what we did in such a short time.
AS: I see Magdeburg probably was, was the furthest you went.
DD: Probably, yes.
AS: On your trips or perhaps Koblenz.
DD: Ahum
AS: Yeah. Coming, coming back now if I may coming back from the trip was there much of a desire to be home first? To open the taps? To -
DD: No. No, we went along steadily the only thing was in the funnel when we were coming to land we sometimes the Germans had a fighter lurking around and we had to be equally alert at landing time as we were taking off. That was that. Have you heard much about that happening?
AS: No I’d like you to tell me about -
DD: Well -
AS: The whole process.
DD: They had fighters in the funnel sometimes and of course our fighters were up to combat them but we had to be on the alert because of that.
AS: Could you talk I know you were inside behind your curtain but could you talk me through perhaps the, the sort of aids to final navigation? The funnel lights, the drem pundits, Sandra - that sort of thing. Could you talk me through the process of coming back to base and landing?
DD: Well I didn’t have much to do with that. I got them back to the area where we had to be and the crew looked after that as a whole. They got their eyes open and the pundits, those are, those are the flashing lights you’re talking about?
AS: Ahum.
DD: Well the pilot had his job to do and the bomb aimer might have been there to help him and be observing with him but as a navigator I’d was, I’d got them back to very near the base and I’d done my job but I was alert to write and record whatever had to be done and I’d hear the conversation of the crew and if I heard anything significant then I’d make a note of it on my log.
AS: Which brings me nicely into afterwards. After landing. You said you’d done your job but perhaps you were the most important man at the debriefing. What was the debriefing like?
DD: We were asked all sorts of questions and were you at the target in time? What opposition did you get there? And of course the crew would say as much as I would about that. If they’d said at the time they would have been on my log recording it. I believe my logs are pretty neat. I’m not as tidy and neat now as I was then but I know you’ll their fairly clear. I did everything printing. I didn’t do anything cursive writing at all. It was fine print.
AS: And they, they would they go through your navigation log either then or afterwards,
DD: Oh they’d have an overview quickly. And after the operation was over the navigation leader would have a look at the log and the chart. They were handed in together. And he’d write a comment do you see there are comments on the front page of it - A satisfactory trip or did you take enough fixes, take more than you do and what they may say what was your opinion of H2S when it came in to us initially. You’ll see one or two of my charts are in a colour different from the others instead of the normal red printing on a white background.
[OTHER: LONG PERSONAL CONVERSATION NOT TRANSCRIBED]
DD: Yes they had a white background and the towns shape is in brown and the brown showed up very good against the white background and if a town it isn’t just a red glowing dot on the fluorescent screen it was a shape on the chart that we had and if there was some projecting point in some way that you could identify then that a bearing on, from that could be taken and that would give me my position. It was, your attempt was to get a position every six minutes at least apart from any visual sightings there may have been and this radar was a wonderful help.
AS: Was it generally reliable?
DD: Oh yes. They did try to jam us but we didn’t have much of that to worry about. They couldn’t jam the H2S but the window that we scattered was supposed to confuse their ground systems for identifying us.
AS: But the actual installation in the aeroplane? Could you be confident you’d go in there and turn it on and it would work?
DD: Oh yes.
AS: And work in the air
DD: Oh yes it was very reliable.
AS: Was that generally true for the aeroplane? You’d walk to your allocated aeroplane and it would be fully functional for the trip.
DD: Yes. Oh yes.
AS: So the standard of maintenance was, was pretty high.
DD: Very good indeed. The ground crews were very helpful. And if we weren’t satisfied they soon knew it. [laughs]
AS: Were your ground crew predominantly Australians by the time you were on ops or a mix?
DD: We were a totally pommie crew with an Australian captain. And I don’t think we were, it wasn’t a case of tolerated we were treated as equals. We had a very good company. A jolly good lot they were too.
AS: The ground crew? Were they mostly Australians?
DD: No I don’t know any ground crew were Australian. They were all British I believe.
AS: Ok.
DD: One thing which was rather interesting I ended up as a lecturer in Manchester University eventually and there was one fellow who came on the staff. He said, [?] ‘My job was I trained as a navigator but they were beginning near the end of the war not to need any more air crew things were going on so well and it was my job to load you up with our bombs, with the bombs. I was doing that job’. So he has diversified to be loading up bombs for us and well we just took off with what they gave us.
AS: When we talked yesterday we talked a bit about the French at Elvington. Did you have much to do with the Free French squadrons?
DD: We just knew they were there and we were just delighted I think that we were cosmopolitan as we were. We had a Maori in our squadron and well we were British and the French were there and well they had the same directions and the same intentions as we did and we were just delighted I think that we were a multinational gang, 4 Group
AS: Yeah. Indeed you definitely were.
[pause]
There we are. So we talked that you were an Australian squadron fully accepted as English people.
DD: Ahum.
AS: The Australians were far from home can you tell me a bit about their life. What they did for leave and how - ?
DD: Well quite a few Cornish people went overseas mining years ago. There’s an adage if there’s a hole in the ground there’s a Cornish miner at the bottom of it. And the thing is that some of these Australians who came over had relatives in England. They weren’t all convicts [laughs] and they went off and had leave and visited relations and well they liked going to London to see the bright lights.
AS: Did your Skipper, did he come home with you? Did he?
DD: No. He has been home since but not during operational time.
AS: On the squadron can you recall any real characters and why they were characters?
DD: Oh there was a chap called Tiny Cawthorne. He was a very big chap. Very tall. There was a man called Ern Shoeman and Ern Shoeman was reputed to be a millionaire property wise and he and I were good friends. He used to write me quite a bit and he knew we had a handicapped daughter. Our daughter Mary is fifty nine, she’s Downs Syndrome and she’s a very sweet, gentle little soul. She’s at a home up in Wadebridge and she’s got a very good carer looking after her. My nephew Michael is very good to her, takes her out for morning coffee and so on. She doesn’t speak because she lost her voice when my mother in law died and she was annoyed. Or Mary’s reaction was, ‘I’m not going to speak any longer ’cause granny’s not here and she didn’t tell me she was going.’ And we’ve had speech therapists for her and she is not speaking but my son David is coming down, takes her off for a walk somewhere when they’re the only two there and she’s able to make herself known. She understands sign language and she’s a great joy and friend to us and we’re very relieved to think that she’s looked after so well because we’re ancient and we shall probably pass on before she does but normally Downs Syndrome people don’t live beyond the age of fourteen but we were told that she wouldn’t live beyond the age of two but she’s still going on ok.
AS: That’s
And they treat her like a little doll up there where she is with the Home Farm Trust. That’s the name of the organisation looking after her at Wadebridge.
AS: And she, she used to interact with this character from the squadron. The property developer.
DD: Oh no, Ern Shoeman -
AS: Yes.
DD: Used to write and ask how she was getting on.
AS: Ok.
[phone ringing]
DD: He was a very pleasant man. He was a pilot I think.
AS: Are there any other characters that you can recall?
DD: Well there was this chap Jackson who used to smoke his pipe through the inside of the oxygen mask [laughs]
AS: That was insane.
DD: Very risky business.
AS: Presumably when he was on oxygen.
DD: I think so.
[PERSONAL CONVERSATION REGARDING PHONE CALL NOT TRANSCRIBED]
AS: So there was room in the squadron for characters was there? Discipline was, was reasonably relaxed?
DD: Oh yes. Yes. We didn’t go on parade very much. I can’t think of many more. We were characters I suppose.
AS: Characters and survivors yeah. So, what, what would a day on the squadron, a non-flying day on the squadron have been like?
DD: Difficult to say. I did some of my book. You’ve seen the -
AS: Yes.
DD: Song of Songs. Places like, let’s see, Mablethorpe. That seems people used to go there for a day out if there was a forty eight hour pass or a stand down I ought to know if I thought of that I could think of that easily I just can’t think of any. They would go to one or two coastal towns between Spurn Head and oh I just can’t think of the names of them.
AS: Don’t
DD: [I ought to. I’m ancient you see [?]
AS: Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. So switching tack a bit. You have the DFC.
DD: Yes.
AS: How did you hear about your award and how was it presented to you?
DD: I’ve got a newspaper cutting about it there. It was in the Gazette. Rotherham Gazette I think and I had a very nice letter from the George VI - Secretary presumably. The king was indisposed. Wasn’t able to be presenting personally as he would wish to do and wished me well in my future career and it came through the post [laughs]. No ceremony or whatever. My wife has the MBE. We went to Buck House to get that and my sister in law and my daughter could go with us.
AS: Fantastic.
DD: But there was no ceremony about it and immediately after the war and for at least twenty years Bomber Command was almost in the dog house. They were thinking in terms of all the damage they did to oh someplace or other. Let’s see which would be the one?
AS: Was it Dresden?
DD: Dresden.
AS: Yeah
DD: That’s the one. Well we weren’t involved in that at all. We don’t know if we injured many civilians. There were bound to have been at times but you couldn’t be that selective. Necessary they might have been injured or killed. We tried to do our best not to damage local human beings but bombing is a very, well not exactly indiscriminate but we had taken, aimed to be as accurate as we could.
AS: You mentioned at Bomber Command as you put it was in the doghouse after the war. Was this a real feeling that, that you and your comrades had that your -
DD: Oh we didn’t feel that. It was the attitude of the general public and Bomber Command wasn’t popular with the national attitude for some time. It was some, afterwards I think people have come around to believe and to know that we were the only ones to really get to the heart of Germany and the industrial heart of it. And if it wasn’t for Bomber Command well the war would have gone on much longer. And of course Guy Gibson’s dam busting that created havoc and that shortened the length of the war, the length of the time of the war finishing.
AS: I’m, I’m really interested in the fact that you think that it’s, it’s changing. For what it’s worth I agree. But do you think things like the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park and what we’re doing up in Lincoln, do you think that is, signifies a change in public attitude?
DD: It was very popular at a time when the green park memorial was the biggest attraction in London and some silly fools went and defaced it with some paint.
AS: Yes I saw that. It was
DD: You saw that?
AS: Yes I was up there for the opening as you were.
DD: Oh it was a lovely day.
AS: Yeah.
DD: Yes they fed us well. They provided positions for us. We booked to go to it in good time to go see it. I went a day or two earlier I was so excited about going and Charlie and I were together and my son and my grandson went with me. They were the two guests I had and they were very impressed and delighted.
AS: There, there was this feeling amongst the aircrew that they weren’t appreciated before that. Is that the case?
DD: We didn’t think or care about it.
AS: No just -
DD: We were there and did the job and it had to be done. We didn’t care what the public thought. I will say this in terms of the public and Bomber Command I’ve been to a few reunions and I sometimes had a taxi to go from Paddington to another station, our reunions were often up in York, and I met a taxi man and he said, “Oh come with me I wouldn’t dare charge you chaps. I know what you went through.” And that was a lovely gesture. I’ve met that on two or three occasions.
AS: Moving completely different track if I may for a moment - use of wakey wakey pills - amphetamines or Benzadrine I know they were in the escape packs but were they ever offered to you before flying?
DD: I don’t recall anything about it at all. I don’t think so. No, we didn’t, I didn’t take any. I knew they existed but I didn’t want any or need any and neither did our crew.
AS: Excellent that’s good. Continuing on with the escape kit theme did you have any sort of escape training?
DD: Yes.
AS: And what did that consist of?
DD: We went to battle school and I seem to remember walking around on my hands and knees and I believe we had details to store a map in our caps or in our shoes in case we needed to make reference to the land to find our way around. We did escape training about a fortnight as far as I know.
AS: In your training before going on operations what, what sort of, of flying did you do? I’ve heard of bullseyes for instance. What were they all about?
DD: Yes they were practice flights to targets and they gave the bomb aimers and the gunners experience and the bullseye was operational experience and the bullseye was operational experience and a part of operational training. We didn’t do that when we were on operations. That was prior to operations.
AS: And did you get involved in leaflet dropping as well in training?
DD: No. I think the wireless operator’s job was to throw leaflets down through the chute and he’d take a handful every three minutes or so and they were in different languages. Some of the leaflets were like little booklets. I’ve got one or two there stuffed away in my general folder but I did have a lovely collection of leaflets and I went out to give a talk on one occasion and I’m sorry to say someone obviously pinched them.
AS: Oh Lord.
DD: I reckon I lost about twenty different leaflets on that occasion.
AS: That’s not a very nice thing to do.
DD: One leaflet I remember particularly was about the flying bomb site Watten that we went to and that’s now a visitor attraction with a coloured leaflet to hand out to people. And we knew that we had an aiming point. There was a great hole beside of the take-off place for these V1s and the walls of it were eight feet thick so you can imagine they needed to give good protection to the missiles which were stored inside.
AS: And you destroyed it.
DD: Hmmn?
AS: And the bombers destroyed it.
DD: Well they shook it up a lot [laughs].
AS: All the way through the crew has been the major part of your experience I think. Since the war I think you’ve kept in touch. Have you had -
DD: All the time.
AS: Have you had reunions?
DD: Oh yes we’ve had reunions. We went to Llanelli where Charlie the, Dennis Cleaver was, he married a Welsh girl. Whether we went to the wedding or what I don’t quite know. I did give an address at Jonah’s funeral. I am a Reader in the church and I wanted to talk about Jonah at the time. He was my particular close fellow ‘cause he sat beside me while we were on operations.
AS: What, what, what form did the reunions take? Would you all go off to a hotel somewhere or go back to Driffield or what?
DD: In York itself I think, mainly. It was Betty’s bar they used to talk about. They used to meet there when - you said what do people do on their day off or when they had free time - Bettys Bar in York was popular. I wasn’t a drinking fellow and that was very popular. They were a very hearty, jolly lot the Australians. Very easy to get on with.
AS: And you’ve been to Australia yourself a number of times.
DD: I’ve been nine times. Not just because of our daughter but there have been reunions in Australia. I did have some reunions to do with South Africa too. The [Hornclip?] Association. [Hornclip?] was a volcanic mountain with a flat top near where we flew from and that Association has packed in now but that was quite a popular meet up. I think we had one or two reunions in London.
AS: I think we’ll, we’ll pause there.
[pause]
DD: I don’t think we were using H2S until the end of our tour.
AS: We have from your fantastic folder here we have a, a collection of souvenirs[?] papers from each mission and one of them we have here - Mission 25 to Cologne does in fact have your H2S map here. Could you, could you talk me through what we’ve on this map?
DD: Well we had a fluorescent screen same size as the Gee was and the shape of the town would come up as a darker pink glow against a faint background and the shape came up like you see here. These different shapes of towns. You see London over there, a big patch, different towns in England and that was a case of navigating by H2S and I could take a fix every six minutes with no difficulty. See the scattering towns look.
AS: Yes.
DD: That’s the Ruhr there. You can see the shape of towns alright there.
AS: But on here you have a number of different coloured lines and writing could you, could you talk me through those. Base at Driffield there with -.
DD: Yes on the track that we wanted to keep there’d be two arrows and the wind that we found would have three arrows on it, the vector with the wind and we took off from Flaxfleet but you see our base Driffield is about twenty miles north of Hull and there’s a place called Flaxfleet not far away. That’d be the start of that thing. It was a village I suppose. I’ve never been to Flaxfleet. I’ve got a, somewhere over in that file over there big file I think I’ve got a postcard with a picture of Flaxfleet on it. Not that it’s very important but that’s the name of it.
AS: And then this, this is your track pre-planned. This is the track you’d planned beforehand.
DD: That’s right. On the way out. That was the wind vector there. That green.
AS: Ahum
DD: The target would have a triangle there.
AS: So you’re routing over, over Reading on this particular occasion.
DD: Yes.
AS: Is that, is that a regular route?
DD: I don’t know. Not often.
AS: But would you, would you always avoid London?
DD: Oh I suppose so. It’s such a sprawl. Anyway so long as I got my fix every six minutes that was all I really needed to have, needed to do.
AS: And you’re calculating a lot of wind vectors. One two -
DD: We were probably wind finders about that time and maybe[?] transmit that to PFF. There’s a rash of towns along -
AS: And as you say they all have different, different shapes.
DD: Shapes.
AS: What was the -
DD: Cologne.
AS: What was the target in Cologne?
DD: Railway. Railway marshalling yard.
3549 Other: Morning.
DD: Morning Abigail everything ok
PERSONAL CONVERSATION WITH ABIGAIL FROM MARKER 3605 - NOT TRANSCRIBED.
AS: So an enormous amount of information on here and you put this, which of this would you put on before you took off.
DD: Nothing.
AS: Information -
DD: Maybe that green, we dropped leaflets or something.
AS: That’s window, says window or something.
DD: Oh yes that might have been put on there before we took off.
AS: Also with your chart here we have a second chart and that’s -
DD: Sometimes we were asked to replot an actual operation and that might have been such a case. I don’t know.
AS: At short notice.
DD: After the operation. Analysing what we did.
AS: Ok.
DD: They kept their eye on us pretty well.
AS: And we also have a flight log. Flight plan, excuse me.
DD: Yes that was, that was target there. Before the target. After the target.
AS: Ok.
DD: What does it say here?
AS: Ok. - KJ Brown , Flying Officer.
DD: Hmmn
AS: So he was -
DD: He improved.
AS: Entirely satisfied with that one, with the Cologne trip. Can you, can you talk me through some of this. Here where it says watch - fast and slow. What’s that all about?
DD: Oh by watch when they gave us the time signal. Was it four seconds ahead of the actual Greenwich time signal or four seconds behind. That would be recorded there and the time would be important if I was doing anything to do with astro navigation but to the nearest minute well in terms of astro navigation a minute meant, a minute in time meant a four miles position difference and we had to correct for that.
AS: So you were navigating to that, that degree of accuracy?
DD: Yes.
AS: Ok. Here we have - is that required track?
DD: Yes, and those were the different winds we used.
AS: These would be given to you before the op would they?
DD: Yes. Yes that’s right.
AS: And then is this after take-off. This section of the form is
DD: That’s right
AS: After take off
DD: Yes.
AS: What actually happened rather than -
DD: That’s right. Watches synchronised so my time was what the pilot had in front of him. Why did I underline that I wonder. Is that take off time?
AS: Airborne. Yeah.
DD: Yes.
AS: Climb to six thousand over base. That must have taken quite a long time with a -
DD: Heavy aircraft.
AS: Heavy aircraft.
DD: The pencil’s a rather light colour. You can read it anyhow.
AS: Ahum [pause] and what’s that say?
DD: Master switch off. The master switch meant that the bombs couldn’t be released afterwards once it was off. We had a hang up or two once or twice with bombs. It’s not easy landing when the bombs are held up.
AS: Can, can you recall what size of bombs they were?
DD: Oh there’s a list of it. I’ve got a list of it on, let’s see, I think in the logbook there’s a list of the weight of bombs which we carried. You remember you’ve got the logbook?
AS: Yes. Yes, we can, we can have a look through that but this is marvellous this is a record of every single thing that happened isn’t it?
DD: Well that’s what the navigators job was you see. Not that we were going to do a post mortem or anything like that but at the debriefing they may have had questions to ask us.
[pause]
AS: And also you have a target photograph.
[pause]
DD: Cologne.
AS: Yeah.
DD: Anything on the back? No.
AS: What’s that telegram say?
DD: Best wishes and love, Helen.
AS: Fantastic.
DD: And that was the envelope the telegram came in. You don’t get greeting telegrams, you don’t get telegrams at anymore I suppose.
AS: And what’s the address there? Is that something Hall? Is that your officer’s mess?
DD: [Arley?] House, Marazion. That was my home address.
AS: Ah ok. Right. Shall we?
[pause]
Derry in amongst the things that you’ve kept is this Gee lattice chart here.
DD: Yes.
AS: Gee lattice chart North German chain. Could you talk me through what Gee was and how you used this chart?
DD: Well Gee was signal which came to us from a ground station and sometimes of course those did get attacked but we were delighted to be able to pick up these transmissions and we had a screen in front of us and we could find out where we were and the position lines as you see had certain values written on them and the value on that it made sure we were keeping to the same signal all the time and we had to record our position and we wanted to get two signals. One signal to cross the other and the better it was in terms of being a right angle it was more spot on. If it was say a thirty degree angle between the two position lines it wasn’t very satisfactory so we had to pick out the signals that were the most suitable to give us an accurate position and when we got our fix we used to make a mark with a cross on the chart according to where we were and it was my hope all the time to take a fix whichever method we did it every six minutes because six minutes being a tenth of the hour it was easier to work out by moving the decimal point the speed that we were doing and the Gee fix that we got showed us our ground position. By joining the air position to the air position we got an angle, a vector from which we could work out the wind direction and speed and that was the navigator’s job. The duties of a navigator are shown very well in the AP1234.
AS: Yeah, we, we’ll come to that.
DD: Does that tell you a lot?
AS: That does tell me a lot thank you and I can see here the crosses that you, some of the crosses that you’ve made.
DD: Yes.
AS: The lines are the Gee lines, the lattice lines are in green, red and purple. So were they different lines for different stations?
DD: That’s right. Yes.
AS: Ok and what would you see on your instrument, your Gee instrument? Would you see the values or -
DD: No I would set with some little tuning knob which station I was on which, and then take the reading for the position line and transfer that on to the chart I was navigating on.
AS: Ok and on here also apart from the crosses we have this pencil line coming down from [Maesemunde?] along the Dutch coast and then inland to by Krefeld.
DD: Yes.
AS: What, what was that? What does that represent?
DD: I don’t know. It might be if we were flying in that area whether we would be dropping window or whether we’d be dropping leaflets. It should be labelled but I’m not aware of it if it’s not labelled.
AS: Ok
DD: Is it a man-made line or a printed one?
AS: It’s a thick, thick pencil but no matter, it was a general query. Do these grid squares do they match up to a GJ there. HJ
DD: Pardon?
AS: They match up to your squares on your -
DD: The transmitting units? Those are different, the transmission would be here.
AS: Yeah excellent.
DD: Well modern laptops, on the computers are quite a frequent things but this is a laptop and it’s a circular side, slide rule and here we set the speeds and we used to prop the wind from that centre point how long it was, each one of these is ten miles and when we rotated this we set on the course that we were going to fly and take the reading off at that point there and I don’t really remember how I used this completely but it was a very useful tool.
AS: Which course would you pass to the pilot? Would you pass the true course?
DD: No. No, it had to compass the deviation and the compass correction and the true course was just, was a mathematical figure but that wouldn’t be handed to the pilot. And that was for converting statute to nautical. Centigrade to Fahrenheit. Indicated air speed.
AS: That’s a remarkable tool. It has a green and red pencil. What, what was the significance of the green?
DD: Well.
AS: And the red end?
DD: We used green for the fixed position and red for the target position but the green was used much more frequently than the red. And you’ll see the different colours on the charts that I’ve got.
AS: Yeah.
DD: Used occasionally but I think more likely than not ordinary pencil is more significant in my calculations than the different colours.
AS: Ahum
DD: I hope I’m talking sense.
AS: Absolutely. Now amongst your souvenirs alongside the computer is this air navigation.
DD: Oh AP1234.
AS: Now that is your bible perhaps.
DD: Yes.
[phone ringing]
DD: The ladies will answer that.
AS: Yeah. Now it -
DD: Somebody will come up very soon
AS: It seems.
DD: Oh she’s got the extension with her I expect.
AS: Fantastic. Quick thinking. It seems incredibly comprehensive
DD: Yes.
AS: Scope of navigation, bearings, compass error - was this a tool you used every day or something like a textbook from, from training or both?
DD: In training time. It wasn’t taken in the air with us. If you look somewhere around page thirty.
AS: Page thirty.
DD: Yeah that’s, that’s the -
AS: The circular slide rule. Excellent. Which is what we’ve just been looking at. The navigation computer mark III.
DD: Yes, I used that which is in your hand if I was giving a talk somewhere and that would have been put on top of that page I expect.
AS: Ok.
DD: These straps were there for a Mosquito pilot who was wearing it. He’d strap it to his knee and it had, it mustn’t move, like that. That would keep it from falling off his knee and being readily found if he needed it ’cause more likely than not he didn’t have a navigator with him and that was, he did his own navigation.
AS: Good Lord.
DD: [mentioned?] about arrows? Yes. Track two arrows the course that the pilot had to go was with that single arrow and three for the wind I think. Yes the vector of all wind velocity. The triple arrow.
[pause]
AS: It’s completely comprehensive isn’t it? The formula and the dos and the don’ts.
[pause]
What sort of examinations on all this did you have in training that you had to pass? Were they very detailed or - ?
DD: I don’t remember at all.
AS: Ok.
DD: We passed those exams that’s the thing.
AS: Yeah. You did your training in South Africa. Was there any anti-British feeling that you came across amongst the Boers?
DD: Oh yes we had to walk out in fours because there was a group of desperate Boers called the OBs [?] the Brothers of the Wagonette they were horse drawn people and they, they would assault air force people because of the pro-Boer feeling. South Africa had apartheid going on out there, colour bar, and that was cancelled later on but we kept together if we were walking out so we wouldn’t be attacked by these desperadoes.
AS: Was there, the other side of the coin was there a lot of kindness shown by other -
DD: Yes. .
AS: South Africans to you?
DD: Oh yes. South African families. Met some very interesting people called Thornton at East London and the lady of the house her husband was supposed to have the best stamp collection in South Africa. He was delighted to show that to us. They had a son and his friend, same age as myself and a friend, and they were training as doctors and I kept in contact with their son Geoffrey until he died about ten years ago and they, they were delighted to look after us. And the lady, Mrs Thornton, it so happened that when we moved to Queenstown from East London they were in a Red Shield Club, Salvation Army there was a friend who’d been to school with the lady that had met us in East London.
AS: Incredibly small world isn’t it?
[pause]
AS: Derry, one of the other the other things you’ve kept is your, your logbook.
DD: Yes.
AS: Observers and Air Gunners Flying Logbook. It’s not a blue one. It’s not a nice blue one. Why is that?
DD: Oh yes well of course the thing the normal ones are issued in England had a cloth binding. This one in South Africa just the bare boards. And this started to come to pieces and the repair I had done with that that blue colour there is the colour it should have been and it’s repaired somewhere in the St Just area. There’s a very good shop in St Just called Cookbook and they, I buy books there occasionally, I sell them books occasionally and they bind books as well and they repaired this for me.
AS: It’s a wonderful job.
DD: That you see there was my log when I went to grading school at a place called Ansty near Coventry flying Tiger Moths. Only small amounts of time.
AS: And these exercises 1, 1a, 2 they’re still used today.
DD: Oh are they?
AS: Yeah. Still used today. Very short time. September the 13th to what, the 26th is there any more on the back. Less than a month. Twelve hours.
DD: Ahum
[pause]
That’s Guy Gibson.
AS: Yes. So grading school and then in October 1942, and then jump straight to Queenstown in South Africa.
DD: Ahum.
AS: In October ’43.
DD: That’s when I passed out.
AS: Ok. Qualification.
DD: Do you know the pewter tankard I’ve got? It’s got a glass bottom in it. Do you know why?
AS: No.
DD: You don’t know?
AS: No.
DD: Well if it was a solid bottom and you were drinking than someone could easily draw a knife or whatever and give you a prong and that’s so you can see what was happening.
AS: I didn’t know life in an officer’s mess was so dangerous.
DD: Hmmn.
AS: Right. This is your result of your ab initio course.
DD: That’s right.
AS: At Shawbury.
DD: Shawbury?
AS: Ahum.
DD: Ahum that was a speck end course we called it. I’m entitled to the letter capital N like people put BA after their name but I don’t use it.
AS: And what, what’s your remarks there? What do, what do they say about you?
DD: Good results on course. With his pleasant personality and keenness this officer can satisfactorily fill a staff position. So you see I was called a staff navigator. They might have called me into a briefing room or something like that and there we are, that’s part of it.
AS: I’m just trying to get a sense of how much flying you did in training.
DD: I don’t think I did more than six hundred hours.
AS: It’s quite intensive Derry.
DD: Ahum.
AS: In South Africa on Ansons. I mean here - 14th of July. Good Lord, that was, 14th of July 1943, that was seventy two years ago yesterday.
DD: Yes ahum.
AS: Yesterday. You did three trips in an Anson.
DD: Ahum. Usually two as first navigator and second navigator. My friend Harry Dunn I was telling you about would be flying with me then and they had all sorts of strange names, Dutch names, these Boer people. South African Air Force they wore a khaki uniform.
AS: And army ranks.
DD: Yes.
AS: I believe. Yeah. In training did you feel it was high pressure and very intense or was it reasonably relaxed?
DD: Oh reasonably relaxed. My terrible feeling all the way along was will I be ready in time to do something worthwhile and we used to blame Air Commodore Critchley who was supposed to be a Training Command Officer and we used to blame old Critchley for not moving us on quickly if we got waiting and waiting and waiting for the next posting and I didn’t think I was going to live long enough to do operations but thank God we did.
AS: So did you get the feeling that there were an awful lot of aircrew in the system by time this time?
DD: No. No, we just accepted the fact we were a course going through and they must have planned well ahead to make places for us in South Africa and in Canada and in Rhodesia. I did write something about our overseas training. The Empire Air Training Scheme they called it.
AS: Was that published somewhere or -
DD: I don’t think so.
AS: Ok.
DD: It might have appeared in, there was an aircrew magazine called Intercom and I believe it was published in that but I’m not sure.
AS: I can look out for that. And then from South Africa by the time you left South Africa you had done what forty two hours day.
DD: Not very much.
AS: No eighty eight hour day flying and twelve hours twenty at night. Total flying. Left South Africa. And how did you get back to -
DD: On a troop ship called the Orduna.
AS: Ahum
DD: A South American boat. And there were a lot of women and children on board being repatriated out of India, service wives and children, and we went up through the Red Sea and we were kept at Tufik on the Red Sea until the Germans were cleared out of Italy and then they were afraid that we might meet some submarines in the, in the Mediterranean so we were well protected. They made well and truly sure that we’d be safely transferred.
AS: Ok. And you came into, to Liverpool?
DD: Liverpool again, yes.
AS: Super. Had you been commissioned by this time?
DD: Oh yes but we didn’t have commissioned uniforms until I’d travelled from Liverpool to Harrogate and that’s where the measurement and fitting of pilot officers uniform came into it.
AS: I hope you got a first class travel warrant.
DD: I suppose so [laughs]. I expect I did.
AS: And then we’re at Number 4 AFU is that Advanced Flying Unit?
DD: Yes, Advanced Flying Unit yes. Was that West Freugh?
AS: West Freugh, yeah.
DD: Stranraer.
AS: Yeah. And this was still, I suppose, individual training for you. You hadn’t crewed up at this point?
DD: No.
AS: And this was on Ansons?
DD: That was Ansons again. To get used to British conditions.
AS: Navigating in the fog. Yeah. Was it, was it a shock coming from the, the bushveld and the plains of and South Africa to what, what we have in the UK.
DD: No. We just took it for granted that it would be slightly different and we coped.
AS: And all the principals and all the training were - you could carry them straight.
DD: Yes.
AS: Straight across. Ok. Right, so we’ve got here a pundit crawl. Can you remember what that was all about?
DD: Travelling from red light to red light I think.
AS: Really ok.
DD: Whether it was the gunner’s point of view or from my navigation point of view I don’t know. Maybe I just had to record what was done. A pundit crawl.
AS: Yeah. And then 21 OTU.
DD: That’s Moreton, Much Binding in the Marsh.
AS: And it seems to get really serious at this point. You’ve got a page of dinghy drills, parachute drills, wet dinghy drill.
DD: We went to the Baths at Cheltenham for that. In the middle of England well away from the sea.
AS: Yeah. And by this time you, you’d crewed up?
DD: Yeah. No.
AS: Ok.
DD: Yes at OTU we crewed up, that’s right.
AS: Ok and you were using Wellingtons.
[pause]
Right.
[pause]
And that is super we did your OTU and crewing up and whatnot yesterday so I think we’ll draw a pause there if we can.
DD: Ahum
[pause]
DD: Turning on now?
AS: Yes.
DD: Occasionally we had a little wicker cage with pigeons in it and I believe the idea was that if we were shot down or if we were captured then the homing pigeons would come back with the news [laughs] and it only happened to us two or three times but I was aware that it did happen occasionally.
AS: And did you carry them on every trip or just -
DD: No. No.
AS: Just a few.
DD: Just occasionally.
AS: What, one wonders how you could release a pigeon from an aeroplane at two hundred miles an hour but perhaps it was if you crash landed.
DD: The crash would release the cage. The poor pigeons.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ADerringtonAP150715-02
Title
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Interview with Dr Derry Derrington
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:08:21 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Adam Sutch
Date
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2015-07-15
Description
An account of the resource
Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington grew up in Cornwall and joined the University Air Squadron at Exeter. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 and completed training at RAF Ansty, South Africa, RAF West Freugh and RAF Moreton in the Marsh, where he trained as a navigator on Wellingtons. He was posted to RAF Driffield where he served with 462 and 466 Squadrons. Most of his operations were over the Ruhr. He discusses H2S and Gee in detail. He was later an instructor at RAF Moreton in the Marsh and was demobbed in 1945. He kept a diary of his time in Bomber Command.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
South Africa
England--Gloucestershire
England--Warwickshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtownshire
France--Watten
France
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
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Julie Williams
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
animal
Anson
bombing
briefing
Gee
H2S
Halifax
memorial
navigator
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Ansty
RAF Driffield
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF West Freugh
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/277/3430/PIronsH1501.2.jpg
62e8999adc6227a8e1dcf9d08e401fbc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/277/3430/AIronsH160730.1.mp3
85d919719d33d75444cec9637cafc6f9
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
Irons, Harry
Harry Irons
H Irons
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Harry Irons (1924 - 2018). He was an apprentice tailor in London, but lied about his age and joined the RAF aged 16. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 158, 462 and 9 Squadrons.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-23
2016-07-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Irons, H
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TO: I just have to do a short introduction first as well.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Good morning. Good afternoon. Or good evening. Whatever the case is. This interview is being filmed for the International Bomber Command Centre and the gentleman I’m interviewing is Mr Harry Irons. My name’s Thomas Ozel and we’re recording this interview on the 30th of July. Could you please tell me what year you were born?
HI: 1924.
TO: And –
HI: January ’24.
TO: And where — were you interested in aircraft as a child?
HI: No. Not really. No. You never see no aircraft anyway [laughs] in those days. The reason why I joined the air force because we lived in a place called Stamford Hill which was on a hill in London. And we had a grandstand view of the bombing of the City of London which was well alight. And four or five of us said we’ll go and join the air force. I was only sixteen. I told them I was seventeen and a half and they, and they didn’t even query me age. And they said, ‘Alright. You’re in the air force.’ And that was it. I was just sixteen. They assessed me and they said, ‘What do you want to be?’ I said, ‘I want to be a pilot.’ And they said, ‘We’ve got a hell of a load of applications for pilots but we’ve got vacancies for wireless operator/air gunners.’ So I said, ‘Alright. I’ll have that,’ and I became a wireless operator/air gunner. And I joined the air force in nineteen — the end of 1940. And the following year — I had to wait for an application to become a wireless operator. Well, I was in the RAF and I went to Blackpool in August 1941 and while we was there we got to twelve words a minute and they got us out on a squadron and said, ‘You’re not going to be wireless operators you’re going to be what they call straight AG’s. Rear gunners. So that’s how I became a rear gunner. So I waited a few more months and then I was posted for gunnery school. A place called Manby. RAF Manby in Lincoln. And I done six weeks training there and we should do another three or four months training at OTU which I’d never done. They sent me straight from the six weeks gunnery school straight onto a squadron. Number 9 Squadron at Waddington. And when I arrived there I was sitting in the mess, because I was a sergeant then, I was sitting in the mess and when I came out the mess there was a flight lieutenant pilot there and he said, ‘You’re going to fly with me as a mid-upper gunner.’ Because what had happened the squadron had converted from Wellingtons on to Lancasters and Lancasters carried an extra gunner and a flight engineer. So there I was at 9 Squadron in May, no, June 1942 and we were just converting, just finished converting from Wellingtons, the twin engine bomber on to Lancasters. And that’s how it started and what we had to do was get used to flying a four engine bomber which we did do, and in September we were sitting in the crew room and they said, ‘Ops tomorrow night.’ And that was in September the 9th 1942. I got that right. And so what you have to do is take the aircraft up for half an hour. Test the engines, make sure they’re running right. The bomb bay opens and closes. The bomb sight’s working. The guns are working. The ailerons are working and the undercarriage is working. You do that in half hours flight. When we landed the bomb aimer had already done about seventeen trips on Wellingtons so he was an old sweat. To do seventeen bombing trips he was really a real veteran. And as we landed there was a big tractor come along pulling up a four thousand pounder and fourteen hundred incendiaries. So the bomb aimer said to me, ‘That load means that we’re going to Happy Valley.’ And I was pretty, well I didn’t know a lot anyway. So I thought well that doesn’t sound too bad. Happy Valley. And there you are. We got briefed. We went, we always had bacon and eggs before we went to the briefing. We had the briefing and that and when we went into the briefing room there was a huge curtain over the map and we were waiting there. The CO comes in, immediately pulls the curtain down and it shows you exactly what bombing raid was on. There’s a red tape running from England to the — and the town was Dusseldorf. So I still didn’t twig on a lot so the bomb aimer was there. He said, ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘We’re going to Happy Valley.’ And I thought well it don’t sound too bad. Happy Valley. And we went down to the crew room. Got dressed. And being gunners we have to be heavily heavily dressed. There was pure silk long johns and a vest. And your shirt, uniform and a huge fisherman’s pullover we used to put on. Then we put the electrically heated suit on. Is that alright?
TO: Do you mind if I just put this light on? Sorry.
HI: Put that light on.
TO: Yes. I’m very sorry but — sorry about that.
HI: How’s that?
TO: Yes. That’s better — sorry half your face is in shadow. Sorry. Ok. Sorry you were.
HI: Oh that’s only the, I’ll switch that one on as well.
TO: Switch that on.
HI: Yeah. Switch that on as well.
TO: Ok sorry about that.
HI: So we got dressed and then we had huge heavy furs. Fur jacket and fur trousers on top. The temperatures in those days was about thirty five, forty below zero. We had no heating whatsoever. And we went out to the aircraft and the ritual was we always pissed on the rear wheel for good luck. Anyway, we got in the aircraft and we was at Waddington. And they had no runways there. All they had was grass. And even on my first trip with this bomb load on we just managed to lift off over the, over the hedges to take off. And then we got, we, we flew around the aerodrome until we got up to six or seven thousand feet and then we headed east. We crossed the North Sea and then the bomb aimer who lays in the front, lays flat down at the front said, ‘Enemy coast ahead. Flak.’ So we was up about sixteen thousand feet then. Mind you this pilot was a very seasoned pilot. He was on his second tour so he knew all the tricks and he knew that to get over Holland you had to be above twelve thousand feet because of the light flak. There was hundreds of these light flak guns on the Frisian Islands what we had to pass over. Anyway, we was well above it and I looked down. I see these beautiful colours. Blues, greens, reds. Tracer coming up and dropping down and I thought to myself if that’s flak we’ve got nothing at all to worry about. We was well above it. We flew across Holland. We was up to about nineteen, twenty thousand feet then. We flew across Holland. We never see a lot. Only a few star shells and a few lights on the ground for the night fighters who used to circle around waiting to come after us. Anyway, we crossed over Holland into Germany and then the bomb aimer said, ‘Target ahead skipper.’ And I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’ll have a little see what this target’s like. And being the mid-upper you could swing the turret a hundred and twenty degrees all the way around. So I swung it around facing the forward position and I had a shock of my life. In front of us was one huge massive explosion of shells. And I thought to myself, ‘Cor blimey, surely we haven’t got to go through that.’ There was hundreds of shells exploding. You’d see aircraft blowing up in the sky, some on fire. And the skipper said to me, being on me first trip, he said, ‘Mid-upper make sure you look above you and there’s no aircraft flying above you ready to drop its bombs.’ Which did happen. And a lot of our aircraft were badly damaged through aircraft dropping their incendiaries and bombs from a different height. Anyway, we, I said to the skipper, as I looked up there was a Lancaster above us with its bomb bay open. The bomb bay was enormous. It’s about from that there to about here. That’s the length of the bomb bay. It was enormous. And I said to the skipper, ‘There’s a Lanc above us with its bomb bay open. Dive port.’ He dived port, straightened out and started flying again towards the huge barrage and the bomb aimer said, ‘We’re on the wrong course.’ He said, ‘We’ve got to go around again and make another approach to the target.’ Because the most important thing on a bombing raid was to bring back a photograph. If you didn’t bring a photograph back they never counted for it as a raid. The camera was enormous. Like that. Huge thing it was. Anyway, we run. We went right through that lot with our bomb bays shut. Turned around, made what they called a dog leg and come back on the rear of the formations that were flying in and by that time Jerry had cottoned on to us. And don’t forget, another terror of bombing was the searchlights. If one of those searchlights hit you it completely blinded you. They were so powerful. They had what they called a radar operated searchlight and that was blue. It wasn’t white like the ordinary searchlights. It was blue. And it never missed. It went bang, like that and it hit you straight away and once that hit you about ten or fifteen searchlights would come and cone you. And then all the guns would open up and the fighter would come straight in on top of you. So you had to very very wary of a searchlight. Anyway, we made the dogleg around. Came and we was at the back of the bomber formation then and we could see, I could see from where I was the town was getting a real hammering. At that time, that period, there was no Pathfinders. That’s why we had to go around again — because we had to select our own target and bring a photograph back, more or less on that area. It did, when the Pathfinders was formed it did make bombing, not easier, but we could get in and all we had to then with the Pathfinders was bomb the flare. We didn’t have to look for a specified target. We just bombed the flare. Go in, bomb the flare, slam your door shut, dive and get out quick. And you had to get out quick believe me. And we made our approach around and we made the bombing run and, once ‘cause this was my first trip and I was amazed. Directly we dropped the bombs we went up like a lift because the weight, the huge weight of the bombs being dropped suddenly the aircraft went up four or five hundred feet. Anyway, we slammed the, we slammed the bomb bay doors shut and then we, what we used to do was either go port or starboard, dive down and get enough speed as we could to get away from the target. Anyway, as we’re coming home, and this was on my first trip, as we were coming home the bomb aimer and the wireless operator said, ‘We can’t breathe. We’ve got no oxygen.’ Apparently the shrapnel had come through, which it always did and cut the leads from the oxygen bottles to the line to where they were breathing. Anyway, so we had to go to below ten thousand feet and then we could take our oxygen masks off and breathe normal. And as we passed over the Dutch coast which we’d seen coming in, beautiful coloured lights. I had the shock of my life. These shells were whipping past us. I’ve never seen anything like it. How they never hit us I don’t know. There was hundreds of them. All coming up. Anyway, we got over the Dutch coast, the Frisian Islands it was and made our way home, and landed. Had a look at the aircraft which always had shrapnel holes in the aircraft. Always. And we landed and I thought, that’s it, that’s one trip. I’ve got another twenty nine to do. And I mean by twenty nine means you had to bring back a picture. If you didn’t bring back a picture it didn’t count as a trip so you did it again. So instead of doing thirty you had to do did thirty one, thirty two or whatever. How many pictures you missed. And that was my first. First raid and it shook the life out of me. I never realised what it was to go all that way and the fantastic bombardment of German guns was incredible. And you had to be careful even then, coming home, because they had what they called radar operated guns on the way and they were so accurate. They never missed. Even at twenty thousand feet they could hit you as easy as anything. So you just used to do a little gentle weave to keep, well to help you to keep out of the radar. That was my first trip. We went down. We had the usual bacon and eggs, cup of coffee. Told them what we’d seen and went to kip. And the next morning we woke up and we was on bombing raid again. I should bring, I’d better bring my logbook down I think.
TO: If you want. Yeah.
HI: Yeah. Two seconds. How’s it going?
TO: Can you just sit back down again sorry. The lighting seems ok actually. Yeah. I think you’ll be alright.
HI: Alright.
TO: Yeah. Sure. You sure you don’t want me to help you get it?
HI: No. I’ll go and get it. Don’t worry.
[recording paused]
HI: I should have put exactly what was happening in my logbook but the reason why I never done that as you see. That was my first trip.
TO: Dusseldorf.
HI: Dusseldorf. And I put target found and bombed.
TO: Yeah.
HI: And the officer, he said, ‘Don’t start putting down what you done and what you didn’t.’ Just put down the target.
TO: Wilhelmshaven.
HI: Yeah. See.
TO: Bremen.
HI: And then two days later, which was the following day we went to Bremen. That was where they was building the submarines. How’s that? Is that alright?
TO: That’s a lot better. Thank you.
HI: Yeah. They was building the submarines there and we gave them the right goings. Mind the flak was absolutely horrendous there in Bremen. And believe it or not the following night we went to Wilhelmshaven. The other submarine base where they was building the submarines. And the biggest, the biggest thing at all about bombing was the flak. It was absolutely, and it was terrifying. I’ll tell you that. It was absolutely terrifying. The night fighters you never see until they hit you and we was useless really. We had only 303 calibre machine guns and the Germans had twenty millimetre cannons and we didn’t stand a chance. Never stood a chance. And the thing that done us, that the Germans brought out a simple, unique thing of placing two cannons behind the pilot on the JU88 and the M10 and all they used to do was pick you up on the radar. Drop down two or three hundred feet. Then come up underneath and go straight for the petrol tank. At first they used to go for the actual aircraft but a lot of those aircraft had bombs on board and they’d line up the fighter as well. So what they had done they used to come up underneath and they could see from the fire from the exhaust, the engines and they had a beautiful view of the petrol tank. They used to give it one quick squirt and the bomber would just used to literally blow up in the sky. I mean literally. Literally blow right up in the sky. That’s why we got thirty thousand names at Runnymede. We don’t know what happened to them.
TO: Did you ever actually see that happen on a Lancaster?
HI: I see it, yes. I see, well actually, didn’t actually see the fighter hitting the Lanc but we used to see the, see the bombers blowing up and we didn’t know why. There was no flak. All you used to see was a huge explosion and up it went. And that went on. We lost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bombers. But the thing that annoyed me the RAF knew what was going on. They knew what was going on and not once did they ever warn us about this method of attack. Never. ‘Cause before all we expected was them to attack the rear. The rear turret. They always went for the rear turret and before they got this idea of coming up underneath. And they literally shot down hundreds and hundreds of our bombers and not once at any briefing did they warn us that we were being attacked from underneath and it went right on ‘til the end of the war when the Air Ministry admitted that’s what the Germans were doing. They never warned us. And the only reason that I think why they never warned us is because they wanted us to fly straight and level because if we’d had known what was happening we’d have weaved our way right the way through. We could have at least seen what was coming up underneath us. But we never knew. And we lost thousands of bombers over there, and that went right on till the end of the war. All those boys were lost. Yeah.
TO: Do you mind if we talk for a bit about your time before joining the RAF?
HI: Well I didn’t have a lot of time really. I was only a kid. I told you I joined when I was sixteen and I was an apprenticed tailor because living in the East End you had two jobs. You either became a tailor or a cabinet maker. You done your apprentice and that was the two main employers in the East End was tailoring and cabinet making. And I was just, I worked for a firm called Polikoff’s. A huge firm. I was apprentice there ‘til I got, till I was called up. Well, ‘til I joined the air force. And the reason I joined the air force really as well the firm I worked for got badly bombed. And one morning we went to work and there was hardly any bloody factory left. But it’s, it was a terrible, terrible time. When you think that in 1943 the average, average length of time for a bomber crew was five trips. But I carried on. I don’t know why I carried on. Why I seemed to miss it all but there you are. But I know that the RAF knew about this underneath attack because I finished my first tour. I done about, thirty — actually I done thirty nine trips on my first tour. That was because we couldn’t bring back the photograph on nine trips. So they didn’t count. And I went as an instructor instructing air crew coming back from Canada and America and Rhodesia. They was raw. Raw kids and they, you know, they had the shock of their life when they came back to England and had to fly on these terrible misty days and nights. We lost a lot of blokes killed through lack of experience. And we had to bloody well fly with them as well. Anyway, after a while they said you’re being posted back to operations and they posted me to 77 Squadron at Full Sutton in Yorkshire and when I arrived there the CO, when I arrived they said, ‘The CO wants to see you.’ So I thought, hello. I was a warrant officer then. And I went down to the office and he asked me to come in the car. We went out to the Halifax and the Halifax had a big hole in the fuselage underneath and there was a .5 been placed there. And the CO said, ‘When you go on the bombing raid you’ll be sitting there and if any aircraft come up underneath you’ll have a good view of the aircraft coming up underneath you. So therefore they knew what was going on. And we took it to a [pause] I think it was Duisburg I think.
[pause]
Yeah. Took it too Duisburg on a daylight. That was on the 14th. That was on my second tour. And I took it to Duisberg and it was so bloody cold. They made a great big hole in the bottom of the aircraft and the cold air was coming through. Not only us but the pilot, the navigator. They was frozen and they never used it no more. What they should have done was put a proper turret, enclosed turret underneath. All they had was a bloody big hole. All the slipstream used to come through the aircraft and it was impossible really enough to fly with it. Anyway, they never used it no more. Just carried on as we did. Anyway, that was on my second tour on Halifaxes. But where were we? Some very interesting raids here. Right. Went to Dusseldorf on the 13th of the 9th I think it was.
TO: Yeah.
HI: The 13th of the 9th and then on the 13th of the 9th we went to Bremen after submarines. And that was very heavily defended. And when we got back we went in bed. They said, ‘You’ve got to get up early because they’re a night flying test for tonight’s raid,’ which was on the 14th. We’d already been. We’d already just come back from Bremen. On the 14th we went to a place called Wilhelmshaven. And it was the same thing. They was producing all the submarines. And it was very important at that time because the submarines were sinking most of our ships. So they had to blast. And they did blast it. And on the 16th we went to the worst, worst place you could possibly go to. Essen. Essen was the worst place in Germany for flak and fighters and we lost literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bombers over Essen. There was a major Krupps factory there and that’s what we was after. We destroyed it eventually but it took a while. And we lost a hell of a hell of a lot of men.
[phone ringing]
TO: You can answer the phone. That’s fine.
HI: Ok. I won’t be –
[recording paused]
HI: That Memorial is exactly where we took off at Waddington. That was at the end of the runway but that Memorial was right bang in the middle where we took off from our aircraft’s runways. As we took off, right in front of us was the — right in front of us was the Cathedral and that is where the Memorial is now. Yeah.
TO: Sorry, you mentioned you’d been on raids to Bremen and Wilhelmshaven.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Did you actually find out the damage to the submarines you were causing?
HI: Yeah. We actually, we’d done a hell of a lot of damage there. Especially at Bremen. Apparently they really wrecked the submarine bays, well not the bases, where they was actually producing the submarines. And that’s why we went back the following night to hit Wilhelmshaven because they were sinking so many of our ships. It did slow them down a bit. How much I don’t know. But we did make two successful raids there. Because we could tell that by the photographs we brought back. Of the actual bombing. As the bombs went the camera ticks over and the photoflash was in the fuselage. It was a huge, like a huge drainpipe and that was released exactly the same time as the camera clicks over. And it was a big white burst of light that lit up the area where the camera was pointing. And you could see all these photoflashes going off on your bombing run. Apart from all the bloody aircraft that was on fire going down. Yeah. Which was many many many. Yeah. The thing that they used to kid us. They did used to kid us. We used to say we seen so many bombers going down. They said, ‘No you never.’ This was a bloke who’s never flown in his life said, ‘No, you never. What you see was Scarecrows.’ The Germans were firing up shells to mimic a bomber blowing up. And after the war they admitted there was no such thing as a Scarecrow. All those explosions were actually aircraft blowing up in the sky. And they did used to blow up as well. Yeah. Especially with a bomb load on. I think I was very very very fortunate to, to do one tour instead. And then I went on another tour. And I never, never really got myself in any trouble at all. We used to see them going down. And anyway we went to Essen and that was the worst. That is the worst place ever to go. Essen.
TO: Worse than Berlin?
HI: I think it was worse than Berlin. Yeah. Worse than Berlin. Yeah. The amount of guns there was incredible. And the amount of fighters. But that Berlin, when they done the Berlin raid they’d done, they lost nine hundred. Nine hundred bombers, didn’t they? In that period of about six weeks. They didn’t care. Anyway, on the 14th of the 9th we went to Munich. And what actually happened — on my squadron we was losing a lot of aircraft. Even at that period it was a hell of a lot of aircraft. And two fellas come down from Cambridge. They said they were scientists and said, ‘We’ve got a new device we’re going to put in the turret. And when a German night fighter approaches you from about six hundred yards away you’ll get a red light come up in your turret warning you there’s a fighter in the vicinity.’ Which was brilliant because what we could then was start weaving and not fly straight and level. Anyway, but what happened, the squadron on the raid previous to Munich two of our boys were shot down and apparently the Germans, they went for all these aircraft and must have found this instrument in the rear turret and they probably got the wavelength of it. And this is what happened. We went to Munich and we flew, ten tenths cloud all the way so we flew on top of the cloud. If a fighter came we just went straight in the cloud. We was pretty much safe. Not from flak but from the fighter. Anyway, we got to Munich and the cloud broke and there was Munich wide open. Beautiful moon and we did give it an hiding. Apparently Hitler was there giving a little talk. That’s why we went there. On the way back the skipper said, ‘We know our course back home so we’re going to fly ten tenths through the cloud all the way home so we won’t be interrupted by fighters.’ We went for about three quarters of an hour, an hour through ten tenths cloud and all of a sudden the cloud broke and I looked through the, I was in the rear turret then, I looked through the turret and there, from just where my car is was a JU88 had been following us through that cloud. And it must have been through their radar. And he opened fired and we was going, when you say flying straight and level you’re like going up and down as well. You know. Anyway, as we went down he opened fired and he just, his cannon shells went just over the top of us. We never hesitated and we couldn’t miss him. He was right bang — you could see his face even. We just opened fire. Me and the mid-upper opened fired. He swung over and down he went. That was one of my luckiest occasions I’d ever known. I’d only done about six trips and then we came back and that was it. But that’s how lucky you had to be. How he never, how he missed us I still don’t know. It was point blank range and his cannon shells went just over the top of us. Yeah.
TO: Do you think maybe he might have been low on fuel?
HI: No. I don’t think he was low on fuel. He was — I should imagine, when you say you’re flying straight and level you do but you’re going like that. Up and down like that sort of with the turbulence of the slipstream. And probably as we went down he opened fire and missed us. But we never missed. We hit him. We couldn’t miss him. He was right bang — oh he couldn’t have been no closer.
TO: So was he shot down?
HI: He went down, yeah. Yeah. We couldn’t claim it because we couldn’t verify whether he, whether he exploded on the ground or not because we went back in cloud again then. The cloud broke, we went back in to it again and came home.
TO: So you were in the mid-upper turret at this point.
HI: No. I was in the rear turret. And me and the mid-upper open fired. Yeah. I was only in the mid-upper for the first trip. Just to get used to the, to the, what the bombing raid was. The rear turret was manned by an Australian but he was very very tall and he had a bit of difficulty in the rear turret so he went into the mid-upper after the second raid and I took over in the rear turret. I wasn’t this size. I was only about nine stone then. And but he was a big tall Australian. He was too big for them. And that’s how we carried on. And after Munich we went to a place called Wismar. Am I alright?
TO: No. It’s just there’s a fly buzzing around. That’s all.
HI: A fly. I must have no flies in here, you know [pause] We went to a place called Wismar. They had a big Condor factory there and it was our job to attack this factory which was specified that it was a factory we had to bomb. There was still, you must remember there was no Pathfinders then. And we went in and I think we made a direct hit but unfortunately two of our aircraft that was with us were shot down over Wismar. So that was unfortunate. And then from Wismar there was September. 23rd of September [pause] The thing was with Bomber Command life was expendable. They didn’t care what the losses were. They’d just sent us out and sent us out and sent us out. Well, strangely enough this Wismar was a seven twenty hour trip. So we went there on the 23rd of the 9th and we had a little rest. And then on then on the 1st of the 10th we went back to Wismar again. They said go back and make sure it’s flattened. Which we did do. And then the following night, believe it or not, we’d already done a seven twenty hour trip. The following night we went to Essen. And on the way to Essen two of the engines on the starboard side shut off so, yeah the flight engineer changed the petrol tanks over to the outer tanks and immediately the two engines on the starboard side packed up. So he changed the petrol tanks over to the outer tanks and we were still flying and all of a sudden the four engines just cut. Just like that. And we just fell like that. Luckily enough the flight engineer was right on top of it all and managed to change the tanks over to the right. To the wing tip tanks and the four engines started off. And we couldn’t go to Essen because we didn’t have enough fuel. We couldn’t use all the tanks. So we turned back and we just managed to land at Waddington before all bloody four engines packed up through lack of fuel. So that’s how lucky I was. But what it was in the petrol tanks they had what they called the immersion pumps, electric immersion pumps and what was happening they was packing up on all the aircraft. So what they done they changed the immersion pumps to gravity fuel. So there was no pump there. The petrol was just dropped in gravity. And it solved a problem but before that we lost a lot of aircraft through these petrol pumps packing up. And then we went to — I think we had, I think we went on, yeah we must have gone on leave because [pause] yeah. Yeah we had, yeah we had NFT. We never done anything and then we, on the 15th of the 10th, in October we went to Cologne. And I always remember Cologne because the thing that always struck me in Cologne was the Cathedral. The huge Cathedral. And every time we went there we see that Cathedral. It never got bombed. The whole of Cologne got flattened apart from the Cathedral. There was damage but not too bad. But I don’t think through we were going to miss the Cathedral. It was just sheer luck that we did miss it. But we did hammer Cologne. It really took a terrible hiding. That was on the 15th of the 10th ‘42. October.
TO: Sorry.
HI: Yeah. Go on.
TO: Did you hear about the, what did you think of the thousand bomber raid on Cologne?
HI: That was just before we started. Actually speaking, all it was was a propaganda raid. They got every single aircraft. All from OTU and that’s where the losses were. They lost more bombers from the Operational Training Units on Wellingtons than what they did the main bomber force. They got every aircraft that could fly to make up the thousand. It was only a propaganda rout anyway because we’d done much much more damage with about two or three hundred Lancs then what that thousand bomber raid made. And most of the losses were with OTUs. The inexperienced crews training. And it was only, it was only a propaganda raid I think. They wanted, he’d only just come into office hadn’t he? Harris. And that was his first big raid and he got every bomber from OTU, Conversion Units. Anywhere he could find a bomber and as I say made up his total. But the big bombing raids started really when the Pathfinders moved in. Because what we was doing then we was bombing, not the target, we was bombing the flare. And if those flares were accurate a whole town got wiped out. Which happened quite often. At Hamburg, Dresden, Essen. The towns were open. Once they got the Pathfinders right. Perfect. All those towns were completely open. And I don’t think, I personally think this country would never have stood the bombing like the Germans did. When you think five or six hundred Lancasters each carrying one four thousand pounder and fourteen hundred incendiaries. Going over the target and out again within fifteen minutes. You imagine the hell that must have been there. Anyway, that was war. And then — this is a very interesting raid. On the 17th of the 10th — no, before that we was told. What actually happened was when we arrived at Waddington 44 Squadron was the first squadron to be issued with the Lancaster. What they called the Rhodesian squadron. It was all Rhodesians on it. So they decided to test out this Lancaster and they sent it to, on a bombing raid to Germany. Right into, six Lancasters and they sent right into Germany to bomb. What was the target? Anyway, on the way there the Messerschmitts jumped them and out of the six they shot five down. And only one returned. Nettleton. He got the VC. So when we was in the mess talking to the aircrew that, the one crew that come back they said never, no more will we do daylight, low level raids because it’s suicide. So in September [pause] October. Yeah — October. About the 15th they said we’re going to do some low level daylight flying and we was flying over Lincoln. Nineteen Lancasters. That’s all there was at the time at thirty or forty feet above ground. And we wondered. Surely they’re not going to have another daylight raid which did happen. On the 17th of October. The target was Le Creusot. The time, the time in the air was ten and a half hours. So you can see it was a big schlep. We went right across the North Sea. Right across France at a height of about the height of this house. Ninety Lancasters. Each carrying six one thousand pounders. We flew right across France. All the French people were out waving to us and throwing us kisses and whatnot. We were still looking for the fighters. We never see no fighters. We went right to Le Creusot. And the reason for the bombing of Le Creusot in daylight was that the whole factory was surrounded by workers dwellings and they were frightened if we bombed of a night time there’d be a heavy casualties amongst the civilians. So they decided to do it on daylight and we went right across France. Ninety two of us at about thirty feet off the ground carrying, each carrying six one thousand pounders. What actually happened at the briefing we had to — six aircraft, six Lancasters, had to break off as we reached the Le Creusot and bomb the power station just outside Le Creusot. And on our port side was the Dambuster — Gibson. And he took a picture of us, of our aircraft as we were going in to attack. And as we were going to attack this power station an aircraft on my starboard side just went straight in the deck and blew up. So there was only five of us left attacking the power station which we did attack. And we flattened, literally flatted it. And last year me and my friend was in France. I said, ‘Let’s go to Le Creusot and see what the damage was.’ And we went to the Le Creusot. There’s a huge factory there even now. And my friend approached the manager and said, ‘This bloke. I’ve a bloke out here who bombed you during the war.’ He said, ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘We want to see him.’ So they invited us in and they gave us lunch and we went around the factory and we explained what we’d done. I said, ‘But we didn’t bomb your factory. We bombed the power station,’ I said, ‘One of the aircraft was blown up on the on the approach to the power station.’ He said, ‘Yeah they’re buried. Not in a military airfield but just outside, in an ordinary field where they crashed.’ So I said, ‘Can we go and see?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ So we went out there and there were six graves and I said to the Frenchman, I said, ‘No There were seven men in the aircraft. There’s only six graves.’ He said, ‘Oh, no.’ He said, ‘The rear gunner survived and was taken.’ How? I don’t know. I’d seen the aircraft literally blowing up in the sky, no, blowing up as it hit the ground. And he survived and was taken prisoner of war. But we actually flattened the place. If you imagine ninety Lancs. Daylight. No opposition. So we come back and we were very relieved that we went all the way there and all the way back and never seen a night, never seen a day fighter. And there must have been hundreds of them there. So we were very relieved and we thought well that’s it. So we started having night flying tests to follow all that week. And then on the 22nd of October we went to Genoa. We went to Genoa in Italy which is a long long long schlep and we wondered why we went there. Because, you know, what was there? I know there was the big battle was going on in the Middle East — El Alemein, at the time because all the supplies were going from Germany through Italy. Anyway, on the Saturday, to our surprise, on Saturday morning said there’s a briefing. This was Saturday morning. So we thought that’s strange. When we went down to the briefing the biggest surprise of the lot. We was going to a do a daylight. A low level daylight raid on Milan in Italy. And that was on the, that was on the 24th of, 24th of October. Operation Milan. Ten and three quarter hours. A long schlep. And we went all the way to Italy at low level, you know, just like that until the Alps. We couldn’t go over the Alps because we were so low so we weaved our way through the Alps. Came out at Lake Como and went straight down to Milan. And I always to this day I think about it. As we approached Milan they never had no idea that there was going to be an air raid. There was no air raid siren. Nothing. So a beautiful Saturday afternoon and as we flew over Milan and made our approach to the target all the people were out in the streets walking about. In the restaurants. And then we opened up and if you imagine ninety Lancs with six one thousand pounders. We just dropped them in the town and we came home. We lost about four that day to German fighters on the way back. But I don’t know how we went all the way to Milan in daylight and come all the way back again. Incredible. And that raid was, that was a ten and three quarter hour trip. I tell you my arse was sore when I got out of that plane [laughs] We never flew no higher than about thirty or forty feet off the ground until we got to the Alps. We had to go a bit higher and then down on Lake Como right into Milan. And then there was no air raids sirens and no guns. We just literally took the whole town by surprise.
TO: Do you remember what the target was? Specifically. In Milan?
HI: No. We just, well there was no target really. We just bombed Milan. We just went in. From what I could see we just bombed the centre of the city. There was an aircraft factory that I think they were supposed to been after but they didn’t bother. They just, and actually I did see a few Lancs opening up their machine guns over the town. Yeah. I did see that. There you are. That was war. And I was, I was a veteran then. I was. We was the only crew left out the squadron. The original squadron. And then we had a little break for about [pause] that was on the 24th of the 10th . Yeah. We had about a week. Must have gone on leave. And then when we come back on the 18th of the 11th we went to Turin again just to liven them up. And believe it or not that was a seven, eight hour trip. And the following day we went back again. To Turin, and done the same again. It was a long long time. We only had about seven hour break between the two raids. And then we went to Stuttgart. Stuttgart. We never made it. You know, we had trouble with the engines and we had to come back. So it didn’t count as a raid. And then this is what happened there. Then we went to Mannheim. That was in the, oh look, you’ve got the bomb load here. One thousand, one four thousand pounder, nine hundred and eighty incendiaries and nickels. Nickels were pamphlets. You know. Propaganda. What we used to do was over the North Sea we used to throw the bleeding lot out. We didn’t want the bother of throwing them out when we got over [laughs] we were supposed to throw them out over the target. We just used to throw them in the sea. Then this, this was when the battle of Alemein was on so we went back to Turin. Nine hours. Next time we was iced up terrible with engine trouble as well. We only done three hours for that one but that didn’t count as a trip. And that was it. And then we went to — this. This, see this raid here.
TO: Is it Hasselunne?
HI: Yeah. What actually happened was we went for the briefing and we said, ‘Where the bleeding hell is Hasselunne.’ It was just a small town just outside the Ruhr valley. Even to this day I remember the briefing. He said, ‘Look’ he said, ‘You’re bombing in the Ruhr valley and none of the workers –’ am I alright?
TO: Yeah. You’re fine.
HI: ‘None of the workers are getting any rest.’ So what they’re doing is they’re sending all the workers out to the small towns so they can get a good night’s rest. You know, the factory workers. So he said, ‘What we’re going to do is liven them up.’ I couldn’t believe it. They said, ‘We’re going to liven them up.’ But they said the reason why there was no bombing that night — it was a full moon. And the full moon when you’re flying is like daylight. There was no cloud so there was going to be no bombing that night but this nuisance raid. There was seventeen Lancasters ok’d at this nuisance raid. That means we had to go in at, this is night time mind you, as low as we could and bomb, bomb the, each was given a small town, a village or small town just outside the Ruhr Valley. Seventeen of us and bomb these small towns and come back home. Just to disrupt the German workers night’s kip. Anyway, in the bomb bay was sixteen one thousand pounders. Delayed action. And then we went to Hasselunne. And it was a beautiful night. Beautiful moon. It was clear as day. We went in about four or five hundred feet with our delayed action bombs. Sixteen of them. And we dropped them right plump right down the middle of the High Street. And I still wonder today if, you know, there was about a fifty minute half hour delay action on the bombs and when we got back we thought it was an easy trip. We went there. Came all the way back at low level and landed. And, but the thing was out of the seventeen Lancasters only seven come back. And we lost ten that night. Well it was fifty percent. Over fifty percent. And that was what I call a terror raid. It was an ordinary open town sitting there like there was, as we flew over, we could see the town. The bombs went and that was it. But then again that was war. And then we went back to our old faithful — Duisburg. And I tell you what — it was getting a bit warm. It was getting a bit warm at Happy Valley. And we went there six hours fifteen minutes. I’ve got the bomb load here. We went one thousand, we went with one thousand one hundred and seventy four incendiaries and nickel. Plus nickels. Six hours fifteen. And then the following day, after we’d been there, as we came back they woke us up in the morning and said, ‘You’re on ops again.’ Munich. So all we had was about five or six hours trip, sleep and was back on the 21st. The 20th and the 21st was at Munich.
TO: Could you please elaborate on this. About training machine guns please.
HI: Yes. We did machine gun a train that night. In the station. It was puffing away in the station and the pilot said, ‘Give it a liven up,’ and we went right along the train. Me and the mid-upper. Blasting it. We see the bullets, the tracer bouncing off the train. Yeah. That was war I suppose. What happened then —
TO: Sorry, if you don’t mind, sir would be ok if you sit back so your head isn’t in the shade. Sorry.
HI: So what happened then? The pilot I was with — Stubbs — had finished his tour. And the crew and they’d finished their tour and I was left without a crew. I was sitting in the mess waiting for new crew and a bloke I knew named Doolan, Sergeant Doolan came up to me and said Harry our rear gunner’s just been killed. We’ve just brought him back dead. Would you like to take his place? So [laughs] I was rather. I knew the rear gunner because I’d have been called up with him in 1940. And his name was Robinson and he came from the other side of London. Brixton. And a night fighter got on their tail. Blasted him out the turret. Literally blasted the whole turret and the tail off. So he said, The aeroplane is being repaired,’ [laughs] Repaired. ‘In the maintenance unit. We’re going to pick it up now. It’s got a new turret on it. A new tail plane. Ready to fly again.’ He said, ‘Would you come as a rear gunner?’ I said, ‘I haven’t got a pilot. I’ll come.’ So, so I flew with this crew. They was all NCOs, and we finished. We finished a whole tour. And we was the only crew that finished a tour all the time I was at Waddington. The nine months I was at Waddington we was the only crew that finished a tour. And we was all NCOs. Where were we? So my first trip with Sergeant Doolan was Dusseldorf again. Look. Went there a few times didn’t we? Dusseldorf. And this was, this was a shaky one. Hamburg. We got to Hamburg and we was prepared to go in for the bombing raid. The flak was crashing about all over us and the plane started going like that. Literally dropping like a stone. So the pilot said, ‘We’re so iced up that we can’t fly the bloody aircraft.’ And I could hear somebody say, ‘Oh it’s coming off.’ Great big lumps of ice crashing against the aircraft. Anyway, he said we’ll have to abandon. So we dropped our bombs where we were. Just outside Hamburg and went down as low as we could and the ice started breaking away and we managed to fly again properly. But when I got back and told them that was a really dicey trip they said, ‘You didn’t you get no photograph then?’ We said, ‘No. We just approached Hamburg, we see Hamburg being bombed but we just couldn’t make it,’ They said, ‘Well, it’s unfortunate. That don’t count. That was another trip that didn’t count [laughs] You know, it was hard in those days I’m telling you. And us all being NCOs and the briefing officer probably being a flight lieutenant or a squadron leader we couldn’t argue with it. We was only bleeding poor old NCOs. And then this is a new year. No. This is the 13th of the 2nd 1943. This was in February ‘43. We went to Laurent in France which wasn’t bad. It was an easy trip that was. And then back to Milan which was a long, long. long slog. And then our favourite. As a rear gunner our favourite was operations to Wilhelmshaven. Back to Wilhelmshaven. And then again to Bremen. Which was unusual I started off there didn’t I? Wilhelmshaven and went the other way around. Bremen and Wilhelmshaven. This time it was Wilhelmshaven and Bremen and I tell you what. There was some flak there. There was some flak. We got badly damaged coming back from Bremen so we had to land at a place called Croft. And then we returned the next morning in another aircraft. And then we went to Nuremberg and that night, believe it or not, we lost fifty that night. Flying to Nuremberg. The next time they went there they lost a hundred and twenty. Yeah. They lost a hundred and twenty. They went back there again a couple of months later and lost a hundred and twenty Lancs in one night.
TO: Out of how many?
HI: About four hundred. Yeah. It was slaughter. And then again on the 26th of February I went to Cologne. Do you want to see it in here?
TO: Yeah.
HI: Have you seen Cologne?
TO: Yes. I’ve seen it. Thank you. Sorry. Is it ok if I ask what did you think of Arthur Harris?
HI: Well, to me personally speaking the man had plenty of guts because after the Nuremberg raid we’d lost a hundred and twenty bombers that night. The following night he sent out another huge force. Now, a man has got to have, you’ve got to have some guts in you to do that. You know. After that terrible loss. But he was the man to do the job. Nobody else could do it. He, only took orders from Churchill. Churchill was the governor and what Churchill said went. Unless it was a diabolical raid and Harris said, ‘No. I can’t manage that.’ But there was, he had an aide de camp, Harris. I forget his name now. And we was going on a bombing raid and the aide de camp said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘It’s too much. It’s too many losses. We’re losing too many people there. We shouldn’t go.’ And he resigned. But Harris still went and we still had the losses. So there was somebody you know up the top knew what was going on. Our losses were, well you can’t, you cannot believe it. You could say you’d go on leave, you’d go on leave and come back in the mess — there was all strangers in there. All the old crews had gone. Within a week. Had a heavy week all had gone. All new crews. Yeah. And the faces got younger and younger and younger.
TO: Did you look young for your age?
HI: Do you think so?
TO: No, did you? Did you look young for your age? Or did you look older?
HI: Here. There I am there. On the wall. You see me. There. Picture on the wall.
TO: Thank you.
HI: Can you see it?
TO: Yeah. I see it. Do you think, did anyone ever find out that you’d lied about your age?
HI: Yeah. They did after I’d — I went, I went in the air force under the name of my mother’s maiden name because I didn’t want — I was stupid. I went in the name of, the name of Galloway. And then when I’d been on 9 Squadron about two months the CO called me in and said, ‘We found out your name isn’t Galloway. It’s Irons.’ He said, ‘We’ve changed,’ he never said nothing, he said, ‘Your name’s been changed now to Irons.’ And I went from Galloway to Irons and nothing was said about it. But it was all kids, all joined . Loads and loads of sixteen and seventeen year olds. There’s me there. When I got married.
TO: Was that, was that during the war?
HI: Yeah. That was just before I went and bombed Dresden. That was about two weeks before I bombed Dresden. 1944. I don’t know what made me get married then. I don’t know. And this here [pause] this, they used to kid us, they used to kid us that was an easy trip.
TO: Gardening.
HI: And it was the most dangerous trip we ever been. Mining. We used to have six one thousand pound mines on parachutes. And the thing was you had to fly over the Baltic and drop these mines at about five hundred feet. Jerry knew this and he had loads of these little fast boats with light flak on them and they shot down loads and loads of our boys. On these mining trips. And they used to call it an easy trip. That’s because it wasn’t the Ruhr valley.
TO: Did they call it gardening?
HI: They called it. Yeah. That was the code name for it. Gardening, yeah. Because you was planting. Instead of fruit you were planting mines. Called it gardening. Yeah. Oh you know. And then believe it or not I was back, back on my old favourite. Oh I went to Munich on the 3rd. And on the 9th we had this gardening and on the 12th back on my old favourite. Essen. I went to the Ruhr valley twenty seven times and I survived. How I done it I don’t know. And then we went to St Nazaire. Went to St Nazaire and that was a dodgy trip. They had a hell of a load of flak. We was in France and had a lot of flak. The thing was we had a, we had a wireless operator and on one of our trips he wasn’t well and he couldn’t fly that night. So he, he was one trip behind us. Say we was on twenty eight he was on twenty seven so he had to make up a trip so what they used to do they used to find another crew who wanted a spare wireless operator and he’d go and make up his trip. He was one behind. Unfortunately, he went on this trip and he never come back. A bloke named Chapel. He was on about his twenty seventh trip. He only had three or four trips to do. And he went on this trip and never came back. Which happened all the time. And then [pause] we ended our tour. My last trip was Kiel Canal which is a shocking place that was. Shocking. Well they was all bad. And then I survived. I survived thirty seven trips and I’m still a sergeant. And they sent me to a OTU. Sent me to OTU as an instructor. And I done that for about six months and was in the mess one night and we’d had a load, I used to drink then. I don’t drink now. And we were already sozzled and we caused a little bit of damage. A little bit of mayhem in the mess. We went in front of the CO the next morning and he said, ‘I’m bloody fed up with you gunners.’ And he said, ‘I’m posting you.’ And I thought where the bloody hell are you going to post me? The two postings he’d already got out was to Scotland. I thought sod that. I’ve got to go up all way to Scotland. And my posting come up. Southend. Just down the road. How lucky could I be? And what I was doing I was flying in Martinets towing a drogue for the flak. And we used to go right from Dover, Ramsgate, Margate, Clacton, not Clacton. All the way along the south coast towing this drogue. And the British ack ack used to fire, but they were so bloody accurate they used to keep blowing the bloody drogues off. So they told the gunners to fire a couple of degrees further back. And you used to watch the flak. I used to watch the flak in a straight line, right coming right along, right. I hoped they’d stop firing before the [laughs] and you could see the puffs of smoke trailing the white, trailing the big white drogue we had. And I’d done that went on for a few months and they said you’re going to back on ops again. And that’s when I went back on Halifaxes. And that was in [pause] that was in — there was a little bit of a rest and I never expected to go back on ops again. These are all towing drogues. The co-op yeah.
TO: So how many ops did you do in total during the war?
HI: Sixty.
TO: Sixty.
HI: Yeah. And then this is when I was telling you about. The beginning, the beginning of my second tour.
TO: [unclear]. Another daylight one.
HI: Yeah. Well that’s when I, when the CO told me they’d put a .5. It was a big hole. A huge hole cut around underneath the belly of the Halifax. And they had the .5 there. And we went all the way to Duisburg. The flak was, the flak was just as bad as when, well it was worse than when I’d been there previous. In the previous months. And I never seen no fighters. And it was in daylight. When we come back the pilot was screaming his head off. He said, ‘I’m not going to fly any more planes with a bloody great hole in the bottom of the aircraft.’ He said, ‘It’s too cold.’ So they, they put a block on it. But the funny thing was as we were going in to Duisburg we was, we was approaching Duisburg the someone, the ones in front had already bombed Duisburg and they were coming back. Like in a U. Coming back. There was about a quarter of a mile. As we was going in like that they was coming out. And one of our aircrafts, I don’t know why he done it, he decided he wasn’t going to bomb Duisburg. He was going to join those that was already coming out. And as he went across from our, from our flight as he went across, right across to join those that were coming out, the flak — because we was on the protection of the silver paper. We was all dumping the silver paper out and the radar couldn’t do nothing about it. But he broke the protection of the silver paper to cut across to join the blokes that was coming out. The flak opened up. It went one — one, two, three. The third one hit him. Right dead centre. Just went like that. It’s a shame. And I’ve seen it at night time. But during the day I’d seen it. I couldn’t believe it. Just went in smithereens. He still had his bomb load on. He must have had. Yeah. Why he cut across I don’t know but he just blew up. Yeah.
TO: Could you please explain how the silver paper or Window worked?
HI: Well, what it was, each piece of silver paper made a blimp on their radar screen. Each piece. So if you imagine millions of pieces dropping down — the whole screen was absolutely flooded. And the guns just stood still because they didn’t know which, which blimp to follow. Instead of one blimp on the screen there was thousands of them and they didn’t — so the guns just stood like that. The searchlights stood like that. The fighters didn’t know what to do, and the fighters — what they’d done they’d put a separate radar in the fighters. Night fighters. Independently. And they could still attack us which they did do. But the silver paper definitely helped us. Really helped us with the flak and the searchlights. They couldn’t do anything. The searchlights just used to stand still like that. But one thing they used to do which let’s say there was cloud cover most of the way to the target. The searchlights used to light up under the cloud and the bombers that were flying above it were silhouetted out against the light of the cloud and the fighters used to go straight in there. You know. Loads and loads of fighters. You had to watch them all the time and directly you see one you went straight into a dive to try to get out of its way. But as you know we never flew in a formation and there was a lot of crashes with our bombers criss-crossing and diving about.
TO: Did you participate in the large raid on Hamburg in July 1943?
HI: No. I missed that one. I went to the one previous. The one previous what I went to. That one was the fire one wasn’t it? That was the first time they used silver paper. That was exactly the first time they used it. We’d never used it.
TO: Did people call it silver paper or did most people call it Window?
HI: Window. Window. It was called Window. Yeah. Yeah. They had that right from the war. They had it but they wouldn’t use in case. They were frightened the Jerries were going to use it.
TO: And ironically Germany had developed it at the same time and didn’t want to use it.
HI: They did. Yeah.
TO: In case Britain used it.
HI: Yeah. Yeah. We used it because we were getting very strong in the air at that time. And they had to use it because the night fighters were getting the upper. And do you know at one period they was going to pack up night bombing? Yeah. They were going to stop it because the losses were so heavy. Yeah.
TO: And what’s your opinion on the Halifax bomber?
HI: Good. The Halifax Mark 3 was a good bomber. It never got the credit it deserved. It was a very very good bomber. They changed the engines and the tail plane and it became a very very good bomber. It was reliable. Got a good speed. Good height. The Mark 2 was rubbish. I think the Germans shot most of them down, like the Stirling. But the Mark 3 Halifax was a good plane. They changed the engines to Bristol, Bristols, and it made a lot of difference. Yeah.
TO: And what did you think of the Wellington?
HI: The Wellington was a good plane but it wasn’t up to it when the war started. It was alright for a few months of the war. My first squadron, number 9, they made the first bombing raid of the war and they lost, I think they lost two or three on their first bombing raid. The Wellington was a good plane but it wasn’t up to the capability of bombing. Night bombing. It was too slow. Didn’t get the height. They did go up to the Mark 10 and we used to see them now and again but they didn’t use them a lot at the end of the war. The Stirling was useless. The Stirling one was a useless bomber. Couldn’t get no height. It was big. It was clumsy. Some of the blokes used to like it but not many.
TO: And the Lancaster. What did you think?
HI: The Lancaster was a good plane. Yeah. Was a good plane. Yeah. And they churned them out. The way they churned them out was unbelievable. Do you know what we’re going to do now? We’re going to stop for a bit. I’m going to make you a cup of tea.
TO: Yeah. Sure. Are we on course?
HI: Yeah.
TO: Yeah. Ok.
TO: Yeah. Are you ok? Yeah.
[pause] [doorbell rings]
TO: Ok.
HI: Right. What do you want? The second tour?
TO: Yes. Start on the second tour I think.
HI: What happened I was doing drogue towing with my Martinets and the CO called us in and said, ‘You’re back on ops.’ And they sent me to 77 Squadron, Full Sutton. October 1944. And when I arrived they said, ‘The CO wants to see you. So I said what’s he want to see me about.’ I bet he wants to borrow a few [laughs] Anyway, he came out to us and he said, ‘We’re just, this is a special Halifax,’ and he said, ‘It’s got a big hole been cut in the bottom of the Halifax.’ It was a big hole as well. And it was a .5. and they put a sort of, I don’t how they expected me to sit on that bloody seat all those hours. And it was a manual. It was a manual .5 and they said, ‘If a fighter, a night fighter comes up underneath you’ll be able to spot it and protect the aircraft.’ So I said, ‘Alright. Fair enough.’ And the strange thing was it wasn’t on a night bombing trip. They sent me on a day trip to Duisburg. And I never see no fighters come up. And we come back. But the crew, the crew was complaining terrible about the hole in the aircraft and the cold air coming through. Anyway, on the 22nd of the 10th ’44 I went up again in this Halifax with a .5 and done a little bit of air firing with it. And I come down. I said, ‘I don’t think it’s going to be very successful because it’s too bloody cold.’ So, so the CO said, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do with you then. We’ve don’t need any gunners here.’ And they posted me to 462 Squadron at Driffield, Australian squadron. And there I started my, on the 29th of the 10th. 29th of the 10th [pause] where was I there. Yeah. On the 22nd I was at Full Sutton. On the 29th of the 10th I was on ops in 462 Squadron, Driffield. 1942. The pilot apparently had been shot down over France and he made this because it was occupied by the British troops then. And they managed to get back to England and of course he was looking for a new crew and I joined him. And believe it or not as a mid-upper. I don’t know why they put me as a mid-upper. Anyway, they put me as a mid-upper and we went to Happy Valley. A place called Dornburg It was a daylight on Dornburg. That was just outside Happy Valley. On the following day we went to Cologne. Operations — Cologne. That was as a night time. And I couldn’t see them I was beginning to find it was getting a bit easier. The ops were getting easier. The flak was just as bad but the fighters didn’t seem, the fighters didn’t seem such a pest like they used to be. And the thing was every trip I went on. Every trip I went on my second tour. Near enough every one, near every one, was to Happy Valley. The next trip was with Hourigan, an Australian, was to Dusseldorf. And on the 4th we went to Bochum. Bochum. That’s in the Ruhr valley as well. And then [pause] and then we went on a daylight raid. It just shows you. A daylight raid to Gelsenkirchen and — which was unbelievable. You’d never, the year before they would never have dared gone over the Ruhr valley in the daylight. And then we done a bit of air firing in a Halifax. And then we went back to Essen. Hourigan again. I was with Hourigan again and we went to Essen on the 29th of ‘44. And on the 30th believe it or not we was back in Duisburg. And every one of those trips was to the Ruhr Valley. And on the 21st of the 12th ‘44 I went to Cologne. And I was posted from there to the other Australian squadron 466 Squadron. Total operations — I thought it was nine. Then I was posted to the other Australian squadron at Driffield — 466. And I carried, and I went with, wait a minute, I carried on with Hourigan and we went to Saarbrucken in daylight. Which was unbelievable. And then we went to Magdeburg in the, in the Ruhr Valley. And then back to Gelsenkirchen again as a mid-upper. I went as a mid-upper then in a Halifax. But I found that things were a bit easier in the second tour. Wasn’t really because we were still losing a hell of a load of bloody aircraft but it seemed to me a bit, seemed to me to be a bit lighter. And then on the 2nd of the 2nd ‘45 I went to Wanne-Eickel. It’s another — I missed out a page here.
[pause]
And then I was posted to 158 Squadron at Lissett in Yorkshire. And the first trip we went to was to Dresden. That was on the 13th of the 2nd ‘44. We, we never actually bombed Dresden. We bombed the place just outside Dresden called [unclear ] or [unclear] or Bohlem or whatever. B O H L E M. We was told to go in before the 5. We were in 4 Group and were told to go in just before 5 Group and draw the fighters away from Dresden which we did do. We had bleeding swarms of bleeding fighters around us. And the Lancs went into Dresden unopposed and that’s why Dresden took such a hiding. There was no opposition whatsoever there. And then 5 Group just done what they liked. And we could see, well we was right next door to it. We could see the huge blaze at Dresden burning merrily away. And we was at, from this place just outside Dresden. We landed. We had trouble. I think we got hit that night and we landed back at Manston for a couple of hours. Then we went to, then funnily enough I started flying with a Canadian. A Canadian named Cooperman. And strangely enough that was, that was back, back at the Ruhr Valley again. Rohrsheim. And then the following, the following day I was with Cooperman and we was bombing a place called Worms in the Ruhr valley. And I always remember to this day, this Canadian, who was a Jew, was a Jewish bloke and he’d left Germany with his parents before the war. And he was, he was a flying officer in the Canadian Air Force. And as we approached Worms he said, ‘Chaps,’ he said, ‘This is where I was born.’ He said, ‘And now I’m going to bomb the bastards.’ And those were the exact words he said. And we did. We went and bombed it. And the next thing we knew and on the 23rd of the 2nd we went to Essen again and, the times I went to Essen, and the following day on the 24th of the 2nd I went back to the Ruhr Valley and done close quarter — Kamen. And then the following on the 27th — That was our last trip of the war we went to Mainz. And most of those trips were in the Ruhr valley. And unscathed. Unbelievable. And of course the war, the war finished soon after that didn’t it? 27th of the 2nd.
TO: And what are your thoughts on the bombing of Dresden?
HI: Well to be honest with you it was just well after all those trips it just came normal. You know. You just looked down and saw a huge huge fire below you which you normally see and that was it. Dresden was the same. We was, the place we bombed was more or less on the outskirts of Dresden. The idea of us was to draw the fighters away. Just go in about five or six minutes before the main force. Bring the fighters away and of course that’s what happened. And the Lancs from 5 Group went in and done their business. They did do the business. There was no flak there. No opposition whatsoever. There was no flak and no fighters. They just went in, done their bombing and went home. And of course it caught well alight.
TO: Did the fire that you could see at Dresden — did it look any bigger than what you had seen before?
HI: It looked big, yeah. We could see. All the crew said, ‘Blimey that’s a big one down there.’ But then again most, most bombing trips we always had looked down, those targets were well alight. Well alight. The amount of incendiaries we dropped was unbelievable. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them. Yeah.
TO: This is going to be an odd question and I don’t think you may even be able to answer it, but when you were flying over areas that were on fire could you, was there any noticeable change in the temperature when you were flying above it?
HI: No. I wouldn’t have thought so. You was only over the target, it looked like a lifetime but you was only over there minutes. Really minutes. Oh, you’re talking about the hot air coming up?
TO: Yeah. The [unclear] rising up.
HI: I don’t think — they never noticed. It didn’t seem no bloody warmer in the turret anyway [laughs] but all you was, I’d known from my personal opinion was we wanted to get in. Get out. Quick as possible. That’s what we done. But the thing that we never realised but the German fighters told us afterwards, the worst thing we ever done was after we’d dropped our bombs was to go into a dive. We should never have done that because that gave the advantage to the night fighters. They was above you then. Well above you to come in. What we should have done is kept the same height coming out of the target. But we all used to dive. Pick up speed to get away from the target. Yeah. But you used to see on the way home you always see bombers blowing up in the sky. All the time. Yeah. Over the target, yeah. And the thing was to get in and get out quick.
TO: Right. How do you feel about Churchill’s decision when he ordered the bombing of cities?
HI: Well, we never knew it was. We knew it was somebody higher up than Harris but of course it was, was Churchill. He demanded that we bombed the cities and Harris just took his word for it and he made sure we did bomb them. And of course he had the backing of a huge bomber force didn’t he? Lancs, Halifaxes. Probably, if we’d had them a year earlier the war would have finished earlier. But the bomb load was enormous. One four thousand pounder and fourteen hundred incendiaries. Imagine that lot dropping. Four or five hundred bombers dropping that lot on a small town. Yeah.
TO: When you went on missions were you part of a bomber stream?
HI: Well a stream. It was, literally was a stream. There was no formation flying or nothing. You just went over and you had to be in a certain point. More or less rendezvous at a certain point on the map. So that you were more or less was all collected together so you could make one rush to the target. Get in and get out quick. You never doodled about over the target. You went in and especially with the Pathfinders. You just, you just went for the flare. You’d see the flares. Went straight for the flares.
Other: Sorry to disturb you again Harry.
HI: Yes sir.
[recording paused]
TO: You think, you just mentioned to me something about the evasive manoeuvres. The night fighters said the wrong thing to do was to dive.
HI: Yeah. Leaving the target. We found out, well after the night fighters said it was the wrong thing to do was to dive away from the target because it gave them the advantage of height to come in after you. Which, when you think about it, was right. But what actually caused the much trouble for Bomber Command was the up and under. The Schrage musik. That was one that caused all the trouble. The flak you couldn’t, couldn’t avoid. The flak was there. If it hit you it hit you and if it didn’t hit you you was lucky. It was just sheer luck. You couldn’t avoid it. You had to go through it and if one of those shells hit you that was it. Yeah. We used to get huge lumps of shrapnel come through the aircraft. That was the danger. And if that hit you it caused terrible damage. So there you are.
TO: Could you see much on the ground other than fires and explosions?
HI: No. All you could see from about twenty thousand feet you didn’t keep looking at the target because you had to keep active with the fighters. Because they was all around you. All waiting for you. They was like sharks and you had to watch. You had to really watch the sky for fighters. They were the biggest danger. And when they come in they showed no mercy. They went straight in.
TO: Yeah.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Did night fighters take out more bombers than flak?
HI: Yeah. Definitely. Much much more. Especially with the up and under. That’s what done it. Yeah. I think they — I reckon — I don’t know, I’ve got no idea but I reckon seventy five per cent, eighty percent of the shot down were done by fighters. And you know when you think some had forty or fifty bombers to their credit. It was so easy for them. You could come and all they had to do was get underneath the aircraft, press the trigger, press the button, fire the guns and they wouldn’t, the shells that were explosive shells go into the petrol tank. Bang. Up it went. Just like that.
TO: And when you, can you explain to me a bit more how the briefings worked for the missions?
HI: Well, what it actually was we were two squadrons. We were told at the briefing in the briefing room was near enough down to your HQ you know where all the office buildings were. And with a crowd in the room there was always a military policeman on the, on the gate and we went in and sat down. A bit noisy. Everybody was noisy. Laughing and joking. Then all of a sudden — bang. The CO would come in with his adjutant and his armament officer, gunnery officer, bomb aimer officer and navigation officer used to follow the CO in. And they’d go on the platform and we’d wait for the curtain. There was a big curtain over the map. That was pulled down and then you’d see. And that’s when you used to get the ohs and ahs. See the Ruhr. See the Ruhr Valley up and say, ‘Oh blimey.’ But they didn’t, they used to love Italy. Going to Italy. But Munich was a bad target, Nuremburg was, Berlin was. But the Ruhr valley was the place where most of the flak was. The reason for it was because you didn’t have one town. You had about ten or fifteen towns near enough on top of each other. And if you missed one, one town, if you missed one town you had to go over another town and they’d give you a pasting as well. That’s why they used to call it Happy Valley. Yeah. You got a good reception going in and a better reception coming out. You used to see the bombs blowing upwards and the huge explosions down below. You still had to keep one eye out for the fighters. Especially the single engine fighters. They used to come in and they used to go right through the flak after you. Yeah. Messerschmitt. Used to come straight at you. And they had four cannons and if one of those hit you mate it was good night nurse.
TO: What kind of targets were you generally given at the briefings?
HI: Well, we was told an area where to bomb. We were never given an actual target. We was given an area to bomb because very very difficult of a night time picking out a target from twenty thousand feet. You got an area and we would bomb that area. If we could. If it was a clear moonlight night and at that time we were dropping our own flares. There was no Pathfinding at the beginning. And we used to drop our own flares to see where, you know, where the target was. And it got easier when they got the Pathfinders. Because all that meant there was — get to the target and see the flare. Bomb the flare. But the trouble was Jerry knew this was going on and so he used to concentrate all his, all his artillery on where the flares were. And a lot of places were literally burned to pieces. Because I didn’t realise how many houses in Germany were made of wood. It was amazing. Dresden was nearly all wood wasn’t it? Yeah. And there was another place. I forget where it was. Completely burned down. Near the Baltic. I can’t remember the name.
TO: Hamburg.
HI: No. Smaller place than that. They burned the whole town down. That was in about 1942.
TO: Lubeck.
HI: Ah, Lubeck. Yeah. Yeah. They burned Lubeck down completely. Yeah. Raised it to the ground. Incendiaries. They were fearsome things those incendiaries. I think they was about eighteen inches long. Shaped like a twenty piece coin. About four, I think it had four or five sides to it but they were pretty deadly. Imagine that. I mean we used to carry fourteen or fifteen hundred. You imagine a hundred Lancs all carrying that amount load. How many incendiaries were dropped in one night. And then we had the other incendiary with oil. That was a terrible one as well.
TO: And were you ever given, did you ever win any awards during the war?
HI: Yeah. I got the DFC. The reason I think I got that because after, as the war was finishing they asked me how many trips I’d done. I wrote them down. They took no notice of it and then a couple of weeks later they said, ‘Oh. You’ve been awarded the DFC.’ So that’s what I got, the DFC. It was a bit unique because I was a warrant officer. I wasn’t an officer and that’s an officer’s medal the DFC but being a warrant officer they gave it to the, gave us the DFC as well.
TO: Did it go to the rest of the crew as well?
HI: That I don’t know. The war had finished and most of the crews had dispersed, you know. What was left of them. Most of the blokes during the war was awarded the DFCs and DFMs. A lot of them got killed. A hell of a lot of them. Usually and this is what I don’t understand — when I finished my first tour everybody got the DFM except me. That I don’t understand. Then I realised what it might have been. Because I changed my name from Irons to Galloway when I was halfway through me tour. And I think they might have looked at it and just seen Galloway. And Irons was just so many trips. And Irons was so many trips and they never connected the two together. But all the crew got the DFM except me. Pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator, mid-upper except me.
TO: And what was your favourite aircraft of the war?
HI: Well, I think, myself the Halifax. I thought the Halifax Mark 3 was a better aircraft than the Lanc. It was a good bomber. It done its job. Same as the Lanc. I don’t think it carried the same heavy bomb load as a Lanc. It was a good plane. Had no problems with it. We had four machine guns in the mid-upper and four in the back so it was a bit better armed than the, than the Lanc. And right at the end of the war of course they brought out the other turret with the .5s in them. It was a bit late though. The war was more or less finished. We should have had them in ‘42. They made a hell of a lot of difference.
TO: And I know we mentioned this earlier but could you explain again what happened to people who refused to go on bombing missions?
HI: Well I know it happened. I know it happened. I’ve heard, you know, stories of what happened. I never come across it myself but it did happen. And especially not the officers so much which I still don’t understand that. But the NCOs were stripped. Stripped down to AC2 and put in the prison. I think it was in the Isle of Sheppey and they done about two or three months here. And when they came out on their record books, you know the big card box, book thing you all had was right at the top in red letters that they’d refuse to fly. LMF. Yeah. Which was wrong. Some blokes couldn’t take it. Just couldn’t take it. Probably had a couple of bad trips and that was it. And they were bad trips. Yeah. And after the war they just treated us like mud. Didn’t care. Gave us all the menial jobs there were about and that was it. We had to wait twelve months before we got demobbed. A lot of them got, a lot of them had their ranks cut right down to AC1 and AC2. I don’t know why. I never, but a lot of them did. Which was all wrong.
TO: And what’s your best memory of the war?
HI: My best memory of the war was my first bombing trip. To Duisburg. Not Duisburg.
TO: Dusseldorf.
HI: Dusseldorf. That was my first trip and that was the most frightening. It wasn’t the worst one I done but it was my first one and I never expected what I’d see. Never knew. And when we come back after a bombing raid we never discussed, never discussed a bombing trip anyway. We never said it was bad or anything like that. We just, just more or less kept quiet. Because we was all frightened what was going to be the next one I think. Which near enough always happened. The crews. You’d go on leave, you’d come back — all different faces. Yeah. And that went on time and time again. I think they could have treated bomber crews a little bit better than what they did for what they’d done but there you are.
TO: And what was probably the most difficult mission you ever had? If you don’t want to discuss don’t talk about it.
HI: No. The most difficult place to go to was Essen. It was terrible. The flak there was unbelievable. It was all difficult. Every one. You never knew. You never knew your luck. Some went on easy trips. They thought was an easy trip. Like the one who got the VC for the first daylight raid. Low level raid of the war in a Lancaster. He got the VC and he stayed on the squadron but he never done no trips until one came up for Italy which we used to say it was easy. He went on an Italian one and got shot down. So you never knew your luck. Nettleton. That was the VC. Yeah. He went on one of the easy Italian trips and got shot down.
TO: So you mentioned earlier that guy Gibson was with you on that one low level mission.
HI: Oh yeah. Yeah.
TO: Was he with a different squadron number at that time?
HI: Yeah. He was, he was 106 squadron. He was the CO of 106 Squadron. 106 Squadron. He was definitely on our port side. And he took the photograph of us and another crew as we were just going into Le Creusot and that is, and the actual picture now is in the big museum at Hendon. The big photograph of it. Yeah. Because he went on to become the Dambuster didn’t he?
TO: What do you think of Operation Chastise?
HI: Operation?
TO: Chastise. It was the Dambusters raid.
HI: Well I reckon myself, personally speaking they could have got near enough any crew could have done that. It was only just more or less flying low and dropping the bomb at the right height. But they just, they just picked the crews, he picked the crews he wanted. They were all his mates mostly from 106 Squadron. But it was a good raid that weren’t it? A good raid. There was worse ones than that but there you are. You can fly to Essen or on the Ruhr Valley was a much more dangerous target than the — than that.
TO: Did you ever have to attack railway yards?
HI: They did but we never attacked, I never attacked a railway yard. Only in Italy, Genoa. But we attacked the whole town and the railway yard was amongst it, you know. We attacked that because they was having a big huge battle at Alemain and the Germans were bringing supplies through to Genoa down to the Middle East. And we attacked it. The railway yards there. Yeah.
TO: And what do you think was the most important campaign of the war?
HI: Well actually — what? From the whole of —
TO: From the whole of the war.
HI: Bomber Command. I think if it hadn’t been for Bomber Command the war would have gone on for much much much longer. Much longer. So we — so you’ve been to Germany haven’t you? Seen the, did you see the state of the bombing? Oh you never did you?
TO: I saw, I saw the church that they left.
HI: Yeah. Yeah. But the flak, but the bombing terrorised Germany. Definitely. I don’t think we would have stood it anyway. I know we wouldn’t have done.
TO: And did you hear at all — when did you hear about the Holocaust?
HI: Nobody heard about that ‘til after the war. They must have known. They must have had, they must have had reports coming through from the Resistance about what was happening but we never heard about it. We never knew it was going on. The funny thing was I read after the war that the Jewish community in England asked us, asked Bomber Harris to bomb Auschwitz. Bomb it completely. And he refused. Good job he did because can you imagine what would have happened after the war when they found out that they said the RAF had bombed a concentration camp? The thing was the Jews reckon that it was better for them to be killed with a bomb than the suffering like they were. [pause – fly buzzing on recording] Got some flies in here haven’t we? Have you got it all written down have you?
TO: I have my questions on here. See which ones I’ve asked and which I haven’t because a lot of them you’ve answered already in your — in your —
HI: Yeah.
TO: Were clouds over the target ever a major problem?
HI: It was a big problem. Once, well once the cloud was over the target you couldn’t see it so you either had to bring your bombs back or drop them on a near enough target what you see. And once you, if you went over the target we shouldn’t have gone, we shouldn’t have gone on the raid. If the Met officer told us that there was full cloud over the target we shouldn’t go. We had a few cancellations like that. We were all ready to go sitting in the aircraft and then the red light would come up. No ops through, through bad weather. Icing was one of the worst most dangerous things. Flying through cloud with the ice.
TO: And before you joined the RAF can you, do you remember much about seeing the bombing of London?
HI: Oh I seen London. I was, I told you. We lived at Stamford Hill. It was a high, quite a high part of the ground and you had a first class picture of what was happening in the City of London. It was well alright. Really well alight. They caught the whole of the city alight. It was blazing. And that’s when we decided to join the RAF. A lot of the bombs were dropped scattered in London anyway. A hell of a lot of the bombs were dropped everywhere. Not in one area. Just dropped their bombs and went away. You know. It was over London. That was it.
TO: And do you remember seeing much of the Battle of Britain?
HI: Yeah we see a little bit of it. We were about fifteen sixteen then. Sixteen. And we was over the Lea. The big open open field by the River Lea and we had a grandstand view of the RAF Spitfires attacking the bombers and the fighters. We see them going down. Yeah. It was quite a battle. Yeah. And as I say they had a terrific disadvantage. The Germans. Because they had to come all the way over France before they got to England, and our Spitfires were waiting for them when they come here. They didn’t have that huge journey. They were more or less local. At Hendon they were at. Hornchurch. Yeah. Good job we beat them. But the Battle of Britain was no comparison. I’ll tell you now, no comparison to the Battle for the Ruhr. No comparison whatsoever. In terms of casualties anyway.
TO: And can you tell me a bit about the gunnery school course you went on?
HI: Yeah. When we arrived there we was told it was a six weeks course. I think we flew about — I’ve got it here. I know it wasn’t a lot.
[pause]
HI: In all I done nineteen hours flying. Nineteen hours. It’s frightening. And it was all firing at drogues. Two hundred rounds fired. All usual firing at a drogue being towed by an aircraft.
TO: Yes.
HI: Done six weeks there and I was straight on ops which was frightening really. You didn’t know what was happening [laughs] till, till you got there. Yeah.
TO: Is it ok if I close the door to the lounge? There seems to be a bit of birdsong coming through.
HI: Pardon?
TO: Is it ok if I close the door to the lounge?
HI: Yeah
TO: Sorry. It’s just a bit of —
HI: What? A bit of a reflection.
TO: No. There’s a bit of birdsong coming through. That’s all.
HI: Birdsong.
TO: Yeah.
HI: Yeah. Go on. Yeah. You don’t like birds.
TO: No. It’s just it might interfere on the film. That’s all. Sorry.
[pause]
TO: Nothing to do with birds it’s just it might be interfering in the background noise that’s all. I haven’t got a problem with birds. Sorry what was that. I couldn’t remember, what were saying earlier about the propaganda leaflets that you had with you?
HI: Nickel. Every time we took off there was a pack. A big parcel of nickels. Not on every raid but a lot of the raids and it was up to the engineer mostly to throw them through the bomb bay. He had a window at the side of him and he could open up and could throw the nickels into the bomb bay. So when the bomb bay, when the bomb doors opened all the nickels floated out. That was the idea of it. But our skipper say sod it and just used to ask one of the crew to go back and throw them out the bleeding aircraft. We don’t want to — ‘We’ve got enough on our plate without throwing out bloody leaflets.’ And it was a load of rubbish that the Jerry never took notice of. Just a waste of time.
TO: Harris said after the war he never engaged in pamphlet dropping for two reasons. One — it gave the defenders plenty of practice in getting ready for it.
HI: Yeah.
TO: And two it supplied a considerable quantity of toilet paper to the Germans.
HI: That’s right. Yeah [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Nickels they called them.
TO: And did you hear about Hitler’s invasion of Russia?
HI: Oh we heard about it. It was on the news. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It didn’t make no difference to us. We were still building our forces. That was in nineteen forty — in the nineteen forty wasn’t it? Russia.
TO: I think it was ’41. Or around that time.
HI: Yeah. It didn’t bother us but my squadron, number 9 and 617 went to Russia before they bombed the Tirpitz because it’s such a long distance they had to refuel and on the way back they bombed the Tirpitz. And they were successful. They sunk that anyway.
TO: Were your, did you ever see the Tallboy bombs they were using?
HI: No. I never see it. No. Because by the time I was on Halifaxes then. There was only two squadrons that had the tall bomb. There was 617 and my squadron — number 9. They didn’t started bombing, didn’t start using the tall boy until the end probably the end of ’43. They caused a lot of damage. Caused a hell of a lot of damage. But there was only two squadrons that dropped it anyway.
TO: And what were conditions like in general aboard a Halifax?
HI: Just the same as a Lanc I suppose. Bloody cold. And that was it. A little bit more room. You could get out the turret and get yourself, escape a bit quicker than the Lanc. It was a bit easier. You could open the doors and just more or less crouch down and get out. With the Lanc you had to slide yourself out about eight or nine feet before you could get to your feet. You had to slide down and slide out. Of course you know you was locked in the turret. You locked yourself with a clip at the back and just clipped it and that. And if you were probably badly wounded — if you couldn’t undo it you was buggered. You couldn’t get out the turret.
TO: Can you please explain to me the procedure for boarding the bomber and taking off for a mission?
HI: Well it wasn’t a lot in it actually. The crew. The WAAF driver used to drop you at your aircraft. And then the ground crew would be there. And all you would do was. It all depends how long you’ve got before take-off. If you had, if you were on one of the early crews you’d be on the outside of the aircraft. I think nearly everybody smoked them days. They was all puffing, puffing on fags until they got in. And set the fags out and climbed in the aircraft. And the bomb aimer would start checking the — yeah. The flight engineer would start checking his stuff. The two gunners would be make sure the guns are working well and the ammunition was coming up. And then we was just wait for the signal. I’d pull up the ladder. Slam the door and then trundle down to the starting point which was a big cabin. And you used to wait for the yellow light. The green light to go on and off you went. You’d circle the aerodrome till you got to a nice height and then off you went. You was on your own, on your Jack-Jones. We had to keep looking out for other aircraft in case they came too close to you. But there was never never never any formation flying of a night time. Never. Never.
TO: Did you ever do formation flying during the day?
HI: Never. Well, I told you we’d done two daylights. All we were — one big group of ninety Lancs just flying along at thirty foot. There was no formation flying or nothing. There were just one gaggle, what we called a gaggle. And if the fighters had got amongst us we’d have had it. But we were so lucky with that Le Creusot raid. To go all the way there and back without seeing a fighter was incredible. We were right across France. And there must have been hundreds of fighters there.
TO: Was there, I know you mentioned that you didn’t talk about missions but was there anyone who ever said that they thought that the bombing wasn’t - the bombing or the tactics weren’t working?
HI: No. I never heard that ever. Never. All I ever heard was we were going over to bomb the target and that was it. There was never any mention of tactics not working. Never. Only until after the war. And now they realise that bombing was very very important. It was through the bombing that really stopped the Germans. Stopped all their, stopped all their production. All their production.
TO: And what was the procedure for coming in to land at the end of a mission?
HI: That was, that was difficult because you was tired , you were bloody cold, and you were wanting to get down. You’d seen everything. You’d seen some terrible things happening in the air and the trouble was you’d all rush back to try to try to get, try to be the first to land. And the trouble was there would be about fifteen of you all circling the ‘drome at different heights waiting to come in and it was bloody tiring. Because you were tired anyway especially with an eight or nine hour flight. It’s not only the eight or nine hours flight it was the hours before preparing before you went. It could be a long long long day and when you come back everybody was trying to get back first. The first one back landed first and all the others had to queue up. Flying round and round and round until it was their turn. What we called pancake. And you just came down. Once you landed oh, take your mask off and just relax. Yeah. Some of those raids were terrible I’ll tell you. You never knew if you was coming back or not. Never.
TO: And were you ever scared?
HI: Always scared. You had to be. You weren’t human if you weren’t. With that amount of flak that was coming up. You can’t explain to people the amount of artilleries shells that were coming up. Hundreds of them over the target. Hundreds of them. And on top of that you had to watch out for the night fighters. You had to watch out for blokes dropping bombs on you. You had to watch out for collisions. And on top of that you had to find your way home [laughs] and that was a bit difficult sometimes. We’d be flying. Where the bloody hell are we? ‘Skipper I don’t know where we are.’
TO: Did you talk much with each other during a mission?
HI: No. No. All we talked about was the business. Nobody, there was no — I don’t know about other crews but most crews I suppose, everybody kept quiet until they had something to say. Which is most, which is most important. You don’t want a lot of chat in the aircraft while you’re flying on ops. You want to be as quiet as possible. You never know.
TO: And did you socialise a lot outside of missions?
HI: Only with, with the crew. We always went out. If we went out anywhere it was always with the crew on the beer. We was always drinking. Always. Most of the aircrew were drinkers. Except my pilot. Stubbs. He never drank, never smoked and he never went out with women. But by God could he swear when we was on ops. His language [laughs] his language was absolutely vile. What he didn’t call the bomb aimer. The flight engineer. He never swore at me though. And you couldn’t swear back at him — he was a flight lieu [laughs] yeah.
TO: Slight digression here. Bernie Harris the chap I mentioned to you earlier.
HI: Yeah.
TO: He said, I think he said there was a member of his crew who could swear for about thirty minutes without repeating the same word and once accidentally there was some kind of radio error.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Started swearing for thirty minutes straight in to it. When there was some senior officers on the radio or something. And apparently there was, oh sorry, also some young WAAF with them at the time. He nearly fainted when she made the call. Yeah. That’s —
HI: Yeah.
TO: And, sorry you mentioned on the first mission you had to make a second bomb run.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Was that common?
HI: Not really. But this pilot, he was a good pilot and he liked to, liked to have everything right. It had to be straight. And if we’d have gone in and he hadn’t got the aiming point and he took the photograph. We come back with no aiming point. The raid wouldn’t have counted anyway. That’s why we went around again. Second run. It was dangerous but there you are. I always said it was like doing two trips in one.
TO: This is more a speculative question but do you think anything could have been done during the war to reduce the losses Bomber Command were suffering?
HI: Yeah. Had the turret. Had the turret underneath the aircraft. If they’d had the turret underneath the aircraft they would have saved a hell of a lot of aircraft. A hell of a lot. Then again I don’t know where they could have put a turret underneath a Lanc. You had your bomb bay which took up say eight tenths of the area underneath. And then you had your H2S. There was no room for a turret. No room at all unless you took the H2S out or you made the bomb bay smaller. The Yanks had it because their bomb bay was — they never carried hardly any bombs anyway. They only had a small area for their bombs. And we had a huge, well you know, they had the huge room underneath. It was enormous.
TO: And what did you think of German aircraft of the war?
HI: The what?
TO: The German aircraft of the war.
HI: Well they were good. Yeah. They were very good. Yeah. The only thing is the Germans never had a heavy bomber did they? They never had a heavy bomber. The bombers, the JU88 and the Messerschmitt 110 they turned into night fighters because they could stay up in the air, you know. About six or seven hours cruising about. But they never had no, and actually there was only the two bombers they had, the JU88 and the 110. And they couldn’t carry no bomb load. They carried a thousand pounder and that was it. Not like the Lanc.
TO: And how was morale in general in the air force?
HI: It was alright. Yeah. It was alright. Yeah. No one ever moaned. They knew that they’d, most of them knew that they wasn’t going to come back. That’s the most amazing thing of the war I think. They all knew. Most of them knew they wasn’t going to come back. Which was incredible. Incredible. To prove that everyone used to write a last letter. I never. But most of them did. Used to write a last letter home. They knew they wasn’t going to survive. They had to do thirty trips. It wanted some doing and come back every time. Wanted some doing. Yeah.
TO: Did people ever talk about friends that they’d lost?
HI: No. Not really. No. No. I’ll tell you the word they used to use. I’ll tell you now, was, ‘Gone for a shit.’ That was it. Nothing else was said. ‘Oh, where’s so and so today?’ ‘Oh they went for a shit last night.’ And that was it. Or got the chop. That was it. Never discussed no more. Another crew would come in. Same thing.
TO: Did you ever go to the cinema much during the war?
HI: No. Very rarely went. Very rarely. The thing for bomber crews was going up the pub and getting drunk. I suppose a few went — oh I think I went once or twice but mostly we used to end up in the pub. In the pubs in Lincoln. Mostly Lincoln. The Saracens Head. It was packed. Packed with bomber crews. Packed every night.
TO: And the newspapers that you had during the war. Did you ever read what they were saying about bomber crews?
HI: No. There wasn’t much spoken about the bomber crews. Not a lot. Not a lot. There wasn’t a lot of information about them. There was no publicity about them anyway. Only now and again when one of them won the VC but that not a lot. The bombing just carried on quietly. The government knew what was going on that was it. They public didn’t know. Only around Lincoln when they used to see about three or four hundred Lancs circling Lincoln ready to go.
TO: Was it very cramped aboard the aircraft?
HI: Well in the rear turret it was yeah. In the rear turret. And the mid-upper was very cramped, very very cramped. No room. No room for movement at all — the time you got your clothing on. And you had a seat a hard seat. I think it was armour plated seat we had and it was as hard as anything. Apart from that it was only because we were so young that we took it. But the oxygen used to make your throat and mouth terrible dry. You was breathing through a rubber oxygen mask — the smell of the bloody rubber. Yeah. Yeah. How I managed it I don’t know but I did. Incredible.
TO: If you want to take another break we can.
HI: No. I think I’ll have another drink. You’re making me bloody thirsty. Do you want another tea? Yeah?
[recording paused]
TO: So where did you keep the parachutes aboard the planes?
HI: It was on a piece of elastic outside the rear turret. About six foot back. There was a holder there and you put it in there and put a elastic, a piece of elastic held it. Sometimes it held and sometimes it didn’t.
TO: And did you hear much about what the Germans were doing in Europe during the war?
HI: No. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. Never heard about the atrocities or anything. Never. There was never no publicity about it. None at all. Only after the war we realised that a few of them ended up in Auschwitz. A few of our prisoners of war ended up in Auschwitz. That’s about all I know.
TO: Have you ever visited any concentration camps?
HI: Yeah. I’ve been to Auschwitz. And after I’d come out from there I had a clear conscience. Honestly, I did. I had a bit of a conscience before about the bombing but when I went there and see what actually happened that was it. Last year I went there. Yeah.
TO: And were they, was it a 303 guns you were on?
HI: They were all 303s.
TO: And were they very effective?
HI: Useless. Bloody useless. Unless you got them like I did. About thirty — about twenty or thirty yards away. But apart from that they were useless. I think the gunners shot down a few but not a lot. They didn’t have to come in anyway. They had 20 millimetre cannon. And they could stand off and belt away at you and you just had to look at them.
TO: And did your plane ever actually get lost?
HI: Yeah. A couple of times we got lost. We sort of circled around and looked around until we see a, some sort of point that we could lock on to you know. The favourite point was a river or a, or the coastline. But you did get lost. A few times you did got lost. Especially after coming out the target you was bloody lost anyway. You had to set your course again from, from the target. And you were jumping and diving about. We had a good navigator. He was alright. And of course once we got H2S that helped us tremendously but they never, they never got that ‘til the later part of that war. It was brilliant. That showed you right, the outline of all the towns, coastline and rivers through dense fog. It was brilliant.
TO: And was that with equipment like Gee?
HI: Gee we had and that took us to the Dutch coast. And then the Germans blocked it. It was useless after that. We had to make our own way. And of course all we hoped for we could see the Ruhr Valley. When you got to the Dutch coast how far was the Ruhr Valley? Half an hour away by plane. It wasn’t far. And we just headed out on that direction and you were soon over the Ruhr Valley. And you knew when you was over the Ruhr Valley with the bleeding guns firing at you. But they never opened up properly until you started dropping the bombs on the target. They kept quiet. And of course they used to have the — I don’t know if you know it. They used to light huge fires outside the town. Huge fires. To make out it was a town burning so we’d bomb that. Which a few of them did.
TO: I didn’t know about that.
HI: It was open fields in the country. But it was mainly —
[Phone ringing]
HI: Is that me again?
TO: Yeah.
[recording paused
TO: Sorry, could you just —
HI: It’s five to two.
TO: I mean what time do you leave?
HI: Oh I’ve got to leave here at 4 o’clock.
TO: Ok. I’ll definitely be done long before that.
HI: Pardon?
TO: I’ll definitely be finished long before that.
HI: I hope so because I’ve got to get ready as well.
TO: Ok. Sorry. And did the accuracy of bombing improve during the war?
HI: Immensely. When we got radar and H2S and Pathfinding it improved immensely. Accurately. Yeah. Yeah. And there was no problem with — the targets always used to be well alight when we got there anyway. And it was just a matter of dropping your bombs and getting out without being shot down. That was the problem. Getting away without being shot down. Yeah.
TO: What, what missions specifically do you remember the most of the war?
HI: Well the, the most vivid mission of all was the daylight raid on Le Creusot. Which was fantastic. To go right across France in ’42. Bomb. Bomb the target and come all the way back without seeing a fighter was incredible. That’s the most impressive one I know, and the bombing was very very accurate.
TO: Did you ever bomb German ships in ports?
HI: Well only Wilhelmshaven and Bremen and the Kiel. We don’t know. We just bombed the ports. I don’t know. I don’t say we hit a ship or not. I know 9 Squadron sank the Tirpitz. I know that. But I wasn’t there at the time.
TO: So, can you tell me which squadrons were you in during the war?
HI: Number 9 Squadron. Still flying now. They’re out in Syria. Number 9. 466. 158 Squadron.
TO: And did you hear about the invasion of Normandy?
HI: Well I don’t know about heard about. We see it was, we knew it was happening because the amount of aircraft in the air. Huge armadas of aircraft going over. So we knew, we knew the war was on. I was in Kent at the moment. At the time. Flying drogues. And we see it all happening there yeah. But I wasn’t involved in it anyway. Not ‘til later on. When I went back on my second tour.
TO: Sorry what — can you tell me again? What was your rank in the air force?
HI: I was a warrant officer. I was offered a commission but I wouldn’t take it. I don’t know why. I was silly. I should have taken it. I’d have ended up at least a flight lieu. But I, I didn’t refuse it. I just didn’t — all my mates took it and they all became commissioned but I didn’t take it. I don’t know why. I was happy as I was so that was it. I should have done though.
TO: And what was probably the most dangerous of the German fighters?
HI: The night fighter? The most dangerous was the JU88. Definitely. That was equipped especially for night fighting. It had all the radar on it. Heavy cannons. They had the Messerschmitt 110. That was a good night fighter. And the Messerschitt 109 they used. And the Focke-Wulf 190. Single engine. They used that mostly over the target especially if a bloke was caught in the searchlights. They’d just go straight for him. Bang. Yeah.
TO: If you got caught in a searchlight was it possible to get out of it?
HI: Very very difficult. Very very difficult. The only way to get out of the searchlights which we’d done several times was put the nose down like that and go starboard or port and hoping you could clear it. Sometimes, sometimes you did and sometimes you couldn’t. We used to see them captured you know with about fifteen searchlights on one aircraft. And then all the guns would open up and all you’d see was a great big puff of explosion and the smoke and that was another one gone. Simple as that. So, best to keep away from it if you could. But the one radar, the one that was run by radar you couldn’t get away from. It just went bang like that. Straight on an aircraft. No messing about. And once that got you five or six of the ordinary searchlights would come — because the radar one was blue and all the searchlight ones were white. And they just used to group you like that. The flak would come up. An enormous amount of flak. Bang. You didn’t stand a chance.
TO: Did, was your aircraft ever caught in searchlights?
HI: Yeah. We was caught a couple of times but lucky enough we done the dive and the turn and got away with it. But sometimes that was very difficult because sometimes you had your bomb load on and you fell. You fell like a stone and you hoped it would bloody well pull out at the end.
TO: And do you remember what you were doing on the day that the war ended?
HI: Yeah. I’d finished flying and I was, they’d posted me up to, after I had done me second tour they posted me up to, up to Scotland as an instructor. And I didn’t fancy it and then they posted me down to Blackpool. I was at Blackpool when the war finished. Being trained. Being changed to another duty because they didn’t want us no more in Bomber Command and we had to do ground staff duties. And they said to me, ‘What was you?’ I said, ‘I’m a tailor.’ They said, ‘We’ve got a job for you.’ And they put in charge of about twenty WAAFs on sewing machines down at Newmarket. That’s how I finished the war. And they treated the aircrew, they treated bomber crews diabolical. Absolutely. A lot of them lost their rank. They just said you’re not a flight sergeant no more. You’re an AC2 or an LAC. I thought it was shocking. Anyhow. But it didn’t, they couldn’t do that with me because I had the DFC up and I couldn’t walk about with a DFC as an odd, as a flight sergeant. So I was left. I was left as a warrant officer.
TO: Why do you think Bomber Command were treated the way they were?
HI: That I don’t know. That I do not know. I’ll never, I can never understand it and I never will. We won the war. We definitely won the war for bomber, for Britain. With our losses were horrendous and yet after the war they absolutely [clap] on us. Yeah. I think it was terrible. They treated us terrible. All the bomber crews were walking about after the war doing menial jobs. Sweeping up. Driving vans. Anything. They didn’t know what to do with us. What they should have done was demobilise us straight away. Said, ‘Alright. You’re finished. Go home.’ No. They had to wait another year doing menial jobs. There you are. And they wouldn’t give us a medal. Can you understand it?
TO: Can I understand it?
HI: Pardon?
TO: Can I understand why they were treated that way?
HI: Yeah. Can you understand why they never gave us a medal?
TO: No.
HI: The barbers got medals. The man that swept the roads got medals. The one that cleaned the toilet got medals. Bomber Command got nothing. Never. I don’t understand it. I don’t know. We should have got a campaign medal. We never got one. Which was terrible when you think of the men we lost. The men we lost. So all them men we lost in the war — all they’ve given them is a thin brass bar. That’s all they got. No medal. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.
TO: And what do you think of the Memorial we’ve got in Green Park?
HI: Oh that’s brilliant. We made that ourselves. We made it. Not the government. We got no help at all from the government. I’ll tell you what happened. I was in the office and we got six and a half million pound collected easy. And who should walk in the office was two geezers from the VAT. They said, ‘We understand you’ve got six and a half million pound voluntary contributions.’ We said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘A million of that is VAT,’ and they took it. There and then. And said, ‘We demand that you pay,’ and we made such a fuss of it and we got on to The Telegraph and we got the million pound back off the government — as a gift. They gave us our own money back as a gift. I think it’s disgraceful. All the money was for was for a Memorial. Nothing else. And they took a million pound off us. There you are. That’s the story.
TO: But what do you think of the Memorial itself?
HI: Oh it’s beautiful isn’t it? Fantastic. Yeah. And, and the Westminster Council said nobody will ever visit that memorial. It’s the most sought after memorial in the whole of London. More people visit that than any other memorial or, or museum. And the council said nobody — they didn’t want it. Didn’t want no memorial for Bomber Command. Can you understand it? Yeah. So that’s why I was so bitter.
TO: Did you ever — during the war did you ever feel any animosity towards Germany itself?
HI: No. Not really. No. No. Not really. No. No. We just went over. We knew what we were doing. We knew what we were doing. No. Not really. We couldn’t could we really? We were over there and back. We had nothing against the Germans. But after the war when we realised what they had got up to yeah but not before. Not during the war because we didn’t know anything about the camps. We felt sorry for the Germans being bombed like they were. Which we knew we was bombing. But we just carried on. Carried on ‘til the war finished and that was it.
TO: And how do you feel today about Germany?
HI: Well, they’re the same as us now aren’t they? No problem. They’re not going to be aggressive no more are they? We hope [laughs] What I’ve seen of the Germans they’re quite nice people. But there you are.
TO: What do you think of the atomic bombs being used against Japan?
HI: A good thing. A very good thing. In fact, in the long term — long and short term they saved millions and millions of lives. Because if they’d have invaded Japan there would have been millions of Japanese killed and many many thousands of Americans and British. They would have been slaughtered in an invasion. The bomb stopped it like that. Clear as that. Bang. Two bombs and the war was over. And the thing was what a lot of people don’t seem to realise — the Germans were on the verge of atomic bomb. And that’s why all the industrial places in Germany were being bombed. Because this government knew that they was on the doorstep of making the bombs themselves. They were nearly there. And they would have used it. Because they was desperate. They would have had one on Moscow and one on London. Definitely. Yeah.
[pause]
HI: You’re not killing the flies very well. I’m not having you around here no more.
TO: No. I got one. One.
HI: You got one. Yeah.
TO: Sorry. Now, how do you feel today about your wartime service?
HI: Not all that. All I know is I killed many many many people but as soon as I went to Auschwitz and that changed my view. Before that I had a guilty conscience of it because I knew I’d killed many many people but then I went to Auschwitz and seeing what was going on myself that was it. Finished. It was terrible. Have you been to Auschwitz aint you?
TO: No. No.
HI: You want to go there. You come out a different man I’ll tell you.
TO: I have however watched plenty of footage of all the camps when they were liberated.
HI: Yeah but you want to go there. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. What they done to those poor Jews. Babies, children, women. And we would have been the next ones on the list if they had got over the here. The Dutch suffered enough. I’ll tell you. They really suffered. The Dutch. And they’re more or less German and they suffered terrible.
TO: And did you — sorry, just keeping an eye on the time. Did you lose quite a few friends during the war?
HI: Pardon?
TO: I’m sorry to ask this but did you lose quite a few friends during the war?
HI: All of them. Yeah. All my friends. Yeah. All the people you knew on your squadron. By the time I’d left they’d all gone. All been killed or were prisoner of war. Mostly killed. We, we took off one night. I think we was going to Essen and we was up to six thousand feet and above us — no underneath us there was a huge explosion. Two Lancasters. One from our squadron — one from 44 Squadron hit head on with a full bomb load. And we was just above it and we went up like a bleeding lift with our bomb load. Right up we went. Enormous explosion. Yeah. And the thing was, the most amazing thing, the pilot said, ‘Alright. Set course for Essen.’ Just like that. And we could see what was happening below us yeah. But it happened a lot over Germany. Collisions. Can you imagine pitch darkness? Five or six hundred bombers in an area of about ten minutes. All ducking and diving about in pitch darkness. It had to happen didn’t it? Yeah.
TO: Did night fighters ever make head on attacks on a bomber?
HI: Never. Never made that. That’s why I don’t understand why they put a front turret in the Lancaster because it was useless. They never made a head on attack. Because the two speeds together was too fast. So won’t stretch at night time as well. They always come from, they used to come from port quarter, starboard quarter or dead astern. And of course once they got the up and under that was it. The up and under. The up and under. Schrage musik.
TO: And how do you feel today about Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan?
HI: I think we ought to get out and leave them to it. Let them shoot their bloody selves because there’s going to be a problem. A big problem. Especially if they allow them all over here. I think so anyway. We shouldn’t allow them in this country. We should let them get on with it. They’re Moslems. Let them fight it out amongst themselves because they won’t give no thanks to the Christians for intervening. I can tell you that.
TO: And what do you think of the films that have been made about the war?
HI: Well, what I see of the films today they’re all American. That’s all you see is American films. What they done. The British never made many films. They should have made more films about Bomber Command which they never. Have you ever seen a film about Bomber Command ?
TO: I’ve seen one. The Dambusters.
HI: Well, I mean the actual bombing of Germany. No. They never made a film and they won’t because they’re gutless. The government will not accept what Bomber Command done. That’s why we are in so much trouble. They’re embarrassed. They was embarrassed with Bomber Command and yet they told us to go there. It wasn’t us. It was the government told us to go. Well they told Harris what to do anyway.
TO: As a matter of interest I do know there are, there is a team of people, though they are struggling to get funding, of independent film makers who are, they aren’t even paying the actors, who are making a film about a Lancaster bomber crew.
HI: Are they?
TO: Yeah. But they’re struggling with funding at the moment I think.
HI: Pardon?
TO: I think they’re struggling to get the money through although they are filming it.
HI: As I say what have they got? Old men. There’s no young men is there? Have Are they going to have veterans making it?
TO: Apparently I think but it might be stuck in the planning stage that they do plan to make a remake of The Dambusters.
HI: Well, that wasn’t, that wasn’t the bombing war was it? The Dambusters. That was just a one off wasn’t it and I’ll tell there there was far far more dangerous raids than the Dambusters. Berlin for instance you know what I mean. In six weeks I think we lost over nine hundred bombers over Berlin. Yeah. Essen. Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Mannheim. Hamburg. And we lost thousands.
TO: And have you visited Germany recently?
HI: Yeah. I was there last week, last year. Went to Essen. And in Essen there’s a building there. There’s a huge, what do you call it? A big huge photograph about as long as this room on a building and it shows you Essen after the war. Every building was flat. As far as you could see was flat. Except one building. The synagogue. Never got touched. And it’s still there now. It’s a museum now. Wasn’t touched. But every building in Essen was blown down except that one. Incredible.
TO: How did you actually feel when you heard the war was over?
HI: It didn’t make no difference to me. I was a youngster. I was only twenty. Twenty one when the war finished. Didn’t make no difference to me. Just the war was over and that was it. Let’s get out. And of course when I got out I had a wife and a kid and nowhere to live. Nowhere to live. I had to go and live with the in-laws for a year or so which was bleeding terrible. There you are. And the few bob they gave us and the terrible demob suits they gave us were shocking. I was a tailor and I said, ‘What’s this bloody rubbish they’ve given us?’ Yeah. I know I’m a bit cynical but there you are.
TO: Is there anything else that you want to add about your time in Bomber Command which you feel is very important?
HI: Yeah. There’s one very important thing. I survived [laughs] I survived and I mean I survived. The amount of blokes I see get the chop was unbelievable. A whole squadron. You’d lose a whole squadron in about three or four weeks. Complete squadron. It would be renewed. New Lancs. New crews. The faces got younger and we, we carried on. In fact, people, they used to come in, in the crew room and see us, and look at us, and say, ‘Have you done all those amount of trips?’ And we’d say, ‘Yeah.’ Yeah. And we survived. And I took the place of a rear gunner who got killed. And I took his place and I carried on. He was only twenty. Robinson his name was. I took his place and survived. But we lost — I’ll tell you what. That squadron I was on. Number 9 Squadron — we lost eleven hundred men killed. Eleven hundred men. And that was just one squadron. And there was only seven men in a crew. Fourteen aircraft on a squadron. Can you imagine the slaughter? Yeah.
TO: That’s almost all my questions. I’m just scanning through now. Sorry. This is going right back to the start of the war now. What did you think of Chamberlain and him appeasing Hitler?
HI: Weak man. A weak man. He was a weak man yeah. He come back with all his crappy bits of paper. Hitler was laughing his head off. We should have had a man like Hitler on our side. We could have stopped him before the war started. All the socialists and labour all they wanted to do was disarm. Don’t have no armaments. And Germany was building itself up incredibly. We had nothing. All we had was the territorial army when the war started. We just started conscription, yeah, for the twenties. We had nothing. Germany had a huge air force. Tanks. We had nothing. Anyway, we survived though didn’t we? We did survive.
TO: What did you think of Churchill?
HI: Well he done a job. He did do the job. No doubt about that. He done the job. He was the man for the job. Nobody else. But he was the man for it. But he’s — people would never forget his politics before the war when we had two or three million people unemployed. Everybody was bloody hungry. Everybody was half starving. And the rich people were living and he was one of them. But during the war he had Hitler like that. Yeah.
TO: You know the people who, I know I keep coming back to this but you know the people who refused to go on bombing missions? How do you think they should have been treated?
HI: Well personally speaking I think they should have gone to psychotic hospitals and find out exactly what was wrong with them. It was definitely a lot of them couldn’t help it. I’m telling you that the bombing raids were horrendous. I’m telling you. It was absolutely frightening. And some, as you know not everybody can take it. A few of them couldn’t take it and what they done was they stripped them down and put them in prison. Which was all wrong. LMF they called it. And when they came out of prison they put a great big stamp on their record papers — LMF. And the whole station where they was posted to knew what he was. And they couldn’t help it. They couldn’t help it. It’s a shame. So –
TO: This is going to be an odd question now. Is there anyone you know during the war who you think seemed to be losing their mind from the stress of the bombing?
HI: No. I don’t think so. I think what might have happened — some of them were very very very heavy drinkers and I think that was what was stopping them from saying they didn’t want to fly no more. There were some very very heavy drinkers. I mean heavy drinkers. If they weren’t flying they was knocking it back. But that was a thing that. They should never have punished them. They should have just said alright you don’t want to fly no more. Take you wings from you. Put you down to a lower rank. Finished. They had to humiliate them and make them as if they were a disgrace which they weren’t. They just, it was just that they couldn’t take it. They couldn’t take it. That was all there was to it. Went on a couple of raids and they see what was happening. Probably lost a few mates beforehand. That was it. Some were married with children. They said, ‘I don’t want to go over there and get killed I’ve got a wife and a kid,’ you know. There you are. But they punished them severely for it. in fact if it had been in the First World War they would have been shot. Yeah.
TO: Another slightly [pause] question from early on. Did you ever have to go in an air raid shelters during the bombing?
HI: Yeah before I — no. I never went. I never went in an air raid shelter. We lived in a block of flats. We was on the ground floor. And my mother and father said, ‘We’re alright there. We’re on the bottom floor of the flats.’ Which was ridiculous because some of the flats we blew up during the war during the war they blew the whole bleeding lot up. The time they went in an air raid shelter. A lot of people went in the air raid shelters. But the German bombing was nothing compared with what the British done. No comparison. No comparison whatsoever. We was dropping four thousand pound bombs. You know the cookie. Blast bombs. A blast bomb — it dropped. As it hit the ground it exploded. The reason for it was to blow the rooves off the houses so that the incendiaries had an easy entrance into the building which did happen. That’s why there was such huge fires. The rooves come off and then we dropped the incendiaries. And they went right through the buildings. It was a terrible war. The Germans suffered terrible. How many women and children were killed I do not know? Do not know. Shame. There you are. There you are. We had to do it. We was told to do it and that was it and we got punished after the war for it. Right. I’m afraid I’ve got to stop you because –
TO: You’re quite right because I’ve quite literally run out of questions.
HI: I’m pleased. Really pleased about that [laughs] yeah I’ll have to go.
TO: Thank you very much about your plain speaking.
HI: We’re going to drop you off at the station.
TO: Thank you.
HI: Alright.
TO: Thank you.
HI: I’ll drop you off at Romford Station. And all you do is go on the station and then take the train. I think it’s platform four. I’m not quite sure. I think it’s platform four. And that’ll take you right down to Stratford and you get out at Stratford and you get on the Tube there.
TO: Thank you. And thank you so much for your wartime service as well.
HI: That’s alright. Yeah. Pleased to help you. I’m sorry we’ve got to rush.
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AIronsH160730
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Interview with Harry Irons. Two
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Sound
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eng
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02:44:50 audio recording
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Pending review
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Tom Ozel
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2016-07-30
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Harry Irons lied about his age and joined the RAF aged 16. He flew two tours of operations as a rear gunner and mid-under gunner.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Italy--Milan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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Julie Williams
158 Squadron
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
77 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
briefing
coping mechanism
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
final resting place
Gee
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Ju 88
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Martinet
memorial
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
perception of bombing war
RAF Driffield
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Lissett
RAF Waddington
Scarecrow
searchlight
Stirling
superstition
Wellington
Window
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/231/3606/BSpencerAHGSpencerAHGv1.2.pdf
e6d81c01549a2be263620cdcd67c798b
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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Spencer, Arthur
Arthur Humphrey George Spencer
Arthur H G Spencer
A H G Spencer
A Spencer
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history with Flight Lieutenant Arthur Humphrey George Spencer (b. 1921, 1311996 and 145359 Royal Air Force), a memoir and an essay. Arthur Spencer trained in the United States and flew two tours of operations as a navigator with 97 Squadron at RAF Woodhall spa and RAF Bourn. He later became 205 Group's Navigation Officer. He flew with British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) after the war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Spencer and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-02
2017-02-27
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. 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.
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Spencer, AHG
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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AN INTERESTING WAR
[page break]
To Jimmy Munro DFC, Ron Bennett DFM, 'Weasel' Hill DFM,
with whom I flew 45 bomber operations, mainly in J-Johnny of 97 Squadron,
to F/Sgt J Underwood, with whom I flew 15,
to Jimmy Silk DFM, Peter Burbridge DFC, and F/Sgt W Waller,
who were shot down over Berlin on the night of 22 November 1943,
and who have no known grave.
All are commemorated on the RAF Memorial at Runnymede.
Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.
Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.
Stephen Spender 1933
[page break]
INTRODUCTION
My son-in law, Richard Knott, sent me in the summer of 2001 an extract from the magazine of the Royal Overseas League, of which he is a member, about the Second World War Experience Centre at Leeds. Having had quite an interesting war, and never having put anything down on paper before, I contacted the Centre with a brief synopsis of my experiences. The Director, Peter Liddle, previously a member of the History Department at Leeds University, responded immediately, and we agreed that since the Centre had no interviewer in the south-west, as it does in the south-east, I would put my recollections on audio-tape. This I did, completing the work early in 2002. The Centre sent me, as arranged, a copy of the transcription made by their transcriber, Carolyn Mumford. She had done a magnificent job on the material I had provided, but as an ex-English teacher, I was horrified by the number of times I had said 'Well...', by the number of times I had strung a series of clauses together with 'and', and by the repetitions of which I had so frequently been guilty. I decided to re-edit the material, using Carolyn's transcription as a starting point; this also gave me the opportunity to include several more anecdotes that I had previously omitted.
A.H.G.S.
August 2002
The more one writes, the more one remembers, so I have added another dozen or so anecdotes, as well as - at the suggestion of John Coote, Weston U3A - a couple of pages of my log-book, to this 'second edition' of my recollections.
A.H.G.S.
April 2003
Jennie Gray, author of 'The Fire by Night', much of which concerns 97 Squadron at Bourn, suggested that the whole would benefit greatly from the addition of photos, so I have completed a third, and probably final, edition with thanks to Jennie and John for their suggestions.
A.H.G.S.
July 2003
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Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages,
What feats he did that day." [sic]
(Henry V before Agincourt)
I hope there won't be too many 'advantages' here, and certainly there won't be many feats' no heroics in this story; I just did as conscientiously as possible the job that the RAF trained me to do.
However, to begin, like 'Under Milk Wood', at the beginning, which is what I was asked to do. I was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on February 11th., 1921. We - my Mother, Father, and I, an only son - must have moved to Southampton earlier than I can remember. Throughout my boyhood, my father was a postman there, which meant, of course, that we were never very well off, but at least he had a regular permanent job at a time when there were three million unemployed in this country. At first he walked the rounds; later he became a van driver, which gave him a slightly better income and certainly improved his working hours; later still he became a Head Postman, an indoor supervisory role, but was compelled to retire at 60 instead of being allowed to stay till 65 because of his poor health record.
He had served in the King's Royal Rifles during the first World War. He hadn't been very fit in his early years, which probably saved him from service in the trenches in France. He spent quite a lot of his service in Southern Ireland. He used to tell a rather nice story about being taken by my Grandmother to Salisbury Infirmary when he was quite small; on the way home she had said to him, "Roy, I have to tell you that you will never make old bones." Well, he was 93 when he died, having received a partial disability pension from the army for 69 years, and my Mother had died three months previously within a month of her 90th. birthday, so they both made fairly old bones!
Before I leave my father, it might be worth recounting another story. It concerns a much earlier war, the Boer War. He had been born in 1894, and had just started school when Mafeking was relieved after its long siege. It was a small two-teacher country school at Coombe Bissett, just outside of Salisbury. On the day that Mafekin was relieved - or more likely the next day, for news travelled slowly then - the two teachers came out into the playground, one carrying a Union Jack, and the other beating a drum, and assembled the pupils - not many of them - in a ring. They announced the relief of Mafeking, sang 'God Save the Queen,' and then the children were given the rest of the day as a holiday. He ran home to the next village, Dogdean, but at that early age couldn't say the word 'Mafeking' properly, so my Grandmother, thinking he had run away from school, beat him and sent him back again!
My Mother came from the neighbouring village of Homington and like many country girls had gone 'into domestic service' as soon as she left school. Like almost all married women in the twenties and thirties, she was a housewife who never went out to paid employment, though as the war went on, she went to work in the NAAFI near Southampton Docks for two or three years. She must have been a very
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good manager, for she achieved quite a reasonable standard of living on what must have been a very modest income.
When I started school, I went initially to Swaythling School, about half a mile from where we lived; I was fortunate enough thoroughly to enjoy school and three of us from my year group passed what was then known as the 'Scholarship' examination, and transferred to Taunton's School, a conventional boys' grammar school. It was quite a big school for those days, eight hundred boys with a big Sixth Form. I was always keen on games and probably spent more time on the games field than I should have done, but even so managed to make fairly steady progress through school and at the age of sixteen took a reasonably successful School Certificate with Matriculation exemption. It's probably worth mentioning that the Head had said to my parents at some fairly early stage of my school career that my French wasn't too wonderful; I'm sure this was an understatement; he recommended an exchange with a French family. The school, being right on the south coast, had very good links with France, and many boys went on French exchanges every year. I was lucky enough to go for three successive years, a month each time, to the same family in a little town in Normandy. We all got on very well and my French exchangee, and Jacques and I are still in touch with one another, though I must confess that it's our wives who do most of the writing!
A few years ago my granddaughter, who lives near York, went on a school-to-school exchange (these now seem more usual than the sort of individual exchange which I enjoyed) to a school near Orleans where Jacques now lives and spent a day with him and his wife. She had to compile a scrapbook about the exchange, and in it she has a photo of the two of us when we were fourteen or fifteen, and another when we were in our mid-seventies. An impressive example of life-long learning!
One incident which I recall from my earlier boyhood is a visit, on my father's motorbike, to Lee-on-Solent to watch the last of the Schneider Trophy competitions for the fastest seaplane; the last, because in 1931 the RAF won the competition outright with the Supermarine S6B, forerunner of the Spitfire, competing against Italy. It would be tempting to claim that this experience gave me a life-long passion for aviation; tempting, but quite untrue. It was an exciting and enjoyable day out, but it meant rather less to me at the time than a visit to the Dell in Southampton to watch Southampton F.C. or to the County Ground to see a county cricket match.
After Matric. I went into the Sixth Form (I am horrified now to think what a sacrifice it must have been to my parents to keep me at school, but, of course, I didn't realise it then) and continued to make fairly steady progress; thanks to the exchanges, my French was vastly improved, and this was now one of my Higher School Certificate subjects. In the first year in the Sixth Form came the Munich crisis, and it was pretty clear that war was coming sooner or later. A year later, Germany invaded Poland, and war was declared. Arrangements were in hand to evacuate schools from Southampton. We were lucky enough to go only thirty miles along the coast to Bournemouth. I have a picture of some of the school walking down to Southampton Station, two or three miles from the school, quite a long distance carrying a case, and, of course, a gas mask. The interesting thing about the picture is
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[Photograph captioned "Evacuation: September 2nd, 1939. Dr. H.M.King leads a group approaching Southampton Central Station.]
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that the teacher holding the placard showing that we were Taunton's School, Southampton, is Horace King, who happened to be my sixth form English teacher, but also became M.P. for one of the Southampton constituencies in the Labour landslide of 1945, and later still, during the Wilson administration, Speaker of the House of Commons, and later still, Lord Mowbray King.
Off we went to Bournemouth. We were very lucky, for our host school, Bournemouth School, had that very term moved into brand new buildings. In fact, the contractors were still working there; the paint was hardly dry. Moreover, the new school had been built on the outskirts of the town with more than adequate playing fields, something that Taunton's School had always lacked in Southampton. I heard Chamberlain's declaration of war sitting in a church hall in Bournemouth on September 3rd. Eventually, after about a fortnight kicking our heels, term began. Arrangements were made for half-day schooling, alternately morning and afternoon, with Bournemouth School, which wasn't quite has bad as it sounds because the half-days were lengthened, and really we didn't miss very much schooling, especially in the Sixth Form.
A friend and I were very lucky in our accommodation. We were billeted with a very kindly landlady in her sweet shop. (Sweet rationing had already started, of course.) He was captain of soccer and cricket, and I was captain of hockey, so it was a very sport-orientated home. As term went on, one or two younger members of Staff disappeared into the forces or into jobs with various Ministries, but on the whole school went on more or less as normal until the early part of the summer, when the Germans broke through the French lines and the evacuation from Dunkirk took place. Eight hundred French poilus were crammed into the building; most of them were very tired, in fact shattered; the weather was very fine, and they spent most of their time lying on the lawn outside the school sleeping. When senior boys of the school were asked to help, it gave me a very good opportunity to get quite a lot of practice in French conversation just before taking my examinations.
At about this time, news came through of the first Old Boy casualty in France, and news of another, now a Sergeant-Pilot, who had been mentioned in despatches. Later there were more casualties, one of them an Old Boy who had been a boy entrant of the Royal Navy and who had been manning a gun on a naval vessel in Portland Harbour when there was an attack by German aircraft; although badly wounded, he kept firing till he died; he was awarded the V.C. His name was Jack Mantle.
Eventually, examinations over, the school year came to an end. With about fifty or sixty other boys, I went off to a forestry camp in Cannock Chase probably harder physical work than I had ever done before, clearing hillsides of saplings; soon after that I applied to join the RAF as aircrew. I was accepted in the pilot/navigator category, but call-up was deferred. So many young men were volunteering for aircrew service at that time that the Air Force couldn't cope with such an influx all at once.
I looked round for a job in the meantime, and found that the ARP were advertising for drivers; I was lucky enough to have a driving licence, so I was able to
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join the Rescue and Demolition Service for two or three months until the RAF required my services. I earned £3 - 3 shillings a week, which was quite a reasonable wage in 1940. While I was serving with the R.& D. there were several daylight raids on Southampton, and we were called into action. One was an attack on the Supermarine works at Woolston where Spitfires were made, and another was on a factory at Eastleigh Airport. However, the RAF eventually remembered my existence, and I finally joined up as an AC2/ut (under-training) pilot early in November, just a week or two before the big night raids on Southampton began.
The RAF still found us too numerous to cope with, so after a couple of false starts at Uxbridge and Blackpool, we eventually reached Wilmslow, Cheshire, for kitting out and drill, universally known as 'square-bashing'. Then we were sent off to man gun-posts at various airfields. Later the RAF Regiment undertook this task. I was sent to Watton in Norfolk, a Blenheim base, and initially to its satellite airfield whose name I can no longer recall. One afternoon, the Luftwaffe raided Watton. Ken Romain, a friend of mine from the same gunpost, had gone into the parent station for a bath, there being no baths at the satellite field, and returned quite considerably shaken by his experiences. One of the attacking aircraft was, in fact, brought down close to the airfield by a device known as PAC (Parachute and Cable), which comprised, as one might expect, of a strong metal cable attached to a parachute so that, when fired vertically, it descended slowly and if the timing was accurate, it ensnared an approaching aircraft; the same principle as a barrage balloon, but low level and temporary. An entrepreneurial photographic section sold postcards of the downed Heinkel 111, from which all the crew survived unhurt, at 6d a card, and no doubt made a healthy profit! I believe that very few aircraft were downed over the land using PAC, but it was markedly more successful when used for convoy protection at sea, especially when, in a later version, a small bomb was attached to the cable.
After some weeks at the satellite field, all u/t aircrew were sent back to the parent station, where life was rather less rigorous. I was lucky enough to be at the gunpost on top of the flying control tower. The regular gunners joked that we were too soft to stand the conditions at the satellite, but I think it was really so that we could be available at short notice when the inevitable posting away from Watton came.
Eventually it did come; we were at last put back on the track of aircrew training, and sent off to the Aircrew Reception Centre at Babbacombe, near Torquay, really for a repetition of the drill and PE training we had already done. We felt rather old hands because some of the intake had come straight from civilian life, whereas we had all of six months service, so we put on the airs of old soldiers! After a few weeks at Babbacombe, we were sent off to ITW, Initial Training Wing, at Scarborough. We were based in the Grand Hotel, right on the cliff-top overlooking the front; we were supposed to undertake an eight weeks course, but the RAF, having neglected us for so long, rushed us through in five weeks. The course included the usual subjects for pilots and navigators: navigation, airmanship, aircraft recognition, meteorology, armaments. I never fail to think of the armaments lectures when I read or hear Henry Reed's poem, "Naming of Parts". In the third verse there is a minor grammatical error, exactly like the corporal who taught us about weapons would make;
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[Photograph, captioned "Heinkel 111 brought down by PAC at Watton, February 18th 1941."]
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[Photograph captioned "On the way to Iceland".]
[Photograph captioned "The RAF Transit Camp 17 km. from Reykjavik."]
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[Photograph showing a signpost indicating "Reykjavik 17 KM."]
[Photograph captioned "Hot springs near the camp."]
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'This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb.'
Rumour had it that we would be going to the USA to do our aircrew training, and this proved to be so; we were, in fact, only the second group to go under the Arnold Scheme. America was not yet at war, so we could not go in uniform, and were all kitted out in grey flannel suits, all exactly the same colour and pattern, so really a uniform in itself! We were also, because the British military establishment knew all about service in the tropics, and much to the amusement of the inhabitants of Florida when we eventually got there, issued with pith-helmets; what became of them I can't recall!
We sailed from Gourock in a tiny vessel which used to ply between Liverpool and Belfast and went to Iceland where we were accommodated in a transit camp some 15 miles outside of Reykjavik. It was a fairly horrendous journey; the sea was very rough indeed and nearly everyone was seasick. There was an Anson flying round and round the convoy; I couldn't help wondering just how effective it would be if we really were attacked. Fortunately there were no problems. When we reached Iceland, we were told immediately that Reyjavick was out of bounds, since it was thought to be, like Lisbon, a hot-bed of espionage. The majority of us were quite content to be off the sea, and quite content to be close to hot springs where we could wash, shave, and have an occasional swim.
It was May, so we saw very little darkness; after only a couple of days we were on our way again, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia. This time we were much luckier in our transport. Only about a hundred of us were put on board an armed merchant cruiser, the Ranpura, the sister-ship of the Rawalpindi which had been sunk earlier during the war. Our ship was armed with one very large gun amidships and we sailed in the middle of the convoy. The Ranpura was large enough to be quite comfortable; just after we had embarked, the ship's commander called us all together, and said something like, "Gentleman" [sic] I must apologise, I realise you are all potential officers, but I haven't possibly got room for you all in the wardroom, but we shall make you as comfortable as possible". We were highly amused, for we weren't used to such treatment in the Air force. It seemed that the Navy was going to treat us in a much more gentlemanly way!
There was one moment of excitement on the way across to Halifax. A couple of days out the sirens sounded, and we all assembled at our boat stations. However, it wasn't a real crisis; the very large American convoy on its way to take over Iceland had come into view, and we were soon released back to whatever we did to occupy our spare time.
Arriving at Halifax, we were put on a train for a couple of days to go to Toronto. When we reached that attractive city, we were sent to a huge RCAF reception centre in the buildings of an old exhibition site, known as Manning Pool. As we marched in probably a bit sloppily, tired after our long journey, a voice shouted "You just over, lads?" We nodded agreement, and a terrific burst of spontaneous
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applause broke out all round the arena from these hundreds of new Canadian recruits. I'm sure we marched with an extra touch of pride in our steps after that.
A few days later, but not before a friend and I had managed to hitch-hike to Niagara Falls one evening, we were off on the train again, but this time in a southerly direction, to Lakeland School of Aeronautics in Florida. We were allowed a week-end's leave at the end of the ten-week course there, so a friend and I hitch-hiked to Miami where we spent two happy days mainly on the beach after we had found a hotel owned, in fact, by a Mancunian who was willing to accommodate us at a very preferential rate. The course at Lakeland was initially for pilot training, but although I soloed successfully and got through the first stage of the training all right, I was soon found out at the next stage at Montgomery, Alabama; I was by no means a natural pilot, and it wasn't long before I was sent back to Canada for remustering.
There were half a dozen of us on the train journey back to Ontario, one of whom was a young man already beginning to carve out a career for himself on the stage, Michael Aldridge; I saw him once or twice after the war when he was performing at Bristol Theatre Royal; he never quite became a star, but late in his career, he did achieve some fame as the garrulous retired headmaster in the BBC series "Last of the Summer Wine". As a navigator he had flown in the Balkan Air Force stationed in the heel of Italy, dropping supplies to partisans in Albania, Greece and Yugoslavia and sometimes even further afield.
Remustering took place at Trenton, Ontario; we were there in December 1941, and were given 5 days leave over Christmas. A friend and I decided that this would be the chance of a life-time to see New York, so we set off to hitch-hike there. Recrossing the border back into the USA took a little time, but eventually we got on our way. There was no shortage of lifts; almost every American who picked us up wanted us to go and spend Christmas with them; they were extraordinarily generous in their desire to be hospitable. (This was only weeks after Pearl Harbour, of course.) However, we insisted that we wanted to get to New York, and once there had three very exciting days. The United Services Organisation provided ample hospitality - free tickets to shows on Broadway, free meals, free tours. Our three days sped by, and all too soon we had to set off back to Canada, hitch-hiking once more through the Appalachians, and so to Trenton.
Soon I was on my way back to Florida again, this time to the United States Naval Air Service training school at Pensacola, where I did complete successfully the course as a navigator. One of my friends at Pensacola was George Brantingham; we stayed at the same units till he completed a tour of operations, and are still in close touch today. The course was very, very strong on theory, and we spent a great deal of time on astro-navigation, but much less strong on practice. My log-book shows less than 30 hours flying at Pensacola, most of that over the sea and with no night-flying, whereas if I had been at an RAF or RCAF school, I would have had between 120 and 150 hours training in the air. In spite of this, the RAF deemed half a dozen of us capable of navigating aircraft which were being ferried back to the UK. We were sent to RAF Ferry Command Headquarters at Dorval, near Montreal. There I crewed up with a very experienced civilian pilot, an equally experienced civilian wireless operator, and a second pilot who, like me, had just
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[Photograph showing a large hangar, captioned "Lakeland School of Aeronautics, Florida."]
[Photograph showing several bi-planes in a line, captioned "The flight line. Stearman PT-13s."]
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[Photograph showing six men in front of a bi-plane, captioned "Five of us with Bill Lethio, our instructor."]
[Photograph showing three men, captioned "Bob, Ginger, and Cyril in U.S. Air Corps "fatigues"
Bob later became Sqdn/Ldr R.G.Knight, DSO., DFC. with 617 Squadron."]
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[Photograph captioned "Pensacola: the weekly letter home."]
[Photograph captioned "Pensacola: practising astro-navigation."]
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[Photograph of a man standing on top of an aeroplane, captioned "Catalinas - PBY-2s - at U.S.N.A.S. Pensacola."]
[Photograph of several men in a classroom, captioned "Ground School".]
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[Photograph of three men outdoors, captioned "Pensacola: more - very relaxed - astro practice".]
[Photograph of the course students, captioned "Course 1A-P-(BQ) leaves Pensacola, May 1942".]
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[Timetable captioned "Flight plan for the ferry-delivery of a Ventura, Gander - Prestwick, May 1942".]
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[Photograph of four men standing outside a military tent, captioned "L.A.C.s Finney, Spencer, Manning and Stephens at No. 3 A.F.U., Bobbington August, 1942".]
[Photograph of three men in RAF uniform, captioned "Sgts. Stephens, Spencer, and Brantingham at No. 16 O.T.U., Upper Heyford, September, 1942. With brevets and stripes at last!"
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finished his training. We were allocated a Ventura to deliver to UK. We did no training flights but were briefed several times, learnt to use the oxygen system and did some dinghy drill, then, after a fortnight, we set out in this little two-engined Lockheed, rather like a Hudson, to fly to Gander, Newfoundland. The range of the aircraft was so limited, that everyone flew to Gander to shorten the Atlantic crossing, and even from there, a tail-wind component was needed! Quite a few of the pilots went via Iceland, or even via Bluey West, the American base in Greenland, but my pilot decided he wanted to fly straight across. We waited a fortnight for a favourable wind. In spite of the limitations of my training, we managed to make a landfall in Northern Ireland, and so on to Prestwick.
All aircrew arriving back in the UK from wherever they were trained were sent to Bournemouth, which, of course, was no hardship to me because I was able to spend a night or two at home in Southampton, and to visit my old school, still evacuated to Bournemouth. One incident which occurred during my brief stay there I do recall quite vividly; one afternoon, two Messerschmidt 109s swept in from the sea low over the roof-tops, each carrying a single bomb, which they deposited on hotels where air crew just arrived were billeted. They succeeded in killing a few young Canadians, newly arrived, who hadn't yet got into the war at all.
From Bournemouth we were sent on to Advanced Flying Units, in my case to Bobington, later called Halfpenny Green, near Stourbridge, in the Midlands. These Units were intended to familiarise aircrew who had trained in the good weather of Florida, South Africa and Rhodesia and elsewhere, where there were no nightly black-outs and there was excellent weather, with the very different conditions in this country. Once again, however, the course was considerably shortened; eight weeks again became five and then Bomber Command demanded our presence. All the members of our course were posted as sergeants since there was no time for commissioning interviews. I rather resented this at the time, but in the end it worked out much to my advantage, for had I been a pilot-officer I might well not have crewed up with the outstanding young Canadian who became my pilot, then a sergeant like myself.
The next stage of training was OTU, Operational Training Unit, at Upper Heyford, a few miles outside of Oxford. This was very much a pilot orientated course, and quite rightly so, Because the pilots, who previously had not flown anything bigger than an Oxford, had to convert to much bigger, heavier, operational aircraft, the Wellington. It was also important for the opportunity to crew up. Wellington crews at that time had five members: pilot, navigator, bomb-aimer, wireless operator, and rear-gunner. George said to me one day very soon after we had arrived at OTU, "I have got myself a pilot". He had teamed up with a larger-than-life American who had gone north of the border to join the RCAF. I approached this American at the next opportunity and said that I had heard he had got a navigator; could he recommend a pilot to me? He thought for a moment and said "Well, I reckon young Jimmy Munro is one of the best pilots on our course". That brief conversation is probably the reason I'm still here today! I saw Jimmy as soon as possible. No, he hadn't a navigator at that stage, and would be happy to take me on. I was keen to get a bomb-aimer who had also done navigation training; there were a lot of excess navigators finishing training at that time and some of them were converted to bomb-aimers. It seemed to me that we
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might as well have a second navigator rather than someone who had done only bomb-aimer training. Jimmy said at once, "Well, you find someone". In fact I already had my eye on a bomb-aimer wearing an Observer's brevet, which indicated that he was a qualified navigator, Eric Suswain, so that made three in the crew. In the meantime Jimmy had spotted a likely wireless operator, Snowy (I'm not sure that I ever knew his real Christian name) Nevard, son of an Ipswich publican, whose chief interest in life was horse-racing, and a rear gunner. The latter was a wizened little figure, Wesley Hill; I well remember my first conversation with him; he said "Everyone calls me Weasel!". He had been brought up in the Rockies with a gun in his hand, and to see him at clay-pigeon shooting was a revelation; he never missed one whereas if I hit one in twenty shots I was doing pretty well!
Once the pilots were converted to Wellingtons, we flew a number of cross-country flights together, some of them at night. Occasionally these night exercises were known as 'bullseyes'. These took aircraft over what would normally be highly defended areas; the searchlights attempted to cone the aircraft, and no doubt the anti-aircraft gunners honed their radar skills, but they didn't, of course, actually open fire. I've often wondered if the local citizens, seeing all the searchlight activity, but hearing no ac-ac asked themselves what was going on. Towards the end of the course all crews did what was known as a 'nickel', a leaflet operation over France or some other occupied territory. In our case we went to Nantes, and since we had to fly between that city and the highly defended port of St. Nazaire, a German U-boat base, so that the leaflets were blown downwind, we were subject to quite a lot of flak; we even heard several bursts in the Wellington, so they must have been fairly close to us, but we got home without any damage.
Our social life at Upper Heyford centred almost entirely on Oxford, there being transport to the city every evening, and a return bus quite late. George and I decided that as non-dancers we were 'socially constipated' and determined to put this right, so, most evenings, when we weren't flying, we attended Brett's Dancing Academy, and by the time we left Upper Heyford, we were probably better dancers than navigators.
Towards the end of our course at OTU we were on the airfield one afternoon when almost one hundred Lancasters swept across at low level and in loose formation. They were on their way to a low-level daylight attack on Le Creusot, and the impressive sight, the first time we had seen Lancasters en masse, more than confirmed our hope that we would be bound for a Lancaster squadron, rather than one equipped with Halifaxes or Stirlings.
We were lucky; at the end of our sixteen-week course we were posted to a Heavy Conversion Unit at Swinderby, just outside of Lincoln, a Lancaster HCU. This course, like OTU, was strongly pilot orientated, for the pilot now had to take a further step forward, and learn to fly a larger four-engined aircraft. Jimmy took to Lancasters like a duck to water. We flew circuits round the airfield, both by day and by night; we did several bombing practices over the Wash, but didn't undertake any longer cross-country flights. While there we picked up two more crew, Ron Bennett, a mid-upper gunner, and Harry Townsley, a flight-engineer. Just before Christmas 1942, three crews from that course made the short railway journey from Lincoln to
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[Photograph of two men in uniform, captioned "Sergeants Jimmy Munro and Arthur Spencer on leave at Southampton from OTU."]
[Photograph of one man in uniform, captioned "P/O Spencer at Southampton, August, 1943."
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[Photograph of crew in front of the tail end of their Lancaster, captioned "The original crew of J-Johnnie at Woodhall Spa, January 1943. Harry Townsley, 'Snowy' Nevard, Eric Suswain, Jimmy Munro, 'Weasel' Hill, Arthur Spencer, and Ron Bennett, then all Sergeants."]
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Woodhall Spa, where we joined 97 Squadron. One of the crews was that of Bill Tracey, the American I mentioned, with my friend George Brantingham as his navigator; the third was Doug Jones. The real war was getting nearer.
So here we were at last on an operational squadron. 97 Squadron was one of the first in Bomber Command to be equipped with Lancasters and had been one of the two squadrons to take part in the famous daylight raid on Augsburg in April 1942. The other squadron, 44, from Waddington, lost five of their six aircraft; their CO, the sole survivor from 44, flew a badly damaged aircraft home, and was awarded the VC. 97 lost only one of their six, Squadron Leader Sherwood, a flight commander, who was blown up over the target. He was the only survivor from his crew, and was awarded the DSO.
Now one might have thought that 97 Squadron would be keen to unleash us against the enemy as soon as possible; not so! They were not going to let a new crew, a 'sprog' crew to use then current slang, loose on one of their precious Lancasters without checking them out pretty thoroughly. We did a couple more cross country flights, and three more 'bullseyes' - one over Portsmouth and Birmingham, another over the Humber Estuary, and the third over Plymouth and Southampton - before they decided we were fit to go. As was usual for new crews at that time, we went 'gardening'. That is, our first operation was mine-laying. I suppose that we were lucky that we didn't go to one of the north German estuaries or to the Baltic; those trips could be quite 'dicey'. We went to the much quieter Gironde estuary and placed four 1500 lb. mines across the mouth of the river. We were short of petrol on the way back, and landed at Beaulieu in the New Forest, a Coastal Command station. The ground crew there had never seen a Lancaster before, and swarmed all over it, making it unserviceable! We had to wait several days till our own ground crew came down from Lincolnshire; it meant that once more I was able to spend a couple of nights at home in Southampton. In the meantime, the other two crews who had joined 97 Squadron with us had been fully blooded with a raid on Berlin.
Eventually, after a week's leave, our first real operation of Germany came at the end of January. It was, like so many subsequent trips, to the Ruhr; to Dusseldorf. We carried one 4,000 lb. bomb, and 12 small bomb containers (sbc.) each of 90 four-pound incendiary bombs. As we were approaching the target, and having given Jimmy the course out of the target area, there was no more I could do till the bombs were released, so I handed over to the bomb-aimer and asked Jimmy if I could move up to the front to have a look; normally, of course, I was working over charts and maps so I was behind a black-out curtain. He agreed, and I moved forward to be absolutely horrified; there seemed to be searchlights and flak all over the sky, and I just couldn't comprehend how an aircraft could survive in such a maelstrom of fire. When I thought about it more calmly afterwards, I realised that much of what one could see was really puffs of smoke from shells which had burst long before we entered the target area, and that it wasn't quite as bad as it appeared to a novice navigator at first glance. Eventually, I even got used to it! Bombs gone, we were much lighter, and with nose slightly down we sped home; I see from my log-book, that the flight lasted 4 hours 55 minutes.
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[Extract from Author's log book covering ten operations/flights carried out in March 1943]
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New crews at a squadron normally flew any aircraft that was available before graduating to 'their own' machine; we flew two or three raids in this way, but soon found an aircraft we liked, so Jimmy approached the Flight Commander to enquire if he would allocate us J-Johnnie; he was quite willing to do this thereafter J-Johnnie, and, of course, its associated ground crew, was our regular Lancaster. Either Jimmy, or the ground crew, invented a (I believe) fictitious Jane who was alleged to be Jimmy's girl-friend in Canada, and a scantily clad young lady soon appeared on the nose of our aircraft, rather like the Daily Mirror's famous Jane, with a lengthening row of bombs, one for each operation, alongside her.
Over the next weeks we operated against Hamburg, Cologne, Hamburg again, Nuremberg, St. Nazaire, the German submarine-base, where we were quite badly damaged in one of the starboard engines, Berlin, Hamburg yet again, and Krupps at Essen. This raid on Krupps was the first occasion upon which Oboe, the most accurate of the new navigational aids, but with a limited range, and carried only by Mosquitoes, was used. It was the first time any really serious damage was caused to Krupps, and we were lucky enough to get an aiming point picture. There were further raids on Nuremberg. Munich, Duisburg, where a fair amount of damage was done to the perspex at the front of the aircraft by flak, but no-one was hurt, Berlin, Krupps at Essen again, Kiel, Duisburg, Frankfurt, and La Spezia, where we did six runs over the target to try to get it right, suffered quite a lot of minor flak damage, and landed at Tangmere on return short of petrol because of those six runs! This was our last operation from Woodhall Spa and indeed in the Main Force of Bomber Command. We had survived 22 operations, and had, I think, been a reasonably successful crew; we had been coned by searchlights two or three times, which was a fairly terrifying experience, and had occasionally suffered minor flak damage, but nothing of too serous a nature.
During that period of three months, 97 Squadron had lost six aircraft. One of these was Sergeant Plaunt, a Canadian, in the raid on Essen on March 12th; he lived, like most of the NCOs, in a Nissen hut set in a little copse just off the road from Coningsby to Woodhall; at the end of the lane leading to the huts was a searchlight site. There were three such sites around the airfield, primarily for airfield defence, but also to form a cone over the airfield when we were returning from operations. Sergeant Plaunt had befriended and been befriended by the searchlight crew, and I remember how upset these soldiers were when they heard he had gone missing.
The last loss the Squadron suffered before we moved from Woodhall was Flying Officer Norton, who was lost after a raid on Berlin on March 29th. We returned from Berlin immediately behind him, and were told to circle at a certain height while Flying Control dealt with his aircraft. He called up for permission to land, and was given permission, but did not acknowledge; Flying Control called him again, and yet again, but still there was silence. Since we were next in the queue in our J-Johnnie we were now given clearance to land. We found later that Norton's aircraft had crashed in the village with the loss of the whole crew. Why he crashed I never knew. He was quite an experienced pilot. Perhaps he had a bomb hanging up on board which exploded; perhaps it was a momentary loss of concentration; perhaps the delayed result of some flak damage over the target; I have often wondered; he had
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been to Berlin and back successfully, and was lost at the last moment on his way home.
One of the advantages of life as aircrew was, of course, that when you were not 'dicing' (i.e. dicing with death) you led a very civilised life; nothing was too good for operational aircrew and you were not under constant fire like the troops in the trenches during the first World War. Our own social activity was based mainly upon the Sergeants' Mess and a local pub, the Leagate, in Coningsby. The Mess was very friendly, largely because it was small; we were a two-flight squadron, that is one made up of about sixteen or seventeen crews, and would be expected to send out eleven or twelve aircraft on a raid requiring maximum effort. While the officers messed at the requisitioned Petwood Hotel at Woodhall Spa, our mess was closer to Coningsby with the airfield in between. Most of the nights when we were not flying we would go to the Leagate. I went there again for the first time since April 1943 in September 2001; from the outside the inn was instantly recognisable and the bar, too, had not changed. Elsewhere there were great changes; it was now a hotel with bedrooms, and the area where we used to eat off rough tables was now a smart restaurant.
The landlord at the Leagate used to be able to provide us with a very substantial mixed grill during those first few months of 1943; he told me that on one occasion he had been visited by a Ministry of Food Inspector who had asked who most of his customers were. The landlord explained that they were mainly sergeants from the local airfield who patronised the pub on nights when they were not flying; the Inspector immediately increased his ration allowance, which I though was a very generous gesture indeed.
Occasionally I would ride my bike to the Leagate, and on one such occasion it was stolen. There were a lot of Irish navvies working on airfield construction in Lincolnshire, and when I reported the loss to the police, they said "Oh, I expect we shall find it in one of the Irish camps", and so they did and returned it to me. Later I lost it for good when it was taken from outside the briefing room while we were being briefed to go to Berlin. I felt this was adding insult to injury by stealing my bike at this time! It wasn't as if it was a service bicycle; it was my own bike on which I had cycled to school for many years. Once I had settled on an airfield, my parents sent it to me by train from Southampton. It arrived safely at Woodhall Spa Station, so I hitch-hiked from Coningsby to collect it.
The nearest town to the airfield was Boston Spa and a 'liberty' bus ran there every evening. We used it once or twice to go to Boston to visit the cinema I usually went with 'Sus', our bomb-aimer, but I can't remember a single film I saw there, and the occasions were pretty rare.
During March three crews, captained by Flight Lieutenants Maltby, newly arrived at the squadron, McCarthy, and Munro, began intensive low-level training. They were not screened from operations, but went off most days when there were no ops. to practise at almost zero feet. On one of these flights, the navigator of one of the crews, by coincidence the other Munro, but a New Zealander, was injured in what nowadays we would call a bird-strike. His crew were scheduled to go on
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operations, and I was detailed to go with him since we were not operating that night. We flew an air-test in the morning, but operations were cancelled ('scrubbed' was the term we used then) even before we got to briefing, so the name of one of the Dambusters appears in my log-book, (see the extract for March, 1943) but only for an air-test. For it was for the Dams raid that these three crews were practising, we later realised.
Eventually they went off to Scampton to join 617 Squadron under the command of Guy Gibson. McCarthy and Maltby both successfully completed the dams raid and both were decorated with the DSO; the latter, however, was killed in September when his aircraft plunged into the sea; Munro was unlucky enough to be hit by light flak crossing the Dutch coast which destroyed his intercom., so he had no alternative but to return to Scampton, though he went on to have a very distinguished career as a Flight Commander in 617 under both Gibson and Cheshire. Another successfully to complete the dams raid was Dudley Heal who had been on the navigation course with me at Pensacola; his pilot was Flight Sergeant Brown, a Canadian who won the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for his part in the operation.
I ought not to leave Woodhall Spa without referring to the Squadron C.O. He was Wing Commander G.D. Jones, D.S.O., a rather stern unsmiling man who seemed rather remote to us sergeants; while I was with the Squadron (he left soon after we moved from Woodhall) he operated against only two targets, but did so whenever those targets were to be attacked; they were the two most heavily defended targets in Europe, Essen and Berlin; needless to say, the crews had enormous respect for him.
At the beginning of April, rumours began to circulate that 97 Squadron would soon be on the move; in the middle of the month, Air Marshall Cochrane, the Air Officer Commanding 5 Group came to Woodhall and announced to the assembled squadron that we would be joining Pathfinder Force in the near future; in fact by no means the whole squadron made the move; three crews were just off to 617; three crews were so close to the end of their tour that it was decided they should not join Pathfinders, but stay at Woodhall to join the new squadron being formed there and finish their tours with them, while one or two crews that we had lost recently had not yet been replaced. It was, therefore, by no means a complete squadron that flew off to Bourn, a satellite of Oakington, just outside of Cambridge on April 18th. As a WAAF in Woodhall subsequently wrote to me, "The last I saw of you was disappearing in a fairly ropy formation towards the south". She was quite right; it was a fairly ropy formation, but after all, night bomber pilots were, unlike their American daylight counterparts, not particularly skilled at formation flying, even though it had been stressed before we left that we ought to put on a good show for our departure.
We landed at Bourn, 5 miles west of Cambridge on the A45, the main road towards St. Neots and Bedford and soon found that 97 was to be transformed from the small two-flight squadron it had been all the time we were at Woodhall to a much larger three-flight unit, so that we now had between 27 and 30 crews on strength, and would be expected to send out about 18 or 20 aircraft on operations requiring maximum effort.
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We were placed in the new 'C' Flight, which was notable because it was commanded by a navigator, Wing commander Alabaster, DSO, previously the Group Navigation Officer. Most of the new crews that had joined the squadron at this time were returning for a second or even third tour of operations. Some of them had flown with 97 before; one such was Flight Lieutenant Rodley who had been one of the pilots to take part in the Augsburg raid a year before. The inevitable consequence of the enlargement of the Squadron was that the messes were much bigger, and some of the crew didn't take very kindly to the new Sergeants' Mess which was certainly rather a barn of a place compared with the warm, cosy mess we had left at Woodhall. The Officers must have been even more dismayed to have left the comforts of a top-class country hotel for a ramshackle wooden wartime building with fairly primitive billets around it.
Crews joining Pathfinder Force normally went to RAF Upwood, the Pathfinder Training School, but because we had moved as a squadron, the staff of the school visited us. Wing Commander Mahaddie came as 'Headmaster', a very much decorated officer, and we saw a great deal of Air Vice Marshall Bennett, the Air Officer Commanding 8 Group. I was very surprised how frank they were in talking to us, even in front of us Sergeants; they were both very critical of those regular officers who commanded their stations who were more interested in discipline and the smartness of their stations rather than the operational efficiency of the squadrons based there. Most of these Group Captains who commanded the stations had no experience of operational flying during World War II whereas Mahaddie, an ex-Halton 'brat' had an extremely impressive row of decorations, and Bennett had been awarded a DSO when he was shot down over Norway and walked home. Whereas at both Operational Training Unit and at Heavy Conversion Unit, the emphasis had been on the pilots, and quite rightly so, since they were learning to fly a much larger operational aircraft, now the importance of navigators and bomb-aimers was stressed; pilots, said Bennett, were merely chauffeurs to get the really important people, the navigators and bomb-aimers, there to put the target-indicators (TIs), flares and bombs down in the right place; all very encouraging for the morale of those of us who were in these two 'trades', as the Air Force called them!
We spent a fortnight in very intensive training both on the ground and in the air. We flew several cross-country exercises, some of them very long distance, and we learnt to use new equipment: the Mark 14A bombsight, the air position indicator, new radar devices. The emphasis was very much on navigational accuracy, and much higher standards were expected than had been the case in the main force or at OTU. I recall that on one of the cross countries, we were 70 miles off the east coast of Scotland at 20,000 feet on a brilliantly fine day, and we could see right across to the west coast and beyond; a marvellous sight.
After a fortnight, on May 5th., we did our first operation from Bourn, to Dortmund, the first raid on which more than 2,000 tons of bombs were dropped in a single operation. We didn't, on this first operation with PFF, carry any TIs., just a very heavy load of HE bombs, 1x 4000lb., 4x 1000lb., 6x500lb. and 2x250lb. That night is particularly memorable because we had our first and only serious encounter with a German night-fighter. We had just left the target - it was a good job that enormous load of bombs had gone! - when there was a shout from the rear gunner,
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'Turn to port and dive!' Jimmy didn't need telling twice; we were almost over on our backs and screaming away to the left; both our gunners were firing and the aircraft filled with the smell of cordite. Within moments it was all over; the German fighter disappeared into the darkness and didn't come back for a second attempt. It wasn't, I thought, a good omen for our career in Pathfinder Force.
The interesting thing from my point of view was that at that moment, when everything was happening, I didn't feel particularly afraid. There had been many previous occasions when we were making our way across Germany when one of the gunners had called up to say, "There's an aircraft out on the port (starboard) side, Jimmy; I can't see what it is but I'll keep an eye on it." On many such occasions, I had felt very afraid, but now that it was all happening, I didn't; I suppose it all happened so quickly, and there was such a rush of adrenaline that I didn't have time to be scared! There was one occasion when both gunners were certain that there was a German fighter flying along almost parallel with us, but presumably it didn't see us, nor spot us on its radar, or, more likely, was already following some other aircraft. Anyway, it didn't bother us, so, I'm sure wisely, we didn't bother it.
For the next couple of months, with the short nights of summer, my log-book looks like a Baedecker Guide to the Ruhr; Dortmund again - this time we did carry TIs so we began to feel like real Pathfinders - Dusseldorf, Cologne, Bochum, Dusseldorf again. In the middle of May, Jimmy's commission came through, Pilot Officer Munro; it wasn't long before I too was commissioned, appropriately dated April 1st. My friend George Brantingham was commissioned the same day; he now lives in Somerset and we see one another quite frequently; he pulls my leg that he is senior to me because although we were commissioned on the same day, his number was 145358, whereas mine is 145359. I tell him it's only because 'B' comes before 'S' in the alphabet.
We returned from one of our operations to the Ruhr to find East Anglia fogbound and were diverted to RAF High Ercall in Shropshire. I was very impressed that the station was able to cope with fifty or sixty Lancasters arriving probably at very short notice, debriefing us, giving us all an operational breakfast of eggs and bacon, accommodating us, and even providing us with some basic toilet kit so that we could have a shave and wash and brush-up before returning to Cambridgeshire the next afternoon.
Operations went on, but intensive training also continued. We flew more bullseyes over Plymouth, Liverpool and Manchester. These flights usually included a 'bombing' run on Goole Docks! A camera would show how accurate this was by picking up an infra-red light on the target; we must have 'bombed' Goole dozens of times! Another form of training was fighter affiliation. We would climb laboriously up to approximate operational altitude and then notify base that we were there; a Spitfire or Hurricane would then take off from a nearby fighter station and attempt to shoot one down, not literally, of course, but it carried a camera gun, and a subsequent analysis of the film would reveal how successful he had been, and also how successful the bomber had been in evading his attentions.
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It was normal on these occasions as a measure of economy to carry two rear gunners; one would be at the guns in the turret, while the other waited his turn just outside. Jimmy was something of a fighter pilot manqué, and would throw the Lancaster around the sky as if it were a fighter. On one such occasion, the rear gunner of another crew was installed in the turret, while Weasel, our own gunner, waited his turn just outside. Now, immediately outside the rear turret of a Lancaster is the Elsan toilet; Jimmy went into such a steep diving turn at high speed that the Elsan became detached from its housing, and deposited its content all over Weasel! No one could go near him for days afterwards, but eventually stores took pity on him, and although it was very difficult in those hard days of 1943 to get any new uniform, they finally decided it would be in everyone's interests if he had a new battledress, and certainly we in the crew of J-Johnnie appreciated it.
June came; the Battle of the Ruhr continued. We flew an air test in the morning, quite certain from the order of battle petrol and bomb load that we would be over Happy Valley again that night. We landed and taxied to dispersal. There waiting for us was the Flight Commander's van. 'Oh dear,' we thought, 'we're in trouble,' for only a few minutes before we had been 'shooting up' a train just outside Cambridge. This time, however, we were lucky. As the engines stopped, the Flight Commander called up to our pilot, "Jimmy, you're to take a week's kit, and fly up to Scampton directly after lunch." "O.K. What for?" "I don't know, you'll get all the gen. when you get there."
We didn't object; we would be happy to miss yet another visit to the Ruhr - the target that night turned out to be Cologne, in fact. The Ruhr raids had been going on for two months or more, and losses were increasing. While we had been in Main Force, losses had been about 2.4%; now they were up to 4%, so that on most nights there were usually one or two crews who failed to return. So, we had lunch, packed a week's kit, and with three other crews, Rodley, Sauvage and Jones, flew leisurely northwards till we saw Lincoln Cathedral appear from the haze, and dropped down to Scampton. Rumour had been fairly rife as to what would be expected of us at Scampton, as it was, of course, the home of 617 Squadron, the Dambusters. When we arrived, initially everything seemed to be chaotic. No one knew why we were there, and the squadrons in residence felt rather insulted that four Pathfinder crews should help them do anything. They were quite capable of looking after themselves. However, we settled ourselves in the Mess, formed a solid block in case of hostility, and awaited developments.
We didn't have to wait long. We were taken aside by an elderly Group Captain; when I use the term 'elderly,' he was probably all of 35, but we were all in our late teens and early twenties, so he seemed pretty elderly to us. He explained that there was to be a special operation by fifty plus of 5 Group's Lancasters led by the four Pathfinder aircraft, against a special target. Where? He couldn't or wouldn't tell us. When? Soon. That was all he did tell us except that several practices would be held during the next few evenings over Wainfleet Sands, a practice bombing range adjacent to the Wash, and that we were not allowed to go into Lincoln. That was rather disappointing, as everyone in Bomber Command had been stationed near Lincoln at some time or other, and the 'Saracen's Head' was worth revisiting. Sadly, it doesn't exist any more. However, we consoled ourselves by making up for this in the Mess,
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[Photograph captioned: "OF-J-Johnnie and crew just before bombing-up with TIs."]
[Photograph captioned: "Crew and ground crew and a 'cookie' in front of J-Johnnie, August 1943]
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and during the evenings flew over the Wash. Two of the Pathfinder crews - P/O Jones and ourselves - illuminated the target at the range with flares, two - Rodley and Sauvage - marked it with TIs, and the main force bespattered it with 11 lb. practice bombs. This, it had been decided, would be the plan of attack for the eventual operation, though using something heavier than 11lb. bombs, of course. P/O Jones's navigator, P/O Jimmy Silk DFM, and I became aware that there was considerable onus on us, since we would be putting down the first flares.
After a couple of days passed like this, we were briefed. The target was to be the old airship hangar at Friedrichshaven on Lake Constance, which was being used as an assembly shop for the construction of German radar sets. The Air Commodore in charge of the briefing added that the target was worth bombing from our own point of view, because the radar sets now in the hangar were destined for the Ruhr where they would considerably strengthen the defences. There was a murmur round the room that if he had been to the Ruhr recently, he would realise that the defences certainly didn't need any improvement, and the briefing continued.
The attack was to take place on the first clear night; perfect weather was needed at the target because of its pinpoint nature, very unlike the big areas which had been successfully 'coventrised' in the Ruhr. For the same reason a full or almost full moon was required, so that if the attack didn't take place within the next night or two, it would be cancelled altogether. Finally, and almost off-handedly, it was mentioned that Friedrichshaven was much too far into the continent for us to cross the enemy coast in both directions in darkness, so we were to fly south from the target over the Alps, cross the Italian coast just before dawn, and land at one of the newly acquired airfields in North Africa. "Have a good trip, chaps." We spent the afternoon drawing very basic tropical kit from stores, (no one had any badges of rank), preparing maps and charts, and calculating times.
In the evening the weather seemed very good and we walked optimistically to the Met. Office. The Met. Officer, however, was not optimistic. He shook his head gloomily. "No, not tonight." The next day passed slowly. We did an air-test, then sat in the mess playing shove-halfpenny. In the afternoon, a preliminary forecast was issued, which promised much better weather conditions than the night before. Eventually news came through; "Operations tonight." We had an operational meal, stowed away navigation equipment, flasks of coffee, and a parcel of sandwiches. The gunners dressed in their Irvines; we strapped on our Mae Wests and parachute harnesses, and taxied to the end of the runway.
We took off at 21.40, double British Summer time on the eve of the summer solstice, so there was still ample light. We climbed out of the Lincolnshire mist, and as we gained height we could see other Lancasters climbing from neighbouring airfields. Reading was to be our turning point, and we remained in a bunch to the coast, Selsey Bill. When we reached the coast, it was much too early, for it would still be light on the other side of the Channel. Sixty Lancasters circled the Bill and fighters from Tangmere, the nearby fighter station, came up and fluttered around inquisitively. Soon, well before I intended to let my pilot set course, one or two more adventurous spirits headed south once more. As the last light faded we could see the French coast in the distance, and set course. It had long been the custom for
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southbound aircraft to cross the coast at Cabourg, a little French sea side resort opposite Le Havre, which I had visited several times before the war when I was on my exchange visits to Normandy. We could always reckon on stream of light flak from the coast, and we were not disappointed; red, green and yellow tracers drifted slowly into the evening air, and extinguished themselves thousands of feet below us. We smiled contemptuously and put our nose down slightly to increase speed by 30 knots to take us through the fighter belt along the French coast.
There was scarcely any wind; navigation was no problem, and the Loire appeared on time. We turned east at Orleans, always very badly blacked out. The weather, which had till then been perfect, now deteriorated; thick cloud above prevented any use of the sextant, and obscured the light from the moon by which we would have seen something of the ground. We didn't worry, however for an occasional drift taken on a light showed that our track was being made good, and we knew that we should see the Rhine, no matter how bad the weather, and in any case the guns at Mulhouse would probably warn us of its whereabouts. Suddenly there was a shout from Jimmy, "Rhine coming up!" We were fortunately right on time, and right on track. Basle, just to the south, was brilliantly lit up, and we set course for Lake Constance, the Bodensee - the Swiss side as briefed. The Swiss illuminated a few ineffective searchlights, and fired a few ineffective shells. The engineer told us the unlikely story of an RT conversation between the pilot of a Flying Fortress, and the officer in charge of a Swiss anti-aircraft battery. The Fortress was over Switzerland, probably by mistake since the American navigation was not particularly accurate. "You are over Swiss territory. We shall open fire," called the Swiss officer. "I know," called the pilot, and a few moments later, "Your shells are bursting a thousand feet too low." "I know," replied the Swiss officer. We laughed, and circled the rendezvous point, a small headland, on the Swiss shore of Lake Constance. At Z-4 we set off across the lake on the agreed course, and seconds after crossing the opposite coast, we started releasing flares across Friedrichshaven; moments later a parallel line of flares appeared on our left. The defences were very active indeed; some were accurate too and we could hear shells bursting just below the aircraft; they rocked us about a bit, and shrapnel rattled against the fuselage, but without doing us any real harm. As our last flares fell, a searchlight fastened on to us, and immediately a dozen others held us fast. We twisted and turned frantically, and finally Jimmy dived from 12,000 feet to 2,000 feet out of the target area. Meanwhile the other two Pathfinder aircraft had marked the target with red and green TIs and the Master of Ceremonies was telling the main force aircraft which had been placed most accurately. Soon their bombs were raining down. It was very satisfying because we could see the results of our bombing, something we had rarely seen before; in eighteen visits to the Ruhr, we had seen the ground only twice. We climbed back to lay some more flares and add our few small bombs to the general conflagration. Once again the searchlights picked us out from the 60 aircraft circling round - the four Pathfinder planes were flying lower than the Main Force whom the MC had ordered to climb an extra 5,000 feet because of the intensity of the defences. Once again we were given all the attention of the flak but this time Jimmy turned hard about and dived out over the lake. Our contribution was complete. Soon the MC pronounced that the raid was at an end, and ordered us to climb hard for the Alps.
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[Photograph taken in front of an aircraft hangar, captioned: "Jimmy and the gunners at Bourn, September 1943."]
[Photograph taken in front of a Lancaster, captioned: "Some of the crew and ground-crew, September, 1943."]
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[Photograph captioned: "Jimmy and batman - and his dog - at Bourn, September, 1943."]
[Photograph of men on and around a tractor, in front of an aircraft, captioned: "(left to right) Underwood, Suswain, groundcrew, Bennett, Spencer, groundcrew, Hill, Munro, groundcrew, groundcrew in front of J-Johnnie (note the increasing line of bombs) at Bourn, August, 1943."]
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The Alps were very blue in the summer moonlight; as soon as we had crossed the mountains, we dropped down across the Italian coast and flew low over the Mediterranean. Oxygen masks were taken off; coffee was handed round; the wireless operator picked up some light music. The sun rose; the sea sparkled. We flew just over the wave-tops to escape radar cover. We realised that we were tired, but the excitement of this shuttle-service operation kept us all awake. An occasional smoke-float checked our track, and in two hours the coast appeared......enveloped in thick fog! Early arrivals skimmed the top of the fog leaving a trail behind like the wake of a ship in water. There were frantic voices on the RT; "Ten minutes petrol left!" "I can only fly for a quarter of an hour." It seemed as if a successful operation was going to end in a fiasco; that 420 aircrew would have to bale out, and that 60 Lancasters would be directed out to sea to crash in the Mediterranean when petrol ran out. Fortunately there was a man of considerable initiative on the ground. He was an American flying control officer who stationed himself at the end of the runway in his jeep, fired Verey cartridges up through the mist, and, long before the days of Ground Controlled Approach, talked us in. I shall always remember the expression he used. "The first man to make home base wins!" It was unorthodox, but it was effective; all the aircraft landed safely, about half at Maison Blanche, our intended destination, and the remainder at a neighbouring airfield, Blida. In one of the Lancasters, by coincidence an aircraft from 619 Squadron, which had been formed at Woodhall Spa when we left that station for Bourn, was a dead Bomb-aimer who had been killed when hit by flak over the target.
For a couple of days we lazed; we drank too much of the rather coarse Algerian wine; we had too much sun; we gorged ourselves on fruit which was now very scarce in England; we bathed in the Mediterranean. Once incident while we were there stands out in my mind; we had been issued with basic khaki drill uniform, and none of us had badges of rank except those few who had seen previous service overseas. We ate in an American Mess where one GI was unwise enough to question whether Johnny Sauvage was an officer; Johnny was a very senior Flight Lieutenant at the time, but he was one of those people who nearly always look scruffy because he needed a second shave by about two o'clock in the afternoon; his language at this challenge was picturesque in the extreme, and it obviously served to convince the GI that he really was a 'limey' officer.
Eight of the aircraft which had landed had been too badly damaged on the outward operation to take part in the return one; quite the worst of these was one of the Pathfinder aircraft, Rodley's, not because of action over the target, but because a TI had hung up in the bomb-bay of his aircraft; these exploded barometrically, so when he lost height over the Mediterranean, it went off and his Lancaster became filled with smoke and flames; fortunately he realised what had happened, and, opening the bomb doors, he pulled the jettison lever, the TI fell away, and he reached Algiers, but in no fit state to fly again till a good deal of work had been done on his Lancaster. Johnny's aircraft was also badly damaged, so there were only two Pathfinders on the return operation. All those who did operate against Spezia, for that was the homebound target, had a great deal of difficulty getting off the ground so heavily laden with petrol and bombs in the heat of a tropical evening.
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The homeward attack was something of an anti-climax after Friedrichshaven, and dropping our flares and bombs fairly hastily, we sped back across France. As we got back to Scampton, the sun was rising once more. The WAAF in flying control called us "Clear to land, J-Johnnie" and for once ignoring RT discipline, "Good show, J-Johnnie."
We were debriefed; I recall Jimmy telling the intelligence officer that we 'dove' out of the searchlights; it was years before I found out that 'dove' was legitimate New World past tense of 'to dive.' In the evening we flew back to Bourn. There was a reception committee waiting for us including the AOC, Bennett, and other senior officers. Bennett was exceedingly angry; he felt that four Pathfinders had been used so that 5 Group would have an excuse, someone else to blame, if the raid were not successful. Relations between Bennett and Cochrane, the AOC of 5 Group, were notoriously bad; Bennett commented at that debriefing that he would have had 20 Pathfinders illuminating and marking the target to ensure that the task was done properly. It was Bennett who had interviewed me for my commission earlier in the year; he didn't waste any time with 'social' questions which some of my friends had suffered from other AOCs, but launched straight away into fairly probing questions about navigation, and why I wanted to become an officer; presumably I was able to satisfy him on both counts.
The attack on Friedrichshaven had been our 29th. operation, and Spezia our 30th., so we got back to Bourn confidently expecting to go on three weeks leave; the pressure was on, however, and we were informed that we would have to do two more trips before we could be released. We went twice to Cologne before drawing our railway warrants and ration cards and setting off. At that time thirty operations constituted a first tour; one was then entitled to a 'rest' of at least six months before going back for a second tour, though some never did; in Main Force the second tour was twenty operations, but arrangements differed a little in Pathfinder Force. Having got a successful and experienced crew together, Pathfinder Force liked to keep them together for their second tour, so the crew went straight on without a break. In order to compensate for this, the second tour was reduced to 15 operations, and there was a three-week leave period in between instead of the usual two-week end-of-tour leave.
This last operation of our first tour is described in detail in 'Pathfinders at War' by Chaz Bowyer, under the title of 'Night of No Return,' written by Doug Jones, one of the four pilots to take part. There is also quite a long article about it in 'The Marker', the Pathfinder Association magazine, of summer 1991, by Rodley and a shorter one adding to Rod's article by myself in 'The Marker' of winter 1992. I read quite recently (spring 2002) Constance Babbington Smith's 'Evidence in Camera' and was surprised to find how quickly the attack had been organised; Churchill had visited RAF Medmenham, the Photographic Interpretation Unit, on June 14th., 1943, and been shown the pictures of the radar devices in preparation at Friedrichshaven; it was only six days later that the raid took place.
After those two operations against Cologne, I didn't go there again for many years, not, in fact, till the autumn of 1998, when my wife and I went down the Rhine on a river cruise starting there. We had not been on the cruise vessel more than
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ten minutes before there was a fire drill; when it concluded, I said to the Cruise Director, "This is a bit ironic, because the last time I was at Cologne, I was trying to start as many fires as possible!"
Most of our crew had decided to stay together and go on to complete 45 operations; by now we all had great faith in one another, and we all realised that in Jimmy Munro we had an exceptional pilot and captain; Bill Tracey had been absolutely right. (He, Bill, incidentally, had transferred to the US Army Air Corps fairly soon after we had moved to Bourn, and moved on after his thirty operations, so that now, after a long spell together, my friend George, his navigator, moved to a different station.) Two of the crew decided not to stay on: 'Snowy' Nevard, the wireless operator, and Harry Townsley, the engineer. In their place, we picked up two very experienced aircrew; Flight Sergeant Underwood as W/Op., and 'Ginger' Swetman, DFC, DFM, as Engineer. The latter, who eventually became squadron engineering leader, had quite remarkable night vision; he was frequently able to tell intelligence officers at debriefing just where our bombs and TIs had fallen, and time and time again this was confirmed by the photograph taken as we dropped our bombs.
When we got back to Bourn after our three weeks leave, we found the squadron agog with a new defensive strategy, 'Window,' the dropping of metallic strips to confuse the enemy radar. 'Window' was first used against Hamburg on the night of July 24/25 1943 and crews who had operated that night told us that the German searchlights and guns were all over the place, and there was great confusion between the night-fighters and their controllers. The loss rate that night was reduced to 1.5%, only 12 aircraft out of a force of over 700. We then operated against Hamburg three times in a week. On the 27th. the lost rate was just over 2%, 18 missing from a force of nearly 800; Window was still being very effective. This particular raid was the night of the great fire-storm; an enormous number of incendiaries was dropped and a great number of the inhabitants of Hamburg perished in the ensuing conflagration. In the same week we also did a trip to the Ruhr, to Remscheid, so we were operating at quite intense pressure at that time. The last of 'The Battle of Hamburg' raids was on the night of August 2nd. Although all 97 Squadron's aircraft returned, the Command lost 30 aircraft that night - over 4 per. cent. - and we began to wonder if Window was already losing its effect, but probably that night's losses were as much to do with weather as the German defences; the icing at 20,000 feet was more severe than we had ever known, and the wind was over 100 knots, so probably quite a lot of the casualties were victims of the weather.
I pause here from my chronological narrative to insert several anecdotes from this period. One day, we were due to take J-Johnnie on a night-flying test; these normally took place in the morning so that the ground crew could fix anything that needed fixing during the afternoon. For some reason we were not able to fly in the morning - possibly our ground-crew were busy on something fairly major on the aircraft. Whatever the reason, we went for lunch, and arrived to do our air-test early in the afternoon; there was no transport about to take us out to dispersal, so we trooped into the Flight Commander's office to explain. The Wingco said at once, "My van's outside; I shan't be needing it for an hour or two. Take that. "Jimmy at once responded that he couldn't drive. W/C Alabaster turned to me and commented, "It
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makes you realise how long the war's been on, doesn't it? Here's this chap who's done nearly forty trips in a Lancaster, and can't drive a car!"
The next story is a sad one. Bennett used to insist that his air staff officers at PFF HQ kept up to date by themselves going on operations from time to time. Two turned up one evening and, to my great surprise, both went off with the same crew, an Australian fairly new to the Squadron. I had flown a 'bullseye' with him one night when his own navigator was sick, and, after months flying with Jimmy, wasn't very impressed, so that I wouldn't have wanted to operate with him myself. Sadly both these officers, very experienced officers indeed, were lost with him.
Another story concerns a young night fighter pilot from a Beaufighter Squadron in the Home Counties, who came to spend a week's leave with us and flew on three operations. I was quite amazed that anyone's idea of a week's leave should be to spend it operating with a heavy bomber squadron. [italics] Chac'un a son gout! [/italics] He successfully completed his week, and Jimmy suggested that we would take him back to his base at Twinwood Farm; the main runway at this night-fighter station was considerably shorter than that normally used by a Lancaster, and although we landed without too much difficulty, taking off on an 800 yard runway, skimming over the trees at the end of the runway, was quite exciting. I believe Jimmy got a bit of a rocket when we got back to Bourn, but there isn't really much you can do to a chap who has done 40 operations except perhaps slap his wrists fairly mildly.
By now, we were, of course a very experienced crew; when new crews joined the Squadron, their captains were usually sent out with just such a crew before they operated themselves. One night we took a newly arrived South African with us, almost certainly, I think to Hamburg. We were making our way over northern Germany, more or less parallel with the coast and were somewhere near Bremen. "Now watch this," said Jimmy and held the plane absolutely straight and level for 30-45 seconds. Then he veered off to the left, and almost immediately three rounds of flak burst on our right, just where we would have been if he had continued straight and level.
Another visitor at about this time was Jimmy's father; he had been in the Canadian army in WWI, and enlisted again as soon as WWII was declared. Now he was back in England again as Private Munro. By now Jimmy was commissioned, and although Private Munro wasn't allowed to use the Officers' Mess, the Adjutant stretched a point, and accommodated him in the Sergeants' Mess, where he was very well looked after by the NCOs in our crew. He flew with us on an air-test on a very stormy day. While we were out over the North Sea there was a terrific bang, just like a burst of flak directly below the aircraft. We had been struck by lightning! We were lucky; flicking over the pages of Chorley's 'Bomber Command Losses' recently, I noticed that a Halifax which had been struck by lightning broke up in the air, and all the crew were killed. Our only damage was to our main P4 compass; it was never the same again. Although boffins arrived from Farnborough to degauss the aircraft, it could never be relied upon, but fortunately the Distant Reading Compass was still perfectly serviceable, and we relied on that from then on.
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We usually went into Cambridge when we were 'stood down' or not flying. (I can recall going into Bourn village only once to go to the Post Office.) The great attraction for me was the Cambridge Arts Theatre, and I used to persuade all the crew to go along quite frequently; they were all quite happy to humour me if a Coward, a Rattigan, a Priestley or an Emlyn Williams was on offer, but they all declined when I suggested a visit to the ballet! We all did enjoy very much indeed Terrence Ratigan's 'Flarepath'; it was, I believe, its first production, and starred Richard Attenborough, who was on an ITW course in Cambridge, but was held back on his course in order to play the leading part. We also spent quite a lot of time on the Cam, not in a punt, but in a canoe, for Jimmy, having grown up alongside the Ottawa river, handled a canoe just as expertly as he did a Lancaster.
After what Middlebrook calls 'The Battle of Hamburg' there was a quieter spell. We did two trips to Milan, and between them one to Mannheim. In the first of the Milan raids on August 7th., only 2 planes were lost out of 200 taking part, and on August 12th. only 3 out of 500, and only one of those a Lancaster. I never failed to be surprised at the reactions of some crew members when we were briefed to go on the eight-hour flight over the Alps. They used to complain about these long trips saying "Why can't we just go to the Ruhr?" Yet they must have known that casualties would be ten or even twenty times as many on a visit to Happy Valley! Moreover there was the joy of flying over the Alps (A very different experience from flying 15,000 or more feet above the mountains in the well-lit cabin of a modern jet), and long flights posed navigational challenges which I always enjoyed.
By now it was the middle of August, and nights were getting longer. The increasing hours of darkness was obviously going to give the C-in-C the opportunity to attack the target he really wanted: Berlin. We thought one morning that the day had come. We always had a look at the Order of Battle when it was published in the morning, not to find which aircraft we were flying in - we knew that - or to find the crew - we knew that too - but to have a look at the information tucked away at the bottom of the sheet; the bomb load and petrol load. These two figures gave a pretty good idea of the vicinity of the target. A small petrol-load and a large bomb-load almost inevitably meant the Ruhr. Conversely a heavy load of petrol and a small load of bombs probably meant much further afield; Italy or southern or eastern Germany. A moderate load of each would mean Hamburg, Berlin or thereabouts. On August 17th. we were scheduled for operations. When we looked at the Order of Battle we were horrified; the petrol and bomb loads appeared just right for Berlin, and yet it was a night of full moon; it would be a massacre - a massacre of the aircraft of Bomber Command by the increasingly skilful Luftwaffe night-fighter crews. There was a general lowering of morale but there was nothing we could do about it so we got on with our air-test, and did some bombing practice as well. "Press on regardless," as we said in those days!
We turned up for afternoon briefing, still feeling rather anxious, and found that although the red tape pinned across the map of Europe on the end wall of the briefing-room stretched out across the North Sea, it stopped short of Berlin. Not Lubeck. Not Rostock. Where? Eventually the target was revealed as Peenemunde, a place none of us had ever head of. We sat back and waited for more information.
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[Extract from Author's log book, captioned "August 1943: a busy fortnight in Pathfinder Force."]
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There is no need to write much by way of introduction about the Peenemunde raid. After the Dams operation, it is probably the best documented Bomber Command operation of the whole war. It merits a complete volume to itself by Martin Middlebrook; another by John Searby who was Master of Ceremonies; there are accounts of it and background information in almost any book referring to Bomber Command's activities, notably in R.V.Jones's 'Most Secret War,' in Max Hastings's 'Bomber Command', in Denis Richards's 'The Hardest Victory' and elsewhere. Briefly, Peenemunde was the research station and factory on the coast of the Baltic where the V2 rocket was being developed. It was, of course, a closely guarded secret. Although British intelligence had their first intimations of rockets as early as November 1939, they regarded this as a hoax to distract them from more immediate concerns, until more information came through a Danish engineer in December 1942, and even more when two captured German Generals were 'bugged' in March 1943, and were overheard discussing rocket attacks. Now there was a full alert. The Chiefs of Staff and the War Cabinet were informed and a decision was made to appoint Duncan Sandys to gather together all possible information. He worked very quickly and used photographic reconnaissance to amplify information which was also now coming in through the Resistance. His report to the War Cabinet was made on June 29th., and a decision was made to attach Peenemunde. At first it was thought that Mosquitoes could carry out the attack, but it was realised they couldn't carry the weight of bombs necessary. It would be a job for the heavies, so it was decided to wait until nights were long enough for a force of heavy bombers to get there and back in darkness. Now, in mid-August, that time had come.
Briefing took its usual form. There were introductory remarks and the target finally identified by a senior officer. The Met. Officer briefed us on the weather; conditions should be perfect. The Intelligence Officer told us what was known about defences. The Signals Officer briefed us about W/T procedures and, as always, emphasised the need for radio silence till the attack began. The plan of attack was explained; the operation would be in three phases. (We were to fly in the first.) This first wave was to be against the living quarters of the scientists and technicians; the second against the experimental station, and the last against the factory workshops. A number of special features were also explained; there was to be a Master of Ceremonies, the first time such a technique had been employed on a major operation of about 600 aircraft although we had an MC on Friedrichshaven with a much smaller force; there was to be a spoof raid on Berlin by a group of Mosquitoes who would drop 'window' and TIs to simulate an impending large-scale raid to attract the German fighters to Berlin. No mention whatsoever was made of rockets; we were told that we would be attacking an experimental radar station, a very important one, but nevertheless, radar was something we knew about. It was only later that we learned about rockets; it was thought that it would be disastrous for British morale if it were known that the Germans were developing rockets, so even the crews were not informed. Finally, we were told, and this was the only occasion I heard such a comment, that if the raid were not successful, it would have to be repeated night after night, irrespective of casualties, till the task was complete. Watches were synchronised. A final word from the senior officer 'Have a good trip chaps. Wish I were coming with you.' In fact, a very senior officer was with us that night; Group Captain Boyce, Senior Air Staff Officer at Group HQ, turned up and slipped quietly aboard Rodley's aircraft to witness the attack for himself.
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We went off to the Mess to have our operational meal, and, of course, made our usual funereal jokes. "Can I have your egg if you're not back tomorrow morning?" I suppose it sounds in very bad taste now, but it was our normal comment to one another; it was really wishing our friends a safe passage. Then I would go to clean my teeth, which by then had become a ritual, and easy enough to undertake because my quarters were between the Mess and the airfield; this had started because I thought that if I were shot down and taken prisoner it might be a long time before I could clean my teeth again! It would have been perfectly simple to carry a toothbrush with me; crew members carried all sorts of things with them. Another ritual was always to wear the silk scarf my Mother had given me when I started flying; I would have been very worried to have set off on operations without it.
Meanwhile the armourers had been busy at our aircraft, loading it with a 'cookie,' a four thousand pounder, five 500 pounders, and, most importantly, seven target indicators with which we hoped to mark the living quarters of the most important people at Peenemunde; the petrol bowsers had visited each dispersal site; the ground crew had done their final checks. We went to our lockers in the crew room for our flying kit, and then to the parachute section to draw parachutes, escape kits, rations, and then awaited transport to dispersal. Arriving there, we chatted to the ground crew; the smokers amongst us had a final cigarette; we had a ritual pee over the rear wheel of J-Johnnie.
We eventually clambered aboard and taxied to the end of the runway, ran up the engines to check magnetos, waited for a 'green' from the controller, and we were off; it was 20.50 DBST, so it was still light. As usual, there was a little knot of watchers standing at the end of the runway to wave us off. In 'Bomber Command' Max Hastings says that although this happened when the Squadron returned to Coningsby in 1944, there was never a group on the end of the runway at Bourn: not true. I even stood there myself on one or two occasions when I wasn't flying. The point probably was that there was never a big crowd, because the aircraft normally started their take-off run from the eastern end of the main runway, and all the domestic sites were at the western end, so that unless one had transport of some kind - I had a service bicycle at Bourn - it was a very long way to get there.
We flew out over East Anglia in daylight, and, as usual when we were heading east, crossed the coast at Southwold; darkness soon fell as we flew out over the North Sea. It was a beautiful night. The weather was, as forecast, perfect. The sea was calm. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, so as the full moon rose it was shining on the sea in front of us. The occasion was enhanced by the knowledge that we weren't, as we feared we might have been, on our way to the 'Big City.'
It took about an hour and ten minutes to cross the North Sea and reach the Danish coast. We made sure that we kept fairly well north of Flensburg, a spot to avoid when crossing the Schleswig-Holstein peninsula. The flak gunners at Flensburg were both trigger-happy and accurate, and whenever we went that way, there always seemed to be some unfortunate character whose navigator had not kept him clear of that city. We crossed Denmark in less than fifteen minutes and turned south east over the multitude of islands in the Baltic, which made navigation very easy. I gave Jimmy
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[Two photographs, captioned: [centred] "Over Hamburg, 29 July, and Berlin, 23 August, 1943, from J-Johnnie. Notice Jimmy's deservedly rapid promotion." [/centred]]
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and Sus the Estimated Time of Arrival, and just as that time was coming up, there was a shout from the bomb-aimer that there was a smoke screen ahead of us and he couldn't see very much at all. I came from behind my curtain, and he was quite right! I could see very little, but this was from a fairly oblique angle; there appeared to be 100% cover of the target, but as we got nearer and were looking down through the smoke-screen more vertically, it became obvious that cover was by no means complete, and that one could see quite a lot down through the lines of smoke. Defences were very meagre; a few searchlights straggled round the sky; we had no problem dropping our bombs and TIs on time. The attack seemed to have started well. We watch for a few moments and then turned away from the target just south of the inward route of those still approaching. There was someone in trouble of Flensburg, serious trouble. He was coned and blew up as we watched horrified, the only aircraft we saw shot down that night, most unusual. We flew back across the North Sea thinking that losses would be negligible. Our return to Bourn was uneventful; 97 Squadron had sent out 18 aircraft; one returned early with engine trouble; the other 17 all landed safely. Our flight had lasted 6 hours 50 minutes.
We had a quick word with the ground crew, then transport arrived to take us back to the flight offices. First we went to the parachute store, then to the crew room to deposit our harnesses and other flying kit, and so to the ops. room for debriefing. As usual there was a senior officer waiting to have a word with us as we went in and took a mug of coffee from a WAAF (with rum in it for those who wanted it, which always included the half-frozen gunners, of course), then on to an intelligence officer waiting to debrief us. We sat around a table with him, and told him about the raid, the defences, any aircraft we had seen shot down, the weather; it didn't take long before we were on our way back to our messes for the traditional post-operational meal of eggs and bacon and trimmings. And so to bed.
The next morning, as on every morning after operations, I was about early. Most of the crew, most of the squadron, would sleep in till lunchtime after flying at night, but probably I was horrified at the thought of missing a meal, so I was always up. I wouldn't pretend I was first in the mess for breakfast, but I would be up by about eight, have a shower, and reach the mess just before breakfast ended at nine. After breakfast, I would catch up with my correspondence, or do the Telegraph crossword, and read the paper or a novel. On this particular occasion, however, realising that the previous night's operation had been rather a special one, and with the threat made at the end of briefing still hanging over us, I decided to walk up to the intelligence library to have a look at the photographs which had, no doubt, been developed. The first thing I found was that we had lost 40 aircraft, 6.7% of the force. I was amazed; the only aircraft we saw downed was the one over Flensburg; usually we saw at least half a dozen over German targets. Apparently the German fighters circled Berlin as they were intended to, but when their controllers realised where the target really was, they redirected the fighters to the Baltic coast, and they arrived in time to create havoc among the later waves of the attack. The second wave suffered losses of about 14.5%, while the third, the Lancasters of 5 Group, lost almost 20%, an incredible one aircraft in every five. However, the raid had been deemed a success, so we should not have to repeat it, much to our relief. The attack is said to have delayed the V2 by about three months. The first V2 hit London on September 8th., and three months before that, almost to the day, the invasion was just getting under way, so we probably did
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something worthwhile. Reports tell of several top scientists and technicians who were killed; production was dispersed and decreased; the German general in charge of fighters committed suicide after failing to defend Peenemunde.
This operation was our 40th. We had five more to do. We did air-tests on August 19th. and 22nd., but didn't operate again till the 23rd. The full moon had passed, and now it really was Berlin. We lost 56 aircraft, Bomber Command's biggest loss in a single operation to date, 7.9% of the force despatched. One of the aircraft we lost that night was the Australian with two Staff Officers on board. Four nights later, we went to Nuremberg; the nights really were getting longer now, to go that far under cover of darkness; there was much evidence of aerial combat, but fortunately the fighters left us alone. On the 29th. we flew over to Oakington, our parent station, to operate from there while our runways at Bourn were under repair, and on the night of 30/31 August went back to the Ruhr, to Munchen-Gladbach, a flight of only 3hrs. 30 minutes. Take-off that night was after midnight, and by 20.20 the same evening we were back in the air on our way to Berlin. Losses were again high; 47 aircraft, 7.6%, but much higher among the Stirlings which lost 17 out of 106 sent, 16.0%. We lost one of our Flight Commanders, Wing Commander Burns, C.O. of A flight, with his much decorated crew. Fortunately he and a number of others of his crew escaped the aircraft and were taken prisoner. He had been Master Bomber over Berlin in the raid a week before.
One evening while we were waiting for take-off to Berlin at our dispersal point, which was right on the A45, the main road to Cambridge, a coach pulled up; it was carrying an ENSA party, who had performed at Bourn that evening, back to Cambridge. They saw that we were wearing Mae Wests and harnesses and carrying parachutes, so they had asked the driver to stop. They waved and shouted 'Good luck!' to us, and no doubt read all about the attack in the papers the next morning, so they were able to tell their friends that they had seen a crew just off on a big raid.
On another of our long flights into Germany, almost certainly to Berlin, I think, we were told at briefing that we would be taking a lengthy circuitous route across Germany, one of the strategies used to confuse the defences, and that this route would take us over a small town where a large number of seriously rich Germans were hibernating for the duration of the war. We might, if we wished, drop one of our smaller bombs there "to remind them that there was a war on." It was up to us! We crossed the Rhine well south of the Ruhr, and continued eastwards passing south of Kassel; as we were nearing the town, I informed Jimmy and we held a brief democratic crew conference. In the end we decided to take our full load of bombs and T.I.s to the main target; the balance of opinion was that we should drop as much as possible on "the Big City." However, it was my opinion that the crew probably thought that with me as navigator, they couldn't be sure that they were anywhere near the little town, but that even I could hardly miss the enormous sprawling city that was Berlin.
We were now in September with one trip left to complete our second tour. We did night-flying tests on two occasions, but each time operations were cancelled through bad weather. On the first of these occasions, the corporal-fitter in charge of J-Johnny, a young married man, was due to go on leave the next
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morning, but when operations were 'scrubbed' he wouldn't go; the same happened the next night; he was determined to see us safely through our tour. This was a considerable sacrifice, for ground crew got very little leave, and worked outside at dispersal sites, not in a warm hangar, in sometimes quite atrocious conditions; he really deserved an award for devotion to duty. I was glad that Jimmy saw the Flight Commander the next morning before we all set off on leave, explained what had happened, and the Wingco extended the corporal's leave, which officially had already started, by a 48-hour pass, a most unusual concession for those days.
We had expected a 'cushy' operation to Italy for that final operation; the petrol/bomb load on the Order of Battle seemed right for a long trip, and the invasion of Italy had begun that very morning, September 3rd., the fourth anniversary of the outbreak of war. We were soon disillusioned when we got to briefing; once more the red tape stretched across Europe to Berlin, but by a particularly long circuitous route, which accounted for the bomb and petrol loads. We went through the usual pre-operation routines, but when Jimmy was running up the engines on the end of the runway, the surge of power made all my radar unserviceable; not, I thought, a good omen for our last operation. However, our luck was in once again, for even at 20,000 feet the winds were quite light and variable that night, so we had no real navigational problems. We got a pin-point on the English coast, another on the Dutch, and the rear gunner was able to give me an occasional drift, so, even by that circuitous route, we got to the target successfully. The Halifaxes and Stirlings did not participate in this operation, as they had recently suffered severe losses; 316 Lancasters passed through the target in 20 minutes hoping to overwhelm the German defences of their capital. Evenso, [sic] 22 were lost, nearly 7% of the force. A year earlier, Bomber Command could hardly have sent 100 Lancasters, even on a 'maximum effort.'
We were routed over the south western corner of Sweden for the return flight. Martin Middlebrook's book on the Berlin raids refers to the correspondence between the Swedish ambassador and Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary during the war; in his reply to the Ambassador's protest abut the 'repeated violations of Swedish territory,' Eden wrote 'On returning from their target, a number of aircraft took a northerly course and, despite the instructions which, as Your Excellency knows, have been issued to British air crews to avoid flying over Swedish territory, crossed the South West corner of Sweden before reaching the Kattegat.' Sheer hypocritical nonsense, of course; our briefing lay down the route for the return journey.
As we crossed the corner of Sweden we put the nose down and, for the last time, sped home. In spite of having no radar, we were easily first home that night. As we crossed the coast, we broke discipline by firing off the colours of the day from the verey pistol. When we got back to the parachute section, I pulled the ripcord of my parachute, which I wouldn't normally have done, of course, and it spilled over the counter. The WAAF parachute packer and I had a laugh about it, when I said that I was satisfied that it would have been all right if I had had to use it in earnest.
The following day we set off on a fortnight's leave. The possibility of surviving the war, although by no means certain, seemed considerably nearer.
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Sadly, Jimmy, Ron Bennett, and 'Weasel' did not survive; they, with our new wireless operator, Flight Sergeant 'Gremlin' Underwood, Jimmy Silk, from Doug Jones's crew, who replaced me, Peter Burbridge, from Johnny Sauvages's crew who replaced 'Sus', and a new engineer, were shot down over Berlin on the night of November 22nd./23rd. 1943, probably by a German fighter. They have no known grave. It was Jimmy's 57th. operation.
[centred] * * * [/centred]
What must have been the next J-Johnnie was not destined to last very long; it was shot down and all its crew killed on the night of 30/31 January 1944 returning from Berlin. I was, by then, many miles from Bourn, and was not to know about this for many years. However, in 1999, BBC Leeds made a programme about the recovery of the remains of the aircraft by Dutch engineers excavating at Zwanenburg. The programme did seem to include a number of anomalies, and I had a brief correspondence with the Research Assistant working on the programme, but she was unable to resolve my enquiries, and pointed out, quite correctly, that the programme was really about the excavation, not the minutiae of 97 Squadron's history. I had not known before the programme was shown that it was to be about OF (97 Squadron's identification letters) - J-Johnnie, only that it was to be about a Lancaster; it therefore gave me quite a [italics] frisson [/italics] to be watching a programme about OF-J, an aircraft with the identical identification to the one which I had myself been navigating only a few months before.
[centred] * * * [/centred]
I left 97 Squadron at Bourn on September 23rd. 1943, posted to No.26 OTU at Wing, just outside of Leighton Buzzard, as a navigation instructor. I hadn't been there many weeks when a notice appeared in Daily Routine Orders seeking a radar navigation instructor overseas. With the Middle East and North Africa now in allied hands, it was pretty obviously going to be Italy. I hadn't really settled to life as an instructor after life on an operational squadron; moreover the post was 'advertised' as a Flight Lieutenant vacancy, and since I hadn't been commissioned all that long, I asked the Adjutant to put my name forward. It wasn't long before I heard that I had been accepted, and went off on embarkation leave. On my return the unit was good enough to divert a cross-country to drop me off at Squire's Gate, the nearest airfield to Blackpool, where the embarkation unit was based. Within days I was on a ship bound for overseas from Liverpool, but conditions were rather different this time as I was travelling as an officer, and in any case the vessel was hardly a traditional troopship. We sailed well out into the Atlantic to keep clear of the aircraft attacking convoys from airfields in western France, then turned east to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar, where the fog was so dense that although the Straits are very narrow,
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nine miles at its narrowest, we saw no signs of the Rock whatsoever, and a couple of days later, docked in Algiers.
After a day or two in a transit camp there, I was flown to Tunis, Headquarters of Mediterranean Air Command, to which I was attached for the time being. The Air Officer Commanding was Air Marshall Tedder; he would come into the Mess occasionally, and was a delightful man; in fact, I never met any really senior officers who were not very pleasant people indeed. The more objectionable men were those pre-war regular officers, who had probably never operated during the war and got stuck at about Group Captain or Air Commodore level, were never going to get any further, and many of whom were far less attractive personalities than people like Tedder, who really did get to the top.
I was looked after by a Wing Commander and a Squadron Leader. It was now mid-December, and they took a light aircraft to Bone one day to visit the Market. They took me along with them, since I was under their wing, and because they had found out that my French was fairly reasonable. They had hoped to find some turkeys for the mess for Christmas, but were unlucky; all we did get was a sack of carrots, but probably it was appetising for people who had lived on service rations for some time to have some fresh vegetables. While there I did manage to visit the site of Carthage, and to have a swim in the Mediterranean on Christmas Day; it really was fairly chilly, but I wanted to say I had swum on Christmas Day!
A few days after Christmas, I set off further east to El Adem, a large desert airfield just outside Tobruk. I had learnt while I was at Tunis that the bomber squadrons, mainly Wellingtons, but one Halifax, No. 462, which had come up through the desert, and had spent much of the war raiding places like Benghazi and Tobruk, were shortly to move across to Italy, and that one of the squadrons, the Halifaxes, was going to become a target marking force, doing the same sort of job that I had been doing in Pathfinder Force. I spent initially only a few days with them before being required to visit HQ Middle East Air Force at Cairo, the HQ which, through 205 Group, had much more direct control over this bomber force than the HQ at Tunis. There were aircraft continuously going through El Adem on their way to the Far East, so a lift was once again arranged for me in a Wellington. Since the Wellington had its own crew I stood in the astrodome throughout the flight; I recall how impressed I was as we approached the Nile Delta at the sharp demarcation between the sands of the desert, and the green of the delta, not a gradual change at all, but quite sudden. The sergeant-pilot levelled out at about thirty or even thirty-five feet above the runway at Cairo West, then dropped the aircraft in with a terrific bang. Since I had been in the astrodome, not the warmest place in the aircraft, I was wearing a flying jacket; as I left the Wellington a Wing Commander approached me outside flying control and asked if I were the pilot of the aircraft which had just landed; since I was wearing my flying jacket, he could not, of course, see what sort of a brevet I was wearing. I very hastily disclaimed such responsibility and commented that I could quite understand why he was asking. He grinned and went off to find the real pilot.
I spent several days at HQ Middle East seeing a succession of fairly senior officers, most of whom had been in the Middle East for some time, and were not in close touch with recent developments in Bomber Command. One of them also
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introduced me to the delights of Groppi's, the famous Egyptian tea rooms, where one could gorge oneself on the sort of cakes that hadn't been seen in England for years.
Soon I was back at El Adem where 462 Squadron were still carrying out an occasional night raid on German harbour installations in Crete, but everyone was really just waiting for the move to Italy. Towards the end of February, all the ground crew moved back to the Delta to be ferried across to Italy to prepare an airfield near Foggia for the arrival of the Halifaxes. We kept our tents for the moment, but the khamsin was beginning to blow, and there was sand in everything. Occasionally a very old, quite enormous - and very dirty - Arab riding a donkey far too small for him would appear carrying a bucket of tiny eggs, which he would barter for a mug of sugar. The last night we were there, the tents were taken down and stowed aboard the aircraft for an early departure; we slept under the wings of the Halifaxes. I flew with the Squadron CO as navigator, since he had no regular crew of his own. The Engineering Officer (ground) flew as his flight engineer, so we had rather a makeshift crew. However, we reached Celone, our designated airfield, without problems. Just before we left the desert, I went into Tobruk and bought a pair of gumboots at the Offices' Shop; you were allowed to buy gumboots only if you were to be posted to Italy; it didn't seem as if we were going to have very wonderful weather in Italy!
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During the next few weeks, I spent most of my time with the squadron Navigation Officer and his team, some airborne on long cross-countries, talking to them about the techniques we had used in Pathfinder Force and the equipment we used, 'which in their case they had not got.' An entry in my log-book for May 2nd. 1944, shows the first air test of the Italian Gee chain; it was, of course, going to be an enormous advance for crews which had come up through the desert with no such aids to have Gee available, but they would certainly need it over the coming months for weather over Europe was very different from weather along the North African coastline.
At about this time, I was posted from 462 Squadron to HQ 205 Group as Group Navigation Officer (Radar) to distinguish me from the Group Navigation Officer; the work involved quite a lot of visits to HQ 15th. Air Force, which was based at Bari, and under whose aegis 205 Group operated. 462, now for some reason rechristened 614 Squadron, started operating in their new role. Their first attempt was something of a fiasco, not through any fault of theirs, but because the chosen target was in Sofia, and the mountains all round prevented their new radar devices from operating effectively; this was a pity, because it took them some time to win back their credibility with the supporting bomber squadrons.
One morning in June, news broke of the invasion of Normandy; the unit sick quarters had a radio, and I stood outside most of that morning (sick quarters being in a tent) and listened to the commentators, rather wishing that I had a hand in these great events taking place the other side of Europe.
Another event at about this time was the eruption of Vesuvius; a stream of smoke spread east from the crater over Italy right across the plain around Foggia, where all the main airfields were. We had to send out a navigation warning to all
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[Photograph of author outside a tent, captioned: "In front of my tent at El Adem, near Tobruk, February, 1944."]
[Photograph of author, captioned: "At Celone, near Foggia, Italy, April, 1944."]
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squadrons not to fly into the smoke from the volcano since it would cause the perspex in the cockpits of their aircraft to become opaque.
It wasn't long before I got the urge to go along with 614 from time to time. I knew only too well that Bennett had insisted on his Air Staff Officers operating in order to keep them in touch with current techniques, and now that I was a Staff Officer myself, albeit a very junior one, I thought I ought to do the same; moreover I was well aware of Hotspur's castigation of Staff Officers in Henry IV, and Siegfried Sassoon's poem about 'scarlet majors at the base,' so I decided I would join the squadron if there were appropriate opportunities. By 'appropriate opportunities' I mean providing I could go as a crew member; I knew only too well how much some crews hated having an 'extra bod.' on board as a supernumerary. Moreover, having completed forty-five operations, I thought it would be nice to make the round figure of fifty.
There was a meeting of the Air Staff every morning, which I attended. It was also attended by an army officer, a Guard, attached to the Group HQ, who was responsible for liaison with the Resistance, both in France and in Yugoslavia. He arrived one morning to inform us that the French resistance intended to attack an airfield in the Rhone Valley in the near future; they would be doing this at night, and would welcome a diversion by bomber aircraft making an attack on the middle of the airfield to make the Germans keep their heads down while they went about their business around the perimeter. This sounded a very interesting trip. I contacted 614 squadron and found there was one crew without a navigator, by coincidence, the same crew with whom I had undertaken the initial test of the Italian Gee chain. They were quite happy to accept my suggestion that I should join them for this operation as navigator. I got to Celone in ample time to renew acquaintance with Flt. Lt. Langton and his crew, and to be present at briefing, though I had all the information needed already, of course.
The front line at this time ran roughly from Ancona across Italy, just north of Florence. We were not routed to cross the line, but flew north as far as Lake Trasimeno, now, I believe, more commonly known as Lake Perugia; I prefer the former since that was the site of one [of] Hannibal's battles in the Punic Wars. We took off at about twenty to seven and set course for the lake; the date was July 24th., about three weeks before the invasion of southern France on August 15th. We turned west when we reached the Lake, and crossed the coast near Livorno, Leghorn. We crossed the Ligurian Sea, pin-pointed the northern tip of Corsica, and crossed the French coast just behind Marseilles, then north again along the valley of the Rhone as far as Valence. The airfield we were to attack was close to Valence; we were given its name as La Tresorie, but although I've looked it up in several reference books about the resistance since the war, I've never found anything about an airfield of that name. We dropped our flares and one TI from about 10,000 feet and watched while the main force, mainly Wellingtons, bombed the centre of the airfield. There was obviously some activity on the ground, small arms fire and a number of explosions. There seemed to be no defences whatsoever. The attack over, we turned about, and flew back to Foggia by the same route.
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A fortnight later, on August 6th., the Army liaison officer announced at our morning meeting that a message had now been received from the resistance in southern France. They had been well satisfied with the diversion provided, had destroyed 37 German aircraft on the ground, had blown up the ammunition dump, and killed an unspecified number of Germans.
I navigated twice more for 614 Squadron. One operation was a long trip to Hungary, to Székesfehérvár, halfway between Lake Balaton and Budapest, the other to the marshalling yards at Zagreb in northern Yugoslavia; the aim of both these trips was to impede the Germans as they retreated from the Balkans. I did two more in Wellingtons which were now much involved in supply dropping to the partisans. I thought that these would prove interesting; the first was in daylight, high in the mountains near Sarajevo; the partisans, looking like a gang of bandits, waved with great enthusiasm as our parachutes floated down to them. The same evening we dropped from 1,000 feet on to an enormous bonfire in the form of a cross near Trieste.
Life was not all operations and staff work, however; in August I was given the opportunity to undertake a Junior Commander's course at HQ Middle East in Cairo. I flew to Cairo via Malta and Marble Arch - a rather pleasanter flight than my previous trip to Cairo - and spent an interesting four weeks living on a houseboat, where the course also took place. The boat was moored to Gezira Island, and we were able to use the facilities at the club there in our fairly ample leisure time. Before I was allowed to return to Foggia, HQ ME sent me off to give a couple of lectures to navigators at their bomber OTU at Qastina and their Heavy Conversion Unit at Abu Suier on the techniques and equipment used in Pathfinder Force. And so back to Foggia, this time via El Adem, now very much a backwater, and Malta.
Most of the staff visits I undertook from Foggia were to Bari, but on one occasion I visited HQ MATAF (Mediterranean Allied Tactical Air Forces) at Sienna. Most of the day I was there was in an office with RAF and USAAC officers, but we did find time to walk round the great square; I thought what a wonderfully attractive place it was, and how I would love to go back there; in fact, it was a great many years before I returned on a day when the weather was appalling and the square was packed almost solid with tourists, so that my wife wasn't nearly as impressed as I had been almost fifty years earlier, when the sun shone, the sky was blue, and there was no one about but a few Allied troops.
I also visited MAAF HQ at the great palace at Caserta, and while there was able to ascertain the whereabouts of my first RAF friend, Ken Romain, who, I knew, was flying with a Spitfire squadron. They were stationed, in fact, quite nearby, so I was able to spend an enjoyable afternoon and evening with these fighter boys. They went off for a sweep over the front line while I was there. In their Ops. Room (a caravan), I noted that Ken had been credited with one half of a "kill." I pulled his leg about this, pointing out that all the time I had been flying over Germany, he had shot down one half of a Luftwaffe aircraft. However, he protested - and I am sure he was right - that Allied air superiority had been so great over North Africa, and now was over Italy, that opportunities for combat were very rare; when they were patrolling the front line, the German aircraft just did not leave the ground.
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By now, my job in the Mediterranean theatre was just about over. The Target Marking Squadron was well able to look after itself. (During the autumn one of the new crews to join them was captained by an Old Tauntonian from Southampton, 'Scotch' Wilson; he was slightly younger than me but was an accomplished games player, so I had known him quite well; he was given a permanent commission, and was a regular member of the RAF cricket XI for several years; when he retired as a Group Captain he became Secretary of Notts CCC. We were planning to do an op. together when I was posted back to UK.) It was early December when I left Foggia. The Group Communications Flight took me across to Naples, and from there I was taken on by the USAAC Transport system. I had a couple of days at Marseille en route and then went on to Paris. Arriving at Orly, I enquired of the American movements sergeant if there was any chance of breaking my journey in Paris for 24 hours; "Sure, sir." I have the impression that the Americans were much more relaxed about such things; I would never have got away with that if I had been travelling with Transport Command. He probably thought I wanted a night out in Paris, and so I did, but not perhaps quite the sort of night he imagined. What I wanted to do was to look up the family I had known before the war, and find out about the friends of whom I had heard nothing since the collapse of France in 1940. I found a phone, and much to my surprise, the civil telephone system was working perfectly satisfactorily. I contacted my friends, spent a very pleasant evening with them, and was able to hear all about my acquaintances in Normandy.
Monsieur Hue, the father of the family, told a delightful story about an incident during the occupation. He had been strap-hanging on the Metro, when a German officer alongside him took out his cigarette case and lighter and was about to light a cigarette; M. Hue took him by the arm and pointed to the notice. "Defense de fumer, Monsieur," he said. The German officer put away his cigarette and lighter. Monsieur Hue turned to me, obviously absolutely delighted. "Petite victoire," he said, "petite victoire!"
When I reached UK I was sent on leave, during which I was able to organise a visit to HQ Pathfinder Force, where I still had some contacts. I spent a most interesting evening in the Ops. Room reacquainting myself with all the latest developments including particularly the use of Mosquitoes as the Light Night Striking Force; I spent a second evening with Wing Commander Burns DSO DFC who had been shot down over Berlin just before I left Bourn and lost a hand when he was blown out of his Lancaster; he had been in hospital the next two nights in Berlin when further big raids took place; not a pleasant experience he had assured me! Eventually he had been repatriated through Switzerland, the normal procedure for badly-injured servicemen, though his injuries did not prevent him doing a worth-while job as an Air Staff Officer at 8 Group Headquarters.
I was just beginning to think the RAF had forgotten all about me when I received a signal to report to a certain Wing Commander at Adastral House. After a few minutes introductory chatter, he asked what I wanted to do now. This surprised me as it wasn't the usual service way of doing things; I must have looked a bit perplexed, for he went on, "What about going to Transport Command?" I certainly had no objections to this, so he sent me off on leave again to await instructions.
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Eventually, sometime in February, I received instructions to report to the Transport Command OTU at Bramcote in the Midlands.
Although the vast majority of air crew arriving for the OTU course were very experienced, Transport Command saw fit to give us a very thorough training, especially in navigation and meteorology; the course in the latter was one of the best I had ever done. One of the advantages of the course was that if one got a certain percentage in the end-of-course examinations, and took an extra paper in civil aviation law one could qualify for a First Class Air Navigator's Licence, which would enable one to fly in civil aviation. We also did quite a lot of cross country flying in Wellingtons, there being a surfeit of them at the time. There were only three of us in a Transport Command crew; pilot, wireless operator and navigator. I crewed up with an ex-Spitfire pilot, and a wireless operator who had, in fact, flown in one of the Wellington Squadrons of 205 Group in the desert.
There was another rather more important piece of "crewing up" while I was at Bramcote, for I met my wife; she was a theatre staff nurse at Nuneaton General Hospital, where she had done her training; we were married not all that long after we first met. Our daughters sometimes tease us about that even now!
At the end of the course, we were posted to a Ferry Unit at Talbenny, which is beyond Haverfordwest at the far south-western corner of Wales. On the way there by train, I had to wait about four hours in Gloucester, where I arrived at about 7 in the evening. I went along to the nearest hotel for a meal. When I went in, the Manager was in reception and asked, "Are you with the team, sir?" I must have looked as perplexed as I felt, for he went on immediately to explain that the first of the Victory Test Matches between teams of servicemen from Australia and England was starting the next day at the Gloucestershire cricket ground, and that both sides were staying at his hotel. The two sides had a room booked for the evening for some social activity, and since I appeared to be the only other Air Force officer in the hotel, they invited me to join them. I had a most jolly evening with them; many of those present are now household names in the cricketing world; the Australians were captained by Warrant Officer Lindsay Hasset; the side included Keith Miller and other notables, while the English team was captained by Flight Sergeant Cyril Washbrook, and since I had always been an avid follower of country cricket, a host of names I had known for years. Many years later I was visiting the Australian Houses of Parliament at Canberra; our guide was very obviously a cricket enthusiast, so I recounted this story to him; he was able to recite the names of all eleven of the Australian players who took part! The party was still in full swing when I left to catch my midnight train to South Wales; it was a memorable evening indeed.
While at Talbenny - we were there for two and a half months - our only ferry delivery was to take an Anson to Algiers; it was going to a minor Arab royal in the Middle East, and was most luxuriously equipped. That, however, even with pre-delivery testing and the return flight took only about ten days, so we were pretty bored most of the time, and I wasn't sorry when my pilot, who was something of a socialite and seemed to have connections at Air Ministry, was able to persuade someone there to send us on a course to convert to Dakotas - DC-3s - with a view to joining one of the Dakota squadrons operating much more regularly. His connection
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[Photograph of a scene at Croydon Airport, captioned: "The control tower at Croydon with a Dakota - DC3 - landing. The building in the background is the airport hotel, which was the Officers' Mess during the war years."]
[Reprint of a photograph captioned: [centred] 'TAKING OFF FOR CAIRO, INDIA, AND AUSTRALIA' [/centred]
[centred] "B.O.A.C. Hythe taking off from Poole Harbour, May, 1946." [/centred]
[centred] "From the Radio Times of June 14th., 1946."[/centred]]
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proved to be a very useful one as we were soon posted to another Transport Command OTU, this one No. 109 at Wymeswold near Loughborough, where we spent a fortnight converting to Dakotas before joining 147 Squadron at Croydon. Our lives were transformed, for not only were we near London, but we had a real job to do. 147 Sqdn. was carrying passengers every day to all the big cities of north western Europe; we would fly to Paris one day, Berlin the next, Brussels, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Oslo, and so on, and the schedules were so arranged that we would night stop from time to time, especially at the more attractive destinations such as Copenhagen.
Copenhagen was also worth visiting for another reason; while we weren't exactly starving in England, there were many items still severely rationed, and many shortages; Denmark, on the other hand, was well looked after by the Germans as part of their 'larder,' but suffered from an almost complete lack of cigarettes. We bartered! The standard rate was 100 cigarettes for 30 dozen eggs; we could also obtain much other farm produce - ham, bacon, cheese, meat. On one occasion I acquired a whole Danish Blue cheese, which had such a pungent odour that the other two members of the crew insisted that it be removed from the flight deck and placed in the passenger compartment! Many Danish shops were far better stocked than those in England, and I was able to buy our first dinner and tea set from a large store in Copenhagen.
The flight to Oslo was also an interesting one, for it was emphasised at briefing how essential it was to fly up the right fiord; if one chose the wrong one, the fiord was too narrow to turn round to make an exit, and the Dakota lacked the power to climb steeply out over the mountains! I was very careful to select the right fiord!
From time to time we carried interesting passengers; one was the well-known Daily Express war correspondent, Alan Moorehead, though he did sleep most of the journey; another was Ivy Benson, leader of the all-ladies dance-band whom we took to Brussels where she was arranging a concert for her band. Another interesting experience was our first landing using GCA, Ground Controlled Approach. We were on a flight to Hamburg, and conditions got worse and worse from the Dutch coast onwards. When we arrived, I thought, "We shall never be able to land here," but a very confident voice started talking us down, giving us very, very detailed instructions, to which, of course, I was able to listen just as well as the pilot could. The final instruction was, "When you see the runway, go ahead and land." At that very moment we saw the runway appearing out of the murk in front of us. Conditions were so bad, even on the ground, that we had to follow a van sent out to guide us in, and when we did stop just by the control tower, I noticed that the RAF Ensign flying above it was actually in cloud; conditions couldn't have been much worse; it was a very impressive experience indeed, and gave us great confidence in GCA for the future.
We were at Croydon from September till December, then just after Christmas BOAC announced that it required move navigators, so I thought the time had come to use my Civil Air Navigator's Licence. Strictly, this is post-war experience, of course, as was the spell at Croydon, for I had listened to Churchill's speech announcing the end of the war at Talbenny. However, it seems all part of my
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war-time experience, for I should not have had the opportunity if I had not been a navigator in the RAF. In early January, I was posted from Croydon to Whitchurch, just outside Bristol, where all aircrew transferring from the RAF to BOAC - and there were considerable numbers at this time, of course - were sent to undertake a course to familiarise themselves with civilian methods. It was a thorough training lasting about two months at what was known as CTS - Civil Training School. Most of the work was in the classroom, but we flew one or two cross-country navigation exercises, and all had to undertake two flights outside the war zone of Europe, which didn't leave much scope, of course. I did one flight to Stockholm and one to Lisbon; we carried two navigators, one of whom navigated on the outward flight, and the other on the homeward, meanwhile the one not actually navigating practised astro in the astro-dome. We had to fly first to Hurn, now Bournemouth International Airport, to clear Customs, there being no Customs at Whitchurch. In spite of currency restrictions on the amount of sterling we were allowed, we returned laden with goods we hadn't been able to obtain for a long time, especially from Portugal, when we were able to purchase so many of those fruit we hadn't seen for years.
At the end of the course we were posted to various BOAC lines - the equivalent of an RAF Squadron. Most of us I think, hoped for a posting to London Airport for the Transatlantic route, but I was quite happy to join No. 4 Line which operated flying-boats out of Poole Harbour to Singapore, and whose maintenance base and administrative headquarters was at Hythe, on Southampton Water, only 15 minutes on the ferry from Southampton.
The BOAC flying-boats, themselves known as Hythes, were, in fact, ex-RAF Sunderlands with the gun-turrets fared in and the interior comfortably furnished for passengers. They were quite elephantine in size, internally scarcely smaller than a modern 'jumbo' yet we carried only 35 passengers. It was all very comfortable; it was also very leisurely, for the Hythes cruised only at about 130 knots, had a range of only about 800 miles, so that we had to make frequent landings to refuel, and were not pressurised, so that we rarely flew higher than 6,000 to 8,000 feet. I was sent down the route once with a BOAC experienced navigator; we flew to Singapore and back, which normally took crews 18 days, and then I was on my own. There was no regular crew as I had always been used to in the RAF, both in Bomber and Transport Commands. One turned up to find that one was scheduled to fly with a certain Captain, a certain First Officer, a certain Radio Officer and a certain Flight Engineer, and off we went; in the year I spent with BOAC I never flew more than once with the same aircrew member of any category. There were also 7 or 8 stewards under a Senior Steward who was usually an ex-Merchant Navy seaman.
Navigation was, by RAF standards, fairly primitive. I had a great deal of respect for these old pre-war Imperial Airways pilots, but they knew very little about radar, and didn't really want to know anything about it; they had always managed perfectly well without radar, and as far as they were concerned, they would go on managing without it! The navigator had an air-speed indicator, an altimeter, a driftmeter, a sextant, and an astrocompass, and occasionally the assistance of a radio bearing, but much of the navigation was by pinpointing places one passed over and by taking visual bearings to obtain position lines, which was fine in good weather conditions, but less satisfactory when the weather deteriorated.
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The Navigating Officer had other duties, too. In those days there was no radio-telephone contact between the flight-deck and the passenger cabin, so it was up to him to keep the passengers supplied with information; at least once an hour he had to provide an information sheet for the passengers telling them where they were, what they could expect to see on either side of the aircraft in the next hour, the height and speed over the ground, and the ETA at the next destination. Another duty was to climb on top of the aircraft through the astrodome if the pilot had to turn in choppy water; he would then walk to the wing-tip to keep the float on that side down in the water so that the pilot could execute his turn; I didn't have to do this on many occasions, but it was an interesting new task! Yet another was to sit halfway out of the astrodome when engines were being started up holding the fire extinguisher, so that if one of the engines caught fire as it was been started, the navigator could dash along the wing to dowse the fire; I've always been glad that I was never called upon to perform this particular part of a Navigating Officer's duty!
Our passengers were assembled at Airways Terminal in London and travelled by train to Poole, where they were accommodated at the Harbour Heights Hotel. The crew, too, arrived at the same hotel during the afternoon, and after a leisurely meal together, retired early since we always left at first light the next morning. The flying boats looked very elegant if one was watching them take off, but inside the boat it sounded, as someone once said, 'like dragging a rake across a corrugated tin roof.' fortunately, my experience at Pensacola had prepared me for the din. The first leg of our journey took us from Poole to Marseilles, a flight of between four and a half and five hours. We never normally night-stopped there, but flew on another five hours to Augusta in Sicily, previously an Italian naval flying-boat base. The schedule was so arranged that although the passengers went on the following morning with a crew already there, the crew spent two nights at Augusta, a most attractive place to stay with water-skiing and swimming off the jetty in almost guaranteed sunshine. Our blue uniforms were left there to be cleaned and pressed while we were further east, and we changed into khaki drill, picking up our blue uniform on our return journey. After two delightful days at Augusta, we flew on to Cairo, a six and a half hour flight. Landing on the Nile provided quite a tricky task for the Engineer, as it was his responsibility to slip a boat hook through a loop of rope on one of the buoys. Since the Nile is quite a fast-flowing river, this was not easy, but woe betide him if he missed first time, as he occasionally did, for the Captains were never happy to have to go round again. They regarded it as a sleight on their professional reputation if they didn't moor up first time.
From Cairo, usually after a night-stop on a house-boat on the Nile, to Basra was a further six hours. Once you had crossed the Suez Canal, there was little to see except desert, apart from the Dead Sea. Flights then had to keep north of Saudi Arabia as the King, Abdul Aziz Ibn Suad, did not allow flights across his kingdom. However if you flew too far north, you could probably see the pipeline across the desert, and eventually you would see the Euphrates and land close to its confluence with the Tigris. On one occasion we were flying quietly across the desert in a cloudless sky, when we suddenly hit a ferocious up-current of air; all my navigation equipment flew into the air off my chart-table and deposited itself all round the flight deck; one or two of the passengers sustained minor cuts and bruises, but it was all over in a
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moment; one of the dangers at not being able to fly high enough to get over the turbulence.
Another two and a quarter hours flying took us down the Red Sea to Bahrein, and then between six and six and a half hours almost due east to Karachi. We cross Qatar, and then the Oman Peninsula, certainly the most desolate landscape I had ever seen. Balukistan was on our port beam as we flew on to Karachi, where crews broke their journey again. We nearly all used to visit a cobbler there; we carried a cut-out of the feet of one's wife or fiancee, and he would make a very nice pair of sandals which could be collected on the way home. Clothes and shoes were still rationed in the UK, so they were very acceptable; they cost twelve rupees, about eighteen shillings.
An incident occurred at Karachi which I recall with amusement. When we stayed at hotels down the route, the Captain normally stayed at one hotel, the professional aircrew at another, and the stewards at yet a third - there were no stewardesses in those days, of course. On one occasion at Karachi, by some mischance, the Chief Steward was accommodated in the same hotel as the aircrew; I don't think it worried the aircrew in the least, but the Captain was horrified, and felt it necessary to see each member of the crew personally to apologise for the indignity we had suffered in having a steward in our hotel! It was a different world, of course.
We carried as far as Karachi on one occasion a group of six French models, mannequins as we called them then. They embarked at Marseilles, and were going to Australia as France attempted to rebuild its export market. As we travelled further east and south, the climate became hotter and hotter, for there was no air conditioning on aircraft then, and these six exceedingly glamorous young ladies started to divest themselves of their garments till by the time we were nearing Karachi, one would not have thought they could remove a further item and remain respectable. I never knew the flight crew so solicitous for the welfare of passengers; so many visits were made to the passenger cabin that it seemed at times there was hardly anyone remaining on the flight deck!
The next leg, across India, was quite the longest stretch of the journey, taking between eight and eight and a half hours, so we were just about at the limit of our range. Fortunately there was a lake between Karachi and Calcutta for use in emergency, and once on the homeward route, flying into a headwind and petrol getting low, we took the precaution of landing there. Calcutta was, I found, unbearably hot; in temperature it probably was not quite as hot as Bahrein, but Bahrein's heat was dry, whereas at Calcutta the humidity was so high that I was always glad to get back into the air a few thousand feet to cool down. I never once night-stopped there, which was probably a blessing, although in other ways I regret this [as this] is one of the world's great cities that I have never seen.
A four hour flight took us from the River Hooghly, just north of the Willingdon Bridge, where we had landed, to Rangoon in the great wide estuary of the River Rangoon, which is really, I suppose, part of the Delta of the Irrawaddy. It was quite a distance in a launch from the landing site back to the jetty; on one occasion, I
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had hardly put my foot on the bottom step of the jetty when a voice above me exclaimed "Arthur!" It was my old friend George Brantingham - now Squadron Leader Brantingham, DFC and Bar, command Navigation Officer - who was there to welcome one of our passengers; after leaving 97, he had served as a navigation instructor for a while at an OTU, then crewed up with a pilot who was going to the Far East to fly Liberators on very long-range bombing operations against the Japanese in Malaya.
A further flight of about five and a half hours took us to Penang, not normally a night-stop, but where we sat on the shore under sunshades while the Hythe was being refuelled, drinking fresh cold fruit juice and eating mangosteen. The final leg to Singapore took another three hours, a total for the journey from Poole of between fifty-five and sixty hours flying spread over nine days, nearly all of it in daylight. The passengers would reach Sydney four or five days after leaving Poole; a Qantas crew would be waiting for them in Singapore, and would take them on to Jakarta, Darwin, and so to Sydney.
We always had a break of two days at Singapore before setting out on the return journey, the same route in reverse. One remembered to pick up sandals at Karachi; silk stockings and wine, marsala, at Augusta, and also change back into blue there; taking off from Augusta, some of the Captains would always make a point of circling Mount Etna with its wisp of smoke blowing from the crater before setting off on the final leg back to Poole eighteen days after setting out. There was supposed to be a guarantee of seven days at home after each service flight, not all leave, because crews had to go to Hythe for debriefing one day, but on one occasion I had been at home only three days when I received a telegram requiring me to be at Poole for the next day's service.
Two of our flights took a slightly different route. From Rangoon, we flew to Bangkok, a flight of six hours, then on across the River Mekong to Hong Kong; the route was fairly close to Hanoi, but we were briefed to stay clear of the city because there was already trouble in what was then French Indo-China and anti-aircraft fire had frequently been seen above Hanoi. We flew on across the South China Sea, traversing Hainan, intensively cultivated, to arrive in Hong Kong six and a half hours after leaving Bangkok. Landing there then was very different from today; there wasn't a single skyscraper to be seen; our first flight to Hong Kong made a small piece of aviation history, as on August 27th. 1946, we were the first civil aircraft to land in Hong Kong after the war.
I flew with BOAC for just over a year, the final eight months of my RAF service on secondment, then six months on contract as a civilian. The Corporation offered me a post as an instructor at their School, which had now moved to Aldermaston, but even then I could see very little future for navigators in civil aviation, and events soon proved me right. Time was running out for the flying boats, too. They were slow and uneconomic. Moreover BOAC was the only airline operating boats, which meant that they alone were responsible for maintaining the bases from which they operated with the expense of launches and ground staff who could not be shared with other lines. In fact, BOAC continued to operate them for only another two years; they went out of service in November 1950.
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My flying days were almost over; but not quite, for the post-war RAFVR (Volunteer Reserve) opened up in the summer of 1948, and since there was a base, Hamble, only 5 miles away from the village where we had set up home in Hampshire, I joined, and enjoyed about forty hours flying a year, mainly at week-ends, but with a fortnight's annual training every summer. Flying was mainly navigational exercises in Ansons, but there was an occasional flight into Europe, - we went to Sylt on one occasion - and I had the opportunity to fly on the Berlin Airlift for a few weeks, at about the time that the operation was coming to an end. I note from my log-book that the load we most commonly carried - in Dakotas once more - was coal. Flying continued at Hamble, No. 14 Reserve School, till the summer of 1953, when the incoming administration, desirous of making cuts in government spending, closed most of the Reserve Schools. However, No. 15, at Redhill, survived another year, and I did a fortnight's summer training there in 1954. Then the remaining Reserve Schools were closed, and although I held a war appointment post at HQ Transport Command for about five more years, that really was the end of my days in aviation, and therefore a suitable place to end this story.
A few years after the war, a memorial was built at Runnymede for those airmen with no known grave. It was unveiled by the Queen in 1953. My parents, my wife and I were asked to represent the Munro family, Jimmy's parents and two brothers; we did so gladly, but with great sadness.
My wife and I also represented Jimmy's brothers at the unveiling of the Canada Memorial in Green Park on 3rd. June 1994.
A.H.G.S.
April 2003
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[Photograph of author, captioned: "In front of the Brandenburg Tor, Berlin, during Operation Plainfare, the Berlin Airlift, August, 1949."
[page break]
[centred] Afterthoughts....two differing points of view. [/centred]
EPILOGUE
[Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington]
[Henry V before Agincourt by William Shakespeare]
Dublin Core
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Title
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An interesting war
Description
An account of the resource
Memoir of the life of Arthur Spencer. Includes details of childhood and growing up. Continues with his joining the Royal Air Force and his training in the United States as a pilot and then navigator. Followed by training in England and then posting to 97 Squadron at Woodhall Spa where he flew 22 operations. Narrates how squadron was moved to Royal Air Force Bourn and joined the pathfinder force where he completed first tour with 32 operations before going on to a second tour for a total of 45. Describes how he subsequently went to North Africa and Italy where he flew with 462/614 Squadron before becoming 205 Group Navigation Officer. On return from the Mediterranean he converted to transports before leaving to join B.O.A.C. Illustrated with photographs of people, places and events of his life.
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Arthur Spencer
Date
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2003-07
Format
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66 page typewritten document with b/w photographs
Language
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eng
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Text
Text. Memoir
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BSpencerAHGSpencerAHGv1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Great Britain
Italy
United States
England--Lincolnshire
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina--Sarajevo
Croatia
Croatia--Zagreb
Hungary
Hungary--Székesfehérvár
North Africa
South Africa--Mahikeng
South Africa
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Joy Reynard
David Bloomfield
462 Squadron
614 Squadron
97 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
C-47
evacuation
fear
Gee
ground crew
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
memorial
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Bourn
RAF Scampton
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Woodhall Spa
Resistance
sanitation
searchlight
superstition
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/277/7906/PIronsH1501.2.jpg
62e8999adc6227a8e1dcf9d08e401fbc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/277/7906/AIronsH150723.1.mp3
113b2cff64ef934152b89828f1ea404f
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Irons, Harry
Harry Irons
H Irons
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Harry Irons (1924 - 2018). He was an apprentice tailor in London, but lied about his age and joined the RAF aged 16. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 158, 462 and 9 Squadrons.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-23
2016-07-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Irons, H
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AM: Okay so, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Annie Moodie and the interviewee is Harry Irons. The interview’s taking place at a hotel near Kings Lynn and we’re here for the 9 Squadron Association hundred year dinner.
HI: Yeah that’s right, yeah.
AM: And it’s the 23rd of July 2015. So, off you go Harry. Tell us –
HI: Er, actually I won a scholarship to go to a grammar school, but my father insisted that I left school at fourteen so I could go to work and earn a wage. So, being in the east end the only jobs you could get was either tailoring or cabinet making. There was a whole area that’s – it was a big Jewish area and the, most of the people were either tailors or cabinet makers, and they were good, very good, brilliant craftsmen. So I took a job on as a trainee tailor and I was doing that for two years until I was sixteen, nearly sixteen, and we lived in an area of London called Stamford Hill and one evening we, me and a few other chaps were on the hill, and we see the huge blitz on London, and we actually see the whole of the City of London literally ablaze. Enormous, as far as your eye could see was buildings all, all ablaze, that was the City of London. Actually, they weren’t after the City of London, what they was after was the Docks, and they just, their bombing, what we used to call creeping, crept back from the Docks into the City of London and once it hit the City of London course everything went up in flames so, two or three friends said ‘we’ll, we’re gonna join up.’ I was sixteen at the time, so we went up the recruiting office in Kings Cross, London, and I told ‘em I was seventeen and a quarter, how they believed me I don’t know but they said ‘alright you’re in,’ and that was at the end of 1941, and I was called up in January 1941 [unclear]. The blaze was – the bombing was in 1940 and we joined, we joined up at the end of 1940, and 1941 they called me up and I went to a place near where it was called Bridgnorth then six weeks square bashing [?] there and they said ‘you’ll have to wait to sele’ – they asked me what I wanted to be in the air force, I said ‘I wanna fly,’ they said ‘alright, we’ll put you down for either a pilot, navigator or an air gunner and we’ll sort that out later on.’ Anyway, I went to Bridgnorth, done my six weeks training, and they sent me to a RAF station, Wisbech in Cambridge and I had to do menial jobs there, in the cook house, in the stores, waiting for, to go on a course. In the mean while they told me I was gonna become a wireless operator air gunner, and I’ve got to wait for a course to come up, a vacancy for the course to come up, so I stayed at Wisbech ‘til August ’41, and then they posted me to Blackpool on a wireless course and everybody in the RAF went to Blackpool to do their wireless course, and you had to stay in a, all the border houses were commandeered, and all the aircrew used to live in these border houses and the thing was when you’re at Blackpool you got up to twelve words a minute which we all did, and then from there you’re posted to another sta, er, air force station to continue your study ‘til you become up to eighteen words a minute –
AM: When you say eighteen words a minute, doing what?
HI: Morse code.
AM: Morse code right, okay.
HI: Yeah, dit dah dit dah dit dah dit. Anyway, we was all queuing up to wait for postings and the sergeant came out just like that he said ‘you lot, over that side. You lot, that side,’ and fortunately or unfortunately I was in that lot on that side and we become airgunners. Not wireless operators, airgunners. Just airgunners. And the reason for that, I didn’t know at the time, was the heavy bombers, the Lancasters, were going on production, and there was, they were short of airgunners, because they had to carry another air gunner so they said ‘you lot over there, you become airgunners,’ and I went back to Wisbech – I was a bit cheesed off about it all anyway, couldn’t do much about it, and I waited another couple of months and then they sent me on a gunnery course, a place called Manby [emphasis] in Lincoln, it’s a big air force gunnery school there, and we done six weeks training there as gunners, gunnery, and I got the huge total flying hours of nineteen hours, that’s all I got, and they said – and from there you’re supposed to do a four month, five month operational training course, that’s getting accustomed to actually doing bombing raids on enemy territory. But then whatever happened they said to me ‘you’re being posted straight on a squadron’ and I tell you what, I was a greener than this.
AM: [Laughs] we’re sat on a green settee, for the record.
HI: Yeah, yeah. It was as green, I was as green as anything then. ‘Cause I got nineteen hours and I didn’t know what to expect. Anyway, I was posted to Waddington [emphasis] to Number 9 Squadron. And when I arrived there, as it was luck [exhale of breath] was in my favour because a flight lieutenant named Stubbs came up to me and said ‘you’re gonna fly with me as a mid-upper’ and I said ‘fair enough.’ They’d already, he was already on his second tour, he’d already done thirteen trips on Wellingtons [emphasis].
AM: So you didn’t do the usual crewing up thing?
HI: Never done anything like that, no.
AM: You just –
HI: No, no they just sent about ten of us to 9 Squadron, ‘cause I was just converting from Wellingtons onto Lancasters, and consequently they was one gunner short because the Lancaster carried a mid-upper. So he said to me, anyhow I didn’t know what it was all about actually, he said to me ‘the rear gunner I’ve got at the moment is a big Australian,’ he was about six foot three [unclear] ‘and he’s too tall for the turret’ he said ‘what we’re gonna do is you’re gonna do your first trip in the mid-upper and after that you’ll go in the rear turret, and the Australian will go’ –‘cause in the mid-upper you can pull your legs down, straighten you know, you’ve got plenty of room, so what we done then, we done – as time’s gone on, this was 1942, round about June 1942 and we started getting to used, well the crew getting used to flying a Wellington twin engine bomber onto a four engine bomber. And that, you use what they call conversion, and that’s pretty difficult ‘cause you learn how to fly an entirely different aircraft, land it, you got to find out all the different things, the different systems and the turrets, anyway we done about six weeks training, well not, training it was, well converting from the one engine to the Lancaster, and then September ’42 we was in a crew, we had a big crew and we used to lay and loll about smoking, swearing everything else [laughs] anyway, they said ‘ops tonight.’ So, before you went on operations you done what they call a night flying test [emphasis], you took the aircraft up, you tested the bomb site, you tested the, the bomb bays open and closing, you tested the turrets and you give a, you went outta sea and give the guns a little squirt, see everything was alright, the compass [emphasis], check the compass and the, the under carriage we’d dropped up and down a couple of time to make sure it was alright, and we landed, and as we landed, the bomb aimer had already done thirteen trips on Wellingtons, and this is vivid, and as we’d come out of the steps of the Lancaster, the bomb aimer’s behind me, and coming along the road was tractor carrying a four thousand pound bomb, and fourteen hundred incendiaries, and the bomb aimer said to me ‘oh, we’re going to Happy Valley tonight.’ He said ‘by that bomb load, we’re definitely going to Happy Valley,’ and I thought ‘well that don’t sound too bad, Happy Valley,’ I thought ‘well Happy Valley, that can’t be too bad,’ I didn’t know that that was a nickname for the Ruhr Valley. The whole of the Ruhr Valley was called Happy Valley, and I didn’t realise at the time but the Happy Valley, the Ruhr Valley, as you went in you got a brilliant [emphasis] reception and a better, a, what you say, a bye-bye on the way out, and I tell you what, right I’ll go on, anyway we – it was always ritual, always [emphasis] for bomber crews to have bacon and eggs before they went on ops, always. Didn’t matter where you were, all the time I was in the air force, I done sixty bombing trips, and every time we went on a bombing trip we got bacon and eggs [emphasis] and if we come back we got bacon and eggs. And that was a luxury in those, in wartime, and then of course the joke was, always the joke ‘if you don’t come back, can I have your bacon and eggs?’ you know. Anyway, we went to the, we got – there was a bit of a rigmarole getting ready, you had to, you had to have your bacon and eggs and you go down to – most, most aircrew wrote a last letter, most of ‘em. I think the majority of aircrew wrote a last letter home to their wives, and they used to put them on the bed, and I’m afraid to say, I seen many, many, many letters being collected by the padre, many, that’s why I never wrote one myself. Anyway, we had our food, our bacon and eggs, we were all laughing and joking, you know we were young blokes, and we went to the crew, to the briefing room and we all sat down to see who would come in, and the map [emphasis] had a huge sheet over it, and the CO always, always done it, come in, whipped the sheet off and there was the target. So the bomb aimer said to me ‘I told you.’ It was Dusseldorf, he said ‘there you are,’ he said ‘I knew we were going there’ he said, ‘we’re going to Happy Valley,’ and I still didn’t twig on, ‘oh well, that don’t sound too bad,’ thinking of German girls tryna start [?] kisses you know what I mean. Anyway, we went down to the crew room and the atmosphere changed completely [emphasis]. We went in the crew room and the whole squadron was in the crew room ‘cause we had cabinets for all our flying gear and used to get dressed in there, and as I walked in, all the crews were there, it was dead silence, and everybody was looking at each other, there was no jokes, no laughing, nothing. And there was simply a – the atmosphere was incredible [emphasis] to what it was in the mess having our egg and bacon. Anyway, we got dressed and it was – airgunners dressing was long underpants, pure silk, and a vest that was silk and then your shirt and then your pullover, and then a, over the shirt you put a, I think it was, no, before you put the shirt on, as we put the shirt on we put an electrical heated suit with gloves and electrical heated gloves and body and feet, which was really, really important. And over that we put our uniform ‘cause you had to wear a uniform, if you never wore a uniform, I never realised but at night if you’ve was parachuted out in civilian clothes you was likely to get executed, which many, quite a few boys did get executed, especially by the civilians. And over that we used to put a huge [emphasis] fur jacket and fur trousers, fur lined boots, and there we were –
AM: Fur trousers?
HI: Fur trousers, yeah [murmur from AM]. You know, thick, made of the same material as your jacket. Irvin jacket, you had Irvin trousers, thick Irvin trousers and they used to tuck them inside your boot, zip your boots up and there, you could hardly move by then, but – and I’ll tell you what, on a warm day you was walking out you was absolutely sweating [emphasis, laughs]. Anyway, we went out to the aircraft and everybody smoked, everybody smoked [emphasis] except the skipper, the skipper didn’t smoke, he never drunk, never went out with women, he was absolutely – they said in the officers mess that they couldn’t understand the man, he wouldn’t, he never swore, he never smoked. Anyway, he – a good pilot mind you. Anyway, we got in the aircraft and I was in the mid-upper, first time. And in the mid-upper turret of the Lancaster, I’ve got a picture of it, you had a fantastic [emphasis] view –
AM: Hmm, all round.
HI: All three hundred and eighty degree. You could see everything [emphasis]and I got in the mid-upper, and I never got, I was still raw, we done, only done six weeks training, and I plugged in the electricity for the heater ‘cause if we, even in the mid-upper the temperature was about forty-five, fifty below zero. Worse still in the turret, rear turret. Anyway, we got ready and then the crew room, nobody was talking, it was like that, nobody spoke, and off we went. We took off at Waddington, and the thing was at Waddington they had no runways at that time. There were two squadrons of Lancasters there and no runway. All we had was grass, and in the winter it was very, very difficult with full bomb loads to takeoff. Before that, when we arrived at Waddington there was a squadron there, 44 Squadron, a Rhodesian squadron, and apparently they was the first squadron in the RAF to be equipped with the Lancaster, in March, April, round about April. And what they’d done, they’d decided to do a daylight raid, a low level daylight raid on a town called Augsburg in Germany. They sent six Lancasters flying at zero feet right across France, right into Germany –
AM: At zero [emphasis] feet?
HI: Zero feet, I mean zero – well when I say zero feet, about half of these buildings.
AM: Right okay.
HI: Can you imagine six Lancasters –
AM: No [laughs] –
HI: At that height over, just ducking over the trees, going as low as low as they could, else they would have invade [?] the radar.
AM: Right.
HI: Anyway, what happened – unfortunately there was squadron of Messerschmitts flying, I don’t know if it was practicing or flying, and of course they see these six Lancasters, and they immediately they shot down five [noise of shock from AM]. So outta the six they sent, one come back badly, badly damaged, and his name was Nevillson [name unclear] and he got the VC. The other five that was shot down got nothing [emphasis] so, he was fortunate, he was leading the squadron from the front and they gradually cut the other five down and he managed to avoid and managed to get back badly damaged. So, I’m just telling you that because it deal with another operation I went on. Anyway, we all got ready to takeoff, and everything was quiet in the – nobody spoke, when we was on ops, very rarely we spoke. The only time we spoke is when we was being attacked, when the navigator was giving instructions to the pilot, or the bomb aimer or me or the mid-upper or the rear gunner could see something downstairs they could identify and then inform the navigator what we see, and that helped him to crack the course. ‘Cause in those days, 1942, we had no radar. We had what they called Gee-box up to the coast and once we hit the coast the Germans blocked it, so it was from then onwards it was the navigator used to have to go from one spot to another spot, estimate the time of arrival at the other spot before he made a correction to the course, and of course things improved later on in ’43, and the gunners helped a lot because they could, especially the rear gunner could see, or the mid-upper could see different –
AM: Rivers, train lines and stuff like that.
HI: -- objects, yeah. And sometimes that wasn’t possible, there’d be ten-Thames [?] cloud. And then navigation become very, very difficult. And don’t forget we didn’t have no radar help whatsoever, but we managed and we flew over, as we took off we flew over the Dutch coast and the bomb aimer, he used to lay pronged in the nose [very unsure about what was said here], he said ‘skipper, enemy air coast [?] ahead, flak, flak.’ Always gunfire was called flak [emphasis]. So I looked down and I see all these beautiful, indescribable [?] lights, every colour, reds, blues, greens, there all tracers [?] from what they call night flak. They went up to about eight or nine thousand feet and then it dropped down again. And that’s when flak –
AM: And how high were you at that point?
HI: We was about twelve thousand feet. So when I looked down from mid-upper and I see that flak below us and I thought to myself ‘if that’s flak, we’ve got nothing at all to worry about.’ So we flew over Holland, don’t forget this was the early phase of bombing. Before that the bombing was nothing ‘cause they had obsolete bombing, bombing aircraft and no idea whether they reached the target. It was only in beginning, half way through 1942 they was giving the apparatus so they didn’t really find the target. Anyway, you crossed the Dutch coast and I’m in the mid-upper, spinning it round, and for about, I should imagine it was about hour, hour and a quarter, then the bomb aimer said ‘target ahead skipper.’ So then I thought to myself ‘well I’ll have a look to see what this target is all about,’ and I swung the turret around and I had really [emphasis], really the shock of my life. In front of us, with no exaggeration, was one solid massive explosion of shells. Absolute whole area was full up of high explosive shell fire, and we gotta fly through that. And searchlights were creeping about, and they had one searchlight which was radar operated and it was a different colour, it was blue, very light blue. And that was a searchlight, never missed. It went up bang, like that, straight onto an aircraft. It was radar controlled [coughs] excuse me [pause to drink] so when I see this huge massive explosion ‘cause I had a beautiful view, so I thought to myself ‘cor blimey, surely we haven’t gotta go through all this.’ And I could hear it, and the plane was bumping up and down from the force of the explosions and the skipper said to me ‘mid-upper, keep an eye above you, because bombers above you will drop their bombs on you’ which happened many times. So I said ‘okay skipper,’ and – we called the pilot skipper, always called him a skipper. Doesn’t matter what rank he was, always a skipper. Anyway, we, I started looking up and there right above us was a Lanc, bomb bay open, ‘cause you know the bomb bays were enormous, I says ‘there’s a bomber above us skipper with his bomb bay open, dive port.’ We dived port, good job we did because he was ready to drop his load, so we slammed our bomb bay shut, because we was on a run as well and, and the bomb aimer said ‘we’ll have to make a correction on our way into the target.’ You must realise that all around us these huge [emphasis] explosions of shells, I’m telling you not few, hundreds [emphasis] of ‘em exploding into the sky. Anyway, as we were flying in, the skipper said ‘skipper, I’ve lost the target point,’ he said ‘we’ll have to round again.’ And I just told you, the skipper never swore. I’ll tell you what [laughs] he said to the bomb aimer ‘you are a silly chap’ [laughs]. There was a few more words. So we slammed the bomb bay shut, went right through that target, went all through that explosions and the plane was rocking about, could hear shrapnel hitting the bloody machine, in our machine, and we went round and we do a dogleg. We approached the target like that, and then we go like that, like that, in again. But you had to be very, very careful ‘cause when you left the target and you was gonna come in again, you was coming across the last of the bombers that was going in. And it was very, very, very dangerous. Anyway, when we went round, and by that time the German radar was on us and it was giving us a real, real shellacking [?] I’ll tell you. Anyway, we made our run round, opened the bomb bay, dropped our bombs, slammed the door, slammed the door shut and what we usually do then, you couldn’t – slammed the doors shut but you couldn’t get away, you had to stay straight and level for another forty seconds because the camera was turning around and at the same time you was dropping what they called a photo-flash [?]. That was in the fuselage. And as the photo-flash dropped down, the cameras turning over, and they took a picture, an actual picture, of you bombing the target, which was very, very important because if you didn’t bring back a picture the intelligence officers said to you ‘well it’s your word against mine that you went there,’ even if the aircraft was full of bloody holes, they still say ‘we don’t believe you,’ well, ‘not saying we don’t believe you but you’ve got no proof that you went to the target so it don’t count, so you can go all that way there and back for nothing,’ which happened several times. Anyway, we slammed the bomb bay down, we made a dived [emphasis] to the port, turned round and come back and that’s when your trouble started, the fighters. But that time they wasn’t so dangerous as what they were to be. They, we used to see the fighters flying about and straight away, I don’t know if it was instinct or not, when I see a fighter, I wouldn’t fire on him unless he was interfering with us, I let him go, because generally you’d find on a fighter he had huge [emphasis] canons and you had no chance, I tell you, you had no chance whatsoever.
AM: So you’re just causing trouble for yourself really –
HI: Yeah because they could stand off from two, three hundred yards and you couldn’t do nothing about it, ‘cause your 303 went about a hundred yards and started dropping what they called a gravity drop. They had canons and he could rake you [?] which happened a couple of times. Anyway, we slammed the bomb bay shut, and we started coming back, and the bomb aimer said to the skipper and the navigator, ‘skipper, we can’t breathe. We’ve got no oxygen.’ And what had happened, the shrapnel had cut through the oxygen lines, so the skipper said ‘alright, so what we have to do is dive down below ten thousand feet,’ which we did do, and coming home in the mid-upper I thought to myself, ‘if this is bloody Happy Valley, I hope we don’t go anywhere that’s miserable’[laughs]. And I’ll tell you what, it’s a terrible, terrible place. Anyway we got down to – we crossed the Dutch coast at about four thousand feet, and these beautiful lights we see were flashing past us like that, all over, and lucky enough we managed to get through a few bangs and we were damaged but not that bad. And we dropped down about two thousand feet and we headed home, and I thought to myself ‘dear oh dear, I got thirty of these, thirty trips to do like that before we get a rest.’ And we landed, and I was exhausted. Even at that age, at seventeen, I was exhausted. And we went into the briefing room and I stood there and we was asked a load of questions, and they said to me, it was only my first trip, they said to me ‘what do you think?’ And I said ‘I see four or five bombers exploding in the sky,’ I said ‘apart from that everything was alright.’ He said ‘you never seen no bombers’ – this was the officer, the briefing officer telling me that, he wasn’t even a flyer. He’s saying ‘you didn’t see no bombers blowing up, that was scarecrows.’ What the Germans were firing up shells to mimic a bomber exploding, and they kept this up right the way through the war.
AM: So it was true, you hadn’t, you’d seen the scarecrows, not a bomber blowing up.
HI: No, no they were actually aircraft blowing up in the sky. They did admit after the war there was no such thing as a scarecrow.
AM: Ah right.
HI: They admitted it, the Air Ministry, but they kept it a –
AM: So why did they say that?
HI: Well they – one of the reasons was they didn’t want us to duck and dive about. They wanted us to fly straight and level, ‘cause it was dangerous anyway, ducking and diving. But every time we went back we say we seen three or four, sometimes more than that, explosions, literally exploding in the sky. They said ‘no, that’s German scarecrows to demoralise you.’ Anyway, we got back and in the briefing room he said, he told me about the scarecrows so I thought ‘oh well, that’s it.’ Anyway, I didn’t know how exhausted I was, it was only a four and three-quarter hour trip. I went to bed and I felt absolutely exhausted. And I think the mental strain of the first trip. Anyway, we went back to the mess, we went to bed, and I think next morning we had a day off. The following day I think we went to Bremen, and the reason why went to Bremen, or Bremen [different pronunciation, shorter vowel sound] as they called it, they was building the submarines, the U-Boats there.
AM: Right.
HI: And we went across the Baltic that time. We didn’t see no flak until we hit Bremen, and the flak was unbelievable. It was worse than Dusseldorf.
AM: Were you in the rear gunner at this –
HI: I was in the rear turret, yeah.
AM: So you’d moved to the rear turret by this time?
HI: Yeah. And different position and the different visibility of the – when you’re in the rear turret you can see that way, see the bits you couldn’t see really above you or at the side of you –
AM: Or behind you.
HI: And at that time, the Germans were only attacking from dead astern, port over or starboard over . That was the method of attacking at that time [emphasis], things were getting much, much worse, but they had a little bit of a chance because if they come in close you had four guns here and you could – you had a bit of a chance, not a lot, but you had a bit of a chance. Anyway, I think it was after that trip, couple of trips, I complained to the engineering officer that the rear turret, that the oil for the Merlin engines was coating the Perspex in the rear turret, which obviously, the exhaust was coming out. So we was sitting in the crew room, the officer come in, he said ‘we solved the problem of the oil on the turrets,’ and I thought ‘well that’s good’ ‘cause after about two hours this oil used to go onto the Perspex, it was starting to be difficult to see outta it, and when we went out there [chuckles] what they had done, they had taken the whole Perspex out [chuckles]. So there we were in a rear turret with no bloody Perspex, and I tell you what, it was cold [emphasis].
AM: How did that – what so nothing between you –
HI: No, just – they took the whole of the front of the Perspex out. We used to look through, they took out because the oil.
AM: So it was just you [emphasis] and sky –
HI: Yeah, yeah.
AM: Nothing between you?
HI: No, no. Well the Perspex only stopped the slipstream but they took the Perspex out. Yeah, on all the Lancs, but they solved the problem [laughs]. Anyway, we –
AM: But the oil would just hit you in the face instead.
HI: Yeah, but it was, it wasn’t so bad because you could just wipe it with your glove with it [AM laughs]. But, we got rid of the – it wasn’t such a huge amount but it was enough oil to stop, to obscure your sight a bit, you know. And you had to be really, really on your toes all that time you was in that turret. It was bitterly cold in there, forty-five, fifty below zero, was nothing.
AM: Did you ever have an occasion when your suit didn’t work, or?
HI: Yes sometimes it, it didn’t work a couple of times. I burnt me foot ‘cause it was a new, new idea you know, they’d, after the war they made electric blankets [AM laughs] that was only through the electrical heated suits and it’s the short shirts – it’s like everything in the war, everything was crash, bang, wallop, get ready , but every gunner was issued with an electrical heated suit, and they were good when they worked. So I’d done my first op, and I thought I was proud of myself, but I had other twenty-nine to do. I mean, twenty-nine successful [emphasis] ones, so you can, you can go all the way there, and you get, you get engine trouble and you gotta come back, that don’t count. Even in respect of what you’ve gone through, it didn’t count.
AM: You had to drop your bombs on the target for it to count.
HI: Yeah, the gunner target, yeah. You see, what actually happened, I think at the beginning of the war, the few of them used to go to North Sea, drop their bombs and come back and say yeah they’ve, they’ve, and they – ‘cause they realised Germany wasn’t being bombed really, it was a, the most that we got to was five miles from the towns [?] so what they decide to put the camera in, and the photo-flash. And that stopped it all, ‘cause you had to bring back a picture. The first thing they asked for when you walked in, ‘have you got your picture?’ It was the first thing – [unclear] you’d land on the aircraft, there was a [unclear] photography unit come out and take the film out, and there’d be developed or they used to take it back to the crew, the, where we was being briefed, and they could see if we bombed the target or not. Anyway, so we went to Bremen, we gained a good shellacking [?] and we done a bit of damage there, and we come back, and I was blowing my chest out, I’d done two trips [laughs]. The following, following day, er day after that, we went to Wilhelmshaven, and that was worse. That’s where I was really in full, full strength of building submarines there, and we did – it was devastating the bombing we done there, it was very successful, they held up the submarine building for a long while, and then I’d done, I’d done three trips, and I was, you know, thinking to myself, well –
AM: Were you scared?
HI: Frightened outta my bloody life. The first one, I told you, that first one, Dusseldorf, I could not believe, I could not [emphasis] but everyone was the same –
AM: Did you talk about it?
HI: No, no we never talked about it, no. I’ll tell you one thing, we used to get crews coming straight from OTU into the squadron, ‘cause their losses were horrendous you know, we was losing so many aircraft, and they’d say ‘what’s the ops like?’ and we’d always used to say ‘you find out, you find out yourself.’ We never said ‘oh it’s terrible over there’ or nothing, never. And I don’t know if that helped them or not, but a lot of the crews only done one trip before they got shot down, hell of a lot of ‘em. Just one – in fact, what they used to do when a crew come from OTU, they used to let the pilot fly with an experienced crew on his first trip, so he’d understand what an actual raid was. Very often he never come back off his first trip, it happened time and time again. The crew used to be walking about the station with no, waiting for a new pilot. Yeah, happened many times. Anyway, after Wilhelmshaven we went back to Happy Valley again, and this time, I tell you what, I thought Dusseldorf was bad, we went to Essen [emphasis] and Essen was something out of this [noise of disbelief] something outta, I tell you what, it was absolutely ferocious. The flak was enormous, everywhere you look there was shells bursting, aircraft blowing up in the sky, aircraft going down in flames, and I had something with me because we just went through – we always got hit, always got hit with flak, big holes in the aircraft, but when we got back they used to bang ‘em and tap ‘em back and –
AM: Bodge [?] ‘em up.
HI: Yeah, that’s it [chuckles]. Anyway, we went to Essen, then we went to Munich, and I’ll tell you how my luck is, what happened, losses at Waddington on 9 Squadron, even those few weeks I was there, was horrendous. So they sent two scientists down from Cambridge with a new device to put into the rear turret so that when a fighter was five or six hundred yards away, which we couldn’t see, they could see us on their radar, this instrument was radar. It could pick up the fighter and warn us with a red light that there was a fighter in the close vicinity. Unfortunately the first time the squadron was equipped with them, we lost two aircraft and the Germans must have sorted the, must have examined the wreckage and seen this device in the rear turret and copied [unclear] a wavelength or whatever it was, anyway we went to Munich and that was a long trip, that was about eight and a half hours and we went over, and how the navigator found Munich I’ll never know ‘cause we went over in ten-tenths cloud, that means to say underneath you was solid cloud, but he found Munich as – before we reached Munich the cloud broke and there was Munich and we did, we did give it real good hiding.
AM: Is this day time or night?
HI: It’s night time –
AM: It’s night time isn’t it?
HI: Never, never done daylight.
AM: But you could still see it, so how come you could see it at night time?
HI: We could see it yeah because the – a couple of people had been bombing it and the searchlights –
AM: Right.
HI: And you could see the town anyway. You – but that’s why bombing – they, they said ‘well why did you bomb areas’ – the only way you can do night bombing was to, at that time was area bombing and in that area you probably got a load of factories you could destroy, but you couldn’t pick out – it was very, very difficult to pick out an individual target so you had to bomb an area, they used to pick an area out. This was before pathfinding [murmured agreement from AM] so we used to drop flares ourselves, we dropped a few flares as we was going in, or people before us would drop a few flares, and you’d sit and the bomb aimer would see the target.
AM: Who dropped the flares, the bomb aimer?
HI: The bomb aimer, yeah. Someone on the squadron [very unclear what was said here] would drop a few flares and then down they went, but that was the beginning, when we really first started bombing Germany, before that it was a joke. Anyway, we bombed Munich and we made a good frame [?] on it actually, and coming back the skipper said ‘I think we’ll fly through cloud’ because the fighter activity, we could see the fighter flares, and so he said ‘if we go through cloud we won’t meet any fighters,’ which we did do, so we was flying for about an hour in the cloud and all of a sudden the cloud broke clear, and believe it or not, right by my rear turret, as I looked outta my rear turret was a Ju-88. I tell you what he was no more than thirty yards [emphasis] behind us. And he opened fire with his cannons and the tracer went just above the aircraft, just missed us. The reason was that he was so close and we was up and down like that and I suppose as we went down he fired and he missed us. Anyway, we opened fire, me in the rear turret and the mid-upper ‘cause he was right close to us, and down he went, he spun over and down he went.
AM: So you got him?
HI: Yeah we got him, yeah.
AM: Which one of you got him, do you know?
HI: We don’t know, I think –
AM: Both of you?
HI: We both opened fire on him, and he was more surprised than what we were, he never expected it, and down he went. Lucky enough because usually once the night fighter got on your tail, it was very, very difficult. Anyway we, when we got back we told the intelligence officer that this night fighter had followed us through ten-tenths cloud for an hour ‘till the cloud broke. So they put two and two together and realised the apparatus they’d put in the turret was sending out a ray for the Germans to pick up and that’s what he was following us on. So what – immediately they took the radar thing out of the turret and I don’t know if it made any difference or not. After that we were talking and laughing about it and they said ‘you gonna do some low level formation flying in daylight,’ so we thought ‘well surely we’re not gonna have another daylight raid after the huge loss to 44 Squadron,’ and I mean we never even considered [emphasis] that they would do anymore daylight raids. So anyway, we done this practice formation, well it’s not formation flying – at that time there was over ninety Lancs in 5 Group, and there was ninety of us flying over Lincoln, around this area, right on the ground, well I don’t mean on the ground, as high as these buildings. Everyone was moaning down below because can you imagine ninety Lancasters flying about thirty or forty feet and they said ‘you’re gonna have to cut the squadron of Spitfires doing damning runs [?] on you.’ So I’m sitting in my turret, and the Spitfires come straight for me, and he was so close our slipstream hit his, hit his wings, and he turned like that, and being so low, he couldn’t, he couldn’t get outta the dive and he went straight in the deck. And I was ‘that don’t sound too bad, that’s gonna happen.’ Anyway –
AM: What happened to him? Crashed? Killed?
HI: Crashed, just crashed yeah. And when I looked along the road there was about three or four Spits on the deck, burning [emphasis] doing the same thing, come straight in –
AM: So they were killed?
HI: And the slipstream, they had no chance of correcting, correcting, ‘cause it’s too low on the ground. Anyway, on the Saturday they said ‘there’s gonna – report to your flights ‘cause there’s gonna be a daylight raid.’ So we went out to do the what they call a night flighting test, and when we landed there was the trailer, but all it had on it was six [emphasis] one thousand pounders. So we knew it was gonna be a long, long journey. We were – a bomb load like that was only a third of the weight of what we’d usually take to the Ruhr, so we were, obviously it was gonna be a long journey. We went to the briefing –
AM: Can I just ask, so why obviously, ‘cause that would conserve the fuel because you had a lighter load?
HI: Yeah we had to take more fuel and less bombs, so –
AM: Yep, okay.
HI: So actually we knew the distance when we see a big petrol load [emphasis] going in we knew we were on for a – we see a small bomb load we knew, the petrol, it was being loaded up for all the tanks and we knew we was on for a long trip. Anyway, we went and had our – even at that time, we’d already had breakfast, but they sent us out and said ‘we’re gonna have bleeding bacon and eggs’ [laughs]. That was always done, it don’t matter what time of the day it was bacon –
AM: Well what would happen if you didn’t like bacon?
HI: Well –
AM: What did they get, sausage?
HI: There were a few Jewish people who, they had to eat the bleeding bacon [laughs].
AM: Did they, they ate it?
HI: Yeah, well, by then I’d done five or six trips, and I thought ‘so I better eat the food, you never know what’s gonna happen.’ Anyway, we went to the briefing at about ten o’clock, Saturday morning, it was, in October, round about, I forget the date, about the tenth of October, and we went to the briefing, and the officer come in, pulled the blind down, and there it was. Place called Le Creusot. It was right on the other side of France, nearly on the Swiss border. It was a nearly ten and a half hour trip and we were looking at each other, and they said ‘you’re to fly as low as possible, even lower than that if you can,’ and they said ‘there’ll be two hundred Spitfires,’ or hundred, two or three hundred Spitfires ‘escorting you to the coast,’ but the trouble was the Spitfires went to the wrong bleeding place, we never see ‘em. So we crossed the French coast at about the height of these buildings, and then you imagine what a sight that must have been , ninety-two Lancasters flying –
AM: What a noise [emphasis] never mind a sight.
HI: Yeah, there was loads and loads of ‘em. And all we got was the French girls waving at us and I thought ‘that’s handy,’ and everybody was coming out and waving, it was a beautiful day, and we went right across France. I mean right across France, looking, wondering where the fighters was ‘cause there was thousands of by that time, ’42, there was hundreds and hundreds of fighters in France –
AM: German fighters?
HI: Yeah, German fighters in France. Anyway, we went right across France, there was no incidents, everybody was waving, and we approached the target [coughs] excuse me, and six of us had to break off and bomb the power station that was supplying the electricity to this huge armament factory in Le Creusot. It was a huge armament factory, nearly as big as what the Germans had, and they was producing armaments for the German army. So we broke off, telling you now there was six of us who broke off, Guy Gibson was with us, he was on our port side, and he was on 106 Squadron, Guy Gibson was on, and his second in command was flying the other Lanc, and on our starboard side was two Lancasters from 50 Squadron on the other side, we was in the centre and there was six of us. We broke off and went straight to this power station. Oh, and as we approached the power station, one of the Lancasters on our starboard side just went straight in the deck and exploded. We were – he had six one thousand pound bombs on it, and it literally went straight in the deck and exploded. What happened we don’t know.
AM: Don’t know.
HI: Anyway, the five of us carried on, Gibson was on our portside with his second in command and we was in the centre, and the last one of 50 Squadron was, was on our starboard side. Anyway, we bombed the power station and we absolutely flattened [emphasis] it. We was carrying six one thousand pounders, and we went and we climbed up a little bit and dropped ‘em, and we could see that the whole place was flattened. In fact, the factory was – actually I went back there last year, to the factory and it’s bombed, still bleeding bombed [unclear, laughs]. Anyway –
AM: Did you get your photo?
HI: Pardon?
AM: Did you get – not last year, I mean in 1942.
HI: No we didn’t, I don’t think we took a photo because it was daylight and everything –
AM: So they knew –
HI: Everyone was bombing the same target. Anyway, the ninety Lancs turned round, it was ninety-two ‘cause when we turned around there was only ninety-one, one had blown up in the sky, and we came back over the – by the time we’d got to the French coast it was getting dark –
AM: Still flying really low level?
HI: Yeah, and we started climbing when we got to the French coast, and as we passed the French coast it was getting dark, and we was flying for about another thirty or forty minutes, and all of a sudden the sky was smothered in bloody high explosive shells again. So the pilot said ‘where the bloody hell are we,’ so the skipper said ‘ I think we’ve, I’ve miscalculated and we’re flying over Jersey,’ and we were over Jersey with these huge explosions coming up, anyway the pilot called him a nice fella again, he said ‘stupid chap you are’ like that, and we branched out and come back, but that was a catch that, Jersey was very, very heavily armed, and anybody strayed off the course they wait for you. Shot down quite a few bombers over there. Anyway, we got back and went to the briefing, we were told exactly what had happened, and they confirmed that we done a good job there –
AM: Good.
HI: And I thought ‘there won’t be no more daylight raids after that.’ And we went to, in a week, we had a couple of days off and we went to Genoa [emphasis], and we couldn’t make out why we was going all the way to Italy, it was eleven hour trip to bomb Genoa, but we soon found out because on the Thursday [emphasis] they said, a briefing for Saturday, a daylight raid. So we said ‘surely we’re not having another daylight raid, we was lucky we got away with La Crusoe.’ Anyway, believe it or not, the target was Milan, and we was gonna bomb it, in daylight, taking it from a very, very low level ‘till we got to the Alps, we couldn’t go low level so we had to wander through the Alps, and there was ninety- two Lancasters, darting and diving through the Alps.
AM: Had the Spitfires turned up this time?
HI: No we never see no bloody Spitfires at all this time, and same again, we went right across France, no opposition whatsoever. We went through the Alps, and this is what I call a terror raid. We went across Lake Como about hundred feet then, we climbed to three hundred feet, and there was Milan waiting for us. No air raid shelter, no flak, they never expected British bombers to come all the way from England in daylight, never expected.
AM: Could you, were you low enough to actually see people in the –
HI: Pardon?
AM: Were you low enough to actually see people?
HI: It was, we was that low, we dropped down to about a hundred feet, hundred and fifty feet over Milan, we could see everybody in the streets, in the restaurants, we could see ‘em all. And we see ‘em started running about, there was no alarm given, and the city was completely open, and imagine ninety-two Lancs with six one thousand pounders on. We caused absolute havoc there, and a few of the boys I know were machine gunning, which I thought was wrong. Anyway, we climbed up again, came back, slid our way through the Alps, dropped down again to nought [?] feet and came right across France again.
AM: You missed Jersey that time.
HI: Yeah, we missed Jersey that time. We had our pullovers on [laughs].
AM: What did you feel about that then? The fact that you could actually see people?
HI: Oh we could see ‘em yeah, yeah because we –
AM: What did you, did you talk about it afterwards?
HI: No, we never talked about air raids, never mentioned it. Once you got back it was finished. No body, and same as the logbook, all we used to put in the logbook was the raid, the time, we never, what we should have done was put a little, exactly what happened, but when you put your books into the commanding officer to be signed once a month, [unclear] shooting, just put down what the raid was and that was it, that was what we used to do. But we should have done, we should have put the whole story of what exactly went on. And after that raid believe it or not the Ities [?] didn’t want to know anything more about the war, and there was huge – we had a big publicity the next day in the Daily Express, had a huge photo of Number 9 Squadron, coming back off the raid, and they reproduced it in Italy with, English Gangsters they called us, and there we are. I think we lost four aircraft that night, I don’t know where we lost them, might have been technical trouble, I don’t know, but, to go all that way in daylight and not see a German fighter was incredible. And after that we felt ourselves very, very, very lucky. It was about my ninth trip then, I was one of the top, experienced men then –
AM: And you’d shot somebody down by then.
HI: Yeah, yeah. But we’d, we were the top men in the squadron, we’d done about nine or ten trips.
AM: And you were seventeen.
HI: Yeah, yeah. And from then things got worse. Worse and worse and worse. The –
AM: In what way worse, Harry?
HI: The fighters got much more efficient, and their radar got much more efficient. Their guns got more efficient. Search lights got better, and more, and they had guns that fired with radar and they never missed. I remember later on in the year on my second tour we was bombing a place in the Ruhr Valley, and we was going in, our squadron, and as we was going in, there was people in front of us bombing, and they’d already turned starboard and coming out again, and for some reason, I don’t know, a Halifax [emphasis] I don’t know if it was in our squadron or the squadron beforehand, instead of going hitting the target, I don’t know what happened, he turned and joined the aircraft that was coming out of the, from the bombing run, which was in daylight, and there was a big gap between us going in and those coming out, and then he flew across, and as he flew across the flak went bang, bang, and the third shell hit him right underneath, and just exploded, yeah. Why he done that I don’t know, ‘cause we was all in the shadow of the silver paper we was dropping, and that helps with the – this one had got outta range with it going across and they shot him down straight away, yeah. And as it went on, we used to get leave every six weeks, and Lord [pause] what his name, Rank, Rank, wasn’t Rank, it was the er, the bloke that owned Morris, BMC, owned BMC, and he said, and he gave every aircrew bloke that was on ops, when he went on leave he doubled their pay, for a weeks leave yeah, he done that right through the war. Must have cost him a fortune.
AM: Every airman?
HI: Yeah, well it was in Bomber Command.
AM: In Bomber Command.
HI: Who was flying. He used to give ‘em – he used to, he used to double our pay, yeah.
AM: You know what, just going back to operations, you know the gaps between them, as in a day, a couple of days?
HI: All depending upon the weather. It was entirely dependent upon the weather. If the weather was, it was a bright – I’ll tell you one we went one, we went on one and I still think about it, it was a full light night, getting onto Christmas I think it was, and they said ‘there’ll be no ops tonight because there’s bright moonlight and no cloud,’ and it was suicide to go over there. Anyway, they said they’d picked out sixteen Lancasters, they’d picked out about eight from our squadron, four from 44 and I think four from another squadron, they said ‘we want you to do a low level night time raid on small towns just outside the Ruhr Valley.’ And the excuse they gave us was that the civilian population wasn’t getting any rest from the bombing raids on the Ruhr Valley and they was letting them come to these small towns to get rest. That’s why they wanted to go over there and liven ‘em up. So, it really was a terror raid and we carried sixteen one thousand pounders with a delayed charged of about half an hour, and we found this small town, we was after, just outside the Ruhr Valley, and we went right down, it was brilliant [emphasis] moonlight we were in, we went right down this village or small town and dropped the sixteen one thousand pounders right down the centre of the town. And I often wonder what happened about that, but I don’t, there was no need really to do that bombing really, but there you go, that was war.
AM: Well you called it a terror raid.
HI: Pardon?
AM: You called it a terror raid?
HI: Yeah, yeah, and that was Christmas, went home and had some leave, came back and we started again. And by that time, all the crews that I knew when I joined the squadron in June had all gone, they’d all gone. All been shot down.
AM: Every single one.
HI: Yeah, and they was all new recruits except us, and we was all NCOs.
AM: What do you think kept your plane – why your crew when all the rest of them got shot down? What can you say?
HI: I don’t know, I don’t know. I’ll tell you, shall I tell you?
AM: Go on.
HI: Well, what they used to do, before you went on a raid they used to give us a bag of sweets –
AM: Go on, keep going. I know the story, but keep going.
HI: Oh you know the story do you?
AM: You told me earlier on, but tell me again.
HI: And, we couldn’t undo the sweets with the cellophane, so we used to throw them out of the rear turret, and the Germans knew that and that’s why they never shot us down. ‘Cause they wanted the sweets [laughs]. That’s only a joke [both laugh]. I don’t know, I got no idea. Well, what actually happened, the crew I was with, I said they’d already done fourteen trips on Wellingtons when I joined them, they finished, and they finished, we finished our tour, was up to about sixteen, fifteen or sixteen trips, and I was left with no crew, and I was sitting in the mess, and a bloke walked in, I knew him as Sergeant Doolan, pilot, and he said ‘my rear gunner Robbie has just been killed, would you take his place?’ That was, that was luck really, so I said ‘alright, I’ll become your new rear gunner’ which I did do, and we was an NCO crew, and we was the only crew to, that I know of, all the time I was there, that finished the tour. And how many crews we lost, Lord knows.
AM: But you were the common denominator.
HI: Yeah, yeah –
AM: From the first sixteen and then fourteen and then the –
HI: Yeah, and then, we was all NCOs and we finished the tour, yeah. And I think the pilot got the DFM, and none of us got even a mention of a medal. And there was – but the thing was, what was happening by then was the Germans had come up with a new technique called Schräge Musik, that was what they’d come up with, they’d put two cannons at eighty degree, put the two cannons behind the cockpit at eight degrees so there was the aircraft, and these two guns stuck up like that –
AM: Okay.
HI: And all they had to do, they had radar, and all they had to do was coast [?] yourself underneath a bomber and just fly underneath him. You didn’t have to have no sight, no tracer, it just went underneath the aircraft, up to the petrol tanks, quick squirt, and we used to see ‘em blowing up but we couldn’t make out, we used to come back and tell ‘em that we seen aircraft blowing up in the sky, there was no flak and no fighters we could see, and the, and they literally shot down thousands [emphasis] of bombers, and not once did they ever mention what was going on at the briefing, not once. Never.
AM: Would there have been any way to avoid them if you’d have known about them?
HI: Well, if we knew and known about it, which they knew what we’d be doing, we’d start jiggling up and down, so they wouldn’t get a clean shot at us, but then when you think about it, you get five or six hundred bombers doing that in pitch darkness, you’re gonna get, gonna get a lot of problems. And that was it, but they were shooting them down, ah, unbelievable. Yeah, you had to be lucky really, because if you bowed out you had to be lucky, because if the civilians, you come out near a target and the civilians get hold of you they’d rip you to pieces. Yeah, and the Gestapo shot a few as well. If you was lucky the Luftwaffe got hold of you, was alright, but, or the army got you –
AM: But you never got shot down?
HI: No, I never got shot down, no.
AM: What happened at the end of your first tour, then?
HI: What happened then, finished my tour, didn’t get no bloody medal, don’t know why not –
AM: Even though you shot one down, ‘cause people got medals for that didn’t they?
HI: Yeah I know. Anyway, I went as an instructor, and then I realised how risky this business was, because all [emphasis] that was coming from OTUs were crews being trained in Canada. And when you think they were being trained on single engine aircraft in beautiful weather, all they had to do was follow the railway line from one point to another, everything was easy. Of course when they come to London, especially, and England, especially where, with the weather, and was OTU we had to train ‘em for three or four months before they went on operations, and hell of a lot of ‘em got killed on accidents, but they were very raw, they should have had much, much more training, but then again –
AM: And how old were you at this point? Eighteen?
HI: Yeah, eighteen, about eighteen and a half yeah. And I was an instructor, and apparently, I carried on for a little while and the, we had a bit of a go – oh they sent me up to a place up in Scotland to a gunnery school to do some – the instructors up there wanted to get on ops, don’t know why, but they said ‘you go up there and relieve them,’ about ten of us went up there, and we were in the mess one night, and we all got drunk and caused a bit of a havoc and we went in front of the CO next day, he said ‘I’ve had enough of you blokes, I’m posting you.’ So I thought ‘oh go on, I’ll be posted somewhere out in the Middle East’ or somewhere like that, and anyway I got posted to South End, about fifteen miles from where I lived, and I was thinking ‘be at home every night’ and while I was there, what we was doing there was flying drogues [?], the flak along the south coast, we had a big drogue pulled behind, and I tell you what, when I see that I knew we had no chance at all. They had these, we had to use a toeless drogue, and they used to fight, not at the drogue, a couple of degrees past the drogue, because they kept hitting the drogues and it was becoming expensive. So, but the flak [emphasis] to follow you, right, same height, would follow the drogue all the way along. Anyway, after a while they said ‘you’re posted,’ and this I knew was why the government knew what was going on in Germany with the fighters. They said ‘you’ve been posted to the 77 Squadron, Halifaxes.’ So I thought ‘alright,’ so and when I got up there –
AM: Where was that? Where was it?
HI: Er, Full Sutton I think, yeah Full Sutton. And when I got up there, the CO said he wanted to see me when I got up there, so I thought ‘that’s handy, the bloody warrant officer and the CO wants to see me, I must be important’ and he took me out to the, where the arment [?] officer, out to a Halifax, and what they had done they’d cut a big hole in the bottom of the Halifax and placed a point manual point five over the hole –
AM: Point five –
HI: Yeah, point five, point five machine gun.
AM: Okay.
HI: A much bigger shell than the 303. And they said ‘have you seen any German fighters coming, coming at you, you’ll be able to handle ‘em.’ So they knew what was going on. Anyway, we took off for Duisburg and I was sitting there – I was bleeding freezing, can you imagine there’s a big hole like that, about twenty thousand feet and –
AM: Hang on where’s this, is this in the middle of the plane?
HI: In the middle of the plane.
AM: Right, okay.
HI: A big hole.
AM: Where the bomb doors would have been?
HI: Er, it was different in the Halifax.
AM: Okay.
HI: It was different from the Lancaster. Most the bombs – up, further up and underneath the wings as well.
AM: Right.
HI: Anyway, they dug this hole, cut this hole in the Halifax and they had a point five there, and I sat there, and can you imagine it was about forty-five below, and it seemed the whole world was coming through that bloody hole. The pilot was moaning, the bomb aimer was moaning, and the – anyway, we’d done the bombing raid, come back and they complained bitterly about it, and that was the last that – and they said to me ‘we’re posting you to Driffield, to an Australian squadron’ and that’s where I went then, as a rear gunner at 462 Australian Squadron. I stayed there for a couple of months and I don’t know what happened there, I don’t know if I’d lost my logbook or – anyway, I done about eight or nine trips here and never even registered, and then they posted from there, from 64, er, 462 Squadron on Driffield to its other squadron which was at Driffield –
AM: Why did you keep, why did you keep getting posted to different ones?
HI: Well the pilot I went with in 462, bloke, Australian called Heurigen [unsure of spelling] – 462 they posted away completely [emphasis] but he, he stayed, he said ‘no I wanna stay here at Driffield’ and he went onto 466, and he took me with him. And when he finished, I was in, I didn’t know what to do, and they said ‘we want you to go to 158 Squadron at Lissett’ and that’s where I finished. I don about another ten trips there, and they said to me ‘you done enough, that’s it.’
AM: What was Lissett like?
HI: Nissan huts, terrible. Baking hot in the summer, freezing [emphasis] in the winter. And you come back off an op and you had to go in one of them bloody tin huts. The bedding was wet, yeah. But I survived.
AM: You did.
HI: Yeah, I really survived, yeah. All, most of them, all my friends went there, yeah, a lot.
AM: Was the DFC then for the number of operations you went on?
HI: Number of trips I done, sixty trips, yeah. Yeah, I done more now actually, but –
AM: Well the ones that didn’t yeah, didn’t get counted.
HI: Yeah.
AM: And then so from that point, when you did your last tour, sorry your last operation, then what happened, were you sent to demob?
HI: No, they said to me ‘what was your trade?’ The war had finished, and they said to me ‘what was your trade before the war? What did you do?’ and I said ‘I was an apprentice tailor,’ they said ‘we’ve got the job for you’ I thought – they sent me down to Newmarket on the racecourse, in charge of about eight or nine WAFs on sewing machines. I don’t know why they thought I was – they were making lorry covers on these machines, and they put me in charge of ‘em. Oh, when I was there.
AM: What was that like Harry?
HI: [Laughs] had a little giggle [laughter].
AM: So what, how old are you at this point you’re about twenty –
HI: About twenty, yes. Yeah, about, getting on for twenty.
AM: So go on, you had a little giggle [HI laughs], tell me [HI laughs] go on, tell me some stories.
HI: Yeah I was charge of them, that’s it [laughs].
AM: Right, alright then.
HI: Yeah and then I stayed in Newmarket – oh blimey, it’s, oh it’s only twenty past.
AM: No, we’re alright.
HI: Newmarket was a bombing station if you believe it or not. The Rowley Mile was a runway for 75 Squadron, a New Zealand squadron, and after the war they turned it into a Prussian [?] depot. They was dropping all the aircraft into Newmarket and crushing ‘em.
AM: Crushing them?
HI: Crushing ‘em. Hundreds of ‘em. Into this big machine they just went pfft like, just crushed ‘em up, piled ‘em up. As far as we could see was one huge pile of aluminium.
AM: Going back to you though, so you’ve had your giggle with your WAFs –
HI: Yeah.
AM: Then what? Did you get –
HI: I had a couple of giggles [laughter from both] but it was handy there because we could get up to London from Newmarket, they had a railway station –
AM: How long was it before you were demobbed then?
HI: Er, got demobbed in forty, 1946, August ’46.
AM: So quite early, a lot earlier than a lot of ‘em then? ‘Cause you’d been in the whole –
HI: I’d been in the whole, since [unclear] yeah. I come out, about to find a job, I couldn’t go back to tailoring, I’d missed it you know. Anyway, I tried, went back to tailoring and learnt a little bit. Things were very difficult when we come out, we had no houses, you can imagine London, there was all bloody roofs off the buildings, and then we had to wait for a house. I was married then.
AM: I was gonna say, where did, where did you meet your wife?
HI: I knew her from the, from the blackout. I was sitting on a seat in the blackout and she came along with her friend and we started talking and that’s how it started, and I, it was only when I [unclear] and we got married in forty, 1945, Christmas 1945, and I remember we, we done a couple of trips, and I remember I bombed Dresden, we bombed Dresden just after Christmas, February, but we got married on the Christmas, and I shouldn’t have got married ‘cause we had nowhere to bloody live, better than living with the mother-in-law for a little while, got fed up with that.
Dublin Core
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Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-23
Format
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01:15:35 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AIronsH150723
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
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Pending review
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Italy
England--Lincolnshire
Title
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Interview with Harry Irons. One
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Irons left a tailoring apprenticeship to join the Royal Air Force and trained as a wireless operator but actually became an air-gunner. He describes the uniform he wore and the unreliability of heated suits. Discusses the invention of scarecrows which crews believed were sent up by the Germans to distract and demoralise them. Also describes a number of operations including to the Ruhr Valley and a number of daylight operations including Le Creusot (17 October 1942) and Milan (24 October 1942). Goes on to discuss the removal of Perspex from Lancasters to prevent oil from exhausts from affecting visibility, the introduction of radar into the rear turret and it’s quick removal after it was found as used by Germany and Schrage Musik. He returned to tailoring following his retirement from the Royal Air Force.
Contributor
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Katie Gilbert
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.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-10-24
1942-10-17
158 Squadron
462 Squadron
5 Group
50 Squadron
77 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Bombing of Augsburg (17 April 1942)
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
briefing
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
Gee
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Halifax
In the event of my death letter
Ju 88
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Nissen hut
radar
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Driffield
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Lissett
RAF Manby
Scarecrow
Spitfire
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/770/9390/SDexterKI127249v10015.2.jpg
fe611fe255f74dd3302f770beb56e56c
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Dexter, Keith Inger. Album
Description
An account of the resource
24 items. Contains newspaper articles and information about Keith and Shelia Dexter while at school. Includes a number of photographs of Keith Dexter's mother's home in Stradishall and of a memorial to men of F Division of the Metropolitan Police lost during 1939-45. Followed by documents from Squadron Leader A N Banks concerning the collision between a Halifax and a Mosquito at RAF Foulsham in a April 1944 with photographs as well as information on Foulsham and 192 Squadron. Finally photographs of Keith Dexter's medals, an escape map and compass and a photograph of a model train built by Keith Dexter with a certificate from the Model Engineering Exhibition 1933.
Publisher
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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.
Identifier
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Dexter, KI
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
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
Short history of RAF Foulsham
Description
An account of the resource
History from opening on 22 November 1942 to civilian use up to January 1981. Originally 2 Group with 98 and 180 squadrons flying B-25. Later based 514 Squadron Lancaster of 3 Group then 192 Squadron of 100 Group flying Wellington. Mosquito and Halifax on special operations. Relates incident on 27/28 April 1944 when Halifax landed on top of Mosquito. Finally 462 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force flying Halifax target marking and radio countermeasures.
Format
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One page printed document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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SDexterKI127249v10015
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-11-22
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1981-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
100 Group
180 Squadron
192 Squadron
2 Group
3 Group
462 Squadron
514 Squadron
98 Squadron
B-25
Halifax
Lancaster
Mosquito
RAF Foulsham
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/770/9399/SDexterKI127249v10021.2.jpg
8f184a1aff889f4a6bf6e94ffd90509b
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
Dexter, Keith Inger. Album
Description
An account of the resource
24 items. Contains newspaper articles and information about Keith and Shelia Dexter while at school. Includes a number of photographs of Keith Dexter's mother's home in Stradishall and of a memorial to men of F Division of the Metropolitan Police lost during 1939-45. Followed by documents from Squadron Leader A N Banks concerning the collision between a Halifax and a Mosquito at RAF Foulsham in a April 1944 with photographs as well as information on Foulsham and 192 Squadron. Finally photographs of Keith Dexter's medals, an escape map and compass and a photograph of a model train built by Keith Dexter with a certificate from the Model Engineering Exhibition 1933.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Dexter, KI
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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THE AIRFIELDS 115
Squadron flying its first Circus on May 16 and attaching Triequeville. A large number of enemy fighters rose to give battle, but the Mitchells all returned safely to Foulsham. Thereafter both squadrons flew Circuses and Ramrods when the weather permitted. By mid-August 180 Squadron had flown 17 operations. The long haul to the south was time- and nerve-consuming, and to be better placed for operations running up to D-Day both squadrons flew out, aircraft going singly for security reasons, to Dunsfold on August 18/19, having flown their first large scale 24-aircraft operation on August 12. The feeling in July had been that the Mitchell might be better in the Middle East. Indeed, 98 Squadron flew to Honiley in July for range trials, but the idea was abandoned.
Vacant Foulsham was taken over by 3 Group on September 1. On the same day No 514, the second Lancaster 1 squadron in the Group, formed here. Providing crews for Stirling-orientated 3 Group had caused 1678 Flight to form, and this moved to Foulsham on September 16 to be on hand to supply crews for 514 Squadron. It took them two months to reach operational status and, on November 3/4 1943, six Lancasters commenced operations, two going to Düsseldorf and four mining. Not for long did they operate out of Foulsham for, in a general shake up, both units moved to Waterbeach on November 23.
The need to base 3 Group Lancaster Finishing School at Feltwell meant it must lose its operational commitment. So, on November 25, No 192 Squadron left for Foulsham. This highly specialised squadron was flying Halifaxes, Mosquito IVs and Wellington Xs all specially fitted out with listening equipment to snoop on German radio and radar transmission. On December 7 100 Group took over Foulsham and snatched 192 Squadron in the process, the unit being enlarged on December 12 when 1473 Flight, which had been similarly employed, arrived from Little Snoring to become its ‘C’ Flight. Backing the squadron, the Special Duty Radar Development Unit arrived in mid-April 1944 and became the Bomber Support Development Unit on May 1. It stayed until December 23 1944, and used Mosquitoes. The Americans needed similar intelligence material and, from August 1944 to early 1945, a detachment of two-seater P-38s was stationed at Foulsham.
Once BSDU had left the station Halifax IIIs of 462 Squadron RAAF arrived from 4 Group on December 27 1944, trained in the use of special equipment, and commenced operations on March 13 1945.
No 192 Squadron played a vital part in the bomber offensive from 1943. Operating widely over occupied territory and Germany, its crews listened to enemy radio chatter and discovered frequencies of these and radar equipment. They snooped upon the airborne radar of night fighters, jammed VHF transmissions and afforded RAF control of German fighters. By summer 1944 they were operating by day and night, and the squadron was, on April 9 1945, the last to fly the Mosquitoes jammed enemy R/T.
Foulsham’s value was greatly extended when, in 1944, the main NE/SW runway was fitted with FIDO equipment to allow operations in misty weather.
The wart over, both squadrons disbanded, 192 on August 22 1945 and 462 on September 24, then the station passed to Care & Maintenance under 40 Group in 1945. The RAF soon vacated it, but the station was not sold off. In 1954-1955 the USAF based a special signals unit there.
Runways, ‘T’ Type hangars, the perimeter track and the water tower all remain among the farm land. Flying has not ceased, for often a crop-spraying Piper Pawnee can be seen about its business in the summer months.
An aerial view of Foulsham taken on January 31 1946 (DoE).
[photograph]
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
History of RAF Foulsham
Description
An account of the resource
Starts with description of operations with B-25 from RAF Foulsham. Succeeded by 514 Squadron Lancaster and 1678 training flight. Replaced by 192 Squadron of 100 Group flying Halifax, Mosquito and Wellington on radio countermeasure and other special operations. Bomber support development unit arrived in April 1944. FIDO added to airfield in 1944. Station place on care and maintenance 1945. At the bottom a photograph of the airfield taken January 1946.
Format
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One page printed document with b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
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Text
Photograph
Identifier
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SDexterKI127249v10021
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
100 Group
1678 HCU
192 Squadron
3 Group
462 Squadron
514 Squadron
B-25
FIDO
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Mosquito
P-38
RAF Foulsham
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1184/11756/PWalkerT1801.2.jpg
3bec429e6a3c10cbcf95719caeca006b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1184/11756/AWalkerT180717.1.mp3
647343f166349c426f4abedf8de8703c
Dublin Core
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Title
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Walker, Tom
T Walker
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Tom Walker (b. 1925, 1590544 Royal Air Force) and a photograph. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 462 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-07-17
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Walker, T
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GR: This, so this is Gary Rushbrooke for the International Bomber Command Centre 17th of July 2018. I’m with Tom Walker and his son [buzz] And Tom, if you can just tell us a little bit about your early life. I know we’re in Rotherham. Was you born in Rotherham?
TW: No. I was born in Stainforth, near Doncaster.
GR: Near Doncaster.
TW: Yeah.
GR: So fairly local.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Brothers and sisters?
TW: I’ve got, one sister was in the ATS. The other one, she was a qualified nurse and she was a sister in Barnsley Hospital. She joined the Army and went over on D-Day 3.
GR: Right.
TW: And she went right to, to Germany to until they got to Germany. When they got to Germany they flew her back over here and flew her out to Burma.
GR: Right.
TW: And she ended up as a major.
Other: Matron of Bombay Hospital.
TW: Bombay Military Hospital.
GR: Oh right. Were your sisters older than you? Or —
TW: Oh yeah. I were the youngest of the lot. Yeah.
GR: You, you were the youngest.
TW: Two brothers and father worked down Hatfield main pit.
GR: Right. That’s what your dad did, did he? He worked in the pit.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Did you go to school around here? Locally to Doncaster?
TW: Me.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Yeah. I was in the ATC.
GR: Yeah.
TW: When I were fourteen. And after a couple of months I started going to the technical college at night.
GR: Right.
TW: So it got me fit you know. I could do maths and everything perfect.
GR: Yeah. So you left school at fourteen did you?
TW: Pardon?
GR: Did you leave school at fourteen?
TW: Yeah. Yeah. And —
GR: And is that when you started going to technical college?
TW: Yeah. I was in the, I was in ATS.
GR: Yeah.
TW: No.
GR: ATC.
TW: Cadets.
GR: Air Training Cadets.
TW: Yeah. I got in them. And my mates were already in the Navy or the Army. So I said to my dad, ‘ I want to go in the Fleet Air Arm,’ because I’d got an uncle who was a manager in Portsmouth and I wanted to go in the Fleet Air Arm. And this guy said, ‘Oh yeah,’ because I was six foot then and boxing and he said, ‘Ideal. What we want.’ He said, ‘Now, where do you work?’ I said, ‘I’m a tool setter.’ He said, ‘You can’t go in.’ So, he said, ‘You can’t do anything about it. You can’t go in.’ So, I went back home to Stainforth and I never spoke to my father for a month. So he, eventually he said, ‘All right. Go on. Go.’ So that started it all.
GR: So you volunteered.
TW: Yeah.
GR: To go in to the RAF.
TW: Yeah.
GR: And did they, did you go to a recruiting office or —
TW: Yes. I went to [pause] that were in Sheffield and then when, when I went to another office for AT, for flying. And they said, ‘You’ll be three months before you can get in because of the places.’ And they give me a job in a [pause] making twenty five pounder shells.
GR: Oh right.
TW: And it was a catastrophe because women were chasing me. So —
GR: So there was you and about three or four hundred women in a factory.
TW: More than that. Anyway, I only stood it one week on nights. During the day they couldn’t touch me. But I went back to this office that they were making me, giving me a job and I went out on to building Sandtoft Aerodrome.
GR: Oh right. Yes. I know it.
TW: Yeah. And that was well paid for because I was getting paid a man’s wage and lodging allowance.
GR: That’s good. Yeah. Yeah.
TW: And then I’d been working all day. We got on the lorry to go back to Stainforth. I got off. I saw my mother down the, down the street. My papers had come.
GR: Oh yeah.
TW: And when I went she were crying.
GR: And this would be what? 1943?
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Can you remember where you first went to, to start your training?
TW: Well, as I say I was in the AT.
GR: ATC.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
TW: I was in there and the bloke who run it had been a fighter pilot in the First War and he was, he were brilliant.
GR: Yeah.
Other: You had to go to London then didn’t you?
TW: Yeah. I went to London. ACRC. Aircrew Receiving Centre at London.
GR: St John’s Wood.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
TW: [Softley] Hall.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And it were a beautiful place.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And there were twenty in each room and this particular night we got in bed and there were two big, big rooms and then there were a corridor with sand, water and doings pump.
GR: Ah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Other: Stirrup pump. Stirrup pump.
GR: Stirrup pump.
TW: Aye. We, we’d just got in bed and these two blokes came in with water. Sprayed all our beds and us. So —
GR: That was your welcome.
TW: They were a big, big Geordie lad, farmer and me. I chased them and I hit this bloke. Knocked him out because all our beds were wet.
GR: Yeah.
TW: So, 9 o’clock in the morning I had to go and see the CO. And came out he was area bomber err —
Other: Boxing.
TW: Boxing.
GR: Right. And you were a boxer.
TW: And I, yeah. The bloke said this bloke he were a [pause] he said, ‘Oh, no. Go on. Clear off.
GR: Clear off.
TW: And it was next, that were next to London Zoo.
GR: London Zoo. Yes. Yeah.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Didn’t you used to get your meals in the zoo? Did you have to go across to the zoo?
TW: Pardon?
GR: Did you go across to the zoo?
TW: Oh yeah.
GR: Because that’s where you had your meals there. Didn’t you?
TW: That’s right. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Yeah. So —
TW: All there was all the lions there and everything making a noise.
GR: Yeah. Yeah. I think most chaps have said, you know.
TW: We could walk to the west, west end in London.
GR: Yes.
TW: From [Softley] Hall.
GR: Yes.
TW: That were brilliant.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Because it was like going from Stainforth to somewhere or something to —
GR: First time away in the big city.
TW: [unclear]
GR: Yeah.
TW: Yeah. And on the next street to where it was there were some old ladies with Rolls Royces all [unclear] Not, not NAAFI. This other —
Other: Women’s Institute, was it?
TW: Yeah. And we used to go in there and there were a table about like that big.
Other: Just hang on a sec.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
TW: And there was piles of all the shows in London.
GR: Yeah.
TW: All in piles all around.
GR: Very good.
TW: I’m going to get —
GR: Yeah.
[recording paused]
GR: So, after St Johns Wood where did you [pause] where did you end up after you had started your training?
TW: I went, got to Rotherham.
GR: Yeah.
TW: I was five months there. Then I went to Scotland.
Other: St Andrews.
TW: Yeah.
Other: Where the golf course is.
TW: The worst place I’ve ever been in my life. It was winter.
GR: Snow, wet and windy.
TW: Not a, not a, not no heating at all. And oh. Ah but at night you couldn’t even get in the cinemas or anywhere else because there were a Navy place there. And all the dancing was reels.
GR: Oh right. Yeah.
TW: I was glad to go away from there. Then I went down to London. To London again. And I did three months at Newquay. And then I started.
Other: Were it St Austell, were it? That one.
TW: Yeah.
Other: St Austell.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And then I went to start training at Riccall.
GR: At Riccall.
TW: Near Selby.
GR: Yeah. I’ve a friend who lives there at the moment. Did you know what you wanted to be? You know when you joined up.
TW: Yeah. Well —
GR: Did you want to be a pilot? Was you —
TW: I wanted to be a pilot.
GR: Right.
TW: And what happened was when I was on this ITW.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Initial Training Wing. They came to us and they said, ‘What do you want to be?’ ‘Pilot.’ So they said, ‘You’ll have to go a few weeks and go to America or Canada.’ And everybody had built up —
GR: Oh yeah. I’ll have some of that. Yeah.
TW: And then they came to, they came in to it one morning when we were on parade. They said, ‘There’s a surplus of pilots.’
GR: Yeah.
TW: Pilots, bomb aimer and navigator.’ So, I said what was there? And they said flight engineer. No. No. Glider pilots or doings [pause] or a gunner.
GR: Yeah. Air gunner.
TW: Flight engineer.
GR: Yeah. You went for flight engineer.
TW: I did about eight or nine months training from that and every, every week you had exam.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And if you didn’t pass it you go back again. And I were lucky. I got right through.
GR: Yeah. And that was at Riccall.
TW: Riccall.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
TW: No. No.
GR: Sorry.
TW: They were at, what was that one at —
GR: It don’t matter.
TW: Seaside. Anyway.
Other: What’s that dad? What’s that?
TW: Oh that place, at [pause] Not Newquay. The other place.
Other: St Austell.
GR: St Austell.
TW: No. Anyway, it don’t matter.
GR: Don’t matter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
TW: And then I got passed out, you know.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And I went and then went straight up. Had nine days leave and then I went to Riccall and we had to go in this building and pick out a pilot. A squad. The rest of the crew.
GR: They crewed up. Yeah.
TW: Yeah.
GR: So, and you were telling me earlier that you ended up with an Australian crew.
TW: Yeah.
GR: So was that crew already formed? And then they got —
TW: Apart from a flight engineer. Yeah.
GR: So, they came. Did they come and get you or did you get them?
TW: Yeah. Yeah. They came to me.
GR: Good.
TW: And then we started training at Riccall. Bombing.
GR: Heavy Conversion Unit.
TW: No. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Heavy Conversion Unit.
TW: Yeah.
GR: HCU. Yeah.
TW: That was for them. It wasn’t me.
GR: Right.
TW: Because they had been on Wellingtons and things like that.
GR: Yes. Yeah.
TW: Anyway, we did all day training. And then night training. And then we went down to Foulsham.
GR: Foulsham. Yeah.
TW: Yeah. And one of, one of the things I told you before about the end of the war the last bombing raid we did was and they told us normally you used to go back to England about twelve thousand feet.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Don’t bother. You can go down low. So we went on this raid and then went to the Dutch Coast and we [pause] to the coast. About five minutes after the plane went right back like that. Bloody balloon on a ship.
GR: You were too low. So that was your last bombing raid of your war. What was your first one?
TW: Actually it was from Riccall because when you’d finished —
GR: Yeah.
TW: You went on one.
GR: Right.
TW: I think it was just in to Germany. Just in to German.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Unless it was German.
Other: Which was that one where where you had to go to that other airfield and Douglas Bader told you to get off the airfield?
TW: Oh well. We’d been on the southern side bombing.
GR: Yeah.
TW: You know, there was topside further north for Germany. Other one we’d been over France or somewhere. Come back and we went to Tangmere. That’s the thing. Landed Tangmere.
GR: Tangmere.
TW: Because there was thick fog.
GR: Yes.
TW: Right. So —
GR: Tangmere was a fighter base wasn’t it?
TW: That’s right. So, they took, they took us to a Naval barracks overnight and then go back and there were about seventy planes on this. German, American and the whole lot. Right.
GR: Yeah. All coming to Tangmere because of the fog.
TW: They had all gone and I was trying to get all the engines running. And what I did I got up inside the nacelle where the wheel, the big wheel went in. There were a pump inside it and I got up, got up into it and this bloke comes around and said, ‘What are you doing on my bloody airfield?’ And when I got out it were Bader. I’m on the route to taking off. I’ve roped all the lads in.
GR: Good stuff. Yeah.
TW: But I loved it, you know.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And, and I’ll tell you something that wasn’t about flying. The wireless operator was an older man and he’d been a gold digger and all sorts. A real character and he were my best mate. And we’d been in the sergeant’s mess having a drink and darts and I said to him, his mate came, an old mate of his came and he said, I said, ‘I’ll go and have a shower and get in bed then.’ So I’d not been in bed a while and ‘Tom. Tom.’ What is? What? He was at the side of my bed. No skin on his face. And what he’d done him and his mate had won, won two bottles of whisky and he’s, he’d drunk the whisky himself and he’d crawled because there were [pause] where all the Nissen huts were, were all rough concrete and everything.
GR: Yeah.
TW: He crawled all the way back and said what are we going to do about it? So we took him down to hospital, err hospital. Knocking on side and [unclear] doing.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And if he’d have been, if he’d have been an Englishman and an English thing they’d have let him off but they said, ‘No we’re going to. He’s going to get in trouble.’ So, ‘No. We’ll take him back and look after him.’ So we took him back and put him in bed and put a rope around him. And he were four and a half days living on oxo and bread.
GR: Probably taught him a lesson. Yeah.
TW: But he was such a character.
GR: Yeah.
TW: A typical Aussie.
GR: You obviously started on Halifaxes. Did you fly in any other aircraft or —
TW: Yeah. Yeah.
GR: Because when you first went to 426 squadron were they with —
TW: 462.
GR: Sorry, 462.
TW: Yeah. I went straight there. But when I came home to get married.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Three weeks before the war ended. When we came back after nine days it was all over the camp our plane had blown up because there were two crews for one. One plane.
GR: Oh right.
TW: One kite.
Other: You should have flown but you didn’t because you got married and the plane went —
TW: No. I said, while we were at the wedding and all that that plane has gone and got blown up on the end of the runway.
GR: With the crew inside.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Did the crew perish?
TW: Yeah.
GR: Right. Why was there, why would there have been two crews to the one plane?
TW: Well, you’d got to arm mostly every night.
GR: Right.
TW: Because a bomber, Lancasters were going out every night and we had to do it over a time. But there was two squadrons on Foulsham
GR: Yeah.
TW: 192.
Other: 162. 462 were it?
TW: No. No. 192. That crew. And they had Halifaxes like us doing the same thing. But they’d got Mosquitoes.
GR: Right.
TW: And when we went out they used to go up with us.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And they’d take off about twenty minutes, twenty five minutes later and they helped us to save us because it were that. The Germans wanted all of us killed on this 100 Group.
GR: Yeah, because 100 group were special operations.
TW: That’s right.
GR: Jamming German radar.
TW: What we had, we had a Canadian who could speak German as a woman or a man. And then he’d jam their radio.
GR: Yeah.
TW: So they didn’t know where they were going. But we went out with main force. Right.
GR: Yeah.
TW: On the route and then so far, so far along we’d turn off. Turn away. And then with this bloke who had special, dropping Window out so that they didn’t know which was the main. Which was the main stream.
GR: Yeah.
Other: You got a lot more leave didn’t you because you were on special?
TW: Yeah. We got —
Other: Special ops.
TW: Yeah. We got every month and Bomber Command got five, five weeks. Six weeks.
GR: Yeah. How many operations? Can you remember how many operations you actually flew, Tom?
TW: I was on nine from there.
GR: Yeah.
TW: One from Foulsham. From —
Other: Didn’t it work out —
TW: From Riccall.
Other: Didn’t it work out at thirteen you did —
TW: Yeah.
Other: But you said when you looked at the book other day you’d done more than that.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
Other: You’d done more in the book than you’d realised.
TW: Well, that’s right. That was the main thing anyway. Not nine.
GR: Yeah. And did you have any close encounters with the Germans while you were flying?
TW: No.
GR: Because they, they could actually track your aircraft because of the radar emissions you were giving couldn’t they?
TW: No.
GR: No.
TW: No.
GR: Because I thought they targeted 100 Group.
Other: You were deliberately doing it so they’d follow you didn’t they?
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
Other: Yeah. So —
TW: To get away from main force.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Because there were that many blokes getting killed. Probably hundreds and hundreds a day because there were —
GR: Oh, there were. Yeah.
TW: About three hundred to about six hundred Lancasters.
GR: But because of that I thought the Germans actually targeted your squadron.
TW: Oh they tried to. Tried to —
GR: Yeah. They tried to get you more than.
TW: Yeah. Yes.
GR: Yeah.
TW: It was —
GR: Did they ever come close?
TW: Oh yeah.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And the rear gunner were the best man I’ve ever known. He was brilliant.
GR: Right.
TW: Mid-upper gunner were frightened. He said if, of course when we were all going on the target where we were going to go. Me, the two gunners had got I had to, I could see out. Out of the plane.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And we were all watching all the time for them but he told me, ‘I’m frightened.’ So turned out that sometimes I had to go up in the turret. But they were right nice blokes.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Unbelievable living under them conditions.
GR: Yeah. Did they all survive?
TW: Pardon?
GR: Did they all survive the war?
TW: Did I —
GR: No. Did they all survive?
TW: Oh.
GR: Yeah.
TW: They with me. Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Yeah.
GR: And did they all go back to Aus, as soon as the war finished 8th of May ’45.
TW: What they did was they took the crews about four or five days. No. About say eight days afterwards.
GR: Yeah.
TW: They went straight back.
GR: They went straight back home didn’t they?
TW: Yeah. And the pilot, he were a gem.
Other: You went straight out to Germany then didn’t you?
TW: Yeah. And then —
GR: So I was just going to say so what happened to you? You’ve flown with these chaps. Then all of a sudden you’re on your own.
TW: Yeah. But he came to me. You know. Said how good I’d been with him.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Because you could get a lot of trouble with an aircraft, I’ll tell you that. In the war. But my job was that busy you’d no chance of being [pause] you know. You were that busy you weren’t bothered about what was happening.
GR: What else was going on because you had too much to do.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Because what you did I’d got a small paper like a cardboard computer that we’d got and you, when you, when you took off you had four engines.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Like when you got up to about ten thousand feet started back. Well, I’d already known what we’d done then and then after that every time that we changed petrol tanks I had to go to work it out where it goes. But what it was there was twelve tanks right. In the wings mostly. In the wings. And [pause] what was I going to say?
GR: You had to control the flow of fuel.
TW: Yes. That’s right.
GR: To all, to all the tanks.
TW: That’s right. But I’d got to control it right through until the next day. Well, what they did they filled the planes up to the top with fuel. Two thousand gallons.
GR: Two thousand.
TW: Right. And if you’d gone over fifty it makes a difference. Jankers. You were on jankers.
GR: Oh right.
TW: Well, I never went over thirty so —
GR: You were alright.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
TW: But it is complicated when you can fly that plane on one tank or four. Four on one tank and two over but what it is when you took off with a full load when you got up to altitude that you want you had to start getting rid of the outer ones.
GR: Right. I was going to ask you.
TW: So that all the way through like that because [pause] Oh, I’ve just forgotten my thought.
Other: When you land you’ve got petrol’s on the inside or the outside.
TW: Well, that was done but no.
GR: You certainly had to have the weight dispersed evenly.
TW: I just forget.
GR: It doesn’t matter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yes as flight engineers you had to control the flow of fuel.
TW: Yeah. Well, there was, there was —
GR: Do all this and do all that.
TW: The pilot or me could say no. We’re not going. You know. And engines had been in for servicing. The plane we had and when we, when we got out I thought chuffing hell, there’s something wrong here. We were getting hot. The engines. The engines were getting hot. So I worked it out and the radial engines, engines like that and they’ve got one of nine there and nine there. Pistons. And there’s a gill around. The rear one is cooler than the rear ones.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And this thing was getting boiling hot and I —
GR: It’s your job to sort it out.
TW: Yeah. Well, I rang the doings up and said it’s the gills. What they’d done they must have took the engine out and put it back on and it hadn’t been graded with these gills.
GR: Yeah.
TW: But put [unclear] back. Back of thing and we’d go about thirty, forty doings and I said to him, ‘You’ll have to slack back. Drop back.’ And we were going slow. Slower and slower and then when we turned around to come they were alright.
GR: Right.
TW: But it was, they were done, and when we came that one from Riccall we went on that raid and when we come back the, the lights for the wheels coming down wasn’t bloody working and we were flying around the doings.
Other: The airfield.
TW: And they were there looking out of the office windows to see if they’d come down.
GR: To see. Yeah.
TW: So, we did it for long enough and then I said, ‘No. Go on. Go to —’ I even went down to the back wheel, I said [pause] anyway we landed and everybody were like that.
GR: The wheels had come down.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Just the lights that weren’t working.
TW: Oh yeah.
GR: Yeah. So why did they send you out to Germany, Tom?
TW: Pardon?
GR: At the end of the war you went out to Germany.
TW: What I did, they all went back and I went to Catterick and to say whether I wanted to stop in the RAF or come out and I said come out. So I went and I was a transport manager. And I just, I went to where’s the Dambusters?
GR: Scampton.
TW: I were there for about, about three months.
GR: Right.
TW: And then they said you’ll have to go to Germany. So went to Germany. Well, I went down to London and then we went up to Hull. And it was just starting to snow and we got on a boat on the doings and when we were going [pause] not going this was this a, this was a major. Once we get out of the, out of the —
GR: Out of the harbour.
Other: Harbour.
TW: The harbour.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Ten. I think it were ten doings.
Other: Force ten gale wasn’t it? Or something.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Oh right.
TW: If you went on the deck to go for a meal or anything the bloody snow was going like that. Anyway, we got to Cuxhaven and there were a foot of ice on the harbour.
GR: Bloody hell.
TW: And they took us to a place to sleep. No heating at all. And it was just a bunk. Wood bunks with straw in.
GR: Right.
TW: So I were there about five days and then I went or got to go to Northern Germany and it were 4 o’clock in the morning when we set off and then they stopped the train so far, about probably a hundred mile to put water in the train. And while we’re, while we’re sat there where did they go? Some little kids with aprons on with pockets chocky full of money.
GR: They were like begging. Yeah
TW: Police come down. Their police with coshers. How many were killed?
GR: Killed?
TW: Police.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Hitting these little girls and boys with bloody bayonets. With the soldiers
Other: Who killed the police then?
TW: Pardon?
Other: Who killed the police?
TW: I’m not telling you.
Other: Oh.
TW: It was. And then when we got to Hamburg.
GR: Yeah.
TW: At Hamburg on the boat there were a lot of national doings.
Other: National what?
GR: German.
TW: No. It was England. They’d, been, they’d got called up didn’t they? National. There were a name for them anyway.
Other: Conscientious objectors.
TW: No. No. No. No. We got there and I got off and I were going to go to Brunswick so [pause] and these lads because if you went to Berlin you had to take a rifle and fifty bullets.
GR: Right.
TW: That was so it couldn’t be done by taking us in bulk and Russians pinching the bloody everything.
GR: The Russians. Yeah. Because the Russians were in Berlin weren’t they?
TW: Yeah. So I said to these, these young lads that were only eighteen you know, they were frightened to death. I said if you, if they pull that door open what you are in, they were like goods thing.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And you know, ‘Shoot them.’ And they said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Shoot the buggers else they’ll shoot you.’
GR: Yeah.
TW: And then I went on to Brunswick and I were there five months.
GR: Right. What, what was you doing in Brunswick, Tom?
TW: Pardon?
GR: What was you doing in Brunswick?
TW: Oh. Motor transport
GR: Motor transport. Oh right. Yeah.
TW: Mostly I used to do airfield because it were a little airfield on this. And I used to have to get up in a morning and there’d be a little aeroplane coming and I’d run down and this bloke come out and he were top bloke in the Army.
GR: Oh right.
TW: British Army. And he said, ‘Why haven’t you got a tie on?’ And I said, ‘I’ve just got out of bed.’ But if you’d gone there and saw that place. There were no housing, coal, electricity, water, food. They was eating all cats and dogs. Horses. Everything. Brunswick, there was just one building in the middle and it was run by these Jewish people and you could go in there. A little orchestra playing. You could go in there and say I want to phone home tomorrow. If you went back there were a phone.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Yeah. Yeah.
GR: And did you get to see any other German cities?
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Hamburg were flatted. Hanover were flattened. Berlin were bloody flattened. There was only one place open. Not touched. A place called Celle –
GR: Right.
TW: With a C.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Celle with a C. And there was a [unclear] on it and there were a platform and he were on a white horse directing traffic.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And [unclear] That was the worst place. They landed the airborne. We landed airborne. British.
GR: Yes.
TW: And that was the same. Only one building and it were, they used it as a garage. As a petrol.
GR: It must have took them years to recover.
TW: Oh.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Everything were flat.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And we were living in where these scientists had been. We were living in there at —
GR: Rightly or wrongly it was a job to be done though.
TW: Yeah.
GR: You know. You were there, you were there to bomb it.
TW: And this, this old lady looked after three. Three rooms. Three different blokes. And used to play hell with me [laughs] I’d say, ‘Who’s won the bloody war?’ But she were going to go but I made sure she got some food.
GR: She got food.
TW: She got that.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Aye. She used to come to my room at 5 o’clock and then they’d send it from our cookhouse to do doings for me.
GR: To do. So, she knew what she knew. Anywhere after Germany? Did you get reposted or —
TW: No. I stopped there.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And came back to England and got demobbed.
GR: Demobbed.
TW: My wife was ready for a baby so —
GR: Right. And you’d got married just before the end.
TW: Three weeks before the war ended.
GR: Before the end of the war. Yeah.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. What did you do after the war, Tom? So demobbed.
TW: I got demobbed. I went on a, on a building site and I went in a steelworks where it were all running up and down with red hot steel. And then I went on to open cast coal.
GR: This was back in Yorkshire. Back near Doncaster.
TW: No.
GR: No.
TW: This was at Wentworth.
GR: Wentworth.
TW: Wentworth in [unclear]
GR: Right.
Other: He drove.
TW: Best job. Best job.
Other: The big thing on, outcrop thing he drove. What do they call it? [unclear]
TW: I could drive any of them.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And I think I were there, I were there quite a while. Used to get paid and you were on a bonus all the time. So what you did, what the firm did, they gave us a national doings so I could go to the Post Office.
Other: Savings. A savings thing was it?
TW: No. You could just take this form down to the Post Office and you would get your wage and open.
Other: Bonus.
TW: No. No. What it was is if your wage went about something they’d give you these things.
GR: They’d give you extra.
TW: That’s right. When you could get it. I was ten or twelve hours days and nights. Well, the money I earned was unbelievable. And I did that for about four. I think it were about four years and then I went in to the steelworks.
GR: Right.
TW: And I went right to the top.
GR: Steelworks in Sheffield or —
TW: At Rotherham.
GR: Rotherham. That’s —
Other: Rotherham. Strip mills at Brinsworth.
GR: Strip. Yeah. Yeah.
Other: He went in with a Roller for years.
TW: I ran it for years and everything was happy.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And I’d got a lovely wife.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Up there.
GR: Oh yeah. On the wall.
Other: Where were you when you took my mum up in the plane?
TW: Yeah. Don’t tell anybody. They’ll prosecute me.
GR: They won’t.
TW: At Lindholme.
GR: Lindholme. Yeah.
TW: I was at Lindholme. Transport there for about six weeks and she rolled up from my mother’s, our house and I said, ‘I’ve got a little job for you,’ and I went and asked him, and the bloke said, ‘Oh, get in.
GR: What were, what plane did you take her up in?
TW: Lancaster.
GR: Oh, you took her up in the Lancaster. Who was the pilot?
TW: Eh?
GR: Who was the pilot?
TW: It was a training. Training.
GR: Oh right. Yeah. Yeah.
TW: Aye, but wait a minute do you know where Lindholme is?
GR: That’s now the prison, isn’t it?
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. And at the end of the war it was, it was for Italian and German prisoners of war wasn’t it?
TW: No.
GR: No.
TW: What I’m talking about was if he were there I didn’t see it.
GR: Right.
TW: A bloke walking about with his parachute.
Other: Lindholme ghost.
TW: A ghost.
Other: Lindholme has a ghost.
TW: Ghost.
GR: Oh right. Yeah.
TW: Everybody, every bloody newspapers and all what but they were people on that said they’d seen him.
GR: They’d seen him but you didn’t. You didn’t see him.
TW: Oh, no. No.
GR: No. No.
TW: But it was in the Telegraph and Star and —
GR: Oh right.
TW: They were calling me but what it was is the peat bogs where he, where he crashed his Wellington [pause] But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the Air Force and everything.
GR: I think everybody I’ve ever spoke to.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Have said yeah war is a bad thing but their time in the RAF —
TW: The funny thing was when I first got to Lindholme I were walking down this road and this bloke said, ‘Do you mind? Are you going to salute me or what?’ I said, ‘What about these here?’ Well, he had —
Other: Stripes.
GR: Stripes, yeah.
TW: No. No. No. I’d got about five medals.
GR: So you were both in uniform.
TW: Aye. Yeah. And he said, ‘I’ll have you charged.’
Other: Weren’t you a higher rank then him then?
TW: He was a first, no he was a first doings but he’d come from school straight in.
GR: Right.
TW: And he said, ‘I’ll report you.’ I said, ‘You bloody report me,’ I said, ‘While you’ve been in bed I’ve been bloody bombing Germany.’
GR: Right.
TW: You know.
GR: What rank did you finish up as, Tom?
TW: I should have been warrant officer.
GR: Yeah.
TW: But it didn’t come through.
GR: Right. Because and also right at the end of the war I think all those who had become warrant officer they knocked them back.
TW: Yeah.
GR: To flight sergeants, didn’t they?
TW: Yeah.
GR: So, yeah. But —
TW: I was lucky as I say it was nearly the end of the war.
GR: Yeah.
TW: But I was only that age.
GR: That’s it. You can only join up when you can join up.
TW: Yeah.
Other: You got banned from your boxing as well didn’t you because they said it had cost too much to train you.
TW: Oh aye. I did. I’d gone up. My mother one day, no. I’d got home from school and I went to go down this road and this kid whalloped me one. He were about fourteen or fifteen and I were about ten. So my mother said, I were crying, she said, ‘Get off out and go and hit him. Hit him on his nose.’ So I did do and when my dad came, my dad were on nights regularly in the pit and he came around and said, ‘Who was was it?’ I’d gone and hit him. This bloke. This lad. Anyway, when my dad got up after he’d had his sleep he said, ‘Come on. We’re going down to our Teddie’s.’ And he were heavyweight pit man.
GR: Right. Boxer. Yeah.
TW: Aye. And they were three [pause] three wrestlers and three boxers and they’d got a ring in —
GR: Yeah.
TW: In a barn. And they were bloody lightning. I’ll tell you that. And I did that from fourteen, I think it was when I started that. Fourteen. And then I went into the RAF I started a boxing with different teams like.
GR: Yeah.
TW: And when I got halfway through last five month of —
GR: Training.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
TW: They said, ‘You can’t box anymore because it’s costing too much to train you for your job.’
GR: Right. And you were beating everybody up. It was probably costing the RAF. All the people you were fighting.
TW: Aye, but one of the best one I ever had we were boxing against American Golden Gloves.
GR: Oh right.
TW: Bloody thing and during the day I’d already been in, there were a decompression chamber you used to have to sit in. Four on that side and four on this and they’d take the masks off that side, then pull all the air out of it.
Other: So you passed out.
TW: That’s right.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Until that one passed out and then you would have, they’d have to give you, you’d have to get to the other side. They made me do it twice and I were mad because I’d been training for this —
Other: You were boxing that night weren’t you or something and they made you go in the decompression chamber for some tests.
TW: Yeah. Anyway —
GR: The day before.
TW: I flattened him. He were only a young bloke.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Americans loved the RAF. Their Air Force.
GR: Yeah. Why? Well, I know they did but, you know.
TW: I’d got, I’d got leave and we was going to Kiel Canal and Lancasters dropped six ton bomb. Six ton bombs.
GR: Right. Yeah.
TW: Doings. And just we were just going to leave this bloke shouted me. He said, ‘Come here and have a look.’ You could see it laid on its side. This big, big battleship in water. Pilots clothes on, floating on —
Other: All the sailors clothes were on the side or the other,
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
TW: So I got on a train and there were some American doing and he said flipping heck he said, this bloke said, ‘You had a right night last night.’
GR: Last night. Yeah.
TW: So Lancasters shelled it definitely and then when I got, when I got home to Rotherham he didn’t like me, her old man so —
Other: That’s father in law.
TW: Yeah. He put wireless on and it said, “RAF bombers last night — ’ No. I told him and then it come on the news.
GR: Oh right.
Other: And he didn’t believe you when you said you turned that boat over.
TW: Yeah.
Other: What were it called? Can you —
TW: Von.
Other: Von Scheer were it?
TW: No. Von.
GR: There was the Scheer
TW: Von Scheer. That were it.
GR: Yeah. the Scheer which is S C H E E R. The Scheer.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Was bombed later.
TW: Yeah. That was the one. It were laid over in Kiel. Kiel.
Other: They bombed it and tipped it over didn’t it?
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. There was the Von Hipper and the Scheer.
TW: Yeah.
GR: It would have been the Scheer then if you —
TW: We shot the, where they sank it.
GR: They sank the Tirpitz. The Tirpitz was sunk in November ’44.
TW: No.
GR: No.
Other: Bismarck.
TW: Before that.
GR: Oh, the Bismarck was the —
TW: Bismarck.
GR: Yeah. That was the Fleet Air Arm in 1941.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
TW: That was, that was the same Von Scheer that turned over.
GR: Right.
TW: But in, in Hamburg Harbour there were a submarine had been blown out of the water onto the bloody quayside.
GR: You were doing a good job. The RAF did.
Other: They did all that lot and then helped —
TW: The RAF saved the world
Other: Helped to pay to rebuild Germany and now Germany want to rule it all again.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Yeah. The RAF saved the world but if the Battle had Britain had failed —
GR: Yeah.
TW: They’d have got our Navy which was the biggest in the world.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Army. And Air Force.
GR: The fighter pilots did it in 1940 and then Bomber Command —
TW: Yeah.
GR: For the next four. Four and a half, five years.
TW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
TW: Fifty five thousand men were killed.
GR: They were.
TW: In Bomber Command.
GR: Yeah. It was the highest casualty rate in the war.
TW: Biggest in the world.
GR: Apart from the German U-boat arm.
TW: Yeah.
GR: So, I’ll just put that down. That’s not bad.
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 Tom Walker
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gary Rushbrooke
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
2018-07-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AWalkerT180717, PWalkerT1801
Format
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00:49:46 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
British Army
Description
An account of the resource
Tom was born in Stainforth, near Doncaster. His father and two brothers were miners. One of his sisters was in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and the other was a qualified nurse; she became a sister in Barnsley Hospital until she joined the Army. She then went to Germany and eventually to Burma before being made a major at Bombay hospital. Tom left school at fourteen and joined the Air Training Corps. A few months later he went to night school at the technical college, gained qualifications and went to work as a tool setter before volunteering for the Royal Air Force. He went to recruit in Sheffield and was given a job making 25lb shells. In about 1943 he received his call-up papers, and was posted at Rotherham, St. Andrews, London, Newquay and then to training at RAF Riccall as flight engineer. His Australian crew was at the Heavy Conversion Unit with 462 Squadron, then carried out carrying out nine operations. Tom married the week before the war ended and while on holiday his plane blew up on the runway, killing all the crew. At the end of the war Tom became a transport manager at RAF Scampton for about three months before being sent to northern Germany. He stayed at Braunschweig for five months on motor transport at a small airport. On returning to England he was demobbed and worked on a building site before moving to the steel works at Rotherham.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Burma
India
India--Mumbai
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
England--London
England--Newquay
England--Rotherham
England--Sheffield
Germany
Germany--Braunschweig
Scotland--Fife
Scotland--St. Andrews
England--Cornwall (County)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
100 Group
462 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crash
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
love and romance
RAF Foulsham
RAF Riccall
RAF Waddington
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/15043/EWillisCVDDonaldsonDW450321-0001.1.jpg
37fe8eb74dafea5360ae56e56ca109e3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/15043/EWillisCVDDonaldsonDW450321-0002.1.jpg
ea2e76d1f322ff6c491d94f40b41a224
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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] LOOSE MINUTE. [/underlined]
To:- Stn. Admin. Officer
Officer Commanding, No.192 Squadron [tick]
Officer Commanding, No 462 Squadron
F/O Wilkinson
P.M.C. Officers' Mess
C.M.C. Sergeants' Mess
Chief Technical Officer
1. I intend drawing up some sort of programme for armistice celebrations on the camp and I would like your views on the subject and any suggestions you have to offer. Although a few people may celebrate the armistice away from the camp the great majority of personnel will still be here so that all our arrangements should cater for the full complement of personnel, which is in the neighbourhood of 253 officers, 500 N.C.O.s and 1,382 other ranks.
2. As you can see from these numbers, any organised festivities are going to be difficult to arrange and will probably mean that two or three items will have to take place at the same time.
3. I have in mind the following proposals :-
(i) 100% church thanksgiving service, either open air or in the hangars
(ii) two all ranks dances at the same time
(iii) programme of sport
(iv) some sort of open air festival – outdoor dancing, if weather permits
(v) community singing
(vi) interchange of visits between the sergeants' and officers' in their respective messes
(vii) as many liberty coaches to Norwich as possible.
/4. would you
[page break]
[date stamp]
4. Would you please think about this scheme, and in the next two or three days I will call a small meeting at which we can draw up our final plan.
V Willis
Group Captain.
[underlined[ 21st March 1945 [/underlined] [underlined] R.A.F. Station. FOULSHAM. [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Loose minute from Group Captain C.V.D. Willis
Description
An account of the resource
Requesting views on possible armistice celebrations. Need to cater for 253 officers, 500 N.C.O. and 1382 other ranks. Makes a number of proposals including church service, all ranks dances, sport, open air festival, community singing, interchange visits between messes and liberty coaches to Norwich.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
C D V Willis
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-03-21
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page typewritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EWillisCVDDonaldsonDW450321
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-03-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
192 Squadron
462 Squadron
RAF Foulsham
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/976/16154/LManningR52870v1.1.pdf
247348241574f6d9c13acee159d9d84f
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
Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Log Book
Description
An account of the resource
The Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Log Book covering the period 15 June 1941 to the 16 August 1963. Manning qualified first as an Air Gunner on the 4 July 1941 and second as a flight engineer on the 1 September 1941. He was commissioned on the 4 July 1943 as a Pilot Officer and promoted to acting Flight Lieutenant in April 1944, and again to acting Squadron Leader in March 1946. He reverted to Flight Lieutenant in April 1947 but was made substantive Squadron Leader in April 1956 in the Engineering Branch. He retired 16 August 1963. There are very few entries relating to his time as a Gunner. Most entries are as Engineer.
He was stationed at RAF Stormy Down; RAF Middleton St George; RAF Linton-on-Ouse; RAF Leeming, RAF Aqir, RAF Fayid, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Snaith, RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Finingley, RAF Scampton, RAF Binbrook, RAF Henlow, RAF Seletar, RAF LLandow, RAF Swaton Morley, and RAF Medmenham. He flew in the following types manly as Engineer ; Arvo Tutor, Armstrong Whitworth Ensign, Handley Page Hannibal, Hawker Hart, Handley Page Heyford, Douglas DC 4 and 5, Handley Page Harrow, Handley Page Halifax, Miles Magister, Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Avro Lancaster, Fairey Battle, Airspeed Oxford, de Havilland Mosquito, Avro Lincoln, Handley Page Hastings, Gloster Meteor, Avro Anson, Vickers Valletta, Vickers Wellington, Percival Prentice, Bristol Britannia and Handley Page Victor. He flew with 10 Sqaudron, 462 Squadron, 51 Squadron, and 614 Squadron. He was awarded the DFC. Pilots he flew with were Richards, Sobinski, Lewin, Turnbull, Hacking, Godfrey, Trip, Peterson, Lloyd, Bell, O’Driscoll, Allen, Declerk, Gribben, Gibsons, Wyatt, Clarke, Snow, Hardy, Haydon, McDonald, Murray, Jones, Dennis, Fisher, Connolly, Cheshire, Woolnough, Cat, McIntosh, Pope, Alcock, Smythe, Williams, Freeman, McKnight, Gillchrist, Moore, Faulkner, Carr, Espie, Brown, Price, Wiltshire, Spence, Symmons, Kirk, King, Burgess, Wilson, Pugh, Johnson, Reynolds, Roberts, Ringer, Minnis, Lowe, Everett, Renshaw-Dibb, Mathers, Sullings, Flower, Jarvis, Chopping, Widmer, Yates, Day, Spires, Huggins, Watts, Haycock, Owens, Liversidge, George , Banfield, Hunt, Porter, Goodman, Ayres, Shannon, Laytham, Lord, Rhys and Blundy,
War time operations were to Sharnhorst and Gneisenau, Cologne, St Nazaire, Kiel, Paris, Aysen Fjord, Terpitz, Trondheim, Hamburg, Mannheim, Essen, Osnabruck, Tobruk, Heraklion, Maleme, Lens, Colline Beaumont, Bourg-Leopold, Trappes, Mont-Fleury, Abbeville, Nucourt, Le Harve, Boulogne. Post war destinations were to RAF Netheravon, RAF Hemswell, RAF Scampton, RAF Lindholm, RAF Marnham, RAF St Eval, RAF Aldergrove, RAF Wyton, RAF Stradishall, RAF Binbrook, RAF Bagington, RAF Waddington, RAF Topcliffe, RAF Upwood, Kai Tak, Changi, RAF Pembrey, RAF Llandow, RAF Filton, and RAF Bruggen.
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
Manning, Reg
Reginald Manning
R Manning
Description
An account of the resource
Six items, concerning Pilot Officer Reg Manning DFC (567647 Royal air Force) including his flying log book and photographs. He served as an air gunner and flight engineer with 10 Squadron, 462 Squadron, 51 Squadron, and 614 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Manning.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-28
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Manning, R
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
Reg Manning's observer's and air gunner's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
The Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Log Book covering the period 15 June 1941 to the 16 August 1963. Manning qualified first as an Air Gunner on the 4 July 1941 and second as a flight engineer on the 1 September 1941. He was commissioned on the 4 July 1943 as a Pilot Officer and promoted to acting Flight Lieutenant in April 1944, and again to acting Squadron Leader in March 1946. He reverted to Flight Lieutenant in April 1947 but was made substantive Squadron Leader in April 1956 in the Engineering Branch. He retired 16 August 1963. There are very few entries relating to his time as a Gunner. Most entries are as Engineer. He was stationed at RAF Stormy Down; RAF Middleton St George; RAF Linton-on-Ouse, RAF Leeming, RAF Aqir, RAF Fayid, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Snaith, RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Finningley, RAF Scampton, RAF Binbrook, RAF Henlow, RAF Seletar, RAF LLandow, RAF Swanton Morley, and RAF Medmenham. He flew in the following types manly as Engineer; Avro Tutor, Armstrong Whitworth Ensign, Handley Page Hannibal, Hawker Hart, Handley Page Heyford, Douglas DC 4 and 5, Handley Page Harrow, Handley Page Halifax, Miles Magister, Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Avro Lancaster, Fairey Battle, Airspeed Oxford, de Havilland Mosquito, Avro Lincoln, Handley Page Hastings, Gloster Meteor, Avro Anson, Vickers Valletta, Vickers Wellington, Percival Prentice, Bristol Britannia and Handley Page Victor. He flew with 10 Squadron, 462 Squadron, 51 Squadron, and 614 Squadron. He was awarded the DFC. His pilots on operations were Warrant Officer Peterson, Flight sergeant Whyte, Warrant Officer O'Driscoll, Sergeant Declerk, Flight Sergeant Clarke, Sergeant Gibbons, Sergeant Wyatt, Flight Lieutenant Freeman, Flight Sergeant McKnight, Pilot Officer Gillchrist, Flight Sergeant Moore, Warrant Officer Skinner, Warrant Officer Faulkner, Flying Officer Carr and Flight Sergeant Espie. War time operations were to Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Cologne, St Nazaire, Kiel, Paris, Aasen Fjord, Tirpitz, Trondheim, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Essen, Osnabruck, Tobruk, Heraklion, Maleme, Lens, Colline Beaumont, Bourg-Leopold, Trappes, Mont Fleury, Abbeville, Nucourt, Le Havre, Boulogne, Gibraltar, Kasfereet. Post war destinations were to RAF Netheravon, RAF Hemswell, RAF Scampton, RAF Lindholme, RAF Marnham, RAF St Eval, RAF Aldergrove, RAF Wyton, RAF Stradishall, RAF Binbrook, RAF Baginton, RAF Waddington, RAF Topcliffe, RAF Upwood, Kai Tak, Changi, RAF Pembrey, RAF Llandow, RAF Filton, and RAF Bruggen.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1942-02-12
1942-02-14
1942-02-15
1942-02-16
1942-02-22
1942-02-23
1942-02-26
1942-02-27
1942-03-03
1942-03-04
1942-03-30
1942-03-31
1942-04-27
1942-04-28
1942-04-29
1942-05-03
1942-05-04
1942-05-06
1942-05-07
1942-05-19
1942-05-20
1942-05-30
1942-05-31
1942-06-01
1942-06-02
1942-06-03
1942-06-04
1942-06-05
1942-06-19
1942-06-20
1942-06-22
1942-07-11
1942-07-12
1942-07-18
1942-07-19
1942-07-20
1942-07-21
1942-07-24
1942-07-25
1942-09-03
1942-09-15
1942-09-16
1942-09-17
1942-09-18
1942-09-29
1942-09-30
1942-10-05
1942-10-06
1942-10-12
1942-10-13
1942-10-18
1942-10-19
1942-10-23
1942-10-24
1942-10-27
1942-10-29
1942-11-05
1942-11-07
1942-11-23
1943-07-24
1943-07-26
1943-07-27
1943-07-29
1943-08-01
1944-05-10
1944-05-11
1944-05-12
1944-05-27
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-06
1944-06-11
1944-06-12
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-07-15
1944-07-17
1944-09-11
1944-09-17
1945-06-19
1944-06-05
1944-07-18
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Egypt
Middle East--Palestine
Singapore
China--Hong Kong
England--Yorkshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Rutland
England--Norfolk
England--Bedfordshire
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Suffolk
England--Warwickshire
Wales--Carmarthenshire
Belgium
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
Greece--Crete
Greece--Ērakleion
Libya
Libya--Tobruk
Norway
Norway--Trondheim
France
France--Saint-Nazaire
France--Paris
France--Lens
France--Colline-Beaumont
France--Soligny-la-Trappe
France--Abbeville
France--Nucourt
France--Le Havre
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Essen
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Stuttgart
Gibraltar
Norway--Aasen Fjord
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Northern Ireland
North Africa
France--Ver-Sur-Mer
Scotland--Shetland
China
Greece
Great Britain
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Durham (County)
Greece
Greece--Maleme
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LManningR52870v1
10 Squadron
1652 HCU
1668 HCU
462 Squadron
51 Squadron
614 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
air sea rescue
aircrew
Anson
Battle
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Cook’s tour
Distinguished Flying Cross
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Halifax
Harrow
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lincoln
Magister
Me 110
Meteor
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oxford
promotion
RAF Aqir
RAF Binbrook
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Filton
RAF Finningley
RAF Hemswell
RAF Henlow
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Honington
RAF Kasfereet
RAF Leeming
RAF Lindholme
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Marham
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Medmenham
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Pembrey
RAF Scampton
RAF Snaith
RAF St Eval
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Stradishall
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Upwood
RAF Waddington
RAF Wyton
Scharnhorst
tactical support for Normandy troops
Tirpitz
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/760/19775/SCulkinJ19241214v10004-0001.1.jpg
8a7239eb670091ab67bcd3738bc473fd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/760/19775/SCulkinJ19241214v10004-0002.1.jpg
e775553b7542fdce1ecb7b8e4052c0c0
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
Culkin, Jean
J Culkin
Description
An account of the resource
10 items. An oral history interview with Jean Culkin, née Dodds (b.1924), photographs and documents. The collection also contains an album of photographs and newspaper cuttings. Jean Culkin grew up in Sunderland and worked in a reserved occupation. Her husband, John George Mackel Culkin, served as ground crew.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jean Culkin and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-13
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
Culkin, J
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Ministry of Defence crest]
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
RAF Personnel Management Centre
Innsworth Gloucester GL3 1EZ
Telephone Churchdown 712612 (STD 0452) ext
Your reference
Our Reference
DPM(Airmen)/B0574910/P Man 3e
Date
18 Sep 80
[underlined] TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN [/underlined]
[underlined] CERTIFIED TRUE STATEMENT OF SERVICE POSTINGS
EX WARRANT OFFICER J G M CULKIN (B0574910) [/underlined]
[header] [underlined] Service Postings – Effective Dates [/underlined] [/header]
Enlisted Aircraft Apprentice at RAF Halton: - 6 Sep 38
1(A) Wing Cosford – 14 Sep 38
3 Wing Halton – No Date Recorded
4 Group Flt – 29 Jun 40
35 Squadron – 3 Dec 40
76 Squadron – 11 Jul 41
Middle East (205 Group) – 13 Jul 42
462 Squadron – 12 Aug 42
148 Squadron – 31 Aug 43
NAAF 148 Squadron – 25 Jan 44
Gianaclis – 15 Jan 46
Home Establishment – 24 Feb 46
5 School of Technical Training – 8 Mar 46
RAF Debden – 2 Jan 50
Div Tech College Debden – 1 Mar 51
1 Recruiting Unit RAF Padgate – 25 Mar 52
Cardington (Attachment) – 15 Jun 53
1 Recruiting Unit RAF Padgate – No Date Recorded
2 Recruiting Unit – 15 Jun 53
1 Recruiting Unit RAF Padgate – No Date Recorded
5 Personnel Dispersal Centre – 15 Jul 53
MEAF – 19 Jul 53
El Hamra – 20 Jul 53
Aden Communication Squadron – 23 Jul 53
United Kingdom – 18 Nov 53
1 Personnel Holding Unit N/E – 4 Dec 53
Odiham – 19 Jan 54
Avon Eng School Littleover (Attachment) – 28 Jun 54
Odiham – 10 Jul 54
Leuchars (Attachment) – No Date Recorded
Odiham – 13 Nov 54
Nicosia (Attachment) – 1 Oct 57
Odiham – 12 Jan 58
RAF Germany – 8 Apr 59
Detmold Sundern – 9 Apr 59
Gutersloh – 28 Mar 61
[page break]
Leconfield – 31 May 61
202 Squadron – 29 Aug 64
225 Squadron (FEAF) – 7 Sep 64
Scampton – 12 Sep 65
Kai Tak – 24 Jun 69
Leeming – 20 Dec 71
Gutersloh – 2 Aug 74
Waddington – 30 May 77
Discharged from Waddington – 14 May 78
[signature]
D M MANSFIELD
for Director Personnel
Management (Airmen)
(Royal Air Force)
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jack's postings
Description
An account of the resource
Official document from RAF listing all Jacks postings throughout his service.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
M.O.D. P.M.C.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1980-09-18
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typewritten sheet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Correspondence
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SCulkinJ19241214v10004-0001, SCulkinJ19241214v10004-0002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
148 Squadron
35 Squadron
462 Squadron
76 Squadron
RAF Debden
RAF Halton
RAF Leconfield
RAF Leeming
RAF Padgate
RAF Scampton
RAF Waddington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1321/20095/PLatimerJF1903.1.jpg
5c4fa4c3f15f857cd59311650ec10fee
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1321/20095/ALatimerJF190928.1.mp3
00322638009f1409521f729c53768fda
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
Latimer, James Ferguson
J F Latimer
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Jim Latimer (1923 - 2020, 1551478 Royal Air Force) his log book, and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 102 and 462 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-09-28
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Latimer, JF
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: Here we go. Right.
GBD: Ok, Jim.
JL: Yeah.
BW: This Is Brian Wright interviewing Warrant Officer Jim Latimer.
JL: Jim’s Ferguson Latimer.
BW: Jim Ferguson Latimer.
JL: Thank you.
BW: On Saturday 28th September 2019 at approximately 4.45 at his home in Salford.
GBD: Prestwich, Manchester.
BW: Prestwich.
GBD: Yeah.
BW: Manchester. Also with me are his friend Gary Bridson-Daley, and World War Two author, and Jim’s wife Joan. And Gary, you wanted to introduce, introduce Jim as well.
GBD: Yeah. Just for a little minute. I’m very privileged to know Jim Latimer and Jean Latimer and they are from the same church as myself. They’re the longest parishioners there. Over seventy years they’ve been there which is quite astounding. I’m Gary Bridson-Daley author of, “A Debt of Gratitude to the Last Heroes.” And as part of my Debt of Gratitude Project going throughout the UK interviewing some of the last World War Two veterans I’ve been blessed to have interviewed over one hundred veterans from all services and backgrounds now of which Jim is one of them and is in that first book.
JFL: A fair amount isn’t it?
GBD: It’s not bad is it, Jim. Eh? Yeah.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: It’s great.
JFL: You’ve interviewed a lot of guys.
GBD: And ladies too. Yes.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: And it’s been an absolute honour and privilege to do so. It’s also a great thing to be able to help the IBCC with, with introducing veterans such as I have done today and Jim now, to help with their fantastic work. And anything we can always do to help people that are doing things for our veterans and to capture these precious stories for posterity and for the future and for the country and generations yet to come is a great thing, and I’m very honoured to be a part of it in my project and in helping others with theirs. So I’m going to hand over to Jim Latimer who was Halifax bombers, forty six missions. Bomb aimer. And now handing over for the interview to be done with Brian. And I just wanted to have a little, little part of that. Just —
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: Because it’s so special and they’re such good friends. That’s it. Well, thank you. Brian, over to you. Jim, enjoy the interview.
JFL: Yeah. Ok, Brian.
BW: Ok, Jim. Just to start off for us could you give us your full name, date of birth and service number please?
JFL: Yeah. It’s James Ferguson Latimer. What’s the next one?
BW: Date of birth.
JFL: Oh yeah. 21 12 ’23.
BW: And do you recall your service number at all?
JFL: Yeah. 1551478.
BW: Great. Thank you. And where were you born Jim?
JFL: I was actually born in Scotland.
JL: Edinburgh.
BW: And how many people were in your family? I mean obviously mum and dad?
JFL: Yeah.
BW: But any brothers and sisters?
JFL: There was two brothers. One came, another brother came later but one.
JL: Who are you talking about?
JFL: We emigrated. Well, I was only a tot of four or five years old and my parents emigrated to Toronto in Canada. Ontario. My dad had a good job over there.
BW: What did he do?
JFL: He worked on tall buildings. I don’t know what, exactly what was, I don’t know what his trade or profession was or anything like that.
JL: Sheet metal.
JFL: It was what?
JL: Sheet metal worker.
JFL: Yeah. That’s what he was originally. Sheet metal worker but there was a lot of building. Skyscrapers going up in Toronto at the time which was way back in the 20s. And he had a good job out there. That was the reason for emigration. There wasn’t much in Scotland where they originally came from. So they wanted to emigrate which is what they did.
BW: So there was you and two brothers.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Any sisters? Or did they come later?
JFL: No sisters. No.
BW: And where did you go to school out there?
JFL: In the York township which is just north of Toronto.
BW: And when did you leave school? It was common in the UK for people to leave school at fourteen but what happened with you?
JFL: I think I was fifteen when I left High School and when the [pause] when the war started, or it was just before the war started it was obvious there was going to be a war with, with what was going on with Hitler and our Prime Minister here. My parents decided to come back to, well they came back to England. So the war had just started I think when we came back to Great Britain.
BW: And did you look for work or were you working at that, at that time when you came back? Or did you continue in education or anything?
JFL: I was still at, still going to school then at that time. I can’t remember how old I was.
BW: Do you recall whereabout you moved to?
JFL: I was —
BW: Did you, did you come to the north west of the UK at all or were you elsewhere in the country? Where did your dad and the family settle?
JFL: Came from Edinburgh because my parents originally came from Edinburgh, and then went over to Canada and my dad had a job at Toronto. I was at school. My brothers were at school, and I was, I went to High School. I did five years in high school which is like, I don’t know the equivalent in England. Grammar School. Something like that. And then the war, the war with Hitler you can, it was on the cards there was going to be a war. So for some reason or other, I don’t know why, my parents wanted to come back to Scotland and I wasn’t, I wasn’t very old then, and I had to had two brothers at the time. And the war started and we came back with the war being on. German subs were having a ball out there. Torpedoed a lot, an awful lot of merchant, merchant ships. I always remember I was only, I can’t remember, nine or ten on the ship on my way back to the British Isles, and I went up on the deck with my brother just looking at the Atlantic Ocean if you like and this, this ship passed on its way to either the States or Canada and they only got as far as the horizon. We were stood watching it. It was torpedoed. It just blew up. So all the poor guys on it they never had a chance. A U-boat obviously torpedoed it. And then —
BW: Was it a civilian ship?
JFL: I don’t really know at the time. It was, it could have been a passenger ship that passed us but it might just have been a merchant ship. Difficult to know. But it just got to the sky line. The next thing the sun, the sun had gone down and it just lit up the sky with being torpedoed. Poor guys.
BW: And from living in Edinburgh what prompted you to join the RAF? Were you minded to join any other service or was it specifically the RAF you wanted?
JFL: I’m just trying to think now. Yeah. I joined, I joined the Air Force here in Manchester. I was at Heaton Park. That’s where [pause] young guys from all over the world came to Heaton Park. If they were in bomber, if they were going to be in Bomber Command, you know. They came from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand. They all came to Heaton Park. So I was at Heaton Park there for a while waiting to be sent out to whatever flying base was available. And —
BW: And was that for your basic training?
JFL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did quite a bit of basic training.
BW: And when did you move to your sort of trade training to become a bomb aimer?
JFL: A bit vague. A bit vague on it. I was aircrew for a start so I don’t know why or, why or how I became an air bomber but that’s what I did.
BW: I believe you trained initially on Wellington bombers.
JFL: Yeah. Originally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We went even, the Germans had occupied France so we were, we flew. Started off with Wellingtons. We used to fly over France. And when we were bombing armament factories in France because the Germans had taken over. That’s how I started with flying. And then later on went on to Halifaxes. Big planes. And —
BW: What do you recall of the Wellingtons? What were they, what were they like?
JFL: Well, they were alright. Two engines. They were a bit, eventually a bit obsolete. It was all four engines. So that’s where, where we got to. So the, it was four engined going over Germany.
BW: And your first mission. Your first operation was as you say over occupied France but —
JFL: Yeah.
BW: I wanted to ask a bit about your time while you were at the base in Yorkshire. At Pocklington.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Because you joined 102 Squadron.
JFL: That’s right. Yeah.
BW: Now, there’s, you said you were starting on Halifaxes at this time.
JFL: That’s right yeah because of the —
BW: Can you recall the names of the other members of the crew? The pilot and —
JFL: I can’t remember them now offhand.
BW: Your pilot was Flight Sergeant Mitchell.
JFL: Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. But the, the two gunners. The two gunners I can’t remember. One was Scottish. The other guy was, I think he was from South Africa. A lot of them came over from different parts of the world to join up.
BW: If I read some of the names of the crew would you recognise or know anything about them? William McCorkindale.
JFL: Yeah. He was the engineer I think. Little Scottish guy.
BW: And RW Scott.
JFL: I’m sorry?
BW: RW Scott. Flight Sergeant Scott.
JFL: No. I can’t.
BW: No.
JFL: Oh, Scott. I vaguely remember him but I’m not sure. No.
BW: Mitchell was your pilot.
JFL: That’s right. Yeah.
BW: Maguire.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Who, where was Maguire in the aircraft?
JFL: Sorry?
BW: Where was Maguire in the aircraft?
JFL: I think he was the rear gunner I think.
BW: And Flight Sergeant Thornton?
JFL: What was that again?
BW: Flight Sergeant Thornton. AF Thornton.
JFL: I’m not quite sure now.
BW: And the other was Kellard. Sergeant Kellard.
JFL: Yeah. I can’t remember the names now.
BW: Ok. Do you recall how you met each other? Normally you’d be left alone to sort of crew up they called it. Do you remember how you met your other crewmates?
JFL: I’m a bit vague on it. [pause] We were stationed at Heaton Park. That’s where, from the British Empire they all, they all came to Heaton Park from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand. This is where they ended up. And from, from there then they were sent to different airfields eventually. And the airfield I was sent to was, I can’t remember the name of it now. It was in the Midlands. England. And we were on Wellingtons. The two engine Wellingtons. And we did quite a few ops there. Mainly over France. Germany had occupied France then and there was a lot of munitions workers in the south east of France and that, that was our target. So that’s what I was on to start off with. And then from there we graduated to [pause] that was, those were Wellingtons. Yeah. Then I was on Halifaxes then. Four engine bomber.
BW: What were they like to fly in as crew? How did you find it? Was it, was it pretty cramped?
JFL: Cramped? No. No. No, there was plenty of room. It was alright. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: I’m going to show you a couple of pictures. One is of a Halifax, and the other is of crew positions inside.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: And just see if these prompt any recollections for you.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: The one you’ve got in your left hand of the crew position. That’s the flight engineer.
JFL: Oh.
BW: And then underneath that will be the bomb aimer’s position in the front of the aircraft.
JFL: Yeah. Which is —
BW: Does that —
JFL: Which is the front? I can’t make it out [pause] Well, when we, when we got to within a mile of the target I had to go down to the nose of the aircraft, lie down flat and the bombsight had a few figures in it. We had to adjust the bomb sight and then when we got within a mile going near into the city we had to fly straight and level and it would probably sorry [noise] very slow. The speed, the speed was slowed right down in order to get to the target to make sure the bombs were in the right position. So when we got to within so many, a mile perhaps from the target the bomb, the bomb aimer or the air bomber he was called, the bomb aimer he took over. Guiding. He was guiding the plane then so he was telling the pilot, ‘Left. Left. Right. Right.’ whatever, to get, get the bomb, the bombsight so that it was directly in front of the target. And then when you got the bombsight steady at all you could visualise it. You could see that from the nose of the plane and once you got just before, just before the target you dropped your bombs. So as they were going down they were going that way as well and they hit the target hopefully. And then I always said, ‘Bombs gone. Let’s go.’ The pilot turned around and off we went back.
BW: You had to keep the aircraft straight and level.
JFL: Oh, very straight. Yeah. For a mile or so.
BW: Yeah. After you’d dropped the bombs.
JFL: Going on to the target. Yeah. Yeah. A Lot of anti-aircraft coming up as well. An awful lot. We were peppered with anti-aircraft. And I saw two or three of our own bombers, Fokke Wolf 190s, you know the German fighter planes, they were swarming around and I saw, I always remember two or three of our bombers were shot down. I saw them going down, and in one of them I think, a guy, a guy I was very friendly with and I saw him going down to be killed. Crashed. I always remember that. I knew it was. I could see which plane it was. It was a Halifax and he was in it. That was the end of him.
BW: Did you see any parachutes at all?
JFL: Oh yeah. The odd one or two. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: That particular raid would have been detailed. That particular raid was to Braunschweig and that was in August.
JFL: Where was it?
BW: Braunschweig [pause] It was in August 1944.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: And it was a night raid.
JFL: Yeah. Well, most, most of them were night raids. Yeah. Of course —
BW: The, there were two sergeants in the aircraft you described who were killed. One whose name was Craig and the other Curphey. Do you know which of those two might have been your mate?
JFL: I’m not sure now. Very vague about it.
BW: Ok. I’m going to show you a diagram of the bomb aimer’s position in a Halifax. Does that bring back any memories?
[pause]
BW: It shows the position that you would have been in in the aircraft.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: You say laid down and looking out the Perspex nose.
JFL: Is the Perspex still here?
BW: Yes.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: And your control panel was on the left.
JFL: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. So you used to lie down there actually ‘til a mile or so from the target. The air bomber more or less took over the plane. Guiding, guiding the pilot with, ‘Left. Left. Right. Left.’ Whatever. To make sure he was right on the target.
BW: Did you ever feel particularly vulnerable in that sort of position because you’re laid down, head practically out of the aircraft apart from the Perspex canopy in front? How, how did it feel to be in that position over a target?
JFL: Yeah. It did. Actually, it never, it never bothered me. I don’t know why. Used to be, you were busy guiding. Guiding the plane in to make sure you’re getting it right. ‘Left. Right.’ You just tell, tell the pilot move over to the left a bit or move over to the right a bit until you’re right over the target. And then just before you hit the target it’s bombs away, and you used to follow them right down. And nine times out of ten they hit the target. Mostly coastal targets. There was a lot of coastal targets. And then eventually it became routine.
BW: Did you ever have to tell the pilot to go around again to make a second run? Perhaps because there was smoke over the target or obscuring it. Did you have to make a second run at all?
JFL: No. I don’t think I ever had to do that. No. No. No. By then there was a lot of German fighters trying to get at us. They were all hovering all around. They did get quite a few but some of us were lucky.
BW: And could you see [pause] could you see the fighters around you? Could you make them out?
JFL: The German fighters?
BW: Yeah.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Or were you just able to see the gunfire?
JFL: No, I could see. Could see the fighters.
BW: And —
JFL: And once we’d dropped the bombs it was a case of turn around, put the nose down and get away. Get as much speed as you could to get away. Then we had, the rear gunner was very good. The mid-upper gunner was also very good. And you could see the German fighters trying to get a bead on us but our own, our own bombers, the machine gunners they kept them, kept the German planes off as much as they could. I did see one or two of our own boys going down. One, one bomber plane that went down, one of the guys in it was a friend. A good friend of mine. And I could see him, I couldn’t see him but he was in it and that was the end of him.
BW: Could you see the searchlights at all? Were you, were you ever actually what they called coned in searchlights? Were you picked out at all and locked on?
JFL: Yeah, you could. There were, there were plenty of searchlights from the Germans. They had encampments with machine guns and bomber guns and anti-aircraft guns and they were usually lit up. They didn’t do a lot of damage but they sent up enough to catch, used to be a lot of holes in the plane. Fortunately, didn’t get to the right place for them.
BW: And the searchlights were coloured differently. Did you see any blue searchlights at all?
JFL: Any — ?
BW: Blue searchlights.
JFL: Blue?
BW: Yeah.
JFL: I can’t remember to tell you the truth. I remember lots of searchlights but I don’t know about blue searchlights.
BW: The gunners would occasionally if they saw a light coming towards them or a fighter coming towards them would instruct the pilot to take evasive action or corkscrew. Did that ever happen with you?
JFL: I’ve no recollection of that. No. Not really.
BW: So you were quite lucky that you never got properly bounced by fighters.
JFL: Yeah. I could see fighters. Not, most, most of the, it was mostly night flying. We did go on to daylight flying again when the invasion took place with the Yanks invading the French coast to get the, to make a start on getting the Germans out. And we did a lot of, we used to go low flying over the, over the Channel but then zoom up and bomb the German army. It was all daylight because the Yanks, the Yanks and the Canadians and the British were all on their way over the English Channel to get rid of the Germans. They suffered. They suffered a lot of damage then too. Our job was to bomb the German guns. The big guns up on the cliffs which is what we did.
BW: And when you were low flying over France on the way in to the target during the daylight. Do you recall much of what you could see? Whether there were any vehicles or movements on the ground or anything like that?
JFL: On the Channel?
BW: On the French mainland.
JFL: Oh, the French coast.
BW: On the French mainland when you approached the target what kind of things could you see?
JFL: Well, the Germans were, they were retreating. You could see that, and you could see the, the Yanks and the Canadians coming over on small, small boats to attack the Germans on, on the beaches. We could see all that. Then of course we had to, we got so far we used to climb right up because they had a lot of big heavy guns at the top of the hills and they were causing damage so we went up quite high. Came down to bomb them to knock their guns out. And that’s how it was.
BW: You were also as a air bomber or bomb aimer as they called them.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: To and from the target you’d also be manning the front guns wouldn’t you?
JFL: I’m sorry?
BW: You would also be manning the front gun wouldn’t you? The nose gun.
JFL: Yeah. I could. Yeah, they did that too. Yeah. Used to use that. Yeah.
BW: And did you ever have cause to use it on the way in? Keep a fighter away or anything like that?
JFL: Not, not so much because we had a mid-upper gunner and a rear gunner of course so they did most of the shooting against the enemy.
BW: So most of your ops were over occupied France, and there were a number into Germany.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Would you say there was a noticeable difference between your targets in France and those in Germany?
[pause]
JFL: Well, the ones in France they were very, very military but when we went, when we flew to Germany there was a different sections of cities we had to bomb. A lot along the North Sea and mainly military targets. But that’s how it was.
BW: And were they quite long missions for you?
JFL: The night missions were very long. They were very long. And of course then it all changed when the Yanks came over. We did all daylight missions. And we, as the Germans were retreating we were flying during the day, bombing the Germans as, as they tried to get back to their own country. And there was pockets of British soldiers and Yankee soldiers that, they got cut off by the Germans. They were in big trouble and we were, had to go out to help them. I remember that. So —
BW: And were you bombing enemy troops?
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Fairly close to where the Allied lines were or —
JFL: That’s right. Yeah. Not far off. Yeah.
BW: And did, were you able to see the bombs land accurately?
JFL: Oh yes. We were quite low. Yeah.
BW: What sort of height would you think you were at?
JFL: Oh dear [pause] A thousand feet [pause] Over. Quite, quite low we were because we were. Yeah.
BW: And were there a lot of aircraft on those sorts of raids or was it just like a small number of aircraft from the squadron?
JFL: Yeah. There wasn’t a lot of raids. Not a lot of raids flying in it but as the Germans retreated we kept going in and, to try and stop them from getting back to their own Maginot, not the Maginot, that’s a French line, getting back to their own line. So we had to keep intercepting them and they had heavy guns all the way around everywhere they were and they did a bit of damage with those. But we got rid of a lot of the guns that the Germans were using, because the Yanks and the British Army and Canadian Army they were all coming in now to fight their way to the Maginot Line. And we helped out on that.
BW: So, on those sorts of raids I believe you flew on a couple of times in larger raids with Americans. A combined sort of RAF and American type raid. Did you see any difference in the way the Americans flew?
JFL: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Sitting ducks. That’s how you can describe them. Sitting ducks. They flew in a straight line and they didn’t, they didn’t do any manoeuvring. Just kept flying straight. And the German fighters they had a, took a lot of, took a lot of the Americans down with the [pause] We flew individually. We didn’t fly as a squadron. We flew in between different heights. But the Americans came in perfect they were but they never, never altered their position and the German fighters really tore in to them. An awful lot of Yanks shot down.
BW: So the looser formation that the RAF used allowed them greater manoeuvrability if you were attacked, whereas the Americans —
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Didn’t do that.
JFL: They didn’t have that. Yeah. Of course when we flew at night we didn’t fly as, we flew individually in the dark. The British Air Force. The Americans when they, when they started night flying they flew as a squadron and they were easy targets for the German fighters.
BW: And when you got back to base what kind of things happened then? What sort of things would happen on the way back from the targets and then landing?
JFL: Well, you got, you’ve still got the German fighters chasing you, trying to get a bead on to you. I remember the very first op we were on. We were up and down all the way back so this particular German fighter he chased us all the way back to the Channel, the English Channel. And we had to manoeuvre up and down just to keep him, so that he couldn’t get a sight on us and as we got within half a mile of the Channel he gave up on it and turned around and went back to Germany, thank goodness. But —
BW: So you were chased all the way home.
JFL: Yeah. I was. Yeah. Yeah. We were quite, this was what we were doing all the way back so he couldn’t get a sight on us.
BW: And when you eventually did land what kind of things would happen then?
JFL: When we landed, when we got out the plane and came over to, the CO was there and there would be, we were interviewed for, they wanted to know what happened and the medical officer was on site in case anybody was, anybody was hurt. And the —
BW: And what were the debriefings like? Did they give you a good interrogation about what you’d seen?
JFL: Yeah. A debriefing. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. They wanted to know various things. How it went and what happened. And the man with a collar. He was always there for, we had to, we had to have a prayer for safe landing. He gave us a prayer. We were very, very lucky I think. Very lucky.
BW: When you got back to your billets were you accommodated as crews altogether, or were you kept as say bomb aimers in one hut and flight engineers in another hut or did you all stay together as a crew?
JFL: We were more or less as a crew. Yeah. Yeah. Well, most, most of the, most of the flights up until the invasion when the Yanks came it was all night flying and we used to get back about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. And by then of course we were very tired. So after being interviewed by [pause] whoever we went to bed.
BW: Did you ever get a chance to socialise much as a crew? Were there events on at the base and dances and things?
JFL: Yeah. There was the odd one or two dances. Yeah. But unfortunately I had two left feet. At the time. My wife was a very good dancer so eventually when I became a civilian I picked up on the dancing and I did alright but during the war we used to, there was always dances going on and we used to go and mainly just stood there looking at them and watching it. That’s all.
BW: And you flew a few raids with 102 Squadron, and then you were transferred to 462 Squadron.
JFL: Yeah. That sounds about, yeah 462.
BW: And there was one of those where, one of those sorties or ops where you came back and the aircraft went off the runway.
JFL: Yes. It left. It left the runway [laughs]
BW: Was this on, was this on landing?
JFL: The brakes. I think the brakes must have gone. The brakes went on it so we left the runway at, we were doing almost a hundred miles an hour when we left the runway and we went over quite a few fields bumpety bumpety bumpety. And eventually when the pilot, he was, he’d given up. It was too much for him. So I was sat beside him. I just kept the plane straight and then —
BW: So the pilot bottled it and you took over the controls.
JFL: Yeah. Well, just I was steering it. Yeah. Yeah. And then when we got to, over two or three fields I turned the plane around and it stopped dead because we didn’t know what was going to happen otherwise because it was still moving at a good pace. Anyway, I pulled the wheel around and it stopped. And that was it. And then the fire, the fire people came over to make sure the plane wasn’t on fire.
BW: I mean if it’s gone over two or three fields.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Off the end of the runway. That’s some fair distance.
JFL: Yeah. It was a fair distance. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Did you still have any bombs on board or anything like that?
JFL: No. We had, I don’t think we had anything on board. I think we got rid of everything. Yeah.
BW: Because there was an instance in your logbook where you noted that you were loaded with the bombs on board. Landed with the bomb load. But obviously not on that occasion.
JFL: Yeah. I’m trying to remember. I know [pause] One. We were over Germany but we’d bombed the target, but one of the bombs was, was hung up. It hadn’t dropped and it was on the plane with us and of course you daren’t land with it. It would have blown us all up. So Joe, I climbed, I climbed down and got outside the plane, turned the trap door and I was outside. I managed to release the bomb and it went down and it landed. I could see where it landed. I was outside the plane and I could see where the bomb landed. Right in a German village. That wasn’t very nice. We couldn’t have landed with the bomb because it would have exploded, exploded on landing. We had to get rid of it. And the engineer, our engineer he wouldn’t go and do it. He should have done it really. It was his job. But he wasn’t going outside the plane to do it. I was at a high field so I never gave it a thought. I said, ‘I’ll go down.’ I went down, got through the trap door, I was outside and —
BW: This was in the bomb bay though wasn’t it with the bomb bay open?
JFL: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Yeah.
JFL: Yeah. I managed to release the bomb. I can’t remember the details now and I followed it down and it, there was like a German village. It must have blown an awful lot of houses up. It was quite a big bomb. So I climbed back up again.
BW: And that’s, that must have been, I’m assuming that, that was after the target and this particular bomb had not released. So you’re still over Germany heading on the way home.
JFL: That’s right.
BW: That’s when you had to go down into the bomb bay.
JFL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: To sort this out.
JFL: Yeah. There was just this one bomb. I can’t remember how we knew. But we all knew we had to get rid of it. We couldn’t, we couldn’t land.
BW: And from moving from 462 Squadron you then went up to Leuchars in Scotland.
JFL: That’s right. Yeah.
BW: To join [pause] the Air Sea Rescue Unit there. Is that right?
JFL: That’s right. Just for a short period. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: And what do you, what do you recall of that? That period.
JFL: Not a lot really because it was very peaceful.
BW: It would be quite a change from where you had been before.
JFL: We went, there was two or three of us. We went out with the Air Sea Rescue Teams, and we were flying around, not flying, moving around the North Sea. And we didn’t have any incidents that I can recall.
BW: So how did you then come to leave the RAF?
JFL: Leave?
BW: Yeah. You left in 1946.
JFL: Yeah. That’s right.
BW: Were you just demobbed or were you offered the chance to stay in?
JFL: I think we may have been but there was also demobbing, so I think I’d had enough for four or five years. I can’t remember how. So I was very fortunate.
BW: So when, do you recall how you met Jean? Your wife. Was that during the war or was it after?
JFL: No. It was during the war. All aircrew from all over the world — Australia, everywhere, south, South Africa. They all came to Heaton, Heaton Park. Aircrew. Potential aircrew. And that’s where of course I was. Heaton Park. And this friend I had made, he was, he was just walking down to what they called Sedgley Park. That’s not far from here. He was billeted in this particular house. They’d taken over a lot of houses and they had to let [pause] let them, give them up, they had to give them a bedroom. They’d no choice. The house keeper. I just said I’d walk, walk down with him for a walk and the, when we got to the house which wasn’t, not that far, there’s the daughter of the person from the house she came out. She was speaking. She had already met him because he was, he was billeted in their house. And the next thing I know this other girl came along and she was a friend of this first girl. And it was Jean. Do you remember Jean?
BW: And so —
JFL: She doesn’t remember.
BW: You married I believe in, I believe you married in 1948.
JFL: I think so. Yeah.
BW: And what, what other occupations did you have after, after the war?
JFL: Well, I wasn’t, I wasn’t trained for anything. I bought the, there was a [pause] it was a shop and it sold magazines, books, cigarettes, that type of shop it was.
JL: Yeah. Like [unclear]
JFL: Sorry
JL: Do you remember?
JFL: What?
JL: The newspaper. The wholesaler.
JFL: Jean. Jean’s father, who was a business man he, he bought the good will of the shop for me. Which was very very nice. He was a [pause] he had a biscuit factory.
BW: And he had a biscuit factory in —
JFL: He did. Yeah. In Manchester.
BW: Yeah.
JFL: He was a very clever guy. Yeah. He built all his own machinery for making biscuits. He did. He did it all. And he did, he was quite wealthy. And he got me started on the retail shop and I had that type of business ever since.
BW: And how long were you in the retail trade for?
JFL: I’ve got a, it must have been, I was in my seventies when I gave it up. I never had a trade.
BW: And now that we’re looking at commemorations for aircrew of Bomber Command how do you think that’s been. Is it something you welcome?
JFL: What was that?
BW: Now that we’re having the commemorations for Bomber Command and such like and there are now Memorials and such like being built to them how do you, how do you feel about that?
JFL: Yeah. I think I quite like that. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: I suppose it’s about time really isn’t it?
JFL: Sorry?
BW: I suppose it’s about time.
JFL: It’s —?
BW: It’s about time.
JFL: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s my logbook over there is it?
BW: Yeah.
JFL: Yeah. I thought I’d brought it in for you.
BW: Well, what I’ll do is I’ll end the interview there and I’ll look to photograph your logbook as well.
JFL: Right.
BW: But I just want to say that, you know on behalf of the Bomber Command Centre to thank you very much for your time and for your recollections. It’s been great to interview you.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: And very helpful for the Centre so thank you.
JFL: Oh, you’re welcome. Yeah.
[recording paused]
JFL: Ontario. About fifty miles from Toronto. That’s right. I come from Toronto.
GBD: Ok. Yeah.
JFL: And that’s where we did the flying.
JL: You went to Jasper Park.
JFL: Sorry?
JL: That’s where you trained. That’s where you trained [unclear] carry on.
GBD: You trained at Jasper Park.
JFL: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
GBD: You won a special award for accurate bomb aiming. You were given an award for accurate bomb aiming.
JFL: Yeah. I got something for bombing. Yeah. I tried, I tried to go solo to be a pilot but yeah, they were very fussy about it.
BW: So you originally wanted to be a pilot.
JFL: Yeah. That’s what I asked for. So what I’d be, while I was being trained I didn’t quite make the grade for being a pilot. I went solo once. That was very brave of me [laughs] going solo. I managed to land a Tiger Moth.
GBD: Right. That’s good.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: Which places do you remember on your bombing missions over Europe by name? Which, off the top of your head which bases can you remember flying to on operations?
JFL: Oh. The German city on the [pause] it’s, it was a coastal town.
BW: Kiel.
JFL: Kiel. You got it in one. Yeah. I think so. Did a lot of bombs there. A lot of bombing.
GBD: And I remember you told me as well that you were bombing in the Villers-Bocage in France.
JFL: Pardon?
GBD: The Villers-Bocage in France.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: When the, when the allied troops were pinned down by the Germans in the battle of the hedgerows around there.
JFL: Oh yeah. That’s right.
GBD: You guys were sent to bomb Villers-Bocage as well.
JFL: Yeah. Yeah. Then we had to stop the, when the German army was in retreat, when the allies, the Yanks and the Canadians invaded across the Channel they eventually pushed the Germans back so it was our job to stop them. Stop the German army from getting to the bridge before they could all go over. Then they would have blown the bridge up and we couldn’t have got at them so we had to stop them doing that. Which we did do.
GBD: Because you were active around Falaise as well I think I remember you saying. Around Falaise Gap as the German armies are trying to escape out there.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: You hit them very heavily there as well.
JFL: Yeah. A bit vague.
BW: Can you remember any other places at all where you saw action? Anywhere by name that might be of interest to anyone listening.
JFL: Well, I did a lot of night bombing of course. That’s what I did that for two or three years. Night bombing.
JL: Do you know, Guy —
GBD: Hmmn?
JL: We ended up with five shops.
BW: I’m going to show you this picture of a bomb aimer. Does that look like the sort of position and place in the aircraft you’d be? Does anything about that jog your memory?
JFL: Is it, is it the nose of the aircraft and he’s lying down?
GBD: Do you want to borrow these?
JFL: No [laughs] it’s alright.
GBD: Are you sure?
JFL: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: You’ve got your instrument panel, your control panel to one side, and the bomb release button in the other.
JFL: Yeah. Well, the release button was there. When we got, when I got in the nose of the plane and it was all set up. It was quite sophisticated as well. Very accurate. I remember something about this. I’m not sure what it was now.
GBD: Does that look like the position you were in though when you were — does that look similar to the position you were in?
JFL: Yeah. It was lying flat.
GBD: Right.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Because it was said that the bombing was often inaccurate. But from your recollections and what you’re saying is that the equipment you had and from what you could see the bombing was accurate.
JFL: Oh, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Because just had to, well once you got down you got down a mile or so from the target. You got on to your stomach and you were lying flat and you were just telling, telling the pilot to go, ‘Left. Right.’ Whatever. Port. Starboard. Steady. And you’d just got to go steady until you got the what do you call it?
BW: The cross hairs?
JFL: They bombsight. Yeah. God. It was the very latest one and it was very accurate and you were looking through the bombsight and telling the pilot to do what he has to do. Left. Right. Whatever. And then when you get to the target the right position you pressed the button, the bombs go down and theoretically you should hit the target straight on which most of them did. But —
BW: Did you get any feedback or instructions say from a Master Bomber who might have been a Pathfinder aircraft or were they instructing you to bomb say on flares?
JFL: Daylight flying there was a Pathfinder. There was a, one in charge and you followed him but we didn’t do that. That’s what the Yanks did. Most of my bombing was night bombing and it was individual. The planes were all individuals. We were going to the same target but there was no formation or anything. But then we did some, went on to daylight flying with the, as it got well into the war we used to fly, fly with the Yanks. They —
[pause]
GBD: Did you not use any Pathfinders for your night time bombing? Was there not any kind of help from them on certain targets?
JFL: Yeah. There was, the Pathfinders. They went in first. They dropped their bombs which lit up the target and as you got close to it you could see the target then because there was a lot of fire going on. And the Pathfinders did a good job because they were, they had to circle around the city you know and the German fighters were there waiting for them and they still had to sit, circle round. They couldn’t do much else. So it was dangerous. A very dangerous job they had. The Pathfinders.
GBD: Absolutely.
JFL: Yeah. They lit up the towns or city for us so we had a target to see.
GBD: Got you.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: And do you have any other specific recollections of anything quite significant that happened? Certain incidents or certain strong memories about a particular thing that happened during any of your missions that you can share with us?
JFL: I can’t. I’d have to think about it now. It’s long ago.
GBD: Does anything stand out? Any particular memory of anything that happened?
JFL: Well, each, each bombing trip was much the same as the previous one. You were still very alert all the time. Couldn’t relax. You were watching for German fighters. There was always German fighters about.
GBD: Right. And you were saying your aircraft was peppered with holes. A lot of it.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: So you must have come under direct attack.
JFL: Yeah. Yeah. They came in sideways and underneath you, and over the top of you.
GBD: So that must have been very frightening.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: For someone young. Of your age. All aircrews obviously. To experience that.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: What was that like when you were under attack from German aircraft?
JFL: The two, two machine gunners in our plane, Halifax they, they did their best to keep them off. So the Germans fighters couldn’t get too close because we had two [pause] two gunners on the plane, the tail end and the mid-upper gunner. And they did good work keeping the German fighters at a distance. They couldn’t come too close. They’d get machine gunned.
GBD: They must have done a very good job because you’re still sat with us here all these years later.
JFL: Yeah. Yeah.
GBD: How do you feel to have actually survived forty six missions because that’s quite something? Forty six ops.
JFL: Well —
GBD: Some didn’t survive more than five. Many didn’t survive more than ten.
JFL: I think when you’re a youngster it doesn’t bother you too much.
GBD: But looking back now.
JFL: Sorry?
GBD: Looking back now how does that, any thoughts about that? How do you feel of all those operations and you saw your friends going down?
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: But you were very lucky.
JFL: Yeah.
GBD: Because I know Remembrance means a lot to you.
JFL: Yeah. I saw a good friend of mine. He was, he went down. That was, that was very upsetting but you seemed to take it in your stride. I don’t know. There were some, a lot of, a lot of aircrew refused to fly. Quite a lot of aircrew.
BW: Why did they, why did they refuse to fly?
JFL: When they saw the targets they wouldn’t go. And they were, they were put in the, in the station prison if they didn’t fly. I don’t remember what happened to them but they were locked up in the prison if they, if they, if they refused to fly. When they’d seen where the target was they wouldn’t go.
BW: So if you’re in the briefing room and the popular view of the briefing room is a large hall with a lot of young aircrew.
JFL: Yeah.
BW: Sat there waiting for the CO to brief for the target for tonight, if you like. And the curtain goes back. How did the guys make it known that they didn’t want to fly? I’m assuming they didn’t just get up and walk out but what?
JFL: Well, they probably waited until, until it was finished with. Then instead of going back to their bedroom or whatever you’d like to call it they went to the guardroom and gave themselves up to be locked up. And that took some doing as well. There was always three or four of them, but they just wouldn’t fly. So —
BW: So not necessarily the whole crew. Just maybe three or four from a crew.
JFL: Oh yeah. It could be, not necessarily the same crew.
BW: Ok.
JFL: Just very nervous. It was unfortunate.
BW: And was anything ever said about what would happen? Did for example the CO make any, or give any orders about guys who didn’t want to fly.
JFL: Do you know I’m a bit vague on that now. I always remember two or three guys which I knew they, they gave themselves up. They went to the guardhouse and asked to be locked up there. They wouldn’t fly. That took, that took some doing.
BW: But none of your guys. None of the guys in your crew.
JFL: No.
BW: Ever did that.
JFL: Not in our lot. No. No. I got in the line up to volunteer to go over to India.
GBD: Oh yeah.
JFL: To fly over there to bomb the Japs.
GBD: Ok.
BW: I think that was called Tiger Force wasn’t it?
JFL: That sounds familiar. Yeah. But I was, there must have been about ten or twelve of us in a line up just waiting to give our name and whatever and halfway, halfway through the line-up it came over the radio. The Japs had surrendered.
GBD: Ah yes.
JFL: So —
GBD: That was that.
JFL: No point. Didn’t have to go.
GBD: Right. Lucky you.
JFL: Yeah. Well, I volunteered to go because I was still in the Air Force but it, it never happened. Fortunately the Japs surrendered. Singapore.
GBD: And you ended up as a warrant officer.
JFL: Sorry?
GBD: You ended up as a warrant officer.
JFL: Yeah. Yeah.
GBD: So that’s good. You did quite well there. Yeah.
JFL: Yeah. I was certainly glad they surrendered.
GBD: So you didn’t have to —
[recording paused]
JFL: We were still in Germany. The next thing I know the nose of the plane, a shell had come right through it and I was stood halfway down the plane on the right hand starboard side. This German shell came through and just caught my ear and then hit the, hit the side of the plane. I’ve still got, I’ve got the marks here.
GBD: Wow. You were very lucky then.
JFL: Yeah. It just cut my ear off a little on one side. Yeah. It’s still, it’s still there to remind me.
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 James Ferguson Latimer
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brian Wright
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-09-28
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ALatimerJF190928, PLatimerJF1903
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:21:46 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Manchester
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Germany
Germany--Braunschweig
England--Lancashire
Description
An account of the resource
James Ferguson Latimer was born in Edinburgh. His family emigrated to Canada when he was young but moved back to Scotland in 1939. He recalls witnessing a German U-boat torpedo a ship as they sailed back home. Latimer joined the air force and completed basic training at RAF Heaton Park, initially hoping to be a pilot, but qualified as a bomb aimer. He trained on Wellingtons, before converting to Halifax. Latimer was stationed with 102 squadron, based at RAF Pocklington, and 462 squadron, completing 46 operations in total. He details his duty as the bomb aimer during operations, the differing flying tactics of British and American forces, and recollects a night-time operation in August 1944, where he observed a close friend’s plane crash over Braunschweig. He also describes low flying over the English Channel and bombing the German army to support D-Day. Latimer recollects a number of eventful operations including, taking control of the steering when the aircraft left the runway and the pilot lost his nerve, and volunteering to climb out of the aircraft while flying over Germany to release a bomb that had not dropped properly. After completing his operations, he recalls a posting at an Air Sea Rescue Unit in Scotland. Latimer left the RAF in 1946 as a warrant officer, married his wife in 1948, and opened a shop.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1944-08
1946
1948
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
102 Squadron
462 Squadron
air sea rescue
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Fw 190
Halifax
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Pocklington
shot down
submarine
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2124/22102/PCulkinJ17010004.1.jpg
796600ed986afa84d23c044f250beb79
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2124/22102/PCulkinJ17010005.1.jpg
cdeb6a16f1605e38a9913a9165e1bfb5
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2124/22102/PCulkinJ17010006.1.jpg
75dea01298a10911922d004b907f7ac5
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2124/22102/PCulkinJ17010007.1.jpg
43c4b0c0cf55e5991bebe3abb6ad963b
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
Culkin, Jean. Album
Description
An account of the resource
64 items. An album containing photographs and newspaper cuttings from her husband John George Mackel Culkin's service as ground crew in North Africa and Italy, and Hong Kong post war.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
John George Mackel Culkin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Culkin, J
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
Fayid, Egypt
Description
An account of the resource
Page captioned 'Fayid Egypt July 1942, No 76 Squadron detachment became No 462 Squadron together with No 10 Squadron detachment. Read page 79 of Halifax - Operation Bareface'.
Three photographs, first is of nine servicemen in front of lorry, aircraft in background, lorry marked 'B flight 462 RAF. Captioned 'New ground crew for 76/462 sqn 2nd left Sgt Morrison, 4th left self'.
Second is of six ground crew some working on right outer engine, cowlings off standing on servicing platform, sandbagged revetment in background. Captioned 'Sgt Morrison/self only two 76 sqdn ex UK personnel in this snap'.
Third is of Jack wearing parachute harness standing by Halifax rudder, captioned 'Ready for test flight on Peter the Panther - WI148'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three b/w photographs on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCulkinJ17010004, PCulkinJ17010005, PCulkinJ17010006, PCulkinJ17010007
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
North Africa
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-07
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-07
10 Squadron
462 Squadron
76 Squadron
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
service vehicle
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1321/26954/LLatimerJF1551478v1.1.pdf
63e5be776c4ee948864e178c5d15224f
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
Latimer, James Ferguson
J F Latimer
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Jim Latimer (1923 - 2020, 1551478 Royal Air Force) his log book, and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 102 and 462 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-09-28
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Latimer, JF
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
J F Latimer’s air bomber’s flying log book covering the period from 9 March 1943 to 8 March 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown as air bomber. He was stationed at RCAF Fingal (4 B&GS), RCAF Port Albert (31 ANS), RCAF Jarvis (1 B&GS), RAF Skaebrae (1476 Advanced Ship Recognition Course), RAF Mona (8 OAFU), RAF Moreton-in-Marsh (21 OTU), RAF Marston Moor (1652 HCU), RAF Pocklington (102 Squadron), RAF Driffield and RAF Foulsham (462 RAAF Squadron), Aircraft flown in were Anson, Bolingbroke, Wellington and Halifax. He flew four daylight and four night-time operations with 102 Squadron and five daylight and twenty two night-time operations with 462 RAAF Squadron, a total of 35. Targets were Foret de Nieppe, Villers Bocage, De Bruyere, Somain, Brunswick, Eindhoven, Sterkrade, Wemars Capelle, Soesterberg, Le Havre, Gelsenkirchen, Nordstein, Kiel, Boulogne, Duisburg, Wilhelmshaven, Hanover, Essen, Ostkapelle, Domberg, Soest, Hamburg, Sylt, Koblentz, Bonn, Mainz, Rheine, Heilbronn, Neuss, Kaiserlautern, Mannheim and Dortmund. <span>His pilots on operations were </span>Flight Sergeant Mitchell, Flying Officer Sanderson, Squadron Leader Jackson, Flying officer Wther [?], Flying Officer Boyd, Flying Officer Anderson, Flying Officer McIndle and Flight Lieutenant James. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Title
A name given to the resource
J F Latimer’s Royal Canadian Air Force Flying Log Book for Aircrew other than Pilot
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LLatimerJF1551478v1
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1944-07-28
1944-07-30
1944-08-03
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-15
1944-08-18
1944-08-19
1944-08-25
1944-09-03
1944-09-09
1944-09-11
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-10-15
1944-10-18
1944-10-21
1944-10-23
1944-10-25
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-12-08
1944-12-09
1945-01-01
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-01-21
1945-01-22
1945-01-28
1945-02-18
1945-02-22
1945-02-23
1945-03-01
1945-03-02
1945-03-03
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-08
1945-03-09
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Gloucestershire
England--Yorkshire
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Dieppe
France--Le Havre
France--Somain
France--Villers-Bocage (Calvados)
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Freising
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Heilbronn
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Koblenz
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Rheine
Germany--Soest
Germany--Sylt
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Netherlands--Oostkapelle
Netherlands--Soesterberg
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Ontario
Wales--Anglesey
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Freising
100 Group
102 Squadron
1652 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
Bolingbroke
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Driffield
RAF Foulsham
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Mona
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Pocklington
RCAF Fingal
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1184/34356/PWalkerT1802.1.jpg
dc284b2fbec84213b6a51e6f6ed612ef
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
Walker, Tom
T Walker
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Tom Walker (b. 1925, 1590544 Royal Air Force) and a photograph. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 462 Squadron.
The collection was 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
2018-07-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Walker, T
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Aircrew by Halifax
Description
An account of the resource
A group of airmen next to a bomber. In front two airmen on a motorbike, in front a flight sergeant and on the rear an airmen wearing Mae West and side cap. Other airmen in the background also in Mae Wests.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWalkerT1802
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
462 Squadron
aircrew
Halifax
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2080/34434/SWeirG19660703v010002.1.pdf
66f771baf607d1f5d889c05e98612230
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
Weir, Greg. Taylor, Alexander
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. Sub-collection concerns Alexander Taylor (Royal Australian Air Force) who flew operations as a wireless operator or special operator on Halifax of 462 Squadron form November 1944 to may 1945.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-26
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weir, G
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Alexander Taylor Royal Australian Air Force observer's, air gunner's and w/t operator's flying log book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWeirG19660703v010002
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Observer’s, air gunner’s and W/T operators flying log book for A Taylor, wireless operator, covering the period from 25 January 1943 to 3 November 1951. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAAF Parkes, RAAF Port Prairie, RAF West Freugh, RAF Moreton-in-Marsh, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Driffield and RAF Foulsham. Aircraft flown in were Wackett, Battle, Anson, Wellington, Halifax, and C-47 Dakota. He flew a total of 25 operations with 462 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force. Targets were Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, Essen, Duisburg, Cologne, Hanau, Heligoland, Mannheim, Kochem, Bonn, Weisbaden, Heilbronn, Krefeld, Lake Constance, Emden, Meppin, Hagen, Bremen, Wesel, Hamburg, Berlin, Magdeburg, Lubeck and Flensburg. His pilots on operations were Flying Officer Howrigan, Flight Sergeant Sharp, Flying Officer Ely, Flying Officer Boyd, Flight Lieutenant Robertson, Pilot Officer Anderson, Warrant Officer Whattling and Flight Lieutenant McGindle.<br /><br /><span data-contrast="auto" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB" class="TextRun SCXW144579412 BCX0"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW144579412 BCX0">This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No </span><span class="ContextualSpellingAndGrammarError SCXW144579412 BCX0">better quality</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW144579412 BCX0"> copies are available.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW144579412 BCX0" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}"> </span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-06
1944-11-28
1944-11-29
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1944-12-21
1944-12-22
1945-01-02
1945-01-03
1945-01-06
1945-01-07
1945-01-14
1945-01-15
1945-01-17
1945-01-18
1945-01-21
1945-01-22
1945-02-03
1945-02-04
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-28
1945-03-01
1945-03-02
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-21
1945-03-22
1945-03-23
1945-03-24
1945-04-03
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-23
1945-04-24
1945-05-02
1951
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Gloucestershire
England--Norfolk
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bodenseekreis
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cochem
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Essen
Germany--Flensburg
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Heilbronn
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Lübeck
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Meppen
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Wiesbaden
New South Wales--Parkes
Scotland--Wigtownshire
South Australia--Port Pirie
New South Wales
South Australia
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
1652 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Battle
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
C-47
Cook’s tour
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operational Training Unit
RAF Driffield
RAF Foulsham
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF West Freugh
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2081/34442/SWeirG19660703v020001.2.pdf
c8d9fd968c23fc9d4f57020b64f4c3d0
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
Weir, Greg. Lodder, Allan
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. Collection concerns Flying Officer Alan Lodder (b 1923, Royal Australian Air Force) a Halifax pilot, he flew operation with 462 Squadron from November 1944 until February 1945 when he was shot down and taken prisoner. Collection contains his flying log book, newspaper cutting and German currency.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-26
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weir, G
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allan Lodder's pilots flying log book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWeirG19660703v020001
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for A M Lodder, covering the period from 15 February 1943 to 16 April 1945, when his aircraft failed to return from operations, he subsequently returned. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAAF Narrandera, RAAF Bundaberg, RAF Fairoaks, RAF Babdown Farm, RAF Moreton-in-Marsh, RAF Enstone, RAF Dishforth, RAF Driffield and RAF Foulsham. Aircraft flown in were Tiger Moth, Anson, Oxford, Wellington, and Halifax. He flew a total of 19 operations with 462 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force. Targets were Hagen, Duisburg, Cologne, Frankfurt, Dortmund, Mannheim, Mainz, Ruhr Region, Stade, Lechfeld and Augsburg. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-12-02
1944-12-03
1944-12-18
1944-12-19
1944-12-21
1944-12-22
1945-01-02
1945-01-03
1945-01-06
1945-01-07
1945-01-14
1945-01-15
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-10
1945-02-11
1945-03-30
1945-03-31
1945-04-02
1945-04-03
1945-04-15
1945-04-16
1945-04-17
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Germany
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Norfolk
England--Surrey
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Graben (Bavaria)
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Stade (Lower Saxony)
New South Wales--Narrandera
Queensland--Bundaberg
New South Wales
Queensland
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
100 Group
1664 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
missing in action
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Dishforth
RAF Driffield
RAF Fairoaks
RAF Foulsham
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2086/34534/SWeirG19660703v070001.2.pdf
5210abcb0a501aaeee7869deed8d6c2e
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
Weir, Greg. Britt, Leo
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. Collection concerns Flt Lt Leo Britt (Royal Australian Air Force). A Halifax pilot, he flew operations on 462 Squadron between November 1944 and April 1945. Collection contains his log book and a list of aircraft lost on 192 and 462 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-26
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weir, G
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
L Britt’s flying log book for pilots
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWeirG19660703v070001
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for L Britt covering the period from 27 May 1943 to 11 February 1953. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAAF Benalla (11 EFTS), RAAF Deniliquin (7 SFTS), RAF Babdown Farm (15 P AFU), RAF Moreton in Marsh (21 OTU), RAF Marston Moor (1652 HCU), RAF Driffield and RAF Foulsham (462 Squadron). Aircraft flown in were DH 82, Wirraway, Anson, Oxford, Wellington, Halifax, Mustang, Dakota, Vampire, Lincoln. He flew 21 night-time operations with 462 Squadron. Targets were Sterkrade, Soest, Essen, Duisberg, Kiel, Mannheim, Weisbaden, Ruhr area, Bonn, Kaiserlauten, Munich, Frankfurt, Munster, Kassel, Stade, Bremerhaven, Boizenberg, Neuruffin, Augsberg, Flensberg. He also flew on seven Cook's Tours. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Flying Officer Rate. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-12
1944-12-13
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-04
1945-02-05
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-28
1945-03-01
1945-03-13
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-19
1945-03-20
1945-03-27
1945-03-28
1945-03-29
1945-03-30
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-15
1945-04-16
1945-04-18
1945-04-19
1945-05-02
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Great Britain
Germany
England--Gloucestershire
England--Norfolk
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Bremerhaven
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Flensburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Munich
Germany--Neuruppin
Germany--Soest
Germany--Stade (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Boizenburg
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike French
1652 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing
C-47
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lincoln
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
P-51
pilot
RAF Acaster Malbis
RAF Driffield
RAF Foulsham
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Watchfield
RAF Worksop
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2086/34535/SWeirG19660703v070002.2.jpg
1360dec704fa368b83673ae0c9edacce
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
Weir, Greg. Britt, Leo
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. Collection concerns Flt Lt Leo Britt (Royal Australian Air Force). A Halifax pilot, he flew operations on 462 Squadron between November 1944 and April 1945. Collection contains his log book and a list of aircraft lost on 192 and 462 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-26
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weir, G
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
15
[underlined] AIRCRAFT LOSSES, ACCIDENTS.
HALIFAX. 192 Squadron. [/underlined]
LW626 27 Mar 44, Ditched off Cromer, Pilot P/O Melville, Five bodies found.
LK780 6 Apr 44, Crashed on take off Foulsham, F/S Hicken, crew unhurt.
LW622 24/25 Apr 44, Missing on ops to Karlsrure, [sic] F/O C.W. Crowdy.
MZ564? 27/28 Apr 44, Landed on top of Mosquito on runway no casualties.
MZ570 3/4 May 44, Failed to return ops Troyes, F/S Gibson.
MZ501 24/25 May 44, Failed to return ops Aachen, F/S Hicken.
LW621 4/5 Jul 44, Failed to return SOE ops Paris, F/S Thompson.
MZ638 12 Jul 44, Overshoot crashed Foulsham making 3 eng landing crew OK.
MZ795 18 Nov 44, Crashed Gt Ryburgh caught fire on ret from op crew safe.
MZ806 21/22 Nov 44, Failed to return ops to Aschaffenburg, W/O Harrison.
MZ717 30 Nov 44, Belly landed Manston on 3 eng, F/O Irvine, Repaired.
MZ817 9 Dec 44, Crashed on take off Foulsham, F/O Irvine, crew unhurt.
MZ449 23/24 Feb 45, Failed to return ops to Pforzheim.
NA241 23/24 Feb 45, “ “ “ “ .
MZ342 8/9 Feb 45, Mid air collision with Lanc off Denmark, F/S Butler.
MZ852 12 Feb 45, Crashed into gliders when making 2 eng landing at Greenham Common, P/O Worrad, 2 slight inj,
LV955 4 Mar 45, Attacked by German intruder on return from ops near Foulsham crash landed and caught fire at Fulmodeston Pilot F/O Roberts and Sgt Sutcliffe both badly injured survived the crash.
NR180 6 Mar 45, Failed to return from ops to Chemnitz, F/Lt Irvine.
MZ932 7 Mar 45, Dam by fighter attacks Crash land Rosieres Mosells 1 inj.
LW623 12/13 Aug 44, Flak dam return on 3 eng land W Raynham, F/O Sanders.
LK782 12/13 Aug 44, Dam flak and 3 JU88 3 crew inj W/O Walsh, Ret base.
[underlined] 462 Squadron. [/underlined]
MZ447 24/25 Feb 45, Failed to return ops to Rhur, F/Lt Rate.
MZ448 “ “ “ “ “ , F/Lt Ridgell?,
MZ461 “ “ “ “ “ , F/O Ely.
PN429 “ “ “ “ “ , W/O Oliver.
MZ469 6 Jan 45, Failed to return ops Germany, P/O Rohrlach.
MZ370 8/9 Mar 45, “ “ “ Dortmund, F/Lt James.
NA240 10/11 Apr 45, “ “ “ Leipzig, P/O Ball.
MZ467 16/17 Apr 45, “ “ “ Augsburg, F/O Lodder.
RG384 13 Mar 45, Flak dam ops Frankfurt, Emg landing France, P/O Paltridge.
RG432 14 Apr 45, Dam on ops forced landing airstrip Liege F/O Anderson.
LL598 14 Jan 45, Engine fire crashed nr Letton Hall Nflk, P/O Astell.
MZ402 11 Feb 45, Crashed on landing Foulsham.
MZ479 7 Feb 45, Crash landed eng fire Hethel ret from ops.
NR284 17 Apr 45, Forced landed in field Beetley Nflk Two engs fire.
[underlined] WELLINGTON. 192 Squadron. [/underlined]
HE233 19 Mar 44, X, Missing on ops, Sgt Ford.
- - - 2 Dec 43, E, Overshoot on landing Fourlsham dam crew OK, F/O Roach.
- - - 4 Jul 44, A, Forced landed in cornfield Wood Norton, crew unhurt.
- - - 16 Aug 44, -, Crashed on landing Foulsham caught fire one injury.
LP345? 10 Nov 44, G, Belly landed Foulsham, Pilot Heathcote.
[underlined] MOSQUITO. 192 Squadron. [/underlined]
DZ377 27/28 Apr 44, When landing Foulsham Halifax landed on top of it.
DK327 28 Jun 44, Attacked by another Mosquito over France seriously damaged crash landed Friston on return.
DZ535 23 Sep 44, Single eng belly landing Craymere Briston Nflk, Pilot F/Lt Clark, Nav F/O Dobson both injured released from aircraft by local housewife with carving knife.
DZ292 26/27 Nov 44, Failed to return from ops, P/O Fisher, F/Lt Vinnell.
DZ405 27 Aug 44, “ “ “ “ , W/O Pearn, F/S Foster.
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
Aircraft losses, accidents
Description
An account of the resource
List of Halifax, Wellington and Mosquito aircraft lost from 192 and 462 Squadrons from December 1943 to April 1945. Gives aircraft registration, date, description of incident, some with captain named.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-12
1944
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Cromer
Germany
Germany--Karlsruhe
France--Troyes
Germany--Aachen
France--Paris
England--Kent
Germany--Pforzheim
Denmark
England--Berkshire
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Belgium
Belgium--Liège
France
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page typewritten document
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWeirG19660703v070002
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
192 Squadron
462 Squadron
anti-aircraft fire
crash
ditching
Halifax
killed in action
mid-air collision
missing in action
Mosquito
RAF Foulsham
RAF Manston
RAF West Raynham
shot down
take-off crash
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2087/34541/SWeirG19660703v080004.1.pdf
ba25404959efade2494291a5d7a5fa24
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
Weir, Greg. Langworthy, Max
Langworthy, GM
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items and fifty-two items in two sub-collections. Collection concerns Flt Lt Geoffrey Maxwell Michell (Max) Langworthy (428848, Royal Australian Air Force). A Halifax pilot, he flew operations on 462 Squadron from November 1944 to April 1945. Collection contains photographs (including two albums in sub-collections), documents and his log book.
Collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
201-04-26
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weir, G
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
G M (Max) Langworthy - Royal Australian Air Force Flying Log Book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWeirG19660703v080004
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Australian Air Force Log Book for Max Langworthy, pilot. Covers period 8 January 1943 to 15 February 1958. Includes his training, operations and post-war flying. He was based at RAF Babdown Farm, RAF Bibury, RAF Morton in Marsh, RAF Rufforth, RAF Driffield and RAF Foulsham. Aircraft flown were Tiger Moth, Anson, Oxford, Halifax and Auster. Serving with 462 Squadron he flew 27 operations of which 3 were daylight and 24 night. Operations 12 and onwards were providing radio counter measures. Targets were Walcheren, Dusseldorf, Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, Sterkrade, Essen, Duisburg, Hagen, Soest, Osnabruck, Hamburg, Mannheim, Cochem, Mainz, Heilbronn, Krefeld, Neuss, Kaiserlautern, Dortmund-Ems canal, Frankfurt, Stade, Lubeck and Wangerooge. He also flew 6 Cook's Tours flights. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Flight Lieutenant Cuttriss.<br /><br /><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW226334026 BCX0">This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No </span><span class="ContextualSpellingAndGrammarError SCXW226334026 BCX0">better quality</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW226334026 BCX0"> copies are available.</span>
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-10-29
1944-11-02
1944-11-04
1944-11-06
1944-11-21
1944-11-28
1944-11-30
1944-12-02
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-12
1945-01-01
1945-01-14
1945-01-17
1945-01-22
1945-01-28
1945-02-02
1945-02-20
1945-02-22
1945-02-24
1945-03-01
1945-03-03
1945-03-05
1945-03-13
1945-04-02
1945-04-23
1945-04-25
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
1663 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
Cook’s tour
crash
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Driffield
RAF Foulsham
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Rufforth
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2088/34590/SWeirG19660703v080001-0043.2.jpg
1be9b7c4ed49a87f57d5217d0da94c17
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
Langworthy, Max. Langworthy one
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. Photographs of travels in United States and Great Britain as well as colleagues and friends. Includes photographs of and from aircraft as well as of 462 Squadron pilots in March 1945.
Collection catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-26
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weir, G
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] 462 Sqd. Pilots. – March 1945. At Foulsham (100 Grp. S.D.) [/underlined]
[underlined] OTHERS [/underlined]:-
F/O Robinson (A)
P/O Watling (A-Eng.)
F/Lt. Langworthy (A)
F/O Smith (B)
F/O Paltridge (A)
* F/O Rholach (B)
F/O Sullivan (A)
* F/Lt. Rate (A)
F/Lt. Drinkwater (A)
F/O O'Malley (B)
* F/Lt. Tootle (A) Eng.
S/L Swan (B)
* F/O Ely (B)
* F/Lt. Ridgewell (B-Eng)
P/O Hinds (A)
* F/O Astill (A)
F/O Cairns (B)
* F/Lt. James (B)
F/O Fergusen (B)
F/O Foote (B)
[photograph]
[underlined] AT DRIFFIELD (4 GRP) [/underlined]
S/L Brophy (A)
S/L Mac Dermott (B)
* F/S Mitchell (A)
F/Lt. Cutiriss (A)
[underlined] F/O Anderson (B) F/O Marchant (B) F/O Frazer (B) F/Lt O'Sullivan (A)* F/O Lodder (A) F/O Bailey (A) W/O Sharp (A-NZ.) F/O Simms (A) F/O Flemming (B)
F/Lt Hancock (B) F/Lt McGindle (A) S/L Jackson (O.C. B Flt.) W/C Paull (C.O. 462 Sqn) F/Lt Hyman (ADJ) S/L Scharer (O.C. A) F/Lt Taylor (A)
F/Lt. Cookson (B-N.Z.) F/O Boyd (B-ENG) *F/O Ball (B) F/Lt. Britt (A) F/L Robertson (A) [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
462 Squadron Pilots
Description
An account of the resource
Titled '462 Sqn Pilots - March 1945 at Foulsham (100 Gp S.D.).
Twenty-one pilots sitting and standing in three rows. All wearing battledress with pilot's brevet. Name underneath and other names on left and right.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-03
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-03
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page with annotated text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWeirG19660703v080001-0043
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
100 Group
462 Squadron
aircrew
pilot
RAF Foulsham
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2093/34665/SWeirG19660703v090014.1.jpg
e3134bf05e55b85ae7eef4bbe0916802
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
Weir, Greg. Flannigan, J and McManus, JB
Description
An account of the resource
Seventeen items. Collection concerns Flt Sgt James Flannigan who flew as a wireless operator/air gunner on 77 and 76 Squadrons in 1941, he failed to return from operations 31 October 1941 and J B McManus (RAAF), a Halifax pilot who flew operations on 466 Squadron in 1944-45. Collection contains their log books, mementos, parade notes, medals, documents and photographs.
Collection catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-26
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weir, G
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
462 Squadron coin and Bomber Command Clasp
Description
An account of the resource
A coin with 426 squadron crest emblem in a plastic case. Bomber Command Clasp on a 1939-1945 Star ribbon.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical object
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Metal coin and metal clasp on ribbon
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWeirG19660703v090014
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
462 Squadron