1
25
35
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2357/45695/MFoskettW1323050-230609-10.1.jpg
097f02240a5e1468f6a169c3b259eef6
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
Foskett, William
Description
An account of the resource
104 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant William Foskett (b. 1921, 13230505 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, correspondence, documents, and photographs.
He flew operations as an air gunner and navigator with 214 Squadron. After the war, he was stationed in Italy, France, Germany and North Africa.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Foskett and catalogued by Barry Hunter with the assistance of Roberto Bassi of the Aeroclub Friulano Campoformido.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-04-07
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Foskett, W
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CITY OF [CITY OF LINCOLN CREST] LINCOLN
[underlined] AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS [/underlined]
BABIES ANTI-GAS HELMETS
I have been advised by the Medical Officer of Health of the recent birth of your child.
Arrangements have been made for a baby’s Anti-Gas Helmet to be available for you at the Wardens’ post situated at [inserted] St Giles Senior School Macauley Drive [/inserted]
I am enclosing a record card, and shall be glad if either yourself or some responsible person (preferably your husband) will complete the record card and take it to the Wardens’ Post at an early date, when the Helmet will be demonstrated and issued in exchange for the card.
The Helmet remains the property of the Government and will be withdrawn when the child attains the age of two.
If you are changing your present residence permanently to an address outside the city the Helmet may be taken with you if prior notification of the address to which you are going is sent to the A.R.P. Officer, 8, Silver Street, Lincoln.
Change of address within the city must also be notified.
J.H. Smith
Town Clerk.
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
Babies Anti-Gas Helmets
Description
An account of the resource
Advice that the helmet can be collected.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
City of Lincoln
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincoln
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printed sheet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MFoskettW1323050-230609-10
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
Sandra Jones
Air Raid Precautions
childhood in wartime
civil defence
home front
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1807/44140/MKilburnG[Ser -DoB]-170310-01.pdf
79c2d3b0ae7f020f56459b76e79d5870
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
Kilburn, Gerard
G Kilburn
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
2017-03-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Kilburn, G
Description
An account of the resource
6 items. The collection concerns Gerard Kilburn (Royal Air Force) and contains a memoir about the bombing of Liverpool and photographs.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Gerard Kilburn and catalogued by Benjamin Turner.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underline] Some memories of the war (1939-1945) [/underline] from a woman who was a teenager then.
War broke out on 3rd September 1939. This was a hot sunny Sunday in Liverpool where I lived.
[underline] Evacuation [/underline].
That week the [underline] Evacuation of children [/underline] began. Children were sent away from the big cities to the countryside for safety.
Lime Street Station was filled with children of all sizes and ages with gas masks in cardboard boxes over their shoulders; labels pinned to their lapels gave their name and identification number.
Everyone had to carry an identity card.
I wasstaken [sic] was taken by train into the country- the journey was long. The whole school was taken on arrival to a church hall, and we waited to be collected by ‘someone’. We did not know who it would be. Those children who were not taken by someone were taken by bus to a house or cottage for the duration of the war.
Not all children stayed that long. The cottage I was sent to had no gas, no electricity, no running water or indoor toilet. The toilet was in a hut at the very bottom of a long garden. There was no bathroom- we had our baths in a tin bath in front of the kitchen fire. My mother was not happy about me being away from home and she came to collect me after one week. She said that if we were going to die then it would be better to die together. It so happened that we all lived safely through the war.
[underline] Sounds of War [/underline] – [underline] An Air Raid [/underline]
The sounds of war were very different from the sounds of a country at peace. When there was an air raid the sirens wailed loudly and eerily. We would look at the clocks quickly before running to our Anderson shelter in the garden. If it was 10 or 12 o’clock pm we knew there would be a long night of bombing to come. If it was 2 or 3 a.m. then maybe it would only last a matter of hours.
Sometimes there were two or three air raids in the same night and some in the day-time too.
As we ran we would see the searchlights scanning the sky for the enemy aircraft.
[page break]
The sound of enemy aircraft was different from our own planes.
They used to switch their engines off to avoid being detected. We would then hear a drrm…drrm…drrm…drrm…. This was an ominous sound.
You could also hear the scream of the bombs as they fell through the air. First there would be a ‘descending’ whine, then an explosion which was sometimes louder than thunder and at other times a dull ‘crump’ in the distance.
We would listen hard for the comforting sound of our own anti-aircraft guns and rockets fighting back at the enemy. Sometimes, however, these were silent-especially during the May Blitz in Liverpool, when the bombing was long and incessant for ten nights from 1st -10th May.
The most wonderful sound of all was that of the ‘all clear’. The siren would sound again but this time it did not wail but gave out a long, clear, steady note to announce that the ‘raiders’ had passed. Maybe, though, we would return to bed, only to hear the air raid siren again and so rush back to the shelter.
[underline] Sights in Liverpool [/underline]
Incendiary (fire) bombs were a real danger. Huge metal tanks full of water were positioned on almost every street corner. These were called [underline] E.W.S tanks [/underline] Emergency Water Supply tanks.
More E.W.S. were carried in huge pipes. (about 35cm in diameter) which were on the edges of the pavement and had to be stepped over.
People in uniforms could be seen too. [underline] Air Raid Wardens [/underline] wore overalls and tin hats; [underline] soldiers [/underline], sailors and airmen were often in Liverpool en route between North America and Europe. Liverpool was the Western approaches port and the town was always busy. There were Americans, Canadians, Poles and Norwegians. The French sailors wore little ‘pom-poms’ on their hats.
[underline] The Black Out [/underline]
For fear of air raids it was necessary to ensure absolute darkness at night. This would make places less easy to find. At first no torches could be carried. When it was eventually allowed they had to have black tape over them so that only a little light would show. Torches always had to be carried pointing downwards. Car lights also had to be covered.
[Page break]
(A few cars had huge ‘balloons’ full of gas on top of them to save petrol).
At the windows you could see blackout curtains or windows with nets of tape pasted over them to prevent glass shattering.
People never moved about without their gas masks- these had to be carried elsewhere.
In the sky were huge barrage balloons.
We didn’t see a banana for over six years.
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
Some memories of the war
Description
An account of the resource
Memoir detailing a teenage girl's experiences of the war. The document details experiences of evacuation, the blackouts, sounds of the war during air raids and what they saw on the streets of Liverpool.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1939-09-03
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lancashire
England--Liverpool
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page type written document
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MKilburnG[Ser#-DoB]-170310-01
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
William Cragg
Air Raid Precautions
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
childhood in wartime
evacuation
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2214/40049/SDunnFT1319229v10002-Transcript.2.pdf
73a2212dfd8e0b0d676104b75464c587
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
Dunn, Frederick Thomas
Dunn, FT
Description
An account of the resource
45 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Frederick Thomas Dunn (1319229 Royal Air Force) and contains his logbook, memoir, correspondence, clippings and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 102 Squadron and was killed in a mid-air collision on return from Berlin 22 November 1943. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Josephine Guinness and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Frederick Thomas Dunn is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/207983/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-14
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dunn, FT
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 My life in the RAF
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript of F Dunn's memoir describing life before and after joining the RAF. Includes induction and starting off in the RAF in England and then sea voyage to South Africa and then initial training in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
F T Dunn
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-02
1941-10
1942-01-14
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Wiltshire
England--London
England--Warwickshire
England--Stratford-upon-Avon
England--West Kirby
England--Manchester
England--Lancashire
England--Liverpool
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone--Freetown
South Africa
South Africa--Durban
South Africa--Johannesburg
South Africa--Centurion
South Africa--Gauteng
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe--Bulawayo
England--Swindon (Wiltshire)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Twenty-three page printed document
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SDunnFT1319229v10002-Transcript
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending text-based transcription
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Dunn, Frederick Thomas. My life in the RAF
Air Raid Precautions
aircrew
civil defence
military living conditions
military service conditions
recruitment
sport
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2214/40046/SDunnFT1319229v10002-0001.2.pdf
15d7935091da3140e2bba8cf7cc7e8e2
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
Dunn, Frederick Thomas
Dunn, FT
Description
An account of the resource
45 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Frederick Thomas Dunn (1319229 Royal Air Force) and contains his logbook, memoir, correspondence, clippings and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 102 Squadron and was killed in a mid-air collision on return from Berlin 22 November 1943. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Josephine Guinness and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Frederick Thomas Dunn is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/207983/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-14
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dunn, FT
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
My life in the RAF - chapter 1,2 and 3
Description
An account of the resource
Autographical account of life at the beginning of the war including service in ARP in Swindon. Reasons for volunteering for the RAF. Registered for military service in February 1941. Waiting for call-up. Induction at St John's Wood London and sight-seeing in London. Journey to Stratford and description of initial training at 9 ITW. Describes wartime journey for leave. Continues with move to West Kirby camp. Goes on to describe another period of leave. Moved to camp for under training aircrew at Heaton Park, Manchester. Moved to Liverpool to embark for voyage overseas. Goes on to describe voyage in November 1941. Stopped at Freetown Sierra Leone but not allowed ashore. Continues voyage to South Africa. Continues to describe activities on the voyage including sports with Army personnel on board.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
F T Dunn
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-02
1941-10
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Wiltshire
England--London
England--Warwickshire
England--Stratford-upon-Avon
England--West Kirby
England--Manchester
England--Lancashire
England--Liverpool
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone--Freetown
South Africa
England--Swindon (Wiltshire)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Thirty-six page handwritten document
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SDunnFT1319229v10002-0001
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Dunn, Frederick Thomas. My life in the RAF
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence
Initial Training Wing
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF Heaton Park
recruitment
sport
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1853/35515/MGallupR171215-170521-08.1.jpg
aaa8fa75cee8e57846adc27ffbbdc029
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
Gallop, Roy
R Gallop
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
2017-05-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gallup, R
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns Sergeant Roy Gallop (171215 Royal Air Force) and contains a year book for Cochran Field 1942, documents and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Mike Coster and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Roy Gallop's Pass Certificate, Air Raid Precaution
Description
An account of the resource
A certificate awarded to Roy for achieving a pass in Air Raid Precaution.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chingford Air Cadet Station
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1940-07-05
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printed sheet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MGallupR171215-170521-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-07-05
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence
home front
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2047/33328/ABiltonGHA960623-0001.1.pdf
68edbe099b5e26f2922404b2fb056c11
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2047/33328/ABiltonGHA960623.1.mp3
3f3f5cac621761fcd3088cee74a5d0fd
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bilton, George Henry Albert
G H A Bilton
Description
An account of the resource
Nineteen items. The collection concerns George Henry Albert Bilton (b. 1923, 175723 Royal Air Force) and contains an oral history interview, his log book, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 428 and 434 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anthony Bilton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bilton, GHA
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Music]
I: Were you born in Hull?
GB: Well, outside of Hull at Anlaby.
I: Which year were you born?
GB: 1923. October.
I: And what did your father do for a living?
GB: He was a coach builder for, well it’s now British Railway but first of all Hull and Barnsley. Then it was taken over by the London Northeastern and he built the coaches and the waggons. He was with them all his life.
I: Did you go to school in Anlaby?
GB: Anlaby Church of England School. And then the last two years I was at Hessle School when they closed the Church of England one down. I left school 1938.
I: So you were fourteen.
GB: Fourteen. Yeah.
I: Did you get a job?
GB: Yes. I went and got a job as an apprentice furniture salesman.
I: In Hull.
GB: In Hull. At Harry Jacobs Furniture.
I: Were you doing that when war broke out?
GB: Oh, I was still with them when war broke out. I was with them until I went into the Forces in 1942.
I: What was your reaction when you heard Chamberlain make the declaration that we were at war with Germany?
GB: Well, I think it was a bit too young and didn’t know anything about it but I volunteered for an ARP messenger boy and I was accepted and that kept us busy on a night time. Even with practices.
I: Where did you volunteer for it?
GB: Anlaby House which became the Central Headquarters for the ARP in Haltemprice. It is now the headquarters of Beverley Borough Council. The same house.
I: What kind of work did you have to do as an ARP messenger boy?
GB: Well, if any of the telephone lines were broken in a raid we had to go out and take messages from one post to another.
I: By foot?
GB: No. On our bikes.
I: Did you have a uniform?
GB: No. Just a steel helmet and an extra special gas mask. That’s all.
I: What was extra special about it?
GB: Well, it was more like the Services one. Not like the ordinary civilian gas mask.
I: What was the difference between the two?
GB: Well, it was heavier and, well and you just, you didn’t have the mask at the face. You had a small canister at the side.
I: So you didn’t have the protuberance.
GB: No. That’s right.
I: Did you have an arm band to show who you were?
GB: Yes. ARP messenger, that was all and the steel helmet with M on.
I: What did M mean? For messenger.
GB: For messenger.
I: Did you get paid for it?
GB: No. It was all voluntary. No. Nothing at all. You, you, when the sirens went you reported to Anlaby House and you stayed there until the siren all clear and then you went back home.
I: Whereabouts did you do this work?
GB: In Anlaby. The farthest we ever had to bring a message was from Anlaby to Cottingham when the lines were down.
I: Did you enjoy doing it?
GB: Oh yes. I did.
I: Could you have thrown it up any time you liked?
GB: Any time you wanted you could decide to finish and that was it.
I: Was there competition to get these jobs?
GB: Well, there was about four of us and that’s all they needed. They all went in the Forces and of the four there was one killed.
I: How did that happen?
[pause]
GB: It was a lad called John Harding. He was killed in Italy about a month after the war. He went all through the desert, all through Italy and he was killed about a month after the war moving shells from the artillery.
I: Were there any incidents that happened to you after you had done the messenger work?
GB: Not really.
I: That you can recount.
GB: No, there was, it was very very quiet in the area of Haltemprice. All the damage that was done was done in Hull. I think we had what five bombs dropped in the village of Anlaby and they were unexploded.
I: Whereabouts did they drop?
GB: At the, two or three hundred yards from Anlaby House down Woodlands Drive in a snicket.
I: A snicket being a cut through.
GB: A cut through. Yes. They did no damage. The Army came, found them and exploded them.
I: Was anybody injured?
GB: No. There was no injuries whatsoever.
I: When did the bombs drop on Anlaby? Which year would that have been?
GB: That was in the big raid of 1940. May the 8th 1941.
I: ’41. Any others that you remember that dropped in Anlaby?
GB: None at all. There was only the five.
I: Did you ever see the damage in Hull?
GB: Yes. I used to work in Hull. The place where I was employed in Jameson Street was completely gutted during the 1941 raid.
I: What was the name again?
GB: Harry Jacobs Furniture, Jameson Street.
I: What else did you see of the damage in Hull?
GB: All of Jameson Street were moved. Our offices were down Osbourne Street and that was severely damaged. You could see all of Paragon Square which was Hammonds at the time was gutted. There was a terrific amount of damage done and especially in the Stoneferry District where the oil mills were and the flour mills around it.
I: Did people come out of Hull to Anlaby to get away from the bombing?
GB: Yes, they did. They built a camp down Lowfield Road in Anlaby for displaced personnel from the raids and there was one built on Priory Road just outside Cottingham which was taken up by people who had been bombed out. Those two camps after the war housed the young couples who got married and they had no housing. When I got married in ’51 I finished up in one of those converted accommodations for a year before I got a house.
I: What were they like?
GB: Alright.
I: Just describe them.
GB: Well, they were two little bedroom. You had a small bedroom, small living room and there was a small like kitchen for cooking and doing your washing. In Priory Road where the camp is we spent a year in there didn’t we before we came to Cottingham. There were no housing at all and they were in use for about ten years before they were finally closed down.
I: What was the standard of accommodation like?
GB: Poor. Single bricks. Very damp. Corrugated roof.
I: Wasn’t it later used to house Poles?
GB: That’s correct. Yes.
I: Now, can you tell me how you came to be in the Air Force?
GB: I volunteered for air crew in, when I was eighteen in what we called a Selection Board. And I was accepted as a wireless operator air gunner.
I: When you, which year would this have been?
GB: That was 1941. I was eighteen in October ‘41 and I volunteered then and went down for an interview at Padgate. I went through the examinations. Then my medical and then the Aircrew Selection Board and I was accepted for training as a w/op a g.
I: Why did you volunteer for it?
GB: I was, I should have made a very very poor sailor and my father always said, ‘Don’t go in the Army.’ He’d had enough.
I: So you wanted to exercise a choice before you were directed.
GB: Before I was directed.
I: But you were. Did you become a w/op air gunner?
GB: No. There was, they had a tremendous influx of people wanting to be w/op a g’s and I think I’d been waiting about four months to go in and they were short of flight engineers for training so they asked me if I would like to take a test board and become a flight engineer for training. And I accepted that instead of waiting. So I was called up in August ’42. Went to Blackpool. Did my initial training footslogging and I stayed in Blackpool then for about ten months doing a flight mechanic and a fitter’s course. Passed out AC1 flight mechanic and AC1 fitter and I went down to St Athans for six weeks to do the Halifax course and I waited then in August ’43 and I was posted from St Athans up to Number 6 Group, a Heavy Conversion Unit 1664 which was then at Croft and I crewed up with a Canadian and English mixed crew on August 1943.
I: In that training did you run into any problems?
GB: None at all. The only time I got jankers was for failing to carry a bayonet whilst on duty [laughs] and I got seven days CB for it and I swore never again to do any punishment.
I: What happened to you on the CB?
GB: CB? Well, you reported at 6 o’clock after you’d done all your schoolwork for three hours of square bashing. Fifty five minutes square bashing, five minutes off with full kit. Saturday you scrubbed the NAAFI out at Squire’s Gate and it was a huge one. Sunday you reported after Church Parade on the hour every hour until 10 o’clock at night. That was enough. No more. So I kept my shoes clean after that.
I: Did you resent the punishment?
GB: Not really. It taught you to behave yourself.
I: What did you think of the quality of training that you got?
GB: Very good. The instructors were very good. I had no complaints whatsoever against any of the instructors. They were always fair and they helped you whenever. All the way through the course.
I: Were you taught what you had to know or did they miss any?
GB: Well, I think the original entries for flight engineers were given far too much training on engines. You didn’t have to become a fitter to become a flight engineer as they found out later. They shortened the course to about a twelve week course where it took me nearly a year. You didn’t have to be a qualified flight fitter engine to become a flight engineer.
I: What did a flight engineer have to do in a bomber?
GB: Look after chiefly the control of the engines, the petrol consumption, know the hydraulic systems and all the emergencies. Assist in take-off and landing.
I: If the pilot had been hit would you have been able to pilot it?
GB: It would have been a struggle. As a Halifax flight engineer you didn’t have any pilot training. You were never on the controls whereas in a Lancaster you were. You acted as a second pilot for take-off and landing but on a Halifax bomber the bomb aimer assisted in take-off and landing.
I: Now, you said that you were posted to 6 Group. Can you tell me about what 6 Group was?
GB: 6 Group was the Halifax group financed by the Royal Canadian Government. They provided all the aircraft and the crews were mixed. I had three English and four Canadians in the crew. The pilot was, pilot, navigator and the two gunners Canadians. The wireless operator, the bomb aimer and myself were the English members of the crew.
I: How was the crew formed?
GB: Well, I met the crew. They’d done their Operational Training Unit course and they were posted up to Croft and ten crews and ten flight engineers were told, ‘Sort yourselves out.’ And they picked me and I accepted them and I went with them. You weren’t allocated. You weren’t told, ‘You fly with that man.’ Or, ‘You fly with them.’ You were left to individually sort yourself out which crew you wanted to go with. So if you met a sergeant in the mess, you know you knew him and you had a drink or two before you crewed up you went to him.
I: How did you like serving with Canadians?
GB: Oh, they were very good. Very friendly. They didn’t have the bull. The discipline wasn’t as severe on the Canadian group as it was on the English groups.
I: Can you give an example?
GB: Well, I mean you mixed freely with the, when I was an NCO you mixed freely with the two officers. The Canadian officers. No trouble at all calling you by your Christian names.
I: Now, what was your first operational squadron?
GB: My first operational squadron? Well. I lost my first pilot. We went to 427 squadron and Sergeant Dresser went on his second second dickie trip and never came back.
I: 427 was your first.
GB: First squadron at Leeming. So we were a crew without a captain.
I: When did you join that squadron do you think?
GB: We joined 427 Squadron 4th of September and we left on the 23rd of September. We were posted back to 1659 Conversion Unit Topcliffe where there was another pilot waiting for us.
I: So did you do any operations —
GB: None at all.
I: At that base?
GB: No. None whatsoever there. As I say the pilot never came back from his second, second dickie to Frankfurt.
I: So you were posted to a new squadron.
GB: No. A new Conversion Unit for a new pilot. A new pilot by the name of Watkins, a flying officer who had been instructing in Canada for nearly two years. He’d been, come over and we crewed up with him on the 24th of September with Flying Officer Watkins at 1659 Conversion Unit Topcliffe and we went through our month training with him again until the 7th of October ’43 where we were posted to 428 Squadron, Middleton St George.
I: And it was then you started operations.
GB: Operations. Yes. The first operation we did was the 3rd of November.
I: Can you describe what you remember of it?
GB: Very very little. It was Dusseldorf and everything seemed to be on top of you at the first you know. You didn’t take it all in. All I seem to remember is a little bit of flak and the flares going down for target indicators for bombing. Everything happened so fast on your first two or three trips that you hadn’t adjusted to operational flying. I learned more on my second op. We went to Ludwigshafen on the 18th of November.
I: What happened then?
GB: Well, first of all we got coned over the target. We got the master searchlight on us which was a bluey colour and he followed us and we got out of him after a lot of evasive action and as soon as we got out a fighter opened up on us and we got a good hiding. The rear gunner was severely wounded. The IFF that we had was damaged. Monica, which we had was damaged. All the trimming wires for elevator and rudders were cut. We had petrol tank wires cut from one, two and four tanks. All hydraulic pipes were cut. We couldn’t close the bomb doors. They were fully opened. We were in a mess and we got hit about twenty one thousand feet and by the time the pilot got control we were down to fifteen thousand. We had no navigational aids and the navigator brought us back by straight navigation of the Pole Star. We were off track coming back when we crossed over Ostend at fifteen thousand feet and they hit us with everything.
I: They what?
GB: Hit us with everything. They opened up with everything they had and we couldn’t take any evasive action. We just had to go through it.
I: This was the flak.
GB: Yeah. There was flaming onions coming up in between the tail plane and the main plane. It was rough. And then we crossed the coast and we still didn’t know exactly where we were so the skipper called up. The emergency call sign then was Darkie and Woodbridge accepted the call and we did a full emergency landing there.
I: What was the emergency landing like?
GB: It was very rough. We couldn’t get the undercarriage, it came down but I couldn’t lock it down. We tried everything. Put in to a shallow dive, pulling out to see if we could just pulling into a shallow dive, pulling out to see if we could just jerk it that two or three inches to make it lock and we couldn’t do that. We were all in the emergency positions coming in to land and just as they pulled up to do a belly landing it just threw it that little bit forward, the wheels, and they locked. So we were alright. We came out. The rear gunner we, we’d patched him up. We’d pumped morphine into him and he went to Norwich Hospital. We never saw him again. He was very badly wounded in the head. And we spent the night there and then an aircraft flew us back the next morning to our base at Middleton St George.
I: What was the date of that?
GB: 18th of November.
I: And which Halifax was it? What was it called?
GB: NA O-Oboe. We were just off on a night operation at 16.45 on a trip which lasted seven hours and five minutes.
I: Did that put you off wanting to go on operations after that experience?
GB: Not really. We were in operations again on the 26th of November. We took two spare gunners and we went to Stuttgart and we had a reasonable trip. We had no fighter trouble but when we went to a diversionary raid being done on Frankfurt and the Germans had laid what they called you know the fighter flares, the path the Mosquitoes were taking oh and it looked rough. We bypassed it and Stuttgart was quite you know quite a normal trip. A bit of flak. No fighters. But I think that got the confidence of the crew back.
I: When you went on these trips to Stuttgart and Ludwigshafen could you see other planes being hit?
GB: Not on those two. No. I never saw anything anyone shot down over Ludwigshafen, Stuttgart or the first trip Dusseldorf.
I: How did your next operations go?
GB: Well, the next operation was January the 20th 1944, Berlin and that was a rough one.
I: Can you describe it?
GB: Well, at one part the Germans had laid a flare path for fighter flares and they were among the bomber stream and we were going down. You could see the fire from the German aircraft and a small amount coming from our aircraft. The Allied aircraft and then you’d just see a ball of fire and it would hold steady for a minute or two then it would just go in to a dive. That was quite an experience to see it. When we got to Berlin we were in the first wave and the target indicators were a few seconds late and we got caught in predictive flak because we were the first wave. We had no cover from the metal strips. The tin foil that we threw out. It didn’t affect, it didn’t help you it helped the people behind you and we were a little bit off. [pause]
I: Which was the worse? This Berlin one or the Ludwigshafen?
GB: Ludwigshaven. Ludwigshaven was the worst. I mean we got a lot of shell, a lot of holes, a lot of damage. This Berlin it was just that you were in the predicted flak. We didn’t get hit. We didn’t have any fighter trouble. Berlin, Ludwigshafen I’ll never forget it. Never.
I: Was Berlin a particularly dreaded place to go to?
GB: It was, yes. It was such a long, it was such a long stooge. It took us eight hours fifteen minutes. It was very tiring and it was overpowering on the target area because it was so heavily defended. There were so many searchlights. I think on the first one we lost about forty odd aircraft that night.
I: You said which particular Halifax you had. Did you always have the same one?
GB: No. That was Halifax NA U-Uncle on that Berlin trip.
I: Was there any competition to get the best aircraft?
GB: No. It was just what you were allocated. Our pilot later became a flight commander and he took any aircraft. I mean I think we were nearly always in a B flight when we flew aircraft.
I: What does that mean?
GB: Well, you had A flights and B flights.
I: As part of the squadron. To make up the squadron.
GB: The mark up the squadron. Yes. And the A flights were the first half of the alphabet and so the second B was the second half. We were either V-Victor, Q-Queenie, or O-Oboe later on that we flew in.
I: But was there any, ever any feeling that the more senior people were getting the best aircraft?
GB: No. No.
I: Or the best ground crews?
GB: No. The best ground crews were on operational squadrons. I thought so anyhow.
I: But was there any difference between the different ground crews that you had in your squadron?
GB: No. They were all first class. They all did a first-class job. The aircraft were always in good condition. We never turned back from thirty four trips from any trouble whatsoever.
I: What was the next operations that you had to do?
GB: Well, the next two I did were two mine laying stooges. One was to Kiel which was a quiet trip and the other one was down to la Rochelle which was a very long stooge. Eight hours ten minutes. That was the fourth of February ’44. Then we went to Berlin again on the 15th of February.
I: Was mine laying usually a quiet job?
GB: Yes. Well, it was a very hard job because you were by yourself. There would probably be about twenty aircraft you know to lay mines and you were on your own. You had no cover whatsoever. I mean the tin foil that you threw out didn’t help you. It more or less showed the Germans where you were because you were always ahead of the tin foil you were throwing out. There would be about twenty. Probably twenty two twenty three aircraft would go down to La Rochelle and lay two mines a piece. In between the island of la Rochelle and the mainland.
I: Did you ever call those gardening operations?
GB: They are gardening operations. I did the La Rochelle. I did two La Rochelles in February. One on the 4th and one on the 21st and then on the 25th I did a mine laying stooge to Copenhagen Sound.
I: Well, what was your next Berlin operation like? Was it any different from the first?
GB: It was the same as the first. A lot of flak. A lot of fighter activity but we never had an attack. That day, night we were diverted to Shipdham which was an American base and we were there for three days for bad weather. Our base was closed down and we stayed with the Americans. Had their hospitality.
I: What was the date of your second Berlin raid?
GB: 15th of February. We took off in NA Q-Queenie. We took off at 17.20. We were airborne for six hours fifty minutes.
I: What did you fear most over Berlin? Was it the night fighters or the flak?
GB: The night fighters. The flak no. It was the fighters. We were always looking out for fighters. You didn’t want, you didn’t want to battle with them you wanted to get out of their way because the armaments that we had was four 303s were just like peashooters to their cannons if you could see them and get out of their way. That was the main thing.
I: And then after Berlin? That second Berlin operation.
GB: After Berlin we did as I say two mine laying stooges to la Rochelle and Copenhagen Sound in February. Then March we started with another gardening operation mine laying to the mouth of the Gironde River which was seven hours fifty minutes. Then we started the pre-D-Day marshalling yards in the March of ’44 and it was the marshalling yard at Trappes. Now that one we had an absolute full bomb load, I’ll never forget it of eleven thousand five hundred pounders. We had eleven thousand five hundred and fourteen hundred gallons of petrol and it was made up of seven five hundred pounders and six one thousand pounders. That was the heaviest bomb load we’d ever taken and after the operation the marshalling yard at Trappes was never used again. It was, it was quite an easy trip. There was very very little flak. It was very light. No fighter trouble. We came, we did five hours forty minutes and there was bad weather at the aerodrome and we were diverted to Harwell. And we spent the night at Harwell and we left the next day back to base.
I: Now here you’ve given me a sheet headed “Target Token” relating to this Trappes raid on the 6th of March 1944. Can you tell me what this sheet signifies?
GB: Well, that is the marshalling yards there. Those are early flares, the photograph flares that we dropped to illuminate the target so we could take the photograph. Well, from that they could photograph from the headings that we were on. They could tell you exactly where those bombs straddled the target and the whole load went right across the marshalling yards.
I: So you’ve got the copy of the photograph.
GB: Of the photograph. Every crew member was presented with a copy of the photograph.
I: As a means of congratulating.
GB: Congratulating. More or less that you’d got the whole fifteen bombs right across the marshalling yard.
I: Any other marshalling yard operations that you did?
GB: Well, I know the next one we went to was, the next operation I did was another gardening trip to Kiel. We did the mining to the entrance to Kiel harbour. The next one was on the 25th of March. We went to Aulnoye. That was quite an easy trip. A marshalling yard. No trouble. Then on April our skipper had been promoted to squadron leader and we were posted 434 Squadron where he became B Flight commander.
I: Where was 434 Squadron?
GB: At Croft. It was a satellite aerodrome of Middleton St George. It was one that was built during the wartime use whereas Middleton St George was a peacetime aerodrome. The next marshalling yard we went to was Lisle. That was a quiet trip. That was on the 9th of April. We went on the 26th of April to Villeneuve St Georges. A French target. On the 29th we had a short gardening trip to the Frisian Islands. The mines we were laying were supposed to be for a convoy that was coming through. We laid the mines and the convoy was coming through. There was quite a bit of flak from the flak ships. That was then —
I: Were you hit?
GB: No. It was, we had no trouble. We seemed to be lucky again. There was a lot of flak from the flak ships but we had nothing. No holes whatsoever. Come to May, the 1st of May we went St Ghislian. And then on the 27th we went to Le Crepiet. They were quiet trips. Five hours and four and a half hours we did. On June the 15th we flew in J-Jig on a daylight to Boulogne and you could see the flak there. When we were going in there was one aircraft coming out with the whole of his starboard wing in flames. We never knew what happened to him.
I: Was that the first daylight raid?
GB: That was the first daylight I’d done. Yes.
I: How did you feel about that compared with the night raids?
GB: Well, you’re more confident because you could see what was happening and you knew you had fighter cover. It was just the flak but then flak you got used to. It never really bothered people unless you got hit with it badly.
I: What was the date of that bombing operation?
GB: 15th of June.
I: So this was after D-Day.
GB: After D-Day. I was on leave on D-Day. We were. And the next operation was to Disemont on the 21st of June.
I: What was the target in the Boulogne raid?
GB: On the Boulogne raid we were dropping bombs that exploded as soon as it hit the water to cause waves to go into the fence to destroy their MTB boats and that.
I: Do you think it worked?
GB: By all accounts yes. The reports we received afterwards it had been a successful raid and the docks got a good pasting as well. In July, we started off the 1st of July we went to a place called [Benayes or Beugnies] and when we got there there were no PFF markings so we bombed on Gee. There was quite a bit of flak and we lost all hydraulics and had to, we had to land using emergency undercarriage but I could never close the bomb doors. They were open all the way back and all the way for landing. And we had to use full emergency for getting the undercarriage down and the use of the flaps.
I: When was that?
GB: That was the 1st of June. We went in Q-Queenie that night.
I: 1st of July.
GB: 1st of July, sorry. They sent us back to the same target on the 6th of July. To [Benayes or Beugnies]. We went on G-George that time and it was a quiet trip.
I: Where is [Benayes or Beugnies]?
GB: It’s in France. All I can —
[recording paused]
GB: And after that I went to Caen on a daylight and on a night operation on the 18th of the 7th took off at 3.30 in the morning. That was when they started the big push and their breakthrough at Caen.
I: Was that a particularly big raid? A mass raid.
GB: Yes, it was a mass raid. They practically destroyed Caen that night and the Army moved forwards and they never stopped moving after that.
I: Do you have any memories of that raid?
GB: Yes, all I can remember was it was a dead easy raid. Flak not bothered. No fighters. No nothing. Just like a cross country.
I: Were you aware of all the other planes?
GB: Yes. They were all, they were all so close together. All bombing on one area. You could see them even though it was that time. Just two hours. It would be about 5.30. just dusk coming on.
I: So you didn’t have any opposition.
GB: Nothing at all. Nothing whatsoever. It was just like flying from here to Jersey on your holidays. No opposition whatsoever.
I: Do you think you hit your target?
GB: Well, we must have done because the Army never stopped moving. They took Caen. The next job after that it was a rough one. It was Hamburg. That was the 28th.
I: What happened then?
GB: Well, we were in the second wave and we were a bit late and we were at the scheduled height of bombing at seventeen thousand feet. There was somebody else above us and they dropped their bombs and we had, on our bombing run we just had to dive starboard to get out of the way of his bombs or we should have got the lot because they always had separate heights for bombing and we were late. Two minutes late. We were at seventeen and the next wave was at seventeen five. That was it. There was quite a bit of flak at Hamburg. That was the most terrifying thing. A full bomb load up there. And the skipper just dived starboard and we were on the bombing run. Where our bombs went we don’t know.
I: Was it common for planes to be hit by bombers above them?
GB: I don’t think so. I think it occasionally happened but this was too close.
I: What about collisions between bombers?
GB: I never saw any. Never saw any at all. I think they did happen but they were very few and far between.
I: And then —
GB: And then after that August was a very busy month. Our skipper had been promoted because our original wing commander, Wing Commander Bartlett had been lost. He’d been shot down and killed in action and our skipper was promoted and became wing commander of 434 Squadron. On the 1st of August we took J-Jig to Acquet in France. There was no PFF markings so the full bomb load was brought back. We brought the whole load back. On the 3rd of —
I: How dangerous was it to bring bombs back?
GB: Well, they weren’t fused. I mean they weren’t fused until you were bombing. Didn’t press the selector switches so they would be alright. It was just that we would have a heavy load for landing. After that on the 3rd we took J-Jig again to le Foret de Nieppe which was for fuel dumps. On the 4th of August again in J-Jig again we went to caves that were just outside Paris where the V-2 rockets were assembled and that was heavily defended with a daylight op and we were hit by flak. We got a few holes. We were caught in predictive flak. We were diverted on the 4th to Dalton.
I: Was this a V-2 place or a V-1 place?
GB: No. A V-2 place where they were assembling the, where they assembled where they assembled the rockets.
I: And where was it?
GB: Just outside Paris. Some from what we could understand from the briefing they were more or less mushroom caves and that. And then on the 5th we went to St Leu d’Esserent. On the 8th we went to a fuel dump just outside at Foret de Chantilly and that was hit and there was black smoke when we left up to fifteen thousand feet.
I: What do you think you hit there at Chantilly?
GB: It was a fuel dump. And on the 9th we went to Le Breteque. On the 12th of August we went to Brunswick. To Germany. On that raid according to recent record was a complete failure as everyone bombed on H2S as there were no markers went down so we bombed individually and there was no concentration.
I: Did you feel at the time that it was a failure?
GB: Well, it seemed to be a failure because there was no concentration of fires or anything. Then on the 14th we did the Army coop where the German divisions were trapped at Falaise. Now that was a very easy trip. There was no opposition whatsoever. The only thing wrong was that the Canadian group bombed their own troops. The Canadian Army had advanced past the markers and of course there was a few killed.
I: Was yours one of the bombers that dropped on the Canadians do you think?
GB: Hmmn.
I: Right.
GB: It wasn’t the Air Forces fault. It was the Army had advanced past the markers. And the last trip I did—
I: And that was what? That was the 14th was it?
GB: That was the 14th of August. We took off at 12.40. It was a five hour ten minute job. And the last trip I did was the 25th of August. We went to Brest to soften it up so the Yanks could take it. And that was quite easy. There was no trouble at all. I think they were more or less giving in. And that was on the 25th of August. There was bad weather back at base and we got diverted to Thorney Island. We spent the night at Thorney Island and then came back the next day and we were told that was it. We had finished our tour.
I: Had you done thirty?
GB: We’d done thirty four and one sea sweep. The skipper, the navigator and the bomb aimer were each awarded a DFC and myself, the wireless operator Jackie Bennett from Newcastle and Jimmy Silverman the rear gunner were granted a commission. That was our reward.
I: What happened to you then?
GB: Well, after that I was posted down to Bruntingthorpe which was 29 OTU and I was instructing on engine handling. I did very little flying. And a week at Blackpool on an Air Sea Rescue course which I thoroughly enjoyed. I only flew twice in the six months I was at OTU. I was never keen on Wellingtons.
I: Why not?
GB: Well, the Wellingtons were clapped out [laughs]
[pause]
GB: Then I went, I volunteered to go back on a second tour and I went in April ’45 with a Flight Lieutenant Kennedy. He made a crew up from 29 OTU and we went to 1651 Conversion Unit at Woolfox Lodge.
I: Why did you volunteer for a second tour?
GB: I didn’t like 29 OTU and I didn’t like what bit of flying I did do.
I: Why didn’t you like that OTU?
GB: Well, there was a little bit of too much bull. The group captain in charge was an ex-Cranwell boy and I think he thought it was still 1938 and not 1944.
I: So you preferred to risk your life.
GB: Yes.
I: Than have the bull?
GB: Have the bull. Yes.
I: Did you go back on ops in the end?
GB: Well, we did our conversion unit on to Lancasters and we were picked out unfortunately to go to Warboys for PFF training so by the time we’d finished the PFF training the war had finished. They had special training at Warboys and then we had to go through another course of automatic gun laying turret which was new to the gunners. By the time we’d finished those courses the war had finished. We finished up at 156 Squadron at Upwood and that was quite enjoyable because we did [pause] took ground crew on what was called a Cook’s Tour. We used to fly them over Germany up the Ruhr and show them all the damage that they’d helped to do in maintaining the aircraft. I did two of those Cook’s Tours in in June and we did a little bit of flying. I did an air test for the Royal Aeronautical Establishment. Another Cook’s Tour. We did a postmortem to Denmark where they did an actual like on operation to Denmark to see how the German radar system worked and that was on the 29th of June ’45. That was a five and a half hour.
I: Testing the radar defences.
GB: Yes. Of the, that the Germans had. Then we just did local flying and then for three days we were dumping. The 21st, the 24th and the 27th of July was dumping incendiaries in to the North Sea that were no good. And in the August of ’44 we, the 1st of August we did a passenger trip to Frankfurt and Nuremberg taking crew, ground crew in and bringing ground crew out. And we had a trip which made me want to go back to Italy when I got married but on the 15th of August ’45 we went to Bari in Italy and we had three days. Well, we crammed twenty of the 8th Army boys into a Lancaster fuselage, gave the a sick bag and put their kit in the bomb bays and flew them home. That was thoroughly enjoyable to see Italy.
I: Can I ask you about the difference between Lancasters and the Halifaxes. What did you feel about flying in the two?
GB: Well, on a Lancaster the flight engineer did the work of a second pilot. He did the throttles, looked after the undercarriage controls, flaps and everything. But as regards flying I still like the Halifax. Especially the Halifax Mark 3 with the Hercules Centaurus engines. It was a marvellous aircraft. There was more room in it. It could carry a bombload of twelve thousand pounds but it couldn’t carry the big bombs because they hadn’t the depth of the bomb bays. But I still liked the Halifax. I think it was because I did all my operations in them and I got through a tour with them.
I: Did the Halifax have any disadvantages?
GB: I don’t think so. Not the later ones. The one of the first lots, the first ones had a tendency to stall but they altered that by doing, altering the rudder system.
I: What did you learn in the Pathfinder course?
GB: I took a bomb aimer’s course and learned how to drop bombs [laughs] That’s the only difference.
I: How did you do that?
GB: Well, they give you a concentrated course on dropping practice bombs and that was the only difference.
I: Now, can I ask you some general questions about operations in the war. what was morale like amongst the bomber crews as far as you personally experienced it?
GB: Very good. Very high indeed. I only ever knew one person who went LMF and he was a member of our crew but everyone else that I knew enjoyed the life. It was a good life. I mean admittedly it was very very dangerous but it was a clean life. You came back to a clean bed and you came back to good food and you were treated well. You were given leave every six weeks. You were. You had extra rations when you came home. It was a dangerous job but they looked after you and discipline wasn’t severe on bomber squadrons. That was on the Canadian group anyhow. But aircrew was quite relaxed.
I: Could you see signs of LMF in this chap?
GB: No. No, we couldn’t. It was only the second trip after we got a good hiding and he never said anything on the night when we did the emergency landing at Woodbridge. When we came back the next day I met him in the Sergeant’s Mess in the afternoon and he said what had happened and I never saw him again. He was off the squadron as quick as that.
I: So you couldn’t think of any reason why he should have gone LMF.
GB: No. None at all. He was the mid-upper gunner and that was just it. He just threw the sponge in.
I: What did the rest of the crew think about him going LMF? Did you have sympathy or did you look down on him?
GB: I don’t think they looked down on him. They were just pleased that he’d gone so quick and nobody could dwell on the subject. And when we got two new gunners and as I say we were away within seven days of that operation on Stuttgart 18th to the 26th and we got two spare gunners. And after that we got two permanent gunners.
I: Were the aircrew superstitious? Did they have any lucky charms or anything like that?
GB: Yes, I’ve still got my little St Christopher cross and three us was always emptied our bladder on the starboard wheel before we took off. Myself, the rear gunner and the wireless operator.
I: This was a superstition was it?
GB: Always did it. Always, whether it was a daylight or a night op. Whether the groupie was there or anybody it was always emptied against the starboard wheel.
I: And did other crews do that?
GB: I think other crews always went in in certain order. Pilot first and like that.
I: What were the briefings like? Can you describe the scene when you got the briefings?
GB: Well, when it was the Berlin and you looked up and everyone said, ‘Berlin,’ everyone, ‘Oh.’ That was it. Then you just stepped back in silence and let them all give you the information. The German targets when you saw them when you saw the red lines leading you knew you were in for a warm night. The French targets everyone [clap] was happy.
I: They clapped.
GB: Well, there was that and a cheer when they said Caen or St Leu d’Esserent like that. I mean compared to the German targets they were easy. The only targets that we didn’t really like, the whole crew, was the mine laying duty because they, the majority of them were so long and there were so few of you you felt so exposed. I mean the Germans would probably leave you alone but then the next time they’d probably lose four five aircraft out of twenty odd. They would really come down on you like a tonne of bricks than leave you alone. When they hit you they hit you.
I: What do you feel about the criticism that has been lodged against Bomber Command since the war?
GB: I think its people who have got no idea about a war. They have no idea what the targets were like. Bombing had to be done. It was the only way of offensive against the Germans and I don’t think they take in to fact the amount of damage that we did do. The amount of people that were tied down. There was over a million people tied down in German defence. There was thirty thousand anti-aircraft guns and over, nearly ten thousand of those were eighty eight millimetre. Now if those eighty eight ten thousand millimetres had been used on the beaches of Normandy the Channel would have been blood red. They had, the German defences had all the ammunition they wanted up to within six weeks of the war. They were never short. They rationed the Army but they never rationed the local defence. And after all we did reduce production and if you reduced production by twelve and a half percent of the Tiger tanks it’s a heck of a lot because there was nothing could touch a Tiger. So I think the criticism has been very unfair because the boys went through hell.
I: When you were at these stations how and where did you spend your spare time?
GB: Well, at Middleton St George and Croft we used to go into Darlington and we all had one particular pub. The Fleece. And that’s where we spent our time. At the Fleece. But I was up there about eight or nine years ago and it’s been knocked down. The Old Fleece pub.
I: Did you put any kind of trophies or anything like that up in the bar?
GB: No. No, we just went there to drink and sing and other things.
I: Were there any breaches of security with people telling girlfriends about —
GB: Not to my knowledge.
I: Ops.
GB: No. No. If you were going up there for a night out you didn’t know anything because the station would be closed if there was a full ops on. There would only be probably only a few ground crew but the aircrew wouldn’t go, be allowed out. So most of the telephone lines were shut down. Were closed. You couldn’t make outside calls if there was ops on.
I: Did the German Air Force ever attack these airfields.
GB: No. Not to my knowledge. Not whilst ours.
Now, I think after the war had ended you went out to Burma.
Burma, yes. On 267 Squadron at Mingaladon. The squadron was keeping the airways open taking mail and passengers flying from Mingaladon in Burma up to Dum Dum at Calcutta. And then from, back again and then from Mingaladon to Bangkok. Bangkok, Saigon. Saigon to Kai Tak which is the aerodrome for Hong Kong on the mainland of Kowloon and they used to fly down to Singapore.
I: This is Dakotas.
GB: On Dakotas. Yes. And the flight engineers were all remustered as air quarter masters on those trips looking after the baggage and the passengers and I had about fifteen of the lads under me. We used to take them out on these trips which they thoroughly enjoyed going up to Calcutta. Spending a day in Calcutta and then coming back going down to Hong Kong. We had a thoroughly enjoyable time.
I: What kind of passengers were you moving?
GB: Well, RAF and Burmese and if you were coming from India you used to bring down the Indians who were coming down on business trips or anything like that. Used to bring our own people down to [unclear] and look after the stores. Generally taking mail across to Bangkok, Saigon.
I: So you were a bit like an airline.
GB: A bit like an airline. Yes. A bit rough and ready. I did one or two. I went to Saigon and worked with Saigon. Wanted to look around during the night time but we were informed that all personnel were on curfew and had to be in by 9 o’clock. And the biggest shock I ever had was walking into the hotel where we were billeted to be given a salute by a Jap prisoner of war with a rifle and fixed bayonets.
I: When was this that you were in Saigon?
GB: 12th of February ’46. Then from Saigon we’d go to Kai Tak which was the aerodrome for Hong Kong on the mainland and the people of the mainland which was a British colony I’ve never known people so friendly to see us. We were taken into cafes and restaurants and you could have everything you wanted.
I: In Hong Kong.
GB: In Hong Kong. But what I was surprised about Hong Kong is that they had everything on show and sale and the war had only been over for five months. You could go in and buy a Rolex Oyster watch. You couldn’t see them in Europe but they found them. They could. You could buy anything you wanted.
I: Were these Chinese who were —
GB: Yes. The —
I: You in Hong Kong.
GB: In Hong Kong where they were first class.
I: Coming back to Saigon did the Japanese soldiers do their job well?
GB: Yes, as far as I know they had no complaints. They guarded us well. But the trouble was just beginning to start then. There was just a bit of discontent amongst the Saigon people I think. It was just beginning to start with the Viet Cong. Just beginning to get unruly.
I: What did you see of disorder there?
GB: Nothing at the night time. That’s when it happened. During the day everything was normal. It was on a night time when they used to come and try and interfere on the aerodrome but we were in the town itself so we saw nothing.
I: So they were trying to attack the aerodrome.
GB: Trying to you know disrupt it more or less.
I: Did you see any French military presence there?
GB: Well, last I was there the only French presence was two Corvettes in the harbour. There was no French troops whatsoever. If the French had spent a little more time in French Indo China as it was then instead of parading around Europe they might have been in a bit better position out there.
I: Did you feel in much danger in Saigon?
GB: No. Not really. I wasn’t there long enough and the short time where the trouble was we were in the hotel out of the way.
I: You were telling me about 29 OTU at Bruntingthorpe was it called?
GB: Bruntingthorpe.
I: Where is that?
GB: Just outside Leicester.
I: And you were telling me about the excessive bull there that drove you to apply for a second tour. Can you give any examples of not —
GB: Well —
I: Without mentioning the group captain’s name any examples of the kind of bull that went on there?
GB: Well, we had once a month we had an officer’s dining in night where all the tables were put in the shape of a horseshoe with the group captain in the centre and then going left to right from squadron leader. From wing commander, squadron leader, flight lieutenant, flying officer down to pilot officer which was pre-war bull. Not wartime discipline. And then he would hold a full parade of the whole OTU and every officer and every airman would parade on the main runway and would march past the rostrum as though they were the guards which again goes back to pre-war. It should never have been done in wartime RAF. But the Australians didn’t like it because we had a lot of Australians go through there and they objected strongly. And in the Officer’s Mess we had a very big organ by a very well known organist. The organ, keyboard and the sound box system was flooded with beer. The Mess notice board all the Mess board notices were burned down by the Australians. The group captain had his own hook for his hat and coat with a bolt right through the wall. The peg was pulled out. Also, part of the wall [laughs] In fact they did so much damage the group captain closed the Officer’s Mess bar for a week. All because of bull.
I: Did you approve?
GB: No.
I: Of what the Aussies did?
GB: Yes. I did. But no one was allowed in the Officer’s Mess after 5.30 unless they were in full dress. No battle dress. I came back and I’ll tell you the exact day. We’d, I’d been out a cross country to check the pilot for engine handling on the 19th of February ‘45 and we took off at 12 o’clock and we’d been diverted to Husband Bosworth. And by the time we got back it was 16.35. I was pulled up for entering the Mess in battle dress and not allowed to have a meal, my evening meal until I had changed. And the evening meal finished at 19.00 hours which is 7 o’clock and I didn’t get in as I say until 16 —
I: Twenty five you said.
GB: That’s how bad, that’s how bad the bull was.
I: You also were telling me about another job you had I think in ’46 of having to deal with airmen’s possessions who had been killed.
GB: Yes.
I: In accidents.
GB: That was the, I did that at 29 OTU. The last job I had was on for in the July 1946 was Dakota KN585 was hit by lightning and crashed in to the Irrawaddy Delta at Bassein. The death roll was twenty two. By the time we got the bodies they were four days old and I had to [pause] another flight lieutenant and the local police identified the bodies and arranged burial which was a very distressing thing to do especially as five days later I was on my home.
I: How were the possessions dealt with?
GB: Well, most of the possessions that they had I had to burn because they’d been on the bodies and they had been five days in the swamp and they smelled terribly and there was very very little went home. And of the twenty two they had no identification. They were all just interred with no headstone. No one knew who they were. They were interred at the European Cemetery at that time in Bassein. They would later be moved to the War Graves.
I: But you were telling me about your special problem you had with the possessions of Australians.
GB: When I was at 29 OTU. Yes. With the letters I mean the Aussie boys would have two or three girlfriends and the trouble was sorting out the letters to make sure that the right ones went home and the other ones were destroyed. Of the, we had two crews killed whilst I was there. Eleven men died.
I: Would any of them leave wills?
GB: No. There was no wills. I never found a will in the, any of the airmen who I buried. I went through their personal effects.
[Music]
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
War Memoir - George Bilton
Description
An account of the resource
Talks of early life at school and work in Hull. Volunteered as ARP messenger and described duties and air raid damage in Hull. Volunteered as aircrew and initially selected for wireless operator/air gunner but later asked to change to air engineer. Trained in Blackpool and RAF St Athan. Crewed up with mixed Canadian British crew on Halifax HCU before being posted to 6 Group 427 Squadron. His pilot did not return from a second dickie orientation sorties so crew went back to conversion unit to crew up and train with new pilot. Then posted to 428 Squadron. Subsequently transferred to 434 Squadron when pilot promoted. Completed tout of 34 operations on Halifax. Gives detailed description of individual operations, experiences and activities. Describes flying in Halifax and discusses moral, discipline issues, operating with Canadians and other general comments. Did instructional tour after completing operational tour, offered commission, did not enjoy it and volunteered for second tour but curtailed by end of war. Comments on tours after war including one in Burma including dealing with casualties in from a Dakota crash in Egypt.
Creator
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G H A Bilton
Format
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Oral history
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABiltonGHA960623
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Hull
England--Lancashire
England--Blackpool
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
England--Durham (County)
England--Leicestershire
Burma
Germany
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Stuttgart
England--Berkshire
France
France--La Rochelle
France--Lille
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Caen
Germany--Hamburg
France--Paris
France--Creil
France--Falaise
Germany--Braunschweig
France--Brest
England--Sussex
England--Huntingdonshire
Italy
Italy--Bari
Denmark
Denmark--Copenhagen
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Chantilly Forest
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Julie Williams
427 Squadron
428 Squadron
434 Squadron
6 Group
aerial photograph
Air Raid Precautions
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb aimer
bombing
C-47
civil defence
Cook’s tour
crewing up
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
military discipline
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Croft
RAF Harwell
RAF Middleton St George
RAF St Athan
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Warboys
RAF Woodbridge
target indicator
target photograph
training
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
Window
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1778/31544/PDentJ20060011.1.jpg
2c8543db11c121c5993f499c7600b869
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
Dent, John
J Dent
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
2020-10-23
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dent, J
Description
An account of the resource
Forty-two items and two sub-collections containing a total of forty-one items. The collection concerns John Dent (b. 1924, 2206473 Royal Air Force) who flew as a flight engineer on Lancaster of 44 Squadron in late 1944 early 1945. Collection contains documents, his flying log book, course notes, and photographs of people, places and aircraft. Two photograph albums in sub-collections contains images of his wedding as well as aircraft, RAF personnel, and air training corps activities.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Geraldene Dent and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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
Air Raid Precaution badge
Description
An account of the resource
Silver badge with crown and 'ARP' letters.
Format
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One metal badge
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical object
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDentJ20060011
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
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.
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1488/30256/MRennisonJ[Ser -Dob]-160224-03.pdf
6a0541d108d58629d533099f1864c712
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
Rennison, John
J Rennison
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
2016-02-24
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
Rennison, J
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection contains a map of German aeronautical and defence data, Italian language propaganda leaflets a fire guard's pocket chart and an air raid precautions book of cigarette cards.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by John Rennison and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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
Air raid precautions album
Description
An account of the resource
An album to contain a series of cigarette cards of national importance. Shows pictures of some of the things that the government and local authorities are working out for the protection of the general public. Includes: window protection, splinter proof walls, dugouts, shelters, incendiary bombs (effects and extinguishing), types of fire pumps, respirators, anti gas clothing, actions in event of gas and air defences.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W D & H O Wills
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
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Cover and eighteen page colour printed book with text ands artwork
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Artwork
Identifier
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MRennisonJ[Ser#-Dob]-160224-03
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
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.
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
civil defence
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1720/28756/AMaxwellMI190904.1.mp3
140988a4844426fd04d1e0c366915bd9
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
Maxwell, Margaret Irene
M I Maxwell
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Margaret Maxwell. She was a child during the war and remembers the bombing of London and Coventry.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-09-04
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
Maxwell, MI
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MM: I can’t remember the date.
[recording paused]
DB: This is an interview with Margaret Eileen Irene Maxwell at her home in Coggeshall in Essex. It’s the 4th of September 2019 and it’s 14.20 hours. Also present is her daughter Ann Maxwell. Margaret, can you tell me more about your experiences during World War Two?
MM: I was just about to turn twelve when World War Two was declared. It was Sunday morning and mum and I were sitting on the back doorstep of our house at 98 Parkside Avenue, Romford in Essex. The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain was scheduled to speak to the nation on the radio at 11am 3rd of September 1939. As soon as we received the news a siren sounded. We later found out it was a false alarm. I went across the road to see my friend Barbara. I knew it was a serious situation because the year before we had had the Munich Crisis and Chamberlain had declared peace in our time. However, by the time war was declared we had already been issued with gas masks which everybody had been instructed to carry with them at all times. I detested my mask and recall the awful smell of rubber when I had to try it on. We all carried them religiously to start off with but we got a bit lax about later carrying oh sorry a bit lax about carrying them later when it appeared there wouldn’t be a gas attack. The first year after the declaration things appeared to be quiet. We continued in our daily lives including going to school. At the outbreak of war cafes, restaurants and cinemas all closed but as the war progressed they started to open up again. I was too young to worry about the closure of cinemas, restaurants and theatres but I remember the local church never closed and put on social events every day. We had table tennis, shove ha’penny and card games. The Wykeham Hall next door to St Edwards Church held a dance every Saturday and as I got older I used to go there with my friends. We also went to Warley near Brentwood for dances. As it was all barracks there were many servicemen there. There were no preparations to speak of at our school Romford Intermediate, Park End Road apart from a trench which was dug in the middle of one of our playing fields. We knew that we had to use the trench for protection in the event of an invasion. If Hitler had invaded at this time the general consensus was that we would have been overrun as we were ill prepared. Later brick shelters were built on one of the playgrounds and each shelter could take a class of about thirty five children. There was no electricity and I remember spending hours in the gloom knitting. We also had many singsongs to pass the time. Our lunch break was changed in order to allow us to go home earlier but at the start of the war we were not allowed to leave for home until someone appeared to accompany us. Before the war no one living fairly close the school was allowed to cycle to school but the war changed that as we all needed to get from A to B as quickly as possible and for many people the bicycle provided that speed.
[recording paused]
MM: Prior to the war we all had a one third of a pint bottle of milk a day. During the war this milk was delivered in large quantities and especially appointed milk monitors were tasked with decanting it into metal mugs. The milk was often warm, especially during the summer months as there was no refrigeration and as the metal mugs were frequently not washed properly we had to get used to it tasting rancid as well as tasting of metal. It was a disgusting experience. Our education was disrupted in other ways. One of the first casualties was the science department. The chemicals contained within that department would have been a hazard if fire had broken out with an incendiary or a bomb. Incendiaries were specifically designed to start fires whereas the bombs caused massive damage and immediate loss of life.
[recording paused]
MM: Domestic science was taught on a rota basis. One term cooking, one term needlework and one term laundry. Rationing made a huge difference to the cooking lessons as we had to take our own ingredients. As a direct result of the war we were taught to cook in a [haydocks] A large box would be lined with hay, a casserole would be brought up to heat on a cooker and then transferred. Transferred to the box, covered in hay, closed in and left for a number of hours to cook in its heat. Rationing had an effect but we never felt hungry. For most households cooking was done by the mother and rationing forced people to be more inventive. An example of rationing would be one egg, about two ounces of sugar, two ounces of butter per person per week. Dry egg powder was more available. Eventually we surrendered our egg ration in exchange for chicken food called Balancer Meal which we fed to three hens. We got many more eggs that way. I used to spend hours queuing up in the market for any food that wasn’t rationed like offal. We would visit the cornfields after harvest to glean what we could to feed the chickens. We also had an allotment which my father hated tending. It was my mother who liked the gardening.
[recording paused]
MM: One of my most vivid memories was of Hitler’s concerted effort to raze London to the ground known as the Blitz which was fought during the period of 7th of September 1940 to the 10th of May 1941. Shortly after it started I was in Romford marketplace on my bicycle like many thirteen year olds. The air raid siren went and I knew I had to get home. It was a Saturday and the market place was very crowded which was usual. However, as soon as the siren sounded the marketplace emptied in an instant. Just like rabbits disappearing down a burrow. I pedalled furiously up North Street to get home. It seemed an age as my bike was only small. There were anti-aircraft guns being discharged somewhere nearby and it seemed to me that as I was racing to get home these guns were following me and I was absolutely terrified. When I reached home I threw my bike in to our small front garden and dived in to the house through the already open door. My friend Joyce was bombed out of her house three times so her family frequently had to be found somewhere else to stay. On one occasion the roof fell in and Joyce was in her bed at the time. Our house shook very badly one night when a bomb exploded nearby and shrapnel came through the windows. I still have a coffee table which was damaged in that raid. At that time we did have, didn’t have an Anderson shelter. The criteria for being given a shelter by the government was that the head of the household should not be earning more than £5 a week. My dad did earn £5 a week so did not qualify for the shelter. Our next door neighbour’s head of the household George Lambert was only earning £3.50 so they qualified for the shelter despite that fact that four other adults were all earning reasonable wages. George’s wife Hetty was a school teacher and his three daughters Dorothy, Hazel and Kitty were all working so that they certainly pushed up the household income well beyond £5 that my family of four had coming in. It was very unfair.
DB: Okay.
MM: When they got their shelter they did invite us to share it with them so sometimes there were nine of us in one shelter in their garden. The three girls drifted off. I was too young to realise or to be told where they had gone but I assumed some sort of war service. This led my family to share this shelter with the parents. Unfortunately, there were wooden floorboards, wooden boards on the floor and after one particularly wet night in the shelter my mother woke up on the boards and they were floating with her on them. She vowed never to spend another night in it and my father decided to have a brick shelter built at the top of our garden. I recall feeling much safer in our neighbour’s Anderson shelter than in our own brick shelter although I cannot say why. During the Blitz I heard bombers going over us as most of the air action took place at night. We had no street lights which older teenagers felt useful if they had a boyfriend and didn’t want their dad to see them kissing him goodnight. Later I had an American boyfriend and my dad was not happy about it. The Americans were disliked but I realise that it was mainly because they didn’t seem to suffer the same deprivations as us. They always seemed to have enough clothes, lovely food and the luxuries we couldn’t get like chocolate. Some relatives who lived in Warwick invited my family to stay during the Blitz so we travelled up by train. We travelled at night so I couldn’t see very much. Later on during that night Coventry was hit badly and in the morning we went on our hired bikes to survey the damage. I walked through the ruins of Coventry Cathedral and I thought it looked so much like London. There was destruction everywhere. I had an uncle who lived in Leigh on Sea and although it would have been lovely to visit him at the seaside we weren’t allowed to go there. It was only residents who were allowed in to seaside towns. Obviously because they were important to our defences. With the benefit of hindsight I realise that my teenage years were very different from what they would have been if I had been able to live a more normal life. As the years passed we all got used to it. My father had served in the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War and had seen active service in the trenches in Ypres, Belgium. He developed nephritis as a result of being up to his waist in water day in and day out and was discharged from the Army. He was only aged thirty nine at the outbreak. You ought to put in there out the out [pause] Sorry.
[recording paused]
With the benefit of hindsight I realised that my teenage years were very different from what they would have been if I’d been able to live a more normal life. As the years passed we all got used to it. My father had served in the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War and had seen active service in the trenches in Ypres, Belgium. He developed nephritis as a result of being up to his waist in water day in day out and he was discharged from the Army. He was only thirty nine at the outbreak of the Second World War hostilities. However, as men were called up for military service by age starting with the younger men by the time my father’s turn came he was too old so became an air raid warden. He worked full time as an office manager for Marks and Clerk Patent Agents in Lincoln’s Inn Fields during the day. It was the only job he did until he retired after fifty years with the same firm. He would come home and after dinner we would wait for the 6 o’clock siren to sound as we knew that would be the signal to go to the shelter.
[recording paused]
MM: Sorry. Okay. Dad used to go out during and after an air raid to assess the damage and make sure people were safe. I remember seeing a huge bomb crater in the middle of the town after one raid and when dad looked in to it heard a ticking sound. It was an unexploded bomb and we had arrived before the defence services. We got away pretty quickly. The nose of a V-2 rocket fell into our neighbour’s garden and I remember being surprised at how huge it was. Another bomb made a crater outside the Parkside Hotel and a bus fell into it. There was a furniture shop called Henry Haysom’s in North Street and during one bomber raid it was completely burned out. A land mine ended up in a tree, also in North Street but that was safely removed and diffused before it could hurt anyone. I’ll stop now
[recording paused]
My brother Ken joined the Navy and he was on the bridge of HMS Lawford when she sank in the English Channel. Although the facts of the sinking were kept quiet we later discovered that the vessel was the first casualty of a German aerial torpedo. My brother gave his lifejacket to a chap who couldn’t swim and as a result of the time he spent in the water and the shock he spent six months recovering at Milford Haven. When he came home he refused to sleep in the shelter saying if his name was on a bomb so be it and he slept in his own bed. On those occasions mum stayed in the house too. I was too frightened and I stayed in the shelter. When I left school I was almost seventeen and I used to travel to London by train each day. I could then see the number of buildings that had been destroyed as you get closer to London. So many of the tenement buildings had been burned and damaged by bombs and incendiaries.
[recording paused]
MM: My first job was as a secretary for a firm of stevedores and master porters. I had to sign the Official Secrets Act because we saw copies of bills of lading for goods which were going from Tilbury and obviously they all related to our war effort and were top secret. I later worked for Mr Charles William Hill, the senior partner of [Bronden] Hill Solicitors in Gray’s Inn Square. I was getting used to the legal terminology and had to learn the shorthand for these words. Although Mr Hill was a perfect gentleman most of the time I remember him telling me that my shorthand was, ‘No bloody good,’ because sometimes I couldn’t read it. Part of the building had been bombed but the staircase remained and I had to walk up these stairs to access my office every day. My future husband Jim was working on a balloon site in Primrose Hill when he was blown up by the blast from a bombing raid. Most iron railings had been removed but where Jim was working the railings were still in place. The blast threw him up in the air and he landed up on these railings pinned on spikes which entered his body under the arm and through his leg. He was hospitalised for a time recovering from his wounds. Although it seemed quite exciting at the time the war had a profound effect on me and even now I cannot hear an air raid siren, an air raid siren without it triggering some awful memories of the death and destruction. By the end of the war I found it very difficult to sleep and could only get a good night if my father stayed with me until I fell asleep. I would have, I would have preferred to have grown up without the trauma of war but we all made the best we could of it. I made some good friends and despite the circumstances we had a great deal of fun. We all looked forward to a better life when peace was declared.
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 Margaret Irene Maxwell
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Denise Boneham
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-09-04
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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.
Format
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00:16:09 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMaxwellMI190904
Description
An account of the resource
Margaret was almost twelve years old at the outbreak of World War Two and living in Romford, Essex. She remembers the announcement made by Neville Chamberlain on the radio on September 3rd 1939. Margaret recounts being issued with a gas mask and how cafes, restaurants and cinemas were initially closed. Her local church, St Andrew’s, remained open and provided daily social events such as table tennis. Her school, Romford Intermediate, made some preparations for the war including a trench dug in a field. Later, brick air raid shelters were built on a playground which could house up to thirty children. She also recalls rationing, but never felt hungry and feels that rationing made people be more inventive with cooking. They kept hens for eggs and also had an allotment.
She experienced the Blitz shortly after it started as one Saturday she was in Romford market when the air raid sirens sounded. She recalls how frightening it was, and how she cycled home as fast as possible, as the aircraft batteries began firing. Her friend Joyce was bombed out of her house three times. Her family did not qualify for an Andersen shelter, but the neighbours invited them to sleep in theirs. Later, her father built a brick shelter in their own garden. She travelled by train to visit family in Warwick during the Blitz. That night Coventry was heavily bombed, and Margaret witnessed the damage the next day, including walking through the ruins of Coventry cathedral. Margaret recalls landmines, a V-2 rocket in the neighbour’s garden and unexploded bombs, as well as details such as a bomb crater outside the Parkside Hotel which a bus fell into. Just before she was seventeen, travelled to London every day on the train and could see the bomb damage. Margaret worked as a secretary in the cargo industry and due to the nature of the work had to sign the Official Secrets Act.
Her father had served in the Army at Ypres during the first World War. He became an Air Raid Warden during the Second World War. Her future husband Jim served on a balloon battery at Primrose Hill, and survived been impaled on iron railings by the blast of a bomb.Margaret’s brother Ken was in the Royal Navy and his ship HMS Lawford was sunk in the English Channel, by a new aerial weapon. After helping other crew members, he was rescued and spent the next six months recovering at Milford Haven.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Andy Shaw
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Warwickshire
Wales--Pembrokeshire
England--Essex
England--Warwick
England--Coventry
England--London
Wales--Milford Haven
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-09-03
1940-11-14
1940-11-15
1945
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Balloon Command
British Army
Royal Navy
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
Chamberlain, Neville (1869-1940)
childhood in wartime
civil defence
fear
home front
shelter
V-2
V-weapon
-
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5bfbb57ae4d1602395a216da1fe71359
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/698/26267/EBattyPHBattyAHD401113-0002.2.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
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Batty, Dennis
Arthur Henry Dennis Batty
A H D Batty
Description
An account of the resource
Twelve items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Arthur Dennis Batty DFM (1920 - 1941, 619060, Royal Air Force) and consists of his diary, letters and documents. He flew operations as an air gunner with 226 Squadron. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Christine Aram and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Dennis Batty is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/201592/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Batty, AHD
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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175, Ingram Rd.
Bloxwich
November 13th 1940
Dear Denis,
Many thanks for your last letter was glad to know you were not a close friend of soldier Jack. Well we had a bit of a scare on Monday a jerry took advantage of the low lying clouds to pay us a daylight visit. He dived out of the clouds and swept over our offices about 50’ from the ground. He dropped a 1000lb. bomb right between the two large gas containers luckily it did not explode on hitting the ground and the R.E.s soon had it out and away. Two oil bombs were also dropped but the [sic] dropped on waste ground and only caused a blaze for a minute or so. Work goes on as usual, we have had another *girl at our offices to swell the ranks of the all talk and no work brigade as that’s about all they are good for. What do you think of the fleet air arm 3 battleships and two auxiliaries
[page break]
not bad for a days work that will give Musso something to think about. Was not surprised to hear about you and Kath can see you are following in my footsteps like a true brother. Tess is going on fine she gets a regular rogue a proper woman nose into everything always talking etc. etc. Dad is on A.R.P. duty to-night so there is bound to be a raid not as it worries anyone just to let us know they havent [sic] forgotten us. Eileen is rather upset says she hasnt [sic] had a letter from you for ages so take a tip and write or you will be in hot water [underlined] when [/underlined] you come on leave. Thats [sic] all for the present so aurevoir [sic] best of luck
[underlined] Philip [/underlined].
*P.S. Elle est une belle dame – (trés Belle)
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Dennis Batty from brother Phil
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks him for last letter and describes a daylight German attack near his office. Two bombs dropped nearby but did not explode and were dealt with by Royal Engineers. Two oil bombs were also dropped, but these landed on waste ground. Mentions life in the office and fleet air arm attack on Italian navy. Catches up with news and gossip from home. Mentions their Dad is on ARP duty that night.
Creator
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P H Batty
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1940-11-13
Format
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Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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EBattyPHBattyAHD401113
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
British Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Staffordshire
England--Walsall
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-11
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Christian
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
civil defence
home front
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1419/25209/PWeltonB1501.1.jpg
7fdce2de7a332cd161cd7b8236bae9c4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1419/25209/AWeltonB150604.1.mp3
595bcc016e786922ddc517ce96f6d4fc
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
Welton, Betty
B Welton
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
2015-06-04
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
Welton, B
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Betty Welton.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: My name’s Betty Welton and I was born in 1924 and I had a good childhood and I joined the Land Army when I was seventeen and a half. Dad wouldn’t let me join the Forces because he said they’d got a bad name. So I said, ‘Well, what about the Land Army?’ And that seemed alright so I joined up. And I went up, I got my papers and everything and went up to Westgate Station at Wakefield where we lived, got on the train and went right down to Bletchley and then we got transferred to Amersham, in billets there. And it was hard. And we were all, we had bicycles where we had to go to work. But apart from that the airmen used to come from the camp not far away to dances at our hostel and then we used to go there to their dances which was good.
PE: Do you want me to ask you some questions? Is that going to be easier for you?
BW: You ask me questions.
PE: Yeah. Okay. Fine. [Pause] What school did you go to?
BW: I went to Lawefield Lane School at Wakefield. First of all I went to the Church School, sorry and then I went to Lawefield Lane School and left when I was fourteen and got a job straightaway. But sadly, mother died just after I had started work and she was only fifty eight. But I kept working for about two years at a dress, in a dress shop. But dad couldn’t manage so I had to leave the job and stay at home and look after dad. And that’s how I learned to cook and everything and house work. And then eventually after years went by he got married again. So, I wasn’t very happy and I said, ‘Well, I’m joining the Forces.’ But then he said, ‘You’re not going in the Forces. They’ve got a bad name.’ So, I joined the Land Army and it was the best time of my life.
PE: Why did you particularly want to join the Forces?
BW: To get away. To get away from cleaning and, being a young girl again.
PE: What attracted you to the RAF?
BW: I don’t know really. It was just I used to love aeroplanes. There weren’t so many then but I used to love aeroplanes and I thought I’d love to join the Air Force but it wasn’t to be. But it did run in the family later on because my son joined the Air Force when he was old enough and so did my daughter. So that was lovely for me.
PE: It’s alright. Just a sec. I’m just going to shut this window. We’re getting a bit of traffic noise through. That’s made a big difference. It’s alright. Don’t worry. You’re doing fine. When you went to Amersham, in the billets there —
BW: Yeah.
PE: What sort of work did you do on the land?
BW: I was shepherdess, and a milkmaid but more a shepherdess. And I loved that. That was really lovely being with the lambs when they were born.
PE: Can you sort of describe what you did?
BW: Well, I used to have to be there when they were lambing and help the lambs out. And I think it was there that I was doing the milking and a cow kicked me and it sent me agin the boards and I sprained my wrist so I had to go home then on leave. I was on leave about three weeks and then I, when I was all fit to go back I joined up again and I was sent to Grantham. Little, Little Ponton, in private billets which was nice. Nice family. But it was hard work getting up early and fetching water from the pump down in the stackyard and such things. Fetching the cows up. Never thought I’d do things like that but yes, it went alright. And then they used to kill a pig which was horrible. I used to have to help with that with the lady. And I remember the only cooker she had was a metal cooker about a yard wide and long and it was paraffin heaters underneath it. Two paraffin heaters. But she used to cook some lovely meals, especially pastry. I remember the big pies we used to get. And, and then my dad, as I said he got married. Met somebody at Ropsley and got married again. But I didn’t used to get home much to Wakefield I’m afraid. There was nothing there for me.
PE: When you, sorry I’ll start that again, when you sprained your wrist and you went home for three weeks were you sort of happy then?
BW: Not really. No. I was eager to get back. Really eager to get back and I soon got in to it again. Got a few blisters like but —
PE: So originally you went to Amersham.
BW: Yes.
PE: Which is in Buckinghamshire.
BW: Yeah.
PE: And then you sprained your wrist and you went back to —
BW: Yeah.
PE: Wakefield.
BW: Yeah.
PE: Or near Wakefield.
BW: Yeah.
PE: And then you were reallocated to, to near Grantham. Is that correct?
BW: Yes. Yeah.
PE: Yeah.
BW: Yeah
PE: Yeah. Did you see a big difference in the way that you looked after animals in Amersham compared to Grantham?
BW: Well, I liked the people more in, at Little Ponton and around about, you know and the animals were taken care of. We had to care for them more there. Myself, I had to, you know washing them down before they were milked. We had to do everything and then, you know with the milk as well. And I used to help them make butter. I’m trying to think. I had something else on my mind and I can’t think now.
PE: Well, normally what happens when I interview people they usually remember something that isn’t very nice. So I don’t know whether you saw any of the —
BW: Oh yes.
PE: Saw any of the action.
BW: I have.
PE: Over Amersham, you know.
BW: No. This is over at Little Ponton, not Little Ponton, at Grantham. At Ingoldsby. The worst thing was being a town girl I wasn’t used to country ways and the toilet. Shall I put this?
PE: Yeah. Carry on.
BW: The toilet was right down in the stack yard and you had to go through geese and all sorts to get there. It was shocking. And when you got in the toilet it was buckets underneath and there was three holes in the wood. The mind boggles but I never had any company [laughs]
PE: At the time that you were in Amersham it —
BW: Oh right.
PE: It, it it’s possible that as you were near the south coast you might have saw some of the aeroplanes going in and going out. Did you remember anything like that?
BW: Not such a lot there. No. It was more at Little Ponton where they got to know all the aeroplanes. The Lancasters. They used to be going over our house.
PE: Yeah. So, at that time were you living at Stainton le Vale?
BW: I was at, I was at little, at Binbrook. No.
PE: Right.
BW: I’m getting mixed up.
PE: You were at Grantham.
BW: I was at Grantham.
PE: Grantham.
BW: Yes.
PE: And you described —
BW: At Branston.
PE: At Branston.
BW: At Branston. That’s right.
PE: And —
BW: Yes.
PE: You were very close to the end of the runway at Binbrook.
BW: Oh, that was Stainton le Vale.
PE: Right.
BW: That was at Stainton le Vale where we lived, yes.
PE: Yeah.
BW: Yeah.
PE: I’m just trying to —
BW: Oh sorry. Yes.
PE: I’m just trying to follow the sequence of events.
BW: Yeah.
PE: So, we have you at Amersham.
BW: Right. Yes.
PE: And then you go to Grantham.
BW: Yes.
PE: And then at some point you’re watching Lancasters.
BW: Yes.
PE: Going over the, or coming in and out of Binbrook.
BW: Yes.
PE: So, can you just sort of describe that?
BW: Well, when we, when I was at Binbrook in private lodgings we used to hear the Binbrook, hear the Lancasters going out bombing. And we used to count them. There was another Land Girl and we slept in the same bed which wouldn’t be allowed now would it? [laughs] And we used to hear the Lancasters going over and count them. It isn’t often we heard them coming back. I suppose we’d be asleep. But one night we were in bed and the German planes came over and it was a, it was a row of cottages at Branston at, in the top of the village and he went right down the row of houses machine gunning and the bullets came through our bedroom ceiling and they were just showing through. I think there was quite a few because they, and of course the girl I was with we wanted to keep some of the bullets for souvenirs but the police wouldn’t let us. We had to, they had to take them or whoever. But that was quite frightening.
PE: Did you ever see any crash landings?
BW: No.
PE: At Binbrook.
BW: No. I didn’t. No.
PE: Okay. So how long were you at Binbrook then?
BW: My first daughter was born there. We were there about three years, I think.
PE: Right.
BW: My first husband was one for moving about. It came to April the 6th, moving day on the farms and from there we moved to Darlton, near Newark and my youngest son was born there. From there we moved to [pause] oh where did we go then? My family have all been born in different villages.
PE: When did you meet your husband?
BW: I met my husband in the Land Army.
PE: Can you, can —
BW: He worked on the farm.
PE: Can you describe that? How you met?
BW: Yes. Well, they used to come, my husband used to come with two or three more to work on our farm in busy seasons and of course the Land Girls used to be talking to them and took us out a time or two when we got to know them to the dances and it went from there and we decided to get married.
PE: What year was that?
BW: Would it be ’44 or [pause] no. No. It wasn’t. Forty, yeah ’44 and my first daughter was born in ’46.
PE: And where was that?
BW: At Stainton le Vale. That’s right. Got that right.
PE: Good. So, you were at Grantham.
BW: Yes.
PE: And was and you met your husband there.
BW: Yeah.
PE: Yeah. And then you moved to Stainton le Vale.
BW: Yes.
PE: Which is where that put you at sort of at the end of the —
BW: Yes, that’s —
PE: Effectively at the end of the runway.
BW: Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
PE: For Binbrook. And that’s where you saw all the Lancasters —
BW: Yes.
PE: Coming in and out.
BW: Yes.
PE: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: And we used to walk up through Binbrook to the village and we could see the planes all stood there you know but you used to be able to walk through. Just like that. You wouldn’t now.
PE: When you were walking through did you ever speak to any of the pilots?
BW: No.
PE: Or the crews?
BW: No.
PE: No.
BW: I’d got a pram with me then. I was in a hurry to get there and back. It was a long way. I hadn’t time to chat. No. I never saw anybody. Not [pause] but I know at Binbrook, not that we went, the airmen used to go to one of the pubs there. I forget what they called it. Very popular it was for the airmen. They more or less took it over. But no, we never went there. Couldn’t afford it.
PE: So, what did you do after the war?
BW: Where did we live then? Stainton le Vale. Then we went to near Newark as I said. Worked on the farm there. And then we went to, we came to Caistor. Sorry, Swallow. We came to Swallow then and my husband worked on the land. And of course, I’d got a family then so [pause] but unfortunately, he died when he was fifty eight. He got a disease. They were spraying on the land and they never used to wear masks then. He worked for a Mr Bingham and he got this spray on him. And it started here and he went to hospital and he never came out. It spread over him. He died at fifty eight and I had four children.
PE: I’m sorry to hear that.
BW: That was sad.
PE: Yes. It is.
BW: I’m still here and they’re all lovely children.
PE: And they look —
BW: They grew up and got their own children.
PE: And they look after you —
BW: Yes. They do.
PE: Good.
BW: They all live away but they do come and see me.
PE: Is it fair to say that because you joined the Land Army then working on the land became your life after the end of the Second World War?
BW: That it — ?
PE: I’ll say that again. When you joined the Land Army that was something you were very interested in.
BW: Yes. Yeah.
PE: Did that sort of encourage and inspire you to carry on working on the land?
BW: Oh, it did. It made my life joining the Land Army. It brought me out. I was very shy. Well, I still am a bit shy but, it never leaves you but I was awfully shy ‘til then and it just made a woman of me I suppose. A lady. And I enjoyed it so much.
PE: And that inspired you to carry on working on the land.
BW: Yes. Yes, it did.
PE: So, in effect —
BW: Yes.
PE: You were in farming weren’t you?
BW: Yes.
PE: Yes.
BW: Yeah.
PE: In agriculture.
BW: Yeah.
PE: Yeah. During your time, you know as somebody who was in the Land Army can you remember anything that was particularly amusing?
BW: Well, more or less only that at Branston. When the bombers went over. And, well we thought it was awful at the time but then we thought it was funny after but the lady we lodged with she was very very strict and we had to be in a certain time and if we were late the door used to be locked.
PE: So, when you were at Branston you were working on the land.
BW: Yeah.
PE: As a Land Girl.
BW: Yeah.
PE: But you were actually living somewhere else in these digs. Is that right?
BW: Yes. In private billets they was. Yeah.
PE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, they were all private billets then.
BW: Well, that house we were in was that the Land Army, you know. She would get paid well for having us there. And we used to have to cycle to work.
PE: How far did you have to cycle?
BW: A mile and a half or two mile. Yes. It was hard work.
PE: Did you enjoy it?
BW: I did. Yeah. We got over it. It was hard work but yes we enjoyed it.
PE: So, do you think you made a valuable contribution to the war effort?
BW: I’m sure I did. I’m sure I did. Yes. Because the people that we were billeted with at the private billets they’d never seen town people before you know. They took a bit of getting used to my ways. And if it thundered the lady when I was at Ponton, in private billets rather she, the children that she had used to have to go under the table and pull the tablecloth down. And I used to sit there. She was annoyed with me because I wouldn’t do it but that was funny.
PE: Is there anything else you can particularly remember about your time in the Land Army?
BW: Well, when I was shepherdess I, as I say I used to have to take the feed out in a little pony and trap. And that was lovely going on the main road with the bags of feed and then you know putting it in the troughs for them. And that was a lovely time. I can’t remember anything much else.
PE: Did you ever think while you were in the Land Army did you ever think about what was happening, you know in London and some of the other big cities?
BW: Oh, I did. I did.
PE: When they were being bombed.
BW: Yes. I did. But it was, there wasn’t a lot of news then was there? You know. Radio. I think she had a radio but we didn’t get a chance to listen to it so we didn’t know. Only when we saw the bombers going over and things like that. We weren’t well informed. But we did wonder what was going on.
PE: Did you ever manage to get to a cinema?
BW: Yes. We did now and again in Lincoln but we had to cycle in. But yeah, there was the news on then. Oh, that would be it. That’s where we got the news. Yeah. Pathe Gazette. Yes. So, it was quite alarming that was. To think that we were safe like we were and what was going on there. It was hell wasn’t it?
PE: Did you ever worry about your family back in Wakefield?
BW: Not really. But when, when I was at home it was, before mother died and we had, did I tell you, we had to down in the cellar.
PE: Carry on.
BW: And we used to have to go down some stone steps where there was a big gantry where you kept food and then the next door you went through was the coal place where the man used to put the coal through a thing on the street. Drop the bag of coal through and we used to have to sit in this cellar. Well, the [pause] the siren went to say it was all clear and there was a bomb dropped at the end of our road where I lived. In the allotments.
PE: And that was in Wakefield.
BW: That was in Wakefield. Yeah. Did I say I joined the ARP?
PE: No, you didn’t.
BW: Oh. I did. Yeah.
PE: Well. I’ll ask the question then. Did you join the ARP?
BW: I did. Yes. That’s a thing I did want to do and used to go, wear a gas mask when we were at school. Little cardboard boxes. And of course, we had to take them up there to the, in to Wakefield and we used to be on duty. Night duty. Sleep in a little bed with a stone water bottle and if you were lucky you were agin, agin the stove. A big black stove. Freezing cold. But yeah, we’d some good friends there and I got to know a lot of people.
PE: So, you were doing firewatch duty.
BW: Yes. Yeah. I was trained for St John’s medical things. I got my certificate and everything but I never had to use it, thank goodness.
PE: So, when you were an ARP warden presumably you did that as well as your ordinary job.
BW: Yes. I did. Yes. Yes.
PE: So, did that mean working at night a lot?
BW: Not in my job. We finished at seven. We finished at 7 o’clock on a weekday in the shop and then sometimes I used to go straight to the ARP instead of going home. Take my things with me and go straight up there.
PE: Yeah. So, you were working. So, you were working during the day.
BW: Yes.
PE: And then you were doing your ARP duties.
BW: Yes.
PE: During the night.
BW: Yes. I did.
PE: Is that right?
BW: Yeah.
PE: You didn’t get a lot of sleep then.
BW: No, didn’t. Didn’t. But it wasn’t every night I was on duty. Just so many nights. Maybe two nights a week, and you could sleep if you could get to sleep but, yeah I’d forgotten about that.
PE: Yeah. So, did you see much bombing in Wakefield?
BW: Yes. Yes, we did and we could hear them going off. Terrible. Wakefield was hit quite bad but not, as I say there was one at the end of the garden. It was an incendiary bomb so [pause] but I didn’t know much about, I can’t remember much about anything else with the bombs but I knew they were going off.
PE: Is, is that what inspired you to want to join the RAF?
BW: It is. Yeah. Yeah. I, I just liked the thoughts of the RAF. But then dad wouldn’t let me so I never got in there.
PE: Did your father do anything during the Second World War? I mean was he —
BW: He was a blacksmith engineer. He was a very busy man. He, at Sydney Raines at Wakefield. He went there from school being an orphan as I told you and they trained him and he was there while he retired and I remember he, he came home and he said he’d been offered would it be a pension? Not a pension. Money. He could either have it, some every month or a lump sum and he had a lump sum and I think it was eighty seven pound. It was a fortune then. Something of that, that figure. Yeah.
PE: Was your father involved in the First World War?
BW: No. No. He wasn’t. No. No. He wasn’t, he wasn’t old enough for that. But they had a brother that was in the army, Uncle Herbert and he went to France. He was in the bombing. He went to Germany. Was it Germany? And he got shot. That’s right. And he came back to France to the hospital there where they used to go, didn’t they? I think it was France. No. It wasn’t. It was Jersey. Sorry. They sent him to Jersey to the hospital and he was there a long time. He was quite ill. But then he recovered and the nurse that had been looking after him they got engaged and got married and he decided to stay in Jersey. They lived in there. So, and his family, my cousin Eric, he is the, a Chelsea Pensioner now. Virtually the same age as me. So we keep in touch quite a lot.
PE: Do you see him very often?
BW: No. I would love to go down to London but I just can’t make it. My daughter and granddaughter went but I wasn’t fit enough to go. Not, not there and back in one day. But I’m going to do. They’re going to take me and we shall stay overnight at Chelsea, in the barracks so Eric said. Which would be lovely.
PE: Well, that’s lovely. Thanks very much for taking the time to talk to me.
BW: Oh [laughs]
PE: As I say. Is there anything else you can remember or —
BW: Yeah [pause] I can’t remember such a lot except when we [pause] where was it? At Swallow I used to drive a little Fergie tractor. I was so proud of that tractor. Have I told you that? And my youngest son David, he was only, it was when I was left on my own and I used to take David with me and there was a seat at the back of the tractor and I used to pad it up and tie him with a big scarf around me and he used to go to work with me on the tractor. Work with the, in the fields. Tractor and trailer and the lot.
PE: How old was he then?
BW: It was before he started school. He’d be four. Three and a half. Four. But I had to go to work because I needed money. A widow’s pension wasn’t much then and a family. And then I didn’t report it that I was working and somebody reported me. So I gave up then. Some kind person. I didn’t make, didn’t get much money.
PE: No.
BW: Not, you know, on the farm.
PE: No.
BW: But that was a horrible thing.
PE: Yeah.
BW: But I never looked back after. Yeah.
PE: Good. Well thanks very much, Betty. That was —
BW: Oh, you’re welcome.
PE: That was wonderful. Thank you.
BW: I hope I’ve done it right.
PE: That’s alright. As I say it, I mean sometimes people will just tell their story from start to finish.
BW: Yeah.
PE: And sometimes it means that —
BW: Yeah.
PE: You know, whoever I interview we have a conversation like we’ve done.
BW: Yes. Yeah.
PE: But it doesn’t matter. We’ve, we’ve got —
BW: Yeah.
PE: Some really nice stories and some information from you.
BW: Oh good.
PE: So, that will be really helpful.
BW: Oh good.
PE: I’m sure everybody will be pleased with that so thank you very much.
BW: Thank you anyway for taking the time as well to do that. It’s quite an honour.
PE: It’s a pleasure. Alright then, Betty.
BW: And as I said I’m going to a tea dance this afternoon. I’ve never been to one before.
PE: I’m sure —
BW: It’s only in Caistor.
PE: I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
BW: My friend said, ‘I’ve, I’ve got two tickets and we’re going to a tea dance.’ My goodness. I said, ‘I can’t dance now. We used to.’ And she said, ‘Well, we can shuffle our feet.’
PE: Did you do a lot of dancing in the war?
BW: Pardon?
PE: Did you do a lot of dancing in the war?
BW: Yes, I did. When we went to Spitalgate and they used to come to us at Branston. I used to love dancing.
PE: Yeah.
BW: But as I said dad would never let me dance. Never go to a dance at home but I made up for it after [laughs] And I behaved myself [laughs]
PE: Well, that’s very good. It’s interesting really that of all the people that I’ve spoken to whatever happened during the war, whatever tragedies occurred they still carried on with life.
BW: Yeah.
PE: As it was.
BW: Yes. Yeah.
PE: And from your point of view I remember interviewing people who were in London and whatever bombing took place they always made sure they went to the dance.
BW: Yes.
PE: On a Saturday night.
BW: Yes. That’s right.
PE: And they went to the pictures on say a Wednesday night.
BW: All times of the year. Yeah.
PE: The Blitz spirit truly survived.
BW: Yeah.
PE: And the good old British public.
BW: That’s right.
PE: Would not be beaten.
BW: No.
PE: And they had a great, great strength and great bravery —
BW: Yes.
PE: I think, to, to continue with it, you know so —
BW: And I remember at, when I was at Grantham I’d never had much money, you know. I didn’t get a lot in the Land Army but I used to save it up and when I went in to Lincoln I bought these new shoes and they were red and, bright red and bright green and they were like clogs. That was the fashion then. You won’t remember them, will you? And I went home in them. My dad nearly had a fit. I think he nearly burned them.
PE: What year was that then roughly?
BW: Oh, what year would it be?
PE: It was during the war, was it?
BW: Yeah.
PE: That was very brave [laughs]
BW: [laughs] Yes, it was. That was funny really. It was awful at the time but [pause] Oh, and another thing I’ve remembered. This girl I was with in lodgings she had a blonde, they used to have a, like a, I forget what you called it like a fringe but turned under. So I got mine done. And hers was done blonde so what did I do? We got some bleach and she did mine for me. Went home on leave once. My dad nearly threw a fit. Anyhow, he says, ‘What have you done?’ I said, ‘I haven’t done anything.’ I said, ‘It’s the sun because I wear a scarf and the sun’s bleached it.’[laughs] I don’t think he believed me though. He took it in but that was one of the funny things. So, yes. I had a blonde fringe.
PE: Oh, that’s brilliant. Thank you very much, Betty. That’s wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I’m going to switch the camera off now. Okay.
BW: Oh [laughs] I thought you’d switched it off before.
PE: No. No. No.
BW: Oh dear.
PE: No, that’s, that’s brilliant. Thank, thank you very much, Betty. I’m going to switch it off now.
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 Betty Welton
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Paul Espin
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
2015-06-04
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:35:19 Audio Recording
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AWeltonB150604, PWeltonB1501
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Description
An account of the resource
Betty Welton was born in 1924. She left school at the age of fourteen, and at the age of seventeen and a half joined the Women’s Land Army. She saw this as an opportunity to escape her home circumstances. On receiving her papers she travelled from her home town of Wakefield to Buckinghamshire, where she was billeted in Amersham. Her job was shepherdess, and milking the cows. On one occasion she was kicked by a cow, sprained her wrist and went home on leave. When she rejoined she was sent to work at Little Ponton near Grantham and stayed with a family in private billets. When she was billeted near RAF Binbrook she used to hear the Lancaster bombers and count them as they flew over, and remembers cycling to Lincoln to the cinema. She was also a volunteer for the ARP.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Grantham
England--Wakefield
England--Yorkshire
England--Caistor (Rural district)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Air Raid Precautions
animal
civil defence
entertainment
home front
Lancaster
RAF Binbrook
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22562/MCurnockRM1815605-171114-016.2.pdf
c215259212e8a221a69e87300af18941
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Kriegie December 2005
Description
An account of the resource
News-sheet of the RAF ex-POW Association. This edition covers the 60th anniversary of VE day, Great Escapes at the Imperial War Museum, requests for help, Obituaries, Sixtieth anniversary of the Great Escape, Recco report on ex-POWs, Kriegies help RAF apprentices, Mystery tour of Munich article, The Collector article about a POW who repeatedly visited the crash site of his Halifax, Return to Sagan, the Long March revisited, plus photographs and sketches of POW life.
Creator
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The RAF ex-POW Association
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2005-12
Format
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16 printed sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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MCurnockRM1815605-171114-016
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
British Army
Royal Navy
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Plymouth
Germany--Munich
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Spremberg
Poland--Żagań
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
Poland
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Devon
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
10 Squadron
106 Squadron
144 Squadron
544 Squadron
601 Squadron
619 Squadron
air gunner
Air Raid Precautions
aircrew
arts and crafts
bale out
Caterpillar Club
civil defence
Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain (1926 - 2022)
escaping
flight engineer
Goering, Hermann (1893-1946)
Halifax
Hampden
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
killed in action
Lancaster
memorial
mess
Mosquito
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
Nissen hut
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Benson
RAF Duxford
RAF Halton
RAF Hendon
RAF Northolt
RAF St Athan
Red Cross
shot down
Spitfire
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 4
Stalag Luft 6
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/861/18036/PHarrisonJS1504.2.jpg
c97698ccecda348479618b2932b3e3bb
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/861/18036/PHarrisonJS1505.2.jpg
5dafea9224c9bcd6bdb2951e735ddc93
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/861/18036/PHarrisonJS1506.2.jpg
c9984f859432560f8c6b0f9f266d4aed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Harrison, Joe
Joe S Harrison
J S Harrison
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. The collection concerns Joe Harrison DFC (646488 Royal Air Force) and contains a brief memoir, documents, photographs and memorabilia. It also includes copies of The Marker, the Pathfinder Association magazine.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Joe Harrison 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
2015-09-11
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. 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
Harrison, JS
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
Air Raid Precautions whistle
Description
An account of the resource
Whistle inscribed 'A.R.P. J HUDSON AND CO BARR ST HOCKLEY BIRMINGHAM'.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
J Hudson & Co, Birmingham
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One metal whistle
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical object
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHarrisonJS1504,
PHarrisonJS1505,
PHarrisonJS1506
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Birmingham
England--Warwickshire
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
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/495/17735/PCollerAS17010002.1.jpg
9eaab97aaf061407c2268345af43eace
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
Coller, Allan Stanley
A S Coller
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Coller, AS
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. An oral history interview with Allan Coller (1924, 1874018 Royal Air Force). Also a number of other items associated with the Air Cadets and his service in Sri Lanka and India including a scrapbook of photographs.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Allan Coller and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
AS Coller Scrapbook Page 2
Description
An account of the resource
Three items from a scrapbook:
Item 1 is a newspaper cutting titled 'Venture Adventure is ATC Motto'.
Item 2 is an Air Training Corps membership card for AS Coller. It has a caption 'Originally named Air Defence Cadet Corps ADCC'.
Item 3 is a certificate issued to AS Collier [sic] for attendance at a training course for Air Raid Precautions.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One sheet from a scrapbook
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCollerAS17010002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Luton
England--Bedfordshire
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
1941-01-31
1941-07-02
1942-07-31
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/495/17734/PCollerAS17010001.1.jpg
5ffaddc4352c6ac5f002c52ba619a674
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
Coller, Allan Stanley
A S Coller
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Coller, AS
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. An oral history interview with Allan Coller (1924, 1874018 Royal Air Force). Also a number of other items associated with the Air Cadets and his service in Sri Lanka and India including a scrapbook of photographs.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Allan Coller and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
AS Coller Scrapbook Page 1
Description
An account of the resource
Three annotated items:
Item 1 : Photograph of air raid shelter with pets
caption 1 'Air Raid Shelter constructed by a firm called "Troy" in 1938. Left [undecipherable] It was 16' deep with a poisen [sic] gas free escape hatch chamber.'
caption 2
'Just before 2nd World War
10, West Heath Avenue Golders Green London NW11
Some animals understand to keep together
Just before 2nd World War 1938
Pekenese [sic] (Chinky) Rabbit (Wilfred) Cat (Timy)
Taken near our air raid shelter'.
Item 2 is photograph of a group of air cadets on parade in a street. They are being inspected by a civilian in a suit and three officers. It is captioned 'I joined the Air Training Corps in Jan 1941'.
Item 3 is the cover of a Civil Defence leaflet. entitled 'Some things you should know if war should come'. Public Information Leaflet No.1, July 1939.
It is captioned 'The 2nd World War started at 1100 hrs on the 3rd of Sept 1939.'
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One sheet from a scrapbook
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCollerAS17010001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
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
A S Coller
Great Britain. HM Government. Lord Privy Seal's Office
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1939
Air Raid Precautions
animal
civil defence
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1289/17295/PAlexanderPM1901.1.jpg
81943cc00313a839bac4561780732d65
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1289/17295/AAlexanderPM190524.1.mp3
2b1d905d7de3c337bf17dc5edeee0137
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Alexander, Pauline
Pauline Maie Alexander
P M Alexander
Pauline Maie Kipling
P M Kipling
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Pauline Alexander (b. 1923) who served as Women’s Auxiliary Air Force member. This collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-05-24
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
Alexander, PM
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JH: My name is Judy Hodson and I am interviewing Pauline Alexander for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We are at Pauline’s home and it is the 24th of May 2019. Thank you, Pauline for agreeing to talk to me today. Pauline, can you tell me your date of birth and where you were born?
PA: 9.12.23. I was born in Kensington, christened in St Pancras. And I only lived there for a few months before we moved to Leaden Roding in Essex, a little village owing to mum’s health. We lived there for five years and then moved to Chelmsford.
JH: And how many family were with you at that time? What —
PA: Well, all my brothers. I was the youngest of all of them. And we moved to Chelmsford, and my brother Bernard worked at, after we left, after he left school he worked at Marconi’s at Baddow. My brother Guy was a printer. My brother Bob joined the Air Force as a boy entrant armourer, and my brother Peter went in to the, my dad’s business.
JH: Which was, what was that?
PA: Surgical instrument making and repairing. That was in London so he travelled up to town every day. They travelled up to town every day. But as far as childhood was concerned we had a wonderful childhood. We all got on very well together.
JH: Did they spoil you being the baby?
PA: I was always told I was spoiled. And even when I said I wanted to join the WAAF, my dad didn’t want me to go, but mum said, but my mum said, ‘It will do her the world of good. She’s getting too spoiled.’
JH: And where did you go to school then? I know you had moves.
PA: I went to Kings. I went to the village school in Leaden Roding for a few months when I was four, but from there we went to Kings Road School in Chelmsford which was a very good school.
JH: And all the family —
PA: I wasn’t, I wasn’t too keen on schooling I must admit. But —
JH: You did it [laughs]
PA: I did it [laughs] along with everybody else. My brothers were the brainy ones.
JH: Were they?
PA: Bernard was at Baddow Research which was, they were known as the boffins but as it said in the book he, he volunteered in, for the Air Force on a five year stint which was —
JH: What year was that?
PA: 1938, when, when the scare was. And that’s when Peter volunteered for the, and Guy both volunteered for the Territorials. Peter had to get permission to volunteer because he wasn’t quite old enough to go then. And of course, when war was declared they naturally had to go. I mean, Bernard was in a Reserved Occupation. Baddow Research.
JH: Yeah.
PA: But these things happen.
JH: Did you actually go to work from school? Or —
PA: I didn’t.
JH: No.
PA: I stayed at home, and I used to do the shopping and everything, but then for the 1938 Essex Show I helped in the office there just sending out all the tickets for, you know the applications for to show. And then when that finished Miss Cotting, an accountant who lived opposite us in Chelmsford at the time, she offered me a job there. So it was from there that I went into the WAAF when it, it was either joining the Forces or going in the factory and I thought —
JH: So that was what attracted you to, to going into the WAAF.
PA: Yes. Yes.
JH: Yeah. And what age were you?
PA: Well, I was seventeen and a half when I volunteered. Eighteen when I, near enough when I went. Yes.
JH: And where was that based at?
PA: When I first went I had to report to Romford recruitment there and then we were sent to Gloucester to get kitted out and everything. From there we went to Morecambe for a month’s training on the front, and we, we always assembled in what used to be Woolworths there then. Woolworths had moved out from their building and it was taken over by the RAF recruitment, and we did all our square bashing and everything there for a month. And then I was posted to Waddington.
JH: What year would that be then by the time you —
PA: 1942, and I was in flying, flying control for a short while but that was very harrowing booking the aircraft in and out. And I worked with two civilian people doing that. They’d obviously been there since before the war and they were retained. And then I, from there I went to the WAAF admin office in the WAAF headquarters, where I was billeted anyway and I had an accident with my leg. The MPs came one night to say that there was a light showing from one of the bedrooms and went, we went outside to see which room it was and he’d parked his bicycle in front of the thing and I caught my leg on the, his hubcap on his bike and I was in sick bay for a month. I had a haematoma. There’s the scar there and another one down there.
JH: Gosh.
PA: And that wasn’t operated on for a week so I had a black leg. That was —
JH: Serious, wasn’t it?
PA: It was, and we had an awful job with it because the MO came to see me after a week and he said, ‘Have you eaten? Had your tea?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘I’ll be back in an hour and —’ he said, ‘I’ll operate.’ And we used to have to press like that, and we had the kidney bowl and they used to, oh blood it was all congealed.
JH: Gosh.
PA: And I came out of sick bay and I was on a month’s sick leave for that.
JH: Where did you, where did you go? Did you go home?
PA: Went home. Yes. But I had to report to the Chelmsford and Essex Hospital every few days for dressings and that. And then when I went back to camp I was moved to Skellingthorpe. And —
JH: What duties? What duties did you have?
PA: I was only clerical duties. But there the office I worked in was doing the Committee of Adjustments for the aircrews that were lost, and that was a bit of an eye opener, and that ended up in a court martial for one of the [pause] they were, they were, didn’t send all the personal possessions back that should have gone. And that ended up in a court martial there for one of them but he wasn’t the real culprit. As usual one takes the can for somebody a bit [pause] And that, that combination I had a terrible argument with one of them because they were talking about it one day, you know. They used to hive off the stuff, and I would say something about you know the parents and that. They said, ‘What are you worried about?’ And I said, ‘Well, I happen to have lost a brother. Aircrew.’ I said, ‘And I know the rubbish my mother was sent.’
JH: Right. Which brother was that?
PA: That was from my brother, Bernard.
JH: Bernard.
PA: He’d only just had his twenty first birthday. Birthday. And I mean naturally you had some very nice presents but, ‘Oh, he must have taken them on ops with him.’ So, you know.
JH: You had experience then really.
PA: Yes, and but you live and learn these things. It was all part of parcel of Service life.
JH: Did you have a lot of friends, you know amongst your colleagues, actual close friends or —
PA: I’ve never made real close friends. We were a close knit family, and I suppose I played, I played cricket, football and everything, always with the boys. I was with the boys. They always took care of me so, and I remember one night I had been to night school for shorthand typing and I was on my way home. It was around about 8 o’clock and I was walking along Duke Street, and my brother and his friends were coming the other way. He said, ‘What are you doing out this time of night?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve just been —’ He said, ‘Home,’ he said, ‘And I shall ask mum what time you got home.’ [laughs]
JH: Very protective.
PA: They were. Very protective. I couldn’t have wished for better brothers.
JH: And what was it like —
PA: And I’ve never, I still remember them as they were.
JH: And when you had your leave at Chelmsford or your sick leave and that. What was it like living there at that time because that was wartime wasn’t it?
PA: Quite harrowing.
JH: Yeah.
PA: With all the bombing. Not necessarily Chelmsford but all around Chelmsford.
JH: Did you have any near misses near you or —
PA: Oh yes. We had the landmines at the bottom of the Avenues which I suppose about, well less than a mile away from, much less and they were aiming for Hoffmann’s really which was ball bearing factory. And the ceilings came down. Windows out. Fortunately, we had a very sturdy table. A big table and we used to sit under the table. But after that my dad got an Anderson, a shelter. Indoor shelter so mum could go in the shelter after that.
JH: So you felt safer.
PA: Yes. Yes.
JH: Yeah, for everyone.
PA: Well, the trouble was you see dad worked up in London. When he was in London he worried about mum at home. When he was at home he worried about the business in London.
JH: Did the business survive through the war in the end?
PA: Well, whilst my dad was alive, yes.
JH: Yes.
PA: But when he died the business went you see. It was a good, the good will of the business that was more or less, so we lost not only the business but all my brothers as well, my brothers and my dad as well. And that was before National Insurance and everything. So dad hadn’t made a will. Mum wasn’t allowed to touch anything from the business for six months. And then after that she had, she paid in to National Insurance for fourteen years so that she could get a pension when, she lived on her capital for fourteen years. So —
JH: What year did your dad die?
PA: ’43. So we, the family didn’t have a very [pause] my mum and dad didn’t have a very [pause] until war it was heavenly, but [pause] but as my mother said, she was very sardonic, ‘Oh well,’ she says, ‘At least I’ve got all my money back.’ So —
JH: She had to go on didn’t she so —
PA: Yeah. And somebody said to her one day about after the two boys had been killed, you know, ‘Aren’t you bitter about it?’ And she said, ‘What’s the point?’ She said, ‘They were doing exactly the same. Bombing.’ And she said, ‘They were somebody’s son as well.’ You don’t necessarily do it because you want to. It was them or us. [pause] But getting back to Skellingthorpe and Waddington I enjoyed my, if you can call it that [pause] I never went to any of the sergeant’s mess dances or anything. I never, I didn’t drink for a start so, and as I say with the boys, aircrew I didn’t want to get involved. So I never went to any of the sergeant’s mess dances or anything like that so, but we had some very nice music evenings, and our own entertainment, and we did our job what we had to do. That was it.
JH: And how long did you serve?
PA: From ’42 to ’46. I was demobbed in ’46. When I went to Stradishall on a compassionate posting after my brother Peter had been killed I was home for a month then. Yeah. I suppose you could call it stress but in those days they called it a breakdown if you like. And then I had the compassionate posting to Stradishall but to be nearer home but it took me as long as to get from Stradishall to Chelmsford as it did from Lincoln to Chelmsford, because it was from Haverhill to — [pause] Oh, I can’t think of the name now, the other side of Kelvedon. In between Kelvedon and Colchester. It was a little single line so we shuffled backwards and forwards but the most harrowing thing there was there were only two coaches on the trains, and one coach went to Bury St Edmunds, branched off to Bury St Edmunds and the other one went to Haverhill. I got on the wrong coach one night and I ended up in Clare in Suffolk and I had to walk from Clare to Haverhill and from Haverhill to Stradishall and I never passed a soul. Pitch black.
JH: It must have been very scary.
PA: I’d never been so relieved to get back to camp as I was that night.
JH: How many miles do you think it was?
PA: Altogether about ten miles.
JH: That’s a lot on your own, isn’t it?
PA: Yes. Yes. But another thing I can say, the whole time I was in the Forces at aerodromes we never had an air raid. I don’t remember an air raid. Waddington had been bombed before I’d gone there. But I mean there were a lot of scares from aircraft not taking off, you know. The take off was aborted, and they were, the bomb load was, all that sort of thing.
JH: Did you ever feel that you were in real danger?
PA: We didn’t think about it. We just, alright it just took it as well, life.
JH: Gosh.
PA: I can’t say I enjoyed it, my Service life as such. It was an experience which I think Service life does a lot of people a lot of good. They see life from a different angle even though it was wartime.
JH: Were you influenced by your brothers having gone before you?
PA: Yes, definitely.
JH: So, how many brothers did you lose altogether?
PA: Three.
JH: And their names were?
PA: Bernard, Guy and Peter.
JH: You had one brother survived the war.
PA: One brother survived. Yes. And he was the regular, and an armament officer. And there’s a picture of him somewhere sitting on a bomb along with all his mates, all smoking.
JH: And his name was —?
PA: That was Robert.
JH: Robert. So what did you do after you’d got demobbed? What happened to you?
PA: I went to work at Marconi’s. Which was a very reputable firm.
JH: Yes.
PA: And then I met my husband. Well, I knew my husband at school but never any contact in those days. I met him at a RAFA dance. And we met in the March, we were engaged in the May and married in the September.
JH: What year was that then?
PA: ’47.
JH: And what did he do? What was his job?
PA: Well, he was a regular.
JH: Of course, yeah.
PA: He was a wireless mechanic, and do all that sort of thing and when he came out of the Air Force he worked at Marconi’s, and then I was expecting Peter and I left and he joined near enough. And —
JH: So how many children did you have?
PA: Peter and Maureen.
JH: Peter and Maureen.
[pause]
PA: She, by the way isn’t my cat.
JH: Oh, right [laughs] No?
PA: She’s Angela’s cat. Not mine [laughs]
[recording paused]
PA: That was Kate Kipling and she was, worked in munitions at Perivale in the First World War. And the inspectors came around one day and tapped one of the bombs they were, and it exploded and she was seriously wounded. She had scars all down, shrapnel scars all down her back and down her arms, in her head. And when she had no end of operations for the removal of shrapnel, and when she started to go deaf she went for a hearing test and he said, ‘We’re getting an awful lot of interference. A lot of rattling going on.’ And mum said, ‘Yeah. Well, that would be shrapnel, still in her —’
JH: And what age was that? How old would she have been then do you think?
PA: Well, between her forties and fifties. Well, thirties and fifties. Yeah.
JH: So did she work after the war then?
PA: No.
JH: No.
PA: No. She married my dad and had five children.
JH: Course.
PA: All under the age of six.
JH: But by the end of the war there was yourself, one brother and your mum left.
PA: Yes. Yeah. Start the war with seven and end up with three.
JH: Was your mum bitter about the war then with —
PA: Over some things. She was bitter when the Memorial Window was inaugurated at the church in [Broomfield], which is that little church up there where my brother Peter is buried. She went to the inauguration and she was shown her seat at the back. All the dignatories at the front of course, and she wasn’t even acknowledged and she was bitter about that which is quite understandable.
JH: Yes.
PA: But then that’s the way things worked. The mayor and everybody else was more important.
JH: She was obviously very proud of her sons wasn’t she, you know.
PA: Very proud. She was a very proud person and my brother Guy was married for a few months before he was killed and his wife remarried, but she always said and her cousin also always said, ‘Your mother was a lady.’ She was very, she was very upright. Very, what my mother said was law as far as we were all concerned. She could do, you know her word was [pause] when during the war, she worked, she was a member of the Red Cross and also she used to work for charities. Different, you know whist drives and all that sort of thing. She was a member of the Women’s Institute and, as well and my dad was an air raid warden when he was at home. And there again, think what people may my dad, he had a coronary thrombosis. He played golf in the afternoon with his doctor and he was taken ill during the evening and Doctor Henry came and he gave him some tablets, a tablet and he said to mum, ‘He should make it through ‘til the morning.’ But he didn’t. He died during the night and because there was an air raid, an air raid on my mum she washed him down, and then went downstairs and knitted furiously until it was light, and the air raid was over and she went over to the warden’s post and told them what had happened. That was my mother.
JH: Very strong.
PA: Very strong.
JH: And how old was she when she died then?
PA: When she died, a hundred and five.
JH: Did she marry again?
PA: No. No. My father thought the world of her, and so did we all as children. And when we lived in Primrose Hill we lived next door to a Mr and Mrs Young, and Mrs Young said when she heard that five children were moving in next door she said she had reservations. But when we moved out she said she could never have wished for better neighbours. I used to go shopping for her on a Saturday morning. Only across the road to the little shop opposite that, there used to be little shops in people’s front rooms in those days and I, I used to get her a few bits of shopping for sixpence.
JH: It’s amazing what you could get for sixpence in those days.
PA: Exactly. That was a lot of money. My mum, she always boasted with her first wage packet when she started work, she went to Goodwood Races with her sister Nell and she said, ‘We won sixpence.’ In those days. That was before the First World War. They won sixpence.
JH: A lot of money.
PA: A lot of money. Yes. Because they lived at, she was born in Midhurst in Sussex and of course that’s not too far from Goodwood Racecourse [pause] Yes. We had a wonderful childhood until the war.
JH: And what did you do, you know after the war and your family life with your children growing up?
PA: Well, Peter and Maureen always say they had a wonderful, the freedom they had, like we did. We used to have a bottle of drink and some sandwiches and just disappear for the day down the park or —
JH: Was that Chelmsford area at that time?
PA: That was at Chelmsford. Yes. They were born in Chelmsford. Maureen never, didn’t leave Chelmsford until she met her first husband and she moved to Milton Keynes, and she’s still in Milton Keynes. Different houses but [laughs] different husband.
JH: Did you have any hobbies through you know your married life that you both enjoyed? Did you?
PA: Not really. Hubby, he was a Mason eventually for quite a number of years. And we had a big garden like this, and —
JH: You enjoyed your garden.
PA: We enjoyed the garden. Yes. We enjoyed going out on our bikes and stopping for a drink, and Peter used to be on the little saddle on the front of, on the —
JH: On the front of the bike.
PA: On the bar.
JH: Yeah.
PA: At the front of the bike. And Maureen used to be on a little carrier on the back of my bike until we could afford a car. And if we couldn’t afford anything in those days we didn’t have it. Not like today.
JH: What was your first car? Do you remember now?
PA: An old Morris. Yeah. But my, my mum and dad had a car anyway. That was a Rover. And my brother Guy, oh Bernard had it. We took, drove the car up to Dishforth to my brother Bernard’s unit. He had the car up there during the war because we couldn’t get the petrol for it anyway [beeping noise] Excuse me, that’s my hearing aid squeaking. And then when he went missing one of the aircrew from, lived at Ingatestone which wasn’t very far from, about five miles from Chelmsford. He brought the car back for us. And then when Guy was stationed at Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire he had the car there. And when I was at Wadding ton he came up to visit me.
JH: Did you drive at all?
PA: No.
JH: No. Never?
PA: No.
JH: No.
PA: No. I mean all my brothers drove. I would have learned to drive but, and after we bought a car for how we drove a car he said about driving. He said, ‘What’s the point?’ He said, ‘I can drive you wherever you want.’ And then Maureen and Peter both learned to drive. No need. So I never learned. Angie, my daughter in law doesn’t drive. She lived in London. Not far from West Ham football. Well, opposite West Ham Football Stadium, and they never had a car. Peter did persuade her to start learning to drive when he worked away for just over a week. She was having two or three hour lessons at a time. You know, one of those quick things. But as soon as he went home she gave it up. She didn’t like driving.
JH: So have you all been —
PA: She’s terrified of the motorways.
JH: Oh, right. So —
PA: So she would never have driven on motorways anyhow.
JH: So has the family been football supporters over the years?
PA: Oh, West Ham. And next door but one neighbour —
JH: Yeah.
PA: In Chelmsford to hubby and I, their uncle he came from London and he was a West Ham supporter and he took Peter when he was ten up to watch West Ham and we’ve been West Ham supporters ever since. Hence even Ross, West Ham mug even now. But the irony of it all was that my husband’s cousin, his daughter married Geoff Hurst. My husband went to their wedding naturally, so, and of course he was West Ham.
JH: Big, big football connection going through the family.
PA: There is. My brother in law, John he played for Chelmsford City for fifteen years. They were a great footballing family as well. Played football. And as I say with four brothers I was brought up with football, cricket. Guy was more in to tennis with Peggy his wife. They played a lot of tennis but, but you know it was all very sporty.
[recording paused]
JH: Ok. So, we were just going to talk about when you actually started work again.
PA: Yes.
JH: After you had your children.
PA: I joined Marconi’s again for the second time, and I worked in the registry there, and I became deputy boss and we, we used to deal with every, all aspects of the division. We vetted all the post that came in for orders and enquiries and everything, and I used to, payday all the payslips for the division came up to the registry, and I used to sort them all out into rooms and we delivered all the pay slips to everybody. They were pleased to see us that day [laughs] And also all the requirements, letter-heading and all the, for the typists for —
JH: The stationery was it, the stationery cupboard.
PA: The stationery.
JH: Yeah.
PA: Used to order the stationery for the whole division. Get all the personal cards printed for all the sales and engineers on their trips abroad and everything. So it was a wide scope of things, and when I, when I retired apparently my card went around all. I got over a hundred pound when I retired, which I thought was very, very generous of everybody.
JH: Very well thought of.
PA: I did my best. I was very trying at times. I still am, and always will be I expect. But that’s all part and parcel of life. My son, and son in law whenever I was, ‘Are you behaving yourself?’ [laughs] Yeah.
JH: Well, that’s lovely.
PA: Well, when you’ve lived on your own for so many years you are very independent. You have your own ways and means of doing things. It may not be the best way but it’s what you’re used to.
JH: Yeah, ok. Right. Well, I can only really say thank you Pauline for allowing me to record this interview today.
PA: Well, thank you for coming.
JH: It’s a pleasure.
PA: I certainly didn’t expect it.
JH: Well, it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you.
PA: Thank you, dear.
[recording paused]
JH: We’re just having further anecdotes from Pauline regarding an episode when she was serving as a WAAF.
PA: Ok. I remember when I was at Waddington and in flying control. One day one of the officers decided to go for a little flip in his Oxford aircraft and he was, he was on the runway waiting to take off and a Lancaster revved up and he completely somersaulted, much to the amusement of everyone in flying control. No harm done. He saw the funny side of it as well.
JH: That’s very good. And you were also saying about your husband. When he was serving he, he actually went in to, up to Scotland didn’t he at some point?
PA: My husband. Yes. He was up at Leuchars but he was with air sea rescue at Lowestoft during, Felixstowe rather during part of his service and that was very harrowing. Going out and rescuing the aircrews that had ditched in the sea.
JH: A lot of losses I presume.
PA: A lot of losses, yes. And he did say they picked up one survivor once and they just had to drop him straight back in the thing. He was cut in half. Terrible injuries some of them. My brother Guy he, all his crew came to his wedding and so of course we knew them quite well. But when Guy came home on, Guy came home on leave once, and when he went back he wrote a letter to his cousin and he said, ‘I’ve been lucky so far.’ And the next night he, he went on ops with another crew and that’s when he didn’t come back. But that’s the way. They, his crew they, they were lovely load of, but within next to no time they’d all gone except one because they all had to split up you see when Guy, Guy’s pilot as well he’d gone as a second pilot with another crew, and he didn’t come back, but he did escape. He wasn’t captured and he did get back to this country but he was a Canadian and they sent him back to Canada.
JH: And what were they flying?
PA: Stirlings. And George, one of Guys original crew, he finished his tour of ops and he went as a trainer and collided in mid-air and was killed. I went to his funeral.
JH: A very sad time.
PA: You know it’s [pause] and they talk about mental sickness these days. They don’t know the meaning of it. Of stress and strain. But then again of course it’s encouraged these days.
JH: Did it affect your husband do you think over the years. Do you think from his experiences —
PA: I don’t think so. He didn’t enjoy India. He was out in India for a while. He didn’t like India and India didn’t like him. He came back with ulcers. But Bob went to Africa. I could have gone to Egypt, but I can’t stand the heat so it wouldn’t have done me any good. I mean you had to volunteer to go, and my mother said, ‘Why ever didn’t you go?’ She said, ‘It would have been a wonderful experience.’ I said, ‘Yes. I know.’ Knowing me I can’t, I just couldn’t have. Guy went to Canada to train and he loved it over there and he said although it’s bitterly cold it’s a different, it’s a dry cold. Not the damp cold over here and he, if he’d have survive he’d have loved to have gone back. But at Stradishall I worked with a Canadian corporal, a girl, a female corporal from, as I say she was Canadian. She got frostbite over here. Damp cold. Completely different to Canada. Yeah. Amazing isn’t it?
[pause]
PA: There were some very happy times, there were some very sad times when I was at Waddington and Skellingthorpe in the Wing Commander Nettleton era, and the Dambusters. All that sort of thing. They were at Scampton, and from Waddington you could see the aircraft all taking off from Scampton as well. It was a wonderful sight, but —
JH: Consequences.
PA: Yes, exactly. I know I was out, my brother Bernard was home on leave once and we were going out to visit, see some friends of mine. This was before I joined up of course. The air raid warning went. You could hear the guns going and the bombs dropping and he said, ‘Hadn’t we better go home?’ I said, ‘Good heavens, no.’ I said, ‘That’s at Romford.’ And, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘And to think I do that.’ He was an observer as they were called in those days and then they became navigators you see. Bernard was an observer, his twin brother was a navigator, but the same thing.
JH: They were very brave, weren’t they?
PA: Hmmn?
JH: They were very brave and strong to keep going back.
PA: Well, to think they did that night after night. How harrowing that must have been. And what would those youngsters of today make of it? But then it’s been encouraged. You mustn’t smack them, they’re not, I know my two have had a few hidings. I’ve had a few hidings and I deserved it and so did they. Maureen when she came out at, she was still at school when I first started work, and when we got home one night she’d put the potatoes on, on full gas and she’d gone swimming. Yes, she didn’t do that again.
JH: Wow.
PA: But that’s what we did.
[pause]
PA: It was nothing for her to have a meal. She was only thirteen but it was nothing for her to have a meal ready for her dad and I when we got home from work.
JH: That’s brilliant.
PA: Oh yes. My dad was useless at sort of odd jobs. Mum did the decorating and that sort of thing and gardening. Mum did the gardening. It hurt my dad’s back, but a round of golf did it the world of good. Mum always had help though. She always had somebody come in a couple of times a week to do the heavy work as it was called, and the sheets and all the boy’s shirts and everything went to the laundry, she didn’t have to do any of that.
JH: Well, that’s you know, that’s very very interesting to hear all these experiences and how life was then and —
PA: Yeah.
JH: It’s, yeah no thank you very much for sharing with us. So it’s —
PA: Well, thank you for coming.
JH: Yeah.
PA: Well, I had such a wonderful reception when I went to Bomber Command. I just couldn’t believe it.
JH: That’s lovely.
PA: Right from the moment, I just happened to have my Veterans badge on my jacket and they said, ‘Oh, you’re a veteran.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh, we’ll have to reimburse you then.’ Well, of course Maureen had paid anyway. But every, they couldn’t have looked after me any better, and you know the walk up to the plinth, don’t you?
JH: Yes.
PA: It started to rain. I was in my in a, pardon me, in a wheelchair but they came running up in the rain with a plastic cape for me to put on and another plastic cover over my legs.
JH: Good.
PA: And also they said, ‘Oh, about the canteen. ‘You have whatever you like. It’s free.’ And then the lady, she said, ‘Oh, can I have a, can I take a photo of you?’ And she took a photograph of Maureen and I in the foyer just before we left.
PA: That’s lovely.
JH: As far as I was concerned preferential treatment I’d had.
PA: I’m glad you had a good experience.
JH: It was a fantastic experience. It was the last thing I expected.
PA: Good. Well, thank you again very much for your time today.
JH: My pleasure.
PA: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Pauline Alexander
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Judy Hodgson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-05-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AAlexanderPM190524, PAlexanderPM1901
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:09:41 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
During the war, Pauline's siblings Bernard, Guy, Robert and Peter served in the air force and army, her mother volunteered for the Red Cross, and her father volunteered as an air raid warden. Inspired by her brothers, Alexander joined Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in 1942 and completed clerical duties at RAF Waddington, RAF Skellingthorpe, and RAF Stradishall, before being demobilised in 1946. Although she did not necessarily enjoy her service, she notes that it was a life-shaping experience. Alexander also recounts the harrowing wartime experiences of her family members, including the deaths of her father and three brothers, and how her mother coped with their losses. Finally, she recalls her postwar life including working for the Marconi Company, meeting her husband, and raising their two children.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Julie Williams
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Essex
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence
coping mechanism
ground personnel
home front
military discipline
military ethos
military living conditions
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Stradishall
RAF Waddington
Red Cross
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
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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
Neale, Ted
E T H Neale
Description
An account of the resource
123 items. The collection concerns Edward Thomas Henry Neale (b. 1922, 1395951 Royal Air Force) who served as a navigator with 37 Squadron in North Africa, the Middle East and Italy. The collection contains his training notebooks from South Africa as well as propaganda leaflets dropped by the allies in the Mediterranean theatre.
The collection also contains a photograph album, navigation logs and target photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alison Neale 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
2015-07-31
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
Neale, ETH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
1
Two events marked or marred September 1939 [sic] In order of importance was the start of the Second Great War, which was heralded by a false alarm air raid siren, the next event was my school days at the Woolwich Polytechnic were ended and [inserted] I [/inserted] was looking for a job. I found that a motor garage in Bexleyheath Broadway would take me on as a machine operator & setter, making components for war weapons. The owner was a Belgian Gent who during a lunchtime break declared that if the German army were marching down the Broadway he would be there with his hand extended in the NAZI salute, after the war, this Gent became Mayor of Bexleyheath, at this time he bought up all the machinery from the old defunct Tram yard which was near to where Marks & Sparks [Marks & Spencer] is today, he advertised it for sale the next day in the Evening News and it went straight away, making him an excellent profit, this machinery was needed for the war effort.
There being no real future in this job I applied for a job as an apprentice to the trade of Instrument maker at SIEMENS and was accepted. Starting on this job I was paired off with a skilled tradesman to learn the trade, while helping out on the guillotine, I was told not to touch the treale [sic], in the course of events I stood on the treade [sic], the machine went through its cycle and I had cut my trainers two-foot rule into two pieces, not a very auspicious start. I wasn’t too happy in this job, so I applied for an apprenticeship as a tool-maker [sic] at the Woolwich Arsenal, the great big munitions factory beside the Thames in Woolwich. Having been accepted I was told to report to the NEW FUZE [sic] factory, a little way inside the fourth GATE by the Plumstead Bridge, where I could work
[page break]
2
Making FUZES [sic] of all shapes & sizes, until they could make provision for me at one of the various toolrooms in the site, these jobs were very repetitive and boring but I was assured that it would only be for several weeks, the man was a prophet as I will show
7th SEPTEMBER (SATURDAY) 1940 4.58 P.M
Why so precise, [sic] because it is etched in stark reallity [sic] in my head. Saturday was change over [sic] shift day, we had had a week of days and would come to work on Sunday evening, to start the night shift. We would line up outside of the factory at the clocking off clock, we were allowed to be there two minutes before time, usually when this two minutes arrived someone would produce a key, open the front of the clock and advance it by two minutes and get away two minutes early. The air raid siren had sounded but we ignored it, since we had had so many false alarms, however, two minutes before five o’clock we heard a loud bang, then another bang about a second or two later, someone more knowledgeable, shouted out “BOMBS” as more bangs followed, a mad rush was made to the nearest air raid shelter which was quite close by, however the crush was so great, that nobody got in, as the bangs continued, coming nearer, the nearest one landed across the road, about twenty yards away on the little car park, the next one, the very last, we heard later, landed on an air raid shelter, one of the occupants was my cousins husband, all in the shelter were killed. Injured people started coming from buildings across the road, many bleeding badly, where the bomb blast had sucked the windows from
[page break]
3
the upper floors, a great rush took place to get away from the Arsenal, and I got my bike and pedalled off along the Plumpstead [sic] Road towards home, as I went I saw our fighter attacking the bombers, wheeling round the sky about, machine guns rattling away, planes smoking, parachutes coming down
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Ted Neale's early war memoirs
Description
An account of the resource
Ted Neale describes the start of the war and the end of his schooling. After a couple of jobs, which he left quickly, he moved to the Woolwich Arsenal as an apprentice tool maker. On Saturday 7th September 1940 an air raid destroyed the factory, killing all those who had reached the shelter.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ted Neale
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three handwritten 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
MNealeETH1395951-150731-0200001,
MNealeETH1395951-150731-0200002,
MNealeETH1395951-150731-0200003
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
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.
1939-09
1940-09-07
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Lesley Wain
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
civil defence
shelter
-
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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
Neale, Ted
E T H Neale
Description
An account of the resource
123 items. The collection concerns Edward Thomas Henry Neale (b. 1922, 1395951 Royal Air Force) who served as a navigator with 37 Squadron in North Africa, the Middle East and Italy. The collection contains his training notebooks from South Africa as well as propaganda leaflets dropped by the allies in the Mediterranean theatre.
The collection also contains a photograph album, navigation logs and target photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alison Neale 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
2015-07-31
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
Neale, ETH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
What a place to be, whilst there was a war on. I was eighteen years of age, the date was the first Saturday in September 1940. the time was five o’clock in the evening, The place was the ‘New Fuze” factory in the Woolwich Arsenal, just inside the “fourth Gate” along the Plumstead Rd. The Woolwich Arsenal was a massive munitions factory fronting the River Thames for about 3 1/2 miles, extending raggedly up to 3/4 miles into Plumstead & Woolwich. In the New Fuze factory was a complex of buildings housing machines from very large to very small, producing fuzes for large Naval guns & torpedos down to small machines, turning out watch proportioned parts for delicate fuzes. It operated night & day. I had left school & was working as a machine operator, filling in while awaiting a start as an apprentice tool-maker in the Gun & Carriage tool room some distance away. This being Saturday the day & night shifts changed over and being on the day shift I, and many others were waiting “on the clock” at 5pm to clock out & cycle home to Eltham, about 3 miles away. As we waited the air raid siren sounded, this didn’t cause much concern because we had heard the sirens go many times whilst we were on night shift, the order was given always to leave the factory & go to the shelters some yards away, our usual practice at night was to get on top of the air raid shelters, cover up with a tarpaulin & watch the searchlights catch & then lose the intruding aircraft which we felt were recconocence [sic]? since they never seemed to drop any bombs, meanwhile the anti-aircraft guns were blazing away, always it seemed in the wrong direction to the searchlights.
We had started to clock off when we heard a succession of bangs one after the other regularly, then someone, more knowledgeable shouted bombs & we made a dive for the air raid shelter, all getting jammed together
[page break]
in the door, the bangs continued past us the nearest about 10 – 15 yards away. One bomb struck a little workshop with a blacksmiths forge, full of [inserted] red [/inserted] hot coals, this scattered all over a small car park, landing on the roofs of cars which had part cloth roofs, it burnt through the roofs into the cars, setting them alight, one one car made it from the edge of the car park on to the road, he jumped it from the edge of the car park on to the road, he was sitting there shouting, “does anyone want a lift to Bexleyheath”, the car looked a wreck, all the lights & chrome trims were hanging off but it was running. it was a “Renault tourer” & off he went, the rest got sorted out & got our bikes to go home, people were streaming out of the gate, some bleeding from cuts from glass from the buildings. I cycled into the Woolwich square & turned on to the Eltham Road, which led up through the ROYAL ARTILLERY Barracks, by this time the fighters were in amongst the bombers, air planes were going down parachutes were swinging down, shrapnel & bullet clips were raining down & the anti-aircraft guns on the common were making a hell of a racket, as I passed the gates of the barracks in Mill Hill the soldiers were looked out from their billets & called me to take shelter, it appears that they had come back from Dunkirk, as it quietened down I made my way home, as I got up to Shooters Hill I looked back and saw fires raging everywhere, the road leading to Woolwich was solid with fire appliances & ambulances & rescue squads. I went back to the New Fuze factory the next day, but it had disappeared most of the machines were blackened and still standing, many of them operated with oil for coolant & cutting & the floor
[page break]
had been made of wood blocks & was oil soaked so it had burnt readily. The next day I learnt that the last of the stick of bombs that missed me had hit the air-raid shelter where my cousins husband had been sheltering, she had just given birth to their first & only child!
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
What a place to be, whilst there was a war on
Description
An account of the resource
Ted Neale's account of when he was 18 at the Woolwich Arsenal. He tells of a bombing attack at the factory, which started just as they were leaving at 5pm.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ted Neale
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three handwritten 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
BNealeETHNealeETHv020001,
BNealeETHNealeETHv020002,
BNealeETHNealeETHv020003
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
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.
1940-09
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frank Batten
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
civil defence
home front
shelter
-
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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
Stevens, Maureen and Steve
Steve Stevens
Sidney Stevens
S Stevens
Maureen Stevens
M Stevens
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Sidney Stevens (Royal Air Force) and Maureen Stevens (Women's Auxiliary Air Force). Sidney Stevens flew operations as a pilot with 57 Squadron. His wife Maureen Stevens served as a wireless operator.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stevens, M-S
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SS: I was stationed at Abingdon I think and the —
DK: Can I just stop you there. Just introduce you. It’s David Kavanagh, International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Mr and Mrs Stevens at their home.
SS: Right.
DK: Sorry.
SS: That’s ok. And I, I was, one of the wireless operators, actually he was the signals officers, came along and said to me, ‘Have you seen anything like this before?’ And he had a wire, a wire recorder like the [unclear] four tapes started. And I was playing about with that and a senior officer, a group captain came along and said, ‘What are you doing with that, Stevens?’ And I said, ‘Well, an interesting machine here, sir.’ And of course, I got his voice coming back saying, ‘What are you doing with that Stevens?’ And he’d never seen this or heard of this before either as far as I know. And so he said, ‘Well, sometimes,’ he said, ‘It might be a good idea, while you’re, while it’s still fresh in your mind just to record some of one of your experiences. Or one that you could think about and put on this wire.’ So, I got the signals bloke again and we actually recorded the first bit of that on, on wire and later on it was transferred to tape. Very thin tape. And there again not a sort standard tape that we have now. One they were experimenting with. And that’s how eventually it arrived on the machine here. So that’s how the recording arrived.
DK: So the recording was made on your station in 1944.
SS: I should think, yes. It was made in 1944. Towards the end of ’44.
DK: If I keep looking down I’m just making sure the tape’s working.
SS: Yes [laughs]
DK: What I wanted to ask you is, what were you doing immediately before the war?
SS: Well, I, in nineteen thirty — I suppose it, when what really sparked me was when Chamberlain came back with his little bit of paper saying, ‘I believe this will be peace’ in your time — ‘In our time.’ And I thought to myself if he believes that he believes anything. It was quite obvious really that Hitler wasn’t going to take any notice of him. At least it was to me as a child. And so I volunteered to join the air raid precautions. Now, I started so early on this training that when the war actually broke out I was one of a small number of people who were down in control centres. So that when bombs, when air raid wardens who were dotted all over the place to give reports had to report it somewhere and the control centre was where they reported it. And it was people like me then and I was at a control centre, I suppose I was a chief of control centre there for some time in North Croydon. And there. What the Crystal Palace, the Crystal Palace, the football team there. And we had an underground shelter so all the calls came in to the, either to the north or the south underground centres. And then we had an engineer and various other experts who could deal with things like a gas, electricity, water, sewage, unexploded bombs and all that. A wide variety of things. All these things came through the control centre. We then allocated various people to do jobs. That’s what I was doing. And then one night after, just after the Battle of Britain and when it started getting dark and they were bombing London I was actually in this control centre. It was quite a voluntary job. I was doing eight hours a night once the war broke out. Not getting paid for it. It was a shilling a night for a cup of tea I think [laughs] but I got expenses. And a message came through to us saying that my house had been bombed. And so later on, I had to wait until my shift finished, obviously had to hand over to somebody and on the way home — the gas, sewage and all that sort of stuff. Blackout, formless houses. When I arrived at my road sure enough like a gap and a sort of sense of [unclear] or something like that. My house had been blown up. And that was unfortunate because my mother had been evacuated to Devon and she thought things were getting quieter and had come back to see how we were. And my father was there as well. And of course, this, this was a fairly small bomb I think. Certainly by later, the things that I was dropping later on, and when I got home I found the house was just in smithereens. It just, it just hardly existed really. Fortunately, we’d lived in Devon for a long time before we came to Devon — I mean before we came to London and so we had a very large farmhouse table. One of those things that you would put flaps in with handles underneath. So a really sturdy table. And when they heard the bombs coming down they dived under there. And the house collapsed really and the piano which was part of the furniture in the living room had fallen over and formed a little tent. And so both my parents were buried under there. My father had an enormous dent in his steel helmet I remember. An uncle who was there at the time dived underneath but couldn’t quite get the whole of his body underneath and a bit of his right side got crushed and they had to take him away to have a badly broken leg tended to. But even worse than that the lady who lived next door had said to me, ‘I’ve just got some tea here. Are you going to work?’ I said, ‘Yes. Going down to the old Report Centre.’ And she said, ‘Like a cup of tea?’ I said, ‘Oh yes please.’ So, I stopped and had a cup of tea with her because tea of course was rationed and off I went. The next I saw of this poor lady the house next door, in which she lived also had been smashed but she had been smashed against the front door like some hideous gelatinous graffiti really. Sort of splat stuff you see in comedy films sometimes. But no comedy about this of course. My next door neighbour was just smashed just like that. You could see her outline and the smell was appalling. And I stood outside at the empty sky and said, ‘You bastards. I’ll get my own back on you sometime.’ And of course, I did get my own back by becoming a bomber pilot.
DK: Was this, was this incident then instrumental in you wanting to join the RAF? Was that a spur?
SS: I think, I think at that time everybody wanted to join the RAF as a Spitfire pilot. I was one of the very few I think who decided it was heavy bombers for me. I wanted to kill more of the bastards than I could in a fighter. I mean, that’s just how I felt. And it was that really that progressed to me on to becoming a Lancaster pilot ultimately.
DK: So, what, what year did you actually join the RAF then?
SS: I think I volunteered in 1939. December I was born. In 1940. I’ve got my papers upstairs. I can check on this if you like. Then my training —
DK: So where, where was your training first of all then?
SS: Well, I trained, well first of all you had to go to a — what did they call them? Oh, an Initial Training Unit and do six weeks which was very, very and I went down to a place called Paignton. Down in Devon.
DK: Paignton. Yeah. I was there last week.
SS: That was just for the ITW.
DK: Yeah.
SS: And there we learned all the elementary stuff about the RAF. How to get on, how to salute and march about and all that sort of stuff. Also, stuff like serial flight. Beginnings of the education on navigation and signalling, Morse code and that sort of stuff, you know. By light and by buzzer. And bits about the air force law. So, we knew our training. What we were doing partly. And that course lasted about six weeks and it’s quite surprising how many people got washed out. First of all from that initial course and after that from the subsequent training unit. Some people got so far but I don’t think very many actually survived those courses to become pilots because obviously training as a pilot was very expensive, demanding in man hours and machinery and that sort of thing. So the people eventually who did become pilots were pretty well selected I think.
DK: So where was your pilot training then? Where did you go for that?
SS: Well, I started off at Carlisle where I did an elementary EFTS. Elementary Flying Training School. And then by some strange chance —
DK: That’s, that’s — sorry. That’s where you would have gone solo.
SS: Sorry?
DK: That’s where you would have gone solo.
SS: Yes. I think I’ve got one or two pictures.
DK: We can have a look later if you like.
SS: I’ll show you that later on shall I?
DK: Yeah.
SS: I’ll, I went first of all to Carlisle and then the course that I was taking after I’d gone solo was suddenly stopped because they were going to use what was called a grading course. Where they would bring people in for so long and then if they didn’t go solo or you weren’t apt they were chucked out pretty quickly. This was because they had such pressure of people wanting to get in. They were equally keen on getting quite a lot and selecting the few that were left. But also, as a sort of strange arrangement the RAF had come into, or our government had come in to contact with the Americans and they had a very few civilian flying schools which they ran on government regulations using government aircraft and that sort of thing. And I was allocated to go on those six schools in America. So I went out to the civilian flying school.
DK: This is, this in America.
SS: In America. In California.
DK: Do you remember whereabouts?
SS: A place called Lancaster in California.
DK: Right.
SS: Out on the Mojave Desert really. Plenty of room to crash an aircraft on.
DK: So, so what was it like going to America then in wartime? Was it —
SS: That’s right, yes.
DK: Was it a big, big change? Cultural change.
SS: Well, incredible really. First of all, when we, getting across the Atlantic was a bit tricky. Coming across the North Atlantic in winter was quite an experience in convoy. A rather slow running convoy and of course the troop ships were packed. It wasn’t my first experience of a troop ship because I’d been on one of these school cruises. Cost about five pounds for nine days and that sort of thing. But we, we used old troop ships and we slept in hammocks and we knew everything about sitting down on these hard board bases and that sort of caper. So I’d had that experience before going on a troop ship. So consequently I wasn’t seasick and it was fascinating going on deck for example and just watching these breakers come over the top and just freezing because they, they landed on the deck, you know. Stuff was frozen. It was cold. You couldn’t, of course take any clothes off just in case we got sunk which seemed highly likely because they, they were getting some small idea about forming convoys. We had two very old American destroyers that they’d lent us under lease lend as it was called. And it was quite an experience watching these poor destroyers try to battle against these Atlantic storms. It was bad enough on bigger troop ships but for them it must have been absolute hell. And then I went from there to Canada. Halifax in Nova Scotia. And then by train down to New Brunswick where they got a dispersal camp which was just being built. And then I got spilled out down there to take an overland, with an overland trip by rail right the way through to California. And then, there we did the sort of basic training. And then again several people wiped out. Even having got as far as that because they had already done solo in England. And then we had an intermediate course on what they called a basic trainer. And finally the Harvard. The good old Harvard which took about for fighter experience really. And the majority of people of course volunteered to be pilots, fighter pilots. They all had the idea of putting on goggles and tearing after the enemy. My idea was something different. I wanted to go, I wanted to go and bomb the bastards. And so I came back to this country and then had to learn how to fly twin-engined aircraft, and of course particularly we concentrated on flying in the dark. Completely. Completely dark and with very, very small lights to line, to enable us to land really. Some of these lights were just formed like a T. If you could imagine putting some paraffin in watering cans and sticking a knob of cotton wool in the spout. These were the so-called goosenecks as we called them. And you’d get seven of those in a line forming a T and we would use those to land in the dark which was, which cost a great number of lives. We killed a lot of people trying to teach them how to fly at night. And I was one of those who escaped again. And then having flown quite light aircraft. Twin-engined aircraft we then went to the heavier ones. Eventually used the Wellingtons which really were wonderful old warhorses. They were very well designed by Barnes Wallis of course who talked about this. And they were flexible. I would say they were not an easy, easy aircraft to fly I think. And then from there I went to an aircraft called a Manchester which were like a twin-engined Lanc. An absolute bloody awful aircraft to fly.
DK: What was, what was wrong, what was wrong with the Manchester then?
SS: The Manchester had two great big engines mounted in tandem as it was. You had two propellers. Just, just two engines. One on each side. The propellers were huge. The, they, very very quickly oiled up if you tried to taxi any, at any speed and the brakes too used to get absolutely red hot. So it was very difficult taxiing them I thought. And I just did a few flights on one of those by day and night and eventually went from there to a Lancaster. Well, the course was very very short. I had never seen a Lancaster at the beginning of April. And this is 1943 by the time I got there. And I went on to the squadron. I had only done about a half a dozen landings I think in a Lancaster and I was thought operationally fit and went across to Scampton where I joined number 57 Squadron which I did the rest of my tour. It’s also very interesting where you were crewed up. We moved about for a bit, pilots and navigators and eventually crews more or less picked themselves. In that I was rather unlucky because my first navigator was a hugely impressive man. Very tall. You know. Six foot four tall. Something like that. Very public school character. Nicely spoken and so on. And he’d had his uniform, standard uniform nicely lined with silk and that sort of stuff. He came over to me one day and said, ‘Would you mind if I were your navigator skipper?’ So I said, ‘Well, can you navigate?’ ‘Oh yes. Of course. Of course. Of course. No trouble at all.’ So I said, ‘Right, we’ll try you for navigator then.’ And then the others sort of came and joined us in various ways. Except I hadn’t got a flight engineer. We didn’t have flight engineers on a Wellington and I got appointed a chap who was an absolute disaster. You only had to look at him really. First of all his eyesight was poor. He had long great big goggles on with lenses in. He was altogether a sort of under confident and so on. And when I went on my first, my first trip on a Manchester I see he was promptly sick all over the throttle box. Which wasn’t a very nice start for me or for him. And so he got thrown off because he was sick and I never saw him again. And I didn’t have another flight engineer until I was nearing the end of my training when quite suddenly the engineer arrived. Which was useful. And then the navigator who was absolutely useless. I went out one morning over Ely and I said to him, ‘Right. Navigator. Can you tell me where we are?’ A long long long pause. And I thought crikey. I’d been over Ely Cathedral three or four times and done circuits of it. I said, ‘Do you know where we are navigator?’ Hadn’t got a clue. ‘Sorry skipper, I haven’t got my maps. I’ll just get, take up a moment or two.’ And when I landed my wireless op said to me, ‘I don’t want to worry you skip,’ he said, ‘But look at the note I got from navigator.’ And he’d written, he’d written the wireless op a note, “Get me a fix for Christ’s sake.” So, I thought well if you’re going to get lost on the way to Ely that’s not much good. So I went and saw my flight commander who said, ‘Well, you can’t change him now. He’s a darned nice bloke,’ and he gave me all sorts of [unclear] He was a good bloke. Had a pair of Purdey guns and the wife, oh my goodness me. She was a sixteen [cylinder?] model you know. Turned up in large Lagonda to a hotel. They went and stayed, he went and stayed overnight with her. But he was a good social chap. He knew the, knew the local landowners by name and that sort of stuff but as a navigator he was useless. I couldn’t get rid of him because everybody there was convinced he was such a fine chap. Except I was coming back from, still on the training stage on Lancaster and he suddenly says. ‘My skipper. My ears, my ears.’ Because that was how he spoke you see. So I said, ‘What about your ears navigator?’ He said, ‘My ears. My ears are popping.’ So I said, ‘Well, they’re likely to. Just breathe in, blow your cheeks out, they’ll pop out again.’ And he was still yelling about this so I said, ‘Right. Hold on then. Very quickly I’ll get you back to base.’ So, I lowered the wheels and flaps and got down very smartly and went up to flying control and said my navigator was sick. Seemed to have some ear trouble. And the doctor whipped him away and then I got him later replaced by a little snaggle toothed chap. About thirty I suppose. And he was very competent. He was my navigator for most of the rest of the tour. Yes. So that was it really. How to get rid of the navigator. Wait till he’s got ear trouble and do a dive and pop his ears out. Which is why I’m deaf now [laughs] because I got the same treatment [laughs]
DK: Apart, apart from the unfortunate navigator did you think it worked well? That the crews more or less found themselves.
SS: Well, mine wouldn’t have don certainly. Mine would have been a dead loss. I wouldn’t have given myself a couple of trips with a crew with that particular chap. The flight engineer and this disastrous toff really as a, as a navigator. I wouldn’t have got very far.
DK: No.
SS: But by a piece of luck.
DK: So, so what were your thoughts now about the Lancaster as an aircraft?
SS: Oh superb.
DK: That was a Lancaster.
SS: It was infinitely better than any other heavy aircraft. It had, the great disadvantage was that really it was an aircraft built around a bomb carrier. It carried the maximum amount and weight of bomb for the size of the air frame and consequently the last people who seemed to be thought about were the aircrew. And there was a long and devious method of getting into the, into the pilot’s seat. And the navigator was in a very cramped space and the, so was the wireless op. They were really in light-proof cabins anyway. But they were very very small. And when you think, I don’t know if you’ve seen the navigators charts, Mercator charts but as they had difficult getting and manoeuverating their, I’m sorry manoeuvring their navigating equipment and the charts and keeping the plot going. Somehow or other they did it. And there again the poor old wireless op had a pretty small cabin to work in. There wasn’t really a decent second pilot’s seat either for the engineer to sit at and it could have been better. And of course the, the rear turret was absolutely isolated from the rest of the aircraft. Small, fairly small door and when they got in they had to leave their parachutes outside. Which was all very well until you had an emergency. It was very difficult to get hold of the damn thing then. You had to open the door, sort of fall out backwards I think to get out of the aircraft. So, you didn’t get very many Lancaster aircrew surviving when they were hit. Not compared with other aircraft anyway.
DK: So, all your operations then were with 57 Squadron were they?
SS: They were. Yes.
DK: And they were all flying from Scampton.
SS: Yes. Oh no. No. I did twenty from, I did twenty trips approximately from Scampton and ten from East Kirkby which had just opened at that time.
DK: And how many operations did you do?
SS: Well, I did actually thirty trips. I think, I think twenty nine operations because one of them was a bit of a disaster. But that was the fault of a poor aircraft I think.
DK: And the earlier recording was of you where you were attacked by a night fighter.
SS: Yes.
DK: And your engine’s damaged. How many times did that happen? How many times were you — ?
SS: Well —
DK: Coming back on three engines or less.
SS: Oh. No. Three engines was enough actually with damaged aircraft. No. You got minor damage quite frequently but it wasn’t — I suppose I compare it to being in a hail storm really. You hear the stuff beating about and you get small holes in the fuselage which was where I suppose you could put a sharp pencil through the fuselage if you tried hard. So it didn’t, didn’t offer any real, any real protection. But I think I was hit by flak enough to give you a forced landing at the nearest airfield when I got back to England twice. I’ve got my logbook somewhere. I could look it up. I’ve still got my logbook upstairs and I’ve got a small computer thing which was made by my flight engineer as well. So, that gives probably a different idea of what went on because some people wrote great reams in their log books but this was considered bad manners in 57 Squadron. So generally the pilots just wrote DCA which meant did he carry it out? Or DNCO duty not carried out for various reasons?
DK: Right. Mrs Stevens, can I, can I ask you a few questions? When did you join the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force?
MS: The WAAF. I joined in June 1941.
DK: Ok. And you were actually based at Scampton as well then were you?
MS: Yes. I was. And I was in 5 Group which was in Lincolnshire. And I’d been on several stations. Bomber Command stations. I started at Waddington and then I went to Swinderby. Then to Skellingthorpe. And then a Conversion Unit at Wigsley. And I was posted to Scampton in May. I honestly can’t remember the date at all but it was just a few days before the dams raid.
DK: Did you, did you know what the dams squadron were doing then? Was it —
MS: Not, not at all.
SS: No.
DK: No.
MS: I had no idea of where the aircraft were going. I knew nothing about it at all. They used to simply take off. They took off because they were given a green light from a caravan at the end of the runway. And they took off. As they took off the pilot’s name was on the board. Time of take-off. Never, never saw the target or anything like that.
DK: Right.
MS: And the only time you spoke to the pilot was on the way back when he called up. And as they called up you would give them a height to fly. The first one, for example you would say, if the runway was clear, you would say, ‘Pancake.’ Which meant that he could come in to land. And then the second one would call up. You would say, ‘Aerodrome one thousand.’ The third one would say, you would give him, ‘Fly around at fifteen hundred feet.’ In other words they were stacked at five hundred feet intervals. During this time of course the squadron had a call sign. The station had a call sign. There was quite a normal procedure that you had to go through and you had to verify who they were of course. And then you would bring them in one at a time to land. It was a very good job. Very exciting job. Very sad of course at times. And as they came back you would put the time of arrival on the board. On the same line of course as —
DK: Yeah.
MS: When the pilot took off. And you put the time of arrival. If they didn’t come back, well you just simply left it blank. I didn’t do it. They had a, the control officer was there and we took all our instructions from him and conveyed them directly to the pilot. We had also a logbook and that, you would log everything that the pilot said, and you said and there again you would put the take-off time and time of arrival. And any conversation at all that took place.
DK: And so that was really your, your world then. Within the control tower itself.
SS: Yes.
DK: So between them taking off, going on the operation and coming back what were you doing then? Did you just wait?
MS: Well, what we did then we used to listen out to what we called, “Darkie,” calls. I mean if I said they were Mayday calls you would —
DK: Yeah.
MS: Be more familiar with them and you obviously didn’t get them every night but Lincolnshire was — very often they had very bad mists and fogs and things during that time. And sometimes you would get a stray aircraft. He would call up and ask where he was. And there again you would go through the normal procedure. Asking him where he came from and once it was alright then you proceeded to bring him in to land. And sometimes it was a very, very difficult job for the control officer. He would be on the balcony outside firing verey pistols and things like that and communicating all the time on the radio telephone. And the officer in charge would relate to me messages and he would come back. And eventually you would get them down or probably they just needed to know where they were. But we had, I was on duty one night and the officer in control, he was a Canadian. And I remember that one particularly because it took ages for this poor chap to get down. I can’t honestly remember whether he ran out of fuel or whether — I don’t, he certainly didn’t crash but he was very, very grateful to get down. We got him down and he came up into the control tower afterwards and thanked us.
DK: That’s nice to know.
MS: Oh, it was a lovely, it was a lovely job and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
DK: Yeah.
MS: I found it very nerve wracking at first.
DK: I can imagine.
MS: Having not been away from home.
DK: Yeah.
MS: I mean, we didn’t travel in those days like the young people travel today. But —
DK: So, what, what made you join the WAAF then? Was it —
MS: Well, as a matter of fact on the age of eighteen you had to do some sort of war work and I actually volunteered for the Wrens.
DK: Right.
MS: And they deferred me for six months. And I volunteered for the Wrens because my father had been a regular serviceman in the Royal Marines and that was really my choice. But anyway, I was called up during that six months and joined the WAAFs. I wasn’t sorry. I was delighted. It was a lovely job.
DK: So, at Scampton then there was both 57 and 617 Squadron.
MS: Yes.
DK: There then. So were you actually on duty —
MS: Yes.
DK: The day the —
MS: Yes.
DK: Dambusters returned.
MS: Yes. I remember nothing about it at all except going off duty at 8 o’clock that morning.
DK: And this —
MS: As far as I was concerned it was simply another raid.
DK: Another operation.
MS: There again, people said to me did you have friends? You know, did the chaps date you and all that sort of thing. Well, of course not. They were, they were far too interested in flying their planes and getting back from war. And as far as I was concerned — no. It [pause] they were simply names put on a board.
DK: Yeah.
MS: I knew, I knew one chappie there. Mickey Martin. An Australian pilot who flew P for Popsi, I think. He used to call it P for Popsi. And yes. That’s how it was known and, but I only knew him through work because we’d been on other stations prior to —
DK: Right.
MS: Arriving at Scampton.
DK: So how, how did you two both meet then? What’s the story behind that?
MS: Well, I think, I think, if you really want to know I think it was when my husband on Conversion Unit at Wigsley.
DK: Right.
MS: And he was interested in my voice and he came up to see what I looked like.
DK: So that was before he joined 57 Squadron then.
SS: Yes.
DK: Oh right.
MS: Yes. In fact, I think Steve, you said to me afterwards he joined, he went to 57 Squadron on Lancs of course then. He converted from Manchesters to Lancasters at this RAF station called Wigsley. And he remembered being posted on the 1st of May. I have no idea when I was posted but I was posted from, well I think I went [pause] honestly. Where was I? Wigsley? I can’t honestly remember.
SS: Yes. You were at Wigsley. Yes.
MS: Yes, of course. It was. Wigsley.
SS: Wigsley to Scampton.
MS: Of course it was. That was where you were on Conversion Unit and I was on duty there. He recognised my voice. Waited for me to come off duty so that he could say hello to me.
DK: So he recognised your voice from Wigsley.
MS: Yes. Yes.
DK: And when you got to Scampton came up.
MS: Yes. He did. Yes. In fact, I was, when I went into the WAAFs I thought probably I would do some sort of clerical work or something like that. And no. They, I was, saw, I think he was a squadron leader. I know he was a commissioned rank and oh he said, ‘I’ve got another job for you.’ And he was telling me we were going in the control tower and we were actually picked for our voices.
DK: Right. Ok.
MS: And, as I say it was a very interesting job. A bit nerve wracking at first. I was very nervous. Very frightened.
DK: Presumably you were chosen because you had a very clear voice. Was that what they were looking for?
MS: Probably. Yes.
DK: Yeah.
MS: Yes. Yes.
DK: So —
MS: Is it still clear?
DK: It’s very clear. Yes.
MS: Well, I’m ninety seven in December. Or will be.
DK: I wouldn’t believe that.
MS: I’m — my toyboy husband here will be ninety five in December. And on the 4th of December it will be — we will have been married seventy three years.
DK: Congratulations.
MS: So there we are.
DK: Yeah.
MS: The Lord’s been very good to us. We’re a couple of poor totteries now aren’t we darling?
SS: Yeah. Quite the —
DK: How do you, can I ask you Mr Stevens how do you look back now on your time in the RAF and with, particularly with Bomber Command.
SS: Well, it was an interesting time. It’s not the sort of thing I would recommend any growing young man because the casualty rate was enormous. When I arrived at Scampton first of all I was a sergeant pilot. Goodness knows why some people got through the course and were sergeants, others were officers. I don’t know. Because some of the people who failed the pilot’s course then became navigators or bomb aimers and many of them became commissioned. So consequently you’d got the ludicrous situation arising one night where I had a flying officer wireless operator and a flight lieutenant rear gunner and yet there I was a sergeant pilot. As soon as, as soon as you got to the aircraft it was the skipper. It was the pilot who was in charge. Nobody else. No doubt about that at all. But it could have led to awkward situations but —
DK: So, even though you were a sergeant you were in charge of the aircraft. Even though there could have been an officer.
SS: That’s right.
DK: The navigator or —
SS: Yes. I mean there was one chap I picked up one night as a wireless op and I thought he was a bit quiet so I said to one of the other members of the crew, the flight engineer, I said, ‘Go and see what’s happened to that wireless op. I haven’t heard from him lately.’ He was asleep. He was asleep because he’d been drinking too much. So when the trip was over I went along to him and said, ‘You’re not flying with me again. I’ll never take you aboard. If it’s suggested, I think for a moment you’re smelling of whisky and tonight you bloody well slept. The crew could have been dying. If we had needed an SOS now you’d have been incompetent.’ I said, ‘I really ought to report you but I just shall refuse to have you as a crew member again.’ If that sort of situation arose you just had to tick these people off irrespective of rank. And that was just the situation. I did get commissioned later one night. I became a flight sergeant of course. It’s all, as far as pay was concerned there was no difference of a pay grade between a flight sergeant and what was a flying officer. So, that, it wasn’t really the money. As far as I was concerned there was a great advantage because I went, when I went to Scampton there was a nice married quarter, had been a married quarter which was right on the, near flying control. Right on the edge of the airfield near the taxi track. And our crew fitted that very nicely. And as I say consequently I didn’t, you didn’t find yourself with half the crew sergeants and half the crew officers. We were all, sort of sergeants together which was a great help. And then later on when I got commissioned for a little while I still went on as I was at Scampton and I went on living in this place. Nobody took any notice I was there. I said, ‘Look, I I really would rather stay with my crew.’ But when I got to East Kirkby, the adjutant there. The man with an amazing stutter. He said, ‘Why are you in the sergeant’s,’ whatever it was, mess. So I said, ‘Well it’s because it’s my people there.’ He said, ‘If you were an officer you’d have —’ I said, ‘I haven’t had time to get a uniform which makes me an officer.’ I got twenty four hours to rush down to London. Buy a uniform which nearly fitted and go back again and go in to the officer’s mess. My training for that was as short as that.
DK: So, so what year did you leave the RAF then?
SS: Oh I, I actually, when the war was over my number —
MS: You wanted to stay in didn’t you?
SS: I thought first of all I wouldn’t mind staying in this as a career really. And then I had a rather curious job because when the war was over lots and lots of people were, came back from overseas. Some of whom had very nice cushy jobs out there you know. And others not quite so cushy. And of course the poor devils, I always felt sorry for the Japanese prisoners of war. And the air force had put out a sort of regulation that people who’d trained as pilots would have to show some ability to fly before they could retain whatever their wartime rank was.
DK: Right.
SS: And I went to Abingdon where I was made a unit master pilot. Which meant by that time I’d qualified in all sorts of ways as an instructor and I used to take these people on some, I’d lots of group captains and wing commanders in my log book. I was taking to show them to fly heavier aircraft because the war with Japan was still going on then you see and —
DK: Did you expect to be going out to the Far East then?
SS: I wouldn’t have been surprised. Yes. I thought that might have been the next move but just for the time I was preparing somebody else to go which was a lot safer really [laughs]. So that, that was a most interesting job and on one occasion I was taking a wing commander up and the following day he said, ‘Look Steve,’ he said, ‘I’ve just become your commanding officer.’ He said, I’m now known as the chief flying instructor and I know I can’t fly nearly as well as you.’ So, I said, ‘Alright. we’ll iron that out between us.’ And he was a very nice chap indeed. He had, I’ll just sort of divert a bit. This chap had been a prisoner of war and he’d been taken, sometimes you don’t think how far flung the war was. And he’d been taken in the Japanese war in Surabaya. Right out the Dutch East Indies. And it was the Dutch East Indies. And he was put into a jail there and he said they were so crammed that people just couldn’t lie down. They were so, so crushed. And one of the blokes there, one of the officers complained and said, ‘Look, we can’t lie up. We can’t sit down. We can’t do anything comfortably.’ ‘Well that’s alright,’ said the Japanese and promptly bayoneted two or three people. Chopped the heads off others, you know and said, ‘That’s made a bit of room for you.’ Just chucked the bodies out and that was the bit of room they made. Then he was put in a prisoner of war camp and just working with the rest and one day, oh he got caught by the secret police because they’d been doing some small work for the Japanese and he showed them how to sabotage the work so it would never, never sort of get on with it. And he thought, they sent for him and they actually threw him over them prison wall. And every time they threw bodies over they would have some sort of food, grizzly old rice and that sort of stuff attached to it. He lived on that for about six months. Just like that. Out in the mud burying bodies and eating what he could really. Dying. They hoped he’d die. Anyway, suddenly one day he was sent to go back inside and he thought, ‘Right. This is my lot. I’m bound to be executed.’ So, he goes back inside. To his amazement the commandment bows to him and does all that sort of rubbish you know and said, ‘You’re now the commanding officer because we’ve been defeated.’ So, that was a huge promotion for him. A strange man. Strangely enough of course he’d been one with these people in Surabaya, mainly the Dutch. And the Dutch government or the English government sent a small force. First of all the Dutch government sent out some troops to re-occupy, to re-occupy Surabaya and they failed. And the natives, they were actually treated very badly. The ones they took as prisoners they crucified to doors and things like that. He was telling me some horrible, some horrible stories about that. But of course he went along. By then he could speak their language. He’d been in jail with them, he said, ‘Just a minute. I’m on your side don’t forget.’ So he wasn’t, he wasn’t sort of pulled out of jail or hanged or executed. They just kept him as a pal. And then we sent some troops over under a brigadier called Mallaby. And the Dutch, these, these Javanese were preparing to, whoever again small parties and again he said, ‘You can’t do that. They’re on my side. We’re pals.’ And so Mallaby got killed or something and he took over the British Army Force there and sort of settled them in fairly, relatively happily until more relief arrived. And the bloke who got a DSO as a prisoner of war. It was a real unusual story. The name was Groom and he was an Australian that started —
DK: Can you remember his name?
SS: Sorry?
DK: Do you remember his name?
SS: Ah yes. I think the name was Groom G R O O M. A D Groom, and a very nice chap indeed. Anyway, I meanwhile had sort of seen the air force contracting almost immediately after that and people started getting demobbed. Demobbed. And so they said, ‘Well if you apply to do this you’ll get your permanent commission.’ I thought I’m not sure I want to now because she had been demobbed and we had a baby and I thought I don’t really want to get posted overseas and see the family split up and so on. So I had compulsorily to work. To do another eighteen months instructing before they let me go. But after I’d been instructing the extra year I had got a job at a training college which I wanted to do. To take up teaching. So, I then got released for this extra six months providing I sort of joined the RAF VR and did some weekend flying and all that sort of stuff. Just in case there was another war. Which there damn well was actually. They called me up for it. That was a very short service. Because as usual the RAF had demobbed too many people. There weren’t too many aircraft. There wasn’t really an aircraft for me us fly so after a fortnight up there we came home again. We’d just got this house and inside three months I got this call up notice again [unclear]. So that was rather sad but anyway I went off to do a fortnight’s flying and then they decided to let me go again because they didn’t have much of a job for me really.
DK: Was this the time of Korea then? Or —
SS: Sorry?
DK: Was this the time of Korea you got called up again?
SS: That’s right. Yes. It was the Korean War.
DK: Yeah.
SS: But the —
MS: Was that about ’52 wasn’t it?
DK: Yeah.
SS: I forgot the time of it.
DK: Yeah.
MS: It was very early on.
DK: Yeah.
SS: Something like that.
DK: So, Mrs Stevens how do you feel about your time in the RAF then?
MS: Oh, we live, we still live RAF. We’ve been to so many reunions and we used to, a few years ago we used to always go up to the reunions and stay at the Petwood Hotel.
DK: Yes.
MS: And even now I’m trying to remember the village it’s in and I can’t.
DK: Woodhall Spa.
MS: How right you are. I could have done with you the other day. Somebody was asking me where it was. Woodhall Spa just didn’t come.
DK: My wife and I have stayed there several times. It’s a lovely hotel.
MS: Lovely.
DK: Yeah.
MS: Well, we —
DK: We’ve taken our dogs there as well.
MS: Do you live in Lincolnshire?
DK: Yes. Just south of, north of Stamford and south of Grantham.
MS: Yes. South of Grantham.
DK: South of Grantham. So we’re often at Woodhall Spa. Walking the dogs at the Petwood.
MS: Lovely.
DK: Yeah.
MS: Well, we used to go up for three day breaks fairly often. And we loved it. Oh yes. We, we’re just RAF. I think both my husband and I, if I hadn’t have married I would have stayed in.
DK: Right.
MS: Without any doubt at all. I loved the life. Discipline didn’t come hard to me at all.
SS: No. Her father had been a sergeant major in the Marines and he so he disciplined all the children very well when he was at home to do it but he was actually dealing with anti-slavery training along the African coast.
DK: Right.
SS: Zanzibar was a particular place he used to talk about and he was actually demobbed before the First World War and then he was recalled again for that.
MS: Yes. Then he actually —
SS: He was recalled for the Second World War.
MS: Yes he was. This last war he was called. They put him on digging trenches. He was in his sixties then. But yes.
DK: Ok. That’s great. I’ll stop there. Thanks very much for all of that. That’s wonderful.
MS: Tell me about —
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 Maureen and Sidney Stevens
Creator
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David Kavanagh
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-27
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AStevensM-S160927, PStevensS-M1601, PStevensS-M1602, PStevensS-M1603
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:48:06 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Sidney was inspired to join The Air Force when he was working as an Air Raid Precaution Warden and one night his own home was bombed. The house next door was also destroyed and the lady who had offered him a cup of tea only hours earlier died. He undertook his training in the United States and then flew operations as a pilot with 57 Squadron at RAF Scampton. Maureen joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and worked as a wireless operator in the control tower at RAF Wigsley and RAF Scampton. Sidney and Maureen Stevens met while Sidney was training at the Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Wigsley. They met again when both were based at RAF Scampton when Sidney wanted to meet again the lady whose voice had guided him back again to base from the control tower.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
United States
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1943
1944
57 Squadron
617 Squadron
Air Raid Precautions
aircrew
bombing
civil defence
control tower
crewing up
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
home front
Lancaster
love and romance
Manchester
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Scampton
RAF Wigsley
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1058/11437/PPackhamG1610.2.jpg
58c4a9d2c6787baca9a3a0abe04e24a8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1058/11437/APackhamGH160825.1.mp3
a83e7a7090890f9795d36e04d3cb1040
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
Packham, Geoff
G Packham
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with Pilot Officer Geoff Packham (b. 1922, 161076, 1214349 Royal Air Force), photographs and documents. He flew operations as a pilot with 550 Squadron from RAF North Killingholme and became a prisoner of war after being shot down in June 1944.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Geoff Packham and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Packham, G
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: We’ll ignore that then. OK, so today is Thursday 25th of August 2016. I’m in Hersham in Surrey with Geoff Packham. And also with us is Gary Rushbrooke who we’ll also hear on the tape in a bit and I’m just going to talk to Geoff generally about his life and the RAF and Bomber Command in particular. So, what I’d like to start off with, Geoff, if you will, is just a little bit about your childhood and your background and your parents, just to give a bit of context about your early life, if you like. Where were you born?
GP: Well, I was born in Sheffield, which isn’t far from here of course.
AM: No.
GP: And my father was in the RFC. I have his cap badge still. He was a Lieutenant in the RFC and then they became the RAF of course later on and he actually was posted to an airfield near Canterbury on the London defence and he was flying Sopwith Camels and SE5s, that type of thing. And one day, he was up on patrol when he got shot down, well we think he was shot down by the flak because there was activity in the air and he’d been sent up to patrol, and the big guns of Kent there, used to just fire off. Anyway, poor old Pop’s aeroplane was, err, err, his engine was set on fire and of course they didn’t have parachutes in those days, so poor old Pop had to come down with his aeroplane and crashed very, very badly. Unfortunately, they had just one little seat belt in those days and he got — that broke. It was tied to the tail or something. Anyway, he shot out over of the top and hit his head on the Lewis gun, that was on the top, and was unconscious when he hit the ground about forty feet away. Well his aeroplane of course was still blazing, of course, and some villagers from nearby were looking for the pilot and couldn’t find him. Anyway, he was in the bushes and he finished his flying in the hospital for Officers at Blackpool.
AM: Right. What year are we talking about here?
GP: Pardon?
AM: What year are we talking about here?
GP: Oh, that was 1918.
AM: 1918.
GP: Just towards the end of the War. But they had this squadron there. He was in 50 Squadron. So of course, I was brought up in the aviation world and when the War came of course, I was in Sheffield. I left my Grammar School in 1938. Firth Park Grammar School. And I took a job with the Town Hall, in the audit department. Anyway, this lasted for a couple of years and during that time, we had the Blitz and a couple of Blitzes on Sheffield and by this time, my father was an ARP Warden and I went out to help him with the incendiary bombs and things that were running around the place, and of course this decided me that I’d, I was eighteen at the time, I’d join up in the RAF and [coughs] and go and help out with the War.
AM: Just before we get to the RAF bit then. What was it actually like being in the Blitz?
GP: Oh, it was quite amazing ‘cause they used to drop these mines and things and incendiary bombs, and all we had was a stirrup pump and a bucket of water or some sand to get these things out and even in Broomhill, where, at the south west of the city.
AM: I know it, I know it.
GP: It was bad but of course the main part was the factories and the centre which got bombed.
AM: ‘cause it was armaments. Quite a lot of Sheffield was armaments wasn’t it.
GP: Oh yes. And there were quite a lot of casualties and things. So I joined up and just after the Blitz and my first posting was to Cardington for registering and uniform and things and that was the blue sheds at Cardington and from there on they kept posting me to various stations because they were waiting to get me in to the Training Scheme in Canada, for flying.
AM: So what year was this? Forty —
GP: This was nineteen forty —
GR: Early 1941.
GP: One. Yeah. And all 1941 was taken up with ITW, the training section and you see the stations in there [sound of pages turning], and I was posted up to a station in Acklington, just north of Newcastle, to do odd duties, and eventually I got on to a boat which took me to Halifax in Canada and from there —
AM: What was that like? What was it actually like on the boat? Where did you sail from?
GP: Oh, that was a big boat and there were a lot of submarines and things around, so it was zigzagging all the way across the Atlantic and it was bad weather of course. It was —
GR: Of course this would have been August 1941.
GP: Yeah, that was —
GR: Which was the height of the Atlantic U-boat war and everything so —
GP: Right, yeah.
GR: Yes, it would have been a very dangerous crossing.
GP: Yes, anyway we got there and they took us across to Calgary and in Calgary of course, we got a fine reception because a lot of the people out there were English people who’d emigrated after the First World War and they wanted to know what was happening back home etcetera. So I made lots of friends there and eventually passed the — there were two stages – the Tiger Moth stage and the Oxford.
AM: Had it been decided what you were actually going to be, at this point?
GP: Well they put me on the twin engine ones for the second part of the training. So I was obviously going on Bombers.
AM: So had it already been decided you were going to be a pilot at this stage?
GP: Well that's decided after the first stage of training.
AM: Right, OK.
GP: In the Tiger Moths. I was lucky there because I always seemed to be dubbed with difficulties and I went up on my first solo and the — It was a lovely day, no problem, and the instructor just sort of said, ‘Well, off you go then.’ We'd been doing a bit of drill and spinning and things and he said, ‘OK, well, straight out and go around and come in and do a few landings.’ You see. So I did this. Anyway, in between that time — Oh, the last flight, the wind had blown up the Rockies. It used to produce a strange sort of change of winds and things and the wind had changed and I didn't even look at the wind sock [laughs] and I wondered why I was going a bit fast, but fortunately, it was on the approach. It seemed fast, but I couldn't understand why. But there was a nice long concrete runway, because Air Canada used to use it for civil purposes, you see. And so I managed to stop, and then they came out and started grabbing the wings because the wind was blowing up and they were frightened it would turn over.
GR: Terrible, isn't it.
GP: I got through the test anyway and with a good result and then went on to Oxfords and it got very cold in the winter time and eventually, I think it was January '42 by this time, and I — They gave me a railway ticket and said, ‘You've got a boat going back to England.’ As they did to all the course, and we were one of the first courses out there you see. They said, ‘Go to Halifax and report there.’ And you got three weeks to do it. It takes about four days for the journey and by train, of course, all the way from Medicine Hat there, by that time and to —
AM: Yeah, I'm just visualising.
GP: Nova Scotia, and some of the boys stayed if they had girlfriends. I just went and had a look round Winnipeg and Montreal.
AM: On your own, or with friends?
GP: On the way. Pardon?
AM: Were you on your own or with friends? With other chaps?
GP: No, I was on my own by that time.
AM: Right.
GP: We were allowed to do what we liked so long as we got to Halifax by a certain time, you see.
AM: By the right date.
GP: It was all very informal. So, we — I got across and we went back to the UK where I was shuffled round all over the place. And you'll find most of these stations here and the most I did was as a Staff Pilot at, err, in South Wales. I was flying Whitleys then. I've done most of my time on Whitleys.
GR: Was that while you were still training, or had you done your training?
GP: No, no. I was [pauses] what happened was that they wanted pilots to fly the Whitleys with gunners in the back and we had a Lysander coming upon us with a drogue on the end that they shot at and they did that over the Bristol Channel. So, this was, um, err, let’s see. Porthcawl.
GR: Yeah.
GP: Is the nearest place. Stormy Down was the station and I was there for a year all together because in between, they'd already posted me twice to Brize Norton which had Whitleys towing gliders.
GR: Right.
GP: And for a very short period, I went twice to Brize Norton and came back to my little place in —
GR: So you'd been sent to do, not training, but you were flying as a Pilot Instructor for the other people.
GP: Yes but I didn’t do many hours at all and I don't know why they sent me there. And from there —
GR: 'cause you'd have been expecting to go to an Operational Base.
GP: That's right.
GR: Sure. Yeah.
GP: And at Brize Norton, of course, they were training the Army Pilots to fly the gliders.
AM: Right.
GP: The Horsa gliders. So, um, yeah. I was there for a little while. And then of course, finally to my great pleasure, I got posted to Bomber Command. And I was very lucky because I got the Doncaster set of airfields where I went through the Operational Training Unit. But by this time, I’d got sort of, I should think something like eight hundred hours flying Whitleys.
AM: Flying Whitleys.
GP: And things like that, you know. And it was a piece of cake.
AM: You must have been far more experienced than a lot of the others at that stage.
GP: Yes. I went to one place, by the way, in there and it was on the Wash.
GR: Yeah.
GP: It was an experimental Unit and we had the old Battle of Britain pilots with their Spitfires and we had Wellingtons and we — All fitted with camera guns and it was a station where they were experimenting with tactics to get away from and shoot the other bod down, you know, but I think that’s —
GR: That was Herne, wasn't it?
GP: But — No, no. That's at Bournemouth. It's Kings Lynn, you know.
AM: Yes.
GR: Sutton Bridge.
GP: Sutton Bridge. Yes.
GR: That's it. Yeah. Just before you went to Stormy Down.
GP: Yes. Anyway, yes, it was Finningley, of course, for the Bomber training and I did some time on Wellingtons. In fact, it was a Wellington where we — we used, for dropping. They were dummy raids. When a big wave went out, we went on a decoy and dropped some information, you know, leaflets and things.
AM: Leaflets, yes.
GP: To the French. And also, some, the aluminium foil that we used to use as a diversion to make the Germans think that they were —
GR: Window.
GP: Window. So, there were a few things on the way which were interesting.
GR: Which was quite good because Finningley, Worksop, Windholme.
GP: That's right.
GR: Was all near Sheffield, so you were based near home.
GP: And I was very fortunate because I got a motorbike and my brother and I — I had a brother who also was a pilot. He'd been to America but on the way [telephone rings] he'd burst an eardrum.
AM: OK, we've just paused for the telephone, but we're back. So, we've been talking about the fact that for almost two years, before you went to your Operational Training Unit, you'd been effectively piloting for other trainees learning to shoot and all the rest of it.
GP: Over two years. Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
GP: So, yes, it took a long time to get there but we finally made it and I had this motorcycle of course.
AM: That’s right.
GP: So with my brother who’d been across to America, but because he’d bust his eardrum, he was put back. He was going to be a fighter pilot and he would have made a very good one but he had to come down quickly because there was a tornado coming along and he burst an eardrum and they put him off and he finished up supplying [coughs] food to the Chindits in Burma etcetera, on DC3s. But, so there were three pilots in the family of course. Anyway, he rode motorbikes as well and we did that after the war, but yes, um —
AM: Were you — so all these two years when you were doing piloting, were you anxious to go on Operations? Or were you happy where you were?
GP: Oh yeah. I’d been wanting this right from the very start.
AM: Right.
GP: I was a bit unlucky in that respect. Or lucky.
GR: Or lucky.
GP: But anyway, in the end, I managed it and I got decent reports and I got a crew that selected me actually.
AM: How did that work?
GP: [Laughs].
AM: How did that happen?
GP: And they’d heard that I’d had a lot of experience etcetera and I’ve got the Bomb Aimer’s little letter here that suggested that they chose me because, you know, because of my experience they thought it was better than none. [Laughs]. So, I got a very good crew with me but of course I was spending a lot of my time riding back to Sheffield to see my parents because they’d got two sons, one out in Batavia and places like that. Burma. And me. I’d been out for a year longer of course. Brother Pete was just a little bit younger than I was. So. Anyway we got on well and eventually, I was very fortunate in being just in time to do the first D-Day raid.
GR: ‘Cause you ended up going to 550 Squadron.
GP: Yeah, that’s it.
GR: At Killingholme. And you arrived there on the 24th May 1944.
GP: That’s right.
GR: Yeah.
GP: And it was just in time to — Normally, they gave a couple of flights with the Flight Commander, just to get you experienced on the raid itself but I was lucky that, but unlucky in one way but I went with the Flight Commander. Yeah. And it was the first raid and we raided a coastal battery on the Cherbourg peninsula there.
GR: And I’ll just interrupt to say —
GP: So I had a sort of supervision there.
GR: That your first Operation was on the night of D-Day.
GP: It was.
GR: Because on the night of the 5th of June going into the 6th of June — So your first ever Operation was on the eve.
GP: Yeah.
GR: And then your next Operation was you flew to Paris – was actually on the 6th of June.
AM: Was on D-Day.
GP: That’s right. Well we’ve got some information on there [turns pages] Now wait a minute.
AM: I’ll take copies of this after, if I may.
GP: Yes. Oh yes.
AM: Were you aware, then, so it’s the 5th of June – how aware were you of —
GR: D-Day.
AM: What was actually happening? And you know, that it was —
GP: Oh, we saw them going across actually as we crossed our coast. We saw the fleet and yeah, we have actually a certificate here [sound of pages turning].
GR: So what was the first Operation like? Did it all go smoothly?
GP: Err, it was, yes. Oh, here we are.
AM: Here we are.
GP: That was the original copy.
AM: I’ll take a copy of that, if I may, afterwards.
GR: Yeah.
AM: What was it actually like then on — You’re an experienced pilot, but here you are on your first Operation. Describe it to me.
GP: Well. I was under supervision there you see, of course, which was a little bit of bad luck I think. But, no, I was excited. I’ve always liked danger. [sound of pages turning] You know, we used to race motorbikes and things eventually. No problems as far as that is concerned. But that was the first raid. Incidentally, that bloke, eventually, when I got shot down —
AM: When you say ‘that bloke’ you’re talking about the Com—
GP: Yeah. My Squadron Leader.
AM: Yes.
GR: Yep.
AM: Yep.
GP: He gave me his old aeroplane. And he took a new one and it made quite a difference actually. Because we were both shot down on the same raid, ten days later actually. You can’t believe it, can you? There were three of us shot down out of eighteen that took part. But, yes, it was the same Peter that, I got blasted on Sterkrade.
AM: Yes. We’ll come back to that.
GP: Oh yes. Here we are. We’ve got all these. [sound of pages turning] This is the first raid on D-Day.
You can have a look at all these.
AM: OK.
GR: Yes. There’s a certificate’s given to you for —
AM: Yes. So I’m looking here at a Diploma. La Croix de Guerre. A citation certificate. The — a Valeur Militaire, which hopefully I’ll be able to copy afterwards.
Other 1: Certainly.
AM: What was it actually — I need you to describe to me what it actually felt like.
GP: Well that was an easy raid.
AM: Um.
GP: But —
AM: By ‘easy’ —
GP: Very vital.
AM: Why do you say it was easy?
GP: Well there wasn’t too much flak, ‘cause —
AM: OK.
GP: It was in France.
AM: Umm.
GP: Germany was the worst place to go, of course. And I only did two more. The second one I got shot down on Germany, you see, another [unclear].
AM: So how many Operations all together?
GR: There were seven Operations all together and the first [counting] one, two, three, four, were all over the Normandy coast. But within the space of eleven days, after three years of being in the RAF, in the space of eleven days, seven Operations and shot down on your seventh.
GP: That’s it. Yeah.
AM: Tell me about that then.
GP: Well. It was — night flying was very difficult because the Germans by that time had got a very intense flak system going and they had a very good radar system. Not only on the ground, but in the air. And all these night fighters, some of whom got up to two or three hundred victories, because they were guided on to the aircraft, and they were put in a position where they could see us, but we couldn’t see them ‘cause we were just looking out with our eyeballs, of course. So. And this is what happened to me on the way back from this thing. Anyway, the flak hit us on that last raid and we’ve got — There is a description of that.
AM: I’ll find that.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Let’s find that afterwards. You tell me in your words.
GP: OK. That isn’t quite accurate, but —
AM: Put it down for a minute. Tell me in your own words.
GP: Yes. What happened was that, on that raid, again it was night time and it was about 2 o’clock in the morning on Sterkrade and that again was in the Ruhr which is a heavily defended place. And we got hit something like about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour before we actually got to the target. So, one engine went out and then the second one followed it. Both on the same side. And there was a hole in the nose of the aeroplane. There was a little fire started which went out fortunately. And some of my instruments were missing. And all the hydraulics had gone.
AM: Right.
GP: So we — Oh, the first thing was, we were flying at eighteen thousand feet and everybody else was up at twenty, because we were using an old aeroplane. And there again you’ve got the details of that in the papers. But the Squadron Leader had been using previously etcetera and he got the new one. Anyway, we’d been two thousand feet lower than everybody else all the way of course, which is —
AM: Sitting duck.
GP: And I staggered along with the — I had my bomb aimer, the navigator was helping ‘cause by this time we could see markers going down over the target. The navigator and the radio operator. And they’re all working on this problem down below.
AM: On the hydraulics.
GP: On the hydraulics and such like.
AM: What was the flight engineer doing?
GP: The flight engineer was down below.
AM: He was down there as well.
GP: Yeah, there was a crowd down there and I didn’t know what was going to — because I was having to fly the thing manually of course. And keep it in the air on two engines. So, anyway we were flat out on the other two and we got to the target eventually and we’d lost height obviously but when we circled round we couldn’t open the bomb bays. So we’d got six and a half tons, I think it was, on the aircraft and still quite a bit of fuel so it wasn’t a nice situation and after about five minutes we decided we’d better leave the area ‘cause it was getting too hot. And I set course for — tried to miss the big towns in Holland and we’d only just passed over the — oh, we were still in Germany when we had two fighter attacks on us [laughs] which — At least the gunners shouted. And I did my corkscrewing to evade him.
GR: On two engines.
AM: Even though you’ve only got two engines.
GP: Oh yes. And they could see him at two o’clock in the morning so it was obviously fairly close, and yeah, so we lost more height and more height and what I’d intended was to try and get to the English coast, drop the crew off and then head out to sea.
AM: When you say ‘drop the crew off’, you mean —
GP: Do what I could do with my dingy and my —
AM: Abandon.
GP: Mae West and hope somebody would rescue me, but there was no chance of that after the fighter attack, you see. Anyway.
AM: So where did the fighter get you? You’ve already lost two engines, your hydraulics aren’t working, your bomb bay won’t open.
GP: Yeah. That’s it.
AM: And then the fighter, where did the fighter get you?
GP: And actually, the gunners tried to fire but the gun turrets wouldn’t turn ‘cause they’re on the hydraulics.
GR: ‘Cause of the hydraulics.
GP: So everything was against us. I don’t know why they bothered firing. You know. Anyway. The fighter disappeared, fortunately and we were just over the Dutch border by that time so I bailed the crew out. And they went off and the last thing the bomber mentioned as he went, he was the last one out, he should have been the first. But he’d lost a boot. Tried to kick the — There was a little panel down below that they dropped through and I checked them all out through the front, you see, I got time to do that, and then I left of course and I had to close the throttle on the other two engines to keep the aircraft, well, flying really but I had to take off my mask and helmet and all the communication cables and things like that and the seat belt and things. When I left the controls, I’d been fighting those for a long time then, the aircraft started going down in a spin and the tendency is for you to be thrown around and pulled towards the back of the aircraft so I had a job trying to get down into the little hole that they’d left in the bottom. Anyway, eventually I pulled my parachute cord as soon as I got out and I must have been, well, I hadn’t tightened up my straps. I couldn’t do that. They’re uncomfortable to sit at the tension that you’d normally fly, you know, [background aircraft noise] so they were on but they weren’t tight enough and as I fell through this hole, I fell through the harness and I was left sticking head downwards on my parachute when it opened you see. Anyway, all the others got out ok. But, oh, I’ll continue with my story anyway. But, yes, I managed to pull myself, I was very fit in those days, and I managed to pull myself and hold on to the straps which of course swings the parachute, you know, when you’re pulling on one side and that was fortunate because when I hit the ground, it was right on my backside. The old coccyx took it, and of all things, I landed — It was pouring with rain. Absolutely pouring with rain. It was June and it was a wheat field that I landed in and it was June when all the crop was up.
AM: Yep.
GP: And not only that —
AM: Slightly softer landing.
GP: They explained that to me afterwards that I would have killed myself ‘cause it’s like jumping off the ceiling with those sorts of parachutes. It’s quite a hard landing. And as I was on my backside, it must have been on the upswing of the parachute when I touched down, because I didn’t feel any shock.
AM: You didn’t damage your back. You know, so as you’re coming down, you probably had too much to think about but you’ve left the plane, that’s still —
GP: It’s all very dark.
AM: Could you see what happened to the plane, or was it – Had it gone too far by then?
GP: Well no. It landed fairly close to me.
AM: Right.
GP: So I wasn’t very far away from it.
AM: ‘Cause it’s still got a full bomb load on it and lots of fuel.
GP: And it all went up. Yeah.
AM: Right.
GP: And it landed on a farm in [unclear] and killed seven people unfortunately. I’ve got a picture of the memorial there.
AM: But you wouldn’t have known that at the time. You knew that afterwards.
GP: Well I couldn’t do anything about it.
AM: No, no. And you wouldn’t –presumably you wouldn’t have known anyway at the time.
GP: It was an area where there wasn’t any big buildings but there was a village and this was the interesting thing, that as I’d landed, I just screwed up my parachute and it was in the wheat field and nothing else I could do. But I saw by the glow of the fire that — a church steeple and it was the village steeple, so I made my way. I knew that the War would be over fairly shortly after. We thought in about six months. So, I went to the church to find help which was our briefing as Bomber pilots, of course. If you wanted to get help, you normally went to a church. And I went and sat in a graveyard for the rest of the night and it was only about three hours because it was June and it was about two o’clock I think when I got out of the aeroplane.
AM: Can you remember how you actually felt at this point?
GP: Yeah. [laughs]
AM: Are you really scared? Were you —
GP: Well no, no. It all happens very slowly. I think when you race motorbikes, it’s the same sort of thing, you know.
AM: It’s like slow motion.
GP: Everything seems to slow down. Yeah. And your decisions – I’ve had a lot of experiences in civil flying when I’ve had engine troubles and all sorts of things happen. I’ve been flying passengers around with one engine gone on a twin.
AM: But not with a full bomb load.
GP: And I didn’t tell them either. [laughs]
AM: So you’re sat in the graveyard. Then what?
GP: It’s funny but there was no fear at all.
AM: No.
GP: But I was feeling miserable because it was pouring down with rain still and I was sitting on this — somebody’s resting place and it was a bit hard, so in the morning, I peeped over the wall to the vicarage when I heard a noise and it was the vicar’s wife. I’ve even got the name of the vicar who helped me actually. But it was the start of an Underground movement. This is where the story gets interesting because they got me into the Underground movement and —
AM: What did the vicar’s wife say when she saw you?
GP: [laughs] Well, she looked at me, and you know, well I was in uniform of course so she knew what had happened ‘cause —
AM: Seen the plane.
GP: Things going bang just beside of me [laughs] and yes, I was given a civvy suit and a cardboard collar [laughs] as a tie and a little green Carte d’Identité which said I was deaf and dumb, with a picture on. Yeah, a picture of me. Eventually. And, so I started off down the KLM Line. The Dutch KLM Line.
AM: Dutch KLM Line. What does that stand for?
GP: Well, that was the name they gave it.
AM: Ok.
GP: It was —
GR: All the escape lines had different names.
GP: Yeah, they had different names for all these escape routes.
AM: So, like the Comet Line and things like that.
GP: Yeah. Anyway, you went from safe house to safe house etcetera and amazingly enough, at one of them, they said, ‘You’re going to be joined by another aviator.’ And guess who it was. It was my mid- upper gunner, old Jackson. And he was a bus driver from Salford and he’d joined right on the limit for them. He was thirty-four years of age when he joined and I was only twenty-two by that time, you see, and he looked like Methuselah to me because he’d – They’d dressed him up, you know, in civvies and from there on, we went down this Underground line together. Well, we always walked separately, you know, about thirty metres behind each other and we always had a guide. An armed guide. Who would take us to the next place, you see. Anyway, I got some pictures of one of the helpers. ‘Cause a lot of them were shot after the War. Well, during that time of course, when they were caught. But anyway, we went all the way through and we went through Brader which was a Leave Centre for the Germans during that time and it was full of Germans and there was me, you know, fresh-faced little bloke with a thing.
AM: Deaf and dumb.
GP: And if anybody had asked me for my passport, or even shouted, I would’ve turned round, you know. [laughs]
AM: You couldn’t speak. You were dumb. Or supposed to be.
GP: [laughs] I’d have said I was Russian or — it wouldn’t matter, you know. But, I was deaf and dumb. It was as sophisticated as that. And I’ve got a full report on the KLM line until it got to the border in there, which is interesting. Anyway, we finally came to Antwerp in Belgium and we were put in a flat with — And I’ve got a picture of the lady who was there, and the rest of it. We stayed for three days and we ate beautifully.
AM: Still just the two of you or had other people —
GP: There were two of us, yeah.
AM: Still just the two of you.
GP: Oh, all the rest had been picked up except for the bomb aimer who went a different route down the escape things. He was caught eventually. But they were sent off to the NCO Camps and I was an Officer of course, so I got sent to a different camp.
AM: Oh, hang on. You’d not been caught yet.
GP: Yes, so we finished up in this flat and we were fed well and a very nice woman there and of course we chatted and the Front was advancing, of course, towards Belgium by that time. And then they said, ‘Well, we’re going to go and try and get through to the lines,’ you know, ‘We’re going West.’ And they were going to put us in an ambulance and bandage us up and take us. [laughs] Anyway, we went out to this place and we got into a car to take us out to the ambulance and all of a sudden — Oh, we were being escorted by a great big bloke who was supposed to be the girlfriend of this, the one in the flat, you see. Er, sorry, her boyfriend.
AM: Her boyfriend.
GP: And yeah, we thought we were on the way and all of a sudden he pulls out a gun and said, ‘OK. So for you, the War is over.’ And this is the fascinating thing, he turned out to be — [laughs] It’s all in here and it really should be read because it’s a lovely, lovely story. [sound of pages being turned]
GR: Which we will do, but tell us who he was.
AM: We will do. Carry on telling me. We’ll come to the [unclear]
GP: A character called René Van Muylem. And he was a Belgian who had Nazi sympathies.
AM: Right.
GP: And what had happened was that he’d got hold of the papers from one of our SOE agents who were being landed in France to help set up these lines, you see. And they’d captured this bloke, taken his papers off. Oh, René had them. And then he started organising the thing. Of course, instead of running up the line and picking everybody up, he just stayed there.
AM: Waited at the end of it.
GP: And a hundred and seventy-seven airmen were caught with the same system. And they used a flat, the flat that I was in, and a café for the two places in Antwerp were —
AM: They were all picked up.
GP: They were put. Yeah.
AM: It’s like drawing you to the centre of a spider’s web.
GP: Yeah.
AM: Just drawing you in.
GP: That’s right.
AM: Did the woman in the flat know about — Was she an infiltrator as well or was she a goodie?
GP: This is what worried me, because I didn’t know whether she was one of them or one of us. So, nothing happened actually because the papers weren’t allowed to be released until fifty years afterwards. And that was to avoid —
AM: Reprisals.
GP: Revenge attacks and things like that. So it wasn’t until 1995 that they were released and I’ve got a picture of, I’ve got another paper from the Escapers Society which explains all this, about it.
AM: Right. In the meanwhile, so for you, the War is over, then what happened?
GP: Oh, that was it. Well of course we went off to the place where they interrogated us. Still in Belgium. And then we were taken to Frankfurt.
AM: What was interrogation like?
GP: Well it wasn’t tough. I think the Germans were beginning to realise that they were losing the War and they were afraid of, you know, retribution afterwards, of course. So, they interrogated. It wasn’t pleasant. They threatened you, but, that sort of thing, but they obviously weren’t going to beat you up and things, so it wasn’t bad. And while I was in Frankfurt, this is another interesting thing, we had an air raid and it was night time of course. Another RAF one. And we were all sent down to an enormous underground shelter and there were all these Germans in there and there was thirty of us.
AM: Were you still in uniform? No, you weren’t in uniform by this time, were you? ‘Cause you were in disguises.
GP: No, I’d got civvies. And old Jack had too. Anyway they, yeah, they put us down there and put us in a little corner but I expected to be, you know, strung up from the roof because Frankfurt had been absolutely battered for a long time and in the morning, we came out and all I could remember seeing was the cathedral spire. Everything was as flat as a pancake, you know, it had all been bombed. I’m amazed that the Germans were so, you know, controlled. You know. Yes. Anyway, so there we were. Oh, I missed out just one little bit. We were put into Antwerp prison first and waited until there was thirty people there and then they took them all down for interrogation together.
AM: Together.
GP: Frankfurt thing. So. And we were the first ones in, so they were picking out one a day, I calculate, because it took about a month before we were shifted from Antwerp jail. From where we watched the fighter bombers attacking the local airfield at Evère. And it was — it wasn’t a very pleasant place. We used to have to amuse ourselves by killing the bugs, you know. They were full of blood and things. [laughs]
AM: What about food? Did they feed you ok?
GP: Yeah, oh, the — In Frankfurt, that was the second time I’d been Blitzed, you see. A third time. We’d had two by the Luftwaffe and then this one by the [unclear]. You can’t believe it can you? Anyway, from there I was taken up to Bath. It was an Officers’ place. So we didn’t have to work or anything like that. And the others were taken over to — I don’t know whether it was Sagen [?] or — but anyway, they had one of these — that was the navigator and well, all the rest had these marches when the Germans —
AM: Long march, yes.
GP: Were trying to get them West to keep them out of the Russians’ way.
GR: Just backtracking, did all the crew get out? Did all —
GP: They all got out, yes. And we met again at the squadron afterwards. You know, after the War. But they had this long walk to do and — nasty for them. And I was all the way up near Lübeck and it was so far that they decided that they’d send us Flying Fortresses to get back home. Which was rather nice. We were right by a Luftwaffe airfield. A fighter airfield which had been mined etcetera so we were delayed while the —
AM: How long were you there though, before the end of the War? How long were you there when —
GP: Well I wasn’t long there. I was in the prison camp by August and we came out in May.
AM: So, for nine months.
GP: ’45.
AM: Nine months.
GP: Nine months, yeah.
AM: What was that like?
GP: The prison camp, it was fine and it was run by an ex Luftwaffe pilot from the First World War so he was very good and he was very strictly according to the rules and things. The only trouble was, of course, that we’d bombed all the railway lines and all the junctions and things and they couldn’t get Red Cross parcels through, except on a very small scale and so we got very thin and also of course, we were writing letters but they never got home.
AM: No way of getting them.
GP: Because there was no, even the Red Cross couldn’t get them through, so my parents of course, all this time, had got the message that I was missing but no news, and of course, as time went on, with brother Pete still fighting the Japanese, it wasn’t a happy position.
AM: No.
GP: And this is another thing, of course, that very fortunately, one of those letters that I wrote home, which didn’t get there, was read out by Lord Haw-Haw. The whole thing. I’ve got a copy there. Over the radio. Well my parents didn’t listen to the broadcast, but we got letters. Well, Mum and Pop got letters from all over the place.
AM: We’ve heard —
GP: ‘Did you hear that your son was alive?’ You know. ‘He’s in the prison camp.’ You know, sort of thing. And I was asking them if my motorbike had been sent back from the squadron, and things like that. You know, [laughs] so, yeah, old Haw-Haw.
AM: Fame.
GP: He was a friend to me.
[laughter]
GP: I’ve got a wonderful, wonderful thing here. You must reproduce that.
AM: I will do.
GR: Oh, we will do.
GP: It’s an explanation of why he was actually — It’s a whole thing of why he was hung.
GR: Hung. Yeah.
GP: Hanged.
GR: Hanged after the war.
AM: Yes.
GP: But that is a real gem of a thing because — I think it’s written by the son of the lawyer who actually was taking the trials at Nuremberg.
AM: Right.
GP: But yes, so, you can photograph all these things, yeah.
AM: I will do. I’ll look at that after. So you’ve been there nine months. Were you able to — Did you know how the war was progressing? Had you got any news of that?
GP: Oh yeah, well, a little bit, yeah. We had a radio etcetera in the thing. And in fact, apart from getting very thin, we used to entertain ourselves. And one of the big entertainments was the arrival weekly — Our toilet facilities were very basic there. It was a long trench with a pole and you sat on the pole and that was it. But they had to empty it you see. Every week.
AM: When you say ‘they’, who’s ‘they’?
[laughter]
GR: The prisoners.
AM: The prisoners had to empty it?
GP: Yeah. [laughs loudly] Anyway, there’s six horses pulling a tank, you see, with a cap on it. A sprung cap. And what they used to do, oh, and a pipe which used to down into the Mess. And we’d all stand around. There was about two thousand of us in this camp. We’d all stand around and the bloke would throw in some petrol or something, and it lit. And it blew the top off and of course all the air went out and produced suction in the pipe. [laughs] And the old six horses would go off and that was the job done. It used to amuse us, you know. We had little — We had, from the Red Cross, who’d been able to operate previously, we had twelve chess sets and the, er, we had the Canadian champion chess set man and he used to lie on a bunk. We used to have bunks, three deep, you see, in these wooden huts with about a hundred and forty people in them. The huts were built off the ground so you couldn’t dig a tunnel or anything. And in any case, it was so far from anywhere, it wasn’t worth trying, you know. But he used to lie on his thing and he’d say, ‘OK, well, you move your things and tell me what you’ve done on your chess sets.’ And he’d play eleven people and he’d win every time. And he’d got a memory of everybody’s move.
GR: So he was playing eleven different people at once.
GP: And we used to have little shows and things, but time went very quickly because we knew the War was finishing. And then the Russians came, of course. And that was a tricky moment because we were let out of the camp. Well, the Germans disappeared.
AM: So the Germans just went.
GP: And we got out of the camp. And then the Russian — It was the people behind the front, they weren’t the actual soldiers, came charging in and we’d commandeered bicycles [aircraft noise] from anybody we saw, and things like that, and we were killing anything we could find to eat, you know, and things like that. Anyway, the Germans had let us keep our ordinary watches on. Our private watches. Perhaps somebody was riding a bicycle, or they’d got a watch on and these Russians would just, you know, say, ‘I want that.’ Sort of business. And if anybody refused, they shot them. Or killed them. You know. We had three or four people actually killed. So what we did was, to lock everybody back into the [unclear] camp again. It was an amazing situation. Only for a short while. But it also took in the time when we were de-mining the airfield of booby traps and things like that.
AM: Again, when you say ‘we’.
GP: Well, I was one of the bods who was given — about a hundred of us, you know, stayed out. Well, we had our bunks still. And we got out of the place.
AM: Okay. But who did the de-mining?
GP: Pardon?
AM: Who did the de-mining? Who actually did it?
GP: De-mining, yeah. And booby trap, looking for, you see and things like that.
AM: But who?
GP: And that took — No, I didn’t do that.
AM: No, ok.
GP: But anyway, yeah, after about, oh, it’d be a couple of weeks, in which time, I’d already sat in a Focke- Wulf 190, one of their airplanes! And been hauled out by a Russian actually. Yeah. Because he thought it was going to be mined and if I touched anything it might blow up, you know. But anyway, it was all good fun and eventually we were taken off by Flying Fortress and flew back into England. Yeah. So it was quite a trip and all very exciting, but when you go through a place like Breda, and you’re sitting in a tram or a bus, we used to use bicycles and all sorts of things to travel, and people are looking, you know, opposite you, and looking at you and you wonder whether they’re German, or, you know, ‘cause there was a lot of [unclear] intelligence people floating round, Gestapo and things. And even the bods with tin helmets on and things, you wonder whether they’re going to stop you, and things. And with this little green pass it would have been hopeless. If they’d talked to me, I would have involuntarily, sort of, [laughs] responded to them and turned my head or something like that.
AM: When the Flying Fort— There were two thousand, did you say, there? Did you say there were two thousand of you in the camp?
GP: Yes, yeah.
AM: So when the Flying Fortresses turned up, how long did that take then to actually get you all out?
GP: Oh, I don’t know, but, oh, and I went in the hangar you see, and pinched a whole load of tools, ‘cause I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to get something out of these bods.’ [laughs] And I got this little bag of tools, well it was quite a heavy one, and tried to get on the Fortress and they said, ‘We won’t get airborne with that lot.’ And I had to throw half of them away and I’ve still got some millimetre spanners in there. And I had an electric drill and all sorts of things.
GR: Oh God.
GP: That I’d pinched from the Luftwaffe.
[laughter]
AM: So where did you — What was it like when you landed back then? Where did you land back in the Flying Fortress?
GP: Well, um, I don’t know where we landed actually.
AM: In England or —
GP: Then, what happened was that Princess Elizabeth, before she was Queen, had a house in Ascot.
AM: Yes.
GP: And the first thing they did was send the Officers, some of the Officers, there to just generally feed them up and get them back to a decent weight and things and give them time. They could go to lectures if the wanted to and we had a little WAAF to look after us and things like that.
AM: Did you have to be de-loused?
GP: Yeah. And we used her house in Ascot there. It’s now a big administrative building, but, in Sunning—
AM: Sunningdale?
GP: Not in Ascot. It was Sunning—. Sunningdale. Sunningdale. Yeah. So. And we had a little time there and then I was posted off to Ely as an Assistant Air Traffic Controller.
AM: At what point did you get to go home and see your parents?
GP: Oh, I was able to go home.
AM: More or less straight away.
GP: Yep. So, but, yeah. So that was a little bonus. But I stayed in the RAFVR because they weren’t quite sure about whether we were going to fight the Russians and things like that, so I stayed there and eventually I got my green ticket, you know, that allowed me the commercial pilot’s licence and then started looking for a job. But I didn’t get a job for six years. Yes, BEA, of course what had happened was that I’d been in the prison camp without flying for, you know, um —
AM: Nine months.
GP: Nine months at least, so — And all the jobs had gone by that time and they were mostly transport aircraft pilots who were given the jobs, so — And it wasn’t until 1952 and I was on my honeymoon.
Other 1: Yes.
AM: I was going to ask you where you met your wife.
[unclear background conversation]
GP: Taken there. She’s sixty years of age there, do you know.
AM: Gosh.
GP: We were retired and that’s just at the bottom of the road there.
AM: Yeah.
GP: Anyway.
GR: Did you meet your wife after the war? Or had you already known her?
GP: No, I met her after the war because what I’d done was to go back to my audit department, you see.
AM: I was going to ask what you did in those years before you actually got your job in flying again then.
GP: Yes, so, it was a good time because brother Pete came back from Japan and we raced motorbikes. These sort of things.
AM: When you say you raced motorbikes. What level? [sound of aircraft]
[sound of pages being turned]
AM: What? Where? Gosh.
GP: That’s us. [laughs]
AM: I’ve got some wonderful pictures here, for the tape.
GP: Oh, yeah, but I —
AM: Of Geoff and his brother on motorbikes.
GP: Don’t take that. This sepia, I tried to wipe something off and it’s —
AM: And it’s —
GP: Those are my nephews and things.
AM: Gosh.
GP: But there’s some lovely pictures there.
AM: I’m sure I can scan one of them.
GP: Yeah.
GR: So would that have been speedway? Was that —
AM: With motorbikes.
GP: We used to do grass tracks, trials, hill climbs and even the road racing at Cadwell Park and things.
GR: Oh yeah, I’ve heard of Cadwell.
AM: Yeah. So, but, so —
GP: Those were in Belgium, I took those.
AM: So you went back to the audit department at the town hall.
GP: So I went back to the audit department.
AM: But had the time of your life on motorbikes.
GP: And there, I met my fate, you see because I was an auditor and my wife was a cashier in the education department and by chance, I happened to be given that. We used to swap over these departments to audit, you see. I was given the education and there was a great big conference room with a mahogany table and a whole load of busts and things around the side looking at you. And I used to sit there and the cashiers’ office was right by. There was Stella and a good friend. She’s still living. As two little girls in the cashiers’ office, you see, and she used to bring me ledgers and journals and things to look at, you see. So, we had a six — we had a five-year courtship because she was looking out for an old Mum who had a very violent husband and she wasn’t in a hurry to get married and of course I was racing motorbikes with my brother, so we were both in the same boat really.
AM: Well, not quite.
[laughter]
AM: You were enjoying yourself on motorbikes.
GP: [laughs] That’s right, yeah. Well eventually, yeah, we decided that this was it and by sheer chance I met — oh, no, an advert came up from Sabena and they were short of pilots, you see, and they wanted a dozen to make up their fleet and I wrote in to them and I’d got my commercial by this [unclear] from the RAF really. Anyway, yeah, I was one of those selected, so I threw up my job and it was a bit of a gamble because I had to go over there and my English licence wasn’t good enough for the Belgians.
AM: ‘Cause what was — I was going to say, what was Sabena? That was Belgian.
GP: Commercial, yeah. So I had to take all my exams. There were about twelve different subjects and things in it and I also had to pass a medical every six months and things and flying tests and the rest of it. So I took a chance and they put me in Brussels of course. Well, you know, Brussels, and I could have gone and seen this woman of course but I didn’t because I still wasn’t sure.
AM: Still wasn’t sure whether she was a goodie or a baddie.
GP: Anyway, I passed the exam. I think partly because I took one or two of them in French which I could speak anyway and they were laughing at my accent [laughs]. Always used to do that. Yes. And from there on, I did ten years with them and then Stella had little chicos and we had to evacuate the Congo. And that was quite a thing. It was war-time footing and I was without sleep for two consecutive nights occasionally and still flying the aeroplane.
AM: Was this commercial aircraft then or passenger or —
GP: Sabena did it, yeah. We had our internal lines in the Congo.
GR: Because the Congo at the time was Belgian wasn’t it.
AM: Oh, of course, Belgian Congo. Of course.
GR: And that’s why the Belgians would have used their civil aircraft to evacuate.
GP: That’s right.
AM: I understand. I’m with you.
GP: There was two blacks fighting it out too. Tshombe and Lumumba. And they were trying to get the Belgians out. There were a lot of Belgians used to work down there, of course. It was a very good place. Especially Katanga, the — And Elizabeth. They were very, very wealthy places ‘cause they had the gold mines, the copper mines and all that sort of thing and Léopoldville was the centre of the place. Anyway, we had to go and get all these people out from their places and it was a question of twice as many people, on occasions, than there were seats for them. And they were sitting in the aisle and in the toilet and they were in the cockpit with us and everything. And the aircraft were overloaded and things and we were having to — on the return journey, and we were so overloaded that we could only take a little bit of fuel so we’d have to land in all these odd places in Africa on the way back. My job was the captain, you see, was in those days, getting the women and children out first, was to put on — there wasn’t a lot of steps to our aircraft and stand at the top and stop anybody else coming in. We used to get some people saying, ‘I’m the Ambassador to so-and-so. And I need to get —’ [laughs] And you’d say, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t get on here.’ And while the First Officer used to — the only people who were left in the Congo really were the Air Traffic Controllers who were usually English. Amazing isn’t it. But it was a time when my wife had just had the babies and of course I could get home and sleep for twenty-four hours, take her out to lunch and back on the job.
AM: Where was she —? Where were you living? Where was she living?
GP: We were in — She was in Brussels.
AM: In Brussels.
GP: We used to live just outside and we had this little — a dozen of us. The other pilots and their wives, if they weren’t flying, would look after the one whose wasn’t there. But we used to fly — one of the reasons why Sabena was good was because they used to pay twice as much as BOAC but of course we used to work twice as hard, you see, so, but in the end, it was the children that decided me to pack up the flying and by sheer chance, here again you know, someone’s looked after me, they were starting up the Flight Ops Inspectorate in the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. They’d had an accident at Hounslow, where an aircraft had piled in to a load of council houses and killed a few people and they found out it was overloaded and under-serviced and things for repairs and things and they needed some check and they were looking for airline pilots of course, because when you check a company out, you’ve got to check the pilots as well. As the cruises will. So, we used to look at the ops manuals and training manuals, look at the standard of things and then give a certificate to fly certain type of aircraft in a certain part of the world depending at the facilities at the — you know, what sort of training they have and that. And it turned out then the most interesting job I’ve ever had because they gave me all-weather operations so I flew the Trident, before the pilots did of course, with the manufacturer, and I flew that right to the very end of my career, in 1982. There’s a lovely picture I think of my last — [pages turning] oh, that was the one with the Concorde and that’s before there was a Concorde aircraft available. They hadn’t got one then.
AM: So you flew — Did you fly Concorde?
GP: And that’s a mock-up for the —
AM: Did you fly Concorde?
GP: No, no, I — Unfortunately. That’s a bloke from Stansted, our —
AM: We’re looking at a photo in the album now.
GP: And that’s me at the other end.
AM: Right.
GP: And I’m with the Inspector you see.
AM: Got you.
GP: And they made him into — When I retired, this is —
AM: He became you, yeah.
GP: I only did about five years on this. So I used to do the simulator. Oh that’s old [unclear].
AM: No, I’ll look at that. I’ll look at these afterwards. Can I ask you one last, one last thing. So the — going back to the escape line, and the flats and the lady who you didn’t know whether she was a goodie or a baddie, but you eventually did find out.
GP: Yeah.
AM: So how did you find out? When the papers were released, I think you said.
GP: Um, well, it was, hang on.
AM: Did she turn out to be a goodie or a baddie? A goodie I assume.
GP: She was a goodie.
AM: Good.
GP: Yeah. And yes, she was clean and I felt so sad but by this time it was fifty years later.
AM: Did you meet her? Did you go and meet her?
GP: No, I didn’t, no.
AM: No.
GP: I don’t know whether she was alive or not. But anyway, we can — whatever you want to talk about.
AM: OK. I’ll —
GP: We’ll go through these in a bit.
AM: We’ve got lots of papers to look at, so I’m going to switch off now and start looking at these.
GP: Ok.
AM: And get my scanner out.
GP: Well there we are. That’s the hill where my aircraft was —
AM: OK. Who put the memorial up?
GP: Well, now of course, the whole place is built up.
AM: Yes.
GP: And by sheer chance, my mid-upper gunner, old Jack Jackson has a daughter who’s married a Dutchman and they took these pictures.
AM: Who actually erected the memorial though?
GP: Um?
AM: Who actually erected it? The Dutch people?
GP: Oh yeah. And that’s the — the thing on there, that’s part of the aircraft. That’s the aluminium that’s come off the aircraft.
GR: Just before you go on, that Dutch escape line was actually — The whole thing was turned by the Germans in 1942. From 1942 onwards, the Germans controlled all the SOE coming into Holland. They knew what was happening and everything.
GP: Yeah.
GR: And, as I understand it, ‘cos I spoke to a couple of other chaps who were turned over, exactly the same as you. And I believe after the war, the big bloke who got his gun out to you, he was hung.
GP: He was. No, he was shot.
GR: Shot. Yeah, I know he was —
GP: In a baker’s yard. And the story is here.
AM: We’ve got the story of that as well.
GP: Oh, I see.
AM: Ok.
GR: But I do believe all —
AM: So the bloke who actually turned Geoff in, [reading aloud] ‘Robert René Van Muylem is a very interesting and complex character. He was finally arrested in Paris in 1945 whilst working as a bartender at Camp Lucky Strike. It was one of the US Army Air Force Repatriation Centres and was where, unfortunately for him, he was recognised by Second Lieutenant Robert Hoke of the 388 BG, one of the airmen he betrayed. He was sent back to Belgium and thoroughly de-briefed and he was executed in 1947.’
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 Geoff Packham
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-08-25
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APackhamGH160825, PPackhamG1610
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:21:22 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1944-05
1944-06
1945
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Alberta--Medicine Hat
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Nova Scotia--Halifax
Alberta
Alberta
Canada
Nova Scotia
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Description
An account of the resource
Geoff’s father had been in the Royal Flying Corps and Geoff joined the Royal Air Force at RAF Cardington. He was posted to various stations before going to Halifax in Canada to train as a pilot on Tiger Moths and then Oxfords.
On his return, Geoff was posted to RAF Stormy Down on Whitleys and RAF Brize Norton where he trained army pilots to fly Horsa gliders. He was also posted to fly Wellingtons at the RAF Sutton Bridge experimental unit.
Geoff was eventually posted to Bomber Command and trained on Wellingtons at RAF Finningley. They did dummy raids, and dropped leaflets and Window. Geoff went to 550 Squadron at RAF North Killingholme in May 1944. He completed seven operations within 11 days and was shot down on the seventh. The first four operations were over the Normandy coast, starting on 5 June 1944 around D-Day.
Geoff describes how his plane was shot on its way to Sterkrade in the Ruhr. They baled out just over the Dutch border. Geoff landed in a wheat field whilst the aircraft hit a farm, killing seven people. Geoff found the church and was given clothing and a false identity card. He went down the escape line with his mid-upper gunner to Antwerp. They were betrayed by the Flemish collaborator, René van Muylem, who had set up a false escape line.
Geoff was interrogated and taken to Frankfurt. He was then sent to Stalag Luft I prisoner of war camp in Barth for nine months. There was little food but it was otherwise acceptable. His parents learnt he was a prisoner when his letter to them was read out by Lord Haw-Haw. The Germans left before the Russians arrived. Geoff was returned on a B-17.
Geoff was posted to Ely as Assistant Air Traffic Controller and stayed in the RAF volunteer reserve until his commercial pilot licence was granted.
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
550 Squadron
Air Raid Precautions
B-17
bale out
bombing
civil defence
Dulag Luft
evading
Horsa
memorial
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
prisoner of war
RAF North Killingholme
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Sutton Bridge
sanitation
shot down
Stalag Luft 1
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Whitley
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1053/11431/AOttawayM161121.2.mp3
d38c11a1b8b0125239c232cec6f51ab0
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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Ottaway, Margaret
M Ottaway
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Margaret Ottaway MBE (b. 1933).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Ottaway, M
Transcribed audio recording
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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 Margaret Ottaway. The interview is taking place at Ms. Ottaway’s house in Louth, Lincolnshire, on the 21st November 2016. Can you tell me a bit about your childhood?
MO: I can. My mother and father were married before the First World War and they both grew up in Grimsby, Cleethorpes area and my father was one of twelve, and very poor and my mother was one of three and I don’t know why they came to Louth but they came to Louth, well, before I was born and before my late brother was born. But I think there were seven children and I am the sixth of seven. They lost two little boys, one when he was three, I think it was, and the other was three months and of course in those days there was no family allowance or help and of course the standard of the food was very poor and especially in a dock town and so my parents had that to cope with and I don’t know how they coped with it really, they came to Louth and then there was my brother who was seven years older than me, my sister was ten years older than me and I had a brother who was five years older than me and then we had a little sister, Prue, I don’t know when, a long, long time ago now we found out that she was Down syndrome and you can look at the photograph and see she was and we came to live in Louth and they lived in several houses before we lived on the top of Grimsby Road and the A16 as it was and when I was a little girl was a semi-detached house and of course there was not the population and there wasn’t the traffic and there weren’t the dangers even though it was wartime, as a child, you know, and I was always, had this outgoing attitude, I must have had because I can remember going into nearly all the houses both sides of the road, my younger sister didn’t come with me very often but she did come to some of the houses and you know, when you are a child, if you have a community, you are very cherished and I’ve realised that obviously more as I got older cause I love children and I’ve always loved children but anyway, oh, I know my father was in the army although because of his health he actually was registered in the army for a very short time I have some information about that and my mother was, worked in the Toc H in Louth and there were three houses and my maternal grandma who lived in Cleethorpes and was killed with my mum eventually, she spent a lot of time in our house because there was always sowing jobs to do and she used to make dresses for us and all that sort of thing, so my mother didn’t work and we always had a cleaning lady, some lovely cleaning ladies and one is still alive now and we had a very happy childhood from what I can remember, I know my brother who was five years older than me, he was always aggravating me and my older brother that by that time he’d gone into the RAF and in 1941 he was in [unclear] down in Bedfordshire but they were always at me, like big brothers are but I think it’s been a really good training because then of course my father started with a, in the 1920s with one lorry which was solid tyres which of course I’m drawing off and I got a photograph of, that’s a thing I must say, it’s staggering, we all know when photography started, well, I don’t know the exact year, but you know, it’s all these photographs, they are so important, and it’s alright having things on gadgets like computers but they can be wiped off and the hard copies that I am about to show you, it’s amazing, anyway my father started with one lorry and by the time I was around, there were about thirty, which is a photograph over there, and so he had thirty drivers and his business yard at the time was down in what is now Church Street, opposite the bus station but it was called Maiden Road and it was, I can see it now, because as a child, you know, you did lots of exciting things, really, like children do today but a totally different scale. But we had, always had this cleaning lady, the one we had at the time, she had brothers and they either had a small holding across the road, at the top of Grimsby Road, or they were, her father was a farm worker, of course we had a big farm at the back of us, relatively big not like today, called Howard’s, Mr and Ms, Howard and then we had Fanthorpe Lane, which is still there, but it’s dissected by the bypass and I used to go down there to take Sunday papers to this family called [unclear] and this family is been established a long while and people have said to me, in some of the things I’ve done in my life, the stability of families in an area like this does contribute to the community spirit that people that are strangers say, there is, I know there’s a community spirit but they feel it when they come in, so I’m very lucky because I have all sorts of proof about what happened to me because I didn’t know what happened to me except that my godparents were from King’s Lynn and they used to come and stay, we only had three bedrooms and we had, you know, Len, Darcy, John, Margret and Mary and mum and dad, so where we all slept I don’t know, we also had an air raid shelter, cause my father having thirty lorries was a very wealthy man for the time and but the family had a phone call from my auntie in Grimsby to say they were coming over for tea on Sunday afternoon, because one of her brother-in-law’s got a gallon of petrol from the army, that was a fatal thing to do, I can tell you, so they came from Grimsby and there was my auntie Violet, my uncle Walt, Genie, who was five as far as I know, and my uncle’s brother and his wife, they came in this, in the car and parked outside and they stopped for tea, usually one of my sister’s best friends used to come up to the house to keep me, to see my mum as well and my elder brother’s girlfriend used to come, when, if there’s anything on the siren, to keep my mum company and with the children, you see, on this occasion, because they knew the Grimsby family was coming for tea, they didn’t come, so they were all getting ready to get back to Grimsby, according to my late brother, who was in the house and he was upstairs, we were, for whatever reason, downstairs, my sister, my cousin and myself, we’d been put to bed downstairs in the front room, obviously we couldn’t all get into the air raid shelter, but I had no proof of why we didn’t go in but I assume it’s because of too many and as soon as the siren went, my father got his uniform on as a special constable and together with another lady called Ivy Platt who was very, very deaf and who was, the Platt family were big friends with my father’s, even when I was a little girl of four, [unclear] the photograph there and I don’t know how long they’d been friends but I think Ms Platt’s husband probably got into some financial difficulties, he was a grocer in Louth just up the road from where we are now and my sister Dorothy was an air raid warden at seventeen so they went down into the town, they took Ivy to her mum’s, Ms Platt and then dad went on duty and my sister went on duty with the air raid wardens cause they had different areas that they did, I mean, I don’t know cause I never asked her you see, you don’t ask [unclear] and I have all the records and just exactly what the gentlemen wrote Mr [unclear] that roughly it gives the time, it’s the official document, give the time, two screaming bombs were dropped on Louth at the top, at Grimsby Road, we don’t know exactly where but later found out it had dropped on a house and people were killed and injured, we later found out, seven were injured, seven were killed in that incident, we later found out that it was A W Jaines, Arthur Jaines, a special constable, it landed at his house so he’s lost with his daughter who was an air raid warden, fellow air raid warden, they lost seven of their kin and the seventh one was actually the lady who was visiting her daughter next door. And all I can remember is being aware that I was under rubble, trapped in rubble and that’s all I was aware of, you know, then I heard a drill and then I remember very little about being actually rescued and then the next thing I remember is being in one of the either the Toc H houses or the red cross places and you know those little beakers they used to drink out of, with the little spouts, I’ve got an example upstairs. Well, I can remember being offered that and a seven year old, as I say, I must emphasize this, you weren’t like you are today, are today, and I remember the atmosphere in that place, and there was someone brought in on the stretcher, now I obviously don’t know and I’ve never investigated it if it would be one of our family because of course it’s not far from the top of Grimsby Road to the hospital and then, so I don’t know about that, I do know that my brother who died last year, John, who was thirteen, I do know that he went somehow, my father wasn’t allowed to go up to Grimsby Road, which he wanted to do, and obviously my sister would be with him, and they went to Ms Platt’s because Connie was a red cross nurse although she was only seventeen and she was engaged to a police officer and so their home became a sort of centre for my dad and my sister and they had one of those metal shelters under their table cause they lived behind the shop and the shop, you know, is packed with things and they have this metal table and my, Ivy was also under the table and I have a tape where my Ms Connie who became my step aunt, she recorded it with her son cause I kept saying to her, why don’t you write it down? Cause I think, because she was seventeen, and far more aware, she couldn’t face writing it down, so her son, who’s, I think he’s retired now, but he has two chairs at the university, I think one was Cardiff, and I’ve been meaning to speak to him about it really, but anyway, so I also remember, going to my, being taken, I don’t know who took me but to my uncle’s house on Brackenborough Road, just near the post office on Brackenborough because my, a lot of my cousins of my generation have all died and with my father being one of twelve, some of the family came here, four of them came to live here because my father was here, and the others stayed in Grimsby so we’ve like two families. And my cousin who died several years ago now, she often used to tease me, she said, when you came that night, she said, it was about midnight I think, and you got into my bed and it was just like sleeping in a bed where you’ve been eating biscuits, that’ll be of ruttle, wasn’t it? And she said, I remember when you went to the lavatory, it was all lino in those days, the grit fell out of your trousers and she used to tease me about that but I, the next day I went to live at [unclear], uhm, I don’t remember being taken there, I think I must have been in shock, you know, and I think I was traumatised and people have said different things but I went to live with this family called John and Ethel Clark and they had a daughter, Beryl, who was a bit older than me and a son called Jim who was a bit younger and the [unclear] school I went to it has a church and it has a big house and we were in the big house, her mum and dad lived there and John Clark’s younger brother Henry lived there and they had cows of course and gas man and the village at the time had a school, a church, and you used to have and walk up cause it was very deep in the Wolds you’d have to walk up, and there’s a museum out there now, with farm machinery and a smith’s family lived there and a railway line runs through there and I can remember, I never seem to be unhappy, I don’t remember being unhappy there, Jim used to tease us a bit but I those days they used to raise money for the prisoner of war parcels and there was a big barn of course and had garden [unclear] and things like that and we went to church [phone rings]
AH: I just switch off.
MO: We always used to walk up to catch the bus at the top cause there’s several [unclear] you know, they’re all the same but if you look at a map you will see from Louth you can go several ways up to the Bluestone Heath Road, which is one of the longest roads, from, you can go from the Lincoln Road right through to the, if you were going to Alford and Skegness and we used to stand at the top there and it was chalk, you know, and it was freezing cold and things like that and then we used to go and I was sent by Ms Clark, bless her little heart, she was a very, very old fashioned lady and it was one of the best things she could have done for me, because I went in the, what they called the kinder garden which, if you walked down Schoolhouse Lane, and facing you is Suffolk House and it says, I think it’s three or even four stories high and then there’s the cellar, and that was where I went to school and I never achieved anything in exams or anything like but I did use to, but it obviously affected me and my teacher, who was a, taught scriptures as we called it and she became the first major of Louth, she would, she’d died unfortunately, her partner, lady partner, she knew me as the major of Louth, but it was amazing really what influence that school has been and still is because I’m still involved with it now all these years on. Anyway, I had a really happy time there, I used to go on the back with the big carthorse and the, you know, the all sorts of different carts on, and we used to, I used to go with Henry, I don’t know how Henry would be now, must ask his son cause his son’s living in Louth now, and I used to go and take the food with him and I was with them from September about the 9th until after Christmas because my dad, of course there was no house left, and we went to, dad lived at Ms Platt’s I think, just along the road here, and my sister, and we were all scattered really, but I don’t ever remember anybody saying to me, I remember one day when I was in the car with Mr Clark, he always had lovely cars and Mrs Clark was very old fashioned really and he was a bit of a lad I’ll have to say [unclear] my dad could have been as well, as most dads are, although not yours of course, and I don’t know why but I just feel that he might have, I might have been with him when the funeral was on cause obviously I wasn’t involved in that and I never asked my brother whether he was but it’ll be, I’ve got the list of the funeral of mourners and everything so that’s another thing we can, I can look at, but about, be about I think three months and then we moved up into a house just opposite the catholic church, in Upgate, they are very big houses those, and because my father had all these workmen, he had one chap called Sid Day, and Sid could do anything, he was actually like the yardman for my dad and his wife, they lived down in Upgate, they’ve widened the road now, [unclear] flow, you go up, there’s no garden and you go up the side of the house and it was all, there was no car pits or anything and it was like a room, but it wasn’t a room, it was more like a big shed but it was within the house, you see, and then you’d go into the kitchen, and then there was a front room which we hardly ever used and she had a big family and there were three girls and four boys I think, and there was a grandma was always there, but they used to babysit me and I used to wander about, you know, a seven year old, I used to go with my dad, seven year old children in my day, you didn’t and if dad happened to be in the Masons Arms, I was allowed in but girls weren’t even allowed in pubs, children, you see, so I’ve had a very different life from any other child at that age and I think that’s why I’ve got so much confidence you see and the other thing is I’m an avid cook and baker, all normal, ordinary stuff, and I can make meringues, I can make lemon meringue but I’m not into this, all this fancy stuff and Mrs Platt had a big kitchen and we all met up in there, cause of course there was a range and it was behind the shop, behind where they weighed all the soutanes and you know, I had a wonderful childhood and lots of love and still do have love from those families, especially my stepfamily and my dad’s friends, you know, four generations on. And not many people can say that, but I do get on people’s noses and I think it’s, my attitude is that bloody Hitler didn’t get me and nobody else did and I had to be tough, I had to be tough, anyway I obviously went to school, I was at Kidgate school but I was very independent and I can remember my, the cousin that I slept with that first night, she had an older sister called Pam and we decided, I should think Pam decided and I was well for it before the bombing that we would cycle to Grimsby and see our granny who lived on [unclear] Road and so, we didn’t tell anybody, and I had a fairy cycle and she would have one a bit bigger and I can remember doing that as if it was yesterday and we stopped at a house for a drink of water as you do, when we arrived at granny Jane’s, she was a very different cup of tea from my other granny, granny Walt, who was killed, we got told off and she rang my dad and we put on the bus and sent back. Now my cousin that I stayed the night with, on the night of the bombing, she actually married a German prisoner of war, which of course upset my father and, but he was a lovely man, much better than the one that Pam married, but I was sent, as I say, to the girls grammar school when I was seven and I went through the school until I was sixteen but I don’t think I got any qualifications, I don’t remember getting any qualifications, and so I left at, well, of course, and years later none of my brothers really encompassed education. Fortunately they’ve had sensible mothers but my father by this time had married Ivy Platt who was a lovely, lovely stepmother, she didn’t have a lot of maternal things with her son but my father was going to be the major when Michael was eighteen months old and so I was, well, I was told that I, cause I loved him anyway, so I looked after Michael so I didn’t go to work and then when the [unclear] was over, I decided I was going to go on work, I decided, I really wanted to be a [unclear] nanny but my father wouldn’t pay, it wasn’t that he couldn’t pay but he wouldn’t pay and probably didn’t want me to go away cause I always have felt for many, many years that I thought my father was protecting me, see, in actual fact, I’ve realized I’m the one that supports everybody else, I’m the tough one. And because I was always with my father and he died when I was twenty four of cancer but he was a very kind man, he was beneficiary to this little hospital, Crowtree Lane hospital, and St Margret’s children home, children’s home and with a group of the business men of the town, you know, they all and of course the war effort, Louth was an amazing place for raising money, you know, and all the railings were cut down and there was concerts in the town hall and it was, you know, I think that’s why I am like I am because there was so many good influences around, had plenty of bad ones but I’m four and [unclear] [laughs] but it was, it was very hard because I wanted to get a job and I went to the international stalls and made an arrangement to see the manager and my father found out and, oh, he was crossed, he was furious, you are not going to work behind a shop counter! If only he knew the things I’ve done to earn money since he died [laughs]. Anyway, I got a job at the Louth district hospital and, as receptionist, and it was five pounds an hour for forty eight hours and we lived at the time back up Grimsby road in a different house and when Michael was born, we actually lived at the house which is called Mount St Mary’s at the bottom of Grimsby Road where you go over the river lodge and where the floods came down in the twenties and then in 2007 and it’s next to the old cemetery and we lived there and then my father’s insurance man didn’t tell the whole truth about licencing and my father had to go to the high court in London, cause I was not really aware of all this, and he was fined fifteen thousand pounds and so he had to sell the house where Michael was born and we went up to Grimsby Road, so but, you know, my father had a rough time and then in the nineteen late forties, early fifties, the Labour government nationalized all [unclear] so, you know, we had no choice, and it broke his heart, broke his heart it did, cause you know, it was his baby, he did actually start another business for a short time but it wasn’t long, he died when he was sixty two. So that takes me as far as me getting married. I don’t know whether I’m telling you what you want to know or if you want to see some of the photographs of the bombing.
AH: I do in a bit but if you carry on.
MO: Right. Well, my late husband was a watch repairer and he used to park his car near the mount near the [unclear] saw him on a regular basis, you see, and so we started to go out a bit cause in those days you weren’t, you didn’t walk in and say to your parents, oh well, so and so has invited me out so I am going, there’s none of that, and so we used to go very regularly to Grimsby to the cinema or Cleethorpes and then to the lovely hotel called Kingsway for afternoon tea and believe you me, if you ever get a young man like that, enjoy it, because if you get married to him, it’ll all stop [laughs] but he was a gentleman, oh, he really, really was, he was often late, he was very casual about his business and at that time he’d been in the RAF, it never occurred to me that he was a lot older than me, he was actually twenty years older than me and he lived with his mother, his widowed mother in Alford, but he also had through his uncle a huge interest, which he was aware of, when they went fishing in a boat up where Bempton Cliffs is, in that area, and he was taken by all the birds and his uncle was interested mildly but anyway he had been in the RAF conscripted, he could have stayed at home and looked after the shop that they had in his, when his father died, this was before I knew him and he decided he didn’t want to do the shop, he was never interested in being a jeweller in a watch repairer but he’d done the training, eight years he was training at Lincoln at Mannsell’s and I have a letter from his father telling him really to pull his finger out and anyway he, at that time he was friendly with people obviously in Alford and they were starting the Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve and he is one of the people that started it, Charles Lenton Ottaway and a lot of the memorabilia that they sent down there after my husband died of course was washed away in the floods, I’ve never been back but we got engaged down there and he was a gentleman of the top order, he really was and we had a lovely wedding and then, as I say, we were living with his mum, he had a sister who didn’t like me apparently, there’s a surprise but I was shocked the letters she wrote to me four years after my husband had died and I looked after her mum for twenty five years, not all the time, but you know, and she was in a nursing home for ten and died when she was ninety six. You get lots of things like that, you know, you do your best and then I think my sister in law never got over the loss of the father when she was eight, it was very bitter and I don’t, I know that when I was twenty two I remember when we had, we moved from here cause we needed another bedroom but kept the shop and I remember thinking, what sort of woman do I want to be? And I decided that I didn’t want to be one that was a bit of a like [unclear] floozy, I wanted to be a proper mother and wife and cook and do and the lady across the road that, her husband used to be a partner of Eve & Ranshaw’s she, I’d known her all my life cause my sister went there to work when she was fourteen I think and if the children were poorly, she would come across and or if she was poorly needed some shopping I would do it and that’s who really, that sort of person is what I wanted to be and I’m not a warrior and I’ve learned over the years that you have to accept some things that happen to you and you don’t have to respond to people unkind to you, you feel sorry for them, I have a huge faith, I am grateful that I married my husband because he brought intellect, no common sense, I’ve got the common sense and no, hadn’t done the intellect got a bit now with the years and a lovely community with my mum and dad and the families that have been so lovely to me and still are, so that’s on the school. The school, my faith, my husband and my family and community and those are the four things that have stood me in good stead really and I am still very motivated, you know, I like to know, [unclear] my finger on the pulse, I get muddled [laughs], I went to put the milk, [unclear] with the milk just this afternoon, I thought you silly woman, you know, you, I was just tiding up I think and I put it in the cupboard, that’s right, where I bought the new porridge to put it [laughs], yes, but the extraordinary thing about the bombs dropping, there were two bombs dropped in February, February the 19th, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, 1941, and they were aimed at the railway station and I really just started to research the names on the memorial although I knew some of them, over the years I’ve known some of them, and the bombs seemed to roll, or one of them did, so it damaged the railway station and it killed a boy who was a grammar school boy and his father was a vicar, and when you walk down Eastgate, past Morrison’s, you come to, you can just see some of the railway bridge and he lived, they lived on, in a smooth brick house which is now for adults with learning difficulties and that’s, I could tell you, I don’t know if it’s [unclear] but the name is still the same and he and his friend had come home from the grammar school and he was a messenger boy, on a bike he used to that and he, his mother sent his friend home who lived across the road, he was from Grimsby really but their family had been evacuated from Grimsby to Louth and his father was a major in the army and he was under the kitchen sink. Now I think the kitchen sink would be like one I got out there now, an oblong of thick porcelain I’ll call it, you know, not, and he was killed and he was sixteen, another lady, there were two or three names on the war memorial where people were injured elsewhere and then died in Louth hospital, that’s why [unclear] war memorial. It’s all very fascinating, it’s all in paperwork I have but it was a obviously it’s, it doesn’t leave you and because of the way my life has gone and it’s now, you know, there’s lots of lovely people, I mean, this picture here, his name is Drewery who has hedgehog care and her daughter is Swing Out Sister, the lead singer in Swing Out Sister and she’s been a jazz singer and she, when I became the major, which was a huge honour, she send me a card and said that she liked and tried to paint a portrait, could I send her a picture of the, of me in the roads with a nice expression. And it’s on hardboard [laughs] and she brought it in one day, to see if I liked, if I was alright, just, if you don’t like it, you know, just put your plants on it, it’s lovely, I think, and I haven’t really realised because I don’t do things for attention, I really, really don’t but I know and a friend said to me yesterday a lady not, she’s older than me, and of course they still remember they’d been in Louth and she said, you’ve done so much for Louth, and everybody is always telling me that, cross with me now because I don’t ask them to do things for me now, but I didn’t realize I was doing it, you see, I was interfering really, I think it’s an interfering busybody, that’s what I am [laughs]. Yeah, if I was to go out and down the passage and see you off and somebody was mouthing off a lot of language, I’d be shouting, I shout out the window in the middle of the night, they wake me up, you know, I’m not scared of anything but mice, I put my grandchildren, my son thinks it’s hilarious, they really do but I’m so grateful that all these things here, you know, there was an exhibition in March in the museum and without people and then here’s an example, this is a letter, I was just tell you this because nowhere or I think only once have I seen my name mentioned in any of the newspaper accounts, the newspaper accounts they don’t say in Louth, in Lincolnshire, they say an eastern market town and G W Clark actually became my step uncle but at the time he was a nineteen year old police officer, he was engaged to Connie Platt and there was a mix up with bodies and because he was a family friend, which obviously he was because Connie isn’t on there and [unclear] isn’t on there but the little girl that I said was Margaret next to me with more hair than me, her mum is just behind her and she was Connie’s elder sister and Ivy was Connie’s elder sister as well, Connie was the youngest of four girls and two boys but this was sent to Bill although it’s G W Clark, Imperial War Graves, 21st of October 1941, Dear Sir, I have to thank you for returning the forms which was sent to you and for the information contained in your letter of the 15th, a form in respect of the late Ms Ward was sent to you with the other forms but apparently had gone stray I’m enclosing another form and would appreciate it if you would kindly complete it and return it to me. Your assumption, that Roland Hallett’s name will be included in the record of his Majesty’s forces is correct. Well, Roland was the brother of my uncle Walt. And it says, yours faithfully, G W Clark, which is really P C Clark, one of their [unclear], now the tape I’ve got, it’s not all as I have been told, you know, she was only seventeen and she brought this copy of this tape and she sat where you’re sitting, and I think I was sat here and she said, I thought it would be nice if we listened to that together, well, I didn’t want to do that, I really, really didn’t, cause I couldn’t say no, so we had a coffee and after the tape had run, I said to her, Connie, is there mentioned in all the press cuttings I’ve got, about why I survived when Mary and Genie didn’t? We were all in the same, if we weren’t in the bedroom we started, we obviously were very close, so she said to me, do you really want to know? And I said, I do, and of course it wouldn’t be easy for her to tell me she said, well, when Bill was sent, well, he went up there obviously because it is all much more casual then it is now, and I mean the whole, the area, there were a lot of people injured and as I say, Howard’s farm, one bomb dropped in the field just on our hedge and then the other one dropped just outside our back door as our two uncles were getting ready, getting the car revved up and ready to go back to Grimsby and so they took the full force, you see, my auntie Violet, who lost her husband and her daughter, she was trapped in the house and it was, you sort of went in and I think there must have been a sink there but it was arranged like [unclear] and she somehow was blown into the fireplace and a police officer was given an award, he’s only been dead a few years now, and he got a commendation for rescuing us, he was very seriously injured, so she said, do you really want to know? I said, yes, so she said, well, they got Genie out and Mary out and they were going to get, and they got to you and they thought you were dead as well and they protected me so that was a bit hard, really. But if it hadn’t been for Bill being there, and you see, because Mary’s name began with M, but on one of the paper cuttings it does say Margaret, but it’s only one. But so what you just have to think that you, I’m driven, I’m absolutely driven, I won’t say I hate being old because, I mean, that’s something that we all get to be, but I hate it that I can’t do and interfere [laughs], some of my fellow counsellors which I drop off the perch [laughs], they’ve had it [laughs], that’s where the, this house wasn’t there then, there was another bungalow and that’s, they were very seriously injured in there and this is the rebuild, and it’s not 32 now, it is a different number, but that was the site and I’m not quite sure what to do about some of these because, was trying to find the house, and that’s the back of the house
AH: Oh Gosh!
MO: And this is not our house, that’ the neighbours, and if you look, this picture here is a bigger one, if you look at these, the window here and our house is here, and this would have been taken down, our house, our remains would have been taken down because it wouldn’t be safe.
AH: No.
MO: Because my brother was upstairs in all this and so, it wasn’t quite as flattened as that, but that shows you, doesn’t it?
AH: This is completely gone.
MO: And my brother, when he went to, cause Connie was a very regular visitor, I think she got a red cross uniform on, went round to the red cross, that’s right, and John was there and so on the recording, I’ll lend you the recording, I’m a bit loathed to do it but you’ll look after it, won’t you?
AH: Yeah.
MO: And it’s about half an hour long and it’s very moving, it’s not exactly as I‘ve been told but Connie was very, very fond of my mum and when my dad married Ivy and then Ivy died, she, I was fifty, nearly fifty when Ivy died, and people loved to tell you, but of course your father was carrying on with Ivy, I’m not saying that he was, cause I’ve said already, my dad was quite, cause Ivy couldn’t hear, she was stone deaf and she couldn’t get a job very easily so dad let her work at the office and eventually when she married dad, she had the first, really, the first hearing aid in the town and it was, if you have a hand bag that’s like that, you know, one of those old fashioned sort of handbags and the batteries were in there and hearing aids were sort of very, very rare, by the time she, Amplifops it was called, by the time she died, she had these little hearing aids, but I mean she was always with us, always, and she wasn’t , you know, she wasn’t like some of these, you know, when we get themselves dressed up now, cause the young women got themselves dressed up with all the heavy lipstick, so that’s come back, hasn’t it? But the whole family, and I am still in touch with my cousin Margaret and my cousin Anthony, his mum and dad were in the RAF at the time, and I met him and his wife in Lincoln for lunch not long time ago, yeah, so it’s been lovely, but I’ll, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll let you take the tape, now I’ll just show you this, and you’ll see on here, these are the ones that were killed and these are the ones that were injured and some of them, this is all on the night of the September the 7th, you see, it’s amazing, I knew this chap, this is Steven, he was a police superintendent I think,
AH: And this, what’s this? Were they aiming at Louth, do you know?
MO: No, that’s the next piece of, oh, here is one, no incident in area d, that we all did a quick dive for the floor as two bombs streamed down over the town, we could not make out where they had fallen at the time but found later that they had dropped on the Grimsby road, regret seven people were killed and others seriously injured, we express our deepest sympathy to A W Jaines special and D Jaines fellow warden in their bereavement, six members of the family were killed, now there’s
AH: You read that, sorry.
MO: My uncle Walt, he was my, he became my uncle Walt, come in!
AH: Just put on pause.
US: Hi!
MO: When, I’ve been so lucky to get all these cuttings from people and this is a copy of the cutting I got, I think from my auntie Connie, a sympathetic note, I find it difficult to express here in these simple notes the sympathy we all are feeling today for Mr A W Jaines and his family in the tragic loss they have sustained. Ms Jaines was a canteen leader in the second talvert house, she gave herself on sparing [unclear] for this work, and her cheerfulness was an inspiration to us all, it was only three days ago that I was with her at the second house and it is difficult to believe she has passed on. She gave her time to us knowing that other mothers were doing the same for her son who was serving, to all who are bereaved and to the sick and sorry I send these lines hoping they might be of some help in the difficult days in which they are passing. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. And I put, added, one died on the September the 7th 1941. And this tribute was written on the 10th of September 1941. Now, to not have a [unclear], and know, because everybody’s told me, and I mean, the cleaning ladies we had, they’ve all said the same thing, and the funny thing is, the most amazing thing to me and I must give her a ring because I haven’t heard from her, when my mum and dad’s friend was Mrs Whitfield, the one on the left there, holding a little boy, when our mother was killed, my sister Dorothy obviously, well, through dad as well I suppose, used to keep in touch with her, and of course when Dorothy died, I took it up and Mrs Whitfield’s now died so I’m in touch with one of her girls, it’s on that photograph, we’ve been corresponding as families all these years, and her father used to work for Vickers, Vickers aircraft in Newcastle and I thought he was in the army but he wasn’t and this is only coming out recently cause one of her sisters, she was called Evelyn and I’m in touch with her, one of her sisters is called Daphne and my daughter, Linda, was named after Linda Lorden Smith, very elderly lady who used to live in Upgate, and my husband used to do her clocks for her and everything and so when we had Linda, I said, why don’t we call her Linda? Well, Linda’s daughter, Linda Lorden’s daughter died and I remember, Mrs Lorden’s was saying to me that the girl, the lady that used to help her, named one of her daughters after Daphne, Daphne was in her nineties, so I was saying to Evelyn on the phone, I said, cause they’ve bene to see me and her mum must have been born round her but I haven’t quite found out her maiden name, and she came, they came, two of the girls came and stayed in a B&B and went visiting people that they were connected to down on the coast but I never twigged that she’d worked for my mother and it was only a matter of two, three months ago, I said something about, cause her surname, her maiden name is Whitfield, and so she said, my mother used to work for somebody called Jaines, cause she hadn’t twigged either that that was my name [laughs], I said, you’re joking, she said, oh no, and you see, we’ve always sort of picked a lot up as we went along, she went to work for a lady, this Mrs Whitfield, went to work for a lady before she was married, down on the coast and she was a maiden lady and she had two little girls and it was Ms Measures that she worked for and we, Evelyn doesn’t know anything about Ms Measures, so I’m trying to research Ms Measures cause she was horrible to their mum and that’s all come through I think through my sister to me, cause I can’t remember where I’ve heard that, but I wouldn’t make that up and so my mum and Evelyn said that this lady wasn’t very nice to her mum and so that’s why she was working for my mum. And so that tells you a lot, doesn’t it? Now you see, I don’t think for one minute, my, Ivy’s son, Michael will know all about that, he knows all about dad cause he bores everybody to death with it, cause dad was a very, very successful man for his days but I met him the other day, I was with a couple, Michael that is and he just come out of the solicitors, but I was walking arm in arm cause it’s going up a sloop right Rosemary Lane, it’s not much and I, we are only acquaintances really but we are friends if you know what I mean, and then Michael came out the office, he didn’t look down, he just, so I said [unclear] and he turned round and he came back, he never does that, and said, these are friends of mine, that spent half the time in France and half here, so he says, l alright, I said, this is my brother, he says, hallo, he said, I don’t suppose you knew that dad walked down here and walked into the wall cause it’s an adjacent, there’s as wall that sticks out and then you go down a bit and then there’s another wall and he was a special and he had glasses you see and he liked his whiskey and so I said, no, I don’t think I did know that, oh alright and then off he went [laughs], our niece who lives opposite the Brown Cow, where Michael drinks now with his partner, she said, she came in on Saturday and she said, he never says anything, when I walk to the pub which, they don’t go in as much as Michael, he says something to her about dad every time, he’s so boring [laughs]. Anyway there’s plenty more for you to go at, has it given you something to start with?
AH: Yes, that’s lovely, thank you. What’s your date of birth?
MO: My date is the 25th of the 6th ’33.
AH: Thank you.
MO: And I’m lovely with it. Now if you’d like to.
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 Margaret Ottaway
Creator
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Anna Hoyles
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-21
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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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AOttawayM161121
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:58:49 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Margaret Ottaway lived in Louth, the sixth of seven children, and tells of her childhood there. Tells of an air raid shelter they had in the house. Witnessed, as a seven year old, an enemy air raid on 19 February 1941, which caused damage and casualties and gives a vivid account of it. Tells of herself being buried in rubble and discovering many years later how she survived the bombing, unlike her sisters. Tells of her family: her father a special constable and a business man, a seventeen year old sister serving as an air raid warden. Talks about her marriage and her husband, a watchmaker who was among the establishers of Gibraltar Point Natural Reserve. Tells of a memorial dedicated to the victims of the air raid.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Louth
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-02-19
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
childhood in wartime
civil defence
home front
memorial
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/929/11287/PLindleyK1801.1.jpg
56dc9aab7297704c792f4f78eadd9ea2
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/929/11287/ALindleyK180613.2.mp3
c7c969f02294d27d15c576e8bf7328a8
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
Lindley, Kenneth
K Lindley
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Kenneth Lindley (b. 1926, 3080412 Royal Air Force). He grew up in Sheffield and was a messenger boy for the ARP before serving as an engineer in the RAF.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-13
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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Lindley, K
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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HD: This is Helen Durham for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive on the 13th of June 2018 and I am interviewing Mr Kenneth Lindsey. Mr Lindsey thank you ever so much for allowing us to come and do an interview.
KL: You’re welcome.
HD: I gather that you grew up in Sheffield. Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood and growing up there?
KL: Yeah. 1926 I were born, in Hillsborough area of Sheffield and I lived there until I went in the air force and that was a long time ago. I’m sorry, I -
HD: What did you do in Sheffield? What did your parents?
KL: I was an engineer.
HD: You were an engineer.
KL: I served an apprenticeship at an engineer’s apprentice’s in Sheffield, and I left there when I was probably in my twenties.
HD: I gather you helped the Air Raid Warden. Can you tell me about it?
KL: I was a messenger boy. I used to ride my bike all over Sheffield because the first thing that went down was the telephones when an air raid took place, so the first thing that wanted to be done was messages passed between posts. Each area in the city had posts, ARP posts and it had wardens in there with a group of people, including messenger boys and that was our job, was to take any messages that needed to be taken to another post, but the telephones had gone down, we used to get on our bikes and take it.
HD: Would that be during the day?
KL: That was during air raids that, yeah.
HD: And how often did they happen?
KL: Well, they some, they happened at various times. Sometimes we got one every night, well the sirens went every night but not necessarily aircraft activity or bombs being dropped that sort of thing, there but there were some occasions when it was fairly regular, otherwise there were long periods in between warnings.
HD: And how did you become a helper?
KL: As a younger boy, probably about fifteen or sixteen, I joined the ATC, the Air Training Corps, and it went on from that. I were in the ATC right up to going in to the air force actually. And it did give me my 013080412 is my ATC number, yeah, in the air force.
HD: And so, when did you go into the air force?
KL: I can’t remember exactly. Can you help there Jane?
[Other]: I think it was sixteen? You had to break your apprenticeship off you told me, you’d started your apprenticeship and then you had to break it off.
KL: Yes I did. It would be probably in the, oh god, no, I can’t, I can’t remember.
HD: It’s all right.
KL: It’ll come back, I’m sure!
HD: So you left Sheffield then.
KL: Left Sheffield. When we got married I left Sheffield, yeah.
HD: And tell me a little bit about your wife.
KL: I’ve got a picture of her somewhere: there. [Pause]
HD: So you joined the air force, and what was the first thing you did with the Royal Air Force?
KL: Get sick of it! [Laugh] No, I, looking, when I look back on it now, I really enjoyed my time in the air force, but there was a lot of, the first part of the air force, when you go to Padgate for instance, it’s all march here march there, and that sort of thing and it’s getting used to having to accept instruction and er -
HD: And you were still quite young.
KL: Pardon?
HD: You were still quite young when you went.
KL: Oh yeah.
HD: Were you encouraged by your family or did you have to join the air force?
KL: No. I was in a reserved occupation actually. I always wanted to be in the air force, and I think probably what finally decided me to go in the air force, first of all I wanted to join up by my parents wouldn’t allow me, and then my friend, Harry Furnace, he were an air gunner, and he got shot down over Bremen so I think that started me, wanting to go in the air force.
HD: Why did your parents not want you to join?
KL: My dad was a sergeant in the army in the first world war and he suffered a lot from fits and things like that that were attributed to his wartime service, cause they had a rough time in places.
HD: And they didn’t want the same for you.
KL: That’s right, yeah.
HD: So when you went into the RAF you started training and what was your position that you had?
KL: Training in the RAF?
HD: Yes, what did you train to do?
KL: I trained to be an aircraft fitter.
HD: And whereabouts was that?
KL: Oh, funnily enough, Weston-Super-Mare! [Laughter]
HD: That’s nice.
KL: [Unclear] place. Just outside Weston-Super-Mare
HD: And can you tell me a bit about your time at Weston-Super-Mare? What did you get up to?
KL: Well there were girls and there was pubs and all sort of things like that. Really a happy time there it was, at Weston, and the training was quite good too.
HD: And what was the accommodation like?
KL: Do you know, I can’t remember what the accommodation was like. I believe it was huts, on the site.
HD: And how long were you at Weston-Super, Super-Mare?
KL: Probably about a year, or a little bit longer.
HD: And you did all your training there.
KL: Yeah.
HD: And then where did you go? {Sound of church bells]
KL: I’m not sure where I went then, I think I went straight overseas from there and I went to Tengah in Malaya and stayed there for a short period of time, and then I were transferred to, and I can’t remember this bloomin’ RAF station, but, can you remember Jane?
[Other]: I’d have to look at the back of the postcards in there.
HD: Can you tell me a bit about your experiences in Malaysia?
KL: Yeah, entirely wild, eye-opening there, because the type of people that you meet and the religions and that sort of thing are entirely different to the western world so really, it’s a good thing for such people to go to a place like that and see how the other half lives, yeah.
HD: Any specific experiences that you remember there?
KL: No, I can’t think of anything, not specific.
HD: Did you have a special crew that you were with?
KL: Yeah. Mick Luff was my friend, he came from Dover, we all, we joined together as a crew like, and we all worked on the same aircraft together, but we all had different trades.
HD: And how long would you work on the aircraft for?
KL: Depends on what wanted doing to it, what sort of service were required, and that sort of thing.
HD: And so the planes came into the base and you repairs and the fitting.
KL: That’s right. They were put through a proper sequence of what wanted doing and it were put into action at that point.
HD: So tell me a bit about the crew, especially - Mick?
KL: Yeah, he came from Dover, it’s difficult, you go out together, you do things together and you don’t really take note, it’s another day.
HD: So what was it like on the camp there?
KL: It were quite good, but, all the people that were in charge of certain areas and things like that were Asian or that type of person.
HD: So did you eat a lot of Asian food?
KL: I ate a lot of different types of food, yeah, and I sometimes say when I pick a loaf of bread up, don’t I Jane, I held it up like that cause that’s what we had to do then, you had to hold it up and then pick all the weevils out! [Laughter] Things like that really, really you remember. [Laugh]
[Other]: You told me a story when I was little about -
KL: You what Jane?
[Other]: You never put anything down for long did you, or the ants would carry it away.
KL: Walks off. You can see a slice of bread going up a wall like that! [Laughter] Honestly.
HD: So conditions weren’t very good.
KL: They wasn’t first class at all, let’s put it that way.
HD: But you were all young men, so you could cope.
KL: Oh, it were just taken, you know, that’s what you had to do, and that’s it, get on with it.
HD: And do you ever see or hear from the crew?
KL: No. I never have done. We were all over, Scotland, all over the place. Yeah.
HD: So when you left Malaysia, where did you go next?
KL: I came home, yeah. I went to a camp in England and we were put through the final whatever you have to do and then I came home.
HD: Did you go on to Singapore at all?
KL: I went to Singapore, yeah.
HD: And what did you think of Singapore?
KL: I’m amazed what it is now. There was one [emphasis] tall building when I was there, and I forget what they called it, don’t know whether I was a Shell building or something like that, but it was a tall building and there were just one, and the rest was palm trees and what have you. Singapore now you, oh bloomin’ heck, I don’t recognise any part of it. And yet we used to go down into the town and we were right down in the town but.
HD: Did you meet the people?
KL: Met the people that were living there, yeah.
HD: And what was that like?
KL: It was strange really because in many ways they didn’t understand what you were on about and you didn’t understand what they were on about and you just had to guess and I’m sure sometimes your guess was wrong.
HD: And you were fitting aircraft in Singapore?
KL: I was an aircraft fitter yes.
HD: Any experiences that you had in Singapore?
KL: Oh yeah, I got bumped on top of a sand hill, landing.
HD: Oo! Can you tell me about that.
KL: Not me, we just, Squadron Leader Spencer it were, flying it, the aircraft, and it was a twin engined Dakota and you used to have to come in over the top of sand dunes to get to the runway at, Seleta, Seleta? Yeah, Seleta, and he just didn’t judge it very well this one and it bounced on top of, off the top of the sand dune.
HD: Oh, what happened to you?
KL: Just before, just before I went to Singapore, I’m trying to think where this happened, we were going home on leave, where I were doing training so it would be at Weston-Super-Mare, and a Boston, twin engined bomber were coming in to land and we were just passing across the end of the runway and it took the top off the bus in front of us and wrapped it up on the runway and I think he killed about eight, something like that.
HD: Really, you were lucky.
KL: Yeah. Oh yeah, took, the top right off and it were just wrapped it right up as hough it had been put through a machine. Yeah.
HD: Oh dear, yes. Accidents did happen.
KL: Oh they happened, yeah.
HD: And what were the crews like? The flying crews. Did you mix with them?
KL: No, not really. They had their own people, whereas we’re the ground crew, we got our own people. We not knowingly met, let’s put it that way, yeah, we didn’t deliberately go out with each other or anything like that.
HD: And so, going back to Singapore, were there any other experiences? The aircraft that you maintained?
KL: Most of them were twin engined aircraft. Dakota was very common but we did used to have flights come in that were single engined aircraft and on one occasion there were about four came in, these single engined aircraft and I don’t know whether they didn’t pull their wheels up properly or what but they all finished up on their nose!
HD: Coming in a bit fast.
KL: Oh yes! Doing something like that. Bit hard on the brakes or something.
HD: So you had to do the repairs then.
KL: Oh yes.
HD: That’s good. And what about Earl Mountbatten’s aircraft?
KL: Yeah. It used to come in for service, but we didn’t used to get on to that service. I don’t know whether they had their own special crew and bring it, coming in with the aircraft and they took on the servicing, but was his Dakota that he used to bring in, and of course he’d got lovely armchairs and a dirty big radio set, round like that which I don’t know what it received or where it went or what, but it were enormous radio and it came right round like that and he’s sat here like this and: I’m in charge, you know.
HD: Did you meet him then?
KL: I didn’t. No.
HD: Did you meet anybody of influence whilst you were on your travels?
KL: Not to my knowledge. No.
HD: And how did you feel about the war whilst it was going on?
KL: Well, [pause] it was exciting. I mean the sirens used to go, there used to be loads of activity taking place: the enemy aircraft used to come over and we used to hear ‘em and see them coming over and it were one of those things that you became accustomed to. I think there were occasions when you got a prickle up the back of the neck. Now I can think of one special occasion. You know the bottom of Oakley Road Jane, the chemist, he had a wall that were curved round like that where you went down to get in his shop. I can remember this aircraft “mrmrmrm” and it were obviously diving and it were coming nearer and nearer and nearer, and it were coming straight down our road like that. I get laid on the floor down the. It just went mrmrm.
HD: And went off. Was that in Sheffield?
KL: Yeah, yeah. That made the back of my hair stand up, I’ll tell you. I was scared.
HD: They did have some bombing, didn’t they, in Sheffield.
KL: Oh yeah.
HD: Do you remember what it was like?
KL: But it’s, we had thirteen hour raids on two or three occasions.
HD: And what was it like going to the underground shelters?
KL: Well, the shelters, most shelters were built in the back garden, they were Anderson shelters, the metal shelters. If you were out in the street there were areas where you could go to an underground shelter, that usually were reinforced shops weren’t they, and things like that.
HD: That must have been very frightening.
KL: You became accustomed to it and it became exciting I suppose. Hmm.
HD: And what did you do whilst you were in the air raid shelters?
KL: Sleep, or read, or talk, that sort of thing. We didn’t have electric lights so it were just candles in our house. There were no, no lights in the cellar, we just sat with a candle. And then they reinforced the cellar, they put steel girders across the cellar roof and put thick, thick corrugated iron sheets on top of that, so that it supported the, er, and they also then cut holes through the wall so that you could get through with a wooden door on and a catch on either side, and on our side of the road before you got to another road, there would probably be perhaps twenty houses, something like that, or eighteen, or something, something like that, but each one were connected to the next one with a wooden door so that you could get right from one end of the street to the other end.
HD: And how old were you when you went down in the underground shelters?
KL: Oh, starting probably at fifteen, sixteen and that and then towards the end of the war, yeah.
HD: And how long were you down there for?
KL: All night some nights, yeah. And I mean all night, you know, talking about twelve hours, or something like that. [Cough] Pardon me.
HD: So it was very tiring.
KL: The raid would start about, well I used to get home from work, and you’d just managed to get sat down to me tea and the sirens would go, but then you’ve got time, in those days you had time, to finish your tea and then take cover like, but it very often used to start about six o’clock, quarter to six, something like that, and go on while early hours of next morning.
HD: And so these -
KL: The blitz, that were a thirteen hour night, that and I’m talking about the blitz, that went on with continuous bombing, it killed about seven hundred and odd people in Sheffield that, and we had two of them, one on the, one on the Sunday night and one two days previous.
HD: So what was it like coming -
KL: 15th of December the second one, 12th, 13th were the two blitz nights and the one on the 15th. Well what happened is, the Germans, they must have mistaken something in the city for the railway line or something like that, we think it’s the moor, they used to call it the moor, it were a long straight road, weren’t it, and that got really splattered, they did both sides of that, and all the centre of Sheffield on the first, 12th/13th of December 1940: they really clobbered it, the town centre, yeah.
HD: And this was before you went into the RAF.
KL: That was, yeah, yeah. And it was after we’d repaired the holes through the roof from a previous bombing, [laugh] and when we come back a big girder about five foot long had gone through the roof again!
HD: So what was it like coming out of the air raid shelter?
KL: Ahh, [sigh] a relief. The time of the year it was generally foggy or very dark in the morning and that, so it were, and the fires lit everything, the sky, all the clouds were reflecting the fires in there, yeah.
[Other]: And what was the smell like? We’ve talked about the smell before.
KL: You what darling?
HD: The smell.
KL: Oh yeah. I can smell blitz night. If houses is falling down, being knocked down, I can tell, it’s exactly the same smell. There were a peculiar smell about damaged houses, that sort of thing.
HD: A sad couple of nights for Sheffield.
KL: Pardon?
HD: A sad couple of nights for Sheffield.
KL: Yeah, there were three, three, 12th 13th, those two days, and 15th they were bad that. That were when they came and concentrated on Sheffield. Yeah.
HD: So you went into the RAF.
KL: Uhum.
HD: And you went abroad.
KL: Yes.
HD: Then you came back.
KL: Yeah.
HD: And is that when you decided to leave the RAF?
KL: Yeah. No, I think while I were in the RAF I were really wanting to get out, I always wanted to get out, but I’ve realised since I’ve been in the RAF and I’ve got out, that the times that I had in the RAF were fantastic and I wouldn’t have missed them for anything, yeah.
HD: Was that because of your pals?
KL: Because of the life, yeah. Hmm.
HD: And you came out of the RAF in 1945 when the war finished?
KL: Don’t know, got a thing here somewhere. That’s me telegram that I sent.
HD: Oh it was the 6th of February, 1948.
KL: ’48. Yeah.
HD: And what did you do after?
KL: After I came out? Funnily enough I had to finish my apprenticeship, yeah. I forget how many years I did. Something like three years or even more than that.
HD: And that was back in Sheffield.
KL: Before I was called, before I could claim full wages, cause I were an engineer and they were very keen on apprentices doing an apprenticeship, they’re not like apprenticeships that you do now.
HD: And what was life like when you got back?
KL: Yeah. Things had changed. You’d only been away for a number of years, three years, four years, something like that, but things had changed and life were very different. Yeah.
HD: And you and your wife, you were in Sheffield?
KL: I weren’t married then.
HD: You weren’t married?
KL: No.
HD: No. When did you get married?
KL: 1950.
HD: And did you stay in Sheffield?
KL: Yes. Oh, how long was in Sheffield Jane?
[Other]: Oh, till 1957.
KL: And we move from Sheffield to –
[Other]: Bridlington.
KL: Bridlington. And we stayed at Bridlington for twenty six years, yeah.
HD: What did mum’s dad not allow you to do when you came back from the RAF? What didn’t he -
KL: Wouldn’t let us get engaged. Been away too long. [laugh] Teah.
HD: How did you feel?
KL: Upset! [Laugh] Yeah.
HD: So how long did you have to wait?
KL: About three years I think it was.
[Other]: Yeah. Two years.
KL: Pardon?
[Other]: You got married in ’50 and from 1948,
KL: 50, yeah, two years in’t it.
[Other]: But you’d known each other all the time, before they got married, before he went away, you’d known each other, hadn’t you.
KL: Pardon?
[Other]: You’d known each other before you went away.
KL: Yes. I did, yeah.
HD: And were you able to correspond whilst you were away.
KL: To my knowledge we did, yeah: proof here.
[Other]: This has got all the photographs, to mum look, all my love, all my love Ken.
KL: [laugh]
HD: Wonderful. Yes, yes.
KL: I didn’t realise I’d sent so many pictures while I were abroad.
HD: You obviously enjoyed the photography.
KL: And funnily enough I didn’t have a camera, I never had a camera, but I always were made available pictures as a group, but we’ve probably all got the same pictures.
HD: So someone took them and then gave you copies.
KL: Someone took them and everybody got a copy, yeah, all the group, all the flight would get a copy and that sort of thing.
HD: Can you tell me a bit about when you used to fit out the aircraft? What sort of repairs did you have to do?
KL: Well we didn’t deal with any radio or electrical repairs, it was all mechanical that we did. We didn’t do the engines: I did the airframes. There were separate fitters, fitted engines and did, and certain fitters who were radio trained, that sort of thing. So I was airframe fitter, so that’s the mechanical side of the controls, and undercarriage and that sort of thing and ailerons and elevators, that, that would come down to us.
HD: A responsible job.
KL: Oh yeah, yeah, if you push that foot you want it to go that way, if it goes that way you’re in trouble! Yeah. The bloke I used to fly with a lot was Squadron Leader Spencer they called him, it were all right, never had any trouble with him.
HD: So when you look back is there a particular incident that you find amusing, or sad, or something that stands out in your time in the RAF?
KL: Well one, one sad incident was, you used to have to go on guard duty and you used to have to take a loaded rifle on guard duty with you and an incident took place in, on duty, with some blokes and they got killed, so you know, the rifles went off and things like that, whether it was deliberate or not I can’t remember now, but there were that that upset us a bit.
HD: Did that happen frequently?
KL: No. No.
HD: And did you have a chaplain when you were away?
KL: There was one, yeah. I don’t make use of them, I’m a non-believer, but there was one, and they were available to anybody that wanted to have discussions with them.
[Other]: A funny story, was it a prompt dad, your twenty first birthday, what did they try to send you over, from England, a parcel?
KL: Oh yeah! It had a cake in it, I’m trying to think the details, but I can’t. But when I got it, it were like a big muddy! Weren’t it Jane. It had melted, and all, it were, oh dear, yeah, that were, I remember that Jane, I remembered that!
HD: Did you manage to eat some?
KL: I think probably licking is a better -
HD: So where were you on your twenty first?
KL: My mother, I mean she sent, she probably gave her ration up to make the damn thing as well!
HD: So where were you at the time?
KL: Sorry?
HD: Where were you at the time? On your twenty first.
KL: I’m not sure whether I were still in England or were in, I think I were in Malaya at that time.
KL: See, we spent a lot of time in tents in Malaya as well. We lived in tents, probably six of us in a like a bell tent.
HD: Yes, quite rough conditions.
KL: Well they were conditions you had to get used to, yeah. I mean the monsoon season we had, we had a bit of that as well. It gets a bit noisy inside a tent when it’s raining. Well it really rains there, I mean a cup of water is a drop of rain. [cough] Pardon me.
HD: Well thank you very much for giving this interview and for remembering some of your experiences.
KL: I’m pleased to be able to tell you.
HD: Yes, yes, and you’ve got some wonderful photographs to remind you.
KL: Yeah, and I’ll send them to you, if er -
HD: Well thank you again for this interview for all those experiences. Thank you.
KL: Okay. I’m sure there’s a lot I’ve not talked about yet! [Laugh]
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 Kenneth Lindley
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Helen Durham
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
2018-06-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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ALindleyK180613, PLindleyK1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:35:26 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Sheffield
England--Somerset
Malaysia
Singapore
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
Benjamin Turner
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-12
Description
An account of the resource
Kenneth Lindley was born in Hillsborough, Sheffield in 1926. Before joining the RAF Kenneth was an engineer’s apprentice, and often helped the Air Raid Warden by acting as a messenger. He reminisces joining the Air Training Corps as a teenager. When he joined the RAF, he recollects his first training experiences where a lot of marching was involved. His parents did not want him to join the Royal Air Force, due to his father’s experiences in the First World War. Kenneth trained as an aircraft fitter in Weston-Super-Mare. Kenneth remembers his experiences in Malaysia and Singapore and the people he served with. Just before going to Singapore, Kenneth remembers an accident in Weston-Super-Mare, where a Boston aircraft coming in to land and took the top off a bus, which ended up killing several people. While in Singapore, Kenneth remembers Earl Mountbatten’s Dakota aircraft often coming in for a service. Goes back to talking about his experiences in Sheffield and the air raids. Once leaving the RAF, Kenneth goes back to complete his engineering apprenticeship, and then got married. He then moved to Bridlington from Sheffield with his wife and lived there for 26 years. Finishes the interview with some other stories of his time in the RAF and serving abroad. Kenneth remembers being sent a 21st birthday cake in a parcel from his parents that had melted.
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
Boston
C-47
civil defence
ground personnel
home front
love and romance
RAF Weston-super-Mare
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/169/10302/MHowardI19250926-170330-07.2.jpg
3db35addbdbdb21a1f9faa2b230f705d
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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Howard, Irene
I Howard
Description
An account of the resource
31 Items. An oral history interview with Irene Howard née Green (1925 - 2018), Civil Defence Warden Service and war damage compensation documents, identity cards and ration books as well as various Christmas greetings and photographs of family. She worked in a factory in Manchester during the war and as an Air Raid Precaution Warden. Her house was bombed in December 1940.
The collection was donated by Irene Howard and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Identifier
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Howard, I
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-12
2017-03-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[Crest]
LANCASHIRE CONSTABULARY,
(Air Raid Precautions Department),
PRESTON, 8th May, 1945
LANCASHIRE CIVIL DEFENCE WARDENS’ SERVICE
SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY
1. Now that the Stand-down of the Wardens’ Service in Lancashire has taken effect from the 2nd May, 1945, and has been closely followed by the cessation of hostilities in Europe, I should like to place on record my very deep appreciation of the magnificient [sic] work done by all member of the Lancashire Civil Defence Wardens’ Service.
2. We remember with pride the work performed by the Wardens in close liaison with the Police from 1938, to the present time, especially during those anxious days when the County was the target of enemy activity. In most cases your duties were performed after long hours at business or essential industry, in a manner which can only be described as depicting the greatest loyalty. All members of the Service have shown themselves to be willing and cheerful under most trying conditions.
3. In addition, many tasks have been undertaken by you in relation to the general public, and I realise and appreciate you have spent many hours of your time in this phase of public welfare. I can only say that I deeply and sincerely thank you for the wonderful support I have received from all members of the Wardens’ Service.
4. The team spirit has carried you forward on the peak of efficiency, and the traditions of the County of Lancaster have been worthily upheld by you all. I am most grateful to you and I trust that with the passing of the Lancashire Civil Defence Wardens’ Service you will carry the spirit of comradeship into the years of peace for the mutual benefit of the County and Country.
5. I would also like to take this opportunity of wishing you all every success in the peace years which now lie before us.
[Signature]
Chief Constable of Lancashire.
TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE WARDENS’ SERVICE
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
Lancashire civil defence warden's service
Description
An account of the resource
Letter of appreciation to all members of the Lancashire civil defence warden's service. Includes Special order of the day after the service had stood down from 2 May 1945 and offers appreciation of work done. States that work was in close cooperation with Police since 1938, especially when country was under attack, and acknowledges many hours were also spent in public welfare.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. The chief constable of Lancashire
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-05-08
Format
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One page printed document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
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MHowardI19250926-170330-07
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lancashire
England--Preston (Lancashire)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05-02
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Georgie Donaldson
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/169/10292/OHowardI19250926-170330-030001.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/169/10292/OHowardI19250926-170330-030002.1.jpg
e6824b956e947814dd59c27051256324
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
Howard, Irene
I Howard
Description
An account of the resource
31 Items. An oral history interview with Irene Howard née Green (1925 - 2018), Civil Defence Warden Service and war damage compensation documents, identity cards and ration books as well as various Christmas greetings and photographs of family. She worked in a factory in Manchester during the war and as an Air Raid Precaution Warden. Her house was bombed in December 1940.
The collection was donated by Irene Howard and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Howard, I
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
2017-01-12
2017-03-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Irene Green's air raid warden's card of appointment
Description
An account of the resource
Certifies that Irene Green was appointed as an air raid warden on 11 March 1944.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Chief Constable of Lancashire
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03-11
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OHowardI19250926-170330-03
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lancashire
England--Trafford
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03-11
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.
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence
home front
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/169/10237/EBaileyREGreenI4505XX-0002.2.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
Howard, Irene
I Howard
Description
An account of the resource
31 Items. An oral history interview with Irene Howard née Green (1925 - 2018), Civil Defence Warden Service and war damage compensation documents, identity cards and ration books as well as various Christmas greetings and photographs of family. She worked in a factory in Manchester during the war and as an Air Raid Precaution Warden. Her house was bombed in December 1940.
The collection was donated by Irene Howard and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Howard, I
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
2017-01-12
2017-03-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
LANCASHIRE CONSTABULARY CIVIL DEFENCE WARDENS' SERVICE
Chief Warden's Office
841, Chester Road
Strerford
May, I945
Dear Miss Green,
Early in 1938 a call was made for Volunteers for the Wardens' Service, to help in the defence of Stretford Borough. The response was magnificent and from then up to now the Service has functioned 100% despite many ups and downs. The many hours of duty performed have been so willingly undertaken and dangers have been faced so cheerfully under raiding conditions that now the job is finished I would like to say how much I have appreciated all you have done, and to say thank you very much. It has been a pleasure to have been your Chief, and now that the time has come to stand down it is with certain regrets that we part.
Good luck to you and yours in the years to come, and I pray that the sacrifices you have made shall not be in vain.
Yours sincerely,
R. E. Bayley
CHIEF WARDEN.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter of thanks to Irene Green from the Chief Warden Civil Defence Service
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to Miss Green describing a response to call for volunteers for warden's service to help in defence of Stretford borough. Appreciates all she has done and wished good luck.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chief Warden Stretford
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-05
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EBaileyREGreenI4505XX
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Greater Manchester
England--Stretford (Greater Manchester)
England--Trafford
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is 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-page typewritten letter
Air Raid Precautions
civil defence