1
25
77
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2044/33161/PProbynEA17010037.2.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Probyn, Ernest. Scrapbook
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-23
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Probyn, EA
Description
An account of the resource
42 items. Scrapbook containing photographs and clippings.
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
83 Squadron Thanksgiving and Dedication of Memorial Chapel
Description
An account of the resource
Two 83 Squadron Events.
The first is a Thanksgiving at Lincoln Minster and the second is a Dedication at Coningsby.
Creator
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83 Squadron
Format
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Two printed sheets on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
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Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PProbynEA17010037
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Lincoln
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1978-11-05
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1978-11-05
83 Squadron
Pathfinders
RAF Coningsby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/548/18509/BLeedhamALeedhamAv10001.1.jpg
c20c5b7484a75403ab93781e716bb475
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/548/18509/BLeedhamALeedhamAv10002.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/548/18509/BLeedhamALeedhamAv10003.1.jpg
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Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Leedham, Alma
Alma Lucy Muriel Leedham
A L M Leedham
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Leedham, A
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Alma Lucy Muriel Leedham (1922 - 2020, 455833 Royal Air Force), memoirs of herself and her husband Warrant Officer Terence Leedham an armourer who also served on a number of bomber command stations. She served as a driver in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force stationed at RAF Scampton and East Kirkby.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alma Leedham and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-14
2017-05-26
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. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Alma Leedham
I was born in Fulham, London on 26th June 1922. I am now 91 years old and trying to put into words some of the things that have happened during the years so far. I had no sisters and just one brother. Graham was two years younger than me and from the age of 6ys I was made responsible for his safety. London was a wonderful place in those days. We were allowed to wander off and visit Museums and anything that was ‘Free of charge’.
.We [sic] learnt to swim in the Thames and were constantly going over the bridge into Putney for the start of the Oxford & Cambridge boat race each year. When I was 11 years old the family moved to Kingston-on-Thames. Because I had been run over by a car when I was 9yrs old I did not go to school for several weeks (in those days it was not considered important for a girl to do well at school – she would grow up and get married). I was just 14yrs and 1 month when I left school and got a job as an apprentice dressmaker. I made tea, washed up and went out to buy buns for the ladies tea break during which time, I also had to take material to another shop where buttons and belt buckles were made to order. I was there for about 6 weeks, earning 5 shillings per week and I got the sack for sliding down the banisters.of [sic] the 3 storey workshop. Apart from getting another job on the way home, not a lot happened until War was declared in September 1939. By then I was 17yrs of age and working as a Progress Chaser at Hawker Aircraft where the Hurricanes were being built. I stayed with them until near the end of 1941 when I decided to join the RAF
Learning to drive at Blackpool was not easy. There were 3 girls to each car and, when 4 of our ”Teachers” were picked up on a smash-and-grab raid by the Police, we had to start from “scratch” in North Wales which, at that time of year, was really beautiful with all the many rhodedendrons [sic] in full bloom. Three weeks on cars followed by another 3 weeks on lorries found most of us having passed all tests. Our half days were spent on classroom work where we learnt all about what went on under the bonnet
Early in June 1942 I was posted to RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire where as WAAFs we were billeted in what had been originally, the married quarters. There were 3 of us to a room. Kath Williams (known as Bill), Vivian Winsome and myself. I think there were at least two more girls in the upstairs bedroom. (I little knew then that my second daughter would be born in the same house, No 18,. Some years later) Of course we only used the house for sleeping and our meals were served in the main cookhouse which also served as a cinema in the evenings. Driving all types of vehicles and meeting all sorts of people was soon part of the daily round. At that time Squadrons using the 4 hangers were 83 Sqdn who were in the process of changing from Wellingtons to Lancasters and 49 Sqdn who were flying Manchesters. Manchesters only had 2 engines and so, apparently, were not able to travel the required distances to Germany and were taken out of use. 83 Sqdn had been posted down south where I think they became part of the Pathfinders and, 57 Sqdn from Feltwell in Norfolk arrived as their replacement. It was then that I was transferred from a general driver in the MT Service area to 57 Sqdn as a tractor driver; taking the bombs from the Bomb Dump to the kites (as the planes were called in those days).. My house mate, Vivian, worked in the Bomb Dump and each morning she would have 6 bombed up trolleys (2 bomb loads) ready for me to take to the aircraft that would
[page break]
Be flying that night and I would leave for the dispersal points where the armourers would be waiting to take one 4,000 bomb and 2 loads of incendiaries for each aircraft. I soon got to know quite a few of the Ground Crews and to cut a long story short, among them was the man who was destined to become my future husband. Lofty Leedham (he was 6’2”) as he was known then was a Flight Sergeant in charge of the guns and turrets and the men who worked on them. Our boss was Warrant Officer Cook but, to tell you about him would make my story a great deal longer. It was quite a while before I discovered that Lofty’s Christian name was Terry. Our first date was on 6/06/43 and early in July Terry came down to Kingston-on-Thames to meet my Mum & Dad. In the August, only a month later 57 Sqdn was moved to East Kirkby where A Flight of 57 became part of the newly formed 630 Sqdn. We got married on 12th September from my parents home in Kingston-upon-Thames. Due to “rationing” and a shortage of everything, our wedding took place with me wearing a borrowed wedding dress but, we did manage with the help of neighbours, who gave us their food coupons, to have a small Wedding cake. Because the arrangements we had made for our honeymoon collapsed, we spent the next week living with my parents and going to London most evenings to see some of the shows. We did manage to see the Beverly Sisters and Danny Kaye before going back to East Kirkby where arrangements had been made for us to live “Off Camp”. the farm/pub where we slept was homely and was also very handy, as the bottom end of the farm was the boundary of the RAF perimeter and it was just a case of lifting our bikes over the railing and cycling round the Airfield to where we worked. It was then that I was put on night duty, so we were almost just passing each other, either to go to work or to come home each morning and evening. But that didn’t last for long when the discovery that I was !expecting! got me sent home to Mum & Dad. So I was no longer a member of the RAF. When in August of the following year our first daughter, Lesley, was born, we managed to find ‘Living Out’ accommodation in Lincoln which was some way from being ideal. Being back at RAF Scampton was like going home for us. We eventually were given the opportunity to taking over one of the Married Quarters with the provision that we clean it up and make it liveable. That was when we moved into No 18. and where our second daughter, Valerie was born, almost exactly 2 years after Lesley. (just 4 days difference). This was quite soon after we had found a nine month flatcoat (like a golden retriever only black). We called him “N*****” after Guy Gibson’s dog. He was a birthday present for Lesley. In those days we didn’t have much money so we were very pleased when the local butcher gave him to us. His history was that he had been bought by a couple for their son who had unfortunately been killed in Germany and they were unwilling to keep the dog. N***** spent many years with us but there were times when we had to leave him with my parents. For instance, when Terry was posted to the middle East and Singapore. I often had to wait a long time for a married quarter to become available but when I was able to take the girls to where ever Terry was serving I had to leave N***** with my family and go. . . N***** was always so pleased to see us each time we came home. The years passed and when we were living near Salisbury and the girls were starting to go to school there were no married quarters available, so we bought a caravan and got permission to live in the grounds of the nearby School of Chemical Warfare where Terry was in charge of “Working with Chemicals” . . Soon after we moved into the married quarter. I discovered that I was expecting another baby who arrived in the January and was our son, Richard. We now had three Children. . The next posting was Singapore and
[page break]
I waited 15months [sic] before getting a trip on the Asturius, (troopship) with the girls to join him. . The Suez Canal was not available for us in those years so, a trip round the bottom end of Africa lengthened our journey to Singapore. Terry met the ship on the harbour and took us to our new home in Serangoon Valley. (All this was written some time ago and I am now trying to make some sort of finish. (Terry died 25years [sic] ago and my memory is not quite what it was . . . . I am now 93 years old. .
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
Alma Leedham's memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Tells of early life in London, joining the Woman's Auxiliary Air Force in 1941 and training as a driver. Relates experiences at RAF Scampton and then with 57 Squadron as a tractor driver pulling bomb trolleys. Subsequently went to East Kirkby. Married Terence Leedham who was an armourer on 57 Squadron in late 1943. Left the Woman's Auxiliary Air Force on expecting her first child. Continues with family history at RAF Scampton and postings to the middle east and Singapore.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A Leedham
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BLeedhamALeedhamAv1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Lincolnshire
England--Kingston upon Thames
England--Surrey
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-06
1942-09-12
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
Steve Baldwin
49 Squadron
57 Squadron
630 Squadron
83 Squadron
animal
bomb dump
bomb trolley
ground personnel
Lancaster
love and romance
Manchester
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Scampton
service vehicle
tractor
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2417/42592/MEvansD2-1593692-211115-11.2.jpg
684800fa5b70ce57a2af547fa85d4b65
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
Evans, Donald
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Donald Evans (b. 1925, 1593692 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, objects and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 106 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Michael Evans and catalogued by Barry Hunter,
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-11-15
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Evans, D-2
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Title
A name given to the resource
Pilot's and Flight Engineer's Notes - Lancaster
Description
An account of the resource
A set of notes used for maintaining Lancasters.
This item is available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Air Council
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
One book cover
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MEvansD2-1593692-211115-11
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
83 Squadron
aircrew
flight engineer
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
pilot
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1375/23784/MEdgarAG172180-180704-01.1.pdf
36ae9e28a74e85f4be77156522931818
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
Edgar, Alfred George
Edgar, A G
Description
An account of the resource
83 items. The collection concerns Pilot Officer Alfred George 'Allan' Edgar DFC (b. 1922, 172180 Royal Air Force) He flew operations as a pilot with 49 Squadron.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Pip Harrison and Sally Shawcross nee Edgar, and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-07-04
2019-10-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Edgar, AG
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DADS TRANSCIPT MEMORIES OF CREW AND MISSIONS 1944 TO 1945
RECORDED BY MIKE GARBETT AND BRIAN GOULDING IN 1980 AT A REUNION ON THE CREW HELD AT SUDBROOKE LINCOLN, AUTHORS OF SEVERAL BOOKS LANCASTER AT WAR (UNFORUNATELY SOME OF THE TAPE IS MISSING AND BITS MISSED OUT)
PHOTOS OF FATHER FLYING HIS LANCASTER INTO FISKERTON IS SHOWN IN THEIR BOOK LASCASTER AT WAR NO3.
WE CREWED UP AT 17 OUT AT SILVERSTONE AND IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY THE FIRST PERSON THAT I GRAVITATED TO WAS THE NAVIGATOR BOB BROOKS AND AUSTRAILIAN I THINK THE MAIN FACT WAS THAT I WAS LOOKING FOR WHAT I THOUGHT WAS A MATURE RELIABLE GOOD NAVIGATOR AND HE SOMEHOW GAVE ME THAT IMPRESSION, SO WE STARTED TALKING AND I REMEMBER OUT OF THIS THAT HE KNEW ALAN MILLARD THE BOMB AIMER SO WE THEN EVENTUALLY GRAVITATED TO HIM AND HE KNOWING BOB FELT IT WOULD BE BETTER TO JOIN US.
AND AFTERWARDS I DID FIND OUT FROM BOB IT WAS SORT OF FIRST HAND IMPRESSION HE RATHER LIKES THE LOOK OF ME, IT WAS ONE OF THOSE THINGS
I AM ALMOST CERTAIN THEN THAT THE NEXT PERSON THAT WE GRABBED, WAS THE WIRELESS OPERATOR AG ALF RIDPATH WHO WITH HIS FAIR SWEPT BACK LOOKED A LITTLE BIT OF A GAY LOTHARIO AND WE FELT IT WAS ANOTHER COMPLETE IDIOT THAT WOULD JOIN AN IDIOT TYPE MOB ANYWAY, AND WE SEEM TO GET ON QUITE WELL. THE NEXT ONE WAS DON HARWOOD THE REAR GUNNER WHO ALTHOUGH HE WAS YOUNG AS US SEEM TO HAVE AN OLD HEAD ON HIS SHOULDERS, A DEEP VOICE AND GAVE AN IMPRESSION OF RELIABILITY, I SOMETIMES WONDER IF THIS WAS EVER TRUE! AND THEN JOHN WATTERS WAS THE MID UPPER GUNNER A LAD FROM BELFAST WHO I AM ALMOST POSITIVE WAS MUCH YOUNGER THAN WHAT HE MAINTAINED HE REALLY WAS, TO THIS DAY I AM CONVINCED THAT HE WAS ONLY ABOUT 16/17 YRS AND HE CLAIMED TO BE MUCH OLDER 18/19 YRS, IT WAS A GREAT PITY REALLY THAT I SUBSEQUENTLY LEARNT AFTER THE WAR THAT HE HAD STEPPED UNDER A TUBE TRAIN ON NEWS YEARS EVE COMMITTING SUICIDE, I LEARNT THIS FROM DON HARWOOD THE REAR GUNNER.
ANYWAY AFTER COMPLETING OUT AT SILVERSTONE WE
[PAGE BREAK]
2
FINALLY ARRIVED AT 1661 CONVERSION UNIT AT WINTHORPE JUST OUTSIDE NEWARK AND TO BE HONEST I CAN’T REMEMBER MUCH ABOUT MY INSTRUCTOR AT ALL – ALL I CAN REMEMBER IS THE BLOODY STERLING!! NOW THE MOST INTERESTING THING WAS THAT ALAN MILLARD THE AUSTRALIAN BOMB AIMER WAS A FAILED PILOT WHO HAD GONE ONTO THE BOMB AIMERS COURSE. SO FROM THE VERY BEGINNING AS A CREW I DIRECTED IF ONE CAN ASSUME THE WORDS DIRECTED THAT EVERYBODY WOULD DOUBLE UP ON EVERYBODY ELSE IN CASE OF ANYTHING HAPPENING AND SO ALAN MILLARD WOULD TAKE OVER IF ANYTHING HAPPENED TO ME BECAUSE AS HE GOT AS NEAR TO GETTING HIS WINGS IT WAS QUITE POSSIBLE INFACT HIGHLY PROBABLE THAT HE COULD FLY THE AIRCRAFT BACK AND MAKE SOME REASONABLE ATTEMPT AT LANDING IT.
THE WIRELESS OPERATOR DOUBLED UP AS A GUNNER, THE NAVIGATOR BOB BROOKS DOUBLED UP AS A BOMB AIMER AS DID THE FLIGHT ENGINEER, AND IN MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY AS WELL, ALAN MILLARD THE BOMB AIMER ALSO PARTIALLY DOUBLED UP FOR THE WIRELESS OPERATOR. WE LEFT JOHNNIE WATTERS THE MID UPPER GUNNER TWIT ON HIS OWN AS WE FELT IT BETTER LEAVE HIM UPSTAIRS THAN DOUBLING UP FOR ANYBODY.
I CAN ALSO REMEMBER THE FACT THAT BOB BROOKS THE NAVIGATOR WAS A JUDO EXPERT AND INFACT IT WAS COMMON PRACTISE WITH OUR CREW TO EGG YOUNG WATTERS JOHN TO ATTACK BOB BROOKS WOULD THROW HIM AROUND THE CREW HUT UNTIL FINALLY THE YOUNG IDIOT IRISHMAN LEANT TO PACK IT IN FOR THE NIGHT, WHEN WE WOULD RESUME AGAIN THE NEXT NIGHT.
COMING BACK TO THE STIRLING I THINK THE MOST VIVID IMPRESSION FOR ME INITIALLY WAS TAXING. NOW WITHOUT AS DOUBT WAS PROBABLY THE MOST BARBARIC BASTARDISE BLOODY AIRCRAFT I HAVE EVER MET IN MY LIFE FOR TAXING. IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY THERE A HUGE YELLOW BRAKE AND YOU OPERATED THE FOUR THROTTLES AND PULLED THIS MASSIVE GREAT LORRY BRAKE BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS SWINGING THE RUDDERS AROUND WHILE THIS, I CAN ONLY DESCRIBE IT AS A TYRANNOSAURUS REX OF A DINOSAUR PROWLED RATHER THAN ROLLED ALL OVER THE PLACE, IN ADDITION THE FLIGHT ENGINEER SAT ON THE MIDDLE OF THE AIRCRAFT IN WHAT WAS LIKE A SUBMARINE WITH ALL HIS FOURTEEN AND IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY ONCE AGAIN THE FUEL TANKS FOR CROSS FEEDING AND OTHER PURPOSES AND IN ADDITION IT DIDN’T MATTER WHAT ANYBODY DID THIS COW OF AN AIRCRAFT NEVER REACHED ITS CEILING EVER.
LANDING AT WINTHORPE WITH THE RUNWAY THAT RAN PARALLEL WITH THE MAIN NEWARK/LINCOLN ROAD ONCE AGAIN THIS BLOODY HANDBRAKE WAS A DISADVANTAGE RATHER THAN AN ADVANTAGE AS I CAN ONLY SAY FROM THINKING DEEPLY ABOUT IT WHOEVER
[PAGE BREAK]
3
DESIGNED THE BLOODY STERLING SHOULD HAVE BEEN MENTALLY EXAMINED.
ANOTHER THING ABOUT STERLINGS WAS CORRING THIS WAS WHERE, I AM ALMOST SURE ITS AS IF THE OIL TEMPERATURE WENT DOWN THAT YOU DROPPED THE UNDERCARRIAGE OPENED UP FULL THROTTLES WITH PART FLAP AND STAGGERED ALONG WITH WHAT CAN ONLY BE TERMED AS FOUR BLOODY GREAT BIG BULLSEYES FOR THE ENGINES WHICH OF COURSE MEANT FROM AN OPERATIONAL POINT OF VIEW THAT THEY WERE SITTING DUCKS FOR ANYBODY, AND IT WAS 460 OR 490 TOW TURNS ON THE WHEELS TO GET THE UNDERCARRIAGE DOWN IF YOU COULD NOT LOWER IT NORMALLY BECAUSE I REMEMBER THAT HAPPENING TO US ONCE.
IT WAS AT WINTHORPE AS WELL THAT WE HAD TO GET RID OF OUR FIRST ENGINEER BECAUSE UNFORTUNATELY IT WAS TAKE OFF WHEELS UP “BREAKFAST UP” AND THERE WAS JUST NO WAY HE WAS GOING TO MAKE IT.
WE THEN TOOK ON ANOTHER ENGINEER CALLED GEORGE BEDFORD ON WHO OF COURSE FLEW WITH ME DURING MY FIRST TOUR AND GEORGE BEDFORD THE 2ND FLIGHT ENGINEER AS A VERY PROSAIC LAD AND INDEED HE BELIEVED IMPLICITLY THAT HIS JOB AS A FLIGHT ENGINEER WAS TO MAKE CERTAIN THAT WHATEVER AIRCRAFT WE WERE FLYING WAS ABSOLUTELY IN TIP TOP CONDITION – BECAUSE I CAN REMEMBER COMING BACK FROM A TRIP AND I THOUGHT FOR ONCE I AM GOING TO LIGHT UP A CIGARETTE AND HAVE A SMOKE AS WE WERE FLYING BACK ACROSS THE NORTH SEA AND I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER HIM GOING BANANAS OVER ME SMOKING A CIGARETTE.
AFTER A SHORT PERIOD OF ABOUT 14 HRS OF WHICH 7 HRS DAYLIGHT AND 7HRS NIGHT AT LANC FINISHING SCHOOL AT SYSERTON I THEN ARRIVED AT 49 SQUADRON FISKERTON
WHERE FOR MY SINS I WAS GIVEN “A” APPLE TO FLY I CAN REMEMBER THE FIRST TRIP WHICH WAS A 2ND DICKIE TRIP WHICH WAS WITH RUSS EVANS AND THAT WAS TO DANZIG BAY GIDENER, KONISBERG AREA WHICH WAS A 9HRS 15MIN TRIP, I THINK THAT ALL I CAN REMEMBER ABOUT THIS WAS THE FACT THAT IT SEEMED COMPLETELY IDIOTIC TO ME THAT A PILOT SHOULD GO ON A TRIP RISK GETTING SHOT DOWN WITH ANOTHER PILOT AND CREW, WHEREUPON HIS CREW WOULD HAVE TO GO BACK ALL OVER IT AGAIN WITH ANOTHER PILOT! THE THING WAS TO STAND BEHIND THE PILOT AND FLIGHT ENGINEER AND OBSERVE “WHAT I DO NOT KNOW” I SUPPOSE THE IDEA WAS THAT YOU WENT WITH A RELATIVELY EXPERIENCED CREW AND AS IT WERE SHUCK DOWN WITH THEM AND GOT AN IDEA OR IMPRESSION OF WHAT THE WHOLE CAPER WAS ABOUT.
[PAGE BREAK]
4
BUT ALSO AS I SAY I TEND TO THINK THAT BECAUSE YOU AND YOUR CREW WERE DIFFERENT WHATEVER SHAPE OR FORM THERE WAS GOING TO BE A DIFFERENT REACTION ANYWAY BECAUSE YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE TEACHING YOUR CREW ON YOUR VERY FIRST TRIP WHEN YOU HAVE ONLY DONE ONE YOURSELF! WHICH HAD NOT GIVE YOU MUCH EXPERIENCE ANYWAY. AND INFACT RUSS EVANS IS STILL RUNNING AROUND
HE PROBABLY THINKS OF THIS IDIOT, WHO AFTERWARDS WE GREW VERY FRIENDLY TOGETHER.
MY NEXT TRIP WAS ONE WITH MY OWN CREW TO TORS MARSHALLING YARD AT 7,000 FEET AND I THINK THIS WILL ALWAYS LIVE IN MY MEMORY AS FRANKLY IT STARTED OUT AS A COMPLETE SHAMBLES BUT IT HELPED THE CREW INTO A FIGHTING UNIT.
WE STARTED UP AND TAXIED ROUND TOWARDS TAKEOFF AND I THINK I WAS ABOUT 3RD 4TH OR 5TH INLINE COMING UP THE RUNWAY AND ALAN MILLARD THE BOMB AIMER A TYPICALLY AUSTRALIAN IF I MY [SIC] USE THE WORD WAS IN THE BOMB AIMER COMPARTMENT AND PISSING ABOUT AS USUALLY WHEN SUDDENLY IN A TYPICALLY AUSTRALIAN TWANG OVER THE INTERCOM CAME “ I HAVE PULLED MY BLOODY CHUTE AND IT HAS BELLOWED OUT” I IMMEDIATELY SAID “ WELL THERE IS NO WAY WE CAN TURN OFF HERE AND I CAN’T SEE US TURNING ROUND HERE AND TAXING DOWN THE END TO GET ANOTHER CHUTE FOR YOU SO WE SHALL HAVE TO GO AS IS AND I WOULD SUGGEST TO YOU THAT IF WE HAVE TO BAIL OUT YOU HOLD YOUR CHUTE UP TO YOUR CHEST AND WHEN YOU GET CLEAR OF THE AIRCRAFT RELEASE IT BECAUSE ITS ALREADY OPENED ANYWAY” UPON WHICH IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY HE REPLIED “THAT HE HADN’T COME 12,000 ------ -----!! FOR THIS SORT OF CAPER!! IT JUST SO HAPPENED THAT THE VERY FIRST TRIP I WAS USING A OBSERVE TYPE CHUTE SO IN A FLASH YOU WOULDN’T CALL IT INSPIRATION MORE DESPERATION I SAID ALRIGHT YOU BETTER TAKE MY CHUTE THEN, INCASE ANYTHING HAPPENS, UPON WHICH HE SAID THANKS VERY MUCH SKIP AND PULLED MY CHUTE DOWN INTO THE BOMB AIMERS COMPARTMENT, AND BY THAT TIME I WAS ON THE RUNWAY AND BEGINNING TO TAKE OFF AND IT WAS PROVABLY OR COLLOQUIAL ‘NOT UNTIL AIRBORNE THAT I SHIT A BRICK!! SO OF COURSE THE TRIP COMMENCED WITH ME WITHOUT A CHUTE AND HE THE GREAT ALAN MILLARD WITH TWO, ONE WHICH WAS OPENED WHICH HE HAD STUFFED INTO A CORNER OF THE BOMB AIMERS COMPARTMENT AND AFTERWARDS WHEN WE RETURNED HOME THE REST OF THE CREW SAID SOME HOW OR OTHER THEY ALL FELT THAT THEY MUST NOT LET ME DOWN BECAUSE THERE I WAS FLYING WITHOUT A CHUTE WHEN EVERYBODY ELSE WAS OK AND NO WAY WERE THEY GOING TO LET THE SKIPPER DOWN. SO HAVING SET OFF AS IT WERE AT A SLIGHT DISADVANTAGE AND THINGS OF WAFTING MY WAY GENERALLY DOWN THROUGH THE AIR SHOULD WE BE SHOT UP ON NOTHING.
[PAGE BREAK]
5
WE GET TOWARDS THE TARGET AND STARTED THE RUN IN, DURING OUR TRAINING IT HAD BEEN EMPHASISED WE WERE NOT GOING OVER THE OTHER SIDE TO CHUCK OR THROW BOMBS AROUND AND THAT BASICALLY YOU SHOULD PUT THEM DOWN IN THE RIGHT SPOT SO WHEN WE CAME UP TO THE TARGET AND ALAN WAS SAYING “ STEADY RIGHT, STEADY OH I HAVE MISSED IT GO ROUND AGAIN” I LIKE THE IDIOT I WAS WENT ROUND AGAIN. NOT THINKING GET RID OF THE BLOODY THINGS. SO OF COURSE I WENT ROUND AGAIN AND RAN IN AND THIS TIME WE PUT THEM DOWN AND IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY IT WAS A AIMING POINT. IT WAS NOT TILL WE GOT BACK THAT WE REALISED THAT UNDER NORMAL CONDITIONS CREWS DIDN’T NORMALLY DO THIS SORT OF THING. SO REALLY OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A DISASTER TURNED OUT TO BE A EXCELLENT THINKS FROM THE CREWS POINT OF VIEW BECAUSE WE BECAME WEILLED AS A FIGHTING UNIT. IT ALSO BECAME APPARENT ON THIS TRIP BECAUSE WE REALISED EARLIER ON THERE WERE THREE ALANS OR ALS IN THE CREW THAT WAS THE BOMB AIMER, WIRELESS OP AND MYSELF, SO THE REAR GUNNER AND MID UPPER GUNNER WOULD CALL ME SKIP AND THE REST OF THE CREW WOULD CALL ME PILOT, THE IDEA BEING THAT IF SOMEBODY CALLED ME SKIP I STARTED WEAVING STRAIGHT AWAY ON THE GROUNDS THAT A GUNNER WAS COMING UP ON THE INTERCOM.
I THINK THE MAIN THING ABOUT MAILLY LE COMP WAS THE ENORMOUS COCKUP OF THIS OPERATION IN WHICH 1 GROUP CAME WITH US ON THE TRIP BECAUSE OF THE SHAMBLES AT THE TARGET INCLUDING VIRTUALLY ALL THE BLINDED ILLUMINATORS BEING KNOCKED OFF THERE WERE “T.I.S” PUT DOWN IN TWO DIFFERENT PLACES ONE FOR 1 GROUP AND ONE FOR US AWAY FROM THE TARGET UPON WHICH EVERYBODY WAS TO CIRCLE THEIR RESPECTIVE “T.I” BY THIS TIME I HAD LEARNT ENOUGH NOT TO GO NEAR ANY “T.I”. WE WERE A LITTLE AWAY FROM OUR ONE QUIETLY CIRCLING IF YOU CAN POINT THAT OUT, WE KNOW THAT 1 GROUP IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY WERE CIRCLING A YELLOW “T.I” AS IF THEY WERE ON A RACE TRACK WITH A RESULT THAT THE FIGHTER BOYS WERE HAVING A FIELD DAY WITH THAT LOT
COS WHEN THE TIME CAME FOR US TO COME IN I CAN REMEMBER TWO INCIDENTS, ONE WITH OUR RUN IN WITH THE BOMB DOORS OPEN A LANC WENT PAST US LIKE A BAT OUT HELL WITH HIS BOMB DOORS OPEN AND THEN A FOKWOLF 190 WENT OVER THE TOP OF OUR COCKPIT BECAUSE THE REAR GUNNER HAD CALLED UP “FIGHTER” AND OF COURSE I WAS ON THE BOMBING RUN AND HE COULDN’T HAVE BEEN MORE THAN 20 OR 30FT OFF THE TOP IF US WHERE HE WAS GOING FOR THE LANC THAT HAS JUST PASSED US AND HE FIRED HOT THIS LANC AND KNOCKED IT OFF “IT JUST BLEW UP” ITS RATHER IRONIC AS WELL BECAUSE DURING THIS TRIP WE HAD THREE COMBATS AS WELL IT WAS A PRETTY HAIRY DO. THERE WAS SO MANY FIGHTERS AROUND US IT WAS TO BE
[PAGE BREAK]
6
UNBELIEVABLE, THEIR DAY FIGHTERS WERE UP AS WELL AS IT WAS SUCH A BRIGHT MOONLIGHT NIGHT.
IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY THAT THIS TRIP WAS ALSO WHERE WE SPOTTED A WHITEL HINEKELL111 AND MY REAR GUNNER SAID LETS GO DOWN AND KNOCK IT OFF AND I SAID WAIT A MINUTE WHEN SUDDENLY IT TURNED TOWARDS AND WE WERE ATTACKED BY TWO FIGHTERS THAT WERE WITH IT, THEY WERE WORKING I AM ALMOST CERTAIN IN CONJUNCTION WITH THIS HINEKELL, SO THAT AS ONE FIGHTER CAME IN AND YOU CORKSCREWED INTO HIM THE OTHER FIGHTER CAME IN AND YOU CORKSCREWED INTO HIM WITH OTHER FIGHTER WOULD THEN BE ON THE OUTSIDE TO NAIL YOU WHICH OF COURSE WOULD FORCE YOU TOWTRDS THE HINEKELL WHICH ALSO WOULD LET FLY AT YOU SO INFACT IN REALITY YOU WERE BEING ATTACKED BY ALL THREE. I DO’NT[SIC] KNOW PERHAPS HE WAS A TRAINEE AIRCRAFT OR WHATEVER IT WAS WE SEEM TO THINK IT WAS A BLOODY GOOD PLOY, BECAUSE WE MENTIONED IT WHEN WE GOT BACK FROM THE TRIP THAT IT SEEMED LIKE A NEW SYSTEM OPERATING BY THEM. ALL WE KNEW THAT WE WERE ATTACKED BY TWO FIGHTERS WHICH APPARENTLY WERE WORKING IN CONJUNCTON WITH IT.
THE ONLY THING I CAN REMEMBER ABOUT THE NEXT TRIP TO SALSBREE ARSENAL WAS THAT ONE WE WERE HIT BY LIGHT FLAK WHICH NECESSITATED US HAVING TO CRASH LAND AT WITTERING THE OTHER THING WAS WE SPOTTED A TRAIN WITH WHITE STEAM COMING UP FROM IT SO WE ATTACKED IT RACED UP AND DOWN IT WITH THE GUNNERS FIRING AT THE TRAIN. IT SEEMS IRONIC TO ME THAT ALL I CAN REMEMBER IS NOT SO MUCH LANDING AT WITTERING ALTHOUGH I DO KNOW NOT HAVING ANY BRAKES OR FLAPS JUST SHOOTING UP THIS TRAIN WHICH WE THOUGHT WAS HILARIOUS EPISODE NOT REALISING OF COURSE THAT WE COULD OF EASILY BEEN BROUGHT DOWN EITHER BY GUNS ON THE TRAIN OR BY A FIGTER FOR UST GOING DOWN AND LARKING ABOUT I MEAN AFTER ALL WHY SHOULD FIGHTERS JUST ATTACK TRAINS WHY CANT LANCASTERS!!
AFTER THE NEXT TRIP IN WHICH WE HAD THREE COMBATS AGAIN WITH NO CLAIMS, CAME THE ONE TO BELGIUM
BOURG LEOPOLD WHICH I WON THE D.F.C.
I REMEMBER ON THIS THAT WE WERE ATTACKED WITHOUT EITHER OF MY GUNNERS SPOTTING THIS BOY HE JUST CAME IN FROM BELOW IN THE DARK AND THE NEXT THINGS THAT WE KNEW THAT HE WAS KNOCKING SIX OUT OF US BECAUSE LET ME RECAP – ONE CANNON SHELL KNOCKED OUT THE WIRELESS SET – WE HAD A FIRE IN THE BOMB BAY FROM THE ATTACK AND WHATS MORE THE FLYING CONTROL SYSTEM WAS HEAVILY DAMAGED BECAUSE SHE REARED LIKE A STRICKEN HORSE AND WENT OVER ONTO HER BACK THEN WE DROPPED ABOUT 12,000 FEET BEFORE I PULLED HER OUT
THE MAIN THING WAS THAT HE HAD GOT VIRTUALLY ALL HIS ATTACK IN BEFORE WE RIPPED UP AND WENT – AS WE HAD NOT DROPPED OUR
[PAGE BREAK]
7
BOMBS WE WERE IN A DIVE AND THE FIRE I OPENED THE BOMB DOORS AND SAID JETTISON THE BOMBS AND SEE IF WE CAN BLOW THE FIRE OUT THE NEXT MINUTE WELL REALLY IT WASN’T THE NEXT MINUITE BECAUSE WE MUST HAVE LOST 10,000-12,000 FEET
IN THE DIVE BY HINT OF PULLING AND MANOEUVRING THE LANC CAME OUT AND SHOT STRAIGHT UP AGAIN WITH A VIOLENT TENDANCY TO GO OVER ONTO ITS BACK – TRYING TO CONTROL HER (IT SEEMS RATHER FUNNY TO CALL A LANC A HER) TRYING TO CONTROL HER I HAD TO CROSS MY RIGHT LEG OVER MY LEFT LEG AND HOLD THE CONTROL COLUMN FORWARD WITH MY RIGHT KNEECAP THEN I HAD TO HOLD FULL LEFT AILERON DOWN AND THIS BROUGHT HER STRAIGHT AND LEVEL AND KEPT HER STRIAGHT AND LEVEL FOR A MOMENT. I CALLED THE BOMB AIMER UP AND THE FLIGHT ENINGEER TO GET INTO THE BOMB AIMERS COMPARTMENT AND I HAD WITH MY LEFT LEG FULL LEFT RUDDER THE IDEA BEING THAT ALAN MILLARD WOULD COME UP AND CONTROL THE THROTTLE TO ASSIST ME BECAUSE WE HAD TO HAVE THE ENGINES OUT OF SYNCHRONISATION IN ORDER TO KEEP HER STRAIGHT AND LEVEL AND GEORGE THE FLIGHT ENGINEER TIED A PIECE OF ROPE ROUND THE LEFT RUDDER AND WAS HOLDING ON TO IT TO HELP – IT WAS DURING THIS PART AS WELL ONE THINKS OF THE HILARIOUS EPISODE OF THE NAVIGATOR SAYING “ I HAVE BEEN HIT AND I WILL GIVE YOU A COURSE FOR HOME” WHICH HE DID OF COURSE THIS TOOK ME AGES TO TURN ONTO THE COURSE WITH THE LANC CRIPPLED AS IT WAS THEN HE FELT INSIDE HIS SHIRT UNDER HIS MAE WEST AND SUBSEQUENTELY SAID “CHRIST ITS SWEAT”
WE AND I SAY WE BECAUSE THERE WAS THREE OF US DOING THE JOB FLEW BACK TO ENGLAND AND WAS DIVERTED TO WOODBRIDGE WHERE I WAS TOLD TO BRING IT IN - SO AS I CAME ACROSS THE AIRFIELD FOR THE FIRST TIME I TOLD ALL MY CREW TO GO FORWARD AND BAIL OUT BECAUSE I DID NOT THINK I COULD BRING IT IN SAFELY THERE WAS THE PROVERBIAL RHUBARDS WE STAYING WITH YOU RATHER THAN BAILING OUT – SO THEY WENT INTO THE CRASH POSITIONS EXCEPT FOR ALAN MILLARD AND MYSELF AND I BROUGHT IT IN AND CRASHED LANDED WHERE AFTERWARDS IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A MASTERLY LANDING ACCORDING TO THE CITATION
ALL I CAN REMEMBER WAS THAT TWO THINGS
ONE WHERE THE CREW SUBSEQUENTLY COUNTED 200 HOLES IN THE AIRCRAFT FROM THE FIGHTERS ATTACK AND THE QUESTION OF THE LITTLE RUM BOTTLES FROM WHICH WE ALL GOT STONED OUT OF MINDS AFTER HAVING SURVIVED
BECAUSE ALSO HALF THE PORT RUDDER WAS MISSING AS WELL. BUT MOST OF THE ATTACK WAS CANNON SHELL BECAUSE APPROXIMATELY 2 WEEKS AFTER THIS EPISODE I FOUND OUT THAT I HAD BEEN AWARDED THE D.F.C.
WELL IF YOU MEAN A CELEBRATION ALL I KNOW IS THAT AT WOODBRIDGE WE GOT STONED OUT OF OUR MINDS WIPING ALL THE
[PAGE BREAK]
8
RUM BOTTLES PRESUMABLY THEY WERE MEANT FOR THE OTHER CREWS WHO CRASH LANDED THERE AS WELL ALTHOUGH WE SAT OUTSIDE THE HUT AND THEY COLLOQUIAL PUT, PISSED OUT OF OUR MINDS - YES THERE WAS A DO IN THE OFFICERS MESS BUT AS THE REST OF MY CREW WERE N.C.OS. WE HAD A LITTLE ONE ON OUR OWN BUT THE OTHER THING WAS THAT OF COURSE MY WIFE SHE WAS NOT THEN SEWED MY D.F.C. ONTO MY TUNIC.
ANOTHER TRIP WAS TO A PLACE CALLED MAISY I STILL CANT PRONOUNCE THE NAME OF IT IN FRENCH AND WE HAD BEEN ATTACKED WE COULD NOT OPEN THE BOMB DOORS AND WE HAD 13,000 LBS BOMBS ABOARD INCIDENTALLY THE WHOLE OF THE HYDRAULIC SYSTEM HAD GONE AS WELL – AFTERWARDS ON THE WAY HOME WE WERE DIVERTED TO SILVERSTONE OUR OLD OTU WHERE WE HAD FIRST CREWED UP ON WELLINGTONS COMING INTO LAND I HAD TO USE THE EMERGENCY AIR SYSYTEM TO BRING DOWN THE UNDERCARRIAGE AND FLAPS WHEN ALOAD OF REDS WERE FIRED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE RUNWAY AND I WAS TOLD TO OVERSHOOT THIS MEANT THAT I INSTICITIVELY PUSHED THE THROTTLE OPEN APPARENTLY THERE WAS STILL ANOTHER AIRCRAFT ON THE RUNWAY SOMEWHERE SO WE STARTED TO STAGGER ALONG ON AT ABOUT 200 FEET WITH A FULL BOMB LOAD UNDERCARRIDGE AND FLAPS DOWN WITHOUT ANY CHANCE OF GETTING THE UNDERCARRIDGE AND FLAPS UP AND I WAS DIVERTED TO TURWESTON – I CAN REMEMBER LETTING A FLOOD OF LANGUAGE COME OUT OVER THE RT (RADIO TRANSMITTOR) TO THE CONTROL TOWER AND PUTTING ME IN THIS STUPID POSITION – SO WE STAGGERED TOWARDS TURWESTON IN THIS CONDITION WHERE I BROUGHT IT STRAIGHT IN AFTER USING THE INTERCOM VITROUILIC TO ALL AND SUNDRY WITRH SOME WORKDS I WOULD THINK ARE ANOT MENTIONED IN BOOKS ANYMORE – WE LANDED ONTO THE RUNWAY AND RAN OFF ONTO THE GRASS AND I REMEMBERED A TRUCK COMING OUT TO US AND SAYING THEY THOUGHT WE HAD SOME PRACTISE BOMBS ABOARD AND WHEN THEY WERE TOLD IT WAS A FULL BOMB LOADS THEY ALL LEPT BACK INTO THE TRUCK AND DISPPEARED OVER THE HORIZON AT HIGH SPEED
SO WE LEFT THE LANC WERE IT WAS AND STARTED TO TRUDGE ACROSS THE AIRFIELD AND BY DAYLIGHT I REMEMEBER DISTINCTIVELY SOME TWIT AS A WING COMMANDER GIVING ME A ROASTING OVER MY USE OF FOUL LANGUAGE OVER THE INTERCOM – IT DID NOT APPEAR TO HIM THAT THERE HAS BEEN ANYTHING WRONG WITH OVERSHOOTING ME WITH A FULL BOMB LOAD WITH UNDERCARRIDGE AND FLAPS DOWN AND ONCE AGAIN I AM CERTAIN THAT AT THE SAME TIME A HALIFAX HAD OVERSHOT AND GONE INTO THE CLOTHING STORE AND BLOWN UP
THE THING ABOUT THIS INCIDENT IS THAT I WILL NOT RELATE ANYMORE BECAUSE IT WAS FAR BETTER TO DRAW A CURTAIN ACROSS
[PAGE BREAK]
9
WHEN ONE CONSIDERS THAT AT THESE TWO AIRFIELDS WERE EX OPERATIONAL PEOPLE WHO WERE NOW INSTRUCTING WHO APPEARED TO HAVE LOST ALL SEMBLANCE OF REALITY.
I THINK IT WOULD BE OF INTEREST TO RELATE ONE SMALL HUMOROUS INCIDENT AND THAT WAS THAT THERE WAS A LEADER NAVIGATION CHAP “PATCHEET” WHO ALWAYS SWORE BLIND THAT HE WOULD NEVER FLY WITH ME BECAUSE I WAS THE HAIRIEST ARSE PILOT ON THE SQUARDON
COS I WAS NOTORIOUS FOR LOW FLYING AND FOR GETTING BACK FIRST
WELL WE HAD BEEN UP TO THE OPS ROOM TO PREPARE FOR THE NIGHTS TRIP AND BOB BROOKS THE NAVIGATOR HAD A BICYCLE AND ON THE REAR WHEEL ON ONE SIDE WAS FREEWHEEL AND THE OTHER SIDE WAS FIXED – HE ALWAYS USED THE FREEWHEEL SIDE AND RIDING BACK FROM THE OPS ROOM WOULD GO ROUND THIS BEND AND PUT HIS FOOT DOWN AND DIRT TRACK LIKE A SPEEDWAY RIDER WHILE HE WAS IN THE OPS ROOM PREPARING THE NAVIGATION ASPECT WE TURNED THE REAR WHEEL ROUND SO THAT HE WAS ON FIXED AND SO HE RODE ALONG PUT HIS RIGHT FOOT DOWN AND HIS LEFT ONE OUT TO DO A SPEEDWAY RIDERS BROADSIDE AND QUITE NATURALLY CAME OFF HIS BIKE HEADLONG INTO THE HEDGE AND DITCH!!
IMMEDIATELY THE DOC WAS INFORMED AND HE WAS CARRIED TO THE SICK BAY WHERE HE WAS TOLD HE COULD NOT GO THAT NIGHT SO PATCHETT WAS NOMINATED TO COME WITH ME AND MY CREW AND DID NOT LIKE THIS ONE AT ALL!
AND THE FUND THING ABOUT THIS TRIP WAS THAT WE WERE ATTACKED TWICE – WITH PATCHETT SITTING THERE AND ALL OF SUDDEN OVER THE INTERCOM AFTER THE SECOND ATTACK HE SAID “I THINK IN FUTURE ANYTIME YOU WANT ME I WILL COME WITH YOU BECAUSE I DID NOT REALISE THAT YOU AND YOUR CREW WERE SO EFFICIENT OVER THE ENEMY TERRITORY”
I KNOW THAT IT BECAME A BYE WORD THAT I WAS INVARIABLY FIRST BACK THERE WAS VARIOUS NAMES APPLIED TO ME INCLUDING CHAMPION JOCKEY AND IT BECAME ALMOST A MATTER OF PROUD WITH ME
A. TO BE FIRST BACK AND
B. B. FOR ANOTHER CREW ON THE SQUADRON TO BEAR ME BACK WHICH FROM MY MEMORY NEVER DID HAPPEN
THE MAIN ASPECT APPEARED TO BE HOW WAS IT I GOT FIRST BACK AND YET MY FUEL LOGS ALWAYS SHOWED THAT WE DID QUITE WELL REGARDS TO FUEL CONSUMPTION
THE ANSWER WAS SIMPLE AND IT WAS KEPT A CLOSELY REGARDED SECRET WITH MY CREW
THAT WHEN WE WERE TOLD TO START DESCENDING AT CERTAIN POINT I STILL KEPT ALTITUDE AND WOULD COME DOWN IN VERY
[PAGE BREAK]
10
SIMPLE SMALL STEPS STILL WITH THE SAME REVS THE RESULT WAS THAT THE TIME EVERYBODY WAS AT CIRCUIT HEIGHT AND FLYING STRAIGHT AND LEVEL TOWARDS BASE I WAS STILL SOME 1000S FEET ABOVE THEM AND VIRTUALLY AT A SIMILAR POINT RELATIVE TO THE EARTHS SURFACE IN RELATION TO THEM THEN THROTTLING BACK AND PUTTING MY NOSE DOWN I WOULD REACH WHAT ONE MIGHT CALL FANTASTIC SPEEDS FOR THE LANCASTER AND RACE PASS EVERYBODY REACHING BASE FIRST AND NOBODY COULD UNDERSTAND HOW THIS KEPT HAPPENING TIME AND TIME AGAIN
ITS INTERESTING BECAUSE AFTER THE WAR WHEN I WENT BACK TO 83 SQUADRON ON LINCOLN’S I APPLIED THE SAME TECHNIQUE AND WAS INVARIABLE FIRST BACK AGAIN AND NOBODY COULD UNDERSTAND EITHER HOW IT HAPPENED.
ANOTHER THING I WAS NOTORIOUS FOR I SAY NOTORIOUS IN APOSTROPHES AND ITALICS WAS COMING INTO THE AIRFIELD INLINE WITH THE RUNWAY AT NOUGHT FEET CLEAN AS A WHISTLE AND A THIRD OR HALFWAY DOWN THE RUNWAY PULLING UP VERY VERY STEEPLY AND GOING INTO A VERY VERY TIGHT LEFT TURN AND WHEN I WAS IN AN ALMOST UPSIDE DOWN POSITION UNDER CARRIAGE AND FLAPS DOWN AND THROTTLE BACK TEMPORARILY STICK WELL BACK IN MY STOMACH AND A SPLIT ARSE TURN ONTO THE RUNWAY LIKE A SPITFIRE OR HURRICANE. I HAD A FEW ROCKETS OVER THIS BUT NOBODY SEEMED REALLY TO OBJECT TO THIS ONE !!
I THINK INFACT THIS COULD REALLY BE MENTIONED IN THE BOOK IF HE GOT ROUND TO IT
THERE WAS A DRIVER A WAAFF ON 49 SQUADRON AND ALL WE KNEW HER WAS SWISS ROLL SAL AND SHE WAS EXTREMELY KEEN ON MY WIRELESS OP ALF WITH A RESULT WAS WHEN WE LANDED WHOEVER WAS CLOSE BEHIND US SHE WOULD INVARIABLY COME TO OUR DISPERSAL FIRST TO COLLECT US AND GET US BACK TO DE-BRIEFING IT WAS A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE WITH HER! AND I REMEMBER WE HAD BEEN TO LINCOLN THE CREW AND I AND WE HAD GOT BACK TO FISKERTON FIVE MILE HOLT AND YOU CROSSED THE RIVER BY A LITTLE FERRY BOAT IN THE DARK AND SWISS ROLL SAL WAS WITH MY WIRELESS OP AG WITH SOME OTHER WAAFS AND A COUPLE OF OTHER CREWS AND THERE WAS A HILARIOUS MIX UP IN THE BOAT WHEN HALF OF THEM WENT ONTO THE WATER! AND I THINK THAT’S ITS JUST THE FACT AS I SAY EVERYBODY KNEW SWISS ROLL SAL
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
Transcript of interview with Allan Edgar
Dad's Transcript Memories of Crew and Missions 1944 to 1945
Description
An account of the resource
The memoirs were recorded in 1980 at a reunion at Sudbrooke. He starts by describing crewing up at Silverstone. His opinion of the Stirling was that it was awful on the ground and in the air. His first operation was a second 'dickie' (an observer) to Konisberg. On his third trip his bomb aimer opened his chute on the ground so Alan gave him his. Fortunately the trip was uneventful. They took part on an operation to Mailly le Camp which turned into a disaster because the bombing points were obscured. On the next operation they machine gunned a train without appreciating how dangerous it was. Then an operation to Bour Leopold, Belgium led to their Lancaster being heavily damaged. They crash landed at Woodbridge and Alan was awarded the DFC. After the landing they drank all the rum they found in a hut. On the next trip to France they were attacked and the hydraulics were damaged resulting in not being able to open the bomb doors. They returned to the UK with the bombs and successfully landed at Turweston. He was always first back because he maintained height until close to the airfield then dived at top speed for the airfield. The other crews could not understand how he achieved this.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alan Edgar
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1980
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
10 typewritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MEdgarAG172180-180704-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Great Britain
Poland
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
France--Tours
France--Mailly-le-Camp
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
Poland--Gdańsk
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
1 Group
49 Squadron
83 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
crash
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
flight engineer
Fw 190
ground personnel
He 111
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
mess
navigator
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Silverstone
RAF Syerston
RAF Turweston
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Wittering
RAF Woodbridge
Spitfire
Stirling
target indicator
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2198/40172/BMcInnesAMcInnesAv1.2.pdf
039409582741300cd52a4251b3dd8e46
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
Royal Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association
Description
An account of the resource
97 items. The collection concerns Royal Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association and contains items including drawings by the artist Ley Kenyon.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert Ankerson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-29
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RAF ex POW As Collection
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
Alan McInnes memoir
A German Holiday 1944-45
Description
An account of the resource
An autobiography by Alan of his time as a prisoner of war. He describes the night they were shot down over Germany. Also his training with his mainly Australian crew. Then he goes into more detail regarding the operation when he was shot down.
He describes their capture, mistreatment and interrogations at various locations. After interrogations at Dulag Luft they were sent to a transit camp in Frankfurt then on by train to Heydekrug, Stalag Luft VI. Although their camp section was new it was cramped and basic. He describes camp life in detail. As the Russians got closer they were sent by train to an Army camp at Thorn. He read a copy of NCO education in the camp. These courses were extremely popular and supported by text books sent from the UK. Exams were sat and papers sent to the UK for marking. At Thorn they marched to Stammlager 357 but not for long. They then marched back to the railway and were sent to Fallingbostel. He describes the rail journey in detail, then in greater detail he describes camp life.
Later he was moved to an officer's camp at Eichstadt. This turned out to be an Army camp which refused them and they were sent to Sagan. He stayed there for a short time then was moved to Stalag Luft 3, then 111A. As the Russians neared they moved again. After a couple of days waiting in trucks they returned to their camp. The railway system was breaking down as the end of the war neared.
After the Russians reached them they were allowed out of the camp but still remained billeted there. He writes about his impressions of the Russians.
His journey home was delayed by rain that did not allow aircraft to fly.
His story ends with his retelling of the night his aircraft was shot down, his night in Brussels and his return to England.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alan McInnes
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Magdeburg
Australia
Great Britain
England--Lichfield
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Stendal
Switzerland
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Lithuania--Šilutė
Poland
Italy
Canada
United States
Poland--Szczecin
Poland--Toruń
Greece
Greece--Crete
Poland--Vistula River
England--Staverton (Northamptonshire)
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
Poland--Żagań
Poland--Bydgoszcz
Poland--Poznań
Germany--Pasewalk
Germany--Neubrandenburg
Germany--Stavenhagen
Germany--Malchin (Landkreis)
Germany--Güstrow
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Lübeck
Germany--Eichstätt
Germany--Munich
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Eisenach
Germany--Fürth (Bavaria)
Germany--Treuchtlingen
Germany--Ingolstadt
Germany--Regensburg
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Plauen
Poland--Wrocław
New South Wales--Sydney
Victoria--Melbourne
New South Wales
India--Jammu and Kashmir
China
England--London
Germany--Elbe
Germany--Potsdam
Germany--Jüterbog
Ukraine--Odesa
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Halle an der Saale
Belgium--Brussels
England--Brighton
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Hannover
Ukraine
Germany--Luckenwalde
Poland--Poznań
Germany
Germany--Hof (Hof)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
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85 printed sheets
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BMcInnesAMcInnesAv1
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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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1944-01-21
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Pending text-based transcription
83 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
bomb aimer
C-47
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crewing up
Dulag Luft
entertainment
final resting place
flight engineer
Fw 190
Goering, Hermann (1893-1946)
ground personnel
H2S
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
incendiary device
Lancaster
Mosquito
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
prisoner of war
radar
RAF Bicester
RAF Lichfield
RAF Wigsley
RAF Wyton
Red Cross
shot down
sport
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 6
target indicator
the long march
training
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/588/8857/AHubermanA160329.1.mp3
b5727226db7314e09558768a459abf06
Dublin Core
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Title
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Huberman, Alfred
A Huberman
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Huberman, A
Description
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Two items. An oral history interview with Alfred Huberman DFC (1923 - 2023, 1671008 Royal Air Force) and a photograph. He completed 31 operations as a rear gunner on 576 Squadron. He subsequently completed other operations on a second tour with the Pathfinder force at the end of the war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alfred Huberman and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
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2016-03-29
2016-04-11
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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AS: Ok. So I think we’re ready to start. If I could put the recording machine there and that on there. So this is Andrew Sadler interviewing Alfred Huberman at his home in Hampstead in London on the 29th of March 2016 for the Bomber Command Digital Archive. Thank you, Alfred, for allowing me to come to your home to interview you.
AH: It’s a pleasure.
AS: Can I start by asking you how you came to be in the Royal Air Force?
AH: Well, my father was in the army in the First World War and he didn’t want me to go in the army and we had friends who felt the same way. They, they could only think of the war as trench warfare and bayonet fighting and he thought, he didn’t mind me at all going in the RAF actually. He was quite pleased ‘cause they could only think of the army you know as trench warfare and bayonets you know. That’s how the old timers used to talk. So I volunteered to go in the air force.
AS: And how were you selected?
AH: We went before a committee. People who, you know, examined you and why you wanted to go in and explain your reasons why you wanted to volunteer for Bomber Command.
AS: Before this time can you tell me about your background? Where did you live?
AH: Lived in Forest Gate. You know that’s not far from Mile End, you know. A bit further down near Upton Park and Forest Gate and I wanted to get in the war and get into action and I thought [unclear] because my mum and dad said I won’t go in the army. I wanted to go in the air force anyway and I volunteered in the air force when I was eighteen.
AS: So you started when you were eighteen.
AH: I went in. Yes.
AS: Can you tell me about your training?
AH: Yes. I first started training as a wireless operator air gunner. Started off in Blackpool and towards the end of ‘41 and I really, coming towards the end of it I really didn’t like being a wireless operator and I thought I’m not going to go through this, I don’t like this. I deliberately failed and re-mustered to go straight AG which they did, you know. The sent me for training as an air gunner.
[pause]
AH: Training was really tough. All kinds of things. You had to go on route marches. They made the training deliberately tough because it was tough being an air gunner and you’ve got to be tough mentally and physically to take it. That’s what the trainers all thought and the air force knew that and the quick, it quickly got sorted out, the good and the bad. You know, you could tell the guys who couldn’t make it. You know you felt a great deal of pride in being able to pass through ‘cause it was tough, physically and mentally, the training.
AS: Were there many who didn’t pass?
AH: Yeah. Yes.
AS: Where did you do the -?
AH: I’ll tell you this one thing that does seem funny. We thought it was funny at the time but quite a few rejected were those chaps who came from the Highlands of Scotland. No one could understand what they were talking, the way they spoke. So they couldn’t be correct, you know to serve on a plane. You couldn’t hear what they were talking about and there was quite a number of them who got knocked out for that but the course was so tough the weak ones were soon sorted out who weren’t, weren’t the right type for it.
AS: Where did you do your gunner training?
AH: In Bridgnorth. But you know being keen on being an air gunner I enjoyed it. The training was tough but it was, it was good.
AS: What did you do as part of your training?
AH: Well it does seem strange. We did quite a few fifteen mile, fifteen mile route marches which sorts out the weak from the strong and the weak ones did drop out and couldn’t take the fifteen miles. It got sorted out because it was a tough procedure to get through it because the corporals in charge were real tough guys and made you go, took you through the hard parts of the woods on the training.
AS: Did you join the RAF straight from school or did you work in between?
AH: I wasn’t, yeah I worked in between. I went to art school for a while in the fashion industry and I was also training at St Martin’s Art School. That’s why all these paintings that you see around are all mine.
AS: Yeah.
AH: And how can I follow on that one? I was keen to get in, to go on operations. The war was on and I wanted to get in the action.
AS: Presumably you were in East London and the bombing had started of East London.
AH: Yeah. I was in there during the bombing. We got bombed out. That’s what made me, oh that’s, I’m glad you reminded me. That’s, that’s what made me really keen to get at the Germans. We got bombed out in 1940. We went up, I had to go out and live with relatives in Leeds quite a number of months as well.
AS: How long did your training last?
AH: Well total training as air gunner? [pause] You don’t include being at OTU with that. Just solely training as air gunner. Oh God I think it was, I can’t think correctly but I think it was about six months.
AS: And then where were you posted?
AH: We passed out at the number 1 Air Gunnery Training School was at Bridgend. I passed out from there. You know, we had to do flying training there, you know, as an air gunner, you had, we trained on Ansons at gunnery school. Flying at Bridgend and it was, the training was really tough but it was nevertheless enjoyable. The comradeship was great. It all started from there. Air crew comradeship. Flying in Ansons. Shooting at drogues. We had to do, there was plenty of physical training as well. They made sure you were fit. A lot of physical training. Tough physical training every day. They kept us at it in air gunnery training. Training, you know. ‘Cause you really had to be fit. Their attitude was absolutely correct. One hundred percent correct. You had to be fit because you know, they knew you were going on trips from six to ten, eleven hours and at the time it was strenuous and you had to be really strong and fit especially sitting in the back where it was cold.
AS: What about after you’d finished your training?
AH: We then went to Operational Training Unit and to get sorted out into crews and you mixed and you talked with pilots, navigators and everything and in the mess all mixing together and you got sorted out. The first crew we got sorted out with we didn’t get on with one another. Broken up and then got sorted, got re-sorted again with another, six other chaps who found one another, talking together and we crewed up and they were a great crew, my crew were, every one of them. Super guy, the pilot especially. He was, he was a marvellous pilot and all the rest of my crew were. Each one of us. We were like brothers and he kept, the pilot, Ron Ireland he really kept his eye on us that we didn’t drink too much and one outstanding thing when we went to our first operational station, we went into the mess and of course you meet other guys that you knew during training and they came up to you and the first words they said to you, ‘Alf, whatever you do I’ll give you one bit of advice. Don’t worry or look about losses. Dismiss it from your mind because if you start worrying about losses,’ he said, ‘You can’t do a good job.’ And that was outstanding that. How they all told, told the newcomers at that point. I think it’s worth mentioning that.
AS: Where were you stationed to start with?
AH: What, operationally? Elsham Wold. Near Scunthorpe. And it was a great station. The comradeship was fantastic. The CO.
[pause]
AH: I’ll show you this.
[pause]
AH: It was Wing Commander Gareth Clayton. Later Air Marshall Sir Gareth Clayton and he unveiled a painting I gave to the, presented to the, and accepted by the Royal Air Force Museum. This is after the war.
AS: Oh gosh.
AH: The CO was a marvellous chap. He was very authoritative.
AS: And how many sorties did you do from there?
AH: Thirty one.
AS: Can you tell me, tell me about, about how you were organised and how the, each mission happened?
AH: The tour, you had to do thirty operations and then you were stood down for at least six months. After you’d done thirty operations you were automatically stood down. And the comradeship between the rest of the crew was really great. It had to be. The pilot was a strict disciplinarian. He’d make sure that we all behaved. Didn’t get drunk at nights, kept fit, which we did. And we all kept together and we became close, close friends. You know, every one of us knew each one’s life depended on the other one. Every one played their part. The pilot, the navigator, the bomb aimer, the flight engineer and the two air gunners, and the WOp/AG.
AS: Can you tell me about a typical mission? What it was like?
AH: Well you did have some kind of fear of certain operations because some operations were more dangerous than, than others and you had this fear and trepidation. Particularly of the Ruhr or Happy Valley as we used to call it and which was really tough because it was so heavily defended, the Ruhr. You couldn’t help flying over other targets, other cities which was heavily defended. Every, every one in the Ruhr, every city in the Ruhr was heavily heavily defended and they were all close to one another and when you went to bomb you passed over other cities and you were fired upon from beginning to end. I remember one operation dramatically we were going to bomb Gelsenkirchen which is just outside Stettin, next door, and very very heavily defended and I looked out the turret and I saw another aircraft was gliding slowly towards us and I said to the pilot, ‘Quick, dive. There’s another plane gliding towards us to crash. Dive quickly,’ and he dived and the aircraft passed over us and the pilot said, ‘Alf,’ he said, ‘You’ve saved the lives of all the crew.’ He said, ‘If there’d have been a hole in the hatch and I put, and I could have put my arm through,’ he said, ‘I would have touched the other plane that we just missed.’ Because a lot of aircraft were lost through crashes at night you know. Not always, not easy to see. Very dark and cloudy. Many losses were caused by other planes, our planes crashing into our, into our own planes.
AS: What, what was it like being a gunner? I understood it was one of the most dangerous positions.
AH: Well it was a dangerous position but one felt really proud of being a gunner and wherever you went in England you were admired as you walked along the street. If you went into a pub, I don’t think I ever bought a pint of beer for myself. I walked into a pub, someone came running up to me and said, ‘Hey, let me buy you a drink,’ and this was like that with all air gunners. Treated like this when they went, even walking down the road. Being nodded at and smiled at. Admired. Yeah, you felt very proud to be an air gunner. We did have the toughest job because it was cold. I mean one of my worst experiences, I was going to tell you at the beginning was we were at OTU and they started worrying now about German fighters coming over England and shooting down planes at night who were in training. So this particular night they gave us a plan to go up past, straight past the Orkneys and up towards Iceland to keep away from German night fighters and what happened this particular day they said, ‘It’s going to be very very cold there and we have to take out, for the first time, the back panel of glass on the rear turret to give the air gunner clearer vision,’ on the Wellingtons and the Lancasters that were coming along but the electronic suit had just been invented which was God’s gift to air gunners. It was a fantastic thing. You had an electric suit. Wires right into the gloves on your hand and it really kept you warm but at this moment there wasn’t enough electric suits to go around. They gave it to the operational ones first. They didn’t have enough to go in Training Command yet. They took out the panel of the rear turret and they told us that night, ‘Double your socks, pullovers, get yourself really warm because it’s going to be cold.’ So I did that and as we were going over past the Orkneys it’s now getting really cold and I’m starting to freeze and one thing we were taught as air gunners if you get too cold and you start freezing you must tell the pilot and I was becoming so cold the water on my eyes was turning to ice. I said, ‘Skipper,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry to report this,’ I said, ‘But I must tell you I’m freezing to death.’ I said, ‘The water on my eyes, I’m losing my sight, it’s turning to ice and I’m just freezing.’ So the pilot said, ‘Oh my God,’ he said, ‘It’s a hundred and six degrees below zero.’ And then the navigator pipes up, he said, ‘Oh my God,’ he said, ‘I’ve made a mistake. We’ve gone fifty miles north. We’re over Iceland.’ And just to try a sidetrack at that moment I saw the aurora borealis. We all did. The pilot said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’m going to turn round, go back and dive.’ He turned the aircraft out, around and dived thirteen thousand feet and the force of inertia went right through my body. It brought me round and in no time I would have been frozen to death. And when we got back to base we all reported in. Three other crews had gone on the same trip as us and three air gunners had had their big toe operated, amputated. It was so cold that night. So they didn’t send anyone up that north again. So far up. That was one of my worst experiences. I was going to tell you beforehand, you know, on operations. Before I went on operation I nearly lost my life.
AS: What planes did you fly in?
AH: That was a Wellington. Trained in a Wellington initially and then we changed over to Lancasters and then I did all my operations on Lancasters then.
AS: You didn’t do any operations in Wellingtons.
AH: No. They were being phased out. You know, the Halifax and the, the Halifax and the Lancaster took over.
AS: Did you fly in any Halifaxes?
HB: Just once. I can’t remember where or when but just once but much preferred the Lancaster. The Lancaster was definitely a more superior plane.
AS: In what way?
AH: Technically it was faster, it was more manoeuvrable than the Halifax. I did go in a Halifax, did a trip, did training on it and didn’t like it that much. Felt much more comfortable in a Lancaster. Everyone on the crew did. Well, it was proved anyway you know. The Lancaster was the [emphasis] bomber. Successful.
AS: So you did, did you do all of your missions from Scunthorpe?
AH: On my first tour yes.
AS: Oh.
AH: Yes. We got our our toughest mission was Mimoyecques. Have you heard of that? Well this was the site on the English, on the French coast and the English Channel. The CA, we weren’t given technically what the, they said it’s a very very important German base in France. They got, they wouldn’t describe exactly what it was there. He said ‘but it’s very secretive’. He spoke in words going around the operation. Being indiscreet about it and we had to go in at ten thousand feet which is pretty low you know. We’d never gone in before at that height to bomb. He said ‘because the bombing’, he said, ‘must be very very accurate’ and as it turned out it was one of the most successful, important raids of the whole war. It was the site of, it was going to be the secret site of the V3 which was never used because we destroyed it and forty five were lost on that night and Leonard Cheshire was the master bomber on that raid and it was going to be the V3. It was sixty, it was going to fire sixty rounds. Each one was. Hitler apparently had ordered this to be built and be done. It would fire in one go sixty missiles to London, that would land in London in one go. They would fire sixty missiles from the base at Mimoyecques and we had to go in at ten thousand feet because the bombing had to be very accurate for it, apparently and forty five were lost on that raid which was horrendous and because we had to go in at ten thousand feet we were an easy target. We were hit badly by flak and one of the engines caught fire. The pilot doused the fire and flying back once, he said, the flight engineer said all the brakes had gone. The pilot, the turret wouldn’t turn and we had no brakes so the pilot asked each one of us in turn should we land on the sea just on the, by the coast and get out of the plane that way and we all said, each one said, ‘No. Let’s try and get back to base.’ Well we got back to the base but we had no brakes on landing so what happened, the pilot landed the plane, he couldn’t brake, he now cut the other engine in the starboard port engine, the starboard engine had been shot, he cut the engine on the same side, on the starboard side and the, we spun round and round and round and came to a stop and just hit a tree and we all got out but the aircraft could never be used again. We were all lucky to get out. The pilot had done a miraculous job to land a plane with no, to get us all out with no brakes. Yeah, you couldn’t do an operation without something going wrong and tough.
AS: So you did thirty one trips.
HB: Yes.
AS: For your tour.
HB: Yes. You were supposed to do two. You’re supposed to do thirty and then you’re stood down, then whilst I was there on the station earlier on when we were a rookie crew you had to stand by. You didn’t go on the operations. If any personnel on one of the planes couldn’t go that night you’d take his, you’d take his place and after we’d done about six operations we stood by that night and then the pilot said, we had, he said, ‘ Alf,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry to tell you this,’ he said, ‘But you’ll have to go. The air gunner’s been taken ill. He can’t go. You’ll have to take his place.’ So ok I went in his place. It was a French target. The longest one, French target I’d ever been on, it was down almost on the, to the coast and as we got over the coast the fog was something terrible. There was fog from over twenty thousand feet high to the ground and we got nearer so we were all tuned in, could hear what the master bomber was saying and he said, ‘Well chaps,’ he said, ‘We’ll get, try and get to the target, see, maybe the fog will clear.’ Well when we nearly got there the fog hadn’t cleared and the Pathfinders were going around and around, down to three thousand feet and it hadn’t cleared and he said we’d have to cancel the raid and return home. ‘Go back. Make your way back. Drop your bombs in the sea,’ because you can’t land with bombs in your aircraft, which we did. It was a nightmare of an operation. And when I got back all my crew were all waiting for me on the briefing. I said, ‘What are you all doing there? Why are you here?’ They said, ‘We couldn’t go to sleep in our beds while you were out there. We had to wait for you to see you come back,’ and they all patted me on the shoulders you know, shook hands and what a night that was. Never saw anything of the ground. Nightmare flying through the bloody fog. Fog nearly choked us. And then the pilot come to do the thirtieth operation and the pilot said to me, ‘Alf,’ he said, ‘You don’t have to come on this, this one ‘cause it’s your thirty operations. The CO’s told me that if you don’t want to come you can stand down.’ I said, ‘Oh no. All for one, one for all.’ I said, ‘I’ve been through all the lot together I’m still going to go with you with this one, so this will be my thirty first. So the pilot said, ‘Ok. Fine.’ We went and the target was one of the worst in Germany. It’s called Braunschweig, better known to us as Brunswick. Thirty miles just south of Berlin and when we got there, as we nearly got there, I saw an unidentified aircraft. I reported to the pilot an unidentified aircraft. We’d just bombed the target. An unidentified aircraft on the port side. I said, ‘I’m not sure what it is. Whether it’s enemy or ours.’ I said, ‘Well take no chances then. Prepare to corkscrew port.’ So I said, ‘I’m not sure about it. Let’s corkscrew port,’ and he did and we did a dive, went into a dive thirteen thousand feet or more. Just past the target and we flew back over Germany at five thousand feet all the way back to England. We got through. So it was quite a last night. Horrendous target.
AS: So when you, once you’d done your thirty one, what would, what did you do when you stood down for six months?
HB: They sent me to, you could have, they gave you a load of choices and I thought well I’d like to go, maybe go on a radar station on the coast and they did. They sent me to a radar station and they said you know you’ll see action in the planes there. Just sit and you know, just take it easy there. Have a, have a good rest. Myself and the flight engineer both volunteered to go and do the same thing so we both went together to the station and we were treated like lords on this radar station on the south coast. And then I missed, I certainly missed the operational, I certainly missed not being with air crew and I wanted, war was still on and it was, it was ok but we wanted to get back in to the action. We sadly missed all the air crew and the life on the squadron so I volunteered to go back which I did in February 1945 and I volunteered to go in the Pathfinder force. On 83 squadron at Wyton. And although I was operational again I was glad to be with all the air crew again and the operations weren’t as tough. Just did seven but what was really nasty the last couple were on the operation called Manna which was dropping food supplies to the Dutch. The Dutch were starving. I don’t know if you knew about that. They really hadn’t got enough food. We started dropping food at three thousand feet to the Dutch people who were starving who were tremendously, we found after how grateful they were and the German bastards even though the war had just finished but by a few days were still firing at us and shooting us down at three thousand feet dropping food to the Dutch. And a few days after the German gunners you know were still firing and shooting down our bombers. The bastards.
AS: Can you tell, tell me a bit about being in the Pathfinders?
HB: Yeah it was, you know you went in first but it was towards the end of the war. It wasn’t as bad as the early part like my first tour but I was proud to be with them because they did do a tough job and after the war I knew Bennett, knew Bennett very well. They were wonderful people. He was the commander in chief of the Pathfinder force and he was a super chap and a few years after the war I started up, I was instrumental with some others in forming the Air Gunner’s Association. It started about seven sort of years after the war because no association had been formed. We started out and we became very very active and I and others were instrumental in bringing Bomber Harris out of the cold. I had, and went to meet him and he was a most wonderful chap and he really loved his air gunners. He was at the reunions and he was always the chief guest of honour. And I’ll recall for you the story I never tire of telling. This story after the war had finished I’ll recall for you a name that by and large is forgotten now but his name was Albert Speer. Does that name mean anything to you?
AS: Oh yes. I’ve read his, I read his, his book, “Inside the Third Reich.”
HB: Yeah.
AS: And, and several books about him.
HB: Oh that’s interesting. Well he was the only German Nazi, leading Nazi who repented and he was the only one who wasn’t executed and after the war was over he got in touch with Bomber Harris and they told stories to one another about, you know the war efforts and became very friendly. During one of our reunions when Harris was there I had to stand up I’ll stand up, ‘I’d like to recall for you chaps Albert Speer as you all know, who you knew was the head of ammunitions, factories and armaments from the beginning of the war to the end’ and I had to say in front of Bomber Harris here that you will recall, I told all the audience that when Albert Speer spoke to him, Albert Speer said to Harris, ‘if it hadn’t have been for Bomber Command Germany would have won the war.’ And Harris stood up and said, ‘Ha.’ he said, ‘Right,’ he says, ‘Who knew better than him? He was our best customer.’ He’s right.
[pause]
HB: Where would you like me to continue?
AS: Please. When you were in the Pathfinders where were you stationed then?
HB: Wyton. RAF Wyton.
AS: What planes were you going up in at that point?
HB: Lancasters.
AS: Still in Lancasters.
HB: Yeah. No, I wasn’t a fighter pilot.
AS: No. And you were still working as a gunner.
HB: Oh yeah. Once a gunner always a gunner. Yes. And I’m proud to say that I also was instrumental with others, particularly Sir Michael Beetham, Marshall of the Royal Air Force in founding the air gunners, also going to get the Bomber Command Association started. I’ve been on the committee of the Bomber Command Association since day one and been vice chairman for a while.
AS: When, when the end of the war came, can you tell me about that? How did you greet the news that the war had come to an end?
HB: We were delighted, you know, we were happy to be victorious. The war, we all cheered it in the mess and clapped hands, you know, when it was announced and –
[pause]
HB: There was one incident, one nasty incident that I will recall. Just before Christmas 1945, after the end of the war, six months after the war, they thought it was a good idea instead of bringing such a long dragging trip flying the troops home from, it would be better to fly the, quicker to fly the troops home from Germany than, sort of quicker to fly the troops home that were coming back from Singapore or in Italy flying the troops home from Italy quicker than sending them back by boat. So that Christmas week they said you’ll go to, fly to Naples, fill it up with air crew from Italy and fly them back to England. It will save all that drag. So we did, we started, we flew from London to Naples which was a long trip. An eleven hour trip. When we got there, went into the mess, I meet the best friend I ever knew training as an air gunner. He, when I’d gone to Bomber Command, when I was posted he was posted to the Italian campaign and we were so pleased to see one other I can’t tell you. We clutched one another fantastically and he said, ‘Alf,’ he said, ‘And your crew. I’ll tell you what you must do while you’re here in Naples. The thing you mustn’t miss’ He said, ‘You must you must go and see the ruins of Pompeii.’ He says, ‘It’s easy to get there. It’s only five miles away and all day long there’s RAF transport and vans passing from the base here past the entrance to the ruins of Pompeii and,’ I told that, he said, ‘You must get all your crew to go there with you. Yeah. Just get a guard, pay one of the guards of the, who will take you all around Pompeii. Give him a good price and he’ll show you everything that’s there.’ And the rest of the crew said oh that would be marvellous. Pulled, stick on an RAF plane, on an RAF van. We all got in it. He dropped us at Pompeii and we got out and one of the guides, not a guard, a guide I meant and we paid the guy to take us around and we followed him and he pointed out, he spoke perfect English, all the interesting things in Pompeii and then we go downstairs in to the basement and there’s an artist working with his easel there copying all the paintings, the masterpieces on the wall and naturally being artistic I started talking to him and he spoke perfect English and he was explaining everything, what this meant and what he was doing and when I got out and went upstairs I couldn’t see any of the crew, I couldn’t see a person. So I started walking around and now I’m a bit lost and it’s a big place the ruins, in the ruins. I can’t see one person and I started walking along looking and suddenly two little boys about between fourteen and sixteen came up to me and said, ‘Hey Joe, you gotta the money.’ I said, ‘Get away.’ And they said, ‘Hey Joe you gotta the money. Give us the money.’ I said, ‘No. Get away.’ And I can’t find the crew and suddenly from out of nowhere another fifteen, twenty kids started all coming up to me and started tugging at me, pulling at me, ‘Hey Joe you gotta the money.’ I said, ‘No. Get away,’ and I started running to try and get away from them and they started running after me and still there was no one around. And I’m now getting worried. They started tugging me. Pulling me. Then suddenly they started screaming out [parapachi?]. That’s like the Italian word for police and suddenly they all left and ran away into the woods there and suddenly two men with, fully armed with machine guns across their shoulders come up to me and said, ‘ah’, they spoke English, they told me, ‘We’ve saved you,’ he said, ‘They would have killed you for the money. They would have taken every bit of your clothing off.’ Because they were short of money, you know in Naples and all bloody gangsters and God knows, and the mafia there. He said, ‘They would have killed you for the money and have taken a knife to you.’ Although they were only kids, he said ‘they’re really tough ones. ‘We’ll get you back to your crew, the rest of your men, you’ll be safe. Don’t worry anymore.’ And I was, I was nearly assassinated there.
AS: Gosh.
HB: After the war.
AS: When were you demobbed?
HB: 1946. Early ’46.
AS: What did you do in the RAF between the end of the war and when you were demobbed? Obviously fetching troops back was one of them.
HB: Yeah. One of them. They had all kinds of jobs for us. I mean one of the first things we did was to fly the POWs home from Belgium and that was quite a, quite something to talk to the chaps who were POWs and we were all naturally asking them how they were treated and they all said, terribly. And they were all asking me about what it was like for us afterwards and explained to them and one was a squadron leader. I’ll never forget. He had a DFC. When we landed in England he got out. He was the first one to get out, oh and he wanted to sit in the turret during the flight back because he, he said he was shot down in 1940. You know he wasn’t used to, he didn’t know what a Lancaster was. So I let him sit in the Lancaster all, sit in the turret all the way back to England. He got out, started kissing the ground and they all kissed the ground. They all followed him. The, all the prisoners thanking, you know that they were back in England. I wonder what it was for them. It was quite an experience watching them do that, you know. It’s so emotional.
AS: After you were demobbed what did you do then? How did you settle back in to civilian life?
HB: Well the first few months were very very difficult. Incidentally, I do say this. I never told my mum and dad that I was on operations. I told them I was in training all the time and I told all the family, you know I was operations, brothers and sisters, not to mention a word to them because you know they were reading every night, every day forty, fifty, thirty, sixty lost and my father said to me, he says, ‘You must be the lousiest air gunner in the air force,’ he says, ‘You’re always in training.’ So I said, ‘Well it takes a long time,’ and then of course when I finished and I told them and you know he shook his head at me, ‘Oh yeah,’ see, ‘You weren’t a lousy air gunner.’ No. I thought, save them. Why let them go through the agony of reading about the losses every night and knowing it could have been me, me on it and you know parents did have a tough time with their children on ops.
AS: So what did you do when you came home?
HB: I went to St Martin’s Art School to study art and fashion and then [pause] after about five years, six years I got married and then formed my own fashion company designing women’s clothes, coats.
AS: You said you found it difficult when you came home. In what way?
HB: The first six months. It was very difficult to reconcile. You missed the comradeship of your friends and you know rationing was still going on and things were still tough after the war being a civilian. The government I must say was helpful. They did support me in training in the six months I studied at St Martins.
AS: So you, so you studied for six months and then, and then did you start your fashion business then or did you -?
HB: Oh no. No. I went to work.
AS: You went to work.
HB: Someone else had [unclear] it didn’t take me long to be successful. It was strange, the first six months, it really was. To settle down with mum and dad again and my two brothers.
[pause]
HB: Is there anything else you’d like?
AS: Yes.
HB: Question?
AS: When you were, when you were on the base and you were doing operations, how long was it between the different operations? Was there a long time or were they in quick succession?
HB: Sometimes you’d go two nights running which I reckoned, off the record, that that was Harris’ big, one big mistake he made. We should never have been allowed to do, to go on two consecutive, two night’s trips, come back because you, when you came back three or 4 o’clock in the morning you didn’t get a good night’s sleep. They’d wake you up the next day at 8 o’clock to tell you you’d be on operations that night. And you weren’t exactly fit. You were a bit tired. It was a struggle to force yourself but you had to do it. You know, it was an order. You had to go and I think that’s the biggest mistake that Harris made. It’s never been mentioned, that. Going two nights’ consecutive trips was a real struggle. The second one.
AS: When you were, when you were between operations how did you, what did you do? Did you have any social life?
HB: What? Do you mean when I wasn’t on operations? What? Do you mean being on leave?
AS: Well or at the station but waiting for the next one.
HB: Yeah there was the comradeship was very, very strong between the crews and the other crews. You, it was, you know you made it part of your life and there was a pleasant side of it, pleasant side of it in sitting together and chatting with one another.
AS: Did you go out at all?
HB: Yeah. We used to go into the pub at Scunthorpe. Never allowed, he warned us not to drink more than a pint maximum. He was right. You shouldn’t get your head and drink too much.
AS: This was your pilot.
HB: Yes. Or even in the mess when you weren’t on ops not to drink. He was very strict. He made sure we didn’t.
AS: And were they all like that?
HB: Yes. Well he was very strongly. My pilot.
AS: What was your accommodation like in the mess?
HB: Very communal. We always all used to chat about the operations. What they were like and coming back, how tough. Did you see this and that? Talk about the target. And the comradeship was really strong. Really strong. That’s what I missed when I went to the rest for six months you know and that was cushy. I missed the, I missed the life. It got into your blood. The comradeship of your friends. You’d be with them.
AS: You were telling me, you told me earlier about going to the Saracen’s Head in Lincoln.
HB: Yeah.
AS: Can you tell me about, about that?
HB: It was, it was a pleasure to go in to the Saracen’s Head because you met comrades you’d been in training with, now they were on different stations to you now. You met old friends and the comradeship. It was all full of air crew, the Saracen’s Head. Every, so many air crew in there, in there, all chatting and talking to one another. It was, the atmosphere was fantastic. Never before and after was there a place to go into like that. The atmosphere was Bomber Command, you know. Have you heard from so and so and seen so and so. Talk about the different raids.
AS: Did you go there very often?
HB: Did we go there?
AS: Very often?
HB: When we had a stand by, a stand down. Where? At the Saracen’s Head? You always went in there a lot. Up in Scunthorpe it wasn’t, we went in the Saracen’s Head but I look back with a great deal of pride I served in Bomber Command. I mean it was really tough at times, you know, the losses were fifty five thousand killed out of a hundred thousand. We took the biggest loss pro rata of any other force during the war and we still have that. All my best friends are ex bomber chaps. We all stuck to one another closely. You can’t find it with other people like you can with a, with a comrade. Mind you, in the army you know they had the same thing. My dad, he used to stand on street corners with others from the First World War all talking and chatting to one another in groups of three or four.
AS: Well thank you very much. It’s been, it’s been fascinating listening to your story.
HB: I hope you have. Oh what about a cup of tea?
AS: I’d love a cup of tea. 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
A name given to the resource
Interview with Alfred Huberman
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Andrew Sadler
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
2016-03-29
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHubermanA160329
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
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:10:46 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Alfred Huberman volunteered for the RAF when he was eighteen and trained as an air gunner. He describes the training and emphasises how physically hard it was. He flew 31 operations from RAF Elsham Wolds in Lancasters. These included operations over the Ruhr and the bombing of the V-3 weapon site at Mimoyecques. After he completed his tour he was stationed at a radar station but missed the camaraderie of his crew so volunteered for further active operational duties and served with the Pathfinder force at RAF Wyton. He completed a further 7 flights for Operations Manna and Exodus. After the war he was very active in forming the Air Gunner's Association and also served on the committee of the Bomber Command Association.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1944
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
France--Mimoyecques
Wales--Bridgend
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Carolyn Emery
576 Squadron
83 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing of the Mimoyecques V-3 site (6 July 1944)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crewing up
fear
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
Master Bomber
military ethos
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Pathfinders
physical training
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Wyton
training
V-3
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/8852/PHolmesGH1604.2.jpg
134f273cd93e015a7d789b8e877b159b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/8852/AHolmesGH161016.1.mp3
cc225552ec17450d62364d1a1b362db0
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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Holmes, George
George Henry Holmes
G H Holmes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Holmes, GH
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with Pilot Officer George Holmes (b. 1922, 1579658, 187788 Royal Air Force) his log book, records of operation, newspaper cuttings and photographs of personnel. He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 9, 50 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by George Holmes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-21
2017-01-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles. The interviewee is Mr George Henry Holmes. The interview is taking place at Mr Holmes’ home [deleted] Lincolnshire on the 16th of October 2016.
GH: Yes. I had some very lucky escapes. We had, we were going to [pause] I’ve written it down. I’ve got a terrible memory.
[pause]
GH: Stuttgart in Germany. And of course they originated in France thinking possibly that there wouldn’t be many, many night fighters there but we got caught and we got shot and it took off the bomb bay doors. They fractured the starboard wheel, ruptured the main spar and left us with cannon shells stuck in the fuel tanks which is actually really instantaneous. And we did a belly landing when we got back and I was one of the first out and running. Somebody said, ‘Are you frightened?’ I said, ‘Have you seen a Lanc go up in flames?’ And the bloke said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Well. Well, when you do you’ll run faster than I do.’ And actually they took these cannon shells away by the, if you handled the armament, whatever and emptied them they found out that the cannon shells actually had been filled with sand instead of explosives. Otherwise we would have gone up in one. And that was once. And another night someone on a circuit when we were coming, of course I was at Skellingthorpe at the time and there were about five or six airfields all around. And we had a bump and nearly got tipped over by the windstream of another aircraft. And when we landed there was about five foot off the end of the pit, of the end of the aeroplane gone. That was, I think we could call a very near miss. And all through my career they used to say you’ve got to get it right. The good crews survive and the bad crews don’t. But when you’re dealing with an aeroplane that’s attacking you at about between five and six hundred mile an hour you don’t have time to work out all the superlatives. You just learn how to, well you have to try to get him in to four hundred yards for the ammo to be, do any damage whatsoever. And these would wait about a thousand yards and pump these things in to you, you know. But, yes we lost a lot of young men at the time. Look back sometimes and I think how the hell did we get through it?
AH: How did you come to join the RAF?
GH: Mixed feelings. I was living in Kettering at the time and I would be about six years of age. I’d only just joined school which was a joining age in those days of about six years I think and I saw the R100 or the R101 in the sky. A most amazing sight. And of course everybody was reading Biggles books so I wanted to be a Biggles man. And my father wouldn’t sign any papers for me so when I was eighteen I went down and joined the RAF as an air gunner. But there were so many enlisting at the time it was over twelve months I think before I was called. And they wanted me to be a pilot or navigator. I said, ‘No. I want to be an air gunner W/Op.’ Anyway, I finished up there. They made me a wireless operator / air gunner. Well, up to going into the air force I’d hoped to be a semi-professional musician because I played the violin from seven years of age to when I went in the air force, eighteen. And I played the violin, trumpet and a mandolin. And the man who was teaching me he used to make instruments and he was going to teach me how to make them. And, you know when I went in the air force I was in the air force for just over five years. I couldn’t get back to the standard that I was in and work for a living at the same time because you’ve got to put about two to three hours a day in you know, to it. So I abandoned the musical stuff. And actually I was at an old miner’s school. A corrugated tin hut thing and when we moved to Leicester and I was a top boy at the school. The teaching, they taught us in that stinking little old tin hut was beyond their, what they were teaching us in there. They told me I couldn’t do joined up writing. We’d got to go back to scroll, you know. But I went to a school that was attached to the College of Art and Technology and I was studying textiles and hosiery. And I earned a very good living through the entire working life producing socks, stockings, knee socks and things like that. Of course you got paid in on production in those days. You didn’t get a standing wage. The more you made the more you got paid. And you were allowed ten needles per week and if you broke more than that you had to pay for them. Six pence each I think they were then. The unions would go bloody mad now wouldn’t they? [laughs] I had a very good education really. I was very fortunate. I was almost fluent in French. The French master said, ‘I can’t understand you, Holmes. You’re the worst pupil I’ve ever had. You’re always talking, take no notice, I can’t understand how you’ve got top of the class in French.’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s simple. You gave us a half an hour’s homework and I always got an hour. So I worked harder than anybody else.’ [laughs] But I had a very good — my parents were not wealthy. My dad was a manager of a, the management of a grocery shop. You know these, what they were before the war. Several strains of food, food retailers and I really thought I was going to be a semi-professional musician. But I abandoned that scheme altogether and I got my sleeves rolled up and got stuck in this hosiery thing. ‘Til the war of course and then I couldn’t get, I couldn’t wait to get in the air force. And I finished up as a wireless operator / air gunner due to the fact, I always presumed, I don’t know whether it’s true or not but the fact that I had learned music, got some dashes and all like that. Morse code came easy and I was a very good operator. But apart from that I had a very happy marriage. I’ve got one son. He’s sixty seven now. And a he’s a fourth [unclear] at Judo. But life is a wonderful thing. Not to be wasted. And when you look at the war and see the number of thousands of young people who were wasted in the war. And the building and the costs. At the end of the day you have to sit around a table and talk it over from the first day. Save a lot of trouble and strife. But of course in those days Bomber Command was the thing.
AH: So you wanted to join Bomber Command?
GH: Oh yes. But then when you say wanted to join Bomber Command I’d always worked shifts. Night shifts and three shifts and things. I thought if I go in to the air force I’d be alright. And what did they do? They stuck me on Bomber Command. It was night work. But it wasn’t altogether good so as you look in the book you’ll see I did quite a number of daylight operations.
AH: Where did you train?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Where did you train? Where did you do your training?
GH: Where did I do my training? It was wonderful really. I I went to Blackpool first of all. That was the Number 10 RS something it was called. Signals Reserve or something. And they were all radio personnel in the air force up there. And we had a bloke called corporal [pause] I forget his name now. Corporal. Used to take us to the arm drill and foot drill. And his stage name was Max Wall. Can you imagine a man like Max Wall teaching you? Amazing. And then I went down to Yatesbury for a radio course. And I was posted then to Manby in the ground wireless op ‘til they could fit me into an air gunner’s course. Well, Manby in those days was number 1 AS. Air Armaments School and they taught bomb aimers and air gunners. We kept going to see the groupie and saying, ‘Get us on the course for air gunners.’ ‘No. You have to wait until you come through officially.’ When it did come through we was at a place called Evanton. About forty mile north of Inverness. First time I’d been to Scotland. In June it was. And it was a wonderful summer. And it was the first time I’d seen the shaggy Highland cattle. And I was taken by Scotland ever after that. Then after that, the gunnery course, I was sent to Market Harborough which is now a prison. And I used to push off home every night. After being there about three weeks the CO said, ‘We’re getting rid of you. You’re never here.’ It used to take me an hour to get home from Market Harborough on the local bus through all these villages. Little villages. And I was posted to Silverstone. And at Silverstone if you went in and out by railway you could get a train called the Master Cutler which was a high speed train from Sheffield to London and back. It used to do that in forty five minutes. That was quicker than being in [laughs] And I got crewed up there then and joined the [unclear] so to speak but I suppose if you were young men you had to be in something. You had no objection. I mean, no one wanted you to be a conscientious objector or anything. There we were. I joined Bomber Command and I was very lucky because I got with some good crews and I must admit I was commissioned towards the end of the war as a wireless op and I got operational strain and one thing or another. I was a bit of a drunkard. The only way of overcoming some of the strenuous [pause] I mean the beer we were drinking in those days I think was 1.2 percent alcohol. The water you washed the glasses in was stronger than the beer.
AH: So did you drink mainly beer? Or did you drink other stuff?
GH: No. No. The doc said, our doc on the squadron, ‘Go out and get pissed. It’ll do you good. Don’t go on spirits.’ And I was based around here. Around Louth. One way or another. It’s so that when my wife and I decided to come and live here it was after I’d retired. It was a home away from home really.
AH: Where were you first based? Where were you based first?
GH: Where was —?
AH: Where were you first based? Which was your first base? Where were you sent first?
GH: Oh. At a place called Bardney. Just outside Louth. And we got there. The place was, looked vacant and we got out the transport and looked around and looked in the ditches and it was full of bodies. We said, ‘What are you doing down there?’ They said, ‘Bugger off, there’s a fire in the bomb dump.’ So we said, ‘Oh, we’ll leave you to it then.’ But anyway a guy put it out. And then we went from that place. I did six ops there. And then we went to Skellingthorpe where the pilot was made up to a squadron leader. And we were only allowed two or three operations a month due to the losses of experienced crews. And by the time we’d done twenty trips together he, the pilot and the navigator went over to Pathfinders as the rest of the crew did. And the, the crew got sort of crewed up but the wireless, he didn’t want a wireless. He brought one with him, the pilot. So I was a spare bod and I went with an Aussie crew. His name was Cassidy and he’d got it painted on the side of a Lancaster. “Hop Along Cassidy’s Flying Circus.’ And I finished up at the one near Boston. What is it?
AH: Coningsby?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Coningsby?
GH: Coningsby. Yes. Yes.
AH: What squadron were you in first?
GH: 9. And then I went on to 50 at Skellingthorpe and then I went on to 83 at Coningsby.
AH: And what planes?
GH: Lancs. Well, after the war, if you look in the book look I went on a tour to South America. They sent three what were called Lancaster Mark 21s I think. But in actual fact they renamed them to Lincolns. It was a bigger aircraft that the Lancaster. Especially built for the war against the Japanese. And we went right down the west coast of Africa and then across over the Atlantic to Brazil and then right down to Santiago. Flew over the second highest mountain in the world I think it is. Aconcagua. But by then I’d decided I would take a course, this course on radiography, radio operating and get on to the public airlines. And I’d met my lady who I married and I found out that to be on public airlines you were away for home for anything from six weeks to three months. I thought well that’s not right. So I docked that and as I say I stayed in the hosiery trade. Yeah. Had quite a varied existence one way or another.
AH: What did you do in South America?
GH: Demonstrated the aircraft. I think they’d got that many four engine aircraft they didn’t know what to do with them and they were trying to flog them to anybody who’d buy them. God knows where all the aeroplanes went to. They just suddenly disappeared.
AH: And what was it like there?
GH: Pardon?
AH: And what was it like? Were they interested?
GH: Interesting.
AH: Were they interested in the aircraft?
GH: Oh very much so. Yes. Yes. Whilst we were there there was an earthquake in Peru and they wished us to send someone who would take some supplies over to Peru for the earthquake. And the air force said they couldn’t be allowed to do that because although we’d get to Peru and land they hadn’t got an air force runway long enough to take off so we’d be stuck. But yeah. Funny thing was we all decided when we were going to Brazil we would get together and learn Spanish. And when we got to Brazil they didn’t speak Spanish. They spoke Portuguese [laughs]
AH: How long were you out there for?
GH: Oh not very long. I should think, well if you look in the book it’ll tell you how long. About four weeks I think. We did one leg of the journey per day. And —
AH: And when were you demobbed?
GH: When? I think it was June of 1945.
AH: And how long were you in 9 Squadron?
GH: Pardon?
AH: How long were you in 9 Squadron?
GH: Only a few weeks. Not very long.
AH: What was it like?
GH: Quite an eye opener really. Mainly we were supporting the invasion. In fact that was the first time I’d ever seen the white cliffs of Dover coming back from France on D-Day. As I say all the boats going over.
AH: How did that feel?
GH: Have I —?
AH: How did that feel?
GH: Satisfied I would think would be the only expression. That we were doing something. And of course that’s another point. I mean I don’t know whether you’ve watched it on telly but they give you films of the actual landings in France and they chuck the blokes out into the water that was about six foot deep. They were drowned. Never got to France at all. Instead of waiting for the tide to go out. Some damned idiots in this military attitude.
AH: What did you think of Bomber Command?
GH: Well organised. To a certain extent they were very well organised. Many actual Bomber Command crews packed up before they’d completed a tour of course because it was a great strain. I remember doing a daylight on, I think it was at one of the flying bomb sites when they were launching flying bombs. And of course Bomber Command never flew in the way the Yanks did. They had three people from leading in and everybody was sort of doing what they called a gaggle at the back. And we were close up behind this three Bomber Command [pause] well, leaders I suppose and I looked up and saw an aircraft above was opening his bomb doors. I thought it’s going to drop on him shortly. Anyway he did. He dropped them and then it just floated down. Hit the aircraft on the right hand side, the starboard, knocked his wing off and he spun over and tipped the wing of the other who went that way and he tipped the wing of the other and went that way. And there were bodies without parachutes floating around and everything. And it was Cheshire who was controlling the raid. Called the raid off because he said the chaps didn’t stand a chance if we bombed it. So we flew back to the North Sea and dumped the bombs and went home. But the things like that they were happening every day. You know, I mean I’m afraid you accepted it.
AH: Do you remember where you were going on that raid?
GH: Not completely. No. Because there were one or two launch sites for flying bombs. I mean at one time as far as I know they were, they were launching something like ten thousand pound. Ten thousand flying bombs in a matter of a month or whatever, you know. I mean they were really showering the south of England with them. And —
AH: And how did you feel when you saw the bombs coming?
GH: I hope to God it misses me. To be truthful. But it was a sight, you know. Their only, these aircraft which they hit and damaged were only about a hundred, hundred and fifty yards in front of us. A matter of three seconds or something isn’t it? The speed we were flying at it could have been us. But many of the young lads who joined up when I joined up never finished. They were killed. A great deal of loss of human youngsters. Many of them technicians and people we missed after the war finished because of their experiences. And if you take that you promise me I will get it back?
AH: Yeah.
GH: Because I applied for the Aircrew Europe Star which was allotted to everybody who did two or more operations before D-Day which I did and I was told I didn’t, I hadn’t done enough. So when they issued the Bomber Command medal at the end of the war they said I couldn’t have that either because I’d got the 1939-45 Star or something. I don’t know. I thought well that’s great. I did twenty one ops and I never got a bomber medal. It’s unbelievable some fairy in Whitehall who was domineering the life span of the one doing the work. But the main thing I need at the present moment is some backup somewhere to get, I mean I mentioned to you earlier how much it cost. I was only getting two hundred and ninety pound a month. That’s about seventy pound a week towards the cost of being here and it was costing [pause] what was it? Well, a monthly, the monthly cost here is three thousand and forty one which is quite expensive. I think it’s a very good. I get my monies worth. But I think the company, the government or whoever, the Department of Works and Pension allow me something to help me pay for it and they want [coughs] they just knocked off the pension credit. I’m about two and a half thousand pound a month worse off when I got a pay rise of two pounds and fifteen pence [pause] In other words hard luck isn’t it? You know I mean I’m not the sort of person who is laid back and you handed something but I’ve worked all, all my own life. What I’ve got I’ve chased the work of one kind or another. Whether it was in the air force or out. And I’m disgusted actually to think the money that gets wasted.
AH: Could I just ask you a few more questions about the war?
GH: Yes.
AH: What did you think of the way Bomber Harris was treated?
GH: Disgustingly. As I said earlier he was blamed for bombing the population whereas the targets were selected by the War Committee. And the two leaders of that were Lord Portal and Winston Churchill. Bomber Harris was behind his crews all the way. Next question.
AH: Where did you go after 9 Squadron?
GH: With 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe. That was, it was so far to the sergeant’s mess from where we were displayed in Nissen huts we used to go into Lincoln for breakfast [laughs]
AH: What sort of squadron was it?
GH: What 83? Er 50?
AH: 50.
GH: Very very compatible actually. The man who was my pilot took his place as flight commander was Metham. He finished up deputy leader of some bomber group. Was it Metham? He’s a well-known, established leader of the Royal Air Force.
AH: Was that a Pathfinder squadron?
GH: No. No. They only had two Pathfinder squadrons. They were both at Coningsby. 83 and 97.
AH: Were you in them at all?
GH: I was on 83. I did, I think nine trips with 83 Squadron. They said that it was easy on Pathfinders of course. You, if you’re first flare leaders putting the flares down you went over and laid your flares and shot off home but they didn’t tell you when you started laying your flares you had to put it in automatic pilot and you couldn’t drift. So by the time you got to the end of laying the flares the Germans had got all the information of what you were doing [pause]
GH: And I have the greatest admiration of the German people and Germany itself. Moreso than any other European country. I have a great ideal, great ideals of them. They’re a wonderful people. We should never have gone to war against them. Well, should we?
AH: What do you think we should have done?
GH: Pardon?
AH: What could, what could Britain have done instead?
GH: Shot Adolf Hitler. It was a dictator. A man who believes beyond his experience. I think, well what’s happening in the world today? I mean we’re now fighting the, oh ethnic crowds that we were fighting in the days of Christ. For two thousand years we’ve been fighting. Still doing it and we’ll lose in the end. Of course people say they mean good. If you read the Koran as far as I remember the first rule is thou shalt now kill. And I think the fourth one is thou shalt kill all non-believers. So it leaves you in a sticky mess. And they’re gaining popularity all the while.
AH: When did you read the Koran?
GH: I haven’t read the Koran. I’ve read extracts from it. I’m quite interested in reading other people’s religions and of course in actual fact I believe in the bible which says when you die it’s ashes to ashes and dust to dust. I don’t think there’s a heaven up there. I don’t think there’s anything like that. I think it’s just, you’re just dead meat. Unfortunately. And many many people leave their readings, writings and paintings to be perused over and you get the benefit of their experience.
AH: Have you written anything?
GH: Written anything? Only rude things on the wall [laughs]. No. I wish I could have written things. I was too busy with music. As I said I went to a school where we had possibly an hour to two hours homework every night of various kinds and I didn’t really get out amongst other young fellas of my age because I was doing one to two hours music training as well. Now, the school I went to had started a school orchestra. Violin, banjo and drums. And I loved music. But as I say when I went in the air force I didn’t take a violin with me and I should have done I suppose. After being in five years my fingers were all stiffened up with, didn’t work. So I abandoned it straightaway and got on with earning a living
[knocking on door]
GH: Come in.
Other: Sorry to disturb you.
AH: I’ll just put this on pause.
[recording paused]
GH: They don’t look like reading my writing for a start. But there’s a cutting in there I think I mentioned it earlier on from Stalin who stated he wanted the Bomber Command to burn Dresden because they were using it to refuel the battlefield. And it wasn’t so because after the war I were working with some of the replacement Polish people and they said they’d been in Dresden and there were no army facilities there at all. There was no reason for them to bomb it.
[pause]
GH: And I have a younger sister who’s ninety in October. Laurie. So we’re quite a long lived family aren’t we?
AH: How old are you?
GH: Ninety four. Feel a hundred and four [laughs] some mornings. Yes.
AH: You’ve got a picture here of Squadron Leader Munro.
GH: Yes. He wanted to crew up with us. He’s just recently died you know. A New Zealander. That was when I was at gunnery school at Scotland.
AH: Which one’s you?
GH: How dare you say that [laughs] I haven’t changed that much at all surely. I’m the shortest one. Yes. And that’s my favourite photograph of myself.
AH: That’s nice.
[pause]
GH: Yes. It’s a wonderful world and I’ve met some wonderful people and I’ve had some wonderful friends and relatives. It’s been enjoyment. Mixing the good with the bad makes you appreciate it all the more. We came out of there as you go in.
AH: You talked about the strain of it. What was the worst strain?
GH: Being with Bomber Command? Well, naturally the, the operations themselves. They were well organised, I don’t mean like that but I mean they always taught us the best crews will get through. Did I mention to you before luck has a lot to do with it? And I mean a matter of seconds in some cases. I never flew as an air gunner though. I was in the Home Guard before I went in the air force. In Leicester. Well a little village outside Leicester called Narborough. And they used to send me out on a railway bridge defending the bridge at night time with a bayonet fastened to a broomstick with string. I don’t know what you were supposed to do with it. I had a few thoughts. But by the time I went into the air force I was fully trained and I’d got a Canadian Ross rifle that was in a cloth bag with about two inches of grease all around it. And I cleaned it up and the stock of it was beautiful. Lovely gun. And one of the chaps, he was a sergeant. I think he must have been a sniper. He said, ‘I’ll teach you how to fire a gun George.’ Because,’ he said, ‘Let’s face it. Who’s the last person that knows when you’re going to pull the trigger?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘Well you don’t pull the trigger. You squeeze your hand. And you don’t jolt it.’ And I could hit an eight hundred target, a bull at eight hundred yards. Which is quite good shooting I think. But I never did fly as a air gunner. I flew once as a tail gunner. And the tail one was like that. You knew all I got it I knew I wouldn’t have that for long.
AH: Did you get bombed yourself?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Did you get bombed yourself? In Leicester.
GH: Well, Leicester got bombed while I lived there. But we lived on the outskirts. And of course like most targets they usually go for the city centre first where all the main multiples are. And I was, I was quite happy in the Home Guard because we got very very good training. Initially it was useless. For the first two years. But when they got organised they got organised. And I sit and watch “Dad’s Army,” you know. And I I don’t know who picked the cast but it’s amazing to think [laughs] they look like real people [laughs] Anything else?
AH: Did you meet your wife during the war?
GH: No. I met her after the war. One of the boys who’s died in the last two years from Leicester was in training with me all the way through and he finished up at Coningsby on 97 Squadron and I finished up on 83. And his wife and my wife or future wife or his future wife, they used to go dancing Saturday nights together. And I met this girl one night in the RAF club. And I can’t understand that, I can’t explain the feeling but she was wonderful. And I said, ‘Can I see you again?’ And she said, ‘Well, I can’t see you for two weeks because I’m going up to Lincolnshire. To a town that you’ve never heard of.’ Well, I’d done all my training and everything here so I said, ‘Well, try me then.’ She said, ‘Louth.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve got news for you. I can’t go to Louth again [laughs] They’d shoot me.’ And she was always dying her hair. I think after the first two months I knew her she must have had about six or seven changes of colour. She was lovely though.
AH: What was her name?
GH: Barbara. And when we first got married we had to live in the front room of my mum and dad’s house until we could get somewhere. Everyone does I suppose. And her uncle was a butcher and he used to do all the joints of meat for Leicester. And this friend of his, a friend of his or someone in the trade he dealt with was the housing minister for Leicester. And in those days you couldn’t get housed if you hadn’t got a wood licence. You had to have a timber licence. And he mentioned to this gent that I was having trouble with my wife’s breathing because my mother and father had a dog and she was allergic to dog hair. And he said to this young gent, ‘He’s just come out the air force and he definitely wants a house but, and his wife is allergic to dog hairs and has to get out, you know of home and have his own place.’ And the fellow twiddled it a little bit and got me a timber licence and away we went. We bought a semi for nineteen hundred quid. And then after a while we bought, we bought a complete des res like, you know what do you call it? A house on its own at, in Oadby near to Leicester at the back of the racecourse and you got a full view of the racecourse. And I used to say to people, ‘I’ve got a nice place. There’s about four furlongs of grass at the back and they came and cut it, you know regularly,’ [laughs] But as I say we had this problem with this hooligan who was threatening her so that’s how we moved to Louth. But I mean moving to Louth was like going next door to the pair of us because we’d both been here so many times.
AH: Did you like Louth?
GH: I think it’s very nice. And I think once you get into Louth the people will do anything but they’re a little offish at the start. But it’s a lovely little town. I was born in Mansfield. In the Sherwood Forest. But I did like Louth there. Very much.
AH: What was your home like there?
GH: Where?
AH: In Mansfield.
GH: Well, I was brought up with my grandparents. I wasn’t brought up with my mother and father. They couldn’t get anywhere to live in, although my sister had been born. They wouldn’t accept anyone with two children so they farmed me off with my grandparents. My grandmother Holmes, when I was six or seven or eight years of age taught me how to sew and darn and knit.
AH: Did you have use of that later?
GH: Yes. Because I went into the hosiery trade and it was the machines that knit things make exactly the same loop as you do a knitting pin. And of course as I say I, I had a quite a few jobs. The job I had at Byfords. The other chap working next to me who was in his forties hadn’t been taken to the army. Hadn’t been called up. With a wife and two children. He always used to go down smoking in the toilets about once every hour and I used to run his machines as well as mine. And one day, you used to put your earnings under the table where they kept all the yarns and everything. He had a sneaky look and he found out I was earning more than him. So he went to the manager and he said he didn’t see any reason why someone’s underage that were in machinery should be earning more than he did. So they said, ‘Oh alright, we’ll give you two of his machines. They had me in the office and they said, ‘You’ve been bragging.’ I said, ‘What about?’ They said, ‘What you earn.’ I said, ‘I daren’t tell my father what earn. He’d go mad.’ I was earning as much or twice as much as my dad. And they said, ‘Well, we’re going to take two of your machines off you and you’ll run them for him.’ So I said, ‘I have an idea now. You can stick them up your arse.’ And they gave him the bloody lot. I got sacked for insolence. I got another job. I was never out of work. I got training that was necessary and I could go anywhere. I worked at Byfords. They sacked me three times after that incident and a very good job. The only snag is when I went into it before the war you were using cotton and well, wool and the machines were covered in like a white powder from the cotton in the wool, you know. And after the war when they started using synthetic fibres I think the synthetic fibres were so small you swallowed them. And I have a difficulty with breathing actually which is due to that I think. But nobody would say so because you then would jump then and say I want paid for being. I don’t think, I don’t think there’s more than one or two hosiery factories left in Leicester and it used to be the main city for hosiery. But that was all, that was all shift work. Night work and not very conducive for family life. I used to go to work because I mean you were busy. It didn’t bother you but my wife was stuck at home on her own you know and I didn’t realise until after I’d lost her that that’s what the problem was really. Basically. But we had a good life together. Yeah.
AH: Was your father or your grandfather in the First World War?
GH: Both my father and my wife’s father were in the First World War. My wife’s father was stationed at Louth here. In the Leicester, what did they call it? It was a mountain brigade. And he was only a little bloke. Smaller than me. And he looked like, well you just couldn’t imagine him sat on a horse.
AH: What he was called?
GH: Pardon?
AH: What he was called?
GH: His surname? Evans. Evans. Good Evans. I went to Edmonton for my gunnery course and we had a group captain called Group Captain Evans Evans and he got awarded the French medal. The Croix de Guerre. And he said, ‘Although I flew in World War One I’ve not flown in World War Two and I don’t think I deserved it. So I shall get a crew together and fly.’ So I went to my CO and I said, ‘Look, old Evans Evans is getting a crew together.’ We had a chance to get in because at that time I was a spare. And he said, ‘No, I don’t think so. My wireless op is covering that because he’s one behind everyone else in the crew and we all want to finish together.’ And off they went and they were shot down by the Americans before they got to the war. Before they got to the war line they were shot down by the Americans. And the only one that got out was the rear gunner. So that was another lucky escape. Just how the penny drops isn’t it? Am I boring you? Say so if I am. Anyway [pause] I am suffering really from the breathing quite badly.
AH: Shall we finish?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Do you want us to finish?
GH: Yes.
AH: Thank you very much.
GH: Quite all right. If it’s been of any —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with George Holmes
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anna Hoyles
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
2016-10-16
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHolmesGH161016
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Brazil
Chile
Germany
Great Britain
Peru
Chile--Santiago
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Stuttgart
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
1946
Description
An account of the resource
George was born in Mansfield and was bought up by his Grandparents until he was seven when he moved back to his parents in Leicester where his Father ran a coffee shop. He was a semi-professional musician playing violin, trumpet and mandolin. He studied hosiery at college and worked in hosiery production his entire working life. He joined the Home Guard in Narborough, and recalls how he defended the railway bridge at night time with a bayonet fastened to a broom stick with string. After volunteering for the Air Force he was sent to Blackpool for training. The corporal who taught him foot drill went on to be the comedian Max Wall. He was then sent to RAF Yatesbury for his radio course, and then forwarded to the Air Armourers school. After completing the course, he was posted to RAF Evanton for a gunner’s course. His next posting was to RAF Market Harborough, but was only there for three weeks before he was sent to RAF Silverstone for crewing up. His first station was RAF Bardney with 9 Squadron for a few weeks. He remembers that when they arrived at Bardney it was deserted and they found everyone lying on the floor in the kitchen as the bomb dump was on fire. The crew were then posted to RAF Skellingthorpe in 50 Squadron and they completed 20 operations. George recalls a daylight operation on a V-1 site, and he witnessed the Lancaster that was above them blown up and seeing the bodies of the crew falling past their aircraft. The crew were then split up when the pilot and navigator joined the Pathfinders and he became a spare bod. He eventually joined an Australian crew in 83 Squadron at RAF Coningsby and completed a further nine operations. His pilot was called Cassidy and the nose art on the Lancaster was “Hop along Cassidy’s Flying Circus.” After the war he took part in a tour of South America and discusses an earthquake in Peru. He discusses his religious beliefs and how the war, Bomber Command, and Arthur Harris have been remembered. He met his wife Barbara after the war at a dance in the RAF club and they had one son.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:08:02 audio recording
50 Squadron
83 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bomb dump
bomb struck
bombing
civil defence
crewing up
faith
forced landing
Home Guard
Lancaster
mid-air collision
nose art
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Bardney
RAF Coningsby
RAF Evanton
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
training
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2417/42591/MEvansD2-1593692-211115-10.2.jpg
1baca061c51c43828b262c1cadec86e0
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
Evans, Donald
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Donald Evans (b. 1925, 1593692 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, objects and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 106 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Michael Evans and catalogued by Barry Hunter,
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-11-15
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Evans, D-2
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Flight Engineer's Notes for Lancaster Aircraft
Description
An account of the resource
A book used by flight engineers.
This item is available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
AV Roe & Co
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-10
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. Training material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One book cover
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MEvansD2-1593692-211115-10
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
83 Squadron
aircrew
flight engineer
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/358/6094/AHayleyCA160224.2.mp3
24880b7e4d452a04df441ffcc72a2c71
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
Hayley, Jack
Jack Hayley
C A Hayley
Cecil A Hayley
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Collection consists of a log book, an interview and other items concerning Flight Lieutenant Cecil 'Jack' Alison Hayley DFC. Items include photographs of aircraft and people, a letter concerning his Distinguished Flying Cross and well as newspaper cuttings concerning operations, his wedding and the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. After training he completed tours on 625 Squadron at RAF Kelstern, then 170 Squadron at RAF Hemswell before going on to a bomber defence training flight flying Hurricanes and Spitfires.
This collection was donated by Jack Hayley and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hayley, CA
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
2016-02-25
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the, Thursday the 25th of February 2016 and I’m sitting here with John Longstaff-Ellis talking to Cecil Alison Hayley.
JCAH: No.
CB: Otherwise known as Jack and his wife Barbara about Jack’s experiences in the war but can we just start in your earliest recollections Jack?
JCAH: Yes.
CB: Of family life and -
JCAH: Yes.
CB: And how you came to join the RAF.
JCAH: Yes. Yes. Well, I was born in Caterham as I say. My father had an ironmonger’s business in the Croydon Road, Caterham it’s, ‘cause there was lower Caterham and upper Caterham. We were in the lower, lower Caterham and I was I was born over the shop, over the ironmonger’s shop. So earliest recollections I was the youngest of three boys and I was five years younger than my eldest and three and a half years younger than my, the middle one. Harold was the eldest and Leslie was the middle one. I have very few recollections of life before primary school which was at Caterham Board School they called it. It’s on Croydon Road, Caterham which I suppose I started when I was, I don’t know, five I suppose and then, well while I was there I, my interest in those early days, well when I was old enough was Scouting. I started off as a Wolf Cub and went on to Scouting but can I just I stop there.
[machine paused]
JCAH: The thing is my secondary school, ok. So if we could start again. Are you ready to start again?
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: Ok. Right. I I went to my secondary school which was Purley County School which, when I started there was near Purley but they had, had to extend the school and make a completely new building and the new school was built at Chalden and I used to cycle from Caterham up, because it was up on the hill, I had to go through Caterham on the hill and I was interested in rugby, I used to play rugby. I wasn’t very interested in cricket but I did join the school cadet corps when I was at Purley County School and I learned to play the bugle there in the band. So that took me up to the age of eighteen when I left school which was 1938, no, seventeen, that’s right. 1938. And my first job was with a small insurance company in the city and our offices were in the Royal Exchange and I was on the mezzanine floor looking out of the window right across to the Bank and Bank Square, the Mansion House and the Bank of England. It was a beautiful position to be in. Anyway, I suppose I was there until, where are we, ‘39, probably 1940, the office, oh no it was before the war they, in 1938 they obviously decided they would move out of London and we moved to Aylesbury and the offices at Aylesbury and my wife happened to be the secretary to the district manager at at the branch there at Aylesbury and she managed to fix me up with accommodation in Stoke Mandeville, Moat Farm and I was well fed there during the war. It was a lovely place to be. Anyway, we, my wife and I, her parents were farming in Weston Turville and I used to enjoy going over to the farm and taking part in the farming activities and eventually, well we got engaged so now we’re coming up, I, of course, I was eighteen when war broke and, but it wasn’t, for some reason or other it wasn’t ‘til 1941 they started taking any interest in me and my service and I had interviews and I, at that time I hadn’t any great ambition to go flying because my family history was in, in the navy and I assumed perhaps I would go in to the navy. But then they were desperate to get young, young chaps to join as air crew so I was persuaded to join the air force and my first, I had to report to the Lord’s Cricket Ground at St John’s, St John’s Wood which was the, what they called the Number 1 Air Crew Receiving Centre which was abbreviated as ACRC and in typical RAF slang became marcy tarcy [laughs]. So, yes I was probably there for probably two or three weeks getting kitted out and being introduced to RAF life and from my first part of training was Initial Training Wing at Newquay in Cornwall and there I did our usual square bashing and getting training in aircraft recognition and Morse, all these sort of things before, so I was probably there four or five months I suppose in Newquay and then yes I heard that I was being, of course by this time of course I knew I’d been selected for air crew training but then we had to go through what they called a grading school which was at Cliffe Pypard near, near Lyneham. Up on the top of the hill. A little small airfield and I think we flew Magisters there and we had twelve hours in which to go solo and if we didn’t go solo, unless there was any other particular reason, you continue pilot training then we were selected for pilot training and of course the alternative was trained as a navigator. So Cliffe Pypard. Yes. Could I just stop a minute there?
[machine paused]
JCAH: So from there we were sent to Heaton Park in Manchester which was the Air Crew Disposal, Dispersal Centre and eventually we were allocated to a convoy going out from Glasgow to take us across, across the Atlantic to Canada. We actually landed in New York and took the train up to Monkton in New Brunswick where we were held pending being sent on to our first training station. So I was there about a couple of weeks and then we took a train journey from New Brunswick across to Calgary and I think we started on the Monday and we got there on the Friday [laughs]. The only main stop we had was at Winnipeg where I think we changed trains and the local ladies were very good to us and came along with all sorts of goodies and they treated us very well and from there we went on to Calgary. I think it was the Friday we arrived and of course the steam trains then were fired by, by wood. Wood fired steam trains, and we used to wake up every morning covered in wood soot. Not a very comfortable journey. Anyway, so having arrived at Calgary we were posted to the 31 Elementary Flying Training School at De Winton where we flew Stearmans mostly. Boeing Stearmans during the day but we also flew Tiger Moths. The American, the Canadian Tiger Moth which had the luxury of a canopy above us instead of being an open cockpit and we used, we used to fly those mainly to introduce us to instrument flying but the main training was on the Stearmans so that took us from September ’42 to, yes to the end of November ‘42 when we were, I was posted to Number 38 Flying Training School at Estevan in Saskatchewan in the middle of the prairies in the middle of the winter. It was pretty harsh but it’s surprising how we coped really and of course the accommodation was all centrally heated you know. Anyway, so we were flying the Anson there. The Canadian Anson with the Jacob engines and it had the luxury of hydraulic undercarriage instead of, you know the British Anson you wound up as well. I don’t know. About eighty winds. So that was, but it’s interesting as well of course a lot of the time we were landing on snow which was very, you had very little references to judge your height and it was a good, good training. And well we did all the normal things. Cross country training of course, instrument flying as well as all our ground training in navigation. Did a lot of Morse code training, aircraft recognition, those sort of things and eventually we completed, I completed my training in April ‘43 and qualified for my wings which I was very proud of and then we were returned to Monkton to the dispersal centre at Monkton for our return journey across the Atlantic and while we were there there was, I remember this, Jimmy Edwards had been training out there and he and a few others managed to get together and produce a show for us which was good fun. Anyway, so we, I was going to say on our outward cruise we had a bit of a panic because one of the ships was torpedoed and it wasn’t ‘til after we got back that there was a news item in the new New York papers of the torpedoing of this ship, it was a cargo ship who managed to struggle into New York so that was interesting. But of course I, whilst I was at Monkton I was commissioned before I came home and so the journey home was far more luxurious in the Ile de France. It was, had been converted into a troop ship so yes we were living in luxury. A little episode, if I could go back to the outward cruise. We were in an American convoy and the sister ship of the one we were in had been, gone down with fire so there were very strict no smoking rules on deck, no below deck. You could smoke above deck and I was caught smoking below deck and my punishment was to work in the kitchen which, this was the officer’s mess and it was nice to pick all up the titbits, the luxury titbits such as oysters, fried oysters. So it wasn’t a bad punishment. Anyway, returning, the home trip was as I say very comfortable and so we, let’s see, we, the first posting was to Harrogate which was another personnel receiving centre and then on to Bournemouth for some reason or other and then we started, we went to Little Rissington which is a suburb of, of the big flying training station. No. Yes. No. That’s right we went to Little Rissington and then we were posted to a satellite of Little Rissington at Windrush and there we were flying Oxfords to get acclimatised to a different type of flying in this country as compared with Canada with the wide open spaces and roads that went either north west or east west. North, east, south and east, west. It was quite different and then of course coping with the restricted areas and so on in this country and during that time I, we did some instrument flying training at the Beam, what they called the Beam Approach Training Flight at Docking where we, they had an approach system which was pretty primitive. Anyway, we were only there oh about ten days and then I finished my training at Madly in September ‘43 and was then posted to a radio school at Madly, west of Hereford on the River Wye and there we were flying radio cadets. I was flying the Domini, the RAF version of the Rapide and the other flight was flying Proctors and single aircraft, single engine aircraft. I must say the old Rapide was very reliable and quite nice to fly. The only snag was there was no seat as such. You were just sat on a cushion with your legs stretched out in front of you which after an hour or so could be pretty, you could get a bit stiff. Anyway, it was an interesting period and we could just choose where we flew just as long as getting practice of operating in the air there, the radio equipment and I got to know the area quite well. The Black Mountains and going north to Cheshire and out that way. So that was, that took me up to March 1944 and at that stage I was about to start my operational training but a little incident. I, my wife and I had arranged to get married in November ‘43. Let’s see, ’43 perhaps and but, that’s right, I was at Madley and a week before we were getting married I was told that I was going on a course and it was they called a junior commander’s course and this was up in Inverness and I thought if any course I was going to go on I thought it was going to be an operational course but to spend, to, prior to my wedding arrangements for the sake of a stupid administrative course was, there was no way I could talk them out of it. Consequently our honeymoon arrangements went by the board and so we got married on the Saturday, yes and that Saturday night we spent in a hotel off The Strand. I think it was the Surrey Hotel if I remember rightly and most of the night was spent in the basement because of the air raid [laughs]. So that was my honeymoon night and the following day I, we had to get, I had to get on a train all the way to Inverness which in those days was it was impossible to find a seat on the train so we just had to squat on our kit in the corridor. So all in all that was a bit of a disaster. So having done that I was then posted in March ‘44 to 83 Operational Training Unit at Peplow. That’s in, in the Midlands. And there I flew the Wellington and I was there for about three months. I forget how many hours we flew but one little incident. The Wellington is infamous for its brake pressure. You had to watch your brake pressure all the time and the dispersal areas there were pans, dispersal pans and the land just dropped away from around the dispersal pan and I suddenly discovered I was out of brake pressure and I had to lurch over the side and down the slope, which I got a red endorsement which was eventually cancelled but that was an unfortunate incident. It learned me a lesson. Taught me a lesson. So Peplow [unclear] Park. Air crew. Yes. So having completed training on a Wellington I then went on to the Heavy Conversion Unit at Sandtoft which was in the Hull area. That sort of area. And I suppose we did about thirty or forty hours on the, on the Halifax and then on to the Lancaster Finishing School at Hemswell and that was October ‘44. I was there only for just over two weeks and I had my first training, first appointment to a squadron which was 625 squadron at Kelstern and I was there for nearly two months when 170 squadron was reformed. It was previously a reconnaissance squadron beginning of the war and was disbanded and was reformed at, at Kelstern and I was, we were first of all at a little place called Dunholme Lodge. It was very much a wartime station and it was right alongside, on the, from Scampton on the opposite side of the Ermine Street, the main road to the north and I suppose it was only, I don’t know, might be four miles separating us from Scampton and consequently we had to have a common circuit around both airfields and this all got a bit fraught and I think they decided it was bit too dangerous and we were, I was posted then back to Hemswell and I, well finished my training, finished my tour on 170 squadron on the 15th of April ‘45. If we could just stop there. Yes. Just -
[machine paused]
CB: We’re talking about Lancaster and Halifax so -
JCAH: Yes.
CB: How, what, what were the differences between those then Jack?
JCAH: Well I mean -
CB: And which did you like?
JCAH: The Halifax was quite a heavy aircraft to fly and quite difficult to land successfully. It was quite hard work but the Lancaster was quite different. It was so easily controlled. The controls were more positive but not, not heavy and the manoeuvrability was so much better than the Halifax and the, I suppose as far as the air crew positons it was the same, similar. It simply, you had a Perspex canopy over you as pilot and of course no heating. You just relied on winter clothing to keep warm. So, no, the experience of training, going on to Lancasters was quite remarkable really. The sheer manoeuvrability and particularly when it come to using corkscrews to avoid fighters. Giving maximum deflection all the time. But no so as far as -
CB: What about rate of climb? Was there a difference in that?
JCAH: Yes. I think probably it was better. I think, I think with the four Merlins I can’t remember what the Halifax had in the way of engines.
CB: Well the early ones had Merlins and then they went to -
JCAH: Yeah.
CB: The Bristol Mercuries. .
JCAH: Yes. Hercules.
CB: The Hercules. Yes.
JCAH: Yeah. No. I think it had a climbing and of course I suppose the maximum ceiling was around about twenty thousand feet. We were normally operating, I suppose, about eighteen, eighteen thousand feet. That sort of height. So going back, going, talking about actual incidents during my ops I suppose I’ll just of give a summary of -
CB: What was your first raid?
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: What was your first raid?
JCAH: Yes. It was with another crew to introduce me to what was, what happened during a bombing raid and this was an operation on Le Havre in daylight. Yes. So 625 squadron I had, I did twelve sorties with 625 before going on to 170 squadron and I did nineteen sorties with 170 squadron. Making a total of thirty one sorties all together and total flying time during my operations was a hundred and eighty one hours. By that time I had just reached a thousand hours altogether when I finished my tour. But I suppose one particular incident comes to mind when we were over Dusseldorf and we were coned by searchlights and of course you’re a sitting duck then to all the ackack anti-aircraft fire in the area and I simply stuck the nose down and called to the engineer for full power and I shall never forgive him saying, ‘What?’ when I was wanting immediate power [laughs] and you see he was questioning what I was saying. I said, ‘Full power,’ and so we just stuck the nose and just got out of the area as quick as possible. But on return we’d no, had no injuries in the crew but the aircraft was pretty well peppered and on landing I realised that my starboard tyre had burst and that was obviously lurching down. I kept it as straight as I could for as long as I could and then I just veered off on to the grass to clear the runway for the other aircraft coming in but looking at it the next morning was, it was out of commission. That, my aircraft was TCD. Our squadron letter was TC and I, I was D-Dog. I don’t think we had a P. TCP [laughs] Anyway, I suppose in about three or four days it was back in working order and I successfully finished my tour. So -
CB: Just -
JCAH: Yes.
CB: Go back on a couple of things.
JCAH: Yes. Ok.
CB: The crews. So you crewed up.
JCAH: Oh yes.
CB: At OTU. How did that work?
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: You crewed up at OTU.
JCAH: That’s right.
CB: How did that work?
JCAH: They were just, well we had, no we didn’t have an engineer I don’t think.
CB: No.
JCAH: No. No. Just pilot, navigator, signaller and I think we had one gunner. That’s right. But then going on to the heavy aircraft we were, we were seven. Pilot, flight engineer, navigator, radio operator, bomb aimer and two gunners. Mid-up and two guns. Seven. No. It’s amazing how crew selection, we were just left to mix with each other and somehow we gelled and and I I was very successful, very lucky with my crew I think. My navigator in particular. He was, he was excellent. There was one occasion when we had no aids at all from the target, I forget which target it was and we were completely on dead reckoning radar based on past information on winds and so on but he got us home safely and we managed to recognise landfall on the English coast and got in safely but no, I was, and I was glad that I was eventually awarded the DFC and he was awarded the DFC as well. That pleased me no end because he was a great cont, made a good contribution to the operation of the crew. So you just -
CB: So you got, got a crew. Sorry.
JCAH: Sorry? Yes?
CB: Yes, just, you got a crew at OTU. Normally there was six on the Wellington.
JCAH: We didn’t have a -
CB: Yeah. But some flew with four.
JCAH: Yeah.
CB: Was there a shortage of gunners and bomb aimers?
JCAH: I’m just trying to think whether we had two gunners at that stage. That I can’t quite remember. We certainly didn’t have a second pilot but then again -
CB: They were probably -
JCAH: I suppose, did we? I think we must have had a bomb aimer because we had to practice bombing.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: Yes. We must have had a bomb aimer so that was at, on the Wellington.
CB: So when you were at, when the crew selection took place who was, were they gelling on you or how -
JCAH: It’s difficult -
CB: Or had some of them already got together? What happened?
JCAH: We got chatting to one another. I mean they had no means of knowing what my performance as a pilot was like and it was all a question of trust. But as I say it worked out very well. Yeah.
CB: So when you got to the HCU you then got the, a flight engineer.
JCAH: Yes. Flight engineer.
CB: And was he allocated to you or how did that happen?
JCAH: No. I think much the same thing happened. Of course we had a crew then to decide amongst us who we liked really, or who appealed to us.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: So that made it easier so, so -
CB: How many of the crew were commissioned other than you?
JCAH: My navigator was commissioned and strangely enough my mid-upper gunner which was unusual for a gunner, to have a commissioned gunner. And the rest of them were non-commissioned.
CB: And how did the crew get on in the, in flight and -
JCAH: Yes. I think -
CB: In the evening.
JCAH: You had to avoid being too familiar on the operations and you had to be strict on your intercom identifying each other as a pilot and not by name, that sort of thing so there was no misunderstanding. But yes my, yes my radio operator, he was Australian. A young Australian but he gelled very well. In fact we had a Bridge crew on board, the radio operator, the navigator my, the mid-upper, all four of us played bridge and we always had a pack of cards with us when we were sitting around waiting for something to happen which was good fun. So -
CB: Socially? So in the time off did the crew do things together or did there -
JCAH: Oh yes.
CB: Tend to be factions?
JCAH: No. Not at all. Of course we were in separate messes obviously but we were, certainly at Dunholme Lodge, we were billeted as a crew in old nissen huts with a coke boiler in the middle and the fumes that used to come off that boiler were quite, well sulphurous put it that way and not very, but anyway, we survived that but of course our messes, we used separate messes but we used to, in the evenings we used to obviously go out to the pub together and relax.
CB: So you were married. Were any of the others married?
JCAH: My engineer I think was married. My navigator wasn’t then I don’t think. No. No. I think my engineer and I were was the only ones who were married.
CB: Where was your wife during the war?
JCAH: She was in Aylesbury and -
CB: With her parents.
JCAH: Yes. On the farm at Weston Turville. Of course you had to be careful in those days just what you said on the telephone. You couldn’t really say anything about your operational activities at all but no we kept in touch and obviously an anxious time for her. But -
CB: How did you manage to get time together?
JCAH: During the tour I think we only had one occasion when we were, had a period of two or three days leave when we could get together. But I do remember when we were on OTU my wife managed to come and join us. She stayed at a local hotel and she managed to meet my basic crew at that time but that was the only time really we got together. Yeah.
CB: You didn’t manage to get loan of a small plane to fly in to Halton.
JCAH: [laughs]. No. No.
CB: Or Westcott.
JCAH: Yes because my father in law’s farm actually bordered on to the airfield at Halton at Weston Turville and just before the war an auto Gyro crashed.
CB: Right.
JCAH: On the airfield and in their hall they had the joystick from the remains of the auto Gyro I remember. Anyway that’s all a bit irrelevant.
CB: So you finished your tour.
JCAH: Yes.
CB: So that was when?
JCAH: It was February 1944.
CB: Yes. ‘45. ’44.
JCAH: ’45.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: I beg your pardon ‘45 and then there was an extraordinary posting was on to 1687 bomber defence training flights flying Spitfires and Hurricanes if you please. Coming off Lancasters this was quite, quite a different experience but we used to do, practice fighter affiliation.
CB: Yes.
JCAH: On the squadron bombers.
CB: Where was that?
JCAH: That was back at Hemswell strangely enough. Actually yes actually they were at Scampton when I first joined them and then they went back to Hemswell and as I say we used to fly Spitfires during the day and the Hurricanes at night.
CB: Oh did you? What were they like?
JCAH: Well they were, I mean they didn’t compare with the Spitfires. The handling and manoeuvrability. It was a steady, steady old aircraft but the Spitfire was great fun to fly. So manoeuvrable. Mind you there were times when I really didn’t know what I was up to. In fact it was in 19, where are we? ’47. We had the first open day after the war. Hemswell open day and part of the programme was the three of us were doing a tail chase and supposedly bombing a target in the middle of the airfield and the cloud base was only around about a thousand feet and we, all three of us winged over and I suddenly realised I really hadn’t got enough height to pull out of this dive and this hangar was coming out on my right and I was literally [stalling all around this dive?] and I honestly thought that this was it. Anyway, when I taxied in after this flight I had about twenty yards of telegraph wire on my tail wheel which shows you how close I was to the ground.
CB: It thrilled the audience.
JCAH: Oh yes. You know. Highly delighted.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: But I never heard the result of the loss of telephone communications in the area [laughs].
CB: Yes.
JCAH: I never did hear.
CB: What was the significance of having the fighter, the Spitfire for day affiliation and the Hurricane for night?
JCAH: Well really the Spitfire with the narrow undercarriage it was quite tricky to land particularly in a crosswind. It was very, you were sort of teetering all the time whereas the Hurricane the undercarriage went outwards, that’s right and so you had a wider wheel base and they were more stable in the landing process. Apart from that, I think that was the main reason why we used to fly Hurricanes at night. But there were times. The Lancaster used to have little blue lights on the tail side of the wing tips and there were times when I thought I was chasing these two blue lights only to find I was chasing a star. Got into all sort of peculiar situations. So I wasn’t a great night fighter pilot. [laughs]
CB: How long were you there?
JCAH: Let me see. Hurricanes. ’45. Well, I have it in here. Yes. [pause] Yes I was there about eighteen months. Yeah. Yes.
CB: End of ’46.
JCAH: Yes. October ‘46 I finished my tour there.
CB: Then what?
JCAH: Well it disbanded. The unit disbanded and I I was put on to headquarters duties I think. I was, when the chaps were demobbed they had what they called a release book which gave a little history and I had to make a little summary of the person’s history but really not knowing much about them at all but I used to make up some complimentary remarks but that was the main thing I was doing there.
CB: Where was that?
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: Where?
JCAH: Still at Hemswell.
CB: Right.
JCAH: As I say Hemswell took up a very big part in my RAF career at that time because then Lincolns were brought into Hemswell and I joined 83 squadron on Lincolns. The intention was they were being trained for operations in the Far East against Japan.
CB: Right.
JCAH: And of course that didn’t come off and so I finished on 83 squadron in March 1949 and it was then that I was posted to Defford. What they called the Telecommunications Flying Unit doing, flying the equipment from the Radar Research Establishment, airborne experience and that really was quite a remarkable unit because they were using aircraft which weren’t required for their original duties. Consequently while I was on the heavy flight, what did I here? So I was flying Lincolns, Yorks, a Tudor 7 and a Wayfarer. This was on the, we had a heavy flight and a light flight, you know, flight and when we had a slack period in heavy flight I used to go across to fly some of the lighter aircraft which included Meteor, Meteor 7, Mosquito, Vampire, Firefly, Canberra, Brigand and we had had some communication aircraft. Valetta and the, the Devon, the service version of the De Havilland Dove which we used for communication flying but I mean on one month I had nine different aircraft on my logbook.
CB: Amazing.
JCAH: But that -
CB: So you enjoyed that.
JCAH: Pardon?
CB: You enjoyed that.
JCAH: Well, it was, it was good fun and it was amazing you used to go across to the light flight and you’d get the handbook out and just chat with the chaps because I mean, well a Mosquito did have two pilots but I mean, the others, the Meteor and the Canberra and the Vampire had all single seat and you couldn’t get any dual training and you just had a chat with the chaps who were flying and read the pilots notes and off you went.
CB: So was the Meteor the first jet that you flew?
JCAH: It was either the Meteor or the Vampire. It looks as though, yes.
CB: And did -
JCAH: Yeah.
CB: And did you go in a training version of that for your first flight in jet?
JCAH: No. I think probably not formal training but went along with one of the other chaps who was flying it regularly. Yes that was quite an experience.
CB: Because the Meteor 7 is a T7 isn’t it?
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: The Meteor 7 is a trainer. T7.
JCAH: Oh right.
CB: And –
JCAH: Yes. And, yes, and the Meteor 4 if I can remember. Yes.
CB: Was a single seater.
JCAH: Yes. So that’s the way we went on.
CB: So when did you finish that?
JCAH: Where are we? Yes in May 1952.
CB: What was your wife’s name?
JCAH: Noreen.
CB: Noreen.
JCAH: Noreen.
CB: How is that spelled? N O R E E N.
JCAH: N. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. And did she come up to stay with you then at that time? Were there quarters?
JCAH: Yes. Now we’re talking about 1947 and it was only then that we were allowed to make arrangements to live out locally. We were with our wives and families, if you had them and I found a little cottage. It was, well it was attached to a bigger, still a cottage but we were just one up and one down and this was in Kirton Lindsey which was just north of Hemswell and it was about, yes, about seven miles. I used to cycle from there to Hemswell but the extraordinary thing with this little cottage was that the downstairs floor was wooden and the bedroom was a concrete floor. It was quite extraordinary and of course we had a little scullery, a little small scullery which we used as a pantry and an old coal range which we used to cook on. So it was all rather primitive but we were so pleased to be living together and, yes it wasn’t ‘til, yes, that was Hemswell. It wasn’t until I got to Defford that we had official married quarters but being a wartime station there were just single bed accommodation and I think where we were used to be the WAAF area when WAAFs were there and as I say they were just single brick quarters but we had, I think we had two bedrooms and a kitchen and bathroom so it was comparative luxury from our original -
CB: But that was an air force -
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: That was an air force building.
JCAH: Yes. Actually at Defford the, it was a Ministry of Supply station and it was just the aircrew who were the service, RAF element. So the interesting thing was as my, as I say my grandson is in a practice in Malvern.
CB: Malvern.
JCAH: Malvern. Yes. And living in Worcester and we, it was about a couple of years ago we paid a visit to them and I said I would like to go back to the Defford area and see what’s left because the flying discontinued there. They went to, moved to Pershore but there was still they had these big aerial discs on the airfield but I discovered they’d got a little museum there because Defford during the war was a very important station developing all the radar stuff and they’ve got a little exhibition there and my grandson introduced me as being, being there just after the war and they were very interested in this and they were talking about this road, Swimming Pool Road and of course the airfield was built on the Croome Estate, the Earl of Coventry’s estate and the entrance to our mess area was one of the big arches from the estate and the road leading from the arch up to where our mess was was known as Swimming Pool Road and they couldn’t understand this. Anyway, I was able to tell them we had a fire reservoir outside the mess which we took advantage of and used it as a swimming pool and we knew it as well that’s how it got its name but I was able to tell them the origin of the name which is quite interesting. So we’ve diverted a bit.
CB: We have. But after Defford, so May ‘52 where did you go from that?
JCAH: Yes. I went, for my sins I was posted to Germany as a station adjutant at RAF Celle. This was in August ‘52 and it was a big station. We had three flying squadrons with Venoms. They had Vampires and then Venoms and three RAF regiment squadrons and various other [unclear] so it was a big station and a lot of activity of course. Not being au fait with administration it was very daunting to say the least and not only that, one of the subsidiary jobs was married, married quarters, I was responsible for married quarters and the problem of allocating quarters to people who were desperate, you know, to come back from England and get quarters and that caused all sorts of problems but fortunately I hadn’t been there long when they posted a WAAF officer who took over that. That part. But what else? Oh yes I was responsible for the station police and there were some police dogs there and that was all part of my responsibility. So really it was two and a half years but I made some very good friends there at the time. Particularly amongst the RAF regiment squadrons and two particular families I stayed with them until they died. All four of them died now. But as I say, we had, it’s surprising when you’re away from home, posted away from home you make your entertainment in the mess and we had a lot of fun with fancy dress balls and all that sort of thing and there were compensations.
CB: Now this was a former Luftwaffe station.
JCAH: Yes.
CB: So the facilities were pre-war Luftwaffe.
JCAH: Yes. The accommodation -
CB: What was that like?
JCAH: Was very good. Yes. The mess. The mess accommodation was excellent and we had, you know, properly built married quarters. Yeah. That side of it was, was excellent you know. And of course I, I’ve got a, I haven’t mentioned my, the birth of my granddaughter, sorry, my daughter Anthea. Yes we were at -
CB: When was that?
JCAH: Yes, we were at Defford when she arrived. She was originally supposed to be born at a nursing home at Upton on Severn but she was an awful mess. She was upside down and extended and they decided they couldn’t cope with her at the nursing home and I had to take her into Birmingham. This was mid-winter and we’d had a lot of snow and it had thawed and then frozen and I had as my first car was an old standard 10, pre-war standard 10 where the suspension was almost nil. My poor wife driving over this corrugated ice all the way to Birmingham was quite extraordinary. Anyway, she arrived safely on the 5th of June, sorry the 5th of January 1951 and of course I had to wait, when I went out to Germany I had to wait probably three or four months before married accommodation was available but anyway she was, I suppose she was about two. Yeah, ‘53 and we, in those days in Germany you were, you were provided with a housekeeper so, and Renata, our housekeeper she also acted as a nurse to Anthea and they got on, she loved my daughter and it meant that we could go away and leave her with her and go on trips down the Rhine and this sort of thing. So -
CB: So when did you leave Celle?
JCAH: Celle? Yes. It was, my records run out. It was in about March ‘55. Yes I had just about two and a half years out in Germany and I was then posted to Transport Command and –
CB: Where was that?
JCAH: I did a conversion training on Hastings at Dishforth and then I joined 24 squadron at Abingdon on Hastings. I suppose at the end of ‘55. Yeah. The conversion training was only about forty or fifty hours and that was the beginning of another interesting period in my flying career because as I say I was on 24 and we used to say in brackets C Commonwealth squadron because it, they posted quite a few Commonwealth people on 24 squadron and our squadron leader, he was a squadron commander was an Australian and there were various other people from the Commonwealth but most of my experience on Hastings was flying out to Australia to send, fly supplies and personnel to the Woomera guided weapons range and also to the, oh dear, [unclear] they, they were just preparing for the atom bomb going up there.
CB: Christmas Island.
JCAH: Well no. That was the H bomb. This was the first atom bomb. Actually I think they had blown up one. Well this was a big preparation and of course we spent a lot of time, flights, we used to bring supplies and personnel to, we used to fly out of Edinburgh Field, the RAF base near Adelaide and it so happened I did have some relations living in Adelaide so it was quite convenient to be able to look them up but I, we were actually there. Maralinga, that’s right, was the, where the bomb went off and I was actually there when they exploded the atom bomb. That was quite an experience and everybody, every individual had to be accounted for before they set off the bomb and we were told obviously to face away and we were told when we could turn back and see and well it was pretty hefty sound when the bomb went off but the interesting thing was all the, they sent up rockets which left tracers going in different directions to indicate the direction of what was happening to the air following the bomb and the next day, I think it was the next day or might have been the day I was, I had to fly some samples from Maralinga up to Edinburgh. What am I saying? To Darwin. A civil flight to take them back to the UK and I was told how low I could fly. I could fly over the area but it was just like the face of the moon. All arid and, but to see these white clad figures walking across there was quite remarkable and of course the radio just went berserk to some extent and I had a strange feeling of saliva drying up in my mouth. It was quite definite and whether it was the effect of the radio activity, I suppose it must have been. Anyway, that was that and then of course then the H bomb came along and we were supplying, flying supplies out to that out to Christmas Island. Yes. That, let me think. Yes I’ve got to try and recap.
CB: We’ll have a break.
JCAH: Yeah.
[machine paused]
JCAH: Early ‘57 when we were flying out to Christmas Island.
CB: Right.
JCAH: To prepare for the –
CB: You were still on Hastings then.
JCAH: Yeah.
CB: Yes.
JCAH: But we used to, while we were on Christmas Island we used to take flights up to Honolulu to fly supplies for the station there. It was mostly boxes of whisky [laughs] but all sorts of things we used to go up to Honolulu to keep the Christmas Island supplied which was quite a nice diversion. So, yes, by then, we started off, 24 squadron started off at Colerne and then they moved, sorry at Abingdon and then we moved to Colerne near Bath and eventually we finished up at Lyneham and by, and then of course the Britannia came along so I joined 99 squadron at Lyneham in August 1959 and started training on the Britannia. So that was 1959. Lots of interesting flights. I know we took the Cranwell cadets out to, I’ll have to see if I can find it, the equivalent, the American air force equivalent of Victors. I wish I could find it now. Anyway, that was quite interesting and we were well looked after by the American air force in, it’s on the east side of the mountains in America. And my mind is beginning to go blank.
CB: Ok.
JCAH: So well that’s all sorts of interesting flights on the Britannia.
CB: So how long were you flying the Britannia?
JCAH: Yes. Let’s have a look. [pause]. 1960 [pause] ‘61. Yes, I finished flying the Britannia in February 1962 and they wanted to make way for the young second pilots coming on to become captains so they decided the older ones would stand down and I then went to Benson on the, at the, in the operations room at Benson which would be ‘62. I’m running out of – and I was there ‘62 to ’64 and I was told I was going to Aden on a year’s unaccompanied tour and, well, I was expecting to retire within the next year or eighteen months and I said, ‘No but I’m retiring shortly.’ And I obviously wanted to do a bit of preparation before leaving the service but no they wouldn’t be moved so I had to spend a year on my own in Aden and that was at the time just before we pulled out and it was getting pretty uncomfortable out there. The bombs being dropped all over the place. In fact we had one occasion where we were in, I was at headquarters Middle East at Steamer Point and on one occasion where a bomb went off in the mess and the chap who was laying it made a mess of it and blew himself up and fortunately nobody else. It was intended to go off later on in the day. And another occasion we were entertaining, it was dining in night and this, I was sitting with some nurses, RAF nurses and this grenade landed on this, this girl’s soup plate and it didn’t go off. Oh dear. And so, but that’s the sort of life we lived out there. It was pretty uncomfortable that year. I did manage to get home, I think for a week, at one period. So that was ‘65 and then my final tour in the RAF I was at Odiham in the ops room there which was then headquarters of 38 Group which was a part of Transport Command. And I always remember watching England win the World Cup on television there while I was there and then I finally retired in 1967.
CB: From Odiham.
JCAH: From Odiham. Yes.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: And, yes, I was just wondering, I mean, I was looking around for some civil appointment and I got to hear about the CAA wanting ex RAF people as operations officers and I managed to pass an interview for that. So, well, that was ‘67 and I started off with the accident and investigation branch, in the Adelphi I remember, in London and then I was, I used to go to court cases where there were people being summoned for low flying and all this sort of thing and I used to be the operational advisor to the legal people but that was only for a short time and then I went in to the licensing department. Of course it was, let me think, yes it was air ministry I think still when I was there. Then it became the Department of Trade and Industry, no, no, became Board of Trade and then finally Department of Trade and Industry. This was the time when Heath was trying to cut down on civil service and he decided that he wanted to offload the air ministry side to another separate authority and that’s when the CAA was formed. So, yes, I was, yes it was quite interesting [flight?] licencing and I eventually chaired ICAO. You know, the International Civil Aviation Organisation was in Montreal and I was put on to a group in, at Montreal to update the licensing aspects of what they called Annexe One of the international convention and this was the, what did they call it? Anyway the licencing aircrew, licensing requirements for the various licenses. There was the commercial pilot’s licence, the air and transport licence and eventually I did chair this committee and we finally produced amendments which I never saw implemented but I gather later that they were, I heard that they were implemented. What was the other thing?
CB: So when did you retire from the, from that?
JCAH: 1984.
CB: 1984.
JCAH: ’84.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: Yes. Yes, it was. I used to get quite a few chaps from the service that I knew who were coming along and I had one chap in particular he, there was the Air Registration Board Examination to qualify to fly a particular aircraft and they had this qualifying exam and he was trying to give me past papers but they just didn’t publish them and he was one of these chaps, you know, he was trying to be clever to try the easy way out. Anyway, that was a minor incident. So I retired on my, virtually on my birthday April ‘84 and I’d been retired about four weeks and my wife died.
CB: Ah.
JCAH: Yes and obviously we’d made all sorts of plans.
CB: Oh dear.
JCAH: And of course I haven’t mentioned how I came to Wokingham. How, to live in Wokingham. It was when I’d finished my tour in Germany we decided we would put our, try and to put some roots down somewhere because my daughter was coming up for schooling and I was going in to Transport Command and be away a lot. Anyway, we went up to the Ideal Home Exhibition and saw these houses and liked the look of them and were told they were being built in Wokingham. I’d never heard of Wokingham. Anyway, we came down and had a look where they were building and the town and we liked it and so that was in 1955. December ‘55 we actually moved in. Where are we? Yes, that’s right, come back, 1955 we actually moved in and I’ve been here ever since in Wokingham but, so having, my wife having died we were living in rented accommodation at the time because we were intending to move to -
BH: I thought you’d look at me. No. I can’t remember.
JCAH: It’s silly. I know the place so well. The name is not, just not coming. I’ll think of it.
CB: Right. Around here was it?
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: Was it around here?
JCAH: No. Up in the Midlands.
CB: Ok.
JCAH: Near Leicester.
CB: Ah.
JCAH: I know the place.
CB: But not in Rutland.
JCAH: Yes. In Rutland and the capital of Rutland was.
CB: Oakham.
JCAH: Oakham. Thank you very much and we’d actually put a deposit down for a house in Oakham. I wasn’t all that keen on it but my wife had become disenchanted with Wokingham and we’d had friends at Cottesmore who we used to visit regularly and of course Rutland Water had been developed then. It was all very nice in that area but in, of course my wife then died while we were still negotiating. The people we were buying from hadn’t got a house and they were trying to find a house. It suited me because I hadn’t actually retired when we, but anyway my wife having died I wasn’t going to move up there on my own and I sold the house and during that period when the prices were really escalating and it did me a good turn financially by this period while we were waiting. Anyway, I was, so I was then looking around for somewhere to live and I came down here and I didn’t know this existed and I thought well this is a nice place. It would be nice here. And I walked down the bottom of the road here and a retired clergyman who used to help us at All Saints Church, he saw me and I told him, you know, I was looking for a house and how nice it was. He invited me in. I walked back up to Wokingham and I met a lady who was my next door but one neighbour in my first house in [Frogall?] Road and she asked me how I was getting on. I said I was getting on alright but I was just looking for a house and I’d just been down to Milton Gardens and how nice it was. She said, Well I’ve just had lunch with a lady and she told me, and who lived in Milton Gardens and told me she was putting her house on the market the following Monday so I immediately got in touch with her and we settled it without agents or anything and that’s how I came to number eleven over there. So that was, where are we in dates?
BH: It was about ‘90 wasn’t it?
JCAH: Yes.
CB: Well, you retired in ‘84.
BH: I was still working –
JCAH: Well -
BH: I was still working when you -
JCAH: Yes, it was the end of ‘84 that I actually moved in.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: So I knew Barbara before through the church and she used to play tennis with my wife so we knew each other but I know we were neighbours for seven years and I used to be in the kitchen over there getting ready to go out and play golf and I used to see Barbara going, and poor girl going out to work and here I am going off to play golf. Anyway, it was, it took seven years before we, well we did one or two things together didn’t we? And went to concerts together and one thing and, well I used to have Christmas parties, I was chairman of the Residents Association and I used to have a Christmas party and Barbara always used to come over and help me clear up afterwards. It gave me a good impression anyway. So in the end -
CB: Got all the ticks.
BH: You waited until I retired -
JCAH: That’s right.
BH: Before he proposed.
JCAH: And I said, ‘This is stupid, why don’t we get together?’ And I came over here.
CB: Very good. Smashing.
JCAH: So there we are.
CB: That’s been great.
JCAH: The end of a fairy tale.
CB: Well the whole thing -
JCAH: The fairy tale ending.
CB: Worked very well didn’t it?
JCAH: Yeah.
CB: Thank you very much for that. There’s just one thing and that is fast backwards to your promotions. So you started as an SAC because you were well educated.
JCAH: Yes and I was commissioned.
CB: And then how did it go from there?
JCAH: I was commission at the end of my training when I got my wings.
CB: Yes.
JCAH: I was at Monkton. I, I, yes. I was because I remember going and buying my uniform.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: In Monkton. In the town. And then of course while I was at Defford the first station commander there I didn’t get along at all. I had a dispute about the married quarters and somebody else wanting the same one. Anyway, I wasn’t very popular there and he didn’t recommend me for a PC. And then the next chap came along and I got on very well with him and he recommended me for my permanent commission and I’d taken promotion exam and I’d taken the Staff College Qualifying Exam and did all I could and, well this would be 1951 and they decided that they’d put an age limit of thirty on appointments to permanent commission and I’d just gone over, over the thirty so that was the end of that but I was quite keen to stay on in the air force and I settled for this limited promotion one. Commission.
CB: So you were already a flight lieutenant.
JCAH: Yes. Oh yes. Yes. I finished up the war as a flight lieutenant.
CB: Yes.
JCAH: And that was confirmed. I was an acting flight lieutenant at the time.
CB: Yeah because you were acting VR.
JCAH: Yes and I was eventually confirmed and I stayed as a, as a old flight lieutenant but as I say I enjoyed my RAF career and a lot of interest.
CB: Well Jack Haley thank you very much indeed.
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Title
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Interview with Jack Hayley
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-02-24
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Julie Williams
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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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01:27:23 audio recording
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eng
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AHayleyCA160224
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Pending review
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Jack Hayley was born in Caterham and worked for an insurance company before he joined the Royal Air Force and trained to be a pilot. He trained to fly in Canada and after going through an Operational Training Unit in England, he was posted to 625 Squadron at RAF Kelstern. And after completing twelve operations he joined 170 Squadron where he completed a further nineteen operations. While waiting for operations he would play bridge with other members of his crew. After his tour he was posted to 83 Squadron and served with Transport Command in Germany, Australia and Aden. He was present during the testing for the Atom bomb and also flew supplies to Christmas Island in advance of the hydrogen bomb test.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Germany
Great Britain
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
Christmas Island
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Düsseldorf
Yemen (Republic)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1940
1941
1944
1945
170 Squadron
625 Squadron
83 OTU
83 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Dominie
Flying Training School
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
love and romance
Magister
Meteor
military living conditions
Mosquito
Nissen hut
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
Proctor
RAF Clyffe Pypard
RAF Defford
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kelstern
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Madley
RAF Peplow
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Windrush
RCAF Estevan
Spitfire
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/117/46467/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v330002.mp3
4ef11453b1a2f73ed4f05a602afc89ac
Dublin Core
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Title
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Cook, Kenneth
Kenneth Cook
Kenneth H Cook
Ken Cook
K H Cook
K Cook
Description
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Two oral history interviews with Wing Commander Kenneth Howell Cook DFC (b. 1923, 151017 Royal Air Force). Kenneth Cook flew 45 operations with 97 Squadron, Pathfinders.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-08-04
2016-07-25
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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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
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Cook, KHH
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Wing Commander Kenneth Cook DFC
1039-Cooke, Kenneth
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v33
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Royal Air Force
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eng
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Sound
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00:15:10 audio recording
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Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
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Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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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.
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This item is being used for TOU9156 teaching. Do not publish transcription until June 2024.
Interviewer: Ok, Ken.
KC: Ok. Hello. This is Wing Commander Ken Cook DFC. I joined the Royal Air Force in October 1941, U/T air crew and after training in Canada I came, returned back to the UK, commissioned as a young pilot officer air bomber and went through various conversion training courses in the UK and eventually joined up with a crew. And our first squadron was Number 9 Squadron at Bardney in Lincolnshire flying Lancasters in Number 5 Group of Bomber Command. After about ten ops with 9 Squadron we were as a crew recruited by the Pathfinder Force which was based in Cambridgeshire and so we were as a crew posted to do additional specialised training as at that time new radar equipment was being brought in and introduced to Bomber Command and in my case it was my job to learn the gadgets known as H2S, Gee and Loran. So, my role changed from being a straightforward air bomber to becoming a radar navigator and air bomber and so it was my job particularly to work the H2S which had a capability for uses in airborne navigation device. And of course, also it’s main role with the Pathfinders was, was identifying German targets and it enabled the Pathfinder crews to find the German targets and to mark them with target indicators so that the main force crews of Bomber Command coming in behind us could identify where the target was and very often bombing on our markers. So we had to be very accurate how we dropped them and where we dropped them and I did this, I ended up doing a total of forty five ops, thirty five of those was as a member of a Pathfinder crew. We eventually having started out with the Pathfinders at Bourn in Cambridgeshire my squadron were then deployed in about April of ’44 to Coningsby in Lincolnshire to join with Number 83 Squadron that had been posted up there from Wyton. And our job was to work with the special force under Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire who was devising a system of finding the targets where the Germans where assembling V weapons on the French coast and in Belgium. And our job was to illuminate the target with parachute flares so that he trained a special force of Mosquito dive bombers that could lay the target markers in these tunnels so that our main force crews from 5 Group and other Groups could come over and do area or intensive accurate bombing as well on these targets. And I completed my forty fifth op in 1944 and was posted to RAF Fiskerton in Lincolnshire as the station radar nav officer. My job was to, we had two squadrons there, 49 and 189 and my job was to fly with these crews and check them out on their ability to use their radar equipment because now the main force were getting the same sort of radar gear that the Pathfinders had had for some time. And so it was my job to make sure the air crew when they, before they went on ops could operate their new radar equipment. And I stayed there for a year or two and eventually was posted to Headquarters, Number 1 Group at Bawtry as the Group radar navigation officer. My job was to oversee all the squadrons, all the Lancaster squadrons in 1 Group to ensure that the crews were properly trained in operating their radar equipment. Can I stop there? Right. Let’s carry on then.
[pause]
On some of the incidents that come to mind one in particular because the Lancaster bomber we all wear warm clothing because the, in the middle of winter the temperatures in the aircraft could become extremely low and in fact if you had to use the elsan at the back of the aircraft it would be extremely low and freezing. And on one occasion I was forced to go back there and use the elsan and I discovered the temperature was minus fifty three degrees Celsius and of course, in having to use the elsan and lower the clothing etcetera I found that my bottom was sticking to the seat to a little bit when I tried to stand up. But I had to stand up because at that time the skipper was calling me, ‘Come on, Ken. We’re only ten miles from the target.’ So I had to hurry up and get back. But in doing so I experienced a little a bit of pain [laughs] in certain lower regions. The other, some of the other aspects of my career was at having completed forty five ops I was then sent off to do jobs as I mentioned with other stations and other squadrons and taking me to the end of the war I applied for a Short Service Commission and this was granted. And after a couple of years the Air Ministry offered me a peacetime Permanent Commission which I accepted and I was down the rank of flight lieutenant and so I then was asked to move out from Bomber Command and become trained with peacetime navigation courses and I thought well, perhaps I’m going to shoot now into somewhere like Transport Command but none of it. Having completed my peacetime navigation course I was then asked by Air Ministry to go through the night fighter OCU at Leeming where I was then trained again to become a navigator radar operator with the AI equipment on night fighters. And so after the appropriate course at Leeming I was then posted to 23 Squadron at Coltishall on Mosquito Mark 36s and I flew with them for about two and a half years until one day I was told that I was to go back to Leeming as a squadron leader to set up the ground school for the introduction of the first jet night fighters. The Meteor NF11 was coming in and I was to head up the ground school with the expansion of the RAFs night fighter force both in the UK and Germany and also the odd squadron in Malta and Cyprus. And so I did that job for about two years and eventually was posted to RAF Newton which was then the headquarters of 12 Fighter Group as the Group navigation officer. And I did the staff duties there but also managed to keep on flying with some of the squadrons in 12 Group, night fighter squadrons until eventually one day the AOC asked me would I like to go back on a squadron as a flight commander. And so the AOC of 12 Group had me posted back to West Malling where I became a flight commander on number 85 Squadron as a navigator which was an unusual post which I enjoyed. And I did that for just over a year and one day the AOC of 11 Group sent for me and said, ‘Cook, do you think you could command a night fighter squadron?’ I said, 'Yes sir.’ He said, ‘Well, you’ve got one tomorrow. ‘You’re going to become a wing commander.’ And so I did that and I became the CO of one of the other squadrons at West Malling called 153 and I was made an acting wing commander and only had that job for about a couple of months when they decided to close the airfield because our flights were getting involved with civil aircraft flying in from the continent, particularly at night. And so they closed the airfield at West Malling and I, and I took 153 Squadron up to Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire and stayed with them for a while and eventually we changed our number to become 25 Squadron. And I completed my two years with the 25 squadron, 153/25 squadron and then one day I was told, ‘You’re going to the staff college.’ And I thought oh I’m going to learn to read and write again. But I did a one year course at the Staff College at Bracknell and after that the Air Ministry in their wisdom said, ‘You’ve done enough flying you’ve got to do an admin job.’ So they posted me and my wife to Aden as a wing commander in the organization branch which was concerned with improving the airfields throughout the Aden Protectorate and then up in the Gulf. So I did that for about two years and then I came back. I’m not quite sure what to do after that but I eventually did a job as the staff officer to the Home Commander, Home Defence Forces which was an organisation which has now been set up to deal with what would happen if there was a nuclear attack on Britain and what would the Air Force be doing to help out. And one of my jobs was to get involved with working out plans on that. And things have gradually moved along until eventually I decided to take early retirement and I left the RAF after twenty six years service in 1947.
Interviewer: And to go back to your, your Bomber Command days it’s always very interesting how the crews got together I think. Now, were you, how did you? I know you go into a sort of a hangar sort of thing and you mill around. There’s no organisation. Were you expecting that or, and did you know somebody? How did your crew come together?
KC: Well, when you got in the early stages of training you started to think about crewing up when you were flying on Wellingtons. You went, in my case I went to Cottesmore which was number 14 OTU and there you meet up with pilots, the wireless operator, straight navigator, air gunners. They were all brought in there and you’d chat with them and eventually you agreed to form a crew. And that’s what we did.
Interviewer: And it proved satisfactory.
KC: Yeah.
Interviewer: Didn’t it?
KC: For instance my skipper was an Australian.
Interviewer: Ah.
KC: Yeah. I was a West Country Gloucestershire man. The other navigator was a Yorkshire man. The mid-upper gunner was a Canadian. The wireless operator was a Londoner and the tail gunner was a Scotsman. That was my crew.
Interviewer: League of Nations.
KC: Yeah.
Interviewer: And you obviously all got on and you all gelled.
KC: We gelled. Yes. Yes. We stayed together for forty five trips. Yeah.
Interviewer: And you’ve mentioned Leonard Cheshire. Did you have much to do with him?
KC: Well, now Leonard Cheshire was based at Woodhall Spa but once we started and once my squadron had come up from 8 Group and we were now at Coningsby with alongside 83, the Pathfinder Squadron when we had briefings on a pre-briefing on a raid Cheshire would come in to see, hear to the breifing. But he particularly once we’d done the raid he would come back because often he would go on the raid himself. He would come back and listen to the debriefing and if things were not coming out clear from the debriefing of the crews he would cut in to explain what was going on where he was concerned in the air. To sort out any, so the intelligence people doing the debriefing could get a more accurate story of what was happening over the other side.
Interviewer: Did you form any opinions of him as a —
KC: Oh, he was the top boy really. Yes. He was, he had tremendous respect from all the all the, all the aircrew like myself.
Interviewer: Yes, so —
KC: What he was and what he did and of course he did a hundred ops, didn’t he?
Interviewer: He did.
KC: Yeah. Can I stop now?
Interviewer: Yeah [laughs] That was Wing Commander Kenneth Cook DFC, retired RAF Bomber Command talking at Thorpe Camp on the 24th Of September about his wartime experiences. Thank you, Wing Commander.
Ken Cook joined the RAF in 1941 and trained as a bomb aimer. He was posted to 9 Squadron at RAF Bardney. After approximately ten ops the crew were posted to the Pathfinder Force at RAF Bourn where he became radar navigator and air bomber. They were then posted to RAF Coningsby with 83 Squadron with the role of seeking V weapon launch sites. After forty five operations he was posted to RAF Fiskerton as station radar navigation officer. He then joined the HQ at RAF Bawtry as Group radar navigation officer. The 23 Squadron at Coltishall on Mosquitoes before being asked to form a ground school at RAF Leeming.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1944
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
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Julie Williams
23 Squadron
83 Squadron
9 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
Pathfinders
radar
RAF Bardney
RAF Bawtry
RAF Bourn
RAF Coningsby
RAF Fiskerton
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/2148/WoolgarR [Pesaro].jpg
6696b37cde158c2d6a039b276028b19f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/2148/AWoolgarRLA160614.2.mp3
b9431c15a89852018320c9d130b2f688
Dublin Core
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Title
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Woolgar, Reg
Reg Woolgar
R L A Woolgar
Jimmy Woolgar
Subject
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World War (1939-1945)
Bombing, Aerial
Description
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<a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/browse?collection=87">17 items</a>. The collection consists of an oral history <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/2148">interview</a> with air gunner Reginald Woolgar DFC (139398 Royal Air Force), correspondence to his father about him being missing in action and subsequently rescued from the sea, his <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/2205">log book</a>, <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/854">service and release book</a> and nine photographs.<br /><br /> He flew operations as an air gunner with 49 and 192 Squadrons.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Woolgar and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. <br /><br />This collection also contains items concerning John William Wilkinson. Additional information on John William Wilkinson is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/125319/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Identifier
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Woolgar, R
Date
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2016-06-04
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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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Reg ‘Jimmy’ Woolgar was born and schooled in Hove. He began working life as a valuations assistant and was training to be a surveyor, which was interrupted when, in December 1939, he joined the RAF. Although he had aspirations to become a pilot, he trained as a wireless operator/air gunner instead. His wireless operator training was carried out at the wireless training school, RAF Yatesbury. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/849/PWoolgarRLA1609.2.jpg His air gunnery training on Fairy Battle aircraft was conducted at RAF West Freugh. On 15 November 1940 he was promoted to sergeant and posted to No 10 OTU at RAF Upper Heyford. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/845/PWoolgarRLA1601.2.jpg Initially flying Anson aircraft and then Hampdens with C Flight, he had his first ‘Lucky Jim’ moment, on 6 February 1941, when his Hampden aircraft was forced to crash land in a field near Cottesmore, in Lincolnshire. The aircraft was written off, but he and the pilot survived with minor injuries. At the end of operational training, instead of going directly onto operasations, he spent the next 5 months as a screen operator instructor. Eventually, on 1 September 1941, he was posted to 49 Squadron, Hampdens, at RAF Scampton https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/852 where his very first operational trip (described as a baptism of fire) was to Berlin. With headwinds going out and coming back, and nil visibility, it was likely the crew would have to bail out. Fortunately, the skipper found a break in the clouds and the aircraft landed wheels down in a field near Louth. The aircraft had to be recovered back to base, transported by road, on a low loader. On another occasion, on a mine laying operation to Oslo Fjord, his aircraft was peppered with anti-aircraft fire, it returned to base with 36 bullet holes in the fuselage and mainplane. A bullet had also passed through the upright of his gun sight while he was looking through it, whilst another tore through his flying suit. The nickname ‘Lucky Jim’ was beginning to stick.
In February 1942, on an operation to Manheim, the port engine, hit by flak, cut dead. Despite jettisoning all superfluous weight, which unfortunately included all the navigation equipment, the aircraft rapidly lost height, and the pilot ditched the aircraft in the English Channel. Whilst the crew had struggled to keep the aircraft airborne, (on a single engine), it had steered on a massive curve and unbeknown to them was headed down the English Channel, before it ditched. The crew scrambled out onto the wing and managed to inflate the dingy, then had to cut the cord attaching the dingy to the aircraft using a pair of nail scissors, moments before it sunk. In the water for hours, the crew thought they were drifting near the Yorkshire coast, but were rescued by a motor anti-submarine boat, much to their surprise, near the Isle of Wight.
Operational flying was intense, Reg would feel wound up before take-off and there was much apprehension on the way out to the target. Often, they flew through intense flak that was sometimes so close they could smell it. There was always a sense of sense of relief once they came away from the target. In between operations, each day was treated as it came along with many off-duty hours spent socialising in the local hostelries https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/853
After his first operational tour (he completed two) he was commissioned and became gunnery leader with 192 Squadron in 100 Group.
After the war ended, he signed on for an extra two years and was posted to Palestine as an air movements staff officer. Luck was again on his side when, one day, he was on his way to an Air Priorities Board Meeting at the King David Hotel when the hotel was bombed, resulting in many army and civilian casualties.
After a short tour in Kenya, as Senior Movements Staff Officer, he returned to Palestine flying with 38 Squadron until August 1947. In his flying career he amassed over 1000 flying hours. For services to his country Reg was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/858
He was released from the RAF in September 1947. Initially employed as an assistant valuations officer, he studied to become a Chartered Surveyor and secured a job as a senior valuer with the City of London. He later became the planning valuer of the city. After 14 years he was made a partner at the firm St Quintin Son and Stanley. Reg retired in 1971.
08 December 1939: Joined RAF as a wireless operator/air gunner
28 August 1940: 145, 3 Wing, RAF Yatesbury - Wireless Operator training
29 October 1940 - 15 November 1940: RAF West Freugh, No 4 Bombing and Gunnery School, flying Battle aircraft
November 1940: Promoted to Sergeant
15 November 1940 - 20 August 1941: RAF Upper Heyford, No 10 Operational Training Unit flying Anson and Hampden aircraft
02 September 1941 - 24 March 1942: RAF Scampton, 49 Squadron, flying Hampden aircraft
28 April 1942 - 24 June 1942: 1485 Target Towing and Gunnery Flight flying Whitley and Wellington aircraft
02 July 1942 – 3 July 1942: RAF Manby, Air Gunnery Instructor Course
4 July – 10 July 1942: RAF Scampton, Air Gunnery Instructor flying Manchester and Oxford aircraft
25 July 1942 – 10 August 1942: RAF Wigsley, Air Gunnery Instructor flying Lancaster aircraft
3 October – 27 October 1942: RAF Sutton Bridge flying Wellington and Hampden aircraft
28 October 1942: RAF Sutton Bridge, Gunnery Leader Course
End of 1942: Awarded RAF Commission
09 Nov 1942 – 18 March 1943: RAF Fulbeck flying Manchester aircraft
14 May 1943 – 11 June 1944: RAF Sutton Bridge flying Wellington aircraft
20 June 1944 – 27 July 1945 RAF Foulsham, 192 Squadron flying Halifax and Wellington aircraft
29 April 1946 – 30 August 1946: Palestine, Air Movements Staff Officer
01 September 1946 – 21 January 1947: Kenya, Senior Movements Staff Officer
30 January1947 – 10 June 1947: Ein Shemer, Palestine, 38 Squadron flying Lancaster aircraft
13 July 1947 139398 Flt Lt RLA Woolgar released from Service.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DE: Start the, start the interview.
RJW: On our seventieth wedding anniversary my grandson stood up and said Papa, Reg, Jimmy because they had all three, all three generations there. Sorry. Sorry.
DE: Ok. So this is an interview with Reg Jimmy Woolgar at the International Bomber Command Centre in Riseholme Lincoln. It’s for the IBCC Digital Archive. My name is Dan Ellin. It is the 14th of June 2016. Reg. Jimmy. Just for the start of this tape could you tell me about your early life and your childhood before you joined the RAF.
RJW: Well before I joined the RAF I left school in Hove and I joined the rates department as the junior clerk and it was really the office boy who made the tea but I became a valuations assistant in the valuation department there before the war and started to train as a surveyor and in 1939 on the 8th of December I went to the Queen’s Road Recruiting Office and I joined the RAF and there I was in a few days on my way to Uxbridge with about five or six other guys all from office appointments. When I joined I, like everybody else who wanted to join the RAF, I wanted to be a pilot. Well I actually went to the Queen’s Road office in September and they wrote to me and said, ‘We have an influx of pilot training but we can take you as air crew.’ I went to see them, asked what that meant. They said, ‘Well you will fly as a member of an air crew.’ I said, ‘Well can I ever become a pilot?’ ‘Oh yes,’ they said, ‘Once you’ve trained as air crew you can become a pilot.’ But of course it never happened because it just seemed to be that whenever I, wherever I went I eventually became an instructor and after being trained as instructor they didn’t really want me to be a pilot or anything else so I concentrated on doing wireless operating/air gunnery. That really is what happened to me before the war. Is there anything else you’d like to know?
DE: Well, yeah. What was, what was training like?
RJW: Pardon?
DE: What was training like?
RJW: Training. Ah. Well now we went to Uxbridge for the ab initio course, the square bashing. Famous words which you’ve used, heard before, you know the sergeant who comes in to the billet and says, ‘Anybody here play the piano?’ ‘Oh yes, I play the piano.’ ‘I play the piano.’ ‘Oh well you two go and move the piano from the officer’s mess to the sergeant’s mess.’ Having got all through all that, off we went. First of all we went to Mildenhall doing absolutely nothing because there was a bottleneck of getting to the wireless training school so we spent about three or four weeks at Mildenhall doing guard duty. Sometimes going in the cookhouse even and then we went to a station called North Coates Fitties on the east coast and we, we mainly did guard duty there. We were, it was a fighter squadron and we were sent out to guard the beacons around, around the runway, all that sort of thing. Waste of time but never mind. That took us until the early part of 1940 and then we were posted down to Yatesbury, wireless training course. I think that took, I can’t be absolutely certain, the dates are in my logbook but I think it must have taken us until about April, oh, yes, it took us ‘till about April and then we went to West Freugh on the east coast er west coast of Scotland for gunnery training and low and behold we all became sergeants. I can always remember the advice given to us by a warrant officer, the peacetime warrant officers and people of that ilk they did some, a little bit resent that air crew would automatically become sergeants but they did try to knock us into shape and I remember we had a cockney warrant, station warrant officer who tried to guide us on etiquette in the sergeant’s mess and he said, ‘Ah, er, you will be at liberty to invite ladies to a mess dance but make sure you invite ladies [emphasise] and not ladies.’ And he said, ‘Now you’ve got three stripes, the girls will be chasing you but just be careful who you pick if you marry them,’ and he gave jolly good advice, he said, ‘Take a good look at her mother because what she’s going to be like in twenty to thirty years’ time.’ Anyway, off we went. They sent us on leave and said that we would be, receive instructions for posting and we did. We, we, a new, another bottleneck for OTU so in the meantime we went to Andover. Now, Andover, I was there at the time of Dunkirk. I remember that because going into the local town, cinema and that sort of thing the local army chaps that were coming back from Dunkirk were a bit fed up with the RAF because they hadn’t seen any Spitfires so it wasn’t a very comfortable time but from there we went to OTU. Now that was number 10 OTU at Heyford, Upper Heyford. We had our first real flights. Started off in Ansons, staff pilot taking a delight in trying to do aerobatics in an Anson to see how many guys they could make sick but anyway [laughs] we, we were supposed to crew up but it was a bit of a haphazard thing. You found yourself in one crew one week and another crew the next week. I had my very first Jimmy escape there. Um, it had been snowing and we were grounded and then suddenly there was a break and we were sent off and I was sent off with a New Zealand pilot, Sandy somebody. I can’t remember, and he was a bit dodgy. Anyway, we took off and the cloud base came down, fog or, no, cloud base and I couldn’t get a peep out of the wireless set, I couldn’t get a DCM back to base so we stooged around for a bit and he said over the intercom, ‘Jimmy I’m going to land in a field.’ ‘Oh ok.’ I decided, I came out of the rear upper turret and I crawled back and I sat up behind him. He came down to a field, through a break heading for some trees I thought but he put his wheels down and of course it was a ploughed field underneath the snow. He came in very fast and we went, tipped right over, right over. At the very last moment apparently, I never remember doing this, I leaned over his shoulder and knocked his, the quick release of his harness and he flew out of the cockpit and down. He hit the ground, he broke a rib I think, and the aircraft went over and I shot back, right back to the back bulkhead and I had a bit of a head wound but it wasn’t very much and the aircraft was a right off. Right. It didn’t catch fire thank God. We were called away. When we had the inquest with the CO I got a right rollicking 'cause I couldn’t get through to base on the radio but I couldn’t get anything out of it but I even got a bigger one for releasing his harness and they said, ‘That was, you should never have done that but you saved his life.’ They said that, ‘Had you not done that he would have broken his, he would probably, he probably would have broken his neck or broken his back.’ So it was a good thing that it happened but it shouldn’t have done [laughs]. I had another, I was in another crash there where we ran up behind another aircraft and damaged it and injured the rear gunner but I was at the far end so I was ok. But this seemed to happen to me for some reason or other and I don’t know why, at the end of the course instead of going off on ops with a crew I was what they called screened. I was a screen operator instructor and I flew in Hampdens and Ansons with crews coming through. Just looking after them actually. Making sure that the wireless operators did what they should do or got through if they couldn’t and that sort of thing. I was there for oh far too long. I didn’t arrive on to the squadron, 49 Squadron, until the 1st of September 1941. My very first trip was to Berlin. The very experienced pilot, Pilot Officer Falconer, who was quite elderly, he was twenty six so we called him uncle [laughs]. He eventually, he became a wing commander, he commanded a squadron but he was killed unfortunately. Very nice guy. Anyway, after we went to Berlin and on that occasion it was quite a famous one. Head wind going out, head wind coming back. Ten tenths cloud and nil visibility coming in. Being given the order to go on to 090 and bail out so we got there and Uncle Falconer said to the crew, ‘We may have to bail out chaps.’ So then squeaky voiced me from the back said, ‘Oh skipper, I’ve pulled my chute.’ Actually I’d pulled it on the way out and I was more scared of having a DCO that is, Duty Not Carried Out, DNCO and being responsible for returning than actually taking my chance with the chute so I kept mum, I didn’t say anything. And when I told him I can’t actually repeat for the tape exactly what he said but it wasn’t very polite and I don’t blame him. In actual fact he found a break in the, in the overcast and he landed with wheels down in a field at a place called Withcall. Withcall near Louth and um, er, near Melton Mowbray. It was under some high tension cables and it was so tight they couldn’t fly the aircraft out. They took the wings off and put it on a loader to get it back. That was my first trip. Baptism of fire. Every trip, nearly every trip has an anecdote but the ones that stand out are, we went up to Inverness or somewhere. I can’t remember. It’s in the logbook. Inverness or somewhere like that to do a trip to Oslo Fjord laying mines, being told, ‘Chaps pick the right fjord because if you don’t you’ll come up against a blank face of rock and you won’t be able to turn around.’ Anyway, we did. It was almost daylight all the time. Up we went, down the fjord, laid our mine. Coming back, on the headland, as we passed across the headland em we were fired on. Some light tracer stuff came up. Very small. I said, I was at the rear of course as the wireless op. I said, ‘Oh, let’s go around and shoot them up because there’s other guys behind us.’ And the skipper said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ So we circled around, we came back and all hell let loose. They peppered us. We had thirty six holes on our starboard side wing, starboard fuselage mainplane but it didn’t affect the aircraft. I think the flak was a little bit dodgy but anyway came back all right. As I got out of the aircraft the ground crew came and they said, ‘Hey sarge,’ they said to me, ‘Have you seen your cockpit?’ I said, ‘No, what’s wrong?’ ‘It’s got bullet holes in it.’ ‘It’s got bullet holes in it?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ And they said, ‘Look your flying suit’s all torn’. And there’s a bullet hole at the back of me and then you know after I’d been sent to recover [laughs]. They next came to me and said, ‘You’re never going to believe this.’ The upright of the gun sight on my VGO twin guns had a bullet hole through it like that. The armourer gave it to me. I had it for many, many, many years. Unfortunately, it was lost but it was, I was proud to be able to show a bullet came out [?] as I was looking through it [laughs] so you know why the name lucky Jim sticks doesn’t it?
DE: Yeah. Definitely yeah.
RJW: Well that was then. We were, er, we tasted one of the first delights of the master searchlight. They introduced a blue central searchlight beam, radar controlled I think and all the other beams came on it and we were over Hamburg and we caught that and we had a hell of a pasting with the flak but old Allsebrook was very good and he got us out of that. We had one or two other things but like everybody else did. You never got, you couldn’t get through trips without having some sort of trouble sort of thing.
DE: Sure, sure.
RJW: Anyway, my last, no, next to last trip of course was by ditching which I’ve written about. Would you like me to — ?
DE: If you could talk about that for the tape that would be wonderful as well. Yes please.
RJW: Oh yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Well here goes. We took off about, I don’t know when it was. We were on Hampden G for George A397. We em, we were going to Mannheim. I think it was our twenty third trip and by this time we were a bit blasé. We thought going to be a piece of cake this. Mannheim. Yeah. That’s alright. So we weren’t really worried about it. The trip out was perfectly alright, over the target there was some flak but it wasn’t heavy flak, it wasn’t very much and we didn’t think that we’d caught any but just as we left the target our port engine cut dead and Ralph wasn’t able to do the relevant, it just stuck there. So we started to lose height. We lost height, we were somewhere about seventeen, eighteen thousand feet and we came down to four thousand eventually. In the process of doing that we got rid of all the heavy stuff we could think of. The guns. The bombsight. Unfortunately, Bob, the navigator, Bob Stanbridge stuck all his nav gear into parachute, one of the parachute bags that he used to take it out there, opened the doors in the navigator’s position, they swing inwards and to get rid of the bomb sight and the nav bag went out as well so we didn’t have any —. Anyway, off we went. Ralph was getting cramp in his leg holding the opposite rudder because of the loss of the port engine. Bob tried to tie the rudder pedal back with a scarf but couldn’t. Then I had a go. That was the scariest moment of all 'cause I had to unplug my intercom and had to crawl underneath in the dark but I did — I did actually manage to tie it up and that lasted for a while. I sent a plain language message out while we were still over France to say that we’d lost our port engine and may have to bail out, and although I was never a good wireless operator and I hated being a wireless operator, that message got through [laughs]. Anyway, eventually the fuel was down to zero and Ralph said, ‘Well, we’re over the sea, we’re going to ditch.’ So by this time of course we’d got all the hatches open because we’d been ready to bail out so all the sea came in. Anyway, he made — he made a good landing on top of the fog to begin with [laughs] but after that he made a jolly good landing and down we went. We scrambled out on to the wing, on to the port wing. The dinghy was supposed to burst out of the engine nacelle because of an immersion plug but of course it didn’t but Bob knew the procedure and with the heel of his flying boot he dug into the port engine nacelle and pulled the plug and up came the dinghy and started to inflate. It didn’t fully inflate but it started to inflate and by this time the four of us were standing on the, on the wing. All our ankles were awash in water. We then saw that the dinghy was attached by a cord disappearing into the engine nacelle and one of us said, ‘Well if the immersion plug didn’t work this won’t work, we’ll be pulled down,’ and Ralph said, I don’t know whether he said, ‘Just a minute chaps,’ but I think he might have done. He undid his flying jacket, went into his tunic pocket, pulled out a little tiny leather case out of which he took a pair of folding nail scissors, he then — he cut the cord, he did the scissors up, put them back in the case, back in to his pocket and he stepped into the dinghy with the rest of us. As we shoved off dear old G for George went down under the waves and there we were. We had to pump the dinghy up with the bellows because it wasn’t fully inflated but we managed alright. We were absolutely enhanced with the rations that were actually sealed in the bottom because there was a notice on it that said “Only to be opened in the presence of an officer” [laughs] so we said, ‘Well good for you Ralph.’ He was a pilot officer. And come daylight, in the far distance we did just spot what we thought were high tension pylons and some cliffs and we thought, well we were heading for Scampton of course, we thought oh well perhaps we’d drifted too far north, over-compensated and we were off Yorkshire, Whitby or somewhere like that. Anyway, not long after that that disappeared, we drifted around. We used the coloured dye, fluorescent dye in to the sea to identify ourselves and paddled and paddled around and eventually came back and found we were at the same spot again. The sun came out in the morning. It was very cold and very choppy. It was the 14th / 15th of February. It was cold. Anyway, we suddenly saw a school of porpoise and that was light relief until one of the crew said, ‘Yeah it’s all very well but what happens if one of these guys comes up underneath the dinghy?’ he said. Furious paddling away. We weren’t really gloomy, I don’t know why. I seem to think oh yeah, well we may get picked up but for no particular reason. We did see an aircraft which we thought was a Beaufighter in the distance but it didn’t see us. We sent the flares up but it didn’t do any good and then quite late in the afternoon we heard an aircraft engine and out came a Walrus. Circled round, waggled it’s wings, stayed with us, only a short time and off it went and it was almost two hours later when a motor anti-submarine boat pulled up and dragged us aboard. Eh, first question was, ‘Where are we?’ And somebody said, ‘We’re off St Catherine’s Point.’ ‘Oh, St Catherine’s Point. Where’s that?’ ‘The Isle of Wight.’ [laughs] And instead of being off Yorkshire we’d taken a huge curve and we’d been flying down the channel so luckily our fuel had run out when it did and we didn’t go too far out but the other thing was that the navy crew told us, ‘You’re dead lucky because you’re near a minefield. If you’d been in a minefield we wouldn’t have come out.’ So it was jolly good. We um, we survived all that, all three of us. Jack had frostbite. I remember cuddling his feet under my jacket actually ‘cause he was very cold. He got frostbite because he’d been sitting in the tin and he’d had the hatch open all the way but that was the only casualty that we had but it was quite a week because if I remember rightly at the beginning of the week we went to Essen, which was never much of a cup of tea that place, it was always pretty hot. And in the middle of the week we went on the Channel Dash. The Channel Dash was when the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau left Brest and that was quite curious because we’d been standing by for several days and we’d been given a sector. Our sector was off somewhere near Le Havre. If they ever got that far we were told that we would have to go out. On this particular morning after a while on standby we were stood down from the Channel Dash and the weather wasn’t very good but our bomb load was changed from armour piercing to GP bombs and we were sent off on a night flying test possibly for ops that night. We were recalled while we were actually in the air and sent off but not to Le Havre but off the coast of Holland because the ships had gone that far and been undetected and off we went. We didn’t see the ships but we saw, we think, an armed merchantman or something or other which was firing away but we didn’t really get near. The weather was so bad we really couldn’t see. What we did see, we saw a Wellington and we didn’t know that Wellingtons were on the trip but later we discovered that there was an armed, an unmarked Wellington which the Germans had captured and they were using it as an escort for the ships and it was coming in and some crews actually did encounter it firing you know. We only just saw it. We didn’t get through [?]. Anyway, it was uneventful for us in actual fact. I think we lost four crews out of the twelve that were sent up. I think I’m right about that but it’s in our journal. One more trip we did together as a crew and then later I’ll talk, I’ll talk about my rear gunner.
DE: Ok, yeah, yeah.
RJW: Our pilot, J F Allsebrook was posted away, the crew was split up. I think Bob Stanbridge was also posted but myself and Jack Wilkinson, Jack Wilkinson, he was the rear gunner we were left hanging around to be crewed up as wanted. Anyway, we started to crew up with Reg Worthy. A very competent pilot and we were very happy with that and in March we were crewed to go with him on ops. Unfortunately I had contracted sinusitis. Oh I remember. I’ll talk about that later, I’d contracted sinusitis and at times I got it very badly. It was very painful so I went up in the morning to sick call [?] — sick bay to try to get some inhalations to help me and they tested me and grounded me. They said, ‘You’re not flying like that. You won’t be able to hear anyway.’ [laughs] I protested a lot because I wanted to do the trip but no, no and when I broke the news to Jack he was extremely despondent. He didn’t want to go. He wanted to opt out. ‘I don’t want to go without you Jimmy because you’re lucky.’ I persuaded him that he’d be alright and, because I was replaced by McGrenery [?] who was a very competent WOP/AG who’d flown with me on a number of occasion and he was a hell of a nice guy. Sadly, the trip was to Essen and they were caught by an ace night fighter pilot called Reinhold Knacke on the way back, off the coast of Holland, just on the border and they were shot down. All killed. Reg Worthy and McGrenery were buried in Holland and Jack was washed up off the coast of Denmark. It’s quite amazing actually. And he’s buried in Stavanger. So there’s sad [?]. I had this sinus trouble. It was because much earlier on, on a trip to Brest we were in the target area and we lost oxygen and when you lose oxygen you dive down so we did a very steep dive very quickly and apparently my left frontal sinus became perforated. This bedevilled me a lot. In fact the problem was if you went through the medics with it too much you got yourself grounded and of course you lost your rank as a sergeant, you lost everything. So you didn’t sing too much about it. I remember that after the, after ops I was posted to a couple of training units. One at Wigsley. I’ve forgotten the name of the other just for the moment but it’s in my logbook, anyway, not far out of Lincoln and I can remember later on my wife came out to live in Lincoln. I remember we sought a doctor up in Lincoln in private practice to try and get some treatment for this sinusitis and you’re leaping right now to the end of the war. At the end of the war I was posted to air ministry, movement’s branch and I still had sinus problems and so I thought I’d seek the advice of the air ministry doctor. I got a good guy there. His advice was, ‘Well we can drill, we can drill a hole through the roof of your mouth for drainage but I don’t advise it. It may not be successful but if you had a couple of years in a warm dry climate that would do you good,’ and as a result of that I had a medical post for an extended period of two year service and I went, of all places, to Palestine of course but after that to Kenya but I’ll talk about that later on.
DE: Sure, yeah.
RJW: Anyway, coming back to 1942, during the ops period the intruders started following aircraft coming in and landing and so air crew were billeted out. We were sent to small holdings. I was sent to a small holding, an absolutely delightful elderly couple who had strawberry fields there. Very nice indeed. I spent one night there. I told them, ‘Take the payment but I’m not going to be here. If anybody wants to know, oh yes I’m here but I’ve gone to town.’ And with a friend of mine, Mick Hamnett from 83 Squadron, we found a couple of rooms in the City of Lincoln pub in, in the centre of Lincoln and whenever possible we actually spent the night there. It was quite a pub. It was run by a lady by the name of Dorothy Scott whose husband, Lionel I think his name was, was a nav, was away in the RAF as a navigator. Anyway, it was an air crew haunt. At the back of the pub she had converted what had been a store room into a very cosy bar and that was where air crew from various squadrons accumulated. In fact at the end of 1942, towards the end of 1942 my wife came up and we, we lived there, lived out there. Unofficially of course. And one night while we were out there was an incendiary raid on Lincoln, huge chandelier flares and the City of Lincoln was hit with a fire bomb, particularly our bedroom but the local fire brigade did far more damage with their water then the actual firebomb. Anyway, coming back to the ops period, I’m sure that you’ve heard all these stories before but of course we were bounded with rumours and things like that. The first thing we heard was that oh the vicar of Scampton did a hasty retreat when war started because he was a Nazi spy [laughs]. The other story was of the policeman who was standing at the erm, at the Stonebow one evening and the aircraft were taking off, going off and he made a remark to a passer-by, ‘It’s going to be pretty hot in Berlin tonight.’ It so happened that they were going to Berlin and he was removed. But the other story, well whether that was true or not I don’t know but the other tale which is perfectly true. There was a hotel by the Stonebow called the Saracen’s Head which we called the Snake Pit for some reason. Very good. Good food. You could get a steak there. Very nice. There was a barmaid there by the name of Mary. She was a New Zealander and she was older than any of us. She was probably late thirties, early forties. She was a charming lady and she had an amazing memory and she was our local post box because we’d been to OTUs either to Upper Heyford or Cottesmore. We’d got pals on that and then we were posted to squadrons around, different squadrons around Lincoln and you wanted to know how your pals got on and you could, you could tell her. She knew, you know, you know that George Smith or somebody would say, ‘Did he get back? He was on 44 on Waddington.’ ‘Oh yes he’s alright.’ All this sort of thing you see and the story goes and I think this is in one of Gibson’s books that at the time of the 617 training at Scampton Mary was lifted out of the bar and sent on some paid leave down at Devon. I don’t know whether you’ve heard that story before. Yes. It’s written down somewhere but I can tell you that that wasn’t a rumour. That was true. The other delightful story is really good. In those days there was a lady entertainer by the name of Phyllis Dixie. She was a fan dancer. Probably the first stripper in England right, and she was performing at the Theatre Royal. Some lads, some air gunners got hold of a twelve volt acc and an aldis lamp, got themselves up into the Gods. The end of the act was the dear lady removed her fans strategically as the curtains closed and they shone the aldis lamp [laughs] which I gather was true. Anyway, going on from Scampton and Lincoln I was posted, I was sent on first of all air gunner instructor’s course at Manby. Came back from there and instructed at Wigsley and then sent to Sutton Bridge on a gunnery leader’s course. I did rather well on the course simply because I think I was able to drink as much beer as the course instructor [laughs] and we, I got an, I got an A which meant I was a gunnery leader A and when I came back to base the gunnery leader said, ‘Oh you can’t be a, you can’t be a gunnery leader A, you can’t be a gunnery leader as a sergeant. You’d better apply for a commission. Fill these forms in.’ So, this is true. It was incredible. I filled the forms in and I said something about, ‘Oh I can’t remember,’ and he said, ‘Oh don’t worry about it they don’t check anything,’ he said, you know, I thought this was a bit casual. Anyway, anyway I did remember what was necessary and my interview, however I was, I had a sort of an office, well not really an office, a place, kept stores [?] and things like that where I operated from. Schedules of flying and things like that looking after air gunners as an instructor and one day a little guy came in, in to my office with some papers and in some flying overalls and one of the epaulettes was flying down like that so I didn’t know what he was actually and he started asking me questions about the, about the commission you know like, ‘What’s your father do?’ And that sort of question, you know. Anyway I suddenly looked at his other shoulder and he was a wing commander and it was the famous Gus Walker and this was before he lost his arm. I was on the station when some incendiary bombs were, no photoflashes or something, something went wrong with an aircraft out in dispersal and he rushed out from flying control in a van to try and get the crew out and the bombs went up and he lost his arm. He was a hell of a nice guy. So informal it wasn’t true. I think he became an air marshal, air chief marshal or something. A big rugby referee. And I think that’s about all I can think of that of that era but then when I went to, when I, yes when I was commissioned, commissioned, gosh when was it? Probably the end of ‘42 beginning of ’43, almost immediately I was sent back to Sutton Bridge as an instructor instructing gunnery leaders and then we stayed there. Oh well that was quite good. We had a number of Polish pilots who were really very good pilots and we did a lot of low level flying quite illegally. There was one stretch where a road and the canal and a railway was spanned by high tension cables and if you felt like it they’d fly underneath them if they could and pray they weren’t found out. But these guys were really, really low level and we used to, we had a front, there was a guy in the front, we were flying Wellingtons mainly, sometimes Hampdens but mainly Wellingtons and put a guy in the front turret and aim for a group of trees you know [laughs]. Dear me. Those were the days. And then we moved station from there up to Catfoss and there when I was at Catfoss my pilot, old pilot Ralph Allsebrook came back, landed one day and said, ‘Jimmy, I’ve joined 617 Squadron. It’s a special duties squadron.’ We didn’t know, I didn’t know anything about the, we didn’t know about, it was before the dam raids but we didn’t know what they were doing but he said, ‘I’d like you to be in the crew.’ So I said, ‘Yes. Good. Fine.’ I was a flying officer by that time and so I said, ‘How do you go about it?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Leave it to me, I’ll push the buttons and see the CO.’ Well he did but they were adamant that I wouldn’t go. He said, ‘No, you can’t go. You’re an instructor, a trained instructor here. We want you as an instructor and,’ they said, ‘In any case Trevor Roper is the gunnery leader of 49 Squadron. They don’t need two gunnery leaders. So I didn’t go. Ralph wasn’t on the dam raid because I don’t think he was finished training, whatever it was but he wasn’t on it but much later on he was on another raid, I think it was the Kiel Canal and many of the aircraft were lost including him. It was bad weather I think mainly. So I was lucky again, I didn’t join them. But I did get a bit fed up with not, not being allowed to go back on ops and we had a guy, one of our instructor’s, fellow instructors, a chap called Griffiths I remember, he went to, left us and went to Bomber Command headquarters I think it was. Either to Group, no, it was Bomber Command headquarters that’s right and he came back, he visited the squadron one day and I said, you know, ‘Could you get me a squadron?’ You know. And he said, ‘You want to do a second tour Jimmy?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind doing a second tour.’ He said, ‘Yeah, leave it with me.’ So I got posted to 192 Squadron at Foulsham. I got, I got a rollicking from the CO at the, at Catfoss because of the gunnery wing, CO of the gunnery wing. He eventually found out that I’d, I’d wangled it through Griffiths you see but anyway I went. I arrived on the squadron which was fairly newly formed. It had been a flight before. I can’t, off the back of my head I can’t tell you the details of that but it was a flight and it had become a special duty squadron. It was doing radar investigation. We carried special operators. They were civilians dressed in RAF uniform just in case they were prisoners of war and at the same time David Donaldson joined the squadron. A hell of a nice guy. And it was a very happy squadron. We shared it with, I can’t remember the actual number of the squadron, six something, six hundred and something Australian squadron shared the station with us at Foulsham. A bit primitive but it was alright and I had about fifty gunners. We had two flights of Halifax 3s and a flight of Wellingtons and we also had some Mosquitos and a couple of Lightnings and we would fly with main force, carrying bombs of course. Not all the time but we did carry bombs and we were endeavouring, or the special duties operators were endeavouring to discover radar frequencies and wireless frequencies on which the enemy were operating. Early warning systems and the fighter aircraft they were using and that sort of thing. It was quite interesting. All highly secretive. They had a lot of gear set up in the centre of the fuselage and it was all screened off with canvas. You couldn’t get at it and you couldn’t get any gen out of them about what happened, but it was pretty good. We initially we flew as a crew. The leaders David Donaldson, Roy Kendrick the navigation leader, Churchill, he told me his name was Churchill actually, he was the signals leader I remember that. Anyway, and Hank Cooper who was the head of the special, the special duties guys and anyway, and myself as gunnery leader and 100 Group put a stop to that because they decided that if they lost the aircraft they lost all the leaders so we were “invited”, inverted commas to occasionally fly with a crew that might have been a bit dodgy to try and put a finger on if there was a weakness. So from flying with the very best pilot on the squadron suddenly found yourselves with the worst one but it didn’t amount to anything. It was ok. I didn’t have any scary times. My logbook shows the trips I took. We did the normal things with the main force. I didn’t do any Berlin ones. A bit late in the day for that I think but they were the ordinary trips that everybody else was doing. Oh well, there were occasions. We did stooge off from main stream. I think the theory, the theory was that if, they didn’t mind if we attracted the odd fighter so they could find out what they were operating on. Now look, here’s is a really good story. We had on the squadron a pilot by the name of H Preston [?] who was quite a joker. I flew with him on a trip and we got diverted on one occasion to a station down in 3 Group. Stirlings I think. And we had the usual eggs and bacon breakfast and all that sort of thing and we wanted to get back to base in the very early morning and when we got out to the aircraft we had quite a lot of air crew on the station walking around it because we had antennae sticking out all over the place, you see. So Hayter-Preston was asked about a particular thing that was coming out of the back and he said, ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘That’s marmalade.’ They said, ‘What?’ ‘Well haven’t you got that? They said, ‘No, he said, ‘What does it do?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘If a fighter comes up behind you and that’s turned on, it stops their engine.’ ‘Oh,’ he said. Anyway, off we went back to base and went through briefing and about half way through the morning a loud shout from the CO’s office, ‘Hayter-Preston’s crew to my office immediately.’ Off we trot to his office. David Donaldson said, ‘HP, what’s all this thing you’ve been talking about down at,’ wherever we were.’ ‘I don’t know sir.’ He said, ‘I’ve had Group on to me.’ He said, ‘Crews down there are on to their CO, been on to their Group, been on to 100 Group.’ He said, ‘They might have even got the Bomber Command, I don’t know, but they all want marmalade.’ See. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I was pulling their leg.’ [laughter] Anyway, we walked out of the CO’s office, walking off. David sticks his head out of the door, ‘HP. Why marmalade?’ He said, ‘Well I thought I’d be topical because we’ve been doing jamming.’ [laughs] You know.
DE: Of course. Yeah.
RJW: I did find, I must say I found my second tour very much easier than my first tour. Mind you I was privileged I suppose, in actual fact. I recognise that but it was a time when all the heavies were going. The raids were very heavy indeed but I didn’t, I didn’t seem to run into any trouble at all. Anyway, we were, we were flying on the very last trip. I flew on the very last trip to a place called Flensburg which was very near to the something lunars, is it? I can’t remember the name. The place where the armistice was signed on the Danish peninsula on the night before. The idea was to make sure they signed it. We were one of the last aircraft to return and there’s always been a bit of a fight as to who was the last aircraft over the target in the war. All I can say we might have been one of them. [laughs] Anyway, war ended and we started having, we started taking station personnel on tours. Flying, flying over the cities and back again. We did two or three trips. We landed over there at some of the stations. Went to Northern Germany and I don’t know, somewhere in Denmark I think in actual fact. We were taking people and coming back. Anyway, by about the middle of, probably a bit later then by the middle ‘45, July maybe, something. I don’t know. We were being posted to various parts and we were asked what would we to do. Anything we’d particularly to do before we were demobbed and so I said I’d like to be a, what do they call them, Queen’s courier, you know, King’s courier. That’s right. Thought that would be interesting. No. No. Can’t do that. Eventually I got sent to Air Ministry in High Holborn in the movements branch. It was at the time when there was some big food crisis going on and lots of VIPs were going backwards and forwards to America and we were finding aircraft from Blackbushe to get there. We were dodging around all over the place setting up aircraft, setting up things. Anyway we, I was there for a while and I was conscious of the fact that my sinus was still with me so I thought I’d take the opportunity to get the, unless I’ve already said this.
DE: Well you said you’d come back to it so, yeah.
RJW: Oh I see. I’d take the opportunity to get the air ministry doctor people to say what I could do about it and one of them suggested that they could drill a hole through the roof of the mouth which was painful and not necessarily successful and he did suggest a warm dry climate would probably heal the perforation. Anyway, eventually I signed on for an extra two years and I was posted overseas. Of all places my initial posting was to Palestine. There I was, there I was air movement’s staff officer, they called me and I was secretary and chairman of the air priorities board. Because there was a lack of civilian passenger aircraft we were providing passages through UK for the army, navy, air force and the other government people. The Air Priorities Board would look at applications and give them the priorities as they needed them and that was the job that I was doing. I remember I was, we had our officer’s mess and the hospital overlooking the mass cityscape [?]. The whole city was out of bounds to us which meant of course we went there [laughs]. At various times we had to be armed and it was quite, quite a time in actual fact but the one big thing that did happen we had a number of atrocities by the Stern gang and the Ernham vi [?] Lohamei. They were trying to get rid of the British. Didn’t seem to be any trouble between the Arabs and the Jews. It was the Jews and ourselves and they were pretty aggressive. Anyway, on one, we had our Air Priorities Board at army headquarters which was in the King David Hotel and one day I was being driven up there to an Air Priorities Board meeting and there was a loud bang and big piles of smoke went up and my driver said, ‘I think we’ll turn back sir.’ I said, ‘Yes, I think we will.’ And of course it was the King David Hotel that was bombed, sent up and a lot of army people were killed, and civilian people. Great tragedy actually because so I understand and read that the Jewish guys that did it they stuck bombs in milk churns and they actually ‘phoned and told them that there was bombs there but they said ha ha you know, took no notice of it. Very bad. Anyway, after a while I angled for a posting to Kenya. My brother was there. What had happened to him was he had joined the war, joined the RAF before the war and he was a fitter 2E. He’d been to St Athan’s and he, early in the war he was posted to the Far East. The ship was torpedoed off Mombasa and he got ashore and he was sent to Eastleigh there and he stayed there throughout the war. He married there, English girl there and so he was there and after the war he joined an aircraft company. East African Airways I think but he was a, he became a senior engineer, became chief engineer of a Safari Airways eventually. So I angled for a posting there and I got it. They called me SMSO Senior Movement Staff Officer. I knew nothing about, I knew about air movements, I knew nothing about road and rail. I signed an awful lot of documents [laughs] but I, you know, had no training for it at all. It was, it was a very nice posting. A very easy posting. Originally, we were billeted out in hotels but there was a housing shortage there and all that sort of thing and they thought as an example we ought to have an officer’s mess so an older hotel we took over we used it as headquarters and we had an officer’s mess set up and I can remember we had a very easy going AOC who was a non-flyer. Actually a peacetime guy but a nice guy, very easy going and he never seemed, never seemed to send for you in his office, he came to see you and one day he came to my office and he said, ‘Woolgar I’ve a job for you.’ ‘Yes sir.’ ‘I’m going to make you the mess secretary.’ I thought, ‘Well yes sir but you see I do have to go to Cairo once a month for conferences, air conferences and I also have to visit stations around, you know, Aden, Eritrea and places like that periodically. I am away from base quite a bit.’ ‘Oh, oh alright, I’ll think about it.’ So comes back the next day and he said, ‘Jerry Dawkins is mad with you, Woolgar.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Cause I’ve made him the secretary of the mess,’ you see, ‘But I’m going to make you the PMC.’ So I was the president of the mess committee and I knew nothing. I really didn’t know anything, you know. There was much older people than me, senior to me to do it but anyway they all dodged it and I couldn’t dodge it the truth was but it was interesting because it was in the days they did a lot of entertaining and this AOC he entertained the army guy, the naval guy and on one occasion the Aga Khan. I met, I met a lot of people. I don’t know whether I should put this on the tape but Mrs AOC was a pain in the head.
DE: Right.
RJW: The flowers were never right, or she sat in a draught, or the meat was tough, ‘Flight Lieutenant I didn’t like –’ [laughs].
DE: Oh dear. Oh dear.
RJW: But you know, you know I was only in my, I was in my twenties, middle twenties and I always thought it was good because it taught me a lot. It gave me experience which I never would have had otherwise. Anyway, eventually I went to Ein Shemer I thought I’d like to do a bit more flying. I went up to Ein Shemer in Palestine to join number 38 Squadron. I was the gunnery leader come armament officer, come radar oh everything. Everybody was leaving and they said, ‘You can do this.’ ‘You can do that.’ And a bit of a mixture I think but the main role of the squadron was finding illegal immigrant ships. Illegal ships were probably like what’s happening now but these ships were coming with Jewish people from the Balkans you know and from the middle of Europe and they were coming in to land in Palestine because the intake was on quotas and the idea was that 38 Squadron should locate them by radar on patrols and then get the navy to intercept them and when we did find them the navy used to miss them and they landed and the army picked them up. They put them in detention centres, that sort of thing, for a while but that is, that is what we were doing and I was there until about August, August 1947 and then I came home. Do you want to hear what happened to me after that?
DE: Yes, please, yeah, yeah.
RJW: Well I came back to the Hove Corporation. They’d promoted me to become the assistant valuation officer. I wasn’t qualified. Two hundred and fifty pounds a year. God. [laughs] Salary. And I realised I had to become qualified quickly. There were two exams. The Chartered, Chartered Auctioneers and Estates Agent’s Institute and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, so I got my head down and fortunately both organisations and others I believe, they introduced special war service conditions. I was able to take the direct final which was good. It was a three year course but I did it in eighteen months. Ah yes. I put my family, my wife, my daughter through hell because we didn’t do, I didn’t go out, I didn’t do anything. I just studied because I realised that I wouldn’t get anywhere unless I did and having passed and become a chartered surveyor I marched off the council and said ah you know and they said, ‘Ah well yes, we don’t think you’ll be any more service to us as a chartered surveyor than you were before Mr Woolgar.’ Twenty five pounds a year increase in your salary and we’ll give you a grant of twenty five pounds towards the cost of your studies. Well that prompted me to search for another job and I was very fortunate. I went to, I secured the job of the senior, a senior valuer in the city planning department of the City of London. So from knocking the hell out of Germany I came back to rebuilding the fire bombed city which was very, very interesting. It was a fantastic job in actual fact. I dealt with Barbican, St Paul’s area, all the war damaged areas. I was fourteen years there. I — I eventually I was deputy and the boss left and I got his job. For five years I was the planning valuer of the city and it was really good but that’s a whole book.
DE: Yeah, I can imagine.
RJW: About what happened. Various things, lots of public enquiries, you had some very famous people of course and QC’s and things like that and we had a New Zealander who was the city planning officer called Meland[?] and he was a very informal guy. Not a bit like the city fathers were and his famous words were, he was under cross examination by a QC at a public enquiry and he was asked why it was necessary to compulsorily acquire a group of buildings to put a road through and he said, ‘Well you see the bombs didn’t always drop in the right places.’ [laughs] You know. Anyway, after, after fourteen years I was poached by a firm by the name of St Quintin Son and Stanley to become a partner there and to be responsible for all their planning work and that was very good, very interesting because I, having negotiated with the partners as the valuer for the city I was now negotiating with my deputy who had come up on the opposite side. He often said, ‘Yeah but Jimmy you said, so and so'. I said 'Oh well yeah' [laughs]. But that was, I’ve had a very, very interesting life really. The city was full of tradition. Full of everything. That’s a whole book really. Having dealt with Barbican, the redevelopment of Barbican, the city —
DE: Yes.
RJW: I was now dealing on behalf of developers for developing other parts of the city. The idea, the main idea the city leased most of its land out on ninety nine year building leases by tender. So the developers all had to make a tender, ground rent condition and the design of the building and that sort of thing. That’s really the way it worked and from time to time there were planning enquiries and I was instructed sometimes by clients as a valuer, as a planning valuer to deal with various appeals for land, on land that they wanted to develop which the city didn’t want them to and or they were local protests and got myself in the witness box and highly cross examined by very clever QCs but also roamed around the country because we had a lot of clients in the city that were elsewhere in the country. We acted for the Bank of England, we acted for the Stock Exchange and the, and quite a number of the banks, Midland Bank and Lloyds, people like that and so it was, it was all done at a high level. It’s kind of amusing some of the things that I was asked to do which I knew nothing about [laughs] and I always remember a firm Denis firm [?], they were in the sand and gravel business they always wanted to extract sand and gravel from the best agricultural land by rivers you see and there was always objection to it. Anyway, I fought one or two appeals for them quite successfully, fortunately, and one day the chairman asked me to value their mineral reserves and so, ‘I can’t do that, I’m not the minerals man. I know nothing about it.’ ‘Oh that doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘I just want, I just want you to value it for me.’ I said, ‘Well I don’t know how to value it.’ ‘You’ll find a way.’ I particularly wanted to do it and I got the impression that we might lose them as a client if you know, if it didn’t [?]. My junior partner and I we put our heads together and somehow or other we found a way and he said, ‘Ah, it doesn’t matter. Nobody else will challenge it because they don’t know the way either.’ [laughs] Anyway, we, what did we do? Well leisurely [?] we, during that time the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors celebrated its hundredth year. I had a bit of a role in that as chairman of one of the committees that dealt with it which was very interesting. Oh yes. I was, I was picked up by a building society and became a non-executive director. It was called The Planet, and over the years, I joined them about 1963 I suppose, as soon as I became a partner of St Quentin and over the years we merged with the Magnet Building Society, that’s right and then we took over a midland society that had called itself the Town and Country Building Society so we then adopted that name and eventually, for the last three years I became chairman of that. I had the most interesting time because we had overseas conferences. Notably one in Washington which was extremely good and oh and Cannes. They really looked after themselves these that was the international thing you see.
DE: Wonderful.
RJW: Very nice, very pleasant and during all this period we had various dinners in the Mansion House, dinners in the Guildhall and in 1971 St Quentin firm celebrated it’s sesquicentennial which is their hundred and fiftieth year.
DE: Thank you for telling me.
RJW: Yes. Right. So by that time we were three joint level senior partners right and we split up the duties of what we were going to do. We had a year. I got the job of having the dinner in the Guildhall. I was manager, because the city surveyor was a friend of mine he managed to get us, we were the first outside body to have a dinner in the Guildhall and we had it and got the governor of the Bank of England as a principal guest, Lord Donaldson, the Master of the Rolls, Lady Donaldson his wife who was to become, he was the sheriff at the time and it was a pretty high ranking do. It was very good but I’m telling you the story because it’s kind of amusing. We had a chap in the firm who looked after all those sort of things you know. He was very good. He got the nuts and bolts done for us. So I said to him, ‘I think you’d better go tell the police up at John Street Police Station that we’ve got some VIPs coming to the Guildhall on this particular date because they might want to take some precautions. So he takes the guest list up, goes up to John Street. He sees a cockney desk sergeant and this desk sergeant looks at this list and he says, I’ve forgotten his name now, the governor of the Bank of England, ‘Oh no he don’t rate.’ Master of the Rolls. ‘Oh no he don’t rate.’ Lord something, I don’t know and he went down and at the bottom it had Her Majesty’s Band of the Royal Irish Guard. ‘Oh my Gawd,’ he said, ‘George, got the Irish Guards coming. Full emergency.’ And because the Irish guards, it was at the times of the troubles and because the Irish Guards were coming they had all sorts of precautions. These chaps had to come in individually in civvies and all that sort of thing you know, by themselves and yeah. I thought that was rather amusing.
DE: Crikey.
RJW: Anyway, I retired in 1971, no 1973 that’s right. 1993 at the age of seventy three, got it right. We spent a lot of time cruising. We like cruising. We went on quite a few cruises. We got, we had a place in Majorca, an apartment there. A little place on the coast which was very nice. We spent quite a bit of time out there. That’s really it. Just got older. A bit more infirm, you know. The wheels don’t grind as well as they used to. I hope I haven’t bored you.
DE: No. It’s been absolutely wonderful. There’s —
RJW: I haven’t given you an opportunity to ask any questions.
DE: Well, I’ve as you’ve seen, I’ve jotted some questions down. I mean, again they’re quite, quite broad questions. What, what was it like flying in a Hampden?
RJW: Well you see, strangely enough there was no comparison was there because I’d flown in an Anson which was alright but the next type aircraft you flew in was a Hampden so it was, it was alright. Probably thought all flying was like that but for the wireless operator, rear gunner it was a bit dicey I think. People don’t really know this, you have a wireless set in front of you and what they called a scarff ring with twin VGO guns with pans of ammunition on them, right and a cupola which closes down over the top of it over the guns but in order to operate the guns the cupola has to be back which means when you’re over the other side you’re in the open air and you were standing up to be vigilant. Well I mean you couldn’t see sitting down. You wanted a turret standing up and eventually you have an electric motor on it but originally there wasn’t. It was [unclear]. There was a heating pipe came off the starboard engine I think, exhaust or something. Unfortunately it used to burn the living daylights out of you down on the ground and it was ice cold when you got up top [laughs] but you know. So it wasn’t that comfortable and the other position, the rear gunner was in a belly thing. A blister underneath and that was very, very difficult. You were hunched up, you know, you would get cramp in it. It wasn’t very nice but you know other than that it was alright although I must admit that when I mention to people, RAF guys, I was in a Hampden they say, ‘You were in a Hampden?’ They say, ‘You flew in Hampdens and you’re still alive.’ [laughs] No, no, no. They weren’t, they weren’t that bad really. I think our pilot like any, Ralph, he was quite happy with it. I don’t know whether the navigator was. Sorry.
DE: No. No. That’s, that’s wonderful. So what was, what was your favourite aircraft to fly in?
RJW: Sorry.
DE: What was your favourite to fly in?
RJW: The —
DE: What aircraft was your favourite to fly in?
RJW: The other aircraft.
DE: Yeah. What other aircraft?
RJW: Oh well I flew in Halifax 3s. Wellingtons. I think I flew in a Mosquito once or twice. Ansons. Passenger in a Tiger Moth. That sort of thing, you know. Oh and Lancaster, Manchester. Manchester and Lancaster yes but I didn’t do any ops in a Manchester or Lancaster. The Manchester was the forerunner as, you know about that. Yes. Yes. We had them on, they were introduced on 49 Squadron in about, I think about September 1942, something like that. One of the early ones and then fairly quickly replaced by the Lancasters. Oh the Lancaster were marvellous. I flew in the Lancasters of course in Ein Shemer. They were Lancasters. Yeah.
DE: I see, right, yeah.
RJW: They were good. We had, at Ein Shemer I’ve got to tell you one of the duties there was to provide an airborne lifeboat at Malta so we had a little jolly there for three weeks and so. A couple of aircraft with airborne lifeboats stationed at Valetta. You were on twenty four hours standby. Then twenty four hours down the pub [laughs] that was quite good and we did one, we did one exercise, the exercise was that we were taken out by the navy, cast adrift in a dinghy and the other crew had to home on it and drop the airborne lifeboat and the crew in the dinghy had to get in to it and sail it back in to Valetta harbour. We were the crew in the dinghy. We got told off for eating all the rations [laughs], but you know it was fun. It was quite good. Malta was nice too in those days. Post war you see.
DE: What was –?
RJW: Oh and Cyprus. That was another place we had to go to. We went to Cyprus. Yes. Sorry.
DE: What was, what was it like, what was the difference between being a sergeant and becoming an officer?
RJW: Oh well. It was quite good. It was more comfortable. The sergeant’s mess was very good. The food was always good. I never grumbled about the food. I think the air crew seemed to get additional rations or something. It all went in altogether but somebody once told me you get more dairy products because as air crew or something like that. I don’t know. But being an officer obviously was more comfortable. You didn’t have to make your bed [laughs]. You had a batwoman, batman or batwoman. You know a WAAF who did it for you. Cleaned your shoes that sort of thing. The chores. You had more chores done for you I found, but yes it was it was comfortable. Flying. Right. Oh I forgot to tell you an incident which is recorded in David Donaldson’s obituary. We were flying on patrols to locate the launching pads of the V2. In fact, we saw, I was with David Donaldson, we saw the first one go up and we got a fix on it and that is quite interesting because we told the special operator and he got his head down and we tried to get a lot of information out of him when we got back as to what he found. We got nothing out of him of course but of course what we did eventually find out and this is public knowledge now it wasn’t radar controlled. It was clockwork controlled but Churchill insisted that the patrols continued so even after they found out we were still going up and down on the line and on one occasion, daylight. It was on daylight a couple of, I don’t know what they were, I can’t remember, mix them up, I can’t remember what the aircraft were. A couple of German fighters. I can’t remember what they were now, a couple of German fighters came up, come up and we were just about to take evasive action when they tucked them in, they tucked themselves in the wing and the pilot went like that.
DE: Waved at you.
RJW: Waved at David. David. You know. Like that. Like that and then they peeled away and off they went. This was over Holland and they were quite friendly. This would have been, oh I don’t know, probably March, April something like that 1945. And do you know I remember that so well for years and years and years and I wonder sometimes did that really happen or did I dream it? And then in David Donaldson’s obituary it was mentioned and I thought goodness that is true, it did really happen. I meant, I should have told you before.
DE: No. That’s, that’s wonderful. What was, what was David like?
RJW: Yeah. Actually of course they’d, if they’d, if they’d have split up you know they would have, they would have had us you know, in fact.
DE: Sure.
RJW: Yeah. Yeah.
DE: What was David like?
RJW: Sorry?
DE: What was David Donaldson like?
RJW: Oh lovely. He was a hell of a nice guy. Easy going. He was a good CO. Firm, right. Never panicked. He was a solicitor by profession and he was very calm. We did the first FIDO landing at Foulsham. We went to Gardenia [?] and did our stuff there and incidentally on the way back, was it Balcom [?] Island, the Swedish island on the Baltic, fired various tracer bullets up in a V sign [laughs]. Nobody went near of course. Anyway, when we got back it was fog and David said, ‘Well we’ve got an option of landing on FIDO or being diverted.’ He said, you know, he said, ‘What do you want to do chaps? Do you want me to land or go somewhere else for your eggs and bacon.’ ‘Oh no David,’ you know and he did a perfect landing. Real, you know. The risk of FIDO was that you veered off it but, perfect. Yeah. He was like that. He said, ‘What do you want to do?’ [laughs]
DE: Wonderful. Yeah. So when you saw these two fighters —
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Were you mid-upper upper or were you the rear gunner?
RJW: Sorry?
DE: Were you mid-upper gunner or the rear gunner? When you saw the two fighters.
RJW: Yes.
DE: Were you the mid-upper gunner or the rear gunner?
RJW: I was in the mid upper.
DE: Ah huh.
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Was that your –?
RJW: I was, yeah because I, the mid upper was the controller, in other words we used to take evasive action. If you were in daylight you take evasive action and once you had come back you’d take control. You would tell him corkscrew right, corkscrew left because the pilot can’t see.
DE: No.
RJW: They can’t see. They come in on a curve of pursuit like that and you’d corkscrew in, down and roll and up the other way you see, but if they split up either side you’d had it.
DE: Yeah. Did you did you ever fire your guns in anger?
RJW: Hmmn?
DE: Did you ever shoot at a fighter?
RJW: Ever see a fighter?
DE: No. Did you ever shoot at one?
RJW: Oh yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: At night time. Well I hoped it was a fighter [laughs]. No. Once or twice you know you saw the thing come out of, but never, I never had a sustained fight. Never had something come in two or three times but I can’t remember. Not on the Halifax. Never had anything on the Halifax or the Hampden. Fired the guns several times on the Hampden but I can’t remember exactly when they were. Sorry about that.
DE: That’s quite alright. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, which did you like better the night ops or daylight ops?
RJW: Oh we didn’t do much daylight. We did very little daylight. We did some mining in daylight but it was nearly all night ops. We always thought daylight was a bit scary but [laughs] but no I suppose the scariness really was in the middle of the flak. Then you really, in a Hampden you could hear it, you could smell it and you could see it. Puffs of puffs you know if you got there. If you were — Essen and Hamburg they were, they were the places that you got, and of course Berlin but I only, I only did one trip to Berlin. My first one. But that wasn’t very good because it was covered in cloud anyway. If you, when you, when we went to France, if we were bombing France if you couldn’t see the target, initially anyway, you had to bring your bombs back and that’s recorded quite a bit.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: By the way have you got “The Hampden File?”
DE: Yes.
RJW: Harry Moyle?
DE: No. Yes. We’ve got a copy of that.
RJW: That’s very good. Have you got, “Beware of the Dog”?
DE: I don’t know about that one.
RJW: 49 Squadron history. The whole history of 49 Squadron written by John Ward and Ted Catchart. It was actually published by Ted Catchart. If you get in touch with Alan Parr, you know Alan. He’ll tell you where and how you can get a copy of it. You should really have a copy of that.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Because that details everything.
DE: Yeah. Wonderful. I will do. Thank you.
RJW: Yes. It’s called, that’s our crest you see.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Cave Canem.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: So —
DE: Yeah. I’ll make sure we get a copy for the library.
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Yeah. And the “Bomber Command Diaries.” You’ve got those.
DE: Got those. Yeah.
RJW: Yeah. I’ve got all those.
DE: They’re worth, worth a bit as well, they are as well. How how did you cope with flying nights?
RJW: How did I cope?
DE: Yeah. Flying nights. What —?
RJW: How?
DE: Flying operations at night how, how —
RJW: Finding them?
DE: Yeah. How did you, how did you cope, you know with interrupted sleep patterns and —?
RJW: I’m not quite with you sorry.
DE: No. Flying operations at night —
RJW: At night time.
DE: Yeah. Your sleep was interrupted.
RJW: Oh sleep.
DE: Yeah how, how did you, how did you —?
RJW: Oh well yes you went to briefing in the morning if ops were on. No not briefing. You’d do a bit of exercise and that. Go to the flight and then you’d have an early briefing and then you’d have a rest, have your eggs and bacon and then night time you kept awake. There were tablets they used to give you to keep awake. I can’t remember the name of them now but they didn’t do much good I don't think. And then of course after de-briefing when you came back, eggs and bacon and you had a long sleep. Sometimes you were on the next night but not very often that happened. Not in my day. It did later on of course.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: It did later on.
DE: Did you, did you take tablets to keep you awake?
RJW: Yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: I can’t remember the names now.
DE: Wakey wakey tablets.
RJW: Yeah. I can’t remember what they were. Caffeine. Yeah I think it was —
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Something like that. You could, if you wanted them you could have them but I can’t remember the name of them.
DE: Was it, was it Benzedrine?
RJW: Yeah. Yeah but I never found. You were wound up. Let’s put it, let’s be honest about it. Everybody was. You were apprehensive.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Ok. You knew the target. You kitted up. You went out. You were taken out to the aircraft and you fiddled around with all your gear. You had to make sure everything was ok and eventually you took off. Sometimes you often, sometimes you took off in twilight so you could see the setting sun as it were, you know. See Lincoln Cathedral. And because you were in the rear you were looking west you were seeing some of the light and ok you got a bit of jitters maybe you know. A bit. Apprehension more than anything else but you had to be very alert. Very alert. You had to be watching all the time and you reported back anything you see. Getting over the target, doing the bombing run. That was a bit of a wait you know. Flying steady, straight and steady and hearing the navigator or the bomb aimer going to the skipper. Everybody else was quiet. You could see the activity going on but if there was cloud below or the flashes coming up and everything else. If you were near flak as I said you could smell it and see it and all that sort of thing. Got away from the target. There was always a sense of relief once you come away from the target but of course it was just as dangerous coming away. You couldn’t — you couldn't relax or you shouldn’t relax, let’s put it that way. Probably that’s what did happen. You just had to be on your toes all the time but on the way back over the sea, over the North Sea coming back you were a bit relaxed then. Coming in to land of course you had to be very careful. You could have intruders, you know. You really, you couldn’t sit down. You couldn’t take a rest. And you know there were times and I’m sure others have told you this, you had a very dicey trip and you say, ‘If I get back I’m not going to come again.’ [laughs] Why come back? If I get out of this one that’s it, but you did, you know. You didn’t, you didn’t think much about, you didn’t think too much about it on the ground. At least I didn’t. You didn’t dwell about it. You didn’t think. You got wound up for ops. Then they were scrubbed so you were off to the pub you know it’s not oh, everything goes and you just, you just tended to live for that night, that night. You were in the pub with your pals drinking away and you didn’t give many thoughts to the fact that you would be doing the same thing tomorrow. At least I didn’t and I don’t think many other people did either. Some might have, but I didn’t. You just treated each day as it came along. You got scared, of course you got scared you know, got scared out of your life when you were in the dinghy but you thought, oh well, you know, something will happen. I’ll get out of it. Eventually you did. I don’t know but the greatest thing [?] was though, to be honest was to see your pals go although because in the main you didn’t know whether they were killed or not. They didn’t return. They were missing. Right. Failed to return. And there was always the hope that they’d be prisoners of war or they’d landed somewhere else but it, it didn’t sink in. It wasn’t like that, being in the army and seeing the person next to you killed. That didn’t happen unless your own aircraft, you could see an aircraft gosh I can’t remember the number of lucky breaks I had. Yes. On the, on 49 Squadron when I first joined Allsebrook I was a bit concerned and this is not against the guy at all but it is recorded somewhere this happened. He came to the squadron. He had flown into a balloon barrage under training and he was the only one that got out. On the first trip with him he was very keen, they’d made him the photographic, he wasn’t the, he wasn’t the station fellow, he was some sort of, something to do with photography and he wanted to hold the aircraft straight and level over the target to take the photographs [laughs]. So you know that was my first trip or second trip, I can’t remember which and I got a bit, a bit concerned about it and there was a sergeant pilot, or flight sergeant pilot that I’d been drinking with or knew quite well and he wanted a rear gunner and I thought, he wanted a WOP/AG, I thought. Well ok I’ll go and see if I can get switched into his crew and I went to see Domestra [?] who was our flight commander, Squadron Leader Domestra and he he said, ‘Oh no, I’ve done the crew schedules for the night,’ he said, ‘Come and see me tomorrow.’ His name was Walker this chap. He took off behind us. Engine cut. Went straight in. The bombs went up. Killed them all. I thought, I didn’t know it was him at the time. I saw it. When I got back we said, ‘Who was it that went, that went in?’ It was him. I thought oh my God, you know. Strange isn’t it? I must have somehow had a lucky penny. Oh yes and you will have heard this story and Eric will have told you. Others will. We had, the CO was called Stubbs. Wing Commander Stubbs. One day after briefing for ops, we were going on ops. ‘All the NCO’s will remain behind,’ remain behind. We got a real right rollicking about our form of dress, not wearing regulation boots or shoes. All sorts of things you know. Slovenly behaviour. Then he said, famous words, ‘Just remember the only reason you’ve got three stripes on your arm is to save you from the salt mines in case you are taken prisoner of war.’ Have you heard that? Oh yes. Yes. Yes. He said that. He said that and he got the name of Salt Mine Sam. Sam Stubbs. That is recorded somewhere but Eric Cook he was with me. I was on the squadron when Eric Cook was there you see and but he famously used to quote that quite often actually but yeah and it’s quite well known. There was a guy that was, I don’t know what his name was now but he was, he was an honourable bloke, honourable, he was a sergeant pilot and he was a bloke, he was an odd bloke, he refused to take a commission. I can’t remember his name but he was some sort of landed gentry of some sort and he was able to talk in high places as you did and we got a very meagre, half-hearted well it wasn’t an apology it was some sort of, you know it wasn’t really meant sort of thing you know. Sorry about that.
DE: No. That’s wonderful. I’m going to, I think I’m going to draw the interview to a close because you’ve been talking for nearly two hours.
RJW: Oh gosh. Have I?
DE: Yeah. That’s —
RJW: Have I really?
DE: Yes. Yeah.
RJW: I’m sorry.
DE: No, it’s –
RJW: I’ve probably bored you stiff.
DE: No. It’s absolutely marvellous and I’ve said nothing on the tape so it’s fantastic.
RJW: Eh?
DE: I’ve not spoken at all. It’s all been you so —
RJW: Do you, it’s funny everything else is going but that memory.
DE: It certainly is. Yeah. It’s fantastic. Yeah. Well I’m going to –
RJW: And while I’ve been talking to you Dan I’ve been living it visually.
DE: I could tell. Yeah.
RJW: I can see it.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: I can see the incidents right there.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: As you know.
DE: It’s been an absolute pleasure.
RJW: I didn’t realise, I didn’t realise it was —
DE: Two hours look. So I shall, I shall press pause and stop it. Thank you very, very much. That’s absolutely wonderful.
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 Reg Woolgar
Description
An account of the resource
Reg Woolgar was born in Hove. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force in December 1939 and trained as a wireless operator/air gunner. He flew Hampdens with 49 Squadron. His aircraft was damaged by anti-aircraft fire on a mine laying operation to Oslo Fjord, including a bullet that passed through his gun sight. He recounts ditching a Hampden in the English Channel and being picked up by the Royal Navy off the Isle of Wight. He describes evenings out in Lincoln at the Saracen’s Head. After his first tour he was commissioned and became gunnery leader with 192 Squadron in 100 Group. Reg Woolgar was posted overseas in 1945 and recounts a bomb exploding near the King David Hotel, in Jerusalem. He also recounts tales of his time in Kenya and provides details of his career outside the Royal Air Force, as a planner and valuer for the city of London. He retired in 1971.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-14
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Chris Cann
Format
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02:00:47 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWoolgarRLA160614
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Lincoln
England--Norfolk
England--Oxfordshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
Germany--Mannheim
Middle East--Jerusalem
Middle East--Palestine
Germany
Germany--Kiel Canal
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-09-01
1942
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.
10 OTU
100 Group
192 Squadron
49 Squadron
617 Squadron
83 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
ditching
entertainment
fear
FIDO
final resting place
Gneisenau
Goldfish Club
Hampden
killed in action
mine laying
missing in action
Operational Training Unit
RAF Foulsham
RAF Scampton
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Yatesbury
Scharnhorst
searchlight
training
Walrus
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/572/8841/AFroudJ160516.2.mp3
b9f785857b8781991f29989631bb29b6
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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Froud, James
J Froud
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Froud, J
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with James Froud (1922 - 2019, 1801660 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 44 and 83 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
2016-05-09
2016-05-16
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
DP: This interview is being conducted for the IBCC Bomber Command, the interview is, the interviewer is Dave Pilsworth, the interviewee is Jimmy Froud, the interview is taking place at Mr Froud’s home, xxxx Bury St Edmunds on the sixteenth of May, time is, twelve ten.
JF: [inaudible] from the thirtieth of the eighth to the fourteenth of the ninth, apparently, er, we then went on leave, came back and went to, [pause] [background noise] a quick check, I must have gone straight [pause] [background noise] to
DP: Interview paused
JF: There’s a lot of operations, I did, with Warrant Officer Price, as a spare gunner, one was to Danzig, one was to Stuttgart, Danzig was badly pranged and a lot of people got, unfortunately, er, [pause] [background noise] then, it looks as if we pursued a load of training, for, the lads using radar, wire runs, those were the runs, er, to bombing ranges, you’ve probably heard of those before, er, there’s a number of them there, ok [pause]
DP: Interview paused
[inaudible]
JF: With the crew, with 83 Squadron, Bergen, that’s in Norway of course, erm, and on the way back we were diverted to, ooh, Sutton, I expect, but er, our base was unavailable due to fog, but don’t put all that detail in if it’s unnecessary, strangely enough, the next operation, was on, the first of the eleventh, [pause] and that was a daylight, to Homberg, not Hamburg, Homberg, in the Ruhr, and that was when it was daylight we did, we then [unclear] interest, did a ran, across country, that was Belgium and France, that was checking the [unclear] how set out, we were hit by flak, and er, returned to base, duty not carried out, it’s written up, we did loads of daylight flying, for practise and night fighter affiliation, duty not carried out [emphasis], so, we just need to go onto the ops don’t we, [background noise]
AP: Interview paused
JF: Ops, Mitchell, as a flying officer, Heilbronn, H-E-I-L-B-R-U-double N [spelt out] er, that’s a bombing raid I take it, Heilbronn, it must have been in France, wasn’t it, and the one after that, because this log book got damp once, it’s a job to see, and that was on the sixth of the twelfth, to Giessen, G-I-E-double S -E-N [spelt out] six hour trip, must have been just a bombing trip, sorry we was, Pathfinder first, we were probably flare force, we dropped the flares to light the target up, but that sort of detail I didn’t put in because it didn’t affect me at all, again, about the ninth of the first, at forty five, went to Munich, eight hours forty, again, I just sit in the rear and, let the boys work at the front, and I assume it was marking the target, or just putting flares down, we move on to several ariel, forty five, well, the eighteenth, Bohlen, Leipzig, sonar [unclear] thirty trip, [pause] not sure, what, where that, was, is, in the first months, no, second month, er, second of the first, no, already done that, anyway, Gravenhurst, which was the Dortmund-Ems canal, er, I can remember that erm, that was five hours forty five, the following day, we were told that it had been successful, by a Spitfire out on recognition, er, reconnaissance and looked down and seen this ditch, which had previously been a canal, anyway, they were usually fairly quickly repaired, actually, [pause] er, I’m trying to, about the twentieth of February, Horten, H-O-R-T-E-N [spelt out]that’s in Norway, and that’s U-boat pens, now, we bombed that, and I remember going on leave, sometime later, and being told off by a mate, who, being stationed up there, he said we’d hit the brewery and he was not pleased [laughs] because we got his beer [laughs] ah, the third of March, that’s my birthday, er, operation schme, I don’t know how you pronounce that
AP: Schmedehausen
JF: Yeh, good, I’ll accept that, Dortmund-Ems canal, was that the last one, anyway, and then, again, Bohlen, that’s B-O-H-L-E-N, [spelt out] Leipzig, nearly a nine-hour trip, eight fifty-five, sixth of the third, oh, these are pretty close together, Operation Sassnitz, that’s in the Baltic Sea apparently, eight hours, thirty, any idea?
AP: No, for the record, interview paused
JF: No, ok, [background noise] Lutenzendorf L-U-T-Z-E-N-D-O-R-F [spelt out] that’s Leipzig again, we also bombed Arsbeck, as briefed, and we were diverted to wing, and so, that was, on the fourteenth, on the sixteenth and went to Wurzburg, that’s W-U-R-Z-B-U-R-G [spelt out] seven hours, twenty, that was the sixteenth of the third, er, [background noise] I’ve got half a blank page here, I don’t know why that is
AP: For the record, interview paused, just for the record, interview re-started
JF: And so, we’re now, or did we do, had we done, Lutenzendorf, I think we done that haven’t we, oh, don’t matter, oh, with, seventeenth of the fourth, Cham, Bavaria, that’s Germany isn’t it, [pause] seven hours, fifty, no idea what it was, well, just, eighty, erm, Pathfinder duties, oh, here’s one to Tonsberg in Norway, that’s the twentieth of the fourth, so we’re getting near the end of the war probably, I think that’s the last one, I don’t know [pause] [background noise] yep, that’s it, [background noise] I now, we were then, after a while, preparing to go out to the Far East, we, the plan was to take the mid upper turret off, dangerous thing to do, and put a fuel tank, petrol tank there, they did it to one aircraft we, didn’t like the look of it but we did what we were told, or we went LMF, [laughs] so, we had actually finished operations, I’m afraid, that last one was Tonsberg, I should recognise it, [pause] [background noise] erm, [pause] [unclear]
AP: Just for the record, interview paused
JF: Erm, we [background noise] [unclear] we jettisoned, incendiaries, in the North Sea, there’s a big ditch, below the ocean, and they had to locate it and drop, er, the incendiaries, they were a bit dicey those things, very dangerous, they were made hexagonal, in shape, about a foot long, and the firing pin was located so that they were all packed together in a tight bunch, and dropped so that, they would scatter, now, obviously, pretty dicey things to have around, so, the air force wanted to get rid of them, and we dumped quite a few, er, [background noise] still flying with Mitchell, we’re doing flight affiliation and wire runs
AP: What was involved with fighter affiliation? Roughly
JF: Erm, you’d have a fighter up [unclear] we got to using Spitfires, and er, he’d do attacks on you, and we’d have a camera, mounted, on your gun sight, only little tiny things they were, [unclear] and er, they would record, er, the fighter attacking and when you got back they would be processed by a photo, photographic section, and then, and the films were assessed on a screen er, [pause] now, [pause] [background noise] I continued doing practise, bombing, and, cross countries, cross country duty not carried out, I don’t know why, recalled to base, that’s unusual, I wonder why that was? [background noise] ah, [emphasis] sorry, Mitchell, apparently, disappeared after the eighth of the sixth, he went, he didn’t say goodbye or [unclear] just went and er, we then had another fella, Flying Officer Clayton, erm, and we were doing the same things, you know, preparing to go to the Far East, er, [background noise] it was all training, we did radio range, [unclear] that would be done with the wireless op, [unclear] fighter affiliation, fighter affiliation, fighter affiliation, fighter affiliation, loads of that, so taken a pair of guns away with us and told us to [unclear] bloody air force, [pause] ah, now, [pause] [background noise]
AP: Just for the record, interview paused
JF: Yes, here, I’ve moved from, 44 Squadron, sorry from, 83 Squadron, to a heavy conversion unit, and that, [pause] oh, here we are, I was at Coningsby up to the thirty first, of the, tenth, forty five, and then I went to Finningley, Finn-in-ley [emphasis] which was a Bomber Command instructors course, and then, from there, on the tenth of the eleventh forty five, went to North Luffenham, which was a heavy conversion unit, er, and we were training people, up until, no those dates are wrong, [pause] [unclear]
AP: Just for the record, interview paused
JF: And I was at Cambridge, when we, was demobbed, and we used to meet quite regularly, [background noise] er, and he, but he died a few years ago, poor John, which probably was a good thing in a way because he’d gone blind or almost blind and he wasn’t taking it very well, a bit niggly on the phone, or some at
AP: What was his surname?
JF: Norman, Johnny Norman, yeh, poor John, [background noise]
AP: For the record, interview paused
JF: Conversion unit, so screened gunner, that means, actually, screened gunner it says, then air gunner that means, that’s a number of trips that we did, to, Moreton- in- the- Marsh and [unclear] to dump aircraft, [background noise] [pause] and we were up to the ninth of September, er, forty-six, we’re still flying as a screen gunner, fighter affiliation, and, those, airlift to Lindholme, fighter affiliation
AP: Is this the conversion unit, sixteen, sixty, wasn’t it?
JF: Sixteen, fifty-three, conversion unit, that’s the last
AP: For the record, interview, paused
JF: Tenth, forty-six, [background noise] could have come out on class B, class B, you got, two weeks leave, I think, not long, and er, you were back into civvy street [laughs] and I came out on a class A, which is the normal class, we got a bit longer leave, and I, I’d reached that stage where I hadn’t made my mind up whether I wanted to stay in or not, but I couldn’t see, what I could be doing, ‘cos, I realised, that, erm, the aircraft that we were flying, would have had to change, and the gunners would not be used, needed, if you’ve got fast enough aircraft, you don’t need air gunners, which is surplus baggage [laughs]
AP: So, what did you actually, do, once you were actually demobbed?
JF: I was, I was a plumber apprentice, up until the time, I went into the RAF, and I went back to plumbing, er, until, I was happily married, and, I did, quite a number of exams, sorry, quite a bit of training at er, evening class, er, and got qualifications, and eventually went to, Bolton, which was a training course, its, attached to Manchester University, and er, there were all sorts of, different trades there, building trade, printing, er, our friend along the road, he was a, I don’t know quite what he did actually, but he was in the, typewriting and that type of stuff, so, having got trained, you had to get a job, there was no guarantee of a job, but, I got a job at Reading Tech, er, stayed there about nine years, a job came up here, for a higher position, so, I came up here, finished up as deputy head in the construction department, and then, when I was old enough, I was demobbed
AP: When you came down here was you with, did you go to West Suffolk College?
JF: Yes
AP: For the record, interview now finished at twelve forty-two with Jimmy Foud
JF: Froud [laughter]
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with James Froud. Two
Creator
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Dave Pilsworth
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-05-16
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AFroudJ160516
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.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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00:25:19 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
As part of the Pathfinder Force, Jimmy explains that they did a lot of training using radar, wire runs and bombing ranges, as well as radio range with the wireless operator. Jimmy also describes the fighter affiliation they carried out. They sometimes marked targets or drop flares.
Jimmy refers to several operations with 83 Squadron to places in Norway and Germany, including cross country runs across France and Belgium. They experienced being hit by anti-aircraft fire. The final operation was to Tønsberg in Norway. They also jettisoned incendiaries into the North Sea. Jimmy moved from 83 Squadron to RAF Coningsby, followed by RAF Finningley, a Bomber Command instructors’ course, and RAF North Luffenham, a Heavy Conversion Unit. Jimmy did a number of trips to RAF Moreton in the Marsh; to dump aircraft. He was at Cambridge when demobilised.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Rutland
England--Yorkshire
Norway--Tønsberg
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
France
Belgium
Germany
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
83 Squadron
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Heavy Conversion Unit
incendiary device
Pathfinders
RAF Coningsby
RAF Finningley
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF North Luffenham
training
-
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8f465cc3d7c812b00cee04912bd3f2d6
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/920/11165/ALawrenceJ170510.1.mp3
e51fceacb81837afefd0f45e304345bb
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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Lawrence, Lawrie
Jack Lawrence
J Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Jack 'Lawrie' Lawrence (b.1919, 533877 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator air gunner with 61 and 83 Squadrons. He was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
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
2017-05-10
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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Lawrence, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is David Meanwell. The interviewee is Lawrie Lawrence. The interview is taking place at Mr Lawrence’s home in Sevenoaks in Kent on the 10th of May 2017. So, Lawrie if you could perhaps tell me a little bit about where and where you were born and your early life.
LL: Well, I was born in this little town, Ossett. I just did the normal schooling. Grammar School. Worked for a year and then joined the Air Force.
DM: What did you do when you worked for the first time around?
LL: Oh well, I did a little, an electrician. And when I was seventeen and a quarter that August, joined. I could join the RAF.
DM: And why did you want to join the RAF?
LL: I wanted to fly. When I joined they said, ‘What do you want to be?’ I said, ‘A pilot.’ He said, ‘Well, do you want to make a career of the Air Force?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course. He said, ‘Well, don’t be a pilot. Go to Cranwell. Be a wireless operator or something.’ Which I did.
DM: And that was ok with you was it? You —
LL: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: You weren’t too disappointed?
LL: No. Well, I was a bit disappointed but he said there was no career. A pilot was four years on, six years off. That was it. So I had no choice actually.
DM: So how long was the training at Cranwell? Can you remember?
LL: A year.
DM: And then what happened?
LL: Then I was posted to Hemswell. They had old biplanes. Just getting rid of them, and we got Ansons which were just coming into service. It was just like flying in a flying club. Weekends we’d give displays everywhere. It was very nice indeed.
DM: How many crew in an Anson?
LL: Well, we flew with three but you could fly with two. But that was it. It was like being in a flying club. I used to go up, take one out on weekends. Go out and see friends. It was, it was very nice. But then we got Blenheims and that was the start of the trouble. We filled the graveyard at Hemswell Cemetery. Crashing. Crashing. Crashing. I’ve got photographs somewhere. This is a book. My daughter made me write it.
DM: Is that your memoir basically.
LL: Yes. What I could remember. They were not bad to fly in but they were very dangerous because they were the first Blenheims produced. That was about it.
DM: So this was a Mark 1 Blenheim obviously.
LL: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: Yes. Were you based at Hemswell the whole time with, with —
LL: I was at Hemswell. Yes. We got the Blenheims. We didn’t have them very long and we got the Hampdens of course. And I was suddenly posted from Hemswell to Waddington. I went to the, formed the what we called the little high speed flight at Waddington. We went and collected a new Blenheim and we were briefed to fly to Africa. And we were detailed for September the 4th.
DM: What year was this?
LL: ’39.
DM: Right.
LL: But of course the war broke out on September the 3rd so we suddenly flew back to Hemswell and we were operational. And we took off and made our first flight in February.
DM: Can you remember how you felt when war was declared? You know. What? Was it an exciting time? A frightening time?
LL: Just a normal time quite truthfully. Until February because we didn’t do, we didn’t go into, we never made a bombing flight until February.
DM: So, what were you doing between September and February?
LL: Just training.
DM: And that was still at Hemswell.
LL: Yes. Yes.
DM: Ok. So, if we go forward to February 1940 then.
LL: Right.
DM: What was your first sortie? You first mission.
LL: Oh. I can’t, can’t remember.
DM: It was a bombing mission.
LL: Oh yes. It was a bombing mission. And I’d been with this crew for three years. We had no trouble bombing aerodromes and things like that. We didn’t see, didn’t see much action. But getting, getting there at night was a bit of a trouble [laughs] Frightening the place.
DM: So how many of you in the crew?
LL: Four. And we never saw anybody from take-off to landing. We were all separated. Yeah.
DM: And how many missions did you fly on that first?
LL: Pardon?
DM: How many missions did you fly on your first?
LL: I flew thirty seven. I should have stopped at thirty but something happened. I went on to thirty seven. By which time we were, the crew had been together all that time and we were doing quite well finding targets, dropping our bombs. One morning we thought we’d got to Blackpool but it was the tower in Paris.
Other: Arc de Triomphe. .
LL: Pardon?
Other: Arc de Triomphe.
LL: Yeah. Arc de Triomphe.
DM: Yeah.
LL: Yeah. We were flying around it before — we thought we were in Blackpool. Things like that happened.
DM: Right. Yeah. That was, that would have been a bit worrying wouldn’t it? So when you came to the end of those thirty seven.
LL: My tour. Yes.
DM: Yeah. That tour. Yes. You obviously had some leave.
LL: I went to Upper Heyford as an instructor.
DM: Right. Ok. And instructing on wireless or gunning or — ?
LL: On everything to do with flying. Yeah.
DM: What did you think of that?
LL: A bit fed up actually. A bit dangerous too because sometimes you met a pilot who had never flown one before. And so after three months I volunteered to go back on flying and I was sent to Scampton. 83 Squadron. And I went with my pilot and we had to form C Flight. We ‘d got brand new crews coming in. We had to train them. It was a pretty dangerous sort of job.
DM: So that was just as dangerous as the job before.
LL: It was [laughs] Yes.
DM: But you had the same pilot as you had the first time around.
LL: I had the same pilot. We, we started, we formed the flight. C Flight. 83. And on our sixth flight we were attacked by a Messerschmitt. Messerschmitt. We never saw him. He opened fire and the port wing was completely on fire. The engine was hanging down and I was on the floor of the cockpit. A bullet had taken off my left part of my ear.
DM: But it didn’t take your ear off obviously.
LL: It didn’t. No. But it deafened it. Yeah.
DM: Was that the first time in all your missions you’d been attacked by another aircraft?
LL: No. We were attacked by a Dutch fighter before Holland came into the war.
DM: That was more of a warning was it?
LL: Fired back at him and he just waved to us and went off. Yeah. And we had [pause] we landed all over the place. We’d done, we’d done six.
DM: So this was your forty third trip.
LL: I’m trying to remember. Yes. Before I left [pause] before I left Hemswell I had a bad attack of pleurisy.
DM: Oh right.
LL: They took me off a flight and as I went to [pause] my crew flew. And then they gave me another crew but when I, when I was sick for a fortnight my crew was shot down. And the chap who took my place lost his left arm on his first trip.
DM: Did your crew survive?
LL: The pilot. The pilot was, yeah but on my second tour when we were shot down the pilot was killed.
DM: What about your old crew when the chap who replaced you lost his arm? So he obviously survived.
LL: They were prisoners of war.
DM: They were all prisoners of war.
LL: Yeah.
DM: Right.
LL: Yeah.
LL: So, ok so if we come forward now again to when you were shot down.
DM: Yeah.
LL: You were attacked by a Messerschmitt.
DM: Yes.
LL: The plane was badly damaged.
DM: [unclear]
LL: You were on the floor with your ear piece missing.
DM: Yeah.
LL: What happened next?
DM: Well, I shouted. There was nobody answering me so I just assumed everybody had baled out except, you know. So I baled out. I got out at about thirteen thousand feet so I was alright.
Other: And the rest of them?
LL: Pardon? Well, I didn’t, I didn’t, I never saw them again.
DM: Right. So, at that moment you didn’t know whether they’d survived or whether they hadn’t. Obviously later on you found out.
LL: Not at that moment. I didn’t know. I knew they’d gone.
DM: Yes.
LL: But I didn’t know what had, what had happened to them.
DM: Right. Ok.
LL: I landed in a field in Holland and I was in a hell of a mess. My right ankle was [pause] wasn’t broken but it was —
DM: That was from the parachute landing was it?
LL: Yes. Yeah. Parachute landing. So I went to the nearest house, knocked at the door and a chap came and [noise] so I told him who I was and he invited me in. And I don’t know what happened but I was busy stuffing all my gear into their fire and the Germans arrived. I don’t know where. They’d come from the guardroom, they said which was about fifty yards away.
DM: Oh right. So, you were in a, were you in, actually in a camp?
LL: Yes. But I was on the borders of it. Yeah.
DM: And what sort of a camp was it?
LL: I don’t know.
DM: A labour camp I suppose, was it?
LL: I have no idea.
DM: Right. So they arrived and arrested you obviously.
LL: They arrested me. Yes. They were charming.
DM: Really.
LL: Absolutely charming. Yes. And they took me to their guardroom and I met a young man there who had been to college in England.
DM: A German.
LL: A German. He gave me a tin of Woodbines. I’ll never forget that. I was talking to him. Suddenly the door flung open. In come the Luftwaffe. They started to knock me around. They took me in a car. They took me to their headquarters and I was just in solitary.
DM: So, how, were you sort of put in solitary confinement?
LL: Yes. Yes. And then I was interrogated by, I call him a gentleman. He said he was the Red Cross representative and he seemed to know more about my squadron then I did. I kept my mouth shut and I stayed there for about a week.
DM: Before you, before you were captured had you had training back in England about what the interrogation process would be?
LL: Nothing.
DM: Nothing at all.
LL: Nothing. It was going but I’d never had one. No. No.
DM: So you didn’t know what to expect.
LL: I didn’t. Absolutely not. I didn’t. I was quite raw. Yeah. And [pause] that’s right, then they sent me to Dulag Luft by train.
DM: Where? Do you know whereabouts? Is that in Germany or what?
LL: Germany.
DM: Yeah.
LL: Yeah. It was the camp where all, all prisoners went through.
DM: Right.
LL: [unclear] When I got to Dulag Luft I thought I was going to be interviewed by an officer and they showed me into this room and the officer was this bloke who told me he was the Red Cross representative.
DM: Same man.
LL: So I wasn’t very good mannered and I was given a fortnights solitary confinement [laughs]
DM: And were you in Dulag Luft for very long?
LL: I was there about a month I think.
DM: What was life like there? Was —apart from the solitary confinement of course.
LL: Well, it was up and down. For instance when I came through, or rather when I left Holland they sent me to Amsterdam. I beg your pardon. I’d forgotten that. I went to Amsterdam. I was in a prison there and this young Rhodesian chap came and he was in Stalag 3 and we were quite friendly. A nice chap. He said he’d baled out of a Manchester. And when we got to, he travelled to Dulag Luft. When we got to Dulag Luft there was another crew of a Manchester there and they told him after he’d baled out the pilot changed his mind and just flew back. So, he was a different person altogether then. And when I was in the Amsterdam prison in solitary I met a chap called Peter Thomas. And we could talk through the wire. I’ll never forget. He said he would never escape. He’d just passed his intermediate solicitor and when he was going, when he was in the camp he was going to study and when he got back to England he could become and full time solicitor. Then he was going to get into parliament. And he said, ‘I’ve got to get a very safe seat. And when I’m in parliament the Prime Minister will [unclear] for me. And I met him again long, long after the war and it had all come true. He was walking down the street with Neville Heath and he was the deputy. He was Deputy Prime Minister and became Foreign Secretary for a while. Peter Thomas.
DM: Amazing.
LL: He was an amazing chap. Yeah. I just saw him then but he’d made his mind up. This was ’41. August ’41. Yeah. He was an interesting chap. Yeah.
DM: So, Amsterdam. You were there for a little while.
LL: About a month I think, you see, yes.
DM: And was that an Air Force camp or was it a —
LL: It was. It was an Air Force. They called it an interview camp. Everybody was interviewed by a representative supposedly of the Red Cross. Things like that. Who knew more about what was happening than he did. And we were all very raw. Who did I meet? I met one or two well-known people. Bader.
DM: Oh, he was in there.
LL: He was there. Just went through. Yeah. And then we were separated one morning and said we were going to the, to an Air Force camp and as I was a senior and I was a flight sergeant, everybody else were sergeants we were put on a train and we went to a place. Stalag 357. It was an Army camp and we got moved into a room full of Air Force who had been naughty boys at a camp in Barth. Stalag Luft 1. And we were not treated very well.
DM: But you weren’t naughty boys.
LL: Pardon?
DM: You hadn’t been naughty boys there had you?
LL: No. But they had you see.
DM: Yeah.
LL: And they was held there.
DM: And you were treated the same as they were.
LL: Yes. Yes. And I met one chap coming down and he was interested in escaping. So we talked about it and talked about it. Anyway, we decided we’d change identities with a private soldier. And we were very lucky. A gang of New Zealanders had just arrived from Crete and they were in a hell of a mess. They just wanted to sit down. So I found a man who wanted to change identities. And a football match was arranged. A fight broke out and while that was, while the Germans were dealing with that I was changing my beautiful blue into his flea ridden khaki and I went back to the Army compound. He went back to the Air Force compound. And Jock, he also changed over. He became Army. So there were two of us.
DM: And why did you decide you wanted to be in that barracks.
LL: Because if you were a private soldier you could volunteer to go out to work. And if you get a working party of less than fifteen you only had one guard. Which made escaping pretty simple, I must admit.
DM: Right.
LL: Yeah.
DM: So obviously nobody gave you away. None of, none of the people in the camp.
LL: The only thing that happened was I’d been there about a month and they got me out one morning and sent me down to the hospital. I didn’t know what was going on and daren’t say anything. Anyway, a doctor came in and said, ‘Shave.’ ‘Oh, thank you sir.’ So I shaved my beard off. And he gave me, he shouted a load at me. He said, ‘Shave down there.’ They were going to circumcise me. This bloke had gone sick in Crete. His papers had just caught up with him. They were posted. I’d had it done many many years ago. Anyway, the Germans wouldn’t believe their papers were incorrect. Never would. So it took a bit of talking out of.
DM: But you managed to talk them out of it.
LL: I managed it. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
DM: So did you go out on a few working parties before you tried to escape?
LL: Well, I started. We started looking around for a working party and then we came into our first difficulty. We were with the Army now and the people in charge of all this stuff had been caught in Dunkirk, the early part of the war. And they were living like kings. They had their own beds and everything. They were in the same hut as all the food was stored. So if they were hungry they just went and helped themselves. And when they heard we were there to try to escape which would cause trouble they were non-cooperative. I’ll come to this a bit later on. Saved my life this, but they were uncooperative. We just found one sergeant. He’d been caught early and he fixed us up with a working party. And off we went [unclear]
[recording paused]
DM: You went on a working party. You went out on a working party.
LL: We went on this working party at the house.
DM: Can you remember what you went to do? What the work was?
LL: Oh, my God [laughs] I’m trying. I’m sorry about this.
DM: Oh, don’t worry. Don’t worry.
LL: Oh yes. Yes. This was a working party in a small village. A very small village. And they had been formed of privates caught in the beginning of the war and they were having a hell of a time. A good time. And one bloke who was there couldn’t read and couldn’t write. That was the type they were. And on a Saturday two of them were allowed to go to the local and have a beer. I was astounded at all this. And I was working on a quarry. I had to push for these things. Anyway, we decided we’d get away and one night, in those days you all slept together and your clothes were in a room with bars.
DM: So they locked your clothes away.
LL: Yeah. So we get [Maximal?] managed to hide them. Anyway, we were, we sawed through the window in the afternoon, half way through, steel things. And that night our one guard was asleep you see. We tried, I tried to get through the bars and all the wall came down [laughs] Anyway, we got away and we were walking more or less due east. We, we were heading for Yugoslavia and we, on the map we had a lake marked out where the Sunderlands were flying. Landing arms for Tito. And we wanted to get there by Czechoslovakia. Anyway, we walked as the crow flies. If we came to a river we swam it. If we came to a bridge we had to go underneath it and we never saw a soul. We used to start walking at 10 o’clock. Finish at five. Find a place to hide for the day. And then go on the next day.
DM: What did you do for food?
LL: We carried it. We carried quite a bit of food with us that we’d found in this working party. And one day we were going along and because we’d left the train and everything so we reckoned we were very near [unclear] and the border in to Czechoslovakia. And we were resting during the day as usual and a chap came up and smiled at me. So I smiled back and he went away. And we had a little natter the two of us. We said, ‘Has he gone for help? Has he gone to tell the Germans? Is he not going to bother doing anything?’ So we decided we would wait and see. And we were wrong. We were surrounded by Germans. They thought we were Russian parachutists. Anyway, the policeman they brought with them, he was, he was a nice gentleman. He said he’d lock us up but before he took us to his police station he took me around the back and shook hands with me. He was [pause] And then went to the police station and then we were interviewed by the Gestapo for the next, oh ten days. Knocked around a bit of course and then they decided we were what we said we were. Two private soldiers. And we were sent back to the camp. And on the way we were on a train, we had a the guard and we got off the train and there was a man sat there with his luggage and he said, ‘Hey, you blokes, come and carry my luggage.’ He spoke English. We said, ‘Oh, get lost.’ Anyway. when we got to the camp he was the war officer. I finished up with a month solitary [laughs] So I did solitary and then went back into the camp again.
DM: And you were still a New Zealand private.
LL: Yes. Oh yes.
DM: As far as the Germans were concerned.
LL: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then after we put our names down for a working party again and they said, ‘You’re not worth it. It’s not worth it.’ Anyway, one night this sergeant came to see us. He said, ‘I’ve got two vacancies in a party made up by fourteen privates.’ But they were all commandoes. They’d been caught on the raid to St Nazaire so, you know, they were wonderful to be with.
DM: Yes.
LL: People of the same mind. And we were posted. We were sent to Görlitz. It was an Elementary Flying School. So of course we told them who we were and everything. And the idea was we would try and steal an aircraft because they were all over the place. But we found out that they always stored their aircraft with empty tanks. Now, in the Air Force you always left your aircraft with full tanks. They stored them empty. So it was a no go. And we worked there for two or three months I think it was.
DM: What sort of work was that?
LL: Oh, anything they could find. My job was every day I had to get these two oxon, we named them Spit and Cough and then had to collect a German guard and we’d to go down to the nearest town, collect the rations, drive them back. That was my day’s work. I was very lucky. And one of them, one of the chaps there was an ex-cook from Savoy. So we really, we did live well. We’d no [unclear] We did very well there. And then we decided we would escape. So one night —
DM: Was this just the two of you again or —
LL: No. Two commandoes were coming with us. So, one night we got out, a simple sort of through, you know barbed wire and everything. And we were told that we were on top of a mountain and there were three ranges so the idea was to walk down and up and rest the next day. But when we got to the first range we could see eleven more [laughs] So we were doing that. Walking. What happened to us then? [pause] During, during the day we covered ourselves up with foliage. At night —
DM: Had you taken food with you again?
LL: Oh yes. The Savoy.
DM: He’d made meals for you?
LL: Because I was driving the rations back. So harmless I could slip a few into this thing or hide it in the cart or give the rest to the Germans.
DM: What direction were you heading this time?
LL: Czechoslovakia.
DM: Right.
LL: Yeah.
[recording paused]
LL: We came to the River Oder where we had a shave and a clean up and swam across it.
DM: What were you, what were you wearing? Because obviously you weren’t in a uniform.
LL: Oh, these khaki shorts and —
DM: So you were sort of —
LL: That’s all I had. Yeah.
DM: Right.
LL: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: Which is I suppose one of the reasons you had to travel by night.
LL: Pardon?
DM: That’s one of the reasons you had to travel by night.
LL: Yes. Yes.
DM: Yes.
[pause]
LL: Caught near [unclear] on the border.
DM: How did that come about this time?
LL: It was the local gendarmerie caught us again. And then we were, we were taken to a place called Ollmuth and was delivered into the hands of the Gestapo.
DM: Again.
LL: Again. Yeah. And then after a few days we went back to the thing.
DM: So, I mean you said the first time when you were being interviewed by the Gestapo —
LL: Yeah.
DM: They knocked you around a bit. Was it the same the second time? Similar techniques or —
LL: Similar techniques. Just the same more or less. Yes.
DM: They didn’t think you were paratroopers this time. Or did they?
LL: Pardon?
DM: Did they think you were, you were paratroopers again or did they think you were just escaped prisoners?
LL: Just escaped privates.
DM: Yes.
LL: And I was a New Zealander with a Yorkshire accent.
DM: Which I suppose they didn’t know.
LL: Yeah.
DM: Yeah.
LL: Yeah. I missed quite a lot out quite truthfully.
DM: Well, you can go back.
[pause]
LL: Far more detail in there than I can remember [pause] When we were, when we were taken, being taken back to Landsdorf on the train. We got off the train and they took two of us to a house. They took us downstairs, put us in a cellar, there was no bed. Nothing. And we were there and we had one meal a day. And then on the Sunday they called me out. Took me to the bottom of the garden and said, ‘Stand there.’ That was 8 o’clock. At 9 o’clock six Army, six Army arrived with rifles and this bloke said I’d been looked at, investigated and I was going to be shot. This was 10 o’clock. And at 12 o’clock —
Other: Morning or night?
LL: Pardon?
Other: Morning or night? Morning or night?
LL: Morning.
Other: Morning.
LL: And at 12 o’clock I was stood there. The Army was stood there. A Luftwaffe officer arrived and said, ‘Come with me.’ Took me, and they took me back to the cellar. And I never knew why I wasn’t shot until three weeks —
DM: Three weeks ago.
LL: Yeah. There was a programme on TV. It was called shot soldiers or something. It appears that Hitler had, after the Great Escape from the thing he said anybody who escaped and was shot was to be, anybody that escaped and caught was to be shot. And the Gestapo was to carry out the shooting. Anyway, the Gestapo refused to do the shooting and that’s why I wasn’t shot.
DM: Right. So the fact that the Luftwaffe officer, it wasn’t because they’d discovered you were an airman.
LL: Pardon? No. that was —
DM: That was just coincidence.
LL: Just coincidence. He had an idea I think. And it appears that according to the dates that Hitler made this order, the Gestapo refused on the Saturday and I was on this to be shot on the Sunday. And they took me back to the cellar. Threw me in the cellar and that was it. He said, he said I’d been court martialled.
DM: In your absence obviously.
LL: In my absence. Yeah. And that was it.
DM: So, eventually they took you from that house back on the train, did they?
LL: Back on the train. And when I got on the train it was a truck and it had a barbed wire roof. So they put my hands through the barbed wire and handcuffed me. I travelled like that for twelve hours. Yeah. By which time I couldn’t care less they’d knocked me about so much. Anyway, I got back to Landsdorf. Yeah.
DM: So, you’ve escaped twice.
LL: Yes.
DM: Been caught twice.
LL: Yes.
DM: And you’re still a private in the New Zealand —
LL: I was still a private. And, oh then I was, that’s right they found out I was Air Force. I never found out who, how but they said who I was. I was, by this time I was so fed up. I’d been knocked about. I’d been, and I went into solitary confinement and Bader was in the next cell. So I had a natter with him and he tried to change identities.
DM: With you?
LL: No. With a private —
DM: With a private.
LL: Gave the game away. He was a big mouth. A good flyer and everything but one to stay very clear of. And they stuck me in Stalag Luft 3. And I was in the bed by the next door, hut rather and I was a bit brassed off. You know. So I started studying economics and then out of the blue one day they said, ‘You’re going on the train tomorrow to Hedwigenkoog.’ Which was, which was north. And I went to Hedwigenkoog . And this instructor came too so he formed a school. And I studied. Anyway, when I got back, it’s in the book. One day he says, ‘The Germans allowed me to take the exams from Oxford University. But the Germans will be there. You know. Make sure you don’t talk to anybody,’ because there was about eight of us. And we took, we took the exam. I took eight papers and after I’d been home for six months I had a letter from Oxford University to say I’d got honours in six. Yeah. Anyway, we stayed at this Hedwigenkoog, and suddenly we heard the guns. The Russian guns. So the Germans got us out quickly and marched off the road. And we were in a column and there was a column in front of us of people who had been prisoners a year more than me. And there was, and so Spitfires arrived and shot up the column with the oldest in and killed about a hundred. Yeah. We were only about a hundred yards behind. Very lucky. Anyway, we decided that we’d, we’d had enough so one night we deserted the column.
DM: And when you say we, who was —
LL: Two of us.
DM: Right.
LL: Two of us. And we walked on. That’s right. We kept going and we got to the German lines and up ahead we heard a bit of a battle going on. And it was a small village and there was a tank. A battle between Canadian tanks and German tanks. So then we waited for that to finish and then we walked down and met the Canadians and told them who we were. They said, ‘Well, look what are you going to do now?’ I said, ‘We’re going to walk to the Rhine and get across.’ They said, ‘Look, there’s a brand new Mercedes in that garage. Go get it and we’ll fill it full of petrol.’ So we got this new Merc out of this garage. The owner was shaking his fist at us. And they filled it full of petrol and we got to the Rhine but we couldn’t go across. There was only traffic in one direction. So we swapped it for a camera and walked across. I got to the nearest aerodrome and got a lift back and landed at a little place called Wing. And we were jolly and the WAAF were there to kiss you and everything. And then I was asked to go to the Endsleigh Hotel in London. I said, ‘Well, what’s, what’s wrong?’ ‘Oh, we want to interview you.’ Anyhow, I got to the Endsleigh Hotel. Nothing happened for about a week. And suddenly one morning I was taken to this office of a genera and he was asking me all about when I was a private. You know, a private soldier and what I did and everything. And he started picking. Picking holes. So, I said, ‘Look, you know your blokes were the least, you know the biggest worry in Germany were your blokes. They were having such a good time there wasn’t one of them fit to go. None of them would help us. Only the people caught in Dunkirk I think.’ Anyway, one bloke turned out to be warrant officer Sheriff. And he’d just been given the OBE. So my temper really let go. And it appears I was seeing this general, they were thinking of giving me medal. I don’t know what. Conspicuous Gallantry medal. Something like, like that. But the general told me to get out. [unclear]
DM: So do you think someone had given bad reports about you? Somebody —
LL: No. The general. I shouted my head off.
DM: Right.
LL: I was a fool. I was there. I was so [pause] this bloke was building the Army up to me and I’d had no help from the Army whatsoever. In fact just the opposite apart from one sergeant. And I told the general. He wouldn’t believe me. I lost my temper because I’d just been home for a short time. I wasn’t really myself. And he said, ‘Get out.’ So I got out. Never heard any more.
DM: So where did you go? Went back to —
LL: I went home and then a posting came through. I forget where it was.
DM: Had you found out by then what had happened —
LL: Pardon?
DM: Had you found out by then what had happened to the rest of your crew?
LL: Yes. I got the address of my pilot. He was buried in —
DM: Oh right. So you —
LL: Yeah.
DM: You had a letter that told you —
LL: Only the pilot. The other two I never, never —
DM: But the other two survived did they?
LL: I presume so.
DM: You didn’t run across them before or after.
LL: No. No. I never saw them again because I was in this Army camp for and attached to it for two years. So, I don’t know where they got to. But I’ve been to my pilot’s grave.
DM: And where’s that?
LL: There you are.
DM: What does it say? [pause] Holland. Jonkerbos War Cemetery in Nijmegen.
LL: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: So you have visited him.
LL: Yes. Yes. I have. Yeah.
DM: So where were you posted after you came home?
LL: Oh.
[pause]
LL: Oh, I was posted to a place called Bromley.
DM: Right.
LL: Which was a, one of these plotting stations. Plotting. It was a big house which had been taken over and it was a plotter and I was, I was duty officer for eight hours.
DM: Were you still a flight sergeant?
LL: I was warrant officer.
DM: A warrant officer.
LL: A warrant officer. Yeah. And I was there some time. I think from down there I went down to [pause] I can’t remember now [rustling papers] From Oxford you see. That’s the post I actually got [unclear] in.
DM: Was examined at Stalag Luft 6. 357.
LL: Yeah.
DM: Under the Authority of the University. Amazing.
LL: That came through, is it March ’64.
DM: It took a while.
LL: Yeah. I was a prisoner. Seven stone seven when I came home. That was me after three weeks, after three months at home.
DM: Fattened up.
LL: Yeah. I went to Biggin Hill, and then North Weald, and then Padgate. And then I was posted to Vienna.
DM: So what date are we?
LL: Pardon?
DM: What date are we now? What year are we in that you went to Vienna? Still 1945?
LL: Yes. And then in Vienna I collapsed. Oh, I got married and we went and I was posted to headquarters in Vienna and I collapsed one day. My lungs were bleeding so they flew me back to Wroughton Hospital. And then they decided I had six months rest. Then they decided that my right shoulder, there was a little, the [scab] was too bad. They had to cut it out. So I went up to, I went to another I can’t remember what hospital it was but it was a civilian hospital. Bader was in next door.
DM: You kept coming across him.
LL: Yeah [laughs] Cheshire, the bloke who had the homes.
DM: Oh, Cheshire.
LL: Cheshire. He was in the next. They treated it like a college but they, it was a wonderful place to be to be quite truthfully. One morning the doctor came around and he was a well-known surgeon of course that specialised in lungs. And he was telling me my budgie’s died, ‘I bet he died from bloody TB.’ And do you know he did a post mortem on my budgie and it was a heart attack. And he was, he was the biggest surgeon in England just about. Oh, and then I was posted to Hendon. At Hendon, I was commissioned now, I was posted to Cyprus. Headquarters Cyprus. And I retired from there.
DM: And what —
LL: As a squadron leader.
DM: And what year did you leave the Air Force?
LL: [unclear] yes.
Other: Oh, a bit later.
DM: So about 1964.
Other: What year did the, what year did Turkey get invaded?
LL: Pardon?
Other: ’71. So —
LL: What year were you born?
Other: ’55.
LL: It was after ’55 then.
Other: Yeah. Yeah. Because I was, you were in Wroughton when I was born.
LL: Yeah.
Other: And then you went to Germany. You are in Wildenrath in Germany. Dusseldorf.
LL: Dusseldorf. Yes.
Other: Then we were in, you were at the Ministry of Defence. We lived in —
LL: Pardon?
Other: Then you were at the Ministry of Defence at [unclear] Aerodrome.
LL: Yes. That’s where I met Peter Thompson. The navigator. That’s right.
Other: Then Hendon.
LL: Then from there I was posted to Cyprus.
Other: From Hendon to Cyprus. Yes. Yeah.
LL: Out there.
Other: Yeah.
LL: Yeah. And I did a tour as squadron leader in charge of all flights in the Near East. Nice posting.
Other: ’67 I think he might have —
LL: Pardon?
Other: Sixty — I think it’s ’64 you must have come out.
DM: So, if I take you back to —
Other: No. It’s later than that. Because I came back to, well you came out of the RAF. I went to Churston and I was —
LL: I came out in ’59.
Other: Yeah. No. No. It was later than ’59.
DM: ’69 probably. ’69.
Other: ’69.
LL: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
DM: So, take you back to 1945.
LL: Yeah.
DM: Why did you decide to stay in the Air Force?
LL: Well, I was, I was a career. I always —
DM: Oh yes. of course you, yes because you joined as a career person when you were seventeen years old. Of course. Yes. Yes.
LL: Yeah. That’s why I became —
DM: So that was always the plan.
LL: That’s why I didn’t go on the pilot’s course, I thought.
DM: Yeah.
LL: Yeah.
DM: Yeah.
LL: Yeah.
DM: Earlier on when we were speaking before we started recording you said that when you, before you joined the Air Force you played Rugby League.
LL: Yeah.
DM: Did you carry on playing rugby through your Air Force career?
LL: Yes. Yes. I played for Cranwell. Yeah. Cranwell Command.
DM: That was Rugby Union.
LL: Rugby Union. Oh, of course.
DM: What position did you play?
LL: Centre.
Other: Eddie Waring was your manager at one time.
LL: That was Dewsbury.
Other: Oh that’s —
LL: That was Rugby League.
DM: That was when you were young man. Yeah.
LL: Yeah.
DM: Yeah.
LL: Yeah. And I wasn’t happy in Cyprus. I didn’t feel as though I was getting anywhere. And I wrote to somebody. Anyway, they put me in touch with Barclays Bank and when, when they realised I’d got six honours from Oxford they offered me an immediate job as a first cashier. They said, ‘Where do you want to go?’ And I was mad on sailing because in Cyprus you worked in the mornings and sailed in the afternoon and I was mad on sailing. So I said, ‘I want to go to the seaside.’ So they gave me a choice of three. Anyway, that morning we had to, we were testing our Comet and we flew over Torquay and Paignton and the other one was up on the north coast. Anyway, there was three. But where did we go?
Other: Brixham.
LL: Brixham. Brixham seemed the best to I put in for Brixham. Came down to Brixham and that, moved in to a house and I did ten years.
DM: Always in Brixham.
LL: Pardon?
DM: Always in Brixham.
LL: In Brixham. Yeah. Oh, yes. I was in charge of the bank and that was it. Six years. Until we’d had enough and one day my wife and I were talking and she said, ‘Why don’t we go abroad?’ Anyway, we finished up I retired. We came to Spain and we saw a house half built on the, we arrived on the Sunday, saw the house on the Monday, bought it on the Wednesday [laughs] And in a pub we met a chap who did furnishings and we gave him a cheque. Just gave him a cheque in a pub. Five hundred pounds. And that was June. And we came in September and it was finished, furnished and we were there for ten years. No. Twenty five years.
DM: Whereabouts in Spain was it?
LL: [unclear] which is five or six miles from Malaga. And nothing went wrong with us the whole time. We trusted them, they trusted us and we had a marvellous time until my wife died of heart trouble. And then talked me into coming back out. I was five years by myself but that wasn’t very nice.
DM: In Spain.
LL: Yeah.
DM: Yeah.
LL: Sold it with no trouble. Came back. And that’s it.
DM: Have you kept in touch with the RAF?
LL: Only through the POW. And I got friendly with Charles Clarke, a bloke called Anderson. But there’s not many of us left now. The next reunion is in September I think at Henlow. I shan’t bother. It’s too far to mess around.
Other: We got invited to —
LL: Pardon?
Other: We went to Number 10 though, didn’t we?
LL: Oh, that was that was, yeah. Got especially picked for that. But for the old POW they go to Henlow every year now. They want to stay the weekends. Go in the mess. Too much trouble.
DM: If I can take you right back.
LL: Yes.
DM: To when you were a young.
LL: Please.
DM: Whippersnapper.
LL: Yeah.
DM: Did you have any brothers or sisters?
LL: Sister. Yeah.
DM: And did your dad fight in the First World War do you know?
LL: No.
DM: Serve in the First World War?
LL: No.
DM: He didn’t.
LL: No
DM: So he was the wrong age I guess.
LL: Yes.
DM: So he was one of the lucky ones really.
LL: Yeah. Just worked in a mill.
DM: Yeah.
LL: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: What became of your sister?
Other: Your sister was older wasn’t she?
LL: She was a few years older than me. Yeah. When did she die?
Other: She died. Oh, quite a few years ago. She got dementia. Yeah. Very badly.
LL: Yeah.
Other: And was in a home for quite a long time.
LL: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: So, looking back. Do you think, this is probably an unfair question what part of the Air Force was your, was your happiest time?
LL: Oh. Bomber Command before the war. Marvellous.
DM: The flying club era, so to speak. Yeah.
LL: Wonderful. Yeah. Yes. It was wonderful. We were happy all the time but there was no bullshit or anything like that. And it was, it was grand. Yes.
Other: So you used to test the planes then, didn’t you?
LL: Pardon?
Other: You used to test the planes.
LL: Yes. Yes. On my, when I was shot down I was already on my sixth trip and when we formed C Flight, 83 our job was to meet new crews straight from training and take a navigator and a rear gunner, take them up with us for their first trip. So every time I went with my pilot the other two crew were on their first trip. Every time. It was a bit of —
DM: Yeah.
LL: You know. Because we usually, we had so many crashes. We crashed on, the navigator was lost half the time. And after [unclear] one day we crashed on Blackpool Racecourse. We crashed on Shoreham front. We had two bad landings where we wrote the aircraft off. Ran out of petrol. That was the six.
DM: So none of them were pilot error. They were all navigational error and things like that.
LL: Navigation.
DM: Yeah.
LL: Yeah. I used to try and home on places but there were so many other aircraft homing, you know and because as I say when that [unclear] and the tower came up the navigator said, ‘Oh, Blackpool.’
DM: But it was the Eiffel Tower. Yeah.
LL: Yeah. Which I’d flown around in 1938. Below the thing. The celebration of the Bastille.
Other: You flew, you flew through the arch didn’t you?
LL: Pardon?
Other: You flew through the arch.
LL: Oh, that first time. Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
LL: We went around below the tower. Yeah. The three of us.
DM: So to be clear when you were shot down which was on your second tour but the —
LL: Yes.
DM: That Was with a raw crew as well? Was it?
LL: Yeah.
DM: Just you and the pilot —
LL: That’s right.
DM: Were the only two experienced members of the crew.
LL: That’s right.
DM: You were the only experienced member of the crew who survived
LL: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Six trips. We did six trips and each time we had to take a brand new navigator, a brand new air gunner and keep telling them all the way how to climb around, keep looking around out there. It wasn’t very nice but it was a job to be done and we did it. Yeah.
DM: But you must have wondered, why you?
LL: Because we formed the flight, you see.
DM: Yeah.
LL: And with the crew Danny and I, Danny Wilcox, his, his best man when he was married was [pause] I’ve forgotten his name. The bloke who lost his arm in the air force.
Other: There will be a few of those, dad.
LL: Pardon?
Other: There will be a few of those.
LL: Yeah. He was very well known. I can’t remember his name now. But we were together. That was it. Yeah. Because we were all [unclear] captains you see, six months if that.
DM: Did you meet your wife during the war?
LL: No.
DM: After.
LL: No. When I was at Padgate. I’d just, I’d just been commissioned. I was posted to Padgate as officer in charge of closing it for recruits going through Padgate. Which was [unclear] yes. Yes. I left the Air Force ’69. March ’69. That’s the letter from them saying goodbye to me.
DM: So you were in the Air Force for thirty three years.
LL: Thirty seven.
DM: Thirty seven years.
LL: Til ’69. Yeah.
[recording paused]
LL: I always remember when I went, came from Amsterdam to Dulag Luft they were marching me through Amsterdam and a lady came and gave me a medal. The Germans knocked the hell out of her. Yeah. [unclear] concentration camp. Ollmuth Civil Prison. Görlitz. Nixdorf punishment camp. Sagan. [unclear] A bloke called Grimshaw who spoke perfect German and he got out and he fixed something up in the dams, I think. Anyway, the Gestapo got him. Shot him.
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Title
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Interview with Lawrie Lawrence
Creator
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David Meanwell
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-05-10
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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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ALawrenceJ170510, PLawrenceJ1701
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Pending review
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01:01:26 audio recording
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Jack ‘Lawrie’ Lawrence planned on making a career in the RAF and joined in 1938. He enjoyed those early days when it felt like he belonged to a flying club. This was interrupted by the start of war and operational flying. He flew in Blenheims and notes they ‘filled the graveyard’ because of the accident rate with the aircraft. He volunteered for a second tour after a spell as an instructor. He was shot down and became a prisoner of war. He swapped identity with a New Zealand soldier so he would be able to volunteer for working parties which would give him the opportunity to escape. He made two attempts but was caught and delivered into the hands of the gestapo. On his last recapture he was held in a cellar before being called out into a garden where he was told he would be executed. He was unexpectedly reprieved and returned to prison. During the Long March he made his last escape and met with Canadians. He and his friends drove a Mercedes to a bridge and they then swapped the car for a camera and continued their journey on foot until they reached freedom.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Poland
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Oberursel
Netherlands--Amsterdam
Poland--Żagań
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1945
83 Squadron
aircrew
Blenheim
Dulag Luft
escaping
Hampden
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Cranwell
RAF Hemswell
shot down
Stalag 8B
Stalag Luft 3
the long march
training
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1391/24698/BDunmoreGDunmoreGv1.2.pdf
4775acffec4e6ee9190c8fe717ffa0cb
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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Dunmore, George
G Dunmore
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-05-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Dunmore, G
Description
An account of the resource
17 Items concerning Flight Lieutenant George Dunmore DFM (5601) who flew 45 operations as a flight engineer on Lancaster with 83 Squadron at RAF Scampton and then as part of the Pathfinder Force at RAF Wyton. Commissioned in 1944 he continued to serve in the general duties branch as flight engineer and then equipment branch until 1967. The collection contains his logbook, an account of a maximum effort operation, official documents and letters, a history of an individual aircraft, pathfinder certificate, recommendation for DFM, career notes as well as photographs and memorabilia. A sub-collection of 58 photographs of aircraft under repair or being manufactured in factories.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Louise Dunmore and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] STRIKE TO DEFEND [/underlined]
[page break]
[underlined] PREFACE [/underlined]
Although it has been the custom over the last thirty years to push memories of our experiences during World War II to the back of our minds, I have specifically been asked recently, by my son who is now studying the period, to talk about those days.
Many recent accounts I have heard or read have, it seems, been written by younger people who have no first hand knowledge of the time, but who have tried to research and give an account of various happenings. Unfortunately, to my mind, this method creates many distortions of facts, and I am therefore endeavouring to give an authentic impression to help young lads like my own son to understand the important part that Bomber Command played in World War II.
In doing so, I would like to dedicate the following work to all aircrew of Bomber Command who did not return, and in particular to my many friends and comrades of ‘83’ Squadron, Pathfinder Force.
- 1 -
[page break]
In January 1942 Air Chief Marshall Harris, Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command was sure enough of the growing strength of R.A.F. Bomber Command to make the following prophetic statement:
“Cologne, Lubeck, Rostock, those are only just the beginning. Let the Nazis take good note of the “Western Horizon”, there they will see a cloud as yet no bigger than a man’s hand, but behind that cloud lies the whole massive power of the United States of America.
When the storm bursts over Germany they will look back to the days of Lubeck and Rostock and Cologne as a man caught in the blasts of a hurricane will look back to the gentle zephyrs of last summer. There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war, well , my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet and we shall see! Germany, clinging ever more and more desperately to her widespread conquests and foolishly striving for more will make a most interesting initial experiment. Japan will provide the confirmation”.
The following gives an account of the preparation for and carrying out of a typical ‘maximum effort’ raid by Bomber Command which was initiated at H.Q. by the selection of a TARGET city:-
Together the planning Air Staffs were advised on weather conditions affecting U.K. Bomber bases, route, and target area. Selection of specific targets and the mass of detail, concerning target photographs, German defences, route out – home, codes, fuel loads, bomb loads – target marking techniques with pyrotechnic colour codes and from this mass of specialist information was evolved an [underlined] OPERATION ORDER [/underlined] sent in code to all concerned Bomber Groups and Squadrons which on receipt at a Squadron was called the ‘B’ (bombing) Form and summarized thus:-
1. Intention
2. Method
3. Execution
On receipt of an Operation Order at R.A.F. station level there was an immediate security clamp placed on Entrances/Exits, also all telephone lines were disconnected, - except for those coded and scrambled ‘tie lines’ to Bomber Group and Command Headquarters.
- 1 -
/The
[page break]
The whole R.A.F. station was alerted, and aircrews detailed to Air Test specific serviceable aircraft. Each aircrew member made a thorough detailed check on the ground against specially prepared Master check lists, i.e.:
[underlined] Pilot: [/underlined] [author indicates and] [underlined] Flt. Engineer: [/underlined] Pitot and Static Vent covers “OFF” Combined check of all aspects of aircraft externally, including Propellars [sic], Airframe, Engines, Tyres, Brakes Control surfaces, Trimmer Tabs, Oil, fuel and hydraulic systems.
[underlined] Navigator: [/underlined] [author indicates and] [underlined] Bomb Aimer: [/underlined] Combined check of all navigation equipment, bomb bay, bomb sight and navigation electronic aids.
[underlined] Wireless Operator: [/underlined] Check Transmitter, Receiver, Trailing aerial gear. Radio jamming equipment, A.I. equipment I.F.F. (Identification Friend or foe), also Verey Cartridge codes and pistol – and finally [underlined] Bomber Code for the day. [/underlined]
[underlined] Gunners [/underlined] Check Mid-upper, Front and Rear Turrets, associated electrical Gun Sights – Machine guns, ammunition and Turrett [sic] heating.
These checks by the individual specialist aircrew members followed intensive work by the skilled ground crew tradesmen who themselves had followed scheduled serviceing [sic] programms [sic] supervised by N.C.O. Master technicians.
On the air-crew ground checks being completed, - control surface locks and Jury struts were removed; Ground Electrical power plugged in, and the Aircraft’s Master Electrical switch switched from FLIGHT to GROUND.
Each crew member took up his respective position in the aircraft, then a further check list carried out embracing in detail all aspects of readiness for the ensuing Night Flying Test (N.F.T.). The check list continued from all positions while switched to “Ground electrical power” – when complete to this point the O.K. to start engines was indicated to waiting ground crew:- e.g.
No.1 (Port Outer)
No.2 (Port Inner)
No3. (Starboard Inner)
No.4 (Starboard Outer)
With all four engines started the order Ground/Flight switch to Flight was given and “disconnect external electrical service”. Still on CHOCKS the “Prior to Flight” checks were continued from the Master Check list. These included:-
(i) All controls – freedom of movements
(ii) Engine temperatures, pressures normal.
(iii) Each engine in turn revved up to Max R.P.M. and Boost e.g. [underlined] Lancaster [/underlined] 3000 R.P.M. 12lbs. sq.in. Boost
- 2 -
/(iv)
[page break]
(iv) All 8 Magnetos checked, in turn.
(v) All engine oil pressures – steady at 90 lbs. sq.in
(vi) All engine temperature [underlined] normal [/underlined]
(vii) All Fuel Pumps ‘ON’ and showing 12 lbs.sq.in
(viii) All superchargers set ‘M’ medium gear.
IX All propellor[sic]pitch controls, controlling – Full coarse to Full Fine – and Set Fine.
X Bomb doors closed
XI Pilot Heater ‘ON’ (Air speed indicator)
XII Brake Pressure 350 lbs. sq. in
XIII Hydraulic Pressure 3000 lbs. sq. in
XIV Master Gyro Compass – check reading (by rear door) and compare with:-
(a) Repeater compasses “on”
(i) Bomb Sight –
(ii) Navigators –
(iii) Wireless Operators –
(iv) Pilots Instrument Panel
XV Check Magnetic P.4 Compass for deviation
XVI Check Altimeter setting for code Q.F.E. airfield at Zero height or code QNH – height above sea level as required.
XVII Check all crew restraint harnesses secure, Oxygen ‘On’ Masks ‘On’
XVIII Flight Engineer checks Fuel Cocks selected for Take Off (No.1 Tanks Inboard)
XIX Pilot signals “CHOCKS AWAY” – when clear, rolls a few feet – checks “Brakes ON” and Pressure maintained.
XX Pilot taxies to Take Off Runway in use by using outboard engines for steering with touches of “differential” braking to either Port or Starboard main wheels as required. The differential was achieved through an air valve connected to the rudder bar – with a single lever on the control column.
When given clear to do so (Green light from runway controller), the pilot turned onto the runway, ran forward a few yards (to straighten the Marstrand Ribbed Tail Wheel) – then applied full brake – opened throttles to gate position, - [underlined] Power noted, [/underlined] Magnetos again checked in turn – for Rev drop. If O.K. Flaps selected 20 degrees down, radiator, shutters auto, Captain called crew – “Take Off – Brace”.
Against brakes, throttles were opened, leading with starboard engines (to counteract Propellar [sic] Torque (which tended to cause a swing on Take-off) – and as the aircraft accelerated and the tail came up – all four throttles to the ‘Gate’ position. At this point the pilot had directional control via the Rudders and then dependant on speed required and wind direction – called for “Full Power” to the Flight Engineer. The Flt. Engineer responded and
3
/called
[page break]
called out “Full power 3000 Plus 14” when indicated.
Once airborne, a further series of checks covering all systems and controls was completed. Any technical defects noted for advice of ground crew on landing. Such N.F.T.’s took from 20 minutes to 40 minutes, and on landing any defects were reported as “snags” to be corrected immediately. The aircrew returned to their respective Flight Commanders to report Serviceability In return this information was passed through Squadron and Group Commanders to H.Q. Bomber Command as the percentage of Squadron strength serviceable and available for operations.
Meantime, the Engineering and Armament Officers would have been advised of
(a) The Fuel load in gallons (Lancaster maximum 2154)
(b) The various bomb loads required, together with photo flash sizes, Barometric bomb fuse settings – delay settings – Target Indicator – Code colours and further varied Bomb release switching permutations over the 15 available [underlined] bomb slips [/underlined] plus 3 Flare Chutes.
Depending on the Operation Order, - Target – alternative target – or other possible variables, the time for Main Briefing of crews was usually released as soon as possible in order to allow rest before the trip. Possibly, due to tactics for spoofing or fooling the German defences systems en route, it could be that Pilots, Navigators and Bomb Aimers were required to attend on initial Pre-briefing where maps and charts were prepared according to detailed instructions for the proposed bomber raid. These crew members were joined by the remaining crew members, i.e. Flight Engineer, Wireless Operator, Mid-upper and Rear Gunners – and all crews seated, - seven men to a table.
At Briefing time screens were removed from the [underlined] large scale [/underlined] map of Europe showing, usually in [underlined] red tape: [/underlined]
(i) Route outbound to Target with turning points
(ii) TARGET – and Alternate if required
(iii) Route Home to mythical ‘Gate’ position in North Sea – (Gate for 83 Sqdn. Was 7 miles east of the Wash and 4 miles wide North to South)
(iv) Route from Gate position in-bound to base at Wyton – usually down the ‘Bedford Rivers to St. Ives – (ground beacon) before joining Wyton airfield circuit – Anti-clockwise.
A typical briefing took place in the Airmans’ Dining Hall under strict security conditions – only aircrew detailed on the OPERATION ORDER – plus only Aircrew Section Leaders and the concerned specialists – i.e. Photographic Armament, Engineering, Electronic, Radio, Intelligence, Weather (Meteorologists) were present; all other personnel who did not need to know were excluded.
- 4 -
/After
[page break]
After an introduction to the Target by the Station Commander, and an outline of the major factors concerning the chosen Target, each Specialist Leader gave detailed information as required, e.g.
[underlined] Met. Officer: {/underlined] – Weather at base for Take-Off, on route, Target forecast, and base on return.
[underlined] Navigation Leader: [/underlined] – Take-off and climb, timing details, route in detail giving turning point co-ordinates. Timing explicitly to the [underlined] second [/underlined] cruise speeds, - final Heading to Target with [underlined] Height to Bomb [/underlined] – exact heading. Also, instructions for ground or air turning points, or ground/Air Markers colour Code changes at specific times as advised by Pathfinder Master Bomber.
[underlined] Bombing Leader [/underlined] : - Covered specific detail of make up of bomb loads – and which Flare Chutes were loaded with requisite coloured flares. Also Bomb sight and Camera settings with emphasis on correct heading on final run-up to target with “minimum Jinking” request to pilots” on run up – and emphatically, speed steady at 143 knots. (This latter always met with a laugh, but was usually adhered to by crews).
Underlined] Flight Engineer Leader: [/underlined] – Covered ‘all up weight’ for Take Off, climb, and cruise, with estimated engine settings required; emphasising, need for economy of fuel, accurate engine instrument checks, also up-keep of Log Sheet every 20 minutes to cross-check fuel consumption. The aim for a Lancaster being to achieve 1.2 miles per gallon.
Total fuel capacity was 2154 gallons in six tanks, (3 in each wing), numbered Port 1, 2, 3 out from centre and starboard 1, 2, 3 out from centre. The final word of warning was not to exceed maximum operational climb revs, boost and time limits, viz. 2850, (revs), + 9 lbs. (boost) and 1 hour (time). A warning to especially watch [underlined] coolant [/underlined] and [underlined] temperatures [/underlined] also [underlined] oil pressures [/underlined] when useing [sic] these operational settings was added.
[underlined] Wireless Leader: [/underlined] – Gave details of frequencies to be used, codes applicable, with changes [underlined] hourly [/underlined] if necessary. Also possible broadcast frequencies over enemy territory that may be used for radio direction finding by use of the D.F. Loop System. Stress was also placed on each wireless operator’s [underlined] search [/underlined] frequency band which had to be ‘swept’ continuously to pick up possible interception vector instructions to enemy night fighters, then instantly ‘JAMMING’ those orders by means of our ‘WOBBULATOR DEVICE’ – (The Wobbulator device was a metal plate mounted on a spring, insulated from the PORT side of the fuselage. It acted as a variable tuning capacitor due to vibration resonance and ‘strobed’ either side of the frequency to be ‘JAMMED’)
- 5 -
/This
[page break]
This amplified the sound of one of our exhaust stubs by means of a carbon microphone and re-transmitted on the night fighters’ frequencies – effectively ‘Jamming them’.
[underlined] Gunnery Leader: [/underlined] – General search pattern and dedicated vigilance, especially from directly below, also ensure before pre-trip rest that all guns were sighted correctly, and ‘Harmonized’ to a 400 yard 2 feet diameter cone with a final reminder to switch guns from [underlined] SAFE [/underlined] to [underlined] FIRE [/underlined] – when aircraft engines start – you are ‘ON OPS’. When taxying before take off seek captain’s permission to fire short burst from all guns into target sand pits, and finally, ‘good shooting’.
[underlined] Squadron Commander: [/underlined] – Final detailed instructions to Pilots with particular reference to timing at turning points – keeping the ‘corkscrew’ evenly either side of track – vigilance, particularly overhead, and dead below for collisions and fighters, - minimum of inter-com ‘patter’. Also known enemy ground defence ‘Hot-Spots’, watch out for predicted (radar directed) flak while within an apparent ‘box barrage’. Finally, strict R/T until then! – and Good Luck.
[underlined] Duty Pilot – Air Traffic Controller: [/underlined] – Gave briefing concerning R/T silence and the precise timeing [sic] for each crew, e.g.
1. Time for transport to Aircraft and Dispersal points
2. Individual timeing [sic] for each aircraft to ‘Start UP’ – usually by flashing an Aldis Lamp signal by [underlined] compass vector [/underlined] from the Control Tower.
3. Once started up, a further Aldis Lamp signal to the captains of each aircraft to ‘Taxi’ out to TAKE –OFF point in their turn, as briefed.
4. Runway controllers signal to each aircraft “CLEAR TO TAKE OFF”.
When main briefing was completed, all crews were warned again that the Target and all details were SECRET and then dismissed to:-
(a) Pre-flight meals, and if time permitted –
(b) To rest, prior to assembly at Squadron H.Q. to dress in flying clothing, collect parachutes and flying rations consisting of sweets or chocolate, chewing gum and ‘an orange’.
- 6 –
[page break]
[underlined] OPERATION ORDER FOR OPS – 6th SEPTEMBER, 1942 [/underlined]
The operation order for ‘OPS’ on the night of 6th September, 1942 arrived at Wyton at 10.00 hrs and called for a ‘maximum effort’. Night flying tests were ordered immediately; one of which in LANCASTER MK 1 R5669 ‘E’ (for EDWARD) was carried out by ‘A’ flight Commander, Sqdn. Ldr. Roy Elliott and crew who landed back at Wyton after a 30 min. trip, at 15.10 hours, reporting ‘Fully Serviceable’, - no snags, - to the ground crew. Briefing was detailed for 18.00 hours and the forthcoming trip would make the 15th for the crew since joining the squadron at Scampton earlier in the year.
(As part of Bomber Command’s reorganisation for the increase in offensive action the C in C had ordered the formation of a new Bomber Group – No.8 – to specialise in “pin-point” target marking techniques, to enable the MAIN FORCE aircraft to achieve the concentrated delivery and saturation of the required targets.
Air Commodore Donald Bennett was appointed to form the new No.8 Group – PATHFINDER FORCE – and during the last week of July, 1942 he ordered the assembly of all aircrew of No.83 Squadron in No.5 hangar at R.A.F. Scampton. As the Air Officer Commanding No.8 Group, Don Bennett addressed the whole of 83 Sqdn. (at that time belonging to No.5Group) outlining the proposed Pathfinder Task and Marking Techniques – pointing out that, regardless of trips already completed, crews would be expected to complete 45 trips [underlined] (two tours) [/underlined] with Pathfinder Force, - he then requested volunteers. Virtually to a man, the whole Squadron volunteered and 83 Sqdn. became the first Pathfinder Force Squadron, transferring to R.A.F. Wyton, Huntingdonshire in formation on the afternoon of 15th August, 1942. Squadron ground personnel travelled down by road with all heavy equipment and within a few days the Squadron was again at ‘Operational Readiness’ in it’s new PATHFINDER role).
By 18.00 hours all concerned crews were seated in the briefing room and stood up as the Squadron C.O. entered. Curtains pulled away from the large scale map showing DUISBERG to be the target, and red tapes pinned to the board showed the route out, and home. The C.O., Wing Commander Crighton-Biggie remarked that most of the assembled crew had been to Duisberg about six weeks before on the night of 23rd. July while the squadron was still with No.5 Group. It had been a very heavily FLAK defended target then, and certainly would be a tough one tonight, especially as some of the senior crews would be Marking the Target and make 2 or 3 runs each to replenish special Target Indicator Marker Flares.
- [deleted] 13 [/deleted] [inserted] 7 [/inserted] -
[page break]
Detailed briefing by each specialist Aircrew Leader followed as previously outlined. The main points were:-
i. Stick to planned course exactly
ii. Ensure accurate time of arrival at each turning point and [underlined] DO NOT CUT CORNERS [/underlined]
iii. Bombing heading across Target is from the South heading 020˚
iv.. Bombing height 20,000 feet
v. Zero hour on Target 03.00 (7.9.42)
vi. MARKERS – crews detailed separately commence marking Target at [underlined] 2 – 6 minutes [/underlined] with sticks of three [underlined] Green Marker Flares [/underlined] each run.
vii. Estimated total time of trip, 4 hours
viii. Fuel load 1,500 gallons – ample for six hours including 1 1/2 hours at combat revs and boost of 2,850 rpm + 9 lbs. if necessary
ix. Strict R/T silence (radio telephone) until reporting at ‘GATE’ position on return when instruction for a ‘Stream’ landing will be given.
X. First aircraft takes off 01.00 hours
X1. Pre-Flight meal 22.30 hours
The briefing was completed by 18.45 hours and the squadron dismissed to rest.
Sqn.Ldr. Roy Elliott and his crew collected a packet of ‘escape money’ each from the WRAF Flt. Officer (Intelligence) as they left the briefing room. This crew, in Lancaster ‘E’ Edward had been detailed to be first aircraft on Target at [underlined] Zero Minus Six Minutes [/underlined] (02.44 hours) and their bomb load 12 x S.B.C.’s GREEN MARKER FLARES. This meant four separate runs across the target – DUISBERG – which from previous trips the crew had called – “The worst for heavy flak” other than Essen.
After resting, the crew met for the pre-flight meal of eggs and bacon, (a rare delicacy in war-time Britain), and were on the way to the Hangar to dress in flying clothing by 23.10 hours. By midnight, dressed and ready to go the crew were collected by L.A.C.W Nancy Smith (M T driver with her one ton truck, and driven to ‘E’ Edward dispersal at the southern edge of RAF Wyton aerodrome.
It was a warm evening, still an hour to take-off, and the skipper suggested a last smoke and ‘5 minutes’ tactics, before commencing aircraft ground checks. Following crew custom, Flt.Lt. J.H. Dunk (navigator) spread a map
- [deleted] 14 [/deleted] [inserted] 8 [/inserted] -
[page break]
out showing pencilled the route out – across Target – and home. The crew saw that their route was WYTON – N east to Cleethorpes, then east to Den Helder (South of Texel Island) then S. east across the Zuider Zee (now Issel Meer) heading directly to ARNHEM in Holland. Beyond Arnhem they turned due east for 20 miles, then sharply due south – short of EMMERICH which would be 6/8 miles on their port beam. Remaining on course 180˚ until the town of WESEL was 10 miles on the Port beam, then again altering course – (as a feint or spoof manoevre [sic]) south east directly towards Dusseldorf, which lay south of Duisberg and to the south east of KREFELD. Finally when [underlined] past [/underlined] Duisberg and six miles south west of the target – turn sharply onto 045˚ (north east) directly for Duisberg – confirm aiming point visually and on ‘GEE’ radar – altering course to Bomb Run heading as briefed on [underlined] 020˚ [/underlined] for aiming point on DOCKS. (The return route was 50 miles north and parallel to the outward route)
The time was now 00.30 hours and the crew quickly ran through the external checks; a final word from ‘Chiefy’ and his ground crew who wished “GOOD LUCK” – skipper Roy Elliott signed the servicing F700 and called, “All aboard”.
Once in crew positions all internal checks were completed by 00.50 hours when the Green Aldis flashed from the Control Tower signalling ‘E’ Edward start-up. The ground crews were given thumbs up, plus 1 finger, and engines started in sequence:-
No.1 Port outer
No.2 Port inner
No.3 Starboard inner
No.4 Starboard outer
When all four were running the wireless operator switched from ‘Ground’ to ‘Flight’ and the flight engineer gave the crossed arms signal to ground crews to:-
a. unplug ground electronics
b. chocks away
Roy Elliott held the aircraft on brakes awaiting the ‘taxi’ signal from the tower; the time 00.57 hours. Meanwhile ground running checks of engine propellors [sic], fuel selection, pumps, instruments and master compasses were completed.
The runway in use was [underlined] 36 [/underlined] (due north) only 300 yds. from ‘E’ Edward’s dispersal
- [deleted] 15 [/deleted] [inserted] 9 [/inserted] -
[page break]
and at precisely 01.02 the double green Aldis flashed the ‘taxi’ signal on to ‘E’ Edward’s cockpit, the brakes were released, the skipper pressed his inter-com button ordering, “Check guns on ‘FIRE’, we are on our way!”, and taxied to the runway controllers’ hut on 36, rolling forward to straighten the tail; then BRAKES FULL ON:-
a. CHECK No.1 – OK – Fully Fine
CHECK No.2 – OK – Fully Fine
CHECK No.3 – OK – Fully Fine
b. Fuel Pumps ON – OK
c. Flaps 20˚ - OK
d. Radiators automatic – OK
e. Navigator – give me Gyro and P.4 Compass check – OK
f. Brake pressure 350 lbs. – OK
Precisely at briefed take-off time the runway controller flashed a green torch- (time 01.10 hours). Roy Elliott opened up, released brakes and ‘E’ Edward roared into the night and once airborne in about 2000 yards climbed up steeply heading north for Cleethorpes on the east coast. Once airborne, Roy Elliott called, “Flaps up” – then “Climbing Power” and the flight engineer responded after completing the action: - “Flaps are up” – “Revs 2850 boost + 9 lbs. sq.in – throttles locked, temperatures and pressure normal”.
‘E’ Edward continued to climb at 1200 ft. per minute and the Captain again pressed the inter-com button saying:-
“ATTENTION ALL CREW, DUISBERG IS VERY MUCH A [underlined] HOT SPOT [/underlined] ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE RUHU; IT IS HEAVILY RINGED BY ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS AND HAS NUMEROUS BELTS OF SEARCHLIGHTS. THE RUHR DEFENCES AS YOU ALL KNOW EXTEND INTO E.HOLLAND SO IF WE ARE CAUGHT OR [underlined] CONED [/underlined] WATCH OUT FOR NIGHT FIGHTERS – ESPECIALLY IF THE FLAK EASES UP AT ALL! I WILL BE WEAVING A CORKSCREW PATTERN EITHER SIDE OF OUR MEAN COURSE, ALSO DIVING AND CLIMBING CONTINUOUSLY BETWEEN 18000 ft and 20,000 ft. I WILL BE BANKING ALMOST VERTICALLY ON TURN, [underlined] SO SEARCH BELOW AND ABOVE EACH TIME. [/underlined] EVERYBODY KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED! – OUT’…
This was a little more than usual admonition from the skipper; afterwards the crew wondered if he had had a premonition?
- 10 -
[page break]
‘E’ Edward reached Cleethorpes on course – height 12,500 ft and turned onto a new heading, (corrected for drift by the navigator) of 080˚ for DEN HELDER, still climbing. Both gunners reported other heavy aircraft level and to the rear on approximately the same course. At 13,000 ft boost pressure had dropped to 5 1/4 lbs. sq. in. – the flight engineer requested “Change to ‘S’ gear Supercharger”. The skipper indicated O.K. with right thumb; the flight engineer first throttled back switches to ‘S’ gear which was felt as an audible surge, then throttled to the ‘GATE’ position. Operational height of 20,000 ft was reached at 01.45 hours and the skipper announcing this ordered, “Cruise power”; the flight engineer complied, altering propellors [sic] to a coarser pitch and synchronizing engines at 2650 revs boost + 4 lbs. sq. in.
Within a few minutes the bomb aimer called on intercom, “Enemy coast ahead, I can see Texel and the Zuider Zee!”
The navigator replied, “O.K.: I have a ‘FIX’ – Skipper, we are about two minutes early, can you reduce speed to 180 knots? I know we are No.1 to bomb but we don’t want to be too far ahead or we will be for it!”
“O.K.” the skipper responded, and eased the throttles back until 180 knots was indicated on the A.S.I. (Air speed indicator), in so doing, the boost gauges all dropped to show only 1/2 lb. sq. in. boost and flame from the unsilenced exhaust stubs subsided to a dull red tinged with blue, about 18 inches long.
Using the bomb sight, the bomb aimer gave a precise time, as we crossed into the Zuider Zee altering course to 135˚ for the long leg towards ARNHEM. As we turned the mid-upper gunner reported an M.E. 110 night fighter 5000 ft. up and heading west toward Texel; he had not seen us!
The skipper warned again, “KEEP ALL EYES PEELED – OUT”
When about the middle of the Zuider Zee it was obvious that things were hotting up as searchlights searched behind us from Texel and Den Helder with bursts of flak, and signs of air to air tracer, indicating German night fighters were up to our altitude [inserted] early [/inserted] and also scoring hits on our main force of Bomber Command as yet barely one hour out from base.
- [deleted] 17 [/deleted] [inserted] 11 [/inserted] -
[page break]
By 02.15 hours we had passed over the Zuider Zee onto the Dutch mainland still heading 135˚, speed 180 knots for ARNHEM, when at 02.22 hours with Apledoorn on the port beam we were caught by a brilliant ‘Blue’ master searchlight which must have been ‘tracking’ us while ‘shuttered’. Immediately, 20 to 30 other searchlights came on to us and we were ‘CONED’.
Roy Elliott called, “WATCH IT EVERYONE – FULL POWER”, and pushed ‘E’ Edward into a vertical dive – on track; meanwhile the flight engineer adjusted propellor [sic] pitch controls to prevent overspeeding the engines and as the speed rose and altimeter unwound, pulled the anti-glare shield over the skipper’s head and flipped the skipper’s tinted shield down on his goggles. Then:-
SPEED 280 Height 18,000
SPEED 300 “ 17,500
Speed 330 “ 16,000
Flt.Eng. “Watch it skipper, they are firing at us now”
SKIPPER: “Aye, I can see it; pulling up now”
Then the sudden change in ‘G’ forcing us into our seats – still blinded by searchlights – Edward bucking in the shock of flying through grouped shell bursts – the acrid pungent smell of explosive – the altimeter hands winding up like mad as the aircraft regained precious altitude, although the speed slackened gradually. The flight engineer was altering throttles and pitch control lever setting, (akin to a ‘Concert Organist’) except that for ‘E’ Edward and crew it was a cacophany [sic] of OPS against the enemy, and possible death. This the crew knew well, but did not speak of it. Instead, the laconic, terse, inter-com patter, until suddenly Roy pushed the control column hard forward and reached to open the throttles as ‘E’ Edward shuddered level at 19,500 ft but only 110 knots indicated.
- 12 -
[page break]
- But still held in the searchlight cone, and so it continued. Flak sometimes very very close and rattling down the fuselage like ball bearings in a dust-bin, with a terrible smell. At other times dull ‘crumps’ in a circle ahead and ‘E’ Edward shuddering as we went through the shock waves. Roy Elliott continued to weave, in a random pattern corkscrew, so violent at times that the crew afterwards agreed it was the worst ‘ride’ ever to date, and wondered too how OL (Sqn. Code) ‘E’ Edward ever stayed in one piece.
Despite all the violent evasive action Roy Elliott had maintained his ‘weave’ fairly evenly, fifteen degrees either side of 135˚ true, and as ‘E’ Edward approached the ‘SPOOF’ turning point beyond Arnhem the searchlights petered out one by one. There had been no fighter attacks despite being held ‘naked’ in the searchlights for what seemed an eternity, but evidence of fighter activity abounded aft as following aircraft were similarly ‘coned’.
NAVIGATOR: “Turn LEFT onto 090 due east for 7 minutes if you can hold 180 knots Skipper”
SKIPPER: “O.K. Navigator, how are we for time?”
NAVIGATOR: “I have a ‘GEE’ fix! Looks O.K., perhaps 30 seconds late at this point, but we should make up when we turn due south in a few minutes because we will have a good wind. I will give you a correction later”.
SKIPPER: “Roger – out”.
The flight continued uneventfully as we turned onto 180˚ (South) for the ‘Spoof’ Leg to a point between Duisberg and Krefeld and heading directly for Dusseldorf.
WIRELESS OP: “Have been jamming over my briefed strobe frequencies skipper, there are a hell of a lot of night fighter instructions coming up”.
SKIPPER: “O.K. all crew WATCH IT – out”.
------------Then immediately:-
REAR GUNNER: “Three fighters 1000 yards aft Skipper and UP 2000 ft. Don’t weave, cut your throttles back. Don’t think they have seen us”.
Skipper complied –
SKIPPER: “Roger Bob, watch them”.
Seconds later –
WIRELESS OP: “Skipper, fighters on our course 2000 ft. up, vertically”
- 13 -
[page break]
SKIPPER: “Roger, Arthur, I see the bandits now, they seem to be scooting to Dusseldorf. Opening up to 180 knots again navigator, let me have a timing check please”.
NAVIGATOR: “Roger, Skipper, in one minute”. – On track but 10 seconds early, I have a good ‘Gee’ fix! In fact this ‘Gee Box’ is working so well I think it would be a good idea to feed in the Gee Plot target co-ordinates!”
SKIPPER: “Have you got them”?
NAVIGATOR: “Yes”
SKIPPER: “O.K. then let’s give it a try!” “Bomb aimer, what does the ground look like to the east?”
BOMB AIMER: “Looks clear skipper, if they don’t start up a smoke screen too early”
SKIPPER: “O.K.” “Navigator, we will run in on ‘Gee’ X-Y co-ordinates and let the bomb aimer do a visual double check on our first run up for about 2 minutes, or, say… 6 miles reasonably level – and I will drop speed to 143 knots for the final run in; take photo on the first run! – Bomb Aimer, make sure you know which 3 switches you are going to select on each RUN, we don’t want to overshoot and go round more often than necessary. O.K.? – OUT”
At 02.37 ‘E’ Edward turned on to the final Dog-leg ‘run in’ to Duisberg heading 025˚ true. The navigator said:-
NAVIGATOR: “I have both blips on ‘Gee’ now, I think we are east of track!”.
SKIPPER: “Bomb aimer, how does it look down there?”
BOMB AIMER: “Yes, we are east of track and drifting, alter course 10˚ port, --- that’s better! Bomb door open – LEFT – STEADY, 143 knots please – STEADY – am clearing the camera now – STEADY – searchlights seeking us now – STEADY. Target 4 miles and tracking down the bomb sight – STEADY NOW – Flak coming up! – watch for the red ‘spots’ – STEADY – RIGHT A LITTLE – STEADY – Flak bursting ahead, below us! – STEADY – Marker flares fused! – STEADY – I can see the aiming point”.
NAVIGATOR: “Yes, Bomb aimer, I have the blips on ‘Gee’ very close together”.
BOMB AIMER: “30 seconds to go Skipper, hold her steady – RIGHT – STEADY – ‘FLARES GONE’ – FLAK! – they are throwing it up! – STEADY for the photo! – STEADY – STEADY – FLASH GONE – O.K. SKIPPER DIVE DIVE – Flak straight for us – TURN RIGHT IN THE DIVE – CRIPES – THAT LOT BURST ABOVE US!”.
- 14 -
[page break]
SKIPPER: “Quiet now, I can see it! – Navigator, I’m down to 18,000 and will orbit starboard to the east!
Bomb aimer, can you see our MARKERS?”
BOMB AIMER: “Yes Skipper, they are in a tight cluster, smack over the sheds, about 200 yds east of our pin-point target”.
SKIPPER: “Good! – all crew keep a sharp look out as we re-join the stream on 020˚ true!
BOMB AIMER: “Main force must be a little early, they are thumping 4000 pounders onto our markers now.”
SKIPPER: “TIME CHECK PLEASE”
02-58 hrs. – log that navigator. They are two minutes early!.
BOMB AIMER: “Three Green Target Markers backing up on ours!”
SKIPPER: “How long do they burn for?”
BOMB AIMER: “Six minutes”
SKIPPER: “Good! there should be enough light for us on our next run; coming onto 020˚ True now.
BOMB AIMER: “Bomb doors open --- my God, the flak is very heavy now --- solid you could almost land on it!”
SKIPPER: “How are we going, Bomb aimer?”
BOMB AIMER: “Coming up just fine--- about 4 miles to go --- 2 miles --- STEADY, dead on track --- STEADY --- STEADY --- Lancaster caught in searchlights 1 mile ahead --- DOWN --- he’s been hit --- he’s on fire! --- HELL --- he’s gone – ‘Blown up’ --- no chance!”
SKIPPER: “LOG TIME”
BOMB AIMER: “Steady --- steady ---left --- a bit more --- STEADY ---STEADY --- damn! Searchlights got us --- STEADY SKIPPER, - HOLD IT STEADY – 30 seconds – flak a’coming [sic] --- STEADY --- markers fused --- STEADY --- markers gone --- WEAVE SKIPPER – FLAK GOT OUR RANGE ---Hell’s teeth, I can smell it --- FULL POWER!!! --- Speeds the answer now ---
[underlined] ‘THUMP’ --- ‘CRUMP’ --- ‘RATTLE’ [/underlined]
BOMB AIMER: “We’ve been hit aft”
REAR GUNNER: “We’ve been holed by the Elsan”
SKIPPER: “O.K> SPEED 280 – Height 15000 and going down – HELL WE”RE VERTICAL - --- give us a heave engineer”.
ENGINEER: “O.K.”
- 15 -
[page break]
SKIPPER: “Speed 320 --- 130000 ft. --- Cut power”
ENGINEER: “O.K.”
SKIPPER: “Give me flap 15 degrees – HEAVE --- Speed [underlined] 360 MAXIMUM [/underlined] 11000 --- Trim the tail engineer”.
ENGINEER: “ROGER”
SKIPPER: “Speed 380 plus – OFF THE CLOCK! --- height 8000 --- Navigator, check on position, I’m over to the east on 055 degrees.
NAV: “O.K.”
SKIPPER: “She’s coming out now – speed 360 – height 5000 --- HERE IT COMES!”
The fiery tracer from multiple light flak hosepiped [sic] up at the aircraft, at first seemingly slow, then viciously whipping past.
REAR GUNNER: “Searchlights aft, searching for us”
SKIPPER: “Can you hit them Bob?”
GUNNER: “Will do…”
The the rivetting [sic] hammer of 4 Browning’s fireing [sic] 1200 rounds per minute opened up. – Within seconds:-
GUNNER: “GOT TWO”
SKIPPER: “Good show Bob”. “Navigator, how far east are we?”
NAVIGATOR: “No good skipper, ‘GEE’ won’t pick up this low down, can you climb and circle?”
SKIPPER: “Willco”. – (Order to Flt. Engineer –“2850 revs + 9 lbs. – M Gear”)
BOMB AIMER: “we dropped on the second run at 03.11 and it is now 03.29
SKIPPER: “She’s climbing like a barn-door – 12,000 ft. coming up – watch out for fighters, they must know we’re in trouble!”
FLIGHT ENG: “Skipper, engines are getting hot, I think we over-speeded on the dive, suggest drop R.P.M. to 2650 and ‘S’ Supercharge.”
SKIPPER: “O.K. – I think ‘E’ Edward is feeling the strain and it’s [underlined] asking for it [/underlined] to circle here. Navigator, how far west is Duisberg now?”
NAVIGATOR: “About 17 miles”
-16 -
[page break]
SKIPPER: “Right, I’m at 13,500 ft. now and we are only struggling to get higher. I propose to turn onto 270 degrees and go across at about 220 knots, O.K. Navigator?”
NAVIGATOR: “O.K. Skipper, but you need to be about 262 degrees.”
SKIPPER: “Roger! --- (then to crew) – We will be at right angles to the tail-end of the attack, most aircraft will be up around 20,000, but we might be level with the Stirlings or Wellingtons – if we get caught again I shall use some height to speed things up. How are the engine temperatures engineer?”
ENGINEER: “Cooling off now, skipper – I see we’ve lost three of our spinners from numbers 1, 3 and 4”
SKIPPER: “Have we!”
BOMB AIMER: “We’ve lost the bomb-doors too”
SKIPPER: “Hell! No wonder we’re flying like a ‘pregnant duck! – how’s the fuel?”
ENGINEER: “Tanks appear O.K. and check out with computed log”.
SKIPPER: “How much left?”
ENGINEER: “About 900 gallons”
SKIPPER: “Good, should see us home. Bomb aimer, how far to target?”
BOMB AIMER: “About 9 miles on track and heavy bombs and incendiaries still pouring down --- flak doesn’t look so heavy”.
SKIPPER: “O.K> we’re going straight through and drop the remaining six marker flares to the north of Duisberg - - not so many fires there!”
BOMB AIMER: “O.K. Skipper, about 5 miles now, alter course starboard – a little more --- steady now that’s about it”.
SKIPPER: “Heading now 267˚ True
ROGER
“STEADY AS YOU GO”
“BOMB DOORS OPEN”
[underlined] “THEY ARE BLOODY OFF CLOT!” [/underlined]
“SORRY”
“STEADY - - STEADY”
“ALL MARKERS GONE, N.W. CORNER DUISBERG – TIME 03.47
JUST 3 MINUTES BEOFRE [sic] THE LAST AIRCRAFT IS DUE ON TARGET”
SKIPPER: “LOG THAT NAVIGATOR”
NAVIGATOR: “GOT IT SKIPPER”
- 17 –
[page break]
SKIPPER: “Engineer, pour the [underlined] coal on [/underlined] 2850 revs + 9 lbs. and let’s get out of here before they take more notice!”.
ENGINEER: “Roger”
NAVIGATOR: “I’ve got ‘Gee again, and a course correction to 271˚ true if you reckon to go through those searchlights!
SKIPPER: “O.K., turning onto 271˚ - speed 240 knots and weaving; how are we for time at the first homeward turning point?”
NAVIGATOR: “Just a minute, - we will be about 7 minutes late, but if you hold this speed we will be about right by the time we cross the Frisian Islands”.
SKIPPER: “O.K. we’ll do that”.
The return flight passed uneventfully until 04.16 hours heading west over the Dutch coast. Sporadic air to air firing was reported to Port (south) of track.
BOMB AIMER: “We are crossing one of the Frisian Islands, look like Terschelling!”
NAVIGATOR: “Thank you, yes it is Terschelling, about the centre!”
BOMB AIMER: “Yes, O.K.”
NAVIGATOR: “Skipper, I have a fix! Can you alter course now 8˚ to port onto 263˚ true?”
SKIPPER: O.K. Navigator, how long to the ‘GATE’?”
NAVIGATOR: I’m just working it out – hold on - . We should be at our ‘Gate’ position at 04.55 and in Wyton circuit 15 minutes later at 05.10. We have made up lost time now, in fact, we’re 2 minutes ahead”.
SKIPPER: “O.K. Thanks”
A quarter of an hour passed and then the skipper called again to the crew:
SKIPPER: “I see air to air tracer about 10 miles ahead and down near the sea. Now verey lights – RED, GREEN, RED – there’s an aircraft on fire! Can you see it Bomb aimer?”
BOMB AIMER: “yes skipper, it’s a Halifax and looks like it’s [sic] ‘bought it’ and going in!”.
WIRELESS OP: “I’ve just got a ‘Ditching Distress Mayday ‘ signal’ – they are still transmitting, I’ll try to get a fix! I make it about 2˚ to port on the D/F loop”.
- 18 -
[page break]
SKIPPER: “That is the one we see just ahead now and very low, plot this position navigator. I’m going to orbit here and let down a bit. Can you send the co-ordinates through to base on W/T wireless operator?
NAVIGATOR: “This position is 2˚ 42 minutes East and 53 3 minutes North - - wireless op, have you got that?
WIRELESS OP: “yes, O.K.”
BOMB AIMER: “That Halifax has gone into the ‘drink’ – didn’t look like a ‘ditching’ from here!”
SKIPPER: “Add that to the co-ordinates wireless operator for Air Sea Rescue [inserted] “ [/inserted] [deleted] Arthur” [/deleted]
WIRELESS OP: “WILCO”
SKIPPER: “All crew, keep your eyes peeled – I’m returning onto course 263˚ true; obviously a German night fighter got that Halifax and there are probably more about. Navigator, it’s now 04.47 and I’m going to let down to 5000 feet for the ‘Gate’ position”.
NAVIGATOR: “O.K. Skipper”
WIRELESS OP: “Skipper, I have just taken an urgent ‘Q’ signal from H.Q. BOMBER COMMAND, will de-code it in a few minutes --- I have the message now, it reads:-
“FROM HEADQUARTERS BOMBER COMMAND TO ALL HOME-BOUND BOMBER FORCE –
Time of Origin: 04.43hr.
[underlined] Message: [/underlined] BANDITS – REPEAT BANDITS ACTIVE MID – NORTH – SEA STOP ALSO EAST ANGLIA AND FENS STOP STRESS VIGILANCE STOP MESSAGE ENDS
SKIPPER: “All crew acknowledge in turn that you got that, starting with you in the rear turret Bob”.
The crew did so.
SKIPPER: “Fair enough, now really ‘WATCH IT’.
[underlined] AT 04.49 hrs. [/underlined]
NAVIGATOR: “Skipper, we lost a couple of minutes orbiting and we are at the ‘Gate’ now”.
- 19 -
[page break]
SKIPPER: “Roger, I’ll call Base! Bomber Common Frequency is No.2 button tonight, isn’t it wireless op?”
WIRELESS OP: “Yes Skipper”
SKIPPER: “CAPTAIN TO BASE – OL-‘E’ EDWARD AT GATE POSITION – ANGELS 5000 FEET REQUEST JOINING INSTRUCTIONS PLEASE?”
BASE – to ‘E’ EDWARD: ADVISE BANDITS ACTIVE THIS AREA IN PAST 30 MINUTES KEEP A GOOD LOOK OUT. LET DOWN TO ANGELS 2000 feet and SET COURSE FOR BEACON. THERE ARE 3 – REPEAT 3 – AIRCRAFT AHEAD OF YOU. CALL AGAIN AT BEACON – OUT.
SKIPPER: “CAPTAIN TO BASE – MESSAGE RECEIVED – OUT”
NAVIGATOR: “Skipper, new course 258˚ true – we should be at the Beacon in 15 minutes”
SKIPPER: “Roger!” “CAPTAIN TO BASE: - ‘E’ EDWARD overhead Beacon
BASE to ‘E’ EDWARD: WELCOME HOME – RUNWAY IS 36 – JOIN QFE 1017 – CIRCUIT ANTI-CLOCKWISE. YOU ARE No.2 TO LAND LET DOWN TO ANGELS ONE THOUSAND DOWN WIND LEG – TURN FINALS AT 2 MILES. WATCH OUT FOR APPROACHING AIRCRAFT USEING [sic] WARBOYS CIRCUIT – USE NIL – REPEAT – NIL – IDENTIFICATION LIGHTS – OUT.
SKIPPER: “CAPTAIN TO BASE CONTROL – UNDERSTAND No.2 TO LAND – OUT
Then the skipper’s instructions to Flight Engineer:
SKIPPER: “Wheels down – Props Fine
FLT. ENG. “Wheels going down – Wheels down and locked – 2 GREENS – Props Fully Fine”
SKIPPER: “Flaps 15˚”
FLT. ENG. “15 degrees Flap on – skipper, we may need a little more speed on landing due to no bomb doors and spinners gone!”
SKIPPER: “Yes, I can feel it on the controls – call out speeds from OUTER MARKER to TOUCH DOWN! I.L.S. ON”
FLT. ENG.:“Roger”
SKIPPER: “Flap 25˚ Turning finals now!”
FLT. ENG: “25˚ Flap ON” “OUTER MARKER BEACON – NOW”
- 20 -
[page break]
FLT. ENG: “HEIGHT 800 ft. – SPEED 130 knots” “HEIGHT 600 ft – SPEED 130 knots” “HEIGHT 300 ft. – SPEED 120 knots” [underlined] “INNER MARKER NOW” [/underlined]
SKIPPER: “FULL FLAP”
FLT. ENG. “FULL FLAP GOING ON – HEIGHT 150 ft. – SPEED 115 knots”
SKIPPER: “I have GLIDE ANGLE ‘GREEN’”
FLT. ENG: “HEIGHT 100 ft – SPEED 110 knots “HEIGHT 50 ft – SPEED 105 knots”
SKIPPER: “Over the hedge! CUT POWER”
FLT. ENG: “ROGER - - - Wow! A ‘daisy cutter’ – we’re down” There is another aircraft 600 yds ahead of us turning off the run-way to ‘B’ dispersal”
TOWER TO ‘E’ EDWARD: “Turn left at runway intersection and continue to your dispersal. There is another aircraft touching down behind you”
SKIPPER: “ROGER Control, turning off; - flaps up engineer”
The aircraft was beckoned into ‘E’ dispersal by one of the ground crew signalling with ‘dim’ orange coloured torches then turned through 180˚ to be positioned ‘NOSE’ towards the perimeter track after which the signalling ‘wands’ indicated an ‘X’ motion for ‘STOP ENGINES’. The time on arriving at dispersal was 05.20 hours.
After the crew had run through the ‘Shut down’ checks ensuring all switches and circuit breakers were ‘OFF’ the pilot called down:
SKIPPER: “Chocks in position fore and aft of main wheels” (then released the brakes). “O.K. everybody, that is our fifteenth trip completed, let’s have a check for flak damage before we leave dispersal for de-briefing. Be sure to bring your maps navigator”.
Checking externally around ‘E’ Edward the crew found a jagged 4” hole in the floor near the door and also, apart from the missing spinners and bomb doors that had been ripped off during their dive out of the searchlights, there were fifty+ holes peppered by flak fragments.
- 20 -
[page break]
The captain signed the ‘Serviceing [sic] F.700’: “SLIGHT FLAK DAMAGE, AND CHECK ENGINES AND PROPS FOR POSSIBLE SNAGS DUE TO OVER-SPEEDING’.
Dawn was just breaking as the crew boarded the bus for transportation to the hanger-locker rooms to change out of flying clothing prior to de-briefing.
‘E’ Edward’s crew entered the de-briefing room and were greeted by Air Commodore Don Bennett, (A.O.C. 8 Group) – “Had a good trip chaps? Glad to have you back!”
SKIPPER: “Good, but rough Sir, we’re all ready for a rum and coffee”.
Then with a pint sized cup each, the crew were beckoned to a spare de-briefing table where they were awaited by an intelligence officer and his WRAF assistant, together with the squadron navigation leader.
The time and co-ordinates of the suspected ‘ditching’ of an aircraft in the north sea were first given by ‘E’ Edward’s navigator. The Skipper, Roy Elliott then highlighted the night’s work and answered the many questions concerning the route IN/OUT, every searchlight and flak position being pin-pointed on the aircraft’s plotted route. Finally, as details of the ‘Marker’ runs across the target were given, an airman from the photographic section arrived with the developed prints taken on the first bombing run. These showed without doubt that the flares had burst over the pin-point DOCKS TARGET and about 60 yards east.
Air Commodore Bennett, who meantime had joined the group surrounding the crew congratulated them on the aiming point photograph afterwards remarking, “Off to breakfast chaps, it’s gone 06.30 and you could be ‘ON’ again tonight, so get some sleep”.
- 22 -
[page break]
CONCLUSION:- [underlined] WAS IT ALL WORTHWHILE? [/underlined]
Hitler and Nazism were thoroughly evil and the British people had no choice but to oppose this to the best of their ability as the Germans advanced and occupied other nations of Europe.
The Nazis hatred of the Jews and their determination to destroy them was proved when the horrors and atrocities of the concentration camps became known. Millions of people died in gas chambers (including little children) and it can only be concluded that Bomber Command played a vital role by bombing armament works and factories, railways and docks etc. in the slowing down of the German offensive thereby assisting the advance of the allied armies.
Whilst in retrospect it is possible for new generations to feel cynical with regard to damage to great architectural and historic cities, at the time of such a reign of horror and terror their destruction was a small price to pay in return for the freedom of so many people who were once again given the opportunity to live as human beings. Many difficult decisions and tasks had to be carried out by men of great fortitude and integrity; their only aim was to help liberate fellow men in captivity and distress. They themselves had nothing to gain from their terrible tasks in the air except the knowledge that they fought tirelessly for mastery of the air and for the doom of the Hitler tyranny, which in the words of Winston Spencer Churchill, “Would bring about a safe and happy future for tormented mankind”.
In 1939 Hitler’s power was immense when he confidently set out to conquer and subjugate the nations of Europe. The youth of Britain backed up by the faith, hope, determination and co-operation of their parents and grandparents, (which became known as ‘THE WARTIME SPIRIT’), inspired by their great leader Winston Spencer Churchill, had no choice but to accept the challenge, although at that time seemingly weak and helpless. With such a spirit of determination, and everyone [underlined] united [/underlined] in a [underlined] common cause, [/underlined] the wheels were set in motion to fight and win. All were in the frontline all the time and life was not easy, but slowly, it became possible to ‘hit back’, with Bomber Command playing a very essential part during this period of time. Surely then, there can be no question of doubt as to whether or not the work of Bomber Command was worthwhile in the part played. Indeed, were it not for the success in conquering and destroying Hitler and his armies, Britain might also have been occupied with little or no hope of survival.
- [deleted] 35 [/deleted] [inserted] 23 [/inserted] -
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
Strike to defend
Description
An account of the resource
A 25 page account of the preparation for, and carrying out of a maximum effort operation against Duisburg by Lancasters of 83 Squadron at RAF Wyton, part of 8 Group Bomber Command. Account provides detailed description of preparations, briefing and of the work undertaken by each crew member before and throughout the flight, and once back at base.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
G Dunmore
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-09-06
Format
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Twenty-five page typewritten document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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BDunmoreGDunmoreGv1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-09-06
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Christian
5 Group
8 Group
83 Squadron
aerial photograph
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bomb aimer
bombing
briefing
debriefing
ditching
flight engineer
Holocaust
Lancaster
navigator
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Wyton
searchlight
target indicator
target photograph
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/183/3632/PWoodC1601.1.jpg
e6b2e00e8424a1959078b6e0bbf67556
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/183/3632/AWoodC160325.2.mp3
46024566658ed36fd321770c6bf3a020
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
Wood, Colin
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Colin Wood (1922 - 2021, 1451225 Royal Air Force), his log book, service record and seven photographs including pictures of some of his crew. Colin Wood trained in Canada and flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham. His crew were:
428289 - Andy A Anderson, pilot
1593692 - D Evans, flight engineer
1451225 - Colin Wood, navigator
1564707 - G H McElhone, bomb aimer
1873924 - P Thomas Tobin, wireless operator
1584474 - Vernon R Grogan, mid upper gunner
1595586 - R O Day, rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Colin Wood and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-03-25
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Identifier
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Wood, C
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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GR: Right. This is Gary Rushbrooke for the International Bomber Command Centre. I’m with Warrant Officer Colin Wood, a navigator on 106 and 83 Squadrons and we’re at his home in Sheffield on Friday the 25th of March. Colin, I know we’re in Sheffield. Are you from Sheffield originally?
CW: Oh yes.
GR: Yeah. Born, born locally.
CW: Born and bred.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Brothers. Sisters.
CW: Yeah. Brother. He was in the air force. He was down as a pilot, to train as a pilot and then they were short of coppersmiths and they commandeered him to be a coppersmith. So, but he finished up on training as a pilot in South Africa. So he got something. By the time he’d done he’d more or less run out of time.
GR: Right. Yeah.
CW: Too late.
GR: Any other brothers or sisters or just that?
CW: No.
GR: And what did, what did your mum and dad do? Were they —
CW: They were, they worked in the steelworks. Well, not my mother [laughs]
GR: No. Yeah.
CW: And, yeah.
GR: So, yeah. So you went to school in Sheffield.
CW: Yes.
GR: And I think you were telling me earlier on before we switched the recorder on that when you decided to join the RAF or volunteered was it, was there five? Five members of your class.
CW: Yes. Yes. The local school. Sharrow Lane School. And we had the top boy in Sheffield. I should mention that.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And he became a pilot and unfortunately he was the only who was [pause] didn’t manage it.
GR: He didn’t get back. Did you decide, did you know all the, did you know each other?
CW: Oh yeah. Yeah.
GR: And had you all got together and said —
CW: No. No. Everybody was diff, everybody by themselves decided. Well, you was either the army or navy and I didn’t fancy. I used to play as a kid at being a wounded soldier. After the First World War.
GR: Right.
CW: And so I thought I don’t fancy that very much. I think if, if I happen to be lucky and a natural pilot I could take, I could take my turn as a natural pilot.
GR: Yeah.
CW: So I thought I’ll have a go at that. And that more or less decided that.
GR: Right. So what year would this be?
CW: Eh?
GR: When your class.
CW: When I, when I went to volunteer in the local Sheffield reception area it would be ’41.
GR: 19 yeah and —
CW: And then I went somewhere down south and met up again with some officers who quizzed me and all that. Then they gave me two shilling. Which was the king’s two shilling which in the First World War was one shilling.
GR: Was the king’s shilling. Yeah.
CW: And we got a rise to two shilling and, and then I was sent home then and I was [pause] they said they’d nowhere to train us. So that was it. I just had to wait ‘til, ‘til there was room to train us.
GR: Yeah. How long did you spend at home?
CW: I was, well probably six months while they found somewhere to train us.
GR: And what, what would you have been doing? Did you go back to school or —
CW: No. I went back to work.
GR: You went back, oh right. So we’ll backtrack. So when you said there’s five members of your class.
CW: Oh yes.
GR: They’d all left the class.
CW: Oh yeah.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
CW: It was just that we were all together and as it happened we all joined up separately.
GR: Yeah. So what work was you doing?
CW: Plumbing.
GR: Plumbing.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Oh so you weren’t in Sheffield’s steel industry like your dad.
CW: No. No.
GR: No.
CW: I didn’t fancy being inside like that. No.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Sooner be outside somewhere.
GR: Because what age would you have left school?
CW: Fourteen.
GR: Fourteen. And then gone into a plumbing apprenticeship or —
CW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Exactly.
GR: And then as war broke out would you have been eighteen to volunteer or — ?
CW: The call up age when I was eighteen was nineteen. So at nineteen I would have been called up anyway.
GR: Yes.
CW: So I was eighteen and I knew I could take my pick and and choice. So that’s why I volunteered. Well, other things. But I decided to. To join up. Yeah.
GR: So at eighteen you could volunteer.
CW: Yes.
GR: And if you’d have said, and if this is just something just to clarify actually for a lot of people. So at eighteen obviously the Royal Air Force and I think the Submarine Service were voluntary.
CW: Yeah. Yeah.
GR: So, at the age of eighteen you could have volunteered for any of them two. Plus —
CW: Yeah.
GR: The army.
CW: Yeah.
GR: So if you wanted to go into the army at eighteen you could have said, ‘I want to go,’ and if you hadn’t have volunteered at the age of eighteen when you got to nineteen, on your nineteenth birthday you would have been called up. Is that right?
CW: No. Because the air force at the time said you belong to us.
GR: Yeah.
CW: You can’t go in the Merchant Navy.
GR: No. What I mean is if you hadn’t have volunteered.
CW: Yeah.
GR: For the RAF.
CW: Oh, I’d have been —
GR: So if you’d have done nothing.
CW: Yeah. Yeah.
GR: At the age of nineteen.
CW: I’d have been called up.
GR: Conscription.
CW: Yeah.
GR: In World War Two.
CW: Yeah.
GR: And you would have been said, right.
CW: Yeah.
GR: You’re off to the army. You’re off to the navy. Or whatever.
CW: Exactly. Yeah.
GR: I’ve got it. Yeah. So, volunteered for the Royal Air Force.
CW: Yeah.
GR: But then you waited six months. Went back and did some work.
CW: Yeah.
GR: And then what happened? What was, what —?
CW: Well –
GR: When you were finally called up for training.
CW: Yes. I was sent to, with a railway warrant to Lord’s Cricket Ground where I think the others, everybody went there.
GR: That’s right.
CW: To London.
GR: Yes. Yeah.
CW: Yeah. And lived in a big posh house there.
GR: Very nice. Wouldn’t do that these days would we down there?
CW: No.
GR: And I think, was it like two weeks of square bashing and something or —
CW: We were there about a month.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And then I went to south coast. ITW.
GR: Yeah.
CW: I remember it now.
GR: Yeah. Training centre. And did you know at the time where you was going to be doing your training?
CW: No. No. No. I didn’t know what I was going to be. There were like four or five trades.
GR: Yeah.
CW: That, we were never in any way directed to one or the other. We all did the same training at ITW.
GR: Right. Yeah. Initial. Yeah. Initial training.
CW: Yeah.
GR: What, what did you want to be? Had you got — pilot?
CW: Yes.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: So after ITW did they then come to you and say —
CW: No. They estimated what kind of — I did fly a plane after I’d done ITW. I went to learn to fly a plane.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Which was a Tiger Moth. Which was the only way to travel really. It’s wonderful.
GR: I bet.
CW: And loop the loop and falling leaf and all that. It was lovely. And, you know at that age.
GR: Yeah.
CW: To just do that. And anyway after, they assessed us I suppose at that time. What I was like handling a plane and taking off and landing.
GR: Yeah.
CW: I suppose they put a mark down to what I was doing. How I was doing. And then I went back just [pause] I forget, I went to a holding unit in Manchester. A park there. Heaton Park.
GR: Heaton Park. Yeah.
CW: And I stayed there. Then I was sent to another place near Birmingham and playing at football and somebody broke my leg [laughs] So that put me in hospital for a while. And then, but then I got three weeks sick leave which was the usual and then, and then I still had to hang about until, until I was sent off to Canada. I went back to Heaton Park and from Heaton Park, Liverpool.
GR: Yeah.
CW: In the world’s worst boat. French ship called the Louis Pasteur, which pitched and tossed and never went flat.
GR: Oh dear.
CW: And everybody on board, including the captain I think, was sick.
GR: How did you feel about the fact that you would be doing your training in Canada?
CW: Well. We didn’t get to Canada because they’d got some, not a disease but some ailment in the camp we should have gone to so that, so the Americans in three or four days we got time arranged for us to go to one of their camps in Massachusetts. So we landed at New York and then disembarked from the Louis Pasteur, went across the river in a, in a ferry for some reason to get ready to go to north of, in America.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And somebody started singing there, “On Ilkley Moor bar t’at,” and everybody joined in. They were Welsh and Irish.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And everything. So I don’t know what Americans thought when they heard all the Yorkshire language being spoke. So then we went to near Massachusetts. Camp Myles Standish, who was a famous, was he an Indian fighter or something?
GR: Don’t know.
CW: Yeah.
GR: I don’t know.
CW: Yeah. And they called this camp after him.
GR: After him. Yeah.
CW: And so we spent three or four weeks there. And then we moved then onto the place we should have gone to in Canada. I can’t, I can’t remember where it was now.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And then I went out to Rivers. Canadian Number 1 Navigation School. Just about a hundred mile west of Winnipeg.
GR: Yeah. I’m just looking in Colin’s logbook and it’s number, yeah Number 1 Canadian Navigation School, Rivers, Manitoba. And I think your first flight there was on July the 8th 1943.
CW: Was it?
GR: Yeah. Duty — first navigator. Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: So obviously you settled in Canada and from what I’ve spoke to other gentleman obviously training in Canada with no food shortages and —
CW: Exactly. Yeah.
GR: Was good.
CW: Yes. Good.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: How long did training last?
CW: Five months.
GR: Yeah.
CW: So —
GR: As, as, yeah navigation.
CW: I must say the last day was the best of all because some wise guy said while we’re going to be here five months. Every month payday, every payday we should all put money in a kitty and have a big booze up when it, when it’s all over and have a big meal.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Which we did.
GR: Well, I presume there was no shortages.
CW: No.
GR: No. No.
CW: No.
GR: So freshly qualified as a navigator when did you actually return to the UK?
CW: I’ll tell you when. It was, the middle day was the 28th of November across the, seven days across the Atlantic because it was my twenty first birthday [laughs]
GR: I see.
CW: And I was in this hammock.
GR: So you spent, spent your twenty first birthday.
CW: Yeah. In —
GR: On the North Atlantic
CW: Exactly. In the middle of the Atlantic. Hoping there were no submarines about.
GR: What ship were you on? Do you remember the ship coming back?
CW: Yeah. The Mauritania.
GR: Oh. The Mauritania.
CW: Yeah. Beautiful.
GR: Famous ship. Yes. Yeah.
CW: Yeah. Nobody sick there.
GR: No.
CW: Beautiful. Yeah.
GR: Because I think at one time that held a record for crossing the Atlantic. It was quite a fast ship wasn’t it?
CW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Big ship.
CW: Yes.
GR: Yeah. So I was going to say. So back to England and I’m just looking in your logbook and around February 1944 you were in Scotland.
CW: Yes.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah. Near Stranraer.
GR: Yeah.
CW: I forget what —
GR: Yeah.
CW: I don’t know what you called it now.
GR: Can’t pronounce it to be honest. West Freugh.
CW: West Freugh. Freugh.
GR: West Freugh.
CW: West Freugh.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: So this was for further training.
CW: Yes.
GR: Yeah.
CW: We were flying still on [pause] bloody hell I’ve forgotten was what plane it was.
GR: Ansons.
CW: Ansons. That’s right. Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: You hadn’t crewed up by then had you?
CW: No.
GR: This was all.
CW: No. No.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
CW: No. No.
GR: Just further training. And progressing into April you were then at 29 OTU.
CW: Yeah. I’m not sure where that was. Oh. Bitteswell.
GR: Bitteswell.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
CW: And there were about four. Four different places. Why they didn’t do it there. We kept moving on to other places.
GR: Yes.
CW: But there we are.
GR: And with a regular crew by then or —
CW: No.
GR: No. You were still —
CW: No. No. We, we’d never seen anybody who wasn’t training as a navigator at that time.
GR: Right.
CW: And then eventually we were taken in to a big hangar. Which happened to everybody. And they said they were, I don’t remember the number now but same number of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, rear gunners, wireless ops.
GR: And just told you to get on with it.
CW: And they said, ‘When you come out you’ll all be in a crew.’
GR: Tell me a bit about that then.
CW: Well, I don’t know. I finished up with an Australian pilot. A super, super guy.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Well they all were actually.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Aussies. I liked them.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And yes. And we picked up as I say a wireless op.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And rear gunner.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And bomb aimer.
GR: Bomb aimer. Mid-upper.
CW: He was a Scot.
GR: Yeah. Can you remember all the nationalities then? How many Australians were there? Just the pilot or —
CW: Just the pilot. Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah. Yes. He was a super bloke really.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: And that was, was that Flying Officer Anderson?
CW: Well, he was sergeant. A flight sergeant then.
GR: Flight sergeant then.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Yes. So crewed up.
CW: Yeah.
GR: What happened next?
CW: And then we went training. Still training.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Still training. Can’t remember where we went to really.
GR: Would it have been Heavy Conversion Unit?
CW: Yeah.
GR: To convert on to the four-engine bombers. Syerston.
CW: No. I think we went somewhere before that.
GR: Yeah.
CW: That was to go on to Stirlings.
GR: Winthorpe.
CW: Winthorpe was still training on —
GR: Yeah.
CW: Ansons I think.
GR: Yeah. Just checking the logbook.
CW: Oh Halifax.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Halifaxes.
GR: Stirlings.
CW: Oh. Was it?
GR: Yeah.
CW: But first was Halifaxes.
GR: Right.
CW: Which were still twin-engine for the pilot so he didn’t need the other two crew members.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
CW: The flight engineer. He didn’t really need him because he was quite used to two engines anyway.
GR: Yeah.
CW: But when he stepped up to the next.
GR: That.
CW: Four engine.
GR: Yeah.
CW: He needed help to look after feeding in of petrol.
GR: And obviously that’s what Winthorpe would have been.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Because you were on Stirlings by then.
CW: Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
GR: And Flight Sergeant Anderson was a pilot officer by then.
CW: Yes. Yeah. He stepped up. Yeah. Deserved it. Yeah.
GR: And then obviously after, yeah Heavy Conversion Unit, you did I think it’s about a week at 5 LFS at Syerston.
CW: Oh.
GR: Just a week there. On Lancasters.
CW: Oh yeah.
GR: At Number 5 Lancaster Finishing School.
CW: That’s right.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: When did you find out which operational base you would go to? How did that come about?
CW: They just said, ‘You’re going to 106 at Metheringham.’
GR: Yeah. So —
CW: And we went and there were two other crews landed at about the same day I think.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And we were all put in the same Nissen hut.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And we wondered, I wondered how we were all going to go on. If we were going to be as lucky as them or what. And then both, all three pilots made a flight with an experienced crew.
GR: Yes.
CW: And one of them, one of the other two pilots did not come back. So then we expected a new pilot to arrive to take over this old crew but they didn’t. They just took them and the disappeared. Took them off the station altogether.
GR: Right.
CW: Which, it was a bit surprising but I suppose that’s how they did it.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And then we thought well who’d be first because our pilot was Albert Andrew Anderson and duly first on anything but he wasn’t.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And this other crew went and they never came back.
GR: So they went on the first operation.
CW: Yes.
GR: And didn’t come back.
CW: Yeah. The pilot came back from his original flight.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And he took his own crew and then we never heard again.
GR: So, of the three crews that landed.
CW: Yeah before a month was out we were —
GR: Just you.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Just you. Ok. And I am looking at your logbook again. You, you did your first training flight at Metheringham on the 12th of September and within two weeks you were flying on your first operation.
CW: Well, I’ve not really looked into that.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. I’m just looking at the logbook again.
CW: Oh. Ok.
GR: 12th of September.
CW: Yeah.
GR: You’d arrived at Metheringham. Well, less than two weeks. The 23rd of September.
CW: Yeah.
GR: You were off to the Dortmund Ems Canal.
CW: Yeah.
GR: So what was the first operation like if you don’t mind me asking? You know, you’d done your training.
CW: Yes. Well we knew what we were in for because we’d experienced what had happened to others.
GR: Yeah.
CW: So we just hoped and prayed. Yeah.
GR: Because as a navigator did you go to a pre-op meeting?
CW: No.
GR: You didn’t have to plan the route out or anything like that?
CW: No.
GR: No.
CW: No.
GR: Right.
CW: No. I think everyone was, it’s wherever in Bomber Command I think the same happened. A briefing.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And a big screen across the, a big atlas or a map.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Or a chart probably. And a red line zigzagging across. Zigzagged because they didn’t want Germans to dead reckon ahead on our first track and say oh they must be going in that direction.
GR: Sounds like it. Yeah.
CW: So we dodged.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Dodged different. It made a bit more hard work.
GR: Yeah.
CW: But not much.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And so that’s how we set off on each flight.
GR: Yeah. And what was the first one like? You said, yeah you just prayed and hoped.
CW: Well.
GR: And did it go off alright at the Dortmund Ems because obviously the Dortmund ems canal over the years was a well-known target.
CW: Well I went five times in all. So, yeah but but I don’t think we ever did any damage to be honest. It was such a massive.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Thing. And I think 617 Squadron eventually dropped one of theirs.
GR: Big Tallboy.
CW: Yes
GR: Grand Slam
CW: Yeah.
GR: Bombs.
CW: Down. Just where it wanted to be. Right alongside it.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Which uprooted everything. Which was a big route for everything made in the Ruhr to get to the north coast.
GR: Yeah.
CW: To go on this canal.
GR: On the canal. Yeah.
CW: So if we could knock it out then they would be sending things by road.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And rail. Which took longer and cost more.
GR: I think Bomber Command first started bombing the Dortmund Ems Canal in 1940.
CW: Yeah. Well, there wasn’t, that meant they weren’t able to damage.
GR: No.
CW: That concrete was such that, you know, one bomb.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Just wouldn’t matter.
GR: And then you’d done within four days you’d done two more ops to Karlsruhe and Kaiserslautern.
CW: Yeah.
GR: And then —
CW: Yeah.
GR: Running into October 1944 I notice you went to the submarine pens at Bergen.
CW: Yeah. In Norway. Yes.
GR: Yeah.
CW: To try and help the navy really.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Damage the submarines if possible.
GR: Yeah. And I think again that was another one that 617 with their big bombs —
CW: Yeah.
GR: Went to —
CW: Were able to do.
GR: After you. Yeah. So how did the operations go? Oh yeah. I’m just looking again. Dortmund Ems. Dortmund Ems.
CW: Yeah. Well, actually apart from being there it was quite a good one for, for us because it was a short one.
GR: Yeah.
CW: It was just, only just the other side of Holland.
GR: Yes.
CW: And so you weren’t shattered or anything.
GR: Yeah.
CW: By a long distance or anything.
GR: Yeah. Yes. Because I’m looking again in the logbook and the Dortmund Ems Canal Roundtrip was four hours fifteen minutes.
CW: Yeah. That’s pretty good.
GR: Unlike on the 22nd of November you went to Trondheim and you were in the air eleven hours twenty five minutes.
CW: Yeah. Trondheim. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. So —
CW: Well that’s, on saying that well I think that I told you that the Met men got the wind velocity wrong. Totally wrong. It turned out to be, on my first check after ten minutes when you take a radar fix you could work out a wind velocity which to me, it was to me a hundred mile an hour and I think they had forecast twenty or twenty five or something like that. And we were a bit, a little bit worried and we then realised our wireless operator got a message saying the time to be there had been brought forward because they’d heard, someone must have phoned, called them up. Breaking radio silence really which I’d never heard of and to tell them that we were going to be there maybe an hour too soon. With the wind velocity being so high and we were not accounting for it. We were thinking we were going to be in twenty mile an hour.
GR: And you were in —
CW: And we were in a hundred so, so they brought it forward so it didn’t make any difference of getting there.
GR: So in theory, I don’t know, the cruising speed of a Lancaster.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Normally two hundred miles an hour.
CW: I think somebody went wrong totally because the main bomb aimer eventually you couldn’t mark the target. The Germans set up smoke flares.
GR: Yes.
CW: And, and I think that when they tried to mark the target the wind was so much that these were carried away and they were never left long enough on the ground to be able to say come in and bomb.
GR: Yeah.
CW: So they said, ‘Sorry,’ but he said, ‘Sorry boys, just return to base. Return to base.’
GR: Right.
CW: So on the way back we, we were travelling at eighty mile an hour instead of our usual one eighty because of the head wind.
GR: Yeah. So you got, you got to the target quickly but it took a long time to get back home.
CW: Exactly. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. So —
CW: Yeah. But we went, we were then because I think petrol was going very low and we were detailed to go to Lossiemouth.
GR: Right. Diverted on the way back.
CW: Yes.
GR: Yeah. Yeah. I’m just checking again. Yeah. So moving on into early, early 1945 you were called up for Pathfinder duty.
CW: Yeah.
GR: How did that come about if you don’t mind asking?
CW: I think we got lucky.
GR: You got lucky. Taken off operations.
CW: No. I mean, no, I mean we got lucky by getting to the targets on time which was vital really.
GR: Yeah.
CW: So to start with the bomber when dropping bombs we got I think a three or four minute allowance but Pathfinders was one minute.
GR: Yeah.
CW: So you’d sort of got to work a bit harder to get there.
GR: Yeah.
CW: On time.
GR: So, I know they did a bit of extra training didn’t they?
CW: Yes.
GR: Which you had. Yeah.
CW: We went to [pause] I forget.
GR: Yeah. And it doesn’t make a note. Oh Coningsby. 83 Squadron, Pathfinder Force, Coningsby.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. So a couple of months and then you were back on operations and it looks as though you went to Leipzig on your first Pathfinder trip.
CW: Oh.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: So did you find the two squadrons different or, I mean I presume you’ve still got the same crew.
CW: Oh yeah.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
CW: Same crew. Yeah.
GR: So just flying the same plane.
CW: Yeah.
GR: But from a different base.
CW: Yeah. Just —
GR: Yeah.
CW: Different base. Well, we linked with 97 Squadron. So we were like one squadron really I think.
GR: Yeah.
CW: We both went into the briefing. Both squadrons. And however many, however many planes that were sent.
GR: Yeah.
CW: So we were like one big squadron but but no we weren’t.
GR: Yeah.
CW: We were two separate squadrons but we worked as one.
GR: As a — yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Any extra pressure being the Pathfinder navigator?
CW: No. I just did —
GR: Because the Pathfinders, I presume the Pathfinders went in first to mark.
CW: Yeah.
GR: The target.
CW: No.
GR: Then bomb.
CW: We dropped flares —
GR: Yeah.
CW: That hung in the sky whilst Mosquitoes guys who didn’t have as much radar didn’t, I don’t think they had any radar so they weren’t sure to get there because they didn’t have room for radar I think. And so if they saw our flares going down they could be, they could easily get within like ten mile of the target. So they’d soon see the flares and they could be on the job straight away and marking out for the main force coming probably nine minutes later.
GR: Yeah. That’s good. And then that’s going towards the end of the war. Where were you? Where were you when the war finished?
CW: Still at Coningsby.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: And I think you’d flown your last operation on the, or your last bombing operation on the 18th of April.
CW: Was it?
GR: Yeah.
CW: Oh.
GR: Yeah. So and then in May you did a couple of prisoner of war pickups. Operation Exodus.
CW: Yes. Yeah. We were glad to be able to do that.
GR: Yeah. A lot of crews have said that.
CW: It was the first time they said you can’t take your parachutes with you. Not that we were bothered about that.
GR: Yeah.
CW: But no parachutes for them. Prisoners of war just released. Probably I think there were sixteen came in and sat just down the fuselage. Anywhere they could really.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
CW: And then the pilot would ask them up and we were like over the sea, or the North Sea or whatever and just had a look.
GR: Yeah.
CW: What it was like. And then they would just sit down there. Back in the fuselage.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And we’d land them at some place.
GR: Dunsford.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Dunsford. Yeah.
CW: And —
GR: My father in law who’d been a prisoner of war for five years. He flew back on a Lancaster.
CW: Oh.
GR: It could have been you.
CW: It well could have been. Aye. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. He’d been captured at Dunkirk. And flew back.
CW: Oh blimey. That was early enough wasn’t it?
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
CW: To be captured.
GR: So, and then the last entry in the logbook in May which is absolutely fantastic. 31st of May. A tour of German cities.
CW: Yeah. We took a guy with a camera.
GR: Right.
CW: And he took photographs and he gave us some. One or two each.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And they were [pause] oh it was just shocking to look down really and thought we’d done all that.
GR: Yes. Because obviously I’m looking and it was obviously in daylight. Yeah.
CW: Yeah.
GR: So no. Proof of, proof of what Bomber Command did and the success of Bomber Command.
CW: Yes.
GR: And so —
CW: Yeah.
GR: So, how else did, how long did you stay in the RAF for Colin?
CW: I think it were about five years in all.
GR: Oh yeah. So you weren’t —
CW: I didn’t stay on. No.
GR: Well, most of them, most people would have come out 1946 but if you stayed a bit longer. I’m looking. So [pause] so demobbed. Back home to Sheffield.
CW: That’s right.
GR: And what did you do with the rest of your life?
CW: Well, I can, I can put it on camera now that one of the flights in there.
GR: Yeah.
CW: Was a cross country flight and my wife and I had got married. I was only twenty one and we got married and she came to Coningsby. She went to the cobblers and he put her up to sleep in his house and his shop, and then one day I said, ‘Well I shan’t be seeing you tonight because we’ve got this flight on.’ And she said, ‘Well, why can’t I come? [laughs] I said, ‘Not really.’ But anyway, she did. So we smuggled.
GR: You smuggled your wife on to a Lancaster.
CW: Yeah. And then she, and then we took off. Yeah. And then she said, Andy, said to her, the pilot said when we were coming back when the exercise was over kind of, he said, ‘What, was it, what did you think? Was it —’ She said, ‘Well it wasn’t very exciting was it?’ So he said to the gunner, he said, ‘Give me a corkscrew.’ Which he did. And she just went aaaahhh. So I switched the microphone on and they all heard her.
GR: Yeah.
CW: And then when we came back and we got in the van to come back and there was one, well what can I say? A typical, ‘Hello there, how are you and all that darling,’ and he saw her get in the van, and he said ‘Oh. And where have you come from?’ So she said, ‘Oh I’ve been flying.’ He said, ‘Oh jolly good show. Jolly good show.’ He really thought, yeah.
GR: Yeah.
CW: So —
GR: So you were demobbed from the RAF. You and your wife back to Sheffield.
CW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Did you go back to plumbing or —
CW: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. And that was the end of the wartime experiences.
CW: Yeah. That’s the war. Yeah.
GR: Ok. Thank you. Thank you Colin.
CW: 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
A name given to the resource
Interview with Colin Wood
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gary Rushbrooke
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:35:06 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AWoodC160325
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-25
Description
An account of the resource
Colin Wood grew up in Sheffield and worked as a plumber until he volunteered for the RAF. He trained in Canada and flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham. On arrival at the station his pilot and three others made their flight with an experienced crew but only the pilot returned. Colin and his crew were later posted to 83 Squadron Pathfinders.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943-07-08
1944-02
1945
106 Squadron
83 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Coningsby
RAF Metheringham
RAF Syerston
RAF West Freugh
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/183/2378/PWoodC1609.1.jpg
61f93ca48525ac5dd991cb2c6417e994
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
Wood, Colin
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Colin Wood (1922 - 2021, 1451225 Royal Air Force), his log book, service record and seven photographs including pictures of some of his crew. Colin Wood trained in Canada and flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham. His crew were:
428289 - Andy A Anderson, pilot
1593692 - D Evans, flight engineer
1451225 - Colin Wood, navigator
1564707 - G H McElhone, bomb aimer
1873924 - P Thomas Tobin, wireless operator
1584474 - Vernon R Grogan, mid upper gunner
1595586 - R O Day, rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Colin Wood 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
2016-03-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wood, C
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
97 and 83 Squadron aircrew in front of Lancaster
Description
An account of the resource
Large group of airmen posed in front of Lancaster. Colin Wood is immediately in front of the man who is 4th left in the back row.
7th from the right on the bottom row is Flight Lieutenant Edward Raymond Brown DFC. He flew 31 operations (25 with 83 Squadron).
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-05
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWoodC1609
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Andrew Brown
83 Squadron
97 Squadron
Lancaster
RAF Coningsby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/183/2380/LAndersonAA428289v1.2.pdf
357f3a160f67920aa88d481a2db49408
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
Wood, Colin
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Colin Wood (1922 - 2021, 1451225 Royal Air Force), his log book, service record and seven photographs including pictures of some of his crew. Colin Wood trained in Canada and flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham. His crew were:
428289 - Andy A Anderson, pilot
1593692 - D Evans, flight engineer
1451225 - Colin Wood, navigator
1564707 - G H McElhone, bomb aimer
1873924 - P Thomas Tobin, wireless operator
1584474 - Vernon R Grogan, mid upper gunner
1595586 - R O Day, rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Colin Wood 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
2016-03-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wood, C
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Andy Anderson's flying log book for pilots (incomplete)
Description
An account of the resource
Incomplete pilots flying log book for A A Anderson covering the period from 19 April 1944 to 31 May 1945. Detailing his training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Bitteswell, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Winthorpe, RAF Syerston, RAF Metheringham, RAF Warboys and RAF Coningsby. Aircraft flown were, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. The total number of operation shown are 23, 14 night with 106 Squadron and nine night with 83 Squadron. Targets were, Rheydt, Dortmund, Karlsruhe, Kaiserlautern, Brunswick, Bergen, Dusseldorf, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Harburg, Trondheim, Munich, Horten Harbour, Danzig harbour, Bohlen, Lutzkendorf, Wurzburg, Molbis, Cham, Komotau and two Operation Exodus to Rheine. His first or second pilots on operations was Flying Officer Sayeau.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
37 photocopied pages
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LAndersonAA428289v1
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
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-09-19
1944-09-20
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-11-03
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-11
1944-11-12
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-23
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-14
1944-12-15
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-04-07
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-17
1945-04-18
1945-04-19
1945-05-08
1945-05-10
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Czech Republic
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
Poland
Czech Republic--Chomutov
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Warwickshire
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Harburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Munich
Germany--Rheydt
Germany--Steinfurt (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Würzburg
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Horten
Norway--Trondheim
Poland--Gdańsk
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
106 Squadron
1661 HCU
29 OTU
83 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
mine laying
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Coningsby
RAF Metheringham
RAF Syerston
RAF Warboys
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/183/2381/LWoodC1451225v1.1.pdf
216ec66745b3d4c0ff1f52309fe0300c
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
Wood, Colin
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Colin Wood (1922 - 2021, 1451225 Royal Air Force), his log book, service record and seven photographs including pictures of some of his crew. Colin Wood trained in Canada and flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham. His crew were:
428289 - Andy A Anderson, pilot
1593692 - D Evans, flight engineer
1451225 - Colin Wood, navigator
1564707 - G H McElhone, bomb aimer
1873924 - P Thomas Tobin, wireless operator
1584474 - Vernon R Grogan, mid upper gunner
1595586 - R O Day, rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Colin Wood 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
2016-03-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wood, C
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Colin Wood's Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot
Description
An account of the resource
The log book covers the training, operational career and and post war flying of Colin Wood from 8 July 1943 to 7 February 1946. He trained in Canada and in Great Britain and was stationed at RAF Metheringham, RAF Coningsby and RAF Full Sutton. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Wellington, Stirling X, Lancaster I and III, Lancastrian, Dominie. He flew 25 night operations with 106 and 83 Squadrons to targets in Germany, Norway, Poland, Italy, and Czechoslovakia: Bergen, Bohlen-Leipzig, Brunswick, Cham, Danzig, Dortmund-Ems canal, Dusseldorf, Harburg, Horten harbour, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe, Komatau, Lutzkendorf-Leipzig, Molbis-Leipzig, Munich, Trondheim and Wurtzberg, His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Anderson. Colin Wood also flew operation Exodus to Rheine and two operation Dodge to Bari. Additional remarks include corkscrew training, H2S, and stowaway Olive on cross country flight. Post-war 231 Squadron.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWoodC1451225v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Norway
Poland
Scotland
Czech Republic--Chomutov
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Munich
Germany--Rheine
Germany--Würzburg
Italy--Bari
Manitoba--Winnipeg
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Horten
Norway--Trondheim
Poland--Gdańsk
Scotland--Wigtownshire
Czech Republic
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Manitoba
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-11-03
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-11
1944-11-12
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-23
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-14
1944-12-15
1944-12-16
1944-12-17
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-23
1945-02-24
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-04-07
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-17
1945-04-18
1945-04-19
1945-05-10
1945-05-31
1945-09-13
1945-09-15
1945-09-29
1945-10-01
106 Squadron
1661 HCU
29 OTU
83 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Cook’s tour
Dominie
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lancastrian
navigator
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Coningsby
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Metheringham
RAF Syerston
RAF Warboys
RAF West Freugh
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/183/2383/OWoodC1451225-160325-01.1.pdf
bed88fc4217d1727e433da95a5837462
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
Wood, Colin
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Colin Wood (1922 - 2021, 1451225 Royal Air Force), his log book, service record and seven photographs including pictures of some of his crew. Colin Wood trained in Canada and flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham. His crew were:
428289 - Andy A Anderson, pilot
1593692 - D Evans, flight engineer
1451225 - Colin Wood, navigator
1564707 - G H McElhone, bomb aimer
1873924 - P Thomas Tobin, wireless operator
1584474 - Vernon R Grogan, mid upper gunner
1595586 - R O Day, rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Colin Wood 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
2016-03-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wood, C
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Colin Wood's service and release book
Description
An account of the resource
Service and release book of Colin Wood (2 March 1942 - 27 July 1946).
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OWoodC1451225-160325-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
83 Squadron
bombing
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/109/2425/LGreenLC1318527v.1.pdf
b5e686d98ddbb0320085b55c6d541553
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
Green, Leonard
Len Green
L C Green
Description
An account of the resource
Twelve items. The collection relates to the service of Warrant Officer Leonard C Green (1318527 Royal Air Force) and consists of his log book, correspondence, a newspaper cuttings, four photographs and a foreign languages phrase book. Leonard Green flew Lancasters with 50 and 61 Squadrons from RAF Skellingthorpe and completed 19 daylight and night time operations.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mark Boother and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
2016-06-01
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Green, LC
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
Leonard Green’s navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LGreenLC1318527v1
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
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator's air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for Flight Sergeant Leonard Green, wireless operator, covering the period from 15 December 1942 to 20 January 1946. He was stationed at RAF Manby, RAF Wigtown, RAF Bitteswell, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Swinderby, RAF Syerston, RAF Skellingthorpe and RAF Coningsby. Aircraft flown in were, Dominie, Proctor, Anson, Wellington, Manchester and Lancaster. He flew a total of 23 operations, 13 night with 50 Squadron and 3 day and 7 night with 61 Squadron. He also flew operations Exodus with 61 Squadron and Dodge to Bari, Italy with 83 Squadron. Targets were, Hannover, Dusseldorf, Modane, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Brunswick, Magdeburg, Bohlen, Gravenhorst, Dortmund-Emms Canal, Lutzkendorf, Wurzburg, Bremen, Wesel, Nordhausen and Molbis. His pilots on operations were Pilot Officer Lundy and Flight Lieutenant Phillips. The log book also contains many newspaper clippings relating to the targets attacked, aircraft flown in and events of the war and post war. It also contains pictures of the crew positions of Navigator, Bomb Aimer and Wireless Operator.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Scotland
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
France--Modane
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Würzburg
Italy--Bari
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Germany--Böhlen
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia)
France
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1943-10-18
1943-11-03
1943-11-10
1943-11-11
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-22
1943-11-26
1943-11-27
1943-12-02
1943-12-03
1943-12-20
1943-12-21
1943-12-29
1943-12-30
1944-01-02
1944-01-03
1944-01-14
1944-01-15
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-24
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-22
1945-03-23
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-06
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-26
1945-05-06
1945-05-12
1945-05-14
1945-07-17
1945-09-09
1945-10-16
1945-10-20
1945-12-14
1945-12-20
1660 HCU
29 OTU
50 Squadron
61 Squadron
83 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing up
Cook’s tour
Dominie
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Manchester
military service conditions
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
Proctor
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Coningsby
RAF Manby
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigtown
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/189/2493/LCaseyJ2219470v1.1.pdf
620c98aafe151a45e5c4968e353df57d
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
Casey, John
J Casey
John Casey
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. Collection contains an oral history interview with Sergeant John Casey (- 2016, 2217470, Royal Air Force), an escape map, logbook, service documentation, a wallet and photographs. John Casey served as an air gunner on 61 Squadron in 1944-45.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Casey and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-10
2015-11-19
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
Casey, J
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
John Casey's flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
Navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers flying log book for Sergeant John Casey from 26 February 1944 to 8 October 1945. Detailing training schedule and operations flown. Served at 7 Air Gunnery School followed by training at 29 Operational Training Unit on Wellington, 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit on Stirling and No 5 Lancaster Finishing School. Aircraft flown were Anson, Martinet, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. He carried out a total of 22 daylight and night-time operations with 61 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe as an air gunner on the following targets in Germany, Netherlands, and Norway: Bergen, Bohlen, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Dresden, Flushing, Giessen, Heilbronn, Leuna, Lutzkendorf, Mittelland Canal, Munich, Nordhausen, Nuremberg, Politz, Rositz, Tønsberg and Würzburg. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Bain. The log book records a Cook's tour and Operation Dodge flights. Also contained is a newspaper cutting on the history of 61 Squadron and two pages of calculations.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LCaseyJ2219470v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-10-19
1944-10-20
1944-10-23
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-11-16
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-04
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-24
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-04-04
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-25
1945-04-26
1945-05-16
1945-09-13
1945-09-15
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Norway
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Giessen (Hesse)
Germany--Heilbronn
Germany--Leuna
Germany--Mittelland Canal
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Würzburg
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Tønsberg
England--Lincolnshire
1654 HCU
29 OTU
61 Squadron
83 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Cook’s tour
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Martinet
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Coningsby
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/407/6865/LAnsellHT1893553v1.1.pdf
edfc366bd5e7a30081d45f021fab8420
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
Ansell, Henry
Henry Ansell
H T Ansell
Description
An account of the resource
28 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Henry Thomas Ansell, DFM (b. 1925, 1893553 Royal Air Force) and contains his logbook, his release book, a school report, two German language documents and several photographs, his medals and other items. Henry Ansell served as a flight engineer with 61 Squadron and 83 Squadron Pathfinders.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Vicki Ansell and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-30
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. 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
Ansell, HT
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
Harry Thomas Ansell's flying log book for flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
The log book covers the training and operational duties of Flight Engineer Sergeant Harry Thomas Ansell, from 14 April 1944 to 24 May 1945. He trained at RAF Torquay, RAF St Athan, RAF Stockport and was stationed at RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston, RAF Skellingthorpe and RAF Coningsby. Aircraft flown in were Stirling and Lancaster. He flew 34 operations with 61 Squadron, 15 daylight and 19 night, and 18 night operations with 83 Squadron. Targets in Belgium, France, Germany and Norway were Limoges, Prouville, Vitry, Doullens, Chalindrey, Villeneuve-St-Georges, Caen, Revigny, Courtrai, Kiel, Donges, Saint-Cyr, Lyons, Stuttgart, Cahienes, Joigny-Laroche, Pas de Calais, Bois de Cassan, Saint-Leu-d'Esserent, Secqueville, Châtellerault, Bordeaux, Rüsselsheim, Königsberg, Rollencourt, Brest, Le Havre, Darmstadt, Boulogne, Bremerhaven, Rheydt, Munich, Heilbronn, Glessen, Politz, Merseberg, Brux, Karlsruhe, Ladbergen, Dresden, Rositz, Gravenhorst, Bohlen, Horten Fiord, Molbis and Lutskendorf. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Inness.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Norway
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Devon
England--Greater Manchester
England--Lancashire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Belgium--Kortrijk
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Calais
France--Chalindrey
France--Châtellerault
France--Creil
France--Doullens
France--Joigny
France--Le Havre
France--Limoges
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Paris
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Bremerhaven
Germany--Darmstadt
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Heilbronn
Germany--Hörstel
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Munich
Germany--Rheydt
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wettin
Norway--Horten
Russia (Federation)--Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai︠a︡ oblastʹ)
Germany--Böhlen
France--Lyon
Russia (Federation)
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LAnsellHT1893553v1
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
1945
1944-06-19
1944-06-20
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-06-29
1944-07-12
1944-07-13
1944-07-14
1944-07-15
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-07-21
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-01
1944-08-02
1944-08-05
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-08-31
1944-09-05
1944-09-10
1944-09-11
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-14
1944-09-18
1944-09-19
1944-09-20
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-04
1944-12-06
1944-12-10
1944-12-21
1944-12-22
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
1945-01-15
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-06
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-23
1945-02-24
1945-03-20
1945-03-21
1945-04-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
1945
1654 HCU
61 Squadron
83 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
Distinguished Flying Medal
flight engineer
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
RAF Coningsby
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF St Athan
RAF Stockport
RAF Syerston
RAF Torquay
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/407/7062/PAnsellHT1610.2.jpg
df7877a0834969c38c9a63836b2eec8f
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
Ansell, Henry
Henry Ansell
H T Ansell
Description
An account of the resource
28 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Henry Thomas Ansell, DFM (b. 1925, 1893553 Royal Air Force) and contains his logbook, his release book, a school report, two German language documents and several photographs, his medals and other items. Henry Ansell served as a flight engineer with 61 Squadron and 83 Squadron Pathfinders.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Vicki Ansell and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-30
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. 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
Ansell, HT
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
Politz
Description
An account of the resource
Vertical aerial target photograph of Politz oil refinery. It is annotated '3966.CON.13/14-1-45//NT.7" 18500 070 22:09 Politz H. 14CP3 29 secs F/O Inniss H 83'
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PAnsellHT1610
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Poland
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
83 Squadron
aerial photograph
bombing
Pathfinders
RAF Coningsby
target photograph
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/781/9438/LWrigleyJ1029740v1.2.pdf
44ee862707f671b4ce71a0b2c0ccf4c6
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
Wrigley, James
J Wrigley
Description
An account of the resource
27 items. The collection concerns James Wrigley (1920 - 2010, 1029740 Royal Air Force) and contains an interview with his widow, Alice Wrigley, photographs, his log book, decorations, and a photograph album of his service in the UK and and Far East. The collection also contains a log book made out to Rascal, his mascot or lucky charm. James Wrigley completed 47 operations as a wireless operator with 97 and 635 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Susan Higgins 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
2017-07-09
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
Wrigley, J
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
James Wrigley's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for Warrant Officer James Wrigley, wireless operator, covering the period from 17 November 1942 to 30 June 1954. Detailing training, operations and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Yatesbury, RAF Pembrey, RAF Whitchurch Heath (Tilstock), RAF Lindholme, RAF Bourn, RAF Downham Market, RAF Kinloss, RAF Forres, RAF St. Athan, RAF Abingdon, RAF Hemswell, RAF Binbrook, RAF Marham, RAF Scampton, RAF Negombo, RAF Tengah and RAF Shallufa. Aircraft flown in were, Dominie, Proctor, Blenheim, Anson, Whitley, Halifax, Lancaster, Wellington, Lincoln and B-29. He flew a total of 47 night operations, one with 81 OTU, 39 with 97 Squadron and 7 with 635 Squadron. Targets were, Rouen, Hamburg, Milan, Mannheim, Nuremberg, Peenemunde, Munchen-Gladbach, Berlin, Hannover, Leipzig, Munich, Kassel, Cologne, Ludwigshaven, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Brunswick, Ottignies, Le Havre, Lens and Coubronne. His pilots on operations were <span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}">Pilot Officer Munro DFM and Squadron Leader Riches DFC. </span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWrigleyJ1029740v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Egypt
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Singapore
Sri Lanka
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Ottignies
Egypt--Suez Canal
England--Berkshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Shropshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Le Havre
France--Lens
France--Rouen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Stuttgart
Italy--Milan
Scotland--Grampian
Sri Lanka--Western Province
Wales--Carmarthenshire
Wales--Glamorgan
North Africa
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-08-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-08
1943-08-09
1943-08-10
1943-08-11
1943-08-12
1943-08-13
1943-08-17
1943-08-18
1943-08-27
1943-08-28
1943-08-31
1943-09-03
1943-09-04
1943-09-22
1943-09-23
1943-09-24
1943-09-27
1943-09-28
1943-10-02
1943-10-03
1943-10-18
1943-10-20
1943-10-21
1943-10-22
1943-11-03
1943-11-17
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
1943-11-25
1943-11-26
1943-11-27
1943-12-02
1943-12-03
1943-12-16
1943-12-17
1943-12-20
1943-12-29
1944-01-14
1944-01-30
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-02-19
1944-02-20
1944-02-24
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-03-01
1944-03-02
1944-03-15
1944-03-16
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
10 OTU
1656 HCU
19 OTU
199 Squadron
35 Squadron
617 Squadron
635 Squadron
81 OTU
83 Squadron
97 Squadron
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
B-29
Blenheim
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
bombing of the Le Havre E-boat pens (14/15 June 1944)
Dominie
final resting place
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Heavy Conversion Unit
killed in action
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lincoln
missing in action
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
Proctor
RAF Abingdon
RAF Binbrook
RAF Bourn
RAF Downham Market
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kinloss
RAF Lindholme
RAF Marham
RAF Pembrey
RAF Scampton
RAF Shallufa
RAF St Athan
RAF Tilstock
RAF Yatesbury
training
Wellington
Whitley
wireless operator
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Wrigley, James
J Wrigley
Description
An account of the resource
27 items. The collection concerns James Wrigley (1920 - 2010, 1029740 Royal Air Force) and contains an interview with his widow, Alice Wrigley, photographs, his log book, decorations, and a photograph album of his service in the UK and and Far East. The collection also contains a log book made out to Rascal, his mascot or lucky charm. James Wrigley completed 47 operations as a wireless operator with 97 and 635 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Susan Higgins 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
2017-07-09
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
Wrigley, J
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
James Wrigley Service Record
Description
An account of the resource
Form 543 with details of length of service, training units, squadrons and airfields.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven annotated sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OWrigleyJ1029740-170709-020001,
OWrigleyJ1029740-170709-020002,
OWrigleyJ1029740-170709-020003,
OWrigleyJ1029740-170709-020004,
OWrigleyJ1029740-170709-020005,
OWrigleyJ1029740-170709-020006,
OWrigleyJ1029740-170709-020007
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
10 OTU
1656 HCU
19 OTU
199 Squadron
617 Squadron
635 Squadron
81 OTU
83 Squadron
97 Squadron
bombing
Distinguished Flying Medal
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operational Training Unit
RAF Hemswell
RAF Marham
RAF Waddington
training