2
25
74
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6696/PJonesPW16010005.1.jpg
57adcb1c3cec8fe14b6ec1c25aec1e38
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6696/PJonesPW16010006.1.jpg
c61ee102560f27581e9ec0aa180fb011
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones, Thomas John
Tom Jones
T Jones
Description
An account of the resource
62 items. An oral history interview with Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs, correspondence, service documents, aircraft recognition manuals, medals and a memoir. He flew operations as a flight engineer on 622 Squadron Stirling and 7 Squadron on Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection also contains an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2566">Album</a> of 129 types of aircraft. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Jones 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
2014-12-04
2017-12-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, PW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PA 964 MG-K
L-R
Fred Phillips
Dave Goodwin
Stan Williamson
Clive Thurston
Ron Wynne
Joe Naylor
Tom Jones
Steve Harper
SEPT 1944
7 SQUADRON BOMBER COMMAND
RAF OAKINGTON 8 GROUP P.F.F.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fred Phillips' crew and Lancaster
Description
An account of the resource
Eight aircrew, including Tom Jones, standing in front of Lancaster, PA964, 'MG-K'. On the reverse the individual members are identified.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PJonesPW16010005, PJonesPW16010006
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09
7 Squadron
8 Group
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Lancaster
navigator
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Oakington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6698/PJonesPW16010009.1.jpg
367ed23ddc50f594305bfddac0e18c73
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6698/PJonesPW16010010.1.jpg
0e67095cb2ada9e91d7f877b7edf4964
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones, Thomas John
Tom Jones
T Jones
Description
An account of the resource
62 items. An oral history interview with Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs, correspondence, service documents, aircraft recognition manuals, medals and a memoir. He flew operations as a flight engineer on 622 Squadron Stirling and 7 Squadron on Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection also contains an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2566">Album</a> of 129 types of aircraft. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Jones 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
2014-12-04
2017-12-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, PW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PA 964 MG-K
L-R
Tom Jones
Steve Harper
Clive Thurston
Dave Goodwin
Joe Naylor
Fred Phillips – in cockpit
Ron Wynne
Stan Williamson
SEPT. 1944
7 SQUADRON BOMBER COMMAND
R.A.F. OAKINGTON 8 GROUP P.F.F.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fred Phillips' crew and Lancaster
Description
An account of the resource
Five aircrew sitting on the starboard inner engine of Lancaster PA964, MG-K, one sitting in the cockpit and two including Tom Jones are sitting at the back of the cockpit. The individuals are named on the reverse.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PJonesPW16010009, PJonesPW16010010
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09
7 Squadron
8 Group
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Lancaster
navigator
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Oakington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/986/10536/MWhybrowFHT170690-160926-22.2.jpg
896ee0917d52d0e6981f765e830adff6
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Whybrow, Frederick
F H T Whybrow
Description
An account of the resource
49 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Fred Whybrow DFC (1921 - 2005, 1321870, 170690 Royal Air Force) and consists of service documents, photographs and correspondence. After training in the United States, he completed two tours of operations as a navigator with 156 Squadron Pathfinders. After the war he served in Japan and Southeast Asia. He was demobbed in 1947.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anne Roberts and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Whybrow, FHT
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Very Draft texts for Eulogy and Obits
Short Obit
The death is announced of Frederick Thomas Whybrow DFC (Fred) of Pwllmeyric, Monmouthshire after a short illness.
Varied and Distinguished War Record
Auxillary [sic] Fire Service 1940/41 during Blitz fighting fires around his family home in Greenwich.
Called up 1941, selected for Aircrew Training (he’d rather have joined the Navy)
Training in US in 1942. Passed as pilot but qualified as Observer (2nd Pilot and Navigator) as the training programmes had produced excess pilots but too few navigators. Troopship breakdown on return
Operational Flying in Europe 1943-44 all in Pathfinder Force (PFF) 8 Group Bomber Command
- Two full Tours of Operations with the same crew comprising 105 combat sorties
- 156 Squadron
- Formed 582 Squadron
Participated throughout the Battle of Berlin (156 Sqdn suffered highest lost rate in PFF or Bomber Command – check)
Attacks against French transport infrastructure pre and post Normandy Invasion Direct operational support of allied ground forces leading to breakout from beachhead. Operations against V1 sites.
Damaged by British AA fire on way to raid. Claimed one German Nightfighter Hit by bombs from other aircraft over Berlin or Leipzig, (I reckon Leipzig if so, his cousin killed on the same raid). Aircraft extensively damaged, nose destroyed and cockpit glazing shattered, all charts and instruments lost. Journey back to UK made with crew members in turn laying in front of pilot to shield him from the 180 mph wind. All crew hospitalised with frostbite. Crew already had DFCs and award of another medal to this all NCO crew was not made a point made later in book ………………………
Following completion of second tour appointed as aircrew trainer. Met Isobel in Blackpool whilst in transit. Subsequently selected for RAF Tiger Force intended to bomb Japan in 1945/46. Celebrated VE and VJ Days on Troopships, the former in the Indian Ocean the latter as a member of UK Occupation Forces in Japan 1945-46. Landed at Hiroshima early in September 1945 immediately following surrender. Put in charge of re-conversion of an aircraft engine plant to rayon production. Left Japan once production restarted and began a sequence of postings around British possessions and SE Asia where he accumulated a number of valuable items unobtainable in the UK. Finally demobbed in 1947.
Long career in local government in Kensington where he became well known
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fred Whybrow draft Obituary
Description
An account of the resource
The Obituary describes his service and civilian career from training in the United States to his 105 operations. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He met his future wife, Isobel in Blackpool. Served in the Far East and demobbed in 1947.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One typewritten sheet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MWhybrowFHT170690-160926-22
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Japan
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
Japan--Hiroshima-shi
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
David Bloomfield
156 Squadron
582 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
firefighting
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
observer
Pathfinders
Tiger force
training
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/286/17755/LKirbyH1637087v1.1.pdf
f5d1d4f26477231c35ba4d430b6f4fd0
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
Kirby, Harold
Harold V A Kirby
H V A Kirby
Harold Kirby
H Kirby
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. Two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Harold Kirby (1923 - 2022, 1637087 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 467, 97 and 156 Squadrons.
Publisher
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
2015-07-10
2015-09-21
2016-06-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Kirby, H
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Warrant Officer Harold Kirby 1637087 was born in Kilbourne, Loncon in 1923, his job after leaving school was in the accounting department at London Electric Supplies. He initially tried to volunteer for the RAF but failed the medical, at that time. He was subsequently drafted in 1942. Skill training started with training as a Flight Mechanic, but during this was asked to volunteer to rain as a Flight Engineer. His first posting was as an Aircraft Fitter at No.460 Squadron, RAF Binbrook, although only for 6 months.
After Flight Engineer training at St Athan and then training on the Short Stirling and then the Lancaster with 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Winthorpe, the first solo flight for the crew, the port landing gear would not lock, during the landing the gear collapsed, although there were no injuries.
First operational unit was No.467 Squadron at RAF Waddington a mainly Australian Squadron, the crew were here for July and August 1944, One operation 3/4th August 1944, to the V1 storage site at Trossy Saint Maximin had another bomber flying above their aircraft and dropping their bombs, one going through the wing, narrowly missing vital structures, this resulted in a gear up landing, due to hydraulic loss, but again there were no injuries resulting.
He was then posted along with the crew to No 97 Squadron, based at RAF Coningsby a pathfinder squadron, tasked to mark the targets for other aircraft,
In total two tours were completed before the end of the European war, after finishing as a Flight Engineer, Harold trained as a RADAR mechanic, before leaving the RAF.
Andy St.Denis
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/.
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
Title
A name given to the resource
Harold Kirby’s flight engineers 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 colour photocopy of a booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LKirbyH1637087v1
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.
1944
1944-07
1944-08
1945
1944-07-12
1944-07-13
1944-07-17
1944-07-20
1944-07-21
1944-07-22
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-08-01
1944-08-02
1944-08-03
1944-08-19
1944-08-24
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-08-29
1944-08-30
1944-08-31
1944-09-18
1944-09-19
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-11-06
1944-11-07
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-23
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-04
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-09
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1944-12-19
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-20
1945-03-21
1945-03-22
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-16
1945-04-17
1945-04-18
1945-04-19
1945-04-25
1945-04-26
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
Poland
Russia (Federation)
Belgium--Kortrijk
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Czech Republic--Chomutov
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
France--Caen
France--Calmont
France--Creil Region
France--Givors
France--Hesdin
France--La Pallice
France--Lens
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Villers-Bocage (Calvados)
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Darmstadt
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Giessen (Hesse)
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Heilbronn
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leipzig Region
Germany--Mittelland Canal
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Munich
Germany--Sassnitz
Germany--Stuttgart
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Tønsberg
Norway--Trondheim
Poland--Gdynia
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Russia (Federation)--Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai︠a︡ oblastʹ)
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Description
An account of the resource
Flight engineers log book (Copy) for H Kirby covering the period from 26 April 1944 to 24 May 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Winthorpe, RAF Syerston, RAF Waddington and RAF Coningsby. Aircraft flown in were Stirling and Lancaster. He flew a total of 44 operations. 6 daylight and 10 night operations with 467 squadron and 28 night operations with 97 squadron pathfinder force. Targets were Culmont Chalindrey, Caen, Courtrai, Kiel, Stuttgart, Givors, Cahagny, Siracourt, Cassan, Trossy St Maxim, La Pallice, Darmstadt, Konigsberg, Rollencourt, Mönchengladbach, Munster, Brunswick, Bergen, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Trondheim, Munich, Heilbronn, Giessen, Gdynia, Politz, Ladbergen, Dresden, Gravenhorst, Bohlen, Sassnitz, Hamburg, Lutzkendorf, Pilsen, Komatau and Tonsberg. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Ryan.
1661 HCU
467 Squadron
8 Group
97 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
crash
flight engineer
forced landing
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 3
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Coningsby
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/934/36456/BLovattPHastieRv1.2.pdf
9b3858b8c21f871c9674fb0bb2df1994
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
Lovatt, Peter
Dr Peter Lovatt
P Lovatt
Description
An account of the resource
117 items. An oral history interview with Peter Lovatt (b.1924, 1821369 Royal Air Force), his log book, documents, and photographs. The collection also contains two photograph albums. He flew 42 operations as an air gunner on 223 Squadron flying B-24s. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1338">Album One</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2135">Album Two</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Nina and Peter Lovatt and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-27
2019-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lovatt, P
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
Hastie DFC: The Life and Times of a Wartime Pilot
Description
An account of the resource
An incomplete biography of Roy Hastie. Only pages 1 to 46, 104 to 106, 128 to 133 and 34 additional unnumbered pages are included.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Lovatt
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
United States
Rhode Island--Quonset Point Naval Air Station
Bahamas--Nassau
New York (State)--New York
Bahamas--New Providence Island
England--Harrogate
Scotland--Perth
Scotland--Glasgow
Scotland--Glasgow
England--Warrington
England--Blackpool
Luxembourg
France
Belgium
Netherlands
France--Dunkerque
England--Dover
England--Grantham
England--Torquay
Wales--Aberystwyth
Iceland
Greenland
Sierra Leone
Russia (Federation)--Murmansk
Singapore
France--Saint-Malo
Denmark
Sweden
Germany--Lübeck
Netherlands--Ameland Island
England--Grimsby
Germany--Helgoland
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
England--Lundy Island
Germany--Cologne
North Carolina
North Carolina--Cape Hatteras
Aruba
Curaçao
Iceland--Reykjavík
Greenland--Narsarssuak
Canada
Québec--Montréal
Rhode Island
New York (State)--Buffalo
Gulf of Mexico
Caribbean Sea
Virginia
Florida--Miami
Cuba--Guantánamo Bay Naval Base
Puerto Rico--San Juan
Cuba
Florida--West Palm Beach
Cuba--Caimanera
India
Sierra Leone--Freetown
Jamaica
Jamaica--Kingston
Jamaica--Montego Bay
Virginia--Norfolk
Québec--Montréal
Washington (D.C.)
Newfoundland and Labrador
Trinidad and Tobago--Trinidad
North America--Saint Lawrence River
Newfoundland and Labrador--Happy Valley-Goose Bay
Bahamas
Florida
New York (State)
Great Britain
Ontario
Québec
Germany
Russia (Federation)
Trinidad and Tobago
North America--Niagara Falls
Europe--Frisian Islands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Devon
England--Kent
England--Lancashire
England--Lincolnshire
Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea)
Russia (Federation)--Arkhangelʹskai︠a︡ oblastʹ
Virginia--Hampton Roads (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. Coastal Command
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
88 printed sheets
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
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BLovattPHastieRv1
8 Group
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-24
B-25
Beaufighter
Bismarck
C-47
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crash
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
evacuation
Flying Training School
Gee
Gneisenau
Goldfish Club
ground personnel
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Harvard
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hudson
Initial Training Wing
navigator
Nissen hut
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
radar
RAF Bircham Newton
RAF Catterick
RAF Cranwell
RAF Kinloss
RAF Leuchars
RAF North Coates
RAF Odiham
RAF Oulton
RAF Padgate
RAF Prestwick
RAF South Cerney
RAF St Eval
RAF Thornaby
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Windrush
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945)
Scharnhorst
Spitfire
Tiger Moth
Tirpitz
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Whitley
Window
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/934/36457/BLovattPHastieRv2.1.pdf
295406378e70aa4d2aeb43baeaddc085
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
Lovatt, Peter
Dr Peter Lovatt
P Lovatt
Description
An account of the resource
117 items. An oral history interview with Peter Lovatt (b.1924, 1821369 Royal Air Force), his log book, documents, and photographs. The collection also contains two photograph albums. He flew 42 operations as an air gunner on 223 Squadron flying B-24s. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1338">Album One</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2135">Album Two</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Nina and Peter Lovatt and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-27
2019-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lovatt, P
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
Hastie DFC: The Life and Times of a Wartime Pilot
Description
An account of the resource
A biography of Roy Hastie.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Lovatt
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-10
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
United States
Rhode Island--Quonset Point Naval Air Station
Bahamas--Nassau
New York (State)--New York
Bahamas--New Providence Island
Great Britain
England--Harrogate
Scotland--Perth
Scotland--Glasgow
England--Warrington
England--Blackpool
Luxembourg
France
Belgium
Netherlands
France--Dunkerque
England--Dover
England--Grantham
England--Torquay
Wales--Aberystwyth
Iceland
Greenland
Sierra Leone
Russia (Federation)--Murmansk
Singapore
France--Saint-Malo
Denmark
Sweden
Germany--Lübeck
Netherlands--Ameland Island
England--Grimsby
Germany--Helgoland
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
England--Lundy Island
Germany--Cologne
North Carolina
North Carolina--Cape Hatteras
Aruba
Curaçao
Iceland--Reykjavík
Greenland--Narsarssuak
Canada
Québec--Montréal
Rhode Island
New York (State)--Buffalo
Gulf of Mexico
Caribbean Sea
Virginia
Florida--Miami
Cuba--Guantánamo Bay Naval Base
Puerto Rico--San Juan
Cuba
Florida--West Palm Beach
Cuba--Caimanera
India
Sierra Leone--Freetown
Jamaica
Jamaica--Kingston
Jamaica--Montego Bay
Virginia--Norfolk
Washington (D.C.)
Newfoundland and Labrador
Northern Ireland--Limavady
England--Chatham (Kent)
Newfoundland and Labrador--Gander
Gibraltar
England--Leicester
Massachusetts--Boston
Egypt--Alamayn
Algeria--Algiers
Algeria--Oran
Algeria--Bejaïa
Algeria--Annaba
Italy--Sicily
England--Milton Keynes
Germany--Essen
England--Dunwich
Europe--Scheldt River
England--Sizewell
Germany--Hamburg
England--Kent
Germany--Stuttgart
England--Crowborough
Netherlands--Hague
England--Peterborough
England--Bristol
Germany--Homburg (Saarland)
Belgium--Brussels
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Belgium--Liège
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Aschaffenburg
Germany--Castrop-Rauxel
Germany--Mittelland Canal
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Leuna
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Ulm
Germany--Munich
Poland--Szczecin
France--Ardennes
Germany--Bonn
Belgium--Houffalize
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Grevenbroich
Germany--Dülmen
France--Metz
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Zeitz
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
England--Dungeness
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Koblenz
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Worms
Germany--Pforzheim
Germany--Darmstadt
Europe--Lake Constance
Germany--Bergkamen
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
France--Aube
Germany--Augsburg
England--Feltwell
England--Croydon
Norway--Oslo
Sweden--Stockholm
Czech Republic--Prague
Italy--Florence
Portugal--Lisbon
Monaco--Monte-Carlo
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Netherlands--Venlo
Netherlands--Amsterdam
France--Paris
France--Lyon
France--Digne
France--Nevers
France--Lille
Norway--Ålesund
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Bailleul (Nord)
Belgium--Ieper
Belgium--Mesen
France--Cambrai
France--Somme
France--Arras
France--Lens
France--Calais
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Netherlands--Vlissingen
France--Brest
France--Lorient
France--La Pallice
Egypt--Suez
Germany--Berlin
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
Cyprus
Turkey--Gallipoli
Black Sea--Dardanelles Strait
Turkey--İmroz Island
Turkey--İzmir
Greece--Lesbos (Municipality)
Greece--Thasos Island
Greece--Chios (Municipality)
Greece--Thasos
Bulgaria
Turkey--Istanbul
Europe--Macedonia
Greece--Kavala
Kenya--Nairobi
Africa--Rhodesia and Nyasaland
Tanzania
Sudan
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Sudan--Kassalā
Eritrea--Asmara
Yemen (Republic)--Perim Island
Ethiopia--Addis Ababa
Sudan--Khartoum
Ghana--Takoradi
Libya--Cyrenaica
Libya--Tobruk
Egypt--Cairo
Iraq
Greece--Crete
Libya--Tripolitania
Tunisia--Mareth Line
Libya--Tripoli
Tunisia--Qaṣrayn
Tunisia--Medenine
Italy--Pantelleria Island
Malta
Italy--Licata
Italy--Brindisi
Italy--Foggia
Italy--Cassino
Italy--Sangro River
Italy--Termoli
Yugoslavia
Croatia--Split
Croatia--Vis Island
Italy--Loreto
Italy--Pescara
Trinidad and Tobago--Trinidad
North America--Saint Lawrence River
Newfoundland and Labrador--Happy Valley-Goose Bay
Bahamas
Florida
Italy
Poland
Massachusetts
New York (State)
Algeria
Tunisia
Libya
Egypt
North Africa
Ontario
Québec
Germany
Croatia
Czech Republic
Ghana
Greece
Kenya
Norway
Russia (Federation)
Turkey
Yemen (Republic)
Portugal
Trinidad and Tobago
North America--Niagara Falls
France--Reims
Europe--Frisian Islands
Germany--Monheim (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lancashire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Greece--Thessalonikē
Germany--Herne (Arnsberg)
Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea)
Libya--Banghāzī
Russia (Federation)--Arkhangelʹskai︠a︡ oblastʹ
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Jersey
Virginia--Hampton Roads (Region)
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
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
142 printed sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BLovattPHastieRv2
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
1 Group
100 Group
101 Squadron
157 Squadron
2 Group
214 Squadron
223 Squadron
3 Group
4 Group
6 Group
8 Group
85 Squadron
88 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-17
B-24
B-25
bale out
Beaufighter
Bismarck
Botha
C-47
Chamberlain, Neville (1869-1940)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crash
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
entertainment
evacuation
Flying Training School
Gee
Gneisenau
Goldfish Club
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Harvard
He 111
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hudson
Hurricane
Initial Training Wing
Ju 88
Lancaster
love and romance
Martinet
Me 109
Me 110
mine laying
Mosquito
Mussolini, Benito (1883-1945)
navigator
Nissen hut
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
Proctor
radar
RAF Banff
RAF Catfoss
RAF Catterick
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Cranwell
RAF Dishforth
RAF Farnborough
RAF Horsham St Faith
RAF Kinloss
RAF Leuchars
RAF Lichfield
RAF Lyneham
RAF Manston
RAF North Coates
RAF Oulton
RAF Padgate
RAF Prestwick
RAF Riccall
RAF Silloth
RAF South Cerney
RAF St Eval
RAF Thornaby
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Windrush
RAF Woodbridge
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945)
Scharnhorst
Spitfire
sport
Stirling
Swordfish
Tiger Moth
Tirpitz
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Whitley
Window
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1564/43463/MCurtisA1579599-161130-010001.2.jpg
a076a14d6eb30c6a7438c5ee4408dd88
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1564/43463/MCurtisA1579599-161130-010002.2.jpg
59e6fb983040bbed2ae1d3743e689436
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
Curtis, A
Curtis, Len
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
2016-11-30
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curtis, A
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. The collection concerns "Len" Curtis (1579599 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents and a manuscript. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 106, 630 and 617 Squadrons.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Cary Curtis and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interceptions/Tactics Report No 189/44
Description
An account of the resource
A list of targets and sorties undertaken by aircraft from 5,4, 8, 6, 3, 1 and 100 Groups.
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
Head Quarters Bomber Command Air Staff Intelligence
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Brest
France--Etaples
France--Oise
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Blaye
France--Pauillac (Gironde)
France--Pas-de-Calais
Germany
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Netherlands
Netherlands--Den Helder
Netherlands--IJssel Lake
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Belgium
Belgium--Florennes
France--Brittany
France--Nieppe Forest
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten sheets
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
MCurtisA1579599-161130-010001, MCurtisA1579599-161130-010002
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1 Group
100 Group
3 Group
4 Group
5 Group
6 Group
8 Group
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Halifax
Lancaster
mine laying
Mosquito
propaganda
Spitfire
V-1
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1163/11722/ATompsonA160125.2.mp3
3d7af9f302b744370c9112ad7ec336f6
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
Tompson, Anthony
A Tompson
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Anthony Tompson DFC ( - 2019, 1382325, 138477 Royal Air Force).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Tompson, A
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NM: So, it’s, it’s Monday the 25th of January. My name is Nigel Moore. I’m with Flight Lieutenant Anthony Thompson DFC in his house in [deleted] in Hertfordshire and it’s 11 o’clock. So, would you like to start by telling us a little bit about your background, your childhood, your growing up before you joined the RAF?
AT: Well, I went to a secondary school and county school and took matric. And because I was more practical then theory and academic, I intended to look for an apprenticeship. And because I’d been interested in things electrical I joined the Post Office, Engineering Department. Sorry about my voice. I’m recovering from a bit of sickness. And I joined the Post Office and was with them for three or four years as an apprentice and I learned quite a lot. I learned about life for one thing and quite a lot about electricity. I went to in night school and day time study. And this was all immediately pre-war. Pre-war. And when war broke out or just before, the RAF were appealing for young men to come forward and volunteer for flight training. The idea appealed to me so with a bit of bending of the truth I managed to get in and was accepted for flight training. After the usual ground courses, I got sent over to Canada to learn to fly on a Tiger Moth. That went alright and I was eventually posted. Passed out and posted to another unit at Calgary in Alberta, where we were flying Airspeed Oxfords. And this was a much more sophisticated aeroplane and it was a bit beyond my abilities and I had trouble landing it. I was unable to judge height and I either landed six feet above the ground, so to speak, or six feet under it. Seldom on it. And I then, after a week or two of this the chief flying instructor took me on one side and kindly suggested perhaps this wasn’t the best profession for me, the best occupation for me and I’d like to think about something else. I could either drop the idea of aircrew altogether and look around for a ground job or I could carry on in a different aircraft, a different aircrew — I’m sorry. A different aircrew capacity. And after looking at the pros and cons we decided that navigation was something I could do quite well. So I was transferred to the Central Navigation School in Manitoba and did the course there which was run, just six months long. And I passed out fifth of about thirty students. I did quite well there and I loved it. And so I became what in those days was just called, sorry about my voice, in those days it was just called a navigator. These days I think it would have been [unclear] navigator or some other such thing. Anyway, from Canada I came back to the UK and did a few refresher courses. Mainly to relate what I’d learned at the environment of Canada to the rather different environment in Britain and went through to an OTU or Operational Training Unit where I joined a pilot and a gunner to form the nucleus of an aircrew. And we went on from there as a trio. Did quite well and went to a Conversion Unit where we picked up another four crew members. There we were, seven strong. A seven strong crew waiting for a posting which was eventually to a squadron in Suffolk at a place called Tuddenham. Which before the war had been a little village. A rural village. Mainly agricultural land. Grain growing country. And we joined this unit flying Stirling aircraft. The Stirling is one of the world’s forgotten aeroplanes. Designed immediately pre-war by Short’s. Short Armament of Belfast and, as I say drawing on their experience of designing the Empire Flying Boats, Catfoss and so on. The Stirling was built to the same standards of a flying boat and the characteristics of a flying duck. Had lots of room. Bitterly cold in the air. But there were some better low level performance than at height. They never really took off as one of the mass bombers that it was hoped but it was ideal for intruder work. And having formed this crew we went through one of the courses together and eventually passed out as an operational crew and were posted to 90 Squadron at, as I said, Tuddenham in Suffolk. And there we took part in various operations bombing strategic targets like railway junctions and things like marshalling yards and specific buildings. And later we got involved with the French underground, the Maquis and we were involved in supplying them. Dropping arms and ammunition to them in various locations. In view of the Stirling’s range and ability, in our case it was the foothills of the Alps and down near Lyon. We’d fly down there at low level to avoid detection as much as possible and to make air attack difficult and somewhere about a thousand feet or less. It was a strain on the two pilots and fairly, fairly easy for me because there were lots of opportunities for map reading. And we’d go down to the location which could be a clearing in a forest or a particular farm yard. Something of that kind. And we exchanged light signals with the people on the ground and having established identities we’d do a bombing. A bombing run and drop cylindrical containers of the required arms down by parachute. And there’s some lovely photographs of these things drifting down in the back of the, in the wake of the aircraft. Catching in the slipstream. Canopies opening. And down below they had the reception committee waiting and they were usually led by a British army officer. And these would be, these containers were would be collected and hidden and the parachute silk disposed of through domestic channels. And then we’d go back and wait for the next one. These were flights of about seven or eight hours. Rather tiring. We had two nights off afterwards. Two days and nights during which we could rest and recover and recreate as they say. So, we’d have a few beers in the mess and generally get ready for next time. That went on until just at the end of the war. But before then I’d finished my tour. A tour was thirty trips. I did those and then at the end of that time I went on to pass on what I’d gained in the way of knowledge and experience to people coming behind and became an instructor. That lasted for about six months. It was utterly boring. And I volunteered and was eventually managed to get out. Was posted to a Mosquito, to a Mosquito squadron of 8 Group. The Pathfinder group. And I was based at Wyton. Excuse me. In Huntingdonshire. And there we took part in [pause] nurse [pause] Sorry there was a pause for a slurp of water. On the squadron at Wyton I was part of what was known as the Light Night Striking Force. Light being reference to the weight of bombs you could carry. And I remember our first trip. We went to, had a crew of two, pilot and navigator and we went into briefing and expecting to be given an easy trip for the first, first time. Point of fact the target was Berlin which was rather, rather a shock. And that went off quite well. We found the abilities, the flying abilities of the Mosquito were more than a match for the enemy defences. And the worst thing you really could get was being latched on to by radar and tracked by night fighters. But we had enough speed to outfly them. A wonderful aeroplane. They were held together by glue. The wooden wonder. The wooden wonder it was called. And I finished the war on, did a second tour, thus completed a second tour on Mosquitoes and that was the end of our career really. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay in. The peacetime RAF were going to be, was going to be very different from the carefree, happy family environment of Bomber Command. And, excuse me, I decided to take my demob and to come out which I did. And then it was a question of making a living. And I got accepted for a job with British European Airways as it was then. And they had a contract with the Post Office, the British Post Office, to deliver mail to the remote locations in the Hebrides and the Scottish islands. And this involved a certain amount of navigation and I was accepted as the unit’s navigator. Navigator. I did a number of flights in helicopters delivering mail. Firstly, in East Anglia to practice and work out techniques. Then up in Scotland, around the islands. It was great fun. And there would be a reception committee. A postal van and a dour Scot in a Post Office uniform waiting to exchange mail. And this went on until, this went on for some months till suddenly the contract ended and it was not renewed. So after that I was again out of work and I joined, I saw an advertisement for somebody with roughly the qualifications I had to join de Havilland’s. Which I did. I applied and got the job. And this was in their guided weapons division. And I got into the world of rockets and things like that. Alright. Do you want to go on?
NM: Keep going. Yeah.
AT: And this was largely working with the Ministry of Supply to develop things like the Firestreak. The air to air missile. Finished up with Blue Streak which was Britain’s intercontinental, sorry about my voice, intercontinental ballistic missile. That involved a number, a number of trips to Australia. To Woomera. And I suppose that lasted for a year one way or the other. Eventually, eventually the time for retirement. Not something that really seemed to occur in RAF life but in civilian life it did. And after a period in London behind a desk, which I did not enjoy, I took retirement. And here I am. Reminiscing. Rambling on in a failing voice. I’m sorry about that. But over to you.
NM: Can I take you back to your time in 90 Squadron and Stirlings?
AT: Stirlings. Yes.
NM: You were doing mine laying, bombing, you were supplying the Resistance?
AT: Yes.
NM: Tell us about the, some mine laying trips and also the time that you were sort of ambushed with your Resistance supply dropping.
AT: Well yes. We, the mine laying trips were individual efforts. You went out as a single aircraft with an area to be mined. And because the Stirling had a considerable capacity, endurance, we really got the long trips. So, one of our favourite areas was the Eastern Mediterranean and across the Bay of Biscay to the estuary of the Garonne River which leads down to Bordeaux. The enemy was getting in supplies by sea via these routes and the British War Cabinet wanted it stopped. So we went around laying mines across the area and the enemy spent time trying to get rid of them. And there was a sort of a battle that went on. We laid more mines. They’d get rid of those. It occupied their, their forces and their strength and probably formed a useful diversion which was exploited by our side. Anyway, they were long trips and for a lot of the way, navigationally speaking they were boring trips. We set out with a forty five minute crossing. Crossing of the sea with nothing to see except stars and astro navigation. You felt sometimes you’d made the wrong choice. You’d like something more exciting. But we worked quite successfully at this and in due course became one of the senior crews on the squadron and carried on with this sort of work. You had a general scope of mine laying and Maquis supplying. Supplying the French and attacking a few strategic targets in between. And that’s how life went. The days were quite pleasant down in the agricultural area of Suffolk. If you weren’t flying you’d go down to the village for the evening. Drop into the local. And they were always very generous and looked after the Air Force and we’d have a few beers and a singsong with them. In the morning was a 9 o’clock briefing and then you walked up to your aeroplane. To your individual Stirling. Like luxury, 3 Group was. You had your own aircraft. You didn’t take one from the pool. And you’d fly your Stirling for an hour testing all the equipment. An air test it was called. You would fire the guns. Drop practice bombs on a range. Check all the radio equipment and make sure it was in first class order when you got back or reported defects to be put right during the afternoon. And then at about 5 o’clock you’d have an aircrew meal of something sustaining and then go off to the briefing. Had the final operational briefing and then straight out to the aeroplane and off. Come back, hopefully, some hours later. And there was always a member, it was rather like a family on the squadron and you sort of took interest in each other. And one of the questions they always got was, ‘Who’s not made it yet?’ ‘Who’s not made it back yet?’ Not so much what we have experienced and managed to overcome but how were other people getting on. And you could sometimes find an aircraft was lost and our last, last thoughts were people, you were friends. People you’d had a few drinks with a night or two before. Where were they? What were they doing? And life on the squadron was very much like that. And occasionally we had a virtual stand-down where you had a week’s notice that there would be no operations on a particular night and you planned for a party. You could invite the local big wigs in with their wives and have a formal dinner dance or you could forget about that and just let events take their course when things got a bit riotous. And that’s roughly what life was like. There were the afternoons. And when we had the morning air test and then lunch the afternoon was free until proper briefing time. We got on our bicycles, the rear gunner and I. He was much older than any of us. He was a country man. He was born in the, in Surrey and raised on a farm and joined the Brigade of Guards as a job. In the Blues and Royals. And he had a self-discipline, a self-discipline engendered by his experience in the army which more or less rubbed off on the rest of us and I’m sure improved our efficiency. Anyway, we’d go out in the country on our bicycles and sit down at the edge of a cornfield and just listen to the sounds of what was going on and just reminisce and chat and relax. That’s a great, a great foil for the activities that may be on the coming night. Anyway, I ramble on. Is there anything more I can tell you?
NM: Tell me about the operation with the Resistance supply that seemed to go wrong.
AT: Oh, the Resistance supply was planned that you would go to this point that was [pause] I’ll start again. The Resistance group was liaised, possibly, possibly led by a British Army officer who was seconded to them. Usually from the Royal Artillery. And they would, he would mastermind the operation and give information back to Britain by radio. Giving us information about what we, what we needed to know regarding dropping in a certain dropping area. The times, recognition signals and anything else of that nature. And on the basis of that information we planned the operation and organized the times, organized the aeroplane and fly off on the schedule we’d worked out. And fly, for security we’d fly at low level. Usually below a thousand feet. Map reading our way across Europe. And the crew we got to, with practice we got the crew very good at reporting what they could see. And I sat back with large scale maps of the area trying to correlate the information they were giving with the details on the map and that way we worked a good system. We could find our way around Europe pretty well. And having got down to the rough area we’d do a wide circuit flashing the recognised, the agreed recognition signal. And from the ground we’d get the matching signal back. The counterpart. When we were happy with each other’s identity they’d light a flare path. A long line of flares with a cross piece and this would give us a wind direction and the line they wished us to drop on. Then we’d do a straightforward bombing run on that. At the appropriate moment release the containers. The rear gunner would report they’d gone, He’d count the parachutes and say that eight containers had gone. We knew how many we were carrying so we knew there were no hang-ups. And that was it pretty well. When they’d all gone we could do another circuit and they would flash back a thanks signal and we’d wish them luck and fly back home. Long trips. Boring in some parts. But always susceptible. By this time the enemy knew we were, what we were doing. They knew roughly, they knew roughly where we were and they’d have night fighters up. Night fighters up on our route back. So there was a certain amount of activity on the aircraft keeping an eye open for them. So we got back to Britain, we’d flash again the recognition signal as you approached the British coast and the British defences would pass you on. Acknowledge your signal. Then you’d get in touch with base. And after that it was just a question of flying back to base and landing. Then it was debriefing. We had a truck waiting for the crew. For us. Hand the aircraft over to the ground, to the flight sergeant in charge of the ground crew. Any defect, any problem, any damage report to him. He’d get it sorted out. We’d get on board the truck, go down to intelligence and answer their questions. Tell them what we’d discovered. What we saw. This would go into a pool of information coming back from various aircraft in various bases that night and generally build up a picture of what was going on, on the other side for the operation, the operational command. Then off for an aircrew meal and to bed.
[recording paused]
AT: Eventually she got disenchanted with this and went in for nursing instead and was on the theatre team of the hospital. The Dunstable Hospital. So she’s kept an interest in us, Francis and me ever since this trouble started and we helped her. So that’s why she’s around.
NM: Ok. Can I take you back to the, there was one incident in the, when you were dropping supplies to the Resistance that seemed to go wrong?
AT: Occasionally units of the French units, the Resistance units were infiltrated by traitors and could be, could be taken over and used by Germans. By the enemy. And it happened to us once. We carried on with our normal routine and the answers came back very, very swiftly and pat. And we began to feel, to get that feeling that something wasn’t quite right. And you couldn’t do anything about it except be doubly alert and sure enough when we were doing our bombing, our run to drop the containers with the aircraft flaps out we were going along, barely airborne, as low as we could we had a great attack from the ground. As I say the height we flew precluded air attack or fighter attack but left us vulnerable to the ground and they had, they attacked with all sorts of gunfire. And we were, there were a few minor injuries. Bits of shrapnel flying around. The aircraft had some damage. And we got out as soon as we could and got home and lucky to get there I suppose. But that was the sort of excitement that one had on those in those days. You just used your training and your initiative to pick up on those things and cope with the situation. Over to you.
NM: There was another occasion when you were attacked and lost part of your wing and had to resort to astro navigation to get back was it? Can you tell us about that trip?
AT: Navigation. What was the navigation?
NM: You were, you were attacked and lost part of a wing and you carried on with the operation and had to get back using astro navigation.
AT: That’s right.
NM: Tell us. Tell us a bit about that trip.
AT: Well the aircraft was controllable. The performance was debased but we managed to get, to keep it airborne. We, the pilot and the co-pilot. And the flight engineer was happy with the situation. And we had to rely always on an alternative. We couldn’t quite follow the route home that we’d planned from landmark to landmark. So we had to use astro navigation which meant flying steadily for two minutes I think it was. The sextant taking our star shots with us, or a number of star shots with the sextant. Now, the sextant worked with a chamber inside it which contained a liquid which under pressure with a capsule was pressurised, could be pressurized by taking a screw out a screw and this caused a bubble to form. And the idea was it had bubbles like a spirit level. Had to be kept in by moving a sextant and it kept in the middle of this chamber. And this was illuminated dimly as a light coloured ring. And your, the image of the star you were using appeared in the, within that frame according to the way you were holding the sextant and directing it. And you worked the, altered the positions, the latitude of the aircraft until the image appeared in the centre of the bubble. Then you carried on gradually coming back. Anyway, it was a tedious business and it went on for two minutes and that’s a very long time when you’re holding a sextant. Trying to balance. And at the end you had a set of readings which, with which you went in the air almanac which was really a list of readings that should be obtained if you are where you hope to be. Various places along, along the route. And you plotted. Your reading could be converted into what was called a position line. A bearing along, somewhere along which you were at the time and you’d reduce it to that. Plot that on the chart and then try and find another. Another position line. Either from a different star or from ground observation which would intersect the first as closely as possible to a right angle. You get a sharp cross. And that was your position at that time. Astro navigation was a tedious business and not popular but it was there and it couldn’t be interfered with so something you fell back on. And on this occasion we managed to fall back on it. And I can’t remember the details now but no doubt we got information which was sufficient. Sufficient for the purpose because here I am.
NM: So how was the aircraft damaged on that occasion? Was it ground fire? Flak? Or was it a night fighter?
AT: I think it was ground fire. I don’t recall it very clearly. I think it was ground fire. Flying at low level it wasn’t, it wasn’t difficult for the enemy to work out the direction you were, in which you were flying and to alert gun positions further along that route. And with four radial engines, seven hundred and fifty horsepower each blasting out the exhaust they could very quickly latch on to hearing you and plot you and pick you up. And at low level they’d got a chance of hitting you.
NM: There was another occasion you had a double engine failure on take-off with a crash landing.
AT: That’s right. That was on a Stirling. That was something that could happen and [pause] I think Colin was the pilot. Sergeant pilot. He was very quick. He and the flight engineer recognised this and alerted everybody to the situation. We all got in the crash positions where if the aircraft crumbled around us we’d all stand a chance of surviving. I know mine was back in, in between the spars. The Stirling wing was a massive girder which passed from one wing tip through the fuselage to the other wing tip and there were two four and a half girders with about four or five feet between them and my crash position was in between the two. I remember scrambling down there, lodging myself in firmly. And as for the Stirling’s nose the bomb aiming panel was cut out from the other side of the nose which left it like a scoop. And as the aircraft hit the ground this scoop was bringing up stones and soil and so on. Piling back into the fuselage. I looked at this and wondered if it was going to, whether it would stop before I had to get out or whether I’d have to cope with that as well. Fortunately it stopped but that was another interesting thing. They found afterwards there was a design fault somewhere in the system which caused the engine failure. I’m casting my eye around. Somewhere around this room maybe, or this [unclear] is my logbook.
NM: We can, we can look at that after.
AT: I’m sorry?
NM: We can look at that afterwards.
AT: Yes. I was wondering if it contained any details. Never mind.
NM: We can pick that up. Yeah. Now, you, you took part in an operation on, on D-Day.
AT: Sorry?
NM: You took part in an operation on D-Day itself, didn’t you?
AT: Yes. It was obvious from general events that D-Day was coming and we had one or two practices. And then the whole environment on the squadron changed. Everybody was kept on camp. Nobody could go off into the local town and nobody went off on leave. We were kept. Locked down as it were. And you had an aircrew meal which usually contained an egg in some form. This took place early in the afternoon I remember. At the usual time. And it was obvious to us what was going to happen. Anybody with any intelligence knew we’d been waiting for this and this was it. And we were told to report to the briefing room ready to go. Complete in flying clothing. All equipment. Which was unusual. Usual that we changed clothing after briefing but not on this occasion which added to our certainty that this was it. And from briefing we got on to enter the crew bus. Straight out to the aircraft. No stopping. No diversions. No possibility of informational leaks from one place to another. Service police were around and watching. And straight into the aircraft. And then it was normal procedure. And we flew, according to instructions, at low level. Down across the UK. I think we got to [pause] I’m not sure if it was Beachy Head. Somewhere on the, some location on the south coast. And they took off across, took off from the aircraft. Set course across the channel and there was quite a battle. I remember I saw quite a lot of activity down below and we were dropping supplies to the army. We got to the dropping zone. Went through, went through the motions. Dropped the containers and got out again as fast as we could. We got back to the UK, landed at base. Again, heavy security and a very truncated debriefing. Normally that went on for some time to get as much information as possible about enemy dispositions and movements on the other side. On this occasion there was none of that. A question of — you’re back, anything vital to report? Ok. Back to bed. You may be wanted. Straight to bed. And ready to be called out maybe an hour later depending on how things went. Fortunately we weren’t called and in the morning of course on the news was all of the invasion. The invasion is on. And the, the [public knew?] about as much as we did. What you do, the policy of the security is what you don’t know you can’t reveal. So we weren’t told anymore officially than we had to know. Yeah. There afterwards a question of operational requirements. Dropping further supplies if necessary. A bit of strategic bombing if it was needed. Knock out that rail junction or a road junction in advance of the army.
NM: And part of your drops on D-Day.
AT: Sorry?
NM: Part of the drops you did on D-Day itself were a lot of Window and also the Rupert dummies.
AT: That’s right. Thank you for reminding me now. Yes. Ruperts were fun. They were about five feet high I suppose. Cut out of a figure with a parachute and fireworks were verey cartridges that went off on landing. Pressure switch. And simulated the sort of signal that you would expect from an assembly rallying point. And the dummies going down, they attracted enemy fire. I can’t remember much else about them. I know we had one in the briefing room and it was used as a demonstration model of what was going to happen. Yes. Ruperts. I don’t know why they were called Rupert. Presumably it’s the designer or somebody high up had that name. And D-Day was quite striking. You could see the landing craft making their way across The Channel and it wasn’t, wasn’t terribly smooth. We thought of all those seasick soldiers who would have to carry on. And we were at low level. I can’t, I don’t remember now about the ground operations on the beaches. I think we were in advance of that. I think we were preparing for it but didn’t actually see it. But the, the sight of those landing craft was quite something. We’d seem them before on practice runs. Usually off the, somewhere off Weymouth. That area. I recognised the vessel but they were having a very rough time. I gather there was a chance the whole operation would be postponed because of bad weather but that would have been an enormous thing. An enormous task to undertake. I think they decided to, obviously they decided to go. Anyway, we felt we were safe and snug in our aircraft and thankful we weren’t down below. And straight back to base afterwards after having done what we had to do. Straight back to base by the shortest route. Refuel. Reload. And get to my debriefing. Get to bed in case you were wanted again. In case things on the ground over there took a turn for the worse and we were needed to urgently resupply. So, get what rest you can. Which we did. But we were not called. Things went as required, I think.
[pause]
NM: So that was the end of your first tour.
AT: Well yes.
NM: How did you adapt to becoming an instructor after the operational side of life?
AT: To begin with you were hesitant. As I am now. Which wasn’t very impressive. But eventually you got used to it. You got the patter. You knew the syllabus you were trying to follow. You knew how to liaise with people. You went through each student you were allocated. Three or four students to look after. And you went through their practice flights in fine detail. See where they had made a mistake or a wrong decision and you go through with them after like a tutor. You were a tutor. And we’d get used to that after a few episodes and I didn’t enjoy it very much. It was nice I suppose knowing that you would go back to a comfortable bed. Wouldn’t be roused in the middle of the night to go and do an air sea rescue. That was another feature. If somebody ditched, went down in The Channel, efforts were made to get them back. Firstly, I think it sounds a bit callous but I think firstly to prevent them falling into enemy hands and being interrogated by all the devious means the enemy was using. Drugs mainly. And [pause] what led me into this? Yeah. So this was one of the features of going to bed and getting as much rest as you could because it was one of the things you could get called out for. We were one night, somewhere up on the North Sea and we never found anything. We were given a box, an area to cover. When you covered it you’d have a brief look again and then come back. It appears to me as something I get right.
[recording paused]
NM: So, after six months instructing you joined Mosquito 162 [sic] Squadron.
AT: That’s right.
NM: Led by Ivor Broom.
AT: That’s right.
NM: Tell me about life on that squadron.
AT: Well, that was quite a different environment. First of all, on a Stirling squadron if you were lucky you had to wait for an, wait for an aircraft. You weren’t allocated your own aircraft until one became available. And this might be several, several weeks away. But I turned up at 163 and they said, ‘Right. Your aircraft is R for Roger. Go and have a look at it and meet the ground staff,’ which was rather a shock. I didn’t expect anything as fast as that but in 8 Group things moved quickly. Partly because it was led by a dynamic New Zealander and this group philosophy sort of filtered down to the squadrons. And yeah, we took our first flight in the aircraft and I remember, I remember that they too, the navigator was the bomb aimer as well in the Mosquito. You had to leave your seat and go and lie down prone beside the pilot. This meant that the oxygen pipe had to be long enough to put out a supply in the new position. It had to be fairly long. And I remember that during the practice, during the operation, the first operation it wasn’t long enough. There was no way it could get down there. It was one thing we failed to check during the air test. It was a warning — never assume anything. Check. Always check everything for yourself. And, yeah I remember the thrill of that first Berlin. That was always the big one. The Mosquito wasn’t so big. It could go high up. Beyond, beyond a lot of the ground defences. Most of them. And the horror of going down to the nose, finding the oxygen pipe wasn’t long enough at twenty five thousand feet. So I took two or three deep breaths, I remember. Filled my lungs with oxygen as far as I could and went down and did the bombing run. That was a salutary lesson. Never assume that things will be what you expect them to be. And [pause] I was trying to think if there was anything else. Anything else notable on that trip. I haven’t read my notes. Was there anything you want to mention?
NM: There was another one of these trips you were attacked by a night fighter.
AT: Oh yes. This happened suddenly. Without warning obviously and I was sitting around. The pilot was very, very good. Very skilled. And he took evasive action and I had to tell him which way to turn and what action to take. I was sitting in my usual position with my head screwed around so I could see backwards. You could see lines of tracer bullets from an enemy passing by. Get an idea where he was and transferred this information into suggestions to the pilot that he might fly at this location or dive or climb or take some manoeuvre to throw the enemy off. And this seemed to work. All of these ideas you practised during the daily air test. Every day do an air test during the morning with the Mosquitoes up in The Wash. Over the sea. This voice is ridiculous.
[pause]
[recording paused]
AT: Ok. Over to you again.
NM: So, in total you went to Berlin twelve times.
AT: Twelve times, that’s right.
NM: What about other targets?
AT: Well yes, usually of tactical importance. Railway crossings, railway junctions, road junctions. I think we went to one or two docks. Ports. Oh, by this time the invasion was on. There was a question of disrupting enemy communications and their ability to move materials and men in numbers around north west, North Western Europe.
NM: Were there any particular operations that stand out in your second tour?
[pause]
AT: This distance in time it’s hard to remember.
NM: So, in 1945 you were awarded the DFC.
AT: Yes.
NM: How did you feel about that?
AT: I was chuffed of course. Very pleased. Not sure I really deserved it but the CO seemed to think so. Of course it cost me a lot of money in beer. In beer in the mess that night. And a trip to the Palace to receive it. It would have been the king but the king was ill with lung cancer and it was [unclear]and the thing about it that sticks in my mind is quite stupid. He was wearing white knitted gloves. Machine knitted. He shook hands with everybody but he was wearing white gloves. And we of course had none. And I thought, why? I recognise the importance but why does he have to wear gloves at all? It can’t be that we would contaminate him in some way. Anyway, perhaps its protocol. And it was stolen later. It was silver. Made of silver of course and at this time there was an interest in silver as an important resource for the country. And people were trotting off to the jewellers with the silver cutlery or silver tankards and things. And about this time the house that we owned in Harpenden was intruded, burgled. And my logbook went. And the DFC, and a few other bits and pieces. The logbook turned up later on a bookstall. I remember Toc H, the charity. They ran a Saturday morning bookstall in Harpenden outside the George Hotel. And one of our friends was passing by one day and he had a habit of stopping to see what there was there and he saw this unusual book. Had a look. Saw whose it was. Recognised it as mine and he bought it. That’s how I got it back. But I never saw, never saw the DFC again. For ceremonial purposes I got a replica which I still have and when it was necessary to wear the full medal I wore the replica [pause] and nobody knew.
[Telephone ringing. Recording paused]
NM: So, did you stay in touch with the RAF after the war in terms of squadron reunions or Associations?
AT: I have been, yes. I joined the local branch of the Royal Air Force Association. I joined the Royal Air Force, I joined the Association as a life member. Attached to the local branch I obviously knew that it had disbanded some years later. Well I’m now attached to a head office role and I get the magazine. “Air Mail” they call it. And notices of events. Some of which I go to. But I think one or two old colleagues are still around. We’re of an age now when we’re dropping off one by one. Falling off the perch as we used to say. And I don’t know of any of my crew that are left. Mosquito pilot’s gone. I know all of the Stirling crew are gone. Canadians are gone. The rear gunner’s gone. I don’t know how I’m carrying on really. I don’t know how. I’ve been well looked after I guess. Anyway, the Royal Air Force Association was open to all ranks and the local branch was a bit of a, a bit of a disappointment. They held its meetings in the function room of the local pub and that was a recipe for disaster. It became a, really what they used to call a boozy evening. Didn’t achieve very much. The Association as such. It still organises a number of interesting events. Some of which include Runnymede where there’s a memorial. But gradually memories are going. Individuals are going. Individually, I see it as an organisation which will eventually join forces with the British Legion and any celebrations will be in November. And I think it is going to come. At the moment we stagger on from event to event. A new Bomber Command Memorial. The Spire. A new enthusiasm. I’ve not been to see it. I probably won’t go now. I found it sensible to give up motoring when I had my little troubles. I realised that in any accident I was involved in which would include the police they’d look at my medical records and say, ‘Oh yes sir, I see sir. Yes sir. Quite so’ And I’d get the blame whether I was guilty as it were or not. So rather than go through that and the tedium of insurance compensation which costs a lot I decided to give up. And what I saved in tax, fuel and so on pays for taxis as we need them. And my family are very good. They’re all motorists so I’ve only to say I want to go to so and so and I have two or three offers. So we manage quite well without. But what led into that?
NM: When you look back on your time in Bomber Command.
AT: Yeah.
NM: What are your main reflections?
AT: In wartime of course it was one big happy family really. Matter of fact it’s comradeship. Interest and concern really for other people. Joe Bloggs. Did Joe Bloggs get back? And the sadness if the answer was no and you would sit back and get a bit reflective. What happened to them all? It was like there was sort of a cosy feeling when you went in the mess. Everybody was like a brother. On the operational side everything that was, could be done to safeguard the crews was done. It was rather, there was no great glaring gap. No great, sort of, why didn’t they do this or do that? And I think Bomber Command was good one to be in. It didn’t have the charisma of Fighter Command or the sheer boredom of Coastal Command.
NM: And how do you think Bomber Command has been recognised since the war?
AT: Well we’ve now got the Spire. And Runnymede. But it wasn’t very much after the war. We had the odd reunion. Gradually in time, you get individuals went and [unclear] the impetus was lost. It wasn’t till this last few years we got the Memorial at Runnymede that people have taken a new interest. It became a way of life really. In Fighter Command you were available and could be called on at very short notice. At Bomber Command it was more quietly planning. You had a routine.
[recording paused]
AT: There were times when you’ve been on leave. Maybe had ten days leave and days eight, nine and ten you wondered what to do with yourself. People, chaps you knew in civilian life were away in the forces somewhere. It got very boring. Relatives loved having you around. You had to consider that. But generally speaking you felt more at home in the Air Force than you did at home. [unclear] but it’s all different now I guess.
[recording paused]
AT: Various jobs after the war. I think the pilot, Colin, went back to, I think he was a marine draughtsman. He went back to that. Ronald, Ron the rear gunner, the ex-guardsman, went back to training police horses. The bomb aimer, a Canadian, went back home. Took a degree at the University at Guelph in Ontario and became a, he started breeding horses, [unclear] horses. Sadly he died. I went to stay with him once at a rackety farm. Farm life. And we had a wild week in Ontario. People are not so confined to activities over there or in Australia with the use of a gun. Over here it’s something that immediately attracts attention. The police want to know if you’ve got one but out there nobody seemed to bother.
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Interview with Anthony Tompson
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Nigel Moore
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-01-25
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ATompsonA160125
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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01:16:04 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Anthony Tompson worked as an engineer for the Post Office before he volunteered for the Air Force. While training as a pilot in Canada it was discovered he had a difficulty with perception and he trained instead as a navigator. On return to the Great Britain he was posted to 90 Squadron at RAF Tuddenham. Here the crew undertook a number of operations including several drops to Resistance groups in France. He describes one occasion when the Resistance group had been infiltrated and they came under attack from ground fire. After his tour he became an instructor but wanted to return to the excitement of operational flying. He was posted to 163 Squadron at RAF Wyton flying Mosquitos. Expecting that their first operation with the new squadron might be a gentle one he was rather surprised to find his first operation with the new squadron was to Berlin. He took part in the last Bomber Command operation of WW2 on 2nd May 1945.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Berlin
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1945
163 Squadron
8 Group
90 Squadron
air sea rescue
aircrew
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
military ethos
mine laying
Mosquito
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Normandy deception operations (5/6 June 1944)
Pathfinders
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Wyton
Resistance
Stirling
take-off crash
Tiger Moth
training
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/8752/PLucasWE1501.2.jpg
dc00f6a0e3e1fc69c5c9cdae6c5e637c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/8752/ALucasB150405.1.mp3
08574ac4f1191f6ee013bbf1624927f9
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Title
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Lucas, Bill
William Ernest Lucas
W E Lucas
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Lucas, WE
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15 items. Two oral history interviews with Squadron Leader Bill Lucas DFC (1917 - 2018, 1255396 Royal Air Force), his log book, brief memoir and photographs. He served as a pilot with 9, 15, 139 and 162 Squadrons. After the war he ran in the 1948 Olympics.
The collection was catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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William (Bill) Ernest Lucas was born in Tooting Bec, London on the 16th January 1917, 3 years deep into World War One. Luckily for Bill he was not of age to endure with the fighting in the trenches. However, when Europe was engulfed into another worldwide conflict in 1939, this set way for Bill to become involved with the RAF and IBCC.
Growing up, Bill was an only child and left his school (Bec Grammar School) at the age of 15. He managed to get a job with a printers, which led to his second and only other job at an insurance company called the London and Lancashire. The company’s sports club enabled Bill to find his passion for athletics (especially running) and he was expected to participate in the 1940 Olympics until the war interfered. (https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/30884)
A photo of Bill in his running gear is shown in https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/30865 where he is running down 55 Graham Road in Surrey.
Bill instead competed in the 1948 Olympic Games as the games were also cancelled in 1944 due to World War Two. Luckily the games were hosted in London (https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/london-1948) and Bill had retired from IBCC meaning that he had time to participate.
As seen in ‘Bill Lucas and the 1948 London Olympics’ (1948) https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/30866 Bill managed to come 6th in the Second Heat meaning he was one position off of being in the final on the 2nd August 1948! This collection also includes Bill in his older prime wearing his 1948 Olympic Games jacket and the official Olympic Games programme from 1948.
When Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st 1939, Bill was 22 years old meaning that he was eligible to be part of Great Britain’s Army. Combining Bill’s hatred of the sea and his fathers recent experiences in the trenches, the RAF seemed to be the most compatible choice with Bill. (https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/30884/B[Author]LucasWEv10001.jpg)
Bill was not involved in Britain’s mightiest air conflict against Hitler’s Luftwaffe however, instead watching ‘The Few’ defeat the Nazi aircrafts and succeed. Being considered to be Nazi Germany’s first ‘major military defeat’, this allowed for Britain to continue fighting in the war (https://www.raf.mod.uk/our-organisation/our-history/anniversaries/battle-of-britain/ and to an extent, allowed Bill to continue his path of becoming an Squadron Leader.
It was November 1940 when Bill started his pilot training, but due to a bomber offensive being the only way to properly counter the Nazis, this was huge not just for Bill but Britain as a whole. There had never been a bomber offensive before in warfare. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/30884/B[Author]LucasWEv10001.jpg
As seen in Bill’s official Pilot’s Log Book: (https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/520/24264/LLucasWE122826v1.1.pdf) his training consisted of being part of 16 Elementary Flying School at RAF Derby from 1940 to 41 , 8 School of Flying Training at RAF Montrose in 1941 and 20 Operational Training Units at RAF Lossiemouth in 1941 . He flew three different types of aircraft during his training, Miles Magister, Miles Master and Wellington I’s.
Bill’s training finally finished in August 1941 and he was posted to his first official squadron, IX Squadron at Honington. Here he flew the Wellington Bomber.
Will Cragg
Record of Service:
4 November 1940- 4 January 1941: 16 Elementary Flying Training School at RAF Derby flying Miles Magisters
9 January- 4 May 1941: 8 School of Flying Training at RAF Montrose flying Miles Masters
31 May 1941- 13 August 1941: 20 Operational Training Units at RAF Lossiemouth flying Wellington I’s
14 August 1941- 4 November 1941: 9 Squadron at RAF Honington flying Wellington III’s
4 November 1941- 30 December 1941: 26 Conversion Fleet at RAF Waterbeach flying Stirling’s
30 December 1941- 1 August 1942: 15 Squadron at RAF Wyton flying Whitley V’s
1 August 1942- 3 August 1942: 218 Conversion Fleet at RAF Marham flying Airspeed Oxfords
4 August 1942- 18 August 1942: 19 Operational Training Units at RAF Kinloss flying Whitley IV’s
19 August 1942- 13 August 1942: 3 Fighter Instructor Schools at RAF Hullavington flying Ansons
17 September 1942- 18 September 1942: 19 Operational Training Units at RAF Kinloss flying Halifax II’s
18 September 1942- 24 October 1944: 19 Operational Training Units at RAF Forres flying Mosquito III’s
30 October 1942- 19 December 1944: 1655 Mosquito Training Unit at RAF Warboys flying Mosquito IV’s
30 October 1944- 19 December 1944: 1655 Squadron at RAF Bourn flying Mosquito XX’s
7 June 1945- 28 June 1945: 162 Squadron at RAF Blackbushe flying Mosquito XXV’S
28 June 1945- 29 January 1946: 139 Squadron at RAF Upwood flying Lancaster III’s
29 January 1946: Station Head Quarters at RAF Upwood flying Mosquito XVI’s
William Cragg
William (Bill) Lucas was born on January 16th, 1917 in Tooting Bec, London. He was educated at Bec Grammar School, and left at the age of 15 to work at a printing company before moving to the insurers London and Lancashire to work as an assessor. While working there, he developed his talent for athletics with the Belgrave Harriers, with his best discipline being the 5000 metres. His goal was to compete at the 1940 Olympic games. However, in 1940, Bill was called up to help the war effort and mindful of his father’s advice to avoid the army and his own dislike of the sea, he chose to join the RAF.
Initially he trained as a fighter pilot on Miles Magisters and Miles Masters, but by the time he had finished training, the Battle of Britain had been won and the need for bomber pilots was more urgent. So, he was reallocated to bombers and trained to fly the Wellington at RAF Lossiemouth. Bill Lucas · IBCC Digital Archive (lincoln.ac.uk)
Following completion of pilot training in August 1941, he was posted to RAF Honington and joined 9 Squadron flying Wellingtons. He flew 14 operational sorties – notably Cologne and Hamburg – before converting to Stirlings at RAF Waterbeach. He then joined 15 (Bomber) Squadron at RAF Wyton, flying the Short Stirling and, by August 1942, Bill had completed a full tour of 30 operational sorties (over 40 operations in total). Bill experienced tense encounters with German defences, having to take evasive action and also getting caught in a cone of five or six searchlights. To get out of the searchlight glare he had to do things with the aircraft which it was never meant to do. Returning from one mission they flew too close to Kiel and the airframe amassed a lot of bullet holes and an alarming loss of fuel. Crossing the North Sea, the tank indicators showed practically nothing and they had to divert into Woodbridge in Suffolk. The groundcrew estimated there was less than twenty-five gallons of fuel left (probably less than 6 minutes of flying time).
He was released from operational duties and was posted to RAF Lossiemouth as a flying instructor. Then in December 1944, he returned to operational flying and was posted to 162 Squadron, part of the Pathfinder force, to fly the Mosquito, an aircraft he described as “a bit quicker and more responsive; a nice aeroplane”. He completed a further 34 operational sorites with 162 Squadron, including missions over Kiel, Berlin, Hannover and Magdeburg. In recognition of his war services, Bill was awarded the DFC and was Mentioned in Despatches.
Squadron Leader Bill Lucas was released from the Service in January 1946 and returned to the insurance job he had left to join the RAF. Eventually, he left the company to become an insurance broker. He also returned to athletics and the Belgrave Harriers; he ran in various internationals and competed for Great Britain in the 5000m at the 1948 London Olympics. Athletics remained with him for the rest of his life and he gave his spare time freely, working in prominent roles in the administration of athletics. He remained a Belgrave Harrier committee member well into his 90s. He became known as “the golden voice of British Athletics” for his many years as stadium announcer at the White City .
In his later years, Bill remained prominent in RAF and Aircrew Associations. He, along with a small Band of Sussex veterans, was instrumental in helping to raise funds for the construction of the Bomber Command Memorial in London’s Green Park and the International Bomber Command Centre.
Chris Cann
1940: Volunteered for the RAF
4 November 1940 – 4 January 1941: RAF Burnaston, No. 16 EFTS, flying Magister aircraft
9 January 1941 – 4 May 1941: RAF Montrose, No. 8 SFTS, flying Master aircraft
31 May 1941 – 13 August 1941: RAF Lossiemouth, No. 20 OTU, flying Wellington aircraft
14 August 1941 – 4 November 1941: RAF Honington, No. 9 Squadron, flying Wellington aircraft
1941: Commissioned into the officer ranks
4 November 1941 – 30 December 1941: RAF Waterbeach, No. 26 Conversion Flight, flying Stirling aircraft
30 December 1941 – 1 August 1942: RAF Wyton, No. 15 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
1 August 1942 – 3 August 1942: RAF Marham, 218 Conversion Flight
4 August 1942 – 18 August 1942: RAF Kinloss, No. 19 OTU, flying Whitley aircraft
19 August 1942 – 13 September 1942: RAF Hullavington, No. 3 FTS, flying Oxford aircraft
17 September 1942 – 18 September 1942: RAF Kinloss, No. 19 OTU, flying Whitley and Anson aircraft
18 September 1942 – 24 October 1944: RAF Foress, No. 19 OTU, flying Whitley and Anson aircraft
30 October 1944 – 19 December 1944: RAF Warboys, 1655 MTU, flying Mosquito and Oxford aircraft
19 December 1944 – 7 June 1945: RAF Bourn, 162 Squadron, flying Mosquito aircraft
7 June 1945 – 28 June 1945: RAF Blackbushe, 162 Squadron, flying Mosquito aircraft
28 June 1945 – 29 January 1946: RAF Upwood, 139 Squadron, flying Mosquito and Oxford aircraft
29 January 1946: Released from Service having attained the rank of Squadron Leader.
Chris Cann
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AP: The interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Andrew Panton, the Interviewee is Bill Lucas. Mr Lucas was a RAF pilot in various aircraft during World War Two. The interview is taking place at [redacted] Rustington, West Sussex on the 5th of April 2015.
WL: My name is W E (Bill) Lucas. I was called to the Forces in 1940, and my first introduction towards that was to be seen by a doctor in a Croydon school who, all intents and purposes, er, was to see which — whether I was capable of going in any of the services, that is, if I’d got flat feet or something like that. So we came to the point when he said, ‘Which service do you want to go in?’ So I said, ‘Well, I don’t want to go in the Army’, because my father put me off, had put me off going in to the trenches, et cetera. He himself had won a military medal saving his CO, he was a sergeant in the Northampton Regiment. So, I said, ‘no Army, I don’t like water, so I must go in the RAF’. ‘Oh, what do you want to do in the RAF?’ ‘Oh well,’ I said ‘what is there to do in the RAF other than fly?’ So he then wields his stethoscope and he then said, ‘you will never fly with the RAF’. So I said, ‘why not?’ He said, ‘you’ve got an enlarged heart’, I said, ‘I know that I’ve got an enlarged heart. I have been an athlete for a number of years and that developed the heart’. In fact, I was quite a good athlete, I was up to County standard at that stage, so he then said, ‘you’ve got an uneven heartbeat.’ Well, here I am, um, God knows how many years later, seventy-odd years later, and I’ve still got an enlarged heart and I’ve still got an uneven heartbeat. But anyway, he said, ‘well, I appreciate your enthusiasm. I’ll put you forward’. Well, having, um, escaped the doctor and, er, gone to Uxbridge and been interviewed again there for flying duties, they passed me without any bother at all, and then, having gone through all the introductory things, ground work et cetera, I was then trained as a fighter pilot, um, flying Miles Magisters and Miles Masters. That didn’t work, um, because they didn’t — well, the need for fighter pilots was over because we had won the Battle of Britain with the Spitfires, et cetera, et cetera, so I found myself at Lossiemouth, er, faced with flying a heavy bomber, the Wellington 1C.
AP: And what was it like to fly? How did you —
WL: Oh, the Wellington was a comparatively easy aircraft to fly. It was beautifully situated, it was low off the ground. You could do three-point landings in a Wellington, which you couldn’t do with some other aircraft, so it was quite enjoyable.
AP: And the kind of operations that you flew on?
WL: Operations were, at that time, were entirely over Germany, main cities and things in Germany but, but, er, if I had my log book here I could tell you where I went.
AP: What about —
WL: My first, my first one was, what happened was that when you, at Lossiemouth, you were trained and you finished up at a squadron, and I finished up at 9 Squadron, Honington, and did three trips, um, as a second pilot with a qualified pilot, and then you were given a crew of your own. So, er, I was sent off my first one as captain, they called it a making learner, and it was to Boulogne, so that wasn’t very far so we came back again. And from then onwards it was targets like Cologne and Magdeburg, all those sort of things.
AP: You said you were on thousand bomber raids.
WL: No, that was on the Stirling.
AP: The Stirling.
WL: So after a period of, of, you know, not very long, I completed fourteen operations with 9 Squadron, I was picked and given the honour, they called it the honour, of being one of the first pilots to fly a four engine aircraft, and that was the Stirling. Now, the Stirling was an entirely different aircraft to the Wellington, you’ve only got to see a Stirling to see how different it is. It had a very high undercarriage, you could not do three-point landings on a Stirling, you had to wheel them in. I soon learnt that, because otherwise you would be crashing aircraft all over the place. And then I was then moved to Wyton, W Y T O N, in, in Huntingdonshire, and I then did another full tour, of something like thirty-odd trips, with a crew and the Stirling. The main one of those that I can remember, is the first thousand bomber raid on the 30th of May 1942, er, when we went to Cologne. It was followed the following night with a similar raid on Essen. The Cologne one was quite successful, it was a beautiful clear night, moonlight night. Essen was a bit different, it was too cloudy, didn’t see the target very well, and then two more, two more nights later we did Essen again, still without a great deal of success.
AP: And did you encounter any fighters or —
WL: Oh well, that went without, thing that you either get flak or you get fighters, you know. They weren’t sort of buzzing around you all the time, but you would, you would get one at some time or other.
AP: Did you take evasive action, corkscrewing?
WL: Yes, and your, your rear gunner, if you’ve got a rear gunner coming to talk to you, oh [unclear], used his guns [slight laugh] his eight, eight 303’s.
AP: And was that the corkscrew?
WL: Oh, yes, you did evasive action and, of course, the other thing, which was even more terrifying, was getting caught in searchlights, because the German defences were all geared together that if, er, if a search, if a searchlight got you, then they could swing guns and other searchlights, and if you happened to get caught in a cone of five or six searchlights it was pretty grim. You could, then you started to do things with your aircraft which it was never meant to do, to get out. I had two experiences like that, but I recovered [slight laugh].
AP: And what about the blinding light [unclear]?
WL: Oh, of course, if you’re in the searchlights, you are blinded by them, but you, you hit back, because you got all your gunners to fire down the beam. We used to do a bit of destruction that way [slight laugh].
AP: When you’re coming up to the target now, coming up close to the target, the last couple of minutes, what’s that like?
WL: Well you had to do a straight and level, generally thought to be two minutes dead straight and level, but normally I used to, had a little pattern of my own, where I would weave, um, gently you know, never to be too long on any one thing, up a bit like that down a bit like that, and down a bit like that, still keeping the general thing and it seemed to work.
AP: And the bomb aimer, he’s in control?
WL: He takes over control in the last, um, last run in, yes. He’s the one that supposed to spot the target and set it up. Left, left, you know, right, right [slight laugh].
AP: And then once the bombs had gone, what happens then?
WL: Well, as soon as the bombs had gone, you moved away and headed home as quickly as you could and the thousand bomber raid on Cologne on 30th May, which was in a Stirling, I brought back a picture which, um, showed my stick of bombs going right across the front of the cathedral and the last one emanated at the bridge, the Hohen, the Hohenzollen bridge I think it’s called, in Cologne, so I claimed that. Now, whenever anybody goes to Cologne, I say, ‘stand in front of the cathedral and look at the front, and you’ll find it pockmarked. I claim those pockmarks’ [slight laugh]. Sort of bit of fun but probably quite true actually but, er, you know, I’ve not way of proving it.
AP: And that was a thousand bombers all targeting Cologne that one night?
WL: Well over a period of time, they weren’t all there at once [slight laugh] ‘cause it was done over, I don’t know, half an hour or so or more I should think.
AP: So you did Wellingtons, then Stirlings, and then —
WL: Oh we had Whitleys, and everything they could lay they hands on, so out of partly trained crews from OTUs, flown by qualified pilots, OTU instructors, um, but the crews were, you know, a bit dubious [slight laugh]. Well, you’d be lying if you said you weren’t scared to a degree, but, you know, being nervous and perhaps is something that helps you on your way, but if you gave in to it of course, you would never do it again, and some people did give in to it, and they got taken off, and it was called LMF, lack of moral fibre, so they got reduced to the ground, ground crews.
AP: And the support of the ground crews and all the other people?
WL: Oh terrific, they kept you in the air really. There’s no doubt about it.
AP: So can you say a little bit about all the people that supported you, the mechanics, the ground crew? What are your thoughts about that?
WL: Well I can’t praise them more you see, because it’s like when people say, ‘which aircraft do you like best?’ My answer to that is, ‘all of them, they brought me home’. So that’s what I say about the ground crew, you know, they got us there and back, they entered into the spirit of the thing as much as we did, you know. Their sort of hours were as queer like ours, they were there to see us off, they were there to see us back, see. Counting, you know, the aircraft as they come in. Was our aircraft going to come back in, see? They could be just as upset, I expect, with loss of the crew, their crew.
AP: Are there any memories in particular strike you from those years? You know, when you were flying, anything really vivid, or you feel you would like to relate to today, when you look back?
WL: What do you mean, things that happened to me?
AP: Yes.
WL: Oh, I had one or two scares. I had an engine failure on take-off on a Stirling, the engine went on fire. We had an, we had an engineer on board then and he dealt with it, but we were fully laden and gaining height was very, very difficult. This was out of Wyton, or Alconbury as we were flying from at that stage, um, so we had to get around and we had to lose some fuel, but we still had the bomb load on board, what to do with it? We weren’t getting any height at all so we decided, I decided that we were going to drop it. So it was a nice clear night so we managed to find fields, wide open fields, and we dropped the bomb load, et cetera, et cetera and thought nothing more about it, then came into land on three engines, which was no great problem. Later that, or a few days later, when we were all together, drinking in Huntingdon, we heard a bod way somewhere saying, ‘I was bombed by the Germans this week’, he said, ‘broke a lot of windows’. So we listened to this, and I thought that sounds very much like what we might have done, so we enlightened ourselves, we introduced ourselves to him and said it was us who, who broke his windows, so he was so delighted with that. We had free beer for the rest of the night.
AP: What was the Stirling like to fly in the air?
WL: In the air, I enjoyed flying in the air but it was a horror in the circuit with a big -, had an electric undercarriage too which was not a bad thing, but if the electrics failed, you lost your undercarriage. Well if you didn’t, there was a means of winding it down. Took about half an hour to do it.
AP: And, and this was night flying mainly was it?
WL: All night flying, yes, we did no daylight.
AP: Did you ever use the FIDO for, you know, fog?
WL: No but I might have done, but that was later in the war when I was on, on a Mosquito. I, I was first one back on my squadron and, unfortunately, we’d been sent out and been told we would be back long before weather came down, but we weren’t and when we came back fog was thick. It was really thick, so I made two or three approaches on, on, er, Bourn, which was by Cambridge, and, without effect, decided the last time that I would stay on the ground so we went on the ground, fairly well down the runway into a ditch, tail came over, and then we were upside down there. The ground crew arrived very, very quickly and turned it back up again, so we escaped that one.
AP: So you escaped that one.
WL: They’d been trained individually at various places, whether they were wireless operators, or gunners or navigators and in their own trade. I had a crew which I soon learnt to trust. I did not interfere with them, I let them get on with their job. When you were in the air you, you forbid chatter and you only contacted them if you thought need be, and that’s what the captain would do every so often, he’d say to the rear gunner, ‘are you still alive? Are you still awake’ even. The Met Office had no real means of knowing what was going on, other than outside the realms of the United Kingdom. They used to send an aircraft out sometimes before a raid took place to [unclear], it changed quickly and we had nights when we lost a lot of aircraft. I was on leave from my Stirling squadron, um, I was down in Epsom and I bought a paper, and we’d lost something like eighty-odd aircraft. When I got back to squadron, we’d lost three off my squadron and it was proved later that most of them were lost in weather. They went down in the Channel because wind changes, they weren’t able to, hadn’t got the equipment in those days. We flew with dead reckoning which means that, you know, it was what you could see —
AP: That was it. There was no —
WL: That was it. Then we started to get certain things like a Gee box, which was a sat nav I suppose in a way and —
AP: Did you fly with H2S?
WL: Well I flew with H2S in a Mosquito when my marking days were —
AP: Could you talk a bit about that, because I haven’t met anybody who used —
WL: Well having, let’s say having completed my main tour which consisted of forty, forty operations, um, I then went and spent two years with an OTU instructing others at Kinloss, instructing other people on Whitleys [slight laugh]. Two years later I was withdrawn, posted down south, to find myself allocated to a conversion unit on Mosquitos with a view to joining 8 Group, which materialised, um, I went to a squadron, 162 Squadron, which was a newly formed, newly formed squadron especially for the war-time only, flying Mosquitos. Half of us were markers and the other half did diversionaries and that sort of thing.
AP: So did you actually mark the targets?
WL: Yes, I marked. Not all the time but depending. Mosquitos could fly when the heavies couldn’t, see. We could compete with weather better than they did and in those last two years of the war, er, we did a lot of Baedeker raids. I think going out, we took four, five hundred pound bombs and did Hamburg, Magdeburg, Cologne and somewhere else, came back home, you know, having kept the Germans in their shelters all night [slight laugh]. We used to go out at quarter of an hour intervals you see.
AP: Where did you fly from?
WL: I flew from Wyton.
AP: Wyton? Okay. So —
WL: No, in Mosquitos, I flew from Bourn, Bourn without an ‘e’, just outside Cambridge.
AP: Could you talk a little about marking the targets with the Mosquitos?
WL: Well the basis was that we carried, er, flares which lasted quite a long time and varying colours. I never knew which colour I was going, going to be carrying but we were instructed to fly a course, which we were able to do using H2S, er, essentially to be perfectly accurate, and then at a nominated height, and at a certain point, we would drop these flares, which would burst near the ground if it was a clear night or quite high up if it was above cloud. The main force then comes in and bombs the flares and it’s all worked out that if they hit the flare, then their bombs would hit the target, see.
AP: And was there different colours of flares?
WL: Oh yes. Greens, reds, yellows, everything.
AP: And did they have different meanings?
WL: Well the bomber crew coming in behind knew what they had to do, which ones they shoot.
AP: So they could [unclear]
WL: Well they have some warning you see. They might have a yellow one as a warning, then a green one, that’s the one to bomb or something like that.
AP: Right. And H2S, is that the one you were using, that’s the —
WL: It was a forerunner, really, of television. We had a screen in the aircraft, we transmitted a beam or something like that, er, which picked up the ground. It didn’t pick up, er, sharpness but we could tell the difference between water, and built-up areas, and rivers, and all that sort of thing, and we were provided with a map in the aircraft so we were able to follow that by watching the screen. The screen should agree with the map and therefore we knew — it wasn’t until 1943, ‘44 that we began to get accuracy because of that. There was another means called Oboe, that was done by Mosquitos as well. That was arriving at a point, a cock, a cocked hat as they called it, three beams transmitting from this country, all crossing at one point. They used to have, they would have warnings and then they really did have to fly, er, two minutes straight and level. But Oboe, of course, was only useful, couldn’t be done at great distance. The Ruhr was about as far as we could do with Oboe. We used to drop from anything up to thirty thousand.
AP: Any kind of low level bombing?
WL: No, I didn’t do any of those.
AP: Right —
WL: Not, not in a Mosquito. I did some low level stuff in Stirlings, dropping, um, sea mines off the coast of France and Holland, in waterways.
AP: What kind of height would that be?
WL: Three hundred feet. Flying inside the islands off the coast of Holland and shot at. It was the same with Lorient, on the approach into Lorient we were dropping sea mines there. We used to treat these trips quite mundane really, you know. I was never on any sort of thing like Amiens or those specialised jobs. No, I would love to have done it, but I couldn’t. I mean they made a mess of that one so —
AP: Did you go as far as Berlin in the Mosquitos?
WL: Oh yes, fourteen times [slight laugh]. There’s a story about that because, um, we didn’t go to Berlin for a long time after the war, but off of a cruise, we were on in the Baltic, we stopped at Warnemünde and, and got taken into Berlin, see. Met by a young man who was to be our guide for the day, and I knew what he was going to say, he was going to say, at some time, had I been to Berlin before? So we left him to it. Eventually he got round to it, and I said, ‘Yes, yes. Fourteen times but never on the ground’. See, so he looks at me and he said, ‘I know all about that’, he said, ‘I commend you, you did exactly what you were told to do’, and we had a very good day together [laugh].
AP: There you go. As you look back, is there anything specific? Any memories of your wartime experience —
WL: Well yes, in a way. When you got a big crew on board, we used to have seven on a Stirling and I had the same crew from my Wellington and Stirling days, we got quite matey. We always went drinking together, see. Some were commissioned and others weren’t. I was commissioned during my period on 15 Squadron Stirlings and, er, but we always used to go out in the evenings, start off anyway [slight laugh] together what we got up to later was Legion. That crew was still left when I finished my tour of heavies, with three or four trips to do. The ruling when we first started bombing, was that you did thirty trips, then they changed it to two hundred operational hours, which meant that you probably did more than thirty. Anyway, they were left with, er, two or three to do and I departed up into Scotland, and I’m thinking I was never going to see them again, see. Then I heard that the first time out with a new captain, they’d been shot down. I was quite sorrowful about that, because I’d spent, oh, something like twelve months with them altogether and, er, that, you know, so I was sorrowful about it and nothing happened ‘till about four or five years ago. I was rung up by a young lad who said, ‘I’ve seen a picture of you with your crew in the Sunday Telegraph’, and he said, ‘I think one of them is my grandfather’. So I said, ‘which one?’ And he said, ‘Jack Tailor’. I said, ‘Yes, Jack Tailor was my engineer’. It then transpired that Jack Tailor had been withdrawn on the morning of that, of the time they were shot down. He was then a sergeant engineer. He finished the war as a warrant officer engineer, which was quite something. He won himself a DFC and he died in 1996 [slight laugh].
AP: That’s amazing.
WL: He obviously thought I hadn’t survived and I was absolutely certain that he hadn’t, see, but all the time he was living within a really close distance. I lived just outside Croydon for a time, he was there. I moved down and got remarried to a lady which you might meet later, um, in the Horsham area, he was there, and his daughter and the, and the young lad who rung me were at, um, a place about five miles along the road, on the 272 from us, at Shipley.
AP: Amazing.
WL: Coming home, we came a bit too near Kiel coming home, see, and got lots of holes. We lost a hell of a lot of fuel. There we were, crossing the North Sea, with the tank indicators showing practically nothing, down to nothing, and fortunately we made it, because in those days, they had a special airfield, Woodbridge was the one in Suffolk, where they had three runways. The left hand one was you could go in if there was nothing wrong with you, the middle one if you weren’t sure and the right hand one if you crash landed it, see, so I took the left hand one and the, and we stayed the night there. The ground crew there refuelled, and he came to me and said, ‘I hope you realise how short you were of fuel last night’. I said, ‘Yes sergeant. How much are you going to tell me was there?’ He said, ‘well, according to our estimation, you had twenty-five gallons’. Now a Hercules engine, which is in a Stirling, uses fifty gallons an hour, so that’s two hundred gallons in, you had four, how far would have I got on twenty-five? If I’d overshot at Woodbridge, we would not be here today. You see we never, you got called on, on the day and said, ‘well sir, there’s a crew meeting at 2 o’clock this afternoon’, and you would go to this. The navigators would be taken off, they went to learn the target and go through all their maps and things like that, which didn’t involve the captains and the bomb aimers and things. Well the bomb aimers, yes, he will tell you about or has told you about that, and then of course, you got a long period when you were taken off, 6 o’clock or 8 o’clock or 10 o’clock, and the worse ones were of course, were when, we had a, you know, abortive. All the nerves had built up, see, and then suddenly, oh no, back to the mess, see. Then we got a bit of relief then, so a few pints, we used to go down, and one station I was on, they had a piano like that and so, you know, we would spend most of the evening singing round the piano, so —
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Interview with Bill Lucas. One
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Andrew Panton
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-04-05
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ALucasB150405
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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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eng
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Royal Air Force
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00:29:21 audio recording
Description
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W E (Bill) Lucas joined the Royal Air Force in 1940, where he trained as a fighter pilot flying Miles Magisters and Miles Masters, before being posted to RAF Lossiemouth and moving into Bomber Command, flying the Vickers Wellington 1C.
Flew 14 operations with No 9 Squadron at Honnington flying the Short Stirling, before being posted to Wyton in Huntingdonshire where he did a full tour of over 40 operations on Short Stirlings.
He took part in operations to Cologne, Magdeburg and Essen, including taking part in the first 1000 bomber raid on the 30th May 1942.
He then spent 2 years with a Operational Training Unit at Kinloss, instructing on Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys and then he moved to 162 Squadron, flying De Havilland Mosquitos where he marked targets, and did 14 trips to Berlin.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1942
1944
1945
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Germany
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Suffolk
Scotland--Lossiemouth
Germany--Cologne
15 Squadron
162 Squadron
8 Group
9 Squadron
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
fear
grief
ground crew
H2S
lack of moral fibre
military ethos
mine laying
Mosquito
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Bourn
RAF Honington
RAF Kinloss
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Woodbridge
RAF Wyton
searchlight
Stirling
target indicator
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/527/8761/PParkerWC1505.1.jpg
c3505c05e9a355683dcca5b157840db9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/527/8761/AParkerC150717.2.mp3
d97fcfc78e20daf5ccec6adcaced305a
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Title
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Parker, Charles
W Charles Parker
W C Parker
C Parker
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Parker, C
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flying Officer Charles Parker (195483 Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 128 and 163 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CP: W Charles Parker, Fast Night Striking Force of number 8 Group Pathfinders, Bomber Command. Ready?
Er, this paragraph is called “Crewing Up”. We, pilots and navigators, were interred in a rather large drill hall and told we had two hours to crew up. Now with Mosquitos, the crewing up, there’s only two of us and it’d be easier one would think than it is for a Lancaster with seven or maybe eight people. Er, at this particular time, it was in September ’43, and I was a very green twenty-one year old, not really knowing what was going to happen next, because I didn’t feel I could approach ‒, some of the pilots who were way over a thousand hours flying, complete with gongs, and I felt I had to wait for them to approach me. Some had already crewed up in their minds and were ready to say ‘yes.’ As far as I was concerned, I was a bit shy but I was quite surprised when somebody came up behind me and said, ‘I wonder whether you would risk your life with me, Sergeant?’ I turned round and it was Flight Lieutenant Patrick Duncan who, in fact, had an Air Force Cross already. I looked at his medal ribbon and thought, ‘this is the man for me’, and I never regretted that.
Er, I call this “De-Oxyenisation”. It happened on my twenty-first birthday and I spent the best part of that day, all morning and into the afternoon, trying to let the powers that be decide whether I could be fit to fly at high level in a Mosquito. The unfortunate part about it was that I knocked the oxygen tap off, and whether promptly or shortly, I passed out and they had to deoxyenise me, decompression chamber, to allow it to get down to normal level, and then we had to go through the whole episode again because of my stupidity. I think, for the uninitiated, I should say that whilst we were in the decompression chamber that the oxygen was withdrawn, and we were asked to write our full names and address. The point is that one never got to the last line of the address without looking as though you were drunk. Then comes my first episode with 1409 flight, which was the Met flight that went ahead of the main force and relayed the weather over the target. We happened to take off one evening, and when we were airborne which, and we always in a Mosquito, climbed on track, unlike the American Flying Fortress, which spent the best part of an hour and a half to get up to height before setting course. Anyway, there we were, listening, as we were getting near the coast, near Cromer, to the 6 o’clock news and suddenly, I saw another Mosquito heading straight for me, at the same level, and all I had time was to bang Pat on the shoulder and point, and this Mosquito of 1409 Met flight was within ten foot of colliding with us. Fortunately, we went down and the Met flight went up, but we found out afterwards which aircraft of 1409 it was, and we had a few words to say. My first operational flight would have been one of the German Ruhr targets, but because of weather being bad, we were cancelled for that night, and on our second night in the squadron, we were targeted for the big city, Berlin. Naturally, as you can understand, that as it was our first operational flight it was somewhat difficult to class our experience, and although there was quite a bit of flak around, we didn’t see any night fighters at all and we got back quite reasonably, and on the immediate briefing with the intelligence officer on the ground, we were de-briefed reasonably well with the exception of his query. ‘What was the flak like?’ Being completely honest fighters, we told him that it was the first flight and that therefore we didn’t know what we had to expect, and he said, ‘I see your point. I’ll tell you now that most of the crews have said the flak was medium’. So I said, ‘well, we’ll take their word for it. The flak was medium and we’ll know what to expect next time’.
The next episode is our thirteenth trip. I think all aircrew are somewhat superstitious and we weren’t really looking forward to flight number thirteen, which was also to the big city, Berlin, and whilst we were waiting for the aircraft to be bombed up with a four thousand pound cookie, it has to be wound up, as it were, on cables into the bomb bay of the Mosquito, and it was just about to bomb bay height when there was a clunk, and the four thousand pounder plonked down, nose first, on the ground. I stopped running after a hundred yards before I realised that it wasn’t any good running, because the cookie wasn’t actually armed at that particular moment. That comes after it’s fully loaded in the bomb bay. When I got back to the aircraft, it was decided that we would use the spare kite for the night, which was in the hangar. We got there and the officer IC night flights told me take a table in the shed and work out a new flight plan. At that particular moment, I didn’t think I was going to be asked to fly that night, but they were quite serious so away into the shed I had to go to work out a new flight plan, and the crux of the matter was, that even if I increased our cruising speed by five miles an hour, I still wouldn’t arrive over Berlin until at least ten minutes after all the others had left. This didn’t appeal to me at all, but within another five minutes the aircraft was ready. Pat turned round to me and said, ‘come on Charles, we’ll go’. I said, ‘not me’, so he said, ‘what do you mean?’ I said, ‘I don’t fancy being over the big city by myself for ten minutes’, so he said, ‘no, come on, we’ll go’. So I said, ‘not if I can help it’ [laugh]. ‘This is our thirteenth trip’. So I turned round to the night flying IC and said, ‘does this make sense? All by ourselves and the others all coming back. We’re just going out’. So he says, ‘no, I think we’d better scrub it for tonight’, so I said, ‘thank you, Sir’. Pat said to me, ‘come on Charles, we’re going’. I said, ‘no we’re not, the officer IC night flying said we don’t have to’, so I didn’t go that night. Whilst we talk about being over the big city, I think I might just as well say here and now that the flak over Berlin was heavier than most of the targets, mainly because it was bigger, but it was particularly brought to my notice that the way the searchlights operated over Berlin and, in this particular case, we noticed that parallel to us was a bright bluish white searchlight, which was tracking us about a mile away, and then all of a sudden, with a, like a swish, that one searchlight came over and it had us, radar controlled, as it were. And with that, all the other searchlights anywhere near landed on us as well, just following the this whitish searchlight. It was a good three to four minutes before we were able to escape.
The next episode is one I call “Our May Day or SOS Flight”. We were returning from one of the German targets, I can’t remember which one it was now, but we’d had quite a bit of engine trouble and it meant using one of the engines and closing down, feathering the other one, and when the first engine got a bit overheated we swapped them over. And this went on for quite a time, by which time we’d crossed over the Dutch coast, and I seemed to have the idea that we were over Grimsby Docks. God knows why, all I could see was what I thought was fisherwomen gutting the fish, which made me think of Grimsby, but I think I was suffering from lack of oxygen as well because it turned out that we were nowhere near Grimsby, we were a hundred miles south of track, over France. Having discovered approximately where we were, Pat then decided that we just didn’t have enough petrol, and he said, ‘I’m going to have to send out a May Day call, Charles, and you want to get ready, because I think you’ll be bailing out within the next five minutes’. Within that next five minutes, he called out, ‘May Day, May Day, May Day’ and we got an answer back, saying ‘we are putting searchlights up showing you where to head’, and with that, searchlights came up to the north and seemed to indicate the direction we should go, but by that time we were almost out of petrol and Pat called out, said, ‘we need immediate landing instructions because gravy is low, gravy is low’. This means, of course, that our petrol was spread out over all the tanks with very little left in any of them. These searchlights then meant that we were able to go straight in without doing an audit or anything, and it was just over Beachy Head and the aerodrome was no further than a mile to the north. It was a grass aerodrome we landed in, thank God. It turned out afterwards that there was about twelve gallons of petrol, spread over fifteen tanks, which meant there was, as far as aircraft are concerned, there was nothing in any of them. We went into flight control to see the chaps, give them details in there, and he said, ‘Oh well, if it’s just a question of loading up, we’ll give you sufficient to get back to, to Wyton and you’ll be able to go back there tonight’. So I said to Pat, ‘not if I know it, now I’ve got my feet on terra firma and that’s where they’re going to stay’, and it was a naval air station at the time and he was the equivalent of an Air Force squadron leader in charge, and he looked at me completely aghast, to think that a mere sergeant was arguing with a flight lieutenant, but we didn’t go back to ‒, even though Pat said that we had the day off tomorrow. I said, ‘Well I can’t help it, by the time we get back there in the morning, we’ll have the half a day off anyway’. He still couldn’t believe it, this naval officer [laugh]. This covered a light drinking session in the mess, er, having a few beers with fellow squadron people, and also with Tommy Broom, who was our navigation officer, Tommy Broom DFC and two bars, and we were just talking about things in general and Tommy said to me, ‘I suppose you think it’s about time you had a gong?’ To which I said, ‘well, no, I don’t think I’m due for a gong but I think Pat is.’ I said, ‘If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t be here now.’ So he said, ‘so you think he should get a decoration?’ So I said, ‘Yes, I think so.’ To which he said, ‘well, I have to tell you that he has already been recommended for the DFC, but you’re not to tell him that yet. It’s just that I was taken unawares by your decoration’. So I said, ‘yeah’, and he said, ‘I suppose you don’t think you haven’t earned one either’. So I said, ‘well no, I’m only worried about Pat at the moment’. So he said, ‘well so long as you don’t tell anyone but’, he said, ‘you’ve also been recommended for the DFM and it will be possibly a couple of months before it actually is gazetted’. So I said, ‘well, thanks very much, I won’t say a word’.
This is a story which I never thought would happen but it refers to the time when we were orbiting Wyton Aerodrome before being called to land, and I noticed that Pat was having quite a struggle with the controls and things weren’t exactly smooth. He asked me if I could see anything untoward at the tail of the aircraft, and I noticed then what I thought was the tail ident light had come somewhat loose, and was whirling around as though it was a firework display. With that, Pat was struggling with the controls but he was determined to get the thing down in one piece, and when we hit the runway, the next thing I knew was we were off the concrete and onto the grass, and heading straight for the flying control tower. With that, we finally stopped no more than ten foot from the flying control building, and with that, all hell broke loose on the ground. There were people outside trying to undo the Mosquito to let us out, and as I was the first one to drop to the ground. I was grabbed by one of the ground control people, who seemed to think that I was panicking, but anyway I didn’t go any further. The inquest afterwards of course, was Ivor Broom saying that the episode was the second that he knew of and the first one, the crew didn’t survive. It turned out in the end that, sorry, it turned out in the end that it was the dinghy which was kept in the top aircraft, immediately behind the cabin had broken loose and blown up and wrapped itself round the tail plane, er, and it was wedged between that and the rudder horn. Nevertheless we were on the ground and it was safe.
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command Archives, I’d like to thank Charles Parker at his home at Willow Hill in Hoveton, for his recording on the 17th of the 7th 2015. Thank you very much.
CP: It was on another trip to the big city that the following occurred. We were just turned on to the final leg to the target, which was Berlin, when I realised that I could no longer hear Pat talking to me, and the realisation that I was no longer getting any oxygen through my mask, and then Pat came to the conclusion that the oxygen meter was reading “Nil”. I must have caught the oxygen meter tap with my Mae West as I struggled through to the nose. I then crawled out of the nose, gulping great mouthfuls of oxygen, and when Pat said, ‘are you going down there again?’ I answered, ‘that’s what we came here for’, and then we successfully completed the bombing run, with the cookie leaving the aircraft with an almighty clunk. One more escapade we were involved in was after we left Munich one night, I was rebuilding my folding navigation table to find my flight plan suddenly sucked off, and before I realised it, it had disappeared down the window chute into the wide blue yonder, complete with details of the various stages back to base. The only direction I could give Pat was to fly two hundred and ninety degrees until we hit the English coast, and in the meantime, I could only wonder what I should tell Tommy Broom, the squadron navigation officer, to explain the lack of my flight plan. I could only tell him the truth. The strange thing was that he fortunately believed me.
MJ: [unclear]
CP: It’s on now, is it?
MJ: Yeah, so what did you do?
CP: Well, first of all, I think it’s best to explain, the meaning of the word, “Window” was a code name for bundles of aluminium strips er, approximately a foot long by three or four inches in diameter, and they were covered with brown manila paper with a piece of string through the centre of the bundle back. on the outside of the brown paper and, when they were thrown out through the window chute in the floor of the aircraft, the brown paper was torn by the string and the thing fluttered down with a whole load of strips of aluminium, which were done ‒. The whole idea was to confuse the enemy radar. The Mosquito bomber was completely unarmed.
MJ: Yeah?
CP: In fact, I always used to joke, saying that the only method of armament was the pen knife that I had in the flying boots, which we intended to be used to split the top of the flying boot from the bottom to really facilitate the fact that they could be looking like a pair of shoes if one had to try and escape on the ground.
MJ: Yeah.
CP: We would be told to make feint attacks on various cities within Germany, just to wake them up and cause an hour’s bomber alarm. And then also there were occasions as well, with this window chute, you could carry a small empty beer bottle and drop that through, and it made a whistling sound like an extra bomb but it’s only a bottle.
MJ: Yeah, that’s clever.
CP: Yeah, it took a bit of time before I tried that because I was always frightened it might damage the Mosquito as it was going out, but that never happened. But plenty of empty beer bottles used to be slung out as well.
MJ: Recycling?
CP: Yeah. Well I was only a twenty-one year old, you know, so I mean, anything like that was appreciated. There was another occasion, you just reminded me on that. The Mosquito always used to carry a signal pistol in the roof of the plane and part of the ‒, when we did a night flying test, was to check the Very pistol was empty, and one particular occasion, in order make certain it was empty I found that the thing was actually armed, and rather than going through the task of finding out it was empty or not, and I stress that this was on the ground at dispersal, I pulled the trigger of the Very pistol and it went off with a bang and there was in fact a cartridge in there and er ‒. I was more worried because it pooped out, up in the air, did an arc, came down to the ground and landed on the wing of another Mosquito in a dispersal and luckily it sort of hit the wing and bounced off and petered out on the ground, but if it hadn’t been for the fact that my pilot was in fact the flight commander, I think I would have had a few more stories about pistols going off, so I got away with that one easily enough. Yes.
MJ: This is the end of the second part of the recording with Charles Parker. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Charles Parker
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-17
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Sound
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AParkerC150717
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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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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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00:34:50 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Charles Parker was part of the Fast Night Striking Force of Number 8 Group, Pathfinder Squadron in Bomber Command, flying in Mosquitos.
He tells of ‘crewing up’ in September 1943 as a 21 year old, his near miss with a Mosquito from 1409 Met Flight, and an emergency landing near Beachy Head when his Mosquito nearly ran out of fuel when returning from Germany. Charles flew several operations to Berlin from RAF Wyton in Mosquitos and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
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1943
8 Group
anti-aircraft fire
bombing up
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
Mosquito
RAF Wyton
searchlight
superstition
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/607/8876/AMaywoodRM151109.2.mp3
773cbbdec73ec1fb4e55919303593c37
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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Maywood, Dick
Richard M Maywood
R M Maywood
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Maywood, RM
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard 'Dick' Maywood (1923 -2016, 1623169 Royal Air Force), his log book and a certificate. He flew operations as a navigator with 608 and 692 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2015-11-09
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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: This was the, this was the interview with Mr Richard ‘Dick’ Maywood at xxxx and he was a Mosquito Pathfinder navigator.
[Recording resumes]
RM: Above the main bomber stream. Twenty eight thousand. We carried one cookie.
CB: Four thousand pounder.
RM: Four thousand pounder.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And we had the Mosquitoes with the bulged belly. Now a lot of those — that was the B16. A lot of those appeared in the film, “633 Squadron.” Now, that film was the biggest load of bullshit you ever came across. It was so ridiculous that a lot of people would believe it. The bombs which they showed being loaded up on these, for the operation, were cookies. The four thousand pounder bombs that we carried with the peculiar tail fin added and they were supposed to drop these bombs so that they hit the base of the rock and bring it down. Now, with the four thousand pounder we were told safety height above one of those is five thousand feet or more. They wouldn’t have been more than five hundred feet away from that rock. So, the best part of that film as I was concerned was the theme song. The theme music.
CB: Yes. Exciting.
RM: Which I intend to have played at the end of my funeral service.
CB: Oh right.
RM: Because I’m gone.
CB: Yeah.
RM: The other Mosquito film they made. “Mosquito Squadron.” Again. That was largely, sort of, bull but there was one interesting point there which is true and that is the point where they had Mosquitoes practicing dropping bombs or lobbing bombs in to tunnels and that actually did occur. And one of the Polish squadrons. I think it was 305 was involved in that but other than that away we go. The Amiens raid which was a true one.
CB: Pickard. Yeah.
RM: That formed the basis of Mosquito squadrons attack. So, in actual fact “Mosquito Squadron” in spite of the American CO and all that sort of nonsense did contain certain aspects which were very true. Curiously enough, as I say, most of the light night striking force operations were either nuisance raids to divert fighter aircraft from the main bomber stream and were raids in their own right or they were on the same targets but about a mile higher than the main stream. So, some of them, the runs, were particularly with Berlin. They used to call that the Milk Run.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So how did that work?
RM: In exactly the same way as an ordinary raid would be set out. You’d be given the route. You’d plot the route. And you’d be given the Met winds which the weather people had found and were vital because A — you needed it for navigation in the days of steam navigation. And you also needed it as the only setting to be put on the Mark 14 bomb sight. And that was the gyroscopically controlled one. I can tell you a story about that too. I shared a bombing range with a B17 on one occasion at Boxmoor near Oxford. We’re at twenty five thousand feet. We had six practice bombs. It was a NFT. And I was sharing a range with a B17 and he could not have been more than fifteen thousand feet. With the bomb and the pickle barrel from thirty thousand feet. Norden bomb sight. His bombing error was twice mine. I was knocking up around about sixty, seventy yards and he was around about the, probably a hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty yards and as I say he was probably ten thousand feet below me. Two miles below me. So much for the American bomb sight. And that Bomb sight the bombardier had to take it out of the aircraft every time he flew and put it back in to safe keeping and then draw it out because they didn’t want the Germans to get it. But what they’d overlooked was the fact that the Germans had hacked down quite a lot of B17s and knew everything about the bombsight. But there we go. I’m afraid that you are probably going to think that I am very biased against the Americans. I’m very biased against the American navy. And I’m not particularly, sort of enthusiastic about their air force either. Any air force which bombed in daylight, in formation. Well, at a steady height. Steady speed. Nearest approach to suicide you could get. The B17 crews, I must admit, were very very brave people. Very brave people. But in those days as I say we hadn’t got much reference for them because most of the big B17 stations were around here. in this area. Northamptonshire.
CB: Near Peterborough.
RM: Peterborough and that area.
CB: Yeah.
CB: And all that area. And George, my pilot, if we were coming off a night flying test he’d look around for one of these and he’d formate on a B17 and sort of drop his undercarriage and put the flaps down and sort of follow on its wingtips and then when he’d had enough of that he’d go clean. Both engines. And then he’d fly in a circle around them as they went along because I mean we could do a hundred and ninety knots quite comfortably on one engine. But to give you some idea. On one occasion, on an authorised low flying exercise an American B, a P47, the Mustang — formated on us. “Air Police” written along it’s side and he was going like this. More or less telling us to get up. I gave him the washout sign. I said to George my pilot, I said, ‘We’ve got a visitor.’ ‘What’s that?’ He looked, ‘Oh him,’ he said. He said, ‘Let’s teach him a lesson.’ And he just took both engines through the gate and we left.
CB: Left him standing.
RM: Within a minute he was a dot. He could have beaten us at low level because of course our B16s that we were flying at that time, although it’s low level, really didn’t get into their own until we were at twenty one thousand feet or over. But going through the gate gave us that little bit extra. And that was it. Because we used to — from Downham Market we exited down between the old and new Bedford Levels right down to Royston. That was our route out. Incidentally, after VE day they said, ‘You’re coming off high level bombing. You’re going low level daylight in the far east and map reading.’ Now, that is the equivalent of going off an HGV on to formula one practically. Now, a lot of people don’t believe this but I can assure you, hand on heart, that it’s true. We were told, ‘Now, when you go to low level that is fifteen to twenty five feet.’ And we did it. Fortunately, my pilot, when he was an instructor in Canada at Estevan on Oxfords had four instances of collecting rubbish from the undercarriage of his Oxfords. Low level. Unauthorised. But he was very very good at it [laughs] and we had quite an amusing incident to do with that but if we go back to the light night striking force. As I say that was part of 8 Group which was given the permission to put eight, in brackets, PFF force. Group rather. Pathfinder force. Because each station in 8 Group had one Mosquito which was mainly light night striking force and one squadron of Lancs which were again associated with the Pathfinder force and they were equipped with H2S which gave you the map. And of course H2S was the result of quite a lot of Lancs being shot down because the night fighters, German night fighters could tune in. Home in on them and bang. And then again, the Germans had a very nasty idea called Schrage Musik which you’ve probably heard of. The upward firing guns. So, they’d home in underneath an unsuspecting Lanc and bang. That was it. But once they got wind of this then they put the Mosquito night fighters in with the bombers and that did reduce the losses a little because it upset the Germans. Now, is there any aspect that I could fill you in on? Because I don’t exactly know what you’re after you see.
CB: That’s alright. So, what I’d like to suggest is that we start with your earliest recollections of your life. What you did at school? Where you were born? And then after school what did you do?
RM: Yeah.
CB: And how did you come to join the RAF?
RM: Yeah.
CB: I’m just going to stop for a mo.
RM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Hang on. Let me just get it started again. So now we’re restarting with the early days, Dick.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So, where you were you born and —
RM: I was born —
CB: Just up the road.
RM: Just around the corner.
CB: In Peterborough.
RM: In Peterborough yes. I went to the local school which is about a hundred and fifty yards around the corner from here as an infant. From five to seven. They had the junior section then from seven to eleven and when I was eleven I got a scholarship to the local grammar school which was called Deacon’s School. Peterborough had two grammar schools. Deacon’s and King’s, of which, of course, there was very considerable a rivalry between the two [laughs] as you can imagine. Now, with King’s School it didn’t matter so much about passing the school cert exam. Eleven plus equal. With King’s School you had to be able to sing because that was the Cathedral School. And curiously enough at the service yesterday at the Peterborough Cathedral I remarked on the fact that we must be getting old because the choirboys looked smaller and smaller. I was actually in school to hear war declared. I’d reached the sixth form. And we were actually called in during the holiday to the sixth form to deal with the evacuees from London. Now they, that started on a Friday. The evacuees came into the school and we were there to separate these various children and give them to the groups to which they’d been allocated so that they could be taken to their future homes. And about half past ten, quarter to eleven on the Sunday morning the headmaster came around and said, ‘Forget about the evacuees. All of you assemble in the music room because Neville Chamberlain is going to speak to the nation at 11 o’clock.’ So, we went in there and we heard the war declared and that was that. Now, I came to the conclusion then that instead of staying on to go, say to do my A levels and go to university if that would be interrupted by war service. Now, I’d always been, from the age of about nine when I’d got a book called the Boy’s Book of Aircraft for a Christmas present I’d always been interested in the flying aspect. Biggles and all that sort of thing. And I developed quite an interest in flying from the reading point of view and from the model aircraft point of view. And I thought well why not volunteer for the air force. So as soon as I was eighteen, that was in 1941, I nipped up to Cambridge because at eighteen if I volunteered for the air force I wouldn’t be called up for the army or the navy. And so, I volunteered. I was accepted for further investigation. That was in 1941 and then in December ‘41 was called to Cardington where I had my aircrew medicals and aptitude tests and was accepted as future aircrew. And much to my annoyance, that was December ’41, I was actually called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground August bank holiday Monday 1942. I hopped off one foot on to the other. I thought that was a dirty trick [laughs] Anyway, we were assailed with needles and vaccinations and boots to be cleaned and uniforms. Paraded up and down Earl’s Court and so on and went to the zoo for meals. From there I eventually went to Number 6 ITW at Aberystwyth. I’d only been there about six weeks on a ten weeks course when I had to report sick on the Tuesday. I’d got a swollen throat and what not. Sore throat. Went to the sick quarters and the MO there sort of looked, ‘Ah, Mist Expect three times a day for three days. Come again on Friday.’ Well, this Mist Expect was a brown lotion. Yuck. Which was very evil tasting. Anyway, by the Friday morning I more or less managed to crawl up to the sick quarters and they said, ‘Strange. We’ll have you upstairs under observation.’ And that was on the Friday. On the Sunday morning I developed the classic male symptoms of mumps. Now, as soon as they realised this they whipped me off to the local isolation hospital called Tanybwlch where I was the only patient and I distinctly remember it. There were five Nurse Williams’ and one Nurse Prodigan there. I lived like a lord but the interesting thing was that I was there for a week and at the end of the week they said, ‘Right. You’ll be going home Monday. Fourteen days sick leave.’ Now, before the Monday, on the Friday, about twelve of the people who were in my flight at ITW reported in to Tanybwlch with mumps. And what they were going to do to me was nobody’s business until I mentioned fourteen days sick leave. I was the flavour of the month after that. Anyway, from there, after a week, a few weeks due to bad weather I finished up as Desford Leicester, grading school where I did my twelve hours on Tigers. Selected for further pilot training. The interesting thing was there the instructor that I had was a Sergeant Collinson. He was an ex-bank manager and three weeks after I’d finished and gone to Heaton Park word filtered through that he’d had a pupil who’d frozen on the controls and killed them both. And a nicer bloke you couldn’t have wished for. He was the exact opposite to the American instructor which I had at Grosse Ile. Anyway, as I say, we did this grading school and then from there we went to Heaton Park which of course was the centre from which all aircrew to Canada, America — the USA, South Africa were sent simply because there was no room in the sky to have UT pilots barging about and getting in the way even though the Tigers were painted yellow. But, and as I say from there I volunteered for the Flying Boat course which was rather ill fated. I did get about thirty — thirty five hours solo on Stearman N2S4s which I thought was a beautiful aircraft. It really handled superbly. The sort of one that the wing walkers are using now. Much nicer aircraft to fly then the Tiger. Had twice as much power and on Tiger if you came on the approach five miles an hour too fast you nearly floated across the airfield. You didn’t get down. With the Stearman N2S4 you came in and as soon as you got the right attitude closed the throttle, stick back and it would go down on a three pointer and stick. Much nicer. Also, had brakes which helped you to stop and manoeuvre because with the tiger they had to come out and take your wing tip.
CB: Now where was this? In the states. Where?
RM: This. Grosse Ile, Detroit.
CB: Grosse Ile.
RM: Yes. And the French Grosse Ile. And that was American navy. The only British officers that we had there were one RAF and one Royal Navy officer acting as liaison because of course not only did the RAF send pilots there but of course Fleet Air Arm. And it was the Fleet Air Arm course really. With carrier work and then Flying Boats because they had to be versatile with both but I could never understand why we were subjected to the first part of the course but it was a good thing in actual fact. But I couldn’t see it at the time. Because I couldn’t understand anybody would try landing a Catalina on a Flying Boat. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs to be. Anyway, from there, as I say, I was sent back to Canada. To Windsor, Ontario and had a re-selection board. Was re-selected as a navigator air bomber. The navigators could either be pure navigators, NavBs, NavWs nav wireless or Nav radio and in each case, it depended on the type of aircraft that they would be going on to for their training and radio mostly on fighters for instance. The day and night fighters. The —
CB: Can I just go — can I interrupt? Go back a bit? Why was it that you gave up the flying? The pilot training with the US navy.
RM: Why? I was washed off. Yes. I was washed off the course. They had a field. The main fields. Grosse Ile had several satellite airfields. Much more. And one of these was a square field on the edge of Lake Michigan and in the middle of the field was a hundred foot diameter circle. Now, it gets rather technical here because to explain it I’ve got to be technical. Imagine that there’s a line through the circle with the wind. Wind line. And this wind line when on the afternoon that I was taking my tests was at right angles to the shore of the lake. Now, this field was probably no more than four hundred yards long and the circle would be probably about eight or ninety yards in because you had to, sort of, do a touch down and off again. The afternoon, it was in August, the ambient air temperature was eighty five Fahrenheit. Now, you came down wind parallel to the wind line like a normal left hand circuit. Eight hundred feet. When your wings were opposite the circle you cut the engine and the rest was a glide. Now, you had to glide down across the wind line at between ninety and forty five degrees. Continue the left hand turn and make a right hand turn onto the wind line and in and drop. Because, of course with a lot of aircraft you’ve got no forward, fighter aircraft particularly, no forward vision. So they had to adopt this and they still do I believe. I’m not sure. Now, as soon as on the right hand turn, as soon as I crossed the shoreline I gained about fifty feet. Thermals. I’ve never done any gliding or known anything about it and I didn’t know what a thermal was. So I overshot. The next time. The second run. I came a little bit lower. I still overshot. And we had to get three out of six in the circle. The third shot. I came around and I still touched down just beyond the circle. So I knew that I’d failed but I opened up and ignored the instructor who was sitting by the side of the circle watching. Ignored his signals [laughs] I thought I will bloody well put one in and the fourth one in I actually undershot. But in order to do that my right hand wingtip on the right turn was almost in the water. It was that low. And as I say as soon as I muffed that third one I knew that I’d failed so it didn’t bother me much. Now, one difference between the RAF training aircraft and the American training aircraft was that with the Tiger Moth you had a two way Gosport system so you could talk to the pilot. With the Stearman N2S4s, both army and navy, they had one way Gosport. The pilot could talk to you but you couldn’t talk back. The other fact is that all of the instructors, army and navy instructors on pilot training in the States were usually first generation nationalised Americans. Now, they were not allowed to go to the actual warzones just in case they were spies and nasty types. So, you can imagine that these instructors had quite a bone to pick. You know. They were very bitter about being singled out for this and they took it out on us. Now, on one occasion I’d already upset my instructor. You know, before these circles landing. And if you had a high level emergency which usually occurred at two thousand feet you were supposed to glide round, selecting a field and then make this sort of approach. And we were stooging along on one exercise just before these circles and he suddenly cut the motor and said, ‘Right. High level emergency.’ And one of the satellite fields was just down there so, I gave it full left stick, full right rudder, organised a side slip and brought it right down in one go in to this field. Settled and did a three pointer. And I sat there and I thought bloody marvellous Maywood. The remarks that came over the Gosport were not printable. Definitely not printable. I had disobeyed every rule in their book. Disobeyed them. I was worthless. I was useless. He didn’t speak to me for a couple of days afterwards. He just took me up. But on the way back after the side slip he cut the visit short because we flew for an hour and a half at a time. We’d been flying for about a half an hour. He said, ‘Right. We’re going back to base.’ And he did flick rolls left right left right and obviously to try and upset me. And they had a mirror up in the centre section where they could see us and as he did these, the more he did it, you know, sort of thumbs-up which made him even worse. As I say for two days he would just take me out to the aircraft. We’d do what we had to do until this circle business and not a word was said. Now, after washing off this course, as I say, we had a re-selection board in Windsor, Ontario. It’s just across the water from Detroit and I was selected as a NavB. I had to do six months general duties work. Three months in Toronto manning depot. That was quite an interesting, mostly sweeping the floor but on one occasion. Two occasions. Two successive days. We had to, you know, two of us, another washed off pilot and myself chummed up and we were picked for guard duty in the detention barracks there. When we reported to the flight sergeant MP first thing in the morning we were handed side arms. 45 revolvers. And the SP said, ‘Now, the only thing I’m going to tell you,’ he said, ‘Is never ever let one of the prisoners get within shovel distance of you.’ Shovel distance. What’s that? He said, ‘Remember that.’ He said. ‘If they look like getting there,’ he said, ‘Shoot them because it might be the last thing you do.’ He said, ‘We won’t ask questions.’ Anyway, we went into this detention barracks and we were ushered in to a building which was about thirty feet wide. Probably ninety feet long and normal height of a shed. Say perhaps ten, twelve feet. Across the centre of the room there was a black line. Two inch black line that ran down the walls, across the floor and up the other wall. Now, you can imagine. You walk in there and you see this. At one end there was probably about fifty, sixty tonnes of small coal. The other end absolutely pristine walls and floor. Whitewashed. The prisoners had wheelbarrows and shovels and it was their job to shift this coal from one end to the other and then when they’d done that they scrubbed the floor and the walls. Whitewashed them. And then did the job again. Now, they were doing this probably for two or three months and they were, it was described as being stir happy. And this was the reason. They’d had one or two of the guards had been attacked with these shovels and had been seriously injured or killed and that was the reason why we were told. Now, we only had that for two days fortunately because we more or less stood back to back [laughs] watching each other’s backs and then back to the old sweeping routine. And that was for three months. Then from there I was sent out to a place called Goderich which is right on the borders. Western border of Ontario. That was a training station for twin-engined aircraft for Royal Canadian Air Force cadets. Spent three months there and then onto a place called Mountain View in Ontario to do the bombing and gunnery school. The flying was done on Mark 2 Ansons. You’ve probably seen pictures of those. And the gunnery was done with the Bollingbroke which was the Canadian version of the Blenheim 4. The turret. Have you ever seen the Blenheim gun turret?
Other: No.
RM: Most peculiar arrangement. Vertical column. And a beam pivoted on this vertical column. At one end of the beam is a seat. At the other end are two Browning pop guns. 303s. And handlebars. So when you — to operate the turret to elevate the guns or depress them you turn the handlebars like twist grips. And to turn the turret you steer it like a pushbike. So, if you were firing at aircraft up there your bottom was right down here and you’re looking up there. You’re not sitting in the chair and looking all over like did with the Fraser Nash and the other turrets. The locking ones. Anyway, we were quite interested because the first exercise that we did it was really a chastener. We had two hundred rounds each to fire. Now, what they did with the two Brownings — they put three hundred pounds in each with a dummy round of two hundred in each gun. So, the first person in to the turret, you flew in threes, first used the left hand gun. Two hundred rounds. Left it. The next person going in two hundred rounds from the right hand gun. And then the third one cleared both guns and a hundred from each. Now, the actual bullets — the tips were dipped in paint. So that when they went through the drogue, which was the target, you could see from the colour as to who hit and how many. The drogue was roughly in size a bit bigger say than the fuselage of a Hurricane or a Spit so you can see it was quite large. The first exercise was what was known as a beam target where the towing aircraft had towed the drogue on your beam two hundred yards distance. Steady. In other words you were firing at a static object. No lead necessary either way. And of course we just blazed away with these in short bursts and when we got down after the first exercise. This exercise. They gave us the number of hits. Now, believe it or believe it not at two hundred yards, steady target, no more than probably being on the gun boats — an extraordinarily good result was five percent hits. The average? Three percent. Which is amazing isn’t it? The reason? Vibration. The rigidity of the gun mountings of course allowed the guns to spray and this is one of the things where modern films and pre-modern films of aircraft fights where you see a nice line of holes being stitched across the fuselage — absolute bullshit. You were lucky if you get it off, peppered them. That was the gunnery and then we did sort of quarter cross overs and all that sort of thing. Mostly then with cameras attached to the guns. They took Cinefilms. They wouldn’t let us use live ammunition against [laughs] their aircraft. The bombing was done with Mark 2 Ansons. A very slow aircraft. And using the old fashioned Mark 9 bomb sight which was quite a Heath Robinson contraption really but it worked after a fashion. But it was designed to operate when aircraft were sort of doing their bombing runs at probably a hundred and twenty, a hundred and fifty miles an hour with very little relationship to the forthcoming four-engined aircraft. And for that reason they devised the Mark 14 bomb sight which was gyroscope labourised and it was a beautiful piece of work. But going back to what I was saying about the weather, aircraft and wind finding. With the Mark 14 bomb sight you had to put the wind velocity in. Feed it in manually. And the only other manual thing you did was fit the bomb type. Select the bomb type and it worked out the trajectory and everything. Not only that but with the plate glass, sight glass, you had the red cross with the sword and that was stabilised horizontally. So that it would, in actual fact, give you accurate bombing up to about ten degrees of bank. Whereas with a Mark 9 you couldn’t. You had to be absolutely spot on and running the thing accurately.
CB: Straight and level.
RM: Straight and level. Yes. So that was an advantage with it. And that was bombing and gunnery school. Then nav school, as I say, was at Charlottetown, PEI. Prince Edward Island. And it was there I had my first really narrow squeak. In training of all things. Now, the nav school at that time lasted for twenty weeks. At the end of ten weeks you got a seventy two hour pass. From the Friday night to the Sunday which you couldn’t do much about because by the time you got from Charlottetown on to the mainland it was time to come back again. Right out in the sticks there. You were in the boon docks. Anyway, because we had bad night flying weather in the first eight weeks of our course they decided that instead of us flying on the tenth week we would fly on our twelfth week and the next course — 97. Behind us. Two weeks behind us would fly in our place. Now, you can appreciate this obviously. We were, a group of us, were going into the local cinema and it was just getting dark. Nice bright moon. No wind. Not worth talking about. Beautiful night. When we came out of the cinema three hours later there was a forty five knot gale blowing. Now, I can visualise what I understood and if I was in the same position I might have made the same mistake. In fact, almost certainly would but the Met forecast for the whole of their four hours was light and variable winds. Now, a sprog navigator. They’d only done ten weeks. They were only half way through the course. You still, over there, only had radio bearings. Visual sightings. More or less. And astro compass. The old bubble sextant which I could never get on with to navigate with. And the first leg out probably — of course you see navigation in those, steam navigation the vital part was wind finding, direction of the wind because that meant that you would get to where you wanted to go to. Probably find wind— sort of ten knots. Well, that falls within the flight plan. Get on the next leg and then you suddenly find wind fifteen, twenty knots. Must be something wrong so you backtrack. Check all your doings and in the meantime still maintaining the same course. And eventually you think well the only thing to do is to go back to ten knots. So, you re-plot for ten knots. Come to the next turning point as you thought, make your turn and say ,with four legs ultimately, you’ll probably be getting, or getting readings of thirty knots, thirty five knots. Can’t be right. Must go back to flight plan. And at the end of the flight when you should have been back at Charlottetown if you’d sort of ignored the truth you were probably fifty, sixty nautical miles northeast of Charlottetown. Right over the main Gulf of St Lawrence. Well as I say when we came out of the cinema there was this forty five knot wind blowing. When we got back to the camp they said, ‘Course 96 report to briefing room first light.’ And they made sure that we were there at first light because they sent people around to get us up. And we were given a very quick course on how to conduct line square searches. And every available aircraft and staff pilot who were available flew us so that we did these searches over the Gulf looking for missing aircraft. Never did see any. I believe that just after we’d finished the course. Twenty weeks. And being on our way back that they found one empty dinghy out there. And I believe that in actual fact they found the wreckage of one on the coast of Labrador which is just across the other side. How many went missing we were never told. But I did find out from the archives of the Empire Air Training Scheme in Brandon near Winnipeg — that I think three crews were absolutely lost. But anyway, we measured that and as I say we came back to this country. We did, before they would turn us lose on anything, they said, ‘Right you’ve got your navigation brevets in Canada. From Charlottetown. Over the Maritimes. Where one road or one railway is a land mark. Now, you may find flying over Britain and the continent a bit different. So, before you do anything we’re going to give you three weeks intensive training on map reading.’ And we were actually posted to a lovely little station just outside Carlisle. I think it was called Longton, where we were piled in the back seats of Tiger Moths. They only had about eight of these Tigers with staff pilots there. So, as I say it was quite a small grass field and we did quite a lot of map reading and target spotting over the Midlands and the Lake District. And that was good fun actually. On one occasion we, I actually flew with a pilot. One of the staff pilots who was a little more daring than others and it was a very windy day and he said, ‘I fancy doing a trip. Do you want to come?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ So, we took off and we were plotting our way around and the biggest rift that I calculated on that was fifty four degrees. And when we came over the airfield boundary at three hundred feet we actually landed ten feet inside the fence because the wind speed was virtually the approach speed of the Tiger. Yeah. That was quite interesting that was. Anyway, from there we went to AFU, Advanced Flying Unit and that was at Wigtown in Scotland. Halfway between Dumfries and Stranraer and that was on Ansons. Again, that was just generally getting used to flying over Britain. And then from AFU of course, straight on to OTU at Upper Heyford where we flew in Oxfords and we, more or less, we were [pause] our technique with Gee was a Gee fix every three minutes. DR after six. Six minutes. New course and again every three minutes. Every three minutes. And this was anything up to four hours. Which of course is the sort of navigation that we would be doing with the Mossies at night. And we also, we weren’t introduced to Loran until OTU and the snag there you see was the Gee would only be useful up to the Continent’s coast line. After that there was so much interference by the Germans. So much, what we called grass, that you couldn’t pick out the signal so we had to use LORAN which, curiously enough, they never did jam. It worked quite well and it worked out well over the Atlantic. Coastal command used it quite considerably. And as I say the last OTU trip we demolished a Mossie by going through the hedge and into trees on the way back with a single engine landing. Then, as I say, I’d only just started a tour before VE Day came. Just after VE Day the first thing we did were Cook’s Tours. We had two Mosquitos from each of the stations. 8 Group stations. Took off at one hour intervals during the day so that there was a route which went across northern Germany, the Ruhr valley then out more or less through the Danish border and back to home. And this was ostensibly to give us a picture of the damage which Bomber Command had done but if you bear in mind that these flights were every hour through daylight I reckon that the idea was a standing patrol just to tell the Germans we were still about. Now, at the risk of boring you here we were told that these Cook’s Tours would be a thousand feet. That’s a thousand feet above ground level obviously but George sort of took it upon himself to fly at a thousand feet. Now, the Ruhr valley is above sea level. About three hundred feet if I remember rightly. So, we were probably about seven hundred feet. Now, as I say the place was absolute rubble with steel structures. Just odd bits sticking up. Odd bits of concrete. Just like Hiroshima. And the Germans had bulldozed roads through this rubble so that they could get their troops. We were stooging along one of these roads. Sort of just ambling along at about a hundred and ninety knots. And we could see in the distance a chap ambling along with his stick and he heard us and he turned around. He recognised what we were and shook his stick at us. So, George said, ‘I’ll teach him a lesson.’ So, he sort of pulled up into a stalled turn and as he did he opened the bomb doors. Now on the B16 the bomb doors are big. Four thousand pound bomb size and from the front you can’t miss them. And this chappy, you could see, he sort of looked. Up went the stick and he was legging it down the road like mad, much to our amusement. Yeah. When it comes to low level flying though as I say our height was fifteen, twenty five feet. Clipping the grass almost. And on one occasion we were going across Wales, went down the valley and then up the other side. Big wide valley. Half way up this valley was a farmhouse and we were climbing up the slope and there was a woman pegging washing out. She obviously heard us and we could see her looking. Saw we were there and then she decided to look down and she could see us coming up and she legged it through this farmhouse. We could see her. And she ran out the other side as went over the top. Again, in those days our sense of humour was different to what it is now and as you probably [unclear] it was quite interesting. But fortunately for us — just after this 608 Squadron, the one we were on, was disbanded and we were posted to another 8 Group unit. 692 Squadron at Gransden Lodge which is just to the west of Cambridge and we, in actual fact, did one or two trips there and 692 was disbanded which meant that we were redundant aircrew. So we were sent first of all up to Blyton in Lincolnshire for re-selection board and I eventually finished up, although I’d opted for something different, on a flight mechanic engines course at Hereford. Credenhill. But there I learned all of the intricacies of the Merlin and the Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp engine. And having finished that course I was posted to 254 torpedo Beaufighter Squadron at Langham in Norfolk. Langham, now, I believe is famous for its glass factory there which I think is on the old airfield where I became the flight tractor driver. And that’s what I stayed until I was demobbed. Now, they [pause] I could have opted to sign on with the air force. Not necessarily guaranteeing that I would fly as a navigator again but there was a pretty good chance. But in those days you had to do twenty one years for a pension which would have taken me from the age of nineteen when I joined up to forty. But you were too old to fly at thirty two. Now, as you probably appreciate after being grounded you don’t know what sort of job you’re going to get. General dogsbody usually. And the thought of eight years as dogsbody to get a pension didn’t appeal to me so I came out and I eventually finished up at teacher training college where I spent five years with a secondary mod trying to teach maths and science. And at the end of five years — because in the period between school and joining the air force I’d become an electrical trainee at the local power station so I’d got quite a good working knowledge of turbines, pumps and all that. Generators and so on. A good mechanical background. I managed to get a job as a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the local technical college on a one term temporary contract in 1954 and I was like old Bill in World War One. Unless you can find a better hole there’s no point in moving. And I eventually spent twenty eight years there and retired. Well, took voluntary redundancy in ‘82. And I’ve been a pensioner ever since. I think the Ministry of Education are busy making little plasticine models of me and sticking pins in because I’m quite expensive. Yeah. But that is that sad story of my life.
CB: Fascinating. Thank you very much. I suggest we have a break now.
RM: Yes.
CB: So, I’ll turn off.
[recording paused]
CB: So. Ken. We’ve just talked about Ken O’Dell being at Edith Weston near North Luffenham because he was also trained in America.
RM: Yeah. Now, if he was trained in America he wouldn’t necessarily be going to Grosse Ile because –
CB: He didn’t. No.
RM: He went under what was known as the Arnold Scheme and that would be usually around about Texas or somewhere like that. To one of the flying schools there with the American army and he would become an army pilot. Now, of course there would be some relevance there because the first part of their course would be for fighter aircraft. Fighter training. Single seat fighters. And this is probably where he went.
CB: Yes.
RM: Under the Arnold Scheme.
CB: His instructors were civilians.
RM: Yes. Yeah. And that did apply but not with the navy. The navy were all genuine navy types. For example, the chief petty officer who took charge of all the morning parades and what not — he had been in the American navy for eighteen years and he’d never seen the sea. Mind you, the Great Lakes, when it does get rough you do get thirty foot waves on it so it’s as good as the sea. And we can prove that because a group of us Fleet Air Arm and RAF types we hired one of these paddle steamers one Saturday night to go out on the lakes. You know, for an outing. This chief petty officer came with us. Now, admittedly it was a bit choppy but he spent all evening draped over the rail. Much to our delight. Much to our delight. Yes. Yes, he was not popular. The Americans for instance. The American navy have a very queer discipline which didn’t go with us. Very rigid. Whereas with the RAF you get a certain amount of latitude and humour. But not the Americans and for any minor misdemeanour the sort of punishment you got you went before the mast, you see and you were awarded this punishment. And that was known as square eating. Have you ever come across it?
Other: No.
RM: Ever heard of it?
Other: No.
CB: Never.
RM: Right. Now, at mealtimes because you were condemned to this you had to do a square eating. In other words [pause] that. That was square eating.
CB: So, lifting it up vertically and then pulling it, eating it horizontally.
RM: Yes. Horizontally. To eat.
CB: Into your mouth. With both knife and fork.
RM: Yes. Oh no. Usually with the fork because the Americans of course chop up their stuff.
CB: Of course. Yes.
RM: With a fork even. But if you did use the knife.
CB: Yeah.
RM: It had to be like. Now can you imagine anything more stupid? And that was the sort of typical sort of thing that you got. But the Americans, bless them, they weathered it so — good luck.
CB: Tell us about the accommodation. What did that they have?
RM: Oh, the accommodation was superb. These twin, these blocks that you see in the films. Two story blocks. Everything beautifully polished. Wood floors. The interesting thing is they had showers there and toilets. You had a single bed which was made up every morning. You know. Bullshit. And the interesting thing was the actual loos. Now, the loos were just like ordinary loos except there were no partitions [laughs] yeah. And we thought that strange. But they say you can get used to anything and it is so. Yeah.
CB: How many people? Were they, were you in dormitories?
RM: It was a dormitory. Yes. It would be about twenty — probably twenty four people. Twenty four cadets. Two sides. Twelves. Just like the dormitories you see on the films. The wartime films of the Americans. The American army of course were a bit more spartan than the navy. But everything was nice. The food though was good. Rather like the curate’s egg though. Good in parts. And you had very strange things like plum jelly with chopped celery in it and that would be a vegetable. Things like that. It was ingenious. Let’s put it that way. As I say, the discipline was very very good. If you heard the trumpet sound for the flag being lowered at the end of the day wherever you were and whatever you were doing you had to stand to attention, face the flag and salute whilst the trumpet blew. We did, in fact, there was one big navy battle that was conducted whilst I was there and I can’t for the life of me think what it was. I think it was Leyte Gulf but I’m not sure. On this particular occasion all flying stopped on this day. We were all assembled in one of the big hangars. All RAF. And five hundred of us all together. Fleet Air Arm types. All the officers there. The band. And the flags and banners and what not and we were given a very very stirring speech by the commanding officer on how good the American navy was and how brave they were and what a victory this had been. All this, that and the other. If you’d listened carefully at the back particularly with Royal Navy types, Fleet Air Arm types a series of raspberries. Yeah. Then having gone through all this marshall music we were all marched out again and continued. I remember that quite clearly.
CB: What time did you get up in the morning?
RM: Usually around about half six.
CB: And breakfast?
RM: Breakfast. Yes. You wandered over to the mess. That was one thing you didn’t parade for. You only paraded after breakfast. You know.
CB: Yeah. And what time did you go to breakfast?
RM: Usually around about half seven.
CB: And then you went for your parade. What time?
RM: About quarter past eight or so. From there disbursed to the actual flying field which — now this was quite interesting in actual fact. The main airfield at Grosse Ile didn’t have runways but it did have a huge circular patch of concrete about six hundred yards diameter so that you could land in any direction and you could land two or three aircraft side by side. Now, that was clear. All you had was hangars in the distance. And then beyond the hangars there was one vertical radio mast which was clearly visible. Now, that radio mast subtended a fraction of one degree from the field. So, you think nobody’s going to hit it. Wrong. Just before we got there some character flying solo. Chop. And the mast came down and hit the, fortunately the American seamen’s mess not the British mess and did grievous bodily damage to several of them. But nobody shed a tear from the British contingent for that. As you can gather I’m not terribly impressed with the Americans.
CB: Were the Americans training their people in similar numbers to yours or what was the situation?
RM: I don’t know what the navy situation was because this was the American navy base. And it was only RAF and Royal Navy.
CB: Oh was it? Training.
RM: Training.
CB: Right.
RM: Yeah. So, they must have had other bases. Probably in California and on the coast and so on. But we didn’t know anything about those and didn’t want to know anything about those.
CB: No. Tell us a bit more about these people who were first generation Americans. What sort of people were they and what was their attitude to the war?
RM: The one. My instructor and I only came across him really was a chappy who was a naturalised Dutchman with the rather curious name of Nieswander. Not spelt exactly as we’d pronounce it. N I E S W A N D E R. Now, he was, as a say, a naturalised Dutchman. First generation. And about six feet two, physique rather like a beanpole and of course like all of these other characters he had a chip on his shoulder. He wanted to be a fighter pilot. He was going to be a fighter pilot. Bugger this job sort of business. And he was, I suppose, fairly interested in teaching people to fly but you could sense and even it was expressed sort of rather obliquely to you by him that he wanted to go into the war zone but he was not allowed to.
CB: No.
RM: All of the pilots and this, of course, I think this also applied to the army pilots that they were not allowed to go into the warzone so they could either go on to training but curiously enough — transport. Cargo and all that sort of thing. And some of these cargo flights actually took them into the war zone. But they weren’t equipped with guns and what not so they couldn’t fight. Yeah.
CB: And what ranks were these people who were your instructors?
RM: Oh, practically all lieutenants. Junior grade.
CB: Right.
RM: Which would be equivalent to our POs. Pilot officers. Now, the interesting thing was there that in the RAF of course with commissioned and non-commissioned ranks you got upgrading in rank at given periods of time with aircrew and what not. Not so with the Americans. And I daresay that I was there, what, 1943. I daresay that in 1945 when the war finished he would still be a lieutenant. General. GJ. Lieutenant junior grade.
CB: And what rank were you at that time? An LAC were you?
RM: An LAC yes. Got, oh — Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where I got y brevet. The Wings Parade there. Now that was in July. And we were all drawn up. We’d finished our training satisfactorily and I was assigned the rank of sergeant. We did get about three or four commissions straight away but mostly sergeant rank. And we were drawn up 2.30 in the afternoon on the parade ground there at Charlottetown and we were addressed by the Governor General of Prince Edward Island after we’d been given our brevets. And this gentleman to us, at that time, we estimated his age at eighty. He was old anyway. He was quite short and apparently, he was deaf. His aide de camp was an army type, lieutenant, who stood about six feet two and this Governor General was making a speech which lasted in total about fifteen minutes. And in the speech, he congratulated us on being — becoming pilots with the Royal Air Force. Went on in this vein and his aide de camp, his aid, was nudging him. Almost to tell him. You know, we could see it happening but he ploughed on and at the end of it the aide de camp had a real chat with him. Now we were standing to attention. Blazing sun.
CB: July. Yes.
RM: And by this time our tunics were turning black with perspiration. And what does the silly old bugger do? Once he’d been told that we were navigators he went through exactly the same speech and substituted the word navigators.
CB: Yes.
RM: Now, if any of us had had a gun we’d have shot him. Without any doubt. He was definitely not the flavour of the month. I had, I have never ever been so hot because of course the Canadians had the lightweight summer gear. Khaki. Like the Americans. What did we have? Blue serge. We never had any and those blue serge uniforms were quite warm. Yeah. We could have shot him quite cheerfully.
CB: Yeah.
RM: But –
CB: Now the Canadians. Excuse me. I’m going to stop a mo.
[Recording paused]
CB: So, let’s just talk about the Canadians.
RM: The Canadians except for the French Canadians in Quebec were charming people. Now, as far as the Americans are concerned — individually very charming. We had individual hospitality through their USOs where you go and have a weekend with a family and so on. Superb hospitality. But when you get them in a group you’re on a different planet. Terry Thomas had the best description of a group of Americans. Remember his –?
Other: No. I remember him but not –
RM: Described an absolute shower. Yeah. And we found that afterwards actually when my first wife and I went across to the Continent in the early 60s. On the ferry we bumped into a bunch of Americans. Loud mouthed. Uncouth. But if you separated them they were quite charming to talk to. Now, the Canadians — much more reserved but just as genuine and I made quite a few friends there except at Charlottetown. Which — there’s a joke about Charlottetown actually which was very true at that time and the joke goes like — that in summer they raise potatoes and in winter children. Now, they still had prohibition there when we were there. That would be in late ’43, early ‘44. And apparently, prohibition stopped only perhaps twenty years ago so consequently the local inhabitants made their own alcoholic drinks by filtering off brasso and stuff like that or using rubbing alcohol. And the weekend before we got there. Two of the erks off the station because there were RAF aircrew there had purloined from the stores a quart of glycol, mixed it with orange juice and two of the local popsies and these two had a beano at the weekend. On the Monday morning the two popsies were dead, one of the erks was in sick quarters blind and the other one was rather non compos mentis. And both of them by the time we got there at the next weekend were on the boat home to Britain. That’s the sort of thing they got up to. As far as I can remember with Charlottetown you had large numbers of children who did the same sort of thing as a lot of the children you see where troops are concerned, and where the Americans are concerned. You know. Chocolates. They wanted chocolates and sweets or whatever and I was not impressed. Nothing would tempt me to go back there again even though it has changed apparently. The Maritimes, the western provinces, New Brunswick and so on — very sparsely populated and very uninterested. The only thing with them is trees, more trees and even more trees with roads, odd roads going through. Nah.
CB: Now when you were flying in Canada —
RM: Yeah.
CB: Were the instructors all Canadians? Were they British? What were they?
RM: A lot of them were RAF seconded over there. What happened, say take twin engine aircraft. You get the RAF sent over there — say to Estevan. He would do his course. The few people at the top of the course, the really high flyers would be retained.
CB: The creamies.
RM: As instructors and would do a full tour. Now, this has a bearing actually on George, my pilot and 8 Group. Now, all 8 Group Mossie pilots had to have at least a thousand hours on twin engines and the twin engines were mostly of course Oxfords which handled apparently rather like a Mossie. Either that or they were tour expired Lancasters. But you didn’t get anybody who just got his wings becoming a Mosquito pilot. Now that was just 8 Group. I don’t know what happened with 5 Group or 2 Group which were the other two groups that I remember being a part of Bomber Command. And it worked. It worked quite well. There were Canadian instructors obviously. RCAF. That is, if they hadn’t been posted to Britain which they were. I mean, they were coming over. When it comes to going over to Canada and the States I travelled on the Queen Elizabeth and it was like a mill pond and of course the Lizzie and the Mary were run by the Americans. They were handed over to the Americans and based at New York. And typically from New York they would come across to Glasgow — Greenock, with a division of American troops. Eighteen to twenty thousand troops on. They would unload them. They would then load returning Americans or returning Canadians and all RAF aircrew that were going for training. Royal Navy and so on. Roughly about five thousand at a time. And they would go to Halifax. At Halifax they would discharge and pick up a Canadian division. Bring those back and then you’d have aircrew that were going to the United States on the Arnold Scheme and people like that. Returning Americans going back to New York. And that’s how they did it. Now, going over there the actual mess deck had tables for twelve diners. Twelve people. And the cooks cooked in batches of twelve and you had, each day, one person went from the table to the mess. The cooks collected a tray say, of twelve steaks. Twelve chops. Now, when I say steaks — American steaks. Not British steaks which were postage stamp sized. But these were genuine. Genuine pork chops. Sausages. Those twelve helpings came to the table. Now, we got on to the QE in Greenock at midnight. The engines were running. There was a bit of vibration there. We sailed on the first tide which was about 6 o’clock in the morning. Just breaking day. We had to go to breakfast around about 7.30 again. And of course, we collected this tray. There were only four of us on the table. The other, sorry, six of us on the table. The other six were in their bunks seasick and we hadn’t even hit the Atlantic. Anyway, we got out onto the Atlantic and it was like a mill pond. There were six the first day, six missing the second day, four missing the third day. And we ate like lords. You know, God, we thought, you know, this is marvellous. We really ate. And these steaks and that were beautiful. Couldn’t grumble at that. And on the last morning they did manage to come down for breakfast before we disembarked. But one interesting thing. Each of us was given a job. The job that I was given was to go from the main stores with one of the American seamen to actually re-store or re-stock the canteens. Chocolate and so on. Which was quite a — not a very onerous job. Over and done with in an hour and that was it. But this American seaman I was with he said, ‘Have you got any currency you want changing?’ So I said, ‘Well, you’re not allowed to bring any currency out. Only ten pounds.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Supposing you got a bit more than that?’ He said, ‘Would you like it changed?’ He said. So I said, ‘Changed to what?’ He said, ‘Dollars. American.’ Now in 1939 the pound was worth four dollars American and four forty dollars.
CB: Canadian.
RM: To the Canadian. So you had this ten percent difference. So, I said, ‘Well, what’s your exchange rate?’ He said, ‘Well. For you it’ll be four dollars to the pound.’ So I said, ‘Well, it so happens,’ I said, ‘I’ve been a bit naughty. I’ve brought an extra tenner out. Twenty. I got twenty pounds changed into American dollars which, interestingly of course if you spent them in Canada which they were spendable — for ten dollars you’d pay the American ten dollars and get a dollar change. So, it worked out quite well. But the — I was talking to this seaman and I said, ‘We seem to be going at a fair old lick.’ I said, ‘What’s it doing?’ He said, ‘Well, I shouldn’t tell you.’ He said, ‘It’s more than my job’s worth.’ So, I said, ‘Go on. Nobody’s listening.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’re cruising at twenty nine knots.’ But one night I woke up. It was only about 2 o’clock in the morning and the boat, you could tell from the vibration that they’d definitely sort of upped the steam but when we went to breakfast we were back to the twenty nine knots. So, I said to this chap, I said, ‘What happened last night?’ ‘Nothing very much,’ he said. So I said, ‘Go on,’ ‘You’re pulling my leg,’ I said, ‘You were going a lot faster.’ I said, ‘What speed were you doing?’ He said, ‘Thirty four knots,’ he said, ‘There was a sub scare.’ Now, of course the two Queens were unescorted but imagine this. A six inch gun fore and aft on the bow and the stern. On the main deck — Bofors and three inch guns. On the deck above you had Oerlikon cannons.
CB: Twenty millimetre.
RM: Yeah. Twenty millimetre. And on the roof you actually had two rocket launchers. So, as far as aircraft were concerned which of course would be the main thing they would have given them a very rough time. And on the second day they tried the guns out, you know, just to make sure they were working. And they did them one side and then the other. A big rocket flare went up, parachute flare, and they all opened up on this and it was quite deafening. Except the big six inch guns. They didn’t. But everything else —
CB: How many days did it take to get over?
RM: Four days and eight hours. As I say we lived like lords. Coming back. We came back on one of the old Empress boats. It was the Empress of Japan but it had been re-named the Empress of Scotland for obviously patriotic reasons. That took six days and a half. And on that they only had two meals a day. Not three. Now, you can believe this or believe it not. Going out the canteen had run dry so there was nothing on the way back. The first morning, I forget exactly which way around it was but this was the sort of thing. We had smoked haddock for breakfast. The evening meal — wiener sausages. Then for a change wiener sausages for breakfast. Smoked haddock. And we had that for six days. There was no sweets. No fruit available. And we were not in a happy mood. And then when we got into Liverpool Bay the boat had to anchor there for twelve hours before we could dock. And we could see the shoreline. People moving about. There would be restaurants there. And there we were. Stuck. We were not a happy crew. Funnily enough when we came back we had a full customs inspection. And you were allowed two hundred cigarettes, a bottle of Scotch say, or a spirit and a bottle of wine. The chappy in front of me, customs bloke ‘cause we were all queuing up, customs said to the chap. ‘Any cigarettes?’ Expecting two hundreds. The chappy in front said, ‘Six hundred.’ The customs officer looked at him and he said, ‘Surely you mean two hundred?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve got six hundred.’ ‘Oh. Well, that’ll bloody well cost you then.’ [laughs] I mean how thick can you get? Dear. Oh, it was. I must say that in spite of our, got one, two or three near squeaks I can look back on my war service and it’s quite interesting. Very varied. And I met some jolly nice people.
CB: How many of those did you keep in contact with after the war?
RM: I kept in contact with my pilot up to a time and then I lost contact with him. The chappy that I was at the Toronto manning depot with we split up but I traced him afterwards. After we’d become civilians. And found out that he’d actually joined the Toronto Metropolitan Police. Been with them for ten years and then he’d left there and joined the Pinkertons.
CB: Right. In America.
RM: Now, I always thought that the Pinkertons was a mythical organisation and I was put severely in my place when Gordon — eventually I went over there in ‘86 and stayed with him and his wife. When I said that I thought it was mythical he said, ‘We’re international,’ he said, ‘We’re interested, more or less in industrial espionage and things like that,’ he said. ‘We’re not interested in police work.’ So, I was really put in my place there. Yeah. And my pilot. He died. Had a heart attack around about 1982 if I remember rightly going on a fishing trip from Vancouver to Nanaimo. Vancouver Island. And he died on the ferry. Had a heart attack.
CB: Was he a Canadian?
RM: No. He was a Londoner. But he had gone across to the States — to Canada. Done his pilot training, become an instructor at Estevan and while he was there he met his wife who was the daughter of a newspaper owner in Langley which is just outside Vancouver. And of course as soon as he was demobbed he shot off to Canada because he got free passage there. Free ticket back home. Yeah.
CB: I’ll stop there for a bit. Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: Right. We’re now re-starting after a short break and we’re with Dick Maywood and talking now about LMF.
RM: LMF. Lack of moral fibre which was a euphemistic way of referring to cowardice. It was not unknown with, particularly Bomber Command crews that some of them lost their nerve. In fact it’s a wonder that they didn’t all lost their nerves on heavies. Anyway, if they were accused and if they did succumb to lack of moral fibre they more or less had a courts martial and were almost certainly stripped of all rank.
CB: Physically.
RM: Yes. And –
CB: In front of — sorry go on –
RM: They were also treated to so many months in the Glasshouse which was at Sheffield. And everybody knew. All their crew knew of Sheffield and what it entailed. And fortunately, from my point of view I mean flying in the Mossie was safe. I mean not like the heavies. Because the chop rate even in 1944/45 on heavies was still quite considerable. But on Mossies I think it worked out, on 8 Group Mossies something like about half a percent. But one thing that did strike me with that ‘casue in the Mossie, being wood, low thermal conductivity. Radiators between the engines and the fuselage on both sides with air bleeds. Sealed cockpits. We flew in battle dress. No gloves. But we did have the escape boots just in case we had to escape. That was it. And we had our own sidearms. In my case a .38 revolver and it was only about three years ago it that it suddenly dawned on me. Twenty five thousand feet. If we had been hit and had had to bale out we would have been dead. Lack of oxygen and cold because, I mean, the outside air temperature was around about minus sixty. Minus seventy. And apparently about thirty six seconds of that and its good night nurse. It was a good job we didn’t think about that otherwise we might have gone LMF. But no, I have the utmost sympathy because one or two of my friends I know have had a very sticky patch. One I was with yesterday he is ex-Bomber Command Lanc and he was telling a friend that on one occasion they had a twenty millimetre shell, or, no, it couldn’t have been twenty millimetre. It must have been bigger than that. Go in to the Lanc and lodge in the ironmongery and not explode. And Dennis said that they sort of fished this thing out and dropped it out. And the chap who was talking to him and said, yeah, ‘Didn’t it explode then?’ And Dennis said words to the effect, ‘You’re rather stupid. If it had exploded I wouldn’t be here.’ How silly can people get? It’s, but it’s surprising really. When it comes to the old Mossie they talk about the wooden wonder. They’ve heard of the wooded wonder vaguely. No idea what it did really. Couldn’t be very interesting because it’s made of wood. And when you consider it was the first RAF multi role combat aircraft. You had your weather versions. You had the oboe versions. You had the PR Unit versions. Night fighter units. You had the Coastal Command Banff Wing which for a time had those Tsetse Mosquitoes with the 57 millimetre gun and I know one or two of the 247 Squadron even now who flew in those. And one in particular and he said that every time one of those guns went off you lost twenty knots airspeed with the recoil. But they didn’t last long because they found that a battery of eight rockets, sixty pound rockets was a better bet than the Tsetse gun. That was known as the Banff wing. There was 235 and 247 Squadrons in the Banff Wing. Anti-shipping. You had second TAF who flew fighter bombers. That’s guns, cannons and two bombs in each and that would probably be either on interdiction, road transport, railways and what not. You had the night intruders. Now, had the war had gone on longer it would have satisfied my sense of humour to get on night intruders. Because I loved the idea of sort of just dropping an odd bomb on the runway as they were about to land or shooting the buggers down. Pardon my broken English. Shooting them down. It would have appealed to my sense of humour but no. No. But there we are.
CB: So, you talked about flying at very low level.
RM: Yes.
CB: Tell to us a little more about that. I mean we’re talking about being low indeed.
RM: Yeah.
CB: However you look at it. And what about the excitement and the danger? Or the other way around.
RM: Well excitement. Yes. Particularly when we were doing low level bombing because I’d be prone in the bomb bay looking out the window. The Mark 14 bomb sight was useless because it was a high level job. And they hadn’t got a low level bombsight so it was all done with Mark 1 eyeballs. Now we had a bombing range out at Whittlesea. Well, just the other side of Whittlesea. And flying PPL I often had a scout around there to find out where the field was and I couldn’t find it but this was a big square field with the target in the centre. Now, literally to go we were flying over trees and down again. That was, we were sort of doing. The reason for it was quite simple. We were told the lower — you were going out to the Far East. A lot of jungle. Clearings. The lower you fly the less time you’ll be a target for ground gunners. So, the closer you can get to the treetops and the ground the safer you’ll be. And as I say, fortunately George was extremely good at low flying. Quite interesting actually. If we were bombing on east west run we’d come in low level and then at the end of the run we’d do a slow climb up to about fifteen hundred feet and then do a turn, reciprocal, back down to height again and bomb in the reverse direction and when we were on that run. On the east west run. Our turn to go reciprocal was always over Peterborough Town Bridge. It was super you know. Sort of down there. Yes. Home.
CB: Now, what about navigating when you’re — because your vista is very restricted when you’re flying low. So how did you deal with the navigation in that context?
RM: That was extremely difficult because as you say your range of vision is restricted so you have to absolutely do the correct thing. You look out and you see on the map where you are. The common mistake with map reading is to look at the map and say, ‘Oh that must be it,’ Because as you are probably well aware it is in actual fact, it’s very easy to do that. To convince yourself but I’ve been ferried over the last two or three years on what was known as Project Propeller. And I have, I’ve had a variety of pilots and I’ve flown as passenger with them and quite interestingly I am deadly against wind — so called wind turbines. And I cannot convince the BBC or the papers just what a waste of money they are. But these wind farms shown on air maps are extremely accurate.
CB: Are they?
RM: And they make bloody good landmarks because they actually show the arrangement of them.
CB: Oh right.
RM: So, you can see an arrangement and you can look at the map. Well we must be there. But of course in those days we didn’t. And again, you see, over the jungle as far as I can make out fortunately we were three weeks from going out to the east with the B35s.
CB: Oh.
RM: Which was the later version of the B16. We were within three weeks and VJ day came. Now I cannot stand hot humid weather. Whether it’s a throwback to the Wings Parade with the Governor General or not I do not know but I just cannot stand it and the thought of going out there. I would have been a grease spot.
CB: Yeah.
RM: A grease spot. Yeah.
CB: Just picking up on the navigation.
RM: But it would be with maps.
CB: Yes but —
RM: And dead reckoning.
CB: Yes. Well, I was going to say you use IPs. identification points. Would you put more of those in?
RM: Oh yes. You’d put them on the map because you’d probably, you’d be looking for them on the course. And as I say you take the ground on to the map not the map to the ground. Yeah.
CB: Now, going back to what you were talking about before we started taping you talked about the three mishaps that you had. So, what were they?
RM: Right. The first one was at Navigation School at Charlottetown and that was the fact that due to bad weather we missed the bad weather which was not forecast for the people who flew in our place. So, they got lost and I’m pretty sure that if we had flown on that night and we’d been given that Met forecast — winds light and variable which would take as zero for navigation purposes. It might have been a case of there but by the God go.
CB: Yes. You might also have vanished.
RM: Yes. Yes.
CB: Yeah. In the Great Lake.
RM: No. The Gulf of St Lawrence.
CB: Oh, in the Gulf of St Lawrence sorry. Ok. Next one.
RM: That was the first one.
CB: Ok.
RM: Then at OTU on the return trip from France where we had to land on one engine. They put us on the shortest runway with no wind and of course we vanished through the hedge with rather dire consequences to the Mossie. But — and then the third narrow squeak we had was of course the first time we took off with a four thousand pound live bomb and we got off ten knots slower than we should have done.
CB: Now, the Mossie could take four thousand pounds.
RM: Yes.
CB: But it was just in this particular case. What happened?
RM: Well, we, we — it took us longer to maintain, to achieve height than it should have done. Let’s put it that way. There was considerable chance that if the engines had even stuttered under those conditions on take-off we would have wiped out half of Downham Market.
CB: Was it because of the wind? You took off with the wind? Or what was it that caused it?
RM: Oh, we always took off in to wind.
CB: I know but in this particular case why was it?
RM: George didn’t say very much but I think the engines were not producing as much as he expected or the flaps were not right or something like that but I was too busy then actually during take-off. Getting all the charts ready and getting ready to —
CB: Where were you going that day?
RM: We were going to a place called Eggbeck which was one of the satellite airfields for Kiel. The Kiel Canal in Denmark. And it must have been the name of an airfield because I’ve looked and I’ve actually been in that area. Motored in that area for quite some distance and never found a place called Eggbeck. But it must have been one of the fields which was known as that. Yeah. And that was the one and only.
CB: Right.
RM: I’m afraid. Much to my annoyance. I was really savage when VE day came along, you know.
CB: Yeah. I imagine.
RM: I wanted to get my teeth into the Germans. But these things happen. But as I say afterwards we did the Cook’s Tour. We did quite a few what were known as Bullseyes. Have you come across those?
CB: Yes. Would you like to describe that?
RM: Yeah. Bullseyes were exactly the same conditions you would fly an actual operation. The only difference was at the target area e didn’t drop a bomb. We took a photograph to prove that we were there and we got there on time. Now, to give you an idea of the difference because as I say we had the Lancaster squadron. 635 Squadron at Downham Market and on bullseyes we both did the same route. Now, the Lancaster chaps would go in for their evening meal, would go to briefing and would be taking off as we were getting ready to go to the mess for our evening meal. Our evening meal, briefing, take off. Fly the same route. Be on target at the same time. On the way back we would land, be debriefed and would be having our breakfast when the Lancs were coming in. So two hour difference. Solely due to speed. But here I can give you something which is even more interesting. The American B17, the Flying Fortress. Nine crew. Fourteen guns. Four engines. Bomb load to Berlin four thousand pounds exactly. Out and return nine hours. Now, our Mossies on 608 Squadron, 692 and the other ones on the, what we called the Milk Run. The Berlin run. Out and return time four and a half hours. Now, admittedly with the American the B17s there was time taken up getting into formation and breaking formation on the way back but a lot of people don’t realise with the Americans in daylight, they couldn’t fly at night. They couldn’t navigate. They didn’t know how. They flew in daylight. Formation. Now, they carried a master navigator and a master bomber and I think usually two deputies just in case. They’re in formation. When the lead aircraft dropped his bombs they all dropped theirs. So, what they were doing in actual fact was carpet bombing. Admittedly they’d blanket the target. They would hit the target but that would be covering an area. Now, of course Bomber Command was specific on target markers. You bombed a target and all of the aircraft bombed that target. Not just one or two. So, as I say the American B17 crews were very brave. Much braver than I’d be, I think, under those circumstances to fly in daylight, level thirty thousand feet. Fighter fodder. No doubt. Yeah. Whereas the old Mossie. You couldn’t describe [pause] they did, the Germans did do us an honour. I think it was the Henschel 219 but I’m not sure where it was designed as a two engine night fighter specifically to counter Mosquitoes.
CB: Was it really?
RM: And that was the biggest compliment they could pay us. Then of course the jets came along and that was a different matter. They could sort of commit mayhem. But the interesting thing was that on the raid that we were doing on Eggbeck we were going out and near the target one of the aircraft called out, ‘Snappers,’ and that was the code name for the fact that 262s were about.
CB: Right.
RM: But nobody got lost that night. So –
CB: Messerschmitt 262 jets.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Yes.
RM: I mean they were serious opponents those. The 30 millimetre cannon for a start. I mean you don’t argue with those. Yeah.
CB: What was your operating speed?
RM: Our normal cruising airspeed out was around about two hundred and thirty knots. But that was indicated air speed. I mean at twenty five thousand feet the true airspeed would probably be somewhere in the region of three hundred knots which was covering the ground fairly well. If we went flat out the highest ground speed that I ever recorded was four hundred and ten miles an hours. And that was without trying.
CB: Now, what was the pattern of your operation? Because you were much faster than the Lancasters so you took off late but you had to be there first so how did you do that?
RM: Well the oboe aircraft had to be first. And then the Mosquitoes that carried additional marker bombs would be on target more or less at the same time and they would be listening to the oboe.
CB: Which was the master bomber.
RM: Or the ground. Master bomber. Advising them where to drop their new flares.
CB: Right.
RM: Whether they’d drop them short, long, east or west and so on to correct the error. And then of course by this time the main force Lancs and Mossies would be coming up on the scene but in a lot of cases with 8 Group the light night striking force actually operated on different targets. These targets were designed to be diversionary to lure night fighters away so that they didn’t know whether to go for the Lancs or us and in that case you’d probably get about anything from forty to fifty Mossies attacking quite a valuable target. Yeah.
CB: Now, you talked about twenty five thousand feet. Was that your normal operating height?
RM: Yes. That was normal.
CB: Or did it vary much?
RM: It didn’t vary much. Anything from twenty five — twenty eight thousand. The oboe Mossies, of course, they went up to thirty seven thousand feet.
CB: Oh did they. Right.
RM: Because of course the radio waves were line of sight and at that height they could just get the Ruhr. And of course, the Ruhr was the main complex of the German war industry and after, in ’43 onwards it was systematically demolished with oboe and and with precision bombing. Yeah. As I say the whole area was completely derelict. There was nothing there.
CB: What was your most abiding memory of your experience in the war?
RM: Well, it may sound silly to you but the thing which stuck in my throat more than anything was catching mumps. I mean it was so demeaning. Orchitis. Which, of course is the classic symptoms of that. It’s not pretty and it’s painful and to catch that at nineteen years of age. It was a chance complaint and that, that really stuck with me more than anything. Yes. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
CB: Yes.
RM: I suppose in a way what with that and the fact that I got washed off pilots case and the fact we hit bad weather at Nav School. With the time I lost. If it hadn’t been for that I might not be here.
CB: But you might have done all sorts of other things. Operationally.
RM: I might have finished up on heavies with a much heavier chop rate. Yeah.
CB: Just going back to the American training experience. In essence it was to train for flying boats so that –
RM: Yes.
CB: What aircraft did they have in that area working on the lake?
RM: They didn’t. The Grosse Ile was the aircraft carrier part of the navy.
CB: Ah right.
RM: And once they’d completed that you then went down to Pensacola.
CB: Right.
RM: And the Gulf of Florida and converted on to Catalinas.
CB: Right.
RM: Now the interesting thing is that for many years RAF — the RAF Museum at Cosford encapsulated my wartime flying experience very very neatly. They had Canso, which was a Canadian built Catalina because it had a retractable undercarriage whereas the Catalina didn’t. And alongside it was a Mossie B35 which, to all intents and purposes, apart from an astro dome was the same, exactly the same as our B16s. And these were side by side. Now, nobody knew about me there so it was purely chance but I gather now that last year that they actually split them up into two different hangars. Which is a shame.
CB: Changing the subject a bit —
RM: Yes.
CB: A Mosquito is very cramped inside. Or is it? For the navigator? And how did you operate?
RM: Well, I was a lot slimmer than I am now. The amount of room we had. My seat was about that wide. In front of me we had a dashboard with a dropdown table for the maps and what not on. We were actually sitting on the main spar and the pilot’s seat was just in front of the main spar. Now, just here —
CB: In front of you.
RM: In front of me and to the left hand side would be the console with the undercarriage and flaps.
CB: Throttles.
RM: And throttles. For the pilot. Right handed. In front of me, underneath the dashboard would be the opening which I would go through to get into the bomb bay.
CB: Go in legs first.
RM: No. Head first.
CB: Right.
RM: Yeah. Because you had to be facing the front. Yeah. You could only go in head first. There was no room to do a hundred and eighty.
CB: Yeah.
RM: It’s very cosy. The pilot –he had roughly the same amount of room and all the gubbins in front of him and to his left. We were both slimmer and we could both get in. Now, the B, the bomber versions — you went in underneath. It had a floor entry. Like the prototype in South Mimms Museum. The fighter bomber versions had a side exit or entry and that was just aft of the propellers. About nine to twelve inches behind the propellers and in the event of getting out you had to go in. Go out head first facing the rear to make sure you didn’t get mixed up and come out as mincemeat. Yeah. They had a ladder which stowed in the aircraft that you climbed up. You went in facing backwards and then turned around. The pilot went in first, of course to get into his seat. Now, he would have a seat type parachute. We had just the harness and we had the parachute stowed down by the right hand side so that if we had to get out we could just pick it up, clip it on and out.
CB: So, if you had to get out are you going to go out through the canopy or through the floor?
RM: Oh you didn’t go out through the canopy except as we did when we crash landed at [unclear] when it was stationary. If you went out through the canopy you had a jolly good chance of being chopped in half with the rudder. So, you always went out the escape hatch at the bottom. Yes. It would be a very foolhardy thing to go out the top. Yeah. That was quite interesting now you’ve come to mention it. When we were at Gransden Lodge we were doing, going up on an air test actually and we got up to about ten thousand feet and all of a sudden there was a hell of a bang and a lot of rubbish and what not flying about and George said, ‘Get ready to jump.’ So, I sort of put the parachute on and he said, ‘Oh.’ he said, ‘The aircraft seems to be flying all right,’ he said, ‘I thought the front had gone in.’ You know, the nose, with all the rubbish and what not. We were looking around. Couldn’t see anything wrong. And then we looked up and we found that the top hatch had blown off. And of course the vacuum, the sort of [unclear] effect too place all the rubbish in the bomb bay had come out and he said just said, just tried it and he said, ‘The chances are it’s probably altered the stalling speed a bit.’ So instead of carrying on with the climb he played about and found out exactly how the aircraft handled at a hundred and twenty knots which was the normal approach speed and he found it was probably about a hundred and thirty knots with the extra drag. And so, we aborted and came back and landed. There was quite a hullabaloo, you know. ‘How come you lost that hatch?’ Well, one of those things. Yeah. They didn’t charge us for it [laughs] 664B. I take it you know what 664B was.
CB: No. Tell us. Tell us for the tape.
RM: 664B action was to re-claim from your wages.
CB: Yeah.
RM: The money for whatever it was that you’d lost, stolen or strayed. Yeah. A lot of people for instance lost their wristwatches and went on 664B because you could get a Rolex for around about six pounds ten shillings. The Longines. I had actually had a Longines wristwatch. We were issued with watches. I don’t know whether you realise this or not but we had, were equipped with aircrew watches and we had to rate them and adjust them so that they lost no more or gained no more than two seconds a day. Now, that stems from the vital necessity of having exact time to the second when you’re doing astro shots. Because one second in time can mean about a quarter of a mile in position. And for instance Coastal Command types. The Catalinas and the old Flying Boats.
CB: The Sunderlands.
RM: The Sunderland. If they were returning and they had very poor radio signals. Very few Astra shots. And could not be absolutely certain of their landfall because of the astro shots and wrong time. A few seconds. I mean a quarter of a mile could mean the difference between getting into a fjord or a bay or hitting the land at the side of it. So it was vitally important that you got the time down to a second. It wouldn’t have mattered now because course cards. So accurate. But of course with the spring you actually had to adjust them. Now, the first watch I had we were equipped with these at navigation school at Charlottetown. The first one I had was a Waltham. An American which was quite well thought of. But I just could not get it closer than about five seconds no matter how I tried. And after two weeks they said, ‘Right. That’s no use.’ So, I took it back and got a Longines and within a week I’d got that sorted out and it worked quite well. And kept that right the way through and stupidly I handed that in when I was demobbed. Because as I said 664B I could have had it for six pounds fifty. Six pounds.
CB: Even in those days.
RM: Another thing. Another thing too which I bitterly resent or regret handing in was my sunglasses. Now, they were Ray-Ban. Green. They were superb for sun. want a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses now. Ninety quid. Ridiculous isn’t it? They would have cost about three pounds.
Other: Yeah.
RM: On 664B.
CB: You talked about astro shots. You talked about astro shots so where would you put the sextant. Could you hang it on the —?
RM: Yes, you hung it in the astro dome.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Now, you can turn this off because I’m going to be in trouble.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Dick Maywood
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-11-09
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMaywoodRM151109
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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02:21:54 audio recording
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Herefordshire
England--Norfolk
England--Oxfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
Scotland--Aberdeenshire
England--Leicestershire
Canada
Ontario
Ontario--Goderich
Alberta
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island--Charlottetown
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Ontario--Belleville
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
1945-05-08
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Sally Coulter
Description
An account of the resource
Dick was born in Peterborough and volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1941. He was called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground in 1942. Dick went to No. 6 Initial Training Wing at Aberystwyth. He then went to RAF Desford, flying Tiger Moths and was selected for further pilot training. After Heaton Park, Dick volunteered for the flying boat course and flew on Stearman N254s at Grosse Isle in the United States. He returned to Canada, initially to Windsor where he was re-selected as a navigator air bomber. He was sent to Goderich and then Mountain View to the bombing and gunnery school on Mark 2 Ansons and the Bolingbroke. He gained his brevet at Navigation School in Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island.
Dick underwent intensive map training on his return and went to the Advanced Flying Unit in Wigtown on Ansons. He proceeded to the Operational Training Unit at RAF Upper Heyford on Oxfords, where he was introduced to Loran. He had just started a tour as a Mosquito Pathfinder navigator before VE Day. He describes the aircraft, Oboe, and the pattern of their operations. Dick participated in Cook’s Tours to the Ruhr Valley. He was in 608 Squadron but it was disbanded and so he was posted to 692 Squadron, another Group 8 unit, at RAF Gransden Lodge. This was also disbanded, and Dick was sent to RAF Blyton for a re-selection board where he was sent on a flight mechanic engines course at RAF Credenhill. He was posted to the 254 torpedo Beaufighter Squadron at Langham until he was demobilised.
608 Squadron
692 Squadron
8 Group
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
B-17
Beaufighter
Bolingbroke
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Gee
Initial Training Wing
Master Bomber
Me 262
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
navigator
Oboe
Oxford
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Banff
RAF Blyton
RAF Credenhill
RAF Desford
RAF Downham Market
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Upper Heyford
sanitation
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/500/8391/PCrossleyD1501.2.jpg
e5e18390904d426fab27f09c93ed261d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/500/8391/ACrossleyD150904.2.mp3
760021ffe0f8cb3b6d12186322512cde
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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Crossley, Don
D Crossley
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Crossley, D
Date
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2015-09-04
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Don Crossley (1924 - 2017, 1592825 Royal Air Force) and a photograph. He flew as a Lancaster wireless operator on 100 Squadron.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Don Crossley and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GR. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Gary Rushbrooke and the interviewee is Don Crossley. The interview is taking place at Don’s home in Upton West Yorkshire and the date is the 4th September 2015. Right Don, thank you. If you can just tell us a little bit about where you were born and your actual growing up.
DC. Yes, well I was born in South Emsall, and all these villages around here are very much alike in that they were based on the coal board, all private enterprise in those days and I was born in 1924.
GR. Right, and did you go to school locally?
DC. Never anything else other than the local school which at 14, you finished at 14 years old, and the first job I had was down Upton Colliery on a very mundane, dark murky job and that was coupling empty tubs coming off the chair. You know what a chair is – it’s the lift.
GR. It’s the lift.
DC. That lifts coal up and down, and that was the very first job which I hated. There was a man who took the tubs off the, off the cage and he was a brute, because he did nothing but swear at me and fetch this fetch that, not a kind word, I had no training I just went on.
GR. How old would you have been then Don?
DC. 14.
GR. 14.
DC. Yes very like that.
GR. And was that actually underground?
DC. Yes, in the pit bottom.
GR. Yes.
DC. Coupling empty tubs as they came off the chair, they went in different districts of the pit.
GR. Yes.
DC. And we were coupling them up going directly to each part of the pit they were needed if that makes sense.
GR. It does, and how many years or...
DC. Oh I was on there I can’t remember how long but I was on there a short time before I saw the lack of wisdom in going down the pit in the first place because I hated it.
GR. Right.
DC. So I got a job at local brick yard and that were fine, but I was only there a year when, when war broke out really or getting in that direction.
GR. And so you would have been about 16, 17, 16 when war broke out?
DC. I think I was a bit younger than that.
GR. Bit younger yes.
DC. About 15 maybe, yes.
GR. And so did you carry on working, in the first few years?
DC. I was at this brick yard, and then I went to have a little job where they made tarmac of all things for the runways they were putting down for the airfields.
GR. Oh right.
DC. Making tarmac, a stone quarry [pause]
GR. And that would have carried on?
DC. That carried on until I knew I was going in the Air Force, at least I was going to go in the services because the war had broken out by then.
GR. Yes.
DC. So.
GR. So am I right.
DC. Just went on in the quarry until I was old enough to go in the Air Force.
GR. I’m right that obviously when conscription you would have been conscripted if you didn’t volunteer.
DC. That’s right, as you probably are aware all aircrew were volunteers, there were no pressed men.
GR. No.
DC. Everybody was a volunteer so I was waiting my turn, but I never thought I’d get in, education requirements were relaxed rather alarmingly to get the numbers they wanted.
GR. Right, so did you, I know everybody aircrew were volunteers, so did you, was there literally an RAF recruiting office, did you, how did you volunteer for the Royal Air Force?
DC. They notified you, Ministry of whatever.
GR. Yes.
DC. When you became a certain age, and the interviewing panel consisted of all the three services and it was held where the Sheffield United ground, football ground, they took those premises over and confiscated them for interviewing different service personnel who were coming in for service, in the, in whatever service they chose.
GR. Right.
DC. Lets see now, so they asked me, there was a panel and they asked me to say why I wanted to join the Air Force., I said well, my brothers been at Dunkirk, he didn’t like the Army too much, I am frightened to death of water so I wouldn’t have gone in the Navy. I can’t swim yet, now, it used to be a requirement for aircrew that they had to be able to swim, I can’t put one foot in the water without being frightened to death of it.
GR. Right.
DC. They didn’t like it, but they said then why have you volunteered for aircrew then, why don’t you, and if you’ve volunteered for aircrew why haven’t you gone for a pilot. Oh, I said, that’s simple, I’m just not clever enough. I didn’t have the education, I left school at 14 I didn’t start till I was 6 so that’s not much of a recommendation.
GR. Right. And so was there any specific role?
DC. Yes.
GR. On the aircrew that you wanted to do or did they tell you...
DC. There was yes, naturally anybody would want to be a pilot but, I were living in cloud cuckoo land that I even got in the Air Force with my lack of education really, so they said well if you’re that keen why don’t you become a gunner. Well in those days gunners, the gunners were getting knocked out of the sky quicker than you could shake a stick at.
GR. Yes.
DC. So I told them that, I said well I want to volunteer but I don’t want to kill myself, not yet I’m still only 18 so if you don’t mind, they said well what would you like to be. I said I’d like to be a flight engineer or a wireless operator. A gunner is too quick, the waiting lists for gunnery, for gunnery recruiters were very quickly used up.
GR. Yes.
DC. And I was amazed when I got a letter this was in 1943, June 1943, to join the Air Force but first you had to have an attestation, go before the attestation board. I couldn’t even spell it never mind know what it was, I didn’t know what attestation was, but it was for three days at Doncaster where they had requisitioned the new Court building again for this attestation. They tested you on maths and English and things like that, and health gave you a very thorough health check.
GR. Check up, yes.
DC. So they said well the fact that you are still breathing shows you might have something, so...
GR. Oh good.
DC. So I was accepted, as a potential cadet and that required being sent to ACRC, that’s imprinted on anybody’s documents ,who went for aircrew, which stands for Aircrew Receiving Centre and the first one was at Doncaster where they did all these checks. Next thing I got was a letter saying go to Lord’s Cricket Ground you are posted as a potential wireless operator so I thought well this is good, there’s me on hallowed ground of the cricket match, cricket pitch, on which people like Don Bradman had put foot on.
GR. Yes.
DC. I thought I was very privileged just to have been on there.
GR. And they used Lord’s at St John’s Wood for most of the war didn’t they as...
DC. That’s right.
GR. For RAF.
DC. Yes. Everybody, when I, when I was called up, I went from Doncaster Station and it was funny you could tell people were going like I was. There were two lads stood talking to each other and I went up to them and I said “ Are you going to ACRC” and they both said yes and they were from Mexborough, it is about 10 miles from here, so at least I had got somebody to travel with and speak to, all the way to London where I’d never been out of my own bed before and there I was on my way to London.
GR. I was going to say that’s the first time you’ve travelled away from
DC. Yes.
GR. This area.
DC. Right, right I had never been away any days holiday or anything, just, just on my way to London, there’s me this loan miner, been a miner travelling all the way to the biggest city in the world.
GR. Yes and what happened after Lord’s? Did you come home or...
DC. After Lord’s Cricket Ground, training and swimming and doing there to my horror, you were posted to an ITW, Initial Training Wing, and these were where you’re training and your basic training for whatever trade you chose, we had been selected to serve in. It was... Getting back to the interview for going into the Air Force in the first place they were all cut glass people, we call them cut glass because they talked as though they had got mouthful of cut glass.
GR. Right.
DC. And that how I found the officers, but on reflection they were the right kind of people.
GR. Yes, yes. So what, what, what did training mean?
GR. Mean to you, where did you go?
DC. That was the first initial things was the ITW we were there for about 18 week, in which they taught you the basics about guns, Browning 303’s. I can remember one corporal teaching us and he said “you need Kings Norton Nickel Silver”, I said oh that’s a funny name I wonder what this is, and it was Brasso. He came from the Midlands and they must have called it a different title, Kings Norton Nickel Silver, that’s what you ask for in the shops.
GR. Right.
DC. Aye, I thought it was part of the course learning this word.
GR. [laughter]
DC. And it was the description, yes. Another one, why should this stick in my head, teaching you how a bullet leaves a gun. They said the bullet leaves, the bullet nips smartly up the barrel hotly pursued by the hot gasses which work with reflex to re-coil the mechanism first fired in the gun, and I had to learn that off by heart, and I thought well when I’m sat up there in a turret, if I’m going to be a gunner, that’s the last thing I want to be having to learn, at the end of a gun.
GR. Yes.
DC. It was a Browning, and it was a Browning 303, which is the same as a soldier’s rifle, the size of ammunition, and that was a bit of a handicap compared to the Germans cannon, and that’s a different story.
GR. It is. So you’ve done your initial training and...
DC. Initial training, and I failed on my passing out tests, I failed my, I didn’t quite get the speed which was 18 words a minute in plain language and 22 words on cord, and the officer had me in and said well you’ve failed, what are you going to do, are you going to go on the ground crew. I says no if I can’t be in the Air Force to fly, I’m not in the Air Force, I said I’ll go back down the pits I think. Anyway he gave me another test that afternoon and I passed it so.
GR. Oh well done.
DC. I did get in one way or another.
GR. Yes, so that’s training as a wireless operator/air gunner?
DC. Yes, let me just explain, on the original war, on the ex war, pre war aeroplanes, the gunner was the main man as regards all auxiliary duties.
GR. Yes.
DC. Wireless was part of his training so he was a duel role person; he was a wireless operator/air gunner.
GR. Air gunner yes?
DC. But, with the advent of four engine airplanes, the signaller as they re-named him, took on a different role, a bit more specialised, so they made him a straight signaller and its funny walking around a town with an S on. Everybody is acquainted with an N for navigator and B for bomb aimer, to a wing for a pilot they saw this S on my half brevet and said well what’s that for, I said you mustn’t touch that, that’s secret, that’s what the S’s meant, its secret. [laughter]
GR. And then later on they learnt it meant signaller?
DC. Yes, Signaller, it was a long training really for a signaller, and that was basically because you can’t rush learning the Morse code, it could only go at a certain speed, and you gradually built up and one problem I had, I didn’t realise at the time, you’re all sitting at different desks hammering away on a key with a pair of headphones on trying to increase your speed up to the required speed for passing out, [pause] where am I?
GR. Yes, well yes you were just talking about your Morse code training.
DC. Yes and the corporal instructor passed me and said “What do you think you are doing?” I said I’m doing about 10 words a minute, he said “Well not in this Mans Air Force you’re not, lad” he said “in this Air Force you’re sending with your left hand” he said “And you can’t do that”. The technique of sending Morse is the wrist action and you can’t get it with the left hand because you’ve got to, the Morse key is on the right hand side in an aeroplane and you’ve got to send with your right hand.
GR. Yes.
DC. So I says “Well I can’t I’m left handed” he said “Well by the time you’ve got a parachute on and a Maewest and different clothing thickness you won’t be able to reach the key never mind send Morse with it”, he says “you either send with your right hand or you’re off the course”. So I had to learn, forget my left hand and go up to speed with my right hand which took some doing.
GR. Yes
DC. And that is why you know me now as being ambidextrous.
GR. Yes
DC. Because I thought if I can send with my left hand, right hand, I can write with my left hand as well, so I wouldn’t have to write with my left hand and that served me in good stead later on.
GR. So you could do Morse, left hand, right hand.
DC. Yes
GR. And you can sign your name, left hand, right hand.
DC. That’s right.
GR. Very, very good, when...
DC. Go on.
GR. When did you actually meet your crew? How did all that come about, what happens?
DC. Well, just in between the radio school where you’re passed out from with three stripes, there was an AFU an Advanced Flying Unit, for wireless operators and that was on Anson’s, where you went up with a pilot and a navigator and that was what they called advanced training. We then went to OTU, which you were touching on, where serious flying started really and we did our crew assembly there, and you are probably familiar with every detail that tells you, that your not, your not selected you just go and mix with each other.
GR. Yes.
DC. You become a crew by consent.
GR. Yes.
DC. Talking to each other and saying yes, will you be my wireless operator, will you be my pilot?
GR. Yes, so did you ask the pilot, or did the pilot come and ask you?
DC. I was on an all Canadian crew my first, weren’t my choice it’s just that I think I was the only one left and we went flying on a night flying trip and I got some severe pains in my groin and so when we landed I went down to the hospital on the quarters of the airfield, and they said it looks like appendicitis, they took me to Doncaster infirmary to have my appendix out. So that meant that crew was without a wireless operator, because I was in there about a week and their training was ongoing, and when I come out they’d gone, and nobody ever to this day has told me where they went they just disappeared. I don’t know what happened to them, they were all Canadian apart from me.
GR. Right.
DC. And so how my crew came about, they’d already selected themselves they were just waiting for a signaller, a wireless operator and that turned out to be me and the adjutant had me in and said well there’s only two, two captains without wireless operators, and there’s a picture of either one, so you pick which one you want. So one was a Scotsman with a scarf round his neck a typical flying, fighter pilot, he liked the image, the other one was more like a vicar on the photograph and I thought well, there’s old pilots as you know and there’s bold pilots, and I said there’s no old bold pilots, so I picked the vicar looking one he looked a bit more steady and he had been flying Dragon Rapide’s, training navigators at Cranwell before he came to pick a crew up. Eygot they called him, he lived in Plymouth. [pause] What else can I tell you about him?
GR. So you’ve got your, you’ve got a crew.
DC. A crew of two Canadians, one Australian, one man from Cornwall, that’s the navigator, the pilot from Plymouth, and myself from Yorkshire.
GR. Yorkshire.
DC. A right motley bunch.
GR. Yep, and then did you then move on to Heavy Conversion Unit? or...
DC. Yes.
GR. Yes.
DC. After that flying that’s where we went, that was at Sandtoft, I don’t know whether you’ve heard of Sandtoft?
GR. I’ve heard of Sandtoft, yes.
DC. That’s a Heavy Con Unit, it was named Prangtoft, you know what a prang is?
GR. Yes.
DC. That’s a crash for an aircraft because there were a lot of accidents and they put it down to them being knackered crew, knackered aeroplanes so old, beyond fit for use on operations.
GR. Yes, because I, I must admit I heard somewhere that yes, the four engine aircraft they used at Heavy Conversion Unit was a lot of aircraft that had finished on ops or weren’t up to scratch for ops.
DC. That’s right, they were used.
GR. Yes and they were expecting you people to, to train on them.
DC. That’s right, yes that’s true, and it was a rough old place was Sandtoft.
GR. Did you have a prang free?
DC. Life?
GR. Conversion?
DC. A what?
GR. Did you have a prang free conversion?
DC. Oh yes we didn’t have any accidents.
GR. You and your pilot were alright?
DC. Yes we were ok, yes; you didn’t pick an engineer up until you got onto Sandtoft.
GR. Yes.
DC. Because there is no position in a twin engine aircraft for an Engineer, so that’s when we picked the seventh member of the crew up and he came from Birmingham.
GR. Right.
DC. He worked at the Austin factories in Birmingham before he came in the Air Force . [pause] what else can we tell you Gary?
GR. And then, so how, so from that very first day when you set off to Lord’s to finally finishing at Heavy Conversion Unit, how long did your training take? Roughly, six months, nine months?
DC. Oh about a year.
GR. About a year.
DC. I came, yes I went to Operational Training Unit in August ’44, joined the Air Force in June ‘43, so it would be about a year.
GR. Yes, So that’s a year of training?
DC. Yes.
GR. And then you were allocated a squadron, were you? Your crew?
DC. Yes.
GR. Your plane.
DC. We flew together at the Heavy Con Unit in that monster and then we were posted to 100 Squadron which is in 1 Group if you know the grouping numbers.
GR. Yes.
DC. Of aircraft, and we went to 1 group and we went to Grimsby, which was 100 Squadron.
GR. Yes. So not too bad that’s about, Grimsby is probably 50, 60 mile away from where we are so...
DC. Yes, and we used to get home whenever I could but you didn’t get a lot of time off.
GR. Yes
DC. And at Grimsby, [pause] it was a nice lovely run station it was great, there was a lot more freedom, a lot more tolerance.
GR. Yes, right.
DC. I did, in total I did 12 operations but, we did about 8 of those mixed with daylight and night bombing.
GR. Can you remember what the first operation was and what it was like?
DC. Yes, it was a bit rough. I don’t remember a lot of action though because I was listening to the wireless; my job was listening to the wireless, I just sat down.
GR. Yes.
DC. I can get my book and determine that.
GR. No, no, so what, what was it like though on that day, you obviously had been at the Squadron, I don’t know a week, two weeks and then you were obviously told you were going on operations. What did the crew feel like? Or what did you feel like?
DC. I would think somewhat apprehensive,
GR. Yes.
DC. To put it mildly, yes.
GR. Because by then there would have been, yes, the war was going into its fifth year.
DC. That’s right, it was getting close to the end of the war, but nobody knew that at the time.
GR. No .
DC. There were still enemy aircraft about and they were still, there was one funny thing at the briefing, they said that Jerry is sending up spoofs. I don’t know if you’ve heard of spoofs, but these are supposed to be Germany firing shells which gave the impression an aircraft had been hit, a big black cloud.
GR. Yes.
DC. Well I didn’t believe that, I thought they were real aeroplanes because why would he waste putting a gun together and putting a dummy bullet up the spout. I think they were aircraft blowing up.
GR. Right, I mean, perhaps, perhaps the Germans thought if they...
DC. Get the morale.
GR. Yes the morale if you saw lots of planes exploding around you.
DC. Yes.
GR. Yes, and morale.
DC. I just can’t see them wasting...
GR. Yes.
DC. Useless shells, well of course when its dark you don’t see them anyway because their black clouds, you just see the flashes.
GR. You see the, you see the flame inside that.
DC. Yes the internal, yes.
GR. But as you said earlier being in the, in the radio section you...
DC. Yes.
GR. You were enclosed, weren’t you?
DC. That’s right the one redeeming feature about it really was the astrodome, which was right alongside my seat, so I could stand on a step, put my head outside, virtually under the astrodome, because that’s where the Navigator took star shots and navigated.
GR. That’s right, yes.
DC. Yes.
GR. An incredible view
DC. All round, yes.
GR. Yes.
DC. In fact I’m deaf now, and I put it down to the effect of the engines because there is two either side of you, at eardrum level.
GR. Where the radio operator...
DC. Where the radio operator’s seat is.
GR. I have heard that, I have heard that before so yes, yes.
DC. Oh right, In that case I ought to get a pension for that [laughter]
GR. [laughter]
DC. We’ll ask the prime minister for a pension.
GR. Seventy years later.
DC. Actually its a bit more than that because, I was, just in passing I did twelve years, I had four war years, 1947 I came out, but then when the Korean trouble started, and the Berlin airlift, there were adverts for ex-aircrew to go back in the Air Force, because they wanted to staff it up again.
GR. Yes.
DC. There looked like there were going to be some problems so I went back in and the minimum I could sign for was eight years so that’s what I did, I went back into the Air Force in 1949.
GR. As a?
DC. As a Wireless Operator.
GR. As a Wireless Operator.
DC. On what is laughingly called Bomber Command with Lincoln’s.
GR. Right.
DC. Yes, I flew after the war; I flew with Lincolns in Lincolns, York’s, Hastings, [unclear] I mentioned Lincolns didn’t I?
GR. Did you fly the Washington?
DC. Oh yes three years flying the Washington, B29.
GR. That was the American bomber that [unclear] the end of the war, but then came back, came across here?
DC. Yes.
GR. And the RAF used it?
DC. The RAF used it and it was also the one which dropped the two atom bombs.
GR. That’s right.
DC. Which I thank, was most thankful for. It killed a lot of people did those two things but, what they did we were, it wasn’t decided quite what we were going to do at the end of the war, but there was rumour on all the Squadrons I think and certainly on ours, that we were going to go on Tiger Force which was Bomber Command going out and doing low level attacks on Japanese targets. That didn’t materialise because the Americans dropped the...
GR. Dropped the bomb.
DC. The V bomber, the...
GR. And can you remember was your Squadron down as Tiger Force?
DC. There was rumour on the station, but there was nothing proved, but the station [unclear] is that we only did about eight operations, and then the whole squadron was posted away from Waltham to Elsham Wolds.
GR. Right.
DC. Where 103 Squadron were domiciled.
GR. Yes.
DC. And we went there, and we only did four there so I did twelve in total.
GR. Twelve in total.
DC. But at the end of that number, 8 , 12 in total, our crew was picked to go on Pathfinders and we went down to Warboys and did a bit of a course on the 8 Group, 582 Squadron. 582 squadron saw the last Victoria Cross of the war in Bomber Command. He was shot down, a Captain Swales was shot, I can remember his voice quite clearly.
GR. Right.
DC. Directing them in force onto the target area, and he went very low and couldn’t get his height back and he bailed his crew out as I read.
GR. But he stayed in?
DC. Yes.
GR. Yes.
DC. And he killed himself.
GR. So then you, as you’ve just said you were going to do Pathfinder training but the war came to a close.
DC. That’s right.
GR. Then you came back into the RAF .
DC. In between that.
GR. Yes.
DC. I did, it was quite impressive numbers of prisoners of war we flew back from France.
GR. Yes.
DC. And Italy what they called Exodus, exercise Exodus.
GR. That’s right yes.
DC. And that was flying them from [unclear] France, and then we went on to what they called Exercise Dodge, flying the troops back from Italy, by along the south coast on the Adriatic, still with the Lancaster, with 24 passengers.
GR. Nice job that one.
DC. It was a good job yes.
DC. We’d get hooch from one of the local shops, hooch very cheap at that time the official changing rate of Lira for Pound was three thousand we could get 18 thousand [unclear] pound note on the exchange rate on the street.
GR. [laughter]
DC. So did a bit of lubricating of the back passages as it were. [unclear]
GR. [laughter] And you finally left the RAF in…
DC, January the 1st 1947,
GR. 1947 but then you went back in?
DC. Went back in March ‘49.
GR. Right.
DC. For the?
GR. Berlin airlift and Korea .
DC. Yes.
GR. When did you finally come out of the RAF?
DC. 1956.
GR. 1956.
DC. And I got two hundred and fifty six pound, for the eight years.
GR. For the eight years, as a thank you.
DC. That’s right, yes.
GR. [laughter] What did you do then Don, what did you do with the rest of your life?
DC. Goodness me, I had a variety of jobs, one unpaid was 25 years as a parish councillor.
GR. Right.
DC. That was a waste of time with the politics as they are. I had a variety of jobs making houses, building houses, all labouring jobs with me you see.
GR. Ah I see.
DC. I’d no trade, and there aren’t any wireless operators down a pit.
GR. No.
DC. So, and I ended up back down the pit twice like I’ve, like I’ve put in my little memory book, I can mesmerise bung [?] fly really, wasting time going down those jobs, because I ultimately ended up I had a very good job, I went mending televisions for one thing and putting aerials up. But a very good job I ended up with was with the Central Electricity Generating Board. Subsequently became a supervisor in the technical department in the instrumentation areas and it was a very good job.
GR. Good.
DC. Lovely.
GR. Yeah, Well I’ll bring the interview to a close and this has been recorded and hopefully in four weeks time today you’ll be attending the International Bomber Command Centre memorial at Lincoln for the unveiling.
DC. That’s my intention.
GR. So I’m sure we’ll see you there.
DC. Good, all the best.
GR. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Don Crossley
Creator
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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
2015-09-04
Format
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00:34:29 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ACrossleyD150904, PCrossleyD1501
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.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Don Crossley was born in South Emsall in 1924. He tells of his time before the war working at Upton Colliery before joining the Royal Air Force. He volunteered and trained initially as a wireless operator / air gunner. He tells of his experience at the aircrew receiving centre and his training at the initial training wing before his assignment to an operational training unit for crewing up. After serving in a heavy conversion unit, he was posted to 100 Squadron. He flew on Ansons, Lancasters, Lincolns, Yorks and Hastings. He was in Pathfinders force with 8 Group, 582 Squadron, and took part in operations Exodus and Dodge. Don was demobilised in 1947 but returned to take part in the Berlin airlift and also in Korea. He finally left the Royal Air Force in 1956. Don tells about his post war life doing manual labour and then a job with the Central Electricity Generating Board.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Vivienne Tincombe
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Korea
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1947
1956
100 Squadron
582 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Anson
B-29
bombing
crewing up
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lincoln
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Grimsby
RAF Sandtoft
recruitment
Tiger force
training
wireless operator / air gunner
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1564/PBriggsDW1701.1.jpg
0ddb6a37aec4aa568c806c57545b57bd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1564/ABriggsDW170327.1.mp3
154ae8a60c9fc85e03bb0d4e30404e55
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Briggs, Donald
Donald W Briggs
D W Briggs
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Briggs, DW
Description
An account of the resource
21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PJ: My name is Pete Jones. I’m interviewing Flight Lieutenant Donald Briggs DFC. Other people attending are Sandra Jones, Pete Jones and Ann Kershaw. It is Monday the 27th of March 2017 and we are in Mr Briggs’ home in Freeland, Oxfordshire. Thank you Donald for agreeing to be interviewed for the IBCC. Donald, now tell me about your early years before you joined up Bomber Command.
DB: Right. Thank you Peter. Well, I was brought up in a small village called Lealholm which was about ten miles from Whitby on the north east coast and my parents ran the village post office and general stores and I, I used to help out while I was a teenager and that sort of thing and then I went to, I went to Whitby County School, a good grammar school and I did five years there but I decided that having seen some advertising literature for the air force and apprenticeships at RAF Halton, and so I applied and then I sat the entrance exam and got through all right, and this was as things were building up towards World War Two. And so the Royal Air Force were recruiting ground servicing personnel in pretty large numbers. At this time I was a fifteen year old and so I saw my chance to learn all about aircraft and what, how you put them together and so on and so I applied for the examination as I said. And I joined at Halton on two days after the war was declared. And that was on the 5th of September 1939. And so there is little doubt that the harsh discipline at Halton coupled with excellent theoretical lessons in schools, and the schools were known as Kermode Hall after the well-known Kermode, the aerodynamicist and he used to teach there actually, and many hours filing pieces of metal in workshops. And it turned boys into men and later in the course we worked in teams stripping down and re-assembling many types of aero engines and at the end of the training which was reduced a bit because of being wartime, and there was a great demand for fitters out in the units, in the fighting units. So my first posting was at RAF Finningley which is about ten miles from Doncaster. And I worked there on the engines of Wellington bombers and Hampden bombers and the Rolls Royce Vulture engines in the Avro Manchester and they, they gave a lot of trouble and er, which meant there were several engine changes that I assisted in. And the next posting was to RAF Upper Heyford where I was promoted to corporal at the age of eighteen. Now there I worked on the Wellington Mark 3 with more powerful Hercules engines and after carrying out rectification on an aircraft if an air test was necessary I usually asked if I could accompany the pilot. Which I did on several occasions and after approximately two and a half years I decided that more excitement was needed so I volunteered for air crew. The president of the selection board said that I had passed all the tests to become a pilot, but the waiting list for pilots was pretty lengthy and also there was a little demand, this was mid-1943 and the commanding officer of the board interviewing, the selection board er he, he said, ‘Now look you’re already a technician, a fitter 2E,’ he said, ‘And what we need is flight engineers,’ and so he said, ‘You want to, you’ll be on operations within six months. You do want to fight don’t you?’ And of course I had to say, ‘Yes. Of course I do,’ and that’s how I became a flight engineer, by passing the course at Royal Air Force St Athan in Wales. Now, during this crewing up procedure when I finished my training I was sent to Lindholme near Doncaster. I was fortunate in meeting the captain of the crew that I was to fly with. He was Flying Officer Bill Neal with his crew and they had already completed a tour of operations on Wellingtons. Now Bill explained that they had been selected to join the Pathfinder force and what our duties would entail. Our first step was to convert on to the Halifax Mark 1 because these were ex beaten up old war, operational aircraft that had seen better days, and so we had to train on them and during our training sorties, Bill Neal gave me a potted flying lesson so that the very, very first aircraft I flew was the Halifax. And that flew alright and I got the hang of how to fly straight and level and do gentle turns and so on, but we completed the course of thirty hours and went on to convert on to the Lancaster at RAF Hemswell, north of Lincoln. Or nearer to Gainsborough actually. I did the night conversion on to the Lancaster on my twentieth birthday, would you believe? And after attending a short course to learn the Pathfinder procedures we joined number 156 squadron Pathfinders at RAF Upwood near Peterborough. And as a new crew we had two weeks of training to complete during which time I took on the additional role of bomb aimer. I was taught how to run up on the, set the bomb sight up to start with and, and then how to run up and give corrections to the pilot, running up to the dropping point, aiming point. And we dropped practice bombs at a nearby bombing range which I seemed to get the hang of quite, quite well. And also during this time Bill Neal vacated his seat. There were no dual control Lancasters on squadrons you see, just a single set of controls in the left hand seat for the captain, but he allowed me to fly this superb aircraft, the Lancaster. And on completion of this training we were declared operational and on the 11th of June 1944, we saw that our crew was on the battle order. All a bit, a bit terrifying for a new chap like myself. The target was vast marshalling yards at Tours in the south of France. The Germans were routing most of their reinforcements through here to the Normandy battlefront. Now, on this particular trip we had a couple of night fighter sightings and attacks and Bill Neal being a terrific pilot he corkscrewed and got rid of them. The whole secret was if you had a rear gunner with such good night vision and if he saw the night fighter before he saw you, then you stood a fairly decent chance of getting away without, without disaster. Well, firstly I volunteered for aircrew and I was fully committed now. There was no turning back. Anybody that did turn back were, were called lack of moral fibre and they were, they were given the most terrible mucky jobs that you could ever imagine. And so, but anyway I stuck with it and destiny would decide whether or not I survived. And secondly I was fortunate in joining a very experienced crew and they all made me a welcome addition to the crew. They had not flown previously with a flight engineer because the Wellington didn’t need one and so on. I should explain that in Pathfinder crews the reason the flight engineers took on the extra duty of visual bomb aimer was that the primary bomb aimer operated the H2S radar, and a lot of our targets relied on this for identification and running up and so on. Now 156 Squadron were primarily a blind marker squadron which meant that if no target indicator flares were seen by the master bomber, he would call for blind markers to be dropped and they were reds which is where we came in. And they would be seen cascading and so on, and give an initial aiming point for the main force of bombers running in. The master bomber would then know that the markers were dropped blind and the target had not been visually identified. But on the very first operation we were about to fly we were part of the illuminating force, and we carried twelve rather large hooded parachute flares. And you drop all twelve together and that was like turning the target into a daylight. The visually illuminated target so they were able to, to identify the aiming point, the master bomber. We had a master bomber and his deputy and he had a dicey job. He used to go right down to about four thousand feet and circle around and a very dangerous job. Some of them didn’t make it and were shot down. And on the first ten operations mostly dropping flares, and on — I was mentioning earlier about the run in to the Tours marshalling yards we had two night fighter attacks and we thought actually that — we heard later that these were night fighter pilots that were training down in France so they weren’t sort of fully, fully operational like their counterparts in, up in Germany and Holland and so on. And so it was a great feeling to be safely on the ground back at our Upwood base and I often used to say to my colleagues, my — well between us we’ve said we climbed up that ladder of the Lancaster at the back end where you board the aircraft, not knowing whether we’d ever be in the position to come back, climb down it again on to terra firma so — but happily I did that sixty-two times. Gratefully rather, I survived those to, climb down that ladder again. And I, our crew was sent on Allied support for the ground forces on the Normandy battlefront and we dropped sticks of one thousand pounders, fourteen bombs in a rapid stick of bombs from only four thousand feet. And the aircraft shook very badly with the blast as you’d expect at that height, and we could see the blast rings coming up from other people’s bombs as well. And we also attacked the V1 launch sights in the Pas-de-Calais area. And the, we formation, six Lancasters formatted on a Mosquito aircraft which was equipped with this very accurate blind bombing system called Oboe. They, they used that for, some of the Pathfinder squadrons used it for marking targets as well. So that when his bomb doors opened we opened ours and when we saw the bombs leave his bomb bay we hit our bomb release button and, as you can imagine that was a lot of bombs going down, usually finishing up in rendering the buzz bombs site unusable. And that must have saved a lot of lives in the, around London. And my first German target was Hamburg, and that was our thirteenth op. And it was quite a, quite a dicey town. Very heavily defended of course as always was Hamburg, being a major port and ship building and that. But we came through the barrage unscathed. My skipper always used to say, ‘What you see in the sky is what’s been, the flak bursts and they’re not going to do us any harm. It’s the ones you can’t see that er.’ But anyway, night fighters were of course were in the area, and we saw several bombers going down in flames, and erm, it was a sickening sight and we, er, sort of sympathised with our colleagues and comrades. They would meet their end in a fireball from bombs and fuel when they hit the ground. It was a sickening sight but we made a note of its position and we got on with our own job. And there wasn’t much else you could do. [pause] Bill Neal, my skipper, always said to me, ‘Don,’ he said, ‘when we’ve finished our tour of operations,’ not if but when, he said, ‘I’m going to put you up for commissioning and,’ he said, ‘Then you can join the rest of us in the officer’s mess.’ So I said, ‘Oh well that’s good. Pleased to hear that,’ and sure enough that’s what happened. After I’d done forty operations and about the end of my first tour and I had an interview with Air Vice Marshall, Don Bennett up at Pathfinder headquarters and he was satisfied and so I became Pilot Officer Don Briggs. And erm, so the — I carried on with Bill because he was awarded the DFC because he’d already, that completed two tours of operations having done one before I met him. So what one more tour and of course usually, certainly a skipper got the DFC. And, but I’ll just tell you during a daylight operation to a target called Kleve in October ’44, we had a flak burst right on the port wing tip. And it, we thought it was really the end, you know, because it was that close. And it damaged the aileron quite badly on the port side, but we still had, skipper had control of the aircraft well and with his amazing piloting skill brought us back to a safe landing back at Upwood. But there was substantial damage, the aileron was, was in a terrible mess. And I pressed on in to my second tour with Bill apart from one operation with another crew as their flight engineer had completed his tour of operations. And one of which was with the squadron commander, one of these battlefront operations, and I had the gunnery leader, the squadron leader was — I was on the bomb sight at the front, and he was in the front turret with his legs, and one of his legs was in plaster. He’d, he’d broken a leg or done something, and in plaster, and this was rubbing on my ear as I was trying to aim bombs and he was swivelling around the front turret which normally wasn’t manned at all. And so that was about it. I’m happy to say that despite several very close shaves, I came through sixty two operations unscathed. Lady Luck was certainly on my side. Bill Neal pressed on with another flight engineer and notched up just short of a hundred ops and he was awarded the DSO and he’d already got the DFC. And the French awarded him the Croix de Guerre, and I’m eternally grateful to Bill for getting me through the most dangerous period of my life. He made sure that my operational record was recognised resulting in the award of the DFC in July 1945. I’ve got a few statistics here which are, to save boring everybody, the number of French targets that we did was twenty-four but German targets exceeded that. Thirty-eight we did to German targets. Forty-one of those were night operations and we did twenty-one daylight operations some of which were daylight ops on Ruhr targets in the hell’s, what do they call it? Hell’s valley or something? Happy valley. That was it. And forty-one of those operations we had our own Lancaster which was GT J-Johnny. And so we flew that and of course that meant our own ground crew and we got to know them pretty well. Of those ops we did three raids on oil refineries, because the Germans were desperately short of fuel towards the end of the war and you can’t run a war machine without fuel. And the V1 sights we did, five of those attacks I was telling you about and five on the battlefront and, and then four on marshalling yards. Ruhr targets. Yes ten. We did ten of those and four in daylight, and my last thirty operations were all German targets. Now, it was a massive relief as you can imagine to have survived all those ops and great to be able to enjoy end of second tour leave with my parents and four younger brothers. I’m the eldest of five. So that ended my wartime contribution to the, to the war effort and I, after the war I was selected for Transport Command and flew on Yorks as a flight engineer going out to India and the Far East. And did that for a couple of years and then was posted to the Empire Test Pilot School at Farnborough and I got some valuable experience there. Only the very, very best of pilots were selected and of course we had exchange officers from America, from the United States Air Force and also the US navy. They sent a representative to the, representative to the empire test pilots course. And a lot of those test pilots that I flew with under training they became, you know, top test pilots for the different companies. And so a very interesting three years out, flying Lincolns and things mostly. And after that I was posted to Manby in Lincolnshire where I met an ex-Pathfinder wing commander and he advised me if I wanted to take pilot training, re-train as a pilot, I should write him a letter which I did. And he must have found it fairly satisfactory ‘cause he, he had me to London, to Hornchurch for a selection board and I passed everything there, all the aptitude tests and so on. And very soon in the summer of ’51, late summer, I started training as a pilot at RAF Ternhill in Shropshire and that was — I enjoyed every minute, every minute of that. It was wonderful. And so er, I passed out from there, graduated and awarded those prestigious pilot’s wings that, all RAF pilots remember being presented with their wings. And so I’ll lead on later to describe my, what, what the, what my path through the peacetime air force was. Right. Now. In the August of 1951, I was allowed to start my conversion to retrain as a pilot. And so I promptly, having got furnished accommodation for Edith and we had two children then and, in Louth, and I used to travel across to Ternhill in Shropshire. So the first two weeks of the course naturally was ground school and exams and all the rest of it. And then we started flying, and the aircraft then for training was the Percival Prentice which was a lumbering old thing, but you could do, you could do sort of basic aerobatics with it and so I went solo on that. My instructor sent me off on my own after about four or five hours. Something like that. And then I did sixty hours on the jet, Percival Provost and then I went on to Harvards and that was a wonderful machine to fly. A very big powerful five hundred and fifty horsepower engine in front of you and not easy to see when you’re flowing out for landing. The engine gets in the way, you’ve got to sort of look over the side a little bit. Anyway, I loved flying the Harvard and completed the course and did my final handling test and so on and graduated for my pilot’s wings presented by some air vice marshall and so I’ve still got the photograph. I trained with a lot of chaps that were engineering officers and they were sort of doing a seconded tour in the general duties flying branch just before going back on to engineering. And so from there it was a question of advanced training over at Oakington in Cambridgeshire, and the Meteor was the standard trainer for jet conversion. I had a French instructor of the French Armee de L’air, and George Golee [?]sent me on my first solo in a Meteor Mark 7 and that was enjoyable and went very well. And the, then working my way through the course — the one thing that I didn’t enjoy too much was at night climbing above thirty thousand feet unpressurised and I had a pretty bad attack of the bends. And ask anybody what the, what that’s like and all your joints, it’s the nitrogen that comes out in the joints of your, everywhere knees, ankles the whole lot, so you can only spend a few minutes above thirty. However, and down we came, and the one thing about the Meteor was when you’d been up high everything used to mist up on the inside so you’re sort of rubbing frantically to be able to see out for the landing. However, that was ok and I passed my final handling test with the wing commander, chief instructor and he seemed quite pleased with my performance and he, on landing, after landing offered me the chance of going straight back to Central Flying School to become a flying instructor. Like what we would call in the service creamed off. Creamed off CFS. Now I politely declined and said I was flattered and so on, but I would like to proceed to a Canberra squadron. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Yes, that’s fine just I was giving you the chance, you know.’ So that’s what I did, and I proceeded to Bassingbourn to convert on to Canberras, and in those days there was no dual controlled Canberra. You just had to ride alongside someone on the, what we used to call the rumble seat, and er, see what he did and make a note of the speeds and everything, and then on the second trip he would climb out and look up through the hatch and raise his thumb and say are you happy, and all the rest of it and off I went. Well I think somebody else had control, namely the almighty I think had control of that Canberra on take-off. They er, it was so steep, but anyway. I enjoyed my first, first solo and certainly strange having to fly an aircraft where you’d never handled the controls previously, anyway. And so from there I was posted right up to Lincolnshire to, to join 10 Squadron. We were just forming the first Canberra squadron at Scampton. And we, straightaway I was made a flight commander and in charge of all the servicing and so on, on the eight Canberras. And so we, we got on pretty well and the Canberra’s a wonderful aircraft to fly. Quite light on the controls and plenty of power there and so on. And we did lots of exercises, and I always remember on my first early night flying we were, couldn’t land back at Scampton because of bad weather and we were diverted down in to Cornwall to then St Eval which is just near, just north of Newquay. And the trouble with St Eval is that the runway is up high on the cliffs and you come, you come right in on the approach and this was at night and remember, and I hadn’t flown at night for quite some time and coming in over these cliffs and the runway itself had a great big hump in the middle so you could only see half of it when you touched down. And then happily the final half of the runway came into view as you went over the hump. But I got away with it alright, and so and then of course we spent the night and went back to Scampton the following day. My, my time at Scampton involved quite a lot of diversions. There was once we were diverted up to Kinloss in Scotland. And the Canberra had a fairly good performance for, for the time in the air, endurance as we called it. And so during that time on Canberras my boss was, he was an ex-flight commander over at Binbrook on Canberras, and he was promoted and took over 10 Squadron. And Punch Howard [?] was a great Mosquito night fighter ace and he used to go over these German night fighter airfields and fire off the colours of the day and join in the circuit and shoot down two or three night fighters by doing so. And for this he got the DFC and the DFC and bar as well. And so he set up a formation display team and he gave me a check for my formation flying, and he was happy so I joined his team. And we used to give displays up and down the country and there was one in particular when the National Air Races were on at Coventry airport. And so we gave this display and they gave us a good write up in the flight magazine and also a very congratulatory letter from the president of the Royal Aero Club, which I’ve still got a copy. And so that was, that was my forte if you like on 10 Squadron and from there I, we were actually moved over to East Anglia to, to 3 Group at Honington, RAF Honington near Bury St Edmunds actually. And so I spent about three or four months there before they suddenly came up with a posting and I was to be one of the first pilots to join the new V bomber force on Valiants. The, the courses were starting at RAF Gaydon near Leamington Spa, and so I joined as a co-pilot for Squadron Leader Arthur Steele, who later became air commodore. And so we were posted initially to 138 Squadron at Wittering and Edith was — we actually couldn’t get married quarters, they hadn’t built, they hadn’t finished building them so we lived in an old country hall called Rushington Hall. And so the, it was a wonderful old place, and we had one wing of the place to ourselves and it had a lounge half the size of a hangar. And the boys used to ride around on their tricycles up and down the corridors in this thing, this place. But it was, it was good and then by the time we’d spent three or four months there we were given a married quarter at Wittering and we, there we stayed in that for a good five or six years. Then 138 Squadron was the first squadron to form on Valiants of course but then they were forming a new squadron, 49, 49 Squadron to do the Grapple operation. That was the H bomb trials in the pacific from Christmas Island and our crew, Arthur Steele that is, and myself and the rest of the crew, were selected and in the April, sorry in the March of 1957 we all flew out to Christmas Island via Canada. Goose Bay first and then Edmonton, Alberta and then down to San Francisco where we spent a couple of days, and were able to do some sightseeing and exploring in the good old San Francisco. And then the big leg from there to Honolulu was against headwinds normally and we could work out that providing that the headwinds weren’t greater than sixty knots we were ok. We had enough fuel to get there and a little bit to spare. But and as it happened on the day the winds were lighter than that so we were fine. So it was, Arthur Steele was a good skipper. He used to share the landings with me and if it was my turn come hell or high water I would do it and the one at Honolulu was at Hickam air force base and you come right in over Pearl Harbour on the final approach. So that was, I couldn’t look for very, very long I’m afraid, just a quick glance. And so we had a lovely time and it happened to fall on St Patrick’s Day when we were in and of course there was a big, the Americans celebrate that pretty well and we had, they entertained us very well in the officer’s club. And a couple of days later we flew down the thousand mile leg to the south of Christmas Island. Now, the runway had been built by the army, The Royal Engineers and they’d made a good job of it. It was quite a, not a tremendously long runway, but it was long enough just over two thousand yards. And that’s where we prepared for our H bomb drop. So we saw the first one, Squadron Commander Ken Hubbard he dropped the first and Dave Roberts the flight commander he dropped number two and it was our turn for number three. So we’d all prepared and done the drills and so on, the dropping drills. Now, I want to emphasise that we didn’t drop these H bombs and they went into the sea. They burst at eight thousand feet. So there was no, no fallout like some of the previous tests had done by well, say the Americans perhaps or the Japanese they, well, no the Japanese didn’t have it in those days. However, the, there was no fallout and the, but we took ours, it was on June the 19th ‘57 and the yield wasn’t quite as much as the scientists wanted but it was good enough and they were, the British government were then able to specify, say, Britain now can become the, have the facility of nuclear deterrent. The nuclear fallout, nuclear bomb. And so there was to be a fourth, but that was cancelled and we all came the reverse route and flew home. And flew back to Wittering and so that was, that was Operation Grapple. And so we, we settled down and then I, after that, shortly, short time after that I became a captain on the Valiant and posted back to 138 Squadron. [pause] After completing my tour as a Valiant captain which I enjoyed very much, I used to get trips out to Nairobi and did Salisbury which is now called Harare, I think. And er, Germany. I did several trips there with the Valiant and my co-pilot was an ex-fighter pilot, been stationed in Germany so he was able to show us how to get on there in our leisure time. We then, I was posted to Gaydon, as I said and became a ground school instructor on the Victor mark two. Wonderful aircraft, well built and it had all the then high tech, what was high tech in those days, you wouldn’t call it that now. And I used to teach that, and for doing that they allowed me to do first of all the pressured breathing course, because the Victor two would go up to fifty-two, fifty- three thousand feet and if you had an explosive decompression there you were, you were automatically on pressure breathing to get down to forty thousand as quick as possible. So having completed that which, which, which was a bit rigorous, I was able to do the flight simulator on the Victor two and then fly with the OCU instructors. OCU being Operational Conversion Unit which was at Cottesmore. So I, I enjoyed about six flights from either the captain’s seat or the co-pilot’s seat and enjoyed very much flying the Victor and streaming the great big parachute on landing. And you’d swear that somebody had clamped the brakes hard on when you streamed that, fantastic thing and I was later to come across it of course on the Vulcan. So that was the Victor two. Now, from there I was decided to do the central flying school course at Little Rissington. Near Bourton on the Water that was and so I did the course and qualified and became a flying instructor and was posted to Syerston, which was a flying training school near Newark in Nottinghamshire. And there I, I was checked out by the standards people, and allowed to instruct on the aircraft. And my first bunch of students, there was one of them who was particularly good material and tremendous potential and I could tell the way he was flying I only had to show him something once and he had it off pat, absolutely as good as I could show him. And that gentleman was called Brian Hoskins and he later, in later years joined the Red Arrows. He was a member of the team to start with when they were flying the Gnat and then he became leader, and converted them from the Gnat on to the Hawk which they use now of course. And so he led the Red Arrows for, for a couple of years so I’m rather proud of the fact that I helped train him and taught him his first aerobatics and formation flying, which was pretty essential for being in the Red Arrows as you can imagine. So, anyway I enjoyed my tour and I was promised to have a double tour on instructing on the Jet Provost, and I was just enjoying every minute. However, that was not to be. Because I, because I had previous V bomber experience they posted me up to Finningley, where I was to do the Vulcan course. The Vulcan Mark two and so once, once I was trained and finished the course as a Vulcan captain and I went to, you say, call it solo if you like but strangely enough I had an American colonel for my co-pilot on my first trip in a Vulcan. And first trip as captain anyway and he he’d done a tour in Vietnam had this chap, so a very accomplished pilot. And so after that I had to do a short spell of a year or so in the flight simulator, because having an instructor rating of course you need to establish familiarity and the checklist and emergencies in the flight simulator before they actually did the flying. However, they said, ‘Well don’t get too downhearted about it,’ he said, ‘When you’ve done this short spell in the simulator we’ll groom you for stardom Donald and you’ll be given the flying instructor course on Vulcans.’ And that’s how I became a Vulcan flying instructor initially, and they cut, I had to cut my teeth on some young co-pilots who were converting from the right hand seat to the left hand seat just for, they were from squadrons of course. And it meant that they were fairly flexible and they could, providing their captain could, could fly from the right hand seat they would, they would do that. And so and then I went on to take a whole crew, a full crew. And I trained some fairly senior officers, the odd wing commander that was taking over a squadron or a station, a group captain who would be taking over a Vulcan station and so give them the course and and I had some, I had some nasty experiences at night particularly with training, training co-pilots. And they failed to recognise that in a Vulcan once you allowed the speed to fall the Vulcan was, became a high drag machine and it dropped out of the sky very quickly. And so of course being instructors we could recognise this fairly quickly to take control and save the situation as it were. And I had to do this on more than one occasion. At night particularly. Sorry. [recording paused] After completing my tour on the Vulcan OCU as an instructor, I was given my own crew. And we were posted out to Cyprus on to Number nine squadron and I was to become the squadron QFI and then carry out normal duties of a squadron crew as well. So that was wonderful. Edith and I flew out on a VC10 from Brize Norton and the rest of my crew found their way out there somehow. And one of my crew, his wife played the piano, and I’ll just tell you this. You can have a good laugh. She, they managed to even to fly this piano out to Cyprus on some transport aircraft, a Belfast or something. And so anyway, we settled down and we had a very nice hiring in Limassol itself and that was until a married quarter came up and, which it did. After about three months we moved up on to the base into a very nice married quarter and there I continued my, my tour on the squadron and it was very enjoyable. We were able to — if we weren’t flying in the morning we were free to go at about one o’clock and after lunch we were on the beach taking in the sunshine and the nice, in the lagoons swimming. Swimming by the rocks and so on, in the crystal clear water. It was lovely really. It was like a paid holiday. And so that’s how I finished my air force service. I came out in 1973 and I was given a nice send off in the, in the officers mess, dining in night. And so we, Edith and I we’d bought a Volvo car and I was hoping to get it in duty free, but to get a car in from overseas duty free you’d got to have it over a year and I’d only had this Volvo about six months so I knew I was going to have to pay duty on it. However, we drove home. Got the ferry to Athens and then we drove, various little ferries from a place on the mainland to Corfu. And we spent three nice days in Corfu and then on to Brindisi and we drove up the east coast of Italy to, past Venice and up to almost before you cross the St Bernard’s, St Bernard’s pass. There was no tunnels in those days. And that’s how we got home for a series of ferries and arriving home and we still had our place in Doncaster and we sort of tried to settle down as civilians, which was rather strange because when you become a civilian after thirty-five years of air force service you, you feel you’ve lacked that sort of cushion, that cocoon. You’re cocooned in a, in a sort of safe situation in the services and you’ve got to, you’re out in to the big, big world out there to try and make a living. Well I started off by trying to sell insurance from door to door and I got blown out of many a place and without selling anything. And so that turned out to be a dead loss and we tried looking around for a post office and we found one in York. We actually had bought a property now, a new bungalow in York which was very nice. And we ran this post office for, oh I guess about three or four months, and we were going to buy it from the present owner and he must have fallen foul of the head post master of York because he said that, ‘If you sell that,’ he said, ‘I’ll close it down.’ And so we couldn’t, we couldn’t have that and I settled into an insurance office job which wasn’t very exciting. Now, some member of the family was doing a course at Kidlington Airport near Oxford and he said, ‘Donald, why don’t you get yourself down there and get a commercial licence and they want you as a flying instructor,’ and I did just that. It took me about three months and I finished up as a commercial flying instructor on the Oxford Air Training School. And there I did fourteen years and trained many pilots for the commercial airlines, British Airways included, Aer Lingus, British Midland, Singapore Airlines and many others. And it was very enjoyable and rewarding. The, the ones I didn’t have much joy with were the Algerians. They were a bit of a peculiar lot but, however I retired then after fourteen years and I still went on flying at RAF Halton, where my service life started of course in 1939. So I joined the Microlight Flying Club and they immediately enrolled me as their chief flying instructor so I did a bit more instructing on microlights, and not the weight shift, I wouldn’t fly those. These microlights were proper stick and rudder aircraft and so on. And so I was happy with that, and it just so happened I trained a couple of air marshals. They came through and wanted checking out on microlights so, so I flew with them and a very nice situation. And I went on flying those until I was eighty four and then I thought well I’ve just about had enough. I think I’ll. I’ll give it up now, the flying, and so I haven’t flown since and we are now in 2017. So, so, [laughs] right. However I’ve had a very, very enjoyable flying career and I’ve got a lot, a lot to be thankful for. So that’s the end of my little broadcast. Thank you.
SJ: So did you have any, in all the times you were flying, did you have any lucky mascots or superstitions.
DB: Oh well no, not really. I tend, you tend to sort of get into a habit so that you know if you do something — I can’t give you a quote somehow I can’t sort of think of much that, that would, would do it. But I think you know you make preparations. It doesn’t matter what sort of flight you do you’ve got to prepare for it and otherwise you know if you just go leaping off without checking anything. Now, you see some of the material I could give the people who are coming after this. I’ve got one that the BBC did on me. They came out to Halton and checked. I mean I don’t want to waste time now showing it to you. I could, it only runs for about three minutes anyway but it was on BBC South Today and Geraldine Peers have you, do you remember her?
SJ: Yeah. Know her.
DB: She started, she introduced it and there was Jeremy Stern did the interview.
PJ: You’re quite a celebrity then Donald.
DB: Oh yeah. Well, I was at the time.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: I don’t think many people would remember it but the, and then they edited it and Frank Sinatra, “Come Fly With Me,” you know, it sounds, it sounds quite good and you see me take off in the latest microlight. It was a lovely craft called the Sky Ranger.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And I mean we, my brother Malcolm helped to build it. He did all the instrument layout of that. You’ve flown in that with me haven’t you?
AK: Yes.
DB: No, you flew in -
AK: I flew with my head down.
DB: I’ve forgotten. That was the Thruster we flew in.
AK: Oh right.
DB: I don’t think you ever flew in that Sky Ranger. No.
AK: And never again.
DB: Oh I taught you. I gave you a potted flying lesson Ann.
AK: Yes. For free.
DB: Yeah. All for free. So -
PJ: When you were in the Pathfinders.
DB: Right.
PJ: To get in to the Pathfinders were you told that you were going in the Pathfinders? Were you transferred or did you volunteer because I’m not sure?
DB: No. The way it worked, Peter is that I, like a bunch of other guys that had passed out from St Athan as flight engineers we all had to obviously go on to bombers or transport. Some of them even went on to Sunderland Flying Boats and Coastal Command and so on. However, I, we all went on parade and there was the crews, crews that were going to do the course were six people. There was the pilot, navigator and bomb aimer, the wireless operator and two gunners. Six people. All we were shirt of, short of was a flight engineer. So Bill Neal strode up and down, and I don’t know what it was but he just caught my attention and I sort of nodded and he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Tell me about yourself.’ So I said, he said, ‘Have you done any flying?’ I said, ‘Well yeah a few with air tests, you know, flying in Wellingtons and that sort of thing on air tests but not, not all that many hours,’ but so, and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’re probably just the chap we’re looking for. Do you want to come and fly with us?’ So I said, ‘Well, yeah. Thank you,’ and he said, ‘We’ve all done a tour of ops so experienced crew and he, ‘cause he’d been instructing down at Harwell. There was an OCU at Harwell and Hampstead Norris was their satellite and so on. Bill Neal this was. So anyway and he said, ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘We’re not going to the main force.’ That would have been 1 Group or 3 Group. He said, ‘We’re going to Pathfinders.’ 8 Group and he said, so I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m not the wiser,’ I said, ‘Tell me about it,’ ‘Well,’ he said, and then he went on to describe, you know we, we will be doing this that and the other and helping to mark, find the targets. Good navigator and we did have a good navigator and find targets first and then mark them or help the master bomber to mark them. But when that first crew had done a tour they all left and we got, not all of them, sorry, the two gunners left and the navigator, that’s the first, what we would call the plotter, not the H2S operator, George Hodges, he stayed with us. Johnny Carrod, the radio, the wireless operator, he stayed, and so we had to find two gunners and a new navigator. Now, the gunners we were lucky, because there was a guy called Eric Chamberlain and he had hawk eyes. He could see in the dark this guy. He could honestly. His night vision was amazing. He could, he would see the night fighter before the night fighter saw us. And then, but the Canadian, the navigator was a Canadian flight sergeant and he was thrown in at the deep end. He had no operational experience at all and the first, he got us lost on the first trip! And I had to get them out, Bill Neal thrust a map in my hands and I said, I said, ‘I’m not,’ it was at night I said, ‘I’m not ruddy good at map reading,’ [laughs] But it so happened that we were running up on the, what they called the Frisian islands, the Dutch islands and there was one in particular that I recognised that was the shape on the map. And I was able to give him a pinpoint on that and actually the target was up in Northern Denmark. Well it was German occupied of course as you know but, and that’s how he, but he improved and he wasn’t bad, you know later on. His name was Archer, and I can never remember his first name but he was a young Canadian. Yeah.
PJ: Did you stay in touch with the crew after the war? Any of your crew members?
DB: Just, just Bill Neal I’m afraid. Johnny Carrod died fairly young and his house was burgled and he lost his DFC. That was stolen. And you know you can buy the odd whatever it is like theatre replica or something.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: But -
PJ: No.
DB: It’s not the same as the original. I was going to get mine to show you.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And [coughs] excuse me. But George Hodges, he, he, er, I spoke to him on the phone but I never actually saw him because he never attended our reunions did George so, and that was it really. I lost touch with all of them really.
PJ: Did you -
DB: Except Bill Neal.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: Bill Neal and I met at the Hendon museum. At the RAF Museum at Hendon and we had a full day touring around. Pictures taken near that Lancaster which says, “No enemy aircraft -
PJ: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: Shall penetrate German airspace.”
PJ: Yeah.
DB: Old Goering you see.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And we had our pictures taken with that.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And all the hundred odd bombs on the side, you know, painted on.
PJ: Is it, is it a fallacy you all, that the whole crew stuck together and when you went out you all went together to the pub? Is that - ?
DB: More or less oh -
PJ: A fallacy? Because -
DB: Somewhere I’ve got a picture of my first car which was a little Austin seven tourer and I bought that from a Canadian who was finished his ops and was off back to Canada. And I bought that car for thirty-five quid and it was a tiny little two seater really but people used to sort of get, we had the whole crew on that [laughs]. Can you imagine the springs [laughs].
PJ: Brilliant.
DB: And to start it all you had was just a blade. You could start it with a screwdriver.
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And I had the keys in my pocket and I parked outside the pub and when I went outside it was gone. Somebody had stolen it and they’d obviously had a blade of some sort, a knife maybe and just turned the thing and started the engine and away and they stole it. But it was found abandoned up near the airfield, near Upwood main gates or somewhere. Rotten devils.
SJ: You said that the red markers were blind markers. They had green markers as well.
DB: Oh yes.
SJ: What were green markers for?
DB: Yeah. The green markers were what we called backers up and we dropped some of those but you dropped them on mixed reds and greens. Mixed reds and greens were dropped by the master bomber and the primary visual marker. And they actually had identified the target visually by this time but TIs didn’t last forever. They needed backing up you see and so we, we were able to back them up by dropping just the greens on their own. Now 156 were basically a blind marker squadron so if that master bomber had got to the target but he wasn’t happy with the actual identifying the aiming point, he would call for blind marking. And this is where George Hodges on his H2S would drop the reds, red TIs. But when I was down the front on the bomb sight if mixed reds and greens were going down then I would go click, click, click, click and deselect the markers and just drop HE. We became really like main force and I would just, just drop the bombs on, on the markers that were already, but that was, that was what the three things and they called this a Parramatta. Bennett had his own various names for the -
PJ: Yeah.
DB: And the, we even had sky markers. Where the, if the, if the target was obscured by a thin layer of cloud or something like that they used to drop what they called sky marker flares. They would go off more or less the same or just a couple of thousand feet below the height of the bomber stream but there was one thing about an air, an air, a sky marker and that is if that’s the target and let’s say this is the blind marker, you had to bomb on an exact heading because if you didn’t, if you came in on a heading like that, and you dropped there you would, you might have this in your sights but the bombs would fall over that side, over there. So you had to be, you had to run in on an actual precise heading when you bombed on sky markers. And that was another thing that, but we only had to drop them a couple of times that I can remember. George Hodges having to drop sky markers. But they had, I know that Bennett, he went around his office and he said something about, he was asking various people what they would call a certain attack you see. I think the Parramatta one that he decided was by a New Zealander. It sounded a little bit New Zealandish that. And there was another one. What was the other one? That — he asked this young WAAF clerk, and she gave him a name and that’s what he called, what was it? That was the overall sort of marking plan. I can’t remember the name. It’s so long ago now but yeah that’s that was what Bennett did. And he used to come around and visit you know after, not every, but he used to get around a lot of the bomber stations and he came to Upwood to the debriefing, he was there for debriefing. And he always used to ask you, you know, ‘Who dropped the bombs?’ And, ‘Did you see the target?’ And did you do this, that and the other? And I used to try and give him the best idea that, that I could. He was always quite approachable you know. Bennett. And then another night he’d be down at Graveley, you see, debriefing them from 35 Squadron and all these other path — Oakington was a Pathfinder station you see. Little Staughton, that was another one, and as I say I’ve got a list of them upstairs. Can you think of anything else?
SJ: No I think you’ve covered it.
DB: Have I?
PJ: Yeah.
DB: Well I hope I haven’t bored you stiff and just before you go come and look at this big picture I was telling you about and you’re welcome to come out.
PJ: Anyway, Donald.
DB: Sorry.
PJ: On behalf of the IBCC -
DB: Yes.
PJ: I’d like to thank you for allowing us to interview you. Thank you.
DB: Alright. Right. Right. Ok. Did you want, have you recorded that?
PJ: Yes.
DB: Oh.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Donald Briggs
Description
An account of the resource
Donald Briggs was born in Lealholm near Whitby in Yorkshire. After school, he became an apprentice with the Royal Air Force. He trained at RAF Halton in 1939 and became an engine fitter working on Wellingtons and Manchesters. He volunteered for air crew in 1943, qualified as a flight engineer and completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders at RAF Upwood. After the war he retrained as a pilot and took part in the H bomb tests at Christmas Island. Later he became a flying instructor and trained aircrew to fly Vulcans. After he retired from the Royal Air Force he became a commercial flying instructor. He continued to instruct and fly microlights until he was eighty-four years of age.
Creator
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Pete Jones
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Format
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01:08:42 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABriggsDW170327
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Date
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2017-03-27
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
France
Germany
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
Christmas Island
United States
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.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1943
1944
1945
1957-06-19
156 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
fitter engine
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Harvard
Lancaster
Lincoln
Manchester
Master Bomber
Meteor
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
pilot
promotion
RAF Halton
RAF Upwood
target indicator
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/322/3478/AReedD151015.1.mp3
3a2e4cbfe06a01d1f1b16fe159e1d6ac
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Reed, Douglas
D Reed
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Douglas Reed (1620813 Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 166 Squadron from RAF Kirmington and with 156 Squadron, Pathfinders, from RAF Upwood.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Reed, D
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HD: This is an interview being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Hugh Donnelly and the interviewee is, is Doug Reed. The interview is taking place at his home at [deleted] Wolverhampton on the 15th of October. Interview commenced.
DR: Yes. When I left school, like many of my school mates I was going to be apprenticed in Goole Shipyard. Because apprentices from the shipyard would go on to Trinity House in Hull to be trained as Merchant Navy officers. So, if you were apprenticed in the joinery shop in the shipyard you went off to Trinity House to be trained as a Merchant Navy deck officer. If you went in to the coppersmith’s shop as an apprentice in the shipyard you went off to Trinity House to be trained as an engineering Merchant Navy officer. And so that was my planned movement until, out of the blue my history master sent, ‘Would you please come and see me?’ So I trotted off to see the history master and he said, ‘There’s a vacancy in the Town Clerk’s Department at Goole and I want you to apply for it.’ So I’m saying to him, ‘Sorry. No can do. I’m going to be apprenticed in the shipyard to be a deck officer in the Merchant Navy,’ and so on. ‘Just to please me,’ he said, ‘Go and apply for it.’ So all nonchalantly and uncaring I go in to the Town Clerk’s department and say to them, ‘I understand you’ve got a vacancy. I’ve come along to apply for it,’ in a couldn’t care less attitude. And so they sit me down and they give me a few maths to work on and write, write a letter applying for the job. Being fresh from school that didn’t take very long. And they saw me sitting there and said, ‘Are you stuck?’ I said, ‘No. I’ve finished.’ So they gathered up the papers and the next thing I know I’m ushered into a large room with a big bay window and walls lined with all kinds of books. A big open fire. And, to me, was an old gentleman wearing pince nez spectacles sitting behind this desk who I later found out was the town clerk. He looked at the papers and said, ‘Very pleased with these. I want you to start in my office.’ So I said, ‘No can do I’m afraid.’ And told him the story. All about being apprenticed etcetera. And he says, ‘Well, I understand what you say but I want you to start in my office on Monday. So go home and speak to your parents about it.’ So, I did that and my parents listened to me and didn’t say anything and said, ‘Well, it’s up to you. You want to go into the shipyard or do you want to go into the Town Hall?’ Neither of them offered anything. But I looked closely at my mum and I thought I could detect a sort of a look that she didn’t fancy the idea of her son eventually going off to sea. And she didn’t, couldn’t look into the future of course because this was about ’37, ’38 and of course the war broke out in ‘39. And a lot of my school friends who had been apprenticed and gone off into the Merchant Navy they were killed and lost through enemy action. But she wasn’t to know that. And I thought I detected she didn’t like the idea of her son going to sea. So in the end my father said, ‘Look, if you want to take up the Town Hall job I will square the apprentice thing with the shipyard.’ So, in the end I decided yes, that’s what I would do. And therefore I started working in the Town Clerk’s Department at Goole. And so time wore on and war was declared in September ’39 . And I just carried on working but I realised I was of the age when I would have to go into one of the services as soon as I was old enough. And I worked it out in my mind that I didn’t fancy the army. I’d taken my father as an example of that. He’d been badly wounded in the First World War through his army service. I wasn’t too keen on the navy. And by process of elimination I decided that yes I would like to go into the air force. Particularly if I was flying at least I would get a parachute to look after myself with. So, off I went to the Hull Recruiting Office in Jameson Street in Hull. And there a rather beefy flight sergeant says to me, ‘So you want to join the air force.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘Hmmn hmmn. So you want to fly do you?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Right. You want to fly and fight in the air.’ I said, ‘Oh I don’t know so much about that.’ [laughs] He didn’t say much but in the fullness of time I was called up to go to the, the, not the Aircrew Reception Centre but where they give you a three day examination and so on and so forth before you’re accepted for the aircrew training. And after the three days yes, I was. I was going to be aircrew. And that’s how come I, I started. Eventually I was called up and went off to Initial Training Wing etcetera like most air crew had to do. And that’s how eventually I finished up as aircrew doing flying duties. But in, in those days it all seemed to be very adventurous and perhaps even satisfying but it’s because people like me were naïve really. Just had a vague idea that flying, especially the operational flying something might happen to you. You might get killed. But that’s all it meant really. You didn’t know any details. We had no experience. And so it transpired that having been through all my training and finished up with a good pal of mine Pete le Guard and one or two others. We were all in the same crew and off we went doing our bits and pieces. We went to Operational Training Unit at RAF Peplow in Shropshire. And after OTU we went off and converted off twin-engine Wellingtons on to four-engined Halifaxes. And then having converted we went off to Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Hemswell. And having completed that we were ready to be assigned to a squadron. And I looked at my RAF records afterwards, at the end of the war and I saw that we were being posted to 12 Squadron, and I’d no idea where 12 Squadron was. I knew it was in Lincolnshire somewhere. But then they said, ‘Sorry. Not 12 Squadron. You’re going to 166 Squadron at RAF Kirmington.’ So, off we went and we arrived at Kirmington on the 30th of March 1944. And we’d hardly booked ourselves in when they said to Pete, who was my pilot, that he was going to go as second dickie on a, on an operation that night. That operation proved to be Nuremberg where we lost eighty or ninety aircraft. And unfortunately Pete, as second dickie with a so-called experienced crew who had done at least five ops — they never came back. And so the first day on a squadron I needed another crew. And eventually yes, I was. I joined another crew skippered by Bill Biddell who was a bit of a character himself. Having been in the Kings Royal Rifles and been evacuated from Dunkirk he’d remustered in to the Air Force and become a pilot. So I was to fly with Bill. By the time I’d done three ops with Bill he’d done about seven. And it was quite, quite an educational, if that’s the right word, experience. He began to fill in some of the details that you hadn’t been aware of when you were glorifying what it would be like to be aircrew. I, in my first op from Kirmington, which I think from memory was [unclear] somewhere in Germany there I bombed my first target Turned for home and away on the starboard side there was a sudden explosion which drilled into my mind what it was like seeing an aircraft explode. But just accepted it as one of those things that happens. And that was my first op. The, the second op was on my twenty first birthday. And I spent the evening of my twenty first birthday bombing Essen in the Ruhr. Which I found out subsequently was the most heavily defended place in the Ruhr. So, and then my third op from 166 Squadron was to Frederikshavn on Lake Constance. And as we were, I think we were the fourth to take off and as we took off the fifth one behind us blew up on the runway. It swerved off the runway and blew up. Anyway, we carried on with our task and went to the target which was on the shore of Lake Constance. And having got there it was ablaze. But one had to be careful to locate the target because half of the blaze was reflected in the water of the lake and it would have been so easy to bomb the edge of the lake. And so we, we did that target and when we came back to Kirmington a WAAF — we called up, we were flying L-Love as, as it was called then. We were flying that and we called up to land and this female voice said. ‘Hello Love. Land left.’ And we’d never had an instruction like that before. We said, ‘What does land left mean?’ Do they want us to land left of the runway? Could be a bit dodgy on a grassy airfield in a Lancaster. But if that’s what they want us to do we will do. Perhaps the runway got damaged in that aircraft that blew up as we took off. Anyway, we lined up to land left of the runway which triggered off all kinds of sort of red verey lights from the caravan and from the control tower. So we realised that wasn’t correct. So we called them up again. We said, ‘What’s this land left?’ And she said, ‘I want you to land on the runway and turn left at the end.’ And we thought to ourselves why the hell didn’t she say so? And, however, having gone around again and landed safely we turned left at the end and said, ‘L-Love clear.’ And this female voice said, ‘Goodnight Love.’ And all the crew in chorus, not, not wireless protocol at all, in chorus we said sarcastically, ‘Good night, darling.’ And that was that. And that proved to be my last op at Kirmington. And I was rather sorry because the funny thing about Kirmington it was such a spread out large aerodrome that everybody but everybody was issued with a bicycle so you could get from A to B quicker than walking. That’s an outstanding memory I have. Anyway, Bill, having done seven trips by then, the squadron commander called us into his office and sort of invited us to think that we might like to go on Pathfinders. And sort of, if you know what those invitations were like [laughs] they were coupled with the idea of — pick up your travel warrant as you go out of the door. And that’s how we came to be eventually on 156 Pathfinder Squadron at 8 Group. Having attended the Pathfinder Training Unit in the first instance. And it was with 156 Squadron that I did the rest of, of my operational flying duties and which I, I’d completed and I was still twenty one. But having done my tours with the Pathfinder force I was, I was quite unceremoniously [pause] well, stood down I suppose. But nobody ever said that to me. I was just getting on with the job as usual and someone said, ‘I think you’re posted.’ So I said, ‘What?’ And they said, ‘Yes. We think you are.’ So I thought I’d better go and find out. So I go up to station headquarters at Upwood and I say, ‘Am I posted?’ And they looked it up and said, ‘Yes. I’m afraid you are.’ Which was the unceremonious way of saying you’ve been stood down. And I said, ‘What’s the posting?’ And they said, ‘Oh, it’s an Air Ministry posting.’ Which shattered me because if it was a squadron or a station posting it left room for you to negotiate a little bit but with an Air Ministry posting no negotiation. You just had to do it. And that’s how my operational flying came to an end. As I say you couldn’t argue with an Air Ministry posting. But during that time the initial experience that I’d picked up at Kirmington developed with the Pathfinder squadron. And if people didn’t know about what we did at Pathfinders it’s because Air Vice Marshall Don Bennett who was the CO of 8 Group — he didn’t like publicity. In fact, he refused to appoint a public relations officer. So we just used to get on with the job. It’s only afterwards when you’d finished operational flying that the realisation of what might have happened to you through the experience you’ve gained on the way more than suggested that you had been very lucky indeed to get through a couple of tours with the Pathfinders. We did some very long trips. When I first started flying with 156 I didn’t do many German trips before it was D-Day. That was kept very secret. We as aircrew had no idea it was D-Day but we were out at the dispersal point. We’d already been briefed to bomb a coastal battery and we thought this was an unusual target but ok if that was what they wanted us to do we’d do it. And we were out there at the dispersal point long before midnight. Time went by and it got around to 3 am in the morning. We’d never taken off so late for a night operation. Anyway, we, they let us go at about 3 am. And we located Fougeres where the coastal battery was and did our stuff. And as we climbed to come away, flying home, through a break in the clouds I saw dozens of ships heading in the direction from which we were coming. And it suddenly dawned on me this is, this is the invasion of Europe. It, it’s D-Day. But that’s the first indication we had of D-Day. And then after that we got several trips backing up the army. Strategic bombing trips. If the army had got bogged down somewhere we had to go and, I think they used to be called totalised targets. And on one of the occasions because the Germany forces and our forces were so close together and they wanted the German forces loosened up a bit we asked them to fire from their Bofors guns red star shells over the position that they wanted us to bomb. And this they did. We were able to pick out these red star shells bursting and we bombed accordingly. I hope we did a bit of good but that was a, an unusual Pathfinder job. And it brought home to you that although in the briefing you were given a route to follow sometimes a deviation route to throw off the enemy defences and leaving until the last minute almost for you to line up on your target. To fool the enemy defences. Oh incidentally that’s one of the things that didn’t happen on the Nuremberg raid. I learned afterwards that AVM Bennett argued with the people who’d set the course, which was direct to Nuremberg. He wanted a variation but he was overruled and hence I’m afraid we paid the price. But anyway, we used to follow the route that we’d asked to. But it was up to you how you got to the target and indeed how you got back because you might be diverted because of the enemy defences or you might be chased by a fighter or the, you might meet headwind which was slowing you down. You might have a wind up your tail which was making you early. So you had to alter course to suit your own navigation. That’s what I mean by saying it was up to you how you got there. And as long as you got there on time to do the Pathfinder job you’d been given to do because there were several different jobs you could do with the Pathfinder force. You started with the easiest and you worked your way through to finish up as master bomber. You probably start off as an, as an illuminator. Dropping about twenty, twenty odd flares straight and level every eight seconds. And you’d work your way through the more advanced jobs until you finished up as the top job which, which involved supervising. Staying in the target area all the time and supervising how the raid was going. And principally we were, you could either be a visual marker or a blind marker. Blind marker was on radar but if you got to the target and it was visual ok the visual markers marked it and you backed them up. If it was obscured you, as blind marker marked it and the visual boys backed you up. And then somewhere halfway during the raid you could pick up a job as a visual centre where you would go and see how the raid was going and perhaps in conjunction with the master bomber you decided that the, the target needed centering which you would mark and then tell main force or VHF for example to ignore reds and bomb greens. And as I say you did these different jobs and you picked up some, some long targets. And eventually, well in no time at all, perhaps cheekily we were doing more daylight bombing then night bombing and that’s on German targets too. Cheekily going into the Ruhr in daylight. And one time we did this, I think the target again was Essen and main force, we were there on time, main force was late. There was no sign of them. So there was about five, five Pathfinder aircraft circling in daylight over the Ruhr. And I think all the towns in the Ruhr were saying, ‘We’ll pick him. You pick him. You pick up.’ And we were getting flak all around us. Right, left and centre. And then on the distance main force came into view. Straggling along towards us. And when they were near enough we marked the target. It’s no good doing it too early because the flares would probably wear away before they got there. Anyway, we marked correctly. By which time our aeroplane was in a bit of a sorry state. We’d had one right close to the nose which had blown the front off the aeroplane and made it extremely cool with a two hundred plus knot wind whistling through, apart from other damage. We used to pick up quite a bit of damage. Flying home on three engines instead of four. One time when we limped home that way our ground crew, God bless them it was their aeroplane really. They only lent us the aeroplane so we could do the operation. But we used to return it them to them sometimes in a very sorry state. But God bless those aircrew they did us, those ground crew, they did us a good job. But one time we got back there and they told us afterwards they’d had to patch up forty four holes in the aeroplane and that there was a piece of shrapnel about the size of half a beaker if you know what a beaker is. A mug. About a half split down the middle. A piece of flak about half that size lodged in the petrol tank. On the, on the starboard wing. And they’d said if that had come loose we would have lost all the fuel out of the tank. But it acted as a cork for which I was duly thankful. Another time was unusual. We were ordered, a daylight job as well, way down ooh in sight of the Pyrenees. Well, this was an oil refinery. So we were ordered, as I say it was daylight, we had to be down at five hundred feet and we flew out over Looe in Cornwall. You could see people on the beach enjoying themselves at five hundred feet. And we were down there crossing Biscay at five hundred feet and lo and behold we came across a German mine sweeping flotilla doing its stuff. So lat and long was radio’d back to base and afterwards when we got back we, we were told that they’d notified Coastal Command and Coastal Command had gone out and, and dealt with the mine sweeping flotilla. Anyway, at five hundred feet we were over Biscay and then we had to climb to bombing height. Up to about eighteen thousand. And it were pretty cold after that. Most of us were just in shirt sleeves and it was a bit cool. Anyway, we did our stuff on the oil refinery and just in the bargain there had been a tanker alongside the refinery at the time. And as we cleared the target and looked back through the smoke and what not I don’t know what we’d done to the oil refinery but we couldn’t see the tanker any more. And so that’s how we, we came back. But we got quite a few, quite a few jobs of a different kind of nature as I say. Most cheekily in Germany in daylight. And, as I say, we, we copped it once or twice. I do remember an early morning daylight on Duisburg. The same night, Duisburg again. And we lost an engine to come home. And then again Willhelmshaven. We did three German trips in thirty six hours. So we got very little time for a kip but we made sure that the aeroplane was serviceable and so on to do it’s stuff and we managed even to get something to eat in between times as well. Oh incidentally I do remember that when you were going off on an operation the mess always dished up egg and chips. This was your aircrew meal before you went off. But egg and chips was a godsend in those days. It was another manna from heaven job because eggs were scarce, if not rationed. But to us that was a good meal. And also for a sweet [laughs] we had, week after week, day in day out stewed prunes. And oh dear. You got so tired of stewed prunes. So we said we’ll alter this. So we go in to the kitchen. We said, ‘Have you got some bread? A slice of bread?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Have you got some jam?’ ‘Yes.’ Put the jam on the bread. ‘Now, have you got some batter that you use when you’re doing the chips?’ They’d got some batter. So you dipped your jammed bread in the batter, put it in the, in to the deep fryer and lo and behold you’ve got another sweet. A lot, a lot better than the stewed prunes [laughs]
MR: Apricots. Were they apricots? Not prunes.
DR: Oh, I beg your pardon. Yeah. Apricots. Stewed apricots. Yes. Yes. Stewed apricots. Yeah. Yes. And as I say Bennett appeared to be a hard man. And indeed he was only hard because he’d got a job to do and he was to make sure that you helped him to do that job. And I’m sure that when he was losing his crews he was as heartfelt as anybody else. But as I say he had a job to do and he gave all the appearance of being strict. Which of course he was. If you couldn’t do your job there were examples where people had been told, ‘You’re not Pathfinders,’ and sent back to wherever they’d came from. So he used to make sure that we knew what we were doing. But there was one incident where a German target, we must have been going in mid-way in the raid because the target was well ablaze. Lots of fires, lots of smoke, lots of flak. And on the, our bombing run I always used to make sure that there was none of our boys up above us dropping his load. And so it was that in the target area I was searching up above as well as below and there was a Junkers 88 about a couple of thousand feet below us flying on a reciprocal. But it wasn’t bothering us so didn’t bother the rest of the crew. Just let them get on with the job. However, when we got back to Upwood, whenever we came back from an op on the table waiting for us in the debriefing room there used to be Walters’ cigarettes, navy rum and hot coffee. So you sat back there with hot coffee and rum to thaw the chill out of your bones and, and a Walters’ fag. And there was a delay in debriefing during which time leisurely we’d consumed three rum and coffees. Sank back and enjoyed them. So, anyway, when we were called in for the debriefing we told the intelligence officer all he wanted to know. And as we finished he said, ‘Was there enemy fighter activity in the target area?’ And I said, ‘Yeah. I saw a Junkers 88.’ And a voice behind me, over my shoulder said, ‘How do you know it was a Junkers 88?’ And the rum answered, ‘I know a bloody Junkers 88 when I see one.’ And looking over my shoulder there’s the two steely eyes of Air Vice Marshall Bennett looking at me. Oh dear. I thought that’s it. And he looked at me and he said, ‘That’s alright lad,’ he said, ‘But we had Mosquitoes on that target tonight.’ And the rum wanted to say, ‘I know a bloody Mosquito when I see one.’ But I restrained. But as I say AVM Bennett often used to be around in, in the debriefing. Many a time. But I thought I was going to get the chop then for being rude [laughs] Anyway, as I say probably if I flicked through my logbook I could see other, other things that had happened to us. But it was quite a full, a full time because in addition to operational flying you were airborne every day without fail. Sometimes two or three times a day. If not operational you were on air tests or practice bombing raids. Fighter affiliation. Navigation cross country trip. You were kept on tip toe all the time. So that you were, you were aware of course that you were part of Bomber Command but not impressively so. You were more impressed with the fact that you were on 156 Squadron. But moreso with your own crew because you, you slept, you ate, you flew, you went on leave with the same people. The crew. So that you built up this strong bond and you hoped that they relied on you as much as you relied on them. And you were vaguely aware that there were other crews on the squadron doing the same job more or less as you were doing. But life was so busy that — and sometimes unfortunately because crews went missing you didn’t get any time to make friends or acquaintances. As I say you just, you just knew one or two here and there. Possibly because you’d been at OTU with one or two of them. But otherwise you were so busy. But there were two other, two gunners who had been at Operational Training Unit with me and they’d both, they’d both [pause] Barclay Felgate was a Rhodesian and he was in my first crew. And he appeared at 156 Squadron, Pathfinder Squadron with another crew. And Bob Heatrick, an Irishman, he also flew with me and he was on 156 Squadron Pathfinders. And I’d known them previously from OTUs so you did pick these up. But you did get a giggle from time to time. It depends how things struck you. Sometimes and seriously some people were stricken religiously almost. And there was one pilot who was like that but he was conscientious. And the guys used to call him Dinghy Dan because sometimes when it was reasonable he used to have the crew practicing dinghy ditching positions. Which of course was, was a good idea in case you needed it for real. But on one particular occasion they had a chap, another Irishman with a hell of a sense of humour and they were getting knocked about a bit in the target area and this Irishman said, ‘Come on skip. Let’s get out of here.’ And Dinghy Dan said, ‘It’s alright. The stick is in the hands of the Lord.’ And quick as a flash the Irishman says, ‘Well give him a hand then. He can’t do it all by himself.’ [laughs] As I say we used to pick up the odd, the odd giggle now and again. And my flight engineer Baz, Baz Butterfield, bless him. We were twenty, twenty one as I say. I’d finished operational flying and I was still twenty one. He’d got a son twelve years of age and we used to look at Baz as Uncle Baz and we used to go out to the aeroplane ready for an op and climbing on board Baz, usually he used to say, ‘We’re going to have a good trip tonight.’ ‘Oh do you reckon so Baz?’ ‘Yeah. I’ve got a feeling in my water,’ he used to say. He was a good lad was Baz. Nearly lost him as I say when we, when we lost the nose of the aeroplane that time. He was very close. Yes. As I say if I was to going to fish out my logbook I’d probably think of other incidents. But mostly the German trips. But as you got experience you were trained to do, do your job in the air. You were given an aeroplane that was the best that could be provided. You were trained but they couldn’t give you operational experience. You had to earn that the hard way. And it was a hard way. Sometimes it was quite devastating. It brought home reality. Not only what could happen to you in a flash but what might happen to you. For example if you baled out. You only had what you stood up in. If you’d landed in a German urban area God knows what might happen to you. There were stories of aircrew being lynched. And certainly you wouldn’t have been received very kindly once they found out you were RAF aircrew. You could have landed by parachute in the water, in the sea and hope to God you could rescue yourself. Or the aeroplane itself might have to ditch. All these realities came home to you through realisation after. Afterwards. It was afterthoughts really. And made, made you realise as good as your training had been and as good as your equipment had been you had been very lucky. Because people of the same experience of you and higher rank than you, rank didn’t count for anything. The chopper chopped when it needed to be. That’s at RAF Kirmington. There was a pub there called the Hand and Cleaver and to the aircrew it was called The Chopper. Hence a crew that didn’t come back had got the chop. Yes. Yes, they, you didn’t write off the German defences. The urban targets were well defended. Flak and fighters. You’d got to watch out for fighters. They knew what they were doing. They got very wise. Operating in pairs at times. One would fly on a beam and deliberately show a light and hoped you would focus on him so the other one could come in from the blind side and knock spots of you. But fortunately we were wise to that little trick. Sometimes they would follow you home to your home aerodrome and as you were coming in to land, in the most vulnerable situation, flaps and undercarriage down they would nip in behind you and shoot you down over your own airfield. So you didn’t write them off lightly. Indeed I remember coming back one evening. Well, it was still dark coming back. And as we came across the English coast there was a light. And I thought it was an aircraft showing a light. And we immediately thought it was the German fighters trying the old duo trick. But this light seemed in a steady position and I watched it go astern of us. Anyway, in the debriefing I mentioned this. That it was an apparent fighter showing. And the intelligence officer was highly interested in this. Wanted to know all about it. Where, where we’d seen it first of all and that. How we’d lost sight of it and was it a steady light? Yeah. And in no time at all, within a day or two we’d seen one of the first of the buzz bombs coming across. And that, that was the flames from its tail that we’d seen. And, and then afterwards they were coming over frequently and everybody knew about the buzz bombs. But we therefore got the job of trying to put paid to some of the buzz bomb sites. And later on the V-2 rocket sights. We got the job of trying to put paid to them. And the job was twelve Lancasters flying in pairs. Two, two — six pairs flying astern with the wing, tucked in wing. As close as we could. And we had a Mosquito who was on the Oboe beam or supposed to be on the Oboe beam flying ahead of us and when he picked up the beam and picked the target up he would open his bomb doors and drop a red, a red flare and then we twelve would open our bomb doors and twelve lots of bomb loads used to go down. Hopefully in the one position. But more often than not the Oboe beam wasn’t working so the Mossie was no good. So we had to do it ourselves and as I said drop twelve bomb loads all together. And we did this several times on the buzz bomb or rocket sites. So some of our daylight flying at home was tucking a wing in to the wing space of another Lancaster. So, we got some pretty interesting jobs to do. I’m running out of things to tell you. As I say without picking up a logbook [laughs]
HD: Lovely. Thank you Doug. We’ll call that an end to the interview. Thank you very much.
[recording paused]
HD: Doug’s wife Margaret would like to tell you a little story of what happened in Goole. Here you are Margaret.
[pause]
MR: [unclear] This is Margaret Reed. I have known Doug since we were three and a half. We went right through school together. And he went away in to the air force. I went away to college. And we got married when we were both free. I don’t mean, mean free. When we were both able to get together and be in the same part of the country. I was sitting with my parents on the outskirts of Goole. In the bungalow that we had there with my two brothers and my mother and father. And we were sitting in the evening, a beautiful evening. It was April. And just one of those evenings you get sometimes. And we had deckchairs. The old striped deckchairs. And in the back garden we had chickens. I had white doves. One of my brothers had guinea pigs and my mother had chinchilla rabbits which we ate. One a week. So we kept having, on having young ones to make sure we had enough for one rabbit a week and they are fairly big. So she, after the war she had the most beautiful chinchilla coat made.
DR: Say Goole was surrounded by airfields.
MR: Goole was surrounded by airfields. And as we sat there we watched the planes going out on a raid. All the same way. And quite close together. And suddenly my father said, ‘Oh. One’s touched wings with another.’ And we said, ‘Where?’ And we stood up and in the distance there were like two very very small aeroplanes circling down. One coming towards Goole and us and the other going in the opposite direction. And we watched and we watched as it circled around. And we counted out seven crew so we knew there was nobody in it but it was coming in our direction. And suddenly my father said, ‘It’s getting too close. Run in the house.’ We all ran in the house and dropped under the kitchen table. We all scrambled in there. And then there was the most terrific bang and everything shuddered and peculiar noises. And we rushed around into the back garden again and there was a hole where the lawn had been and water filling up in this massive hole. It was the width of the garden. And there wasn’t a feather from the chickens, my doves had gone. Everything had gone. The chinchillas. And we, we then wondered what would happen next. And an RAF kind of lorry with men in it were there within ten minutes and told us to get out of the house. The bungalow. The bungalow at the back was covered with mud out of this hole. There was about six inches of mud over the brickwork. The roof. Really it was just a grand mess at the back. And these men came and shoved us out of the way. They said they didn’t know whether there would be any other bombs that had gone off. And the one near the back, towards the back door was the tail fin, was just across the door. We had to step over it. And I went back in to the bungalow because I knew in my bedroom I’d got a bag of those tiny little silver threepenny bits and I’d got a bit of jewellery. I mean at that age you don’t have jewellery but an aunt had left me a pair of diamond earrings and they were in the, in the paper bag with the threepenny bits. And as I climbed over this bomb, the tail of the bomb near the back door so of course the bag, the paper bag burst and they were all over the drive. And they wouldn’t give me any time to pick them up. They just said, ‘Get out. Get out.’ And we went down to our grandmas. And instead of her little two bedroomed, well not a town house even, a small house. We had to live with her for a week. You can imagine what it was like. Five of us going to live with her. Anyway, the funny story about it was my mother had had new false teeth that, that she’d collected them the day before and of course they were on the, what was the bathroom window ledge. But the glass had blown out and the teeth, the new teeth, top and bottom were on the floor. But the next day we retrieved them. So her Yorkshire instinct of not having to pay a penny more than she should and collecting them well she won in the end.
HD: Lovely. Thank you Margaret.
MR: Well that was that.
HD: That was super. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AReedD151015
Title
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Interview with Douglas Reed
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:08:23 audio recording
Creator
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Hugh Donnelly
Date
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2015-10-15
Description
An account of the resource
Flight Lieutenant Douglas Reed worked for the council before he joined the Royal Air Force. He flew operations with 166 Squadron from RAF Kirmington and with 156 Squadron, Pathfinders, from RAF Upwood. His aircraft often suffered damage. On one occasion the ground crew reported they had patched forty four holes in the aircraft and a piece of shrapnel had been lodged in the fuel tank.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Nuremberg
Temporal Coverage
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1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Pending OH summary
Contributor
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Julie Williams
156 Squadron
166 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
crash
ground crew
Halifax
Ju 88
Lancaster Finishing School
Master Bomber
mess
military ethos
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kirmington
RAF Peplow
RAF Upwood
take-off crash
target indicator
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1193/11766/AWhiteEJ161027.2.mp3
3926b8da0bcdd604b2a2db30b9c6032f
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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White, Ernest James
E J White
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Ernest James White (Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 9, 61 and 97 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-27
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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White, EJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: Right. So it’s turned up. So, it’s David Kavanagh on the 27th of October 2016 interviewing Mr James White at his home. I’ll just put that there. If I keep looking over I’m just checking to make sure it’s going.
JW: It’s very neat.
DK: It is isn’t it. Ok.
JW: It’s picking us both up is it?
DK: It should be picking us both up. Yeah.
JW: That’s alright then.
DK: Just to make sure.
JW: Well I want to tell you about, I’m going bang in to the middle. We can go back to the beginning later on.
DK: Yeah. Ok.
JW: This one sets the scene for the whole lot really.
DK: Ok.
JW: Now, how far shall I go back? I’d better give you a run. First of all I was posted to 44 Squadron at Waddington first of all. I was only there four days and they, they posted me to Syerston. 61 Squadron. I was, I did about six ops with them and then they posted me to Woodhall Spa, 97 Squadron. I did a few there. Then I got crewed-up with Bob Fletcher. And then one day sitting in the crew room the squadron commander comes in, got attention, he says, ‘Right. I’ve got an announcement to make. Every one of you have been, have volunteered for Pathfinder duties. We’re going to move down to Bourn in Cambridge.’
DK: Right.
JW: That was great that was. So the thing was as a, as we were now in 8 Group different rules applied apparently. Don Bennett.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Was quite a force to be reckoned with, you know.
DK: Yeah.
JW: He did. He had a hell of a time with Sir Arthur from what I’ve read. Any rate, what happened was I’d done about sixteen operations altogether with odd crews before I was crewed-up. Then we moved down to Cambridge. Now, in Pathfinder force there is the normal tour is thirty operations. Which you know of course don’t you?
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: Well, when I got to my twenty ninth the crew, the target was Hamburg actually, coming back I said to the pilot, I said, ‘Look,’ I said, ‘This is my last trip and it’s your last trip next time.’ He said, ‘Yeah. We’re all going next time.’ I said, ‘Right, I’m going to volunteer to do another one so we all go together.’ This you’ll understand is the spirit of crew.
DK: Yeah.
JW: At that time you see. It’s madness really, you know. It really is madness.
DK: Yeah.
JW: To volunteer for an extra one. It was accepted. So I stayed on. And then they brought out this business of, in 8 Group if you’re in the Pathfinder force every operation you did counted as two. So instead of doing thirty you did, you did fifteen. Ok.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: Right. I’m on my fifteenth now. I’m taking on now. Now this, sorry that was the crews at hand over. Right. Coming back I said to Bob, I said, ‘I’m really due to finish but I’ll stay on. I’ll volunteer.’ He said, ‘You can’t.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘Because the gunnery leader has taken you off the crew list already.’ Before we’d even, before we took off you’re off. ‘He knew this was your last one and he’s put himself in your place. So he’s going to fly in your place.’ I was only a flight sergeant at that time and you don’t argue with a squadron leader do you?
DK: No.
JW: So off I went. Well, I did go off actually. I went home actually. I came back. The next morning I got to Cambridge station, came out the station and I saw an RAF truck there. I said, ‘That’s funny. What’s he doing there? I’ll get a lift back into camp.’ So I went there. It was our favourite driver there. I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ He said, ‘I’ve come to meet you.’ Well that’s very odd. I don’t get that privilege. That sort of privilege.
DK: No.
JW: I said, ‘Why? He said, ‘Well, I’ve got some bad news for you. The crew didn’t come back last night.’
DK: Oh God.
JW: Because the gunnery leader insisted in flying in my place.
DK: Yeah.
JW: He’s the one who got killed. Not me. Now, that’s very strange.
DK: It is.
JW: Now, I’ve gone over this over and over again. I dream about it sometimes. I fantasise on it. The thing was, you see my position was right on top of the aircraft. Mid-upper gunner there. It so happened that I was the only member of the crew that had an anti-glare panel because I got kitted out somewhere else apart from them. Now, what happened, I saw, I saw the captain afterwards, after the war when he came out of the prisoner of war camp. He survived and he told me exactly what happened. He said they got caught in the master searchlight. You’ve heard of this I expect, have you?
DK: Yeah.
JW: Light blue and, you know and they got coned. Now, he’s, he’s an extraordinary pilot that man was. Extraordinary. And he got out of it. He flew out of it. Right. Quite incredible. Now, the thing is he told me that fighter that got them came down from above because he was going down you see. He’d come down like, which is extraordinary unusual because they usually come from underneath.
DK: Yeah.
JW: We are told that. We are told at the briefing they attack from underneath. They introduced that technique. The Luftwaffe at the time. So I’m sitting there in this. Now, I’ve got the anti-glare so when the searchlight caught us, kept down. I can still see. They can’t.
DK: Yeah.
JW: They were all blinded. They couldn’t see. Couldn’t see a thing. Couldn’t see the dials on the dash board. But the pilot, as I say he was brilliant. A brilliant pilot he was and he got them out of it but when he got to the, he got out of it, the searchlights, right, but when he got to the bottom he’d lost so much height he’s got to get back up again.
DK: Yeah.
JW: So he starts climbing like this and that’s when the fighter pounced on them. Now, I’m sitting on top. Anti-glare. I can see.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Now had I been there instead of this other chap. Would I have seen that fighter?
DK: Yeah.
JW: Because we had quite a good crew. Well, an excellent crew actually and if I’d said to the pilot, ‘Dive to starboard,’ he would have gone down pfft. Down. He wouldn’t have been shot down probably. We don’t know that.
DK: No.
JW: We can’t tell that.
DK: Is it, is it something, were all the crew killed or [pause] yeah.
JW: But it does haunt you. It does. It is. I know just how close I was.
DK: Yeah.
JW: See. Having volunteered to do the bloody job he took me off. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t accept my offer. He went on it himself.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And he got, he got immediate. He was killed instantly by the fighter. And the navigator and the other gunner, the rear gunner they were all killed.
DK: Right.
JW: The other four escaped with parachute.
DK: Oh right.
JW: And became prisoners of war.
DK: Right. So, so four survived and three were killed.
JW: And I’ve seen them. Well, I haven’t see Jack Beesley. I’ve got a picture of him there. I’ll show you in a minute. And the engineer. But I’ve been in touch with the wireless operator for a long time but when they were in the prisoner of war camp I knew his wife because I used to visit. They live at Grantham.
DK: Right.
JW: Now, I was in Scotland at the time so I was, I did as many journeys as I could down to London. Getting off at Grantham.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Go and see them. Getting on the train and carrying on you see. That was very handy.
DK: Yeah.
JW: So I kept that up for a long time. in fact, when, after the war when I was stationed in Germany at Munchen Gladbach I invited them out and they came out and spent a fortnight in Germany with me.
DK: Oh right. That’s nice.
JW: With his, with his two children.
DK: Yeah.
JW: So we had a close contact. That was our crew you see. You’ve probably heard stories like this before.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: But this was absolutely true. Hang on a minute. Just a minute.
DK: What I’ll do, I’ll just stop there. I’m —
JW: Ok.
[recording paused]
DK: Put that back up there. Ok.
JW: You’ll be interested in this.
DK: Ok. Ah.
JW: Now, after the war, as soon as the war was over the RAF sent, sent Lancasters over to Germany to bring back the released prisoners of war.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Now, that’s one of our Lancasters at 97 Squadron.
DK: Right.
JW: That, that was our bomb aimer Jack Beesley.
DK: Oh right.
JW: I don’t know who the other chaps are. I don’t remember the other chaps.
DK: Yeah.
JW: But from that picture I personally get a really strong feeling they were the men I knew.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Not the RAF today. These are the ones we knew. That, that encapsulates the spirit.
DK: Right.
JW: You’ve got there.
DK: Just for the benefit of the recording — so this is Lancaster PB422 of 97 Squadron.
JW: That’s right.
DK: And the person there is your —
JW: Jack Beesley.
DK: Jack Beesley. And he was your bomb aimer and that’s when he was returning.
JW: That’s right.
DK: As a POW.
JW: Yes. Yes.
DK: So I see there, the POWs have put various bits of graffiti on the aircraft.
JW: That’s [laughs] very typical I’m afraid. We, we were an irresponsible lot you know. Really.
DK: Did you go on any of the trips to pick up the prisoners?
JW: Sorry?
DK: Did you go on any of the trips to pick up the prisoners of war?
JW: Not me. No. I was out of Bomber Command.
DK: Oh right.
JW: I was in Training Command at the time.
DK: Ok. That’s a great photo isn’t it?
JW: Yeah. It’s a good one that.
DK: I always find photos like this where you see prisoners of war their faces always look very drawn. Very —
JW: Yeah.
DK: You can see he looks very, even there looks a bit tense.
JW: Actually I was told before they came home that he’d got religion while there.
DK: Right.
JW: It was the strain, you know. Things like that.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: But I think, I think he probably got out of it at that time.
DK: That’s alright.
JW: The relief of being released.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Released from prisoner of war camp must have been enormous mustn’t it?
DK: It must have been. Yeah.
JW: Something I never experienced of course.
DK: Yeah.
JW: But they’re the chaps, these here, they’re the typical of what the, what the crews were in in Bomber Command days. In the war you know.
DK: They look so young.
JW: Yeah. Aren’t they? Yeah.
DK: I’m assuming he’s the pilot then who’s flown him back.
JW: Yeah.
DK: He’s shaking hands. That one.
JW: Yeah. It’s amazing isn’t it?
DK: Yeah.
JW: I think that’s a very good picture.
DK: Lovely picture that.
JW: Tells us an awful lot doesn’t it?
DK: Yeah. What, what another thing I wanted to ask just stepping back a bit and that was just for interest what were you actually doing before the war?
JW: What was I doing before the war?
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: Not much. I was a wages clerk with the Co-op.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
JW: CWS Headquarters in London.
DK: Yeah. So what, what made you want you join the Air Force then?
JW: Well, it’s a long long story really. It started way back when I was, when I was a young lad. I had an uncle that lived at Mill Hill which is high ground overlooking Hendon Airfield.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And his house was on a bit there and I used to love going there because I used to see what was going on in the airfield down there. I think that’s where it started. But later on I got around to making models. I made a, I made a flying model of a Hurricane.
DK: Oh right.
JW: Out of balsa wood and things like that, you know.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And it was always with me I think. Going back. Not overwhelming or anything like that at all but an interest. And, as a matter of fact, just after I left school at fifteen [pause] a bit older than that I was working at CWS, that’s right. I was in London. I went, I went to the Air Ministry which those days was down [pause] You don’t — no, you wouldn’t know the Stoll Theatre, would you? It’s gone.
DK: No. No. No.
JW: Demolished. It’s not where it is now. It wasn’t in Whitehall. It was down this road, down there, down the end there. I forget the name of it. I think it was called High Holborn come to think of it.
DK: High Holborn. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
JW: Anyway, I went there and asked about entry into the boy scheme at Halton. Commonly known as the Halton Brats.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: And they gave me some books and papers and things to study for the entrance to them. Took them away. Got home then. Within a week or two war was declared and of course the scheme was stopped.
DK: Oh right.
JW: So I never got to it. The thing is had that not happened, if I’d gone to there and become a wireless operator what would I have been today? [laughs]
DK: Yeah.
JW: The fate plays some funny tricks doesn’t it?
DK: Yes. Yeah. So the war started then and presumably you were then called up. And then —
JW: Well, I didn’t get called up actually.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
JW: What happened was that [pause] I’m trying to think of a reason but there was no reason. I just, I was up in London. I was working in London. So I took the afternoon off and went to the Joint Recruiting Centre at Edgeware.
DK: Right. Yeah.
JW: I went down there to Edgeware. But my people at the Co-op, they were very understanding. In fact I was one of the last of the males in the office left. All been called up, you see. I went up there to join the Navy.
DK: Oh right.
JW: Because my father was in the Royal Marines you see.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: So it was the natural thing to do. Now, this house was a requisitioned house and I remember it very clearly in my mind now. It was a long, you open the front door and there was a long passage down there. I walked down the passage. On the left hand side was the Navy office. On the right hand side was the RAF. I was just stepping over the threshold of the Navy one to join the Navy and there was this petty officer in front of a group of chaps there. He was bawling his heads off at them. That’s not my scene. So I turned around quickly and went in the other one. So that’s how I came to join the Air Force.
DK: It’s sort of fate again isn’t it? If it hadn’t have been —
JW: And they took my details down, sent me home and said, ‘Well, we’ll get in touch with you,’ and they did. They sent me a railway warrant to go to Oxford and I went, the Oxford Selection Board. I was down as training for a pilot. We all trained, all go for a pilot because nobody ever gets there. But we all go for a pilot. I went there, had a selection and they basically whittled it down, got me down as a wireless operator which was roughly what I was going to do in the original. So they said right, now I’ll give you another paper and said — oh I was sworn in. So I’m now a member. This is June 1941. Sent me home. Said, ‘We’ll call you forward.’ They did. They called me forward to report at Padgate up in Lancashire on December the 24th. Christmas. Christmas Eve [laughs]
DK: Oh dear.
JW: Any rate, I’d got the railway warrant so I got on the train. It was the first time I’d been on one of these trains and, I’d never done this before. In the compartment there was a couple there with their daughter. I remember that girl. Yeah. I never, I can’t remember her name. And of course those days there was no, not much catering on the trains. You took your own with you. They had their parcels and I had my parcel and we the three of us got together there and we, you know had a nice journey up there during which the lady said, said, ‘Are you going to Padgate?’ I said, ‘Yes’ She said, ‘Well, that’s not all that far from where we live.’ What’s the name of the place? It was a double barrelled name. I’ve forgotten it now. It’s quite a big place. She says, she wrote the address down and gave it to me. I put it in my pocket. She said, ‘If you can get off at Christmas come to us and you can come and stay with us over Christmas.’ I said, ‘Oh right,’ I thought. I got to Padgate and went through all the things there. Kit. I drew my uniform the morning, the next morning and then had to go to the tailors for alterations like they do. And then the corporal came out and bawled his head off and said, ‘Any of you chaps here live within fifty miles of here, can get home without using public transport you can have a weekend pass. Put your hands up.’ Up went my hand [laughs] I’m a bugger, you know really [laughs] He said, ‘Where?’ I said, ‘Newton le Willows.’ That was it. Newton le Willows. Newton le Willows. ‘Oh yeah, that’s alright.’ He said, ‘Right, he said, ‘Well, go to the guardroom at about 4 o’clock and pick up your pass. You go to, go to the tailors. I’ve given the tailor, I shall be giving the tailor priority for your uniform to be done. So you can go and get that first. When you get the uniform put it on.’ Went to the guardroom. It was dark by this time. Got to the guardroom. Got my pass. I walked out through the gate and there was a bus stop there. I said, ah good. A bus pulled up. He said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said ‘Warrington.’ Warrington. ‘Well you’re going the wrong way. It’s that way. We’re going that way.’ Oh. They put me on the right bus. I got to Warrington. I asked the way. They got me on a bus to Newton le Willows and they said, ‘Where do you want?’ I said, ‘Well I’ve got Newton le Willows.’ There was a woman sitting in front of me. Yeah. She turned around, she said. ‘Let me have a look at that. See if I can find it. Oh I know them.’ she said. ‘I’ll put you off at the right place.’ ‘Oh thank you.’ Got off there. Went to the front door. Knocked on the door. There was a pause. There was lot of furniture being moved around and everything. I wasn’t used to this at all. They said, ‘Come around the other side,’ but they, they entered their house through the side instead of in the front door.
DK: Yeah.
JW: That’s reserved for weddings and funerals. I spent the Christmas, I spent Christmas with them.
DK: Oh right.
JW: They gave me a couple of presents. A jar of Brylcreem.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And a packet of razor blades [laughs]
DK: Wonderful.
JW: [laughs] The great shame is because so many things were happening fast.
DK: Yeah.
JW: It skipped my mind. I should have written and thanked them for the way. I should have done that.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And it’s my sorrow that I didn’t.
DK: Yeah.
JW: I should have done. It’s very sad that was but then people were used to that sort of thing in wartime. And after, I was off to Blackpool in no time at all. Doing drill on the streets. God. [laughs] That’s another, that’s nothing to do with 97 Squadron. Nothing to do with Bomber Command at all. Oh dear.
DK: So at Blackpool then was that all the square bashing going on down there?
JW: That’s right, yeah. Yeah.
DK: Is that something you enjoyed or —
JW: I didn’t mind it at all really.
DK: No.
JW: You know the Air Force fitted around my shoulders like it was made for me. I never had any doubt whatsoever at any time.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And I’ve been very lucky. Well, what is luck and what is otherwise? It’s hard to say sometimes isn’t it?
DK: It certainly is. So from Blackpool then can you remember where you went on to after that?
JW: Well, they sent me down to Bournemouth [laughs]
DK: Oh.
JW: With seven other chaps. A holding unit. Now, at Bournemouth was Number 3 PRC personnel something. Reception. Personnel Reception Committee, Centre. This was, this was formed for the Empire Training Scheme. The chaps that had gone to Canada for training. They came back, a lot of them were already commissioned when they came back. They were commissioned before they came back.
DK: Yeah.
JW: So they sent them to Bournemouth to hold there until they could allocate them to whatever squadron. Where they were going to, you see. But I was there with these other chaps and we were just airman. Erks. I had a great time there actually. Oh yeah. I started life in the Air Force as an officer’s batman would you believe? [laughs]
DK: Really.
JW: It’s a good thing. I saw it from the beginning. I got a lot, a lot of experience I got there. Oh yes I did. Any rate from there they called me up one day on parade and they said report to so and so I went to the clothing section and they kitted me out with all the flying gear but it was all recycled from chaps that had been shot down and their families had sent their uniforms up. There was all stuff there and I got all the old stuff. I had Gosport tubing, you know. Before they had microphones. And, oh dear, and they gave me an extra kit bag. So I’ve got two kit bags now. From there they sent me to London. To a centre. Viceroy Court it was called. It was across the road from the entrance to the London Zoo.
DK: Right.
JW: And the London Zoo Restaurant was requisitioned for the RAF meals there. We were there, I was there for about two, only two, two or three days there. Then I, then they sorted me out and I was off to training at Morpeth.
DK: Right.
JW: Number 4 Gunnery School at Morpeth.
DK: So, at this point it was already, it had already been decided you were training as a gunner then.
JW: Well, when I went, when I was at Padgate we had tests there.
DK: Right.
JW: I got through the written test easy. But when it came to simulation and they give you earphones and they said, ‘We’re going to send a series of Morse signals,’ beep beep and another one beep beep. ‘Now, all you’ve got to do is mark on that sheet there whether they were the same or different.’
DK: Right.
JW: I buggered that one up [laughs] ‘We can’t put you for training for wireless operator because your Morse is not good enough.’ Fair enough. ‘So you’ve got two options. You can either re-muster to an air gunner or you can go home because you’re a volunteer.’
DK: Right.
JW: I hadn’t gone all that way to go home. That was ridiculous.
DK: Yeah.
JW: So I said, ‘Right. I can be an air gunner.’ They said, ‘Righto.’ So off I go to Blackpool with all the other ground staff members to do the initial training which was quite an experience but not something you’d be interested in.
DK: No. Yeah.
JW: It’s not your, I’ll not take your time up. Eventually I went down to Bournemouth as I said and then went up to London. And then I went to Morpeth. Air Gunnery School. It so happened my uncle lived in Morpeth. That was handy [laughs] Anyway, we finished that training.
DK: So, if we just step back a bit. What was your training as a gunner? How did they train gunners?
JW: Well, we had, it was, it was a grass airfield.
DK: Right.
JW: It was a temporary thing there and the aircraft we had there nobody’s ever heard of them. They were called a Blackburn Botha.
DK: Yeah.
JW: It was a swine and in the middle of winter and they, they were started with the, what they called a Coffman cartridge. A cartridge they put in the engine to fire it.
DK: Yeah
JW: And the damn thing wouldn’t start, you know. We had a hell of a bloody time but we got through that all right. And —
DK: So were you actually on, on the aircraft.
JW: Oh yes.
DK: Firing at targets.
JW: Oh yeah. We had target practice.
DK: Right.
JW: We had a Lysander. We were towing a drogue.
DK: Right.
JW: Way back there. And they told you mustn’t touch the guns until that Lysander’s passed. You see, you aim the drogue [laughs] They counted the holes after to see what score you got. So anyway, I got through there quite well apparently. Oh yes. From there along with another, a little cockney chap called George Dillon who we chummed up quite well. He was quite a lad he was. And we, both of us, this is where the strangeness comes in. We were both posted together to 44 Squadron at Waddington but we were given a weekend off. Now, a third chap, he came into this in that he was getting married that weekend. On this weekend leave. He invited us to his wedding. He lived in South London near where George lived. So I said, ‘Oh ok. I’ll come with you.’ I went. We went there. I don’t remember too much about the party. I don’t know. I must have slept, slept in the house there with them. I don’t remember. It was a bit vague. I think, I think I was a bit punch drunk at the time. I was in uniform at the time.
DK: It must have been a good party.
JW: White flash in the. Under training. Anyway, we were both posted to Waddington. We arrived, we got the train up on Monday to Lincoln and, ‘What do we do now? Just a minute.’ So I went to see the station master. ‘Can I use your phone?’ [laughs] Cheeky bugger wasn’t I? I rang the station. ‘I said MT section?’ Oh yes. I said, ‘You’ve got two people here at the station want transport to Waddington.’ ‘Right. We’ll send a truck down for you.’ They sent this little canvas covered 500 weight truck down and we went in there. Now, we got our tapes on now. I was a sergeant now you know. And went to the officer’s err sergeant’s mess. In our innocence and ignorance we both walked in to the sergeant’s mess. It so happened that the station warrant officer whose king on the station. He’s the station commander’s right hand man. He’s a very important man. He was sitting on a chair in the entrance there as we walked in and he bawled us out straight away. ‘Out.’ ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘You don’t go in your sergeant’s mess with your hat on.’ First black [laughs] At any rate, the next morning we were going to see the squadron commander. That’s that chap who was in the daylight raid on [pause] the only daylight raid the Lancasters ever did.
DK: Yeah. Nettleton.
JW: Diesel works. What’s the name of the place?
DK: Yeah. The MAN diesel works.
JW: He got quite famous actually.
DK: Is it Nettleton, wasn’t it?
JW: Nettleton. You’re right. Absolutely. I could never remember his name. Walked into his office and he had his cronies around him there. He had just got the VC. He was as happy in the clouds of course. Walked in. He said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘New arrivals.’ I said, ‘Yes sir. Could we have some leave please.’ [laughs] That was a thing I should have, ‘We haven’t had any leave since we finished training.’ He said, ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ I said, ‘Oh. Oh is that why we’re here.’ He didn’t like me one little bit. Two days later I was posted [laughs] along with George. George, he was with me. We went to Syerston. 61 Squadron. That was a different kettle of fish altogether. Group Captain Walker, Gus Walker, he was the station commander.
DK: Yeah.
JW: He was a splendid chap. He’s what is known as an airman’s officer.
DK: Right.
JW: He’s with the lads. And I was there for a few months. Went there in September and I left there [pause] around about, around about Christmas time to go to Woodhall Spa. But we were wheeled in front of the station commander, Gus Walker. He was a very nice chap. He got off, up from his desk. Walked over to meet us.
DK: That’s nice.
JW: You don’t get that very often.
DK: No.
JW: That’s Gus. That set the scene.
DK: Because he lost an arm later on didn’t he? He was.
JW: I’m coming to that.
DK: Oh right.
JW: I was there.
DK: Oh right. Oh Christ.
JW: Yeah. Yes.
DK: So just stepping back a bit at 44 Squadron you hadn’t flown any operations at this point.
JW: No.
DK: So you’re now at 61.
JW: Yeah.
DK: And is this where your first operations took place?
JW: And I’ll never forget it.
DK: Right. Ok.
JW: It was Munich.
DK: Right.
JW: And I was terrified. Absolutely petrified. You see, try and imagine this you see. I was, I was what was called a spare and it filled any gap in a crew when a chap dropped out for some reason or other.
DK: Oh right. So you weren’t allocated an actual crew at this point.
JW: No.
DK: No.
JW: At any rate I was in the crew room there and my name wasn’t on the list to fly so, fair enough. And this chap came to me, he said, ‘Oh, you’re a spare.’ I said, ‘That’s right.’ ‘Well come with us to do a night flying test.’ Oh I don’t mind doing that. So I got my parachute. My parachute and the harness. Went out to the aircraft. We had a little run around Lincoln and that. Lovely. I was getting out the aircraft to get my stuff, he said, ‘I shouldn’t bother taking it out. You’ll be alright for tonight.’ ‘What?’ [laughs] I didn’t know their names. They didn’t know me even. There we are. I’m a stranger sitting there all on my own. My first op. And as far as I was concerned every, every ack-ack gun in Germany was stationed at Munich and firing at me personally. It was murder.
DK: And your position then is as the mid-upper gunner.
JW: Yeah. I did have a spell in the rear turret. I didn’t like it in the rear turret.
DK: No. So as a mid-upper gunner then, just for the tape, what, what’s your actual role there? Are you sort of a spare pair of eyes? Are you there making sure that everything was safe and ok? Looking out for dangers.
JW: Yeah. Well I suppose you could say, as it happened, only because it’s happened that way all I was, was an observer. I didn’t fired a bullet. In forty five operations I never fired a bullet. I never saw a German fighter. I never saw anybody. It’s pitch dark up there you know.
DK: Yeah.
JW: You know, you know. Your only enemy was your fatigue and the thing was trying to keep awake. It was terrible trying to keep awake and I evolved a method where I would count shooting stars. You’d be surprised how many shooting stars you get.
DK: Right.
JW: I used to count them and that kept me awake. Oh dear me. We had a flask of coffee along with our pack there we picked up in the sergeant’s mess. And one night, I remember true as I sit here, it was winter. That was bloody cold. Forty degrees below zero and a bit draughty too. Although I was in a Perspex bowl like thing where the joins are the wind finds it, finds a crack.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And you get this pfft on the back of your neck. It’s not pleasant. Pretty hard. Anyway, I got this flask. We were coming back actually by tradition nobody opened that flask until we were on the way back. I don’t know why. It was one of those things. Took this out, put the cup down like that, got the cork out, picked up the cup, went to pour it out. In that short time it had frozen solid in the flask.
DK: Oh.
JW: Hard to believe isn’t it?
DK: Yeah. That’s how cold it was.
JW: By the same token we were eventually issued with a new flying suit called a [pause] I forget what it was called. It was a Kapot lining and electric wiring all through it and it had a plug on the end. And you plugged it in to a socket in the turret so you’d got electric, heating. Luxury. Oh it was wonderful.
DK: I’ve heard different things about those. Sometimes they didn’t work and sometimes you got too hot.
JW: Ah, you’re right.
DK: Couldn’t get them just right.
JW: Well, course you put that on before you went out to the aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Now this would cover the whole of your body and at the bottom, on the heel, there were two press studs and you had a slipper that was also electrically heated and it plugged in. Ok. Just the heel there. Now, when you’re walking, you know, you move. You move your heel don’t you?
DK: Yeah.
JW: I found that out afterwards of course. What had happened was by walking with it, it had disturbed the wiring.
DK: Right.
JW: I don’t mean broke it. It shorted out anyway.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And it started burning my heel. I mean, I couldn’t stand that so I had to switch it off. And when I switched it off I froze.
DK: Oh dear.
JW: It wasn’t a pleasant night [laughs]
DK: So at 97 then, can you remember how many operations you did from there?
JW: With 97?
DK: For example.
JW: Well, including the Woodhall Spa one.
DK: Although, oh have I jumped ahead. Hang on. Oh 61 sorry. How many operations did you do at 61? At Syerston.
JW: Oh about six.
DK: Six.
JW: Yeah.
DK: And you were going to mention about Gus and losing his arm.
JW: I did a few more at Woodhall Spa before I joined the crew.
DK: Right.
JW: I was in a crew room one day like you normally do. I hadn’t got a crew. I hadn’t got a job. I was just joined the mob there.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And this flying officer walked up to me. I recognised his name because his name got around. He was on his second tour. He’d already done thirty and got the DFM.
DK: Yeah. Can you remember his name just for the —
JW: Yes. The name Fletcher.
DK: Fletcher.
JW: Bob Fletcher.
DK: Bob Fletcher.
JW: Robert Fletcher. Bob Fletcher.
DK: Right.
JW: He was a brilliant pilot. He really was. He was greatly underrated by the, by the authorities. He should have, he should have made quite advanced steps. He should have done. He was brilliant.
DK: So he, that was your first crew then was it?
JW: My first crew.
DK: You were no longer an extra bod.
JW: Yeah.
DK: Right.
JW: He came over to me and said, ‘I’m forming up a crew here. Would you like, would you like to join me?’ I said, ‘Oh yes, I would.’ With a reputation like he’s got. Dead cert. Ok. But it happens you see I was, once they had to do thirty and I was already one, one ahead of them by doing these other trips you see.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: Not that that mattered at the time. And then one day the squadron commander came into the crew room and said, ‘You chaps are all volunteers for Pathfinders.’ Oh thank you. So off we went to Cambridge. There’s a story about that. But if you want that I’ll give it to you but it’s nothing to do with flying.
DK: Can I, can I just go back one bit.
JW: Yes.
DK: At, I don’t know, I made a note of this. Where were we? [pause] It was at 61. You were at Syerston weren’t you?
JW: Syerston.
DK: And you mentioned about Gus Walker. His accident.
JW: Yes.
DK: And you said you were actually there when he —
JW: Yeah.
DK: What can you just tell us about that?
JW: Oh yes. I was going to tell you about that wasn’t I? I was there at the time. That’s right. Actually I was on leave when it actually happened but I got the full story first hand.
DK: Right.
JW: What happened was — bombing up the aircraft there was a slight hitch. One of the bombs fell off on to the ground. It burst into flames because it was one of those. It was an incendiary. And the word was sent to the flying control tower saying that there were no, there are no explosives on the aircraft. They said, ‘Incendiary.’ So the fire brigade went out there and that sort of thing. And it happened that Gus Walker was up in the tower at the time. The news came through. Straight away he said, ‘They’ve made a mistake. There is explosives on the aircraft.’ He dived down and got in his staff car and tore down to the aircraft and pulling the chaps out, ‘Get out, get out, get out of the way,’ he said, ‘It’s going to go off.’ And it did go off. And that’s when he lost his arm. Now, he went to hospital of course. At Nottingham. And a number of the ground staff were also badly injured. Some were killed, some were injured. They went into another ward of course. Now, the officer’s mess got together and funded a huge basket of fruit and things like that and sent it to him. When he, when he got to the hospital he said, ‘No.’ he said, ‘Take that down to the ward to the airmen.’ He is an airman’s officer. He was.
DK: Yeah.
JW: He was a great chap.
DK: Yeah. So you’ve, you’ve then gone to Woodhall Spa. After Syerston was it Woodhall Spa did you say?
JW: Yeah.
DK: And that’s where you met Bob Fletcher.
JW: That’s right.
DK: And so how many operations did you do with Bob and the crew there?
JW: I must check. I’ll look that up.
DK: Ok.
[pause]
JW: Won’t take a minute.
DK: No worries.
[recording paused]
JW: Let’s see. Where are we? 97 Squadron. Woodhall Spa.
DK: Ok.
JW: One, two, three, four, five, six. No, that wasn’t. No. Five.
DK: Five.
JW: That, that was at Bourn. The last trip I did at Woodhall Spa was to Spezia.
DK: Right.
JW: That was ten and a quarter hours.
DK: Oh. That’s a long time.
JW: Now, I’m going to tell you a story now. Are you ready for this one?
DK: Yeah. Go on then.
JW: Well, this was a long stretch to Spezia. It’s about half way down the west coast of Italy. It was an important submarine base at that time and we were tasked to go down there at the request of the Navy. Obviously, because of the submarine menace.
DK: Can I just close the window because there’s some sound coming?
JW: Of course.
DK: Through there. It might be affecting the, the old recording a bit.
[pause]
DK: Just that there’s some sound coming through. Sorry.
JW: That’s alright.
DK: You were on your way to Italy.
JW: Yes. We got half way across the alps. In fact I remember seeing Mont Blanc in the distance. Over there. It was still, we were above it so we were alright. And doing my usual searches like what my job was, it was a clear night and I saw this stream coming out of one of the engines there. What the hell is that? So I reported it. I said, ‘This is peculiar.’ There was a pregnant pause then and the engineer, the engineer Joe, he was brilliant too. We were all brilliant. Anyway, he came through to us, ‘I’m sorry lads. I’m sorry. I’ve made a mistake.’ He was then doing his usual converting the [pause] not converting [pause] moving fuel from the outer.
DK: Changing.
JW: To the empty inner.
DK: Right.
JW: Had been used up.
DK: Right.
JW: Unfortunately he picked the wrong one and the one he was putting it in was already full. So the petrol he was pumping in to it was just going straight out the overflow. And that’s what I could see. This stream. All this stream down there.
DK: So it was petrol.
JW: We lost about two hundred gallons of fuel.
DK: Oh no.
JW: Which we could ill afford to lose on a trip to Spezia.
DK: Yeah.
JW: So it was, there was a little bit of, up in the front in what we called the office while they were working out what they’re going to do. And Bob said, Bob made the decision of course, as he should do being the pilot. Carry on. We’ll take our chances. Now, the rest of us knew that we were going to come down in the drink somewhere. We hadn’t got enough to get back home. We came back over the Bay of Biscay actually. We did our job. We bombed the bloody place. Coming back, and old Joe as an engineer he was absolutely brilliant. He was. He was good. A lot older than the rest of us. He was like a grandfather to us. Joe. I can’t think of his other name. Oh wait a minute. I’ve got it here. [pause] He’s not on here. That’s funny. That’s very strange.
DK: There’s some names on the back there. He’s not, not there is he?
JW: Ah.
DK: As the —
[pause]
JW: No. This is a different crew.
DK: Oh.
JW: I was flying with a different crew there. No. No. I thought he was bound to be on there. No. I’m afraid I don’t remember his name now. I’ve got it somewhere.
DK: Yeah.
JW: But I can’t put my finger on it at the moment. No. Sorry, I can’t help with that.
DK: No. But he was a good flight engineer then was he?
JW: Flight engineer.
DK: Yeah.
JW: But he’d be dead by now. I mean —
DK: Yeah.
JW: I’m ninety four so, and I was only a kid to him. Time has taken its toll. That’s the original logbook.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Which is a disgrace so I copied it into another one.
DK: Ah.
JW: This is cleaned up, this is. I cleaned it up. Oh that’s old Bennett.
DK: Yes. So just going back to your trip to Italy. You’ve lost two hundred gallons.
JW: Yeah.
DK: You’ve obviously made it back to the UK.
JW: We did.
DK: You did. So —
JW: Without getting our feet wet.
DK: Yeah. So that was really down to the flight engineer then. Managing.
JW: Oh absolutely.
DK: Managing the petrol.
JW: He was brilliant.
DK: Down to the last.
JW: How the hell he managed to. He must have been, he must have been feeding petrol vapour into the engines.
DK: Yeah.
JW: I don’t know. He was very good. He saved us all. But that’s our crew you see. We were like that.
DK: So, from, so you’re with 97 Squadron at Woodhall Spa and then you said you’d then gone to the Pathfinders.
JW: Yeah.
DK: And you were basically told to go there. You were just ordered there. So no, no volunteering or anything.
JW: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: And you’d gone to Bourn at that point.
JW: Well, yes. The mathematics is a bit hard to explain really but as we were getting towards the end of my time — oh yes. I forgot to mention this. One of the concessions we had in Pathfinder force was we were allowed to count each trip as two . So a full tour would be fifteen and not thirty.
DK: Right.
JW: That saved my life didn’t it? And that’s how I came to finish early.
DK: So you did forty five operations altogether.
JW: Forty five.
DK: Forty five. Yeah.
JW: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And were you with the same pilot? Fletcher. At Bourn.
JW: Oh yes.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Bob Fletcher. Yeah I picked him up. I’ve got it in here somewhere. I picked him up actually — let’s see now. A lot of rubbish in here. Flying officer. He was a flying officer at the time. Here we are. Oh yes. I had three trips with a crew but they had just about finished. They had, they had done twenty seven. They needed three more to do.
DK: Right.
JW: They did the three and they finished. So once again I was back in the pool.
DK: Right.
JW: Lennox was his name.
DK: And that was 97 again was it?
JW: Yeah. So I picked up Bob Fletcher. The first trip with him was St Nazaire. That was the target.
DK: Have you got a date for that?
JW: On the 2nd of April 1943.
DK: Right.
JW: Yeah. We dropped, we dropped eleven one thousand pound bombs. Eleven. Oh well, that’s what it says there. Who am I to argue? Yeah. And thereafter we were in, in the thick of it with all the others. Bob, quite rightly got promoted to flight lieutenant around about [ pause] let’s have a look. God, they took a long time promoting him didn’t they? He should have got it. Well I’m blowed. I never knew it took that long.
DK: That long. Longer than you thought.
JW: He’s still flying officer.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Yeah. He’s still flying officer. Well I’m blowed. Yeah. I don’t understand this.
DK: It’s a bit later on than you thought.
JW: Unless I missed it. Ah I’ve got it. The first time he flew as a flight lieutenant was the 27th of August ’43.
DK: Right.
JW: That’s right. And the target was Nuremberg. We dropped one four thousand pound bomb, three one thousand pound bombs and five target indicator marks. Markers. A little story about that really. PFF wasn’t the original title promoted. When [pause] who was promoting it? I think Sir Arthur Harris. That’s right. Or was it? No. it was Churchill I think. Churchill promoted the idea. Sir Arthur was against it because he didn’t want to have an elite corps. He said, ‘No. They’re all good. It’s not right.’ But he did give in and they formed the new group called 8 Group. And then the controversy got worse when Donald whats-his-name.
DK: Bennet.
JW: Yeah. He was a brilliant navigator. He had it in his fingertips there. And the Air Ministry promoted him above all the other air marshalls. Made him an air vice marshall in one leap like that and it upset the apple cart quite a bit you know. He wasn’t popular by any means. They all, they all admit he was brilliant. He was very clever. But they couldn’t get along with him at all.
DK: No. No.
JW: But that’s how the story goes. A bit beyond me of course.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Yeah.
DK: As, in the Pathfinder force then what was the, just for this really, what was the sort of role of the Pathfinders as opposed to the main force? What did they —
JW: Ah yes. Yeah. Well the evolution of this was quite interesting. They, the original title was Target Finding Force. They didn’t like that. They said, ‘No. No. The others are just as good. So then they accepted they marked the route to get there.
DK: Right.
JW: Which was just as important as actually getting, I mean if you could find the place in the first place, you know. So it was named Pathfinder force. We were doing the course out. We dropped the markers along like.
DK: Right.
JW: And it was arranged by careful timing that the whole of the force doing target finding, there was our squadron and 35 squadron at Graveley and there was another squadron at Wyton who timed. Each aircraft had a specific time to be there.
DK: Right.
JW: So that he dropped his target and it burned for a few minutes but it’s going to go out. So the next one that comes along he tops it up.
DK: Yeah.
JW: So that. Very clever.
DK: Yeah.
JW: It worked.
DK: Did your aircraft then act as an initial marker? Or were you backing up or dropping the flares along the route?
JW: Well, we were all backers up really.
DK: Right.
JW: I suppose. But I mean it varied. It depended on the plans. The plans were all worked out at headquarters.
DK: Right.
JW: We were just given the orders you see.
DK: Right.
JW: We didn’t actually have to find the target. We didn’t need to look far. You could see the bloody thing there. I mean, the Mosquitoes in Pathfinder force, they were using a new secret arrangement called Oboe. Two transmitting stations sent out a beam like that. Right. Ok. And the aircraft followed it in. If they veered too much to one side they got a beep. And another one. They kept on track there. And then they gave a signal. This one here would be to keep them on track. This one here would tell him when to drop the bombs.
DK: Right.
JW: And it was extremely successful but of course they’re just flares went down. Parachute flares. Things like that. Then the rest would come along in an orderly way as far as we could make it. Just kept it going. In fact quite often when we, when we arrived there they’d been bombing for the last half hour. I mean it was well ablaze you know. There it is. But then of course the defences were alerted by that time. Oh dear it would get hot some times. Bloody Hell it did.
DK: So you never got attacked by a fighter then at any time.
JW: No.
DK: But was your aircraft hit by flak?
JW: I would have welcomed one because I was so bloody bored sitting there.
DK: Was your aircraft hit by flak at all on occasion?
JW: We got away with it.
DK: Yeah.
JW: It was bloody amazing how we got away with it but we did until that last trip when I wasn’t on it.
DK: And was that Fletcher’s crew that went?
JW: It’s, it’s an incredible story really when you think about it. When you leave here and you’re going home think about it.
DK: Yeah.
JW: I mean, the chances of that happening were so remote. I shall never forget it of course. Where are we now?
DK: Where are we now? That’s straightforward. So —
JW: Do you want some amusing stories now do you?
DK: Just one other question before we move on.
JW: Yes. Go ahead.
DK: It’s as you’ve landed and you’ve come back and the operations finished. How did you feel as you landed on the way back?
JW: How did we feel? We were bloody pleased. I’ll tell you one thing to correct. There’s a very good film. Commercial film. What’s it called? “Night Bombers,” I think it’s called.
DK: Oh yes. Yes. Yes.
JW: And at the end, at the tail end of that film the crew landed and they’re getting out of the aircraft and the voiceover said the first thing they do is to light up a cigarette.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Balls. The first thing you did was go down to the back end of the aircraft and pee up against the tail wheel. You’ve had nine hours without going to the [laughs] I don’t know if anybody’s ever told you this but there is a chemical toilet, elsan toilet.
DK: Elsan.
JW: In the aircraft.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. You never used that then?
JW: Of course not. It’s bloody silly. Can you imagine? There we are. Pitch dark. We had to have our oxygen mask on. Full clothing on.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Fumbling around trying to get — oh it’s ridiculous. They even had a separate can of fluid to top it up, there was.
DK: No.
JW: And after the war when they used the Lancasters to take the ground crew out to, on a sightseeing] to see what we’d done during the war.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Including taking the WAAFs as well. Because the WAAFs were there they put a screen around the [knocking on door] Come in. [pause] They put a screen around the toilet.
Other: Sorry to disturb you. Are you keeping an eye on the time?
DK: Oh. Alright we’ll come down. Ok.
Other: No problem. See you in a few minutes.
JW: I’ve told them to come. You’re having lunch.
DK: Yeah. Oh excellent. Oh great.
JW: I’ve forgotten what it is. Mine is pork bake. I don’t know what the bake is but I know what the pork is. I don’t know what the bake is though. And what’s the other one? I’ve taken the one anyway.
DK: Yeah. Ok. Shall, shall we pause there then?
[recording paused]
DK: I’ll tell you why. Because that was going to be my next, next question really was —
JW: Yes ok. You go ahead. Fire away.
DK: How you look back on that now and what do you miss about that period?
JW: Yeah. Well it’s, it’s very difficult to answer because it’s, there are so many aspects involved you see. I had two [pause] three, three separate careers really. First of all aircrew which was one life. Then when I finished, when they took me off aircrew I was on Training Command. That’s another life. And then eventually I was made redundant from supply because they were running down. And, being interviewed by a squadron leader I was, I don’t know if it’s got it on there but I was sent to an RAF station. We didn’t have any aircraft. What was the name? Somewhere in Leicestershire. Oh God what was the name of it?
DK: Bruntingthorpe.
JW: That’s it.
DK: Yeah.
JW: That’s where the jet engine was developed.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: That’s right. I was sent there as another holding unit and in the interview he said, ‘What skills have you got?’ I said, ‘Nothing really. I never got around to doing skills.’ So he said what is your hobbies and things?’ I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m very keen on, on the railway organisation.’ He said, ‘Are you?’ I said, ‘Yeah. I’ve got a copy of the Bradshaws timetable. The old original one.’ You know, a big one like this. The chaps knew I had this and if they had wanted to go somewhere they used to come to me and say, ‘Would you plot the route for me?’ And I used to go through it. It is a work of art going through that book. It was.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And later LNER, LMS, Great Western.
DK: Yeah.
JW: That sort of thing, you know. He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Well look, I’ll tell you what. I’m going down to London this weekend and I’ll pop into the Air Ministry and speak to the Movements chaps there and see if they can find you a slot.’ Now, I took that with a pinch of salt. I mean how am I going to? How shall I be that lucky? So, I said, ‘All right.’ And nothing happened for about a month and then I was called forward, out again. The chap said I’d got to report to the order room. I went, ‘Alright.’ And he said, ‘You’re posted to Euston Station.’ ‘To Euston?’ ‘Yeah.’ He gave me all the documents and off I went. Got to Euston station there and I asked to speak to the chap in charge. He didn’t know anything about this posting at all. He said, ‘I don’t know anything about it, at all. Maybe it’s our admin people over the road. I did. They didn’t know anything either so they rang up the movers in the Air Ministry. They said, ‘We’ve got this guy here,’ and I heard one side of the conversation. They must have said, ‘What’s he like?’ He said, ‘Oh, he looks alright.’ Oh thank you. They said, ‘Right, tell him, tell him to go to Victoria station. Report to flight lieutenant,’ what was his name, Orange. ‘Flight Lieutenant Orange.’ Ok. I went there and he was a nice chap. He was auxiliary.
DK: Right.
JW: Not in the full RAF.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And he had a lot of experience just lately of young officers, young aircrew officers no more use for them.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Because they were running down and they went there and just sort of abused the situation. Did nothing, you know. Sort of went off and things like that. And he said and he was quite amazed when I asked him, ‘Can I do this?’ Can I do the other? I said, ‘I’d better go and see the station master, hadn’t I?’ He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s normal isn’t it?’ I was treating it as an RAF station. I went to see him. I wish I could remember his name. He was a typical, typical station manager. Pin striped trousers.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Bowler hat and [laughs] and we got on famously because we were chatting about things a bit, you know. At any rate a few days later I met him on the forecourt. I was wandering around. I did a lot of wandering around picking up information you know.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: He said, ‘I’m coming down. I’m going to see off the Golden Arrow,’ he said, as his job, a Prestige. Two. There were two Prestige trains in Victoria. One was the Golden Arrow. It went to Dover and then across to Paris. And the other one was the night sleeper. It went and left about 7 o’clock and the whole train was shipped across.
DK: Right.
JW: It was. So you, and it was all first class, Pullman and that.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Now both trains because they were Prestige trains he thought it was his business to go and see them off and he took me along with him. And I thought that was lovely. A very nice gesture. I enjoyed that. He said, ‘What are you doing here any rate at 7 o’clock in the evening?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve got nothing better to do.’ He said, ok. ‘Cause I, I was living with my family. My mother’s family.
DK: Yeah.
JW: At Enfield which is about twelve miles north of London. Yeah. There was nothing for me to do. So he said, ‘That’s great,’ and we got talking about things. One thing and another. We got along famously and then one day I do my usual walking over the concourse there and there was a hell of a bloody great queue to get tickets from the ticket office there and I spotted an RAF uniform in there. He had a collar on. A white collar on. I thought I’d better have a look at this. So I went across, and I said, ‘Excuse me sir.’ And I introduced myself. I had a red armband on you know. ‘Can I help you?’ He said, ‘Well I think you can,’ he said, ‘I’m the chaplain to the senior chaplain of the RAF and he’s going on a, he wants to go on a tour of Europe to visit all the RAF stations in the occupation zone.’ The occupation days that was you see.
DK: Yeah.
JW: He said, I’ve got, I’ve, got to get, ‘I’ve got to get — he sent me to do all the bookings. Get all the tickets and that sort of thing,’ he said. I said, ‘Well you’re in the wrong bloody queue aren’t you at any rate? That’s for inland routes. Come with me.’ I took him around to the other station where the continental booking office was. I don’t know if you remember this in Victoria. They had two different booking offices.
DK: I do actually. Yes. Yes.
JW: Yeah.
DK: Yes.
JW: Well we were in the original one. Our office. RTO’s office. And they had been moved to the back of the refreshment bar there at the end of the concourse. And I took him around the back, knocked on the door and who should open the door but this ex-ATS girl who was on the staff with us there. And she got a job with the railway in the booking office. That was jolly nice. And we had a little chat and I said, ‘Look I’ve got a padre here who wants this, that and the other,’ I said, ‘Can I leave him with you?’ She said, ‘Oh leave him with me.’ So he left and I walked on. Some little while later. I think a month later or something, I think I had a call from this, his name was Dagger, Reverend Dagger.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: And he said, he wanted to thank me very much. ‘You saved my bacon,’ or whatever he was saying. He said, ‘It all went swimmingly. That girl was wonderful. She knew her onions. She knew her railways anyway.’ She fixed him up with everything. The lot. He went off with a bundle and off he went. The chief had a lovely tour around there and that was that. That was fine. A good job. A good job I had done. It had its ramifications later on. I’d met my wife in the meantime in Jersey.
DK: Yeah.
JW: At the West Park Pavilion dance place there. It so happened by sheer coincidence she, my wife had previously been in hospital with some fever. What’s it called?
DK: Scarlet fever or, scarlet fever.
JW: You’re right. Scarlet fever. And she recovered now but her aunt lived in Jersey with her husband who was a Jersey man. And she invited her, my wife, to go over to stay with them a little while to recuperate.
DK: Yeah.
JW: So they set off. Her, her younger brother Derek who was a tall chap.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And her best girlfriend across the road. Audrey. The three of them. How the hell they managed to go through all the rigmarole of travel to get to Jersey but they did it. And any rate the first night I was there I’d been over, I went over previously in February just to have a look at the place. And I was very pleased with what I saw and I thought this is a place for a holiday. Soon as I got back I had a chat to my roommate there. He was an army officer. I said, ‘We ought to go and have a holiday there you know.’ He said, ‘Right.’ So we arranged to have our leave at the same time. I took him down to Paddington. There’s another route from Paddington to Weymouth.
DK: Yeah.
JW: We went that way.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Took him there. I said, ‘Do you know, I’m going to take you to the Palais,’ because servicemen always do that. The way you meet girls was at dances, you know. And I took him along there. When we got there it was, we were a bit early and the band was just coming on with their instruments and things and there was hardly anybody there. But I noticed at the far end, up that end there were three people sitting there. Two girls and a chap. I thought, as all servicemen do, look around for what they called an available bit, you know [laughs] And I thought she’s nice. I like that. So as soon as the band got themselves together and struck up for the first dance I walked across in uniform. The full, the full regalia. And I remember clearly for the first time in my life I was full of confidence. I don’t know how it happened. I felt, it was the uniform I think. I always felt good in uniform. I strode across with all the confidence in the world. ‘May I have this dance please.’ She said, ‘Oh yes.’ Got on the floor and she was light as anything. She was a beautiful dancer. I thought, you know, I can’t, I’ve got to say something. You’ve got to have a conversation haven’t you when you’re dancing?
DK: Yeah.
JW: So I said to her the usual thing, ‘Are you a local girl?’ ‘Oh No. No. No. I’m here on a holiday.’ ‘Oh, are you? Where are you from?’ She said, ‘Nottingham.’ ‘Oh, that’s my favourite city.’ And it was.
DK: Yeah.
JW: I loved it. I was telling the truth, I loved it because I was at Syerston you remember. That was their watering hole.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Nottingham. And I said look I’ve got my mate down the bottom there and we’ve got a jug of claret cup which is what they do there. Instead of having drinks they give you a big glass jug and they mix it up. Half of it is claret and half is lemonade.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Top it up.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And they serve it up with glasses there and you just help yourself when you want it. Not a bad idea. I said, ‘We’ve got a claret cup already.’ I said, ‘Can I ask you who are those people? Who is that chap?’ ‘That’s my brother.’ Oh that was, I’ve heard that before. Anyway, I said, ‘Well come down and join us.’ She brought them down shared a nice little foursome there, you know. It was quite jolly. A nice evening. And we all disappeared and afterwards and I saw her home. St Aubin. She lived in St Aubin, that’s right. Up there. I made a date for the following day and she turned up at the weighbridge there and I didn’t, I hadn’t planned anything. It was unusual. I’m a great planner and I hadn’t. I don’t know why. Anyway I said, ‘Let’s get on a bus and have a ride,’ So we got on a bus, took her back to where she was at St Aubin. We got on another there took us down to a little bay which I’d discovered. There was a big bay called St Ouen’s. Huge thing. And the island’s prestige hotel called L’Horizon. The Horizon. L’Horizon it was called.
DK: Yeah.
JW: It was a good five star hotel. Very good. Very top class you know. Now, as that bay goes around when it gets to this side here instead of going around there it ended in another little bay called Ouaisne. And we had a bus. Went from St Aubin to this place. We went down there and sat on the sand there. Had a little cuddle. Sat reading and things like that and on the point as this little bay went around the corner there was no beach but there was a whole pile of rocks been worn smooth by the water over the years. And I loved walking over them, climbing over them, you know. So I had a little walk around, came back and said, ‘Its nice around there you know. Do you want to have a look?’ And she’s a game girl. She always was. She came with me. We were climbing over these rocks. We found a little spot there. There was one big shiny smooth slab there slightly inclined. Well that’s just the job isn’t it? So we got on there and had a cuddle on there and spent the whole afternoon there. And I took her to the back as the tide was coming in. We just got around the corner before the tide cut us off actually and got on the bus back in. And I made a date for the next day. This went on for a fortnight.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Every afternoon bar one I took her out. We were getting thicker and thicker and thicker you know. She was lovely. And very, well the only way I can explain is it was compatible if you know what I mean.
DK: Yes.
JW: I felt at home and at ease.
DK: At ease. Yeah. That’s important though anyway.
JW: Yeah.
DK: Feeling at ease.
JW: Going back to the bus at weighbridge and she sat there and I sat here and I was getting very embarrassed because she kept looking around and gazing at me all the time. I’m not used to this. Then we got talking. I asked her how old she was. She said she was sixteen. Oh my God. I’m cradle snatching.
DK: So how old were you at the time then?
JW: I was twenty five at the time.
DK: Oh ok.
JW: A bit too old for a sixteen year old. And she was messing up. She was pulling my leg. She wasn’t. She was twenty actually.
DK: Oh that’s ok then.
JW: Yeah. But it made my heart sink you know. Particularly with this gazing at me all the time. I thought oh bloody hell. I’m not used to this. Anyway, we got around that alright. Then we got settled in very nicely. Now, when it came to the end of the holiday she had to go back because she was booked to go back on the boat on the, on the Saturday. Butch and I were going back on Sunday. The day after. So I had my last afternoon with her on the Friday before. Instead of catching the bus back I said, ‘Let’s walk around the point and have a look around there.’ We walked around the point. We found another little bay, a little bay there and there was a little island there all on its own with trees and everything on it. I said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. This is lovely.’ I said, ‘I’ve got the urge to swim in the skinny.’ So I took my things off. I said, ‘Are you coming?’ She said, ‘No. No. I’ll stay here and read.’ I said, ‘Ok.’ So I went in and I was swimming around. Lovely. And I came out. The sun was shining and I was warming up. She was laying there and I laid down beside her. Now the rest of it is a bit personal.
DK: Say no more.
JW: Except to say that we only cuddled. Nothing else.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Absolutely.
DK: Yeah.
JW: I don’t know what got over me that times.
[recording paused]
DK: So its back on again. It’s been off. Don’t worry.
JW: Well, he successfully baled out.
DK: So if I could just recap there. So Wally Layne was the wireless operator.
JW: That’s right.
DK: And —
JW: He was a warrant officer at the time.
DK: He was a warrant officer.
JW: Yeah.
DK: And he baled out.
JW: Right. Well he survived the parachute jump alright and he started what they call evading. It was our duty to evade if you could and he spent a week. All he had was the escape kit that we were all issued with.
DK: Yeah.
JW: It had things like a tube of condensed milk, some chewing gum. Bits. And vitamin tablets. Things like that to help us. And what he could pick up on the way wasn’t very much. I think he said turnips he managed to get hold of. Anyway, after a week he was so weakened by this that he decided he’d had enough. He was a prisoner of war. He staggered out in to the street and fell in to the arms of the first person he could find who happened to be a policeman. The policeman invited him to the hospitality of a prisoner of war camp. And when he got to the prisoner of war camp he got to the gate going in, from what he was telling me, he got to the camp and the first person he saw there was our previous navigator who’d been shot down in another plane. They laughed their bloody heads off [laughs]
DK: So can I ask who survived the shooting down then? The wireless operator, Wally and the pilot?
JW: Yeah.
DK: Fletcher. And there was two others who survived the —
JW: The bomb aimer.
DK: The bomb aimer.
JW: That’s that chap.
DK: Yeah. Can you remember his name?
JW: Jack [pause] bloody hell.
DK: I think we’ve got it.
JW: I think it’s somewhere on there.
DK: I think we’ve got it on there. The bomb aimer. Because he’s the one on the photo.
JW: Yeah.
DK: And who else survived?
JW: Yeah. I can’t think.
DK: So the wireless operator, pilot.
JW: And the engineer.
DK: And the flight engineer.
JW: That was Joe. And I can’t think of his surname.
DK: Joe. Right.
JW: Joe. The older chap. He was like the father to us. We were all a lot younger than him.
DK: So the rear gunner, the mid-upper gunner.
JW: The rear gunner was killed instantly. The mid-upper gunner who was the chap who took my place, he was killed instantly.
DK: Can you remember the name of the rear gunner?
JW: And our replacement navigator. He was killed also. That just left the four of them.
DK: Right. So the rear gunner, mid upper gunner and the navigator were killed.
JW: And the navigator.
DK: Yeah. Can you remember the name of the rear gunner?
JW: Yeah. Harry Page.
DK: Harry Page. And the navigator. What’s his name? It doesn’t matter.
JW: He wasn’t with us. He wasn’t one of the original crew. He was a replacement.
DK: Right.
JW: Our proper navigator had been taken away from us and put into another crew. Took one particular operation and was shot down. So we lost him.
DK: Right.
JW: So they gave us a new navigator. I should know that name. I’ve got it somewhere.
DK: It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. And I notice you were at Kinloss in October, November ’43. Is that when the plane crashed with the cadets on board?
JW: Yeah.
DK: So, we didn’t actually record that unfortunately. You couldn’t tell the story again could you? So you’re on a Armstrong, was it a Whitley?
JW: Yeah.
DK: A Whitley.
JW: Armstrong Whitley. That’s it.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Terrible plane. Oh terrible. Used to fly like that [laughs] In point of fact it was so bloody slow and underpowered.
DK: Yeah.
JW: That as I said that runway went out to sea. If we’d got an inshore wind like this the chap up here would do this for a lark, he’d put the throttle right back. Almost stall. And he would hover like that. The wind [laughs] Oh no.
DK: So how many, how many air cadets were on board? How many air cadets were on board at the time?
JW: Oh I don’t know. It was all shrouded in memory. I can’t remember. I’m guessing. I think there was some female cadets. Did they have female cadets?
DK: Probably didn’t.
JW: There must have been. But I don’t remember. I should say about four. Four or five.
DK: And you came down in the sea there.
JW: In the sea.
DK: Yeah
JW: Yeah. Landed in the sea. Wheels up. As I say the water was only four feet deep.
DK: So the dinghy came out by itself then.
JW: The dinghy came out on its own. We grabbed the dinghy, put all the kids in and pushed it ashore [laughs] When I think about it was bloody funny you know. It wasn’t very funny at the time but there we are. Oh dear me. It’s a story that nobody believes of course. Oh dear. Although, It’s funny enough though a few years back I took my son up to Scotland as I told you. And one of the, one of the reasons was that I’d made arrangements to take him to Kinloss to see the airfield here I flew from.
DK: Right.
JW: And we got off the train at Forres . The station at Kinloss had been closed. RAF Kinloss had its own railway station on this line. This was the main line from Inverness to Aberdeen.
DK: Yeah.
JW: We used to have a little station there called Kinloss and there was a footpath we used to walk across, over the fence and we were in the airfield. It was very handy. Getting back late, you know [laughs] At any rate where was I? Oh yeah. Kinloss. I forget. I’ve lost my trend. Jack Beesley, that was the chap’s name. Beesley. Jack Beesley.
DK: And he was the —
JW: Got it?
DK: He was the —
JW: He was the bomb aimer.
DK: He was the bomb aimer and he survived.
JW: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Yeah. He did.
DK: So, after the war then, did you stay in touch with any of the four surviving crew at all?
JW: Sorry?
DK: Did you, did you stay in touch with the, with your crew after the war?
JW: No.
DK: No.
JW: Because we went our ways. We were all over the place. Joe came somewhere up near Bolton. Somewhere like that. And another one came from Birmingham. Who was that? [pause] Harry Page came from Bristol.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Wally Layne, Grantham. Bob Fletcher, he was at Burton on Trent. He was at Burton on Trent. Who have I missed?
DK: Wally, Bob.
JW: I came, I came from Enfield, Middlesex. That’s a touch, I’ve got a touch of Cockney in me you know [laughs] I spent most, a lot of my pre, nearly all my pre-RAF days working in London. At the headquarters there of the Co-op.
DK: Right.
JW: The London Headquarters.
DK: Yeah.
JW: In Leman Street.
DK: Yeah.
JW: East 1.
DK: Just, just looking at your operations here I notice you’ve got “Target award.” Is that because you were the most on target or — ?
JW: Recall is it?
DK: Target award.
JW: Oh target award. Oh yes. I’ll show you that.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
JW: Are they in this? Are they in this book or are they in that book?
DK: So you got one of those for Milan, Nuremberg.
JW: That’s quite true. Yeah.
DK: Spezia, Italy.
JW: But not with Bob Fletcher. It was other crews.
DK: Right. Because that was, they were with 97 Squadron.
JW: Yeah. Let’s see what I’ve got here. I’ve got all rubbish here, haven’t I?
DK: Oh that’s a Nuremberg one.
JW: There’s another one.
DK: Right. So —
JW: Do you want another one?
DK: So that’s the target award for Spezia on the 13th and 14th of April 1943.
JW: Yeah. Some things are repeated, of course. I don’t know. Some —
DK: This one then. That’s Fletcher. That’s with the Fletcher crew.
JW: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. So then Milan 14th to 15th of Feb 1943 — target award. And Nuremberg 25th of the 2nd 1943. So the pilot then was Lennox.
JW: Lennox, that’s it. I flew.
DK: Yeah.
JW: The three trips I did with him. His last three before he finished his thirty ops.
DK: So these target awards then were, were they they based on how close you got to the target?
JW: Photographs.
DK: Photographs.
JW: When you dropped your bombs, when they dropped the bombs though they also dropped a flare chute.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Not a chute, a flare thing, you know which is due, which is timed to detonate at a certain level. And as it detonated it lit up the target and it showed where you drop the bomb.
DK: Right.
JW: But it’s a bit hard to get that really because you’d got cloud to think of and all sorts of things to think about. So, it wasn’t, it wasn’t all that easy. We weren’t, we weren’t conscious of it of course at the time.
DK: So just for the recording here the Spezia one on the 13th and 14th of April.
JW: Yeah.
DK: The pilot’s Fletcher and you get Sergeant Mason, Flight Sergeant Robertson, Flight Sergeant that would be Wally Layne. Sergeant White, yourself. Pilot officer Bale and the Sub Lieutenant Lett. Was he Royal Navy then?
JW: [pause] Yeah. [pause] Ok. Shall I put them back in the —
DK: Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
JW: This you might be interested in. Look at it that way.
DK: There you go.
JW: That’s a bomb. Oh you’ve twisted it around.
DK: A bomb bay.
JW: No re-gain.
DK: That way.
JW: That way. That’s it. That’s the four thousand pound bomb.
DK: Bomb.
JW: That’s right.
JW: And those are incendiaries.
JW: That’s right. A hell of a load isn’t it?
DK: Yeah.
JW: That aircraft, the Lancaster was really, really a winner you know. It was, it was a great boost for AV Roe.
DK: That was going to be my next question actually.
JW: Yeah.
DK: What did you think of the Lancaster then?
JW: Marvellous. Yes. She was a, she was, it was quite a comfortable aircraft really. Flying this is. Mind you, where we were, the rear turret was a bugger and I steered clear of that. Some bright bloody bugger up at headquarters got the idea that if you remove the Perspex in front they can see better. He has to put goggles on to make up for it so where’s the saving? All you got was cold. As you know when you push something through the air you get a backdraft.
DK: Yeah.
JW: You get it in a car isn’t it?
DK: Yeah.
JW: Well you’ve got a gale blowing in there and it’s bitter cold. It really is bitter. Your saliva which drips down from your mask, that freezes and it can block the tube.
DK: So how many times did you fly in the rear turret then?
JW: I can have a look.
DK: Yeah. Ok. But you were mostly —
JW: As little as possible I can tell you.
DK: As little as possible. So it was mostly the mid-upper turret.
JW: Well, you see, in the early days I didn’t have much clout as the saying goes. But as I got more and more experienced in things and surviving, our crew had got a reputation on the squadron of being the lucky people. We were lucky. No doubt about that. They couldn’t understand how we escaped so much. We did. And I’ll tell you Bob, he didn’t cut corners. I’ll swear to any bible you like we went to the target and he went to the bloody target and he dropped his bombs on the target. That’s how we got the target awards. And he came back. Now, he was a good chap. Now, you want to know, what am I looking at?
DK: How many times you flew in the rear turret.
JW: Oh yeah [pause, pages turning] It’s here somewhere. Ah yes. There’s [pause] well that was a training flight. 8th of October of ’42. Now then. Mid-upper. Mid-upper. Mid-upper. Here we are. Conversion course at somewhere or other. I was rear gunner all of those. That’s right. We didn’t have a mid-upper there. That was, we were doing a conversion. The stupidity, the apparent stupidity, let’s put it that way, of what goes on in wartime among the passing things down. You know. Well, there we were at Syerston flying with a crew and suddenly we were sent to Swinderby, just up the road for a conversion course to four engine, four engine aircraft. What the hell did they think we were flying in any case? I mean it’s so ruddy stupid it’s hard to believe. There we are. I’ve got it here.
DK: So at the OTU and Heavy Conversion Unit was that all Lancasters?
JW: Yeah. Somebody had got their wires crossed I expect.
DK: Yeah. Was it? Was it Lancasters at the OTU and the Heavy Conversion Unit?
JW: Yeah. Here we are. I did some. Sergeant Goodwin, as a rear gunner and also, that’s right — one, two I did a lot of training flights. Only one operation.
DK: Oh right. So only one operation in the rear turret.
JW: There’s some more there.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Another one there. Mine laying. A lot, a lot of exercises went on. Kept us busy didn’t it? Rear gunner. All these are rear gunner. Oh yes. Here we are. Gardening. They called it gardening. Sowing the mines, you know.
DK: The mines.
JW: Essen. Berlin. Dusseldorf. Two at Dusseldorf.
DK: And that was in the rear turret.
JW: Yeah. These are all rear gunner. I did more than I thought.
DK: Ah.
JW: Hamburg.
DK: For the recording that’s, you were at the Baltic mining on the 14th of December ’42 and the 9th of January ’43. And then Essen the 11th of January ’43.
JW: Yeah.
DK: Berlin 16th of January. Dusseldorf 23rd of January.
JW: The 14th of, the 14th of February.
DK: Yeah.
JW: ’43. I joined 97 Squadron.
DK: Yeah. So Dusseldorf again 27th of January.
JW: Yeah.
DK: And Hamburg 30th of January.
JW: That’s right.
DK: 1943. And —
JW: They were all rear gunners they were.
DK: They were all rear gunner. Right.
JW: I didn’t know, I didn’t know I managed all that. Good gracious.
DK: So that’s at least one, two, three, four, five, six times. You were rear gunner more often than you thought.
JW: There’s still some rear gunners here. Lennox. It’s got to come to an end soon. Ah [pause] ah my first flight with Bob Fletcher. I even put his decoration in. DFM.
DK: And what date was that?
JW: That was the 30th of March ‘43
DK: Right. So that was a training flight was it?
JW: That’s my, that’s my first flight with him. That was the mid-upper gun. I exercised my seniority. I’m going in the top turret thank you. And old Harry Page was stuck with the other one. He didn’t mind. He’s a tough old bird he was old. Old Harry was. No. That’s all, that’s all it was. No more.
DK: So all your operations then up to the 30th of March were in the rear turret.
JW: I didn’t like it one little bit.
DK: And just here 24th of July 1943 was Hamburg and the first use of Window. Was that the dropping out of the, the reflective flares? The reflective paper then? Window.
[pause]
JW: Window. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JW: That’s the strips of metal.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: But that, right I’ll tell you now a little story. Not a story but the fact. There was one anti-fighter device which didn’t get its proper recognition. It was a thing called Tinsel. All this was, it was a, it was the cheapest piece of equipment you could ever bother to think and it was the most effective. And it was ignored. That’s higher up. All this was was a microphone that was attached to one of the inner engines and the wire, and the cable went through the wing into the cockpit and down to the wireless operator’s position. And it coupled to his Morse code.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Now, on briefing all the wireless operators were given a wave band to listen out on. Right. And that’s all the squadrons all doing it. And what you had to do, what they had to do was to listen out, when they weren’t doing something else, listen out. As soon as they heard a German voice — on the key.
DK: Yeah.
JW: It transmitted this awful noise from the engine. There were a few sore ears down there I wonder. But it never got recognised as an effective. It probably sounded a bit too simple probably. All it was was a microphone, a bit of adhesive tape and wire.
DK: And wire. Yeah.
JW: A shame you know because, because the wireless operators got used to it and they started using it for their own purposes and they would tap messages to each other because you can’t broadcast when you’re flying.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Because they can pick you up. But if you’re transmitting this bloody noise the people, they can’t hear you, you see.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And come in, ‘I’ve heard from Joe and,’ so and so and so. ‘Oh really.’ [laughs] [pause] We saw Nettleton go down.
DK: Really.
JW: We didn’t know at the time it was him. We were coming back from one of the Italian jobs. Milan or Turin and he came back over the Bay of Biscay. That way to avoid coming over France. Daylight by now because it’s a long trip. Broad daylight and I was flying there and occasionally, it was very interesting flying along on your own. You think, on your own. And suddenly another one there, another one there, another one there they were popping up and people in the same stream going down. You know. Very interesting. And I was looking down there and I saw this one down a bit low there and flying like that and suddenly his nose dipped down like that. He went straight in the water. I noted the time. And when I reported this back at interrogation afterwards I found out it was Nettleton. So nobody knows why he went down.
DK: Yeah. Is it, is it possible to check your logbooks? I just —
JW: Sorry?
DK: The aircraft P Peter. Does it have the serial number in your logbook by any chance?
[pause]
DK: 1943.
[pause]
JW: I’ve got a lot of rubbish in here.
DK: Did you, did you make a note of the serial numbers?
JW: Yes.
DK: I’m just. P Peter.
JW: Here we are. JA 708.
DK: Ok. And that was operation to Hanover on the —
JW: Hanover. Yeah.
DK: 22nd of September.
JW: That’s right.
DK: 1943.
JW: Yeah. My last trip that was.
DK: And then the following night. Hanover again when the aircraft was lost.
JW: The following. Ah. Now then, another little story coming up. Now here we go. They flew off without me. A bloke in my place. And the target was Mannheim.
DK: Oh Mannheim. Ok.
JW: It was. But they never found it. They never hit it. Now I had a letter many many years later from the editor of the local newspaper of a small town which lies in between Mannheim and Ludwigshafen.
DK: Right.
JW: They’re both inland ports.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: About in the middle. And I can’t remember the name of it. He wrote to me. He said he’d heard of my survival and he’d like a little more information because he said for the anniversary of that particular night they were going to put some show on or something.
DK: Ok.
JW: And he wanted to get all the information I think he could out of it. There wasn’t much I could tell him because I wasn’t there. He appreciated that. But he did send me a diagram of the town centre which was completely obliterated. They got the lot down there. It was the wrong target. Great shame wasn’t it?
DK: Yeah.
JW: These things happen don’t they, in wartime doesn’t it?
DK: So which town was this then that —
JW: Well I don’t know. I can’t remember the name of it.
DK: Right. Ok.
JW: It begins with the letter K I remember.
DK: So the target was Mannheim but they —
JW: They should have bombed Mannheim but the Pathfinders had made a mistake. They targeted this little town instead.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And this little town got the lot. Seven hundred Lancasters dropping bombs on them.
DK: And that was the 23rd of September 1943.
JW: Completely obliterated the whole town centre he tells me.
DK: And that was, just for the recording here the 23rd of September 1943. Yeah.
JW: Is it, he had a title. He was a professor of something or other.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Editor of the local newspaper.
DK: Yeah. Ok. Ok well let’s stop the recording there. I’m sure you are.
[recording paused]
DK: So it’s recording now so —
JW: Ok.
DK: Consider what you’re saying. So 97 Squadron then. What do you —
JW: Right. Woodhall Spa.
DK: Yeah. Ok.
JW: Right. Well it so happens that our parent station was Coningsby. [But you didn’t really notice that?] And they were so close that the drem circuit, which is a ring of lights around the airfield.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And they crossed there. Think of this. They’re going that way around like that and down like that. This one’s going the same way like that. But when they get there they’re in opposite directions. We thought that’s a bit hairy. Fortunately there was no flying at Coningsby. They were busy putting a hard —
DK: Runway.
JW: Runways down. Putting hard runways down. But we were so close to Coningsby really. All our, all our admin work was done at Coningsby. Now, I went back to Coningsby twice. The first time was we’d all subscribed. In the Association not the Squadron Association, we subscribed to a stained glass window to commemorate the squadron. And that was being placed in the chapel on the station. The RAF station there. A proper do on a Sunday morning there. Even got one bloke there playing the bugle. He couldn’t play it to save his soul [laughs] but never mind. It was a gesture. We got that done. I guess, I got another, another instance where I broke my thoughts about the future. A lot of the chaps there with me were wearing the DFM. Which means they were airmen. Not officers. That’s just, just a little aside. At the general meetings each year the first time I went I shared a table with a couple there. Two couples in fact. A big table. Yeah. They were original people from the squadron in wartime days and come to think of it they weren’t particularly happy about being there. They thought, I got the impression they thought it was a waste of time but I didn’t say anything at the time naturally. But it added to my thoughts about the whole thing you know. And when I was first approached by Ann Savage who was this WAAF, ex-WAAF who was acting as secretary she, I don’t know how she found me but she got me and talked me into joining. Before joining I rang my pilot Bob Fletcher at home and I asked him for his, his opinion. He said, ‘Don’t touch them with a barge pole.’ He wouldn’t have it. No. Out. Oh dear. But pressure was put on me to join and I thought well I do owe something. I mean you must know by now how lucky I’ve been. I do know something. So I, I gave in and I went along to that. The next AGM and reunion. The other reunion there’s a misname. It wasn’t a reunion at all. It was an AGM really. There was so few people there who were actually on the squadron during the wartime days. Now, that’s what I call a reunion. Me meeting old friends there.
DK: Yeah.
JW: I knew nobody. And nobody knew me. These two couples at the table there they weren’t particularly happy about it all. The next year I went again. I didn’t see them again. They never turned up again. I noticed a few others that I remembered were there. They didn’t come again. The third time I went nobody came there who was on the squadron during the wartime days. Completely out. And going back to that business I said about, about the youngsters there this particular organisation now is devolved into just a club for the young people. And I try to influence them a bit. The chairman was a retired wing commander. Bomb aimer. Ken Cook. And he and the secretary were together like that and they had some sort of interest in the hotel. The Admiral Rodney. Admiral Rodney in the middle of Lincoln? Oh well [laughs] And Hornchurch is, it’s a sink town. It’s dreadful. They’ve got a little stream that runs through the town there. It’s only a little stream but you get all the rubbish in there. Bedsteads and trollies and all sorts of things. It’s a dreadful place. It had a Woolworth’s there.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And it hadn’t been changed since the wartime days. It had ordinary floorboards. No lino or carpet. Oh God. Oh no. No. I said, I thought came into my mind this is not going to attract anybody.
DK: Yeah.
JW: You’d have one say never again and I tried to steer them away. I thought Lincoln would be the ideal place.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Lincoln was the centre of Lancaster country you know. We all know that. Everybody. It’s always written up on it and they wouldn’t listen because this hotel. They got hat and glove with the proprietor of the hotel I think. They took over the hotel and allocated the bedrooms and things like that. No. That’s not the future at all. Any rate, the wing commander, he wrote to the other members of the committee misinterpreting exactly, misinterpreting entirely what I had wrote to him. He said I was trying to tell them to buy a sack of Kevin’s books and dish them out as rewards or something like that.
DK: Yeah.
JW: Not at all. That wasn’t it at all. I was talking about the location of the place. So I bowed out. I said it’s not worth it. It’s not worth worrying about. Except for Kevin. He stayed on. He became the secretary. Acting secretary shall I say. I don’t get much from him these days. He’s very busy. Like all of us when you retire you start getting busy.
DK: Yeah.
JW: But there you are he keeps on saying I’ll come and see but it’s a long way to come from Peterborough just to take you out to lunch isn’t it?
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: And I haven’t got a house now to offer hospitality. He stayed with us before when I had a house at East [unclear] but that’s gone now.
DK: When you were based at Woodhall Spa did you use the Petwood Hotel?
JW: Yeah.
DK: At all. Was that, was that somewhere you used to go to then as the mess?
JW: Well the last time we went I took my wife with me. A bit of luck once again. Just my lucky streak. And somebody from the hotel staff, somebody in authority, they said, ‘Oh we’ll change your room for you.’ We had some sort of little room. They gave us a lovely room. Private bathroom. The lot. It was well done you know.
DK: Yeah.
JW: And it so happened that after the meeting and all the fun and games and things like that, people drifting away that more or less left Kevin and his lady and me and my wife and one or two others there drifting away. And we were taken, my wife and I were taken with Kevin up to this room and people were going back to their room, passing. Raising an eyebrow. They knew this was a good room. We got the plum. So that’s it. That’s it. Time to quit. Any rate I wished them the best but when you come to think of it though when they first asked me to join that’s over twenty years after the war. It’s a bit late to start a reunion isn’t it? Twenty years after the event isn’t it?
JW: It is. It is a little bit.
And then Bob saying don’t touch them with a bargepole. I don’t know why. I don’t know what his objection was but he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Yeah. It was a bit downmarket I must admit.
What? The Petwood?
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Ernest James White
Creator
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David Kavanagh
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-27
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWhiteEJ161027
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:42:38 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
James White worked as a wages clerk for the Co-op before volunteering for the Air Force. He had intended to join the navy but he saw some recruits being shouted at so he turned around and crossed the corridor to join the RAF. He had always had an interesting in flying because his uncle lived near Hendon Airfield and he had enjoyed watching the aircraft as well as making models. When he had completed his final operation as a gunner with 97 Squadron his crew still had one to do and so he volunteered to join them. The gunnery leader refused his offer and he went on the operation himself. The crew failed to return from that operation and the surviving members became prisoners of war.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Nuremberg
Italy--La Spezia
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1943
44 Squadron
61 Squadron
8 Group
97 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Botha
Cook’s tour
Lancaster
Lysander
memorial
military service conditions
Oboe
Pathfinders
RAF Bourn
RAF Graveley
RAF Morpeth
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Woodbridge
RAF Woodhall Spa
sanitation
searchlight
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/142/1358/AYoungF160720.2.mp3
f72baecf6c3b846bc283a66409b06707
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
Young, Fred
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview and a photograph of Fred Young DFM (1583354 Royal Air Force).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Fred Young and catalogued by by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Young, F
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AS: Okay, we’ll start. This is Andrew Sadler interviewing Fred Young in his home in Offenham in Worcestershire on Wednesday, July 20th, 2016. Fred thank you very much for allowing me to interview on behalf of the Lincolnshire Bomber Command Archive this morning.
FY: Right.
AS: Can I start by asking you about your early life where you were born and when?
FY: Yes, I was born in Birmingham, I spent most of my life down in London, and I’ve been all round the place, continent, everywhere.
AS: Did you have, did you have any of your family involved in World War One, was your father for example?
FY: No my father wasn’t but his brothers were.
AS: And did have any bearing on you becoming going into the RAF in the Second World War.
FY: No, when the, when the war started in ’39 my Uncle Ern who I’ve got a photograph of in there was on The Somme. Anyway he lived in London he rushed over to my father and said, ‘Don’t ever let Freddie get in the army’. [laughs] So I went in the Air Force.
AS: So you volunteered for the Air Force?
FY: Oh yes, yeah VER yeah.
AS: And can you tell me about how you enlisted in the Air Force?
FY: Well I, I [sneezes] I was in a protected job at the time so the only thing I could get into to get into the services was air aircrew.
AS: What job were you in?
FY: I was an accountant in, in the railway up in Somers it’s in Birmingham anyway.
AS: And how old were you then?
FY: I was seventeen, I went in at seventeen put my age on a year and called up in ’41, up to Warrington. I, I was a frail person I couldn’t carry a kit bag to save my life and we had to march from Padigate Recruiting Centre in, in Warrington to the railway station I had a job carrying it so did many others because we weren’t used to manual work like that. And then, then after that was pure training I was posted to Blackpool to do foot slogging and that was I think it was eight weeks there and I stayed in Blackpool ‘cos I went down to Padgate the engineering side of the business and that’s where I learnt my trade in engineering. You can’t better the RAF for training you up, wonderful. We were there quite a long time and then suddenly they cleared Blackpool, because um they sealed Blackpool off because the army were going, had a free town, and they were going out to the Middle East to Al Conlek [?] So we had to get out and we went down to Melksham. We went to a camp in Melksham where the everyone had turned it down the Americans, the Army, the Navy ‘cos it was a Navy area, but the RAF accepted it. We were up to our ankles in water most of the time in the huts. And then we came back again to Blackpool and I remember it well because we were all on parade in the Blackpool football pitch in their stadium, and they were calling out the names of those who were going to go on, ‘cos we were all mixed up, and those who were going to the Far East, and there was quite a lot going to the Far East, but all those in aircrew training carried on down on to the engineering side and they moved down to South Wales to, to finish off aircraft. I, I was down there tuning in the engineering side ‘cos it was not only engines it was air frames, electrics and everything else, it was very good training area. And then we came, we had exams every week and I failed the electrics, I could never get my head round electrics, everything else I was perfect on so I had to drop out and have another week, and all my friends then all went on. I passed the next week now all my friends went on to Halifaxes and instinctually they were all shot down. I went on the Lancasters, so I carried on, on my training on the Lancasters there. That was quite a thing we were pretty well exhausted mentally after all that period of training, ‘cos we never had leave you were constant all the while and eventually they sent us to a training centre keep fit area and they put us through keep fit to get us back to normal if you like, yes. And that was good ‘cos it did got rid of all the fuzziness and then I was a flight engineer. So then we went to stations in 5 Group, am, am trying to remember where it was now, but we went to the, oh Winthorpe, we went to Winthorpe that’s right and there we picked up a crew now the crew had been together on Wellingtons most of the time and I joined them there. So it was getting to know each other and I was the youngest and obviously called “Youngster” it was my nickname right the way through service. So from there we, we did training on Stirlings, and then we did training on Lancasters. I found out that was the worst period of the time really, well I don’t know if you know Newark there’s a church there got a red light on the top because it’s quite near the main runway and we are doing a night final exam flying and we are going up to Hel, Heligoland, and we took off but we didn’t take off, we were going down the runway we had a flight lieutenant who’d just come from America he was an instructor in America, Pilot, and we were two thirds of the way down the runway and we were just going to lift off and he cut all the, all the switches so we crashed to the other end of the runway. We went in the nose, the nose went in the whole distance up to the cockpit. I don’t know what happened to him he was reported obviously, we got away with that one, which was a good sign. Now we had our problems with the navigator, on the next trip we found ourselves over Hull in an air raid at night when we should have been down in Devon, he’d taken reciprocal courses so he was dumped straight away and we got a new one, Hugh. Now Hugh was a British BOAC, Overseas Airways yeah on the Pacific Airline, and he was a navigator there, so he was a good navigator, because they didn’t have radar or anything and he navigated across the Pacific, and he was brilliant, anyway that was Hugh and he joined us. Off we went to 57 Squadron and East Kirkby, they just moved from Scampton where 617 were and they moved there. We then went to, we were there about a week, and then we were called up with as battle stations is on battle and they just put a notice up and there was all the names of the people who were going. And went to the briefing and it was Berlin, which is quite shaky for the first op but we did eleven of them so we got away with it. [laughs] But we were a good crew, we were all rehearsed we did practice an awful lot, we never used Christian names in the air we were always referred to navigator or bomb aimer or so on. And after, we did quite a few initially of the Berlin raids and then we went to Magdeburg. From Magdeburg we went to Hanover and we were working our way round Northern Europe I suppose. ‘Cos you know, I mean they probably told you, we did, you never went straight to a target you went all round the Baltic or down over Switzerland and up, and then we went down to Leipzig and we were held at Leipzig because the pathfinders hadn’t arrived they were shot down and the back-up hadn’t arrived so we were there twenty minutes going round and round Leipzig, and of course people were getting shot down by their fighters. [interference on recording] And then anyway we went through that okay and carried on, we were it was quite a flat tour really. And then we went to oh, trying to think, it was on the Baltic coast, and that was where we had a near mid-air collision. Normally you come out of the target area and you turn to port this chap turned to starboard and came straight at us, because of the angles he obviously climbed out of the way, we went the other way but we got his slipstream and he blew us down into a spin. We spun round going down from twenty three thousand feet and we finally pulled out at three thousand feet we were fighting it. The bomb aimer was complaining ‘cos he was, he was wedged onto the roof of his cabin at the font [laughs] with gravity holding him in there. But we were spinning down we got it straight, ‘cos engineers sat in the Lancaster were always sat next to him, and I, he always let me fly over the seas you know so obviously I’d get a feel of the aircraft, so we were fighting it together, I was on one side of the control column and he was pulling it back and I was pushing it forward like, and so eventually it came up. I asked the navigator what speed we were doing, he said, ‘You went off the clock I couldn’t tell’ [laughs] so we don’t know what it was.’ Anyway Hugh was navigator leader and when we got back to East Kirkby he went to navigation centre, checked all the logs and he found that it was one of our aircraft squadron that nearly hit us, and he of course the language was quite out of this world apparently, I don’t know but they didn’t speak to each other again much. [laughs] Because he, I mean he came out and you know could have caused two fatals, our own and his, and he could have gone down as well. But that was um, there we got, then we had the of course Nuremburg, this is where our navigator was brilliant he, he navigated there and he, there were two targets they’d built a dummy town, did you know that?
AS: No.
FY: They built another town on the other side and people were bombing that because it was the first one they were coming to, and Hugh said, ‘No you’re wrong’, there was a bit of a thing going backwards and forwards and in the end we, we accepted Hugh ‘cos he was unbelievable. We bombed the other one which was the target that was why we lost so many people, they were being shot down on the way across the coast going in and on the way back they were shooting them down over the aerodromes they didn’t count those. The, the JU88’s were coming at the back following the crew that the teams in and shooting them down on the approach. That was something that was kept quiet. But anyway we had that, we had, going, going back again to the, to Berlins they introduced the new flying boot, it was a boot that you could, you could cut the top off it had a knife inside, you cut the top off so you could walk if you got shot down, and the rear gunner always wanted to keep up to date with things and he had them you see, but when you got in your, well I call them his huge outfit, looks like the Pirelli man you know, all balled up. He forced his feet into the boot forgetting he hadn’t got the electrics in his boots because they were ordinary boots for other, other members. He got on the way to Berlin, he got frostbite in his feet and he was, he was crying out, but we said to the nav you know, ‘Where are we?’ and he said ‘We were two thirds from the target there’s no point in turning round and going back there.’ So we continued to the target and all the way back [coughs] and when we landed the medical team were waiting for us and they took him and I think he lost both feet all because he wanted those boots on. Then we got another rear gunner who, who was, his crew was shot down, he was ill and he and somebody else went in his place and they got shot down, so he was spare as they say so we had him, a bit disjointed this but I say as I am remembering it. We went through I say after Nuremburg we got back and we thought you know ninety-six aircraft that’s quite a lot of men and we well thought it’ll be an easy one next then and Mr. Butcher we called him and he sent us to Essen of all places which is in the middle of the Ruhr which is highly defended, so we thought that’s a good one you know you’ve sent us into the slaughterhouse and then back again into another one. So we had that and we went through that all right obviously ‘cos I’m here. We went down to Munich and the route took us down south and Hugh said, ‘Shall we go across Switzerland on the way in?’ ‘cos we aim there and come up and yeah so we did that unfortunately we were so, what’s the word, taken aback by the snow and the twinkling lights of the, of the chalets in the mountains in there a J88 came up and took a piece out of us [laughs] ‘cos we weren’t concentrating and then we found out that it happens to be the J88 training pupils there it was just lucky we had a pupil and not a, not a professional [laughs] otherwise he would have taken us out completely no doubt about it, but they came right across the top and opened the canon [?] and that woke us up again so then we went straight up to Munich. The other one is the Frankfurt we, we, we did Frankfurt run that wasn’t too bad really it’s just a long haul. And then we had the Navy in one day they came and they wanted the RAF to drop mines in the Baltic, and when they told us where it was it was up in Konigsberg right up on the Russian side. Apparently there was a lot of German transport and things in the bay in Konigsberg Bay, Dancing Bay, and they wanted us to mine across the whole lot to stop them getting out until the Navy got there, that was a twelve hour flight so we had overload tanks on in the fuselage and that was quite a long haul that, we did it we dropped all the mines on the drop there was only two squadrons on that there was 57 and 630 the rest of 5 Group weren’t in on it. Then finished the first tour on Maligny Camp, I don’t know if you’ve read anything about Maligny Camp, it’s where it was a big French camp, tank and the Germans took it over obviously and this is where they serviced all the tanks coming back from Russia. And they were building up a division there hundreds of tanks, and repairing them, preparing them for the second front, repel the second front. And we were called in to bomb, we had to bomb at five thousand feet because it was moonlight, we had to, it was, it was quite complicated action really. We were the first to bomb we bombed two minutes past midnight and we got through, unfortunately because 57 squadron went first the Yorkshire squadrons who followed us got caught with all the fighters and the Ack Ack so they took quite a hammering, crashing, but after the war when I went to Maligny the people there had no resentment to us because not one bomb fell outside of the camp. There was a lot of French people killed but they were killed through falling aircraft, and if those tanks, Panzers, had been released on the second front there wouldn’t have been one because it was an absolute division, hundreds, and we did wipe them out completely so, that was the last one of my first tour. And then I went on to training command instructor [coughs] which I found very worrying [coughs] [laughs] you’ve got to have a lot of nerve, a lot of nerve.
AS: So you did one tour and then went into training?
FY: Yeah, I went in as an instructor. And then I got, I said look, I was on Stirlings and Lancasters instructing, which was the pilots used to you know like circuits and bumps, the pilot, the instructor pilot he’d leave the aircraft and leave me with the other pilot so I was in charge sort of thing we did all sorts of funny things. We got I had a Stirling and I was in the second pilot’s seat [coughs] and we were coming in to land at night and he was way off and I kept kicking the rudder to get him back on to get the lights, the green lights, but what I was getting amber and red [coughing] which meant we were all over the place. When we landed and we were told to report because they obviously saw it from the control tower just switching back like this, and, and I had to report and tell them what I saw, made and they sent this pilot for a medical and he was colour blind, can you believe it? Colour blind he was from America, he’d been instructing in America, well being all lit up in America they didn’t have any problems with lights with colours, but anyway I don’t know what happened to him he disappeared. And it was getting, it was getting a bit dicey and then we had at Winthorpe this was, the two main runways at Winthorpe and the other aerodrome were parallel, on to each other, there were two aircraft two Stirlings on night fighter exercise and about twenty odd air gunners in each one, and the one aircraft was taking off and the other one got into trouble and landed on top of the other one so it was absolute mess. It’s in my book all this, and he said I rushed up to the station and the WAFS there, I just don’t understand the WAFS, the medical WAFS, they were going to each one and they’re all charred you know getting their documents off them, but I don’t know how they did it, I still don’t understand it because the smell was terrible, I mean it was like pork, horrible smell all these poor lads they were all young gunners, air gunners. So anyway just after that I was posted back on to ops, ‘cos I asked for it, and they put me on to 8 Group Pathfinders down at Oakington in Cambridgeshire. Now they, that was good I enjoyed that, second tour. I can’t, I was, first op on pathfinders you’re, you’re, you’re supporters you go in first and drop flares and then the master bomber would follow you in and pick the spots. Now we don’t carry a bomb aimer on that op, and the engineer does it I had to go down and I did that dropping on the target area so that it lit up then we went round we came round again and went through again, always went through the target twice, and then we came back. And then the next one we were visual markers VM, now that new bomb by visual on a bomb site, and you did so many of those if you were any good then they moved you up to primary visual, primary er you, you bombed by radar anyway, the navigator did the bombing, he, he pressed the buttons and everything and he had the target on his screen and that’s when we marked that, used to go through right the way round and then go through again and keep doing that until the target finished. Then we had nothing really happened after that of any consequence, I was at, I finished I was a warrant officer, I turned a commission, all commissioned crew except me I was a warrant officer, and I refused a commission, but when I went back to squadron when the war ended, well just a couple of days before the war ended, a station commander asked me to, would I fly with him and we were going down to Africa, so I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll go down with you.’ So as an engineer to go down to Castel Benito like Tripoli so he was away two days I don’t know where he went and then we flew back. After that I was his engineer I always flew with the station commander, and he had put me in for a commission and I said, ‘No, I’m nearly demobbed, I shall, I shall be going out.’ I mean I’ve got to sign on you know, I mean I’d done five years I think it was like everything else you think oh I’ve got to get out of this now I’ve had enough, which I did. And I was demobbed, I went to Birmingham, back to Birmingham, incidentally I don’t like Birmingham [laughs] and I got an engineering job obviously ‘cos I’m an engineer, and they opened sales and I went into the sales side. The, one of the directors called me in, in Aston it was, called me in and he said, ‘We’re opening an office in London on sales, would you like to go back?’ I said, ‘Yes please.’ So I went back to London and while I was down there that’s when I got married to my wife and she was Birmingham so she had to make a change. She came down and I was mishmashing around, I hadn’t, mentally I didn’t know what I wanted really, I kept getting letters from the Air Ministry, I’ve still got them somewhere, asking me to go back in with the, with the rank I had left, and I, I, I said, I wrote back in the end saying no I don’t want to go back now I’m just getting used to being out. However, they sent me three letters from the Air Ministry wanting me back but on a short term you know, I wish I’d have taken it now obviously but I didn’t. The other one was I had applied to British Airways, British European Airways, yeah the European side [coughs] and they sent me forms which I filled in, they said, ‘Yes you’re what we want, you’ll have to come down and have an exam.’ Now you’ve got to bear in mind this is 1945 so I sent in the requisition and then they sent back and they said, ‘Well send us the cheque for seventy-six pound to pay for your exam’, I hadn’t got seven let along seventy-six pounds in those days so I had to turn it down because you know I mean there was no guarantee I was going to pass, ‘cos don’t know what the exams going to be like. So that was a game, ‘cos years later out with Hugh, the navigator, he was a British Airways navigator, a pilot, captain, and he said he always looked for me, he said ‘I was sure you were going to come in, sure’ he said, ‘But we never saw you.’ He emigrated to Nova Scotia, and I used to go over there ooh about two or three times a year and stay with him, my wife and I did, and we used to talk it out, we used to go into his den and go into all the various charts he’d got and yeah it was quite interesting. But anyway from there I was in engineering I didn’t know what I was any good at really apart from flying, and then I got a job with a sales company who got a contract to sell spring pressing, I hadn’t a clue on me, I went straight away to night school and checked it all out, it was a Yorkshire firm [coughs] and I found out that they were for some reason, they were halfway to bankruptcy. I used to go up there and it was a small factory and it clicked that was it I, I, I found my knew everything about spring pressing I could sell it and this, that, and the other and I stayed there, stayed there for forty odd years. Then I semi-retired, I did, I was in London based in London, I, I wouldn’t go to Yorkshire but I was based in London, and er, I used to go up there once a month for about a week or two days but then I was usually on the Continent flying out to the Continent, to the, to the French office, the German office and don’t forget there was East Germany then in those days, we had the Communists. I used to go down to Leipzig regularly a Communist area, Warsaw, I used to go all over the Eastern Bloc, it’s you get to know people, different types, I met a woman in a Keller in Berlin, East Berlin and on the, ‘cos you know they opened like a door, and we went in sitting down at the table and anyway she, she said in her English [unclear] and she said, ‘Oh I was from Berlin, I came from Berlin, West Berlin, I got stuck over here we should have never gone to war’, she said. [laughs] Which I thought was yeah, she said, ‘I said we’re all Saxons’, she said, ‘We’re Saxons.’ [laughs] So there wasn’t any animosity there at all. The same with Holland, we did food dropping in Holland, we had to mark the fields out where they were going to drop the food, so we were in first, we was on Pathfinders. The German Army Station there were all in the square all on parade, I can’t remember which one, which place it was now. Anyway we flew across there and our rear gunner said, ‘Can I have one burst?’ [laughs] ‘’Cos they were all lined up for me’, he said. [laughs] I said, ‘No we are on a peace, they’ve given us peace.’ So we followed on and then the light, the thing came on, [interference on recording] there was a chap on a bike and he was waving to us madly as we were coming towards him and of course the bomb doors opened with the marker which is like a bomb and he just fell off his bike you see he thought it was a bomb. Anyway we did all that properly and then we went down to the canals and there was a Dutch boat, you know sail boat and we went right down in front of him and slipstreamed and trailed all the way back [laughs] and they were shaking their fist at us, yeah that’s a bit of humour in it. That was, that was, that one it’s strange on the Second Front they left Holland they didn’t you know free Holland till later, because they flooded all the dykes had been opened, but they were starving [coughs], eating, they were eating rats and all sorts. So it was a mishmash really. So I say when I came out I went into engineering and from there when I semi-retired I moved to Ledbury. So I got a phone call from a competitor I, I used to deal with and he was a, he was the managing director of Solfis [?] and he’d retired and he said ‘I’ve got a company down in Sussex, now I’m gonna retire properly’ he said, ‘But my son’s going to take over, I want you to come down and look after him.’ I said, ‘No you know I’ve had enough.’ And he said, ‘I’ll give you “x” thousand pounds in cash’, and I did the main contract, he said, ‘Come down for six months.’ So I did I went down, I drove down from Ledbury every week and I, they made me a director there I finished up Solfis [?] as managing director and then I was there twenty years nearly. I was seventy when I retired from there, yeah. So you know, jolly good, I was I tell you I had a good life, you see I had my big arguments see with my wife it’s always money, the jobs you do but you don’t get paid for them, because I liked work I didn’t like money came secondary when a load of contracts came up I wasn’t bothered as long as we got the contracts and I signed it. And but that backfired on me when I was seventy you did sign a contract when you retire at seventy so I had to that was in April I remember that. So we, we’d already moved to Sussex from Ledbury so my wife wanted to go back to the Midlands and so we got up here. Now I’m not a gardener, I don’t like gardening, the only reason we had gardeners down in Sussex [background noise] and my wife loves sitting in the garden so I thought as long as we’ve got a green patch to sit in we’d be all right, so I got the stamp type of garden here, which is, even now I can’t look after it ‘cos I’m not interested in gardening doesn’t interest me one bit. [coughs] And from there I went in to Trevor, I met Trevor down the road, the British Legion, he was the chairman of the branch here and he got me involved in the British Legion. I did quite a lot in the British Legion here and then I went into County, I was County Treasurer, I was County Treasurer for about seven or eight years, and then my wife was very ill I just couldn’t spend the time going round to all the different branches and that. And so I retired from there but I kept up the branch here, but then again Trevor and I, he’s ninety on Thursday, we’re going to lunch on Thursday, he’s ninety, I’m ninety-two, he’s a youngster to me so we’re going to dinner. [laughs]
AS: So when you were offered a commission and you refused it that was because you’d have had to sign in to stay for a longer period?
FY: Yeah, yeah, oh yes. I mean you gotta sign in for a period, because then of course you got to remember people were being demobbed left, right and centre, you know particularly the officers side and they, they wanted a stopgap they wanted people in between for ten years just until they got the new people coming through.
AS: So when you did, you did one tour, am I right in thinking that if you did one tour you were then like exempt from doing any further combat?
FY: Oh yes, yes that was the end but I carried on.
AS: So why did you want to go back?
FY: Because I was nervous of being an instructor. [laughs]
AS: You thought that was more dangerous than being shot down by the Germans?
FY: Yes, yes definitely. [laughs] And, I, I thoroughly enjoyed it, I mean I wasn’t, I never, you know on Dresden people, I was talking about Dresden, they want to read the book on Dresden. It was the, it was the centre of the Nazi in Southern Germany, they had two concentration camps on the outskirts of Dresden, they had prisoner of war camps, they were manufacturing Messerschmitt parts for canopies in one instance. So there was quite a lot in Dresden, and though it was the near the end of the war but the Russians were knocking on the door and they wanted you know an easy way in which is what we had to do for them. But it’s, it’s I went to Chemnitz that night which is about oh a hundred miles north of Dresden and we bombed Chemnitz, no nobody said a word about that we were unopposed all the way [laughs] so not a word about that. There’s one or two like that we went to Beirut in Germany that was the only time I felt not sad. I had a South African captain pilot he was South African Army and he wanted to go do an op, so my, my pilot said, ‘Here take my place then you’ve got a team here you’re all right.’ So we were master bomber that night ‘cos the bomb aimer goes, er, there was six hundred aircraft, he called the first three hundred in, it was undefended we almost wiped it off the map, then he called the other three hundred, which he needn’t have done ‘cos we’d already done it, then you know I thought that was wrong, that was the only time I thought it was wrong, the rest of it I’d, I’d no pity. I mean on the first tour [coughs], I’m gonna use some bad language now, [laughs] on the first tour Smithy the pilot the moment I locked the wheels up he said, ‘Right you bastards here we come.’ And he always said that except for once and that was time we nearly crashed. [laughs] So he kept on saying it [laughs], the crew said, ‘You didn’t say it, you didn’t say it’ you see so we did, ‘cos we were only young [laughs], I mean I was twenty when I came out.
AS: So when you were flight engineer on the Lancaster what was your duties when the plane was up?
FY: Oh well I, responsible for everything really up front, the bomb sight, all the fuel make sure the fuel was being used correctly, the throttles right, you know rev counter, the whole bag of tricks really, the I mean the pilot was only a chauffeur [laughs] all he did was point it in the right direction and that’s it, that’s what the navigator used to say. [laughs] [coughs] And the bomb aimer usually was asleep I used to have to kick Alf and wake him up at the target he always used to nod off on the front nothing for him to see in the dark is there [laughs] till we got to the target. Yeah he was good the bomb aimer. But we, I thought I’d go in Transport Command and so I applied at the end of the war and I was sent up to York training but I wasn’t there long because the station commander sent for me to go back he wouldn’t, wouldn’t let me finish that course, laughs] ‘cos he wanted me to stay with him down down at Oakington but we’d moved upward by then. I think the only reason he liked me was because I used to run the football team and he always wanted to play football [laughs], yeah he was, I liked him he was nice.
AS: Did you say you trained on Halifaxes as well?
FY: No, I on Holtons [?], that was when I went to go on Transport Command, it was a Holton [?] they were a converted Halifax, but apart from that I was on Stirlings and Lancasters. I did a small tour on at the time rather on Manchesters which is a deathmell they was, twin engine Lancaster, that had terrible engines kept failing on people all sorts that’s when they dropped them and brought in the Lancaster with four engines yeah. Then it went on to Lincolns, never flew a Lincoln but I went on a course for Lincolns I never, I never flew one [coughs] it’s only a blown up Lancaster.
AS: And what was the chief advantage of the Lancaster?
FY: Oh its, its bomb bay, I mean the amount, we, we take to Berlin twenty thousand, twenty-three thousand pounds, a Mosquito would take four thousand pound bomber, the Americans would take three and a half thousand on a, on a Fortress, they didn’t carry much, they looked rather good on the films when you see all these but they were only five hundred pounders coming out. We had four thousand pound cookie, thousand pounders, we had banks of incendiaries, and sometimes we had two thousand pounders although one stuck it wouldn’t go we had to try and shake it off. It, it, to me it was, it was using the word it was a darling, it, it you were in love with it. It’s the only place if you go up to East Kirkby on their, their anniversary day when they have dinners, I’ve given those up now, but they, the Battle of Britain Lanc always came over and everybody there was taking photos and the men were crying, I was so moved it, it, it’s an aircraft you can’t explain. I mean it would fly on one engine you lose eight hundred feet a minute on one engine, it definitely fly on two I mean ‘cos we, we demonstrated that to America when the Americans came over the hierarchy wanted to go into a Lanc we took them up and he said this American whoever he was I don’t know who he was, and he said, ‘Will it fly on three?’, so we feathered one, ‘Fly on two’, so we feathered one, he said, ‘You can’t fly without an engine?’ I said, ‘No we’re losing eight hundred feet a minute so we better make up our minds about what you want to do next?’ [laughs] So we upped air and got them, got them all working again. But er yeah it was, there was always an amusing part was we used to have a lot of American aircraft land at East Kirkby and Oakington, mainly Oakington, and they were lost they wouldn’t know where the aerodrome was they got lost, there was Whirlwinds, Fortresses, all sorts really used to land there. We used to oh here we go again, but they used to always ask us to go to their aerodrome you see for a, for a drink yeah. So coming back from a daylight trip once and this Mustang pulled up alongside us and he flashed ‘Can I join you?’ And then we Morse Coded back to him ‘Yes’ and he followed us all the way to the UK, then he waggled his wings and he went away. And then we got a phone call to the mess asked us over to his place for a drink [laughs], he said he was completely lost [laughs] but it I mean they’d no navigation you know, it was a fighter with overload tanks. Are you all right?
Other: Yes I’m fine.
AS: So did you find it easy or difficult when you actually were demobbed, when you came back to civilian life?
FY: Yes.
AS: ‘Cos you said you were only twenty at that point.
FY: Yes difficult because you haven’t got a youth, my book is “Where Did My Youth Go?” it’s, it’s finished now it’s on sale. But it was the gap you came out, your suits were up here right, you’d grown so much, you couldn’t believe you’d grown so much. We were allowed after the second front we could have civilian clothes if we wanted so I sent for my suit I couldn’t get in to it, you don’t realise the difference between you know a seventeen year old and a twenty year old. But apart from that yes, it’s, it’s a muddled, muddled world, ‘cos the, quite an upheaval of course because of the you know Atlee was in power in those days, and then I’ve forgotten who followed him oh Churchill, and then somebody else followed him. But I know I’ve still got my passport when I used to go over to East Germany and all I could take was twenty-five pound, I always had to arrange with the German customer to pay for my hotel out there then I’d pay his hotel at this side when he came over. So like the Poles, just the same for the Poles from Warsaw, they used to come over every six months sign the contracts and I’d fly out to Warsaw and sign the contracts that side for the next six months, [coughs], we did an awful lot of business with them. The beauty of that was like East Germany and Poland in particular factories don’t order through people like us they go to a central purchasing bureau and they order the stuff from us, so the orders were absolutely huge without having to go round to the factories you see, we we, we spent two or three million pound each time we go over and we’d have to do that we’d have to go all round the different factories to get it but in Poland they did it themselves for you, it’s different now they’re all split up again now you see. The same in Berlin, East Berlin it was the same there, that was on the it was in a broken down old house on the second floor and the bottom part was derelict didn’t looked like it was going to stand, but on the next floor was the whole of purchasing for East, East Berlin, for East Germany. Amazing things that went on over the, you all thought we had a wonderful time travelling here, there and everywhere, but we didn’t. [laughs]
AS: What’s your feeling of the way the Bomber Command were treated and after the war?
FY: Terrible. Churchill put us on one side, I mean I was decorated, I got a DFM in that time, which was whitewashed you know, nobody, nobody bothered. That is why I think you see Bomber Command is so connected now and joined together because we were so badly abused, everybody else got, Churchill never mentioned Bomber Command once in his speeches, he mentioned the Army, the Navy, everybody except Bomber Command. ‘Cos he, he, he’s the one that sent us there, he got Harris, Air Marshall Harris to do these jobs, and then the moment we did the Dresden job [interference on recording] he pulled out, and yet he was the one who sent us to Dresden, Harris didn’t want to do it. If you read Harris’ book he said it was the worst decision he ever made.
AS: Yeah I have read it actually. Well thank you very much Fred, is there anything else that you want to add?
FY: Ah, memory now isn’t it [laughs] it’s thinking.
AS: Can you tell me about your book?
FY: Yeah, I mean it’s called “Where Did My Youth Go?” And it starts off before the war, not before the war when the war started, I think I was fourteen year old, I left school at fourteen. I was a messenger on ARP and I was a messenger all the way through during the Blitz in ’40 in 1940, we were bombed out there in London, we were told we had to find accommodation with relatives, of course all my father’s brothers and sisters they all lived in Birmingham so we got on to them and they found accommodation for my mother. We couldn’t go because we had to get, in those days you couldn’t change your job just like that you had to get permission from the Government, so we were waiting for that to come through so we couldn’t go up to Birmingham, and we were transferred to a company in the same situation as you. Well like I was on the railways at the time at St. Pancras in the accounts so naturally I was sent back to Moore Street Station [coughs] in Birmingham. So anyway we were, while we were waiting all this the air raids were still going off and my mother sent a telegram, ‘I’ve got a house, I’m trying to get furniture together’ ‘cos we lost all the furniture when we were bombed. Then we got, two days later we got another telegram saying, ‘Don’t come it’s been bombed.’ [laughs] So my mother was an absolute [unclear] she was, she made me go in the Air Force really, I mean I got my revenge there, but she, I, she was in a terrible state when we got there, her nerves, she was pale, oh terrible. Anyway then we got the Birmingham Blitz started when we got back, when we got there. And so I joined the the First Aid and Rescue Squad down in Walsall Heath. Went to the BSA and they were flooded you know all those people were killed in the floods with the bomb. We had the cinema where everybody was sitting there looking at the screen and they were all dead from the blast, all sorts of things that we dealt with on that. Birmingham took quite a hammering it did really, you know. I was, some of the lads there they rescue people, I mean they’d go into you know all sorts of situations and not think about the danger of it they’d do it. So that was, then obviously when the Blitz stopped, things didn’t get back to normal but you got back a bit more of your life you know. It’s you know that’s when it develops from there Moore Street, but I had carbuncles on my neck through no sleep because I was on rescue all night and in the day I was at work, never slept. That’s a lie I did sleep for you know about quarter of an hour or so but during the day I nod off but then you get called out yes, but that’s what kept you going. But it’s, it’s you know terrible and that was because I was run down, I mean the doctor obviously said that, he said, ‘You were absolutely wrung out there was nothing left, and that’s what your body’s doing it’s getting its own back on you’, I said, ‘Thanks very much.’ [laughs] But apart from that, as I say you can’t actually answer that, the question about the reaction after, now I can’t tell you that’s a difficult one really. I used to like dancing, I used to do a lot of dancing, ballroom dancing of course. I used to see all my relatives I’d never seen in Birmingham, meet them all. I had, oh yeah, I was at a wedding. Yeah my cousin down in London, Margaret, she married a Canadian airman, and I never got on with my aunt she always, always talked me down because her daughter was brilliant, and she was good, but I had it stuffed down my throat for about twenty years, I should think how good she was. Anyway it came to the situation where the wedding, and the chap who she married, the Canadian, brought his best man another Canadian and he kept calling me sir you see, and my aunt said, ‘No, no that’s Fred, Freddie, call him Freddie.’ So he said, ‘Oh can’t do that he’s an officer.’ So I got my own back on her, ’cos it took the wind out of her sails. [laughs].
AS: Right well we’ll switch the machine off then and then get you to sign the form if that’s all right.
FY: That’s okay yes. Was it two hours? Oh my.
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Title
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Interview with Fred Young
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Andrew Sadler
Date
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2016-07-20
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01:07:42 audio recording
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eng
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AYoungF160720
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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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.
Type
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Sound
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Fred Young volunteered for the Royal Air Force at seventeen and flew operations as a flight engineer with 57 Squadron from RAF East Kirkby. He recounts his experiences on several operations including Berlin, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Essen, Munich, Dresden, and Mailly le Camp. After his first tour he became an instructor before returning to operations, with 8 Group Pathfinders at RAF Oakington. After the war he returned to Birmingham and took up an engineering position before moving into sales and settling in London. He retired at 70 and returned to the Midlands taking up an active role in the British Legion, and writing a book “Where Did My Youth Go?” recounting his experiences during the war years.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
France--Mailly-le-Camp
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Essen
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Munich
France
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
5 Group
57 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
demobilisation
Distinguished Flying Medal
flight engineer
Lancaster
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Melksham
RAF Oakington
RAF Padgate
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/286/8788/PKirbyH1511.2.jpg
f2f26de792cac70f6b6c69e353b3a563
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/286/8788/AKirbyH150710.1.mp3
415d0a343bc572167309ea13248509d0
Dublin Core
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Title
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Kirby, Harold
Harold V A Kirby
H V A Kirby
Harold Kirby
H Kirby
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. Two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Harold Kirby (1923 - 2022, 1637087 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 467, 97 and 156 Squadrons.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-10
2015-09-21
2016-06-11
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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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Kirby, H
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Warrant Officer Harold Kirby 1637087 was born in Kilbourne, Loncon in 1923, his job after leaving school was in the accounting department at London Electric Supplies. He initially tried to volunteer for the RAF but failed the medical, at that time. He was subsequently drafted in 1942. Skill training started with training as a Flight Mechanic, but during this was asked to volunteer to rain as a Flight Engineer. His first posting was as an Aircraft Fitter at No.460 Squadron, RAF Binbrook, although only for 6 months.
After Flight Engineer training at St Athan and then training on the Short Stirling and then the Lancaster with 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Winthorpe, the first solo flight for the crew, the port landing gear would not lock, during the landing the gear collapsed, although there were no injuries.
First operational unit was No.467 Squadron at RAF Waddington a mainly Australian Squadron, the crew were here for July and August 1944, One operation 3/4th August 1944, to the V1 storage site at Trossy Saint Maximin had another bomber flying above their aircraft and dropping their bombs, one going through the wing, narrowly missing vital structures, this resulted in a gear up landing, due to hydraulic loss, but again there were no injuries resulting.
He was then posted along with the crew to No 97 Squadron, based at RAF Coningsby a pathfinder squadron, tasked to mark the targets for other aircraft,
In total two tours were completed before the end of the European war, after finishing as a Flight Engineer, Harold trained as a RADAR mechanic, before leaving the RAF.
Andy St.Denis
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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NM: So, this is a recording from Harold Kirby in Pinner, my name is Nigel Moore doing the interview, and this interview is taking place on July the 10th at Mr Kirby’s home in Pinner. So, Mr Kirby, thanks for doing this, and can you tell me something about your life growing up and life before the RAF?
HK: Yes, I’m, I was born in Kilburn, and my parents moved out to Kingsbury when I was eight years old, and I went to Kingsbury County School there. At the time we moved, 1931, it was all countrified there and we had to walk across fields to Burnt Oak to, for shopping, but soon got built up. So that was my early days, and then I got married after the war and lived in Kingsbury for a while until we moved out to Pinner in 1960, that’s right.
NM: So, what about your upbringing and childhood and pre-service life as a youth?
HK: I was not very outgoing at the time, but I had a special friend, Tony, who was more outgoing and he involved me in lots of activities, but I can’t say that I did very much exciting at those days, although we did used to cycle ‘round quite a lot, both of us. So, that was, up to the war, really. [Pause] and, certainly –
NM: Okay. How did you come to join the RAF?
HK: Ah, well, I, my two school friends and myself wanted to fly with the RAF, they were accepted but I was turned down on medical grounds, they became navigators and went off, and then I was called up in, ah, August 1942, and was first, after the initial square-bashing, went to, was posted to Halton, to train as a flight mechanic, one of the first inputs of conscripts to be trained at Halton, yeah. Well, after I’d passed out as a flight mechanic, I had sufficient marks to go straight on to do a fitter’s airframe course, also at Halton, and during the time there, I, we were asked if we would volunteer to become flight engineers, they were getting a bit short, which I did, passed the medical that time, and, but initially, I was posted as a fitter to 460 Squadron, which was at Binbrook, although initially, we and three others went to place called Brayton and found that the 460 Squadron had moved to Binbrook two weeks earlier [slight laugh] but eventually, we were taken there over, stayed there overnight and then taken to Binbrook, and I was there for a bit, six months, mainly repairing aircraft, until I got a call to go to the Saint Athan to train as a flight engineer. I, after I’d passed out from there, I was posted to heavy conversion unit at [pause] Winthorpe and I was, I crewed up with an otherwise all-Australian crew, and one thing that happened there was – this was on Stirlings – on the first pilot’s [pause] flight by himself without an instructor, we couldn’t get the wheels down, and it was my job to wind them down, which I did successfully, but the port undercarriage wouldn’t lock, so we were asked to fly to Woodbridge, you heard of it? It was placed where they had especially long, long runways and also facilities for dealing with crashed aircraft. Well, we duly got, would crashed, Woodbridge, crashed, ah, landed, but the port undercarriage gave way and we spun ‘round, no-one was hurt, and the instructor came down immediately and made my pilot fly back. Other than that, that, everything was okay, and we went to the Lancaster flying school, and eventually landed up at 467 Squadron, which was then at Wadd – Waddington. The, ah, yes, on the first operation, we were coming back, and the rear gunner suddenly shouted ‘Corkscrew!’, and the pilot immediately took action, dived, and a twin-engined aircraft overtook us and flew off in the distance, we didn’t see it again, but he initially, he shot at us, and a bullet went through the rear gunner’s turret and his clothing and cut off his heating supply and he was very aggrieved about that because it got a bit cold! [slight laugh] Anyway, we got back safely. Then, on the [pause] yes, the eleventh operation, it was a daylight one at Trossy Saint Maximin, the, it was a storage site for V1s, and we had done the bombing round and the mid upper shouted, ‘There’s a Lanc above us just opened his bomb doors!’ Before we could do anything, we heard two thumps, one was louder than the other, and a bomb went through the port wing, took away the undercarriage and the – shut off the engine, so I, well, I, I had to keep a look-out because the, I’m sure the wing was mov – waving more than it should do, anyway, we, with three engines, we got left behind. At one stage, this was over France, the rear gunner said ‘There’s two single-engined aircraft approaching from the starboard quarter,’ he said to the upper gunner, ‘I’ll take the first, you take the second,’ but seconds later, which seemed hours, he said, ‘It’s alright, they’re Spitfires,’ [slight laugh] and one of them escorted us back to the coast and we decided, or at least the pilot decided, to land at Wittering, which, at that time, had a grass runway, and we’d landed there and he got told off for making a big groove in their run – runway. So, but that was the, really, the main thing that happened there. Then, on the sixteenth operation, or after the sixteenth operation, we were posted to 97 Squadron, the Pathfinder Squadron. After the war, I had some correspondence from a pilot’s son, this was well after the war, and in it was a cutting from a newspaper which a pilot had a long [?] talk with a reporter, and he said then, whether it was true or not, that he actually volunteered to become Pathfinders because of the increase in pay, but I don’t know if that’s true or not, but all the crew joined him and we went on to the 97 Squadron, but nothing really much happened there, we were quite successful in getting back what with [?] the time, and in the end we managed forty-four operations altogether. [Pause] Well, after the war finished, we were sent on end-of-tour leave because we’d practically finished the second tour, and, but the rest of the crew were all recalled before I was, to go off back to Australia, so I never really had a chance to say a proper goodbye, but after that [unclear], they were, we were given opportunities to choose what we wanted to do; I chose a radar mechanic’s course because it was a nice long one and sounded interesting, that was at Yatesbury, and I eventually completed the course, was posted to West Ruislip, where I was put in an office and didn’t any, do any radar mechanicking! [laughs] And, but I was fortunate that I was able to live out, live at home, ‘cause my parents at Kingsbury, and commuted until I got my demob, which was six weeks or so later, I’m not sure of the actual date, and so, that is my war service.
NM: Okay, can I take you back to your days in Halton?
HK: Yes.
NM: Tell me a little bit about your days training as a fitter.
HK: Well, we were lost in [?], up the hill on one side of the main road, and every morning, we walked down, or marched down, to the, the workshops on the other side of the main road. That, that was about all, except that there was one amusing instance; because there, there were no youngsters there at the time, they had some drums which they thought could be used, and they asked for volunteers to train as, as drummers to help us down the march. It, they got instructions, that went off quite reasonably until the instructor thought, the, the bandmaster or whoever it was, thought we could practise by ourselves. Now, one of the chaps was actually a drummer in a small group, and he decided to invent a, a rhythm, which wasn’t the one that we were taught, and it went – oh, how did it go? Anyway, it was the first time that we did it, we, it was a conga rhythm [laughs], I think it’s the first and only time that a squad’s been conga’d down to the workshops! [laughs] But, apart from that, Halton was quite reasonably enjoyable.
NM: And was it while you were at Halton, or was it while you were at Binbrook on 460 Squadron, that you volunteered to become a flight engineer?
HK: It was while we were at Halton we were asked if we would volunteer, yes.
NM: So you first of all went off to Binbrook on 460 Squadron?
HK: Hmm?
NM: You first of all went to 460 Squadron?
HK: 460 Squadron, yeah.
NM: At Binbrook. Tell me a little bit about, about Binbrook.
HK: Well, then again, it was for, fortunately a, a peacetime station, so we were quite comfortably billeted. Well, that, that, of course, was an Australian squadron as well, so I, I did quite well in knowing the Australians. Each morning, went to the hangars and carried out any repairs and inspections that were necessary, quite enjoyed that, really. Yes, there was a sergeant there, Australian sergeant, apparently he was colour blind, and he, he was telling me that initially, he, he was asked to put camouflage on an aircraft, and when his instructor saw it, he said ‘If you could see that as I could see it, you’d have a fit!’ [Laughs] Yeah, but that, that, sorry, he was quite, quite a good chap [unclear], but –
NM: So, you went from Binbrook to Saint Athans to train -
HK: That’s right, yes.
NM: As a flight engineer.
HK: That’s right.
NM: Describe your training.
HK: I, actually, initially, there are few of us, instead of given instructions on a Lancaster, we were started to give us instructions on a York aircraft, but I think it was decided that that sort of job would be given to people who’d already been flying, so we then transferred and did the rest of the course on, on Lancasters. It was [pause] well, was quite enjoyable, I can’t say that there were any real troubles there. [Pause] I’m sorry, I –
NM: That’s fine, that’s okay.
HK: Unless there’s something specific, it’s difficult to remember.
NM: Right, okay, no, that’s absolutely fine, that’s fine. And you, how long did you spend in Saint Athan training, and what type of year was it, and time of year?
HK: It was in December, it would have been ’43, and we were there ‘til about May, I think, in ’44, and then we went to, as I said, to train, initially on Stirlings, before going onto Lancasters and then the squadron.
NM: So you crewed up at the OCU at Winthorpe, did you say?
HK: Yes.
NM: How did the crewing up process go? How did you end up with the crew that you ended up with?
HK: Well, it was just the usual way, and, in the RAF, from, we were in a large hall, and Bill Ryan, the, came up to me and said, would I like to join his crew? And he came, well, then, he introduced, introduced me to the rest, and we got on quite well.
NM: So you were the last to join the crew, were you?
HK: Yes.
NM: And were they an all-Australian crew?
HK: All-Australian, yeah.
NM: And you were the only Englishman there?
HK: That’s right, yes.
NM: So, why do you think he asked you? Why do you think he asked you?
HK: I have no idea! [laughs] Perhaps I was the last one, I don’t know, but we got on quite well, actually. I was the youngest, Bill Ryan was twenty-eight, I think. [Pause] The [pause] bomb aimer came from Queensland, he was about thirty-three, wireless operator was not much older than I was, I, I did have pictures of them [sound of leafing through pages].
NM: We can come onto that afterwards, if you want.
HK: Afterwards, yeah. [leafing sounds continue] Give some names.
NM: Let’s go through their names on the record and we can look at the photographs after the interview.
HK: Yeah, right.
NM: So, you go through the names.
HK: Hmm, yes.
NM: Talk, go through the names and describe the names.
HK: Yes, well, there was Bill Ryan, Les Sabine, the navigator, he came from New South Wales, as did Johnny Nichols, the wireless operator, and Jim McPhee was bomb aimer, Norm Johnstone, the mid upper gunner, and myself, and then there was Jim Newing, but we always called him Bert so we didn’t get mixed up with Jim McPhee, the bomb aimer, he was the rear gunner, he came from Perth in western Australia, and, although I lost touch with the crew after the war, some fifty years later, I and my wife went to Perth, and I looked up the telephone directory, there was H.W. Newing, which was his name, and the telephone, and I rang up on the off chance and said ‘Have you ever been to England?’ and he said ‘Yes, who’s speaking?’ I said ‘Harold Kirby’ and he immediately said ‘Oh, our flight engineer!’ [Slight laugh] And he was able to come to the hotel and we had quite a long chat, unfortunately, we had to go off the following day, but by then, I had his address and telephone number, and we went back to Perth all summer, few years later, and he came and took us to meet his wife and have lunch, and so, that, that was very nice. Unfortunately, he’s passed away.
NM: Okay, sad to hear that. So, you went to Lancaster flying school, you say, after you, your?
HK: Yes, at Syerston, that was.
NM: That was, okay, at Syerston. And how long were you there for?
HK: Oh, just a matter of a week or so, I think. I don’t, I can’t remember that.
NM: So, you then joined 467 Squadron at Waddington?
HK: That’s right.
NM: Tell me about squadron life in 467, what was that like?
HK: What was that like? I think I was glad I’d been to 460 Squadron and got used to a lot of the Australians, so it didn’t come as a bit of a shock, but [pause] apart from those two instances that I mentioned, I think we were quite fortunate, getting away unscathed.
NM: So, can you describe general operations, then, on 467 at Waddington?
HK: Well, I, the pilot and navigator, this before an operation, they had a, an initial briefing, and then after that, the rest of the crew joined them to have a general briefing. We were – then we all had to get ready for going off, we had a, a meal beforehand. Coming back, we were debriefed, and contrary to, contrary to what other, I’ve read about other squadrons, we never got rum or anything like that, we just got coffee, and then we went to bed and waited for the next operation. I do remember that, on one occasion, I slept for about eighteen hours non-stop, virtually, that was after two or three night operations on the trot.
NM: So, when you found you were being posted to Pathfinders at –
HK: Yes.
NM: - Coningsby, at 97 Squadron, what was your feeling?
HK: Really, nothing much, we, I didn’t know much about them, and I just wanted to keep with the rest of the crew, suppose.
NM: So, was – how did Coningsby and the Pathfinders differ from a main force station at Waddington and 467?
HK: I can’t say that it was terribly different, different. We were quite fortunate in, again, that, as Waddington was, and Binbrook beforehand and then Coningsby, they were all peacetime stations and we were very comfortably housed, not like some squadrons who had to cope with a lot of mud [slight laugh]! Oh, yes, at Coningsby, we had to be capable of taking over some of the other tasks, such as, I was asked to keep the aircraft on the straight and level for a while, presumably in case the pilot couldn’t hold it, which, that was what I did, although the rear gunner said it was more like a switchback than straight and level [slight laugh]! Then I had to learn the Morse code and do some gunnery practice, and also bomb aiming, so that, that was quite a change. In fact, towards the end of the war, the normal bomb aimer went and helped the navigator with the screens that they had then, and I did the bomb aiming, so it, that was a change. [Pause] Can’t say that there’s much more to add.
NM: So the extra training that you had, then, for, for flying training for straight and level flying and for gunnery and Morse code and bomb aiming, what, how did those extra training comes about?
HK: I remember the bomb, bomb aiming, there was a sort of a, a map that sort of moved on the floor and we were practising sort of with the bomb sights, and then also, in, there was a bombing range at Wainfleet in the Wash, I think I did a, a few goes at that, and then as far as gunnery, we dropped a flare in the water and I was in the nose turret and had a go and see if I could shoot that, and so [pause] I do remember once, I think this was at, at Waddington, for some reason, the brakes failed as we were taxiing ‘round, and the pilot was able to steer by controlling the engines. The normal practice when you start off is to keep the brakes on and push the throttle forward to get maximum speed, power, and then suddenly take the brakes off and shoot off. Well, this time, we had no time to do that, we got slowly to the take-off point and got the green lights and pushed the throttles forward and, fortunately [laughs], took off okay! And then, again, we thought we’d go back to Woodbridge, which we did, and I repaired the brakes and we got back to base. [Pause]
NM: What did you feel about the different roles that you were asked to play, then, between flight engineer and gunnery and bomb aiming?
HK: Well, I quite enjoyed it, the change, yes.
NM: So your crew, altogether, did forty-four operations?
HK: Yes.
NM: And you all stayed together for the whole time?
HK: No, all except the mid upper gunner and the wireless operator, they decided they wouldn’t go on to the second tour, and so we had spare chaps to do that, but I can’t really remember much about them.
NM: How did the crew feel about losing two stalwarts and getting two replacements?
HK: Well, don’t think we were terribly happy, but that was, you know, if they didn’t want to go on, well, that was it. I preferred to carry on rather than go to a training squadron because that could be a bit dicey sometimes.
NM: What would you say about life in Bomber Command overall?
HK: Overall, I had quite a good time, really. [Pause] No, I don’t think I would have chosen anything else, I was quite happy with what I was doing. Bit dicey at times, but that was it.
NM: Do you keep, keep in touch at all with, or – you’ve spoken about the rear gunner you’ve met in Australia, do you keep in touch with squadron associations, reunions?
HK: Oh, I, I kept up with the squadron association, and Path – not, yes, Pathfinder Association, while it was still in force, and then I belonged to the Aircrew Association, we had monthly meetings, and –
NM: Were they locally here?
HK: That was at, that’s at Hemel Hempstead, but there’s another ex-Pathfinder who flew in Mosquitos who lived in Hatch End, and we take it in turns to drive to Hemel, but we were quite fortunate, really, because a lot of the branches had to close because lack of members, but as it’s open to post-war fliers as well, we’ve got quite a few in, in our association, and they help to keep the thing going, in fact, I think all the, apart from one, are post-war fliers, or the, I’m trying to say, the people that control, the – sorry, I, I get mixed up with words sometimes [laughs]! Yeah, but anyway, we keep going.
NM: Okay, that’s fair [?]. How do you think Bomber Command has been treated since the war?
HK: Not very well; in fact, I think in the end, we were quite happy to get the memorial. [Pause] Lot of work has been done to get it organised.
NM: Okay, shall we call it a day there?
HK: Hmm?
NM: Shall we finish the interview there? Are you happy with that, or was there anything else you’d like to talk about with your time in Bomber Command?
HK: I think I’ve covered most things. [Pause] I was telling you about my two friends that joined up before I did, both got shot down, one unfortunately on the Nuremburg raid, and the other one, who was on Stirlings, got shot down over France but parachuted to safety and was looked after by the French until he was – the Americans came. But, so, I was quite fortunate, really.
NM: So, did you find out about your friend’s loss during the war, or was it after the, only after the war, did you find?
HK: It was during the war, yes, I kept in touch with my particular school friend’s mother or parents and heard when he’d got shot down; they didn’t know what had happened to him at the time, of course, yes. [Pause] So I did keep up with that school friend after he’d come back from – to England. One peculiar thing happened was, at the time before he got shot down, he, he’d sent me a picture of him and a bomb aimer, his bomb aimer, and I was showing this to my crew, and my bomb aimer said ‘I know that chap, we’ve been doing training together in Canada!’ But he stayed on to do some training others and so he, he didn’t come, get to this country until well after my school friend’s bomb aimer had come here, but both the bomb aimer and my friend were the only two that managed to get out of the aircraft when it was shot.
NM: And you finished up doing a radar mechanic’s course?
HK: Yes.
NM: After the war.
HK: Ah, yes.
NM: Tell me a little bit about that.
HK: Well, that was quite enjoyable, learning how the radar worked, and after the war, instead of going back – well, I did go back for a while to my original job, which was in an accounts department, in an accounts department in an electric supplier, I decided I wanted to do something a bit more technical, and the GEC at the time were advertising for people for their laboratories, and I went along and got a job in their patents department, and trained – well, I did evening classes, got BSc, then went on to do the patent agent’s exams and stayed there until I retired, retired in ’83 but went on and did five more years part-time, until they moved the whole place to Chelmsford, I decided that was enough [slight laugh].
NM: And you’ve been retired ever since?
HK: Hmm?
NM: You’ve been retired ever since?
HK: Yes.
NM: Okay, I think that’s probably a very good note to finish on.
HK: [Laughs] Yes!
[Recording beeps: interview paused and restarted]
NM: Just continuing the interview with Mr Kirby.
HK: Yes, there were a couple of instances which I remember now, not actually connected with the enemy, but we were due to fly to Munich to bomb something at Munich, and we had to, we were rooted over the Alps in moonlight, which was a beautiful sight to see, and then another occasion, we flew to one of the eastern countries, oh, I could tell you exactly where it is [sound of leafing through pages], and we had to fly over Sweden at the time, and, yes. No, I can’t [pause as HK continues leafing through pages] Ah, Politz. Yes, I had to fly over Sweden, which was quite exciting ‘cause it was all lit up, they did shoot, but we were told that not to worry, they weren’t going to shoot at us. [Laughs] But those are just two instances I happen to remember.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Harold Kirby. One
Creator
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Nigel Moore
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-10
Format
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00:42:44 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AKirbyH150710, PKirbyH1511
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Harold Kirby joined up the Royal Air Force encouraged by two friends, but ended up training as a flight mechanic at RAF Halton on medical grounds. Harold became them airframe fitter, volunteered as a flight engineer, passed the physical but was then posted as a fitter at RAF Binbrook for six months with 460 Squadron. He was then at RAF Saint Athan to train as a flight engineer, then to RAF Winthorpe Heavy Conversion Unit with an all-Australian aircrew. Harold recollects a crash landing at RAF Woodbridge, followed by attending Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Syerston. He was then posted to 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington. Discusses bombing operations over France V-1 weapons sites, a bomb falling through a wing, and crash landing at RAF Wittering. Harold was eventually posted to 97 Pathfinder Squadron at RAF Coningsby, owing to his array of skills and multiple qualifications. Discusses post war training as radar mechanic, employment at the General Electric Company and reunions with his Australian aircrew.
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
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1942
Language
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eng
460 Squadron
467 Squadron
8 Group
97 Squadron
aircrew
bomb struck
bombing
crash
crewing up
fitter airframe
flight engineer
flight mechanic
forced landing
ground crew
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
mechanics airframe
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Binbrook
RAF Coningsby
RAF Halton
RAF St Athan
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Wainfleet
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Wittering
RAF Woodbridge
recruitment
Stirling
training
V-1
V-weapon
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/888/11127/AHughesWH151021.1.mp3
33613f53da69484a983e122f2ed1e463
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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Hughes, Harry
William Henry Hughes
W H Hughes
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Harry Hughes DFC DFM (- 2023, 159079 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 102 Squadron and then with a Mosquito Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Hughes, WH
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HH: It’s all in the book, I think, mainly, isn’t it?
AS: Most of it is, but we need to get it on tape. I think. This is an interview with Harry Hughes, flight lieutenant Harry Hughes DFC DFM, a navigator in wartime Bomber Command on 102 Squadron and then later on Mosquitos. My name is Adam Sutch and the interview is being conducted at Harry’s home in St Ives. Harry, thank you ever so much for agreeing to this interview. Perhaps we can start by going over a little your early days. I believe, you were born in Dorset.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Okay. Did you have brothers and sisters?
HH: A sister, yeah. But I went to school in Sherborne, the Grammar School in Sherborne not the big school, not the public school. And, it was a good school but there we are, I think it was a good school anyway but they’ve, in their wisdom they’ve closed it down now and they amalgamated with the Lord Digby school, ‘cause the Lord Digby school is gonna cost too much to repair or something and I think some builder wanted to get hold of their building anyway and make flats out of it. You know, usual thing.
AS: Yeah. How did you get on at school? What were your subjects? What did you do well at in school?
HH: Mainly in maths. I got a distinction in Maths and a distinction in Physics and Chemistry. Otherwise I got all passes except English language in which I got, I didn’t fail, I got a pass, just got a pass so I didn’t get my ‘tric. Did so⸻
AS: Sorry.
HH: Anyway that’s beside the point. Anyway I left there in 1940 and my very first job was a night watchman for some lady at Lewisham Manor near Sherborne, who lost all her staff and she wanted somebody to be in the house at night and to patrol the grounds. While I went round the grounds once, no, never again, it was too bloody scary [laughs].
AS: Things that go bump in the night.
HH: Yeah, there was hooting and things [laughs]. Anyway that’s beside the point.
AS: But this was 1940. Was this, was the Battle of Britain going on over your head or had that finished?
HH: Yes, yeah.
AS: What, was that what pushed you towards the air force or?
HH: No. Well, I think. Well, what pushed me towards the air force was the fact that I went, my father wanted me to join the navy and I, I went down to Portsmouth to sit an exam to be a writer or a supply probationer [unclear] his own clerk, and I didn’t fancy that, but anyway they gave you twelve blocks of pounds, shillings and pence to add up that way and then you had to add up that way and then you had to add them all up across and then the figure you got down here and the figure you got down here should have been the same. Mine was nowhere near. Anyway.
AS: But your maths were good so, you threw it really, didn’t you?
HH: Pardon?
AS: Did you deliberately mess up, because your maths were good.
HH: Yeah. Yes, I know, but not the accountancy type [laughs]. Anyway, we then, coming back on the train, I was pretty certain I’d failed, so, coming back on the train, I had to change at Salisbury and I had about an hour to waste, wait at Salisbury so I went in the town and I saw an RAF recruiting office. So I went in there and saw a sergeant there and I signed on for aircrew.
AS: Just like that?
HH: Yeah. And they took me on as a pilot or navigator and then I had to go to Oxford for attestation and I went there and with all the gunners from South Wales and what have you became gunners rather, from the mines, you know, and so that’s how I came to be in the air force.
AS: Okay. Did you go through the aircrew recruiting centres in London at Lord’s and?
HH: Yes, I was the first one there.
AS: Really?
HH: Very first one to go there, I think. In July ‘41, I suppose, yeah.
AS: That’s pretty early. What, what happened then? They’ve taken you into the air force at that stage, I suppose, you didn’t know what you were going to do.
HH: Well, we went to ITW and⸻
AS: Where was that?
HH: Down Torquay, which is very nice and, I’ve got my bloody reading glasses on, no wonder I can’t see, and then I was sent down to America to train.
AS: Okay.
HH: In the United States Air Force.
AS: Straight from Initial Training Wing.
HH: Yes. Straight from ITW. We didn’t get a chance. Later on they used to, they did a little course on Tiger Moths up on somewhere in the world, somewhere up that way.
AS: So, you hadn’t actually flown in an aircraft when you went to.
HH: No.
AS: How did you, obviously they wouldn’t fly you over, but how did you get across the Atlantic, in a convoy or?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Okay. What was that called?
HH: I went out on a ship called the Highland Princess, which I ended up selling. I sold the Highland Princess, the Highland Brigade and the Highland Monarch.
AS: Presumably not during the war when you got there.
HH: No. Four of them, I sold them in about ’51, or ’52, something like that
AS: Okay. So, you’re going across the Atlantic in convoy. Was the ship crowded? What was the conditions like?
HH: Well, we were in hammocks, you know, on meat hooks in the, you hung your hammock on meat hooks in the lower hold, you know?
AS: Gosh.
HH: And we are right up on the stern of the ship because every time the, I think she was twin screwer if I remember rightly, because every time the ship rolled the prop shoot [mimics a sound] [laughs].
AS: Is that the prop coming out of the water?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Gosh! Gosh, and so, there must have been hundreds of men on the ship with you.
HH: Yeah.
AS: All [unclear]
HH: The one thing you found out, you had to hang on to your four and a half hat because one went missing, what did he do? Go and pinch another one. So, it went all round the ship [laughs]. [unclear]
AS: Like measles, isn’t it? Yes, yeah, absolutely.
HH: Yeah, I remember that so, I hid mine, anyway.
AS: So, you went across in uniform with
HH: Yeah.
AS: Hundreds of other people.
HH: No, when we got to, we were being issued with, at Wilmslow I think it was in Cheshire, we’d been issued with a grey flannel suit to wear in America, ‘cause we all had to go down grey worsted suits, you know.
AS: Ah, ‘cause America wasn’t in the war then.
HH: ‘Cause they weren’t in the war then, yeah.
AS: Right.
HH: So, and so we went down to Maxwell Field in Alabama first of all for acclimatization.
AS: Wait, where did the ship come in?
HH: Halifax.
AS: Oh, so you landed in Canada.
HH: Went to Canada first, yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: And then, I think, yes I think we were there, we were trained down to Toronto, I think, and then we went from Toronto down to Alabama, to Maxwell Field, to Montgomery, Alabama.
AS: Okay. Was the whole journey really well organised⸻
HH: Oh yeah.
AS: Or was is the usual service mess up?
HH: No.
AS: No. It was good?
HH: It was good, yeah, everything seemed to go to plan I think, pretty well.
AS: How were you received at Montgomery, at Maxwell Air Force base?
HH: Oh, pretty well. In fact, the very first Sunday we were there, first weekend we were there, the American officer came round and, when we were having lunch, and he said, there’s a fair in town at the moment and they’ve heard that you boys are here, so we’d like you, they’d like you to come along and be their guest. So we thought we were going there but no, it was a scam, we were all scammed out of our money. Yeah, so we woke up in the morning, everybody had lost all their money, it was a real American type scam you know and I saw a coach loading up with American service people all in uniform. So I said, ‘Where is this coach going?’ ‘Oh’, he said, one of them said, ‘We are going to a little village called Prattville just outside of Montgomery and we’re going to church and if we’re lucky we will get invited out for lunch afterwards.’ So, I said, ‘Can we come along?’ Then the three of us got on board anyway. And we went in and sang all the hymns [laughs] and, real gospel stuff too it was, yeah.
AS: Deep South, isn’t it?
HH: You know, happy happy-clappy type of fellows, kind of stuff, you know, and anyway afterwards all the American were all invited out to lunch and we were there, standing there, wondering what the hell to do, because it was a long walk back to Maxwell from Prattville ‘bout twelve miles I should think and then suddenly this lovely blonde comes up, she says, ‘You all from Maxwell?’ I said, ‘Yeah, as a matter of fact, we are.’ ‘Oh’, she says, ‘Matter of fact what sort of language is that?’ she says. ‘Well’, I says, ‘Well, you probably wouldn’t understand but we are English’ [laughs]. ‘Oh’, she says, ‘English, you are English?’ And she rushed around and she got all the Americans to cancel so that we were all invited to and she was a daughter of a, she collared me anyway and the other two were taken off somewhere else, I don’t know where. And then, we had lunch and her father was the local judge and he said afterwards, after we had lunch, he said, ‘I guess you would like to take my daughter out for a drive, would you? We gotta a nice Buick in the back. Buick with a steering column for your change’ and I didn’t even have a licence [unclear] never mind [laughs]. Never mind, and I got in anyway and I drove her out, bit of snogging and came back. And that was that and I never saw her again, she, I heard later she married an American navy pilot, who got killed in the Pacific. Yeah. So I could have followed it up if I wanted to but I didn’t but by that time I was back in Canada anyway.
AS: So when did the serious business of learning to fly start and how did that go?
HH: Pardon?
AS: When did the serious business of learning to fly start and how did that go?
HH: Well, when I go to, we went down to, we were posted from Maxwell Field down to Albany in Georgia to an aerodrome called Darr Aero Tech, that was the owner of the aerodrome, I think, Darr Aero Tech. And it’s still there, I was there not long ago. And so, I suddenly had to do a flight commander’s check and he decided, he decided to wash me out so I went back up to Canada and trained as a navigator.
AS: On the flying piece, how much flying did you do? Do you think it was fair that you got washed out?
HH: No.
AS: How did that come about?
HH: Well, they wanted, they, the Air Ministry wanted as many people washed out as possible who could train as navigators, bomb aimers and gunners and what have you. They weren’t too short of gunners but they.
AS: I believe you had an instructor with a German sounding name.
HH: Oh yeah. Schmidt.
AS: Schmidt.
HH: Yeah, that was a joke really. That was in the book, wasn’t it? Yeah.
AS: So maybe he sabotaged your flying career, your piloting career. So, I presume that a lot of people were washed out at this stage.
HH: They were, but [unclear] was never washed out.
AS: Wow.
HH: Over eighty percent. I know it was a whole lot of us came back. And on Pearl Harbour, the day of Pearl Harbour we were giving an exhibition rugby match in the town. And suddenly over the tannoy came an announcement that Pearl Harbour had been attacked by the Japanese and so everybody went home, they all packed up and went home. So we went home as well. And that night, I had a place I used to get under the wire and go into town at night, you know [laughs] and when I came back to get under the wire there was a man there with a gun [laughs]. And he was trying to shoot me because he thought I was a Japanese. He said, look mate, I don’t like your look, you look like a bloody Japanese [laughs].
AS: Did you go out of through the gate after that?
HH: No. Well, I didn’t bother after that.
AS: So.
HH: I went back, well, the following day we were on the train to go back up to Canada.
AS: Is that quick?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Flight commander’s test and then pack your kit and off you go.
HH: About for, about a week later I suppose I was back, I was on the train going back up to Canada. And it’s quite an experience travelling by train out in America, isn’t it? In those days with the dining cars and everything, and the bars and but we had to change, we were on what was called the Chattanooga Choo Choo, but going the wrong way [laughs]. We were going there, were going north but the Chattanooga Choo Choo goes, comes south, doesn’t it? But we were on that line anyway. And I remember we stopped off in Boston and we had a bit of a wait there so we decided to go into town, we never did see Boston because we got on the way into town, we got attacked by these Irish Americans.
AS: For being British?
HH: We had taken them into the war.
AS: Okay.
HH: It’s our fault but [laughs]. And they were at war now. And they’d be getting called up and be killed. And then anyway we got away with that alright.
AS: You were physically attacked?
HH: Yeah, yeah. They had knives and God knows what. They weren’t very nice people. Anyway, I say Irish American but I imagine they were Irish Americans, being in Boston, wouldn’t you?
AS: Big population there, isn’t it?
HH: So, then I went to Trenton where I was interviewed by a group captain and he was Raymond Mass‘s brother.
AS: God lord, Raymond Mass of the Agfa?
HH: Yeah. It was his brother. He looked just like him too. Yeah. And.
AS: Was that a sympathetic interview?
HH: Yes, yeah.
AS: You wanted to be a pilot and then suddenly that stopped. Was the system generally sympathetic to you?
HH: Oh yes. So they were quite keen to take me on as a navigator. And so then I went from there to Quebec City, L’Ancienne-Lorette. And from there up to Rivers in Manitoba. Which was a dry town, that was, Prohibition there.
AS: Oh dear. Good lord.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Were you in uniform by this time? RAF uniform?
HH: Yeah. Wearing a Canadian uniform in fact [laughs]. They issued us with a Canadian uniform, which were quite smart actually. And they were very similar to ours but the cloth is a little kinder, shall we say?
AS: So, you’re in Prohibition and you went out, presumably looking for a drink, do you?
HH: Well, we knew that Mont-Joli was dry but there was a little, there was a port just down the river called Rimouski, which was a timber port mainly. I remember when I took my Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers exams, one of the questions was, could you explain what were the, how many and what sort of cargo was exported from Rimouski, well everybody else thought it was in Russia, didn’t’ they? [laughs]
AS: But you had a clear mental picture.
HH: Yeah, I’ve seen it. Anyway, we were trying to, we were drinking some, we went to a bar and we were drinking this clear liquid, we had asked for whiskey but they served us up with this clear whiskey, clear liquid and when we were coming back in a taxi we were, we’d had about two each of these, we were all very sick we had to stop the taxi we were really sick and we saw afterwards that [unclear] don’t drink anything that is given to you because there is a stuff called alcool which is made from wood alcohol and it’s can make you blind.
AS: It’s like drinking anti-freeze, isn’t it?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Gosh, lucky escape!
HH: And so that was that. So then from Mont-Joli we went to the staff end course at Rivers in Manitoba which was astronavigation, advanced navigations course it was.
AS: What was the basic navigation course? What was your basic navigation training like? Was it mostly classroom or?
HH: A lot of in the air.
AS: What were you flying in?
HH: Ansons. Yeah. Mark 1 Ansons you had to wind up the undercarriage, you remember?
AS: Yeah. Did you take to it easily, to the navigation, because of your maths proficiency or?
HH: Oh yes, yeah.
AS: And you found it easy to be an accurate navigator?
HH: Yes, I mean, you’re training all the time of course and right the way through when I came home from Rivers, came home over on the Union-Castle ship, called the Cape Town Castle, which I didn’t sell. And, what’s the time?
AS: Now.
HH: [alarm clock rings] The taxi, yeah.
AS: Okay. We’ll pause at there, shall we? [recording paused]
HH: Yeah. Astronavigation course A and it was mainly a flying by using star shots yeah. But when I got on the squadron, I mean you had to carry about three sets of books, you know, and a naval almanac as well. Had to work out your star shots. But when I got to the squadron they had a marvellous bit of equipment, a little projector over the navigator’s tail [unclear], which about that high off the table and you had to measure it up with a special stick to make certain it was in focus and on this astrograph there was three stars you could use and, two stars rather, two stars plus Polaris you use to get a three star fix, and you worked out a datum point for the time before you, before you got airborne and drew it on your chart and then you lay your chart down on the table and lined it up with the astrograph and then this projected the position lines of these stars onto your chart. So all, so, the bomb aimer, all the bomb aimer had to do was to take the star charts, he was, my bomb aimer was a trained navigator anyway and I think he’s still alive, I’m not sure, and.
AS: So it was very much team work.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Between you and the bomb aimer but actually on astros. So, you, we jumped straight on to being on the squadron. Did you know, as soon as you started navigator training, that you would be going to Bomber Command?
HH: Well, it’s pretty obvious I would be. Yeah.
AS; Okay. And, so, you finished your training in Canada, came back to the UK by ship, and what happened next before you got on to the squadron?
HH: I went to [unclear], is it Cumberland?
AS: I think Scotland.
HH: Up near Carlisle, north of Carlisle then, between Carlisle and Keswick I suppose. And a little aerodrome there and we learned to fly in wartime conditions, you know, where the balloon barrages were et cetera. Where to avoid them.
AS: And is this when you stepped up from Ansons to bombers?
HH: No, no, this is still on Ansons. And then from there we went down to Hampstead Norris still on Ansons and then we went to Harwell, Hampstead Norris was a satellite of Harwell at the time and then we crewed up with our pilot and wireless operator, I think we already had a wireless operator and we crewed up with bomb aimer and engineer, no, no, we didn’t have an engineer at that time, this is on Wellingtons and.
AS: What were they like the training Wellingtons, were they in good nick, were they ropey old kites or?
HH: No, no, pretty ropey, they were draughty as hell, oh God they were draughty. The wind used to whistle through that fabric, you know. [unclear] construction, wasn’t it?
AS: What was, was there a step up in gear going on to heavier airplanes and operational tactics?
HH: Oh yeah, yeah.
AS: You are moving much more quickly in your calculations and navigation than perhaps when you were training?
HH: We did quite a lot of cross countries and Bullseyes we did in OTU.
AS: What’s Bullseye?
HH: Bullseyes we did down, we’d go down to, say the Channel Islands and experience a little bit of flak there and then we’d come back up again and fly across to Portsmouth or somewhere and fly across the coast there or else we’d fly, out to the North Sea towards Denmark and come back into Hull.
AS: So this was almost a simulated bombing mission, was that?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Training, for training. Okay.
HH: They were called Bullseyes anyway in cooperation with the army, I suppose, with the the ack-ack.
AS: So, when you’re at OTU, you’re on Wellingtons.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: Then we went up to a place called Riccall in Yorkshire, near Selby, and we had to, we trained, we converted onto Halifaxes.
AS: What, can you remember what year, what month this would be when you?
HH: Well, that would be about Christmas of, just around Christmas in ’42, I suppose.
AS: Wow, so what type of Halifax would this be? The Merlin one or the?
HH: The Merlin one, yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: Yes, so the Hali, Hali 1, what’s his name? Not Gibson, what the hell was his name?
AS: Cheshire?
HH: No. Gus Walker.
AS: Gus, oh yeah, yeah.
HH: He was a lovely man, Gus was, and he’d taken out, all the mid upper turret and the front nose cone as well, there is a very big heavy turret in the front nose and like the Lanc was, you know. And then, it’s pretty useless that front turret was but anyway. Then, eventually we got the Hali II.1 A which had a four gun [unclear] turret on the top, yes, same as on the Hali 3.
AS: So your mid upper then got his job back.
HH: Yeah.
AS: So, Gus Walker he took these turrets out to save weight, to carry more bombs?
HH: To save weight, yeah. Just to save weight, to make it improve performance a bit. And get a better height. I better ring up my taxi.
AS: So, by taking the turrets off, Gus Water was giving his aircrews more of a chance really, wasn’t he?
HH: Yeah, but then later on they improved the, we still had the Merlin 22s, same as the Lanc had, you know. Merlin 22s, but the Mark II.1 A was a much better aircraft, you could get up to, you know, eighteen, twenty, twenty one, twenty two thousand.
AS: Loaded?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Which is, you were at the same height as the Lancs. And the Lancs had the habit of dropping their bombs on you. Which happened on our very first trip. We went to, we were waiting to have a nice easy trip but no, we got Essen. And then, when we were over the, when we were over the target on our bombing run but a whole lot of bombs dropped on us, a whole lot of incendiaries dropped on us and the engineer and myself had to go back and kick them out the door [laughs] and which is good practice actually, because it happened to us again over Wuppertal.
AS: Really?
HH: But that time there was a, I think it was a two thousand pounder or a thousand pounder, I don’t know, and it came and took our port rudder right off, and the port tail and the port tail blade yeah.
AS: And what sort of problems did that give the pilot?
HH: Mh?
AS: What sort of problems did that give the pilot?
HH: Well, we found, she was, it was still flying alright but I found that we were crabbing a bit. And I remember seeing a light below and I said, take a drift on that, would you? And anyway we found that we were crabbing quite about ten degrees to port, I think, yeah.
AS: So you do all your sums again and take that out by adjusting the.
HH: No, I just took ten degrees off every course [laughs]. Yeah.
AS: That must have been quite a hairy landing I would think.
HH: No, [unclear], yeah. I can’t remember it being anything but normal.
AS: Wow.
HH: And when we got back, the little corporal in charge of our ground crew, he came out, what the bloody hell have you done to my aircraft! [laughs] as if it was our fault, you know.
AS: Did you fly your own regular aircraft that you got attached to?
HH: Yes, yeah. D, we always flew in D, until one time we let, we were on leave and I think it was an Australian pilot took it and he was very conscious of saving fuel. So he throttled right back coming back and the result was that the, when we went to run the engine up the following day, the engine started to shake, port engine started to shake and suddenly the prop came off and went right through where I’d be normally sitting and sliced my table in half, but I was in the rest position now for take-off you know.
AS: Wow. So that was one of your nine lives gone?
HH: Yeah. I tell that story I say, as you can see I’m still here [laughs]. I wasn’t sitting there at the time.
AS: So, did they repair the aeroplane or was that the demise of D-Dog?
HH: But that was it finished, D-Dog was finished then and we got the Mark 2.1 A then.
AS: Still as D-Dog or was there a superstition about that?
HH: No. We were still with D, yeah. But, Jackie Miles, he was our mid upper gunner, he was really pleased to get that. We got four guns, he was really happy [laughs]. But it was much safer to have somebody in a blister looking down underneath.
AS: Is that what he used to do before he got the target?
HH: Yeah. Yes, and he used to put it in his log book, duty, rear gunner’s me [laughs].
AS: Yeah. On, when you were on ops, had the idea of the bomber stream come in by then?
HH: Oh yes. Yes, we were on the very first time they dropped, the Pathfinders used Oboe on the Essen raids. I think it was first used on the 5th of March, wasn’t it?
AS: I don’t know, 1943. This was.
HH: Yeah, ’43, ’43 by this time, yeah.
AS: So, it was quite early on in the idea of the Pathfinders.
HH: Yeah.
AS: So, you went on ops just as the stream and the concentration were starting to take place. I know you were deep in the bowels of the aeroplane at your navigation table. Did you, did the crew see other aircraft around them, feel the other aircraft around them?
HH: No, you are in the slipstream the whole time. Especially when you got near the target, when you’re on your final run, you sort of you feel the slipstream and you have got to remember that five percent of our losses were due to collisions, it has been estimated.
AS: That’s a high percentage.
HH: I think we were told that at the time to be extra vigiliant, you know.
AS: Against the dangers of collision. What about enemy aircraft on your first tour? Did you have any encounters with the German night fighters?
HH: Oh yeah. [unclear], he shot down two, he shot down a Ju 88 and an Me 110 I think it was, yeah.
AS: And this, this was your rear gunner.
HH: And he had a problem as well. A lot of Battle of Britain pilots would have given their eye tooth for a score like that. Probably would have gotten a DSO and a DFC.
AS: [laughs] there are a lot of unsung deeds in Bomber Command.
HH: Anyway then we finished up in October ’43 and I got sent up to 6 Group, it was a Canadian crew.
AS: With the Canadians. How did you?
HH: And they wanted everybody to be Canadians, you know. They didn’t want an English instructor so I got, I quickly got posted down to 3 Group. And
AS: Somewhere along the way you, you picked up the DFM. Was that during your first tour?
HH: Yes, was the first tour.
AS: And what was the story behind your DFM?
HH: I don’t know really. It’s not in the book even, not even in the, my citation is not there, there’s a book of DFMs in the RAF, book of DFCs and DFMs. And I think there was an Australian, called Cameron, he found this book of DFMs but I don’t know, I think Gus Walker probably. You see, I’d broken my left foot, I’d broken a bone in my left foot and what with having leave, we were due for leave I went on leave on with my foot in plaster, came back and had the plaster taken off and then I fell off my bicycle [laughs]. Didn’t help. So, the doc said, ‘Right, I’m going to keep you in hospital until your foot’s cured. I don’t want any arguments.’ And the following day Sam came in, he said, we are on tonight, [unclear] and they want me to take a spare navigator and I said, ‘No way, Sam, let’s go and see the doc.’ The doc was in a good mood ‘cause he was going on leave. So, have you read all this before?
AS: No.
HH: So, [pause] he said, ‘Alright you, you can go this time, but’, he says, ‘Provided you come back into hospital as soon as you get back. If you get back’, he said, ‘If you get back.’ So, he then went on leave. Anyway, I duly arrived at main briefing, done my navigation briefing, I think we came at main briefing and Gus Walker was on the door. And Gus said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m on crutches you see. I’m going on ops.’ And he said, ‘Why?’ ‘I don’t where my crew is going, I don’t want them to go without me.’ ‘Well, oh alright then.’ So I went in and we went to Berlin that night. And when I got back, Gus was still on the station. ‘Cause he was in charge of three squadrons, wasn’t he? Up there. And he said, ‘Right, young Hughes,’ he says, ‘I’ve been hearing all about you, he says, ‘It’s alright, I’ll take you back to the hospital myself.’ And then I got in his car and he tore me off a bit of a mild strip for being irresponsible and some of that and then as I got out, he said, ‘Bloody good show anyway, Hughes.’ And I think it was he who recommended me for a DFM, I don’t know, probably.
AS: Excellent. It’s a wonderful, wonderful story. What happened, you said, you tried the book in the RAF club to find your citation. Have you explored anywhere else, to try and find the DFM citation?
HH: I did write to some time ago, I don’t know, I think they did, you get from RAF records I think.
AS: Okay.
HH: Because I wrote to them the other day and asked them if, ‘cause I had a letter from them to say that I could retain the rank, substantive rank of flight lieutenant when I finished in the reserve and use the courtesy rank of squadron leader. But I’ve never used it. So I thought it would be a nice thing to have on my tombstone, so I wrote and asked them if that still pertained, shall we say.
AS: And you are still waiting for a reply.
HH: Well, they wrote back to me and said that I’d have to give them some more proof of who I was, you know, passports, et cetera so I sent them up a copy of my, one of my utility bills and my council tax demand.
AS: Well, hopefully that’s good enough.
HH: It only went off last week, so we will have to wait and see.
AS: You mentioned briefings. I know the targets were different and the weather was different, but could you give me some idea of an average preparation for a mission from waking up in the morning to taking off. Is that possible, that sort of things that?
HH: Yeah, because you went down to the, you went down to the flights and you stood in the apron outside the squadron offices and at ten to ten on the dot, if you were on that night, the phone would ring. You knew you were on that night then and then, but if you waited and waited until ten past ten the phone would ring again to say the squadron’s stood down by which time we had all disappeared ‘cause we’d all. Didn’t want to go to on a bloody route march or something [unclear].
AS: So it was all incredibly secret but the routine gave it away.
HH: Yeah [laughs].
AS: So if the phone call came at ten to ten, you knew you were on ops that night, what would happen then?
HH: Well I did, we’d go down to our aircraft and check all the equipment in it and then if necessary you take it up on an air test and then you were back on the ground again by, about eleven, eleven thirty, and then you’d either come back and go to lunch and or else you’d and then after you’d had lunch you’d go on for navigation briefing at about two o’clock.
AS: So the navigator was the first person in the crew to know where you were going, what timing was.
HH: Yes, we knew where we were going, yeah.
AS: Was that a very full briefing, with weather? Is this when you drew up your courses, you got your turning points and what not?
HH: Sorry?
AS: Was this a very full briefing?
HH: Oh yeah, well, the navigation briefing, yes, you got your various tracks you had to go on to and hopefully they’re taking you around the defended areas you know.
AS: The flak and the searchlights, yeah. Was there a lot of work involved for you to prepare your charts?
HH: Yes, it took quite a time. You were mainly with your bomb aimer to help you, you know. Harry Hoover, my bomb aimer was a trained navigator, he trained in South Africa I think.
AS: So, you two were the only ones that knew at the navigation briefing the target. Was it difficult to keep it secret from your skipper and your crew?
HH: Oh no, you didn’t have to keep it secret but you just told the rest of the crew where we’re going so all this business about being a gasp when they, when the curtains were pulled across from the map.
AS: Probably you already knew.
HH: We all knew where we were going by that time, at least my crew did.
AS: So, you’ve done your navigation briefing and what happened then? Just sit around waiting for the main crew briefing or did you have duties to do?
HH: No, we just, by the time you finished doing the nav, it’s about time for the main briefing and then having done the main briefing you then went for an ops breakfast. The ops breakfast, which was bacon and eggs, baked beans, all the things you shouldn’t eat.
AS: Baked beans?
HH: Yeah.
AS: And you’re flying at twenty thousand feet.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Oh, that could have been interesting. What was the atmosphere like? Was there a lot of tension? Was there a lot of horseplay? Was there a lot of fear? What was the atmosphere like?
HH: I don’t know, I can’t remember now, there was a feeling of are we gonna make it or not, you know.
AS: Was that a personal thing or something that you talked about with the crew?
HH: I would never, never, never, never, my mid upper gunner, he, one day, we were in our room, I shared a room with him and he packed up all his biscuits on his bed and folded up all the blankets and sheets. What are you doing that for? And he said, ‘I don’t think we are gonna come back. So I’m putting the things in order now.’ And he got all his paperwork out and everything, letters and everything to his wife and things.
AS: What did that do to your morale?
HH: Well, I wasn’t, I wasn’t very happy about it but it was a scrub that night anyway. Then he said, afterwards he said, ‘God, good job we didn’t go to [unclear] because we weren’t going to come back.’ He knew.
AS: But after that on future trips he was fine.
HH: Well, I said, ‘Don’t you ever do that again, Jackie, I said, ‘You never do a thing like that again.’
AS: Tempting fate. What about off duty, what sort of things did you, you guys get up to that you can talk about?
HH: Sorry?
AS: Off duty, did you get much time off to yourself? Or to yourselves as a crew?
HH: Yeah. We, I used to go out with, mainly with another crew ‘cause all our crew, our skipper was commissioned, so we were all and the rest of them, Jackie Miles he lived in Leeds so when he had an evening off, he went back to Leeds and the rear gunner was the same, he was somewhere just outside Leeds. Sam was from Leeds as well, the pilot, so it was only the engineer and myself.
AS: So you latched onto another crew for the,
HH: Yeah.
AS: The social element.
HH: Yes, [unclear] crew, yeah. I was pretty friendly with his navigator but he got killed.
AS: And did the rest of the crew come back?
HH: Yeah.
AS: And brought him back?
HH: They brought him back, yeah.
AS: Your, we were talking about your navigation training and astro, during your time, your first tour on ops, did you start to get Gee in the aeroplane or any other navigational aids that you used?
HH: We had Gee.
AS: You had Gee.
HH: Right from the start, yeah. We had the Mark 1 Gee which was, used to have to tune it, the narrow knobs on the side and you had to tune it to get a signal and it’s like tuning one of those. Televisions, you know.
AS: Keep wandering off. Did you, was it as a big revolution in navigation as people say?
HH: The Gee was, yeah.
AS: The Gee was, it really did make a difference.
HH: Yeah, well, it did make a difference because, but you didn’t get it beyond the Dutch coast, it wouldn’t work beyond the Dutch coast but you had we, well, you had LORAN later, in Mosquitos we had Gee and LORAN. In fact, it really annoys me now to hear the met men talking about the jet stream because we found the very first jet stream. I found a wind of a hundred and ninety five knots at thirty thousand feet.
AS: Tailwind.
HH: Hundred and ninety five knots and when we got back, I told the met man, I said, ‘I got a wind of a hundred and ninety five knots and you were forecasting forty five to fifty knots.’ He said, ‘I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it!’ So he went to Group headquarters and the Group headquarters said we don’t believe it. They went to Command headquarters and the met people up there said they didn’t believe it either. But then everybody else came back with these winds and they suddenly realised what was called jet streams but now they talk about jet streams all the time. And what they mean is where the warm front, the warm tropical front meets the polar maritime front and all the way along that you get depressions form and then, and with it you get this so-called jet stream would form as well. Ah, so which comes first? The frontal systems or the jet stream?
AS: Must be the fronts, must be the fronts. So, when you are doing your tour, you’d had the nasty experience of being bombed twice by your own people, probably 5 Group above you.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Was that the limit of the difficulties you had? Was the aeroplane mechanically reliable or did you suffer?
HH: Oh, we, came back on three engines more times than we came back on four.
AS: Really?
HH: Yeah. I think we came back on three engines eleven times out of our tour.
AS: And what did your ground crew chief say to that?
HH: Well, it wasn’t their fault, necessarily, well, he didn’t think it was anyway.
AS: It’s just overstraining them, is it, full fuel, full bombload climb to heights. Coming back from the raids, what was your pilot like? Was he one of those that, wanted to pour on the coal and get home early or did he stick to heights and courses as briefed or?
HH: Well, he couldn’t do much else with a Halifax. But when I was on Mosquitos, with our New Zealand pilot, we were always first back [laughs]. Yeah.
AS: Becomes a matter of pride. On your first tour still perhaps we can talk a bit more about that. As you got towards the end, did the, you knew presumably you were going to stop on, what, thirty trips?
HH: Well, I did twenty six in fact.
AS: Okay.
HH: Which we were screened two trips early. I would have done twenty eight for my first tour, ‘cause the pilot had already done two second Dickey trips to start with. [door bell rings] That’s my taxi now.
AS: Okay.
HH: So I’ll just pause this. [recording paused] We were just talking about your tour length. The question I was going to ask is did you feel a real rising tension as you got towards the end of your tour?
HH: But we didn’t know we were towards the end, we thought we had another two trips to do.
AS: Okay.
HH: But, I remember Sam coming in and he says, ‘I have some good news for you, we’re screens and you’re off on leave from tomorrow. You are all going on leave tomorrow.’
AS: What did that feel like?
HH: Mh?
AS: What did that feel like?
HH: Ah, it was good feeling but I forget what happened now. When I was on Mosquitos I think when I was doing my last trip on Mosquitos ‘cause you had to do fifty on Mosquitos you see for a tour.
AS: So, you finished on 102 Squadron and were there many crews that went all the way through like yours did?
HH: No, not a great deal, I wish I had the [unclear] I’ve got it somewhere, might be in that case there, book of all the losses, you know. 102 Squadron losses.
AS: Oh, perhaps we can look at that tomorrow or now if you like.
HH: Well I, it might be in that case, I’m not sure.
AS: Let’s pause this and we’ll go and have a look. [recording paused]
AS: Harry, good morning, it’s day two of our interview sessions. It’s very good of you to agree to this interview. Can we start by going back to your first tour of operations during the Battle of the Ruhr on Halifaxes. Were you conscious at the time that this was a major battle or was it just one job after another?
HH: We were trying to hit Germany where it hurt, ‘cause we didn’t only go to the Ruhr and we went to places like Pilsen, and then we did Nuremberg and Munich and.
AS: Were you briefed on specific targets in these cities and told what you were going after?
HH: Oh, we knew that Essen was the Krupp works, yeah, and we were given a good, pretty good briefing by the intelligence officer what we were gonna hit because one time we went, we were going to. There was almost a mutiny one day because they were sending to some place I forget, Gelsenkirchen or somewhere, I forget where it was now, and [pause]
AS: What happened then? What was the mutiny all about?
HH: Well, the intelligence officer said that he didn’t know why we were going there, there was nothing there, there was just a spa town that we were going to hit but what we didn’t know, of course, it was a leave centre for the Gestapo and the place was full of the Gestapo officers and but you know initially we said, no, why are we going there, you know? And there was almost not exactly a mutiny but it was a fear of you know, why are we bombing this place, we probably would just hit a lot of women and children.
AS: So, this was 1943. So even at that stage.
HH: This is ’45. ‘43 rather.
AS: So, even at that stage there were some concerns amongst the crews about what you were doing and where you were going.
HH: Yeah, we didn’t, the Hamburg raids for example. That’s the first time there was a real firestorm and we went on three or four of those raids, I forget now, it’s in the book, Hamburg in July ’43. That book is falling to bits, isn’t it?
AS: Well, it happens to all of us, doesn’t it? As we get older. Here we go, 24th of July ’43 and the 27th of July ‘43. Ops Hamburg, yeah. And then the 2nd of August.
HH: Yeah, the 2nd of August when we, we’d already realised that the firestorms, you know, in then, we were dropping our incendiaries first and setting fire to places and then dropping four thousand pounders, two and four thousand pounders on top of the fires which, that’s why it’s called the firestorm, the blast from the comparatively thin-cased two thousand pounders and what have you, would suck in the air and the oxygen, you know, and cause these firestorms.
AS: So, the thin-cased bombs would blow the roofs off and then the incendiaries would go inside and.
HH: Well, you know, in that, wish I could find that, you could sit and watch that, the CD I’ve got somewhere in there of.
AS: Is it of a Hamburg raid?
HH: Pardon?
AS: Is it of a Hamburg raid?
HH: Yes, the first or second of the Hamburg raids which caused the firestorm. And I remember watching this from over the bomb aimer’s shoulder and watching these fires spreading and I remember saying, I felt very sorry for the people down there.
AS: At that time.
HH: At that time, yeah. In fact I said a little prayer for them.
AS: Is this something you discussed with the crew or any of your friends?
HH: Not really, no. I just said a prayer to myself, yeah.
AS: And was that really specific to Hamburg or to?
HH: Just to Hamburg, yeah. ‘Cause that was where the firestorms first started. Well, it was worst then Dresden actually.
AS: I believe so in the numbers lost. So, your first tour was absolutely in the thick of what we call the Battle of the Ruhr and extremely, extremely difficult and dangerous missions.
HH: The people who came after me, they’d done Hamburg and the Battle of the Ruhr, and then they had to follow on doing the Battle of Berlin. You can find my very last trip was to Berlin I think, no, it was Hanover. It was one of my last trips was to Berlin, that’s when I went on crutches, yeah.
AS: Home on three engines, that one?
HH: Was that Berlin?
AS: Yes, 23rd of August. And then you did a Munich and a Hanover. What was Berlin like? Was it special, was it the
HH: Pardon?
AS: Was Berlin perhaps the best defended target? What was Berlin like?
HH: It was the length of the trip really. You know, on heavies, on Lancs and heavies it took us eight and a half hours there and back. What’s it say there? [paper rustling]
AS: Seven hours fifteen, that’s still an incredible time. People talk about eight hour days, and that was a full day’s work at night.
HH: Was a full day’s work was being shot at too.
AS: And, I mean, was Berlin the best defended target, do you think or was that the Ruhr, perhaps?
HH: No, I think, I don’t think it was as bad as the Ruhr but it was, there was plenty of activity there but mainly a lot of fighter activity there over the target, over Berlin.
AS: And you, you could see the enemy?
HH: Oh yeah. They were coned and searchlights one time I was on Mosquitos, there was two Mosquitos, an Fw 190, and an Me 109, all on the same cone.
AS: Wow!
HH: And there is a painting of that somewhere. I described it, you know. And there is a painting somewhere that is called Berlin Express. And [unclear] have got the original.
AS: Okay, I’ll look for that.
HH: [unclear] then.
AS: Okay. Some trips to France as well. Le Creusot. You weren’t after a saucepan factory there were you, what was, can you remember what that trip was about?
HH: Oh yes, that was, they were manufacturing parts for tanks and things, I think.
AS: Gosh, here, after Le Creusot, Muhlheim, home on two engines.
HH: Yeah [laughs]
AS: What’s the story behind that? Did they just pack up or was it flak or?
HH: Yeah, they just packed up on us yeah, these Merlins were you know they were way overstressed on the Halifax and we came back on two on that occasion, yeah.
AS: After a lot of, after the Hamburgs that we talked about and Berlin, Munich. Now, can you remember that trip? September ’43 to Munich.
HH: Yeah.
AS: First off, first back, in your log book, eight hours, fifty five minutes. Did the stream hold together, the bomber stream hold together over these long distances?
HH: Yeah, you we were all given certain times, you know, you had to be at certain times on all the way along the track, at the various turning points, you know. And I think it did help, you know, no doubt about it and then with the advent of Window of course, it just threw their ground tracking, we had a little device, did I tell you, a little device called Boozer in Mosquitos.
AS: No, you didn’t, no.
HH: We had a little device which, when they were tracking you from the ground, a little yellow light used to glow. But when they were tracking from the air, a red light used to glow. And one night, we were coming back, and somewhere around about the Hamburg, sorry the Bremen Hanover gap, and this red light came on very bright and we knew the red light meant we were being tracked from the air you see. And then suddenly over the top of us, about the height of this building, just came two, I think they were Me 263s,
AS: The jets?
HH: The jets, yeah. Right over the top of us. And they didn’t see us. I got a photograph of a Mosquito somewhere I don’t know what she’s done with it now. I meant to ask her that when she was in last night.
AS: No worries, maybe today. So, this, the 262s had the speed, they were the only ones with the speed to catch you, really.
HH: Yes. They were doing about a hundred knots faster than us. Fifty to a hundred knots faster than us. And they just sailed over the top of us and disappeared in the distance. There were four jets, two of them.
AS: So they had radar airborne in the jets.
HH: Yes.
AS: That is a pretty dangerous development, isn’t it? That was another one of your nine lives gone, really, wasn’t it?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Your slices of luck. Back to your first tour, you, when did you come off ops?
HH: I went to a conversion unit, at a place called Wombleton.
AS: Okay, was that Stirlings?
HH: No, it was Halifaxes actually but.
AS: Okay.
HH: Canadian group, they are mainly on Halifaxes.
AS: In 6 Group, how did you get on with the Canadians?
HH: Not very well.
AS: Really?
HH: No. They are very, they didn’t want to know us, you know, they just wanted to get rid of us as quickly as they could.
AS: I’ve heard this that they were running,
HH: They wanted to run their own show.
AS: [unclear] as part of the Canadian.
HH: I remember getting one crew and I said, I wanted to send them back for further training because the navigator was absolutely hopeless. He really was, he couldn’t, it was like putting, I don’t know, he was thick as two planks, he couldn’t. So, I said if you’re sending this crew with this navigator they don’t stand a chance of getting through, not a chance at all. They’ll be shot down on, within their first five operations, they’ll be shot down.
AS: And do you know whether that came to pass?
HH: No. They didn’t like this, you know, the fact that I’d criticised one of their Canadian crews and I was posted down to 3 Group and, which suited me, and the crew got to squadron, got to a squadron and they did one trip and got hopelessly lost and I heard it afterwards that the CO of the, I think it was Lane, what was his name? Lane. He said, what the hell are you doing sending us crews that are, they should have been send back for further training. And I had recommended that.
AS: Had you been commissioned by this point?
HH: Yes, yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: I was commissioned at the end of my first tour, I think.
AS: What sort of process what that? How did that take place?
HH: Pardon?
AS: How did, what sort of process what that? How did that take place?
HH: I just had an interview, I don’t know, who I had an interview with now, I can’t remember. And I mean after the interview I was then a pilot officer but I was a flight sergeant before and my pay was sixteen shillings a day as a flight sergeant but as a pilot officer I was only going to get fourteen and four pence a day. So they said, oh, we can’t have that so they gave me a six pence rise, six pence a day rise so I was getting fourteen and six a day as a pilot officer. And then eventually when I was a flight lieutenant after a couple of years, I was out in India by that time, and I got, well I was on Indian rates of pay anyway so, it didn’t factor.
AS: Back to the instructing. You finished an operational tour, had some leave and presumably your crew dispersed.
HH: Yeah. Pilot went to Rufforth converting many French Canadians and to go to Elvington, French, I mean French crews rather, French crews to go to Elvington, to 77 Squadron.
AS: Did you keep in touch with any of your crew members after?
HH: I came up to York a couple of times and met Sam, Jackie Miles I used to see and my gunner and Harry [unclear] the, the last time I’ve heard from him, he was up at near Shrewsbury.
AS: You all went to instructors jobs, do you?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Did they teach how to be an instructor or did they just send you off?
HH: No, I just went in and just talked to them and told them where they were going wrong, you know, and how to waste time and things like that.
AS: In the air this is.
HH: Yeah.
AS: So, did you do any formal classroom training of these chaps or was it just, what, supervising in the air and on the ground?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Supervising?
HH: Yeah, just going through their logs and charts individually with them and showing them where they’d gone wrong.
AS: And I believe the same sort of thing used to happen on ops, that when you came back your nav leader would go through your charts, is that right?
HH: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: They’d assess your, that’s the assessment on each one there.
AS: That we saw before.
HH: The little design on his wall, Charlie had, he had sort of a little square beside each one of you and you had two dots for very good, one dot for reasonably good, no dots at all for
AS: Average.
HH: Just average. Yeah.
AS: That’s his way of keeping track. So, on 3 Group, is this when you went to Stirlings? When you were training?
HH: Pardon?
AS: When you left the Canadians and went to 3 Group, that was, what was that, Stirlings, was that the Conversion Unit there?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: Yeah, it’s down at Chedburgh.
AS: Okay.
HH: And, yeah, Chedburgh, near Bury St Edmunds. There was a beer drought down at that time and we used to cycle miles to find a pub with beer [laughs]. Then we’d keep very quiet about it [laughs].
AS: It’s not too bad.
HH: Me and a Canadian called Connors and we wanted to, we’d heard about that 8 Group wanted Mosquito pilots and navigators, so, we both applied to go, we both applied to go back on ops together. So, our first application, we were turned down because, being in 3 Group on Stirlings, you know, they were rather short of crews, and so we were turned down anyway. So we waited a couple of weeks and we applied again and we got turned down again. So that night, I got a tin of black paint from the stores and I wrote a message, a letter on the ceiling of the mess to the group captain, quite a polite letter, would you kindly pull your finger out and get us posted back on ops. We’re fed up with this instructing so could we please get back in so and so and signed it Connor and Hughes. The following day we were up in front of the old man and he said, ‘Right, you’re both going back, no way you’re going on the same crew or on the same squadron. In fact, you go back first, Hughes. Connor will follow you in about two- or three-weeks’ time.’ And this is what happened.
AS: It’s amazing. So you weren’t actually instructing for very long, were you?
HH: No, from October until July, so I suppose six months.
AS: Okay.
HH: And you’re supposed to have six months, at least six months rest, you know? From operations. Between tours.
AS: Okay. And then, in July having arranged your own posting really, you arrive at 1655 MCU. What’s MCU?
HH: Mosquito conversion unit.
AS: Okay.
HH: At Warboys, yeah, and Weston [?].
AS: I imagine this must have been a completely different sort of navigating. Was it?
HH: Oh, just very quick, but you, you wouldn’t think it now but I was very, very neat and tidy in what I did. I knew exactly, I used to keep my pencils in my flying boots, my dividers as well, [unclear] my Douglas protractor I kept in my hat with my dividers, which was behind me and my Dalton and, and then we used to take as your [unclear] fix, as soon as you got airborne, you got to operational high I’d take fix, fix, fix, every three minutes, then work out a tracking ground speed wind velocity and then another three minutes later another fix, a nine minute tracking ground velocity plus the sixth, the latest sixth one and another one, further on, six, and I can tell you exactly which way the wind was going, how far out the met was on their winds.
AS: And these fixes would be visual fixes or Gee fixes or both?
HH: Gee fixes.
AS: Gee fixes.
HH: So I’d take fix, fix, fix, you worked really hard to get the timing, you know, of the.
AS: Whereabouts was the Gee screen in the aeroplane? You were sitting on the right in the [unclear]
HH: I was sitting on the right and the Gee was behind me and LORAN as well.
AS: Okay. So.
HH: Gee and LORAN which was behind me.
AS: So, could you operate the equipment with your harnesses done up?
HH: Oh yeah.
AS: ‘Cause you just turned your head and⸻
HH: I just turned my head. It was just like there, behind me, there, but I could turn easier then and it was there, you know, just behind about there, about that angle to me.
AS: And it is just, as you say, second nature, three minutes, three minutes.
HH: It didn’t take long to take the fix but it took a long time but we, we had charts with the letters, lines of the Gee chart superimposed on top of it. So, this really worked very well.
AS: So, what came up on the Gee screen? What allowed you to compare the screen to the map?
HH: Pardon?
AS: What was the presentation on the Gee screen? What actually came up? Was it numbers or?
HH: Yeah. Well, you just, you could, you worked out, you knew what, you strobed the whichever signal you wanted to take, you know, and then you, you strobed the two of them and then fix and then you just read it off.
AS: I guess it’s, so you gotta an alphanumerical printout did you virtually.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Wow. So that could be done quickly.
HH: It’s quite, it’s very quick to work it all out, yeah, to work it out to get, to actually calculate the winds on your Dalton.
AS: How did you operate at night, because I imagine you had no lights in the cockpit?
HH: Well, we had enough.
AS: Okay.
HH: We had a red light and then, what’s his name? Anderson, our group navigation officer, he found that red, you couldn’t see the red markings on your chart. So, that was all orange and green.
AS: Which was easier to see.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Okay. So, when you’d done your Mosquito conversion unit or at the Mosquito conversion unit, you must have crewed up with a pilot, how did that go?
HH: Well, I had already wanted to fly with this Australian so, when this New Zealander came along, I thought, he’ll do, I crewed up with him.
AS: As simple as that. And did you do, did the aeroplane Mosquito take some getting used to it, so different from a heavy bomber, with different performance and.
HH: Oh yeah.
AS: What was she like to fly in?
HH: It was nice and reasonably fast. And I don’t think you really noticed it until you were doing some low flying.
AS: Shall we take a pause there? Okay. [recording paused]
HH: The Mosquito was, it was terribly difficult for a navigator to get out of.
AS: Why was that?
HH: Well, you had to, first of all you had to get hold of your chute and you kept that on, then you had to jettison two hatches to get out,
AS: Underneath.
HH: Underneath, yeah. Slightly forward towards the nose, yeah. And but by which time your pilot probably gone out of the top and you were spiralling down and the chance of you getting out was pretty slim.
AS: This hatch underneath must have been very close to the starboard propeller.
HH: Yes, we, yeah. Yes, it was quite close, yeah.
AS: Did you practice this on the ground a lot?
HH: No. I don’t think they thought you were, it was worth the risk. But the, a friend of mine used to fly with a man called Gill and he went down, got killed, Ronnie Knaith went down with his aircraft, and Gill got out and came home and he went to see Ronnie’s parents and they just slammed the door in his face, they wouldn’t talk to him. ‘Cause they had thought that he’d should have stayed onto the controls until Ronnie got out. Which is really what one was supposed to do.
AS: I hadn’t realised that the drill for the pilot was to go out of the top.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Because there’s a tailfin behind.
HH: Yeah, you jettison, you jettison the hood I think, the whole hood went. And theoretically the navigator could’ve gone out after him, I suppose, but.
AS: I think overall the losses were less on the Mosquito.
HH: Oh yeah.
AS: I think you were safer flying in a Mozzie than in a Halifax.
HH: Yes, I mean, there’s somewhere I got the losses in Hamish’s book, in Hamish Mahaddie’s book, all the losses in 8 Group and you will see that 692 do feature quite regularly, you know.
AS: Yeah, so you were posted to 692 Squadron after the conversion unit. You’d had, I suppose, eight months away from ops by then, ten months, had things changed a lot in that time?
HH: I don’t think they’d changed all that much for the heavies, no. And we operated separately and we used to do Window opening for the heavies, we used to do, we used to fly out with the heavies and used to meet up with them at Reading, they’d all congregated there, what’s that? There is something squeaking, did you hear?
AS: I don’t know, let’s pause the tape.[recording paused] Well, Harry, we discovered what the squeak was, it was the smoke alarm. We were talking about Window opening and you meeting the heavies over Reading.
HH: Yeah. We used to fly down with the and meet up with the heavies and then we’d weave in and out of them, stream, you know, and you could see the strength of the stream then because, you know, there was just a whole block of them all over the horizon.
AS: And these are daylights.
HH: Yeah, in daylight, yeah, it would be. And then somebody in one of the heavies would be signalling to us, you lucky bastards or words to that effect. So I was sent back, been there, done that [laughs].
AS: Fair do’s. Because you could fly a lot faster and a lot higher than they could.
HH: Well, we used to be, weave in and out of them, you see. And then, then when you got to the coast, you climbed very rapidly above and you got to your operational height. If we were going to say, if we were Window opening say for Stuttgart, we’d probably do a, you go to Cologne first and drop a few bundles of Window there making them, making them think that was the target, you see. And then we’d go along to wherever, Stuttgart, and where the main force were going, and we’d, we’d do Window opening for the first wave of Pathfinders going in.
AS: Okay. This was the, was this the main role of 692 Squadron?
HH: Pardon?
AS: Was this the main role of 692 Squadron?
HH: Yeah, well, we were the light night striking force, yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: But our main role was to bomb Berlin every night.
AS: Oh, you were involved in this Berlin shuttle?
HH: Yes. So, we used to drop our cookie, we used to drop Window for the heavies and then we’d go along to Berlin and drop our four thousand pounders, keep them awake.
AS: Ah, so, did you have those special Mosquitos then?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Those with the pregnant bomb bay?
HH: That one there, isn’t it?
AS: Yes. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
AS: So, who got to drop the bomb? Was it you or the driver?
HH: Me.
AS: You.
HH: Yeah. Unless we were doing low level. And even then it was me up on the front, up in the nose.
AS: How did you, how did you drop Window from a tiny little aeroplane like Mosquito?
HH: We had a chute, little wooden chute which used to go through the two doors and we just dropped bundles of Window through that. Remember to grab the string as it went down, otherwise you’d just drop bundles [laughs].
AS: You don’t want them falling on someone’s head and hurting them, do you?
HH: No [laughs]. So, it’s a nice day now, isn’t it?
AS: It’s wonderful out there. It’s great. So, sometimes you were operating with the main bomber stream and sometimes as 8 Group by yourself or squadron by yourself?
HH: Individually, yeah.
AS: Individually too?
HH: We used to fly, we used to sing, I made up, there was a song going round at that time sung by Hildegard, I walk alone, to tell you the truth I’ll be lonely, I don’t mind being lonely, when my heart tells me you are lonely too. So, I made up the words for our squadron, we fly alone, when all the heavies are grounded and dining, 692 will be climbing, we still press on, it’s every night, though they never will give us a French route, for the honour of 8 Group, we’ll still press on.
AS: That’s fantastic.
HH: It’s always a [unclear] no matter how far, one bomb is slung beneath, it’s twelve degrees east, one engine at least [laughs]. It’s a pretty horrible little song.
AS: it’s brilliant. It sums up what you felt.
HH: Not as good as some of the songs, you see, erks used to make up in India and down in Burma, you know. One they used to sing, rotting in the jungle, on a [unclear] marshy shores, dysentery, malaria and bags of jungle sores, living around in a bloody great heap, our beds are damp, we cannot sleep, we’re going round the corner, we’re going round the bend, two trips to Meiktila, maybe three or four, AOL’s a keen type, he thinks we’re doing more. When we get back as you can guess, we’ll put this effing kite US [laughs] and we’re going round the, and there’s about two more verses to that, I can’t remember, that’s when the mail arrives, and there’s two for you and f.a. for me you know [laughs].
AS: I think we will have to try and get you a recording contract. This could be an excellent CD on the wireless.
HH: I don’t think they’d allow it to be broadcast.
AS: Probably not, probably not. But see, you, it sounds as you had very high morale on the squadron.
HH: Oh yeah. But, yes, this was when I was on ferrying.
AS: And on 692, as you say, opening with Window and then lots and lots of trips to
HH: Berlin.
AS: To Berlin. Did you ever get involved in a double trip, I believe some people, some crews did two trips to Berlin in one night.
HH: Yeah, we did, on one occasion we did. I think we did Duisburg in the morning and Berlin that night. Came back, and refuelled and bombed up again and we were away again.
AS: There must have been, I would expect, a cumulative tiredness at that level of operations. I’ve seen your ops on your second tour are very close together.
HH: Yeah.
AS: First of October, third, fourth, fifth, two on the fifth, very, very very close together and then Berlin followed the next night by Cologne. Did you, were you conscious of getting tired?
HH: Well, no, because when you’re off, you went into town and into Cambridge and I met up with my girlfriend and she was lovely, my girlfriend, I must have a picture of her, I did have a picture. She was beautiful, she was lovely red hair and creamy skin, you know, and green eyes, oh, she was beautiful. I used to walk down the street with her and everybody would stop and stare, at her, not at me [laughs].
AS: I was going to ask that. And you met her when you joined the squadron?
HH: When I joined 692, yeah. Yeah, we were walking, you remember, do you remember the Red Lion in Cambridge?
AS: I don’t know Cambridge well. I know where the airfield is.
HH: There used to be a passage where you could go through, you’d start off in the Baron of Beef, down by the river there and, and then you go from there to the Bun Shop and to get to the Bun Shop you have to walk through the Red Lion right, right the way through there, the foyer, there is a bar, two bars there and when I walked through there one night, there was Red sitting there with two of her friends and as I walked through, I said, ‘Cor’ to who I was with and I caught red hair and no drawers, and I said, ‘I’m in’ [laughs]. And she followed me through to the Bun Shop and that’s how I met up with her [laughs].
AS: Excellent. Probably best not pursue that story too much further, I think. So, you’ve got here on a trip to Berlin, landed Woodbridge. Now⸻
HH: Yeah.
AS: I know that Woodbridge is one of the emergency landing grounds.
HH: Yeah, well we, very often we had to land, when we took S-Sugar, which is a bloody awful aircraft with a terrible fuel consumption, if we took that to Berlin, we would end up, always end up landing short of fuel at Woodbridge. In fact, one night, when Harris was on this station, we were the only squadron operating that night, so he came to our briefing. [phone ringing]
AS: I’ll pause there. So, after the phone call, we were talking about S-Sugar and its ability to drink fuel.
HH: Yeah, on this night Harris was at the and [unclear] Northrop, our CO was reading out the battle order, you know, and he said, came to, flying officer Mormo, S-Sugar, ‘S-Sugar?’ said Roy, ‘What’s wrong with our Robert?’ ‘Well, that’s got a mark drop on the starboard engine, you’re going to have to take the spare.’ ‘But S f for Sugar, sir, that bloody kite flies like a brick shithouse!’ [laughs] and old Harris was standing there, and he was trying his best not to laugh, you know, his moustache had a twitch and [laughs] you could he’s gonna laugh every minute, you know. But he didn’t, he held it in [laughs]
AS: What was Woodbridge like? Is an emergency landing ground very different from a normal airfield?
HH: Oh yeah, you, huts with the roof off, you know, half off and snow would come in, on a snowy night, yeah.
AS: Not finished?
HH: No, they had just blown off. That’s a nuisance that thing, isn’t it?
AS: Your smoke alarm, yeah. As we got to this time or you got to this time in the war, this was late 1944.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Had the scene changed in terms of aids to navigation, things like Sandra lights and Darky and ground organisation, was there a lot to help you?
HH: [unclear] Much on the ground I think, mainly H2S, Oboe, things like that, you know. And G8, wasn’t it? G8.
AS: G-H, yeah. I didn’t, I don’t know how that worked, I never had that but we were quite content with LORAN. In fact, I got a wind over, going down to, I forget where I was going, Berlin I suppose, but yeah, we were going over to Berlin I think and I got a wind just north of the Ruhr, a hundred and ninety five knots.
AS: Wow!
HH: And what we’d done, we hit a jet stream, you see, and but when I came back, I said to the met man, I got a wind of a hundred, impossible, impossible, impossible, and it went to Group and Group said impossible as well, went to Command and Command said impossible well then when everybody started to get them, they suddenly realised there was something in this jet stream. Now they talk about nothing else but the bloody jet stream and it annoys me that because they ignored their existence during the war, the met people did and we kept telling them, look there is something up there and it didn’t last very long, you see, you were in it and then you were out of it, you know. So you couldn’t use it as a general wind to carry on to Berlin, shall we say for example, and nor could you use it when you were coming back. You might hit it again but it’d be in a different place slightly and.
AS: It must have meant that you had to be on your toes with your fixes all the time.
HH: Yeah. Anyway we,
AS: In your logbook, it suddenly goes from duty as nav to duty nav b. What was the significance of?
HH: Well, I stood in as bomb aimer as well.
AS: Ah, okay, that’s what it was. Tremendous number of operations over the winter of ’44-’45.
HH: Yeah.
AS: So I presume you must have flown in most weather with the nav aids that you had.
HH: Oh yeah, I remember one night, I don’t know if I should say this because it’s a bit derogatory to somebody who’s now dead, and that’s to Don Bennett. He was in the control tower on this particular night and we were getting hoarfrost all along the wings of our, as we taxied out we were getting hoarfrost develop all along the wings, so Roy got onto control and he says, ‘Could we have the de-icing bowsers out, please?’ And Bennett said, ‘Never mind about the de-icing bowser, just get off the deck.’ Well, we didn’t go, we said, ‘No, no. It’s too dangerous.’ Anyway, another aircraft came after us and they ploughed into the end of the runway and they were both killed of course when their bomb blew up. And Bennett never said a word to us afterwards, he was, we came back for briefing that night and he’d left the station. We came back and got the de-icing bowser and got cleared of the hoarfrost. He literally left, you see. And then we went to Berlin that night, I think.
AS: I should think, with fuel and a four thousand pounder you must have needed all the runway to get off.
HH: Yeah, well, there is another tale attached to that, the, you see, we started off with four thousand pounders, I think we were the first squadron to have four thousand pounders, and then they put fifty gallon drop tanks on each wing which were increased eventually to seventy five and then a hundred and then, and then we ran out of four thousand pounders and we had to borrow four thousand pounders from the Americans, which were four and a half thousand pounds. So another five hundred pounds to get off the deck. But the old Mozzie just used to take it all in its stride. No bother.
AS: You had no concerns.
HH: No, and I remember one day when I’d finished tour. I was sitting in the crew room minding my own business and the CO, a Canadian called Bob Grant came in and he said, ‘You doing anything Hughes?’ I said, no. He said, ‘Grab yourself a ‘chute would you and I’ll see you out at the aircraft.’ I said, ‘What do you⸻’ ‘Just bring a local Gee chart and local maps, would you?’ So when I got out to the bay, they were loading a four thousand pounder and I said, ‘Well, what fuel have we got?’ ‘You’ve a got full load of fuel and two hundred gallon drop tanks.’ And there’s a wind blowing right the way down the 330 runway which was fourteen hundred feet or something compared with two thousand feet on the main runway. I said, ‘What are we gonna do then?’ He said, ‘We’re gonna see if we can get off with this wind, the scale blowing, see if we can get off on this, on the fifteen hundred runway.’ So, we got to the end of the runway, and he waited until there was a gust of wind blowing, until the airspeed indicator was indicating about fifty or sixty knots. And we went. And I dropped the cookie on the live bomb target in the Wash and then we came back. And he got a report and said it wasn’t possible. I said, ‘Well, thanks for telling me.’ [laughs] it wasn’t possible. And he said, ‘No, no, no,’ he said, ‘I don’t think the crew, you could expect the whole crew to wait’, the whole squadron rather to wait until there was a lull, that’s turned till there was a gust of wind which would get them off the deck.
AS: It’s a good example of leading from the front though, isn’t it?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Doing the test himself.
HH: It was old Bob Grant, he’s dead now, he married a Yorkshire, he was CO of 105 Squadron, amongst other things and he was, when he got back to Canada, of course he was made up to brigadier, I think. He was a group captain here, so he was a brigadier. That was equivalent to air commodore, wasn’t it?
AS: I think so, yeah, yeah.
HH: I don’t know.
AS: And, ah, there it is Group Captain Grant, 19th of March 1945, bombload take off fourteen hundred yards. That was pretty much the end of your operational flying, I think, wasn’t it?
HH: Yeah.
AS: On the Mosquito. Last trip, February, February ’45.
HH: Hanover, wasn’t it? Or Hamburg, Hanover.
AS: Frankfurt, I think, Frankfurt in your log. And did you know that that would be your last trip or you’re just told you’re screened?
HH: Yeah. You knew you had to do fifty on Mosquitos. So.
AS: And what did happened after that? Did you go back instructing or?
HH: No, no, we were sent on leave and when we came back, we’d been posted, several crews had been posted down to Pershore to ferry Canadian built Mosquitos across the Atlantic. And I crewed up with a different, Lloyd had gone back to New Zealand and he used to fly with Air New Zealand after the war. And thanks to me, because someone had put a bottle through his hand and all the tendons had gone. And so he couldn’t, when we were taking off at Whiten once doing a cross country, we got airborne and suddenly the throttle went back and he grabbed hold of them and held it with his hand and because you had to keep the throttle up so loose ‘cause of this weakness in his left hand. So I said, ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Roy, from now on I’ll tighten the throttle knot for you when you’re ready. As soon as you want, you just say, throttle knob and I will reach through and grab the throttle knob and turn it and tighten it for you.’ And we did that every trip. And but I, ‘cause I had to reach over, I couldn’t strap in, so I did all my trips without strapping in [laughs]. I never strapped in again, not with Roy flying. So he’d of never, I mean, he was flying with Air New Zealand afterwards he’d never have passed their medical if he’d of disclosed it, you know.
AS: But eventually, not in a Mosquito, but he’d be flying with throttles on the other hand, wouldn’t he? So the problem,
HH: Yeah.
AS: The problem would go away. So you’d had some leave, you were posted to fly to Pershore to fly Mosquitos.
H: Yeah. And we were sent on indefinite leave, Pershore sent us on indefinite leave. And I thought, oh God, I’ll be grounded for sure. So, I got on a train and went up to Air Ministry and saw a wing commander there and I said, look, there is a war going in in the Far East [unclear] aircraft ferried out there, coming back for maintenance and what have you. And he said, what a good idea, you know, come back in the morning, will you? And I got the whole lot posted out to the Far East. Fifteen or eighteen, I think I told you this before, didn’t I?
AS: I think so but we didn’t get in on the tape, I don’t think, no.
HH: No.
AS: I bet you were popular.
HH: Fifteen, oh God, when I got down to Lyneham they were moaning, ‘I’m just due for demob for God’s sake, why the heck do I have to, due for demob any day now.’
AS: I bet you kept quiet.
HH: And here I am, so I kept very quiet. And so, I mean I wasn’t due for demob for some time.
AS: So here we are, Lyneham in July ’45. A huge trip as a passenger on a deck. Thirty two hours flying.
HH: Yeah, back to Karachi, yeah.
AS: So by going, going East, you, did you, before you went, did you see, did you go on any of these trips over, over Germany to see all the destruction?
HH: No, no.
AS: Okay.
HH: I missed all that.
AS: You’d said earlier that you said a prayer for the people of Hamburg. What, at the end of the war, did you reflect at all on the, or during that, on the bombing? And what were your feelings about being involved in it in the war?
HH: Well, I’ve spoken to our vicar about it, you know, and said, do you think Saint Peter’s gonna let me through the gates? Or not. So she sat and he said a prayer for me. Lady vicar of course. Anyway, but I was invited out to Hanover as a guest of the mayor and the local newspaper to commemorate the 60th anniversary of when we bombed them.
AS: And you went?
HH: So I went over, yeah, well, I was asked to volunteer and I remember, at the Bomber Command meeting they said, did anybody go to Hanover, I said, well, I did. When I got home, I found out I’d been to Hanover about eleven times and [laughs] so I was well qualified.
AS: And are you pleased you went, did it turn out well?
HH: Yes, they were very, very, very nice, I like German people.
AS: So do I.
HH: I got two of them coming over now. Here any day now. I think. They stay up at [unclear] castle, ‘cause he’s paraplegic, he can’t get down my steps.
AS: Yeah.
HH: He’s, he had polio when he was a youngster. But they come over by air this time so he couldn’t bring his invalid scooter with him so I don’t know whether he’s gonna hire one when they’re here or not, I don’t know what they’re gonna do to get around.
AS: That should be possible, I think.
HH: Yeah.
AS: And these are friends you made when you went to Hanover?
HH: Yeah. Well, they were both reporters with the Hamburger Allgemeine. And anyway I was, the last day I was there in Hanover I was there for about three or four days, I had to attend a meeting of all the survivors from the raids and all the students from university there and the colleges and what have you and a little girl gets up and question time you see and she gets up and says, can I please explain what was the duty of the navigator? Well if you ask me a stupid question like that, I’m gonna give you a stupid answer, for sure. So I said, ‘Well, the reason why we carried a navigator, because we had to have someone on board who could read and write’ [laughs] and their mouths fell open, he went like this, everybody, so I said to my interpreter, I said, ‘Tell them, it was a joke, will you?’ ‘Ah, a joke, yeah, we got no sense of humour, we Germans, we’ve got no sense of humour at all.’ [unclear] So then, later on somebody, one of the survivors said, ‘Why did you bomb the city?’ So I said, ‘To be perfectly honest, we couldn’t hit anything smaller but just remember this,’ I said, ‘Right in the centre, almost within half a mile from the centre of Hanover there was the biggest rubber factory in Germany, so it made Hanover a very legitimate target.’ ‘Yes’, this man says, ‘But you didn’t hit it, did you? ‘Cause it’s still there!’ [laughs]. I said, ‘Well, and you tried to tell me that the Germans got no sense of humour?’ [laughs] And then I was on their side from then on.
AS: I’ve lived there for eleven years. I’m with you. I’ve lived there for eleven years.
HH: Have you?
AS: Yeah. They’re great people, great people. I think.
HH: In which part were you?
AS: I was in Munich for five years.
HH: Yeah.
AS: And then in Bonn and Cologne, in the Rhineland for about six altogether. Some of the places you visited by air, in fact. That’s the feelings of the Germans. How, there’s been a lot of controversy about how Bomber Command were treated after the war. Have you got any views on that?
HH: Well, I think, first of all, we should never, never have bombed Dresden, I think that was the biggest mistake we made. And Portal should have stood up and said, no! But he didn’t have the guts to do it, he didn’t have the guts to stand up to Churchill and it was Churchill who, on his way to Yalta, he stopped off at Malta, And they’d agreed to bomb five cities within reach of the Russian lines, you know, and I think Dresden was one and what’s that? And Leipzig and one other I think. Anyway he sent back this signal to Portal saying, from Malta saying, where is my spectacular, get on with it. So, Portal looked at the charts and he consulted the Met people and the only target available that night was Dresden. I didn’t go to Dresden, I went to Magdeburg, Magdeburg that night, you can see it on there, in that book there.
AS: You believe it was, that Dresden was the turning point and that?
HH: Mh?
AS: You believe that Dresden was some sort of turning point?
HH: Yeah.
AS: How Bomber Command were treated?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Did you, do you feel now that it’s changed with the memorials and the clasp?
HH: Yeah, I think so. I think, there was a time just after the war, when the people who were against us were the people who were in the Air Force or in one of the forces and they felt that we were, they didn’t want us to have any publicity, you know.
AS: After the war.
HH: Yeah. And then, and then since then, they’ve suddenly realised that you know, we had the highest losses of any unit in the, our forces, fifty five thousand killed, which is quite a lot, wasn’t it?
AS: Yeah. Fifty five thousand, five hundred and seventy three.
HH: Yeah.
AS: And you’ve seen a, well, or you see a change in attitudes now.
HH: Yes, I think, younger people are much more inclined to want to hear about it and talk about it and understand why we did it and there is no good saying, well, we were under orders to do it, because that’s what the Germans excuses were, you know, for their treatment of the in the concentration camps. We were under orders.
AS: And you did it because it was right?
HH: Well, we did it because we thought we were, ‘cause we were shortening the war and therefore less people would be killed.
AS: Is it, I agree, you say, that now people want to hear about it, is it good for you and other veterans to be able to talk about it after all this time?
HH: It’s getting more and more difficult, there’s so many books have been written on there, now.
AS: And you are actually in one of the books.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Steve Darlow’s book. How did all that come about? Did you get involved with him?
HH: I don’t know. He wanted, I think I was recommended by probably Bomber Command, you know, Dougie Radcliffe.
AS: Oh, the Bomber Command Association.
HH: Yeah.
AS: Have you always played a big part in that?
HH: No, no, I was mainly in the Pathfinders Association.
AS: Oh, okay.
HH: We were separate from, we were separate from the Bomber Command Association, but I’d already joined the Bomber Command Association when we disbanded. I’d already been a member for several years.
AS: And do you belong to your squadron or 102 Squadron association as well?
HH: Yeah. Yes, it’s, I’ve written a letter to, when I went to the VJ-Day celebrations⸻
AS: Yes.
HH: We had to fill out a form travelling expenses and I got three hundred pounds from the Lottery Fund.
AS: Excellent.
HH: And my son Jeremy, who’d driven me up there and then he got three hundred pounds as well. And I don’t, I hope he hasn’t. So I wrote a letter to the Big Lottery and said, thanking them for their, I said, so, twice a year I’ve got to go to, up to Pocklington in Yorkshire, which is rather expensive for me now ‘cause you got to go up Virgin cross country you know, right the way up to York and it’s a long journey that. It’s an interesting journey but there’s no, there was a little old lady pushing the tray along, pushing the trolley along, you know, that’s all that you get to eat with some coffee and a fruitcake or something.
AS: It’s not the same as a full dining car.
HH: I like the dining cars on, I’m going up on the 22nd of October I think, coming back on the 23rd, I always travel back down on the dining car which, on a train with a dining car which leaves at seven o’clock in the evening.
AS: Do you still have wartime comrades that you’ll meet in Pocklington?
HH: Oh yes, yeah. Most of them are dead now but.
AS: So, a lot of reminiscing and’
HH: Yeah. There’s a friend of mine, who was a previous chairman, Tom Wingate, who, he wrote a book called Halifax Down, ‘cause he was shot down on his second tour, and I used to have a copy but I can’t find it now. I don’t know what I have done with it, I lose things all the time now.
AS: I have a copy at home, I can send you one.
HH: Pardon?
AS: I have a copy, I can send you one.
HH: You got a copy of that?
AS: Yeah, I have.
HH: Halifax Down, yes, it’s not a bad book, actually. Except that he joined the squadron the same time as I did, his crew did. And he’s quoted in his book, as if he was there three or four months before me. He’s quoted various trips and he’s got these out of those old war diaries, wish I could find that. I wonder where I put it?
AS: Well, you’ll have to take your logbook the next time you meet him.
HH: Oh no, he’s dead now.
AS: Okay.
HH: That’s why I’ve taken over as chairman.
AS: After you came off ops, you did this trip out to the Far East, did you then get involved in ferrying aeroplanes?
HH: In what?
AS: Did you then get involved in ferrying aeroplanes?
HH: Oh yes, yeah.
AS: Okay.
HH: It’s quite a lot really. My very first trip was down to Akyab, on the Arakan coast. I think I told you, didn’t I?
AS: Yes, but not into the tape. So, what happened on that trip?
HH: I don’t think that particular trip’s in there, actually, I looked for it the other day and I can’t find it. I must have left it out for some reason.
AS: This was the trip with the Japanese.
HH: Yes, all the way around us were Zeros, you know. We could hear them yacketing away and then this Indian crew comes on with their Hurricanes and the Japanese just disappeared.
AS: What was the radio conversation about with these Indian squadrons, red flight?
HH: Pardon?
AS: What was the radio conversation story about the?
HH: Oh, well, the Indian crews? ‘Yes, red leader to yellow leader, how do you read me, over? Yellow leader to green, you are not red, you are green, you know? Red leader to yellow leader, I am not green, I am red. And this Aussie voice comes up by the blue, you are black, you bastard’ [laughs].
AS: So, it’s still a combat area that you’re flying replacement aircraft I suppose in to the squadrons?
HH: Yeah.
AS: Did you get involved in flying damaged aircraft for repair?
HH: Oh, I used to fly back from say Kamila or with two Pratt & Whitney’s engines in the back and a load of ENSA girls as well amongst them [laughs], sitting where they could and trying not to get greasy, ‘cause these, and yeah.
AS: Yeah. Shall we, pause there I think?
HH: Yeah.
AS: And wind it up. Thank you that, It’s been absolutely wonderful to hear.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Harry Hughes
Creator
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Adam Sutch
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHughesWH151021
Format
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02:28:15 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Hughes volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1940 and trained in America, where he was washed out as a pilot and then retrained as a navigator in Canada, flying Ansons and Wellingtons. In 1942 he converted to Halifaxes and flew operations with 102 Squadron over Germany, being awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for flying an operation to Berlin whilst on crutches. He recounts the routines of preparing to go on operations and his use of navigation aids including Gee, LORAN and later, Boozer in Mosquitos. He was bombstruck twice during operations. He completed 26 operations including the bombing of Hamburg which he describes as a firestorm and recalls saying a private prayer for the people of Hamburg below. After his tour finished, he then instructed before applying to go back on operations with 8 Group, flying Mosquitos with 692 Squadron and dropping Window for Pathfinder forces in 1944/45. In 2004 he visited Hanover and discussed the raids with survivors of the war. He was a member of a number of post war service associations and kept in contact with his crewmates.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Southeast Asia
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
United States
Alabama--Montgomery
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943
1944
1945
102 Squadron
3 Group
6 Group
692 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Anson
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bomb struck
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
briefing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
faith
Fw 190
Gee
ground personnel
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
incendiary device
Ju 88
Me 109
Me 110
Me 262
medical officer
meteorological officer
military service conditions
Mosquito
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
promotion
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Harwell
RAF Riccall
RAF Wombleton
Stirling
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/716/10111/ABolesKM180212.2.mp3
4e6a9c0d8cfebbf06b6789683fe7fd69
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
Boles, Keith M
K M Boles
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Keith Boles DFC (b. 1921, 413017 Royal New Zealand Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 109 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-12
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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Boles, KM
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JB: Ok. We’ll make a start. Ok, this is Jennifer Barraclough interviewing Squadron Leader Keith Boles on the date, what’s the date [laughs] the 12th of February, thereabouts, at his home at [ buzz] Howick, Auckland. Ok, Mr Bowles. Thank you very much for talking to me. Could you tell me a little bit about your early life and how you came to join up with, with the RAF, please?
KB: My early life? Well, it was difficult because I ran straight in to the Depression as a youngster and thereafter it made life not funny at all or not even pleasant. And as a consequence to that it was find yourself in employment when you can leave school which I left when I was fourteen. And I took an apprenticeship in engineering as they used to have in New Zealand in those days and that was a five year duration and I completed that with a little bit of makeup time because of the, a few items of no help particularly during those five years. And just before I finished this period our big worry started and it was all sorts of things and, ‘What are you going to do? You’re in the Army, Navy, Air Force.’ Well, with all the words of, ‘Don’t join the Army, son,’ from my father with a lot of expletives to illustrate it, no way did I want to join the Navy. Couldn’t see that at all. And Air Force? I’ll see if they want a technical tradesman which, so, I asked and they came back and said, ‘No vacancies for the qualifications you appear to possess.’ Of course, at that time I’d just passed the first examination of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London and they came back and said, ‘No vacancies for the qualifications you appear to possess.’ Would I like to be aircrew? Well, aircrew was the thing for wee lads and I didn’t think I was qualified but however I was accepted with the provision from my parents that I wouldn’t be called up ‘til the latter end of next year. The latter end of ’41. It seemed to be perfectly ok. I’d finish my apprenticeship and I’d get called up then and, end of ’41. Well, it didn’t quite happen that way. By the end of ’41 I’d been called up with permission of my employer because I’d just finished my apprenticeship as I said, and I decided to go in to the camp. And by the end of ’41 I’d finished my twenty four weeks training in the RNZAF and in December 1941 I was in Singapore which became rather peculiar to say the least. And my stay in Singapore lasted ‘til about the 9th of February and if it hadn’t been for, how shall we say? [pause] Wondering what on earth was happening because nobody was talking to me, telling me, and people were disappearing so I went to see our new CO. Our previous one had created a big mistake and shot himself so that was most. So, the new CO, I said to him, ‘What am I supposed to be doing, sir?’ And in a voice that you could hear from here to there, he said, ‘I don’t know. What’s your trade?’ And I said, ‘Oh, pilot sir.’ Well, when he said, ‘What?’ I thought he’d spoken loudly before but when he said, ‘What?’ You could hear it [laughs] ‘All aircrew, you’re not supposed to be here. All aircrew are supposed to be evacuated.’ So, in due course I was told to go and catch a boat. I went down to go down 62 and the one and only gangplank was guarded by a major, an Army major complete with arms and he said, ‘You’re not on the list, Skedaddle. You’re not getting on board here.’ So, the traffic from that time on meant and this was just at dusk and my driver managed to get me back to Tengah Air Force at 4 o’clock the following morning. It was hellish. And then, I’ve not repeated it so often I’m almost forgetting it. I was sent to catch another boat on Sunday morning. Well, that was all right. I was let on board and there was about a hundred and fifty New Zealand aerodrome construction personnel also evacuating plus I understand a certain number of Asiatics in the far end of the boat and we set sail. But not for long. We sat all night out on the stream as it’s called, listened to the shelling going on and the following morning we disembarked for whatever reason. That evening we were re-embarked and sailed without stop there. But halfway to Batavia we halted, allegedly for wait for Naval escort. It didn’t turn up but the Jap’s bombers did so we got a shower of their contribution. So from there on we just went on to Batavia. I was there for about a week and then I was told to get on board a very large boat which I found out had about five thousand Australian troops from the Middle East, plus other civilian personnel and we sailed to Columbo. And we were there about forty eight hours if I remember rightly and then it turned out the boat I was on was one of a batch of four. They were cruise ships immediately pe-war and had bags of accommodation because as I said there were five thousand Aussie boys because the Australian government said, ‘Bring them home and we will to defend Australia from here from the Japs.’ And yes, Columbo. Left there one afternoon. We, the rumour was we were going to Australia because the troops were there. The rumour was one of those silly things that you hear. Everybody said, ‘What the devil are they talking about?’ And I happened to feel something funny about the boat movement two or three nights later. So, I dashed up on deck and sure enough the boat had done a a right-angled turn. The others that I could have seen in daylight I picked up one. He had done a right-hand turn going the other way and it turned out the convoy had come of four troopers and the Naval people, everybody separated. We got down to Adelaide and we disembarked for a day. Catch another boat down to Lyttelton and then what? Oh yes. We were granted three weeks survivor’s leave they called it because what had happened Iin Singapore was apparently very nasty and we were lucky. Very lucky to get out. I was anyway. From hearing of others my case was get off your bottom and go and ask. Find out. And at the end of that period we were called back to camp for a refresher course because virtually none of our, the people that came back from Singapore had done any flying because ninety nine percent of the aircraft had been sent to the Middle East as you can imagine because there was a lot of stuff going on there. And [pause] hence our refresher course. Well, about ten days later I’m in the link trainer and the sergeant in charge says, ‘Please sir, you’re wanted on the phone.’ I said, ‘By whom?’ And he said, ‘A flight lieutenant.’ And I said, ‘What does he want?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ So, I answered this chappie and he said, ‘Ah, Boles. We want two volunteers to go to the UK.’ I said, ‘Oh, come off it, sir. We’ve just come back.’ He said, ‘I know. So has everybody else.’ And I said, ‘Who have you got?’ I said, ‘What do you want them for anyway?’ ‘Oh, to take charge of a draft of LAC trainees who you will take to Canada for this further on training. And [pause] you will go on to the UK.’ I said, ‘Well, who else have you got?’ He said, ‘Oh, nobody yet.’ And I said, ‘What are you going to do about that?’ He said, ‘I haven’t asked them yet. You’re at the top of the alphabet.’ I said, ‘Alright. Count me in.’ I asked him what he’d do if there were two or three or four of us and he said, ‘Oh, the usual thing. Draw for it.’ And I said, ‘Oh yeah. Count me in as I said.’ Didn’t need to count me in. I was the only one. So off I go to Canada with ninety nine LACs and we picked up another pilot, sergeant pilot who had, had for some reason missed his earlier despatch and we dropped the LACs off in Edmonton I think it was and the sergeant and I went on to Ottawa. They gave us a week’s leave which we spent in New York because there was a New Zealander providing entertainment and looking after New Zealanders as they, if and when they went through there. And they were quite pleasant. In fact, very pleasant. A week down there. Up to Halifax. Catch a convoy and we were lucky. It was a convoy and we didn’t hear a thing. Well, if we did I must have been very deaf because we go to Glasgow and arrived in double British summertime and sunshine about ten or 11 o’clock at night up in, as I say in Glasgow. Train down to Bournemouth. Bournemouth. I’ve forgotten how long we were there and then we were sent on leave and I could tell you funnies about him too but he was a good, good chappie that. Manor house, manor you could call it and his manor house was very nice as well. And any rate, normal training took place then which was in the, I know it as the AFU which is the Advanced Flying Unit which was purely to make people trained elsewhere from Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, you name it to become acquainted with all the thises and thats of English weather and English map reading which even when I began to learn it I still got lost a couple of times and had to find myself out again of course. But so that was of some six weeks I think. I can’t recall. And they asked us what were we going to do next. I said, ‘I don’t know. What can we do?’ And somebody suggested that we should take an instructor’s course around something I never thought of but because of what I’d just had I said now if I learn to instruct that means I’m a better flyer. Now, that would do me a lot of good when I go operating. I think that was my line of thinks. So, I went on the instructor’s course and, of some weeks and, and then went instructing on Tiger Moths first and then, and that was cold in Scotland in an open-air aircraft and [laughs] I can still remember it. It was over Christmas, New Year. January. And then we went in to Oxfords. A twin-engined aircraft and just normal, I went to an AFU and did unto others what I had had done unto me. And though apparently I scared the proverbials out of one bloke his mate said, Jimmy or whatever his name was hadn’t have told me I would have been scared too. One of my silly exaggerations apparently and oh, this went on to the beginning of ’44 and then I got transferred in to a beam approach flight. That being a beam approach batt flight and the idea was there to teach people to learn how to do it yourself and then teach people how to do an approach and landing in ten tenths fog or similar. And enjoyable too. I quite enjoyed that and, but while so doing I’d still got to analyse my attitude, my thoughts because I said to me, ‘I’m in a nice Training Command job. This is not what I was supposed to be doing I don’t think.’ Shouldn’t we fear some operations with the other lads, a lot of whom I knew had been killed and after much I tried to analyse my thinking. I just couldn’t and, however I went off to London and went to see the adj and told him I should go on to ops and he said, ‘Oh, no way. We’re short of flight lieutenants in Training Command.’ And I said my usual expression. ‘Bulldust.’ And I said, ‘We’ve got —’ so and so, ‘On our station alone.’ And I said, ‘Any rate, have you any idea how I happen to be here?’ He said, ‘The same as everybody else.’ And I told him about my volunteering business when I took the lads to Canada and he said, ‘Oh, that’s different. Go and see the liaison officer at RAF.’ So off I went to see squadron leader somebody or other and related to him that I’d been to the adj seeking transfer to bomber groups, or Bomber Command and he said no. And I said, I told him the story. ‘He said come and see you sir.’ He said, ‘Alright Boles. What’s your story?’ And I told him. He said, ‘Right. Bomber Command Mosquitoes do?’ Well. That was, as far as we knew, number one job. So I said yes and duly went to the Mosquito Training Unit, MTU and whilst there I found that they used Mosquito pilots particularly most of them for a large area in 8 Group which was, turned out to be the, I didn’t know all about it then as much as I learned obviously Pathfinder Group and that was the Light Night Strikers. And the balance, I think the balance went on a task called Oboe and Oboe was a controlled flight to target and controlled dropping point of the target indicators. Now, up to [pause] August, I think it was ’42 they were happy, or unhappy because the ordinary Bomber Command if they got within five miles of the target they were, at least they’d been to Germany. But with this Oboe stuff we could get, could get, had to get, supposed to get a zero error. Well, the Oboe was a matter of a ground station sending out a radar, you can call it a radar beam or just a beam which was picked up by the special equipment in the Oboe aircraft. It was relayed back to base and from that relay they could tell whether we were flying on the exact distance that they required. If you went too far you got dots or if you didn’t go far enough you were getting dashes depending whether you were going north or south. I’ve forgotten. And of course, the dot was, shall we say one long, the dash was nine long. So, if you marry nine and one you get ten and that gave you a steady note which meant you were then flying right on the beam. Now, I’ve read and I’ve heard figures of how wide that beam is. We always understood it was roughly about fifty three feet which happened to be about the same width as a Mosquito. But I’ve read since that the width of the dot and the width of the dash were the fifty three feet so the whole thing was a hundred odd feet wide. Well, a bit late to tell me now that, and from that you would go and we were employed to drop markers for the bombers and we were supposed to be, our accu errors I always understood was supposed to be within three hundred yards. Well, the size of the bombing and everybody wasn’t going to be that accurate even if they could see our marking and so it was far better than five miles and [pause] we initially, when we went to squadron we went and dropped bombs anything up to a four thousand pounder on the target selected by somebody and it gave us training, experience, call it what you will and it also enabled the people back in the base to gauge how good or bad we were. And I must have been enough to stay in the group because I then went on to marking and in the extent of my tour and a bit I virtually had one third bombing things and one, two thirds target marking with target indicators. And I wish, I wish I’d taken more notice of, of my efforts but I happened to have heard [coughs] excuse me, that one night I got a zero error. And many years later post-war I’d always wondered how good everybody else was and I got in to conversation with one of the squadron people, obviously at a reunion who had been looked upon as one of the best on the squadron. And I said to Charles, ‘You know all those trips I did I only once got a zero. Once got a zero error.’ He said, ‘Oh, that’s alright Keith. I only got once one zero error.’ So it must have been fairly rare. And as an illustration of how this error was [pause] on, and I don’t know the target. I didn’t bother then. I wish I had. I said to my navigator who was, I think was the about the best on the squadron, he was good anyway thank goodness. And I said to him this night, ‘Haven’t seen a sausage. I’m going to turn around and we’ll have a look. See what the target looks like.’ So, I did a hundred and eighty degree turn. I should have said we were on our way home when I made this decision hence the hundred and eighty degree, took us back towards the target and there was a large diameter of target indicators which are little flare things that burn for I think three minutes or something. I wish I could remember all that and I don’t seem to be able to get the data nowadays at [pause] however they were relatively short burning because they were backed up by other aircraft so that the bomber boys didn’t lose sight of where the target was because they could have been still approaching and some of the target indicators were before they were due to land. Before the heavy bombers actually got there and that is to say to lead them to the right place without them leading themselves astray. And as I looked at this large circle of target indicators burning there was another clump appeared in the sky gradually spread into a large diameter and appeared to me to land right on top of my lot. I said, ‘Blow me down,’ or words to that effect and turned round and came home. The following day I went to the radar section and I said, ‘What was my error last night please?’ And, ‘Oh, hang on. We’ll look it up.’ Dah dah dah and they came back and this I do remember, ‘Two hundred degrees. A hundred and ten yards.’ So, a hundred and ten yards nearly due south of the target point. And I said, ‘And who was following me?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ And I said, ‘I’d love to know because he appeared to be on top.’ And they said, ‘Oh, ok. We’ll find out.’ And he must have been from another, the other Oboe squadron because as I said they were falling right on top and they said, they were a bit surprised, not as much as me, ‘Two hundred degrees, a hundred and ten yards.’ Same error as my lot [laughs] And so we turned around. We kept on going home. What else? The [pause] this business of speaking glibly about it and doing that as though we were then competent but, and I think I was a good average. To get there was quite a headache and you worried if you were doing it rightly. You were apprehensive and hoped there wouldn’t be too much flak or anybody else to worry about and our casualty rates were very low. So we might have worried more than we should have done as emphasised by when in briefing one night in the crew room. Well, at the briefing the crew room was [pause] other people came in and they had just been to the target that we were going to the following occasion and they had had all whatnots shot at them. And here we were. Going. We, about five of us I suppose because we were all just small groups. It depends how long the bombing raid was. And so with a degree of apprehension shall we say we took off and headed for this place where the the wingco, as it happened had been shot at like the devil the night before. And we had a lovely cross-country flight. We didn’t see a thing. So, there’s no telling what you’re going to meet up with. Other nights are a bit different. What can I say? I think we got very keen to help. Help. To get complimented I think would be from what we heard about the heavies afterwards. They were doing marvellous jobs of work and we had heard reports of large areas and the one that we heard about first were the Ruhr which was the engineering centre of Germany. All that was, I think it just became, I’m pleased I’m doing something proper. If they can call it proper. And there was that certain amount of apprehension all the way from various aspects and you, as I had a nasty bit of five minutes one night when Geoff my navigator said, ‘Where’s the spare helmet?’ I said, ‘Oh, behind me. Usual place. Why?’ He said, ‘I’m not getting any oxygen.’ I looked and I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know. I must have the helmet.’ He turned in his seat which in a Mosquito was sort of one body thickness back and to the pilot’s right and so, and it was a bit lower than a pilot’s seat. And as he turned to reach for the helmet he passed out and fell more or less across my upper legs and thighs and I tried to lift him up to try and find out what bit of the tubing had come undone. I didn’t have any strength. He was about five ton and apparently this is what happens. You lose your strength. Of course, it was an awkward lift in any case so, I took my safety harness off to help me with freedom for lift. No better. I took my parachute off so I’d got freedom and I squirmed around in the seat on the parachute to try and lift Geoff up. No. No good. So, hell. What do I do now? Well, I was told by the throat noises coming from Geoff’s microphone, I’d heard of such a thing as a death rattle. I didn’t know whether it existed or not but that rattle that Geoff had developed it sounded very throaty. Very throaty indeed. I said, ‘Well, I’ve only got one thing to do.’ And the one and only time I rolled the aircraft over and down we went. I think we exceeded maximum permissible. I’ve got no idea but I know it was bloody fast any rate. And I knew from experience that, and we’d exercised at fifteen thousand feet without oxygen with no trouble. So I, with the aid of my trimming tabs on I pulled the aircraft out in to the straight and level and it was just seventeen thousand feet. So, from the breathing noises that ceased I knew Geoff was coming round and he came to and it just shows you what the human brain is. I don’t know how to put this. Geoff said, ‘Have we been called in yet?’ And I said, I was astounded. He'd been right out but his brain was still ticking and I said, ‘No. We’re down to seventeen. We’ll have to go up again.’ So, I climbed as rapidly as I could and we weren’t far from the target. Sorry. Say that again. We weren’t far from the start of the Oboe beam which I forgot to mention was fifty miles long and we got to roughly, according to Geoff and his, oh incidentally he found out where his oxygen was all awry. He got it all together again and he was quite ok and he got us to near to turning off point but lapse time we got beyond that. What they thought I can’t remember but they knew we weren’t going to operate. So, I decided, right. Off we go home, and a bit frightening with Geoff though and we were at thirty four thousand when that happened so there’s not much oxygen floating around at that height [laughs] And that and the funny noise in the throat I didn’t like. So however, what else happened? Oh, we lost an engine one night too. And I thought that that would, oh the COs came to me the following day and said do you know so and so and so and so that had broken. Come unclasped or something, and I said, ‘But that’s supposed to be wired in.’ He said, ‘Yeah, but the wiring had broke.’ Well, as far as I knew the ground staff, that was part of their daily duties so you never know when things break which means I’d lost an engine at thirty thou or something and I couldn’t maintain height on one engine so I had to turn around and come home on one fan and [pause] which I managed all right. And I think my previous experience when I was at MTU when we did a total of about four hours Mossie flying before we moved on because all we were learning about was not how to fly but just understand the Mosquito before we went to squadron on the MTU. But I lost an engine there because the plug in the propeller spiller, spinner came out and the oil in the spinner end just let all the oil out and I could see it drifting back over. The engine was sailing over the wing. So, I looked, initially looked and it was the pressure was sixty PSI. I said, ‘Ok, but I’m going home.’ And found out where I was because I’d been enjoying summer flying over Cambridge and I looked back in and looked at my pressure was only thirty PSI so I feathered. That is to say turned the engine off completely and feathered the propeller so it was the least resistance and went back to station. Landed at MTU because I couldn’t find the VHF controller and, and as we had been flying, I was flying a, an aircraft modified for dual instruction the VHF controller was not near the, the pilot was near the instructor but if he’s not there it’s still a long way away. But however, I landed safely and ran off the end of the airfield, of the runway on to the airfield proper to get out of the way of anybody else and then called up. And I said, ‘Could I have somebody to turn me home please? Turn me in.’ And they said, ‘What’s the matter, x-ray?’ And they said, ‘Have you burst a tyre?’ I said, ‘Oh, no. I just lost an engine.’ Well, pupil pilots aren’t supposed to lose an engine so there was a great kafuffle of cars and things coming around and they towed me back. So, I knew a little bit about single engine flying so when I lost it when I was on the squadron I didn’t worry too much. I knew I could do it and as I say did. The difference being when I was on squadron it was at night and whereas the Training Command MTU was daylight you could say it was a subtle difference. But I liked night flying so [pause] Always had. Bomber Command was a pleasure to have served there and I think we did a good job for the war effort. Shall we put it that way because it enabled the bomber boys to improve their abilities and when you, I saw parts of Germany some months after the war finished. I couldn’t believe my eyes of how much damage mile after mile and this was, in particular I was in Hamburg. I’d also seen memory, a town from two thousand feet because we did a Cook’s Tour in the Mossies to see what we’d done to various targets and the places I saw were, and we didn’t go too far into Germany then for some reason but we could see the damage. And, but when I went to, later on I’d taken a, I was taking an Oxford to Denmark and called in Hamburg at Fuhlsbüttel, the airfield there, and we stayed overnight in Hamburg. But the, and the, had a transport from there back to Hamburg proper where the one and only hotel they told us that hadn’t been ruined the RAF had taken over as [pause] nothing permanent or was permanently for the RAF but people who were passing through like ourselves. And then we went on to Denmark and oh, don’t mention that. That trip home [laughs]. They’d were supposed to send an aircraft and pick us up. Went on day after day and we drank the Danish mess out of beer, we smoked the Danish mess out of cigarettes and one Friday afternoon I think it was, one of the thirty two of us, sixteen aircraft had been over there, sixteen pilots, sixteen navigators were waiting a trip home and the bloke comes in to our bunch and said, ‘Any of you blokes heard anything about —' so and so, ‘Coming to pick us up?’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No. No. Where did you hear this?’ ‘Oh, the CO just mentioned it. He thought he’d heard something about it.’ And I said, ‘Well, did you question him?’ ‘No.’ I was out of my seat in two seconds flat and I went to see the Danish CO and I said, ‘Well, what are we going to do?’ And such and such and about I don’t know how it was thought of but they whistled me up again and said, ‘Can you go down to, would you go down to Copenhagen? Copenhagen, and see your people down there?’ and I said, ‘Yes.’ And I was flown down there by a chap and his mate. The Danish pilot was a chap named Paul [Schilling] and we talked about this and that and one of his comments was if I ever met a Dane that couldn’t speak English don’t bother about him. So, I went in to see the air attaché and we had a a funny conversation about what was I going to do about the thirty one people because I had in effect established myself as CO of them. And he mucked about. He said this, he said that, he said the next thing. And I said, ‘They haven’t got any money, they haven’t got this beer, they haven’t got cigarettes.’ Dah dah dah. ‘And they haven’t got any change of clothing.’ Not funny at all. I’ve forgotten how I empathised that now. And so and so and so. And I said, ‘But sir you said —' such and such, ‘A minute ago.’ Out went his arm with a finger pointing and he says, ‘Get out.’ So as a group captain I got out and he had a liaison sort of officer, a flight lieutenant who was the biggest scrounger I think I’ve ever come across. He was not doing anything for the Air Force. He was enjoying himself no end. He said, ‘Oh, I’ve got to do —' so and so, ‘This morning. I’ll see you later.’ And all this sort of this thing and so, he was useless but any rate I got a summons from him later. ‘We’ve got thirty two hundred krona for your people and we’ve arranged for them to come down and they’ll go from here, or come down from a place called Viborg.’ Which was on the [pause] A Danish peninsula but I can’t remember the name of it, but a place called Viborg. And so, they came down by road and then they were duly monied. Given their tickets to catch the train to somewhere and they got, half of them got as full as the proverbial and spent all their money. And I didn’t bother about them. I just let them be and I went from, oh there were two or three of us together but there, was there a train first and then boat, then so and so something or other or it was a boat to a train and then we got to the, a German port where we caught a boat and travelled overnight to Hull. And that was our delivery of the Oxford to Denmark. That wasn’t the end of my delivery services because I then brought a Mosquito out from the UK to Ohakea. That was, there were twelve due that all took off on Friday the 13th. No. Six on the Thursday, six on the Friday the 13th of December. I was one of the six however and we were the first of about eighty that the New Zealand governor had purchased for post-war establishment and we had fun and games. UK to Sardinia I think it was. Sardinia to Cairo. Cairo to somewhere in the, I’ve forgotten. Then Allahabad. [unclear] And I might have missed somebody out. Or did I go in to Karachi on that trip? Yes. I think I did. Karachi, Allahabad, Calcutta [pause] And the big town up northern Malaya. I can’t think. Then down to [pause] I think. Oh no. Any rate, down to Singapore. Singapore to Dutch East Indies. Sumatra. Or was it Java? Java, that’s right. And Java to Darwin. Darwin to Townsville. Townsville to [pause] Sydney, I think. Must have been. Then Sydney to Ohakea. Took us six weeks would you believe. However, everybody was ready for us and no hold ups at all much and hence the six weeks. So, I went back as a passenger to UK and was offered the job of bringing another Mossie up and I said, ‘No. Thank you.’ So, I came home by boat and that was the end of my Air Force career. Whether that’s enough of Bomber Command for you dear I don’t know.
JB: That’s splendid. Just tell me briefly what you’ve been doing since.
KB: Hmmn?
JB: What you’ve been doing since then.
KB: Oh.
JB: Back in New Zealand.
KB: The New Zealand government
[pause]
You’ll have to excuse me.
JB: Yes.
KB: I don’t know but I’ve got to go [laughs]
KB: Alright.
[unclear]
JB: That’s ok.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Keith Boles
Creator
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Jennifer Barraclough
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-02-12
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABolesKM180212
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:03:30 audio recording
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Language
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
Keith Boles left school at the age of fourteen and took an apprenticeship in engineering. He was called up to the Air Force at the end of 1941 and was in Singapore when the Japanese invaded. He arrived in UK via Australia and Canada and after a refresher course he trained to be an instructor. He decided he wanted to go on ops and joined the Mosquito Training Flight and flew Mosquitoes on OBOE operations as a Pathfinder. On one occasion his navigator lost consciousness through lack of oxygen so he flew his aircraft at low level so he could recover. He also lost an engine on one operation, returning to base safely. At the end of the war he flew a Cook’s Tour to see for himself the bomb damaged cities. He also took part in the ferrying of Mosquitoes to New Zealand for the RNZAF.
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942-02
1945
Spatial Coverage
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Denmark
Germany
Great Britain
New Zealand
Singapore
Germany--Hamburg
Contributor
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Julie Williams
109 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Cook’s tour
military service conditions
Mosquito
Oboe
Pathfinders
pilot
target indicator
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/516/8748/PHatchM1501.2.jpg
d8ea507c92b2911874f3a4250ee60fa2
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/516/8748/AHatchM150730.1.mp3
22d3ce0e673b6b1303951b257282fcc8
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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Hatch, Maurice
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Hatch
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Maurice Hatch (137372 Royal Air Force). He served with 97 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MJ: It's on now.
MH: My name is Hatch, Maurice Edward Hatch. My rank in the RAF at the end of the war was a squadron leader. [background noise] I was seventeen when war broke out and I volunteered for air service with the RAF and when I went before the committee who considered these things, I was asked what was my position in civil life and I said that I was an article clerk training to be a chartered accountant, whereupon I was immediately designated potentially as a navigator. I never had the chance as being trained as a pilot. On the whole, I think probably in the long run I didn't regret it. I actually went into the air force in about October of 1941 and after initial period of square bashing in some of the delightful holiday resorts of this country like Torquay, Brighton and Eastbourne I went on my flying training in South Africa. I sailed from Liverpool and I sailed in great luxury in a converted Dutch meat ship, from which the covers over the holds had been removed and down which a rickety wooden staircase had been mounted down which we all came. Then, of course, having the exalted rank lowest form of animal life and ordinary airmen and with a pack on my chest, a steel helmet on the back and the big pack on the on the back and you went down until my steel helmet was touching the back of the man in front until effectively the hold of that meat was a mash of human beings. Having got to the point where you couldn't get another mouse in, they said that was enough. They then tried to sort out the sleeping accommodation which was hammocks from the ceiling, so close together that they were touching and I never did get one. The trip took six and a half weeks, I spent that six and a half weeks sleeping on a straw palliasse under the mess table, and life was hard to say the least of it. We were three days stationary, moored outside Freetown in the hot season which was almost unbearable and we eventually landed in Durban. I won't tell you all the details of the journey because they are sordid in the extreme, suffice to say that I hope I never get nearer to hell than that! For two or three days we were under canvas on Durban racecourse and then we went to East London on the east coast of South Africa, south of Durban. And I was there for almost a year doing my initial navigational training. We were very lucky, myself and two other people with, with whom I'd joined up, we were, if you like, befriended by a family of Scottish origin who lived in East London and the husband was in fact the Union Castle representative in East London, Union Castle being the most powerful body in South Africa at that time, they ran the weekly ship to Cape Town before the war and owned most of the principal hotels including, of course, the famous Mount Nelson in Cape Town. The training period in South Africa from a flying viewpoint was not really particularly noteworthy, what was more noteworthy was the ability to live on fruit and food which we hadn't seen in this country for a long time, and also, not quite so fortunately, the rather strong but extremely cheap South African brandy. I eventually finished the training after about a year and went to Cape Town to board a ship home. In the interim whilst I was there, the husband of the family who had befriended us had been promoted and had become the Union Castle's principal agent [background noise] in Cape Town and was therefore in Cape Town finding a house to which he could move his family. He was staying at the Mount Nelson Hotel and therefore my last night before going home, I went to dinner in the famous Mount Nelson Hotel which was a fairly unforgettable experience, particularly at that time going back as I was to wartime rationing. I was lucky in that on the return I was on an American trooper which was not in convoy and so went very much faster and we we got home in about two and a half weeks, and the only misfortune was that for some administrative reason which I have never understood, the fact that I had been commissioned had not reached South Africa and I therefore went home as a sergeant and regretted the fact that I didn't have the officer's quarters. However, that was rectified when I got home and I went to Harrogate which was the usual place where aircrew were accommodated on their return from Canada, South Africa, Rhodesia, as it then was, and the very few from the United States, where effectively all of this flying training had been carried out. After some leave, I started on the further long process in the training channel which included, of course, the crewing up and we formed into a crew. Strangely enough, that was done largely by us ourselves rather than by any officials. We sort of went around and tried to decide people with whom we thought we might get on and in effect established a crew ourselves, and this we did. I was in fact the only commissioned officer in the crew; all the others were sergeants or flight sergeants. We went through the various stages, going from Wellingtons after a short period, we were onto Stirlings and then eventually onto Lancasters, and my first posting to a squadron, an operating squadron, was to 630 Squadron which was at East Kirby in Lincolnshire, and it was a very sudden and very marked experience of the reality of war after the joy of South Africa, where, frankly, the war seemed a long way away. And we finished up playing tennis and swimming rather than worrying too much about flying. On arrival at 630 Squadron, it was at the time when the raids in Berlin were going on almost nightly, and at that time, and maybe at all times I don't know but certainly at that time, it had become the practise that when a new crew, a sprog crew arrived on the squadron with no experience, the captain of the crew, the pilot, went first as a second dicky with an experienced crew, and we had arrived on the squadron at about ten-thirty in the morning, by mid-afternoon ops had been announced and we subsequently discovered it was on Berlin. My pilot was assigned as a second dicky to an experienced crew and off he went and did not return. He must have had the shortest tour of operations of anybody, one take off and one landing, the landing being by parachute. I'm delighted to say he survived the war and came through but he was of course a prisoner of war in that intermediate period. I was therefore left with the remainder of my crew within twenty-four hours of having arrived on the squadron of going away again with a delightful RAF expressions being the head of a headless crew which always struck me as an oddish [?] phrase. We went back to conversion unit, and this I suppose was one of my lucky periods during my life, I always find it slightly guilty or referring to another man's misfortune as being one of my luckies, but we linked up on our return to conversion unit to an experienced New Zealand pilot. If my memory's right, he was then a flight lieutenant, he had done a tour earlier in the war and had been instructing and had now come back for a second tour and we had no captain, he had no crew, and so the obvious thing was to put us together, and this was very lucky. The strange part about this was that he was a tough, back-woods, New Zealander whose language was frequently fairly colourful, but he had a strangely sentimental streak because his first tour had been on 97 Squadron, he was desperately anxious that this second tour should also be on 97 Squadron. The only problem was that in between the two dates, the Pathfinder Force had been formed and 97 Squadron had become one of the Pathfinder squadrons. Generally speaking, people, in quotes, volunteered to go on the Pathfinder Force, although I think frequently it was a form of volunteering which usually involved the twisting of an arm or two. But it was after seven or eight operations had been successfully completed and the crew had broadly shown itself as being competent. This, of course, was not the case; my New Zealand captain’s name was Smith, and he was always called Smithy by us, and he, of course, was an experienced pilot, but he had a crew who had never done an operation in their lives, and particularly a navigator, i.e. me, who had never been on an operation in his life. Somehow, he succeeded in getting us onto 97 Squadron; how he did it, whose arm he twisted, I have never known, but the fact remains that we did. Accordingly, I started once again by going then for, I think it was four or five weeks’ intensive Pathfinder navigation training at the PFF headquarters, PFF had become 8 Group, and the headquarters were outside Huntingdon, and for the moment I’ve forgotten its name.
MJ: Wyton.
MH: Wyton. And, well, I, I obviously successfully dealt with the specialist training because, at the end of the period, we were appointed, we were posted to 97 Squadron, which had just about turned up at Coningsby, having previously been somewhere else which I’ve moment forgotten, and I suppose the good fortune of that alignment with Smithy very quickly showed itself, because our very first operational trip as a new crew, we were attacked by two ME-109s, and I hate to think what, with an entirely inexperienced pilot and crew, might have happened. As it was, Smithy put us into a power dive and we successfully escaped, and I always remember, as we, nose went down and, of course, everything, the charts, the protractors, the dividers, the pencils, everything went all over the place, and all I remember was Smithy shouting ‘Never mind about the bloody charts, tell me if there are any hills around here!’ I don’t know how he thought I was going to do that, because of course the, the map showing such things as hills had gone with all the rest. However, eventually I did find it and told him that there were no hills, but by then it was too late, because fortunately there was none, and we were on our way home, fairly low, waking up a few French along the way. Well, after that, we had a comparatively inexperienced and exciting time, fortunately, the usual little problems of sometimes getting splattered by shrapnel from bombs exploding around one, but nothing really terrible except, I suppose, we, one, one, one night, a hydraulic pipeline was severed, and it wasn’t quite known whether or not the undercarriage was going to lock down, and so we were diverted to the diversionary airport at Manston in Kent, which, strangely enough, was a place to which I became quite attached and very accustomed later after the war. Smith finished his tour, his second tour, after twenty ops, and we were still there. The usual arrangement in the Pathfinder Force was that, instead of doing the normal stint of thirty ops in a first tour, then a period off and twenty on a second tour, one was encouraged to do forty-five ops through immediately, one, ah, all in one go, on Pathfinder Force, presumably because of the additional training and experience which one had gained in Pathfinder operations. I had by then become reasonably accustomed to my duties with H2S as it was then, the early form of radar, I suppose the predecessor of many of the systems with which we are accustomed now in our motorcars or boats or anything like that. By today’s standards, it was fairly primitive, but on the whole, it worked, and I effectively did forty-four operations, finishing my forty-fourth just about at the end of the war, and I think I’m right in saying that I failed to find the target first time only once in those forty-four operations. Again, we had one or two bits of excitement; by then, I was flying with the squadron commander because, when Smithy had finished his second tour, once again, we found ourselves as a crew without a pilot, and the squadron commander had just completed a tour and had gone, and he, his successor, a group captain, Group Captain Peter Johnson, the Pathfinder Force generally had ranks which were one up from the general Bomber Command so that, whereas most bomber squadrons were commanded by wing commander, Pathfinder squadrons generally commanded by a group captain, the flight commanders were wing commanders whereas usually they were squadron leaders, and leaders (wireless, navigation, gunnery and so on) were usually squadron leaders instead of flight lieutenants. And, of course, with the passage of time and people finishing their tours and, sadly, finishing their tours in other ways, meant that promotion was fairly quick and eventually found myself as a squadron leader, acting squadron leader, anyway. And I suppose at the age of twenty-three, briefing Pathfinder squadrons, it was good experience which has stood one good in civil life after the war. Only one thing, well, I suppose two things, really, stick in my mind: one is that we were coming back one evening from very long flight, somewhere way over in, I, Stet – somewhere in Poland, we’d been airborne for about nine hours and were running really rather short of fuel, and it was foggy, good old Lincolnshire fog, and we couldn’t get in at Coningsby. At Metheringham, which was close by, there had been installed a system which was called FIDO, which took the form of a, a channel being put alongside the runway and filled with aircraft spirit of some sort, and which I, in foggy conditions, it was lit, the idea being that the heat generated would disperse the fog. Unfortunately, the people who did it forgot the fact that the, the fire itself would have created more smoke, and we had problems. We went ‘round twice and couldn’t find the, the, the ‘drome, the –
MJ: Flare path?
MH: [background noises] I was saying that my captain had considerable experience in finding the flight path, we went ‘round twice and by then the fuel was running dangerously slow, ah, short, and fortunately, we turned on a third time and both the pilot and the flight engineer, more or less at the same time, just got a glimpsed, glimpse of the flight path and Peter Johnson very cleverly (not easy on a Lancaster) effectively side-slipped onto the air, airfield. We had a very bumpy landing but at any rate, we did get down in one piece. We subsequently discovered that part of the difficulty was not only the smoke created by FIDO itself but the plane that had come in immediately before us, or had tried to come in, had failed and had crashed right through the woodland alongside the, the aerodrome and all members of the crew were killed. So that was not a – it wasn’t the best of evenings when we got back in, in the mess that evening. My, my skipper, my pilot, Group Captain Peter Johnson, with typical sort of British stiff upper lip, when I think one member of my crew said to him as we were getting out, ‘Well, that was a bit dicey,’ and he said [blustering received-pronunciation] ‘Oh, it was alright, you know,’ and, but in fact, subsequently back in the mess, he did tell me, tell me that he was pretty worried and that, had we not seen the runway on that particular moment, he was seriously considering turning out to sea and trying to land in the shallows of the sea, so I’m, I’m glad the smoke cleared enough for us to get by. Apart from that, there were very few moments of great excitement. One memorable moment, not really a moment of excitement is that, in the Pathfinder operations, the Lancasters, the Lancaster Pathfinders were equipped with RT and WT; the main force was equipped only with WT. The master bombers, who were in Mosquitoes, they had only RT, and they were people like Cheshire and Tate and Gibson and names such as that, and on this particular night, we – one of the Lancaster Pathfinders was doing the job as link aircraft (this was passing on WT the RT instructions received from the master bomber), and the Pathfinder Lancasters used to take it in turn to be the link aircraft, in effect flying ‘round and ‘round the target passing the messages from the master bomber. Not the most popular of tasks, needless to say, but on this particular night, we were, well, my skipper was, in effect, the, the second string, which was the man who was the link, was very often, or very often at any rate, the senior officer in the Lancasters who was on the raid was the deputy commander, just in case the master bomber had mechanical trouble and had to turn back or had been shot down en route, and we were the, the second string, if you like, and, and we had a message from the master bomber saying that the raid was successful, radio home and go home, and go home we did, only to find out later that the master bomber had not got home, and the master bomber was no less than Guy Gibson. So it’s not exactly a claim to fame, it’s the most inappropriate form of words, but I suppose it is true to say that I and the other six members of the crew were the last seven people to hear Guy Gibson speak. I’ve never really, I don’t think most people have ever really fully satisfied themselves as to what happened to him; various rumours, most of them silly, but I’m, I’ve always been told (I can’t prove this), I’ve always been told that it was a complete wreck, the aircraft was on fire and everything was burned, and that the only recognition was that a sock was found with a laundry mark on it and this was Gibson’s. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but that was the story I’d always been told. So, that more or less finished my flying career. I, I went on a couple of daylight raids which I didn’t much enjoy; somehow, I didn’t think the Lancaster was, was fitted for formation flying as were the Americans. And I, I don’t, I don’t think they were terribly successful and they weren’t particularly enjoyable. At the, the days immediately on the end of the war, most of us were, to some extent, occupied in bringing back prisoners of war from airfields in Belgium and Holland, poor devils had been up to several years in prisoner of war camps and had been brought out to the coast and were being picked up. Two things remind me of that always: my good skipper, the group captain, who I may say was a first class man (he finished the war DSO, DFC, AFC and thoroughly deserved it all), we didn’t see each other after the war for almost forty years, and then by pure accident, I was, I’d been a member of the MCC for a great many years, and was one night at home looking through the annual accounts of the MCC, and there was a list of people who had been members of the MCC for fifty years and who were now called life members and no longer had a subscription to pay, and about the third in the list was Group Captain P.W. Johnson, DSO, DFC, AFC, and I said to my wife, ‘Well, there can only be one member like that!’ And at that time, my firm, I was of course by then a, a qualified chartered accountant and a partner in my firm, and we were then acting auditors of the MCC, so I said to my partner, who dealt with the MCC problems, would he let me know next time he went to Lords [?] for anything, would he go into the office and see if he could find the address of Group Captain Johnson, which he did, and a week or two later, I found out and got back in touch with Peter Johnson and we thereafter saw each other roughly every six or seven weeks. He was a good deal older, he was fourteen years older than me, and by then he was therefore he was eighty or eighty-ish, and we used to take him out. He was, he was on his own, he’d lost his wife, he was a rather lonely old man in many ways. My wife, I had met during the war, she was a WAF, a Scots girl, and we met, strangely, I think immediate, immediately after the war in Europe finished, because very quickly, the operational squadrons were being disbanded, people were being sent away and all sorts of things. Peter Johnson was sent almost immediately to join a party which was being put together by Bomber Harris to go to Germany and inspect at first hand the damage which Bomber Command had done, and so he left the squadron very quickly, and I didn’t then see anything of him for forty years. I greatly regret it, actually, the loss of that forty years ‘cause he was such a first-class chap, and we had many a happy meeting in the years between our meeting up again and when he, he died. He died in a way which suited him well, because he was then living in an old people’s home not very far from where we live, and so we, we were able to see him fairly frequently. He had always had a, an eye for the girls; it was well known in Coningsby that he had a girlfriend in Newark and another one in Boston, and his son had been married about five times, and I remember him telling me once that, after the fifth marriage, that if he, if he got rid of that wife, Peter Johnson was going to marry her himself ‘cause she was jolly nice, and she had actually come to visit him in the old people’s home. He was still driving, he’d taken her back to the station to catch the train back to where they were living, he parked his car outside the, the place where he was living, he had a long-ish walk into the front door, he collapsed halfway on that walk, and before anybody could really do anything about it, he was dead. So it was a suitable and fitting end, I don’t think he would have regretted it. But that ended, substantially ended, my air force career, because I still had a fairly high demob number and because I was fairly experienced with forty-four ops behind me with Pathfinder Force, I was allocated to a thing called Tiger Force, which some bright spark at the Air Ministry had decided that we should go to assist our brave allies, the Americans, in the Far East, and that we should try to operate the successful Pathfinder technique which had been operated in Europe. I mean, it was a crazy idea ‘cause it was quite impossible doing the thing; it one thing being on a, a pre-war, tarmacadamed airfield with permanent buildings and every sort of electronic communication then available. It was a little different being stuck in Okinawa or somewhere like that. However, that was, I was to be so-called wing navigation officer and was actually on leave when the Japanese war ended, and so I phoned the Air Ministry and said, ‘Well, you don’t really, seriously mean to go ahead with this, do you?’ And there was a bit of umming and ahing at the other end, but I did eventually – I was told that they would be in touch with me and a couple of days later, there was a telephone call to say that the thing was off but I was to report back to Coningsby, and I spent the rest of my time as station navigation officer at Coningsby, and I left the, the squadrons left Coningsby about a fortnight before I was demobbed, they’ve were moved to Hemswell in order that the runways at Coningsby could be lengthened for the V Bombers which were then coming on stream. I got in touch and said, ‘Look, I’ve been in Coningsby two and a half years, you’re surely not gonna send me away to Hemswell, I have another fortnight to go,’ so again, there was umming and ahing and said ‘No,’ but I had to stay at Coningsby the other fortnight, they didn’t let me go a fortnight early, but that ended my work, wartime career, if ‘career’ is the right word. Terrible, war’s a terrible thing, awful, awful times one remembers. One remembers times of great strain, times of danger, but equally times when, very often before leaving for a flight, the, the, the whole feeling oneself was flowing, there was a, there was a, a scare, I suppose a scare, a fright; on the other hand, there was a feeling of something quite exciting was going to happen. It was a strange feeling and it was very different when you came back, I think feelings there differed very much from person to person, and I think I’d – probably as good a note to end on, end on as any is that I think that it’s amply demonstrated why the men who did the sculpture in the Bomber Command memorial in Green Park, where he has the sculpture of a crew of Lancasters coming in after the end of an operation, and, whilst my eyesight, I’m afraid, these days is far from good, and I, I really was not able to recognise it, my wife always tells me that the expressions on the face of the seven people were quite remarkable and that the, the sculptor had really done a marvellous job. And it is a marvellous, marvellous memorial; I was lucky to be one of those still alive and able to attend its opening by the Queen, and those of us who were there and who had actually operated during the war were asked to line up at the end along the, effectively, the edge of the Green Park parallel with Piccadilly, and the Prince of Wales and his wife came along and shook hands with all of us individually, one by one. I think he missed his lunch in consequence, but I imagine he didn’t mind. I think that hopefully is, in brief, my story. I hope it may be of use and interest to somebody in the future.
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command, I’d like to thank Squadron Leader Hatch, at his home in Croydon, for his recording on the date of the 30th July 2015. I thank you very much. Bye-bye.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Maurice Hatch
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
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
2015-07-30
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHatchM150730
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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00:38:07 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Maurice Hatch was training as a chartered accountant when volunteered for pilot but was instead enlisted as a navigator. After initial training at Torquay, Brighton and Eastbourne he went to South Africa for a year. Upon returning he crewed up at Harrogate followed to a post at RAF East Kirby (630 Squadron) flying Wellingtons, Stirlings and Lancasters, mainly on operations to Berlin. Then he went on a five-week intensive Pathfinder navigation training at 8 Group headquarters, followed by a post with 97 Squadron at RAF Coningsby where he flew 44 operations. After the end of the war in Europe he was sent to the Far East with the Tiger Force as wing navigation officer, but the war ended before he started operational duties. Maurice returned at RAF Coningsby as station navigation officer until demobbed. He then became a qualified chartered accountant and a partner of his firm. Maurice talks about military ethos, prisoner of war, bailing out, operations, anti-aircraft fire, evasive manoeuvres, Guy Gibson, reunions, the Bomber Command memorial in Green Park, meeting the Queen and other dignitaries.
Spatial Coverage
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South Africa
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Devon
England--Sussex
England--Torquay
England--Brighton
England--Harrogate
Germany
Germany--Berlin
England--Eastbourne (East Sussex)
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
630 Squadron
8 Group
97 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bombing
crewing up
demobilisation
Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain (1926 - 2022)
FIDO
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Lancaster
Me 109
memorial
navigator
Pathfinders
prisoner of war
promotion
RAF Coningsby
Stirling
Tiger force
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/311/3468/PNuttingS1704.2.jpg
629966ef5e6ac53d82ae6062e6f210c5
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/311/3468/ANuttingS170222.1.mp3
076ea473c2e1d4fc5c8e8075b35f2257
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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Nutting, Sinclair
Sinclair Nutting
Clair Nutting
S Nutting
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Sinclair "Clair" Nutting (b. 1921, J85055 Royal Canadian Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-22
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Nutting, S
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jean MacCartney. The interviewee is Sinclair or Clair Nutting. The interview is taking place at Mr Nutting’s home in Banora Point, New South Wales on the 22nd of February 2017. Now, Clair, you’ve written a book called, “A Piece Of Cake,” which documents a lot of your experiences but even so we’ d like to go through some aspects of those and other aspects that perhaps were not covered with —in as much detail. So, let’s go back to the beginning. You were born in 19 —
SN: ’21.
JM: ’21. And where were you born?
SN: I was born in a place called Radisson. R A D I S S O N.
JM: R A D I S S — Yeah.
SN: Saskatchewan S A S K. period. Canada.
JM: And that is where you spent your, most of your youth.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. And that’s where you did you schooling.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. And you, your family had been in the area there for quite some time.
SN: Yes. They were pioneers.
JM: Pioneers. Yes. And what sort of pioneers? Pioneers in what way? They were farming.
SN: They were the first, among the first settlers as farmers in that area.
JM: Going back how many years would that be, do you think?
SN: To 1900.
JM: 1900. Yeah. And so what was your family farming?
SN: It was what we call a mixed farm of grain, wheat, oats, barley, rye. And animals. Cattle, horses, pigs, chickens.
JM: Right. And so all of those animals — were they raised and then sold or some of it used for home consumption as well? Or a mix again? Or what?
SN: It was rather a mix. They had horses of course were what were used to work the farm
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the cattle and pigs we slaughtered as we needed them. And they were sold on the market when they were ready to sell.
JM: So. Right. So, you sold them as cured stock.
SN: As beef and pork. Yes.
JM: Yes. Yeah. And your father did all the butchery or did he bring in somebody to do the butchery?
SN: No. My father did it.
JM: Right. Ok. And what about the grains? They were all sold. You sent stuff off to silos and that sort of thing or what happened there?
SN: It was, it was a large family farm which included my father, his brothers, my grandfather and they ran it as a unit. It must have been, what? About six sections of land or something like that. It — all of the farms in that area at that time were mixed farms meaning that they were — the people who lived on them were [pause] what’s the word I’m seeking? They were dependant on the farm for their livelihood. For gardens, for grain, for the animals. That kind of thing.
JM: Ok. And so, you would assist in some of the farming duties from time to time when you were a young lad a or —?
SN: Yes. All farm kids that were old enough were expected to earn their keep.
JM: Keep. Yeah.
SN: Yes.
JM: So what sort of things? What sort of tasks were you given?
SN: Oh, there were all sorts of things. In harvest time we would move out with the men. We did all the usual things, I guess. Getting water and wood. Driving horses on wagons and on machines. Binders and ploughs and that kind of thing.
JM: So then again you probably got some sort of basic mechanical, more than basic mechanical training with helping to repair machinery and all of that sort of thing from time to time too, I guess.
SN: All that I wished to have. Yes [laughs]
JM: Right. So, so you were doing this in between your schooling and so what was your schooling? I’m not particularly familiar with the Canadian education system. So would you have gone to school — normal school? The start age in Australia is five. And then through what they call primary school and then transfer to a high school or secondary school. And usually, well, back then, they usually finished about seventeen. Sometimes sixteen. But if they left early they finished at fourteen or fifteen. So how did the Canadian system —
SN: Pretty much the same Jean but this might be interesting. It was during the Depression.
JM: Yes.
SN: And during the Depression they had correspondence courses.
JM: Right.
SN: And I, for instance, went to a country school which had a total of eighteen pupils in all grades from one to ten.
JM: Right. Yeah.
SN: So that was most of my schooling.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And this was caused by the Depression.
JM: Depression.
SN: They wanted to get the kids back to school.
JM: The kids were on the farms basically.
SN: Yes.
JM: I suppose. Yes.
SN: Yes. And I then went into the town for the last, I guess, year and a half I was there
JM: Right. And how far away was town away?
SN: Six miles.
JM: Six miles. Right.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And did you travel in and out each day or did you stay in town?
SN: I boarded with a family.
JM: Right.
SN: For a year and a half during the winters.
JM: Right.
SN: Because it was too difficult.
JM: Too difficult.
SN: To get me back and forward.
JM: Back and forward. Yeah. And was this family friends of the family or —?
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yes. They were dear people.
JM: They were?
SN: They were dear people.
JM: Dear people.
SN: Yes. And good friends of mine.
JM: Good friend. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. Yeah. Ok. So. So that, yes, well that in a way is actually quite similar to what country children in New South Wales in particular would have experienced as well because they had, like, one teacher schools.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And you would have had one teacher school there.
SN: That’s right.
JM: Yes. Yes. So, what —
SN: One size fits all.
JM: Fits all. Who had sort of a multitude of different grades in the classroom in one corner and scattered all around the area and he was, he or she would be moving between all the children and helping them with the grade that they were on. So, the teacher was — had a bit of a challenge in those sort of situations as well didn’t they? So —
SN: Yes. I didn’t finish my high school.
JM: No?
SN: I was expelled.
JM: Oh, I see. Yes. Right. Because? You —
SN: I misbehaved.
JM: You misbehaved. Yes.
SN: Yes. What — it might be interesting — when I came back from overseas and was discharged you had to go to the capital of the Province, which was Regina, to be discharged. And I wanted to go to university so I went to see a man called a Registrar who was a small god in charge of education and I was in uniform and I told him my story. He listened, I came back the following day and his secretary came out and said, ‘I’m sorry. Mr,’ whatever his name was, I’ve forgotten, ‘Is unable to see you. He was called away,’ and my face fell. And she said, ‘but he left you this.’ And she handed me an envelope which was a, to the effect that I had fulfilled all of the qualifications for Grade 12 and marks were given me which brought me up to the level to enter the university.
JM: Very good.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Very good indeed. So that gave you the chance to go to university.
SN: That’s right.
JM: After you returned. Yeah. Ok.
SN: That’s right.
JM: We’ll come back to all of that in due course. But so, you, what age were you when you were expelled? Roughly. Do you remember?
SN: I joined up when I was eighteen. I suppose I would have been seventeen.
JM: Seventeen. Right. Ok. So I presume in that year between being expelled and being called up you probably just worked on the farm? Is that? Or did you go and get a job?
SN: No. it was a, it was the end of the school year.
JM: Right.
SN: And I joined up in December of 1940.
JM: Right.
SN: And by that time, because of my birthday, I was eighteen.
JM: Right. So --
SN: So —
JM: So it just happened.
SN: Yes.
JM: Just went through the war in a sequence.
SN: Yes. It did.
JM: Alright. So signed up then for the air force.
SN: Yes.
JM: Any particular reason for the air force or —?
SN: Well the air force was quite [pause] it was, I suppose the, the glamour service at that time. This was where people who wanted adventure or saw the war as an adventure this was where they went.
JM: And so that’s what attracted you. You saw that as an adventure.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: And you said, ‘Right.’
SN: That was very good.
JM: If they’ll have me that’s where I’ll go, sort of thing.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yes. Ok. Actually, I just meant to just backtrack once before we get in to — so this was in 1940 that you enlisted but just before that how, how much of an impact did the Depression have on your family? Because you were on the farm you were a little bit able to cope. A little bit better than perhaps people in town because you had lots —
SN: Yes.
JM: Of resources at hand, so to speak.
SN: That’s right. That’s right.
JM: In terms of food and, you know, meat and chicken and eggs. And you had milking cows too I presume.
SN: Exactly. Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. So, you were relatively comfortable.
SN: I was.
JM: Yeah.
SN: In terms of the Depression I was — our family came through it pretty well.
JM: Well —
SN: You know there was never a time when I had to think about —
JM: Yeah.
SN: Whether I had any food to eat.
JM: Yeah. Whether there was going to be food on the table. Yes.
SN: Work or what have you.
JM: Yes. That’s right. Ok. So, you enlisted then December 1940.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes, and where did you do your initial training?
SN: I went to Brandon.
JM: Brandon. Yes.
SN: Which was the manning depot.
JM: Where? Sorry?
SN: It was the manning depot.
JM: Right. And where is Brandon in —?
SN: Brandon —
JM: How far away from Radisson is that? I assume you enlisted in Radisson or did you have to go over to the main —
SN: No. No. I had to go to the main, the largest city.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which was Saskatoon.
JM: Right. And then so from there to Brandon how far? Where? What sort of distance is that? Just roughly. You know. Sort of a day’s train ride or half a day.
SN: It’s a day’s train ride.
JM: Right. Ok. Yeah.
SN: Yes.
JM: So you were over there. So your parents were happy about you enlisting were they? Or was your father a bit —?
SN: I think so.
JM: I forgot to check. Did you have any other brothers and sisters? Or —?
SN: I had one sister but she was much younger than I am. She was seven years younger. After I was expelled I, and the fellow who was expelled with me, we got one of the freight trains that went into the city and we went to the army, the navy and the air force and nobody would have us because they said we were seventeen and did we have permission?
JM: So, you weren’t able to get in at that point.
SN: No.
JM: No. So then when you turned eighteen, you said to your parents. How did they feel about that?
SN: I think they were pretty well resolved that it was going to happen. It wasn’t something they — like all parents they were fearful but I think they were resigned that this was what most people, like me, were doing.
JM: Ok. So, you’re off to Brandon. Is that right?
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. And what —how long were you there?
SN: Oh, I would think a couple of months.
JM: A couple of months. Yeah. So, this is early ‘41 basically.
SN: Yes.
JM: Ok. And from Brandon where did you go next?
SN: We went to what was called guard duty.
JM: Guard duty. Yeah.
SN: Which was another couple of months?
JM: Yeah. And where was that?
SN: And that was in Saskatoon.
JM: Yeah. So back to almost near home. Yeah.
SN: Yes. It was back to a couple of hours away.
JM: Yeah. And that was about a couple of months you think.
SN: Yeah. Roughly.
JM: What sort of things did guard duty — what sort of things were you guarding something? What? I mean guard duty sort of implies you were guarding. What did it actually?
SN: It was really part of the training regime to get people sorted out as to what they were to do. It was compulsory. You had two hours on, four hours off, two hours on, four hours off during which you went — in this instance we were guarding, they were guarding airports. Everybody went through this. And you simply went out with your musket and [laughs] patrolled an area for two hours and they checked that you were there and you were awake. And then they — oh there was continuous inspections and little marches and that kind of thing. It was a training thing.
JM: Thing. Yeah. Ok.
SN: Everybody went through it.
JM: Ok. So this is possibly getting to the — just beyond winter so at least out on guard duty.
SN: Yes.
JM: You were not out in the depths of winter. Out.
SN: No. no. There was danger.
JM: Pacing the perimeters.
SN: No danger involved.
JM: Yes. But I mean, but you weren’t out in the cold and snow and all the rest of it though at this point.
SN: No. No. No.
JM: Because as I I say it had become more or less the end.
SN: Yes, it was —
JM: You were pretty well early spring at this stage so —
SN: Yes. Yes, it was spring.
JM: Yes. So, ok. So what, anything in particular that stands out from there. Things that you realised you could do or things that you were being asked to do that you didn’t like doing or anything like that?
SN: I don’t think there was anything remarkable about it.
JM: About it.
SN: It was [pause] I think there were something like twenty four of us that went through this. Nothing.
JM: In that group.
SN: Yes. Nothing remarkable.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So where did you go to from there?
SN: I went to Calgary.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And that was to do wireless training.
JM: Ok. Yes.
SN: Wireless air gunners.
JM: Yes.
SN: And at that time we all got to wear a white flash in our caps.
JM: Caps.
SN: Which separated you from those who didn’t and I was there for — what? Maybe four months or something.
JM: Right. So, would this be, say, around about May? May ’41 to —
SN: I would say.
JM: To October ’41.
SN: Yes.
JM: Or something like that?
SN: Until, until December.
JM: Until December. Ok so we could work back from there.
SN: Yes.
JM: So, December, November, October. September to December. So, we’ll say August/September to December of ‘41 there at your wireless.
SN: Yes. I would say it was a five month course.
JM: Course. Yeah.
SN: That would be my recollection.
JM: Recollection. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. And so all facets of being a wireless op and air gunner all mixed in together. You didn’t — or did you do blocks of wireless work and then —
SN: No. It was all wireless.
JM: It was all wireless. Yeah.
SN: It was all wireless. And I did not finish the course.
JM: Right.
SN: I went —
JM: For any particular reason? Or —?
SN: Yes. I went on leave for, what was it, it was a long weekend and I caught pneumonia.
JM: That’s right. Yes.
SN: In Saskatoon. And they put me in the hospital and I was in the hospital for nearly six weeks.
JM: Yes.
SN: You know. And I was in an oxygen tent for —
JM: Yes. Because you were not a well person for —
SN: For four days because I had — I was lucky.
JM: Yes.
SN: They brought out the first of the Sulfa drugs and that saved me.
JM: That saved you. Yes. Of course. That’s how bad you were.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: So when I finished they posted me.
JM: So, this — when, when was, that was when?
SN: That was from the end of November.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Until the end of the year.
JM: Yes. That you were in hospital.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: In hospital or convalescent leave.
JM: Yes.
SN: It was something like that.
JM: That’s right. Yeah. So therefore, you didn’t actually finish that course. So, what happened there?
SN: I don’t know whether I would, to be very frank. I don’t know whether I would ever have. It was probably a good thing in that I wasn’t particularly — I could do the Morse at speed but I was not particularly — I don’t think I would have been a particularly good wireless operator. So, in any event, at the end of this thing they posted me to Trenton.
JM: Right. Where’s —?
SN: As what we used to call a straight air gunner.
JM: Yeah. And whereabouts is Trenton?
SN: Trenton is in Eastern Canada.
JM: Right. And when would this be? January ‘42?
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. And that was for straight air —
SN: Yes.
JM: Air gunner training.
SN: That’s right.
JM: Yeah. So, what stands out about that training?
SN: It was about [pause] maybe six weeks. Something like that. Well I think I had decided that I really had to make this.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And it was a large course and I came second. I think it was probably the first time I realised that I could do something.
JM: Do something. Yeah.
SN: This was, I think, largely attributable, I covered it in this book.
JM: Yes.
SN: This man I met who was much older than I was and he — I was a little ashamed of being somewhat bookish and that it was a bit sissy to excel. And he said, ‘You know, this is foolish.’
JM: Yes.
SN: ‘You do as well as you can.’
JM: You can. Yeah.
SN: [unclear] you can do that. And I did. And the other thing which is also covered in this book was the rather extraordinary thing of this man who was court martialled and, because he thought that he was operating a camera gun when he was not. He was operating a Vickers machine gun.
JM: Machine gun.
SN: And he shot up a parade of airmen.
JM: Airmen. That’s right.
SN: In a row.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he was court martialled. And as I say in there this was an extraordinary spectacle that I’ve never forgotten. He was a little non-descript fella from Newfoundland whose name was Silver and he, the entire station, it was a big station, was out in hollow square.
JM: On parade.
SN: With the, we were all, yes, we were all on parade and we were all there and the band was there and the group captain was there with a table and the man with the leopard skin drum. The whole bit was the drum rolls, everything.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And this poor little man was marched up and his hat off in front of this table, and the drum rolls cut off by [unclear] this corporal. Cut them off.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Cut them off.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And threw them on the ground.
JM: Ground.
SN: Marched him off.
JM: Off.
SN: And he got two years in the penitentiary.
JM: Penitentiary.
SN: So, we all remembered that.
JM: That.
SN: And it was for not turning up.
JM: Up.
SN: For an overseas posting. And so, I think, I think we all got the point.
JM: You all got the point. That’s right. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So, then, so this is sort of becoming a turning point. So, after the air gunning. This training at Trenton. Where did you go?
SN: Well I got, as everyone else did, our air gunner badge.
JM: Badge.
SN: And sergeant’s stripes.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we all went on embarkation leave. And that was a couple of weeks or ten days. I’ve forgotten. But Canada is like Australia in that train journeys were very long.
JM: Long. That’s right.
SN: It takes —
JM: And of course, if you’re right over in Eastern Canada that’s a long way from home.
SN: Yes.
JM: To get back. Yes.
SN: So then, following embarkation leave I came to Halifax and —
JM: So, you didn’t — did you actually get home in that embarkation leave?
SN: Yes, I did.
JM: Or — yes, you did .
SN: Yes. I got home for about ten days I think.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And then we were back to Halifax and just as things worked out we were the last, there were twelve of us marched down to board ship. And we were the last people aboard.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the convoy left that about an hour or two later.
JM: Gosh. So this would have been the end of March, early April ’42.
SN: This would have been early March. Yes. 1942.
JM: Yeah. Probably be about mid-March. Oh yeah. Early March. Yeah. Yeah. That’s ok. Yeah. Early March ‘42. Yes.
SN: Yes.
JM: And so so Halifax. So where —?
SN: Halifax is —
JM: So was this a large troop carrier that you were on? Or a small —
SN: A large convoy.
JM: Yes. But there was a convoy but were the boats themselves — was there large troop carriers.
SN: Yes.
JM: Or —
SN: Yes.
JM: Did you have any sense of whether there were thousands there? Or perhaps under a thousand or —?
SN: There were, they were crowded.
JM: They were crowded.
SN: It was a ship called the Andes. Which had run on the Latin American English run.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Not a bad ship.
JM: Yes. No.
SN: But we were in cabins. They were, I think, seven or eight of us in a little —
JM: A cabin. Yeah.
SN: And the the toilets were at the end of the —
JM: Yeah. Corridor so to speak.
SN: Corridor. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So where —
SN: But it was good enough. It wasn’t bad. We could —
JM: Ok. So —
SN: Everybody had —
JM: So where did you land in —
SN: We landed in Greenock which is Glasgow.
JM: Glasgow. Yeah. And so, on the train down to —
SN: We had no, yes, we had no adventures. We had one emergency in the Irish Sea where they shot at, where they put down a sub and the convoys were in lines of destroyers.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And ships.
JM: Ships. Yeah.
SN: Following one another.
JM: You don’t remember how many were in that convoy? In that total convoy.
SN: I haven’t the vaguest idea whatever.
JM: No. That’s ok.
SN: What it is.
JM: So you got there pretty uneventfully.
SN: Yes. Now they may have, I think they sunk something in the Irish Sea.
JM: Sea.
SN: But that was it.
JM: That was it.
SN: So we had really quite a good —
JM: Quite. Ok. So then you’re off in Glasgow. You’re on the train I presume to —
SN: We went by train to Bournemouth.
JM: Bournemouth. Yeah.
SN: Where everyone went and that was a manning depot there.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And you stayed in Bournemouth.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Until you were posted.
JM: Yes.
SN: To wherever you were going.
JM: Going. Yeah.
SN: They were, we were a mixture of pilots, observers.
JM: Observers. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Everything. And that was a very easy thing. The only remarkable thing again, which was in the book, was that we were quartered in formerly resort hotels and we ate in a different building than the one in which we were housed.
JM: Right.
SN: And we came out this one day and a siren went and we tumbled out on the street and I remember seeing these two Fokker Wulf 190s come in and they came under the radar. Just straight over the —
SN: We were right on the end — Bournemouth is a —
JM: Seaside bit.
SN: Seaside resort. And they came under the radar and they came right up and they bombed. Dropped their bombs and went.
JM: Went.
SN: And they hit the building we were to eat in and I can remember we were all amazed. Standing there with our mouths open. And some of them, finally they were digging around in the thing said, ‘Come.’
JM: Come.
SN: Don’t stand there like —’
JM: Yeah. ‘Come and help us dig.’
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: So, it was a rude awakening.
JM: Awakening to the realities of war. What so now you finally knew what you were about to be part of .
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yes. It was real.
JM: It was real. That’s right. So, any idea of how long you were in Bournemouth for? So you would have been there. How long did it — I didn’t — how long did it take to get from Halifax across to — It would only have been a couple of days.
SN: About ten days.
JM: Ten days. Yeah. And so then down. So, we’re probably talking about April. Bournemouth was probably about April ‘42 to — how long do you reckon?
SN: Maybe to June.
JM: To June. Yeah. And so where did we, and so —
SN: May or June. I’ve forgotten.
JM: May or June. What sort of — were they giving you any theory lessons there at this stage?
SN: No. It was — you just had a roll call.
JM: Roll call.
SN: Once a day.
JM: Once a day.
SN: And that was it.
JM: Pre. So did you —
SN: And then you did whatever you pleased.
JM: So, did you go up to London or do anything like that or how did you spend your time?
SN: No. You were not, you were I don’t know whether, they must have told us. No. No one went anywhere. I think you were on call.
JM: Call. Right.
SN: That you would be moving out as soon as it happened.
JM: Moving out soon. Yeah.
SN: And I don’t think anybody was —
JM: Right.
SN: You would have had to have leave.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: To do that.
JM: To do that. Yes. Ok. So, you were, you were just basically sitting around. What did you —play cards or things like that to pass the time? Or what did you do to pass? So just basically sitting around. Effectively doing nothing. How did you pass, how did you and your mates pass your time? Sit down on the —
SN: We moved around. It was quite a beautiful place with many gardens. We moved around during the day to the beach and so on and the pubs at night.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Nobody had all that much money.
JM: Money.
SN: You know that you [laughs]
JM: No. that’s right. Yeah.
SN: You could —
JM: Basically, sit and watch the world go by.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: There was no, there was no, no attempt to discipline or to —
JM: Right. Ok. So, from, so nothing, no particular experiences stand out whilst in Bournemouth.
SN: No, I don’t think there was anything there.
JM: No. Ok.
SN: There was a Palais dance. A Palais de Dance which they had in most places, you know.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So, where, where to next? Was it to Wales next?
SN: I went to Wales.
JM: Yes.
SN: To a place called Stormy Down.
JM: Down. Yeah.
SN: It was a mining area.
JM: Yes.
SN: Coal mines.
JM: Yeah. And over there you were doing —
SN: To a gunnery school.
JM: To the gunnery school again. Yes. And roughly how long was that?
SN: It wasn’t all that long. I would say that it might have been a month. Pretty full on.
JM: Yes. And so, this was where you came. So, you hadn’t done any gunnery training back in Canada so, this would be your —
SN: Yes, I had.
JM: You had. You did do some.
SN: Oh yes. Yes.
JM: When you were at Calgary.
SN: No. No.
JM: No.
SN: When I was in Trenton.
JM: Trenton. Trenton. Ok. So — oh my apologies. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, because that’s where you were second. Second. Had the second highest score. Ok so how were the — what were you using? Different guns here now between what you were using in Trenton? Or —
SN: Yes. We were using [pause] what can I remember about it now? In Britain we were using old Lewis guns which were a pan that sits on the thing and it feeds outside and it seems to me that we were [pause] I’m not sure now what? We did quite a bit of target shooting. Drogue shooting where a drogue is dragged.
JM: Dragged. Yes.
SN: And of course in both places you do a lot of — what do you call it? [pause] Where you do — you shoot at the —
JM: Skeet.
SN: Skeet shooting.
JM: Yeah.
SN: A lot of skeet shooting. A lot of target shooting. That kind of thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And —
JM: As part of this.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: And there was a course.
JM: Yes.
SN: Which you, of benefit and I did very well. I got — they said, “A very good air gunner.” So —
JM: Were there particular competitions or something or —
SN: Yes. They would mark you for —
JM: Yeah.
SN: Target scores. How you —
JM: And you were coming out on top a lot.
SN: Yes.
JM: Right.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. So, do you think you would have perhaps back when you were younger, on the farm, I presume you would have been doing some shooting there.
SN: Yes.
JM: So, do you feel that that perhaps gave you a bit of an advantage having sort of been always shooting moving targets. I would presume a lot of the time they were moving so —
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: I don’t know.
JM: You don’t know.
SN: No.
JM: Yeah. But nevertheless you obviously had an aptitude for it because you were doing very well there with your skeet.
SN: Yeah. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. And you didn’t retain an interest in skeet shooting at any time. You didn’t do it many years down the track. Just as a little deviation here for a second.
SN: Only once.
JM: Yes.
SN: We were on a transatlantic ship with the family going somewhere. I’ve forgotten where but going. I was Foreign Affairs and we used to go by ship.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And they had a competition on this ship for skeet shooting.
JM: Yes.
SN: And I guess there were about thirty or forty people there and I won.
JM: You won.
SN: And they gave me a cup.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the rather wonderful thing about this was that both the kids were there and watched it. The two boys.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So that brought my [laughs]
JM: Increased your standing in their eyes no end. Did it?
SN: Yes. Yes. Yes.
JM: Ah well that’s very very interesting. So, do you remember how many rounds you had to shoot or was it a decent length competition or did they sort of try to keep it.
SN: It was, it was a pretty, a pretty easy one.
SN: Yeah.
SM: Ordinarily if you do skeet shooting you go through about seven stations.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And that means you’re shooting —
JM: Different heights. Yeah.
SN: At a bird at the height it’s going.
JM: Yeah.
SN: As it’s going away from you.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Up. It’s all the way through.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Whereas this one was there. Had to be done from the back of the ship.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And you didn’t have, they couldn’t.
JM: Have variations.
SN: They couldn’t have done any variations of any sort.
JM: Any sort. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: That amounted to very much.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, you really did five and somebody, maybe they were five of you shot five each and you won that.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And then those who won competed again.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: It wasn’t really [laughs] that big a thing.
JM: It wasn’t such a big challenge for you.
SN: No.
JM: Having had all that other experience. Ok. Well that’s all very interesting. Ok. Well you completed the gunnery at Stormy Down. About a month. So, from there. OTU.
SN: I went to OTU.
JM: Yeah.
SN: At a place called Honeybourne.
JM: Yeah.
SN: A beautiful place in the Midlands.
JM: Yes.
SN: Near Evesham and Stratford on Avon. Yeah.
JM: And so how long were you at OTU?
SN: I was there for the fall because I remember we went out to steal apples. I got to the squadron in — maybe in October. Now, I had these. The reason I don’t have these dates here is my logbook was stolen.
JM: Stolen. Yes. I know. From when the book was —
SN: So I don’t have this.
JM: Yes. I know.
SN: I’m really just doing memory.
JM: I know. I’m just trying. I fully appreciate that I’m really testing your memory here but yeah.
SN: In the late summer and early fall I was at the OTU. I would have been —
JM: OTU. So that’s probably —
SN: I would have been there for at least three months.
JM: Three months. Right. So, we’re probably talking about August. September.
SN: Yes, I would say August September.
JM: August September of ‘42 we’re talking about here.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. Ok. Yeah. And what stands out about OTU? Anything in particular. Apart from the fact that there was nice countryside. There were nice orchards where you could scrounge some apples.
SN: Yes. Well they had very nice pubs and you could chase girls.
JM: Yeah. Yes.
SN: And the weather was delightful.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the only thing that — two things happened I guess. One was that you, a lot of OTU is the gunner — each, each — the gunners have their own courses. The navigators. Pilots. Then you form a crew.
JM: Yes. You’re doing your crewing up. Yeah.
SN: And a lot of this was called circuits and bumps.
JM: Bumps. Yeah.
SN: Around and around and around.
JM: Around and around. Yeah.
SN: And one night a German night fighter got in the thing. Got in the — there’s usually four aircraft.
JM: Aircraft.
SN: And they follow one another.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he got in the line.
JM: Line. Yes.
SN: And shot it down. We were in Whitleys which was an old two engine.
JM: Engine.
SN: Bomber. And he got in the line and shot the —
JM: The Whitley that was in front.
SN: The Whitley, as it was landing. Yes. So that was a big thing for us.
JM: That was. Yes. And, but that wasn’t you.
SN: No.
JM: Were you in, were you in.
SN: I wasn’t, I wasn’t even in the circuit either.
JM: You weren’t in the circuit either.
SN: No.
JM: Right. And what was the outcome with that Whitley. Was it —did he inflict injury as well as damage to the aircraft or —
SN: Yes.
JM: He did.
SN: Yes. He did.
JM: So, what? Killed all the crew or —
SN: No. No. I think they [pause] I think one. I think one man was either, either killed or very badly injured
JM: Injured
SN: And the aircraft was of course.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Runway. Smashed itself.
JM: Smashed itself. Yeah. Right. Ok. So at this point your crew. You’ve now, you crew up as well here at OTU.
SN: Yes.
JM: This is when you form your crew. So, your pilot.
SN: Was — I’ll deal with that I think.
JM: Yes.
SN: He was a man called Stonehill.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he was a squadron leader.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he was from Fighter Command.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I don’t know what he’d done but he was, he was not happy to be there.
JM: No.
SN: That was not what— he didn’t really want to fly this [laughs] box like aircraft. And he was, we thought he was old. Old would be he was in his thirties.
JM: Late twenties or something. Oh thirties. Yes. Yes.
SN: You know.
JM: Yes.
SN: But he was older than we were.
JM: Yes.
SN: And proper RAF type, you know. Had a handlebar moustache.
JM: And all the rest of it. Yes.
SN: Yes. And he’d, and we saw nothing of him because we were, there were five of us including him.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he of course he was an —
JM: An officer. And he was in the officer’s mess. In the —
SN: The other four of us were NCOs.
JM: Yes. NCOs.
SN: In our own mess. Ordinarily someone would have had, a pilot would have had something to do with us but he was, he didn’t want to be there.
JM: No. That’s right.
SN: And he, I don’t think he really knew our names. He, and so, we really saw, we saw nothing of him except we would, you know, get in the aircraft and we’d get out.
JM: Yeah. That’s right.
SN: Except for one. We went to a place called Long Marston which is up, just out of Stratford.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And this was for a, sort of, pre-operational thing to work out with the crew and we flew every day.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Cross country’s and things and we saw one night he came. We were at the flights. The flights is where the aircrew wait to get on, to get off.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he came out of the flights where we were and suggested that we come and have a beer.
JM: And everybody —
SN: So, we did this to wherever it was. We went from the flights and he had he must have [pause] I don’t know how we got there. He had a little Austin convertible.
JM: Convertible.
SN: Thing. And he, I think he either had family or him, beside him. And we sat around with him for an hour in the pub and the only thing I remember about it was that he had a dog and the dog was a Spaniel. And the dog would drink beer. The dog drank beer and we sat and we had a beer and he was friendly. But I don’t think he — he didn’t intend to stay and he didn’t stay.
JM: Didn’t stay.
SN: They took him. They took him back to where he came from.
JM: Back to where he came from. Ok. So, he disappeared down the thing. Down the track. But the rest of you stayed together though at this point. So who was your navigator?
SN: Well we had a little, a little crash. A little accident.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which I deal with there when the aircraft went off the end of the runway.
JM: Runway.
SN: And it broke the leg of the wireless operator, I think. A big tall fellow named Hurst.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the crew packed up then. I think. Now I’m I don’t know which happened first.
JM: First. Yeah.
SN: Whether we had this, this [pause] this accidental crash. Whether we had that and then he was sent off or whether he was sent off when was just finishing up I don’t know.
JM: No.
SN: We never knew. We never saw him. They never said anything. They just called us in and they said, ‘Now, we’re disbanding this crew.’
JM: Crew.
SN: ‘And we’re posting you to other squadrons.’
JM: Squadrons. Yeah.
SN: To squadrons.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. Ok and so and from there you, that’s when you went to 405.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Ok. And so you were landing. You joined 405. How long, how long were you at OTU? August September ’42.
SN: I was about three months.
JM: About three.
SN: A good three months.
JM: Ok. So, you were posted to 405. What? About December. November. December or —
SN: No. October.
JM: October. Ok.
SN: Yeah.
JM: October.
SN: I think.
JM: ’42.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Ok. And so here and a couple of little experiences in 405.
SN: Well we went, I went. When I went to squadron I was on squadron for a long time. Longer than most people.
JM: Yeah.
SN: I came in with my kit and there was a note for me and it said something like “Welcome Clair.”
JM: Yeah.
SN: And when you come to the, wherever the, what do you call it? Not a dormitory. We were quartered in an old college.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he said, when you, “When you come to the quarters come and see me. Stuart.”
JM: Stuart.
SN: And it was Stuart Clark who was from my little town.
JM: Town. That’s right. Yes.
SN: Right.
JM: Yes.
SN: And so, I went up and he and the navigator who was a fella called Elmer [Bulman] from [unclear] Nevada. And they were playing Battleships and so we talked about things and Stuart said, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘We need an air gunner. You come with us.’
JM: Yeah.
SN: In our crew.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I did.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, I was lucky.
JM: You were lucky. Yes. So that’s it. You knew the pilot because you had Stuart there as that.
SN: Yes. He was the navigator.
JM: Oh sorry. He was the navigator. Yeah.
SN: And he went to see the —
[phone ringing]
SN: Excuse me a second while I see to that.
[recording paused]
SN: Yes. And so he went to the pilot and said, ‘Look I’ve got —
JM: He went to the pilot. Yeah. Went to the pilot.
SN: And I was in.
JM: The pilot’s name? I should have it.
SN: Weber.
JM: Weber. That’s right.
SN: W E B E R. So I was in.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. And so then you went off and started to do your ops.
SN: We —
JM: Coastal Command.
SN: We were, what we did first is we —
JM: You got linked with —
SN: We were at Topcliffe up in Yorkshire. We had to do, we had to convert. It was called conversion at that time.
JM: Conversion. That’s right. Yes. Yes.
SN: Which was from, we had, they had been on Wellingtons.
JM: Wellingtons.
SN: And the squadron converted to Halifaxes so it was this period of people getting used to this new aircraft.
JM: Halifax.
SN: So that went on for a time. And then maybe a month later. Sometime in November they they were losing a lot of people with this. Losing a lot of shipping with the subs.
JM: Subs yeah.
SN: And they’d lent us to Coastal Command.
JM: Coastal Command.
SN: To cover during the time the North African invasion force went down.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And so we were sent down to Southampton to do this, this thing and we spent most of the winter there.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: Doing these —
JM: Patrols.
SN: Patrols. Yes.
JM: So you weren’t actually bombing. You were doing surveillance.
SN: It was called air sea warfare.
JM: Yeah.
SN: ASW. I think. And you were looking for, you went out on, it was called a square search and you went out. They were great long things that would go from ten to twelve hours. Went down off the Scilly Islands and Bishop’s Rock and somewhere. A point on the Atlantic or the Bay of Biscay. Whatever it was.
JM: Was.
SN: Depending on what they had decided that day.
JM: That day.
SN: At the briefing where everything is. Where you should go.
JM: Go.
SN: And you flew this course square and back. And you flew fairly low. A thousand feet or something and you looked for submarines.
JM: Submarines yeah.
SN: And evidence of them you see.
JM: Yeah. A bit — sort of a wake from the conning tower.
SN: Yes. There was a great deal of that.
JM: Yes.
SN: It was a separate — Coastal Command it was called. We were lent Coastal Command.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And Coastal Command, all through the war, and Australia. Here as well.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Operated all through the war doing just that.
JM: Yeah.
SN: That was the —
JM: Yeah. So how many [pause] how many missions would you have done in Coastal Command do you think? Roughly.
SN: I can’t remember. You got — what they did is they, they took three of these [pause] ops or whatever you want to call them.
JM: Call them. Yeah.
SN: They took three of these for one op.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Three patrols if you want to call them that.
JM: Yeah. Three patrols were equal to one op in the —
SN: That’s right.
JM: The bureaucrats eyes.
SN: That’s how they did it.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: I don’t remember just what. Just how many there were. There wouldn’t have been all that many. The weather was pretty duff.
JM: Yeah. So —
SN: During that period so you would be stood down quite often, you know.
JM: Down quite often.
SN: And it was, there is nothing more boring than [laughs] [that sort of?] exercise
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I guess we had. We thought we saw evidence of a sub and we dropped our depth charges once. We thought we saw oil on the surface. And when they came up to charge their batteries and when they did this [pause] the oil — they would dive and they would send up several gallons of oil.
JM: Oil.
SN: So that —
JM: Created a bit of an oil slick.
SN: And you’ll see the oil slick.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the object was that the attacking aircraft would say, ‘We got him. We saw the oil,’ and he was — they sunk.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And of course, it hadn’t that at all.
JM: At all. No. Because they were in fact just doing it as part of their diving.
SN: Yeah
JM: Part of their diving process, so to speak. Yeah.
SN: We had one, I guess — two close encounters. One was [pause] one was that, was with, on these patrols they were so long that you had to carry excess tanks for excess fuel.
JM: Excess fuel.
SN: And that meant that you had the — they had of course to change tanks and you had to watch. The engineer had to watch the gauges to make sure that he changed, while one was still operating.
JM: Operating.
SN: To the new one.
JM: The new one. Yeah.
SN: And in this one case he forgot.
JM: Forgot.
SN: Whatever he was doing and the pilot fortunately noticed this and he said, ‘Mac,’ he said, ‘Change tanks.’ And he made a tremendous huge leap and did it and by that time we were down low enough and I wondered why we were this low that I could see the whitecaps on the waves.
JM: Waves.
SN: Yeah. So we were down maybe roof height by that time [laughs] and it sort of laboured its way up.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: And the other one I describe in the book when we attacked the German —
JM: Yes.
SN: E-boats.
JM: E-boats. Yeah.
SN: In the [pause] it’s the harbour near, near Biarritz.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: And they threw up a lot of stuff.
JM: Yes.
SN: And we —
JM: You got some flak out of that didn’t you?
SN: I don’t remember whether we did or not. We might have but it — we probably did because you could see the puffs and things.
JM: Yeah.
SN: But the sailors. I shocked them. They were out sunbathing on the deck [laughs] so we were close enough and I swept the decks of this thing.
JM: Yes.
SN: And you could see great activities going on there.
JM: Yes.
SN: But of course they had enough stuff there that they could have blown us out if —
JM: Out of the sky. But you got away before they managed to get to them. Yeah. So —
SN: Yes because I think you you could say our attack —
JM: Was totally unexpected. Yes.
SN: Was aborted.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: And depth charges wouldn’t really have done anything.
JM: Done anything.
SN: That much harm.
JM: Much harm.
SN: They told us later.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. So, all up you were doing this for about —
SN: For the winter.
JM: For the winter. Yes.
SN: Yeah.
JM: So, through to early ’43.
SN: Yes. Till maybe it would have been about March.
JM: March yeah. And then you resumed with 405 then.
SN: It would have been March. Yes. It would have been the end of February.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Early March. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. So you resumed with 405.
SN: Yes. So the Squadron. You see we never changed. Coastal Command is — they’re painted white grey.
JM: Yeah you were.
SN: And with us we just —
JM: Stayed black.
SN: Left it and stayed black.
JM: Yeah. And so how long were you back with 405?
SN: This was 405.
JM: Sorry.
SN: The whole squadron.
JM: Yes but with 405 base.
SN: To Bomber Command.
JM: Yes. To Bomber Command because you were down in Southampton.
SN: Yes we were.
JM: With Coastal Command.
SN: We were lent to Coastal Command.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Then we returned to —
JM: Bomber Command.
SN: The end of February we returned to —
JM: Yeah.
SN: To Bomber Command.
JM: To Bomber Command. To —
SN: To Topcliffe which was in Yorkshire.
JM: Yes. So, and so from here you then went on. Started to do some actual bombing raids from here.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: We did, we did several bombing raids from Topcliffe at that time. Maybe three or four or something.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And one of them was Stuttgart which was where I shot down a Messerschmitt 109.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. And any comments in terms of, you know, how close he was before you were able to see him and get, get, you got on to him before he got on to you or was he trying to get to you but your pilot managed to get away. Get at an angle where he was ineffective but you got him or what?
SN: He came up behind and I saw him. And I gave, when he got within range I gave the pilot evasive action and the pilot did it in classic fashion.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And when he was close enough. Six hundred yards. Not all that long. I got a good, a good shot at him.
JM: Yes.
SN: He was coming up like that you see and he, by this time had started to fire at us but he was, he didn’t hit us.
JM: Hit us because the pilot had already started the changing.
SN: He’d already started and he didn’t touch us at all.
JM: Touch us. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Yeah. And he then went above us and started to turn around and fell.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s how you know you’d had a — you’d scored.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: Yes. So it was confirmed hit for you.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: But I couldn’t see where I was until he was —
JM: Coming past you more or less.
SN: Went down. He was off.
JM: Yes. Yes. I see. And so, and so that, was that was Stuttgart raid. And any other things stand out from these raids at this point?
SN: No. They were —
JM: They were.
SN: They were all on —
JM: Sort of routine.
SN: What was called Happy Valley.
JM: Valley. Yeah. Over the Ruhr. Yeah. Yeah. But routine as such and just —
SN: That might have been a period of maybe three weeks or something.
JM: Yeah.
SN: I’ve forgotten.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And then we were transferred to Pathfinder Command.
JM: Pathfinders. Yeah. That’s right. Yes.
SN: Which was down at Gransden Lodge.
JM: Lodge. Gransden Lodge. Yeah. And so, this would have been March.
SN: It was March 13th was when I shot the aircraft down.
JM: Right. Ok. March 13. Ok. So then would that be later March then that you went to Gransden Lodge? That the Pathfinder.
SN: Yes. Or the 1st of April. I don’t know which.
JM: Right.
SN: It wasn’t long.
JM: Yeah.
SN: We just, we just did maybe two or three ops.
JM: Yeah. Ops. Yeah. Yeah. And the decision to move to Pathfinders. What, what’s the story there?
SN: Well 405 was the oldest Canadian bomber squadron.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which had been operating on the [ unclear] maybe a year in Bomber Command in what was called 6 Group which was the Canadian group.
JM: Group. Yeah.
SN: And because it was the, I suppose, and I’m guessing here because it was the oldest squadron and had the most experience it was the one selected to go to the Pathfinder group.
JM: Pathfinders.
SN: And also, I guess because the CO was quite a remarkable guy. A fella named Johnnie Fauquier and he was a force in himself and he —
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: Because he was brought back.
JM: Back.
SN: As the head of the squadron and we were sent down as a part of 8 Group.
JM: Yes. But was it the commanders that came to you and said to your pilot, Weber and say, ‘Right, your crew’s a good crew – ’
SN: No. No.
JM: You’re going over to Pathfinders or —
SN: No. Oh no. Nobody was asked anything.
JM: No. No. I’m not asked but just said, ‘Right —
SN: No.
JM: Said to Weber.
SN: There was nothing. They just took the squadron.
JM: They just took it.
SN: As it was with Coastal Command.
JM: Right.
SN: Took the squadron.
JM: Right. The whole squadron. Yeah. Ok. Ok. So, and so no one had any choice in the matter. Everyone had to just comply.
SN: That’s right.
JM: Basically. Yeah. Ok. So [pause] so then began your time at Gransden Lodge and — how many — you did a lot of ops in that time.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: From Gransden Lodge.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Now I was, it was quite a time from October to January of forty — January of ‘44 I believe.
JM: Yeah. Ok. Well if the squadron moved over in March/April ’43.
SN: In other words I was with the squadron from —
JM: Squadron from —
SN: October of ‘43 to January of ’44.
JM: Yes, but you said that the squadron moved.
SN: Well in that time it was in Bomber Command to Coastal Command to Bomber Command.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: To Pathfinder Command.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. But what we had there before was that you [pause] you moved back [pause] to you had your Coastal Command and then —
SN: We went back to Bomber Command.
JM: You went back to there and that’s when you did your, you said the 13th of March.
SN: Yes.
JM: Was when you did your raid on Stuttgart.
SN: Yes.
JM: And you shot down the Messerschmitt.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And that was when you were back at Bomber Command.
SN: That’s right.
JM: That’s right. And so that’s why you were initially indicating to me that it was perhaps late March, early April that the squadron moved to —
SN: That’s right. Moved to Pathfinder Command. 8 Group.
JM: To Pathfinder Command. Yeah. In April ‘43. So, in fact you were part of Pathfinder from, roughly, early April ’43 right through to —
SN: To January.
JM: To January ’44.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s right. That makes sense. So would you have had leave at any stage? You must have had some periods of leave in between all these bits and pieces.
SN: Yes. We had a lot of leave. We had a week every six weeks.
JM: Yeah. And just before we get into Pathfinders you know, any of the, I don’t, I’m not looking for a sort — because you’ve had so many raids with, or ops with Pathfinders we’ll just pick on a couple I guess but just backtracking up until there you’d had periods of leave and what, did you have a regular places you went to when you were on leave or did you try —
SN: London.
JM: Always London.
SN: Usually. Yes.
JM: Yes. And did you have a particular place there that you always went to for accommodation or did you do different places? Or —?
SN: Different places. Yes.
JM: Right and —
SN: And usually with the, with the crew or at least two of us.
JM: With the crew basically went all together.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. So, so, Weber the pilot went with you and —
SN: No. He was English.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he, of course, went home.
JM: He went home. Yeah.
SN: And I had a particular, my particular pal was a wireless operator.
JM: Yes.
SN: Who was a fellow called Rickard.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the engineer.
JM: Yes.
SN: Who was called MacLean.
JM: Yes.
SN: So either usually the two of us but sometimes three —
JM: Yes.
SN: Would go on leave together.
JM: Together. Right.
SN: And we went to Ireland once. To Dublin. Which was interesting.
JM: Did you have to go in civvies for that? Or —
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: You changed at the border. At a place called Larne. You left your uniform and got, they gave you a civilian suit and off you went. It was the, the, what I suppose the most attractive feature of it was that there was no food rationing and you could get all steak and eggs and bacon and what have you.
JM: Whatever you wanted. Yes.
SN: Yes.
JM: Which made a change.
SN: Which was rather pleasant.
JM: Yes.
SN: For a few days.
JM: Yes. That’s right. Yes. So, it’s what I think a lot of chaps ultimately ended up doing is having a little excursion to Ireland. I think probably just for the sake of getting the food.
SN: Yes. Indeed. Indeed.
JM: Yes. That’s right. So, no other particular events stand out from when you were up onto this point. When you were on leave. Just all, just the usual sort of pubs and shows and —
SN: Pubs and shows and girls.
JM: Girls.
SN: You see [laughs]
JM: Yeah. Yes. Ok. So, looking at Pathfinders. What particular missions or ops do you want to highlight?
SN: I think, I think for Pathfinders, of course, the people who are most affected are the pilots and navigators and bomb aimers. For the gunners and wireless ops it’s really, it’s the same. It’s pretty much the same drill. The only difference is with Pathfinders you are continuously training.
JM: Yeah.
SN: There is very little time off so to speak. There is a training exercise every day you’re not on ops so it’s, it’s a pretty full on thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: I guess there is another interesting thing about it is, of course, it was a pretty impromptu [pause] I was going to say it was a pretty impromptu move and we were moved and quartered in the village. In amongst the village.
JM: Yes.
SN: The huts and things were all in this village.
JM: Yeah. So, houses were basically just requisitioned to be your accommodation.
SN: No. The village was there and the village was operating in the same way.
JM: Yes. But individual houses might have been requisitioned.
SN: No.
JM: No.
SN: They built, they built —
JM: So, you were billeted. The people lived there and you were all just billeted in —
SN: Yes. And we all —
JM: With families.
SN: We all lived in, what do you called them, huts. What are they called?
JM: Nissen. The Nissen huts.
SN: Nissen huts. Yes. We all lived in Nissen huts.
JM: Oh ok.
SN: The masses were in Nissen huts.
JM: So, they built Nissen huts within the village itself.
SN: Yes. We all lived in the village and we walked to the flights.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which was about a quarter of a mile.
JM: A quarter of a mile away. Right. Yeah.
SN: Which was rather interesting. It was an interesting time.
JM: Yeah. For what reason?
SN: Well I think you — these villagers, we went back. We had a reunion there. And they regarded us as their people. You know, they knew us all in the pubs and how many didn’t come back. Who.
JM: Yes. And so, they basically felt a sense of protection.
SN: Yes.
JM: Enveloped you guys in a cloak of protection in a way to sort of provide you with, I guess, some stability or something like that is what they felt they were doing by providing that [pause]
SN: Yes. It was quite —
JM: Extending that friendship for want of a better word. Yeah.
SN: It was quite touching.
JM: Yes.
SN: When we went back.
JM: Yes. Yes. And — Ok. So you were doing regular training as well as going out on ops and what? Any, which ops in particular stand out for you?
SN: Well [pause] it’s like anything else I guess. You — it becomes a routine and it’s what you do and you — I think you become a little callous. And I think it takes, it took me a time after I was discharged. I found it [pause] An uncle of mine spoke to me and said, you know, ‘Have a little compassion.’ You became used to death. And people didn’t come back. And the casualty rate was horrendous.
JM: Yes.
SN: And you were, if you survived it’s what you do and it’s your [pause] you can get, you can accustom people to almost anything.
JM: That’s right.
SN: So, you know, we went out and did it and came back.
JM: Back.
SN: We laughed about it.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Drank to the next man to go.
JM: Go.
SN: That was life.
JM: That was life. And what, what particular — I think there were a couple of particular ops that you mentioned in the book that you might just touch on briefly?
SN: Well I think we, we were first occupied with the Ruhr Valley. With Happy Valley.
JM: Happy Valley. Yeah.
SN: Then we went on to — we did one on Hamburg and we did some long runs. Pilsen, I think. And finally, Berlin. I went to Berlin seven times.
JM: Yeah.
SN: They [pause] we got shot up pretty badly several times and I guess what you remember is that your crew changes. Or ours did. For instance, the man I was telling you about. Stuart Clark.
JM: Yeah.
SN: He had a great friend in the squadron and instead of flying down to Coastal Command with us — we flew, you see. We just packed our stuff up and went. He decided to fly with his friend. You know, why not. And I remember he went off before we did. Went off. He just got over the horizon. Whack. The time of stress with an aircraft is when it takes its first turn because it’s got, not only the momentum of getting in but it has to make this turn.
JM: Turn.
SN: That’s it. And it didn’t and they were all killed. Blown up. So, we had an American with us and when the Americans came over and started to operate he went back to his, or went to — the American air force were happy to have them and most of them went back. And I guess the [pause] we lost crew members and I guess that’s what you remember. Who was the first one? [pause] We had, oh the first one we lost was unfortunately the navigator who was a very nice fella. We were good friends and we used to go to the pub at night. And we were at a place called Leeming in Yorkshire and instead of going around by the road we would cross the airfield and you had to be careful because of night flying [laughs] to do these things, you see.
JM: Yes.
SN: But it made it shorter. Anyway, we came back and I guess all had quite a bit to drink and we were at the top of our — they called them married quarters. They were cottages and we were in the two bedrooms upstairs. I, and Ricky, the wireless operator and Gibby. We got, we came back and we got to the top of the stairs and Gibby slipped and he rolled down these stairs and we got at the bottom and his head was bleeding. So, we got the ambulance and he was unconscious. There was nothing — his head was bleeding and the ambulance came and we never saw him again and I don’t know what happened to him. I presume that he perhaps died. And the other two I think I deal with in here. I might have dealt with Gibby as well. We had a thing which was called [pause] what did we call it? It’s [pause] lack of moral fortitude. LMF.
JM: Yeah.
SN: LMF. And that’s really quite a good story actually. We had two of our crew. One was over Essen. A fellow named Gordon Wood. Toronto. And he, how anybody could think of this when we’re over Essen and the bloody kite was —
JM: Bouncing around the —
SN: Bouncing because of the flak.
JM: Flak.
SN: Threw us [unclear ] and he, and we missed, we went over the —
JM: Target.
SN: Target. And we missed.
JM: Missed.
SN: We were off so we had to go around again. Do another thing. Because the bomb aim has to be straight and level to do this thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And when we started going around the second time he went to pieces and he, the pilot’s name was Tony. And he said, ‘Don’t go in there Tony. Don’t go in there. They’ll kill us,’ he said, ‘I want to go home and marry Mary,’ he said, ‘Don’t do this.’ He wept and so forth at the pilot, Tony. And Mac, the engineer, went down and take his intercom out and then they had to get him up and put him on — we had a little bench.
JM: Bench. Yeah.
SN: Across from the hatch and tied him up on the bench.
JM: Bench.
SN: And he came and we reported this when we came back that we had this man. The ambulance met him and I never saw him again or heard anything of him. Then the other one was — we were — I don’t know where it was. Nuremberg. Hamburg. I’ve forgotten. Anyway, we’d got an American who was a mid-upper gunner and they did a stupid thing. They thought instead most attacks by fighter aircraft come in from the bottom.
JM: Bottom.
SN: And they don’t see because the rear gunner just sees a hundred and eighty degrees so they said, ‘We’ll put a thing like a tear drop in the bottom of the aircraft.’
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the mid-upper gunner will lie there and he had no guns, will lie there with his intercom, on his belly and report these aircraft that he sees. Stupid thing to have done. And he’d been alright before that but he, they only left the thing on for maybe two or three weeks.
JM: Weeks.
SN: And he went bananas.
JM: He went bananas.
SN: And he saw aircraft all over the sky and he gave evasive action and we’re pitching around [laughs] trying to find these until it finally occurred —
JM: Trying to avoid these imaginary aeroplanes.
SN: That there weren’t any aircraft.
JM: Yes.
SN: No one else saw it.
JM: No.
SN: So, he had to be disconnected, and put on the thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we never saw him again.
JM: Again.
SN: But after the war I learned what happened. And what had happened was they took these people, gave them whatever help they could.
JM: Yeah.
SN: They sent them back to Canada.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And then they gave them a choice. They said, ‘Now we will not discharge you.’ For dishonourable —
JM: Dishonourable discharge.
SN: Put this on your conduct thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: You will have a choice. You can either join the army or the navy and carry on with the war.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Or we will give you a medical discharge.
JM: Discharge. Yeah.
SN: You have a choice and it always seemed to me that that was very fair. And nobody ever reported and said these people were cowards. They were medically —
JM: Unstable or anything like that.
SN: Or anything like that. So it was one of the good war stories.
JM: Good things. Yeah.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Now around in this period of time though in September ‘43 you discovered by accident shall we say in as much you and your good friend Drew were in London on, I presume on one of your periods of leave.
SN: Yes. I’d forgotten him but he was, yes.
JM: Yeah. And that he was sitting reading the newspaper and reading the latest list of honours and said that, informed you that you had been awarded the —
SN: DFM.
JM: DFM.
SN: Yes. That’s right.
JM: And the, I haven’t got the exact words of the citation in front of me but it was in terms of a, in recognition of a number of —
SN: Yeah.
JM: Ops.
SN: I remember I said something like, he said, ‘Read this,’ and I said something like, ‘Yeah. They’re going to knight me tomorrow,’ or something. And he said, ‘No. You silly bastard,’ he said, ‘It’s you.’
JM: It’s you. That’s right. But did you was it just simply for a sequence of raids or did you actually get told something?
SN: It was a sequence I think.
JM: Yeah. But did you, can you recall.
SN: The citation.
JM: The sequence that they were actually referring to in terms of particular difficulties on those particular raids or —
SN: No. It was a general citation it seems to me. As I remember it.
JM: Right. So were other members of the crew awarded DFMs?
SN: No. Nobody.
JM: So how did they seem?
SN: Only me.
JM: Do you know why they singled you.
SN: I think it was the aircraft that I shot down.
JM: So, going back to —when? So —
SN: Yes. it went back to —
JM: So, it goes back to the March.
SN: Went back to March.
JM: March. When you shot down the Messerschmitt.
SN: That’s right.
JM: In Stuttgart.
SN: That’s right. I think so, yes. I think that was what it was about because I was the only one.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So, so you didn’t get any further clarification in terms of the citation or anything like that. The commanding officers.
SN: There is a citation. Yes. And the citation [pause] I had or I probably have somewhere here but God knows where I would find it.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Right. And then you lined up and received your award from King George.
SN: Yes. I went to Buckingham Palace and lined up with a lot of other people.
JM: And did he have any words to you do you recall? Or did he just walk along and just pin and kept walking.
SN: No. He was on a little dais in the palace and you went up one by one, up just a little, maybe that high or something and the king was slightly higher.
JM: He was slightly elevated by about eighteen inches.
SN: Yes.
JM: Or something like that.
SN: He was there.
JM: Yeah.
SN: With a sort of a lectern or table that had the awards.
JM: Yeah.
SN: That were being passed to him by someone.
JM: An assistant on the side.
SN: Yes. And you were — before you went up they put a little tin thing or something on your tunic.
JM: Yes. On your tunic, yeah, so they had —
SN: And you went up. He shook hands with you.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And said something like I suppose, ‘Well done,’ or something like that and hung these on the thing.
JM: Thing. Yeah.
SN: And then you went.
JM: Yeah.
SN: It wasn’t, you know, he was there were maybe, I don’t how many. Let’s say there were a hundred or something.
JM: Yeah.
SN: There were a lot of them anyway.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And that was it, you know. He wouldn’t have had enough time to have said —
JM: Too much to each one. No.
SN: To anyone really because it was a line.
JM: A line yeah.
SN: That went through.
JM: Yeah.
SN: It was a job he had to do. Yeah. That was it.
JM: So then did you have an afternoon tea afterwards and did you talk with any of the other recipients?
SN: No. That was it. That was it. No.
JM: You just received it and you were out the door.
SN: You were told to appear at the palace. You had an order written on the thing. At such and such a time. And you came and they said, ‘Yes, that’s you. Here it is. You go in there. You go there. Get in the queue.’
JM: Almost a sausage line.
SN: Yeah [laughs]
JM: Right. Ok. So so, at this stage we’re getting you’ve been doing the various ops etcetera so you’re building up the number of ops you’re doing. We get towards the end.
SN: Yes.
JM: Did you know you were getting — because by this time, where are we up to? About, January ’44 so this is getting to —
SN: We’re in October I guess.
JM: Yeah. October ’44.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: And at that stage we [pause] our pilot and all except two of us in the crew.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Ricky and myself —
JM: Yeah.
SN: Had completed the magic number.
JM: Number.
SN: Which was forty five.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And so, they [pause] they had done their —
JM: Completed their —
SN: Completed their second tour.
JM: Tour.
SN: And there were the two of us who had not.
JM: So that was you and Ricky.
SN: Ricky. And Ricky went. Ricky decided that he had had enough and he didn’t really want to fly with a sprog pilot or somebody else. So, he said, ‘I really don’t care whether I have that Pathfinder badge or not. I’d rather be alive.’
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, I stayed on to finish and I had three to finish.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And it took a while. November until I crashed because you had to find a crew that was short.
JM: Short.
SN: Of a rear gunner.
JM: Rear gunner. Yeah.
SN: To go with.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, I went with well they wanted to put, yes, they put you on this crew. Their man had [pause] I’ve forgotten — he’d fallen ill, I think. Whatever he had he wasn’t going to be able to fly again. So, I had, this fella, his name was McLennan. Canadian. So, I became their rear gunner.
JM: Gunner.
SN: For these three trips. And because I had been waiting around the weather was duff.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we went to Berlin three times.
JM: Right.
SN: And in the end, you’ve seen there. So, and they were three bad flights because I guess they were I guess a sprog crew to some degree. We got shot up very badly and we got lost. And then the last flight we got shot up. The second last flight we were shot up pretty badly. And we were quite lucky. It burnt up the wireless operator’s notes and the navigator’s maps. The whole thing. [unclear] and it was pretty well peppered. So, then the last flight —
JM: So, did you use the same plane? Or did you — or the ground crew repaired it enough. Or did you use a different plane for that? For then? This last flight?
SN: They repaired it.
JM: They repaired it.
SN: They repaired it. I’m sure about that but I should say I don’t know.
JM: Right. Ok. Yeah.
SN: That would be a better answer.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And then the last flight we, the last flight I made which was the forty fifth for me. I was — that would finish me off and it very nearly did.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we got, we got shot up again as we came off the target.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And it was the night before, we were attacked by a fighter. The last night. I’ve forgotten if we were or not. Certainly, we were the second, it was an ME110 that very nearly got us. And we were lost. And the Met people had made a mistake in that they believed that a front was going to come in. They knew this but they believed that there would be ample time for people to get back from Berlin before this front came in. It was a heavy front. Well, they were wrong. And the front came in earlier and aircraft at that time when you’re doing blind landings come down in concentric circles.
JM: Yeah.
SN: It’s like —
JM: So, you stacked up.
SN: A for apple and B for Bertie.
JM: Yeah.
SN: X for X-ray and they’re in a line you see.
JM: In a line. Yeah.
SN: And they come down and you have a different altitude so they don’t get.
JM: Running into each other. Theoretically. Yes.
SN: Yes. And they bring them down.
JM: Down. Yeah.
SN: The operator.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Brings them down.
JM: Down. Yeah.
SN: And the last circle, and when they do this they find the marker that makes the, what is it called [pause] when you have a blind landing you’re looking at your instruments. I’ve forgotten the name. It’s in there anyway. You have to pick up this bar and come in.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And if you miss that you’ve got to go around ‘til you get it again because you’re coming down.
SN: Down.
JM: They’re bringing you down on that bar. They have given you your altitude that you should be at.
SN: Yeah.
JM: They’re following you down.
SN: The pilot is just blind flying into this. So, we had been up. We were lost. We were late and we’d been up a long time and they were bringing us in and the pilot missed the bar and we had to go around again. And by this time, we were out of fuel and he knows we’re very nearly out of fuel and I know that we’re in trouble because I can see the treetops going by the turret.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I did the luckiest thing I ever did in my life. There was a belt about that wide.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Webbing.
JM: Webbing belt. Yeah.
SN: With buckles on it.
JM: Strapped you in.
SN: And it was on either side and I put that on.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Locked it there and that saved me.
JM: That saved you. That’s what saved you. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. So, you came and so having seen the treetops. It wasn’t too long after that that before —
SN: It was just minutes after that. Yeah. And the aircraft broke off, you see. The tail broke off.
SN: Broke off.
JM: Yeah. So, you were saved but the rest were not.
SN: That’s right. Well, the pilot came through but in a very bad state. And I found him. And I think I say there, things were blowing up. We had failsafe stuff. And it was burning. And I was not in a very good shape at the time. It had knocked me out. I was bleeding.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And in a stupor I think.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he, he was lying with this stuff popping off and I thought I should move him back a little and I took him by the legs and his legs started to come off and the bone appeared. I couldn’t do that. And I got — we had a little packet of stuff and I don’t know whether I shot him with a hypo. Certainly, I had, when they found me I had the packet but what I did with it I have no idea. In any event when they came back they found me wandering around with this packet. This kid found me who became a friend of mine. And they brought the ambulance out it was thick heavy fog, and packed I and McLennan in and he, he was not conscious through this, through all this, I don’t think. Maybe he was but he didn’t seem to be.
JM: Seem to be.
SN: To me. And he and I went in together and it seemed to me that I wasn’t sure whether, I think he, I think he recognised me as we went in. And then I was in this hospital in Ely maybe a week or ten days. I’ve forgotten. And I asked, when I came too the following day, for McLennan. He was a nice fellow. And he said he died when he got there. So, I was the only one who survived.
JM: Yes, and so do you regret having made the decision to have, to complete those other three ops? Do you feel you would have was there what was the motivation in the first place to do, to do the three? Was it simply that you wanted to have the completed tour or what?
SN: It’s, I signed on for to do the tours.
JM: To do the tours. Yeah.
SN: And I wanted it done. Yes.
JM: You wanted to do it.
SN: It was something I wanted to do.
JM: Do. Yeah. So —
SN: And Ricky, whom I met again after the war, who my particular chum he always regretted that he didn’t.
JM: Right. Yeah. There you go. So people who, despite the fact that it was very very difficult for you for those last three. One thing just very briefly. Did, in Pathfinder, did Gransden Lodge, did any of the various squadrons intermingle at any time or did you stay very much within your own squadron?
SN: Completely within our own squadron.
JM: Within your own squadron. Because, I mean Australian, you know, there were various other, you know like —
SN: Yes, we had all sort of people. Australians, British.
JM: Yeah, yeah, but there was a 156 Squadron at Gransden Lodge too, I think, from knowledge but there was never any intermingling or anything like that.
SN: No. De were the only ones.
JM: You were the only ones.
SN: During my time.
JM: Your time, yeah. Right. Ok. Yeah.
SN: And we didn’t. Yes. No. We didn’t. I didn’t know anybody from any other squadron.
JM: Right. No. Right.
SN: You know the top squadron chief, they would have gone to group headquarters.
JM: Headquarters.
SN: And they knew —
JM: What was going on.
SN: Other people from the other squadrons.
JM: Yeah. Squadrons yeah.
SN: But not at my level.
JM: No.
SN: We never saw anybody.
JM: No. Right. And did — so you were in hospital and then I presume you went on leave and went perhaps to rehab. Like a rehabilitation.
SN: No. I went. I got out of hospital and went back to the squadron.
JM: Yeah.
SN: That was in January.
JM: January ’45.
SN: Yes. And I got back to the squadron on Christmas Eve. I think it was.
JM: Oh. Ok. So that was Christmas Eve ’44.
SN: ’43. ’43.
JM: ‘44 wouldn’t it be?
SN: No. ‘43.
JM: Ok.
SN: In January of ‘44 I was posted.
JM: Yes.
SN: From the squadron.
JM: Yeah.
SN: To a RAF gunnery school for gunnery instruction instructor’s course.
JM: Yeah. Ok. That was in January ‘44. Yeah. Ok. And so how long were you there for?
SN: I would think it would be about a month but it might have been six weeks.
JM: Right.
SN: The only thing I can remember about it is that it was a RAF school at a place called Manby. And they spent all their Sunday, or most of their Sunday on the parade square where they were inspection after inspection and I was by that time commissioned. I noticed that they had a most extraordinary [pause] before they started this buggering about.
JM: Yeah.
SN: They called out, ‘Fall out the Jews and infidels.’ [laughs]
JM: Right.
SN: It’s true.
JM: Right.
SN: It’s true. And thereupon the head of the WAAFs who was shaped rather like a large trout and had a moustache bigger than me and was obviously Jewish and she would fall out and the other one who fell out was an Indian. Indian Indian. A little squadron leader of some sort and he, I guess, was a Hindu or — I don’t know what it was. But I thought this is not a bad lark so the next Sunday I fell out with them. And no one —
JM: Queried it.
SN: No one ever queried me. I think they simply assumed well he’s Jewish.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And well that was the end and I had my Sunday.
JM: Well there you go. That was a way to get a Sunday off wasn’t it? And so, what happened after? Did you complete this course? Or —
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. And what happened after that?
SN: Then I went back to 6 Group which was the Canadian group.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Up in Yorkshire and I instructed. I guess till the end of the year. Something like that. I’ve forgotten how long it was and then I was posted back to Canada.
JM: Right.
SN: To — they had a huge base near Vancouver.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which was for [pause] for the Far Eastern campaign. Well the Far Eastern campaign was cut short at Hiroshima.
JM: That’s right. Yeah.
SN: So, nobody went anywhere.
JM: Anywhere.
SN: But there were about five thousand of us there and we were all given Joe jobs of one sort or another to keep us occupied. And that was for I guess for six months in ‘44. And then in August I was discharged.
JM: So that was August.
SN: 1945.
JM: ‘45 yeah.
SN: That’s ’45. Yes.
JM: ’45. Discharged. Yeah and —
SN: The only thing that I did during those six months, you know — there were really so many of us was I went over to Victoria to sell Victory Bonds for a month and this was rather fun. The people who were selling the bonds who were business men in the city I guess and were not the always the same people. And they would pick me up and we would go to factories, plants, offices and they would make a little spiel and I would get up and talk for, you know, maybe a minute or two and then we’d go on to another place.
JM: I see. Well that was different.
SN: Yes. That was the only thing I did when I was there.
JM: And this was when you were in.
SN: In this place. At Boundary Bay it was called.
JM: Near Vancouver.
SN: Yes. It was so bad that in the end the last job I had was to teach people who — no —I did do some work out there. I flew in Libs. They had Liberators.
JM: Liberators. Yeah.
SN: On instructing for three months which was alright. We had something to do. But then this last thing I was teaching [pause] what was it called? When an aircraft is is [pause] has to ditch. Ditching procedure.
JM: Ditching procedure. Yeah.
SN: And I had a sergeant and I had three other fellows and I had to give, I thought I was rather badly used and I had to give — I think I had to work two days a week. That was all I did.
JM: Did.
SN: But —
JM: Put a crew through this ditching procedure training. Goodness me.
SN: And there was hundreds of — well I don’t know how many.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Who were doing [laughs]
JM: Same thing.
SN: The same thing but there we were.
JM: And when you are discharged in August ‘45 presumably you then head back to the farm. To the family.
SN: Yes. I went back to the family and I went down and got myself discharged.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And in September, 1st of September I guess, I went to university.
JM: Right. And there you did, what?
SN: I did General Arts. And I was there for five years.
JM: Five years. Right. And?
SN: I got an MA.
JM: An MA right.
SN: In History and English Literature.
JM: Yeah. And where and then what? What —
SN: Well I then found [pause] I met a remarkable man who — I really started out to take law and I should have done that. That made sense. It was a profession. But he was an historian. Brilliant man. World scholar. Wonderfully — looked like Charles Laughton.
JM: Sorry?
SN: He looked like Charles Laughton.
JM: Right. Ok. And what was —
SN: A wonderful voice.
JM: And what was this chap’s name.
SN: He was a history prof. His name was Charles Lightbody.
JM: Right.
SN: And I was quite fascinated by him and he became a friend of mine and I thought well I would do that and so I —
JM: You’d become a historian.
SN: I ended up with an MA and I realised that there really wasn’t anything I could do but teach and I wasn’t — I didn’t think there was really be much of a teacher. So, I, in the meantime had written. There were three examinations which you had to pass for Foreign Affairs. One was a four hour written hour written exam. Or was it six. I think it was six. It was a half day anyway and then you had to go for an oral examination with people. And then you had a third thing. I’ve forgotten what it was and then you, if you were lucky this was across the country and if you made it you were, you got the appointment. They took you in to the Foreign Service. Well I had written this, I guess, in the spring. I heard nothing from them. So, I had to think what I could do. So I applied for some scholarships and got a fellowship which was a scholarship down in New Orleans at Tulane University. So, I went down there. By this time, I was married but I went down by myself to see. And I was only there for a month, six weeks, something, when my appointment came through. But I was there long enough to realise that this was really not my —
JM: Cup of tea.
SN: Cup of tea. I was put, this was for a PhD and I was put to my chore — you had to teach part of the time was the Tulane football team. And Jesus. They [laughs] recruited these people from the villages and towns not because of their academic.
JM: Their academic ability.
SN: Oh no. That was not [laughs]
JM: They were recruited for their football ability.
SN: And I’m teaching European history to these fellas and they’re going [yawn] so —
JM: So, you were very pleased to have your posting come through.
SN: I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t hesitate a minute.
JM: You didn’t hesitate. You grabbed it with both hands and —
SN: That’s right.
JM: So then —
SN: Happily, ever after.
JM: And when did you actually start your posting. So, I presume you had to do some sort of orientation period but when did you officially start with the — so what is this called? The Canadian Diplomatic Corps is it. Or what was its proper title?
SN: Canadian Foreign Service.
JM: Canadian Foreign Service. Yeah.
SN: Really from the 1st of January.
JM: 1st of January ‘46 would it have been.
SN: No, it was after that.
JM: What are we up to?
SN: It was after Christmas. It was December. I think it was December 27th. Something like that.
JM: So, December 27th.
SN: It had to be that year.
JM: Yeah. So, when would this be. About ‘51.
SN: In Ottawa.
JM: Would it be ‘51? December ‘51 or ’50.
SN: It would be December 1950.
JM: 1950. right. Yeah. So, December 27 1950 and it was, did you say, Ottawa.
SN: Yes.
JM: Ottawa. And so that was where you’re —
SN: So, I spent thirty odd years.
JM: So was that a training — your initial training at Ottawa or that was your actual first posting as —what?
SN: It was a training.
JM: Training. Yeah.
SN: It was before the first posting.
JM: Posting. Yeah. And then where was your first posting?
SN: It was really in Latin America and Bogota but before that someone fell ill in Tokyo. And they needed to send someone out to —
JM: To Tokyo.
SN: This guy didn’t come or I’ve forgotten what it was. In any event they needed somebody and the Korean war was on. So, they were able to send somebody out with military you see.
JM: Right.
SN: They didn’t have to go through the procedure of sending them by sea.
JM: Right.
SN: Across the thing. It was a time factor. So, I flew over and I was there for six months.
JM: To — to —
SN: Tokyo.
JM: Tokyo.
SN: Yes. Things happened and I was kept on.
JM: Yeah. So that became your first —
SN: I suppose that it was my your posting.
JM: Even though, yeah, yeah.
SN: But it was a temporary assignment.
JM: Assignment. Yeah. Yeah. So then did you come back to Latin America after that?
SN: I came back to Ottawa. And then by that time they had posted me.
JM: Yeah.
SN: To Bogota.
JM: Bogota. Right.
SN: And I was, you know, in Ottawa for a couple months.
JM: While they sorted the paperwork out, I guess.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. So, Bogota and then and then you say thirty years moving around.
SN: Yes.
JM: Various embassies moving around the world.
SN: Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
JM: Presumably changing roles. Moving up into a higher role most of the time. So, what was your —
SN: Yes.
JM: So were you a —
SN: I went through the usual steps of third secretary. Second secretary. First secretary.
JM: Secretary.
SN: Counsellor. Minister.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And ambassador.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, it was, I guess, about thirty three years. Something like this.
JM: Yeah. And where were you ambassador?
SN: I was [pause] I resigned or — I didn’t resign, I finished as ambassador to Ecuador.
JM: Right. And did you have any other ambassadorial post prior to Ecuador?
SN: I had another Head of Mission is what we called it.
JM: Right.
SN: I had a Head of Mission post before that. I was Canadian Commissioner in Cambodia.
JM: Right.
SN: Which is where I met Shirley.
JM: Right.
SN: And of course, that was an unfortunate thing in the sense of career in that divorce at that time was frowned on and I was unemployable because my then wife had to agree if I were to be posted and of course that was the last thing she was likely to do. And it was a long dragged out affair and very difficult for Shirley. However, we had this time in — well I went to National Defence College which was our half civilian and half military. I went as our departmental candidate. It was a year’s course for top executives so that was good. And then I went. I was farmed out from the department. I did a couple of years in the planning department of National Defence.
JM: Right.
SN: As their foreign affairs rep or advisor. Whatever you’d call it. And then I did two and a half years I think. A very strange business which was because one of my foreign affairs friends was the deputy and he brought me in and I headed up a research planning division in Indian Affairs.
JM: So what sort of, so this is the —
SN: This is when I had time out for divorce [laughs]
JM: So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, ok. And that would have been a very interesting exercise as well.
SN: Yes, it was. I learned a great many things.
JM: Yes. I can imagine. Gosh. And then presumably the divorce finally got sorted and you were able to be reappointed as an ambassador then.
SN: The day, the day after, no. I didn’t. The day after our wedding we were posted to Washington.
JM: Washington. Right.
SN: And it was that quick.
JM: That quick. So, when was that. When were you married. What was your —
SN: It was September.
JM: September of —?
SN: Of [pause] We were at Washington for four years. 1978. 1974.
JM: 1974.
SN: We were married.
JM: Yeah.
SN: In September. And the following day —
JM: You were off to Washington.
SN: Off to Washington. And Shirley’s sister was there and my brother in law.
JM: And what was your role in Washington? You were attached to the embassy as what?
SN: As a counsellor.
JM: A counsellor. Right. Yeah. Ok. Yes. Oh well and so —
SN: You there you have —
JM: Yeah. And how do you feel that your air force experiences informed your diplomatic, the way you handled your diplomatic career in any way or or you never really thought about your air force time once you were in as a diplomat. I mean, recognising the fact you had many many roles as a diplomat that you, you know.
SN: Well I think it was useful to me in the sense that the things that I was doing. For instance when I was at national defence. When I was at National Defence College.
JM: Yeah.
SN: For a year and that’s, you know, we lived, at that time there there were only thirty two people and you eat, drink with those people every day for a year and it was useful to me, half of them were military.
JM: Right.
SN: To have —
JM: To have had that close quarter that — A — that background and, B — that close quarter living as you had had to have as part of war service.
SN: Yes. And when I was at plans it was useful because I knew people again. I was accepted. So when I was in Washington I did the political military thing for four years you see so I was always in close touch. So yes, it was useful.
JM: It was useful.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Well you have had, certainly had an incredibly varied life and when you look back to the fact you started off as a farm lad, for want of a better word of describing it.
SN: Farm kid.
JM: Which is not to put down people who run, who own and feed the nation from their farms but it’s just very different life and lifestyle to — and then, and I guess, as part of that you became a bit of a rebellious child and that rebelliousness came out in some of your early years. In your early air force training and ultimately it clicked and you changed tack and you became — you decided to accept.
SN: Go with the stream. Yes.
JM: Go with the stream and accept the discipline which was probably when you started doing well in your gunnery courses.
SN: Yes.
JM: And that’s when you felt you had a role to play and that was a turning point potentially there. And then as we say you just ultimately going through to then find a totally different course of life and become part of the Canadian Foreign Service for such an extensive thirty three years. That’s an incredibly long time. And were you, have you ever been given any recognition for that length of service from the Canadian Foreign Service.
SN: Oh yes. Yes. Yes.
JM: In what format?
SN: I have no misgivings. I — I’ve been well treated. I have no, it would have been nice to have gotten a little higher up the tree but that was the way it played out.
JM: Was there a system of formal recognition? Awards or anything. Were you given any awards at any time or —?
SN: No. We didn’t have any. We all have a medal or I assume we do. That we get for having served.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And you get a letter from the minister. The PM saying thank you.
JM: Thank you.
SN: And that’s it.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Now, unlike, and this has always been a grievance with, I think some people in the Commonwealth Foreign Services — the Americans, if you become an ambassador you take the title with you.
JM: Yeah. Like a —
SN: You were called that.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the British usually knight their Heads of Mission and they can carry the title.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And Canadians, Australians or New Zealanders do not.
JM: Not.
SN: Yeah. So that bothered some people and of course it didn’t, it doesn’t bother most people because as long, so long as everyone else suffers with you [laughs]
JM: You’re not on your own in that circumstance.
SN: No. No.
JM: No.
SN: No.
JM: Well I think that you’ve been exceedingly generous with your time and we’ve covered a huge amount of ground there. Simply amazing set of experiences and I just thank you for it Clair. It’s just been really really wonderful and the fact that we’ve got this record now as part to help contribute to the knowledge base about Bomber Command personnel is so important. So, thank you very much for that.
SN: Alright. Well thank you. It’s taken a fair amount of your time.
Dublin Core
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ANuttingS170222
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Interview with Sinclair Nutting
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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02:16:42 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
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Jean Macartney
Date
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2017-02-22
Description
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Sinclair Nutting Grew up in Canada and worked on the family farm before he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 405 Squadron. After the war he emigrated to Australia.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
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Canada
England--Yorkshire
Great Britain
Ireland
Ireland--Dublin
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
Contributor
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Julie Williams
405 Squadron
6 Group
8 Group
aircrew
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Medal
Fw 190
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
Halifax
lack of moral fibre
Me 109
military discipline
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Honeybourne
RAF Manby
RAF Topcliffe
training
Wellington
Whitley
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8827/PStockerEE1601.2.jpg
dc2149cee1df664fefc275fb3f1a16c4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8827/AStockerE150726.2.mp3
7e15241140da7cda2f348cf1f0899645
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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Stocker, Ted
Edward Ernest Stocker DSO DFC
E E Stocker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Stocker, EE
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker DSO DFC (b. 1922, 573288 Royal Air Force). He flew 108 operations as a pilot and navigator with 7, 35, 102 and 582 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-23
2016-08-30
2016-10-13
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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Andrew Panton, the interviewee is Edward Stocker. The interview is taking place at Mr Stocker’s home in Clanfield, Hampshire on the 26th of July 2015.
ES: My name is Edward Ernest Stocker but I’d be glad it if you called me Ted Stocker. I was born in August 1922 and I joined the Air Force at the age of fifteen in January 1938. I became — I went to Halton, became one of the Trenchard brats, er, and from there on, I was in the Air Force and life took its natural course with the war on. I started out as a flight engineer on Halifaxes. The Halifax really did need a flight engineer because the aircraft was originally designed to bomb Germany from advance bases in France. The idea before — early on in operations we bomb — although you got our bombs in England then flew to France, refuelled so that we could reach Germany but, of course, when a little thing like Dunkirk arrived, it was no longer feasible, so they modified the aircraft, added extra fuel tanks. Eventually we had four fuel tanks in the Halifax. They kept adding, squeezing little tanks in all over the place and at the end of the time we had seven tanks on each side, and the management of those fuel tanks, to keep the centre of gravity where it belonged, and to ensure that we didn’t run out of fuel at an inappropriate moment, kept the flight engineer extremely busy. That was great, um, but that’s how the Halifax developed and that’s how the duties of the flight engineer developed, very much looking at fuel and obviously watching the engine instruments, looking for any unfortunate things. The Halifax had very early Merlins, Merlin engines, which was subject to internal, um, coolant leaks which, er, often resulted in having to switch the engine off. This again was a duty of the flight engineer to watch for this. When we changed over to the Lancasters only — I did forty-seven trips on Lanc— on Halifaxes — when we changed over to the Lancaster it was a whole different ball game. Now we had only, um, four main tanks, er, two in each wing and a little tank. Fuel management was simple and straightforward. The engines were Packard built Merlins which were not so — they had a, a revised design of the engine cylinder block which, um, reduced the chance of internal, um, coolital leaks so we didn’t have the trouble with engine overheating or having to shut the engine down. The Lancaster was a whole better ball game but, um, so much so that on the Lancaster really the, the flight engineer was not fully occupied, was partly acting as a cheap co-pilot. Remember it takes a lot of time and money to train a co-pilot. You can get a flight engineer for a much lower price. Put him in the right hand seat, he can act as co-pilot anyway and that’s really how the flight engineer’s role was developed.
AP: Right.
ES: But when you get on to the Lancasters, where there isn’t the problem for the engines that we had on the Halifax, the flight engineer was not as fully occupied, and Don Bennett, the chief of Pathfinders, Air Vice Marshall DCD Bennett, er, said that, um, he wanted two navigators on the nav table and the flight engineer he, he can soon learn to drop the bombs, and so, on Pathfinders, the flight engineer ended up very much as being both the flight engineer and co-pilot and bomb aimer, all wrapped into one, but there was duties spread through the flight. That made the flight engineer’s job much more interesting, dropping – aiming bombs particularly when you got onto flying with master bombers where you’re putting the markers down. It was a much more interesting job than it — as it had been originally on Lancasters.
AP: So can we talk a little bit about the actual Pathfinding Squadron and what they did?
ES: Pathfinders was developed, I was — I didn’t — I joined Pathfinders the month they started. I didn’t do the first Pathfinder raid but I did do the second Pathfinder raid and I stayed on Pathfinders until the end of the war and I saw the developments as they were — happened. As I say, one of the early ones was getting H2S radar so we had a decent radar picture. The Morton thing — the techniques developed, we ended up basically with, er, three basic types. There was visual mark— visual marking where everything was done by looking at the ground aided by the radar, of course, which was the, the straightforward one. Then, of course, we had the problem with cloud cover and they developed a radio which was led by radar, particularly when we got Oboe. When Oboe came in, so strange. Oboe markers can be put down from the UK very, very accurately, and, um, we — when outside radar range, we had to develop radar assisted bombing which was bombing through cloud, um, which worked to a point. But the worst — the trickiest one was when you had very high cloud, no chance of seeing the ground at all, and we — you, you see sky markers which were, um, flares which burst at a ver— very high altitude and gave a false aiming point. Obviously, if you’re aiming for something in the clouds, on top of the clouds, the bomb doesn’t know it and wants to go underneath and goes through the marker and carries on forward, so the sky markers, as they were called, were very tricky for the main force to use because they were aiming at something, and their bombs were going to hit something else. But, um, they were the three basic types. There were various variations on those three but basically, you’ve got the visual marking, you’ve got radar assisted marking and you had sky marking, they were the three basic types.
AP: Could you talk a little about H2S and Oboe, what they are?
ES: Oh, H2S was the — if you look at a picture of the Lanc, you’ll see a bowl, a bulge underneath that, um, concealed it. Made of material which is very — does not interfere with the radar, a fibreglass substance, and inside that is the scanner going round, painting a picture on the cathode ray tube of what it can see underneath. It’s a very crude form of television really, it shows the sea and the land as separate colours. It shows built up areas where you’ve got a lot of windows and things, windows and, um, roofs and the slo— sloping of the roofs deflects the radar, and that gives a different sort of picture. But that was the H2S which we — but we were very lucky. We were one of the first. The Pathfinders had H2S before it was in general use. The other one I mentioned was Oboe. Oboe is — was originally used for Mosquitos because it depends on line of sight from the UK and involves the development of the system that the Germans had used to bomb Coventry, where you had radio beams. It was the British development that was more accurate and involved the bombs actually being released automatically by the Oboe system. The, the pilot flew down one radio beam and when it crossed the other beam, er, the bombs were released automatically. It was extremely accurate, we’re talking sort of a hundred metres radius. It was very very good. But unfortunately, the range was limited by the line of sight but the Mosquito was — because it was able to fly higher than the Lancs ever could, could take the Oboe bombing further into the mainland of Germany, of France anyway. After D-Day, they put mobile Oboe stations on the continent and Oboe was able — the range was able to move forward. We did have Oboe in a Lanc on 582 Squadron, and I went on the first Lancaster Oboe raid with Group Captain Grant, who was squadron commander of 109 Squadron, the Oboe Squadron, and we did the first Oboe raid over France from the Lancaster. I must admit I did not enjoy it because having put Oboe into the thing, the pilot and the rad — Oboe operator had to have their own intercom system but nobody else could use it. So, about a few minutes from the target or something, six or seven minutes from target, the rest of the crew were off the — off intercom and, er, you just flew straight and level to the target, fighters coming in, AK-AK, so what? You couldn’t tell anybody [slight laugh]. That was the bit about Oboe I didn’t like on Lancasters but it worked. Fortunately, I did the first one to prove it that it could and after that I let somebody else have a go.
AP: Right, and this was just marking. You weren’t dropping any bombs at this stage?
ES: No, we were the dropping markers, the target indicators. The target indicators — I should have explained. The target indicators were a giant firework. You had a — the shell of a one thousand pound bomb. Inside it were little can—little canisters which were ignited when the bomb burst, and they put down coloured candles. They burst normally at about three thousand feet over the target so there was a cascade of coloured, er, candles falling from the bomb over, over the target area, hopefully over the target itself. This gave the main force an aiming point, something to aim at, a coloured cluster of fireworks. Well, if they were put down by Oboe, initially they were in one colour, um, to keep the marking going — because Oboe could only fly — operate one aircraft at a time over the target we were main — on Pathfinders came over with different colour markers and tried to aim at the original aiming point to keep the markers alive for the rest of the raid. Remember, some of the raids took twenty or thirty minutes. The Pathfinder’s job, when there was an Oboe raid, was to keep the initial marking going on the same aiming point.
AP: Was there a particular colours? Did they use particular colours?
ES: Oh yes. The primary — usually the main colour was red, the primary marker, so that the master bomber can say, ‘bomb the red Tis’. When we were backing up, we were usually backing up with green. Yellow was used for some things, because we also used markers on turning points on the raid on the way in. When you’re going into a target, you don’t go straight in because the Germans can see which way you’re aiming, you do a dog-leg or something. Well to mark a turning point, we used markers dropped by Pathfinders on the turning point. They were usually yellow or something, not, not reds, and that was basically the TIs, we called them TIs, target indicators, they were just giant fireworks but, er, they seemed to work and they were visible from a long way away.
AP: And while you’re doing this, you’ve got AK-AK and night fighters and all sorts of things.
ES: Well, they do, they do try and distract you a little [slight laugh]. The gunners are on, on the ball the whole time, swinging their turrets and watching for everything, providing the fighters are seen and are not too close before you see them. Then the thing you do is an escape manoeuvre. Corkscrew was the usual standard procedure. If you’ve got a fighter high on the port sight, you corkscrewed port down. If they were up on starboard side, you corkscrewed starboard down. If they were low down, you still did a corkscrew. The corkscrew is just — you are following the path of the corkscrew which keeps the gunner, the enemy, sharp, on a constant, er, deflection shot and, er, what you’re trying to do really is to spoil his deflection shot. The deflection is changing the whole time when you’re doing a corkscrew, hopefully that makes him miss. AK-AK, well it comes and goes. If it’s close, you can sometimes hear it rattling on the fuselage. The Halifax had — the propeller blade on the Halifax was made of a wooden material, it was laminated wood blades to the props, although the bases were all metal. We did get jumped by a fighter somewhere and, er, his cannon shells came through just a bit to the right and they actually hit the starboard inner prop, and they hit a blade and that blade broke. That of course, created a, a terrible out of balance. The thing was shaking like hell. No good looking at the instruments and I had an interesting exercise. Well, we’ve been hit. Obviously one engine was in trouble, we’re shaking like hell, my instrument panel was shaking like hell and there’s no good looking at the instruments, a waste of time. So I went up — I went to stand beside the pilot and I put the two propellers on the port side up and down to change the pitch, and it didn’t seem to affect the balance, so left those, and so I went to the right hand side and I changed the pitch on the two right hand engines, until I found the one that was changing the frequency of the vibrations, then I knew which button to press to stop the engine. But that’s the sort of thing you had to do, sort of think, think on the hoof, what do you do next?
AP: Yes. Did you lose any engines at all?
ES: On Halifaxes, you lost engines regularly. I think I almost came back on three engines more often than I came back on four on Halifaxes. I think on Lancs, I only remember losing an engine on a Lanc once, but the Halifax yes, because of this internal coolant leak, we did lose a lot of engines. Sometimes you didn’t really know whether it was a serious leak or not, um, because the added problem on the Halifax was the oil cooler was very large in relation to the amount of oil. It’s a circular oil cooler, if you can imagine like a drum, and the oil came in on the top on one side and the deflection of the oil was supposed to go round the bottom and out on the other side, which it did normally, unless it got, got a little bit cold and then the oil would go in on one side and the, the oil in the middle had got so cold it wasn’t flowing properly, so the oil went in on one side, on the outside and went round on the outside and came out again on the — still at the same temperature it went in at. That resulted in a thing called the oil cooler was coring, it was getting a hard core in the middle. If you did get that, and you did occasionally, if you recognised it, you shut that engine down a moment, which gave the time for the oil temperature in the oil coolant to stabilise and then you could — hope there wasn’t an oil leak, start the engine up again and if it ran OK, fine, you’re that done and happy again. Little things like that. The Halifax was the trickier aeroplane from the engineer’s point of view. You had to be on the ball. You asked about how many raids I did, well I did forty-seven on Halifaxes and then I — that is because on Pathfinders, er, you didn’t do a single raid you did a double raid of forty-five. Well, being me of course, I did a couple extra. But, um, my whole career really, basically, goes back to my second trip. The first trip I did was in a Halifax to Essen, which was a good starting point, you know, they don’t come much tougher and, um, that was OK, except I came back with the view that, ‘How the hell did he know we’d bombed Essen’. But that was because early on in the war, finding a target was a hell of a hit and miss affair. But anyway, for the next trip I was put on a raid to go to Nuremberg in a Halifax, which at that time, we’d only got five tanks, and I got together with the navigator and said, ‘How many air miles are we doing?’ Because when you start thinking about fuel consumption in an aeroplane, well the fuel consumption depends on which way you’re flying. If you’re going downwind, you go a lot further than you go upwind, so work on air miles and that’s the number of miles you go through the air. Anyway, the navigator gave me the air miles and I looked at the fuel load, and said, ‘It ain’t enough’. And so, being a cheeky eighteen or nineteen year old flight engineer, freshly promoted from corporal to sergeant, I went up to the squadron commander, the squadron leader in those days, and said, ‘Sir, I don’t think we’ve got enough fuel for this trip’. To which he replied, ‘Nonsense lad. Group know what they’re doing’. Silly lad, he’d believed anything. But anyway, we were a little short on fuel. In fact, we crashed nearer to base than anybody else in the squadron. We actually, er, ran out of fuel about three or four miles short of the airfield and came down in an untidy heap. I had given an ETA, estimated time of arrival, of no fuel and the navigator had given an ETA of when we should be at base. Well, the navigator had us at base about five, four or five minutes before I’d said we’d run out of fuel. It was a little matter of errors. I was right, we did run out of fuel when I said, but we hadn’t reached base. It was just down there ahead of us and, um, when they — I said we were going to run out two engines on one side stopped, one side had stopped developing any power, so I went down the back and put on a cross feed pipe, which put the empty tank that was running the two port engines to supply fuel to the two starboard engines, so that we had four engines running for a moment, and skipper in his wisdom said, ‘It’s time to get out of here’, and gave the order to bail out. It seemed sensible at the time, well it was sensible except the fact we were carrying a co-pilot, who was a captain from Whitleys, the other squadron on the station, and the Whitley is very poorly heated, so if you fly in a Whitley, you put all the full Irvin suit on, that, er, sheepskin lined leather suit, jacket and [emphasis] trousers, and he was a lad, a tall boy, quite a well-built lad, and so that the first thing that happened when the skipper said, ‘Bail out’, navigator lifts his table up, pulls the hatch out from underneath him, puts his parachute on and jumps, he’s gone. The wireless operator then thought that, underneath the skipper’s seat on the port side, and he was getting ready to go and this great big teddy bear of a man with this Irvin suit on, oh he didn’t jump out, probably couldn’t jump with all that clobber on and, er, he sat on the back of the hatch and put his feet out. That was alright. And then he tried to put his head out but it’s a very small hatch. From my position in the co-pilot’s seat, I could see his backside sat up in the air, but he wasn’t going anywhere. So I wondered, ‘What the hell we’d do?’ Len thought down there, he looked and he, he summed it up quite quickly. He pointed me to come back a bit, so I had to move back a bit, so that Len could get up on the top step and then they jumped, he jumped, and two bodies disappeared out of the escape hatch. Well because of the Battle of Britain, the pilots in Bomber Command sacrificed their pilot ‘chutes to put fighter command in the Battle of Britain, and the pilots in Bomber Command flew with an observer type ‘chute which is a harness with a separate pack for the harness, for the parachute itself, and there was stowage under the seat I was standing on, which contained the pilot’s parachute. The flight engineers job, when the two have gone out or three have gone out the nose, go under there and get the pilot’s parachute. Great, but I go — went down there. Oh dear, the elastic to hold the pilot’s parachute were not fastened and the pilot’s parachute must have been sucked out with the [unclear], it wasn’t there. So I go back up to the step, I’d got my parachute on by this time myself, I get back at the step and talked to the skipper, ‘Sorry your parachute’s gone’. By that time, all four engines stopped and, um, so we obviously were going down, so I jettisoned the escape hatch over the pilot’s head so that he could get out and then I went back amidships where there was a— another hatch in the roof with a ladder up to it for — and I, in fact, opened the hatch and was pushing it back when we hit the ground the first time, and I was flung forward against this, er, ladder and I found myself cuddling a ladder. We were in the air temporarily until we came down for a second time and, um, we slithered along a bit and came to rest. So, I’d got the ladder handy and gripping it, up onto the roof and there’s the skipper coming out. I was thinking we were the only two left. The rear gunner, he’s gone down the back, all he had to do was turn his turret round and jump. Oh no. Our rear gunner suffered from night blindness, which is not a great help for a rear gunner. He couldn’t find his harness, his parachute, anyway so he was still inside the fuselage looking for his parachute when we hit the ground. We didn’t know this of course so we got out. Skipper and I were on the wing and about to jump off and wondering about all these cows running and doing a war dance round the aeroplane, and a voice from behind us said, ‘Wait for me’. It’s our rear gunner. He never did find his parachute and so the three of us ran to the edge of, edge of this field, dodging all these terribly upset, terribly upset cows and got to the edge of the airfield. Got a little fire on each engine, [unclear] and stuff, nothing serious, so we stood there and then, um, as I said, we were very close to the airfield and, er, two ambulances turned up and then the CO turned up. He had a quick word with the skipper, he kept well away from me, and, er, I think after that he got the idea that maybe flight engineers do understand a bit about aeroplanes [slight laugh]. I’ll only say this, many years later, the squadron leader was our wing commander and CO of 35 Squadron, leader of the Pathfinders. I’m the flight engineer then, a flight lieutenant, and when the CO wanted to fly, [unclear] I was his flight engineer [laugh]. But, um, anyway we’d landed, we were in an untidy heap. Of course, this is — everything’s organised in the RAF. So, there was a crash, OK, two ambulances turned up so of course we were, we were not really within walking distance to the base, and so I go to one of these ambulances and, ‘Can you give us a lift back to the airfield’, ‘No, I’m bodies only’. Oh, go to the other one. ‘You’re not injured, are you?’ ‘No, I’m not injured’. Eventually they sent out a guard party to look after the wreck overnight and, um, one of those they got the driver out and he ran us back to the airfield. Interesting things, um, the three blokes that bailed out, two of them ended up on the same train. One had landed next to the railway, stopped a goods train, and sort of the driver said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘I bailed out’. ‘Oh, get in the guard’s van. We’re going into York’, sort of thing. He goes a little bit further on. There’s another bloke waiting with a parachute, waving, so he stopped and said, ‘Your mate’s in the guard’s van’ [laugh]. The other fella hadn’t got a lift with the train got — bloke with a car, and got back. Anyway, they all got back safely, the three got back safely. Anyway, that was my first endeavour. Rather gave me a reputation because the result of that, I think was that, um, when the Halifaxes were moved — we were on the first Halifax Squadron— when another squadron was going to get Halifaxes, they had to be trained on how to fly Halifaxes. The usual way was to take an experienced crew from one squadron, move them to a squadron with one Halifax and they were, er, trained with the new squadron. Well, good idea. So, they got — the squadron, 102 Squadron, was going to get Halifaxes, and so they sent a qualified crew, except I think, the CO wanted to see the back of me, I’d only done four trips. I was not an experienced — but I was the flight engineer on the experienced crew that went to 102 Squadron. There I was, I had done four trips, I was on this new squadron, teaching people how to — all about the Halifaxes, and that’s how my whole car— career started. Because I was there and I was the only experienced flight engineer, when the squa— new squadron commander was going to do his first trip on a Halifax, he wanted an experienced flight engineer so I went with him, didn’t I? And, er, when each flight commander wanted their first trip on the Halifax, who was the flight engineer? So — and then I went down, down the list until I probably flew with each pilot on their first trip and, er, I was an instructor, not what I intended to be. But anyway, I ended up with a total of fifteen trips and Pathfinders started. Well, the Canadian crew, they wanted go down — the Canadian, er, pilot and navigator wanted to go to Pathfinders, they wanted to volunteer for Pathfinders. Their flight engineer didn’t and the silly bloke had talked me into joining him so that’s how I left 102 Squadron and went to thir — back to 35, on Pathfinders this time, and that’s how I got into Pathfinders. As I men— said I’d done fifteen ops on 102 and 35 when this Canadian talked me into going to Pathfinders, so I arrived at Pathfinders with just fifteen trips under my belt. I stayed on the Halifaxes, on Pathfinders, until I finished my double — what is called a double mission. A mission is norm— for most of the main force was thirty trips and then Pathfinders, when you volunteered to join Pathfinders, you vol— volunteered to do a double mission. A double mission was forty-five trips. In fact, I did forty-seven on Halifaxes, and then I was screened and I went to the Navigation Training Unit of Pathfinders, and there’d been a bit of problem on 7 Squadron. They’d lost their CO and a couple of flight commanders and all sorts of the top brass. They came to the Navigation Training Unit and wanted a, er, bit of strength back in 7 Squadron and I was asked to volunteer. I’d been screened for a couple of weeks by then so I went back to, um, onto Pathfinders with 7 Squadron. The only thing was when I got to 7 Squa— well I knew before I went they were flying Lancasters. Well I’d flown in a Lancaster once and I’d read the book, so I joined 7 squadron with no formal training at all, having read the pilot’s notes, and I stayed on 7’s, um, Pathfinders, eventually did another sixty-one ops on, um, Lancasters, but giving me a grand total of a hundred and eight, which is ridiculous. Nobody should do that [slight laugh]. I don’t know how I did it. I know I changed — and I mentioned on 102, I flew with every Tom, Dick, and every flight commander’s CO. That gave me a number of different skippers. I then went back, went onto Pathfinders and I did, I think I did another thirty with this, er, Canadian crew I went with, and I did some odd ones and then the trouble started. They’d discovered 102 Squadron had put me up for a commission, because they didn’t commission flight engineers early on, because when I saw Wally Lashbrook, who was the instructor, there called me in and said, ‘What do you think about taking a flight — a commission’. I said, ‘Don’t be silly. They don’t commission flight engineers’. He said, ‘Well maybe they’re going to. Would you — can I put you forward?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ Well, actually, I did ask him what he thought because I’m a Halton brat. I went to Halton when I was fifteen and the flight commander was Wally Lashbrook and he was a Halton brat, so on his advice I said, ‘Yes OK. Put me in for the commission’, which led to the situation. I was, I was down on Pathfinders, they didn’t know anything about commissioned flight engineers and I was called in to the adjutant, ‘What did you do for an interview at the Air Ministry. What’s that for?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Wait and see’. Anyway, I was on ops one night, er, and I had — was due to go to Air Ministry the next morning. OK, so down at, um, Gravely, which is very close to London. It’s in Huntingdonshire and the railway station not far away. So anyway, I did the trip, came back, went in in the uniform, changed, um, into the barracks, changed into my best blue, had a wash and a shave, and caught the train to London. Which meant I then had to go in for this interview with Air Ministry. OK. Well, I’d been up all night remember, and they called me in and, um, one of those who, who looked at me said, ‘Where were you last night lad?’ So I gave him the name of the target. After that, the interview was awkward [laugh]. Anyway, so I got through that alright and I went back to the Squadron. Seven weeks later I’m — the adjutant called me in and he said, ‘I don’t know how this happened. You’ve been commissioned’. I said, ‘Yeah, I thought I might’. He said, ‘You’d better go and get a uniform’. So I went up to London to, er, one of the tailors, bought myself a uniform, go back. I’m a pilot officer now, yes, and they called me in again. ‘We’ve only got [unclear] for a flight lieutenant? You’ll have to be a flight lieutenant’, so I’d been a pilot officer for several days. Back to London, get some more stripes on my uniform [laugh], so I was rather quickly a flight lieutenant and then got a job and there was obviously a flight engineer needed, which again meant flying with all sorts of odd bods, which again meant I went over, way over the odds. I flew with people. I, I flew with Hank Malcom, the Canadian I mentioned, I did thirty trips with him. That was alright. Later on, I flew with a Welshman called Davies, came from Swansea, I did thirty trips with him. As I say I did all these thirty trips.
AP: What about Cheshire. Do you remember Cheshire much?
ES: Cheshire was my first flight commander on 35 Squadron. Didn’t like him very much, never did, but, um —
AP: And Lancasters, any particular missions that you remember, operations that stick out?
ES: Very difficult. I can’t remember where it was, one time over the Ruhr Valley. I didn’t enjoy life. We came — I think we’d been to Berlin, and on the way back we got a bit off course, er, as far as I can remember, we’d lost an engine or something over Berlin, probably this oil stuff, and I started it again but we got the — radio, distant reading radio compass was not, distant reading compass, sorry, er, was not reading very accurately and keeping on course had been difficult, and instead of coming, er, from Berlin, just round the corner of the Happy Valley, er, probably between Essen and Aachen, and cutting through that way, got a bit off course and found myself over the Ruhr. There wasn’t a raid on the Ruhr, just us odd bods coming back from Berlin, and they did rather catch us in their searchlights and flak for quite a long time. That was the one of the worst occasions with the enemy opposition, where it wasn’t so much that we were being shot at and were being illuminated by searchlights, we couldn’t get out of the damn thing for about twenty minutes, dashing around. I thought we’re never going to get out of that but anyway, er, Hank put the aeroplane in all sorts of manoeuvres and we got out of it. But that was one of the worst occasions, not when we were caught over the target but caught got off course on the way back. That always the danger, you expected to be shot at over the target but you tried to avoid it enroute there and back. We hadn’t on that occasion. It was one of the worst trips anyway as far as —
AP: Any raids in Northern France and Holland? Any raids there in Lancasters?
ES: Just before D-Day, we were doing all sorts of silly things. I had, I had the dis— disputed honour of actually acting as master bomber on one of the raids on a little, er, airfield in northern France. What’s the name of it? I can’t think of the name at the moment. I was flying with a Welshman on this occasion and they wanted — round about D-Day, there were all sorts of little raids, but they needed a master bomber on a very small airfield and they suddenly decided that this skipper’s Welsh accent would not do. So I was then, er, told to do the broadcast over the target, drop the bombs and sort of encourage people to come down and bomb the target, tell them what to bomb. The cloud, cloud base was low. We got down low, we could see the target, I got my markers on the target. Could I persuade anybody else to come down and do it? No, they were all bombing from way up, not doing very well anyway. We lost two aircrafts on that f — but I was actually — I think it was the only occasion when a flight engineer held the microphone and acted as master bomber and told them where to bomb. [unclear] have a change.
AP: All those operations that you flew, did — I’m guessing you must have seen other aircraft being shot down?
ES: Oh yeah of course we did.
AP: I mean, one of the things I’m trying to describe to people is what it was like when you were flying in all that stuff, what you saw, what people said, what they felt.
ES: It was very difficult early on, um, you got the odd one. Usually, they caught fire and went down in flames and some parachutes would come out. You hoped more did. Later on, when the — towards the end, the Germans had developed this — what did they call them? Musical chairs, which was the night fighters were equipped, er, with upward firing guns in the top of the fuselage at an angle and they did not use tracer. The idea was to fly on radar low down where you couldn’t be — where there was less chance of being seen by the top gunner or the rear gunner, come up below the aircraft, and when you were in the right position, climb fairly steeply and let the, er, cannons into the belly of the bomber. Very good idea. We’d had it years ago. When I was at Boscombe Down many years ago, we had a Boston which had been modified with, um, like bomb doors on the top of the fuselage and the bomb doors opened and there was four, er, machine guns pointing upwards, just like musical chairs, only there were only threes and we never developed it, but the Germans did. That was, that was one of the games the RAF definitely lost. My advantage, having before I started learning to fly as a flight engineer, I’d been an ordinary fitter who wanted to be a pilot and fortunately, in my postings, I was posted to Boscombe Down, which meant I saw far more different aircraft than most people when they came out of Halton and, um, I worked on many, including the first bloody, er, Stirling bomber, four engine. They had a position for a flight engineer. ‘It’s your aeroplane. You fly’. That’s how I learnt, you know, to start flying. I didn’t want to be a flight engineer, I’d been trying to be a pilot, but I was only an AC1, so I saw the flight commander and he said, ‘You’ve got to be an OAC to go on the pilot’s course’. So I did the trade test and I was a — I passed it. I was an OAC. Good. Go back to the flight commander, ‘I want a pilot’s course’. ‘You have to be an OAC for six months then you can come and see me again’. Five months later, ‘Oh hello Corporal Stocker. [unclear] You can’t be a pilot now. You’re too valuable. You’re a corporal fitter’. OK. I’m working in the hangar one day and the flight clerk comes out, and he’s got an AMO, he says, ‘The flight commander thinks you might like to look at this’. It was the first AMO asking — Air Ministry Order — asking for volunteers to fly as flight engineer. If you are a corporal or a sergeant in, in the group 1 trade, you can volunteer to be a flight engineer. I think the flight commander had a clue that I might be interested in that and so I went back with the flight clerk [laugh] and volunteered [laugh], and a few weeks later, I was on an air gunner’s course and that’s how I became a flight engineer. I don’t know how I did it. But anyway, the basic thing is I did chance my arm rather more than most and got away with it with a hundred and eight raids. How the hell I did it, I don’t know, but I’m lucky. But that’s how it happened. The first flight commander was Flight Lieutenant Cheshire. Oh dear. What can I add to that?
AP: Let’s, let’s jump to that, the island of Walcheren. Can you talk about that raid?
ES: Oh, one of the most interesting raids. The war was nearly over, there weren’t — there wasn’t a great deal of opposition anywhere and then they wanted to sink the Walcheren. The island of Walcheren was at the mouth of the Scheldt and was really guarding the entrance to northern Germany. They’d tried to get across — there’d been an unsuccessful attempt by the Army to do a landing on the, er, south coast of Walcheren Island. They lost a lot of soldiers and then they decided they might be better to — for a frontal attack, but they need to get the Hun out of the way, er, so we were — I was bomb aimer with the master bomber. The master bomber was Group Captain Peter Cribb. He was on thirty. He took over from Cheshire as flight commander of the 35 Squadron way back in 4 Group. Anyway he was the master bomber. I was his bomb aimer and we went over to Walcheren Island. Oboe had put down a marker on the sea shore and we put another marker beside it, and then we were getting, I think it was sixty aircraft every twenty minutes. I’m not sure about that number, it might have been less, and we directed them on to this markers right on the sea shore and we managed to breach the dy— the dyke and the sea water went through and started flooding the island of Walcheren. There was an AK-AK battery on the other side of the town from where we were, er, which fired the odd shots, but we had some thousand pound bombs, a couple, four or something, so between two raids, I did a sharp turn to port and I dropped my fourth one thousand pounder in the vicinity of the AK-AK battery, and had the good fortune to watch the brave gu— German gunners get on their bikes and, er, ride down the island in the middle of the raid. They left us to it. So really it wasn’t — there was no real opposition there. Anyway, we carried on with our — all these little raids and gradually made the, er, dyke leak and the island was flooding behind. The last raid, the last, um, batch of bombers we were getting were from 617 Squadron, they had their tallboys they [unclear] at that time. Well, we looked at the dyke and the sun and the sea was going in, and the skipper called them up and said, ‘Go home. We don’t need you’, which was for Pathfinders was a not idea because Pathfinders and 5 Group, which was Cochrane’s private air force, were not really the best of friends. Cochrane didn’t approve of Pathfinders and Don Bennett, who ran Pathfinders, didn’t really approve of Cochrane, because Cochrane had never actually been on a raid. Our AOC, Air Vice Marshall Donald Bennett, had [emphasis] been on a raid. He’d been shot down in Norway. He knew, he knew the score. That made the difference. He had a different outlook. But, um, actually yes, it was an interesting raid and when I was working in Holland after the war we did, I did go back there with my wife and we went and had a look and, yes, there’s a nice little puddle where we’d broken the dyke and there was a bit of sand round the edge and somebody had opened a café there, so we got somebody in business anyway. They set up a committee to evaluate the value of Bomber — what was happening with Bomber Command and they came to this awful conclusion that how a few bombs arrived within ten miles of the target. There was obviously a fault there and I having — this was the impression I had from my very first raid on Essen, that the accuracy with which they found the target was pathetic. And as a result of that, there was a great deal of conversation at the top end of Bomber Command and the Air Ministry what to do about it. Butcher Harris was not keen on the idea of a, an elite, um, a special force, special squadrons who were experienced and could lead the way. He said it was a sort of elitism. We don’t want elitism in Bomber Command. Certain people could see that this was the way to go, er, but Harris was overruled by C and C I suppose, I don’t know which one it was, and was told to look at the idea of an elite force, er, they eventually came up with the conclusion they’ll have with a special force. Initially they took — each group was asked to provide one squadron for this special force, so we ended up initially with Pathfinders with a hodgepodge of squadrons. There was one Whitley Squad–, no not one Whitley, one Wellington Squadron, there was a Stirling Squadron number 7, er, there was a Halifax Squadron 35, and they were put together as a, as an elite force. They had to find a CO. Don Bennett was in with — the main, main problem was navigation. Don Bennett was a well-known navigator; he was the only officer in the Air Force with a first class navigator certificate to start with. He’d already proved himself as navigator by flying the Maia Composite from Scotland to South Africa by himself. Just — all he had on board was a wireless operator. He was an experienced navigator. He’d started in — had already early on in the war started the transatlantic ferry. They used to fly — put Hudson bombers from America into boxes and put them on a ship to come Am— to England. Don Bennett was recruited really by BOAC to do, er, to do something about it and he started the transatlantic ferry by leading the first formation of bomb— Hudson bombers across the Atlantic to England and started the transatlantic ferry. He was then a civilian in the BOAC. He had been in the Air Force before the war so he started the Pathfinders and he put it together, because he had — he was the only AOC that they could find who had experience of flying bombers, who was an experienced navigator, who proved that he could navigate and, um, that’s how Pathfinders started, but it made a hell of a difference. We started first of all, trying to mark — how to mark the targets. All sorts of things were tried but Pathfinders gradually developed very, very rapidly, um, initially as this bunch of squadrons, then it became a Group and, er, ended up as quite a big air force of its own. At the end of the war, Pathfinders’ Group, number 8 Group, had over a hundred aircraft, it had a hundred Mosquitos for the late night strikers. It was an enormous empire but, um, it did the job. We found ways of finding the target, we found ways of marking the target, and we ended up in a situation where we could, if the weather — in reasonable conditions, we could hit any target anywhere. The development of the master bomber, which started with the Peenemünde raid, was a big step forward. It gave us some control, where the people, er, the other people who may be on their first or second trip and never seen enemy fire before a chance to be guided, and given some encouragement, what was going on, what to do. That was a big step forward. It was interesting to live thorough it all from, er, hit and miss and, er, precision bombing helped it.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ted Stocker. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Andrew Panton
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
2015-07-26
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AStockerE150726, PStockerEE1601
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:02:00 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Ted flew 108 operations (47 on Halifaxes and 61 on Lancasters), flying as part of 35 Squadron Pathfinders. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Order.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Vivienne Tincombe
102 Squadron
35 Squadron
7 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
bale out
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crash
flight engineer
fuelling
H2S
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
Master Bomber
Oboe
Pathfinders
RAF Halton
target indicator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6692/PJonesPW1606.1.jpg
2c6796117404e6f8a2b57367b5876a71
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6692/PJonesPW1607.2.jpg
e905f613134873d98cadcb062ccca7c5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones, Thomas John
Tom Jones
T Jones
Description
An account of the resource
62 items. An oral history interview with Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs, correspondence, service documents, aircraft recognition manuals, medals and a memoir. He flew operations as a flight engineer on 622 Squadron Stirling and 7 Squadron on Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection also contains an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2566">Album</a> of 129 types of aircraft. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Jones 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
2014-12-04
2017-12-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, PW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
No 7 SQUADRON P.F.F. 8 GRP
RAF OAKINGTON
CAMBS
SEPT 1944
AVRO LANCSTER BIII
PA964 MG-G
L – R
J NAYLOR REAR GUNNER RAF
S HARPER BOMB AIMER RAF
D GOODWIN NAVIGATOR RNZAF
F PHILLIPS PILOT RAAF
T JONES FLT ENGINEER RAF
S WILLIAMSON W/OP AG RAAF
C THURSTON H2S OPERATOR RNZAF
R WYNNE M/U GUNNER RAF
[red dot] GARDENING SKAGGERAK
[red dot] HANNOVER
[red dot] HANNOVER
[red dot] GARDENING KATTEGAT
[red dot] KASSEL
[red dot] LUDWIGSHAFEN
[red dot] BERLIN
[red dot] BERLIN
[red dot] STUTTGART
[red dot] SCHWEINFURT
[red dot] STUTTGART
[red dot] LILLE
[red dot] AACHEN
[red dot] TERGNIER
[red dot] KARLSRUNE
[red dot] ESSEN
[red dot] CHAMBLEY
[red dot] MANTES
[red dot] DUISBURG
[red dot] DORTMUND
[red dot] AACHEN
[red dot] RENNES
[red dot] Mt COUPLE
[red dot] FRAUGEVILLE
[red dot] FORET DE CERISY
[red dot] FOUGERES
[red dot] RENNES
[red dot] TOURS
[red dot] AMIENS
[red dot] VALENCIENNES
[red dot] RENESCURE
[red dot] OISEMONT
[green dot] BIENNAIS
[green dot] ST MARTIN D’ORTIERS
[green dot] FORET DE CACC
[green dot] LIUZEUX
[green dot] THIVERNY
[red dot] CHALONS SUR MARENE
[green dot] CAGHEY
[red dot] AULNOYE
[red dot] HAMBURG
[red dot] KIEL
[red dot] STUTTGART
[red dot] FERFAY
[red dot] STUTTGART
[green dot]NORMANDY BATTLE AREA
[green dot]NOYELLE EN CHAUSSE
[green dot]FORET DE NIEPPE
[green dot]FORET D’ADAM
[red dot] CABOURG
[red dot] NORMANDY BATTLE AREA
[green dot] FORET DE MORMAL
[red dot] LA PALLICE
[green dot] MONTRICHARD
[red dot] FALAISE
[green dot] OUF EN TERNOIS
[red dot] STETTIN
[green dot] LUMBRES
[green dot] VENLO
[green dot] LE HARVE
[green dot] EMDEN
[green dot] LE HAVRE
[green dot] LE HAVRE
[green dot] LE HAVRE
OPERATIONS
[red dot] NIGHT
[green dot] DAY
2 TOURS EXPIRED
10 SEPT. 1944.
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
Lancaster and Fred Phillips' crew
Description
An account of the resource
A starboard side view of a Lancaster, PA964, on the ground. There are eight aircrew standing at the nose. On the reverse is a list of the aircrew including Tom Jones and a list of his operations.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
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
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PJonesPW1606, PJonesPW1607
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean--Skagerrak
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Stuttgart
France--Lille
Germany--Aachen
France--Tergnier (Canton)
Germany--Karlsruhe
France--Chambley Air Base
France--Mantes-la-Jolie
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Dortmund
France--Rennes
France--Cerisy-la-Salle
France--Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine)
France--Tours
France--Amiens
France--Valenciennes
France--Oisemont (Canton)
France--Creil
France--Châlons-en-Champagne
France--Maubeuge
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
France--Béthune
France--Normandy
France--Abbeville Region
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Cabourg
France--La Pallice
France--Montrichard
France--Falaise
France--Hesdin
Poland--Szczecin
France--Lumbres
Netherlands--Venlo
France--Le Havre
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
Poland
France
Germany
Netherlands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-09
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09
7 Squadron
8 Group
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
dispersal
flight engineer
H2S
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 3
mine laying
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Oakington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6695/PJonesPW16010003.1.jpg
f4ecc1f9637d94d972dfba79baf5b483
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6695/PJonesPW16010004.1.jpg
47cd0743e2b5456546c5525cb4ef4c5d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones, Thomas John
Tom Jones
T Jones
Description
An account of the resource
62 items. An oral history interview with Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs, correspondence, service documents, aircraft recognition manuals, medals and a memoir. He flew operations as a flight engineer on 622 Squadron Stirling and 7 Squadron on Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection also contains an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2566">Album</a> of 129 types of aircraft. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Jones 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
2014-12-04
2017-12-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, PW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
L-R
Steve Harper
Fred Phillips
Dave Goodwin
Clive Thurston
Joe Naylor
Ron Wynne
Indoor L-R
Stan Williamson
Tom Jones
SEPT 1944
7 SQUADRON BOMBER COMMAND.
R.A.F. OAKINGTON. 8 GROUP P.F.F.
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
Lancaster and Fred Phillips' crew
Description
An account of the resource
Eight airmen at the port door of a Lancaster, PA964. Two men are sitting in the door and the other six are standing or leaning on the fuselage. On the reverse are the aircrew names.'
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PJonesPW16010003, PJonesPW16010004
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09
7 Squadron
8 Group
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Lancaster
navigator
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Oakington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6697/PJonesPW16010007.2.jpg
6c634b66d9ba7e0de1571ec3ba4bd63b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6697/PJonesPW16010008.2.jpg
5a355c1d0b2961cfd1a7ed30dbdffea6
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones, Thomas John
Tom Jones
T Jones
Description
An account of the resource
62 items. An oral history interview with Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs, correspondence, service documents, aircraft recognition manuals, medals and a memoir. He flew operations as a flight engineer on 622 Squadron Stirling and 7 Squadron on Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection also contains an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2566">Album</a> of 129 types of aircraft. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Jones 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
2014-12-04
2017-12-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, PW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PA 964 MG-K
L-R
Joe Naylor
Steve Harper
Dave Goodwin
Fred Phillips
Tom Jones
Stan Williamson
Clive Thurston
Ron Wynne
SEPT. 1944
7 SQUADRON BOMBER COMMAND
R.A.F. OAKINGTON 8 GROUP P.F.F
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
Lancaster and Fred Phillips' crew
Description
An account of the resource
Eight aircrew, including Tom Jones, standing at the starboard side front of a Lancaster, PA964. On the reverse the aircrew are identified.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PJonesPW16010007, PJonesPW16010008
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09
7 Squadron
8 Group
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
dispersal
flight engineer
Lancaster
navigator
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Oakington
wireless operator