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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/608/10282/AMcDonaldEA150918.2.mp3
0f2d6ecf3f91adbe56622e816552729a
Dublin Core
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Title
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McDonald, Edward Allan
E A McDonald
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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McDonald, EA
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. Two oral history interviews with Edward Allan McDonald (1922 - 2020, 1076170, Royal Air Force), a memoir, his log book, documents and photographs. He flew 28 operations as a rear gunner with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Edward Allan McDonald and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
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2015-07-13
2015-09-18
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DE: Right. This is an interview with Edward Alan McDonald or Alan McDonald, by Dan Ellin. We’re in Riseholme Hall. It is the 18th of September 2015. So, Mr McDonald could you tell me a little bit about your early life, your childhood and how you came about to be in the RAF?
AM: Yes. I think I can. I was, unfortunately it’s a bit of a miserable story this. My father was killed when I was four and so of course my mother had to bring us up. But anyway after that misfortune my mother looked after us very well as best she could. And I always fancied —my uncle he used to take me to Hedon Aerodrome which was just outside of Hull. And it was a landing field. It wasn’t, no runways on it. And it was where Sir Alan Cobham used to visit and give his displays. And I used to go there on my uncles crossbar and we used to come on the outside of Hedon Aerodrome and watch the various displays that Sir Alan Cobham went through which fascinated me. And from there onwards I wanted to be a pilot. And it’s a long story this because with me wanting to be a pilot I went to the recruiting office at what I thought was the right age. The war was on now. And they sa said ys, ‘What do you want to be?’ I said, ‘I want to be a pilot.’ ‘Have you got a secondary education?’ ‘No.’ ‘No. You haven’t. Well you can’t be a pilot so forget about aircrew. You can’t be aircrew. You’ll have to be ground staff.’ So I said, ‘Is there any way I can get —?. ‘No. There’s no way around it. You either have or haven’t passed in to a secondary education. You’ve not. You can’t be aircrew.’ So, anyroads I went on now to a place in Ireland to a place called Nutts Corner which was a Coastal Command station. And it was Fortresses and Liberators flown by the RAF and I enjoyed being there. I enjoyed being connected with the aircraft and getting trips home in any aircraft which was empty. And I worked on flying control at the station and I was putting the angle of glide out. What they called the glims out. Which were small three legged lights down the runway and down the perimeter tracks. Sorry, I’ll correct myself there. It wasn’t on the runway we put them in. It was on the perimeter track.
DE: Right.
AM: Back to the dispersals with these small lights that were battery driven. And then down the runways we had like the old type watering can.
DE: Yes.
AM: Full of paraffin and a very thick wick down the spout and we put them one every hundred yards at each side of the runway. And then we had, at the beginning of the runway, a chance light which could be used. And we also had an angle of glide which was for the oncoming pilot to see if he was in the right position for descending on the runway. Anyway, that episode passed very nicely but the next thing was they asked me to work with control. In control. So I did. I worked in there and I was in there one day and they said to me, ‘You’re going on leave on Monday aren’t you Mac?’ So I said, ‘Yeah. Why?’ They says, ‘Well there’s an aircraft going somewhere near. Near Hull. Do you know, have you ever heard of Leconfield?’ I said, ‘Oh yes. That is. That’s just outside Hull. It’s near Beverley. Oh if I can get a lift there I’m as good as home.’ So the next day we had to be there for 9 o’clock. And I’d taken three of my mates with me and they also were included in the load for this Wellington which was coming there. But anyroads as the day arrived and the time arrived it was cancelled. And so they monitored all the around aerodromes and at Aldergrove, sorry at Langford Lodge there was an American Lockheed Hudson going to the mainland that day and they would take us if we could get there. So we hitchhikes from Nutts Corner to Langford Lodge which was on the banks of Loch Neagh. And having got to Langford lodge the American guard outside with a rifle and a bayonet on said, ‘What do you guys want?’ So, ‘We’ve come to get a lift on a Lockheed Hudson through to the mainland.’ ‘You aint going from here bud.’ So we said, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘Well there’s been an accident and the two pilots have been killed and they’re in the runway.’ And anyway I don’t want to relate the story which I do know about but anyway they said, ‘We’ll ask around the different ‘dromes if anybody’s got aircraft going to the mainland.’ Yes. The station we’d come from — they had. Another Wellington was coming in. So they put a jeep on. And I’m sure the jeep passed any aircraft. He certainly got this clog down did that American. They’re a grand lot to me. I think that we owe a great deal to the Americans. In my opinion they were the best people in the world. Some of the best people in the world. They really helped us a lot. That’s my opinion. But, anyway, regardless of that we got through to Nutts Corner and there was a Wellington just ticking over at the end of the runway. We get on to the Wellington and off we goes. Now, he, the driver of this jeep that brought us, he stopped I’m sure two inches from the side of the Wellington and I mean two, I’m serious when I say two inches. That’s the distance he stopped. But anyroads, we got in to the Wellington. Off we goes and we flies out over Bangor and we goes across the Irish Sea across to Scotland and across the Scotch coast. We head south and we goes along the Scotch coast. Then we go along the English coast. Then we go along the Welsh coast and then we eventually comes to Lands End. And we’re out at sea all the time. Not over land at any time. And now we’re going out in to the South Atlantic as far as Britain is concerned. And then we turns to the east towards France. And going along the coast or to that particular position we had glorious sunshine all the way, and I was stood in the astrodome. The other three were sat on the floor of the Wellington. I should have mentioned this but I’ll mention it now. And I had a good view from the — where I was stood. Anyway, we’re now going along the south coast past Southampton and those places until I estimated, we were in and out of cloud all the way along the south coast, and as we were going along past Southampton I thought well we must be getting somewhere near to the coast — Dover now. And if we are near Dover I should be able to see France with a bit of luck. I’d never ever seen France before then and I was looking forward to seeing it. Anyroads, we gets, comes out of the cloud and lo and behold at the side us, and within about fifteen yards of us, no more, that was the maximum, was an ME109. So I had no means of communicating with the pilot. So I ran to the front of the aircraft, tapped the pilot on the shoulder and this is what I did.
DE: [laughs] the Nazi salute and a Hitler moustache. Yeah.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. I went through all the motions to let the pilot know that there was a fighter there.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And so he stood up and looked through a panel at the back of the Wellington which I didn’t know he could see through, above the top of the fuselage but he could. There was about ten inches or so where he could look through the canopy for anything behind him. I saw his face change and then he dashed back to the controls, put us straight into a dive and we went into a cloud. And then we headed for Dover. And then when we got to Dover we headed then inland and went to a place called Nuneaton and landed. Now, we get out of the aircraft and we’re walking along to exit the ‘drome. Nuneaton drome. And somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Thanks lad.’ [laughs] with a smile on his face. So —
DE: I’ll bet.
AM: It was, it was nice to hear him say that. But anyroads, it worked. So we got away from Fritz there. Very –
DE: Yeah. That was lucky.
AM: Very fortunate. Why I turned around there on that particular second to look at France I don’t know. I don’t think we were anywhere near France. But anyroad I had done.
DE: Yeah.
AM: It was a mistake which turned out to be our advantage.
DE: Yeah. Very lucky.
AM: So that was that little story. But anyroads, from there on I had my leave. I went back. I went down to Dublin and I got chased in Dublin. We arrived in Dublin, my girlfriend and I, and I says, ‘Oh,’ we’d just got off the station and there was a big meeting not far from the station. Maybe hundreds of yards or so. And I says, ‘I bet that’s the IRA.’ She says, ‘It will be the IRA. Don’t go near it.’ I says, ‘Well I want to know what they’re saying about us.’ I says, ‘All we get is the newspaper reports about the IRA but I want to hear what they say myself.’ So she says, ‘Don’t go to the meeting. You’ll wish you hadn’t.’ So, anyroads, I says, ‘Are you staying there or are you coming with me?’ She says, I’ll come with you.’ Well when I was at school I used to run in the school sports each year. I liked running. I liked it but I never put my back into it and I should have done. But anyway that’s beside the point now. But anyroads, what happened was [pause] I’ve lost my place now.
DE: The IRA meeting.
AM: IRA meeting. That’s right. Yes. What happened with that was that as I was walking towards the meeting there was several hundred there. The man in the middle pointed straight at me and I couldn’t understand why. Why he’d done it. And the crowd turned around and then they surged. Actually surged. ‘Come on. Run.’ So we ran. She was from Ireland and she says, ‘Run.’ She says, ‘It’s the IRA.’ Anyroads, we did run. I held her hand and we both ran down O’Connell Street in Dublin and I won’t say where we got but we got somewhere where they didn’t find us. And anyroads we evaded them and now it was dusk. And we went along the street, O’Connell Street and there was a cinema at the end of this street. I went into the cinema and, ‘How many seats?’ She says, ‘There’s only two left. They’re on the front row.’ I says, ‘They’ll do.’ So we got the two seats on the front row. And the young lady that I was with was called Myrtle and the picture was an American picture. And there was a man sat in the chair as I’m sat here and a door there and a man comes in, ‘Now then Joe,’ he says, ‘How’s that gal of yours?’ He says, ‘Do you mean Myrtle?’ ‘Myrtle,’ he says, ‘I didn’t know they called her Myrtle,’ he says, ‘If I’d a gun I’d have shot her.’ She’d got a name called Myrtle and there was Myrtle at the side of me. But I thought that was funny that. They were going to shoot her if they called her Myrtle. But that was just one little thing, little episode in Ireland.
DE: Yes.
AM: But there was many others of a similar nature. I was on a bicycle going from a place called [Sleaven Lecloy?] Now [Sleaven Lecloy?] was a dummy aerodrome and I was on that dummy aerodrome. And what happened on that dummy aerodrome was that when we used to come away from the place you had two ways to go. We could either go, come up a long lane which led from the dummy ‘drome to the road, which was only a narrow road in any case and when they got to this road they could turn left and go to the station and then to Belfast. Or you could go to the right towards Lisburn and then go down towards the Falls Road. Well in Belfast there’s two roads. There’s the Falls Road this side and the Shanklin Road that side and they’re both parallel with each other. The Falls Road is a Catholic road. This road here, the —
DE: Shanklin.
AM: Shanklin Road. That there is a Protestant road. And of course the dagger’s drawn. They never should be. They should be good friends.
DN: Yeah.
AM: But unfortunately they’re not and if you were seen in the Falls Road by people in the Falls Road you was liable to be stripped naked of your uniform and everything, tied to lamppost and they’d pour tar over you. A bucket of pitch. And then they would give you a good lashing. And then they’d leave you there for the —that was the Catholics. They would leave you there to be dealt with by the police. They would come along. Well I was going the Falls Road which, from where I was at [Sleaven Lecloy, Sleaven Lecloy] is up here in the mountain and you come down all the way to Falls Road. All the way down in to the centre of the town. It’s all downhill. Every inch of it. Now, I’m going down the Falls Road on a pushbike and on the right hand side I noticed a chap stood outside a cinema with a sten gun. I thought well that would be the IRA. As I got near to him he set the Sten gun on to me. Fortunately for me a tram car came between him and me. And of course I kept pace with this tram car. I didn’t lose the tram car for quite a way. I got full steam up and went downhill with the tram car on the bike. So I escaped from that but this is just some of the little hitches in your stay in Northern Ireland. And in Southern Ireland for that matter. And it’s all silly nonsense to my way of thinking.
DE: Yeah.
AM: Nobody’s doing anything for any good. It’s all a lot of nonsense that they’re encouraging. To kill people that they don’t know. Anyway, I won’t go on that tack but anyway, fortunately I got out of it and fortunately I made many friends there. And I had a great time in Ireland. In Northern Ireland and I did in Southern Ireland. But there was this here, what shall I say? Shadow hanging over all the events. And anyway that was just one of the things that happened. And then whilst I was in Ireland I decided I would have another try at being aircrew.
DE: Yes.
AM: I’d had a lot of dealings with aircraft there. With Fortresses and Liberators at dispersals. Anyway, the warrant officer says to me, ‘Mac,’ he says to me, ‘Don’t you understand what I’m saying?’ ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘I do,’ I says, ‘And I still want to be aircrew.’ So he says, ‘Can’t you think of any other words but you want to be aircrew?’ So I says, ‘Well that’s what I want to be I says. I’ll stop pestering you when I become air crew.’ So he says, ‘Is that a threat?’ You know. I can’t remember his exact words but he implied that I was threatening him by saying this which I probably was. But anyroads, he says, ‘I’ll see what I can do for you.’ Because I’d been so many times he says his hair was falling out. But anyway, a tannoy went, ‘Would E A McDonald report to the station education officer.” So I went and, ‘Anybody know where he is?’ So somebody gave me directions and I found him. And he says, ‘You’ve been plaguing the life out of the station warrant officer. You want to be aircrew. Well,’ he says, ‘If you’re sincere and mean what you say and put your back in to what you’re going to get you’ll become air crew. But otherwise you won’t.’ So, he says, ‘To start with — do you want to be aircrew or don’t you? Let’s get that straight because,’ he says, ‘I don’t want to waste my time with you if you’re not going to put your back into it.’ Words to that effect. Maybe they were not the exact words but they implied that to me. So I says, ‘Well, I do want to be aircrew,’ and I says, ‘And I will put my back into it.’ So anyroads he says, ‘Right.’ He gave me a programme which I had to abide by and I spent quite a bit of time being schooled there. So the day of reckoning came. Well I was trembling. I thought, I bet I’ve failed. I feel sure I’ve failed. And I was saying it over and over to myself and getting worked up. Anyroads, when I went to see him he says, ‘Congratulations.’ So I says, ‘What for?’ So he says, ‘You are McDonald aren’t you?’ I says, ‘Yeah. I am.’ ‘ So he says, ‘Well you’ve matriculated.’ Well the word matriculated. To me I’d never heard the word before and I thought what’s he on about. Matriculated. What does that mean? He said, ‘You’ve matriculated.’ So anyroad when you get back to the billet there was a man in our billet called Fred Hillman and this Fred Hillman you could ask him anything and he’d always — he was like King Solomon. He knew every answer to every question. And he says to me, ‘How have you gone on Mac?’ So I says, ‘I don’t know really. I don’t. Honest. I don’t know.’ He says, ‘Are you meaning that you haven’t passed?’ I says, ‘No. I’m not meaning that at all.’ I said, ‘I hope I have,’ I says, ‘Because he shook hands with me and I thought was a good indication but he also said I’ve matriculated, and I’ve never heard that word before.’ So he says, ‘Well I’ll tell you what it means. It means you’ve qualified to enter a university.’ So I says, Are you joking?’ He said, ‘No. I’m not Mac. That’s what it means.’ So I says, ‘Thank you very much,’ I said, ‘Then I’ve passed.’ He says, ‘Yes. You’ve passed.’ So I went back. What happened was I was there for a fortnight and there’s a part of this story I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you why and it’s not something I’ve done wrong. It’s something that happened to me and I don’t know how it came about. But anyroads it happened and I’ll leave the matter at that. But what it was when I arrived there, at the station at RAF headquarters there was a WVS van outside. And this place was I would say as big as Buckingham palace where I went to RAF headquarters. And the young lady in the WVS van said to me, ‘You’re McDonald aren’t you?’ So I says, ‘How do you know my name?’ She says, ‘Oh I know a little bit about you.’ I says, ‘You know a little bit about me?’ I says, ‘I’ve never been here before,’ I said, ‘You can’t know anything about me.’ ‘Oh but I do,’ she says, ‘And they know about you in there.’ So I says, ‘In where?’ She said, ‘You see those two doors? You go in the right hand door. Don’t go in the left hand door. Go in the right hand door and when you go into that room you’ll be there with seventeen WAAFs and three airmen, and you’re one of the three airmen.’ So I says, ‘What about that then?’ She says, ‘Well you’ll find out when you get in.’ She said, ‘I’m not going to tell you.’ So I says, ‘I don’t get this,’ I says, ‘I’ve never been here before.’ So she says, ‘Well maybe you haven’t but,’ she says, ‘I know about you. And you’ll find out why when you get inside.’ So I says, ‘This is funny this is. I can’t make head nor tail of what’s going on.’ So anyroads I went into the room and nothing was said. Not a word except, ‘Hello.’ That’s all. Anyroad, I thought well this is funny, what’s she on about. They haven’t says anything. So this — I had to for an interview with an officer there and he says, ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘You’ve come here for some exams haven’t you?’ So I said, ‘I understand so.’ So he said, ‘Right, well we’ll deal with that while you’re here but we’ll explain to you that while you’re here what we want you to do maybe wont occupy all your time. So your time that you have surplus to our requirements — it’ll be yours and you’ll not be expected to do anything in that time, but otherwise you’ll be taking documents from office A to office B. And you’ll — I want a signature from office B to take back to office A and maybe to office C and so on. And these documents want signing for.’ Anyroad, I was doing this and then I got a funny comment. ‘Oh it’s you is it Mac?’ I thought, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Oh it’s you is it Mac?’ And this was a WAAF and I thought, I can’t get this. They seem to know a bit about me. So I says, ‘Have you got the right Mac?’ She says, ‘You’re McDonald aren’t you and you’ve come here for some exams?’ I said, ‘Yes that right.’ I says, ‘How do you know about me? ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘Oh never mind. I do.’ So I thought well this is blooming funny and they made a mystery to me of myself and I didn’t know what was happening. Anyroads, in the end this person came up to me and said, ‘You’re bringing my tea and my cakes and we’ll have a squaring up.’ So I says ok. Thinking that I would I would pay for mine and they would pay for theirs. And this person that I’m talking about, I didn’t know who it was. I hadn’t a clue who she was. And she says, ‘I’ll pay for the tea and the cakes.’ I says, ‘You will not.’ I says, ‘I’m an LAC,’ and I pointed to my arm which was like a little propeller on my arm.
DE: Yes.
AM: I said, ‘I’ll be on a lot more money than you.’ So she says, ‘I’ll pay for you.’ I said, ‘You won’t.’ She says, ‘I will.’ So I said, ‘You’re not paying for my tea and cakes. I’ll pay for yours or we’ll pay for our own. Whichever way you want it but you’re not paying for mine.’ So she says, ‘I’ll pay for yours and don’t argue with me.’ I thought you’re a bit bossy. Who are you? Anyroad, I’ll not go into that. I’ll leave that as a blank, blank cheque as to who she was. Now then, I left there and I started as air crew. Training that is.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And I went to, to St John’s Wood. And whilst I was in St John’s Wood the sergeant came to me. He says, ‘Stores. You.’ I said, ‘Stores? What am I going to the stores for?’ He said ‘you’ll take your uniform off you’ve got with you and you’ll put a brand new uniform on. Brand new shoes, brand new cap. All brand new.’ He said, ‘And then tomorrow you’re going to meet someone.’ So I said, ‘Who?’ So he did tell me who it was. It was the queen. The queen mother. The queen at that time. And we were all lined up and it come to my turn to be introduced to Her Majesty The Queen. And I started speaking and nothing came out. And it had never happened to me ever before but it did then. And I was trying to speak and nothing happened whatsoever. So she passed on to the next one. And so that was a little experience there. And from there I went on to [pause]was it Bridlington or Bridgnorth? Bridgnorth? Bridlington. I think Bridlington we went to. From Bridlington to Bridgnorth. Bridgnorth through to Evaton. They called it, in Scotland Evaton. I called it Evanton. E V A N T O N.
DE: Yes.
AM: But they called it Evaton. I asked on the, the man on the station, the worker there. He says to me,’ Are you lost?’ I says, ‘I think so,’ I says, ‘I don’t know which platform to get on the train for Evanton.’ ‘There’s no such place as that around here.’ So he says, ‘Let’s have a look at your pass. Oh you mean Evaton,’ he says. ‘Oh ok then. Evaton.’ So I went to Evaton and we were flying there with the Polish pilots. Every pilot there as far as I’m aware. I never saw and English pilot there but there may have been one that I hadn’t seen. But any roads I was flying with the Polish pilots. We were machine gunning dummy tanks.
DE: Yes.
AM: And I had quite a good experience there of flying. And on a morning each day as we came out the billets the Polish pilots were coming out their billets which was next to ours or near enough to us and of course the first thing they would say was, ‘Dzien dobry.’
DE: Good Morning. Yes.
AM: And I would say, ‘Dzien dobry,’ And in the afternoon I think it was, ‘dobry wieczor.’ And all because I could say, ‘Dzien dobry,’ only by mimicking them. Could I do it? I didn’t actually — I couldn’t have spelt it.
DE: No.
AM: Or maybe I could but maybe I couldn’t. But anyway they were ever so friendly towards me. And when I went into the aircraft, ‘Oh he’s here.’ You know. You got a nice welcome. And we were doing machine gun practice and all sorts of exercises with them and then we progressed from there and we went to Bridgnorth. And then from Bridgnorth we went to Syertson — not Syerston. Winthorpe. Winthorpe to Syerston. Winthorpe was Stirlings and on the Stirlings we went on leaflet raids over Germany with the bomber stream.
DE: Yes.
AM: Now we could only reach four thousand feet and they were up at ten thousand feet and more sometimes. But with a Stirling it was called the flying coffin. And it was a coffin. It was a coffin. It was a nightmare to fly in.
DE: Yes.
AM: And we came back once with a Stirling and put the undercarriage down. And the starboard wheel went down and the port wheel went up and came out at the top of the wing and it shoved out the dinghy. And as the dinghy floated down to the ground it landed. It just missed a WAAF who was walking across the grass. And it just went, I’m sure, no more than, I doubt if it was six inches from behind her where it landed. And of course it would burst I should think and it would frighten the daylights out of her. I would think anyway. Because there was all the dinghy equipment with it as well. The transmitter and other equipment. So now we had to go to a place called Woodbridge and that was that. But I have missed that the first place we went to when we were flying was a place called a Market Harborough which was an OTU. This was after flying up in Scotland. And when we were flying in the OTU we were on night bombing exercises and we got airborne and I said to the skipper over the intercom, ‘Skipper, there’s a strong smell of petrol in the rear turret.’ So, he says, ‘Well keep me informed.’ So I said, ‘Ok skipper.’ So I rang up a bit later, I says, ‘It’s getting stronger, the smell of petrol.’ So he says, ‘Well it’s still reading ok Mac. I can’t understand what’s going on.’ So I called him a third time. I said, ‘It’s getting even stronger.’ So the fourth time I called him up I was soaked to the skin in petrol. I said, ‘My vest’s soaked in petrol. All my clothes. My flying clothes.’ And I said, ‘The bottom of the turret is full of petrol floating about on the floor.’ So he said, ‘Oh we’d better get back to base.’ This is night time. So we gets back to Market Harborough and coming in, in funnels.
DE: Yes.
AM: And almost about to land when the aircraft did an about turn. The engine cut out. One of the engines caught out. We did an about turn and she skimmed over the top of a building. Anyroad, we come down behind this building and we ran across two or three fields and as we were coming to slowing down I got the turret opened. I thought, well I’m not going to be in this. If it catches fire I don’t want to be about. So I sat on the turret the wrong way around. I’d got my legs dangling outside. And I had my parachute just in case it was needed. But this was before I landed I put it on but I’d still got it on. So anyway as we’re going along it was, it hit some bumps did the aircraft and the turret went up and down and threw me out. And as it threw me out the parachute caught on something. It caught in the wind and I got blown across this here field that I was in. On my back in the field. Anyroads, I managed to, you know just jettison the equipment.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And get up. And I was alright. I hadn’t got damaged in any way. And then I picked up my parachute up and I went to where the crew were congregating and the pilot, the farmer came up and he says — he used a bit of strong language. I won’t repeat that. I’ll leave that unsays. So I can leave that to anybody’s imagination. But what happened was, he says, ‘If you people,’ that’s the skipper he’s referring to, ‘If you people would get on with the war instead of playing about. Look what you’ve done to my corn field.’ He says, ‘You’ve nothing better to do than destroying my cornfield.’ He says, ‘We’re crying out for us to make production.’ And so he went into a blur about how he was being badly done to by aircrew not respecting him as though we’d come down there from choice which we’d not.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And anyroad, it had got quite flattened quite a bit. I would agree with him. But, and it was the middle of the night. It was dark. It wasn’t daylight. It was dark. Anyroad, we waited for transport to come and we went back to, to our place.
DE: Yes.
AM: We had to report it and give an explanation. Anyway, if we remember that. In a future episode of something this comes up again.
DE: Right. Ok.
AM: But it was on over in France where it occurred. We’d been on a raid in Germany and our route took us over Belgium at night time. And as we got crossing Belgium the anti-aircraft gun opened up on us and it hit the nose of the aircraft and blew a strip of aluminium off which was about fifteen to twenty foot long and about three to four foot wide. That was from behind the front turret right back to the where the pilot was. Not the pilot. The flight engineer who was sat next to the pilot. A great piece about that width stripped from the front turret right back to where he was. It had wiped out his controls on his dashboard. The skipper. It had ripped, the shrapnel had ripped through them. It had cut the navigator’s top of his flying boot, cut a big gash in it but didn’t damage his leg. Didn’t scratch his leg. And a piece of shrapnel went through the mid-upper gunner’s pannier of ammunition which was under his arms. One at each side. Went through it and stopped just below his arm. This big lump of shrapnel. And the aircraft, a piece had jammed in the controls when we were in a dive. And it had jammed the controls in such a way that the more he was pulling it to get us out it was getting tighter in the dive. So it wasn’t getting out the dive. It was getting us worse in to the dive.
DE: Sure. Yeah.
AM: So anyway, cut a long story short the skipper decides, ‘Well our time’s up now. Bale out.’ Well he gives the word bale out but I was, I didn’t find out then but I found out later, my intercom wire had been cut with the shrapnel so I didn’t hear the word bale out and I’m still looking for fighters in the rear turret. Getting my turret going from side to side to side to side. Up and down. Looking for fighters and that. We were in the searchlights. And we were going down. I thought we seemed to be going a long way down [laughs] anyway. Anyway, what happened was he decided after he’d told us to bale out he’d put it into a steeper dive and see if that would do any good. Which he did and the piece of shrapnel fell out. Because afterwards when we landed I went and found the piece of shrapnel that had caused the trouble. And I threw it into a field. I thought, you’ve done enough damage. We’re not keeping you anymore. So I threw it into the field. And anyway it got us out the dive and he cancelled the ‘Jump. Jump.’. But before he cancelled the, ‘Jump. Jump,’ Dougie who was at the front nearly got cut in two with this big piece of shrapnel that ripped the sheet of aluminium from the side.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And it just went above his head somehow. I don’t know how but this is what we were told. And Dougie baled out and landed in a wood. Now, Dougie the bomb aimer was a New Zealander. Also the skipper was a New Zealander. Hughie Skilling, the skipper —
DE: Yes.
AM: And Dougie Cruikshanks, the bomb aimer, were both from New Zealand and they both knew each other very well. And we had a crowd which was next to none. There was none, none to equal us. The friendship among us was unbelievable. It was absolute paradise to be in with them. They were a great crowd. The others as well as the skipper and the bomb aimer. The bomb aimer had gone now.
DE: Yeah.
AM: He’d landed in a forest at night time. And he says, I got, a lot of things he told me about what he did but they’d take too long to tell. He buried his stuff, his equipment. What he had. And came out of the wood. He didn’t know which way to go. He says, ‘I just picked and came and I came across a road.’ There was no traffic on the road whatsoever. He says, ‘I started walking and I thought am I walking the right way? I think I am.’ Anyroads, he says, ‘I’m walking west. I think. And arguing with himself. ‘Am I going west. Am I going east?’ And he says, ‘I had quite an argument with myself what I was doing.’ He says, ‘Until I come to a bend in the road. When I turned the bend , lo and behold just round the bend was two Germans there with rifles with fixed bayonets.’ He says, ‘Now what do I do? He says, ‘If I turn around and run away they’ll shoot me in the back.’ He said, so he said, ‘I pulled my shoulders back,’ he says, ‘And I marched past them in military fashion and they never says a word to me. They carried on talking.’ He says after marching past the two German sentries he says, ‘I came to — ’ I think he said it was an American sentry but I could be wrong about this. It might be a British sentry but I understood it to be an American sentry. And he took him in at bayonet point. Took him to his commanding officer. And his commanding officer said, ‘Oh, you’ve got another one have you?’ So Dougie pricked his ears up. Another one? Another one what? And he says, ‘We’ve got two of you Germans tied up outside. We’re going to, you’ll be tied up out there with them and the three of you will all be shot together.’ So he says, ‘You’re going to shoot me? What for?’ So they says, ‘Because you’re only pretending to be a New Zealander.’ He told them he was New Zealand. He says, ‘You’ve only told us you’re New Zealand but we don’t believe you. Not the way you’re talking. You speak better language than that in New Zealand.’ So anyroads they got him outside and were about to tie him up and shoot him with the other two that were supposed to be Germans in RAF uniform. So Dougie come out with some language. And the officer said, ‘Let that man go. The Germans couldn’t know such language. And so, Dougie, as I say, everything’s got a purpose. Well bad language had a purpose there.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And it saved Dougie from being shot. Now, they let him go and he went to Brussels from there, and when he got to Brussels he came to a meeting of squaddies and [pause] what do they call the announcer? Richard Dimbleby.
DE: Yes.
AM: Richard Dimbleby was talking and sending messages back. New Year messages back from the front line. And one of the soldiers says to Richard Dimbleby, ‘We’ve got an airman here why don’t you interview him?’ So he says, ‘Where is he? Put your hand up, the airman.’ So Dougie put his hand up. So he invited him to come to him. So he says, ‘How do you come to be where all these soldiers are? Where’s all your crew?’ So he says, ‘I’ve baled out of a Lancaster and I’ve been in a wood and I’ve walked so many miles on the road and I’ve been taken prisoner by,’ whether it was American or whoever it was, and he says, ‘They’ve let me go because I’ve used such bad language with them.’ So he explained this to Richard Dimbleby and Richard Dimbleby says, he says, ‘Where are you from then?’ He says, ‘I’m from New Zealand. From Christchurch.’ Which he was then. But after the war, since the war, I’ve been to New Zealand. The skipper invited me for a fortnight’s holiday at his place at Christchurch. And then when Dougie knew I was there he wasn’t, we were real good mates Dougie and I, and I met Dougie. We had to go to Dougie’s from Hughie Skilling’s place in Christchurch and it was a fair way. I should say it was twenty miles from where the skipper lived. But Dougie wanted to see me.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And when he saw me he put his arm around my shoulder and he says, oh, ‘Thanks for being our rear gunner.’ So that, that was Dougie. Anyway, we had a nice little natter did Dougie and I, and Hughie Skilling. We had a natter about things. And I think I mentioned about what the Germans said to Hughie. They called us Skilling’s Follies.
DE: Yes.
AM: And they’d sent word back that they would soon be having Skilling. So he said, ‘Before you get me you have to get our two gunners first.’ So he said, ‘You’ve got to get through them and then you might get me.’
DE: Was, was your aircraft painted up with the name on the side?
AM: No.
DE: No.
AM: No. We had. We didn’t have our own aircraft. The commanding officer used to let Hughie fly his aircraft which was VNG-George. But we didn’t always get his aircraft because other people were using it as well.
DE: Right.
AM: So we — sometimes we’d get T. T-Tommy. X-Xray. It could have been any aircraft. It’s in the logbook.
DE: Yeah.
AM: What the aircraft we flew in.
DE: How did the Germans know about Skilling’s Follies then do you think?
AM: Well [pause] well on our drome we had a spy. Not if. We did. Definitely. No matter what anybody says, we did. And what happened was one day I was going into the office block where the people — where we used to have briefings. Part of the building. And this officer came to me. He says, ‘Mac.’ So I thought he knows me. I don’t know him. Who he is. I thought who are you? So he says ‘Are you going in to,’ oh I was going to say Scunthorpe, ‘Are you going in to Lincoln? Are you?’ So, I said, ‘Yeah.’ He says, ‘Would you do a little job for me?’ So I said, ‘What’s that?’ He says, ‘Do you know where the taxidermist is in Lincoln?’ So I said, ‘Yeah.’ So I says, ‘Isn’t it somewhere near the station? Near the railway station isn’t it?’ he said, ‘That’s right. Yes. It is.’ So I says, ‘Oh fair enough.’ I said, ‘I just want to check up.’ He says, ‘Well I want you to take this if your will and leave it at taxidermist.’ I said, ‘What is it?’ He says, ‘It’s a bird.’ And it was in a packet. And he said, ‘I want you to take this to have it dealt with by the taxidermist.’ But I did know what a taxidermist was then but it wasn’t long previous to that before when I didn’t know what it meant. But anyroads I’d got to know what it meant and I took this parcel to this taxidermist. And afterwards I thought to myself [pause] I had a lot of thoughts about this encounter but I’ll not say what they were. And since the war it’s come to my notice several other things. And it was, they tried to find out. In fact, we had a do where Wing Commander Flint gave us a warning about something and he looked at me and I thought are you going to tell everybody I’ve taken a parcel there? I don’t want you to say that because it would look as though I’m working in league with the — whoever might be the, might be the ones. Anyroads, it didn’t work out that way. It was maybe my thoughts and maybe thinking too much of myself.
DE: You were worried there was a message inside the bird.
AM: Yeah. I was.
DE: Yeah.
AM: I thought, oh don’t say I’ve collaborated with the, with the enemy. And anyway it seemed that since then I’ve got to know various other bits of information and I wasn’t alone in my thoughts.
DE: Right.
AM: And apparently other people had been asked by this officer to take things in to the taxidermist. Now where would an officer get things from to take to a taxidermist? Only the same as anybody else. I know. And we were in the country yes.
DE: Yes.
AM: But I never saw any livestock there of any kind. At anyroads that’s another story altogether. But I don’t know what happened with that. Whether anything happened or not but I’ve thought to myself I wished I could get on to that roof and just have a look. See what type of aerials, if any, are still up there. And you could find out what frequency they were on then.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And anyways, that was, it’s just thoughts.
DE: So how did you hear about the message from the Germans about Skilling’s Follies?
AM: Well I’ve met people at meetings. At the reunions. And different people have said about remarks about it. And they said, ‘We know you’ve taken a parcel.’ I said, ‘Yes I have. I can’t deny that.’ I said, ‘But it looked very much, very bad for me,’ I said, ‘Taking this parcel. I don’t know what was in it.’ But they said, ‘Well you shouldn’t have taken it.’ I said, ‘Well I can say that myself now, I says, ‘But at the time it was an officer and it was just a parcel as far as I was concerned and I took it.’ But it maybe wasn’t. I don’t know. But anyroad, that’s the way it went and I heard since that they come to the conclusion that it was that place where the information was being taken to.
DE: Right.
AM: Now whether it was or not I don’t know and I can’t say. I can repeat what I’ve been told but that’s gossip.
DE: Yes. Of course. Yes. So what station was this? Where was this?
AM: Skellingthorpe.
DE: It was Skellingthorpe.
AM: Yeah. And we know when we went on raids they were waiting for us. You don’t wait for somebody on a ‘drome or in a specific area unless you have information to, to confirm what you’re thinking. That they will be coming there and they were literally waiting for us. And this happened several times and you was outnumbered with fighters. So I mean it wasn’t, it wasn’t by accident it was by somebody had got it right. That they were getting information from the station.
DE: Were these daylight operations or at night?
AM: All raids. Night and day. So we certainly got a good clobbering wherever we went. So — they always seemed to be on the ball, the Germans. As though, as though you couldn’t pull the wool over their eyes. But I don’t think that was the truth at all. I think the truth was, as was says on the ‘drome, somebody was passing information back.
DE: I see.
AM: They definitely were. And then when they sent a pilot back. Now, I’ll give you a little example. I was a witness to a crash there. Our site for VNG then was at the long runway which was east to west. At the west end of the runway and on the south side of the runway at the end — say if that’s the runway. Taking off in funnels we were all in a line around here. 61 Squadron around that side. 50 Squadron around this side and we’d be one after the other going. One 50, one 61.
DE: Yeah.
AM: One 50, one 61 ‘til we’d all taken off. And what happened was that [pause] I’m losing myself now. What happened? Oh this memory. Its —
DE: So you’re all taking off and it’s a story of when they were waiting for you.
AM: Yeah. We — oh we were parked here at this end of the runway. That’s it. I’ve got it.
DE: At the dispersal.
AM: We were parked at the exit end of the runway. So by the time they got to where we were parked, just in front of us and that the rear turret was facing the end of the runway and we was getting ready to go on the same raid.
DE: Yes.
AM: And I was doing my drill in the rear turret. Anyway, watching the aircraft take off — one of them, I thought there’s something wrong with him. He kept low. He didn’t climb like the others. The others took off and climbed.
DE: [unclear] Yeah.
AM: Up and up until they got to the height and set on the direction they were going but he didn’t. He went over Skellingthorpe village and I should imagine he very nearly hit some of the chimney tops. But he turned around and came back and when he got over the end of the runway and only just on it he dropped like a stone. And of course it was the whole bomb load went up and he went up and that was the end. There was nothing to be seen after that. And I thought oh they’ve all had that. And unbeknown to me the rear gunner, one of the ground staff saw something gleaming in the — he’d been cycling his bike somewhere. I don’t know where. And he’d seen a light shining in the hedge bottom somewhere. A ditch.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And he’d gone to this and he’d found the rear turret. It had been blasted off the ‘drome in this into this ditch. And when he looked inside the rear gunner was there but he says he was black. He was all black. Which I can understand he would be. Anyroads, I learned a few days ago that he was, he was still alive up to two years ago. And he just died two years ago.
DE: Really.
AM: So, so I’m told. If I’m telling you wrong I’ve been told wrong. But that was unfortunate. The whole event was unfortunate because, and I had to go as a witness to relate what I’d seen and it didn’t end up there. With me things don’t just go from A to B. They go from A to B to C to D to E and it’s like a kangaroo jumping along with information. And what happened was, with me, was this. That when when it was reported everybody knew about it. The man that took off number one was Skillings and I should call him Squadron Leader Skilling.
DE: Yes.
AM: Because that’s what he was and he earned that title. He didn’t get it easy. He got it. He qualified and in my opinion he should have got even higher. He was an absolute wizard. He was out of this world as a pilot. He got us out of many difficulties. And what happened was his pal was the first one off. Now, he’d taken, he was up here when he, this one here was taking off.
DE: Yeah. Yes.
AM: So he hadn’t seen this one at all. And on his way to the target he’d got serious engine trouble and landed in a field in Germany. And they’d landed quite safely and they’d all got out safe.
DE: Yes.
AM: And they were trying to set fire to their aircraft which was the procedure and Fritz come up with machine guns and said, ‘If you go any further with that you’ll all be dead.’ So they had to abandon the setting fire to the, to the aircraft. So they were taken in and they said, ‘Well, you’ll be pleased to know that all the crew are not dead on that aircraft that crashed.’ They’d not seen it. They were up there. Well away from the event happening so they didn’t know a thing about what they were on about. And they thought they were making a yarn about this other aircraft. They said, ‘But you’ll be pleased to know the rear gunner is still alive.’ Now, this is before they’d reached the target. They’d got this information. So surely that would verify that someone on the ‘drome was talking to the Germans in some way. Of course radio obviously. But they had this equipment and I mean, the building, if you look at the place where, If I could back to it, to the what do they call them again? Taxidermist is. There’s tall buildings. I think they’re three stories high. Well you’ve got a good height there above all the surrounding buildings. You’ve got a good clear run to get an aerial from up there to Germany. It would be ideal for a, for a sight to broadcast from. And of course you’d get all mixed signals from that area. From the railway. From other equipment. Bus companies. Various other places. There’d be signals of all kinds buzzing about in that area so they had a good cover.
DE: Yes.
AM: And they wouldn’t dither and dather doing. They’d have a code no doubt.
DE: Yes.
AM: And having a code they would condense their messages and make it as brief as possible. So obviously when one of them came back, was released by the Americans and it was this pilot. The Americans captured the ‘drome where he was.
DE: Yes.
AM: Not the ‘drome. The prison. Or the prison camp. Whatever it was where he was detained. And they told him, when he got back to Skellingthorpe would he tell Skilling that they were after him and that they’d soon have him. And they would have Skilling’s Follies as well. That we were the Follies.
DE: Yeah.
AM: The crew and anyway, they didn’t get us. And they nearly did once or twice but we had an event which was rather unusual. I never heard of it happening to anybody. Only us. And that was this. We were on a raid where, when the tannoy went it said, ‘Will the following nine aircrews please report to briefing room.’ Now nine aircraft. Not nine squadrons. Now usually there were twenty of 50 Squadron and twenty of 61 Squadron. ‘Would the following crew — 50 Squadron and 61 Squadron, report to the briefing room’. That was it, but with us, ‘Would the following pilots report to the briefing room.’ Skilling was one.
DE: Right.
AM: And when we got to the briefing room we thought what was this going to be about. And they says, Wing Commander Flint says, ‘We’ve a very difficult job on. We can only send nine aircraft to the target. And the target is a barge and this barge is in the Mittelland Canal. And its night time and it will be well guarded. And you’ve got to get in and sink it. It must be sunk or you must bust the banks of the canal. Whichever you do it’ll leave him stranded. Now, if this here barge gets through to where they’re hoping to get it to.’ Where ever that want it to be. I don’t know. They says that, ‘We’ve nothing to stop this tank. It’s so good. It’s the most powerful tank the Germans have ever made and if it gets through we haven’t a gun that’ll touch it and we’ve nothing otherwise will deal with it. So get it sunk and come back and tell us you’ve done it.’ So, anyroads we gets off and we goes to the target. And we, we had to start with of the nine. One malfunctioned on take off so it left eight. Enroute to the target there was a big red glow in the sky. The sky all lit up. And on our port side was two Lancasters. The far Lancaster was on fire and there was one between him and us and there was also one behind our tail. Just behind us. So that was three. Anyway, we’d not been going much further. Number two Lancaster now is on fire. So that was that. So we’d gone a bit further. Now it was our turn. The mid-upper screamed, ‘Corkscrew port. Go.’ And we go straight down and all of a sudden there was such a row above the turret and a rocket passed the top of the turret a few inches and it filled the turret with fumes as it went by. It had missed us with Johnny Meadows, our mid-upper giving the word corkscrew. He saved the day did Johnny. But it was a bad way of having to do it because it was one of those nights that’s absolutely, call it black black. It was absolutely so dark you couldn’t see a thing. We couldn’t see the ground. We couldn’t see another aircraft. And yet this Focke - Wulf 190 came head on and attacked us. And he come just above. Just scraping the top of the aircraft with his belly. And I got the guns and I thought, ‘Oh I can’t.’ You’re going to say why.
DE: Why?
AM: Because there was a Lancaster just behind us and if I’d fired at him I would have hit the Lancaster. It was just behind us. And I thought oh dear and I wondered if they’d crashed but they hadn’t. They hadn’t crashed but anyroads this Focke - Wulf come over at night time. Of all the times. I’ve never known of it before. Maybe other aircraft have had it but we’d never had an head-on attack. We’d had attacks from the side, from below and various places but never, never from in front. So that was that. And anyroads we, we had a good time of it because we was coming back from it and over Belgium the anti-aircraft unit opened up on us and that’s where they took the sheet off the side of the nose of the aircraft.
DE: Oh I see. Yeah.
AM: The full length of the nose of the aircraft was minus a sheet of aluminium about two to three feet wide.
DE: Yeah.
AM: Maybe more. I don’t know the exact measurement. But it was, I think, about the width of the this table.
DE: Did you manage to — Dougie baled out. Did you —
AM: Dougie baled out. Yes.
DE: Did you manage to make it back to England then?
AM: Yes, he did. And he came back and when he came back the skipper says to us all, ‘We’re going out. I’ve got permission. We’re going out tonight to celebrate Doug’s survival. And we were taking Dougie in to Lincoln.’ So I says, ‘Good.’ Now I’m ready and everybody’s ready and Dougie’s ready and Dougie hung back. And somehow I get the feeling he wanted to talk to me. I don’t know how I knew but I did. And Dougie hung back and I hung back and he got hold of me and he says, ‘Mac.’ I says, ‘You’re not.’ So he says, ‘What do you mean?’ I says, ‘You know what I mean. You’re going to tell me that you’re yellow.’ He says, ‘I was. I was yellow.’ He says, ‘I was the only one that bailed out.’ I says, ‘Dougie you wasn’t yellow. You carried out what you was instructed to do and did it as you was told to do it. You was on the ball. That’s the only crime you committed. You was on the ball. You got out the aircraft when you should.’ Well underneath, Dougie, the bomb aimer, is a hatch about this square.
DE: Yes.
AM: And it’s easy for him to just jettison that. I mean I would have to find out how to do it but he knew how to do it. And he zipped it out and he was straight out. Followed the instructions and he landed with his parachute in the forest. Yeah. And from there onwards he ended up as a prisoner of war to be shot for being a German spy. That was Dougie.
DE: Yeah.
AM: The New Zealander. The skipper was a New Zealander as well. Hughie Skilling.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And he was pretty well known. Whatever station we went on, ‘Hiya Skilling. That’s the bloke that taught me to fly.’ And this was, wherever we went somebody did this. Every ‘drome we went to.
DE: Wonderful.
AM: Never missed. He taught ever so many people to fly. That was him. He had a marvellous reputation and he had with us.
DE: Yes.
AM: As his crew we couldn’t have picked a better man.
DE: So what was your job in the crew?
AM: What was —?
DE: Your job. You were a rear gunner. What did, what did that entail?
AM: Well I was just in charge. I had four guns there and all I had to do was to keep the tail clear or the side or wherever my guns would face I had to patrol that area visually. And I did do. And I never stopped. I never wore glasses. I never sat down ever. Every minute of my flying was stood up. If you look at my logbook you’ll see how many hours I’ve been on trips. I’d been to Munich and back and never sat down. It was too risky I thought and so I never sat down for that reason. I thought at times it’s proved to be successful. I’ve seen aircraft and the skipper says, ‘Well keep him under view Mac until he comes into range and then see what you can do.’ We had one that followed us for quite some way. I said, ‘Skipper we’re being followed with a JU88,’ and he was on our starboard side. So I thought well I’ll let him know. I said, ‘And I don’t think he’s coming in to attack.’ He said, ‘What do you think he’s doing then?’ I said, ‘He’s finding out where we’re going to and he’s keeping us in view and if he follows us we’ll take him to the target.’ And I said, ‘He’s out of range of my guns.’ So he says, ‘Well when he comes into range give him something.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry. We’re only waiting for him to do that but he’s not. He’s a wise bod. He knows full well if he comes any nearer he’ll get a congratulation.’ But anyroads he didn’t. He just cleared off. I think he’d had enough of us. He’d followed us for a quarter of an hour at least. We did have occasions when we brushed with them but usually we were fortunate. We managed to keep out of their way so to speak.
DE: I see.
AM: Yeah. So we didn’t get any damage from fighters. We got [laughs] we got some awakenings at times when he suddenly spotted one. We wondered what he was going to do but usually they went for other aircraft. And we was fortunate.
DE: Did you open fire at any?
AM: No. No. I never, never fired one bullet. Not on active service.
DE: But you kept your eye open.
AM: I was never in a position where I could fire at one. They came near us and as soon as they saw that you were taking precautions they cleared off and went for somebody else that maybe hadn’t seen them.
DE: So did you call corkscrew and that was enough?
AM: Well yeah but, oh we did corkscrew a few times. We had to do but when you did that — well I’ll tell you what did happen with the two squadrons. They sent, the newspaper sent an article, I don’t know which newspaper it was, could they send some reporters to find out what it was like on a raid? And the squadron, this was before I was on the squadron. I’m repeating what I was told. And we were told that yes they could send some reporters and we’d fix them up. There’s two squadrons. Twenty in each squadron. There’s forty aircraft. How many are you going to send? They sent five. Well four of them went with 61 Squadron. Two in one aircraft and two in another. And one came in one of 50s aircraft. And the two that went in the 61 aircraft they didn’t come back. The one that came in 50 Squadron he came back and he’d got so many bones broken. He’d corkscrewed and he got thrown about the aircraft and he ended up in hospital. So that was [laughs] I don’t like laughing at it but it was unfortunate for them that they couldn’t have been instructed before they went in what to do in a corkscrew.
DE: So what would you have to do to —?
Well you get a firm grip on somewhere otherwise you are going to get thrown about. And if you get thrown about he’s trying to be as vicious as he can with the aircraft. You’re going to get some rough treatment and there’s only one thing to do and that’s hang on. I mean I was stood up in the turret. When we went in to corkscrew I held on to the two supports and of course I could still stand up. Even in a corkscrew. Well they wouldn’t know this.
DE: No.
AM: But I did. I wasn’t there when they did it so I mean so I couldn’t say do it because I didn’t know. I never seen them. But it was unfortunate for them what had happened. I never did find out whether the others were prisoners of war or what happened to them but certainly the one that was on our squadron I did hear about him. And as I’ve, as I just said he got so many bones broken. What they were exactly I don’t know.
DE: No.
AM: I didn’t enquire.
DE: No.
AM: So —
DE: Oh dear.
AM: But it was a vicious thing was a corkscrew and it got you out of trouble.
DE: Yeah.
AM: So that was some of the things. There was other things but —
DE: What sort of other things?
AM: Well what can I think? I’ve not given it much thought really [pause] Well yes we went to a target where it was terrible weather conditions. Really bad. And it was in a mountainous area. If I looked in the logbook I maybe could find where it was because we landed at Tangmere when we come back. We’d no petrol. We were registering empty in the tanks. But anyroad I’ll tell the story from the off.
DE: We’ve got the logbooks scanned so we can look that up later. Yeah.
AM: Well the place that I’m referring to it was a bad trip because it was ice all the way there. And lumps of ice had fallen off the aircraft. We was having a job to keep our altitude. Anyway, we gets to the target area and we goes in and we makes an orbit of the circuit. And enroute to the target, just before we reach the target, what seemed to me to be in an aircraft a few yards but it maybe was miles. There was, on the mountainside, on the same level as us, the mountain at each side of us and on the port side of us looked, on a ledge on this mountain was an area all lit up. And I says, ‘Oh that’s a listening post.’ There was a good array of aerials and that on it. I thought that’s a listening post that. I’ll bear that in mind and mention it if the opportunity crops up. Anyroads, we gets to the target, we goes in to bomb, comes out the run. ‘How many bombs did you drop Doug?’ ‘Not one. They’ve froze up.’ So, ‘Right we’ll go around again.’ So we goes around again. ‘How many bombs did you drop this time Dougie?’ ‘None. They’re all froze up.’ ‘Why? Did you have the heaters on?’ ‘The heaters have been on all the time, skipper. They’ve never been off. They’re on, and they’ve been on all the time.’ ‘And we haven’t dropped a single bomb?’ He says. ‘No. We’ve got the cookie and the five hundred pounders.’ So we goes around again. The third time. No. We haven’t dropped one. So we goes around for the fourth time and they dropped the, I don’t know how many of the thousand pounders dropped but some of them dropped. But not the cookie. That’s the four thousand pounder. So the skipper says, ‘Dougie—’ Oh I haven’t mentioned this part here — this was Dougie’s thorn. This is the thorn in Dougie’s side. I didn’t tell you this part. At briefing Wing Commander Flint said, ‘We’re getting very short of four thousand pounders. And if for any reason you don’t drop your thousand pounder — four thousand pounder, I want to know the reason why you’ve dropped it, where you’ve dropped it and how you’ve dropped it.’ He said, ‘And I want a good explanation if you’ve dropped it.’ And he said, ‘You’re in for it.’ So anyroads we comes out and the skipper says, ‘Right, Dougie. We’ll have to get rid of it somewhere.’ So Dougie says, ‘You can’t.’ So skipper says, ‘Why can’t we?’ He said, ‘Well you heard what Wing Commander Flint says. If we can’t drop any four thousand pounder we’ve to bring it home or he wants an explanation why not.’ So he said, ‘Well we can give him one.’ So Dougie said, ‘What’s that?’ So he says, ‘We won’t reach base if we carry it. We’ve been around four times Dougie,’ he said, ‘And we’re getting a bit short of petrol. As it is we’ll be lucky if we reach the French coast.’ So he says, ‘Oh we will will we?’ So he said, ‘Well, I don’t care what you say. I say drop it.’ So the skipper says, ‘Well we’ve got to drop it before we get to the coast because we call it galloping petrol down.’ So he says, ‘We’ll have a vote on it, Dougie. Mac —rear gunner. What do you say?’ ‘Drop it.’ ‘Mid-upper?’ ‘Drop it.’ ‘Wireless op?’ ‘Drop it.’ ‘Navigator? Drop it.’ ‘Flight engineer?’ ‘ Drop it.’ ‘Pilot? Drop it.’ But I think he said, ‘I think we’ve won.’
DE: Yeah.
AM: So he said, ‘Will that do Dougie?’ So he says, ‘Well I’m voting against it.’ So he said, ‘Dougie if we do,’ he says, ‘I’ll guarantee we won’t reach the French coast if we take it back.’ ‘We won’t?’ He said, ‘We’ll be lucky now if we reach the French coast.’ And as it turned out we, he dropped it on this here, this here sight which I said was the listening post and he got a bullseye on it. And they forgot one thing. They forgot to take the difference in altitude of that from dropping a bomb. It was so many thousand feet up, this.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And that should, that should have been added to the distance between us and the height they dropped the bomb from. But they didn’t do that. They forgot about it. Well the aircraft got such a smack. The skipper says, ‘Mac, are you alright in the tail?’ So I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Thank goodness for that.’ He says, ‘Has any damage been done?’ I says, ‘Not that I know of.’ So he said, ‘Are you sure? Wireless op go and have a look down the fuselage. See if there’s any damage. I’m sure we’ve got some damage somewhere.’ But we hadn’t. We’d got no damage. So we heads for the French coast now. And I heard them talking as we were crossing The Channel there, ‘We’ll be lucky if we make the coast. We might have to ditch.’ Anyroad, we landed at Tangmere. And we got, we stayed there the night and got petrolled up and back to base but we wouldn’t have done with a cookie.
DE: No.
AM: It was a good job we got rid of it. So in the report they put down that we’d hit this here listening post. Which they did. They got a bullseye. Because they hadn’t, there wasn’t much difference, there wasn’t much difference in the height between them and us. But these are little side kicks to what made flying interesting. You did get little kicks now and again that boosted you up when you saw it happening to them and not to us.
DE: Yes.
AM: But, but then when you sat down seriously thinking oh aren’t we stupid. We’re bombing their lovely buildings that they’ve taken centuries to build. The pride and joy of Germany. We’re knocking them down.
DE: Yeah.
AM: They’re doing the same here. They’ve come to Coventry. They’ve knocked beautiful buildings down there that’s been up for centuries. And this is the thoughts that go through your mind. We must be mad to instigate such things as killing each other like we do as though it’s the right thing to do. But it’s not. It’s the wrong thing to do. But anyroad that was, that was it. There was other occasions when things happened but you can’t — I couldn’t bring them all to mind at the moment. Maybe when I’m in bed and thinking what I’ve said today. Maybe these things will come to my mind which they do when you’re not in a position to relate them.
DE: That’s always the way. Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. The memory does strange things.
AM: Yeah. We had some close dos. But we could rely on the skipper. He was, he was A1. Absolutely A1. And he invited us to their home in New Zealand for a fortnight’s holiday and the wife and I went and we had a marvellous time there. And as I’ve said we went to Dougie’s.
DE: Yes.
AM: Yeah. He says, ‘I’m pleased you was our rear gunner.’ [laughs] I don’t know why but that’s what he says.
DE: That’s good.
AM: So anyroads.
DE: How many operations did you do?
AM: I don’t know. I’ve not counted. It would be about twenty eight I think. Something like that.
DE: So what happened at the end of the war in Europe?
AM: Well what happened to me was we got a direct hit at the tail end of the aircraft and I was stood, in front of me it was open and I was stood there. The next thing I knew I was laid on the floor. And I come to and I could hear on my earphones Hughie shouting through the earphones. Oh I says, ‘Was you shouting me Hughie?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ he says ‘What happened?’ ‘Oh,’ I says, ‘You know that shell that hit us?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘It pulled my intercom out.’ I said, ‘It come unplugged.’ And he didn’t believe me but I thought I’m not going to tell him I’m laid on the floor. So anyroad, I got up off the floor and felt myself and I thought I’m alright. I says, ‘Everything’s alright at the back end here Hughie, I said, ‘It was just a bit near. That’s all.’ So anyroad, when we landed he says, ‘I want to see you.’ He says, ‘I don’t believe you.’ So I says, ‘Why? What do you mean?’ He said, ‘I don’t think you’re telling me the truth.’ I said, ‘What about?’ He said, ‘You know what about. You told me you were alright, didn’t you? On the intercom.’ I said, ‘Well I am.’ So he said, ‘You’re not.’ He says, ‘If you could see your eyes you would know why.’ So I says, ‘Well what’s wrong with my eyes? He said, ‘They’re all bloodshot. Both of them. They’re in a hell of state,’ He said, ‘You’re going to the medical centre.’ ‘ No,’ I said, ‘I aren’t. I’m alright Hughie.’ He says, ‘Mac we rely too much on you to for you to go up like that. You couldn’t see properly.’ I said, ‘I can see alright.’ And I thought I could. Apparently I was in hospital for a fortnight. But anyroad they kept me in. They wouldn’t let me out.
DE: Which hospital was that?
AM: It wasn’t. It was the army hospital — Air Force hospital. So, and I says, ‘Can I go back to flying?’ And they says, ‘Oh not again.’ I says, ‘Well I don’t want to be here.’ I says, ‘I appreciate what you’re doing but I don’t want to be here. I want to be back with my crew.’ I said, ‘I’ve only two more ops to do. Or one to do. I don’t know how many,’ I says, ‘And then we’ve finished the tour.’
DE: Yes.
AM: He says —
DE: Yes. Did they not fly without you then?
AM: No. They got another gunner.
DE: Right.
AM: I don’t know who he was. But anyroad they got another gunner and he took my place for the last two or the last one. I don’t know if there was one or two we had to do. So —
DE: So were you in hospital at the end of the war in Europe then?
AM: Near enough.
DE: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. Anyway, they doctored me up in there and I think I could have managed without. I think I could anyway. I think they were taking precautions but they’d no need to. I was alright.
DE: Sure.
AM: I thought I was anyway.
DE: Yeah.
They said, ‘No, you’re not. Not again.’ I said, ‘Look,’ I said, ‘Just let me go and,’ I says, ‘I’ll get back with my crew and then that’s it. You’re finished. You’ll not put up with me.’ So they wouldn’t. They said, ‘No. You’re stopping here a bit longer.’ I was there for a fortnight. Anyroad, that was that. So that was the only incident I had. And it wasn’t too bad either. I mean I didn’t know much about it [laughs] I was just laid on the floor. And, oh a young lady in there in one of those photographs. Is she, oh she’s in here. This young lady — we meet her at the meetings. In our reunions.
DE: Yeah.
AM: Where is she? That’s — have you seen them?
DE: I’ve seen those ones. Yeah.
AM: You’ve seen them. And that young lady there in the middle. Yeah. That young lady there her husband was on the same raid as us and he got killed. He got shot down and he was killed. She enquired until she got to us and ever since then she’s, she’s clung to us. She’s from Wales somewhere. And when we go to the meetings she makes a beeline for us on account of us being on the same raid as her husband.
DE: I see.
AM: I don’t know what the connection is except her husband unfortunately, he come unstuck there. We were lucky. We got through.
DE: Yeah. Do you go to a lot of reunions then?
AM: I’ve been to quite a few.
DE: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. When I can go I go.
DE: I see. And what did you do after the RAF?
AM: I went back. I was an electrician. And I were working in Hull. I were working on mine sweepers. And I worked on — I think it was called the Virago. I don’t battleships. I don’t know whether it was a destroyer or a cruiser. It was a fairly big ship. Plenty of guns on it and plenty of anti-submarine equipment. And with ASDIC and sonar on it. And I was lucky with that because I struck with a note with a man that was piped on board ship. And the man that was the captain of this ship was called Crumpelow. A navy ship this is I’m referring to.
DE: Yes.
AM: And they piped this officer aboard on ship and he says, ‘I want you all to hide out the way while we’re bringing him on board ship. We don’t want him to see any of you.’ So we says, ‘Ok fair enough.’ So I was a charge hand then and I says, ‘We’ve got to keep out of sight while this officer’s coming aboard ship.’ So they says, ‘Ok. We can manage that alright.’ So we goes down below. Down in the bilges.
DE: Yes.
AM: Gets out the way. And he came and he went. And then we were working on the ASDICs and when a few days later on I had a “Practical Wireless” in my back pocket. And I was working down below in the ASDICs with the rest of the squad and I felt someone lift this book out of my back pocket. I thought who’s taken that? And I turned around. He says, ‘It’s alright. I’m not pinching it. I’m only looking at it.’ And it was this officer that they’d piped on board the ship. So he says, ‘What are you going to make out of this?’ So I says, ‘Well I’m thinking of making that condenser analyser.’ So he says, ‘Well do you know,’ he says, ‘I don’t know if my qualifications are good enough,’ he says, ‘But what I use for doing that, nothing as complicated as what you’re going to make.’ He says, ‘This is what I use. A pair of earphones and a resistor. And I calibrate the variable resistance with the earphones across the condenser,’ he says, ‘And I have a set of condensers that I have that are calibrated and are precision ones,’ and he says, ‘I use them to work out what the ones are that I’m putting in. He says, now then, only me can use this now because my hearing and your hearing and anybody else’s is not the same. The earphones are calibrated to my hearing. Not to yours.’ He says, ‘If you make this you’ve got one of the best condenser analysers there is in the market. He says, ‘And that’s what I use on this here ASDICs and Sonar’
DE: I see. Yeah.
AM: So he says, ‘Send this for this CPO, chief petty officer will you?’ — to this bloke that was with him. So he went and he came back with this chief petty officer. He says, ‘If this man wants any gear out of the radio room —’ the pantry he called it. I think he called it a pantry, he says, ‘Give him it. But he will return it. He’s not getting given it for good he’s being loaned it. And I’m giving him, sanctioning that he can have anything he wants out of that radio stockroom and he can have the use of it providing he brings it back.’ So I thought well how good of him and he didn’t know me from Adam. And from there onwards we were the best of pals. We really got on, you know, really well. He was a smashing fellow. Really nice. I thought he was anyway. I could have made a life-long friend of him.
DE: Marvellous.
AM: So that was, that was a little bit there about that. I think they called it the Virago.
DE: Right.
AM: I might have got the name wrong because it was a long time since now.
DE: Sure.
AM: That’s what I was doing. Working on ships.
DE: Can I just take you back? A couple of things you started to talk about and then, and then we’ll press on with it.
AM: Yeah.
DE: You had a crash landing at Woodbridge.
AM: We had. We had four crash landings at Woodbridge.
DE: Did you?
AM: Yeah. We had a Lancaster got a burst tyre, with shrapnel that was. And the undercarriage was damaged and we landed with one wheel down and we didn’t know whether it would stay up or not because it had come down of its own accord. Not selected down. We landed with a Lancaster. We landed with a Stirling. And we crash landed at Juvincourt in France and we landed in a field there on New Year’s Eve after we’d been to Mittelland Canal. Yeah. I think it was the Mitteland Canal we went to and we got clobbered there but we got the two engines — the port engines on fire and the port wing on fire. We got the controls damaged. They got the intercom to the rear turret damaged. There was quite a lot of damage done and got the bits stripped off the front which was twenty foot long.
DE: Oh this was when Dougie baled out.
AM: Yeah.
DE: Right.
AM: And it was all —
DE: So you crash landed in France after that.
AM: At a place called Juvincourt. Which is just about approximately three miles. I’m estimating this as approximately three miles north of Reims. And we landed there and I had a marvellous time there myself for several reasons. First of all when we landed there an officer came up with a sten gun. It was night time and we was in the middle of a field. We said, ‘What have you brought that for?’ He said, ‘Well yesterday,’ or last night, ‘An aircraft landed and a man come out the darkness and stabbed the pilot to death.’ So he says, ‘I didn’t want him to be setting about you people so I brought the sten gun. And if he comes tonight he’ll get his, what he’s earned because,’ he said, ‘I won’t mix my words. If he comes up I’ll not give him the chance to use the knife. He’ll have had it.’ But nobody came. So that was that. Now then, I mentioned early on when I was talking about Market Harborough and about the parachute packer.
DE: Yeah.
AM: That I would probably come back to that.
DE: Oh yes.
AM: Now, when we handed our parachutes in, ‘Oh its McDonald is it?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ So I said, ‘I suppose you want something do you?’ He said, ‘Yes I do. I want my seven and six pence.’ So I said, ‘What did I tell you I did?’ He said, ‘You told me that when you flew over Germany you emptied your pockets, left it in the billet and when the airmen there knew you wasn’t coming back they was to spend it.’ I said, ‘That’s right. Well,’ I said, ‘That’s what’s happened tonight. My money’s still back in the billet. I haven’t got a penny piece on me.’ I said, ‘I’m not giving my money to the Germans. Not as a prisoner.’ I said, ‘So I’m sorry you’re out of luck again. ’So I said, ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I says, ‘When I can and if I see you again I’ll have the seven and sixpence and you’ll get it.’ And I have. I’ve three half crowns in a cupboard at home waiting for the day that I ever meet him again. And if I do or if I can contact him he’ll get his seven and sixpence. So that was it. We had a good natter him and I. You know. A sort of friendship builds up don’t it?
DE: Yeah.
AM: You can tell whether anybody’s friendly with you or whether they’re aggravated at what you say. And at first with him an immediate friendship. We struck it off together.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And anyway that was that. Now, after meeting him I went to the cookhouse and he says, ‘I wonder if any of you likes turkey?’ So I said, ‘I do.’ So he said, ‘How much did you want?’ So I said, ‘How much can we have?’ So he says, ‘You can have as much as you want,’ he said, ‘We’re on American rations here,’ he said, ‘And we’ve got that much turkey it’s going to have to be thrown away.’ And he says, ‘I don’t like throwing food away.’ So I said, ‘Well you’ve no need to do that.’ I says, ‘Can I have just turkey on my plate? No potatoes. Nothing at all but just turkey.’ ‘You can, he said, ‘With pleasure. And I’ll pile it up.’ So he did. So when the other, the rest of the crew says, ‘What’s up with you? Haven’t they got any vegetables?’ I said, ‘Yeah. If you want them.’ So they says, ‘What do you mean if you want them? Well you get vegetable normally with your turkey.’ I says, ‘Well, he asked me did I want turkey? I says yes. He says how much do you want? I says can I just have turkey? He says yes you’ll be very welcome to have turkey. And he says and he’s filled my plate up.’ And I says, ‘I think if you people asked for the same as me he’d be very pleased because he doesn’t want to throw it away.’ So they went up and they says, ‘Is he speaking the truth? And he says, ‘Why? What did he say?’ He says we could have turkey and no vegetables.’ He says, ‘Yeah you can if you want.’ ‘Oh. We’ll have just turkey then.’ So the rest of the crew had turkey. But I haven’t mentioned this so far. That when we were in our orbit we were in a dreadful state at that time. The aircraft that is. Not us. We were alright. And the tannoy, the intercom was going and this aircraft had obviously heard us talking to ground control. Heard our pilot talking to ground control. And he says. ‘I hear that there’s another aircraft in the orbit the same as us. His two port engines on fire and the wing on fire. And we’re very short on petrol.’ He says, ‘I’m afraid I daren’t go around and make a proper landing the right way around. I’m going to have to land the wrong way around.’ Well that meant we were landing and we were going up to that end here and he was coming in this way. And we ran off the runway. We’d no brakes. Off the runway, across the perimeter track, across the grass verge into a field and in the middle of the field we came to a stop. Now it was right in line with the runway where we were right underneath the funnels. He came in low down and he made an excellent landing. He actually touched down on the perimeter track with three wheels. Now, I think that’s a marvellous landing. Because usually you’re a little way down the runway and then you touch your wheels down. Not him. He made sure they were down because they were the same as us. They’d got knocked to blazes with this anti-aircraft unit in, in — not France. In Belgium. And we were to find out after it had all happened and we were discussing it. Somebody says, ‘Well we’ve captured Belgium.’ And then it suddenly dawned on us it was our own anti-aircraft fire that had clobbered us. And it wasn’t our British anti-aircraft. It was our allies anti-aircraft that had shot us down. That had shot him down and then following him as he landed another one came in that had got the same again. And apparently this anti-aircraft unit of the Americans they only used anti-aircraft shells with proximity fuses in. So instead of passing your aircraft by missing it if it was at the side of your aircraft the proximity fuse would detonate the shell and you’d get an explosion at the side of you, which for them was a good thing. It was ideal. It brought the aircraft down. Which it did. So it brought three Lancasters down within a few minutes that were passing over the unit. So we were one.
DE: Right.
AM: And this other aircraft was the next one and then of course one followed him. He got clobbered the same.
DE: Oh dear.
AM: So three Lancasters were lost there. But nobody fortunately was injured on any three of them. So that was even better still.
DE: Yeah. That’s good.
AM: So Dougie, he was going to get shot.
DE: Yeah.
AM: He was the only casualty. But anyroad, he didn’t get shot. And anyroads things, things turned out for the better.
DE: Yes.
AM: Nobody was injured and Dougie got away scot free. Thank goodness.
DE: Wonderful.
AM: He got a good frightening I suppose. Tied up and they were going to shoot him.
DE: Yeah. Your tea’s probably cold now.
AM: Oh well. Not to worry.
DE: There’s a couple of points that you made and I sort of, I let them go because you didn’t seem to want to tell me but I’d like to just ask you again.
AM: Yeah. Don’t you.
DE: That the WAAF that you met at headquarters. I’d like to know who she was.
AM: Who she was?
DE: Yeah.
AM: Well to be quite honest with you I know very little about her except that she used to come with a young lady much younger than herself. And I took it for granted it was her daughter. So I was talking to her one day and I says, ‘You know your daughter?’ ‘Well, you don’t, you’ve not seen my daughter.’ I says, ‘Well I’m not blind. You come with her every time.’ ‘That’s not my daughter.’ I said, ‘Whose daughter is it then?’ She said, ‘Well what happened was I got put out my house.’ for some reason. She didn’t say what. ‘And that lady owns property in Grantham, and she accommodated me and I’m living with her. And that’s how I know her and that’s why she comes with me to these meetings. She likes coming to these Association meetings.’ And to be quite honest with you she was very friendly with me and I says, ‘Well, your mam,’ this — ‘My mam? You’ve not met my mam.’ So I says, ‘I have. That’s your mam isn’t it?’ ‘No. She’s not my mam.’ She says, ‘I’ve taken her in because she got put out of her house.’
DE: I see.
AM: So that’s, that’s how I know. Well I don’t know her from that really. I know from the fact that her husband was on the same raid as me and he got killed.
DE: Right. I see.
AM: So that was on a raid to Munich. I went twice to Munich. And apparently on one of the raids he was on it and he got killed. And she goes to see him. It’s somewhere in France where he’s buried. And they invite her over there and she goes each year and she says they make a right fuss of her. They’re ever so good to her. So that’s her. I don’t know her name. I couldn’t tell. I’ve never known her name.
DE: I see. Ok.
AM: I usually just go up to her and talk to her like maybe you from now on. Like maybe if I see you in the town, ‘Oh now then how are you?’
DE: Yeah.
AM: But I won’t say John, Charlie, Harry, Joe or Ken or whatever. I wouldn’t because I mean I don’t know. I would say, ‘Hello.’
DE: Right. I see. Ok.
AM: So that maybe explains that one.
DE: Yeah.
AM: Now what’s the second one?
DE: It was you were sort of alluding to some secrets at RAF headquarters.
AM: Yes I was. And I shall have to be very careful that I don’t mention it.
DE: Ok.
AM: It’s very very high.
DE: I can’t, I can’t persuade you to tell me the story.
AM: No. No. But I’m in a difficult position. I could tell you as easy as wink. I thought I’d given you a clue when I said to you, when I was in London at St John’s Wood I was presented to the Queen Mother.
DE: Yes. I think I’m with you. Say no more.
[pause]
DE: I think that’s been an absolutely wonderful interview. You’ve nearly been talking for two hours.
AM: Have I?
DE: Yeah. Your son’s about right. Yeah.
AM: And I’ve only told you a fraction of what happened.
DE: Well we can do all this all again if you’d be up for it another time. Just while the tape’s still going, what do you think, what’s your opinion on the way that Bomber Command has been remembered over the last seventy years?
AM: Well they’ve not, they’ve not given us any publicity whatsoever. I mean I heard the news during the war and to me our aircraft went to Hamburg. That’s it. No mention of losses or anything. And the Germans were so efficient that I was jealous of them. I was literally jealous because the Germans were so efficient with their aircraft with how they attacked. They didn’t, they didn’t make one false move and they were always on the ball. You could never take it for granted that they wouldn’t be waiting for you because they would. They were there all the time and they come in. They never hesitated. They’re straight in. We were more than fortunate. We really were fortunate. But a lot of people, I saw a lot of people go down as you can imagine. And I felt sorry for them that went down but you couldn’t do anything about it. You couldn’t reach them. If my guns would have reached that fighter I would have given him a burst. For example one night there was a Lanc behind us. We’d bombed the target and was coming away from it. And coming away from the target this here JU88 was just behind a Lancaster going that way. And this JU88 was here and he stopped, I should say no more than thirty foot from the rear turret. And I thought what’s going on. Why doesn’t he fire? Why doesn’t the Lanc fire? And neither of them fired at each other for minutes. I thought good grief if I could persuade my skipper to drop behind I’d give him a burst and he’d be down easy. And he didn’t fire at the German. And the German didn’t fire at him. And then all of a sudden the rear gunner, I don’t know that he’d got trouble with his guns. Something had been switched off or suddenly wasn’t working. That I don’t know but then he did open up and of course the JU88 went down. But it was ages before he did.
DE: Crikey.
AM: And I couldn’t understand that at all. It seemed to me to be ridiculous.
DE: It is strange.
AM: Anyroad, if I’d, if I’d had the courage to ask my skipper let us drop back I could have easily, we was a little bit above him. Not far. He wouldn’t be a hundred foot below us. Less than that but behind us.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And just a little bit below us. Anyroads, he got him. Oh did I give a cheer when I saw him fire. And I couldn’t understand it. I’ve never seen it before or since. I’ve seen plenty of ours go down. Not many, not many of theirs. There were some went down. Yes. But not many. They weren’t, they weren’t like our Battle of Britain where the Jerries were going down most of the time. So we’re told.
DE: How did that make you feel?
AM: It was war and I accepted it as such. You got to accept all sorts of boss-eyed things in the war haven’t you? Things are not normal by any means.
DE: Yeah.
AM: And I just accepted them for what they were. Sometimes I felt sorry. Sometimes I says whoopee. Depended which side it was.
DE: I know you says you used to leave all your money behind.
AM: Leave?
DE: You used to leave your money behind.
AM: Yes I did.
DE: Were you, were you frightened? Were you reconciled to not coming back some times?
AM: Well the possibility was very strong. That you wouldn’t. And I knew this. And I thought well they’re not going to have my money. I don’t care what happens. They’re certainly not having that. And so I left it behind and left it with the blokes in the billet. They knew where it was. They never touched it. So yeah that was just one of the things. There’s a lot of funny things in a war. Many funny things. You meet people you never dreamed that you would rub shoulders with and you get things happen to you you’d never think would happen but they do. War is a funny thing. It’s a mixture of all mix and manders. Absolutely. It really is. I’ve been on a ship and I was on a ship between Ireland and Stranraer and there was a raging storm in the Irish Sea. And I was violently sick. And I went up on the deck and a wave — I got stuck between one of those —I think they call them air funnels. They’re not letting gasses out. They’re taking the air in down to the boiler room. And I got wedged between that. And it was the only thing that stopped me getting washed overboard. The wave came over the side and over me. And my great coat [laughs] and everything on me was wet through. And I thought well I don’t care if I get washed overboard. I was that fed up of being ill. I don’t care. I don’t care if I get drowned. That was it and that was the way it was. At night time by the way. Not day time. And then to end it a destroyer or a cruiser, or some, some navy ship shone his searchlight on us and then he put it off and they’d see me on the deck. Whether that put them off or not I don’t know but they put the searchlight off and we just progressed getting back to Stranraer. So, but I didn’t mention another little thing. Whilst we were at Juvincourt I went to our Lanc when we got up in the morning. I didn’t get any sleep. But the night time — oh I didn’t tell you that part. We got into bed. That’s the yarn.
DE: Right.
AM: Now I got into the bed and the bed tilted. If that’s the bed it’s there. I got in to the bed at this side.
DE: Yes.
AM: And this is what happened.
DE: It went through ninety degrees. Yeah.
AM: I’d never heard of this before but anyroad I ended up on the floor. So I got my tunic and I wedged one side of it and I thought well I’ll sleep at that side, but then my tunic crumpled up or whatever you call it and of course that side went that way [laughs] where the tunic was. So I thought I’m not messing about any more. I didn’t get any sleep at all that night. They were all having a good laugh at me being on the floor and under the bed twice. Anyway, to cut a long story short the next morning we gets up, we goes to breakfast and I says to Johnny, the mid-upper, I says, ‘Are you coming to have a look at VNG-George?’ He says, ‘Is that where you’re going?’ I says, ‘Yeah are you coming with me?’ So he said, ‘Yeah. I’ll come with you.’ We’ll have a look. See what damage has been done.’ So we went to, got on to VNG-George and we went up and oh what a mess it was inside. You’d have thought they had a gun inside the aircraft. There was holes all over the place. It was like a colander. And we went up front to where the skipper was. The dashboard was all smashed. And the seat where Hughie was there was a piece of shrapnel. Now, let’s get this right now. I’m going to say the wrong thing if I’m not careful. I know. I’ve got it. At the back of him was a sheet of armour plate like that.
DE: Yes.
AM: A half an inch armour plate behind the skipper. A half inch thick and the full width of his seat.
DE: Yeah.
AM: So he was protected from the back and just there on the seat was a piece of shrapnel. It had gone through the armour plating and were just sticking out at this side. But it hadn’t got enough force to go any further. It had finished there. And I tried to get it out and I’d not anything heavy to hit it with. I thought I’ll get that out and give it to the skipper because that’s the nearest he’s ever been to having a bit of shrapnel in him. And it would have got him at this, behind his shoulder because that’s where it was.
DE: Yeah.
AM: Where his shoulder would have been. Anyroad, we come out the aircraft and we saw the damage that was done and we saw the piece missing off the side of the starboard side of the aircraft. From the turret right back to the, where the flight engineer sits. You could see inside the aircraft all the way along. Anyroads we goes from there. I says, ‘Let’s look all the way around John. Let’s look at the ‘drome.’ Well there were debris all over the place. There was ammunition. There was guns. There was spades. There was uniforms. There was helmets. You name it, it was there. Where they’d been fighting on the ‘drome. Apparently according to our information we were told that they had only captured the ‘drome the day before we came. Before we landed there. And that there had been fighting on the ‘drome which they had. And so I said, ‘Come on let’s look around John.’ And we were walking along the perimeter track and it took several bends. And one of the bends we went around, ‘Look at that.’ ‘Well what about it? It’s only a Focke-Wulf 190.’ I says, I says, ‘I’m going on to that. I’m going to start if up if I can.’ He said, ‘Do you think you can?’ I says, ‘I don’t know. I’ll find out.’ So I climbs on to the wing. Climbs up to where the canopy was and it was perfect. There was no damage to the aircraft anywhere that I could see. I thought they’ve abandoned this in their escape from the place. I bet it’ll start up. And there’s me trying to get the canopy undone and I couldn’t find out how to get it undone. I struggled and struggled. Pulling and writhing and I couldn’t get the canopy undone. And all of a sudden, ‘Will you come down from there.’ [laughs] This officer come up, ‘That aircraft is probably booby trapped and if you’d got in it you and the aircraft would have gone up. Not just the aircraft but you and it. Come down and don’t come up again.’ So I said, ‘Ok.’ So I came down again very obediently. I thought this is where you play very gentlemanly. You don’t, you don’t say what you’re thinking because it gets you deeper water. I come away. So I said, ‘Come on John.’ We didn’t go the way he went. He went that way so we went this way. I thought the bigger the distance between us if anything else comes up he’ll be going that way and he won’t, he won’t see me. So anyroads we turns one or two corners. ‘Oh look at that.’ And it was a Heinkel 111, I said, ‘I’m definitely getting in John.’ I said, ‘Keep a look out for me, and if he comes give me a shout and I’ll lay down and keep out of sight.’ So anyroads, he didn’t see anybody coming and here’s me struggling to get this canopy open. But I couldn’t get it open and I was going to try and start that one up. But could he? No damage. No visual external damage. I thought well that might start up. Anyroad I thought good I’ll have a go at this at least if I got it started up before he comes back. I can’t hear him if he shouts up. I was dying to get this aircraft started up. But anyroads he came and oh. ‘Will you get down from there? Now. And I’m going to follow you. You’re not coming around this area any more. Off this site.’ So we had to back track to the main perimeter track area. So we goes back to the perimeter track. ‘If I catch you again you’re for it.’ He says, ‘I’ve told you twice. I’m not telling you anymore.’ So I said, ‘Ok. Come on John.’ So we went walking along the perimeter track. Well we went to look in one of the trenches and there was guns. There was ammunition. There was tins with food in. There was allsorts there. If we’d had a lorry we could have filled it and another one as well with this equipment that was laid about. I said, ‘Oh come on we’ve had enough down here wading around in the mud.’ So we come out of this here trench and we were walking along. ‘Hey. Look there, John. Can you see what it is?’ He says, ‘Yeah. It’s a tank.’ ‘No it isn’t.’ He says, ‘It’s a tank.’ I said, ‘It isn’t. I says where’s it’s guns?’ He says, ‘He hasn’t got any guns has he?’ I says, ‘Well it’s not a tank then is it?’ So he says, ‘Well what is it?’ I said, ‘It’s a radio controlled tank.’ So he says, ‘Is that what it is?’ I says, ‘That’s what it is John.’ I says, ‘I feel sure it is. Come on we’ll go and have a look.’ So we walked across this field and we got as far as that chimney from here.
DE: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. From it. From the tank. And what, I was going to climb on board it and have a look around and see what there was. And all of a sudden there was a load of blokes shouting and calling. They reckoned that we hadn’t got parents [laughs]. You silly —
DE: Yeah.
AM: ‘Do you know where you are?’ I said, ‘Yeah. We’re near this tank. Why?’ So he says, ‘It’s a radio controlled tank.’ I said, ‘We know that.’ So he says, ‘Do you know where you are?’ I says, ‘Why? We’re in a field. Why?’ They said, ‘Do you know what’s in the field?’ I says, ‘No, what?’ He says, ‘You’re in the middle of a minefield. That’s what we’re calling out.’
DE: Oh dear.
AM: So he said, ‘When you come back look to see if the ground’s been dug. With every step you take.’ So we didn’t bother to look down. We just walked off the doing. And we got on to the perimeter track and that was it.
DE: And that was alright.
AM: We didn’t get damaged in any way.
DE: Yeah. Oh dear.
AM: But that we finished there and we were walking back and they said, ‘Oh we wondered where you were. There’s a Lanc come and he’s taking us back and we couldn’t make out where you two were.’ So we had to go straight in to the Lanc and back home. So we landed at that place. What do they call it now? Near to [pause] near to [pause] near to Brigg. It’s not far from Brigg. It was where the spies used to land. I do know the name when I hear it. A double-barrelled name.
DE: Near Brigg. Elsham Wolds.
AM: No. I don’t know about that.
DE: Killingholme.
AM: It was a ‘drome where the spies used to be taken from and they took supplies from there. And nobody. The guards —
DE: Tempsford..
AM: Eh?
DE: Tempsford. .
AM: No.
DE: No. I don’t know then.
AM: Each aircraft there had a guard outside. All the Lancasters there had a guard outside.
DE: Ludford Magna.
AM: That might be it. That could be it. I’m not sure. But I think that might be it. But that’s where we landed. And the guard was outside a Lancaster and the aircraft had twenty one of us in. You know.
DE: Yeah.
AM: From three Lancs. And there were officers and they says to the guard, ‘You’re going to let us in aren’t you?’ He says, ‘No.’ He said, ‘If I let you in,’ he says I’ll get court martialled.’ We says, ‘We’re not going to tell anybody but we’re going in.’ So he says, ‘You can’t.’ ‘Well we’re going in.’ And we all went in. All the lot of us went in. And it was a bit different to ours. A little bit different. It had a bench at each side and chairs down each side. So they had transmitters at both sides and seats so that people could sit in the seats and operate the equipment. That was then. So I mean now it’ll have gone to the scrap yard by now I should think. But it was interesting. Oh there’s all different things will well up in my mind that I maybe should have told you. But there’s so much happens to you. You can’t sort of remember it all at once. And it was good. You was always being entertained so to speak. Something was always happening that was of interest. And well that’s the way it went, and I don’t know whether that’s on the tape or not but —
DE: It is.
AM: Is it?
DE: And its two hours ten minutes now we’ve been chatting. So I think I shall, I shall wind it up. Thank you very much.
AM: Ok.
DE: That’s a wonderful interview. Thank you.
AM: You want me to sign that do you?
DE: I will do. I’ll just press stop on here.
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 Edward Allan McDonald. Two
Creator
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Dan Ellin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AMcDonaldEA150918
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.
Date
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2015-09-18
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
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Pending review
Spatial Coverage
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Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Mittelland Canal
France--Juvincourt-et-Damary
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
Description
An account of the resource
Allan McDonald was born in Hull and watched Alan Cobham’s Flying Circus as a child. He worked as an apprentice electrician before joining the Air Force. He served as ground personnel in Northern Ireland until he passed the exams to become aircrew and trained as an air gunner. He recalls seeing a Me 109 and during training, his aircraft crash landed and he was soaked in petrol. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe and recalls seeing aircraft exploding in the air, a dinghy deploying by accident and nearly hitting a WAAF, and making an emergency landing at Juvincourt after being attacked by a Fw 190 and being hit by anti-aircraft fire.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
02:10:44 audio recording
50 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-17
B-24
bombing
crash
decoy site
forced landing
Fw 190
ground personnel
Ju 88
Lancaster
Me 109
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
perimeter track
RAF Evanton
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Nutts Corner
RAF Skellingthorpe
shot down
Stirling
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2642/45572/PArnettRJ2301.1.jpg
46bd3354d13841af48e8ad4fe0d1818b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2642/45572/AArnettRJ231109.2.mp3
b9c72aad268cf42c50b1cba3405a5fcc
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
Arnett, Rex John
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Rex Arnett (b. 1924, 212651 Royal Canadian Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 223 Squadron from RAF Oulton. His crew was shot down 20/21 February 1945.<br /><br />
<p>Rex grew up in Toronto, Canada, and details his experience in 223 Squadron. He shares his life before training, including the tale of how he met his wife by asking her for a pen. Rex joined the Canadian Air Force in 1942 at age 18 and began training as a wireless operator on the Mosquitos. During training, he undertook a commando course and attended the bombing and gunnery school. He tells of his experience training in the Bahamas on the Liberator Aircraft and his subsequent training in the UK on the Mitchell Bomber. Rex recalls his journey to England and how he was initially unable to join his Squadron, due to eating chocolate bars, and his most memorable flying operations, including his first in July 1944. Following the conclusion of the War, Rex describes his journey home on Christmas Day 1945 and his life after the war. In 1947 he married his wife and worked for an electrical company.</p>
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff <span>with additional contribution by <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Cara+Walmsley">Cara Walmsley.</a></span><br /><br /><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW46148947 BCX0">Additional information on his crew </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW46148947 BCX0">is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/227975/">IBCC Losses Database.</a></span>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-11-09
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
Arnett, RJ
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: If I could just do a little bit of an introduction and then, then we’ll, then we’ll get started and if, if the time runs out we’ll have to set up another interview very quickly. Another zoom call. Ok. So, this is Dan Ellin for the IBCC Digital Archive. I’m recording an interview with Rex Arnett. He’s in Canada, I’m in the UK and it’s the 9th of November 2023. So, Rex thank you very much for agreeing to, to try to do this. Could you start by telling me a little bit about your early life please?
RA: My early life. Well, I was born in Toronto in 1924. I went to school at St Bridget’s in the East End of Toronto and De La Salle High School which was in downtown Toronto. I wasn’t a great student but —
[recording in progress voiceover]
RA: What was that?
DE: Sorry just carry on. Go ahead Rex.
RA: So, and I did the usual things. Played hockey, baseball and swimming in the summer. You know. Just the usual things. And then when the war came along I was still too young to join up but when I turned eighteen in ’42 I joined the Air Force in Toronto and took various courses in, in Calgary. I got the Wireless School and there was, they wanted to train some fellas for wireless navigators on Mosquitoes, the twin engine bomber and so I was part of that course and, but they cancelled half of it. Some of them went on to that course and some of us went on to Bombing and Gunnery School. So I ended up doing mostly wireless in my crew. We, after I graduated I was sent to an OTU in Nassau in the Bahamas and we crewed up there. It was a kind of a loosey-goosey way of selecting a crew [laughs] You just kind of wandered around in this big room and there was pilots and navigators and gunners and wireless and we kind of chatted. Anyway, I ended up with a crew and I stayed with them right through the war. We went over to England in, to join a squadron after we trained in Nassau. We, we trained on twin engine Mitchells and then graduated to four engine Liberators and, and then in June we went overseas. I got sick on the boat because I was eating a lot of chocolate bars but they thought I had appendicitis so they sent me to a hospital in Glasgow, Hairmyres Hospital and I was the only one there so they treated me like a king. This huge room, it was, must have been fifty beds in it but then the D-Day landing wounded soldiers started to come in and of course I lost my popularity [laughs] So anyway, I, I rejoined the squadron and we started operating in, I think it was July of ’44 and we did, oh the first trip we did was spotting these launching pads for the V-1s and V-2s but that didn’t last long. They scrubbed that and we started doing these jamming exercises jamming the German’s radar for their night fighters and, and their anti-aircraft guns, you know. Sometimes we’d fly on target and jam their equipment. Other nights we did diversionary raids dropping Window. We’d fly out with the main bomber stream and then we’d cut away from them and head for what might be an obvious target and we’d drop this tinsel paper and it made a blip on the German’s radar like a bomber. So theoretically they’d send their night fighters up to intercept us and the mainstream bomber stream would get in to the target relatively night fighter free. So there we are. I don’t know what else to tell you. And I did, I flew twenty missions with various, with my crew and then on the night of February the 21st I’d been flying on the 18th and I had a touch of bronchitis so [pause] are you listening?
DE: Yeah. Sorry, I’m just —
RA: So when we landed I, I was spitting up blood. So they grounded me and the crew was on a mission the following night so another fella took my place and they were shot down and you have their name on your plaque at your institution there. So, so I was lucky I survived and I I flew a couple of more missions with, he was an English lord. Lord Briscoe was his name and I think he became the manager of Heathrow Airport after the war but you could check that you know and just to see if that story is true but but he had some sort of title. He was called Lord Briscoe. He wasn’t a bad guy [laughs] So he was the last. It was his crew I was in just for a couple of trips and the war ended and I went home eventually and here I am.
DE: Ok. So that’s, that’s smashing. So I’d like to go back and ask you a few other questions.
RA: What’s that?
SK: He has a few more questions. He wants to ask you some more questions.
RA: Ok.
DE: Yeah. I just I just wondered before, before we do that very quickly could you tell me what your, how your journey was back home and what you did afterwards?
SK: He wants to know about your journey back home and what you did afterwards.
RA: Oh, my journey back home. Ok. Well, I was held on an OTU down in Torquay from May ‘til, ‘til December of ’45 and, and it was a nice spot and I just cycled around the countryside and I met a friend that I’d gone to school with and we chummed around. He was an ex, he was going through for a brother, a religious order but then he was also a boxer and, and so I challenged him to a bout and it was a bad decision because I never laid a glove on him [laughs] He was pretty good. So then about December the 23rd I was assigned to, I think it was the Queen Elizabeth I came home on and I was on the boat for Christmas Day 1945. I still have a copy of a menu. It was good. And I arrived in Toronto about oh I guess the 28th of December, somewhere in there of 1945 and my dad and my stepmom met me. And there was this girl that I’d been writing to she was there and I was really surprised to see her but glad and and we sort of got going together and eventually I, we were married in 1947 and we had a couple of boys. And, and oh I worked for a small electrical company. We manufactured sports lighting and high voltage electrical equipment. You know, high voltage switches and stuff like that and so my job was travelling around Ontario calling on utilities and trying to sell them our street lighting and our electrical high voltage equipment. So it was a good job. It was a nice part of Ontario down towards Belleville. I don’t know if you know that. You look at a map someday and you’ll see it. It’s a nice area. It’s called the Quinte area and it’s, it’s changed a lot of course with you know building and that but it was quite quaint. And then I retired and I’m still very active. I’m still driving my car and playing a bit of golf and yeah I have some good friends which makes life interesting. So I’ve, I’ve covered a lot of territory in a few words.
DE: Oh yeah. Yeah. I’m just wondering if you could go into a little bit more detail about, about your training. What aircraft were you on for your training?
RA: What was that?
SK: Well, can you give a little bit more detail about your training? What aircraft you were on for your training.
RA: Oh. Training. Well, trained in, in Calgary at the Wireless School and took that navigation course but as I say they kind of split that group up. I went from, and we did various things at Calgary. We took a commando course to see if we were tough I guess. You know, climbing cliffs and ropes and, and I graduated and went to Jarvis Bombing and Gunnery School and we did, oh they had drogues and you’d get, they had a firing machine guns trying to hit the drogue. That was the gunnery part of the course which I never used after that. I did strictly wireless work in the crew. From there —
SK: What about the Bahamas?
RA: Eh?
SK: The Bahamas. The Bahamas.
RA: Oh yeah. I was trained of course. I probably got a little ahead of myself. I went from the OTU in the Bahamas after I graduated was where we trained on the Mitchell bomber and then the, the Liberator. We did what we called, our graduating exercise was called a Kingsley exercise and the exercise was it, we had to intercept a frigate which was a small warship out of Bermuda and they would give us a target to bomb. Like we’d drop a depth charge and, and they’d, it was kind of a navigation exercise, a wireless exercise and, and different crews would intercept this and then they’d, they’d give us a square search around the area and then that was part of the exercise and then we’d go back to Nassau. The day we took the exercise the, there was a crew made up of the gunnery leader, the navigation leader and they had reported to the, the frigate and the frigate gave them a square search but they never heard from them after that. And, and it turned out eventually that they’d ditched and we never did find the crew. We, we did a couple of searches for them but it was, it was a real tragedy because they were, the crew was made up of all the different leaders of the different groups. So, the theory was that the sea was quite calm that day and they figured they might have been doing low flying and it’s hard to judge your height on a calm sea and they figured they maybe dipped a wing and the aircraft went in to the drink as they say. So, and then so well we spent about four months there training and then left for overseas to 223 Squadron and did what we did there as I’ve explained earlier. So is there anything else I can think of?
DE: Well, a couple of things. One, what did it feel like when you realised that you were searching for this other crew during training in the Bahamas?
RA: What was that?
SK: What did it feel like when you were searching for this other crew in the Bahamas?
RA: Well, it’s hard to say. You are hopeful that you’ll find something and it’s like I guess like any when you’re hoping that you’ll find them and you’re trying to spot debris and stuff like that in the ocean. But, and the feeling is I’m just a little hard to describe it but you’re hoping you’re going to find them and they are going to be ok. But you kind of get I think eventually used to the fact that people are going to disappear or get killed so, and emotionally I think you just try to contain your emotions and things like that. So, so we never did find anybody and neither did the other search crews. So [pause] and so and other members of my crew like our navigator was a close friend of the navigation leader so he was, you know quite upset about the fact that he had disappeared. You know, I think his name was [pause] I’m trying to think of his name but I can’t. Anyway, they called him, he was quite tall, I just forget, he had a nickname [laughs] I know it was Daddy Long Legs or something like that. But so, so some of the guys were more upset of course then I was because I didn’t know them personally.
DE: So then, then can you remember the name of the ship that you crossed over to the UK on?
RA: What’s that?
SK: Do you remember the name of the ship that you crossed over to the UK on?
RA: Yes. It was called the Nieuw Amsterdam. It was a regular cruiser ship and was called the Nieuw Amsterdam. And I didn’t really appreciate the food. As I was saying I was eating these Rosebud chocolate bar, chocolates and it upset my stomach and they thought I had appendicitis so they put me down in the hold. And, and then we got to a place, I think it was Gourock where we disembarked in Scotland and they sent, they said, ‘Pick up your kit bag.’ So I did and I’m lugging this kit bag and all of a sudden they put me on a stretcher, you know. So I’m, I’m good enough to carry my kit bag but they put me on a stretcher and take me off the boat and when they were going up the quayside it was kind of steps from the, up the, they kind of slipped and I thought I was going to end up in the bay. But I didn’t and so then we went on to Hairmyres Hospital which was a convalescent hospital during peacetime and as I mentioned before I was the only one there so I got the best of attention. And then the, one morning they said, ‘The doctor wants to see you so take your clothes off and go in this room.’ So I went in and this beautiful woman came in and she said, ‘Get yourself undressed.’ I said, ‘I’ll wait for the doctor if you don’t mind.’ She said, ‘I’m the doctor.’ So [laughs] so anyway [laughs] anyway they checked me out and it turned out I was ok. I didn’t have appendicitis so they discharged me from the hospital and I caught a train and ended up with our squadron. Reported in and, and started doing what we did.
DE: Had, had your crew started ops without you?
RA: Hmmn?
SK: Did your crew start ops without you?
RA: No. No. They did some training exercises and there was a flight lieutenant had taken my spot as the wireless operator but he only flew one trip. It was a kind of a training exercise and then I arrived and so I was back with my crew. But a fella wrote a book, it’s called, “Liberator,” 223 I think, squadron and he lists all the different crew members that were on 223 Squadron and and in the initial listing he shows this flight lieutenant as the wireless operator in my crew. But it didn’t happen but it’s always been listed that way. It should have been me. So anyway, anything else?
DE: What was, what was the Liberator like to fly in?
SK: What was the Liberator like to fly in?
RA: It was a lousy aircraft. A lot of trouble, you know. The, the yeah always engine failure a lot. They were old American aircraft and we were using them but they were equipped with this special equipment. The flight deck was a death trap. There was no way out. You had to, if something happened and you had to evacuate the airplane you had to go down through the bomb bay doors. That was for people on the flight deck. The back of the plane where the two beam gunners and the special operators were there was a hatch and you could jump out and get out. The night they were attacked the story I get was that the fellas on the flight deck were all killed. There was six of them and, and the one beam gunner he was a fella that were never put his harness on. He was warned, you know he should put it on and a friend of mine who was the other beam gunner said, ‘The night we were attacked the last I saw of him he was looking for his harness and unfortunately it cost him his life,’ because my friend, his name was Maxwell he was the other beam gunner he said if he’d just had his harness on because they had chest packs that you could hook on to his harness and you could maybe jump together if he couldn’t find his parachute. So he said he couldn’t even do that because he didn’t have his harness on. So he lost his life. He was found sitting in a field. They thought he was still alive but the back of his head was gone so he must have jumped about, probably the aircraft was practically on the ground, at least parts of it. So he jumped too late. So that was a tragedy and I was pretty close to the guys that got killed. I didn’t know the fellow that took my place. I had never met him so, but the rest of the crew we were pretty close to, you know, we got along good. So there’s as they say there’s a plaque at your place there with their names on them and they were shot down on February the 21st and I think it was they came, they crashed down near a village called Dornheim in the southern part of Germany. There was some correspondence back and forth with my navigator who, he got out because his position in the aircraft was in the, the front wheel compartment so he could kick the wheel door open and bale out that way. So he got out but as I say the people on the, like the mid-upper gunner, the two pilots and the flight engineer didn’t have a chance. And I wouldn’t have had a chance either if I’d have been on the flight. So thank God I was, I was sick. I don’t know what else to say about that.
DE: How long —
RA: Oh, and then after, after that I, my, our pilot’s brother come down to visit and I got to know him and I did a couple of, and I was grounded for a few weeks so they were doing transport stuff on the Dakota. I think they were twin engine Dakotas, the transport planes and they were flying equipment over to the airports that were being established in Europe as the armies advanced, you know. So I flew over to Brussels a couple of times with them just as a passenger. And so I spent time on the squadron for a while trying to recuperate and then I started flying again as I mentioned with Mr Briscoe, or [pause] So anything else?
DE: No. I mean, just what could you, could you go through a little bit what was it like flying in operations? Could you talk me through the day?
SK: What was it like flying in operations? Can you tell him? Like walk him through a day?
RA: What was it like? Well, it was uncomfortable. We had heated suits and some nights they were working. Some nights they didn’t work and it was [laughs] I remember one night I thought, ‘God if I ever get out of this aeroplane I’ll never complain again.’ I was freezing. And of course, then we landed and we had a cigarette and I started complaining right away [laughs] But it was [pause] I operated, my main job was making sure, well they sent, it was always a coded message sent at different intervals during that time of the flight and, and if you, there was and most of the time we were diverted to another airport because of weather conditions or night fighters may be in the area of your, of your landing field. So my main job was to make sure I got that diversion because I didn’t want to land back. One night we did a, it was a flight to Berlin. The raid was in the Berlin area and it was about a six hour flight. It was December the 6th as I recall and, and we started to have engine trouble and as we were coming back we were running low on fuel and we were diverted to Manston. That’s I think somewhere near London. It was an emergency airport and we, we kind of crash landed in to there and the next morning we went to check the aircraft and one of the mechanics said, ‘Guys, you guys were lucky.’ He said, ‘You had about two minutes worth of fuel left or you would have ditched in the Channel.’ So that was a kind of a hairy experience. But generally speaking oh and I had a piece of radar that I operated that showed if there was an aircraft approaching our aircraft you know. Maybe a German night fighter. But some nights it wasn’t working, you know. So it was that type of equipment. It was all kind of not so good as I say. The Liberators were, were old and, and a lot of trouble. We did a lot of what they called half ops. We’d get going, we’d get over Europe and maybe the flame damper on the plane would, would break and you could see a flame coming out of the back of you so you had to come back and so you didn’t get any credit for that although you could have been killed. What else? Oh, generally speaking the flights were just what they are. We were, everybody is pretty calm. You don’t hear much chit chat on the, other than I would report if there was a diversion to the pilot. Let him know. I could also get a fix for the navigator if he got, if his Gee box was jammed or something and he needed some help. I could get a fix from two transmitters. One, I think one was in Scotland and one was in the southern part of England so I could get a fix from just where we were and I could give that to the navigator. I think I only used it once so our navigator was a pretty sharp guy. His [pause] him and his wife were cited by the Queen for their work in education in England after the war. His name was Johnson. Yeah. Ron Johnson. A great guy. He became a headmaster at a school after the war. So, have I given you anything more interesting?
DE: Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. So, were you, were you a mixed crew then?
SK: Were you a mixed crew?
RA: Oh, a mixed crew. Yeah. There was. Mostly it was. Our flight engineer was English. He was from England. He was in the RAF. Our navigator was in the RAF. The second pilot, he was a sergeant from, he was from Scotland. The beam gunner was a Canadian. The wireless operator was me, a Canadian. Our first pilot was from, he was a Canadian. He was from Calgary. So it was a mixed crew. Yeah. English and Canadian. We had a ball team on our squadron and we had enough guys to play the American 8th Air Force. They invited us for a game. Anyway, we had a great pitcher. He was really good. He used to play in what we called the Beaches League in Toronto. And so we went over to their airfield for, for the game and then we had dinner after in their Mess Hall and what a difference between their Mess Hall and ours [laughs] They had all kinds of nice food and stuff and ours was kind of, you know curried stuff. Food wasn’t great in the RAF. So we played a couple of games with them and we won one, they won one, and there was, our centre fielder was a fella named Wing Commander Burnell. He was a wing commander but he was a Canadian who had gone over to England to play hockey prior to the war. When the war came along he joined the RAF and so, but he was a good head and everybody got along good with him. You could kind of kid him and he didn’t stand on ceremony much like some guys did. So we had a, so we did little things like that between operational trips and so, and it was in a nice area of England. It was near Aylsham or, I don’t know if you know that area. It was just off the Wash in Norfolk and they now have a museum at Blickling Hall which is apparently where Anne Boleyn was born. It’s a national treasure this and they have a museum there which has a lot of information about our squadron and there’s a picture of our crew in this, in this museum. So if you’re in Blickling Hall [laughs] near Aylsham, take a look.
DE: Yeah. I’ve, I’ve not been. I was in Norfolk last, last summer but I’ve not been for a while. The, the recording is saying that we’ve got about seven minutes left. Is it ok if I send another link? Can we do another little bit after this time runs out?
SK: So, there’s seven minutes left on this recording.
RA: Yes.
SK: But we can start again with a new recording if you have time?
[recording stopped - voiceover]
RA: Start again?
SK: No. No. Just continue.
RA: Oh yeah.
SK: Yeah. Yeah. Ok.
RA: Yeah. Ok.
SK: Yeah.
RA: He wants to continue.
SK: Yeah. Like this recording time will run out and then we just have to renew it.
RA: Ok.
SK: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. I’ll, I’ll wait until it does end and then I’ll send another link.
SK: Ok.
DE: And then we can.
SK: So we have about five more minutes on this recording.
RA: Yes.
SK: And then we’ll just pause and start again. More. More recording.
RA: Ok.
SK: Yeah. Ok.
RA: Ok.
DE: Ok. So, what else, what else did you do in England during your, your periods of leave?
RA: What else did I do?
SK: In England during your periods of leave.
RA: Oh. Well, I went on leave. I would visit our navigator’s home down in the, I think they lived in Hounslow which is just outside of London. It’s kind of a suburb. I’d visit there. Went to Glasgow and Edinburgh on leave so, and went, got to know in Scotland there was a group called the Old Contemptibles and they had little private beer halls I guess. They’d meet and so if you had a friend you could get in and enjoy a beer with the Old Contemptibles. Visited different places. After the war ended a chum of mine and I, we, we did a week just hiking around the countryside and some nights we’d live in a barn and then we’d go to the little pubs and, and you know we just generally hung around. I liked the, the countryside around where the squadron was and so on Sundays I’d often take a walk through the, the, there was a kind of a forest surrounding the airport so it was, it was quite a nice spot to be. There was some farmers in the area and the odd time they’d invite some of our, the aircrew guys for dinner and so that was always kind of nice. But and then we’d spend, we’d go down to Aylsham which was about a mile from the airport and there was a pub there and a fish and chip store so we’d have fish and chips and go to the pub. I remember one day we were walking in and this V-1, I could see this V-1 coming across a field. It was farmland all around us and it had a, you could hear the engine. It was a kind of a rough engine and it was flying at about three hundred feet and then all of a sudden the engine stopped and it took a dip down and exploded in the field. That was a V-1. I think they abandoned those eventually and the V-2 was more of a rocket but the V-1 was like a small aircraft with probably an explosive charge in the nose of it. So, so anyway we just generally hung around. Played a bit of cards. Tried to win some money. Never did [laughs] And so [pause] anything? I can’t think of anything else.
SK: How about the Ovaltine story?
RA: Yeah.
SK: The Ovaltine story.
RA: Eh?
SK: The Ovaltine story.
RA: Oh yeah. I remember. When we first, just after we arrived at the squadron we decided to go in to Norwich to see what the town was like. So we put on our dress uniforms myself and our rear gunner and the beam gunner and off we went. We wondered around town and we saw this little tea shop so we thought we’d go in and have a cup of tea or something. So we went in and my two buddies they ordered coffee and I said, ‘You know, I don’t want a coffee. I’d like, I think I’d like an Ovaltine.’ And the waitress said, ‘Ovaltine?’ She said, ‘Listen, don’t you realise there’s a war going on and we can’t get that stuff.’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘No. I’m sorry I didn’t realise that. I’ll have a cup of tea.’ [laughs] That’s quite a little story.
DE: Yeah.
RA: But, and then we would go into Norwich occasionally and have dinner. I remember going to this one restaurant. It was upstairs on the main street as I recall and they had a thing called wiener schnitzel on the menu and I thought that was a hot dog because a wiener was an expression we used for hot dogs in Canada. You know you’d get a wiener in. So I ordered it and, and they bring it and I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I ordered wiener schnitzel.’ I said, ‘This looks likes a piece of veal.’ She said, ‘Well, that’s a wiener schnitzel.’ I don’t know why I remember that.
DE: Great.
RA: So I knew what a wiener schnitzel was after that. We did little things like that most of the time you know.
DE: Ok. So we’ve only got a minute and a half left so I think we’ll, I’ll not ask you another question but what I’ll try and do is is send another, another link through and then we’ll have a few more questions the other, in part two if that’s ok.
SK: Ok. So he’ll, we’ll stop here and we’ll do part two in a few minutes.
RA: Ok.
DE: Ok so I’ll say cheerio for now and hopefully.
RA: Ok.
DE: If the internet is kind I’ll see you again in a few minutes.
SK: Ok. Thank you.
DE: Right. Cheers for now then.
SK: He says cheers for now.
RA: Yeah. Cheerio.
[recording paused]
SK: Now you have to record from my end so let me just do that.
DE: Okey dokey. I’ve hit go as well.
SK: Ok. One second. Ok. I am recording.
DE: Thanks Steve.
SK: Ok.
DE: Thank you. Well, hello again. So, we’ve got another forty minutes. Hopefully that, that will be enough. So thanks for, thanks for coming back for more.
SK: He says thanks for coming back for more.
RA: Oh. You’re welcome, Dan.
DE: It’s great to talk to you. Thank you.
RA: I hope it’s interesting.
DE: Oh definitely. Yes. Yeah. I just wish that I was there in person rather than having to talk like this.
SK: He wishes it were in person. It would be, rather than talking over the screen.
RA: Oh yeah. Well, that’s too bad. I could fly over if you like [laughs] I often thought I’d like to visit the old squadron site you know but it hasn’t happened yet and I’d better do it soon because I’m getting pretty old.
DE: Yeah. Well, I mean if they —
RA: Your, your place is in Lincoln, eh?
DE: That’s right. Yes.
RA: Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
RA: Is there any chance of getting a picture of the plaque with my crew’s name on it?
DE: Yes, of course. Yeah. I can do that. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll just make a note. I will. I will sort that out for you.
RA: Yeah. So if you need any, the night they were shot down was February the 21st.
DE: Yeah. No, I can —
RA: And I think, and I know their names.
DE: Yeah. Yeah. No. That’s fine. I can sort that out for you.
RA: Ok.
DE: I’ll email it to you Steve. Yeah.
SK: Ok. Thank you. He’ll send it to me and then I’ll print it for you.
RA: Ok. Thank you.
DE: That’s ok.
RA: Thanks Dan.
DE: I’m going there Tuesday next week so I’ll get that sorted for you.
RA: Ok.
DE: So before the, before we had to stop and start again you were talking about what you did and playing, playing the Americans and the food and things.
RA: What was that?
SK: So you, just before we left you were telling him about some of the things you did on leave. Playing the Americans, then going for fish and chips and that.
RA: Oh yeah.
DE: Did, did you —
RA: Well, the main spot we did for entertainment was down in Aylsham which was about a mile from where we were and on the weekends they’d have a dance for the members of the forces and it was in the Town Hall and it was always kind of a lot of fun. You could have a few beers and you met the odd person. I never got involved really with any women [laughs] while I was there so I wasn’t all that interesting but I had a lot of good friends and we’d chum around and we’d play cards and have a dance and of course the fish and chip store was a popular spot. We’d get a, you know it was all wrapped in newspapers and you could walk around the street kind of eating your fish and chips and I, I think the, there’s the pub. I have some pictures of Aylsham but the pub is still there. It was called the black something. It was a nice spot and the people there were quite friendly, you know. They didn’t seem to resent the, the armed forces guys. It was mostly Air Force personnel from our squadron that visited there anyway because we were pretty close by. So, so that was where we spent some of our off time. In Aylsham. It was a nice little spot.
DE: Did you, did you spend most of the time with your crew or did you associate with the ground personnel at all?
RA: I spent most time with members of my crew. The guys we knew. Didn’t get to know the ground crew personnel that well or the [pause] got to know some of them just sort of a greeting type of situation. ‘Oh, how are you?’ Like the people that worked in the Mess Hall and and complained to them about the food. Didn’t do any good but it kind of helped relieve the, the taste or whatever you want to call it. You felt you were trying to accomplish something and maybe it waited for better but oh and the I remember one of the meals was called the, it was a post-flight and a pre-flight meal and it consisted of a fried egg and some bacon and the egg was as greasy as can be. I can remember our pilot putting jam on it to kind of [laughs] to kind of break the taste up and they used to refer to that as the last supper which was, which was kind of, you know a disturbing [laughs] but and we would chit chat about what we were going to do. And then after the flight we landed. We’d all have a cigarette you know. We’d stand around the aircraft and discuss how things went. And most nights it was sort of quiet. I can remember one night I don’t know why I’d left my position and I was at the beam window with the beam gunner and this aircraft came right under ours and I thought should I say something or just let him go. He can go his way we’ll go our way. Sometimes if you engaged them it becomes deadly so it might have been one of our own aircraft. It was hard to tell at night. But he was so close I could see him in the cockpit. You know it was lit. So [pause] so where am I now?
DE: Oh no. That’s a great story. I’ve, I’ve talked to air gunners who have said they saw night fighters and didn’t open fire because they didn’t want to give their position away.
RA: Eh?
SK: So he talked to air gunners who saw night fighters but didn’t want to engage to give away their position.
RA: Oh, I think —
SK: Yeah.
RA: That probably happened quite a bit you know. You know don’t, don’t disturb anything and probably the guy that you were observing was feeling the same way. So let’s, let’s just get out of here alive. Yeah. Oh, I’m sure it happened quite a bit.
DE: Yeah.
RA: You didn’t start shooting at a guy unless he kind of looked threatening I think. Probably something like that.
DE: Yeah. Yeah. You talked about standing around and having a cigarette after an operation. Did you have any superstitions or rituals that you did before an operation?
RA: Superstitions.
RA: Ahum?
SK: Or rituals eh? Or rituals like what, like before —
RA: No. Not really. We were a pretty conservative crew I think. We didn’t have a lot of that. Some of the guys smoked. Some of them didn’t. I liked, I had a little pack of, they were called wild woodbines. They came five to a pack. It was in a paper package and I’d keep it in my uniform. We were equipped with sidearms. You know, a pistol but I never thought that was a good idea. I thought I’d take chocolate bars and cigarettes and if I get shot down I’ll be able to make friends I hoped because I didn’t think you’d get very far with a six shooter. So that was my thinking.
DE: Ok.
RA: Be friendly [laughs] but fortunately I didn’t have to exercise that but I imagine when our crew was shot down they, you know they probably [pause], I remember my, the beam gunner his name was Maxwell. He said, I met him after the war and he told me a little bit about what happened. He said he was interviewed and the interviewer said, ‘Listen we’ve, we’ve got most of the information from Arnett but we just wanted to confirm things.’ And he said the reason the, he said, ‘I knew they were lying because I had —’ he had borrowed my heated suit and it had my name on it and they found that and they, so they used that as an excuse to try and get information out of my friend Brian Maxwell. And he said, ‘Well, if Arnett’s told you everything. I don’t have much to add.’ [laughs] Of course, I wasn’t even there but they found this heated suit with my name and so [pause] So I remember that. Him telling me that. And they were interviewed and the, the allied forces were forcing the Germans back and they, so the prisoners were on marches all the time heading back maybe towards Germany and our navigator kept a sort of a diary on a cigarette packet. He wrote little notes down to himself and he wrote a book after the war describing his experience which was, well February and the war ended in May so it wasn’t too long but he said it was quite a harrowing experience. The Germans weren’t the nicest guys in the world so that’s, but I never heard from the rest of the crew after that. I kept in touch with our navigator. He, we chatted back and forth on the phone over the years and then he died a couple of years ago and so, and so I think I’m the only member maybe of the squadron that’s still alive. I’m certainly the only member of the crew. I know that for sure.
DE: Yeah. I’m just looking. I’ve got, I’ve got some notes. So you’ve talked a bit about fighters. Did you experience flak?
SK: Did you experience any flak?
RA: Yes. We had a little bit of flak. In fact, the night we came back from the German, the Berlin raid there was some flak that we were hit with but whether it damaged one of the engines or not I don’t know what caused it but when we landed of course we, as I mentioned before the, the mechanic said, ‘You guys were lucky. You had about a teaspoon full of petrol left.’ Or a couple of minutes of flying time. He said, ‘You were lucky you didn’t end up in the Channel.’ So, well, what was, I don’t know what else to say.
DE: I’ve got another couple of questions so one you didn’t go on that, that operation because you had been grounded because you were ill.
RA: Yeah.
DE: How did, how did that happen? Was that the medical officer that stopped you flying or —?
SK: How did that happen? Was it the medical officer that stopped you from flying?
RA: Yeah. It was. It was the station doctor. I wasn’t even going to report it. I was going to stay on and fly the night because we were on the Battle Order in a couple of nights hence. But my crew members said, ‘You’re crazy, you know. It might be something serious, you know.’ So I reported to the doctor about for this. There was, there was always a doctor on the squadron. So he, he said, well I think what happened —
[pause]
SK: Sorry. One second.
RA: The doctor said, ‘I think what happened,’ he said, ‘You’re flying at that altitude with a cough that expanded your lungs and it pops under the blood vessels and that’s what’s causing the bleeding. But — ’ he said, ‘I’m going to ground you and I’m sending you up to Ely—’ where there was a hospital in Ely, ‘And get some x-rays.’ So that’s what happened and consequently it saved my life really. The [pause] and, and so I, I spent a couple of weeks kind of recuperating and as I mentioned before my pilot’s brother had come down to visit and get his brother’s affects you know and so I got to know him and his co-pilot and they invited me to go over. They were going to a station in Wales to pick up some fighter pilot equipment and they were going to fly it over to Brussels and they also had a kit bag full of cigarettes that they were going to sell on the Black Market. And they left them with a guy in Brussels in the hotel and then I went out. We had dinner and then we were going to fly back to England. So anyway, and the guy that was selling the cigarettes they went back to see how things were and they found him all tied up in his room and the cigarettes were gone. So that didn’t work out too good.
DE: That’s a good adventure. Yeah.
RA: Eh?
SK: He said that’s a good adventure.
DE: I’m just, I’ve got a couple of other questions. What was, what was the living accommodation like on the —?
RA: The accommodation.
DE: Yeah.
RA: Well, it was a Quonset hut and there was about oh I’d say six of us in the hut. There was a private room as you came in at one end and a fella named Richard [Tong] he was a wireless op, he was from Vancouver, a little Chinese guy and he, he grabbed the room. So he had his room to himself but the rest of us were in sort of a common area and we just had a cot and a little box for our personal stuff and pictures of our girlfriends if you had one. That type of thing. And there was a coal burning, a little pot-bellied stove in the middle and that provided the heat. And there were all these Quonset huts around the perimeter of the airfield and aircrew personnel lived in them and, and the ground crews were in some sections. The washrooms were kind of not so good, you know. They were kind of open sided and cold so you didn’t spend a lot of time in the them. And there was the shower room as you can, you used to walk from our place up to the Mess Hall and on the way there was a shower room where you could go and have a shower but it was always cold water and and not very comfortable. At least you got clean and the Mess Hall was ok and the food I complained about it but it wasn’t bad. The worst thing was the brussel sprouts. They were just, oh God. They were big and you know kind of bitter is the word. I just hated them and I still hate them. But they used a lot of curry in the food and if they fried something it was as greasy as you could, it’s a wonder we didn’t all have ulcers. So, I don’t know. So that’s, what else was there?
SK: I think that’s what you told me.
RA: Yeah. Anything else.
DE: No. That’s, that’s absolutely wonderful. Unless you can think of any other, any other stories we can, we can wind that up. That’s, that’s brilliant. Thank you.
SK: Rex, what do, what you think about telling him about how you signed up for the Air Force? When you had to borrow a pen. Do you think that’s —
RA: Oh yeah.
SK: I think that’s a good story.
RA: Well, when I was thinking of joining up I was eighteen and I had a chum whose name was Jerry Walsh and we decided to join the Air Force together. But I knew this girl that I eventually married but I didn’t know her that well but I wanted to know her and she worked in the bank. So I thought what the hell can I get? So I had the clever idea I’ll go in and say, I introduced myself and, and said, ‘My friend and I are thinking of joining the Air Force and I wondered, but we don’t have a pen. We have to fill out this form so I wonder if you can loan us a pen.’ And then I said, ‘We’re having a coffee next door if you’d like to come and join us.’ So that was kind of how I got started with my wife. Her name was Jeannie and she was a beaut and [laughs] but we didn’t, I didn’t correspond a lot with her. You know, I sent her the odd picture and she sent me the odd little note you know and a picture of herself which I pinned up above my bed of course. It was a glamourous picture. And so that’s how I got to know her a little bit and I kept up a kind of a casual correspondence during the war. I wasn’t a great letter writer and, but she seemed to, I guess she liked me because anyway she was there to meet me when I arrived and I was very glad to see her and we started going together and we eventually got married so —
DE: Wow.
RA: But I thought it was a clever way of meeting her with asking for the pen.
DE: Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Very smooth. Yeah.
SK: And Rex, the other story I thought is you were invited somewhere and you went with your friend who was the boogie woogie.
RA: Who was which?
SK: The boogie, you know you were invited to somebody’s house.
RA: Oh.
[pause]
DE: I need to plug my laptop in. Keep talking. You’re alright.
SK: Oh, he’s just plugging in his computer but you can keep going Rex.
[pause]
RA: Just after, are you listening?
DE: Yeah.
RA: Yeah. Just after we arrived in England I was in Torquay and I met a friend that I’d known. I got to know this guy. He was a, he played the piano. He could really play and they were arranging leaves for us for a while before we joined.
SK: Sorry Rex you can’t touch the computer otherwise it starts to do funny things. There you go. So just hold your hand up.
RA: Anyway, they arranged leave as little visits to people in the area and we were invited to go to visit the MacGregors in Budleigh Salterton. That’s on the south coast. And the MacGregor, apparently MacGregor, Mr MacGregor was a colonel and he was stationed in Gibraltar and we were invited to their home and we stayed over a couple of nights and they were very gracious to us. The daughter was beautiful and she had a boyfriend who was in the Navy. And we went swimming in the sea because it was close to them. And the thing I remember and I don’t know why but they had what they called Pears soap. I thought it was really nice soap. Never seen it in Canada but they sell it here now of course. So and my friend, Bob Pope was his name he played the piano so he played and entertained our people that had invited us you know. He played boogie woogie as they called it in those days. Yeah. He was good so that was a good experience. And the other thing after the war we were, I was in Paignton near, near Torquay and we met an old, my chum and I met an older couple at church one morning and they invited us to come back and visit them so we would go and they were quite elderly so we used to take our ration cards and give them the ration cards and they’d give us a cup of tea and a scone and we kind of had a bit of a relationship with them for a month or two. But it was just one of the social things that happened when you were overseas.
DE: Yeah. I guess it had to. Had to work like that because where else would you, where else would you go when you’re so far away from home?
RA: Hmmn?
SK: It had to work like that because where else would you go when you’re so far away from home?
RA: Oh, well no place. Well, there was a spa there in Torquay. I remember going and I stayed in the sweat room so long I could hardly walk when I come out. I almost fainted and I was in good shape so I never went back to that. But I thought I’d relax and get a nice, you know. So, so the Torquay area was very nice, you know. It’s kind of a, have you ever been down there?
DE: Yeah.
RA: Yeah, it’s kind of a semi-tropical climate you know. There’s palm trees there and what have you. So it was fun cycling around the country while I was waiting to go home and so I did a lot of that and I enjoyed the English countryside. I think it’s beautiful. Yeah.
DE: Yeah. Smashing. So I, unless you have, unless you have any other stories I’ve just got one more question which I sort of ask lots of people. It’s how do you, what do feel about the way Bomber Command has been remembered?
SK: How do you feel about the way that Bomber Command has been remembered?
RA: Well, it’s you hear a lot of negative stuff about it. About, you know maybe it was overkill. But I really think it had to be done because the Germans were a real threat and a, and a terrible philosophy you know of killing off a whole race of people. So I think the war had a cause. Maybe not so much the First World War which was more political but this war was necessary to stop the Germans. We don’t seem to have learned anything by it. You know. We’re still killing each other and it’s just crazy. It doesn’t accomplish anything. When I think of why those, my crew guys lost their lives for what? You know. The flight was kind of meaningless. The war was winding down but it cost them their lives. So, but Bomber Command seems to have a bad name. That we were cruel, you know and I and the bombing was a cruel thing but it was cruel on both sides and the Germans asked for it. And how do you stop them? You can’t be too selective because you just don’t get anything done if you’re trying to protect one part of the population and fight the other part. They’re all kind of mixed in. So, so I think the Bomber Command did a good job and probably helped end the war and didn’t get much credit for it. The casualties in aircrew were the highest of any of the services percentage wise apparently.
DE: Yeah.
RA: So it was not ever a safe job so to speak.
DE: No. Definitely. Yeah.
RA: And I was proud to be part of it actually. I was proud of the guys I flew with. They were great.
DE: Yeah. Thank you. So is, what was it that made you want to join up? I mean apart from impressing your, your then, your wife but —
RA: What was that?
SK: What was it that made you want to join up besides impressing Jean with your —
RA: It was just an adventure. My, my mum had died and my dad was in the hospital and I was kind of at loose ends. So I didn’t have a great patriotic reason. I just wanted to get involved. So I don’t have a great reason for joining other than I wanted a change and I thought it would be a great adventure and it was.
DE: Yeah. So why the Air Force and not the Navy or the Army?
RA: The other services didn’t interest me. I I wanted to be an ace [laughs] I never have. I used to help. We used to do what they called circuits and bumps, you know. We were just checking the aircraft out and the pilot who we were pretty close friends and he would let me take over and help. I could do the approach. He never let me land because I might crash the thing but [laughs] but he’d let me take over and make the approach. So I got a feel for the flying part and I took lessons after I came home from overseas at the airport. An island airport. At a flying school. So I went there for a bit but it got expensive.
DE: Yeah.
RA: So I packed it up.
DE: Ok.
RA: And here I am.
DE: Yeah. Smashing. I think, I think we’ll call it an end to that unless you’ve got any other stories or anything you want to, you want to ask me.
SK: You, so if you have any questions you want to tell him or any stories but I know you brought some paper that you thought he might be interested in.
RA: Well, I just got pictures of our crew. I don’t know if you are interested in those. Do you want to see them?
DE: Yeah. Please.
RA: This is a picture of our crew in England and that’s me there.
SK: Hang on a second, Rex. You’ve got a, sorry I’m just going to have to put it over your face. Right.
RA: Yeah. Sure.
DE: Steve, would you be able to scan these for us?
SK: Yes. Yeah.
DE: Thank you.
RA: That’s the crew in Nassau at the OTU.
SK: Oh, you have to hold it up.
DE: Yeah.
SK: Hold it over your face. Yeah. There you go.
DE: Yeah. Short sleeves. Yeah.
RA: That’s me there.
DE: Wow.
RA: Can you see it ok?
DE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wizard. That’s great.
RA: And that’s a printout of our navigator’s [pause] his book on, it lists the different operational trips and the time it took. So but I don’t know if you’re interested.
DE: I’ll try and get a copy of the book.
SK: He’ll try to get a copy of the book.
RA: Yeah. You can get copies of of all the flights at, at I think it’s at the museum. They have records there of all 223 Squadron’s activities.
DE: Yeah. Yeah. The Operation Record Books. We’ve got access to those so yeah.
RA: Yeah. And the different flights that were taken.
DE: Yeah.
RA: Yeah. And —
DE: Yeah. Well, I’d just like to say thank you very very much for agreeing to talk to me about your experiences. It’s been great to meet you.
RA: Well, I hope it was interesting enough.
DE: Yeah. Definitely.
RA: Nice meeting you Dan.
DE: Yeah.
RA: And you’ll send me a photo of our crew’s plaque eh with their name on it.
DE: I will do. Yes. Yeah.
RA: Thank you very much.
DE: It’ll, it’ll take a couple of days but I’ll, I’ll make sure that the photos get to you definitely.
RA: Ok.
DE: Yeah. Are you, are you happy for me to [pause] to add this interview, this our conversation to, to the Archive?
SK: Are you ok if he adds this conversation to the Archives?
RA: Yeah. No, that’s fine. Yeah. Yeah. There’s nothing secret about it [laughs]
DE: That’s good. Thank you very much. Right. Ok. Well, I’m going to stop. I’m going to recording here then.
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 Rex John Arnett
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-11-09
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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01:06:03 Audio Recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending review
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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AArnettRJ231109, PArnettRJ2301
Description
An account of the resource
Rex was born in Toronto Canada in 1924 and grew up there, at aged 18 in 1942 he joined the RCAF as aircrew. He initially started training as the second member of a Mosquito crew but was later changed to Wireless Operator/Air Gunner and having completed his wireless and gunnery training in Canada he was posted to the No 111 (Coastal) OTU in Nassau, Bahamas to become a member of a crew flying initially the B25 and then the B24. The crew he joined was a mixed RCAF and RAF, the 2nd pilot, navigator and flight engineer were RAF. During their graduation exercise at the OTU Rex relates being involved in a search for an aircraft from the OTU crewed by some of the experienced training staff, unfortunately they were not found.
Having completed their training in the spring of 1944 they crossed to Britain on the New Amsterdam. Due to the quantity of chocolate Rex had consumed on the crossing the medical staff thought that he had an appendicitis and he was admitted to a hospital in Glasgow on arrival at Gourock. The hospital was initially empty so Rex was treated very well but shortly after his arrival the wounded from the D Day invasion started to arrive and Rex was found fit enough to join 223 Squadron at RAF Oulton which were flying the B-24. Rex was not too impressed with the aircraft as they were war weary veterans cast off from the 8th US Army Air Force. Although Rex was trained as a Wireless operator / air gunner he flew all his operations as a wireless operator. Rex remembers that his main duties were to listen out for weather diversions he also remembers that there was a piece of equipment that he had that showed aircraft close to them which was very unreliable, probably Fishpond. In August 1944 223 Squadron became part of 100 Group flying radio countermeasures, jamming the German radar and communications frequencies. Rex relates how the squadron aircraft would sometimes leave the main force bomber stream and head for another potential target dropping Window to divide the fighter defences.
Rex flew 20 operations with his crew and related that on one operation to Berlin they were getting short of fuel so diverted to the crash runway at RAF Manston and the groundcrew told them that they only had enough fuel for two minutes of flight. In February 1945 he developed bronchitis and was grounded by the medical staff. On the next operation that crew were shot down over Germany and all the flight deck crew died the navigator and one of the beam gunners managed to bale out. Rex relates that if he had been on the operation he would have died. He was told by the surviving beam gunner that the second beam gunner never wore his parachute harness on operations and was last seen trying to find his harness.
While he was recuperating his late captain’s brother came to visit the squadron he was flying the C47 transporting equipment to Europe and Rex manage to get himself two flights to Brussels. On his return to flying duties Rex only flew two more operations before the European war ended in May. He comments that his captain for those two flights was a Lord Briscoe.
Rex relates that on one of his leave periods he was walking out in the country and a low flying V-1 passed overhead and the engine stopped and it landed and exploded in a field close by.
Rex did not return to Canada until December 1945 crossing in the Queen Elizabeth. He returned to Toronto married the girl that he was writing to during his time in Great Britain. He worked for a small company manufactured high voltage lighting equipment as a salesman until he retired.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Bahamas
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Bahamas--Nassau
England--Kent
England--Norfolk
Germany--Berlin
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Trevor Hardcastle
Julie Williams
100 Group
223 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
B-24
B-25
bombing
crewing up
entertainment
military living conditions
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
RAF Manston
RAF Oulton
shot down
training
V-1
V-weapon
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/834/18759/MGeachDG1394781-160401-17.2.pdf
4e86b84e014290b881c256fceb680e00
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
Geach, David
D Geach
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/218400/"></a>52 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer David Geach (1394781 Royal Air Force) and contains his diaries, correspondence, photographs of his crew, his log book, cuttings and items relating to being a prisoner of war. After training in Canada, he flew operations as a bomb aimer with 623 and 115 Squadrons until he was shot down 24 March 1944 and became a prisoner of war. He was instrumental in erecting a memorial plaque to the Air Crew Reception Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. <br />The collection also contains a scrap book of photographs.<br /><br />Additional information on his crew is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/218400/">IBCC Losses Database.</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Harry Wilkins and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
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
Geach, DG
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Front Cover – Blank]
[page break]
[underlined] AIRCRAFT RECOGNITION. [/underlined]
[cascade diagram denoting aircraft recognition points]
[page break]
[underlined] BRITISH FIGHTERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] SPITFIRE. [/underlined]
[list of Spitfire recognition features]
[underlined] HURRICANE [/underlined]
[list of Hurricane recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] DEFIANT. [/underlined]
[list of Defiant recognition features]
[underlined] BEAUFIGHTER. [/underlined]
[list of Beaufighter recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] WHIRLWIND. [/underlined]
[list of Whirlwind recognition features]
[underlined] ROC [/underlined]
[list of Roc recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] FULMAR. [/underlined]
[list of Fulmar recognition features]
[underlined] GERMAN FIGHTERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] ME 109E. [/underlined]
[list of ME 109E recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ME 110 [/underlined]
[list of ME 110 recognition features]
[underlined] HE 113. [/underlined]
[list of HE 113 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ITALIAN FIGHTERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] FIAT CR42. [/underlined]
[list of Fiat CR42 recognition features]
[underlined] FIAT G 50. [/underlined]
[list of Fiat G 50 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] MACCHI 200. [/underlined]
[list of Macchi 200 recognition features]
[underlined] BREDA 65. [/underlined]
[list of Breda 65 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] BREDA 88 [/underlined]
[list of Breda 88 recognition features]
[underlined] AMERICAN – BUILT FIGHTERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] MOHAWK [/underlined]
[list of Mohawk recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] TOMAHAWK. [/underlined]
[list of Tomahawk recognition features]
[underlined] AIRACOBRA. [/underlined]
[list of Airacobra recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] BUFFALO [/underlined]
[list of Buffalo recognition features]
[underlined] GERMAN FIGHTER. [/underlined]
[underlined] F.W. 187. [/underlined]
[list of FW 187 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ENGLISH COASTAL COMMAND. [/underlined]
[underlined] WALRUS. [underlined]
[list of Walrus recognition features]
[underlined] LERWICK. [/underlined]
[list of Lerwick recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] SUNDERLAND. [/underlined]
[List of Sunderland recognition features]
[underlined] CATALINA. [/underlined]
[list of Catalina recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] GERMAN COASTAL AIRCRAFT. [/underlined]
[underlined] DO 18. [/underlined]
[list of DO 18 recognition features]
[underlined] DO 24 [/underlined]
[list of DO 24 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ITALIAN COASTAL AIRCRAFT [/underlined]
[underlined] CANT Z 501. [/underlined]
[list of Cant Z 501 recognition features]
[underlined] ENGLISH ARMY CO-OPERATION. [/underlined]
[underlined] LYSANDER. [/underlined]
[list of Lysander recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] GERMAN ARMY CO-OPERATION. [/underlined]
[underlined] HS 126 [/underlined]
[list of HS 126 recognition features]
[underlined] FIESLER 156 [/underlined]
[list of Fiesler 156 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] BRITISH BOMBERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] BLENHEIM IV MODIFIED. [/underlined]
[list of Blenheim IV recognition features]
[underlined] HAMPDEN [/underlined]
[list of Hampden recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] MARYLAND [/underlined]
[list of Maryland recognition features]
[underlined] MANCHESTER. [/underlined]
[list of Manchester recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] WELLINGTON. [/underlined]
[list of Wellington recognition features]
[underlined] WHITLEY. [/underlined]
[list of Whitley recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] FORTRESS 1. [/underlined]
[list of Fortress 1 recognition features]
[underlined] HALIFAX. [/underlined]
[list of Halifax recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] LIBERATOR. [/underlined]
[list of Liberator recognition features]
[underlined] STIRLING. [/underlined]
[list of Stirling recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] GERMAN BOMBERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] HE IIIK MK V [/underlined]
[list of HE IIIK Mk V recognition features]
[underlined] JU 88 [/underlined]
[list of JU 88 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] F.W. KURIER. [/underlined]
[list of FW Kurier recognition features]
[underlined] ITALIAN BOMBERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] FIAT BR20 [/underlined]
[list of Fiat BR20 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] CANT Z 1007 BIS. [/underlined]
[list of Cant Z 1007 BIS recognition features]
[underlined] CAPRONI 135 [/underlined]
[list of Caproni 135 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] CA 310 [/underlined]
[list of CA 310 recognition features]
[underlined] GHIBLI [/underlined]
[list of Ghibli recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] P 32. [/underlined]
[list of P32 recognition features]
[underlined] SM 79. [/underlined]
[list of SM 79 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] SM 81 [/underlined]
[list of SM 81 recognition features]
[underlined] DIVE BOMBERS [/underlined]
[underlined] CHESAPEAKE (AMERICAN BUILT) [/underlined]
[list of Chesapeake recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] SKUA. (BRITISH) [/underlined]
[list of Skua recognition features]
[underlined] Ju 87B. (GERMAN) [/underlined]
[list of Ju 87B recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] SM 85. [/underlined]
[list of SM 85 recognition features]
[underlined] RECONNAISSANCE [/underlined]
[underlined] HUDSON [/underlined]
[list of Hudson recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] TROOP CARRIERS [/underlined]
[underlined] BOMBAY (BRITISH) [/underlined]
[list of Bombay recognition features]
[underlined] Ju 52 (GERMAN) [/underlined]
[list of Ju 52 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] Ju 90 (GERMAN) [/underlined]
[list of Ju 90 recognition features]
[underlined] BRITISH TORPEDO-CARRYING AIRCRAFT [/underlined]
[underlined] BEAUFORT (COASTAL COMMAND) [/underlined]
[list of Beaufort recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] SWORDFISH (FLEET AIR ARM) [/underlined]
[list of Swordfish recognition features]
[underlined] ALBACORE (FLEET AIR ARM) [/underlined]
[list of Albacore recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] FLOAT PLANES. [/underlined]
[underlined] SEAFOX (BRITISH). [/underlined]
[list of Seafox recognition features]
[underlined] GERMAN FLOAT PLANES. [/underlined]
[underlined] HA 140. [/underlined]
[list of HA 140 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] HA 139. [/underlined]
[list of HA 139 recognition features]
[underlined] HE 115. [/underlined]
[list of HE 115 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ITALIAN FLOAT PLANES. [/underlined]
[underlined] CANT Z 506B. [/underlined]
[list of Cant Z 506B recognition features]
[underlined] BRITISH AIRCRAFT. [/underlined]
[underlined] BLENHEIM 1 (FIGHTER) [/underlined]
[list of Blenheim 1 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] HAVOC (NIGHT FIGHTER) [/underlined]
[list of Havoc recognition features]
[underlined] FALCO 1 (RE2000) (ITALIAN FIGHTER). [/underlined]
[list of Falco 1 (RE2000) recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] RE 2001 (ITALIAN FIGHTER) [/underlined]
[list of RE 2001 recognition features]
[underlined] BALTIMORE 1 (AMERICAN BUILT BOMBER) [underlined]
[list of Baltimore 1 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] GERMAN BOMBERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] DO 172. [/underlined]
[list of Do 172 recognition features]
[underlined] Do 217. [/underlined]
[list of Do 217 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ITALIAN BOMBERS [/underlined]
[underlined] CA 313. [/underlined]
[list of CA 313 recognition features]
[underlined] SM 82 [/underlined]
[list of SM 82 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] MOSQUITO (BRITISH GENERAL PURPOSE). [/underlined]
[list of Mosquito recognition features]
[underlined] HA 142 (GERMAN FIGHTER.) [/underlined]
[list of HA 142 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ARADO 196 (ITALIAN FIGHTER) [/underlined]
[list of Arado 196 recognition features]
[underlined] DO 26 Bo (V or 5) [/underlined]
[list of Do 26 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] PECULIARITIES OF AIRCRAFT [/underlined]
Cockpits, Turrets, Radiator, Prominent External Fittings
[underlined] LIST OF TECHNICAL TERMS [/underlined]
Aerofoil
Aileron
Airscrew
Aspect Ratio
Boss.
Camber
Chord
Cockpit
Cowling
Dihedral Angle
Elevator
Fin
Fuselage.
Gap.
Leading Edge.
Nacelle
Rudder
Spar
Stagger
Streamline Body.
Sweep Back.
Tail Unit
Tail Skid & Wheel.
Undercarriage.
Wing.
Anhedral Angle
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[underlined] HYGIENE. [/underlined]
[underlined] LECTURE 1. [/underlined]
[underlined] PERSONAL HYGIENE AT HOME & ABROAD. [/underlined]
A daily wash is essential, as dirty skin encourages vermin & causes septic wounds, wash hands before each meal & after using latrine. Hot bath once a week, short hair, brushes & comb washed each month. Sweating of feet armpits etc. wash daily local bathing with water with few crystals of potassium permanganate. Prick blisters with cold needle, previously sterilised by heating, squeeze & paint with iodine.
Make uniform fit – no chafing, air uniform Blankets washed at least once a year, pillow slips & sheets every fortnight. Underclothes each week. Ensure adequate drying facilities, see boots fit, air socks.
[underlined] Effects of Heat [/underlined]
Heat stroke – hot moist atmosphere & tight heavy clothing – so keep fit wear suitable clothing, plenty of drinking water available.
Sunstroke is heat stroke caused by direct rays
[page break]
of sun on head or back of neck, wear suitable [inserted] clothing [/inserted] & anti-glare glasses & same as for heat-stroke.
[underlined] Effects of Cold. [/underlined]
Frostbite, - loss of circulation & feeling in fingers, toes, ears, & nose, spread up hands & feet if severe. Symptoms – dead feeling & appearance of affected parts, may later blister. Exposure to cold & unsuitable or tight clothing, damp underclothes, lack of body movement. Lack of oxygen at high altitude, lack of food & drink. Well rub affected part to restore circulation, don’t warm at a fire.
Trenchfeet [sic] – type of frostbite, pain swelling, blistering of feet through standing in cold or wet & tight clothing round legs. Wash & dry feet & legs before going in wet trench, then warm whale oil rubbed until skin dry, dry socks.
Airsickness – dose of calomel at night 24 hours before.
March in line & step between 80 & 140, halt each hour, loosen equipment, drinking water available
[page break]
every 7 1/2 miles, wash inspect & treat blisters on feet at end of a march.
[underlined] Personal Hygiene in Hot Countries [/underlined]
Flying in open machines wear flying topee [sic] & tinted goggles, in closed machines carry them in case of forced landing.
All wounds & scratches tend to become sceptic, treat with iodine. Most tropical diseases are conveyed either by insect bites (tics sandfly [sic] mosquito) food & drink, organisms getting under skin (guinea worm) or heat.
[underlined] Mosquitos (Malaria & other diseases) [/underlined]
At sun down mosquito comes up, so then keep arms & legs covered, see mosquito net secured & none inside it. Paraffin, Bomber Oil, Clymax, Sketofax, on exposed skin keep away mosquitos. Drain stagnant water or cover with oil, avoid swamps & valleys, cut or burn undergrowth. Spray living quarters with FLIT three times a day. 5 grains quinine a day – keeps malaria away. Never walk in bare feet, wellingtons or 2 pair socks – shake bedclothes before getting in bed, shake
[page break]
boots & clothes before dressing – for insects, snakes & scorpions. Wash & boil underclothes frequently. Don’t eat rindless [sic] fruit or uncooked vegetables. Regard all water & minerals as unsafe unless from authorised source. Dont [sic] leave food & drink without adequate covering
[underlined] Snake bites & Scorpion Stings. [/underlined]
If on limb immediately apply tourniquet on heart side of bite, with clean knife make cross shaped incision 1/2 inch deep & 1 inch long. Rub in crystals permanganate of potash. Seconds count. Stimulants [indecipherable word] volatile, hot tea or coffee, encourage patient to suck & spit out poison. If hypodermic syringe inject above, below, each side solution water & permanganate. If venene – antidote available inject half contents of an ampoule into bite after injection then rest outside. If neither permanganate or venene available, wound must be deeply cauterised. Remove tourniquet after 1/2 hour if breathing fails administer artificial respiration
[underlined] 3 Rules for Tropics [/underlined] [underlined] 1 [/underlined] Never lie down with your abdomen uncovered [underlined] 2 [/underlined] Avoid constipation [underlined] 3 [/underlined] Never take alcohol until after sundown.
[page break]
[underlined] LECTURE 2. [/underlined]
[underlined] WATER [/underlined]
Over half body weight is water, 3 – 5 pints lost daily, sweat, urine, breath & [inserted] faeces. [/inserted] Minimum water requirements in permanent stations 20 gallons per man per day, in temporary camps 5 gallons per man per day. Increase these quantities in hot countries & on march 2 pints – 7 1/2 miles.
[underlined] Source of Water. [/underlined]
Sources of water in order of purity :- [underlined] 1 [/underlined] Deep Wells (artesian or otherwise) [underlined] 2 [/underlined] Springs, [underlined] 3 [/underlined] Rain Water, [underlined] 4 [/underlined] Centre of large lakes [underlined] 5. [/underlined] Midstream in rivers [underlined] 6. [/underlined] Small streams [underlined] 7 [/underlined] Near Banks of large lakes [underlined] 9 [/underlined] Near banks of rivers [author indicates this should be preceded by No 8] [underlined] 8 [/underlined] Shallow Wells [underlined] 10 [/underlined] Ponds.
Water derives impurities through minerals it flows through & suspended matter. Clarification of water is by sedimentation, filtration. Purify by Boiling, purification by filter, slow & unsatisfactory for field purpose. Chemicals – chlorine most used. Mixture chlorine & ammonia – make chloramines, chloramination [sic] used in R.A.F. water trailer.
[page break]
In field small quantity chloramine placed in airman’s water bottle after hour safe to drink One 15 grain tablet – 1 pint of water, also 2 drops iodine If poison chemicals in water must be certified by M.D. Water sources in the field must be policed to prevent pollution & drinking from unauthorised sources. Separate supplies for, drinking, cooking & ablution must all be labelled. Clean water bottles & don’t have ice cream unless sanctioned.
Catchment or water source should be fenced in & bathing prohibited. Line wells & keep covered. Springs fenced in, water from streams & lakes should be collected as far out as possible. Areas on bank should be marked White – drinking & cooking, Blue – animals & Red ablution – in that order upstream downwards
[underlined] LECTURE 3 [/underlined]
[underlined] ACCOMODATION AND CONSERVANCY IN THE FIELD. [/underlined]
Man requires 1000cu ft fresh air per hour. Air can be changed 3 times an hour without a draught. Standard bed spacing 60sq. ft per man with 6ft
[page break]
horizontal wall space. Minimum of 45sq ft in war-time. Beds – head to foot, infection extends 12ft with loud speaking & 24ft on coughing, sneezing or shouting. Ventilation may be natural or artificial. Ventilation inlets should be 5ft from floor, remove black-out screens at day-time. Keep windows open, & see black-out doesn’t interfere with getting fresh air at night.
Wash basins – 14% Baths – 1% slipper, & 4% foot & shower baths. Ablution benches 9ft long 1 – 50 men. Heated drying rooms for wet clothing should be available. 9sq ft of floor & 20 inches run of table per man is laid down. Washing up facilities provided. Conservancy 6 seats – 100 men in permanent station latrines. Tented camps if in circular tents not more than 15 in a tent Flaps face away from prevailing wind, brailing looped each morning, & on leeward side in bad weather. Floor boards raised each week, ground cleaned and aired for at least an hour.
[underlined] Sanitation in the Field. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Adequate supply of safe drinking water.
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Protection of food from contamination.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] Ventilation of hutments, tents or other quarters.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Ample arrangements for washing & disinfectation [sic] of airmen and their clothing.
[underlined] 5. [/underlined] The disposal of excreta, refuse & waste products.
[underlined] Selection of Camp Site. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Keep away from towns, villages, in hot countries. Swamps marshy ground & banks of streams.
[underlined] 2. [/underlined] A good water supply near at hand is desirable.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] High ground is essential for drainage, steep slopes are difficult for transport, very high ground is too exposed, sites occupied by other troops within two months should be avoided.
[underlined] Camp Layout. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Front of camp should face prevailing wind.
[underlined] 2.[/underlined] Sleeping accommodation should be in front.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] Kitchens and messing accomodations [sic] to one side.
[underlined] 4. [/underlined] Ablution area to the other side.
[underlined] 5. [/underlined] Conservancy area should be situated to leeward i.e. behind.
[page break]
[underlined] Field Conservancy. [/underlined]
Daily production faeces per man is 58 ounces, urine [ditto mark] [ditto mark] is 50 ounces. Three types of latrines in common use :-
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Shallow trenches for camps not more than 3 days duration. 5 for first hundred men, 3each additional 100. Measurements 3ft long 1ft wide & 2ft deep. Sides slightly undercut – 2ft between trenches. When trench finished cover with oiled sacking or oiled paper, turf replaced, & L in white stones.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Deep trenches for 3 weeks. Measurements 10ft long 3ft wide 6-8ft per 100 men as in shallow trenches Soil removed 6” deep over area 4ft front, back & sides of trench. Sacking soaked in crude oil, loose earth mixed with crude oil & beaten down. 2 wooden battens placed front & back edge of trench & a front 18” high erected, top with 5 seats, back 5ft high. Screen in front of latrine, & roofing, duck-boards [indecipherable word] wood must be tongued & grooved to make fly proof. Disinfecting should not be used on this type.
[page break]
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Bucket latrines in billeting areas, railway stations & in rock where impossible to dig latrines. Buckets smeared inside & out with crude oil & lids. Shallow trench – urinals, less than 3 days 10’ – 3’ wide 6” 1 – 250 men Trough – any period High backed galvanised trough 8ft long raised 2’ 3’’ – sloping to drainage pipe 1 – 100 men Funnel – pit 4ft square funnel each corner – 2’ 3” 12” wide & covered with guaze [sic] 1 – 100 men. Buckets placed near barracks at night, emptied & cleaned each morning
[underlined] LECTURE 4 [/underlined]
[underlined] FOOD, COOKHOUSES AND COOKING. [/underlined]
Essentials, Fats, Proteins, Carbohydrates, Mineral Salts and Vitamins. – Unit M.O. sees diet each week. Sweetened tea good restorative. Food should not be kept where live or sleep, near latrines, or exposed to flies. Must be kept in flyproof [sic], ratproof [sic] stores & not touch sides. Don’t eat tin foods that are blown, rusted or dented, & dont [sic] have fresh milk in hot countries liable to disease. Avoid alcohol & tobacco if possible. Nicotine depresses the heart & interferes with its efficient
[page break]
action thus leading to palpitations on exertion & shortness of breath. Nicotine aggravates tendency to gastric and duodenal ulcers. Aggravates nasal catarrh and heavy smoking over prolonged periods may cause deterioration in vision, also reduces ones ceiling several thousand feet.
[underlined] Cookhouses. [/underlined]
On one or other side of camp & away from latrines. Camp cookhouses should be shelters of timber and corrugated iron or asbestos sheeting one side open, & face away from prevailing wind. Should be a closed building when fly-proof, floors drained & impermeable to water to allow for scrubbing. Cookhouse drains supplied with grease traps, tables etc. cleaned. Swill & refuse must be kept covered & arrangements made for prompt removal. No one must be employed who has had typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, or dysentery or who is suffering from V.D. Before airmen are employed in handling of food, they must be interrogated & examined by the M.O.
[page break]
[underlined] ATMOSPHERIC AIR. [/underlined]
Oxygen comprises 20.9% and Nitrogen 78% of air, this is the same at all altitudes. At 18,000ft the pressure is half of that at sea level, and at 25,000ft it is a quarter. (Sea level pressure 760mm of mercury, 18,000’ 380mm & at 25,000’ 190mm) Oxygen exerts 1/5 of pressure at all heights (Sea level 160mm) etc. The pressure of air cannot be greater in the lungs than outside, yet space must be allowed for Carbon Dioxide. So make up of air in lung root is 100mm Oxygen 580mm Nitrogen 38mm Carbon Dioxide 42mm water The amount of oxygen must remain constant in order to saturate the blood at all altitudes. Mental efficiency, accuracy, & freedom of movement, are considerably reduced, at heights without oxygen, about 20,000ft in rarified [sic] atmosphere. Nitrogen is apt to change into a gaseous state & form gas bubbles in the tissues which attack the joints, first generally the right shoulder.
Number of cylinders at pressure of 100lbs per sq inch which supply gas sockets. If cylinder hit by a
[page break]
bullet will explode & splinters do damage. If let 7/8 out of everyone, wont explode, only break when hit. If doing lot of work adjust oxygen supply at about 5000ft more e.g. 90000’ instead of 15,000’. Plug the mask into nearest sockets. If baling out disconnect oxygen last of all, take good breaths, & pull rip-cords [underlined] immediately [/underlined]. If use oxygen, less liable to frostbite, for keeps up circulation to more, ears etc. If flying in bomber at 10,000’ft or over for an hour or over must use oxygen, if fighter pilot & climbing at a rate of 1500’ per minute must use oxygen.
[underlined] Blacking Out. [/underlined]
Occurs mainly in diving & tight turns, Human can stand 4.5 to 5 times the normal gravity. When pulling out of steep dive, centrifugal force increases, & gravity increases to that ratio as well. Weight of body, I.e. blood, muscles, etc all become 5 times their normal weight. The blood pumping organism has to pump to eyes & brain & fluid 5 times the weight, with no increase in its strength, so blood tends to flow back
[page break]
to heart & lungs. At a certain time, blood is unable to reach the eyes, & blackout occurs, but as the brain is above, it still functions, but if dive is continued, unconsciousness occurs. If in tight turns should lean forward, & bring up legs so shortening length blood has to flow, in this way some people can stand 10 & 11G. When straighten aircraft out, sight generally returns. In a climb to height pressure on middle era is greater [inserted] than [/inserted] that of external ear & drum forced outwards. In a dive drum is forced in by greater pressure outside, if dive too much ear drum is torn & deafness results. If sudden pain in eras diving, & can’t rid it by blowing, must descend at 7,000ft stages.
[underlined] First Aid Satchel. [/underlined]
Fighter plane – 1, twin engine have 2, in big planes may have 6, crew have to know where they are kept. Pair of scissors, First Field Dressing (guaze [sic] pad, sterilised, & length of bandage) St. John’s tourniquet, (block of wood, string & bandage) use it when other methods failed.
[page break]
Packets of lint, 2 Bandages 4 yards long. Packets of cotton wool, safety pins, adhesive tape, 2 triangular bandages, & 2packets of gauze, 2 tubes of burn jelly, 3 tubes of iodine.
In fire in an aircraft keep on helmet, goggles, gloves etc & as much clothing as possible to protect you from flames. Also in F.A. packet – tube of quinine. Tube of aromatic chalk & opium. Tube of aspirins. Tube of No. 9. Tin of Fulmonic Ampoules. This does away with all pain.
[diagram of Fulmonic Ampoule]
For fracture immobilise joint beneath & above fracture.
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[underlined] LAW AND ADMINISTRATION. [/underlined]
The Army, Navy and Airforce [sic] Act.
The Airforce [sic] Constitution (1917).
The Manual of Airforce [sic] Law and Kings Regulations.
[underlined] AIRMENS PRIVELEDGES [sic]. [/underlined]
[underlined] WILLS [/underlined]
An airmans [sic] will may consist of a document not attested (as a civilian’s will must be) e.g. a private letter to the person intended to benefit under it, or to someone else stating his wishes. Also a mere verbal statement of his wishes is sufficient if such a statement can be proved to the satisfaction of the court. To establish the validity of such a will it is not necessary to prove that he was aware he was making a will or had power to make one in that manner, but it must be shown that he intended to express deliberately his wishes as to the disposal
[page break]
of his property in the event of his death. Such a will is revoked (like any other will) by his subsequent marriage. It continues in force until revoked or superceeded [sic] unless its language shows an intention that it should take effect only for a limited period and in the event of the testators death during a warlike engagement
There is a special R.A.F form of will (Form F276) and there is also a space for a will on Page 8 of the airman’s pay book Form 64. Officers have no personal exemption.
[underlined] DISCIPLINE. [/underlined]
[underlined] Relations with the Press. [/underlined]
Any statements regarding general matters are made through Air Ministry. Statements regarding Wings and Units are made through Wing. H.Q, Squadron H.Q. etc. An airman must always be on his guard when conversing with a representative of the press.
[page break]
[underlined] Responsibility of Officers in General (1077). [/underlined]
Any officer has at all times to be obeyed. He is responsible at all times and anywhere for the maintenance of good order and discipline.
[underlined] Treatment of Subordinates (Clause 1078). [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] An officer of any rank will adopt towards his subordinates such methods of command and treatment as will not only ensure respect of authority, but also foster the feelings of self-respect and personal honour, which are essential to efficiency.
2 An officer will not reprove a W/O or N.C.O in the presence of other airmen, unless it is necessary for the benefit of example that the reproof be public.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] W/O’s and N.C.O’s will be guided by the foregoing principles in dealing with each other and other airmen. They will avoid any intemperate language and offensive manner.
[underlined] Criticism of Superiors Para (1080) [/underlined]
If criticism is heard – stop it.
[page break]
[underlined] Communication and Interview with Air Ministry Officials Para (1085) [underlined]
[underlined] 1. [/underlined] No correspondence on official matters may pass between airmen and A.M. officials
[underlined] 2. [/underlined] All applications for interviews etc. must pass through the Commanding Officer of the Unit. If an airman has to go to the A.M. he must always have a letter of authorisation.
[underlined] Bankruptcy Para. (1089). [/underlined]
Bankruptcy, and failure to meet debts must be reported to the C.O. and it will be decided if the commission is to be continued.
[underlined] Gambling (Section 1094). [underlined]
Gambling in any form is forbidden in the R.A.F.
[underlined] Intoxicants (1095) [/underlined]
The introduction of wines, spirits, etc, into barracks or like places is strictly forbidden. Corporals and airmen may be permitted a pint of beer with their dinner.
[underlined] Civil Employment (1096). [/underlined]
Officers and airmen must not accept directorships
[page break]
be paid consultants or agents fees unless such positions were held before appointment.
[underlined] Concealment of V.D. (1102). [/underlined]
Any airman contracting V.D. must report it immediately. Failure to do so is a criminal offence.
[underlined] Witnesses in Private Law suits 1103. [/underlined]
If a witness, an airman’s name and unit is given, and it will then traverse the usual channels, C.O. etc. An officer or airman must refuse if asked to appear as an expert witness, if pressed then report the matter.
[underlined] THE AIRMAN. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 Dress [/underlined] [underlined]
At all times must be correct.
[underlined] 2 Discipline [/underlined]
Every airman must obey all orders without question.
[underlined] 3 General Deportment. [/underlined]
Airman must salute at all times. All officers holding commissioned rank.
[underlined] Airmen’s Messing Committee’s etc. [/underlined]
Airmens [sic] Messing Committee comprises of the President A.M.C.
[page break]
1 N.C.O or a W/O. Senior Cook and a representative of airmen. The [deleted][indecipherable word] [/deleted]committee meets once every week.
[underlined] Airmen’s Diet. [/underlined]
Consists of, 4 1/2ozs Boneless Beef or 6oz of Beef or Mutton per day. 12oz of Bread per day. 2/7oz Tea per day. 2oz sugar per day, 1/4oz salt per day – these are basic rations.
[underlined] Basic amount from the NAAFI. [/underlined]
4/7oz cheese per day 1oz of jam per day, 9oz Bacon per week 1oz of margarine per day. There is also a commuted ration allowance. A rebate of 6% is allowed but this is spent on the welfare of all airmen.
[underlined] Service Institutes [/underlined]
Really began in 1800 – pedlars and bagmen used to follow the troops round. In 1863 a Regimental Canteen was formed, the idea being to provide as much as possible for the soldiers. In 1894 a Canteen and Mess Co-operative Society was formed. The society bought up stores in bulk to stock camp canteens.
In 1917 an Army Canteen Board was set up which was later joined by the Navy. It became
[page break]
the [deleted] [indecipherable abbreviation] [/deleted] N>A>C>B> and it also ran a R.A.F. canteen. In 1921 the N.A.A.F.I. was set up.
[underlined] Objects of the N.A.A.F.I. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1. [/underlined] To supply all messing requirements other than those supplied by service sources, for the airman’s mess.
[underlined] 2. [/underlined] To provide a club for corporals, L.A.C’s, A.C.1’s &A.C.2’s, apprentices and boy entrants where they may read, write, play games and hold entertainments etc. and where they may obtain refreshments and articles of common requirements at reasonable prices.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] To supply by means of a rebate on purchased money for the station institute funds.
4 To supply families of officers and airmen with household requirements at reasonable prices.
[underlined] The N.A.A.F.I. Policy. [/underlined]
Controlled as to a policy by a council of twelve – 4 Army, 4 Navy and 4 R.A.F. The board of management consists of three civilian business men and one officer from each service. Locally, a committee is formed consisting of one corporal two A/C’s sometimes
[page break]
a Flt/Sgt. or a Sergeant. An officer is at the head of the committee.
[underlined] Organisation of the R.A.F. [/underlined]
[hierarchical diagram showing, in order] R.A.F. R.A.F.R. Reserve of Air Force Officers Special Reserve R.A.F.V.R. A.A.F
[underlined] The Ancillary Services. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Princess Mary’s R.A.F. Nursing Service.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Education Service.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] Construction staff. Directorate of Works.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] A.T.C.
The Government of the R.A.F is vested in the Crown and the command is in the hands of the Air Council.
[underlined] The Air Council. [/underlined]
The Secretary of State for Air (President of the Air Council) appointed by the Prime Minister.
The Permanent Under Secretary of State for Air (appointed by S.S.A).
[ditto mark] Parliamentary [six ditto marks] ([three ditto marks])
Chief of Air Staff appointed by the King.
[page break]
Air Member for Personnel and Air Member for Supply and Organisation, and Air Member for Training, are all appointed by the secretary of sate for air. He may also appoint from other members.
If anything goes wrong in Parliament regarding air matters the Secretary of State has to defend.
[underlined] Home Commands. [/underlined]
Bomber, Fighter, Coastal, Training, Army Co-operation, Balloon, Maintenance, Technical Training.
[underlined] Commands Abroad. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Aden [underlined] 2 [/underlined] India [underlined] 3 [/underlined] Mediterranean 4 Iraq [underlined] 5. [/underlined] Far East [underlined] 6 [/underlined] Middle East [underlined] 7 [/underlined] Trans-Jordan [underlined] 8 [/underlined] Palestine.
A command is usually commanded by an Air Marshal or Vice Marshall – known as A.O.C. in C. Groups are territorial units and are concerned with group personal operations. A Group is commanded by an Air Vice Marshal or a Senior Air Commodore. Wings & stations come directly under Group and are commanded usually by Group Captains.
[page break]
[underlined] STATION ADJUTANT. [/underlined]
Is the confidential officer of the staff room, responsible for filing documents, leave passes and warrants, issue of D.R.O’s & Wing Standing Orders, maintenance of discipline, charge sheets, R.A.F. service papers, goods, drill, billeting etc.
Each Wing is divided into 3, 4 or 5 squadrons. There are 3 flights of 5 machines in a bomber squadron and 4 flights of 3 machines in a fighter squadron. The squadrons are commanded by by a Squadron Leader, and each squadron is divided into a number of flights & each i/c flt/comdr.
[underlined] COURTS MARTIAL [/underlined]
All confessions must be made voluntarily. The court can only charge & find him guilty of the offence he is in court for. A prisoner need not answer any questions that may reflect upon his wife or family.
[underlined] COURT OF INQUIRY. [/underlined]
Convened by Air Council or A.O.C or Officer Commanding Its purpose is to collect intelligently & systematically facts
[page break]
concerning minor crimes or other offences.
A court of enquiry need not express their opinion at a trial if [underlined] not [/underlined] asked.
[underlined] AIRMAN’S DOCUMENTS. [/underlined]
Each airmen has two sets of documents, first original documents, medical etc. kept by Air Officer I/C Records seldom out of his possesion [sic]. Other is Service Documents, these contain all details of airmans [sic] service life. Very important & must be kept with care, & fairly endorsed with unbiased opinion of character.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Airmans [sic] Record Sheet (active service) Form 1580
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] General Conduct Sheet – Form 121.
3 Medical History Envelope Form 48.
In [underlined] 1 [/underlined] have official no, name rank, R.A.F trade, date of birth, religion, occupation in civil life. Last enlisted current engagement, type of reservist, whether married etc Next of Kin, then section 1. In 3 columns :- Unit from which Unit to which Date of Effect [indecipherable word] movements and casualties.
[page break]
Section 2 – 3 columns :-
Promotions, Acting appointments, Remusterings [sic] Authority Description of Appointment
Section 3 – entitled Good Conduct Badges. 4 columns Authority 1st 2nd or 3rd Good C.S. – Awarded Deprived, Restored, Date of effect Section 4 – entitled Character & trade Proficiency (to be assesed [sic] on every occasion on which an airman is struck off the strength of the unit). E.g. on posting, admission to hospital, death, etc. Rank/Character/Trade Classification/Proficiency [letters A B C underneath] /Whether Specially Recommended, Recommended, or not Recommended for promotion/Date/Signature & Rank of Commanding Officer. Section 5 – Decorations, Mentions, Special Commendations by A.O.C’s etc.
Assessment of character when leaving station & at Dec 31st every year.
[page break]
Form 121 – General Conduct Sheet.
Unit & Place/Date of offence/Rank/Cases of Drunkeness/Offence/Witnesses/Punishment Awarded/Date of award or order dispensing with trial/By whom awarded/[indecipherable word] & Rank of Officer making entry with remarks & date.
All offences put on sheet except, [underlined]1 [/underlined] Sentence of a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, if a fine (except for drunkenness), and no imprisonment has been imposed in default therefore, bound over, or if case has been dismissed with costs, if R.A.F. name been disgraced, Wing Comdr or over authorises entry should be made. [underlined] 2 [/underlined] One day’s C.C. or one extra guard or picket [underlined] 3 [/underlined] Admonition. These sheets are destroyed if entries on them [underlined] 1. [/underlined] Completion of 6 months from the date of attestation, [underlined] 2 [/underlined] After 2 years expiration of the last punishment [underlined] 3 [/underlined] When attaining substansive rank of sergeant [underlined] 4 [/underlined] When transferred to the reserve. New sheet marked – “Sheet Destroyed on – Date – under K.R. 2154
[page break]
Form 48 – Medical History (Confidential).
Contains, [underlined] 1 [/underlined] Contents of envelope [underlined] 2 [/underlined] Medical Category [underlined] 3 [/underlined] Inoculations [underlined] 4 [/underlined] Vaccinations [underlined] 5 [/underlined] Dental Treatment [underlined] 6 [/underlined] Spectacles & Surgical Appliances [underlined] 7 [/underlined] Blood Group.
[underlined] PUNISHMENTS OFFICERS MAY ADMINISTER. [/underlined]
[table of punishments]
POWERS OF A COMMANDING OFFICER.
Every C.O. must see that the charges against an airman are investigated and dealt within 48 hours. Every investigation must be made in the presence of the accused who can
[page break]
question or bring witnesses or demand the proceedings be taken on oath.
[underlined] 1. [/underlined] C.O. can dispense case to proper R.A.F. authorities (Refer to higher authorities).
[underlined] 2. [/underlined] Adjourn case to reduce evidence in writing. Accused can be tried by Court Martial but he must be asked if he agrees to his punishment, without knowing what it is.
Courts Martial
Accused must be allowed communication with his friends, legal advisors, and he must be given a copy of the charge, so he can prepare his defence.
When an officer is charged he must be charged by an officer of similar rank, except for drunkenness when any officer may.
Kings Regulations and Air Ministry Orders must always be at hand at court martials. The president of the Court Martial is responsible for all proceedings. Rules of evidence is the same as ordinary courts of England.
[page break]
[underlined] A. [/underlined] Only the charge must be proved
[underlined] B. [/underlined] What facts are known.
[underlined] C [/underlined] All innocent until proved guilty, the prosecution must prove the case.
[underlined] D [/underlined] Admissability of facts (opinion is not evidence neither is hearsay.) Wife of prisoner can only give evidence for her husband, not against him. Witnesses must not be asked a leading question.
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[blank back cover]
[page break]
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
RAF Training Notes
Description
An account of the resource
A book of lecture notes covering British, German, Italian and American fighter, Coastal, Army co-operation, bombers and dive bombers.
Notes on Hygiene, Water, Accommodation and conservancy in the field, Food, cookhouses and cooking, Law and administration.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Geach
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
78 pages of handwritten notes
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Training material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MGeachDG1394781-160401-17
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Regia Aeronautica
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
Steve Christian
David Bloomfield
aircrew
B-17
B-24
Beaufighter
Blenheim
Catalina
Defiant
Do 18
Do 217
Do 24
Halifax
Hampden
Hudson
Hurricane
Ju 52
Ju 87
Ju 88
Lysander
Manchester
Me 109
Me 110
Mosquito
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
sanitation
Spitfire
Stirling
Sunderland
Swordfish
training
Walrus
Wellington
Whitley
-
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2363c9a6e0c9fbdba36e8345aedf980d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/934/11291/ALovattP170927.1.mp3
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Title
A name given to the resource
Lovatt, Peter
Dr Peter Lovatt
P Lovatt
Description
An account of the resource
117 items. An oral history interview with Peter Lovatt (b.1924, 1821369 Royal Air Force), his log book, documents, and photographs. The collection also contains two photograph albums. He flew 42 operations as an air gunner on 223 Squadron flying B-24s. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1338">Album One</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2135">Album Two</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Nina and Peter Lovatt and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-27
2019-09-03
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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Lovatt, P
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: I’ll just interview myself. It’s David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Dr Peter Lovatt at [buzz] with his daughter Nina.
Other: Nina.
DK: Yeah. I’ll just put that on there.
Other: Ok.
DK: We just have to ignore that.
Other: Ok. That’s fine.
DK: If I keep looking down I’m just making sure it’s still working because I’ve been caught out when the batteries have suddenly gone or the memory has gone.
Other: Ok.
DK: Just [unclear] —
Other: Alright [pause] Let me, shall, shall I just move it off that.
DK: Yes.
Other: So we can, we can access these?
DK: Yeah.
Other: That’s your logbook. And do you want to look at the photos because they might be —
PL: I’d like, I’d like the photos.
Other: Yes. There you go. That’s where you started, dad. Look.
PL: Oh yeah.
DK: Oh right. Ok. [pause] Oh the old pet dogs.
Other: There we go. That’s Walney Island, isn’t it?
PL: Yes.
Other: So do you want to tell David about joining up?
PL: Yes, I’ll tell him about that if you want me to.
Other: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Please do. I mean that would be my first question. What —
Other: Yeah.
DK: What made you join the RAF?
PL: Well, it was, it was very good. There was tremendous competition between the three Services even though men were being pressed in to the Army and Navy and the Air Force there was still competition between the Services for the better type of chap. And the Air Force appealed to those who wanted to fly and they formed the Air Training Corps.
DK: Right.
PL: And I joined the Air Training Corps and they really were good. They taught me how to navigate and I started to appreciate what mathematics was all about and I took off from there. I was really interested in the Air Force so I joined up and after a year’s wait they sent for me and I went to Walney Island.
DK: Right.
PL: The Air Gunnery School.
DK: So although you were good at navigating you didn’t try to become a navigator then?
Other: You wanted to be a pilot didn’t you, dad?
PL: I wanted to be a pilot.
DK: Right. Ok.
Other: But they gave you a bit of an option didn’t they? They said either, didn’t they offer you to be a Bevan boy or be —
DK: An air gunner?
Other: An air gunner.
PL: So I took air gunner.
DK: Yeah. Rather, rather than going down the pits.
Other: Which was quite harsh wasn’t it?
DK: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
DK: In fact, a veteran I spoke to yesterday said exactly the same thing
Other: Yeah.
DK: They didn’t do the pilot training and wanted to get in
Other: Yeah.
DK: And given the choice well air gunner or Bevan boy.
Other: Bevan boy.
DK: Yeah.
Other: I think they must have been desperate for air gunners.
DK: Yeah. So, Walney Island then. Was that your first place you went to?
PL: For training, yes.
DK: Training. Yeah.
PL: And I think the course was ten or eleven weeks and the standard was quite high and the training was good. You didn’t need second training.
DK: What, what did the training involve? Were you, were you square bashing at this point or had you moved —
PL: I’d finished that.
DK: Right.
PL: And they assumed, I took two or three exams with the Air Training Corps. They called them proficiency exams and I had part one and part two. Part two was quite unusual as it was fairly advanced so I really started off with a good, a good [pause] a good advantage.
DK: Right. So, at Walney Island then that’s, that was all air gunnery training.
PL: Air gunnery training.
DK: Yes. So, what did the training involve initially? Did they let you loose on the machine guns or did you have to do a bit of target practice?
PL: Well, they didn’t allow you to fire the machine gun for some time. You had to learn all about the machine gun first of all and then gradually you worked up to the position of firing the gun.
DK: So, you had to learn how to strip the weapon and put it back together again.
PL: That’s it.
DK: Yeah. Can you remember what sort of weapons they were? So, the Brownings or —
PL: Browning 303.
DK: And at Walney Island were you flying at that stage?
PL: Yes. They had Ansons.
DK: Right. Ok.
PL: Almost flying from day one.
DK: Right. So once you were on board the Anson what did the training involve?
PL: Firing the guns.
DK: From the turret?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. And what, what was your target?
PL: A drogue.
DK: Right. And that’s flown by another aircraft then.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
PL: Normally a Martinet.
DK: Right. So you did quite a few trips in the Anson then.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. And how many of you would be on board for this?
FPL: The Anson only took a few. There would be two or three at the most.
DK: Right.
Other: And that’s your record isn’t it of all the trips dad? In the Anson.
DK: And it has here the kinds of training that you were doing here. Tracer. Beam.
PL: Yeah.
DK: Air to sea so you’re shooting down. And cine camera gun.
PL: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. There’s a few abbreviations here. Do you, you don’t remember what they stand for do you? BRST? No. CCG? No. Don’t worry.
Other: That’s the cine camera gun.
DK: That was cine camera gun.
Other: Cine camera. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. And QXU there. So it was Number 10 Air Gunnery School then.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. And that, yeah.
Other: And the total flying for the course that’s quite interesting, isn’t it? Twenty one. That’s it. Gone.
DK: Twenty one hours forty minutes. So that was all your training then. All twenty one hours. So then after number 10 AGS can you remember where you went on to then?
PL: We went to 223 Squadron.
DK: You went straight to the Squadron.
PL: Yes.
DK: Ah that’s quite unusual. There was no Operational Training Unit or anything?
PL: Well, they, what they decided to do I queried that and they decided to use the squadron as an OTU and the first few weeks we were treated as OTU people.
DK: Right.
PL: So we did our OTU on our operational squadron.
DK: That is very unusual.
PL: Very unusual.
DK: Yeah. So that was where you met your pilot then.
PL: Yes. On, on arrival at 223 Squadron.
DK: Yeah. And can you remember when they were based?
Other: Yeah. Oulton.
PL: Oulton.
DK: Oulton. Oulton. Right. And what did you think of your pilot? Was he, was he a good pilot?
PL: He was exceptional.
DK: Yeah.
PL: In fact, I thought he was overlooked and we were lucky to have him.
Other: Do you want to tell David about Jock Hastie and his background? Do you remember?
PL: Well, what was his background?
Other: He’d been in the Bahamas, hadn’t he? And he’d trained pilots. He was in his thirties when dad met him.
DK: He was quite old for a pilot then.
PL: Oh yes.
Other: He was old.
DK: Yeah.
Other: And he’d, he’d been a, he’d trained them and he’d been in the Bahamas, hadn’t he, flying? I can’t remember what he was flying. Do you remember?
DK: The Mitchells.
PL: Mitchells.
DK: Yeah.
Other: Ok.
PL: That’s him there.
DK: Right. Ok. So, he, he’d previously been with the rest of the crew in the Bahamas training there and then came back to the UK. I see you’ve got here about a full flight with him as a waist gunner. You’ve put Bullseye.
PL: Yes. That was a night time exercise flown around the UK.
DK: Right.
PL: And I forget what Bullseye was but it was, it was an exercise.
DK: Yeah. Because it’s quite unusual here. Did they tell you anything about what 223 Squadron was doing because it was unusual to the rest of Bomber Command.
PL: Well, they said it was a radio counter measures squadron. They told us that. They didn’t tell us much detail but we assumed we were carrying going to carry equipment which would jam German communications.
DK: And is that what the rest of your crew were doing as special operators then?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. So, the Liberator itself. What did you think of that as a, as an aircraft?
PL: Cold and draughty.
DK: Because I believe the squadron only got second hand ones from the Americans.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. So were they a bit clapped out?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. And do you know the reason for using Liberators because you were the only squadron using them?
PL: I think it was because the amount of power we used. Electric power.
DK: Right.
PL: And its range.
DK: Right.
PL: And endurance.
DK: So can you recall a little bit about what these special operations involved?
PL: We at the, at the maximum we carried two special operators and they both carried, operated equipment each.
Other: Yeah. Have a look at your pictures dad because you’ll remember.
DK: Yeah.
Other: Here we go.
PL: We didn’t have a lot to do with them because they, they were a bit reticent about talking about their work.
Other: There you go.
DK: Right.
Other: There’s one there.
DK: There’s the Liberator there then.
Other: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
Other: And there’s you standing the crew in front of the plane.
DK: Oh wow.
Other: It was a big crew wasn’t it, dad?
DK: Yeah. Can you recall how many were in the crew?
PL: About eight or ten.
DK: Right. And once again that’s unusual because the normal Bomber Command crew was about seven. So as, as your job as a, as a waist gunner what was your role as a gunner there?
PL: It was to protect the aircraft.
DK: Right. And can you recall any incidents while you were flying then because I believe you saw a German night fighter at one point?
PL: Yes. There was one. One occasion when we were flying and a German night fighter had come up underneath us and unseen and was [pause] came in to view and of course the alarm was immediately entered into and the skipper, normally one would do a corkscrew.
DK: Yeah.
PL: Out of the way of the bullets. But instead of doing a corkscrew he used his head and just throttled back a bit and stayed on course. This put the night fighter pilot into a bit of confusion because he was expecting corkscrews. And we stayed like this for several minutes and something was bound to happen and all of a sudden the Messerschmitt disappeared. I think he realised that he’d been seen and had been spotted and was due to be blasted out of the sky any minute.
DK: So how close was he then? Could you, could you see the pilot?
PL: Yes. Oh yes.
DK: Yeah.
PL: Quite easily.
DK: But you didn’t open fire then.
PL: No.
DK: No.
PL: We were just about to. If he’d stayed another minute we would have done and he would have had .5s. We didn’t carry 303s.
DK: Oh right.
PL: And a .5 bullet makes quite a hole.
DK: So were, can you recall if you were actually fired on at all by the enemy or for the most part you were [pause] they missed?
PL: Well, I think we were. We were either using our equipment.
DK: Yeah.
PL: Jamming the radar so it was unusable or we were just lucky.
DK: Yeah. Because your operations you weren’t actually flying with the bomber streams were you? You were flying separately to them.
PL: Yes. We took off with the bomber stream and returned with the bomber stream.
DK: Right.
PL: So, gave them protection.
DK: Right.
PL: But near the target we went off on our own.
DK: And the special operators would be jamming the radar.
PL: Yes.
DK: And, and did you use Window as well?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
Other: In dad’s logbook it tells you which raids —
DK: Yeah. Ok.
Other: Were Window and —
DK: Ok. And did you used to throw the Window out?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yes. And can you recall what the Window was like? Was there different sizes of it?
PL: Yes. Different lengths.
DK: Lengths. Right. Just going through your logbook here for the sake of this you’ve got another bullseye operation in support of Duisburg so that was where you were flying out with the counter measures.
Other: Yeah. What is interesting about the logbook I’m sure you’ve seen this so the red is active.
DK: Yeah.
Other: Green is training.
DK: Oh, green is night time.
Other: A night time. Sorry.
DK: Yeah.
Other: And the black is —
DK: Yeah. So you, you’ve got here for example Window raid to Denmark. So you flew out to Denmark and then threw the Window out.
[pause]
DK: So, can you remember how many operations you actually flew?
PL: I have, I have to count them up so —
DK: If I just read through some of these.
PL: Yes.
DK: Just for the sake of the recording here so there is a lot of standing patrols and then, well Window. So as I say you’ve got October the 26th Window to Denmark. Air test. Engine trouble. So, 1st November Window raid to Homberg.
PL: Yes.
DK: 4th of November Window raid to Bochum. 18th of November Window raid to Hanover where you were diverted to Manston on the way back.
Other: Was that when it was foggy and they wouldn’t give you any food? Was it? [laughs] Do you want to tell David that story? Where you got diverted. Do you remember that? [pause] Do you not remember. Ok. It doesn’t matter.
[pause]
DK: Just going on here. So you got a Window raid to Essen, November the 28th. 30th of November Window raid to Duisburg. So, it’s mostly Window you’re doing then. And then December the 2nd ops to Gladbach. You’ve got here, I don’t know if you remember this one. December the 4th ops to Merseburg. Oxygen leak and returned to base. You had an oxygen leak.
PL: Yeah, but as we were on, we were on oxygen very early.
DK: Right.
PL: From about fourteen thousand feet. But we were flying fairly high so we needed oxygen badly. If we ran out of oxygen we were finished so we were caution, precautionary returned early I think.
DK: Right. So December the 4th Karlsruhe. And then December the 12th ops in support of Essen. So I’m assuming that’s radio counter measures again. Radar counter measures. Then December the 15th ops to Ludwigshafen. December the 17th ops to Ulm. And then December the 21st again Window over the Ruhr. So you’re [pause] and then December the 24th Mannheim. So there’s a lot of operations there [pause] And you flew on February 13th dropping Window in support of the Dresden raid.
[pause]
DK: And then you’ve got one here February the 23rd Window raid to the Ruhr. It mentions a combat with a JU88 or was that when you saw the aircraft then?
[pause]
DK: There was a lot of operations there wasn’t there? We’ll count them up later.
Other: What was it like in the aeroplane, dad?
PL: Cold and draughty.
DK: Yeah.
Other: And noisy.
PL: And noisy.
DK: Did, can you recall if you got much support from the Americans because they were doing similar operations?
PL: We didn’t. We didn’t talk about it if we knew. I think we must have known but we didn’t talk about it.
DK: No. [pause] And can you, can you recall the names of your crews still?
PL: Oh yes.
Other: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
Other: We’ll get to the picture of the crew. Let’s get a big picture. That’s just really, that’s [pause] there we go. There you are.
DK: There you go. Can you name them now?
PL: Yes.
DK: Go on then.
PL: Bob Lawrence.
Other: That was dad’s good friend.
DK: Yeah.
PL: Roy Hastie. I don’t, I can’t see who that is.
DK: Right.
PL: That, that was known as Wee Jock. He was a wireless operator. Navigator Soapy Hudson. Flight engineer, co-pilot Chris Spicer.
Other: Which one’s Syd Pienaar dad? Is that? That’s, is that Syd Pienaar there?
PL: Yes.
Other: Yeah.
PL: Yes.
DK: So, did you get, did you get on well together?
PL: We got on very well.
DK: Yeah. And did you socialise together?
PL: Very much so.
DK: So what did you do on your time off?
PL: Well, we socialised with one another. We didn’t do much socialising outside the crew.
DK: No. And what did you do in your times off then? Did you visit the local pubs?
PL: The local pubs. Yeah.
Other: It was a long walk because dad was stationed at Oulton and he used to go to the Black Boy, didn’t you? So Soapy and, Soapy Hudson and Bob Lawrence and dad they were the three babies of the crew, weren’t they? So they used to walk quite a long way to the Black Boy Inn for a beer didn’t you? And if you were lucky you had bicycles and the Canadians used to steal your bicycles didn’t they?
PL: Yes.
Other: And they dumped them in the duck pond and your bicycle got shot up by a Messerschmitt didn’t it? In the duck pond. So there was quite a lot of pranking going on I think. So —
DK: So, so did you stay in touch with the crew after the war then?
PL: For as long as they stayed alive. Yes.
DK: Right. And did you regularly meet up again then?
PL: Not regularly.
DK: No.
PL: But we did meet up.
DK: So you’d go back to the pub where you used to —
Other: Yeah. And —
DK: Used to drink.
Other: And there’s pictures of having meals at people’s houses and, but Jock Hastie died quite young, didn’t he?
PL: Yes.
Other: So the pilot died quite young. Syd Pienaar went to South Africa. He was South African wasn’t he?
PL: Yes.
Other: And you’ve had contact from his son recently. And Bob Lawrence and Soapy Hudson you stayed in touch with, you know, closely.
DK: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
Other: I don’t know about Chris Spicer. He went to Canada, didn’t he?
PL: No. I don’t know what happened to him. No.
Other: Ok. Ok. Ok. And then you’ve done a lot through 100 Group Association.
DK: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Other: So dad’s been a regular.
DK: Yeah.
Other: Regular participant in 100 Group activities. Haven’t you, dad?
PL: Yeah.
Other: And that’s where he’s met other people that were stationed at Oulton. But as he said, you know they socialised in their crew.
DK: In just their crews. Yeah.
Other: So —
DK: Can you recall much about what you were told before an operation? At the briefings?
PL: They were very thorough and very methodical. Including very accurate weather forecasts.
DK: Right.
PL: It was like having your own personal weather forecaster and generally they were accurate. Occasionally they were wrong. Very wrong. But generally they were spot on.
DK: And presumably the briefings involved what would happen with the special operators and the points you’ve got to drop the wing nose.
PL: Yes.
DK: And when they’ve got to block the —
PL: Yes.
DK: German signals.
PL: Yes, indeed. They must have gathered a lot of information. With two of them carrying two different types of equipment they must have covered an awful lot of territory.
DK: Yeah. And what was it like then? Did you, because you were away from the bomber stream could you see much of the targets when they being bombed or were you away from that?
PL: No. We were right in it.
DK: Right.
PL: In fact, when, when the cloud was thick you were in thick cloud.
DK: And that was right over the target then.
PL: Yes.
DK: So as the bomber stream comes in are you circling the target area then?
PL: Well, I think that may have been the theory but in practice you got, you got stuck in.
DK: Right. So you were within the bomber stream itself.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. And, and did, did the rest of, you may not know the answer to this did the rest of Bomber Command know about you? Did they know that there was this special squadron?
PL: I’ve asked myself that question. It’s still a question being asked, I think. Some of them did know. Others didn’t.
DK: And, and because you were doing something out the ordinary was there any special instructions about if you were ever taken prisoner?
PL: Just to keep your mouth closed.
DK: Right.
PL: Not say anything.
DK: And, and were any of the Liberators lost on operations?
PL: A few. Not many. A few were lost.
DK: So, as you, as you’ve come back from an operation you’re landing back at your base what was it, what was the feeling like when you landed?
PL: Oh, absolute jubilant. We were let off. We let off steam.
DK: Yeah.
PL: Down to the nearest pub.
DK: Yeah.
PL: Celebrate.
DK: And then sometimes I assume you were flying again the following night.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. And how did it work because not all of you were flying out, flying these operations at the same time? Did you have crews that were sort of sleeping and then you came in?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
Other: And you didn’t have a regular plane, did you? You just took a plane.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
Other: So they didn’t have like a, I thought that quite interesting.
DK: Ok.
Other: It was just a pool, a pool plane.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. And do you think that was a good idea with a different Liberator each time?
PL: Well, we tried to. It was more popular to fly your own aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
PL: But if your own aircraft wasn’t available so be it. You took the one available which was serviceable.
DK: Yeah.
PL: That was the main thing.
DK: Yeah.
PL: All the equipment was serviceable.
DK: And then as the war was coming to an end what did, what did you do then? Did you, were you posted somewhere else or was there, was there talk of you going to the Far East?
PL: Yes, there was but it didn’t happen. Eventually peace crept up on us and we [pause] peace was declared and we just went our separate ways.
Other: You [pause] you did more. Dad told a great story. I don’t know if he remembers this but we asked him at the end of the war how did, you know how did dad feel? Bearing in mind he was a very young man.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
Other: And dad said they had, you had to carry on doing some missions because they wanted to test see if it had worked.
DK: Oh right.
Other: So you carried on doing a few missions after the war, didn’t you? But you didn’t get your eggs and bacon flying rations so, and dad said, ‘I was just cross. I didn’t get my eggs and bacon anymore and I was still flying.’ Do you remember that?
PL: Yeah.
DK: So, oh that’s quite interesting. So after the war is finished you were still flying. Well, they’re not operations but it was still —
Other: No. Tests. They were tests.
DK: Tests. With the, with the captured German equipment.
Other: Yeah.
PL: Yes.
DK: Right.
Other: Yeah.
DK: Oh right.
Other: To test it.
DK: To test it to see whether your counter measures —
Other: Yeah.
DK: Had worked during the war.
PL: That’s right. That’s right.
DK: And can you recall these tests you did? Did it show that the counter measures had worked?
PL: In most cases. Yes.
DK: So, it was worth, worth doing then.
PL: Absolutely.
DK: Yeah. And that’s an interesting question because your role wasn’t to drop bombs it was actually to save other airman’s lives, wasn’t it?
PL: Yes.
DK: So, how does that make you feel?
PL: Well, it made us feel very good.
DK: Yeah. Because your role is to protect.
PL: Yes.
DK: Fellow servicemen, isn’t it?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. It’s strange because its something that’s not very well known is it? These missions.
PL: No. Hardly at all.
DK: Yeah. And the, did you stay in touch with the special operators after the war?
PL: Not particularly.
DK: No. So they were never able to tell you what they were doing when they were —
PL: No.
DK: No. And can you remember whereabouts in the aircraft they were, they were sitting?
PL: Yes. They had a position side by side. Very close to the wireless operator’s position.
DK: Right. So the Liberator itself it had all its bombing equipment taken out.
PL: Mostly, yes.
DK: And how big was the, can you remember how big their equipment was?
PL: About as big as the ordinary radio equipment.
DK: Right. Right. And they were, did they have curtains around them so you couldn’t see what they were doing?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. So although you flew these operations it was a bit of a mystery as to what they were actually doing.
PL: Yes.
DK: How did that make you feel? Not quite knowing what was going on.
PL: Well, we knew roughly what was going on and that seemed to be good enough.
DK: Yeah. Ok. So the war’s ended then and presumably you stayed in the RAF then did you?
PL: Yes.
DK: And what were you doing post-war?
PL: Mainly training.
Other: Here we go. [pause] This is what he did. RAF Gutes —
DK: Gütersloh.
PL: Gütersloh. Yeah.
Other: Gütersloh.
DK: So you —
Other: In 1946.
DK: So you were posted to Germany soon after the war then.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. And did you see much of Germany post-war?
PL: Yes.
DK: And did you go to some of the cities that had been bombed?
PL: Yes.
DK: And what sort of condition were they in then?
PL: Pretty grim.
Other: And then you went to Egypt, didn’t you?
PL: Yes.
DK: Oh. You visited the Mӧhne Dam.
Other: Yeah, this is, this is from dad’s time in Germany.
DK: Oh wow. So you went to see the Dams then.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
Other: I think there was an RAF Leave Centre at the Mӧhne Dam.
DK: Right.
Other: That’s what dad’s written there. Do you remember that dad? And there’s like sailing on the lake. And then you were in Watchet in Somerset next. And then you went out to Egypt didn’t you? This is in Egypt.
DK: Right.
Other: In 1952.
DK: Oh right. So what sort of training were you doing post-war? Was it air gunnery again?
PL: It was gunnery. It wasn’t air gunnery. It was gunnery.
DK: Right. So, kind of looking back now all these years later how do you look back on your time in RAF Bomber Command. How does it make you feel now?
PL: I thought it was very educational and something not to be missed. It really was first class.
DK: You look back on what you were doing with a sense of pride.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. And how do you feel how Bomber Command has been treated since then?
PL: Well, I think they’ve been treated fairly. They may not have had a lot of publicity but they’ve had their share. I think they’ve done well and they’ve reacted enormously.
DK: Yeah. And, and the Liberators then. Do you miss flying in those? Would you go back up in one now?
PL: I would go back in one.
DK: You would. Ok.
PL: But it was very noisy.
DK: Yeah.
PL: And draughty.
DK: Yeah.
Other: And cold wasn’t it, dad?
PL: Cold.
DK: So you never actually fired your gun in anger in the end then.
PL: No.
DK: No. Did you used to test fire them as you were?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
PL: Especially in bad weather. In cold weather.
DK: Right.
PL: We tested them regularly. Made certain they worked.
DK: Right. And you obviously had the American .5 inch Brownings then. Were they a better machine gun than what the others had? The .303s.
PL: I don’t think they were any better. They just carried a larger bullet that was all which did tremendous damage.
DK: Right.
PL: To take a broadside of .5s was quite something.
DK: Right. Because you’re quite unique really in veterans I have met who actually flew on the Liberators so I’d just like to ask did you feel safe flying in them?
PL: With the hand, with Jock Hastie at the controls. Yes.
DK: Right.
PL: But you needed a competent pilot.
DK: Right. So they were difficult aircraft to fly then were they?
PL: They were.
DK: Yeah
PL: To fly properly.
DK: And did you see any that were badly flown?
PL: Well, we, Chris Spicer was our co-pilot.
DK: Yeah.
PL: He occasionally made a misdemeanour and I remember Roy Hastie saying, ‘Get that wing up quickly,’ you know and obviously Chris was flying one wing low and it was getting very low.
DK: Yeah.
PL: And Roy Hastie intervened and said, ‘Get it up immediately.’
DK: Right. So he, he knew then there was a problem. Yeah. And did, did Hastie’s not passed away I assume then did he?
PL: He has now.
DK: Yeah. And did you stay in touch with him?
PL: For a long time.
DK: Yeah.
Other: And his widow. You stayed in touch with his widow, didn’t you?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
Other: I think he died in his fifties.
DK: Oh, right.
Other: It’s a long —
DK: You obviously wrote a book about him.
Other: A book about him. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. I’ll just read this out for the recording. “Ordinary Man, Super Pilot - the Life and Times of Roy Hastie DFC AE.” By Peter Lovatt. So you obviously thought a lot of him to write a book about him.
PL: He was very impressive. He was out of the ordinary.
DK: And, and do you think he got the recognition for this? Or —
PL: Yes. I think he did. I think he was fairly recognised.
Other: He got a DFC didn’t he?
DK: Yeah. And did he carry on flying after the war? Do you know?
PL: He did. I think he did for a short while.
DK: And then left the RAF did he?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
Other: But you stayed in touch with his widow until she died, didn’t you? This came out of dad’s PhD.
DK: Right. Ok.
Other: So dad did a PhD in radio counter in history and it was around radio counter measures wasn’t it dad? And the book came from that but you had promised Ida that you would write Jock’s story didn’t you?
[pause]
DK: Ok. If I stop that there then. Well, I should say thanks for your time. It’s been interesting with all this.
[recording paused]
Other: France, is it?
PL: Yes.
Other: Yeah.
DK: Can you remember the name of the other gunner?
PL: Bob Lawrence.
DK: Bob Lawrence. Yeah.
PL: Soapy and Bob. Soapy and Bob were dad’s good friends.
DK: Right. Did, this is another question actually did you have to work closely with the other gunners?
PL: Fairly closely. Yes.
DK: So the other waist gunner stood next to you then is he?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. And then what would happen if one or either of you saw something a bit dangerous?
PL: Well, he’d tap me on the shoulder and get me to look.
DK: Right.
PL: And confirm or not confirm.
DK: And is, is night vision important then?
PL: Very important.
DK: Yeah. So if you, can you name them still?
PL: Yes. Soapy Hudson.
DK: Navigator.
PL: Navigator.
DK: Yeah. That’s you.
Other: That’s you.
PL: Bob Lawrence. Oh. That’s Hastie.
DK: Yeah.
PL: That’s the engineer.
DK: Jamie Brown.
PL: Jamie Brown.
DK: Yeah.
PL: And then that’s Wee —
Other: Is that wee Jock? Somebody Watson.
PL: Wee Jock Watson.
DK: Wee Jock Watson. Yeah.
Other: Yeah. And Syd Pienaar.
PL: Syd Pienaar.
DK: Syd Pienaar. Yeah. And what’s it like seeing a picture of the Liberator behind you?
PL: Yeah.
DK: So were you, were you about to go flying when the photo was taken?
PL: Yes.
DK: There’s, there is mention here about you returning to a base somewhere isn’t there? And you got no food.
Other: That’s right. That’s right.
DK: Yeah. Is that —
Other: So, that’s the story when you went to the base and they wouldn’t let you have anything to eat. You had to do a landing so you were running low on fuel.
PL: Why?
Other: And it was foggy.
PL: Why did they say they didn’t —
Other: I don’t know [laughs]
DK: See if we can find it [pause. Pages turning] There? Should have counted these last time. So there’s the story here of the, the BF110 pilot that wasn’t very experienced and your pilot just throttled back.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
Other: Do you remember you told us the story that you were, that it was foggy at Oulton and you were low on fuel so you had to divert to another airfield and you got a bit of a hostile welcome when you got there. They didn’t give you any rations. Do you remember that?
PL: Vaguely.
Other: Vaguely [laughs]
DK: See if I can find it [pause] Oh, where’s it gone?
PL: They’re all marked with this.
DK: Yeah. So there you are. So this is your crew here then. So you’ve got the pilot is Hastie, Second Pilot Spicer, Navigator Hudson, Flight Engineer Brown, Wireless Operator Watson, Special Operator Beacroft.
PL: Yeah.
DK: And then Front Gunner Lockhurst, Mid-Upper Gunner Weston, waist gunner your good self, the other waist gunner Lawrence.
Other: Bob Lawrence. Yeah.
DK: And Rear Gunner Pienaar.
PL: Yeah.
Other: Didn’t you go, or didn’t you have to go as a rear gunner once and you didn’t like it?
PL: Yes.
Other: It made you feel sick.
PL: Yes.
DK: So you preferred the waist position then did you?
PL: Yes. I did.
DK: What was it like being in the rear gun turret? You’re being pulled backwards.
PL: Claustrophobic.
DK: Right. Where has that story gone? Typical isn’t it? Oh, here we are.
Other: There we are. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. It is. So this is the waist gunner, yourself. It says, “Coming home the German flak around Hamburg was extremely accurate at twenty two thousand feet and hit our aircraft severely damaging number two engine.” Then it says, “Propeller had to be feathered.” And then you said you realised, “There was limited fuel to get back so you started throwing everything out.” Do you remember throwing everything out the aircraft?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. So what would you have thrown out? The guns?
PL: Yes, guns and ammunition.
DK: Right.
Other: Heavy stuff.
DK: So, your pilot then, Roy has got the aircraft back to Oulton only to be told to divert because of bad weather and you were diverted to RAF Barford St James in Oxfordshire. This was not far away but the extra distance certainly added to the pilot’s problems. Barford was a Mosquito training station and they clearly liked their sleep. A Liberator arrived overhead to find not a single light showing below. Firing a red verey cartridge or two provoked some reaction and the airfield lights reluctantly switched on. You said here with his usual superb airmanship Roy landed his much bigger aircraft on the unfamiliar runway. As he taxied to the dispersal the three working engines cut out. The fuel exhausted. It had been a close run thing. Do you remember that?
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. You don’t mention here in the book that they then didn’t give you any bacon and eggs.
PL: No. No.
DK: So you got no breakfast.
PL: No.
DK: I hope you complained.
PL: We did [laughs].
DK: So that, so that wouldn’t be too unusual then diverting to another base.
PL: No.
DK: No.
PL: No. The weather did change and it was a surprise because the forecasters were generally very good but sometimes the weather took hold.
DK: Yeah.
PL: And the weather changed and you couldn’t land in your own airfield. You had to go somewhere else and you weren’t very popular if you woke them up.
DK: And what was it like flying through bad weather because normally when I fly it’s in an airliner. We are flying over the weather but what’s it like as you go through it?
PL: Well, pretty grim.
DK: So you buffeted around a lot.
PL: Yes.
DK: Yeah. So can you hear the hailstones?
PL: Yes. Oh, indeed. Yes.
DK: And did your aircraft ever freeze up at all? Ice up I should say.
PL: No. Not whilst we were flying. It did whilst it was on the ground.
DK: And, and what was the feeling then when in the mornings you were earmarked for operations?
PL: Well, we thought if we had to go we would have to use somebody else’s aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
PL: Which was never very popular.
DK: No. Ok, well let’s, let’s stop that there then.
[recording paused]
DK: So, sorry you were saying there that, can you say that again? That —
PL: Well, not all trips counted as an operation.
DK: Right.
PL: A quick trip to Duisburg dropping Window probably didn’t count as a full op.
DK: Oh right. So would that have been counted like a half an operation or something?
PL: Yes. Something like that. So you had to be very careful when you were adding up.
DK: Right.
PL: I probably did something like seventy trips but they didn’t all count.
DK: How did that make you feel then? Because you’re still facing the enemy gunfire.
PL: Yes.
DK: And everything else.
PL: It didn’t make us feel very happy.
DK: So when you came back then were you told when you’ve come back that it would only be a half a mission? Or were you told before you went?
PL: No. We were told much later.
DK: That’s not very nice is it?
PL: No.
DK: Oh well when I count these up I’ll count them as full missions [laughs]
PL: Alright [laughs]
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 Peter Lovatt
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
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
2017-09-27
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALovattP170927, PLovattP1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Egypt
Germany
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Format
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00:45:52 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Peter enrolled in the Air Training Corp before joining the Royal Air Force. He went to Walney Island, the Air Gunnery School, and was given the option of becoming a Bevin Boy or an air gunner choosing the latter. Following training on Ansons he joined 223 Squadron, based at RAF Oulton operating B-24s. The squadron took off with the bomber stream and escorted them back home. He recalled some incidents, one involving a German night fighter and said that the Squadron did many Window operations. Another incident was when they were running out of fuel and had to throw equipment out. At the end of the war the squadron tested whether the counter measures had worked and the aircraft guns were tested regularly. Peter remembered members of his crew, with whom he socialised and kept in touch after the war. He stayed in the Royal Air Force after the war and was posted to Germany, RAF Watchet in Somerset and finally Egypt. He admires Bomber Command and has has written a book about their pilot, Roy Hastey.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Julie Williams
100 Group
223 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-24
bombing
RAF Oulton
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1034/11406/AMinnittPB170314.2.mp3
de81edc494e14a67df6220d791edcd59
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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Minnitt, Bruce
P B Minnitt
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Bruce Minnitt (1923- 2020, 1232347 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 211 and 244 Squadron Coastal Command and with a Ferry Unit in the Far East.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-14
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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Minnitt, PB
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: Right. I’ll just introduce myself. So, this is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Bruce Minnitt on the 13th of March 2017 at his home. If I just pop that down there. You'll see me keep looking down.
BM: Well, I'm not familiar with all these modern gizmos.
DK: No. I’m not [laughs] I'm not either to be honest. The technology hasn't let me down yet but there is always a first time. So if I keep looking down I’m just making sure they're both going. It says one’s going there. So what, what I’d like to just ask is just a few questions and whatever and just sort of get a bit of background. First of all, what I would like to know is what were you doing immediately before the war?
BM: Thinking that the war started in September 1939. Well, let's getaway a little bit in so far as our age is concerned. I was born in 1923.
DK: Right.
BM: So that made me when war broke out in 1939 I was sixteen.
DK: So you were still at, still at school.
BM: No.
DK: Ah. Right. Ok.
BM: I left school fourteen days after I was fourteen years old.
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: So my education has been sadly neglected during my lifetime and as it happened upon leaving school I was very fortunate because fourteen days after leaving school I had a job.
DK: Oh right.
BM: But my grandfather owned the local village shop and my father of course was part of that concern and I got a job. Ten shillings a week. It was wonderful for the hours that were put in.
DK: And that was working in the shop was it?
BM: And I was working in the shop as a —
DK: Yeah.
BM: A lad with an apron around me and I was [pause] I enjoyed it and the experience did me good because after a couple of years my father arranged for me to go to Lincoln and I got a job as a sort of an apprentice working for the best grocers in Lincoln. I used to think they were the best grocers because they had a couple of nice little vans and I used to drive around Lincoln. I was only sixteen —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Years old. I didn't have a licence of course. We used to drive all around Lincoln. No problem. Never, never got bothered by anybody and so I had a couple of years of experience in that and then I went back home and very soon I joined up. I actually volunteered, myself and another friend when we were both [pause] How old would we be? Seventeen and three quarters. I joined up in February.
DK: Was there any, any reason why you chose the RAF? Was —
BM: Well yes of course. I mean it was so glamorous, wasn't it? I mean, we were always going to be Tail End Charlies. I joined up as a, at least I thought I joined up as a tail gunner.
DK: Right.
BM: On bombers. I mean, in 1940, ‘41 rather they were looking for bombers because the high point of the fighters had gone. I was trained as, as a fighter.
DK: Right.
BM: On singles.
DK: Right.
BM: And I did, then I did a navigation course on Ansons and, in Canada whatever. And then we came back from Canada to this country and the first thing of course that I had to do was a conversion course.
DK: Just, just stepping back a bit your, by this time you’ve, you’re a pilot then are you?
BM: I was. Yes. I got my wings in Canada.
DK: Right.
BM: But it didn't matter really whether I was a fighter pilot, bomber pilot or whatever.
DK: Right.
BM: I think they used to move us around as and when required. I mean the fighter era really —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Was in 1940.
DK: So, what, what was the first type of aircraft that you were trained on?
BM: The first one that I actually went and did my original training on and got, went solo on was a Magister.
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: Now, I don't whether you've heard —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: Of those.
DK: I know the Magisters.
BM: Magisters. A lovely little —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Biplane.
DK: Monoplane. Yeah.
BM: Monoplane. And we did that at Reading.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: Woodley.
DK: Yeah.
BM: At Reading. And it was just about deciding whether you were fit to be able to fly an aeroplane or whether you’d got the confidence to, to do it.
DK: So were there sort of aptitude tests?
BM: That's what it was.
DK: It was. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And we had to be able to, I think the basic test was you had to do your solo in the maximum of twelve hours.
DK: Right.
BM: I think that was what happened. Well fortunately I think what was I? Eight and a quarter or something like that. I had a little bit of an aptitude for it but I always remember my instructor. I thought at the time, well he was a very brave man. How old was I? Eighteen. Sending me off in this plane on my own up there and I always remember thinking, ‘My God, I've got this bloody thing up here. How am I going to get it down again? [laughs] And —
DK: Were they, were they very good, the instructors?
BM: Well —
DK: What were, what were the instructors like?
BM: I think they had to have a lot of faith.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And —
DK: So can you, can you remember how many flights you had with the instructor before you went solo?
BM: Well yes, I did about seven and a half, seven [pause] I haven't unfortunately I think it was about seven and a half I think.
DK: Seven and a half hours was that?
BM: Hours.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: Dual flying.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: Before they said, ‘Right.’
DK: ‘Off you go.’
BM: ‘Off you go.’
DK: So what was your feelings then when you went off by yourself for the first time?
BM: Well, I thought what a damn fool I am [laughs] going up with this aeroplane on my own up there. Nobody to help me. No radio. Nothing like that. I couldn't shout, ‘Help.’ You know, ‘What do I do now?’ And I thought I’ll just try and remember what he told me. All the different checks you go through.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Had I got them all right? And I came and landed. It must have been reasonably alright because he said, ‘Off you go again’ so off I went and did another circuit and bump and came around and he said, ‘Ok.’ And that was that. Still did a little bit of flying. Only a time or two after that before we got moved on.
DK: Right. So you got moved on from Reading then.
BM: We got moved on from Reading.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And our, our first EFTS —
DK: Yeah.
BM: I'm not going to try and confuse you with letters.
DK: That's ok.
BM: Elementary Flying Training School.
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: Which was in Newquay.
DK: Right. Ok. So, Reading and then Newquay.
BM: I went to Reading.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And then Newquay. And it was an Elementary Flying Training School but we never did any flying. It was all, you know pounding the streets of Newquay and that.
DK: Square, square bashing.
BM: I did the six months down at Newquay and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And well it was some hard work but I still enjoyed it because the weather was decent. We used to play a lot on the sands and that sort of thing, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BM: We enjoyed that. And then we went from EFTS. I’ve missed some out. My memory is I can’t remember what my own name was.
DK: Don't worry.
BM: I’d moved to Canada then.
DK: Right.
BM: We’d done our ground stuff. I think actually they got a little bit fed up of me because we got moved up to Heaton Park near Manchester.
DK: Right.
BM: It was sort of a transit camp. You go there before you get sent here, there and everywhere and I used to break out of the camp at night and I’d come out on the train and that sort of thing. I remember no one occasion I went back after a weekend at home which I shouldn’t have been because I had no passes and I jumped straight into the arms of the military police. I went through the wall in the, in the park at Heaton Park. A lot of lads had found that out. We jumped through this hole and there were four or five of blooming military police stood on the other side.
DK: Did you, did you get into trouble over that then?
BM: Well, ‘Report to the adjutant 8 o’clock tomorrow morning.’. So I got a week confined to camp for that.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Well, what they used to make us do you put a heavy pack on your back and you had to run around the blooming park. The perimeter of the park.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Which wasn't funny. And then probably have to go back to the orderly room and polish the floors and all that. Well, I went, I saw some leave passes on this adjutant’s table while I was there. I thought, oh, you know he might not miss a few of those. So, I put some of these leave passes in my pocket and while I was there I got, he’d got the old stamp. You know, they used to stamp them. That's fine. And I got a mate of mine he could sign them for me.
DK: Yeah.
BM: His name was Squadron Leader Fred Bowls or whatever his name was [laughs] and it was all very nice but unfortunately one of these weekends I went home using this pass [there was nothing to do] we were a few weeks at Manchester. It was a bank holiday weekend. Well, that was the worst thing I could do because all military traffic, leisure traffic was stopped for the weekend. The civilians were all very much in need of all this traffic and I went home on this weekend and of course again the military police, ‘Where's your leave pass? What are you doing?’ Well, I’d got a nice little leave pass there which I showed them it. ‘There you are corporal.’ ‘Very good. Carry on.’ I said my grandmother wasn't very well so I had to go home and see her before she died.
DK: Oh dear.
BM: I had to. There were a lot of poorly grandmothers around in those days and it was a bad weekend to go. And as I’ say there were other weekends. The last weekend I got the opportunity was when I went and jumped through the wall in to the loving arms of the military police. Anyway, shortly after that we got posted and we went off to Canada.
DK: Do you remember much about the trip over to Canada? Were you on a, can you remember which ship you were on?
BM: Well, I don't remember. But I do, what I do remember it was, it was amazing really we had two battleships.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we had four cruisers, and we had ten destroyers and that was going the other way. And it took us three weeks to get to St Johns, Newfoundland.
DK: Right.
BM: From Glasgow we went actually and we went right across Canada. Saskatchewan, Manitoba and all the rest of it. Lovely people the Canadians.
DK: What did, what did you think about Canada when you got there?
BM: Oh, it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic because you see you must remember that this was 1941, the beginning of 1942 when we got [pause] and everything was rationed of course.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we didn’t have white bread. It was all this stingy old brownish bread and everything like potatoes and milk. Poor old milk were about ninety percent water. I know there is a lot of water in it anyway but most of it was water and it was miserable old stuff. We got across to Canada full cream milk, the food was fantastic. Lovely white soft bread. We thought we were in heaven. And every station that we stopped at and it took us a long time as we were going across Canada there was always a group of lovely ladies came out on the platforms to welcome us and give us fruit and I mean, we hadn’t seen an orange or a banana or anything like that for, for years. And all of them made these wonderful offerings and eventually we ended up at a little place beside the Alaska highway in [pause] north of Calgary. Alberta.
DK: Alberta. Yeah.
BM: And about a hundred miles north of Calgary and it was a real old-fashioned place. There was no roadways or anything like that but it suited us and what we liked about that place which we hadn’t experience in England everything was laid out in, you know in lateral squares.
DK: Yeah. Yeah
BM: So you had a job to get lost.
DK: Right.
BM: Really, I mean it was —
DK: The grid system.
BM: We had a wonderful navigator. Unless, of course and we did have it happen one young fella he was going north when he should have been going south and [laughs] of course he ended up, if he’d kept on going he would have been at the North Pole but of course he ran out of fuel very easily. Then he had to walk back to get back but that was all part and parcel of the experience —
DK: So what —
BM: Of learning.
DK: What sort of training did you then have in Canada?
BM: Well, we went onto Stearmans in Canada.
DK: Right.
BM: That was our first one. This little place called Bowden, and a very very very very safe stable aircraft. I don't know whether you’ve ever seen the, sort of realised the make of aeroplane that there were but these Stearmans were like a big Tiger Moth.
DK: They were biplanes. Yeah.
BM: Biplanes.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Very stable. Very very safe. And you could, you could drop them in from a fair old height and, you know they would just bounce. Well most aeroplanes would, you’d buckle the undercarriage up. That was the biggest problem you know with would be pilots was the judgement in landing an aircraft.
DK: Right.
BM: I mean anybody can take an aeroplane off. You’d open the throttle and keep it straight and off you go. It’s a different kettle of fish when it comes down to judging that height.
DK: Right.
BM: Just get it down and drop it in nicely. And there were more people I think got failed for that particular fault.
DK: Not being able to land.
BM: Couldn’t judge the distance.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: To drop it in. And —
DK: So –
BM: Failed because of that.
DK: At this time are you flying solo again or have you got —
BM: Oh, we, oh yes we got so we were flying solo. And I did quite a lot of hours. There was a statutory number of hours.
DK: Right.
BM: Whether you were good, bad or indifferent you had that to do. And when you reached a certain standard than the whole lot of you, fifty bods usually in a, in a flight would get moved on to the next stage and we went on to the SFTS then.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: Yeah. And —
DK: SFTS. Yeah.
BM: You did [laughs]
DK: Yeah.
BM: And at that point we went on to Harvards.
DK: Right.
BM: So we were still training to be fighter pilots. We were still on singles. Now, the Harvards were a wonderful aircraft and we then did a full course on the Harvards. Funnily enough it just made me remember we went to Zimbabwe for a holiday several years ago with a cousin and we were going around Zimbabwe and we went into a museum in Bulawayo.
DK: Right.
BM: One day. A little museum with a few aeroplanes in it and there was a beautiful Harvard in there.
DK: Oh right.
BM: They’d had, they had this Empire Training Scheme.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Which was really —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Out in South Africa. Rhodesia as it was then. It wasn’t Zimbabwe and they did the same course. A lot of the lads went out from this country out to South Africa did the course there and then moved up to the Middle East.
DK: Yeah.
BM: It was much easier for them to get posted in to some sort of military unit in the Middle East. Either in the Western Desert or —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Wherever they went. And it just reminded me that Harvards were, were in South Africa just as much, well not as much they were so very busy with training aircraft in Canada. They did a wonderful job and the Canadians are forever in my heart and I have always wanted to go back full for a holiday.
DK: Right.
BM: To take my wife back after the war. We never got there. Anyway, we came back when all this was over. Well, I’m jumping a bit before we got there. When we’d done the training on the Harvards a group of us got moved from there to Navigation School.
DK: Right.
BM: On Prince Edward Island. PEI as they used to call it. And it had got a job to [pause] it was alcohol free. You know, it was like the old what's the name that they had in New York, didn't they? The —
DK: Oh, the prohibition mission. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And they had the same thing on Prince Edward Island. The only way we could get any decent drink and that was invariably it was rum, good thick rum. And we didn’t cope with it [phone ringing] and we could buy this in the mess.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we had to get a licence to buy any alcohol off service premises.
DK: Right.
BM: You know, because there were like alcohol stores where you could buy stuff on licence.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: But you wouldn’t just go in and, ‘I’ll have a pint of beer missus,’ or whatever you know. You, you had to buy it on licence. But we got all we needed anyway.
DK: Yeah.
BM: So we did this course and then we came back when it was over down through the eastern side of America. I forget the name of the States now down north of New York. Then came back to New York and we came home from New York.
DK: Right.
BM: Actually.
DK: Did you actually stop off at New York. Or not —
BM: We got on at New York.
DK: You got on at New York. Yeah.
BM: Yeah, because we came down by train.
DK: Right.
BM: From Prince Edward Island. From Philadelphia, was it was one of them.
DK: Right.
BM: New England.
DK: Right.
BM: It doesn't matter. Anyway. And we got on at New York and came back from there to Liverpool in seven days.
DK: Right.
BM: It took us three weeks to go out.
DK: Yeah.
BM: The same journey. Well, it wasn’t the same journey really because we were just over. We still lost one by the way. We still lost a troop ship going out. With all these ships looking after us we found more escorts than we had people to go, bods on them because we were going the other way.
DK: Right.
BM: And of course, at that point then the Americans were in the war. They joined up pretty well straight away in 1941. Well, December ‘41 is when they came in didn’t they?
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: So it would be ’42. And we got the Empire, Empire Air Training Scheme going and we were going the other way. Anyway, we came back and it took us a week and it was said, now we’ve no way of knowing whether it’s true or not there were twenty thousand troops on that boat.
DK: Wow.
BM: On the Princess Elizabeth. And it was the first time, not the first time that we came in but it was, it was used for civilian traffic before it was actually launched as a passenger vessel.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Because it was launched at the beginning of the war, wasn't it? The Queen Elizabeth.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And interesting really. We slept in the swimming pool. There was no water in it. We got these palliases and it was plenty warm enough even in winter. And —
DK: So was the convoy attacked at all on the, on the way back?
BM: Do you know it didn't have one escort.
DK: No.
BM: Not that we saw anyway. If it did it kept out of sight.
DK: Right.
BM: We’d no escort whatever with the Queen Elizabeth and it was, it was forever never, never took a straight course. But it was said and of course everything we got was all rumour. We didn't know whether it was true or not that it was doing about thirty knots all the time and it was too fast for a U-boat.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: You know, there was no way they were going to catch it unless, you could get four or five of them like a pack. And it was maybe difficult to get away then but whether it actually got attacked I don't know but it certainly did fire its guns. It might have been in practise I don't know. It had got some massive, massive guns on as big as a warship.
DK: Right.
BM: And also they’d got dozens, literally dozens of anti-aircraft guns. I mean the Elizabeth was a big ship.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: There was a lot of space there to look after and they did a wonderful job. They got us back but of course we went back to a bit of nice English food having had all this wonderful food all the time we were out in —
DK: You had a bit of a shock then, was it? Coming back to this.
BM: Oh yeah. Coming back to this. So then we did [pause] from there we went, moved on to training on Oxfords.
DK: Right.
BM: Twin engine planes.
DK: Can you remember where you were based then? Flying the Oxfords?
BM: Well, you know my first place really was South Cerney in Gloucestershire.
DK: Right.
BM: There was South Cerney and there was Bibury. We did different sort of out-stations like we, one was at Lulsgate Bottom. I remember that one because it, it actually became Bristol Airport.
DK: Right. Yes. Yes.
BM: Eventually.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Lulsgate Bottom. And it was, it was a bit tight because the A5 ran right alongside. You know the way Scampton does? You’ve got the A15 pretty well right —
DK: Yeah.
BM: At the end of the runway. You’ve got the A5 there at Bristol and I remember on one occasion I was awaiting my turn to take off because invariably you flew on your own even in a twin engine aircraft and he came in to land and just touched the top of a furniture waggon and the furniture waggon went past on the A5 road and the runway was just over the hedge and he just, he just touched it. But he, and I was stood there waiting and he carried on and landed OK but I should think the driver of the vehicle had a —
DK: A bit of a shock.
BM: An enlightening experience.
DK: Yeah.
SM: Has he mentioned about the Americans when he was in Canada? Flew in to —
BM: No.
DK: No. No.
SM: There was a flight of Americans came in. They all crashed didn’t they? Couldn't land.
BM: Oh, well this was in Canada.
DK: Canada. Yeah.
BM: Yeah.
SM: With the frost.
BM: Oh, we had a few experiences. We were, at that period we were going through part of the winter.
DK: Right.
BM: Well, Canadian winters were rather strong —
DK: Yeah.
BM: And one weekend, over one weekend while we were there we actually had eighty degrees of frost. It was [pause] I've got to get this right. Fifty degrees below zero was eighty two degrees of frost.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: It was cold.
DK: Right.
BM: It was. And bearing in mind we were flying Stearmans which were open cockpit.
DK: Oh yeah.
BM: And we used to have a, some chamois leather face masks with three pairs of gloves. Silk gloves, woollen gloves, leather gloves. All of it and you are only allowed to fly for twenty minutes.
DK: Right.
BM: That was it. Because of frostbite. You could easily get frostbite.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You were wrapped up like a Chinese monkey and when your time was up you had to come back and land. Get out. Otherwise you would just freeze up.
DK: Right.
BM: It’s sensible I suppose really. And of course, everything was frozen up. You didn't know where the runways were. It was just solid snow and that. On one occasion, this wasn't of course public knowledge but the Americans were supplying the Russians with aircraft and, because we had a photograph of a Flying Fortress with a Russian Star on it. We had, we had 5 Airacobras. Do you know what they are?
DK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: Yeah. They —
DK: Single engine fighters.
BM: One of the early [ tricycle ] undercarriage planes.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And five came in one after the other. Coming in for re-fuelling on the way up.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Up to Alaska.
DK: And to Russia that way presumably.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we were right on the Alaska Highway. The side of the Alaska highway and it would take them up to [pause] I forget the names of the places now. Anyway, they’d go up to Alaska and then over the —
SM: Bering Straits.
BM: Bering Straits.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And come down in to America that way. They didn't have to fly them across long stretches of water. Long stretches of snow instead. But these five Airacobras they came in and they couldn't pull up because it was on a shortish runway with a fair amount of wind and the brakes wouldn't, they wouldn’t, I don't know, they just, I mean we could see them doing it. You slid right down the blooming runway such as there was and, on this occasion, came down, landed and there was the old Alaska Highway such as it was but it had all snowed up. But we did have a hedge. The first one went straight through the hedge and the other four followed him just boom boom boom. So we had, we ended up with five Airacobras in somebody's field.
DK: Oh dear.
BM: But they didn't do an awful lot of damage.
DK: No?
BM: Really. They did some damage obviously.
DK: Yeah.
BM: But didn’t do such a lot of damage.
DK: Nobody, nobody hurt then.
BM: They weren't very popular. But I mean, you couldn't blame the pilots. They’d absolutely no chance and I mean once the wheels were on the ground that was it. They just kept on sliding.
DK: Yeah.
BM: They’d no grip. But just another [laughs] funny incident. Not quite on the same day but we, we had one or two lads up doing navigation exercises in Ansons. Well, they weren’t flying them. They were there navigating them. Learning how to navigate. And this, as I say this little runway they couldn’t get the aircraft down. It wasn’t a case of getting it down and making it stop down. They couldn’t get it down.
DK: No.
BM: Because an Anson just used to float on the wind you know. Like a butterfly when it was coming in and you’d get down just a few feet off the ground and you couldn’t get it to come down and stop down. You cut the engine off about somewhere at Dunham Bridge and you could [laughs] you’d come drifting in and in and in. And it went around and around. I’d seem one of them. I don't know how many times it went around but it went around a few times before it did eventually get down. And I think he was actually landing at Lincoln and then coming in [laughs] It was, it was a funny incident really watching them. But anyway we were on about these Airacobras. That was quite interesting. They’d all got the Russian Star on them.
DK: Yeah.
BM: I think if the English public had known that they’d got the Russian Star there really it would, it would be after. It would be after Russia actually came in officially.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: In to the war but not all that long afterwards.
DK: 1942 wouldn’t it when the Americans supplied.
BM: It wasn’t that that long after.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Because they’d actually got to get all the aeroplane [pause] well they weren’t converted. You had them all prepared.
DK: Yeah.
BM: With the proper markings on and all that sort of thing. All these Russian aircraft and the, but they weren't, we didn't see any that I can remember Russian transport. Land transport, you know. Big heavy armoured vehicles and all that sort.
DK: Yeah.
BM: But we did get the aeroplanes. But anyway to come back to where I was we were watching these aircraft do aerobatics at the end of the A5 at Lulsgate Bottom.
SM: Before you say that dad have you mentioned you lost your leave as well didn’t you in Canada? Which wasn't your fault.
BM: Lost me what?
SM: Leave. When someone had been smoking. Can you remember? You had to stay in camp and everybody went in to America.
BM: Lost my leave.
SM: Yeah.
BM: We don't talk about such things as that, Simon.
SM: Yeah. That wasn't your fault, was it. Can you remember?
BM: There was all sorts of things were my fault. I was forever getting myself locked up.
SM: It doesn't matter if you’ve forgotten.
BM: I have. I have.
SM: But he did. He lost his leave.
DK: Lost his leave.
SM: Somebody had been smoking and everyone [pause] they didn’t own up.
DK: Yeah.
SM: And —
DK: You got the blame for it.
SM: Dad got the blame for it and they all went on to, into America on their leave and dad had to stay on.
DK: Oh dear.
SM: On the camp.
BM: Anyway, I did this. This training.
DK: Yeah.
BM: At two or three different small aerodromes you know that —
DK: Yeah.
BM: That were where the main aerodrome had sort of landing grounds and there was, Bibury was another one.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Near Gloucester that we did a bit of training. Oh, I think we did, that one was blind landing, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You had to, without having any visual you had to come in. I don't know whether anybody has ever told you how they do it. Or did it. I mean there are all these modern gizmos today.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: I mean, they can do it but in those days you did it with like Morse Code. A series of, you’d got a dit dit dit dit dit on one side. Then on the other side of the landing as you were coming in da da da. And then you had to get them to join up. You were doing this totally blind. You were just seeing the instrument and you could —
DK: You’re hearing the noise in your ears.
BM: Yeah, we were hearing it.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And it had got a constant sound so you got the dit dit dit and the da da da. You could [daaaaa] and when it all —
DK: Came together.
BM: Came together then you knew you were actually on the line. It was very simple but it, it worked, you know. You’d get people down. It didn't tell them how high they were but at least it got them in. Got them down. I mean later in the war they got all sorts of gizmos they were using for landing. There was one system called BABS. It used to amuse us because my wife's name was Babs and they’d got this —
SM: Still is dad.
BM: They’d got this landing. Anyway, we did all this series of different training. When it was all completed then of course you got together. You got navigators, bomb aimers.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Pilots and all the rest of it and you went too [pause]
DK: The OTU.
BM: You've got it, you know. Yeah. And we were sent as a group up to —
DK: Can you remember meeting up with your crew and how that happened?
BM: Well, it was at, that was the way it was done. They would put in a big room I suppose the numbers, equal numbers that they required so many bomb aimers, so many wireless operators, this that and the other all and you just sorted yourself out. I mean if you saw somebody looking a bit like a lost sheep and you’d know what, what job he had whether he was an observer or an air gunner you’d got a —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And then say, ‘Ah, we want, we want an air gunner in our crew.’ Or, ‘We want a navigator.’ Or whatever. But even sort of —
DK: Did you think that was a good idea of getting your crew together because it seems a bit random?
BM: It was very much random but [pause] how else would you do it? I mean you wanted so many bomb aimers. You wanted equal numbers bomb aimers, navigators, pilots. You wanted more air gunners.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Because most aircraft had got at least two —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Lots of air gunners on.
DK: You've got, you’ve got no idea how good they are at their —
BM: No.
DK: Jobs though, have you?
BM: They might have been bloody useless. And in fact, some were.
DK: Yeah.
BM: I suppose that did happen but once you’d got them you’d got them.
DK: Yeah.
BM: They formed part of your crew and —
DK: Can you remember which OTU you were at?
BM: Yeah.
DK: Or where it was?
BM: Number 6.
DK: Number 6.
BM: Silloth.
DK: Right.
BM: Near Carlisle.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And you see Coastal Command flying Wellingtons I never told you that had I? Anyway, you didn’t have a lot of choice it was a, we were Wellingtons —
DK: So you were, you were literally posted to a Coastal Command OTU.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Yeah. It wasn’t until that point we’d got away from being trained as [pause] Oh yes it was. Of course, it was because we had to do a conversion course as pilots from singles.
DK: Right.
BM: On to multis, you know. And we did that —
DK: So was this —
BM: Through Oxfords and —
DK: Was it a bit of a shock then that you weren't going to be the fighter pilot? You were going to be put on bombers?
BM: Well, I mean everybody —
DK: Or larger aircraft.
BM: Everybody realised that basically the fighter’s war was over. I mean a lot of the lads were lost. By that stage of the war they were then getting they were wanting bombers.
DK: Right.
BM: Fighter bombers. They did want fighter aircraft but more or less working in safety situations.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Really, you know guarding other bombers and being —
DK: Not being, not being offensive then.
BM: No.
DK: Yeah.
BM: No. No. Not —
DK: So you met your crew then. What did you think of them personally? Did you, were they a good crew?
BM: You know there’s a more reliable statistic.
DK: You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to [laughs] I can soon turn the recorder off.
BM: I think that’s the easiest way.
DK: If you want to something [laughs] Ok. Fair enough.
BM: Yeah. You get, you get a mixed bunch really.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: You’re bound to do and there weren’t many crews and I did know one that, there was one crew which they, all of them seemed to be smashing fellas.
DK: Right.
BM: You know, they really were and they all appeared to know their job. But they were very decent fellas. But you see you got such a mixed bag. I mean, we had an Australian navigator for instance. We had a, a second pilot who was a Cockney. A Londoner. Another one who was a Cockney who was a wireless op/air gunner. We had a radio, w/op from Belfast. They were from all over the blooming place you know. They were such a mixed bag. Well, you usually used to find that people coming from similar areas you know would gel —
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: A lot better. You know, like two or three northerners for instance.
DK: Yeah.
BM: But again they would stick together. Which may not have been a good thing in some things. It didn’t help mix everybody up but they were. Anyway, we did that. I had one little incident where we was a little bit alarming in the course of doing this. Way out in the Atlantic there’s a little rock. Nothing else. It’s an island made of rock and seagulls and it’s called Rockall.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: You’ve heard of it.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: It was quite a long way out in the Atlantic and it was used as a navigation training exercise.
DK: Right.
BM: You had to, a good training point for the navigator because he was the one who was responsible for it. Make sure you got to the right point and you, and you had to photograph it because we all carried a big —
DK: Prove you’d been there.
BM: So to prove that we’d actually been there.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Some would say, ‘Well, yes, we got there boss.’ Alright. No, you had to prove that you’d actually —
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we got a little bit under fuel, the shortish side and we came back and we knew we weren’t going to get back home so everybody, well the navigator sketching out as fast as he could the nearest convenient place that we could get down on and we got down. We came in to land off the coast of Scotland. A little place called Port Ellen. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of it but —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: All they’d got there was a few sheep. Didn’t even keep any aircraft there. It was an emergency place for anybody who was in trouble for any reason and then there was a hut in there.
DK: Yeah.
BM: We, we put in there for the night. We got refuelled. Had a night there listening to the flaming sheep bleating all night [laughs] And then we filled up and went off again the next morning. But it, it can be a bit hairy being out in the sea there.
DK: Yeah.
BM: It would be a bit wet if you —
DK: Finding out you were running low on fuel.
BM: If you didn't make it. You get back. You quite a long way to come at that point down the West Coast of Scotland around the sort of northern tip of Ireland.
DK: Right.
BM: And then came in and up to Solway Firth.
DK: Yeah. So was, was it at the OTU then you first flew the Wellington?
BM: Oh yeah.
DK: Right.
BM: You wouldn’t get any opportunity to fly it before then.
DK: No. So that was —
BM: That was the first time you ever flew as a, as a crew.
DK: As a crew. So how did you feel about the Wellington then because it was quite a bigger aircraft than you'd been used to up until then?
BM: Oh, yeah. Well, they were actually discarded ones from the, that had been on bombing.
DK: Right.
BM: So you could imagine that they —
DK: So they were a bit rough.
BM: They were a bit rough alright. One particular occasion we were doing a training exercise and we came in and landed and we’d no brakes at all. We couldn't. There were no way we were going to pull up before we’d go through somebody's chimney and we came down towards the end of the runway and all you could do was accelerate a lot.
DK: Right.
BM: On one side. I think it was on the portside and swing it around. Nothing to hold it back on the other side, you know. You was —
DK: Yeah.
BM: And then eventually you’d run out of steam but if anybody got in your way it was really awkward but they were such a clapped out blooming aircraft. They really were but they weren't as bad as we had on in many respects as we got on Ferry Command. There were some dodgy ones.
DK: So from the OTU then were you then posted to an operational squadron?
BM: No.
DK: Right.
BM: We did the, we did the OTU and then we got, we got sent back. We got sent to Haverfordwest.
DK: Right. OK.
BM: So that was one end of the country to the other nearly and we got down to Haverford West and it's a long way down there you know to Haverfordwest in those days because you had to come to London.
DK: Oh right.
BM: Out of London and then oh —
DK: Then back out again.
BM: Blooming heck. Anyway, we got down to, and we were just getting off the train down at Haverfordwest Station. A little old station down there and there were some MPs out on the platform. ‘What's gone wrong now?’ And they were giving us out forty eight hour leave pass and a warrant for the train.
DK: Right.
BM: They said, ‘Well, you've got forty eight hours leave.’ And we’d just come all that blooming way from God knows where. So I had to get back on the train, back to London, back up, well to Newark as far as I was concerned. Two lads were able to get off at London because they came from London.
DK: Yeah.
BM: But, and another lad, I’m moving on a little bit but we came back. Got back to Newark and I actually walked home to my wife. She wasn't my wife then. My fiancé. Just down the street here. I walked home from Newark station.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Quite a fair old walk. Got in at 8:00 o'clock in the morning. I walked in and said, ‘If you want to get married we're going to get married tomorrow.’ And that’s the first —
SM: He did. Yeah.
BM: It was the first she ever knew about it. We never discussed it but —
DK: That’s the way to do it.
BM: And I was —
SM: Yeah, but you knew you were going to be posted dad, didn’t you? You knew you were going to be posted away at that stage.
BM: Oh, aye. I know. Anyway, we fixed this up we were, we were going to get married. Well, a lot of pandemonium and all the rest of it. We had at that stage my wife’s house. In those days it happened quite a bit where you got service people were billeted —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: On somebody who had substantial accommodation. My wife was a farmer's daughter so they considered that they had enough square space to accommodate a couple of senior officers and they had a Wing Commander —
DK: Right.
BM: Who was the CO of the engineering outfit. Engineering officer at 5 Group.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: On Lancasters. And he was billeted up there. I used to get along with him like a house on fire. I didn't call him Bill and Fred and all the rest of it but, and this he treated me you know with respect and of course I did him. I mean a senior officer. And he said, my wife and the family were obviously going down to Nottingham to do some shopping. He said, ‘I'll take you to Newark.’ I mean, I had a wing commander, you know, I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ And he took them all off to catch the train at Newark Station. All the way there apparently because I wasn’t there, all the way there he was trying to persuade her all the time, ‘Now, are you sure you want to get married? You’re a bit young,’ and all this, that and the other, you know. She said, ‘Yes, we’re getting married.’ She wasn't twenty one of course, I wasn't either and anyway off they went to Nottingham and they came back and it was arranged that we would meet the officer and train and he got back to the train. And then of course in the meantime I think it was realised we didn't have a licence to get married and they’d got forty eight hours. So, and Saturday was already on its way. They kept the train waiting on Collingham Station while they went and hunted out my mother and my wife's mother to get their written permissions —
DK: Right.
BM: On the, on the licence application to be able to get married. So I went to, all the passengers on the train were enjoying this bit of drama. So I did that and then we carried on on the train. I went up to Newark. To Lincoln trying to, of course this was late in the day. This was teatime to get the rest of the particulars and we had to get a licence. Seven and sixpence and of course it was sod’s law it was Saturday and these sort of bods don’t work on Saturdays. But we went and hunted them up my sister and me and we got this blooming chap. Registrar of births, deaths and marriages. He was very good actually. We got him fairly late on in the evening and I said, ‘Well, I’m going abroad in a couple of days.’ I mean, this was happening all the time obviously.
DK: I was going to say I imagine it so—
BM: And he was, he was —
DK: It was quite common.
BM: So he fixed us up with a licence. Seven and six pence and that was, that was that. We got married the next day on the Sunday.
DK: Right.
BM: We’d got the vicar primed. There were no banns. Nothing like that. And my wife did a wedding breakfast. Wonderful for her. There were sixty people there present. All these had been notified in the previous twenty four hours.
DK: Yeah.
BM: My own father didn’t know, you know. I thought we’d better ring him up and tell him his son is going to get married. Anyway, we got married and had a sort of wedding breakfast and then off we went to Nottingham for a honeymoon and we came back on the Tuesday morning and we were back to London and back to Haverfordwest and that was our wedding. And two and a half years later I saw my wife.
DK: Right. So you did know you were about to be posted overseas then at this point did you?
BM: We did but we didn’t know —
DK: Where?
BM: Until actually we were on the train on the station.
DK: Right.
BM: At Haverfordwest.
DK: Right.
BM: We didn’t know.
DK: And that’s why you got the forty eight hours leave then.
BM: Yeah, we had the forty eight hour leave pass.
DK: [unclear] leave. Right.
BM: They didn’t give you much did they?
DK: No.
BM: Forty eight hours and —
DK: You had, you had no idea where you were going. Just that you were going overseas.
BM: Just that we were going.
DK: Right.
BM: That was it. And of course, a certain number of days and you were back. So —
DK: Can I just ask what rank were you at this time because you mentioned you —
BM: Oh, I was an air marshal or something like that, I think. I was a Sergeant.
DK: So you were a flight Sergeant then at that time.
BM: He’s there look.
DK: Ah. Oh right.
BM: That’s me. Good looking fellow wasn’t he?
DK: Yeah.
BM: Well, the woman was a good looking girl.
DK: Good looking lady.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Ok. So you were a flight Sergeant at that point then.
BM: Well —
DK: Sergeant. Yeah.
BM: I suppose so. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Ok. So you’d gone back to Haverfordwest so you're now going overseas. So where did you —
BM: Yeah.
DK: Where did you go then?
BM: But we didn't know where.
DK: Yeah.
BM: They didn't give you a lot of information out and they said, ‘Well, you will be taking a new aircraft to Morocco.’
DK: Oh right.
BM: Rabat in Morocco. So we had to fly —
DK: And this was a Wellington was it?
BM: That was a Wellington. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Brand new. And of course what happens next? We were waiting for this and somebody went and smashed it up. They were doing an air test on it and smashed it up so they held us back. Not very long. Three or four days or something like that they kept us back. Until another one became available.
DK: Right.
BM: We got that. Took it down to Southampton and gave us all the instructions to get it to Rabat.
DK: Right.
BM: Which was a circuitous route to say the least because we had to go out to, we had to try and avoid France.
DK: France. Yeah. Spain.
BM: Spain. Portugal. All the, because we hadn't any ammunition.
DK: Right.
BM: They sent us out with his blooming brand new Wellington. We got all the guns we needed on it.
DK: [unclear]
BM: But there were no ammunition. We’d no ammunition because we had to load the thing up with as much fuel as you could get.
DK: Right.
BM: You know, you needed all that. You couldn't be wasting space on bullets.
DK: Right.
BM: And but allowing though if you happened to see a few Focke Wulfs come on you, on your tail but anyway we flew through the night and it would be —
DK: Did you go direct to Morocco then or —
BM: Did we —?
DK: Did you go direct to Morocco or stop on the way?
BM: No. We flew, oh sorry we flew direct from Southampton. We went out over the Channel Islands.
DK: Right.
BM: And we were alright being fairly closer in to France but we never went over any, any land.
DK: You didn't stop at Gibraltar or anywhere.
BM: No. No.
DK: You went all the way to Morocco.
BM: No. We didn't. We very nearly did but it was accidental. We came in towards, we thought, the navigator thought we’d got to Gibraltar and we did and then we suddenly realised Jesus better get out of this or else. They were a bit handy with the, with the loose cannon you know if they didn't have proper warning.
DK: Oh right. You weren't expected.
BM: Turn around quick.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And head out to sea to get a few miles behind us and then we went down, turned to port again and went further down across Northern Africa.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Morocco to Rabat.
DK: Right.
BM: From, that’s where we parked the plane and —
DK: So were you officially with the squadron now?
BM: No.
DK: Oh right.
BM: No. We were in transit.
DK: Ok.
SM: You had an incident didn’t you when you landed?
BM: We were, well actually it was rather interesting. We knew we were, we were getting dangerously short. We were living, or were flying on fumes pretty well.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Jesus. Keep paddling on and we got, we actually came in to land and we looked down and we ran out of fuel. It was cutting it a bit fine but the coincidental part of this was that a corporal came out in a little fifteen hundred weight truck to the end of the runway. We couldn’t get any further unless somebody was going to push us and he said, ‘What’s the problem?’ We’d no fuel and I looked at him and bloody hell. I went to school with him.
DK: Yeah?
BM: Yeah.
DK: The corporal who had just pulled up?
BM: I went past his, he was a farmer’s son.
DK: How strange.
BM: I went past it yesterday funnily enough. At Leverton. And he was, he was there, he wasn’t there but I don’t know whether their still, the family are still there now up to this day or, I don’t know.
DK: Did you both immediately recognise one another then?
BM: Oh aye. He recognised me and I recognised him because you’ve got to bear in mind that.
DK: Strange.
BM: This was in 1942.
DK: Right.
BM: Would it be? No. It was ’43. The end of ’43. We’d have not been from school long either him or me, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BM: It weren’t, we weren’t talking sort of years back so we hadn’t got to remember far back and he was, he was at school with us and there he was.
DK: How strange.
BM: Shepherding aircraft at this, on this blooming runway at Rabat. Anyway, we parked the plane up there and then we got instructions to move on via American transport plane I think.
DK: Right.
BM: We went sort of down the coast of Morocco and Algeria. We went to, stopped at an American aerodrome at Algeria and it was all sort of in transit.
DK: Right.
BM: And from there we moved around again and we moved across to Italy. To the heel of Italy.
DK: Right.
BM: Near Taranto. What were we talking about?
DK: Right.
BM: Yeah. No, it’s Taranto isn’t it? Right down in the coast. Grottaglie they called it.
DK: So, what were your thoughts about North Africa then when you got there and —?
BM: North Africa?
DK: Yeah. What was it, what was it like?
BM: A bit dry [laughs] but we didn’t really see a lot of it. I mean and unfortunately of course in those days we didn’t have much money to go out and buy cameras.
DK: Right.
BM: If we could have got cameras we couldn’t, we couldn’t buy film.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You couldn’t get the blooming stuff. I’ve got very few aircraft, very few photographs taken really of wartime and that sort of thing. But anyway we got across to Grottaglie.
DK: So the Americans were flying you across then.
BM: The Americans actually you see they landed on the west coast of Africa.
DK: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And they attacked it from —
DK: Operation Torch.
BM: The west and we were coming up from —
DK: Yeah.
BM: The Tobruk area. And [pause] Montgomery’s lot were meeting with the American.
DK: Yeah.
BM: What was his name? General, was it Mark Clark?
DK: [unclear] Yeah.
BM: Anyway, they went coming from, we were behind the Americans at that stage. They were moving into Africa and we only had to have a couple of spots in our squadrons and there was really no need to have done that if they could have found an aircraft with sufficient bods on it to fill it up to —
DK: Yeah.
BM: You know, to take it to —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Exactly where you wanted to be.
DK: So having arrived in Italy then, the heel of Italy are you, had you been allocated to a squadron at this point then?
BM: Yeah. We were on, we were on route right from our transport instructions. Our transport officer right from where we landed in Rabat.
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: But then sort of under the control of a transport, you know a designated transport officer.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And he would just move us on from place to place and we were on 221 Squadron.
DK: Right. And 221, they were, they were flying Wellingtons again I assume.
BM: Yeah.
DK: And they were part of Coastal Command.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Or Middle East Air Force.
BM: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Coastal Command.
BM: I mean I've never actually been on any other aircraft until I got to Ferry Command.
DK: Right.
BM: It was always, my operations were always on Wellingtons. I did a tour of operations except one.
DK: Right.
BM: I was one short of completing.
DK: Right. So, and these were all from Italy then.
BM: Yeah.
DK: All these operations. So how many operations did you actually do?
BM: I should have done thirty and I did twenty nine.
DK: Right. Ok. So for Coastal Command then what what sort of form did those operations take?
BM: What?
DK: What were you actually doing on those operations for Coastal Command? What was your role as it were?
BM: Well, I suppose to a large extent it was reconnaissance.
DK: Ok.
BM: Shipping and troop movements and that sort of thing. But we always, we carried bombs and guns and pretty well every time we came back we’d line somebody up with a few bombs. But across and Greece —
DK: Right.
BM: Yugoslavia. Albania.
DK: So most of, most of your operations then they were actually were over land.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Rather than over the sea.
BM: Oh Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.
DK: Right.
BM: There were very little operations actually constantly over water. We were over water but I mean we were, we were attacking, if we knew they were there E-boats and that sort of thing and light armoured boats. We never encountered any heavy stuff.
DK: Right.
BM: And our biggest commercial boats would be about what? Six or seven thousand tonnes?
DK: Right.
BM: They weren’t massive big things you know because they were on basically on, on transport. On coastal transport you know.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Port to port and that sort of thing.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Right around back by Trieste and Venice and back down the Italian coast but on, on one occasion we went across to Greece. We pretty well got through our designated number of trips to different places. Some of them were interesting, some of them were a bit sharpish but we never flew very high.
DK: No.
BM: We never did any of this twenty, twenty five thousand and stuff for it. If you knocked off the five it would be nearer. We [laughs] we had about —
DK: So what sort of heights were you?
BM: Five. On average about five thousand feet.
DK: Oh right.
BM: So we’d get a good view of what was going off down below. You know when you think about it we did a fair bit of chasing e-boats and that sort of thing. How do you tell a difference between an e-boat and an MTB for instance?
DK: At that, at that height.
BM: When it’s dark.
DK: Yeah. At that height or dark, it would be difficult.
BM: I thought at the time well I’m damned sure that wasn’t a blooming German. I reckon he was a Navy man that we just dropped some stuff on but it happened because we couldn’t tell one from another. If they didn't, if they didn't put up a rocket —
DK: Right.
BM: Or anything to warn us that you know that —
DK: You dropped a bomb.
BM: It’s a wrong place to do it or whatever.
DK: So you didn't have necessarily specific targets you just flew out.
BM: Yeah, and —
DK: Saw what was there and —
BM: Dropping them on, we were taking photographs.
DK: Right.
BM: Of what there was and where because obviously the military ones at that moment and used our own discretion.
DK: Really. So that your main role then was really intelligence.
BM: Basically.
DK: Reconnaissance type of thing.
BM: You know intelligence and reconnaissance.
DK: And if you saw something —
BM: Yeah. And if there was something which was obviously —
SM: Bomb it.
BM: Foreign.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You know you would, you’d just line them up. We did this on [unclear] I mean [unclear] is a lovely place to go for a holiday.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: But not if somebody is dropping some unpleasant stuff on top of you. And it was, it was summertime so short nights and that sort of thing. Getting broad daylight when we left and we came back. You had to bear in mind that nearly every time we went we went on our own.
DK: I was going to ask that. Were you just flying singly?
BM: We didn’t go as part of a group.
DK: Right.
BM: Two at the most.
DK: Right.
BM: You know. There was never big numbers of aircraft involved and we set off from Greece to come home and all of a sudden we were getting [pfft] coming past us [pause] And the rear gunner had said nothing about anybody chasing us or anything like that and we’d got two ME109s coming up behind us giving us a belt up the rear. And they actually shot out the port engine and the fuel. They did the, with doing the engine they did the hydraulics because the flaps, the undercarriage, the guns, everything was driven by that port engine.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: With hydraulics.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And if they did that that was goodbye Mary and they shot all this lot up and we ended up without any flaps, without any guns really, and we before we even knew anything was happening to us. You know there were guns, bullets were coming into us before we realised what damage was being done. Anyway, we put one engine out. Had to do. Stopped it so we were lucky the other one didn’t stop as well because the fuel was, you know floating backwards and forwards between one engine and another. But the, we had a, an American Marauder.
DK: Right.
BM: I don’t know whether you’ve ever —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: They were one of the early tricycle undercarriages.
BM: Yeah. Twin engine plane.
DK: Fighter bomber.
BM: Yeah.
BM: Twin engine thing. But the Americans apparently didn’t like them because they were stuffed full of guns. They’d guns coming out of them in all directions.
SM: You mean the Germans didn’t like them.
BM: But they were —
SM: Yeah.
BM: Very strongly armed.
SM: Yeah.
BM: And he’d seen this because there had been a number of aircraft had been on this exercise and he’d seen it so he told us afterwards and he came up and the, these two 109s didn’t hang about then. They don’t like Marauders because Marauders have got .5 guns on them.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we were all 303s which were like a, like a blooming peashooter. Anyway, the [pause] he came up with us. We’d no radio. Couldn’t talk to each other so he got busy flashing with his aldis lamp.
DK: Yeah.
BM: What the hell was he talking about? It was a job to understand what was, what was going backwards and forwards. Anyway, the gist of it was, ‘Are you ok?’ You know. Well, fortunately we were very fortunate indeed the navigator had just been nicked a bit but other than that nobody else got hurt and ok, so we carried on and eventually we got back to Bari, on the coast of Italy.
DK: Right.
BM: We headed for the nearest one that we could likely to get down at and it happened to be an American occupied station.
DK: Station. Yeah.
BM: And it’s only got a shortish runway on it and we came in to land on one engine, flaps down, undercarriage down. You’re not supposed to fly on, ought to be able to fly on one engine with all the hydraulics down. It won’t do it and it did. And we came around over the harbour nearly taking the masks off some ships which were in the harbour. It was really close to because you can’t do an overshoot with a lot of space. We came around again and came in a little bit slower and I think we were sort of trying to make sure that we got in the first time but we didn’t because we were halfway down the runway we were still airborne on a short runway. We tried to get around again and we got in. We came in to land low, lower and a little bit slower and we came in and damn me we put down and both tyres had been shot out and we didn’t know it. You can’t tell when you’re flying the blooming thing.
DK: No.
BM: If you looked out of the, you know but you weren’t bloody looking out and doing a bit of window gazing but both tyres and damage to the aircraft. Both tyres had been, we were told this when we got down but it was too late then because we’d no radio. You couldn’t, you know they couldn’t talk to us which was unfortunate and strangely enough when we came in the second time there were several blood waggons, ambulances, fire engines and that sort of thing lined up on the side of the runway so they were expecting somebody to have a bit of a bump. And the American, and as we came past where they were parked up on the end we could actually hear them. I could hear these, these blood waggons. You know they started up [whirr] As we were going down the runway they were behind us and of course the aircraft just went [pfft] That was it. The tyres were a bit empty. So it rather, apart from other damage that had been done by the bullets and that sort of thing it smashed it up a little bit.
DK: Did it remain on the undercarriage or did you —
BM: No. It collapsed.
DK: It had collapsed. Right. Ok.
BM: Yeah. You know, with flat tyres —
DK: Yeah.
BM: It does tend to do that.
DK: Yeah. It collapses on to the belly of the aircraft.
BM: Yeah. On to the rims.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And then I think the wheels went so we didn’t stop to hang about and have a look. Anyway, our CO —
DK: So you were all, you were all ok then when you got out.
BM: Oh yeah. Yeah. We got out as fast as we could get out. Get the lid open and get out and let them sort it out.
DK: Was the aircraft on fire at this point? Or —
BM: Well, I expected it to be.
DK: Yeah.
BM: But I realised that it was unlikely because you could smell petrol. It was unlikely to happen.
DK: Still didn’t want to hang around though did you?
BM: Because they were right behind us.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You know, they were going as fast as we were down the runway so, and a number of them as well. They’d got foam. I got hit with the blooming foam, with some foam as I was getting out. I didn’t mind that but couldn’t get out the top. Anyway, our CO he got in touch with the authorities on this aerodrome and he said, ‘I’ll come and fetch you.’ So he came down in his Wellington to pick us up. Oh, I didn’t tell you we’d moved up to Foggia.
DK: Yeah.
BM: From Grottaglie. Only on a sort of a temporary posting. We weren’t there many weeks because it was nearer a target point of view from Foggia than it was from Grottaglie. It was halfway up the country.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: And the Army were just moving further up. They’d got up to Rome and were moving slowly up. So we got moved back again to Grottaglie after that but we went back, they flew us back to Foggia. We’d one more operation to do to complete a full tour of operations and they gave us a weeks leave. A bit odd but I wasn’t going to turn it down because we, it was a weeks leave. There was a pass but we had to make our own way, our own transport. We had to hitch it. Oh, I am, I’m so sorry. Would you like a cup of tea or a cup of coffee?
DK: No. I’m fine thank you. Yeah.
BM: Really?
DK: Seriously I’m fine.
BM: I’m sorry about that.
DK: No. Don’t worry.
BM: My wife —
DK: I had one before I came out.
BM: My wife’s got dementia but, she’s very very deaf as well. She likes to keep out of the way. Very difficult for her.
DK: Ok.
BM: Anyway, we hitched across the country from Foggia to Sorrento and of course the roads were up, the bridges were up.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Italy is a country with a lot of bridges and a lot of rivers at [pause] We got there. We got to Sorrento eventually. Had a weeks leave. A lovely place Sorrento and [pause] have you ever been?
DK: I have. Yes. Yes. A few years ago.
BM: Been up in the Blue Grotto?
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: Lovely place.
DK: Yes.
BM: To go swimming there. Anyway, same sort of trip back and after a week got back to Foggia and we were, at that point we were billeted in tents. We were always in tents. All the time I was in Italy we were always in tents and we were in amongst a lot of grape vines. You know everywhere there was blooming just coming, just coming eatable.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Well, barely eatable really. They were still very green and I got a lot of diarrhoea. Not a good thing to be flying an aeroplane when you’ve got diarrhoea.
DK: No.
BM: At all. Anyway, we —
SM: Was it your navigator that did the same thing?
BM: No. No. I was, I was the only one who got —
SM: Right.
DK: Diarrhoea.
BM: The wireless op got a bad cold but I don’t think the others were affected really. In fact, I never even saw them eating grapes. They maybe thought they were too sour. They really were very sour. They weren’t ready. They weren’t ripe. I got this and I had to go to the MO because we were down to — [ chiming clock] — Shut up you. It did you see when you talk to them right, you know.] And I had to go to see the MO because we were all down for an operation that night. The last one. I said, ‘I’m not fit to fly. I can’t fly. I’ve got the screamers. No good at all.’ He said, ‘Right. I’ll stand you down.’ And the wireless op said, well he’d got a very bad cold and he weren’t fit. You can’t use oxygen or anything like that when you were —
DK: No.
BM: It was unfortunate. So we stood down and got a replacement pilot and wireless op. Sent them off. They went off and that was it. I never saw them again.
SM: They didn’t come back.
DK: So all of your twenty nine operations then they were all with 221 Squadron.
BM: 221.
DK: Right.
BM: And that was it.
DK: And that was, the twenty ninth was the only time you were attacked by another aircraft then.
BM: That was all. Yeah. This was all due to being attacked by these —
DK: Yeah.
BM: FW 190s coming back from Greece. It all developed from that.
DK: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And —
DK: So, so at that point you’ve come back to the UK have you? Or —
BM: After that?
DK: Yeah.
BM: No. No. I finished and it was obvious they couldn’t trace the aircraft. That was the main thing. They were trying to trace it and there was no trace of it whatsoever and in fact, I’ve got a letter from the, from the War Office Records saying that extensive searches had been done for this aircraft and there was no sight or sound or record of where it was. What had happened to it.
DK: So this was the aircraft you should have flown on then?
BM: Yeah.
DK: And and the rest of your crew were —
BM: All down there.
DK: So —
BM: So there was two of us alive.
DK: Right. So your crew went out with a different pilot and a different —
BM: Different wireless op.
DK: Wireless operator.
BM: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And they were just never seen again.
BM: And they were never seen again.
SM: Maybe they were lucky grapes.
BM: How lucky can you be?
DK: Yeah.
BM: But another thing I’ve never mentioned either was that the air gunner went home on a forty eight hour leave when I did.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Same thing. He got married the same weekend, on the Sunday. Never saw his wife again.
DK: Right.
BM: After he went back.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: After the forty eight hour leave was up.
DK: Yeah.
BM: He went back and that was it.
DK: So as the —
BM: That was the length, sorry, that was the length of his marriage.
DK: Yeah. Blimey.
BM: One weekend.
DK: So at this point you, you knew then that the rest of your crew was missing.
BM: Yeah. And in fact, their names are inscribed on the War Memorial at Malta.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: And also at Runnymede.
DK: Runnymede.
BM: So the Middle East Air Force run the Malta one. I don’t know why this was done twice but I had no control over it. That’s where it is. I haven’t seen it at Malta but I have seen it at Runnymede.
DK: Do you know where they were flying too? What the operation was to or [pause] When they went missing?
BM: Yes. I do. I do. I’ve got it on a letter. I’ll give it to you in a minute.
SM: Ok.
BM: Will you go and fetch it for me, Simon? If you would. It’s in the kitchen. In a red book.
SM: Ok.
BM: On the table.
[recording paused]
BM: So we’d some, interesting I suppose is not quite the right word.
DK: You didn’t know this other pilot then that they flew out with.
BM: I’d never met him before in my life.
DK: No.
BM: I didn’t know who he was but he took my place and if he’d been a regular crew member —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Thank you. Thank you.
[pause]
BM: So, after that of course I was without a crew and they [pause] they sent me back to Egypt.
DK: Right.
BM: I came back by train down to Taranto. Then by boat. Came by boat over the water to [pause] I think it was Alexandria we came to.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And from there I went and did another OTU. Started that again with another new crew in Palestine.
DK: Wellingtons again.
BM: Wellingtons again.
DK: Again. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: I tried to get a transport, a transfer on to Hurricanes.
DK: Right.
BM: I wanted to go back to —
DK: Fighters.
BM: Fly the [pause] But they wouldn’t let me. Actually, I’ve started doing a bit of a journal. Memoirs. There’s still a lot to do at it but —
SM: Yeah. I‘ve given David, it’s just a brief summary of that.
BM: I’ve got about, I was hoping to include about fifty photographs. Yeah. I must tell you this that my father did a memoirs.
DK: Right.
BM: In the First World War and he actually won a Military Medal and a Military Cross.
DK: Oh Right.
BM: On the Somme.
DK: Right.
BM: He got a Military Medal as a corporal at a place called [unclear]
SM: [unclear]
BM: Eh?
SM: [unclear]
BM: Oh, was it?
SM: Yeah.
BM: His French is better than mine. And then a year later he was back on the —
SM: No, it wasn’t a year dad. It was two years later.
BM: Two?
SM: Yeah. He got his first one in 1916.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Yeah.
SM: As —
DK: As a corporal.
SM: As a corporal.
BM: Yeah. Corporal.
SM: And —
BM: He got commissioned in the field.
SM: And then he went to Italy and he came back. Within a mile of where he won his first medal he won the second one —
BM: He got, he got —
SM: As an officer.
BM: No, he got a Military Cross.
DK: [unclear]
BM: And he was an officer then.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: He won the Military Medal and the Military Cross.
SM: He was lucky to survive.
BM: Yes. And he wrote at the age of eighty five something like this.
DK: Oh right.
SM: Well you’re ninety three and you’re doing —
BM: In fact, its yonder on that stool Simon. By the looks of it.
SM: Have you found that letter yet?
[pause]
BM: Look at that fella.
SM: I know. Are you looking for a particular letter dad?
[pause]
BM: There you are. Look. “Christmas Greetings and good wishes from the Royal Air Force Middle East.”
DK: Middle East. 1944.
BM: 1944. I’m looking for this blooming letter [pause] I’ve got it somewhere.
SM: Well, do you want me to look for it while you carry on chatting?
[pause – rustling papers]
BM: That’s your mother.
SM: Yeah. Let me have a look, dad while you carry on talking.
BM: There’s a, there’s a, there’s a letter from the —
SM: The War Ministry.
BM: Yeah.
SM: Let’s have a look then.
BM: Whether I’ve got it in the right book.
SM: Maybe not.
BM: Might be another one.
SM: Let’s have a look.
DK: So you’re at, so going back you’re now in Palestine.
BM: Oh I went to Palestine.
DK: You’re back in Palestine with another OTU.
BM: Hello.
SM: Hello mother.
DK: So you’re getting another crew together at this point then are you?
BM: We got that and when that course was complete we we went down from Port Tewfik at the end of the Suez Canal down to Aden.
DK: Right.
BM: In a troop ship. A lovely quiet gentle journey that was. We enjoyed that. The best part of the war up to that point and I learned to play Bridge as well.
DK: Oh right.
BM: The three fellas could play Bridge and they wanted a fourth. I could play cards but I couldn’t play Bridge. I’d never played Bridge. Anyway, right. Three days then. Very enjoyable. We got to Aden and then I got sent from Aden by Dakota, had to get up to Aden and then go up in a Dakota to a little island called Masirah which is just short of the Persian Gulf.
DK: Right.
BM: It’s up the Indian Ocean off the coast of Oman just before you go around the corner and go up the Gulf. That was 244 Squadron.
DK: Right.
BM: And we posted there and we got basically the same sort of job. Shipping reconnaissance in dhows, you know [laughs] you know, watching for smuggling but fortunately they didn’t shoot back at us.
DK: How many trips did you make with 244 Squadron then?
BM: I only did four.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
BM: And then that was it.
DK: Right.
BM: Because the way that came about I got a rather nasty dose of sinus. I’d been in Palestine, and in hospital in Palestine rather, in Tel Aviv. I had about ten days in hospital with sinus. I used to get it pretty badly but anyway I had another dose and got to Queen Elizabeth Hospital In Aden and it was a thousand miles from where I was in Masirah to Aden and they laid on especially converted Wellington again to fly from Masirah down to Aden.
DK: Right.
BM: Especially laid on to take me a thousand miles.
DK: Oh right.
BM: And I was in there again ten days in this hospital and when I was better I had a call to the adjutant and he said, ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you.’ He said, ‘Which do you want first?’ I said, ‘I’d better have the bad news first.’ He said, ‘Your squadron’s being disbanded.’
DK: This was 244. Yeah.
BM: He said, ‘Its just been disbanded,’ and he said, ‘You’ve been posted. You been posted to 36 Ferry Unit in [ Allahabad ] in India.’
DK: Right.
BM: And he said, ‘Your crew has been disbanded. Gone.’ They had apparently gone back to Cairo. To Egypt apparently. And he said, ‘The good news is you’ve been promoted to warrant officer.’ I said, ‘Oh well.’ Which do you want first? [laughs]
DK: So you were sent then to 36 Ferry Unit.
BM: So I got posted to 36 Ferry Unit.
DK: Right. Based in India.
BM: From the hospital in Aden. I didn’t go back to Masirah.
DK: Right.
BM: Flew straight there.
DK: To India.
BM: To India. Yeah. And I spent the next, what, eighteen months on 36 Ferry Unit in India. That’s alright because we didn’t spend much time at our own base. We were all over the place. You know, you’d maybe get sent back to Cairo or Heliopolis or —
DK: And what sort of aircraft were you ferrying about then?
BM: Well, as it happened I was in Dakotas but not as first pilot. I was the second pilot.
DK: Right.
BM: I was actually on Liberators.
DK: Oh right.
BM: They were four engine.
DK: Yeah.
BM: I liked flying those because in America everything was spot on.
DK: So you, while you were with the Ferry Unit then you were always as a second pilot.
BM: Not always as second pilot.
DK: Pilot. Yeah.
BM: It all depended on the availability of people to fly any particular —
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: Aircraft. And their ability to fly in any particular aircraft.
DK: So the Liberator was the first four engined aircraft that you flew.
BM: They were the first four engine that I flew. Yeah.
DK: And what did you think of the Liberators?
BM: For many things I liked them. They didn’t have the, they didn’t have the power that Lancasters and Halifaxes would have on two engines. You’ve got two engines you could nearly say well it’s goodbye Mary. They didn’t have, if you’d got any weight on at all you’d no chance.
DK: Right.
BM: But —
DK: So were you delivering new aircraft for the units then?
BM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: That was our main job was taking, moving new aircraft from MUs, service delivery points.
DK: Yeah.
BM: To say we’d go down to Ceylon with a new one and bring an old one back to Calcutta. Now that was all very well but some of these aircraft had never flown for several weeks or even months but stood out in the hot Indian sun didn’t do them a lot of good.
DK: Right.
BM: And [good morning. She keeps coming and having a look at us.] We had, early 1946 we had a stop put on Mosquitoes. I never actually flew a Mosquito. I always wanted to do but I never got the opportunity to. And there were two instances apparently where wings had fallen off. They reckoned it was because of the extreme heat that they’d been subjected to.
DK: Yeah. Like the glue.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And they were just stationed. Sat there in the sun and it subjected to a bit of extreme, you know, if they were doing a bit of manoeuvring and that sort of thing perhaps. A bit of extra strain on them. I don’t know what the reason was but anyway apparently two aircraft wings fell off and they put a stop on all movement of Mosquitoes.
DK: So at the war’s end then you’re in India still ferrying —
BM: Yeah.
DK: Aircraft about.
BM: Yeah. I mean the war ended, what was it? May 1945.
DK: Yeah.
SM: You’ve not mentioned about meeting up with your brother have you? While you were in India.
BM: Sorry?
SM: You’ve not mentioned about dad’s brother —
DK: Right.
SM: He was in the Army.
DK: Right.
SM: Flew out to, was it [Jahalabad] and you, he got him to impersonate RAF personnel. So he was, he stayed a week with my father.
DK: Yeah.
SM: And he was flying different aircraft all through the week. In fact, my father, this is my uncle told me that he went with dad was it on the Friday and were you in a Liberator at that time?
BM: Yeah.
SM: Dad took off and everything.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
SM: My Uncle Robin was next to him and dad said, ‘Right. Ok. You can take over now.’ He said, ‘Just follow the Nile.’ And they all went back in to the back to play cards.
BM: Well, they did —
SM: And this was an Army officer.
BM: They needed the experience.
SM: Oh, he’d flown that week with different people.
DK: Oh, that’s ok then [laughs]
SM: And he was impersonating an RAF. He’s not flying a four engine aircraft.
BM: He’d just been promoted. He’d done a course as a promotion from an NCO.
DK: Yeah.
BM: He was a sergeant then to a second lieutenant and he came and had this week with me at Karachi because I wasn’t very well. Not Karachi. At [Allahabad] and I couldn’t do a lot in those days but he, we finished up with several different trips in different aeroplanes. Dakotas and Corsairs, Liberators.
DK: So you put him in Air Force uniform as well then.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Yeah. We dressed him up as a navigator. Well, it made it easier you see as we were walking around the aerodrome. He didn’t get stopped. If you were a young Army officer they’d say, ‘What are you doing?’
DK: Yeah.
BM: And if you were a navigator he could walk in the mess and go and have meals and everything. It was —
DK: Wasn’t his own unit missing him or —
BM: Was he?
DK: Was his own unit missing him at all?
SM: He was on leave wasn’t he?
DK: On leave.
SM: That’s what was commented in the first instance his brother I know it was a big place.
DK: Yeah.
SM: Where everybody was flying in and flying out from but —
DK: Obviously, [unclear]
SM: This always amuses me. My father has told me this but he hadn’t told me the bit about the playing at cards bit and its only until I saw my uncle Robin a few months ago.
DK: Yeah.
SM: That he told me the other side of the story. That on this one occasion he went up with my father.
BM: That’s life isn’t it?
DK: Oh yeah.
SM: He said, he was trying to fly this four engine bomber.
DK: Yeah.
SM: Because, he said during the week he’d been flying two engine ones which manoeuvred a lot easier and he said he was all over the sky with this four engine because every movement he made was so slow.
BM: ’Keep, keep it level. What the hell are you playing at?’
SM: Yeah. Dad came back and said, ‘Oh, that was a rough ride.’ [laughs] But you know at that age you think bloody hell. The risks they took. Yeah. Didn’t give a damn.
BM: He enjoyed it. The little incident though that took place while he was there. Our CO, we had a bit of a scheme where good watches were in short supply. You know, you couldn’t just go and pick up a nice —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Omega watch or something like. A decent watch and he had a scheme where just once a year he would raffle off half a dozen. I don’t know whether the the NAAFI part of job organised the thing. They bought a half a dozen Omega watches.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Omega, you know were decent watches and he’d buy these and he would raffle them off. Well, anybody who wanted to go in the raffle it didn’t matter whether they were an officer, NCO, whatever they were they could put their names down and have it drawn it out and you’d get to get, you had to pay proper price for them but at least you had the privilege of getting one.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Which was even difficult to do that. So my brother Robin and myself both put our names down for a blooming watch and damn me if we didn’t get one. Out of six watches and hundreds of people who actually —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Put their names down for to get the raffle he and me got one.
SM: You both got one.
BM: Both got one.
BM: And we’ve still have them today.
BM: You still have them. Oh wow.
BM: I don’t use mine but the last time I had it it was it was going but it was losing a lot of time and he said he’d still got his.
DK: Oh right.
SM: I didn’t know that.
BM: That was 1946.
DK: Right.
BM: And they’re still going. Omega watches.
DK: You might just need it serviced.
SM: Yeah. I’ll get dad to do that.
DK: It would be worth doing.
SM: Yeah. It’s worth doing for nostalgia, isn’t it?
DK: Exactly. Yeah.
BM: I ought to write to them.
DK: Yeah. Hopefully a watch —
BM: I might get a free watch from them.
SM: We’ll get that sorted.
BM: Yeah. I’d do well to get a free watch didn’t we? We got two of them. Not one. We’ve got two circulating. I’ll tell you what though. A little tale of it it just reminded just recently Lord Mountbatten was Viceroy of India of course and we used to hear about him circulating and different things and on one occasion he came as a trip of inspection. He came to our unit to inspect not just us I mean we were only a very small unit and we got a, unless actually in Charingi in Park Street in Calcutta probably about twice as big as this room and that was it but it was ours and you know it was a very quiet little place. Anyway, he came to visit us on this particular occasion and he flew in, he had this own private Dakota. He flew in and a guard of honour was all out there on the Parade Ground there and called them to attention inspecting them and away he went. Job done. Half an hour later another one flew in. Another Dakota. Looked like an identical aircraft and it was his wife, Lady Mountbatten. She flew into this. Have you heard this tale before? I should doubt it. Anyway, she flew in and the same thing. Got the same guard of honour. Three rows of troops all out there, sort of thing and she inspected the first row and as she walked down the second row her lady in waiting walking at the back of her with our CO at the side of her and she suddenly bent down and picked up something and dropped it in her handbag and carried on down the next row and back. At the end of the third row off she went. The lady in waiting. Nicholas.
SM: Her pants had dropped off.
[laughter]
SM: She never batted an eyelid from what dad said.
BM: It’s true this is. She, she actually walked off that parade ground knickerless. Well, we’d have had a titter about it and her lady in waiting there I don’t know what [laughs] I was too far to see. I saw it happen. There was a few of us there who were watching the parade but we didn’t know actually, I couldn’t prove it was a pair of knickers that she actually dropped but it was. She’d dropped them off.
DK: Oh dear.
BM: And she never batted an eyelid.
DK: No. Well —
BM: She went up and down those three rows. Never said a word. Funnily enough about two days, three days later the [unclear] got the same incident in mind and I happened to be appointed the officer of the guard. All the lads would take it in turns, you know. We’d do a weeks duty. Officer of the guard and that sort of thing and being a warrant officer I had the same job to do as a, as a commissioned officer.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And as I said there weren’t many of us.
SM: He did turn his commission down by the way.
BM: I called them all, called all the guard to attention and turned around. Saluted the flag. All the guard pulled it down but the blooming thing didn’t shift. I stood looking like a fool looking at it waiting for it and it still didn’t. I looked at the bottom and there was nobody there to pull it down so I said [laughs] I had to turn around and say, ‘Carry on Sergeant.’ And off I went. I had a bit of a red face I can imagine. I had to spend the rest of that week on, on guard duty. Well in charge of the guard every so often. I mean we, we were a bit security conscious.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we used to go shuffling around in a, you know a jeep around the perimeter of the aerodrome and looking at different units seeing that you know they were all at different places out on guard with their rifles.
DK: So, how long were you in India for then?
BM: Well, I left in India in the end of June ’46.
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: And I came back.
DK: Back to the UK.
BM: By train to Karachi.
DK: Oh right. Yeah.
BM: And then by boat. I didn’t fly back.
DK: Right.
BM: I came back by boat from Karachi. Crossed the India Ocean and the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean and then all the way back to Liverpool.
DK: So did you spend much more time in the Air Force after that or were you demobbed?
BM: No. No. No. You see I was married.
DK: Right.
BM: I had a very quick fire marriage. I got married and it was two and a half years later when I saw my wife.
DK: Yeah. So you left, you left the Air Force at that point.
BM: I left the air force and went to, Cirencester I think was the DPC or the, you know the unit where they disbanded the [pause] I’d had five and a half years in the control of the RAF because I joined up in February 1941.
DK: Right.
BM: And actually I left the control of the RAF in August 1946.
DK: Right. So what did, what did you, what was your career after that then? What were you —
BM: I, well I became actually a retired peasant.
DK: Right [laughs]
SM: He was offered the chance to fly for the Canadian —
DK: Right.
SM: Not the Air Force. The civilian.
DK: Oh right.
SM: Which was a big honour.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
SM: Because everyone wanted to do that.
DK: Yeah.
SM: And mother wouldn’t go out. Not Canadian. Australian.
DK: Australia. What? Qantas.
BM: Qantas.
SM: Yeah. That’s —
DK: Right. Yeah
BM: Yeah.
DK: So you didn’t. You didn’t carry on your flying then after that.
BM: [clock chiming] It’s your fault. Yes. My wife didn’t want me to go and do it. I communicated with her and she said, ‘No.’ I’d been away a long time. ‘You want to come back and get some work done.’ I came back and I joined where I’d left off.
DK: Right.
BM: With my father’s little village business.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
BM: You know, as a —
SM: You did, you did rent a light aircraft for several years though didn’t you? You did fly again. You still flew.
BM: Well, yeah, I got a private pilot’s licence.
DK: Right.
BM: That’s a year. I think he reminded me because he came a time or two and —
DK: So you carried on flying for a few more years then.
BM: Yeah. I did a bit of private flying in an Auster.
DK: Right.
BM: As a friend of mine had kept it up at —
SM: He still has been flying until —
BM: Say what?
SM: I don’t know. The last two or three months.
DK: Oh right.
SM: My son flies.
DK: Oh right. Ok. So he’s still going up then.
SM: He’s still going up.
DK: Excellent.
BM: His his son is all over the blooming place. He went to Le Touquet not very —
SM: He was up in Scotland near Cumbernauld yesterday.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Where?
SM: Cumbernauld. In Scotland. Near Glasgow.
BM: Did he? He’s all over the blooming place his lad.
DK: Ok. Well, I’ll finish there. I think that’s really good. Thanks for that. I’ll just ask one final question. All these years later how do you look back on your time in the RAF? What’s your feelings now?
BM: Well, in some ways obviously there are some regrets. I mean I regret the opportunity to go to Qantas. They reckoned I had the experience, you know in the different aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And this, that and the other. And you know probably capable of doing it. But I didn’t do it and I’ve always regretted that.
DK: Yeah.
BM: I mean, talking about the experience. When we were out in India we got a signal from Air Headquarters which was in Delhi. Headquarters for our lot anyway. No. The Far East Headquarters were in Delhi. I got a signal, or my CO did. ‘Warrant Officer Minnitt is to go take the unit Expeditor.’ You know what they are?
DK: Yeah. Twin engine plane. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: Lovely aircraft. ‘And go to Delhi, pick up a senior officer and fly him to Munich.’
DK: Right.
BM: Which is a fair old way. Had to fiddle with fuel a time or two but the CO said, ‘You, you can’t do it.’ No. Let’s get this right. The MO said, ‘You can’t do it.’ Because I’d not been very well. But the CO said I could. You know, he said, ‘You can go and do it.’ And as I say we were more or less on personal terms. We were, we were such a small unit.
DK: Yeah.
BM: I mean, little instances crop up from time to time that you think about it but you said, ‘What are your feelings about it?’ Well, I enjoyed my time in the RAF I must admit. There were many instances which was, you might think well they were a bit rough but it happens. I mean one night for instance we, when we were at Grottaglie it was a bombed out hangars aerodrome. No roof or anything like that on them. If we wanted to see a film we had to wait until it was dark and then we would take our own petrol tin, a five gallon petrol tin and that was our seat.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You could sit on that and you could watch a film. It was alright. Better than nothing.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we were doing that one night and looking at a Wellington take off and it was one of ours and he got to near the end of the runway and he just, he got airborne, he went down again and [pfft] Fully laden. Fully fuelled up. And we ran across to it and all we could find was a boot. Something like that you know.
DK: Yeah.
BM: There was nothing. With four thousand pounds of bombs and full tanks you’ve got no choice. And we don’t know why. He just didn’t have enough speed.
DK: He needed to take off.
BM: To get up. And we saw it happen. Just, I mean, these sort of things did happen. That’s part of, I wouldn’t say it was part of life but I mean it, they did happen and there you go. You live with it.
SM: Well one of your very first experiences dad was, if you remember —
BM: Eh?
SM: When you, before you joined up the RAF you joined the [pause]
BM: Oh aye.
SM: Not Dad’s Army. They didn’t call it Dad’s Army then.
BM: I joined the ATC.
DK: The ATC, yeah
BM: Artillery training. Was it auxiliary training?
DK: Air Training Corps.
BM: Something like that. Anyway —
SM: There was an aircraft wasn’t there crashed at Laneham.
BM: Yeah. It did.
SM: And you were the first there. Only as a young man.
DK: Yeah.
BM: This was the, well it was a squadron actually based in Lincoln. What was it? 1265 or something like that. I forget the squadron. And they’d got, they’d got this which I joined and I was in the Home Guard at the time. I was always in blooming uniform. From the Home Guard right from 1940. But a Hampden came around the river at Laneham where I lived and I was talking to one of my, the other side of the road and this big bang and we got on the bike and went to have a look at it and it had come around the river at Laneham very low and didn’t make the bend.
DK: Right.
BM: And it was a Hampden from Scampton. They bunged us in and again that was all little bits and pieces and this pal of mine I mean we went to, we thought we were good you see. We were in uniform. Home Guard. And we went to keep the spectators away from it all.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And all the rest of it and it was still bobbing off fireworks. Bombs, not bombs, bullets kept going off. Aircraft tanks exploding and that sort of thing. It was a right old mess. So eventually the RAF fire brigade turned up and some other I think there were one or two police came and didn’t need us around any longer so we just packed in and came home. But that was my first experience of flesh. Burned flesh. You get used to it you know. It happened from time to time. And so —
DK: Yeah. This this incident then obviously didn’t put you off joining.
BM: No.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Not at all.
DK: No.
BM: I mean, it was rather when that time came we went to what were the new barracks at Lincoln and, ‘What have you come for?’ ‘We’ve come to join up.’ We were seventeen when we did it, he and I. ‘What do you want to join up as?’ ‘An air gunner.’ ‘You want to join as an air gunner. Right.’ Filled in all the paperwork and I don’t know whether it was at that point that I said we actually went to Cardington. You know where they made the old —
DK: Yeah. The airship hangars.
BM: Airships.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And that sort of thing. And we did the actually, the joining procedures. You’ve got the filling in —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Give you your numbers and that sort of thing. My number is nearly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. It’s 1 2 3 2 3 4 7.
DK: And you still can remember it now.
BM: You see, very close to it. And he said, ‘Well, why don’t you remuster as a pilot?’ and I wonder sometimes wonder why. Why was that?
DK: I find that quite unusual actually because other sort of veterans I’ve spoken to they nearly all wanted to go in as pilots.
BM: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: But they crashed out for some reason.
BM: Yeah.
DK: And then remustered.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Under a different trade.
BM: Yeah.
DK: It’s unusual to hear somebody —
BM: Yeah.
DK: Who wanted to go in as an air gunner and ended up as a pilot. Yeah.
BM: We thought to be an air gunner you know it was all very glamourous and we were going to shoot them all down. Bang bang bang. They said, well that was, we don’t shoot them down but the, we went the other way. I’ll be honest with you. I left school at fourteen. My education wasn’t wonderful in those days and I finished and that’s basically is the reason why I wasn’t commissioned.
DK: Right.
BM: Because I was, you never found anybody commissioned who hadn’t been to a secondary school at least.
DK: Right.
SM: But didn’t you turn your commission down because you were going to be worse off?
BM: Oh, but that was later. That was when I was out in India. I was offered the opportunity to take a commission. That was in 1945. I thought well the war would be over by the end of this year.
DK: Yeah.
BM: No point in having it because I’m better off now as a warrant officer in the uniform I was wearing. The type of uniform, the perks I’d got.
DK: Yeah.
BM: The money I got and I was getting an extra bonus and that sort of thing. I was better off than I was as a flying officer never mind a pilot officer so I, you know I didn’t have any mess fees to pay and all that sort of thing.
DK: So you think then as you left school no qualifications at fourteen the Air Force was good for you in that respect.
BM: It was. It was good for me.
DK: Helped you learn and that —
BM: In that, in that respect. It must have been. I mean, as I say my education was, left a lot to be desired but it was made up in a way with the experiences that I’d got.
DK: Yeah.
BM: In different things and different parts of the world and that sort of thing and that I should never possibly have got in civil life. And I went around the world quite a bit. I mean, I went across the world that way. To Canada. The other side again.
DK: Canada. And then —
BM: Then came back the other way. Right across North Africa. Italy. Middle East. Palestine. Into Aden.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Masirah. India. [Allahabad] and then flying. I did quite a bit of flying into Burma and the war was still on then but places like [Agatara] [unclear] and delivering aircraft in to their places. Into their units and flying their old crap out back to the Mus. We used to go down to Ceylon quite a bit. We enjoyed it. I mean, it was like I just missed out on that opportunity of going to Australia but there we are. These things happen.
DK: Yeah. Ok then. Well, I’ll stop it there I think. Thanks very much for your time. That’s been very interesting. Thanks.
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 Bruce Minnitt
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
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
2017-03-14
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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AMinnittPB170314
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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02:02:47 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Bruce Minnitt served in the Second World War flying Wellingtons on maritime reconnaissance in the Mediterranean and B-24s in India. When war started Bruce joined the Home Guard, and in 1941 when reaching 18 years of age, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force. He actually wanted to be an air gunner but was assessed as suitable for pilot training. His flying training was carried out in Alberta, Canada. After over two years of rationing, he enjoyed the improved diet he received in Canada. Flying in an open cockpit through a Canadian winter was particularly challenging. On his return to Great Britain, he was posted to No. 6 Operational Training Unit near RAF Carlisle to fly Wellingtons. He was then sent to RAF Haverfordwest, from where he was sent on leave for 48 hours before being sent overseas. Arriving home, he proposed, and married by special licence before returning to his unit. It was to be over two years before he saw his wife again. On return to his unit he was tasked with delivering a Wellington to Rabat in Morocco. From here, Bruce joined 221 Sqn in Southern Italy. He flew 29 maritime reconnaissance operations, but before what would have been his final operation, both Bruce and the wireless operator became ill and had to be replaced. His crew failed to return from their final operation. He describes one sortie when his aircraft was attacked by two Me 109s. With no radio or hydraulics, they were forced to divert and upon landing they discovered both main wheels had been damaged. Luckily, the airfield was aware of their plight and were able to dispatch immediate assistance when they crash landed. Allocated with another crew in Egypt, he carried out four further operational flights on 244 Squadron, and following its disbanding, Bruce was posted to 36 Ferry Unit in India. He spent the remainder of the war delivering B-24s to operating units throughout South East Asia. Bruce finally returned in June 1946 and having declined the opportunity to remain a member of the RAF, was subsequently demobbed. Whilst in India, Bruce met up with his brother, a serving army officer who was on leave. By disguising him as a RAF officer, Bruce was able to smuggle him on board to enable him to accompany Bruce on a delivery flight.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Wales--Pembrokeshire
England--Cumbria
Mediterranean Sea
India
Canada
Alberta
North Africa
Morocco
Morocco--Rabat
Italy
Egypt
India
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ian Whapplington
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
221 Squadron
244 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
civil defence
crash
Home Guard
love and romance
Me 109
military discipline
military living conditions
military service conditions
pilot
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Silloth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1131/11657/ASmithJ180111.1.mp3
55ba8a2ee1c62103a463afde513b2445
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
Smith, Joan
J Smith
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Joan Smith. She served in the Land Army.
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
2018-01-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Smith, J-2
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: Right. So this is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Joan Smith at her home on the 11th of January. It’s 2018 now, isn’t it?
JS: Yes.
DK: 2018. Yes. Just making sure this is working. So that’s Joan Smith at her home on the 11th of January 2018. If I, if I just put that there.
JS: Yeah.
DK: Just so it picks you up. It’s more important it picks you up rather than me.
JS: Yeah.
DK: And if it’s alright if I —
JS: What are you looking for?
DK: Just wondering if I could sit a bit closer if that’s ok.
JS: Well —
DK: Is there a chair or something I could —
JS: Move this over or —
DK: Yeah.
JS: See if you can get a chair from the kitchen if you —
DK: Can I get a chair from the kitchen?
JS: That may be easier. Yes.
DK: Probably the easiest.
[pause]
JS: He could have used that, couldn’t he?
[pause]
DK: Put that there. If I could just close the door.
JS: Yes. Of course.
DK: So we don’t get the TV if that’s ok.
JS: Well, I could have switched that off. Never mind.
[pause]
DK: I’m just going to take my jacket off. If I’m looking down I’m just doing it to make sure the recorder is working.
JS: Right.
DK: Put that there. Yeah. We’re all ok. So I just wanted to ask you what, what you were doing immediately before the war?
JS: Hairdressing.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
JS: Which was not a Reserved Occupation.
DK: Right.
JS: So at eighteen you would have had to have gone in to either factory work or into the forces. So I decided I didn’t want factory work.
DK: No.
JS: So I went in at seventeen and a half.
DK: Right.
JS: To the Land Army. About 1942/43. Something like that.
DK: So, how was recruitment to the Land Army done? Did you have to go along to a Recruitment Centre or [unclear] board?
JS: No. Well, not as they do it now. It was simply one woman was in charge. I lived in Yorkshire. Sheffield at the time.
DK: Right.
JS: And you went there to see her at her big palatial home. She sort of interviewed you, asked you various questions and it wasn’t like as formal as anything. And then, ‘We would let you know.’ Which they did. And then you had to go and collect this uniform, instructions and you were just sent to an area. And I went near Fulbeck.
DK: Right.
JS: And in some areas, I’ve got books on the Land Army and they tell you they’ve had training and all sorts of things. We never got. I think there were different, different ideas as of different people running it.
DK: Right.
JS: The agricultural people. Because we didn’t get any training. You just went to the farm and you just had to pick up as you went along.
DK: Right.
JS: Whatever was going off.
DK: [cough] Excuse me.
JS: Yeah.
DK: Right. So were you given a uniform at all? Or —
JS: Yes. It was sort of corduroy knee, like riding trousers.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Long socks. One pair of shoes. Two of those airtex beige shirts and a green pullover.
DK: Right.
JS: And a hat. And they did say a mackintosh. You weren’t given a mackintosh you were given a coat.
DK: Right.
JS: Which was quite, quite smart actually. And it wasn’t replaced as they said in the thing. It was a case of you had to buy them. I mean, I think we were treated quite shabbily really because we got no money when we came out. No coupons and everything was on coupons then.
DK: Yeah.
JS: And I quite enjoyed it.
DK: So the, so the farm itself. Was it near to where you lived or did you have to —
JS: Oh no. No. You were just sent.
DK: You had to go. Leave home.
JS: Yes. I lived in Yorkshire and this one was at Fulbeck.
DK: Right. Ok.
JS: Here, in Lincolnshire.
DK: So presumably that was the first time you were away from home was it?
JS: Yes. Yes.
DK: So was that a bit of an experience?
JS: Yes. It was actually. Yes. Yes. And I mean if you went in the forces normally they would not let you go home for about a month or they didn’t want you phoning home.
DK: Right.
JS: A month. And of course mobiles weren’t in the picture then.
DK: No.
JS: In case that you did get homesick and you went home and you didn’t want to come back. But yes it was. But everybody else there was in the same position as you anyway.
DK: Right.
JS: So that helped somehow. But a lot depended on what farm you got.
DK: So how many were you there then on this particular farm? How many Land Army ladies?
JS: Oh, there would only be you. If you were living on a farm it would be either one land girl or two.
DK: Right.
JS: Depending on what amount of work because the men that they’d had were called up.
DK: Right. [cough] excuse me.
JS: Do you want a drink?
DK: No. I’m ok thank you. So in your particular case then on this farm was it just yourself or two of you?
JS: No. I was in a hostel.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
JS: With about, I should think there was fifteen girls. And it was a big house they’d taken over. And there was a cook there. There was somebody that did the cleaning and you had about six to a room.
DK: Right.
JS: With —
DK: How was that then? Finding yourself in a dormitory with six other girls?
JS: Well, you didn’t care that much.
DK: Yeah.
JS: It was alright.
DK: Did you all get on?
JS: Yes. On the whole.
DK: Yeah.
JS: It was always bits of squabbles about things. Somebody. But on the whole yes. And we had this what they called a matron that was in charge that you had to be in by 10 o’clock unless you’d got special permission. And, and then there would be another one in charge of the work and she would allocate which farms you went to.
DK: Right. That’s what I was going to ask. You didn’t keep going to the same farm. You just went to —
JS: No. Not unless, because most of them —
DK: Yeah.
JS: Wouldn’t have had enough work all through.
DK: Right. So you went to the farm where they needed the workers.
JS: Yes. And if it was five miles away you had to cycle there.
DK: Oh right.
JS: And then do a day’s work and then cycle back. Over five miles she took you in this little mini-van thing she had. But some, some of the farmers didn’t accept us. They found fault with everything because they didn’t think that girls could do the work.
DK: No.
JS: That their men had done. And then we had a lot of Italian prisoners that would be there in groups but they never worked in ones or twos. They always worked in a group.
DK: Right.
JS: But they were very easy to get on with. Very polite. We also had, what do they call it? Objectors.
DK: Conscientious objectors. Yeah.
JS: And I don’t know if they were all alike but the lot we had there the only thing they were objecting to was in case they wouldn’t go in the services was because they might be disabled or they might get killed.
DK: Right.
JS: Because they were vile. They really were.
DK: I was going to say you didn’t get on with the conscientious objectors.
JS: I did not get on with them.
DK: No.
JS: None of us did.
DK: No.
JS: Because this particular lot were really foul mouthed. They really were awful. And I refused in the end to work with them.
DK: Really?
JS: Well, because the leader of them he thought it was very funny if you were doing harvesting. The mice would all run out of the stooks and he would get one and he would try and drop it down the neck of one of the girls or something like that. And he did it when I was working with them and she went hysterical this girl. Well, you could imagine couldn’t you? And I just said if he ever came near me with it, I’d got this pitchfork that I was doing the things with he would get it and he would have get it too.
DK: Yeah.
JS: And I just refused to work with them after that. I just said there’s no way. Because at that time my brother was in the Navy and he’d, they’d just had a, didn’t sink the boat but it was attacked and they were stayed off in Malta for a time. But he was only quite young and I thought why should he be risking his life for scum like this?
DK: So there, you, there was a lot of resentment against them then presumably.
JS: Oh yes. Yes. There were.
DK: Yeah.
JS: If it was raining they didn’t have to turn out at all. If it was raining we did. If it was until 11 o’clock.
DK: Yeah.
JS: If it was still raining then if the farmer couldn’t find you anything to do indoors or some sort of work.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Then you could go back. But other than that you had to be there but they didn’t.
DK: Yeah.
JS: No. They didn’t.
DK: So the Italian prisoners then you got on with them better did you?
JS: Yes. Because they did work.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Whereas the —
DK: Was there a bit of a language barrier or did they manage to speak?
JS: With some of them but you could, I mean you couldn’t have a fluent conversation with them but you could make yourself understood. And they were very courteous. They really were. And as I say they did work. Conscientious objectors didn’t. They’d skive and do all sorts of things. But —
DK: Yeah.
JS: As I say whether that lot was just different from some of them that had got these ideas that there shouldn’t be war well we all know that but —
DK: Yeah. So you don’t think the conscientious objectors had sort of high ideals. They just didn’t want to get hurt.
JS: No. Not that lot. That lot certainly didn’t.
DK: No. No.
JS: Certainly didn’t.
DK: It must have been difficult for you if you’ve got relations serving.
JS: Well, I refused to work with them any longer and I had to go to oh [pause] what’s the garden city up there? Not, the big one. Spa town. I tell you my memory’s going like nothing. Anyway, I had to go there because the committee for the whole area there was there. I had to explain why. He didn’t. And he was never called to whatsits over it at all.
DK: Really.
JS: Or any of them there. But in the end most of it got that most of the girls didn’t have to go and work with them because none of them wanted to work with them.
DK: Right.
JS: So —
DK: There was real resentment then. Yeah. Yeah.
JS: There was real resentment about them. But we just did general farm work. Some, if they went in for rat catching —
DK: Yeah. I was going to say what was your day like? What did, presumably you got up and had something to eat and then you were told where you were going.
JS: Well, you got up. And then before you had breakfast you would go in to the kitchen and there would be a big sink bath there with a cloth in it and there’d be bread in it. Slices of bread. And on the table there might be tomatoes or some cheese or anything that you could put in.
DK: Yeah.
JS: On occasion there might be some cake. And you just had to scramble down there and get what you could because there was always going to be somebody no matter if you all got up at the same time and you’d perhaps be left with one slice of bread and nothing to put in it. So it was a case of get down there first or you didn’t get anything.
DK: Yeah.
JS: And the farmer’s wives on the whole were not that generous about offering you —
DK: No?
JS: Hot drinks. No.
DK: Oh dear.
JS: And yes, it, and then as I say you’d either have to bike or go there to the farm. If you were on just general, mostly it would be probably weeding fields of —
DK: Right.
JS: Vegetables or plucking them out, you know. Thinning them out. But the fields there were about a mile long because it was all flat.
DK: Right.
JS: And all, went on forever.
DK: So you were weeding.
JS: Weeding. Yeah.
DK: Right.
JS: And or you could picking stuff. Picking vegetables. Picking. Picking fruit. It would depend what the farm was doing. Sometimes you’d get farmyard duties.
DK: Right.
JS: With the animals. I never did any milking.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Because I didn’t like that. I liked working with the pigs. I quite liked pigs.
DK: Right.
JS: It was just sort of as I say general.
DK: Yeah.
JS: You’d have to clean the cowsheds out which was a job I hated. And harvesting time of course was absolutely mad. Oh, it was mad. It was.
DK: So how was the harvest done then? What sort of machinery were you using?
JS: The old thing where you got clouds of dust from it. You got all the chaff. You got all down your neck.
DK: Yeah.
JS: And you’d be itching and it was horrible. Like the threshing bit of it but, and you’d have to sort of bind it up. I mean now it’s all done all in one go isn’t it?
DK: Yeah.
JS: There’s no problem at all.
DK: The old combine harvester.
JS: Yeah. Oh yeah, that goes straight through.
DK: Straight through and pick it up. Yeah.
JS: We had to do everything. Then we had to put the stooks together as well. And then when they’d dried out of course the thing would come around. We’d have to chuck them on the cart ready to put them on the haystack. It was hard work.
DK: So you say initially the farmers were a bit shall we say cynical about ladies doing the work.
JS: Oh, yes. They were. Yes.
DK: Did they change their mind after a while?
JS: Yes. They did.
DK: Right.
JS: They did. Yes.
DK: Did they come to appreciate what you were doing?
JS: Well, yes. They, they just refused to accept the fact that girls could do what the blokes had done before and I think in a lot of cases we did a blooming sight more than what the men had done.
DK: And did they, the farmers change their attitudes towards you in the end or —
JS: Oh yes. Yes.
DK: Right.
JS: They were grudgingly but they did. And well they couldn’t have managed without us because the men were all being called up that were of a young age and if they were old.
DK: Yeah.
JS: They weren’t going to get that much work out of them were they?
DK: So how long were your days then? How long were you working on the, on the fields and on the farms?
JS: Well, crikey. Well, we’d have to be there for sometimes 8 o’clock. Half past eight. And in the summer it would be sort of long hours because of the amount of, you know the field work and everything else that had to be done.
DK: So what time did you finish then?
JS: About six. Or sometimes eight. And you used to get Saturdays off but sometimes you couldn’t rely on that. If the farmer wanted you there Saturday and you were at that farm you would have to go in.
DK: Right.
JS: But you didn’t get double time or anything like that like they do now.
DK: So what was the pay like then?
JS: If you were in a hostel you got sixteen shillings and you got your board and lodging. That was paid by the agricultural thing.
DK: Right.
JS: To the Land Army. By the government to the Land Army and if you were actually in a farm house I think it was about thirty two shillings but you would have to pay the farmer for your board and lodging.
DK: Yeah.
JS: So it wasn’t very highly paid but I suppose it was [pause] and it varied from areas.
DK: Right.
JS: If the pay was more in other areas they got the corresponding amount. And you didn’t get free travel. You got one free train pass a year.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Which isn’t very much. If you were ill that was tough. You didn’t get paid. And, well as I say they didn’t, I don’t think there was any appreciation. Not ‘til after the war. And it was some years back now I went to a big service at Lincoln Cathedral.
DK: Right. For all the Land Army girls.
JS: For all the land armies.
DK: Yeah.
JSDK: And it was sad in a way because you thought they’d all been young. All been land girls. And there were so many in wheelchairs, so many on walking frames and you looked around and you thought oh lord. This is —
DK: Did you, did you stay in touch with any of your Land Army colleagues?
JS: Well, for a while.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Yes. And then they’ve all gradually died off or emigrated or whatever. I mean some married. Married some of the farmers or the farmer’s sons.
DK: Really. So some of the farmer’s appreciated them in the end then [laughs]
JS: I had no intention of marrying any farmer.
DK: No. No.
JS: I’d had enough because we were —
DK: Do you think what the Land Army did then in the sort of bigger picture of the war was it something really important do you think?
JS: Oh, yes. It was. Because in, from Fulbeck I was moved up to near Selby. And that was a place called Bourn but not spelled with an E on the end.
DK: Yeah.
JS: And there was a big aerodrome there and that, that was a Bomber Command and we used to grow their vegetables for them.
DK: Right.
JS: Go on the field. And the fields had belonged to the farmers but —
DK: Yeah.
JS: I don’t know what arrangement they had but we used to grow all their vegetables and everything that they needed for that and you know that was, that was quite all right. But we used to get invited to the dances and anything going on there and they would provide transport for us and bring us back and that was good. But —
DK: So you saw quite a bit then of the Bomber Command then. Of the airfields and the aircraft.
JS: Oh yeah. Yes.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Yes. Because we worked on the fields just off from where they were flying really.
DK: And this was Bourn, was it?
JS: Bourn in Yorkshire.
DK: Right. Yeah. So, what are your memories of that then? Of the airfields then.
JS: Oh that, that was, it was a lot [pause] a lot nicer. A lot nicer because I think the farmers there were beginning to accept you and realise that —
DK: Yeah.
JS: If they didn’t, if we were not there they’d be in a real pickle.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Because some of them had been very poor farmers. I mean they were said about a poor farmer didn’t they?
DK: Yeah.
JS: And some of them were very small but with the war that made them because they had to extend with government help and grow crops or get more animals in. So you don’t hear very much of the poor farmer these days.
DK: No. That’s very true.
JS: And, you know as I say it was [pause] and then socially when you moved up there we got invited to all these things at the aerodrome.
DK: Right.
JS: And so —
DK: So what did you think of the airmen when you met them at these do’s?
JS: Well, they were very nice [laughs] I didn’t meet my husband there.
DK: No. Oh. So, if I can ask then where did you meet your husband then? That was during the war then that you met him.
JS: No. Just after.
DK: Right. Ok.
JS: Just after because he was out in Burma and they were the last to be called back.
DK: Right.
JS: Because they called them the forgotten army out there.
DK: Yeah. So, what was he actually doing in Burma? Do you know?
JS: They were flying the Gurkhas out to the Japanese.
DK: Oh right.
JS: To —
DK: To Burma.
JS: From Burma.
DK: Right.
JS: I’ve got, he’s written a thing in here [pause] It’s a chap that much like you’re doing.
DK: Oh right.
JS: And he, he always had a big [pause] that’s, this is all from the Aircrew Association he belonged to.
DK: Ok.
JS: And it’s the memories.
DK: Can I just have a look at the cover of the book?
JS: Oh yes. You can.
DK: I’m just reading this for the benefit of the recording here. So this is a book here. It’s, “Wings on the Whirlwind.” Compiled and edited by Anne Grimshaw. And it’s by the Northwest Essex and —
JS: Yeah.
DK: East Hertfordshire branch of the Aircrew Association.
JS: Yeah.
DK: Well, I’ve never, never seen a copy of this before.
JS: Haven’t you? No.
DK: So, it’s —
JS: It’s the, it’s the story of all those who were in it.
DK: All the various people who were —
JS: That belonged to it and their —
DK: Right.
JS: Their sort of —
DK: So these are your husband’s pages then is it?
JS: Yes.
DK: So that’s —
JS: It’s alright. I can put it in after.
DK: Is that alright there? So that’s George Smith.
JS: Yes.
DK: And he was a navigator with 357 Squadron.
JS: Yeah.
DK: Ok.
JS: And that is [pause] Yeah. That’s him.
DK: He’s on the end there.
JS: Yeah.
DK: So George Smith. So, I’ll just read this out for the recording.
JS: Yes. Of course. Yes.
DK: If I may. “George Smith was accepted for aircrew in July 1941 and trained as a navigator. He flew Wellingtons at 14 Operational Training Unit and Stirlings at 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit in 1943. In 1944 he was posted to South East Asia Command as a Liberator reinforcement.” So he’s flying the Liberators then. Yeah. “And was with the air arm of 357 Special Duties Squadron of the Special Operations Executive.”
JS: Well, that’s when they were taking the Gurkhas out there.
DK: Right. So he was navigator on Liberators.
JS: Yeah.
DK: Doing, doing some cloak and dagger stuff by the looks of it.
JS: Oh yes. it was. He was —
DK: But it says here he was made to sign the Official Secrets Act.
JS: Yeah. Well, I never knew anything about this for years after we’d been married
DK: Really.
JS: Yeah.
DK: So he never spoke about it to you either.
JS: No. The only time he [coughs] was when he was, he wasn’t very well and he kept on about this dark patch of water and, ‘I can’t see.’
DK: Right.
JS: And I could never make out what it was you know. And I’d say to him afterwards, ‘What? What is this dark patch of water?’ And he said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ And from his pilot who we were in touch with he said, ‘I can tell you about that,’ he said, ‘Because if we went out with George we knew we’d get back home,’ he said, ‘Because he’d have his head down.’ And they didn’t have all the instruments they have now.
DK: Right.
JS: For navigation. I mean it really had to be done and plotted all out. And he said, ‘It was pitch black. We couldn’t have lights on and everything was pitch black,’ he said, ‘And we had to fly very low over this great big expanse of dark water.’ And he said, ‘That’s what he’s talking about.’ he said, ‘Because it would be mile on mile on mile.’ I mean, sometimes they were flying for twenty two hours.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Which is a hell of a long time. And that’s what he got in and he used to keep saying when he went in to the nursing, when he was dying, it all came back.
DK: Right.
JS: And he’d be saying, ‘Get me out of here,’ he said. Or, ‘Tell them to come and get it over and done with,’ because he thought he’d been captured and the Japs had got him. And it was awful. It really was.
DK: So being captured by the Japanese was something that he worried about for a long time.
JS: Well, yes because they used to drop these Gurkhas and he used to say I mean, well I still send a donation to Gurkhas every year because I think they’re marvellous. And he used to say the way we treated them afterwards was appalling.
DK: Yeah.
JS: But he used to say they were young lads that went out there, he said and you knew you were dropping them right into the Japs, where the Japs were, he said and you thought are they going to ever survive? And he said it was, you know really he said and if they were your friend they were your friend for life and they would do anything for you.
DK: Yeah.
JS: He said they were wonderful blokes. But I think it used to get to him. The fact that, you know once they went out of that hatch that was it, you know. Whether with the blessed Japanese. But he was [pause] they were there for quite a long time after a lot were demobbed.
DK: Yeah.
JS: And —
DK: I notice here, in the picture here he’s at Duxford isn’t he? In the 1970s.
JS: Yes.
DK: So —
JS: Yeah. That’s when we went back. That was when Duxford was beginning because he used to go at weekends.
DK: Right.
JS: And that’s when they started rebuilding and cannibalising some of the aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
JS: To make them show. It wasn’t a showplace like it is now.
DK: Yeah. The big —
JS: It was just a hangar with all these bits and pieces in and volunteers like himself. We lived in Bishops Stortford then.
DK: Right.
JS: He used to go over there at weekends and help with it. And now it’s well a great big showplace, isn’t it?
DK: Yeah. So he, is that him with his crew there then? Is it?
JS: Where’s my glasses? I think it is. We’ve got photographs around the house.
DK: Right.
JS: Yeah. That’s him. That’s him there. The second one. That’s the pilot, Geoff.
DK: Right.
JS: And these two are ones that lived. This one. Wally. He’s a farmer in Canada.
DK: Oh right.
JS: And he used to come over about once every three or four years.
DK: So your husband stayed in touch with his crew.
JS: Oh yeah. They all met.
DK: Over the years then. Yeah.
JS: Every three or four years he used to come over from Canada.
DK: Right.
JS: And then they used to have a big meeting.
DK: Right.
JS: And we used to go to —
DK: Can I ask you when he passed away then? Was it —
JS: Eleven years ago.
DK: Eleven years ago. ok.
JS: So —
DK: So he didn’t really talk about what he did much then.
JS: No. There wasn’t anybody to —
DK: No.
JS: He’d talk about the Air Force as such because as I say he immediately belonged to the Aircrew Association. And then before that when we, he was still working he used to help run a cadets for the Air Force.
DK: Right.
JS: Voluntary.
DK: Right.
JS: He used to go and do.
DK: So he actually left the Air Force immediately after the war, did he? With his —
JS: Well, when he was demobbed and came back. Yes.
DK: Yeah.
JS: And then he went as a surveyor but I think he found that a bit dull.
DK: Right.
JS: But you know that’s the way.
DK: And, and yourself. When you left the Land Army what did you do? Do then?
JS: I came back. I went back in to hairdressing.
DK: Oh right.
JS: Until I got married.
DK: So did you actually meet your husband when he was in the Air Force. Or —
JS: No. He’d just come back. He’d just been demobbed.
DK: Right. Right. Ok.
JS: When I met him.
DK: You met after he was demobbed.
JS: And, you know. We met and we were married within [pause] got engaged after a fortnight and then we were married in the two months.
DK: Right.
JS: And I know my dad said, ‘It’ll never last. It won’t last. It’s too soon. They don’t know each other.’
DK: But it did.
JS: But it did.
DK: That’s good to know. So your, just for the recording here so your son in law was in the Air Force as well.
JS: Yes.
DK: And, and he’s retired now, is he?
JS: Oh yeah. About three years ago I think it is now.
DK: And you say he was a navigator.
JS: Yes. He, well engineer.
DK: Right.
JS: Because that’s, I don’t think, they don’t have navigators.
DK: So a flight engineer then.
JS: Yes.
DK: And he was on the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight then.
JS: Yeah. Yeah. He did all the flights. And after my husband died he got permission to take his ashes. And he trained at [pause] oh gosh. Not, what’s the one over that way. The aerodrome.
DK: Coningsby.
JS: Coningsby.
DK: Yeah.
JS: He trained there and there’s a bottom road and you can cut across this farmer’s field to the back of it which when they were late in at night they used to sneak in so that, you know.
DK: Yeah.
JS: They could stay out late.
DK: Yeah.
JS: And he got permission to fly over and drop his ashes on the grounds there. And we were there. And the funny thing was the farmer was in the next field on a tractor and me being in the Land Army just as this came over it was weird. But we go there every year now and there’s a long avenue of trees down it right to the thing.
DK: So his ashes were dropped from the Lancaster then were they?
JS: Yes.
DK: Right. Ok.
JS: And then they did a, like a salute around and came away and then every year now on that date because it was on his birthday that he was buried —
DK: Right.
JS: We go over there. We’ll put some flowers and each tree as we go down, we’re running out of trees now and just then we go out for a meal which, we do that every year.
DK: So for the recording your son in law’s name is?
JS: Ian [Malton]
DK: Ian [Malton] Right. And he has now left the RAF as well then.
JS: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
JS: He still goes there. He runs the shoots there for because there’s lots of rabbits and things on there that are a pest to the aircraft. And they go to the annual dinners and things there at —
DK: Coningsby.
JS: No. Not at Coningsby. He’s not at Coningsby. He’s at [pause] Cranwell.
DK: Cranwell. I see. Right. And how long was he with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight? Do you know? Was it —
JS: For some time because he was up in Scotland at [pause] God my memory.
DK: Don’t worry.
JS: What’s the big one?
DK: Lossiemouth is it?
JS: Lossiemouth.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: And he was there for, they moved up there from Brize Norton.
DK: So was he on the Shackletons then?
JS: Yes.
DK: Oh. Right. Ok. That explains why he then went to the Lancaster then if he was on the Shackletons.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Right.
JS: And he was at Brize Norton. And my daughter was in the RAF as well. That’s how they met. And then he was moved up to Scotland and she didn’t want to go and she said, ‘It’s like, it looks like the end of the world up there. There’s nothing.’ But in the end she didn’t want to leave. She really liked it. And then he was moved back down to Cranwell.
DK: Right.
JS: And then they moved the Memorial thing to [pause] Oh. The other airport. But now they’ve moved it from there now and its elsewhere.
DK: Yeah.
JS: But no, he enjoyed that. He —
DK: So just going, going back to the purpose of the interview was about the Land Army. How do you all these years later look back on your time in the Land Army?
JS: Yes. I wouldn’t want to go back to doing it.
DK: No.
JS: Because, well of course you’re younger then. You’ve got more up and go haven’t you? But it was hard work and it was pretty miserable at times when you were clogged up with mud and it was raining and you were feeling miserable and thinking what am I doing this for? But as they would say, ‘You’re helping to feed the nation.’
DK: Yeah. Do you think that was important then? The —
JS: Not at the time I didn’t [laughs]
DK: No. Do you think you became a better person? You learned something from it or [unclear]
JS: I suppose I must have done.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Yes. And the fact that you were, because I only had one brother, I had no sisters.
DK: Right.
JS: So it was, you know I mean plenty of girlfriends but they, it’s not the same as having, living with somebody is it?
DK: Yeah.
JS: And —
DK: So after the Land Army then you went back home,
JS: Yes. To live at home.
DK: You lived with your parents.
JS: Yes.
DK: And did they notice a change with you at all do you think? Or —
JS: No. I don’t think so.
DK: So you sort of slipped back into that family life.
JS: Into what you were doing. Yes.
DK: Yeah.
JS: Well not like now. As soon as they start work they’ve got a place of their own haven’t they?
DK: Yeah.
JS: Well, then you more or less stayed at home until you got married. You couldn’t afford to have a place of your own anywhere.
DK: Ok then. Well, that’s, that’s marvellous. That’s been very interesting listening to you.
JS: Right.
DK: I’ll end the recording there but thank you very much.
JS: Ok.
DK: I’ll switch that off.
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 Joan Smith
Creator
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David Kavanagh
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-01-11
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASmithJ180111
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:33:53 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Selby
Japan
Burma
Description
An account of the resource
Before the war Joan worked as a hairdresser. At 17 and a half she applied for the Land Army and was interviewed in her home town of Sheffield. Her first posting was to a farm in Fulbeck. She and about fourteen other girls stayed in a hostel with about six in a room. Their board and lodge were paid by the government and they earned about sixteen shillings a week. Some farmers did not think that girls could do the work of a man but eventually they appreciated how hard they worked. Joan remembered a group of Italian prisoners, who were hard working and courteous, working on the farm. There were also some conscientious objectors who Joan refused to work with as they were lazy and foul mouthed and there was a lot of resentment.
The girls started work at about 8.00 o’clock or half past, finishing at about 6.00. During the summer and harvest time they worked longer hours. They would mostly be weeding the fields and thinning out the crops or pulling fruit and vegetables. Joan enjoyed working with the pigs and spoke about the hard work at harvest time. After Fulbeck Joan was moved to Bourn near Selby, Yorkshire, where there was a Bomber Command station. The girls would be invited to the camp dances.
When Joan left the Land Army she went back into hairdressing until she got married. She met her husband, George, just after the war and they married two months later. George had been a navigator with 357 Squadron on B-24 flying Gurkhas from Burma to Japan. When he was demobbed, he worked as a surveyor and later volunteered at Duxford. Their daughter was in the Royal Air Force and married a flight engineer. Joan said that being in the Land Army had been hard work and miserable at times.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Julie Williams
14 OTU
1651 HCU
357 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
Heavy Conversion Unit
home front
love and romance
navigator
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Fulbeck
RAF Riccall
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/481/8364/ABrownlieDL161227.1.mp3
82b7c3d3041f39673a62913053da0909
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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Brownlie, Daphne
Daphne L Brownlie
D L Brownlie
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Brownlie, D
Description
An account of the resource
Thirteen Items. Collection concerns Daphne Brownlie (1922 - 2019, 2055069 Royal Air Force). She served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force at RAF Kinloss in flying control and RAF Stanmore where she worked in the filter room. Her fiancé was shot down and became a prisoner of war. Collection consists of an oral interview and photographs taken in prisoner of war camps.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Daphne Brownlie and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This interview is on the 27th of December 2016 at 14:05 and I’m speaking to Daphne Brownlee at her home in Burgess Hill. I’d like to ask you Daphne, how you started with the RAF.
DB: Well, I was of an age when I was ‒, I could join the armed services and there was a war on, and it seemed the obvious thing to do was to join a service, and I did. I particularly wanted to join the WRENs because my brother was in the Navy and we were very close to each other, and I wanted to be in the same service as he was in, and when I told him ‒, it was the days when the WRENs wore those dreadful hats, and he said, ‘I’m not having a sister of mine looking like a village postwoman’. So I joined the WAAF and no sooner had I joined the WAAF, then the WRENs had those snazzy little hats and I never quite forgave them for that. Er ‒, I did have a few months after I’d actually joined the WAAF, before I was actually called up, and I did a very short course at Derby Technical College, a secretarial course, and at least I learnt to type which has stood me in good stead ever since. Anyway, I was called up and I went to Innsbrook. It was a training centre and when you went there, you had no job or you had no idea what you were going to do. You were interviewed, and talked to, and then you were never asked what you wanted to do, you were told what you were going to do. Slight incident at Innsbrook which might be of interest, one morning we were taught how to salute, which was something that I never really wanted to do, but I did realise one had to do it. When I was coming away, this is on the station itself, there was nothing there except sort of military personnel, and there was this man that’s walking up towards me, and he’s got braid halfway up his arms and all over his hat, and I had no idea what rank he was but I did realise that I had to salute him, and I looked to my right and left and couldn’t find anywhere to divert off the straight and narrow, so we eventually came face to face and I saluted. Well I thought I’d saluted, and he didn’t know what I’d done because I think he would be in trouble today actually, because he took me in his arms and he said, ‘Excuse me, my dear, were you saluting me or wiping the sweat off your brow?’ So that was my first salute, well my first salute. I don’t know there’s anything else actually happened there. The finishing parade was actually taken by the Duke of Kent and that was the first time I’d ever seen a man wear makeup, but that was about the only other thing of note I think. Then I went to, oh ‒, I can’t remember the name of the place, can’t remember the place, but it was where special duties people were sort of sorted out, whether they were going to be going to filter rooms or ops rooms or what they’re going to do, and I was sent straight up to Inverness and worked on ‒, and posted to a place called Kinloss, which was a Bomber Command OTU, where they were training the boys on Whitleys and I worked in flying control there. There was just two of them on watch, our two WAAF. We worked the most extraordinary hours, we went on duty at 8 o’clock in the morning and we’d come off at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. Then we would have twenty-four hours off and we’d go on duty at 5 o’clock in the afternoon and we’d work right the way through to 8 o’clock next morning. When I say work, we were very busy when the planes were taking off and again we were very busy when the planes were returning, but providing there was ‒, everything was straightforward and there was no emergencies, we could more or less put our feet up and, well, I don’t know about sleep but certainly relax for quite a length of time. So it wasn’t really as long as it sounded and where we worked there was the OC night flying, who changed every night, there was a wireless operator who took endless messages from the aircraft, and there was the flight path gang, and the only person who had a kettle was the flight path gang so we all mixed together quite considerably, that’s if you wanted a cup of tea. I don’t know ‒
Interviewer: It’s started again.
DB: We were billeted in a private house, just outside the camp, which was really occupied by WAAF officers. We were working in flying control. We were just half a dozen girls and two on three watches, and we were put in the attic and we weren’t supposed to be there. I mean, we weren’t supposed to make too much noise, we weren’t supposed to put a gramophone on. Well, we were just there and we, you could walk into camp, I mean it wasn’t that far in actual fact, but I don’t know quite how we got there but we all had bicycles which we cycled into camp. And it was a very peculiar station in as much as that the CO was a great one for ‒, well I think he liked to call it discipline, we just called it bull. I mean you had to walk on the right hand side of the road and you had to have your collar ‒, hair off your collar and you had to have your buttons polished, and if they weren’t, you were on a charge, which usually consisted of being marched in front of your CO and saluting and being talked to and goodness knows what. But he had so many people put on a charge, I mean every officer on the camp knew he had to charge anyone who was doing the slightest thing wrong. But we used to have an awkward parade every night rather than go in front of the CO, and I was very off with, on the awkward parade but I once got away with ‒, well I feel I got the better of him. We had [unclear] living quarters actually where I was living, in a Nissan hut on a [unclear] in the garden of a private house but it was still not on camp, but we had big ablution blocks and we had this hut which was all bathrooms, and I came off night duty and I went to have a bath, and there was a notice on the door that said, “the CO’s inspection”. Well it was already about quarter to nine and I thought, the CO is never going to be inspecting anything at quarter to nine in the morning. So I got in my bath and I, of course, I’d only been there about five minutes or something, there was a CO inspection. None of the doors had any locks on them so, and coming down the row of baths I could hear the door being opened, and I mean the sergeant would open the door and sort of he’d say, ‘Sir’, and I mean, I could just see it happen, although it was in my imagination, he would stand back and the CO would march forward and he would look around and say, ‘Yes, that’s OK’ and walk on to the next one. Well, my door was flung open and words, ‘Sir’ and sir stepped forward and there I was ‒
Interviewer: That’s a lovely story. I love that story [laugh]. Did you get involved in anything like amateur dramatics or did you ‒? [unclear]
DB: No, I didn’t. There was nothing like that really going on. Er were, I mean all the WAAF were living on camp and they were drivers and cooks and things. We didn’t really have much to do with them at all. It was just ‒
Interviewer: Any sport? Did you have to do ‒?
DB: Yes, I got involved. That’s another story.
Interviewer: That’ll do [laugh].
Other: My Mum’s quite sporty.
Interviewer: Oh I see. And did they have any dances?
DB: No.
Interviewer: No? Because I know on the main bomber stations, they were quite, you know, they had dances and that sort of thing.
DB: This was an OTU, but as far as the sport was concerned, it wasn’t ‒
[unclear]
Interviewer: What incident?
Other: No, I’ve been wondering about that.
Interviewer: Do you want to talk about it beforehand and then if I think ‒
Other: No. Well, I think I can ask your advice.
Interviewer: OK
Other: I think because of your involvement, I think it’s perfectly all right.
Interviewer: OK
Other: But what it is, the, I don’t know if you remember the Duke of ‒?
Interviewer: Oh yes, the crash in the Liberator. Yes, I remember that.
Other: Mum was rather involved in that.
Interviewer: Oh were you?
Other: In that you reported it as enemy plane, didn’t you?
DB: Well I was ‒, I was working in flight control this particular evening.
Other: Well, don’t go into the details, Mum, because you don’t want to have to repeat it for the tape.
DB: No, that’s right.
Other: I just want to check with Dee whether ‒
DB: [unclear] within the next two days for no reason at all except that they didn’t like my face.
Other: Oh, I don’t think it was because it was that they didn’t like your face. It’s just that they wanted to keep it quiet.
DB: Well, that’s what I’m saying.
Other: And it was kept quiet. So much of that was kept quiet. To this day it’s still kept quiet.
Interviewer: Well, they have, recently on TV, they’ve done a thing about it so I don’t think there’s any reason why you should keep it quiet.
Other: And it’s not as though you were involved in any sort of conspiracy. You were just a player in the story.
Inerviewer: Yes, that’s right.
Other: And I think it’s very interesting and your part of it is interesting.
DB: Yes, yes.
Other: And I have been thinking about that actually, and personally I think, you know, I imagine for you ‒.
[unclear]
Interviewer: Well, at the end of the day I’m just recording your memories. I’m not the person who will try to describe them, but yes, it will be very interesting because it’s something from somebody who was there. So, yes, I would love you to mention the incident.
Other: And your part was very minor.
Interviewer: Yes.
Other: But very interesting.
Interviewer: Yeah, yes, I would agree with Alison, that’s the sort of real nitty gritty thing we wouldn’t normally get except that you were there so no, I’m really happy to hear that one, so right ‒
DB: I didn’t have really have to be trained for because it was the same thing as I had been doing at Kinloss more or less. Anyway, on this particular evening, night flying had finished, and we were all sort of, more or less, dozing off in our seats and I had a call from, oh what’s the er ‒, the Observer Corps, who said that there was a fire on the mountainside which looked a bit like an aeroplane, but they had no advance warning of anything flying and what were they to do? Were they to go up and try and rescue people or was it not a plane? And I said, ‘Well, night flying has finished but I will ask around’. I rang up every aerodrome in our group and no-one had anything flying at all. I rang up the adjoining group and asked them if they had anything that had flown into our area and they hadn’t told me, and they said, ‘No, nothing had been flying at all’. So I rang up the Observer Corps and said, ‘If it is an aeroplane, it’s hostile, ‘cause we had nothing flying whatsoever and so let them burn ‘til morning [laugh]’. Anyway, about an hour later, I had a telephone call from the adjoining group who sort of said, they had actually in fact had had an aeroplane that had flown into our area and they had lost contact with it and they were really rather worried. Could they tell them why I was asking, and so anyway, I told them and they said, ‘Oh dear’. I said, ‘What do you mean ‘Oh dear’?’ And they said, ‘Well the plane that we’ve lost, there was a VIP on board’. I said, ‘Like who?’ and they said, ‘Like the Duke of Kent’. And there I told them to let him burn. Anyway, I didn’t see any point of reporting it to anyone else because it was perfectly straightforward, whoever was on board or not. But about two days later, the warrant officer came along and told me that I didn’t work in flying patrol liaison anymore, and I said, ‘Why? What have I done?’ And I must say that this incident did sort of cross my mind, and he said, well the warrant officer said, ‘I’d been thinking all day what I could tell you and I can only come out with the truth’. And I said, ‘Well there’s nothing wrong in the truth’. He said, ‘Well you might not like it’. I said, ‘Well hard luck’. So he said, ‘Well, the fact is, the wing commander has just been up and he personally chose the girls who worked on flying patrol and he didn’t choose you, and he doesn’t like your face, so I’m afraid you don’t work here anymore’. Which, as time goes by, I do wonder if it was my face that really got me the sack or whether they didn’t like what I’d done about the Duke of Kent. Anyway, ‒. Although I was sacked from that particular job, I was asked, I was told, that I could choose which job I’d like to do in the ops room. The choice was mine and if I’d like a posting, I could have a posting to wherever I wanted. Whether this all went with having an ugly face or not, I don’t know, but I got the job, you know, the transfer, the job that I was interested in, and I said that I didn’t want a posting at that particular moment but about two or three months later, or sometime later anyway, I said that I’d like to go down to Stanmore, and I was there within two days. So it did have some advantages. So that’s how I ended up at Stanmore. And I was not in an ops room, I was in a filter room. Does anyone know what a filter ‒? The difference between an ops room and a filter room was, an ops room, the girls plotted aircraft that were observed by the Observer Corps, and a filter room where plots came down from ‒ not anything anyone had seen, but from radar stations, information from radar stations, and a different station saw aeroplanes in different ways. I mean there were HCL was it? High something aircraft and L, well some saw high and some saw low. Some saw all kinds of different things but that wasn’t my job to ‒, but you got plots on the same aeroplanes from different radar stations, and they had what was known as a filter officer, who worked out exactly how many aeroplanes they were, or she thought they were, and what height they were, and then she put down a big arrow in the direction that it was going, and the height and the number and the identification was given by the controller, who sat on the balcony, and he identified the planes from information that ‒, well, I say I and a good few others gave him. We were known as ‒, oh Christ, movement liaison section, which meant that we had a row of telephones which were incoming phones, and we sat there and we had information from groups and stations and things about anything, any aeroplane that was crossing the coast, and the number, and the height and the time and what-have-you, and we gave this information to the controller, who from our information identified it, and we not only told the controller, we had to tell the Army, whose guns they were going to fly over, and we had to tell the Navy, whose ships they were going to fly over, who never took any notice at all, um. And that was simply, fairly simple with aeroplanes that were going out, but it was a different matter when they were coming home, because you got all kinds of stragglers who might have been ‒, the aeroplane might have been injured or the crew might have been injured or you might even have got aeroplanes on the water, and we had to sort of ‒. I say we, someone had to work out whether it was a plane or a boat or, you know, if it needed Air Sea Rescue. We had to tell everyone that was concerned. But as I say it was quite tricky when they were coming home, not that I had any decisions to make, but I did have people I had to tell if ‒, and I suppose really that was the job I did at Stanmore. We worked six hours on and we had twelve hours off, which meant we worked a little earlier each day and we worked a shift earlier and very occasionally we’d have four shifts. It didn’t happen very often and it never lasted for very long, but it did occasionally happen and in which case we still worked a three shift programme, but one shift had fifty-two hours off and that made it possible for quite a lot of people to actually get home for a night or what-have-you. While ‒, before I came down to Stanmore I was still working at ‒, well I think I was working at Inverness at the time. Ian actually was ‒, did a training for his second lot of ops and he was trained as a pathfinder, and when he was trained he went down as a flight commander to 35 Squadron based at Graveley, and he only did ‒, I honestly can’t tell you how many, but it was sort of five or six ops and he was shot down and was a prisoner of war for ‒, well for a month after the war. I think he went on an unfortunate long march and they didn’t get home just because the war was over. They ‒, well that’s another story really but ‒. So, oh, by now of course, I am engaged. I was engaged before he went back on ops and er ‒, so I waited, I waited two years for him to come home as a PoW and once you’d been home, he had six weeks leave. Oh ‒, lunch is ready [unclear]. I’ll move on to it and there now just after the war we did have a little more time off now and then, I mean, we could get long weekends and things if we didn’t do it too often. And I went down to ‒. Ian still hadn’t come from PoW camp, but his sister was working at a radar station at Beachy Head in Eastbourne and I went down to spend a weekend with her after the war, and I was sleeping in whoever’s bed happened to be on night duty, and this particular night, she was on night duty, so I mean, I didn’t know anyone there and I was just had all night and nothing to do, and they came round to the billet, they said there was some ex-Australian PoWs had just arrived and they were giving a dinner at The Grand Hotel, and if any females liked to come along they’d be very welcome, because the boys hadn’t seen anyone for sometimes years. What’s that? Anyway, so I went along. And first of all, I was seen by a boy who very soon disappeared and never came back and I did say to someone else, ‘I wonder what’s happened to the fellow next door to me’. And they said, ‘Oh, he’s flat out in the Gents’. So he had said to me he just had to go and ring his grandmother up or something. Anyway, so I had this other fellow came and sat next to me and chatted away and he said he’d be very pleased if ‒. He’d never been to England before, he’d be very pleased if I could show him round. And I said, ‘Well there’s a couple of snags there’, I said, ‘One of them is that I’m not from Eastbourne, I’m from London’. ‘London! Oh that’s even better. Far more excited to see London than Eastbourne. After all, I’m dumped in Eastbourne, I can wander round here but I can’t wander round London’. So anyway, he used to come up about two or three times a week and I used to show him round, and on this particular evening, I kept saying, ‘I must go because the last tube’s going home, back to Stanmore’. ‘Oh no, no, no, don’t worry about that. In fact, I’ll put you in a taxi’. And I said, ‘You know it’ll cost ‒ ‘. ‘Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about anything. I’ll just put you in a taxi’. So the time came when he just put me in a taxi and said, ‘Take her to ‒’, and he opened the door and he said, ‘Get out Daphne, I can’t afford that’. [Laugh]. So I said, ‘Well that’s all very well but the last tube’s gone. What am I going to do?’ So he said, ‘Well you’ll have to come back to the billet with me and see what they can do’. I mean, he was an Australian. We went back to his billet, which was a Commonwealth sort of place, and a man on the door was sort of booking people in and out and what-have-you, and Stan said that he had this girl with him who had nowhere to stay for the night, could she stay there? And this man looked me up and down, up and down again, and what-have-you. And he said, ‘Well yes, alright, but you must make arrangements here and now when you are going to see her again tomorrow, because you won’t see her between now and then’. And so we said whatever we said, and I was escorted to this room. The door was unlocked. I was put in there. There were six beds in there. There was no one sleeping in there at all except me, and I was locked in [laugh] and I was unlocked again, I don’t quite know what time in the morning, but was escorted passed all these Australians, all shaving in their underpants and goodness knows what, and I was taken to the loo and the bathroom and I was delivered outside the front door where I was [unclear]‒. Anyway, eventually Ian came home and I did say to Stan ‒, and I mean there was no romance, he knew I was engaged and all the rest of it. I rang up Stan and I said, ‘Ian’s home and so that’s the end of my little escorting duties’, and he said, ‘Oh dear, never mind, thank you very much’. I said, ‘You’ll just have to find yourself another WAAF’, and he said, ‘Yes I will, won’t I?’ So he found himself another WAAF, which happened to be Ian’s sister, and he married her [laugh]. So ‒, but after the war, Ian had quite a lot of cousins and they’d all seen quite a bit of each other during their childhood, and they were all quite friendly, and they used to get together occasionally and have the odd party, and they all got together and were dashing away about their childhoods, and Stan and I used to get in a corner and natter away about our showing around London [laugh], but that was a coincidence. Sorry ‒, I had this aunt who lived in Lowndes Square and ran a restaurant. When I was at Stanmore I used to go there quite often, ‘cause I used to get fed, get cigarettes and whisky and goodness knows what. It was always well worth making the effort, not to mention the ten-bob note that I usually had shoved in my hand as I left. Anyway, Aunty Vi had this helper, Jack, who actually we used to have him for Christmas after the war because he was in a home nearby where we lived, and well, he’d been so good to me during the war. But my aunt had been on the stage and apparently, although I didn’t know it at the time but Jack and she used to play sort of fisticuffs when they couldn’t agree about something. Anyway, one day Jack said to me, ‘Put your hands up’, and I put my hands up and he put his hands up, and I didn’t know he was joking but I didn’t really think he was going to lay me out or anything, but anyway I saw an opportunity and thrust my, threw my right hand forward and fist closed, and Jack took a step backwards to avoid my thing and hit his head on the door and passed straight out, and was just crumpled unconscious thing on the floor, and when he came round he said, ‘Do you know what you’ve just done?’ And I said, ‘well, I just laid you out. I’m very sorry about that’. He said, ‘No,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean that’. He said, ‘You just laid out the medium weight championship of the Navy’ [laugh]. Champion of the Navy. So you want to watch my right fist [laugh].
Interviewer: Then you got married?
DB: It was a great anti-climax actually the end of the war, because I thought for years, Ian would be home and that would be that and everything would be fun. Anyway, it was a month later before he actually managed to get home, and because I was engaged to an ex-PoW, I was entitled to a week’s leave, which I took, but if I’d been married, I could have had six weeks leave. So, although I was in London and Ian’s parents were living in London and he was returned to London, we got married in Derbyshire six days later and I got my six weeks leave [laugh] and I was discharged from Stanmore. That was my last job and then, believe it or not, having been abroad for over two years, his first posting was overseas and he was away for another two years, and I was not allowed ‒, I mean I didn’t have enough points or anything to go with him or anything so I had my first child when Ian was abroad and I had my second child when was also abroad, but I can’t quite think ‒
Other: Palestine, Palestine.
DB: Oh, was it the Berlin Airlift, was it?
Other: When I was born, I think he was in Palestine. Berlin airlift maybe Hamish, and Palestine me, I think. Carry on.
DB: I can’t think where Ian was when I had my second child but he was also abroad. Er ‒, yes, so we had ‒, we were married for sixty-seven years before he died, which I’ve never forgiven him for actually. But we did have a lot of partings, we had a lot of partings, and they weren’t just for a week here or there, and you know they were for a year or two here and there. I think the most frustrating perhaps one was when he was on the Berlin airlift. They were only attached there. No one was ‒. I think they were only attached really because they couldn’t cope with any wives there. It was, I think it was ‒, well, how we ever won the Berlin airlift I don’t know but anyway, Harrogate was full of wives whose husbands were on the airlift, and I mean, we had nothing to do all day except look after our children and go out to coffee and things, and we’d go out to coffee and because there was nothing to go home for, perhaps we wouldn’t go home, perhaps we’d sort of stay the night, but because the boys were already attached in Berlin, they never knew when they were coming home. I mean their aeroplanes had to come home to be serviced, because they were only attached and someone had to fly them home. So that’s when the boys would come over for two or three days, but sometimes they’d go home and the house would be empty, and of course their wives perhaps have been out to coffee two days beforehand and still hadn’t come home [laugh]. Oh yes, and I do remember, Alison, I was trying to get you christened and I never knew when Ian’d be home. I mean the vicar was very understanding and said he was quite willing to do everything at short notice, but he did want a bit of notice and ‒, well one minute they weren’t there and the next minute they were at the door. But you were just a baby. Our landlord lived in the bottom flat and we lived in the next flat. I was alone with these two children and the landlord, he’d had TV I think and he didn’t go out to work, but his wife did. He used to spend all day at home and he was very, very, tall and my young son was not over tall, and when Hamish (that’s my son) put his hand up and Mr - whatever his name, put his hand down, they didn’t meet. But they used to spend an awful lot of time together and when his wife used to come home in the evening, she used to say, ‘You’ll never guess what those two have been up to today’. [Laugh] and they were very friendly, this little short one and this very tall one. When we, Ian was posted to Egypt, the married quarters were very difficult to come by and they had a system, whereas while you were waiting for a married quarter, you moved into a flat, in my case, Arasheia, and you bought the furniture and everything, and you lived there until you qualified for a married quarter but while we were there, the troubles broke out. This was 19‒, early 1950s I think, and I don’t know quite ‒, so we lived in this town. It wasn’t anywhere near the airfield where Ian worked, but he used to have to get up in the very early hours of the morning and leave and just came back at weekends. Anyway he came back this particular weekend and said, ‘Don’t let Hamish go to school in the morning, or Monday morning, because we’re expecting troubles from the Egyptians’. Now, I used to have a girl who came and helped me with the children. What help I needed I don’t know, but she came in and she said, ‘Where’s Hamish?’ So I said ‒. No, she said, ‘What’s Hamish doing at home?’ And I said, ‘Well I’m not sending him to school because they’re expecting troubles’. ‘Oh, what a lot of nonsense’, she said and she got hold of him by the collar and took him, and put him on the school bus and that was that. The next day she came in and she said, ‘What’s Hamish doing at home?’ So I said, ‘Well, why shouldn’t he be at home?’ ‘ Because we’re expecting the trouble and I’ll just go and rescue him off the bus’. Which she did. Which she did. Anyway, the wing commander’s wife came along and said was I going to the NAAFI, and I thought, ‘Well the wing commander’s wife, perhaps she knows more than I do and more than a local girl does’, so I says, ‘I’ll go to the NAAFI with you’. And I left the two children in the flat with this Egyptian girl. Anyway all was well while we did our shopping, but on our return journey there was a whole mob at the top of the street, all sort of shouting and screaming and going on, and so we hurried home. I wouldn’t say we ran but we increased our speed a little, got to the flat (we were living on the fourth floor), I went up there and the flat was empty. There was no Egyptian girl looking after my two children and in fact, the two children, they were all missing, and I had a look round here, there and everywhere and along the corridor and what-have-you, and in the end, I went up onto the flat roof, and by this time the mob were surrounding the base of the flat. I can’t remember now if they were chucking something up or whether they weren’t, but it was a long chuck, but the flat roof of the flat was covered in broken stones and what-have-you, and this girl and the two children were carrying these stones to the edge of the flat and letting them fly down on the mob [laugh]. And anyway, I got them down to the flat and, having got them there and settled down, and Hamish said, ‘I’ve left Jimmy on the flat’. Now Jimmy was his chameleon, and I don’t know if you know anything about chameleons, but of course they just fade into the background, and there were we, on this flat roof, with the odd missile coming up, and looking for Jimmy, who had faded into the background, faded into the stone background [laugh]. Anyway, we found him in the end and all was well, but then I was left and they were expecting trouble down in Suez, and Ian was down in Suez helping evacuate all the families, and no one expected any trouble in Arasheia, where it all happened and anyway, he didn’t get home for a week, and I wasn’t allowed to go out without an armed escort, so life was really quite a bit difficult. I was having to borrow people’s husbands with guns to take me shopping. And then after a week, the RAF evacuated us. We went into a canal captain’s house, who was on holiday, which was quite nice because we were right by the canal. We waited there until we got a married quarter, which we did. They’d just built these married quarters and we thought we were jolly lucky to get one, but we were just shown into this married quarter and they said, ‘There you are’. Every saucepan was wrapped up in greasy paper and the grease was stuck to everything. We had to put the beds together. We just had to do everything. That was a bit of an ordeal as well but at least we were on camp and we did manage to stay there for about two and a half years, not that particular camp, we were moved around but at least we were in married quarters.
[unclear]
DB: My husband really didn’t talk much about the war. You had to sort of ask him questions if ‒, he’d never bring the subject up. Anyway, one day when we were living down in Salcombe, he had a letter that had been forwarded to him from Air Ministry, and this was from a boy who had lived in Denmark, and this boy had been very interested in British medals, and shortly beforehand he’d bought a DFM with a log book. When he read the log book, the last entry was all about being shot down almost in his own back garden and so, of course, he got particularly interested and he did a little bit of research into this aeroplane, and he discovered that everyone in the aeroplane had been killed except two of them, and Ian was the only one left who was sort of still contactable and that was because he was still in the Air Force. And anyway this letter from this Dane had been written to Ian and sent to the Air Force, and the Air Force had forwarded it on to him. Anyway, as a result of this letter, he came to see us for a weekend and asked us back to Denmark, whereupon Ian was shown the tree where he had landed. He landed in a forest and he was very cross because his parachute got stuck in a tree and he couldn’t bring it down and sort of bury it like he was supposed to. Anyway, this man in his research, he’d gone into really a lot of detail and he said to Ian ‒ , well I was with him, ‘Follow me’, and we went along through the wood, and we came to a collection of little buildings, and this man pointed a door out to Ian and said, ‘Go and knock on that door’, which Ian did, and he was told that was the door he knocked on after he’d been shot down, and during that visit, Ian met a girl who had been working as a maid in the house and she’d been ordered to make a coffee. I mean he was shot down on his way out to Berlin, not on his way back, so it was comparatively early in the evening. She was told to make him a coffee but she wasn’t allowed to bring it through, and she was saying she’d left the door open a crack so that she was looking through the crack at him and, you know, she was absolutely terrified. I suppose it would be about midnight or something. Well, she was just terrified. He also met ‒, as the war went on, they had taken the parachute down, the Danes had, and hidden it. Towards the end of the war, when it was obvious who was going to win, they took the parachute out and he met a lady who was confirmed in a dress made out of his parachute. He went round a building where he was taken when he was first captured, and they wanted to know which room he was interrogated in and he didn’t know. He just knew it was a corner room and it was now what do you call them? The place you go to before you wait for your trial. Oh, I can’t remember what it’s called. Anyway, he went round the three corners and they said, ‘It must have been in this fourth corner then’. And Ian said, ‘Well I don’t think I’d recognise it’. Anyway, much to his surprise, the warden knocked on the door and waited until he was invited in and these ‒, not prisoners, what do you call them? Oh God, I can’t think what you’d call them. Anyway, he was invited in and he said these (I’ll call them prisoners for want of a better word) were told that Ian was there at one time, and they said, ‘Did you get away with whatever you’d done?’ and Ian said, ‘No, I was captured for two years’. And they said, ‘Oh good gracious me, I hope that doesn’t happen to us’. Anyway, it seemed ‒, remand home, that’s it, remand home, it seemed very slack to me for a remand home, but then we were taken down into the dungeons and we were shown the bed where the prisoners could be sort of tied down and tortured and goodness knows what, so perhaps it wasn’t quite so ‒. Anyway, about two or three years later we were invited by the mayor of somewhere or other [unclear], to go to a dedication of a stone to the aeroplane. Where the aeroplane had actually landed, at this farmhouse, they had found quite a large piece of granite which they had pushed down to where the plane landed, and it was dedicated to the aircraft and they had quite a ‒, oh, processions and religious dedications and goodness knows what, all to this aeroplane, which I thought was a really nice gesture, and the granddaughter, I don’t know if she was even born at that particular time, but anyway I got in contact with her. She used to translate letters from her mother to me at Christmas and things like that. There was a time when she used to come to England every other year, and she always used to come and see us while she was over here. That was ‒. I don’t think I’ve seen her for the last four or five years actually, but she’s then, she’s had twins since then and I think she’s got other things to do than visit here, there, and everywhere. Anyway, I think that was jolly nice of the Danes and I still ‒. I’ve just had a card from Henry and Henrietta, which is the name of the couple who ‒. Oh, and Ian was asked over on one occasion, he was a schoolteacher, to go to the school and give the school various classes, a lecture, and everything, which was very interesting, but well that’s another sort of thing really, just to see the difference in schools.
Other: The Danes wrote a book.
DB: Oh yes, and this Henry, he did in fact actually get interested in aeroplanes which landed round about Denmark, and he ended up by writing a book, about half a dozen of them, but it is in Danish and somewhere in the house there is a book, I don’t know where, and it doesn’t really mean anything if I found it. I’m talking about an ops room clock now and you’ll find that it’s divided into various colours which were ‒. Sorry, I’m just checking on the clock. I wish I had one. It was red, yellow and then blue, and the plotters, when they were putting down their plot, they looked at the clock and, if the big hand, when the red hand was say red, they’d use red disks, and as soon as the hand moved onto yellow, they’d then use the yellow disks, and when it came round to red again, all the previous reds were removed so you never had anything on the clock on the table that was more than fifteen minutes old.
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Title
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Daphne Brownlie Interview
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Denise Boneham
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-12-27
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Sound
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ABrownlieDL161227
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Description
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Daphne Brownlee joined the Royal Air Force and joined a Bomber Command Operational Training Unit at Kinloss, and worked in Flying Control.
She tells of the hours she and her colleagues worked and also what life was like on the base, including her first salute and her experience with the Commanding Officer’s inspection.
Daphne tells of an incident concerning the aircraft crash of a Liberator containing the Duke of Kent and how the Observer Corps first reported it to her, and her dealings with other Air Groups.
Daphne was then posted to Stanmore where she worked in the Filter Room, where she worked with information received from Radar Stations, where information concerning aircraft was collated.
She tells of her time in London, showing ex-Prisoners of War round London, her reunion with her future husband and how she knocked out a medium weight champion of the Navy.
Daphne was also in Egypt, at Arasheia, and relates her experiences during the troubles there
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Vivienne Tincombe
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01:02:00 audio recording
B-24
control tower
ground personnel
RAF Bentley Priory
RAF Kinloss
Whitley
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1109/11598/ASampsonJ150821.1.mp3
3a9de23e844b76ca7db04b57a6757550
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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Sampson, James
J Sampson
Description
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An oral history interview with James Sampson DFC ( -2018, 134703, 1321810, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 102 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-21
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.
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Sampson, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JS: That one. Right. Let’s have a —
DB: That’s wonderful so far. Loving it so far. Because I can’t speak you’ll find my face is —
JS: Yes.
DB: Going up and down —
JS: Which one is on?
DB: Just press this one again.
JS: Press engage.
DB: And it should restart it.
JS: So come back to that. This will be getting cold.
DB: No. No. No. That’s —
JS: Is yours alright?
DB: Yeah. I’ve been, I’ve been able to drink while you’ve been talking but —
JS: Yes. That was a hell of a coincidence.
DB: A very very big coincidence.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So he was the pilot.
JS: Bill.
DB: Yes.
JS: But he was a sergeant.
DB: No, that’s fine. If you, when you restart it if you could mention that at some point.
JS: Oh, yes. Yes.
DB: So, but, because [pause] that would be wonderful. Actually, while, while you’ve got it switched off —
[pause]
DB: It does help if you take the cap off.
JS: Oh, yes. Yes. Don’t mean a thing if you don’t pull the string as they used to say.
DB: That’s right. The trouble with this lens is it’s quite big.
[pause]
DB: That’s lovely [camera shutter click] don’t play me up. Got that [camera shutter click] That’s lovely. I like to take photographs of my veterans as I call them. Take one of you and Joy together later as well. But it’s lovely with the clock just ticking in the background as well. It’s really, it’s really quite old fashioned and nice.
JS: Yes.
DB: So —
JS: Don’t be surprised if a fox suddenly appears out here or a muntjac deer.
DB: Oh. Oh, I like muntjac. Yeah.
JS: We had one in the garden yesterday.
DB: I live, I live on the edge of a training area just, just outside Thetford.
JS: Oh, my grandson used to go there regularly.
DB: Yeah.
JS: his picture’s over there. He was a captain in the Welsh Guards.
DB: Oh. Right. Okay. Well, basically we get muntjac, we get fallow.
JS: Yes. You would do there wouldn’t you?
DB: I’m sure we get foxes as well. Not that I’ve seen one. But I’ve seen a badger and I’ve seen stoats.
JS: My son in law was standing looking out of the window not more than about four weeks ago and he said, ‘My God.’ A fox leapt out and grabbed a rabbit.
DB: Oh. Yes.
JS: Yes.
DB: Yeah. We caught, well, my dog quite often finds dead rabbits which I think must be foxes or badgers. So I can understand what you’re saying but yeah it’s lovely and quiet out here.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So, but —
JS: Let’s go on shall we?
DB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
JS: I’ve lost my track.
DB: That’s alright. Take your time. Have a think about it and then —
JS: One day [pause] I’ll show you something. This is a lot of development work that I did on radar.
DB: Oh right. Okay.
JS: You know the principle of radar?
DB: Yeah. My, my dad was an air trafficker.
JS: Was he?
DB: Yeah.
JS: Yeah.
DB: In the air force so I know —
JS: They had a cupola under the aircraft.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Which sent out signals and they bounced back and you got a reflection.
DB: Yes.
JS: If they landed over water they kept on going. If they hit land —
DB: It would, it would bounce back up to you.
JS: We went, I shall come to it shortly. We went out one night —
DB: Yeah.
JS: This is Oslo. Look, there’s the Oslo fjord there.
DB: Oh right. Okay.
JS: Oslo’s there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: That is the [Horton] Narrows which are a bit further down and we laid mines there.
DB: Oh, you did some vegetable sowing did you?
JS: We did. Yeah. That’s right. Yes. Narcissus and daffodils. And apparently we bottled up troopships with twenty six thousand German soldiers.
DB: Wonderful.
JS: Who were going down to the, meet the boys coming up from Normandy.
DB: Oh, well you’ll have to mention that one when, at some point.
JS: Yes. Well, that’s the sort of work that I did. Which —
DB: Yeah.
JS: Gus Walker kept me back for.
DB: Oh wonderful.
JS: What we did was I’d, luckily I had a team. There was a warrant officer who couldn’t fly any more who was quite knowledgeable and the sergeant who ran the photo section. And I wanted to be able to demonstrate to new crews the new equipment. H2S as it was called.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard of it.
JS: And so eventually what we did was we had the screen there and we got a frame.
DB: Yeah.
JS: That fitted and we had a little Brownie camera on the end of it there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And we got the right focal depth, distance there and when you got wherever you wanted to take pictures you just swung it around and it clipped on. This is all our thinking did this and you, the light time took to go around it was, twice round was the exposure time.
DB: Right.
JS: It went dunk dunk and we got these photographs so not only were we able to tell whether they’d been there and done the job.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But also we used this for the aiming point.
DB: Yes.
JS: What we didn’t, if you look at the middle where it comes down.
DB: Yes.
JS: You get a concentration of signal there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And it gradually thins out as you come around there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: So, in the middle that’s where the aeroplane is. There.
DB: Right.
JS: In the middle.
DB: Yeah.
JS: That’s the distance ring.
DB: Yeah.
JS: That’s the bearing.
DB: Yeah.
JS: You turn that around and —
DB: Yeah.
JS: So what we used to do was in the middle like this it’s very difficult to see exactly in the mush there where the middle is.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: That’s not. It’s more like that there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: So you couldn’t be totally accurate so what we used to do we used to take a bearing in the distance from another point.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And fly the screen up there.
DB: So you’d triangulate.
JS: Well, yes but if we wanted to lay a mine there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: We had a headland that stuck out like that.
DB: Oh right. Okay.
JS: Instead of flying there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: The navigator was able to, ‘Left. Left. Right. Right.’ and fly a bearing in the distance which he set up before he took off.
DB: Yeah.
JS: When I look at that piece of land and it‘s at a certain angle and a certain distance away from me I’m there.
DB: That’s, that’s very clever.
JS: So we did that.
DB: Very clever
JS: I’ll show you that later. Anyway —
DB: Yeah. Well, that’s lovely. They’ll be really interested in what you just said there because that’s really unusual. That’s not the sort of thing that people talk about so —
JS: Well, no, it’s, it’s the work we did quietly just the three of us. We actually then developed a radar trainer for the chaps so that they weren’t very good on, look if you tried to find out the detail of which town is which there and which piece —
DB: Yeah.
JS: Of the town it is it’s a mess because this was very elementary equipment.
DB: No. That’s really, that’s really interesting that is.
JS: So, we had a link trainer for the pilots. Remember the old link?
DB: Yes, I’ve seen the link trainer at —
JS: We had one for the navigators where we actually had a crab that used to crawl across and so they could, and then we used to make a plate with the coastline and what, what they might expect to see based on what we’d already found out and so on. So that the, it appeared exactly the same on the screen over this tank of water.
DB: Yeah.
JS: With some sand in it.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Which sank to the bottom that it would when they got and saw the actual thing.
DB: Oh wow. Oh yes. You must tell them about, about what you did with that.
JS: Yes.
DB: Because that’s very unusual. That’s very unusual stuff.
JS: So —
DB: But —
JS: We ought to, let’s have a look at the notes here [pause] Yes. Because I haven’t said, I should go back and say a bit more about the lead up to the joining. I could do that later.
DB: Yes. Perhaps, use it as a, like a, almost like a conclusion. But —
JS: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[pause]
JS: Yeah. I haven’t said anything about weather, have I?
DB: You started to talk about it but you didn’t, you didn’t finish off talking about it.
JS: Can I play that bit again back then? Just that last bit.
DB: Let’s, let’s see if we can. Let’s see if we can play it back.
JS: When I asked you if you were a vegetarian?
DB: I’m just trying to remember how to —
[recording paused]
JS: I think we should say a bit more about the weather because it was so vital to the whole of the operation and people will have a good idea what I’m talking about because they look at their television every day, two or three times a day and they can see the kinds of charts and things that are produced. Particularly the ones with the biometric pressures shown on them and they can see the, where the low pressures tend to be more accurate than the high pressure systems and therefore the wind speeds are very much different as well. If you want an extreme look at a cyclone or a tornado they are acute low pressure systems. If you want to think about high pressure systems look at when you are getting five days or six days of sunshine, virtually no wind at all and you’ll know that’s a high pressure system. And so they tend to match each other out of the way. If they come from the northeast they’re usually pretty cold and, and, and sometimes damp. If they come from the northeast from Scandinavia or Russia they are usually damp, cold and dry and the reverse is true with the southwest and the southeast. So you can see the difference it made to us. I mean coming back from trips what was the weather going to be like? Were we going to be able to get in at base? Had we got enough petrol left in the event we were shunted off somewhere else? All these things came into play and particularly so in the case of when the Germans were pushing in the Ardennes with the Battle of the Bulge. It was foggy all over Europe so we couldn’t possibly operate satisfactorily. But fortunately, at Carnaby in the northeast and in Suffolk at Woodbridge we had two lame duck aerodromes where they could land God knows how many aircraft because it was about five aircraft wide and several miles long with overshoots and undershoots. They’d landed them there and they also had the fog dispersal apparatus there. FIDO. Like a row of giant Bunsen burners to lift the fog up high enough to get underneath it. So it wasn’t impossible to overcome it but for the ordinary chap coming in fog could be a hazard as it was the day we ploughed up the potato field landing at the wrong end of the runway when it clamped down. But people should understand the effects of wind. They should understand the effects of, of the whole weather system indeed because in truth our meteorological officers didn’t have a great deal at their disposal to forecast themselves. So we found out when we took off and sailed in to it. Wind, wind speed could vary enormously and with height because it moves faster up there than it does down on the ground. The most I’ve ever had was one night we were flying on a particular mine laying operation and we climbed above a dreadful cold front whereas the other four or five aircraft came below it and had lightning dancing all over the props for ages. And we had new engines on the Halifax at the time and up we went to twenty four thousand five hundred when we came out at the top and coming home it was like coming down Everest, you know. It was a giant white sheet in front of us of cloud and the windspeed believe it or not was a hundred and forty knots. We got home in record time. We were down, debriefed, had our meal, had a bath and gone to bed before the next aeroplane got back but it was also minus fifty five degrees centigrade. People don’t realise that the air temperature depreciates by an average of two degrees centigrade per thousand feet. So if you’re up at nearly twenty five thousand feet and it’s minus fifty centigrade less than it was on the ground when you took off and it was damned cold when we took off so, and there’s no heating in the aircraft. The rear gunner had an electrically operated suit but the rest of us shared a so-called hot air pipe that was, I mean our aircraft were only a thin skin of of aluminium or the like and acted like a refrigerator on the [unclear] without what was going on outside. So life could be pretty uncomfortable sitting there trying to use a pen and, a pen and pencil and various little instruments that required a rather delicate touch. And even now, today I can’t touch anything hot because the skin started coming off my fingers. However, the weather really and the weather systems are really a study all on their account but it was part of our training and part of our safety device that we should know all about it. There was another night and I think it was the night of the Nuremberg raid when losses were pretty high several of us who had the advantage of H2S we only had one flight out of three on our squadron that was equipped with it for a long time. Some squadrons had nothing at all. It was because we had that one flight that we got most of the mine laying operations but this particular night we were asked, the navigators who had the advantage of that to send, as they crossed the enemy coast back the wind speed and directions that they were finding. I think I sent back a windspeed of about ninety seven and it was a little bit more than that even but a lot of chaps were finding, saying, ‘Christ, I’ve gone wrong here somewhere. It can’t possibly be.’ And it ended up with a lot of Bomber Command losses because aircraft who received that information and used it were blown, I’m sad to say miles and miles and miles off to the portside and down into Europe and ran out of petrol. They must have done. There again we’ve said that the weather is really a subject on its own when of course so is radar. We were lucky at Pocklington when I arrived because the flight that my pilot was in command of as from arrival at Pocklington were equipped with H2S so I was learnt to use it willy nilly and was grateful to get it because every time we crossed the coast it was like reading a map sat there in front of me. It didn’t help you much once you got in line, in land because the definition as you’ll see from those pictures there isn’t all that wonderful. You know there’s a town there but it’s difficult to pick up the information you required to bomb accurately with it. I mean, now it’s so different. I came back from one of my journeys to the east and the pilot knew that I had been flying during the war with Bomber Command as he had, and he called me up and sat me down in the third pilot’s seat and he showed me their radar when we were leaving Cairo Airport. He was able to point and say, ‘That is the toe of Italy.’ He could see that the range was that good. Our ranges were nothing like that whatsoever and the definition certainly wasn’t so you could see they never really needed navigators on commercial airlines as we badly needed them in Bomber Command. We didn’t say as much as we should have done I think possibly about the efforts of Bomber Command in the early days of the war. We mentioned that they didn’t do very well because sadly they, they didn’t have the means of doing anything else. The poor old air observer. What could you see on the ground at night which he was trained to do because he was only a very elementary navigator but a very good map reader. If you can’t see anything you can’t map read. One of the, one of the most well known was, oh what was the name of that fellow who did, “The Sky at Night.”? Moore. He was an air observer and pretty proud of it too and always said he was an air observer and stuck to his old brevet with the circle and the O but the facts were that Bomber Command needed good navigators and in fact the whole trip was really a navigational exercise. They were all, everyone was a part of that operation in a sense but Bomber Command were landing bombs and decoys at the Germans in fields and never never it seems on the actual target and they had a script put under them that said, ‘Either you do better or you won't exist.’ And that's when we go back to the formation of the courses for straight navigators. Which even so it was very difficult to find a navigator on any one of the squadrons who was, got any higher than a flight lieutenant. I think now if you look you find one or two who reached the dizzy heights of perhaps a wing commander or a group captain. But of course, the pilots themselves are coming under attack now because we've got drones and other means of flying aeroplanes that don't require them. They fly a desk as they call it now. Sit there and twiddle knobs.
[pause]
We’ve done, we’ve dealt with Met. We dealt with the question of when the penny dropped in London to that they put paid to the, and I suppose now what we should really do is to talk about one or two things in particular. Pocklington. 102 Squadron. Because we had that H2S tended to land most of the mining laying operations. Now, the Halifax could cope with that. The Halifax wasn't designed as a bomber. The Halifax was designed as a transport and converted. The Lancaster was designed as a bomber and therefore built if you like around a damn great bomb bay where they could get really big ones in. We couldn't. But we could get four sea mines in if they gently wound up, not hydraulically raise the bomb doors because they didn't quite close. So we could take four sea mines and with that equipment, the H2S we tended to get most of the mine laying jobs which were all very well in their way but they were a bit lonely. They often took place when no one else in Bomber Command was flying because the weather wasn't good, the moon was up or whatever so you must have appeared on German radar as big blips. And we did three in particular. We did a trip to Oslo where we mined the entrance at [Horton] to the Oslo fjord and bottled up troop ships. We did one which was quite a trip to block up the Kiel Canal at the Hamburg end at Brunsbüttel which I know well because my career in shipping afterwards took me across to Hamburg quite regularly. But we laid mines across there and there were only the four of us on the, on the trip. We took mines and we took some bombs and the idea was that the mines would disappear in the water. No one would know about those but if the mines did go a bit astray because it was a very small target they were being aimed at and we had some bombs on the Germans might think this is a bombing raid rather than a mine laying raid. But apparently we did get one or two in between us. Actually, I’ll always remember that trip because the curtains parted when we were on the approach and the startled face of my bomb aimer said, ‘A Focke Wulf 190 missed us by that much.’ And we think he had been vectored on to us and we were in cloud. When we came out he came out but we were gone and so was he. He'd never be able to turn and get back at us. We reckon that was probably a narrow squeak. And then on another night we went down to Bordeaux and we mined the river and blocked in four German destroyers down there. So, you know minelaying was quite an operation and apparently a lot of ships were sunk in the Baltic because there was a big trade. The Germans with their ball bearings from Sweden for example. Mind you we had ball bearings from Denmark. My company was involved in running ball bearings from Denmark in a couple of fast torpedo boats and I talked to the captains about it. They sort of came out of harbour in the dead of night and at some enormous speed, belted their way across back home with the ball bearings. So there was that one but we did many many others and always felt quite lonely doing it. But apparently, we did them to the Navy’s satisfaction because as you know because you mentioned it the narcissus and daffodils and that was why we called it gardening. Not mine laying. It was always we were going gardening. So we're really coming to the point where we might discuss or look back perhaps more than anything. I will always remember Bomber Command came in for a hell of a lot of criticism and most of it totally unfairly. We were given the job to do by Churchill and the job was done most satisfactorily and if you read Albert Speer's book you'll see that he confesses in there that in the early days he could just about cope with the damage being caused to industry in Germany but latterly he didn't have a hope in hell of, despite what he did going into the mountains and caves and things of keeping up. It was a losing battle. You've had comments from Eisenhower, Montgomery, General Alexander, saying, ‘Thank you, Bomber Command for the tremendous cooperation we received from you.’ The Navy. We’d laid all those mines at the request of the Navy and it's clear from the records now that the Bomber Command sunk more German capital ships and submarines than the Royal Navy. Not disparaging the Navy's efforts in the North Atlantic which were marvellous but simply because we could get at them where they were gone in for supplies, where they had gone in for repairs, where they were being built, didn’t let them get off the stock and apparently we sunk a tremendous amount of shipping at the same time. So, you know, Bomber Command wasn't just a sweet face it was doing a hell of a job and that Dresden business was a debacle. Poor old Churchill came back with an earful of Stalin who wanted Dresden because Dresden, he was advancing from the east as much as we may have disliked it. But Dresden was being used as a giant marshalling yard. You also had people like Zeiss. Volkswagen had a place or there was a motor car industry there. So it was a legitimate target. But Churchill had come back and said to Harris, do Dresden. But the Americans did it the day before. The RAF did it at night and did it again after. So it wasn't just Bomber Command. So it was most unfair. But looking back well I was lucky I supposed to come out of it. I had moments. I was in three total write offs. When Bomber Command days finished or the war in Europe finished I was crewed up with the squadron commander to go and do another tour. But it meant that we were automatically on call to go to the Far East when the war in Europe finished. And that wasn't a very pleasant thought because the Japanese tended to chop your head off if you were an airman and caught. But fortunately, two atom bombs later and that finished as well. But in the meantime we had been posted from Pocklington to Bassingbourn where we became 53 Squadron. We converted to Liberators because they were a longer range and we were going trooping. They sealed up the bomb bays and put seats in there for soldiers. And it was on one of those trips landing at Tripoli in North Africa which was the first staging post. The wind caught us as we came in. The Liberator had, didn't have the strutted undercarriage we had like a fighter. It was just one big oleo leg and the starboard one hit the end of the runway which was about that much concrete and tore it up. So we careered along on one wheel until we lost speed and went around and around like a Catherine Wheel but we managed all of us to walk away from that one. I had the one where I explained we finished up in a potato field landing at the wrong end of Pocklington runway and we had another one where we did, the only time Bomber Command did a daylight raid we went to Homberg. It was basically 4 Group that did it and the flak was enormous. It was like a carpet of black. And when we got back it was dusk when we landed. Usual drill. Wireless operator went down to one of the side windows underneath the wing. ‘Yes skipper, the undercarriage is down.’ ‘Okay. Thanks.’ In we came and of course you know we still did the old three point landing. Not like the American tricycle undercarriage which was much better and we held off and held off and held off. We thought, God we've got to touchdown soon. And when we touched down it was on the hub caps. On the hubs. We’d had our tyres all shot away, both of them so we had nothing to land on and it was like having a pneumatic drill up your earpiece and we swung off the runway and eventually ploughed up and finished there so we walked away from that one. So having walked away from three write offs you know one shouldn't tempt Providence I would think. I think one or two other things I could go on to talk about but coincidences, yes. Yes, I was coming off a train at Kings Cross Station on the Metropolitan Line walking up the stairs and who should I come face to face with passing a corner but my old pilot, Squadron Leader [Gutcher] who was going home from his boring job in Air Ministry. Fortunately, it was right outside the door of a little bar so we went in there and and talked about old times but I don't think he was treated as well as he should have been with his record anyway.
DB: Perhaps you could tell me a little bit about the other characters in your crew.
JS: The other characters. Oh yes, there was, well as I said there was Bill Barlow, a big shambling man who was a ballroom dancing champion in his spare time strangely enough who really was a lovely man but was killed on that one trip that he did. The, Alan Gaye the pilot we finished with he and I corresponded. He lived in Brisbane in Australia. Very dour sort of a fellow but a very honourable gentleman. My wireless operator was absolutely the personification of Mr Barraclough in “Porridge.” He was determined because you know before the war we were coming through a most dreadful recession and life was pretty rotten for most people and jobs were hard to get. I left school with a school certificate which was a bit unusual in those days as there weren't very many of them around and took from July to October before I found a job and I joined a firm called the Ellerman Line. They were a gigantic shipping group with about eight companies in the group and was lucky to get a job there on a pound a week. When you think about it a pound a week and they said to me, ‘And Sampson each year you will get an increase of five shillings a week. So when you're four years into your employment here you will be earning two pounds a week and then the sky's the limit.’ Little did I know that the sky wasn't the one they were thinking about that I finished up with and it was about that sort of time that I was walking home with my mother from, we'd been out visiting, perhaps I was a few years younger. And it was a time when a little bit of gentle rearmament was in the air and there was a searchlight practising and eventually it caught a lone aircraft and lit it up in the sky and I said, ‘Look at that. It's amazing, isn't it?’ And little did I know about three years later I myself was caught in searchlights a time or two. And we had a wonderful drill the boffins said to us, ‘Now, if you're caught in searchlights,’ mind you they weren’t the ones going out to do it, ‘If you are caught in searchlights sit there and count fourteen seconds because that's how long it takes for them to transfer the information from the search, master searchlight to the gunners to lay the guns and pull the trigger.’ So we were expected, us boys to sit there counting and I must say first of all being coned it's like being lit up on a stage in a theatre that's totally unoccupied. Suddenly there you are for the whole world to see. And if they thought we were going to count to fourteen they had to think, we actually started religiously counting, we got to ten and we said, ‘We're going to peel off now. We're not hanging about here.’ And we lost the searchlights and that happened more than once. But being coned in searchlights was a great leveller. You suddenly felt totally naked. And unfortunately for us the majority of our trips were into the Ruhr which was the most heavily defended piece of Germany you ever invented. If you looked on our maps in the briefing rooms the searchlights were in yellow plastic, anti-aircraft in red and the Ruhr was a lump like that of red and yellow. There were odd patches in other places like Berlin, Hamburg and so on but that one. And we finished our tour with two trips to Duisburg in one night. Yeah, we gave Duisburg a real pasting. We were on target a winter’s night. We were on target the first time but I think I’ve got it here. In the late evening and we got back and they said ‘Don't go to bed you’re going back again.’ And they were the last two trips that we had to do so we did two in one night. We considered ourselves very lucky. I’ve marked one or two little bits here. Where was it? [pause] So we did our two trips to Duisburg and finished our tour. And it was rather amusing later in life when the 102 Association sent me a letter from the Mayor of Duisburg saying, talking about what had happened and would I care to comment on it. Expecting me to be conciliatory I think. And I said, ‘For a lad who didn't want to fight, who spent five years in the Air Force having to fight because of Germany,’ I said. ‘And who night after night after night after night had to come home in the Blitz. Crossing the river from Waterloo to Charing Cross where they closed the underground for safety reasons and having to walk across Hungerford Bridge.’ Do you know Hungerford Bridge by, it runs alongside Charing Cross mainline station? ‘Is a very lonely thing when you're on your own, the waters lapping down on your right hand side and there are aircraft bombing overhead and you're hoping to get in to the Charing Cross Station the other side keeping your head on your body.’ I said, ‘If you think I'm going to say I'm sorry. I'm most certainly not sorry. You had it coming to you and you got it. With a bit of luck you won’t try and do it again.’
An experience I would like to mention is that towards the end of our tour we were being supplied with American bombs. The short squat ones as opposed to our longer, what appeared to be more done streamlined version and when we came back one night in our circuit we had to get very close to the circuit at Elvington and we noticed there was a fire on the runway. And it transpired it was the commanding officer of one of the Free French squadrons who coming back had had a hang up, a bomb frozen up in the thing so to all intents and purposes it was hanging free and when they touched down it fell, came through the bomb doors and, and blew up. And so the next day two crews, one was ours was selected to go out into the North Sea with a selection of a thousand pounders and five hundred pounder American bombs and we were under instructions to drop fifty percent live, fifty percent safe, you know. When we were approaching the target the cry would go up and I would have to log it, ‘Bombs fused and selected.’ By selection a hook came down and caught in the loop of a wire which held a locking plate on the end of the bomb to stop the fins. And so when you got back they would merely open the bomb doors and look to see if all the bits were hanging there and see if you'd done your job and dropped them all out. So we had to drop fifty percent live and fifty percent [pause] What's the word I'm trying to think of? Safe. Live and safe. Which we did and you have to remember of course that when a bomb comes out of an aeroplane it travels forward at the speed of the aircraft for a while and then loops down in a, in a parabola and then you drop a bomb from twenty thousand feet it's two miles before it hits the deck. So our old lumbering Halifaxes by the time we had dropped them we were ordered to drop them from a thousand, or was it five hundred feet [pause] and each one we dropped, live and safe they all blew up. So it looked as though there were some fault which was a bit harsh because don't forget people were handling those bombs on the ground saying, ‘Alright they’re safe. Don't worry lad.’ And we got a terrible jolting from a lot of those when they went off I can tell you. And the other aircraft which was under the command of a South African didn't come back and we thought perhaps he’d had copped it from one of these bombs and gone in. We had a big sea search for them. Found nothing but I had, was brought into the discussion because relations of crew members got in touch with me to say, ‘You were on that. There were only two aircraft. What can you tell us?’ And I had to say what I've just told you but in later life it transpires whether old Tommy went on a crusade of his own but his aircraft wreck was found in Holland. So whether he said, ‘I've got a load of bombs on board some bugger is going to get these and I don't care who it is.’ And I've got the story written there because we had on our, we were a very cosmopolitan squadron 102, in brackets Ceylon Squadron, that's why Kularatne’s father was posted. He was the only Ceylonese we ever had actually. And one night we had eight South Africans arrived from the South African Army Air Corp. Lovely fellows all of them and Thompson was one of those. Eight came. Four didn't go back. If you look at this, the “War Diary of Pocklington” you'll find that on two nights Pocklington who operated twenty five aircraft as a maximum effort lost eleven and when you think there's seven in each one of those you go in and the mess is like a morgue. And then all the new crews arrive and you think Christ why are there so many of us new crews arriving? They’ve had a clear out have they? You'll find one or two like that when we lost five or four or three but you know we we didn't fly at any great speed. We flew out of the target at a hundred and forty seven knots. And the Rolls Merlin engines that we had they changed them. Being a base station with a big repair reception and repair hangar there we were one of the first to get them. They put Bristol radial engines in. The radial engine is where all the cylinders are on the outside instead of in a line like a motor car engine and they were absolutely marvellous. They made a fabulous difference to the old Halifax. When I told you about the mine laying trip that we did, climbed above it because we had those new, new engines that we could, instead of staggering to the enemy coast to try and get to ten thousand feet we could do it over the aerodrome by going twice around with them. I realise now that I got stuck on Jack Jarvis the wireless operator. We were explaining life was very difficult in the ‘30s in finding jobs and he had an uncle that was a prison officer and he was born out of wedlock which was something in those days. He would never apply for a commission because it might come up so we got him promoted to warrant officer very quickly and he said he’d got a job lined up. His uncle would get him in to the Prison Service so when he got back to his home in Battle, he lived in Battle down where the 1066 and all that sprung from he was going in to the Prison Service. And as I said if ever there was a Mr Barraclough it was old Jack telling us stories about how he had his leg pulled by these, some of these prisoners. There were different prisoners in those days. They didn’t carry knives and guns or anything like that and they used to call him Mr Jarvis you know which made him feel quite good I think. And they used to have to take them on jobs outside prison to do painting and decorating and that sort of thing and leave them while they got on with it and go back for them later. He said he met one of these chaps later on in town and said, ‘Mr Jarvis, you never knew that when you used to leave us doing that painting job for that lady my wife was still running my builder’s business and she used to send a bloke along to take over from me and while he was doing my painting I was learning to fly.’ [laughs] And whenever we saw, “Porridge,” we always called him Mr Barraclough was Jack Jarvis. So that was dear old Jack. Marvellous fellow. The two gunners. The youngest, I mean to demonstrate that we were really boys in a sense the mid-upper gunner we had Donald Blyth who, now here’s another strange job. He worked for an undertaker and he was the man who walked in front with the black clobber on with tapes, black tapes in the back of his hat seeing the coffins safely on their way. But when he finished his tour he was still only just about nineteen years of age. Our flight engineer. Yes, the other. We had a rear gunner of course who went a bit funny on us at the end. His nerves got the better of him but it was only for the last couple of trips and he visualised fighters and he got us corkscrewing across the sky with his gun in a fixed position with the tracer making coloured rings going around. And our flight engineer Leslie Coolidge was an East End boy who eventually came home and went to work for de Havilland. But otherwise, I lost total touch with them until quite late on when I was approached by Donald Blyth who was the mid-upper gunner who got me together with Jack Jarvis and the three of us became quite good companions. Donald unfortunately never made it up here but Jack Jarvis came to ours and stayed with us two or three times and we went down and stayed in his prison officer’s house just at the back of Lewes jail. So, that was my crew but we really were a tightly knit community as a crew and I would never hear a word against them by anybody at all.
DB: It must have been very frightening for your mother when you were, when you were in London.
JS: Yes.
DB: When you were in the air.
JS: I think a little more about the pre-war days is useful because it was a very difficult time. Not only did we have the back end of the terrible economic situation where as I said I had a school certificate but it still took me from June until October to find a job. When I did have a stroke of good fortune because an old school friend of mine who was in the first year in to the school which had only just opened, I was in the third year in to the school but his father had got him a job with the Ellerman Lines. His father worked for the Board of Trade which became the Ministry of Shipping and he’d heard of a couple of jobs which had two chaps in the second year in to the school who took with the Ellerman Line and I was the fourth. And I worked for a firm, one of the companies engaged in the Mediterranean trade and it was another world. I joined as a post boy which meant that that you ran letters all day long around the streets. You ran backwards and forwards to the cable office. You went around emptying all the out-trays, filling up all the in-trays on, on the managers’ desks. You literally were at everyone’s beck and call. If my managing director wanted a sandwich out you went and you got him a sandwich. If he wanted his library books changed at the smutty library that some of these businessmen used my job was to go there and hope I could get out with my tail of my shirt still where it ought to be because some of the girls always wanted to help you choose the books [laughs] It was quite amusing. And then you, what you did you got when the time came you filled the vacancies in the department so you paid your money and you took your choice but the wages were of course at that time a pound a week. If you asked somebody to work called Dave for that sort of money I don’t know quite what they’d say today. But this is a case of looking back and seeing an entirely different world in which people lived and strangely enough they weren’t all unhappy with their lay in life because they simply didn’t know anything different. We were pretty hard up and happy. My mother worked like a trooper to make sure that we didn’t get rushed off by some well thinking social worker in to the kind of a workhouse situation that she’d been brought up in. My sister worked in a factory in Hampstead. A big paper firm it was Mansell, Hunt and Catty. They made bon bons, they made serviettes, they made doilies all that kind of thing. My brother went off to work when he was fourteen and he worked for a firm called Curry and Paxton who made spectacles and ground lenses and that kind of thing which kept him out of the thing but he worked twice as hard as most people because every night he came home and went down to the ack ack battery down on Kingsbury Green as it were. Managed to get home in time for breakfast and then back to work again. So really that was the sort of life we were living. But I went back to Ellerman’s after the war. I came out of the air force as a senior flight lieutenant earning about seven or eight hundred a year and I went back to Ellerman’s earning two hundred and thirty five pounds a year which was a bit of a shock. Fortunately, in between times a friend of mine who also went in the air force with me, we joined up on the same day, he played the piano and we formed a band and we used to go out playing and in fact could have played almost every night of the week because everyone danced their lives away in those days. Played right up until I went in to the air force and we got together again when I came out because a couple of members of the band were in reserved occupations and didn’t get called up so they had things lined up for us and I did that again for a few years. So I managed to get by. I met my first wife in Jersey on holiday and we were married. Sadly, she died when she was twenty six. She had a diseased heart which they couldn’t do anything about in those days. And I can remember the specialist saying to her because they’d just done, old Barnard had just done the first heart transplant at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town which in later years I passed by often when I was out there and he said to my wife, ‘If you could only hang on for a year or two I’ll give you a new heart.’ Sadly, she couldn’t and she died giving birth to our second child. We’d already had one son who was Richard but Christopher didn’t last more than a few weeks beyond his mother so he died too. And then I was very fortunate. A secretary came to work for me in Ellerman’s who has now been my wife for the last sixty years. Sixty next year actually, mustn’t boast and we finished up Richard my eldest son is still around. He lives down in Sheringham now he’s retired. A daughter, Ruth, who is a senior officer in the taxation business and a son who is qualified at just about everything. A barrister, a solicitor, he has got more letters after his name than the Pope I think. And so we are a very happy family. We’ve got five lovely grandchildren and now we’ve got two great grandchildren so we shall celebrate with all of them next year on our sixtieth and look forward to a happy time.
[recording paused]
But looking back on my brother and sister they were really children very much of their time because you could leave school at the age of fourteen then. As I said you couldn’t work before 7 o’clock in the morning if you were under eleven but that must seem rather strange to people when you talk about that. I did the paper round of course from the age of eleven to the age of eighteen but my brother and sister went into factories. In fact, I had a very large paper round and collected the money in every Sunday morning for which they paid me a shilling in the pound and I earned as much doing the paper round as my poor old brother did commuting down into Campden Town every day to grind lenses for Curry and Paxton. By that means I stayed at school and so at the end of the day it was very much worth it. Sadly, my mother only lived to see the first of the grandchildren because my brother had no children, my sister had one daughter who became a Tiller Girl. One of the old Tiller Girls who is now knocking on a bit herself of course [laughs].
[recording paused]
So back to my days after the war when I went back to Ellerman’s, I was lucky that I’d done well in the RAF and I was given a chance of going into every department in the company and I learned. I did every job technically that the company had to offer. All the way through the Accounts Department, the documentation departments. We were a large shipping company trading with most of the world and I eventually was put in to what we called the Far East Department where I became the assistant manager. I went to the Far East and I travelled the length and breadth. I was out there for three months to start with literally flying somewhere every second day and took over as the manager from there. I was given other managerial tasks including the prime South African trade and ultimately finished up as the managing director. So I went from post boy to managing director. So all the earlier privations were very much worthwhile. The only sad thing is that it wasn’t all done at the time when I could have done something a bit more for poor old mum who’d had a pretty hard life.
[pause]
JS: Can you think of anything I haven’t touched on?
DB: Perhaps life in the mess or in the local Pocklington area or, you know.
JS: Oh, I owned a local pub [laughs]
DB: Oh well that sort of thing. Perhaps have, have your sandwiches and you can have a think about what you’d —
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: Seems to be a year for wasps. I had three in my room the other night.
JS: Hmmn?
DB: It seems to be a year for wasps. I had three in my room the other night.
JS: We just had a nest done.
DB: Oh right. Maybe we’ve got a nest in our block somewhere.
[pause]
DB: What made you choose this house?
JS: Well, we’ve always had a house up here. Apart from probably a gap of one year. The kids thought they’d got too old we virtually we lived on the beach in Sheringham. We lived on Cliff Road. Had a house in Cliff Road then.
DB: I know Cliff Road. Not very —
JS: We could just cut through down two ways straight on to the beach.
DB: Yeah
JS: We had a big dinghy I brought from a toy shop in Germany. Quite a big thing but we had a bloody great rope on it so we never let it go more than about fifteen yards.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But it we put everything in that to take to the beach.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Down to the beach and then back you know when we’d finished. Hot baths for the kids and a jolly good meal and they absolutely shone. They were. And they came up every day of every holiday.
DB: Oh wonderful.
JS: Christmas included. And we got to love Sheringham.
DB: I like Sheringham better than Cromer.
JS: No life in Cromer.
DB: There’s much more character in Sheringham because I used to live, I used to live in Walsingham so I used to go to to Wells on a regular basis.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So, so I knew Wells better.
JS: Our Lady of Walsingham. We haven’t been to Walsingham for quite a while have we? She used to live there.
JS2: Difficult to park there isn’t it?
DB: Oh, it is. Yeah. Right. I was a housekeeper at the abbey so —
JS2: Oh right.
DB: I didn’t have any problem.
JS2: The last time we went we went to there’s a new church, sort of out of town. We went there for a concert at night.
DB: Yes. I know, I know which one you mean. But —
JS: See that picture there.
DB: Oh, with the Queen Mother.
JS: The one nearest, the little boy nearest the camera is our grandson.
DB: Oh wonderful.
JS: He became leading soloist there in his last eighteen months.
DB: Oh really? Wow.
JS: So we had two grandsons went to St Paul’s.
DB: Right.
JS: My eldest grandson, his picture’s over there holding his little boy and he’s in that picture at the back where he’s passing out. The one on the right is him. The other one on the left is the other singing brother.
DB: Right.
JS: And the one in the middle is our granddaughter.
DB: Oh.
JS: Who has just presented us with a little grandson called Toby.
DB: Oh.
JS: But the eldest boy became a part of Prince Charles’s staff. He was an equerry to the Prince of Wales.
DB: Very nice for him.
JS: Playing football with Harry and —
DB: Harry and William.
JS: William up at Sandringham. Did his stuff in Afghanistan like most of them do these days.
DB: Of course. I did Iraq not Afghanistan fortunately so [pause] I was there for six months. That was interesting.
JS: When was that?
DB: 2003. I was there Gulf War Two. So —
JS: They never, I mean one has to say history repeated itself with the Germans. Which looking back on it now you can say how could they have made such a dreadful mistake? How could there have been so many appeasers and self seekers and people who never did any fighting anyway who led us into a position where we went to war against Germany totally unprepared? We had nothing.
DB: There’s a really good book called the, “The Right Of The Line.” And the guy who wrote that, and I can’t for the life of me remember what name, what his name is at the minute but he, he covered that in extensively and I just can’t believe like you say that we let it get that bad.
JS: We paid the price.
DB: Yeah. We can’t let it get that bad. Did you have anything to do with the Short Stirling at all?
JS: No. No. We didn’t.
DB: No. You didn’t. Because I know you were quite early on with your flying training so it wasn’t until later that they used —
JS: Stirlings were still going.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But nobody wanted to fly in the bloody things. They couldn’t get above about fifteen thousand feet. I mean we could at least get the old Halifax up to about eighteen. The Lancs were up around twenty thousand but of course at the end of the day the Halifax was faster and could climb better than the Lancaster. They were beginning to put Bristol engines in to the Lancasters, some of them.
DB: So I, one of the gentlemen who I visited who used to live near me he was, he was a Halifax pilot and he was saying that he was involved with the Halifax 3 when it was being tested and he said it was a really good plane.
JS: Yeah.
DB: The Halifax 3. Even in comparison to the Halifax 1. So [pause]
JS: The difference was phenomenal we started off and found that we’d got Hercules engines instead of the Merlins and within about it couldn’t have been much more than about another two months at the outside they were going. We’d got the Centaura engines.
DB: Right.
JS: Which was even better. As I said to get one up to maybe twenty five thousand feet was quite something.
DB: That’s stunning that is. Very unusual. So the, I presume the Liberator you didn’t like that quite as much as the Halifax then?
JS: No. No. They were very comfortable. They were almost palatial on the flight deck with carpet and God knows what else. But they could only do a hundred and thirty seven.
DB: Right. Mind you they were a different role weren’t they than the, than the Halifax?
JS: We were going up with a load. Latterly we could have gone out oh I should think probably twenty five knots better than we used to with the old Merlin engine.
JS2: You didn’t tell Dee where your escape hatch was on your plane.
DB: Oh, what? The Halifax one.
JS2: And how you had to get out.
DB: Oh yes. You must. You must tell me about that.
JS: What was that, Joy?
JS2: I said you didn’t tell her how, where your escape hatch was on the Halifax.
JS: Oh, I see. No.
JS2: And how you could have got out.
JS: You’ve been on a Halifax, have you?
DB: No.
JS: You haven’t been in the one at York?
DB: Not yet. I’ve been up. I’ve been up to Elvington because one of the squadrons that I have sort of adopted is 466 squadron and they were Halifaxes. So last year.
JS: But not in 4 Group.
DB: No. No. They were--
JS: Were in 6.
DB: They were in 6 Group.
JS: The Canadians?
DB: No. No. They were Australian.
JS: Were they?
DB: So I went up to, to Elvington because I’d never seen a Halifax but I’d like to go inside her just to see the difference.
JS: I put a little money in as most people or a lot of people did. And I asked, I was wanting to go up. Well, we were going that way and eventually after a lot of hoo hah because there was some bloody woman there whose husband had done quite a bit of work on the Halifax as a volunteer and she thought she owned it and she would decide who went in and who didn’t go in but eventually I got agreement which she tried to frustrate even at the last minute. And I took, we had our neighbours next door this way who were great pals he was a jet pilot and a friend just up the road and the six of us went over the Halifax. It’s rather strange. Everything looks a little bit toy. You know you go to an aerodrome and all the buildings look smaller than they did. Just imagination. So Joy’s been all over the Halifax.
DB: I’ve been, I’ve been inside the, I’ve been inside the BBMF Lancaster.
JS: Yes.
DB: I’ve also been inside Just Jane. The one at East Kirkby. And when I went over to New Zealand to visit some friends I actually inside the one at the Museum of Technology and Transport there as well. So —
JS: What have they got there? What planes?
DB: Theirs is a Lancaster as well.
JS: A Lanc. Yeah.
DB: Yeah. They’ve got a Lancaster.
JS: Yeah.
DB: But I’d love to fly in the BBMF Lancaster but it’s not going to happen. I might have to wait ‘til Just Jane. [pause] I know, I know the Lancaster‘s a different aircraft but it must have been nice when the Canadian Lancaster came over.
JS: Yes. The Canadians have got a Halifax too.
DB: I know they have. I know they have but unfortunately it’s just static isn’t it? They’re just like, just like, well, and although I think doesn’t Friday the 13th have working engines or, or am I dreaming?
JS: I don’t know.
DB: I’ve got a funny feeling her engines —
JS: You know how the one came about in York?
DB: Yes.
JS: A chap touring Scotland on a croft. He saw the central section being used as a chicken run.
DB: I’ve actually got a book about it.
JS: Have you?
DB: Yeah. When I went up there I bought. I bought the book. The book about how she came about which is why I’d like to go inside her because I’d like to compare the two. But so, but yeah it’s because in some ways they’re similar. In other ways they’re very different. So, but yes it was a bit of a labour of love. I think you can, I think you can just pay to go in her now.
JS: Can you?
DB: Yeah. But if you’re a veteran I think you get in free of charge. If you’re the family of a veteran you pay a little bit. But if you’re not connected to a veteran.
JS: [unclear] Yeah.
DB: Then you pay a lot more but you also have to arrange it before you go up so —
JS: But the Halifaxes they tended to have a flight deck whereas the Halifax the wireless operator’s down the step. Literally under the feet of the pilot. And then there was a navigation cabin. Or not a cabin.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But a piece. And then the bomb aimer was in the nose.
DB: Right. Okay.
JS: But the way out was under the navigator’s feet but that was alright in a sense. What you had to do was to lift the seat and clip it back.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And push the table up and clip it back.
DB: Yeah.
JS: So that you could get at the hatch.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But of course —
DB: That would have —
JS: What happened was, they put a radar set up there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And a radar set up there. And another piece over the top here that we used.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And the table couldn’t be moved. So you had to crawl under the table and get this bloody great thing up and the aircraft might be upside down.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Trying to get out.
DB: Or going like this.
JS: Yeah.
DB: In which case the pressure is going to be —
JS2: [unclear]
JS: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. And your, and your flight suit as well which wasn't exactly thin. It needed to keep you warm.
JS: Of course you had a Mae West and a harness on as well.
DB: Yeah. Not an easy, not an easy task at all. I got asked recently because the sole VC that was on our squadron he did wing walking and he was supposed to have gone out through this hatch and I got asked by somebody to find out whether it would be even possible in a flight suit et cetera et cetera. So, we knew roughly what height he was and all that sort of thing so I wrote to the people who, who’d got the Wellington at Brooklands and they said, ‘Oh yeah, it would be just about possible for him to get out with —' you know because they said he’d got his Mae West and his parachute on when he, when he did this wing walk and they said, ‘Yeah. He'd just about be able to squeeze through but it would be difficult.’ So —
JS: I could mention here that one day, we always got these jobs. I always thought, I'm quite sure we got a lot of these mine laying jobs because of my dexterity on the H2S set and virtually instructing on it. I don’t know whether my career would work that one out but we're all alive so it doesn’t matter.
DB: No. I'm glad you were all alive and you were all —
JS: One day the squadron commander grabbed us all. He said, ‘Got a job for you.’ And somebody had persuaded Bomber Command to give a trial to the American flak suits.
DB: Right.
JS: Have you ever seen them in them?
DB: I probably have.
JS: And they sort of lifted up at the bottom —
DB: Right.
JS: So you can sit down in the things. But we tried out. So the idea was that you had your ordinary flying clobber.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Then you put on this flak suit.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Then you put on a Mae West and then you put on a parachute harness as well.
DB: Oh my God, I would imagine.
JS: It’s impossible.
DB: Yeah, I should, I was going to say it sounds impossible.
JS: And I had the job of writing a report on it.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And at one of the big squadron meetings in the big meeting room there they were talking away there and someone said, ‘Could I ask you a question, sir?’ The CO said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘What happened about those flak suits? Didn't we carry out a trial and you got a report on it?’ ‘Report?’ He said, ‘It’s more like a bloody article for Punch.’ [laughs]
DB: Very, I like that. I like that. You'll have to tell them about that one. Oh dear.
JS2: You didn’t tell Dee how you met up with your crew. I mean not to start with. At the end.
DB: You did mention. He did mention that one of, one of the air gunners contacted him.
JS2: Oh, you did.
JS: Yeah. I dealt with that.
DB: It was while you were doing the sandwiches, Joy.
JS: Oh right.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. He mentioned that. Which is, I mean it is great that you managed to get together and at least you had some contact with your pilot as well because a lot of people they just bomb burst that was it. You never heard from them again so —
JS: The fault was in the system. We finished our tour of operations.
DB: Yeah.
JS: The Canadian crew finished the same night. We were the first two to finish in months so there was a big celebration.
DB: Yes, I can imagine.
JS: I can tell you how it finished. I was great friends with a warrant officer who worked with me. He lived out and he lived at the pub.
DB: Right.
JS: And so we took a big room that they had over the pub and we had a hell of a party. And it finished up with about four big hairy buggers grabbing hold of me, turning me upside down and said, ‘We’re taking you on your last flight.’ So zooming me around the room.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And suddenly somebody shouted out ‘flak flak flak’ and they brought bottles of beer shoved down the leg of my trousers and went wump wump wump. And Ethel the landlady said she could still remember me standing there and saying, ‘Ethel, can I come and pay tomorrow?’
DB: I think you ought to tell them that one. I like that story. I like that story. Hello Mr Squirrel.
JS: [unclear]
DB: Mr Squirrel.
JS: Oh, buggers. Yes
DB: Yeah [laughs] A pity it’s not a red one but —
JS: No. If it was a red one I wouldn't mind at all.
DB: No.
JS: Have I put in there anything about Sir Arthur Harris's speech?
DB: No, you haven't.
JS: We should because —
DB: Yes
JS: Posterity. It's on record.
DB: Yes, it is. Yes. Yes. Is that the, is that the one where he sat behind the desk?
JS: Park Lane Hotel.
DB: Oh.
JS: No.
DB: After. Post war.
JS: Yes.
DB: Post war one. No, you haven't mentioned that. I’m sure it probably is written down but it would be nice to hear your view on it, let's put it that way. Your reaction. That’s the word I’m looking for. Yeah
JS: Well, I think it’s something that's not repeated often enough.
DB: No.
JS: For people to realise exactly what it was all about. He summed it up very succinctly, I think.
DB: Yes.
JS: It was funny because he was, I was in shipping as I told you. And he was in shipping too.
DB: Oh right. Okay.
JS: He was one of the directors of the original, what’s, States Marine Corporation I think they called them.
DB: Oh right.
JS: Which eventually turned in to the national line for South Africa. South African Marine. Corporation.
DB: Right.
JS: And he’d been the director of it and I had a lot to do with SAF Marine people.
DB: Yes.
JS: Who had an office across the road from us in the city.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And great pals with a chap called Frank Smith who was their general manager.
DB: Right.
JS: And he used to come to me and say, ‘You wanna watch it. I’m having dinner with your old boss tonight.’ And they would go down and call on old Butch who lived down at Goring on Thames or somewhere down there.
DB: Bless him. Yes, he fought. Fought all the way for his, for his boys but unfortunately —
JS: It was a hell of a job he had to do.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Because when you think that at one period we were losing I would have thought perhaps on average seventy eighty aircraft a night. That must have played on his mind terribly.
DB: I'm sure it did. I'm sure it did. Because he, because he felt very strongly about you guys.
JS: Yeah.
DB: He felt very strongly but —
JS: But it didn't matter, I mean what part of it you were when people took off they all took the same chance.
DB: Oh, definitely. Definitely.
JS: Have you had enough dear?
DB: I’ve had plenty. Thank you. Shall I take these out to the kitchen for Joy. And there you go. I’ll pop these into the kitchen for you Joy.
JS2: Oh, thank you.
[pause]
JS2: I’ll have to show you as she goes out.
DB: I love the sign about the lovely old lady and the grumpy old man.
JS2: That’s my granddaughter did that. She came in with it one day.
DB: I think that’s brilliant. So [pause] it seems to still be playing. That’s not right.
[recording paused]
JS: Is it on? That thing on. Did I talk about Ellerman’s?
DB: Yes. You did.
JS: To you or to there?
DB: To there you. Yes, you did.
JS: Okay.
DB: Because you were talking about your family and you were talking about Ellerman’s then
JS: Yes. Yes.
DB: But perhaps you could talk about the incident you were telling me about when you finished your —
JS: Tour.
DB: Yeah.
JS: What else was it?
DB: That you were going to say about the next morning. You were sheepish, sheepishly talking to the —
JS: The night. That was the night.
DB: Yeah. Yes, because they had the two different types didn't they? They had the bomb —
[recording paused]
DB: Something interesting.
JS: Would it ever have finished?
DB: I don't know. I don’t know.
JS: I mean look what the Germans had up their sleeves. They had the V-1. They had the V-2.
DB: Oh yes. Mind you I suppose we were, I mean we were inventing our own things as well. I mean —
JS: Yes.
DB: It might have been they dropped an atom bomb on the Germans if —
JS: Yes.
DB: If it hadn't ceased before that.
JS: I mean, as it happened and I’m glad they did they dropped two on the Japanese and it demonstrated to the world what they could do rather than just write about it and people saying, ‘No. It won’t be like that at all.’
DB: No.
JS: It was like that.
DB: Yes. It was exactly like that.
JS: And because the Japanese would never have surrendered if their emperor hadn't taken the bull by the horns and said, ‘It stops.’
DB: One thing that’s, maybe you want to talk about is what happened, how did you celebrate VE Day? Were you at home or were you, where were you for VE Day?
JS: We were here. Oh, VE Day.
DB: Yes, the actual VE Day rather than, rather than the celebrations seventy years later.
JS: I don’t know to what extent it was over celebrated. I really don’t.
DB: Were you, were you still on the squadron at that point? No. You’d left at that point, hadn’t you?
JS: I was demobbed by then.
DB: Okay.
JS: Just been demobbed by that time.
DB: Right.
JS: I came out in midsummer and that was in —
DB: It was in August, wasn’t it?
JS: August. Yes.
DB: So, so you weren’t in London at that point. You didn’t go out to central London or anything.
JS: No. No. No.
DB: No.
JS2: You didn’t say anything about they wouldn’t let you have a medal until just recently.
DB: Oh.
JS2: And that Bomber Command wouldn’t be recognised.
DB: Oh, you mean about the Bomber Command clasp? I totally agree with you. Totally agree with you.
JS: I won't wear those campaign medals. They're the most disgusting thank you that anyone could, if you compare it with I'm lucky enough to have a DFC. But if you, how would you wear those against those bits of tin that the government.
DB: Yeah. One of my, one of my Warrant Officer friends, a guy called Jim Wright is still writing to the government and trying to get a proper medal so —
JS: We’ve got one.
DB: I know you’ve got the clasp but —
JS: No. I’ve got a Bomber Command medal.
DB: Oh right. Yeah.
JS: We’ve got our own.
DB: Yes. I know you created, created your own but he’s trying to get an official.
JS: Yes, I know.
DB: Government one.
JS: Yes, but that would be another piece of tin.
DB: Yeah. I don't think he'll succeed.
JS: No. No.
DB: I don’t think he’ll succeed,
JS: I'd rather not I'd rather not have it quite frankly. I won’t have mine made up in to a row.
DB: Yes.
JS: I've got the miniatures.
DB: Yes.
JS: But I won’t have them made up in to a row until such time as we can put the Bomber Command one in there.
DB: Yes.
JS: Next to the Aircrew Europe medal.
DB: Yeah. Sounds fair to me. Sounds very fair to me.
JS: Because they sound tinny when people walk along. Typical government response.
DB: Yes. Oh yeah. Definitely. It's all about these —
JS: They've got to do it so they do it in the cheapest possible fashion.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: So all the thanks people have got.
DB: Have you were you involved in D-Day because you, were you flying at that point?
JS: Yes.
DB: You were.
JS: Yes. But all we did and I say all we did was because it was just an extra doddle as it were we went over and we had a job of carpet bombing.
DB: Right
JS: Ahead of the British forces.
DB: Right. So have you.
JS: That went wrong with the, it was the Canadians who bombed their own troops.
DB: That’s right. Yes. I remember that.
JS: So fitted next to the navigator’s desk was a cut out switch and the bomb aimer couldn't drop anything until the navigator put that switch on.
DB: Right. Okay because have you, have you claimed your Legion d’honneur?
JS: [laughs] Are they lobbing them out are they?
DB: They're giving it to people who were involved in D-Day whether they be in the air, land or sea.
JS: Oh, I didn't know that.
DB: So I should claim it. If you were involved in any way you can put the claim form in for it.
JS: Yeah. How can you get a Legion d’honneur?
DB: Well, they’re basically, I think they’ve waited until there’s not that many of you. [JS laughter] But I don't think they realise just how many there are and it's taking some time. So but if you go onto the government website you can download the claim form and send it off so —
JS: Legion d'honneur.
DB: Yes. In fact, some of the —
JS: [humming La Marseillaise]
DB: Some of the, some of the Australian pilots had theirs given to them by the ambassador from France in Canberra the other, the other week.
JS: Oh really. Yeah.
DB: So, they’re doing it properly. They’re doing it properly.
JS: Yes. Well, we’ll give him a pennyworth if he comes up and does it up here.
DB: Why not?
JS: Yes.
DB: He’ll enjoy, he'll enjoy the countryside.
JS: Yes.
DB: The other thing is have you heard about Project Propeller?
JS: No. What’s that?
DB: Right. Project Propeller is a different, different charity and what they do is they arrange a day every year where they fly aircrew into a, a particular point and, and then they fly you back again. So for you they'd probably get you too, where is the nearest small airfield that a private pilot —
JS: Oh, the smallest? Is there one at Creake, Joy.
DB: Yes. I think there’s one.
JS: North Creake.
DB: Yeah. They'd get somebody to pick you up from, from there or from Norwich or wherever you, wherever you wanted to be picked up from and fly you to wherever the venue was and then fly you back.
JS: Do they fly wives as well?
DB: Yes. Yeah. Oh yes, definitely. Basically, it’s you and the person or carer depending on whether your carers —
JS: What does that do? I mean —
DB: Basically it —
JS: How does that benefit a charity?
DB: They, they raise the money for the charity to do this and it's to basically to honour you guys but if you like I'm quite happy to give your name to the guy who organises it who is a friend of mine.
JS: Yes.
DB: And I will get him to contact you and tell you and tell you all about it but I can also write down the website for you so that you can.
JS: Well, we're not great on websites and things.
DB: Okay.
JS: I won’t have anything, having dealt with all this —
DB: Yeah. Well, he’ll quite happily email you.
JS: Joy does a bit.
DB: Right. Okay. He will quite happily email you, Graham.
JS: Yes.
DB: Or ring you. Whichever.
JS: How are we supposed to get back to you by the way as a result of your e-mail?
DB: Oh.
JS: Because Joy looked at, looked at it and she doesn’t profess to be an expert.
DB: Right.
JS: By any manner or means and said, ‘I don’t know how to get back to her.’
DB: Oh, there’s a, there’s a little thing that says. Well, you click on something. It depends which, which one you use. But there’s something you click on that says, ‘Reply.’
JS: Oh [laughs] I didn’t —
DB: So, but basically, I wanted, I wanted — to contact you by e-mail to give you the chance to go and do exactly what you did do. Talk to Helen and just make sure I was exactly who I said I was.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So I was quite happy for you to do that actually. So that’s but do you, do you do you use it on a computer or do you do it on a tablet?
JS: Joy’s got a laptop.
DB: Oh, okay. So is it Outlook that you get your emails from?
JS: Don't be technical.
DB: Okay. Is it a separate software programme that you go in to or is it on the Internet that you go into it?
JS: On the Internet.
DB: On the Internet. Okay. Each of the, each of the programmes it is slightly different. But usually there's a little thing that says, “Reply,” and you just click on that. You can either reply to just one person if there is just one person or you can reply to all if there's more than one person. That sort of thing. So you just click reply, type your e-mail and then click send.
JS: We couldn't see anywhere and that's why I phoned and —
DB: Oh no, that’s fine.
JS: I left a message there to say.
DB: That’s fine.
JS: We're not that technical. We've never had to reply to these things.
DB: No. That's fine. It actually worked quite well that way anyway. So, let me see if, I don't know if I’ve brought my booklet from —
JS: Your colleague phoned me back.
DB: Oh, Helen. Yes.
JS: Oh, Dan.
DB: Oh, Dan.
JS: It was Dan, I think I spoke to.
DB: Oh, was it Dan that spoke?
JS: He phoned me.
DB: Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, Helen was the one, the one that emailed me but no, Dan’s lovely. Yes. Dan's lovely. Have you been invited to the unveiling of the Spire?
JS: Yes. I think they said something and I said if it involves a lot of walking and that sort of thing and it, I mean I had Joy and I had front row seats for the Memorial thing.
DB: Oh right.
JS: Which my son, old Charles there —
DB: Yes.
JS: Was attending because he was attending on the royal couple anyway.
DB: Right.
JS: And I said to him, ‘Where's the nearest toilet?’ And he said, ‘A long way away.’
DB: Yeah. The nearest, the nearest one was the RAF club but that’s that’s —
JS: Yes. That’s bloody miles away.
DB: Across the road. It is across the road but I’m sure, but they had, they actually had some temporary toilets there as well.
JS: Oh, did they? Well —
DB: Yeah. You would have loved it it was a fabulous day. An absolutely fabulous day. I was able because I’m a member of the Bomber Command Association.
JS: Yes.
DB: I got two tickets and I took the secretary of our 75 New Zealand Squadron Association. The secretary to it.
JS: Well, I phoned old Doug down at Hendon.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Because I used to live just up the road from there anyway.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And said, ‘Doug, you know from what I hear I don't think this is on for us. Thank you very much. Let someone else have them.’
DB: Oh, no. No. You would have been alright. You would have been alright but, but hey. Have you been down since?
JS: No.
DB: No. Oh it’s lovely. I go down as often as I can. And I’ve got friends who go down once month if possible as well. So –
JS: Yes.
DB: We have a little service every, every year on the anniversary and we had the third anniversary service this year. Then we go across the road to the RAF Club and have a chat to the veterans who turn up and that sort of thing.
JS: Yes.
DB: So there was a Polish gentleman there this year who was on 311 Squadron.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So he flew Wellingtons and Liberators.
JS: Yes.
DB: So, that, that was really interesting. So, but yes I’ll give you, if you’re happy for me to do it.
JS: Yes, thank you.
DB: I’ll give Graham your details.
JS: Just give me the option. Tell him that —
DB: No. No. That’s —
JS: Yes.
DB: No. He won’t. He won’t make the assumption.
JS: Yes.
DB: He’ll just say, you know this is what’s involved. If you're interested I'll put you on the list to be invited. And then you can say if you don’t feel up to it on the day because what they do is all the pilots are private pilots. They’re not military ones.
JS: No.
DB: They're all private pilots. They all, they pay for the privilege of taking you there to, with their own fuel and that sort of thing. The only thing that the Project does is pay for the landing fees. And last year we were at, well we were at this year sorry we were at Cosford so because I help him find people who aren’t already on his list he lets me go. So, but we flew from Cambridge to Swansea to go and pick up a veteran and his, and his brother and then flew from there to Cosford and then flew back to Swansea and then back.
JS: Yes.
DB: To Cambridge. But the pilots —
JS: What do they do when they've landed?
DB: They transport you in a minibus to where, the venue and then you chat to, chat to other people. They have, they have a buffet lunch, they have speeches and then when you when you’re all socialised out they, but they also take pictures of all of you and that sort of thing and, and then you come home.
JS: Yeah.
DB: So it’s, it’s a very social day. And you might catch up with people from 102 or from —
JS: Yes.
DB: Sorry. What was it? 53.
JS: 53.
DB: Yes. 53.
JS: I was only on 53 for a few months.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Because it was just playing out time to get —
DB: Yeah.
JS: Demobilised.
DB: But you might find that there are people from 102 or 53 and what he does do is he tries to get people who’ve been were on the same squadrons together so that they can talk about squadrons.
JS: I mean, you mustn't take this wrong at all but I’m not a great reunion person in that.
DB: Oh no. No.
JS: In the sense that Joy and I went to one at Pocklington.
DB: Right.
JS: And the first thing they want to do is have a march past.
DB: Oh no. They don't do that. No. They don't do that.
JS: That’s, that’s not up my street at all.
DB: No. Well, I think, I think a lot of the reunions nowadays don't bother with those sorts of things because —
JS: And also the other thing was —
DB: A lot of veterans can't do it.
JS: At the squadron reunion I think two thirds of the people there were not at aircrew.
DB: No. No.
JS2: They were ground crew weren't they?
JS: All wearing fancy blazers and with big badges and all that sort of thing.
DB: Right.
JS: I don’t mind.
DB: No.
JS: But —
DB: No, and the majority at Project Propeller are aircrew. There might be the odd ground crew member.
JS: The Aircrew Association closed, didn't it? I was a member of that.
DB: There’s a lot of the, some of the branches are still around because I know there’s one down in the Chilterns because a friend of mine is a member of, Tom Payne is a member of that one so there's the odd ones but a lot of them like you say have closed down because obviously there's just nobody to go to them now.
JS: I always laugh about my neighbour John who is a wonderful friend but he was, he did his national service learning to fly in Canada.
DB: Oh, right. Okay.
JS: Because the Korean War was buzzing around there.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And he was good company to talk to.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But I said to him, ‘There’s a difference you see’ I said, ‘Because when you went to Canada you were already a pilot officer.’
DB: Yeah.
JS: I said, ‘I wasn't. I was an aircraftsman second class.’ We travelled steerage. He travelled first class.
DB: Yes, I can —
JS: When I came back from Canada we were in a single cabin.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And there were, there must have been at least eight of us in it. In bunks —
DB: Yeah.
JS: Up the side of the wall. I know we were having, we were allowed one case.
DB: Yeah.
JS: They were stacked on the bath.
DB: Yeah.
JS: So when you had a bath you had to get a couple of blokes to come in and you slid in under the suitcases and they held the suitcases back in case the ship did a bit of that and you had to duck as the suitcases —
DB: Oh, I like that. Can you, can you talk about that for me? Yeah. Do talk about that one for me.
JS: Yeah.
[recording paused]
JS: That one. I pressed the wrong one I think.
DB: That’s alright. We’ve managed an hour and forty.
JS: Is that alright?
DB: Yes. Lovely. That’s absolutely brilliant. But I mean unless you, unless you can think of anything else that you want to talk about we’ll leave it at that. But —
JS: Well, do you want to lay your hands on that?
DB: I’ll have, I’ll have a look at it certainly but [pause] I’m sure I can probably pick up a copy from somewhere.
JS: Well, they have it at the library, sorry, in the museum at Elvington I’m sure.
DB: I’m sure. I tend, I’ve got about three different websites that I get books from. And —
JS: So are you permanently attached to Lincoln University?
DB: No. I’m, I’m just a volunteer for them.
JS: Are you? Yes.
DB: I’m just a volunteer for them. Dan is employed by them.
JS: Yes.
DB: And Helen is employed by them but I’m just, I’m just someone who has volunteered to help out. Sometimes I go along to air shows to help with.
JS: Yes.
DB: With veterans at those because sometimes some of them go for signing sessions.
JS: Yeah. Excuse me. May I please just have a look?
DB: Please do.
JS: I don’t know whether it was here was it? That was a different, a different one. Yes. The first bit of course is 102 were not there
DB: Yeah
JS: They moved. As I said the squadron were lodgers.
DB: Mary [Collingham]
JS: Yes. Well, when we had our reunion after the war I was one of the organisers.
DB: Yes
JS: With a pal of mine and one of our big guests we had there was Leonard Cheshire.
DB: Oh wonderful
JS: Leonard got his first gong as pilot officer on 102.
DB: Did he?
JS: Yeah.
DB: Yes. Before he went back.
JS: Yes.
DB: Way before he went to 617, wasn’t it?
JS: Yes.
DB: But you said it was about May 1942. But yes. Such a shame when the crews were killed. 405 Squadron were there as well.
JS: That’s right. Yes.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Pocklington’s being demolished bit by bit.
DB: Yes.
JS: To make way for a trading estate and that sort of thing.
DB: Yes. Unfortunately, it’s happening with a, it’s happening with a lot of them, a lot of RAF stations at the moment. Spilsby there’s not much left of.
JS: Well, of course our big one is Coltishall.
DB: Yes.
JS: And they’re still working out.
DB: What they want to do with it.
JS: Yeah.
DB: Yeah.
JS: We get announcements and you think well that’s it then.
DB: Yeah.
JS: What was the latest with Coltishall, Joy?
JS2: I can’t remember. A housing estate wasn’t it?
DB: I know at one point they were talking about doing a, doing a solar panel —
JS: Yes.
DB: Farm or something.
JS: That’s another one. Yeah.
DB: Solar farm.
JS: We’ve got one of those building.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Up the road or going in up the road.
DB: Yeah. “Mine laying.”
JS2: Then there was going to be a prison and they said it was too near all the people
DB: Yeah. I think it’s the people in Coltishall complaining I think. But I thought they had actually opened an open prison there or something
JS2: I think they have done something to it now. Part of it anyway
DB: “Corporal O’Reilly fell off her bike in Pocklington.” Oh.
JS: [laughs] It wasn’t Peggy O’Neil who had a bike with one wheel
DB: Oh really. “Corporal [unclear] which is in SSQ with a subarachnoid haemorrhage in spite of —” Oh dear. Bless him. But this is the one with [unclear] in it [laughs] I like that. Yeah. I like that. With an old —
JS: That was the old Halifax with the oath on it.
DB: Yeah. Yes, a very famous poem. “Lie in the Dark and Listen.” Was, was you mentioned about Patrick Moore. Was he was he at [pause] was he at —
JS: I don’t know where he was.
DB: You don’t know where he was.
JS: No.
DB: Okay. Because there was somebody else who died recently who was in the air force. He wasn’t aircrew though, I think. He was ground crew, I think. The man who played Arthur Daly.
JS2: Oh, George Cole.
DB: George Cole. Yeah. He was, he was air force as well.
JS: There’s a piece in there about the station was visited by the father of the Royal Air Force Lord Trenchard.
DB: Oh, yes.
JS: Well. it’s funny when they say that but I was I’d been on a long trip the night before and I’d sort of just got up and we’d landed well after dawn.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And had a bath and changed and was sitting in the mess all on my own.
DB: Yes.
JS: In front of the fire and something tapped me on the shoulder. And I looked around there was this bloke you couldn’t see for the rings around his hand. I leapt up immediately.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And it was old Trenchard. I received Lord Trenchard. They didn’t mention that. And he said could I organise him a cup of tea.
DB: Oh bless.
JS: Which I went outside and did.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But hurriedly got on the phone to the CO to say, ‘I’ve got news for you mate.’ [laughs]
DB: You’ve got a visitor [laughs]
JS: Yeah.
DB: I think he liked just turning up announced, unannounced.
JS: Yeah.
DB: Didn’t he?
JS: Yeah.
DB: Because I think that’s the way, the way he found about things. The way things were.
JS: Well, he was Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police wasn’t he before he got involved.
DB: Yeah. So he was like, he liked creeping up on oh probably taken to Coltishall. That’s a connection. Munchen Gladbach. My father was at RAF Bruggen and we used to go shopping in Munchen Gladbach.
JS: Yes.
DB: It’s a very modern city nowadays but [pause] Oh, I see. Yeah. The DFC came later while he was on the squadron. They put it on there.
JS: Who was that?
DB: You put Wing Commander SJ Marchbank DFC.
JS: Oh yes. Old Marchbank. Yeah.
DB: And you put, you’ve put, ‘Came later.’ They’ve grounded —
JS: You haven’t met him have you?
DB: No. No. No.
JS: He was a bugger.
DB: Was he [laughs]
JS: Yeah. To our great pleasure he was all mouth, rah-rah-rah.
DB: Was he? Oh, right.
JS: And he swung on take-off and broke the aeroplane up.
DB: Oops.
JS: He was lucky because they had a full load on.
DB: Really? Oh goodness.
JS: Yeah. it kept him quiet for a bit though.
DB: Yeah [pause] Castle. Yes.
JS: I was watching it. We’d only, hadn’t arrived on the squadron all that long.
DB: You, you mentioned about, oh God, not Hamburg, not Homberg [pause] began with a D.
JS: Duisburg.
DB: Not Duisburg. There’s another one.
JS: Dusseldorf.
DB: No. You said there was a lot of aircraft knocked down on that particular one.
JS: No. At Nuremberg there was lots.
DB: Nuremberg. Was it Nuremberg? No. I don’t think it was Nuremberg. It might have been Nuremberg. But we lost five aircraft that night.
JS: Did you?
DB: On 75 Squadron.
JS: Yeah.
DB: Yeah, that was, no seven aircraft.
JS: [unclear]
DB: We lost seven aircraft that night. Yeah. Kiel.
JS: Yes. That was the big one.
DB: And Magdeburg]. Yeah. [Magdeburg]
JS: Three. Four. Five. If you turn over —
DB: Yeah.
JS: They caught a packet the next night.
DB: Yeah. That was true.
JS: Yeah. The other way wasn’t it? [pause] There.
DB: Yeah. Not good. Not good.
JS: Two nights.
DB: Magdeburg. Yeah. Berlin. Pilot officer Kularatne.
JS: Kularatne. Yes.
DB: That was the Ceylonese gentleman.
JS: Yes. Yes.
DB: Oh right.
JS: He’d been in touch with my son.
DB: Control tower. “Post operations drink usually laced with rum.” I bet you needed that didn’t you? Just to, just to help to warm you up.
JS: We had a, we had a padre, crafty bugger.
DB: Oh go on.
JS: Used to dish out the rum.
DB: Yeah.
JS: But he made sure that umpteen of the blokes didn’t want it so all those went into his kitty [laughs] What’s that one there?
DB: Group Captain RH Russell DFC took over as station commander.
JS: Yes [pause]
And of course a lot of people in the war depended entirely on when they were born. I mean I had —
DB: Oh, here we go —
JS: In my class at school who were dead before I went in because they happened to be nearly a year older than me. They were at the other end of the —
DB: Yeah. End of the school year.
JS: Entry. Yeah.
DB: Lord Trenchard, the father of the Royal Air Force.
JS: Yes.
DB: Visited the station.
JS: Where I got his afternoon tea for him.
DB: Yeah. Met him in the mess. How about that?
JS: Well I didn’t actually. He met me in the mess.
DB: Yes. He came and tapped you on the shoulder.
JS: Yeah.
DB: I like that story. I like that story. Fort Leopold Military Camp. Kattegat in Norway. There are so many names here that I recognise.
JS: We went to the cemetery at Barmby Moor. Barmby Moor is just on the other end of Pocklington aerodrome.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And strangely enough the padre, or the priest was a lady.
DB: Oh right.
JS: And —
DB: Yeah, I always call them padres.
JS: Yes.
DB: Don’t worry.
JS: Was a lady and when I saw her name I thought I know that name and sure enough she was the daughter of one of our captains. Oh, what on earth was the name I’m thinking of? I think it would have been, sometimes I remember something and then immediately after if I’ve stopped I’ve forgotten.
DB: Yeah. No. No. I understand.
JS: He had a brother in the company as well.
DB: Yes.
JS: His brother was a senior in London.
DB: Right.
JS: And he was the captain who told me the story about the ball bearing run to Sweden because he, he was one of the captains on one of those trips.
DB: Oh right, okay.
JS: On the ball bearing run. Yes.
DB: Oh wow. It must have been a fairly unusual name then.
JS: This was a good old Yorkshire name they mentioned. I can’t think of it.
DB: [unclear]
JS2: I think they have a lot of RAF burials there.
JS: What?
DB: Oh.
JS2: The church.
DB: Yeah. Almost certainly.
JS2: Wasn’t it, wasn’t it the RAF church or something? We went and had a look at the burials.
JS: That’s right. Yes.
DB: Yeah.
JS: I was, I was going to say that. Of course, there are, oh [pause] I think there were probably twenty graves there of RAF personnel.
DB: Oh right. Okay.
JS: And I don’t think there’s one more than twenty three years of age.
DB: Well, the average age was only twenty one, wasn’t it?
JS: Yeah.
DB: I mean, I mean you were a lot younger when you started but most of the, and certainly most at the start of the war they tended to be older but as as the time went on they tended to be twenty one or twenty two.
JS: I mean in those terms I was becoming an old man. I was twenty three when I left the air force.
DB: Yeah. Yes. “We wrote our kit off.” Oh.
JS: Kite.
DB: Kite off. Sorry.
JS: Yeah.
DB: “Tyres shot away.” Oh, that’s the one you were talking to me about.
JS: Yeah, where we —
DB: Yeah. Opposition moderate. Some heavy flak.
JS: Yeah.
DB: Five aircraft damaged.
JS: It was like walking on a bloody black carpet, [ping pong ping!] I can remember the bomb aimer turning around to me and he’d got a dent in the microphone of his face mask where a bit of shrapnel had hit him.
DB: Oh gosh.
JS: It whizzed past us and whooo.
JS2: Have you told the one about was it the rear gunner that jumped out?
JS: No.
DB: No.
JS2: When you were in the potato field.
JS2: No.
JS2: He didn’t realise he was twenty feet up in the air.
DB: Oh right. He jumped out early did he?
JS2: He jumped out and he thought he was still on the ground.
JS: Oh yes [laughs] No that wasn’t our crew. No. It was, yes a different one. There was an aircraft that went nose up in a ditch at Pocklington.
DB: Right. Right.
JS: And the rear gunner opened the doors and threw himself out. Didn’t realise it was at that angle.
DB: Ouch.
JS: Thought he was never going to land and it was our own rear gunner who, I told you his nerves went.
DB: Yes.
JS: And towards the end he used to race out the aeroplane [breath] bang.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Bang.
DB: Yeah.
JS: Well when we got these radial engines because they hung round instead of in a line the ones underneath if you weren’t careful you might get a residual fuel left in the bottom there. When they started it could damage the piston.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
JS: Next to there. So the idea was you had to run them up and then cut it off.
DB: Yeah.
JS: So he was out there when the aircraft went ‘woooo’. When we went out he was in a hedge like this looking at the cricket ground of Pocklington Grammar School [laughs].
DB: Oh, wonderful.
JS: Poor old Dougie.
DB: I really ought, I really ought to record those. Those two incidents. I really ought to record those two. Those are the sort of little, little snippets. Another South African.
JS: Oh yes and the other. Another lovely one. Our sergeants. Our sergeants had their own site. Living quarters.
DB: Yeah.
JS: They were all in Nissen huts there with these big stoves.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And they shared it with another crew. The end of this one, and they’d lit the fire there. They used to light the fire when they got back in the evening so it warmed up nicely.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And all hell bloody well broke loose. When we went outside there was the stars shooting out of the chimney. A member of the other crew had been stealing Very cartridges from the aircraft.
DB: Oh no.
JS: There was going to be an inspection. He had them in a bag and he dropped them in the fire.
DB: Yeah.
JS: And forgot he’d dropped them in the fire. Nearly blew the bloody fire apart. You know one of these big iron —
DB: Big pot belly. Oh my God. Oh, we ought to.
[recording paused]
DB: Do you want to just quickly re —
JS: Oh, no. That’s the eight South Africans.
DB: The rear gunner, et cetera and the —
JS: Is it on? [pause] The change of engines on the Halifax from the inline Merlins to the radials did cause one amusing incident where our rear gunner had leapt out of the aircraft to light his customary after operational, soul receiving, nerve placating fag when the engines on the starboard side where he was standing were being run up as part of the run up run down drill. When we came out the aircraft we were not at all surprised to see him spread eagled in the bushes at the back of the aeroplane. Another little incident was a member of a crew who’d been helping himself to Very cartridges and had them in a bag which he’d hidden in a fire and to his great surprise he forgot to tell anybody and they lit the fire and they had the biggest firework display down on the sergeant’s side that I think they’d ever seen. And I’ve been asked to mention that the aircraft, the Halifax went nose down in a ditch with the tail standing feet up into the air when the rear gunner wondered what on earth had happened and decided the best way out was to open his doors and threw himself out little realising the height that he was falling from and he got a very rude awakening when it took him about three days to land.
[recording paused]
DB: That was wonderful.
JS2: Yes. It was very like him because if he’d been in the bed it would have, it was our own shell from that gun because when we took it in to the police station they said it was an English shell so obviously it had come, because we always used to go out in the road and pick up the shrapnel from all over the place. I can remember doing that with my brother.
DB: And all his toys were were —
JS2: Yes. He had little soldiers along his bedroom shelves and they were all on the floor and dust everywhere. Yeah.
DB: And then a land mine not long after.
JS2: Yes. But that, you could, you know, when they come down you’d hear the noise coming. Well all the bombs, a sort of whistling noise and then this complete silence. And that’s the end and you know it’s landed. And the doodlebugs were the same, you know when they came along because if you watched them and they suddenly stopped you knew they were going to come down.
DB: Oh dear. Thank you. Okay. I did wonder whether you’d had experiences because you were sort of just about the right age.
JS: Come here, you.
DB: Yes boss!
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with James Sampson
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Denise Boneham
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
2015-08-21
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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ASampsonJ150821
Format
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01:59:45 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
James Sampson volunteered for the RAF and trained as a navigator and became a specialist on H2S. He survived three write offs of his aircraft including once when the wheels had been shot away. His bomb aimer had a very near miss when shrapnel hit the microphone on his face mask denting it. On one occasion their aircraft ended up nose down in a ditch and the gunner couldn’t understand what had happened and so he threw himself out of his turret only to find himself on a very long fall to the ground. James also made tea for Lord Trenchard when he made a visit to the aerodrome. There are some technical issues with the recording.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Germany
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Duisburg
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
102 Squadron
53 squadron
aircrew
B-24
bombing
crash
H2S
Halifax
mine laying
navigator
perception of bombing war
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Pocklington
searchlight
-
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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
Auton, Jim
J Auton
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. The collection relates to Sergeant Jim Auton MBE (1924 - 2020). He was badly injured when his 178 Squadron B-24 was hit by anti-aircraft fire during an operation from Italy. The collection contains an oral history interview and ten photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jim Auton and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-30
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Auton, J
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
On V.E. Day 1945 I and my three companions were unaware the war was over. We were forty miles south of Berlin, fleeing to freedom through a countryside littered with thousands of unburied German and Russian corpses. In retrospect it is hard to believe the world celebrated while this mass of grey, dead men lay there neglected. It is probable that because they had been killed during the last two weeks of the war, their wives, parents and children also celebrated, unaware of their loss.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
During the previous summer on Sunday, August 20th, 1944 at 2300 hours, from a height of 11,000 ft., an Italian-based Liberator Bomber of the RAF was shot down bombing the Herman Goering Panzer works at Linz in Austria. Out of a crew of seven, only I, jumping through a manually-operated bomb door, survived.
The aircraft, A for Apple, of 178 Squadron based near Foggia, was the sole aircraft the squadron could muster as a contribution to the combined RAF raid on Linz. This was because the previous Sunday 178 Squadron of Liberators, in the company of other RAF, Polish and South African Squadrons, flew from Brindisi in Southern Italy to Warsaw. The Warsaw uprising was in a desperate phase and from a height of 400 ft. we endeavoured to sustain the gallant Poles with parachuted supplies of guns and ammunition.
The operation was a disaster. Only five aircraft of 178 Squadron returned safely. Our Liberator had forty holes in it from the attacks of the ground-based German guns. At such a low altitude we had been an easy target. Other squadrons, including Polish and South African, had been completely wiped out. The pitiful remainder of 205 Group was grounded. Three days later the surviving aircrews assembled at Group Headquarters to hear the reasons.
Winston Churchill had personally ordered the operation to bolster the courage and determination of the Poles in Warsaw fighting the German army. Although it must be said the operation failed, nevertheless, messages of praise were read out from Winston Churchill, the free Polish Leader in London and many other wartime leaders and top brass. The Polish Leader even promised us Polish decorations. I never got mine and I don’t suppose any one else did. The meeting was quiet and broody. Somehow the acclamation did not compensate for the dreadful loss of aircrew lives.
That is why 178 Squadron could only supply one Liberator aircraft to join the attack at Linz. It was shot down, my six companions were killed and only I parachuted through the fire and came to rest in a tree.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[page break]
2.
I was captured at around six o’clock the next morning, making my way to the Swiss border. I was burnt, two ribs broken and wearing only one flying boot, as the other one had been lost during my descent. I don’t think my captors considered me a great threat.
Like all captured aircrews, I was sent to the central aircrew interrogation centre at Frankfurt am Mainz. I spent twenty-six days there in solitary confinement with no exercise, no washing, a starvation diet and threats. It was more difficult for the German Interrogators to milk information from a single prisoner with no fellow crewmen and not even a Squadron companion. I was in a position to be stubborn and had a long stay at Frankfurt, before they decided to turn me over to a prison camp.
Sometime in October I arrived at Stalag Luft VII in a place called Bankau in Poland, not far from the Czechoslovak border. It was good to be among other RAF prisoners, many of which I knew from previous training in Britain and South Africa.
During the next three months the Russian war machine rolled nearer and we could hear the fire of guns. One night the Russian airforce scattered a few light bombs on the camp, hurting no-one. During my war I was bombed and straffed by the German, Italian, British, American and Russian airforces. I must say, the one that scared me most was the RAF who dropped a twenty-thousand pound bomb near our prison camp at Potsdam. However, that was later.
On January 16th, 1945, fourteen hundred POWs left Bankau on a forced march to ‘safety’. More accurately, it was a forced trudge. The Russians were never far behind us. We crossed the Oder river and the German army blew up the bridge behind us.
We detoured, we zig-zagged through the snow and ice of the Silesian winter. The German guards ceased guarding, they were just part of a line of refugees from the Russian advance. The only difference was they ate and we starved.
Seven weeks later less than a thousand of the original force of fourteen hundred crawled into the international POW camp at Luckenwalde near Potsdam. At least four hundred had died of starvation, frostbite and sheer exhaustion, some had even wandered off to wait for the Russians and the winter to kill them. The Germans had not ill-treated us on the march, they had survival problems too. We were a skinny, weak and ill bunch of POWs when we reached Luckenwalde, having each lost, on average, about thirty pounds in weight.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[page break]
3.
Luckenwalde camp was situated about 20 kilometres from Potsdam. Here the Germans had assembled prisoners of all nations who had marched away from the Russian advance. There were French, Croats, Serbs, Norwegians, Poles, British, Americans and Russians. A good number of the guards were Russians who had changed sides and were in German uniforms. I think it should be realised before we condemn the Russians who changed sides, that by far the majority of so-called Russians had no knowledge of belonging to the great power we know as the USSR. They knew they were Ukrainians, Georgians or Mongols, but they didn’t know that they were Russians. Most of them were illiterate with no idea of national identity as we have in the West. A Ukrainian was just as foreign to a Mongol as, say, a German.
The conditions in Luckenwalde were appalling. With the thousands of prisoners held there they couldn’t be anything else. There was very little food and we existed in a state of semi-starvation. The Red Cross did manage to get in some parcels and one time sent five tons of Swiss cheese. God bless the Red Cross.
When I said we existed, I mean the Western POWs survived but not the Russian POWs. The USSR was not a party to the Geneva Convention, which lays down basic conditions for war prisoners. So the Russian POWs received no extras. They starved to death in hundreds on a diet of watery cabbage soup and an odd slice of hard black bread. They hid their dead so their German captors would not cut their rations. They were too weak to maintain cleanliness standards and the Russian compound stank of death decay.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It happened on a sunny Sunday morning in April. It just happened. There were no shots, no drums, no bugles, no sounds of warning. A red-starred line of tanks and armoured cars bedecked with hard-bitten Russian soldiers, and even a few camp followers, drove into the camp. They just drove in! It took minutes to sink in. We were free. Our splendid Russian allies were here. The gallant liberators had arrived! We climbed all over their tanks, we shook their hands, we hugged them, we cried over them and we thought the war was over.
It must be said that the emotion was all on our side. These very tough, brave, very determined Russian tankmen did not waste time on back slapping. Maybe there was the odd smile, but they had a job to do. Taking no notice even to look for Germans, they made a quick search for arms. They found the Russian POW compound and their tanks battered the wire down. Shouting “On to Berlin” they distributed guns and ammunition to the Russian POWs and drove out of the camp. The newly-armed Russian prisoners scattered to the countryside to murder and loot. I don’t suppose they had the strength to rape.
[page break]
4.
The whole incident had lasted about half an hour, and when they had gone an unbelievable anti-climax set in. There were no Russians and no German guards, the flak towers were unmanned. No guns pointing, there was just us.
Well-trained minds recovered, meetings were held, a senior officer took charge of the camp. He happened to be British and a quick chain of command was established.
Around lunchtime a queue started to form at the camp gates and quickly grew into hundreds. They were a motely collection of German soldiers and civilians asking to be taken prisoner by the British and Americans. They did not want to fall into Russian hands, but we, wisely, did not let them in.
Three hours later a line of four German staff cars arrived carrying high-ranking German officers. With confident authority they announced that this was German territory, even though a Russian panzer spearhead had gone through. This would soon be dealt with. Meanwhile, we had broken the Geneva Convention by taking up arms as prisoners. In two hours the German army would return and for every weapon found, even a bayonet, fifty men would be shot. They left and we hurriedly buried the few weapons we had. The German army did not return.
As the evening drew in we returned to our huts. We were a mixture of elation, perplexity and a little down spirited. However, we had the luxury of a radio tuned into an American military station. The war news was good. The American advance was to stop at the Elbe. Nothing definite was known about the position of the Russians. One thing was clear to us – we were a long way east of the River Elbe.
We heard the first heavy gunfire at four o’clock that morning and the firing grew in crescendo and ferocity for four days and nights. Towards the end, shells were screaming over our camp. We just kept our heads down and waited. Despite being in the centre (or so it seemed) of a heavy battle, we had no casualties. The sound of battle passed to the north and when it became quieter the main Russian army came into view.
Somehow I was surprised at my first view of the all-conquering Red Army, they were more like a column from the first world war than an up-to-date fighting machine. There were armoured vehicles and a lot of American-manufactured trucks but much of it was horse-drawn. They came in slowly and rather scruffily, but there was a lot of them and these were the men who had fought from Stalingrad to within sight of Berlin.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[page break]
5.
Later, Russian officers and soldiers took charge of our prison camp. They made it clear that we were now under the jurisdiction of the Soviet Union and proved it by manning the flak towers and armed sentries patrolled the boundary wire.
We had a little more to eat, and more freedom within the camp. Our radios were confiscated and we were virtually prisoners again. We really had not expected to be treated this way by our gallant allies. All questions about our release received one answer: “We await orders from Moscow.”
Our depression and frustration was dramatically lifted on the third of May. Two American war correspondents drove into our camp. Somehow they were like the war correspondents one sees in the movies, full of easy confidence and not giving a fig for the Russian officers in charge. They spent two hours listening to our plight and with a cheery “So long guys, the army will soon get you out” they left. We had become accustomed to disappointment and I don’t think we were as confident as they were. Still it was good to know that the Americans would soon be aware of our existence.
Five days later, at ten o’clock in the morning, a great cheer went up as a convoy of American trucks drove into the camp. While the US officers conferred with the Russians, the drivers invited us to get aboard. Our particular driver was black, with a real southern accent; “Now pack up good and tight fellas. We gonna take you all and jest don’t bring a thing, we got plenty over there.”
We packed tight and we didn’t take a thing: Who wanted to take two blankets and a home-made frypan. And we waited. We waited for at least two hours until the US and Russian officers emerged, and it was obvious they were not on friendly terms. The American convoy commandant was very annoyed and was waving papers in front of the Red Army officer’s face. The argument, difficult with language differences, seemed to consist of American “What the Hells!” and impassive Russian “Niets”. After half an hour of this, matters took a serious turn and armed Russian soldiers began to surround the convoy. The American officers and drivers held a meeting and our driver came back and said we should get off the trucks. Nobody moved in our truck or any of the others. The officers argued again, the American throwing his arms up in frustration. An order from the Russian brought two soldiers to each vehicle with rifles at the ready, and they meant business.
The Americans told us that if the trucks did not return empty to the American lines the whole convoy would be interned. We nearly wept as we watched them drive out of the camp. Obviously, there had been no orders from Moscow.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[page break]
6.
Jock Nicol, Norman Capar, Pete Notton and I walked disconsolately back to our hut. Spurred by our deep disappointment, we decided to ‘go under the wire’ and we circled the camp boundary to find the weakest point. On one side the woods were only two-hundred yards from the fence and we found a spot where we could squirm under the barbed wire. Surreptitiously we examined the length of the patrol of the Russian perimeter guard. It was a much longer stretch than his German predecessor’s. The afternoon was warm and the guard looked less than alert. When he was fifty yards away with his back to us, we ducked under and ran for the woods. Shots were fired but we ran, and ran, and ran. After half an hour we stopped, weak legged and exhausted. We lay listening for sounds of pursuit, and the woods were quiet.
Jock Nicol and Norman Capar were the sort of men, that had one been fortunate enough to pick companions in adversity, one could not have picked better. Jock, a navigator from number five Bomber Command, was a fine man, he was physically strong and an absolutely dependable Scot. Norman Capar was a navigator in the Royal Canadian Airforce. He was six feet two inches in height, quiet, thoughtful and a stoic. I had first met Peter Notton three years earlier during our first aircrew training at Stratford on Avon. He was different from Jock and Norman. He was more mercurial, reckless, with a wide smile under blue eyes.
When we four recovered our breath we used the position of the sun to make our way westward through the narrow paths of the forest. Miles of firtrees glinted in the sunshine, covered with tons of window. Window was the name given to the small strips of foil dropped by allied airmen to confuse the German radar defence system. After the war, packets of window could be purchased to decorate the domestic Christmas tree. We had settled down to a steady pace when suddenly we saw three figures coming down the path to us, and we quickly ducked into the woods. So did they. We cautiously peered out again. So did they, and we advanced to each other. They were three German soldiers keeping clear of the Russians, and we were doing the same. We gave them a piece of chocolate and a cigarette each from our small store, shook their hands and wished them luck. None of us knew that the West were celebrating VE Day, but we had made our little peace,
We continued westwards through the firtrees, still listening for pursuit from the back, and alert for any movements ahead. The forest gradually gave way to heathland.
I cannot describe the first shock of seeing the crater of a dozen dead soldiers. It was so sudden we nearly stepped on them. They were so grey and so still. For a full minute we stared silently at them, almost expecting one of them to reach for a gun. I had seen corpses before, but somehow these, scattered in various immobile positions, appeared more dead than dead.
[page break]
7.
We pushed on wordlessly through corpses, some Russian, some German. The shock wore off and soon we didn’t even glance at the hundreds of dead bodies, as we trudged towards the evening sun, heading west.
By nightfall we calculated we were in the area of Belzig. We had not crossed a road or seen a building since leaving Luckenwalde. We took our night’s rest under some sheltering bushes and ate some chocolate and thirstily wished we had brought some water with us.
In the chilly dawn we were four cold, stiff and doleful men. The elation of escape had flopped. We walked on, but somehow we were more desperate and more careless than we had been the day before. In fact, we were almost pleased to hit a road, that yesterday we would have avoided. At five o’clock in the morning it was deserted and we made our way on it, heading west. Two hours later a battered old truck carrying vegetables stopped and our hearts sank as we saw it was driven by two Russian soldiers. They were both expressionless, as with signs pointing to the RAF insignia on our battledresses, we pointed westwards. We repeated the only Russian word we know. “Angliski, Angliski, Angliski.” Stabbing a thumb, one of them indicated the back of the truck. We sat among the swedes and cabbages and about an hour later we alighted in the town of Zerbst.
I speak German fairly well as a result of the efforts of a good teacher at the Riley High School in Hull. His name was Newton, and he knew how to make lazy boys learn. So I soon ascertained that the bridge over the River Elbe was some six kilometres from Zerbst. Nobody seemed concerned with us, and the nearness of our target put an extra spring in our steps as we made our way.
There it was, an iron bridge over a wide smooth river. There were a few buildings and some Russian soldiers walking around. Four guards were at our side of the bridge and we could see their American counterparts on the other side.
Walking unimpeded up to the sentries, we repeated our approach to the Red-Army truck drivers, pointing over the bridge and doing the “Angliski” bit. They watched us patiently but unmoved. At length, one making a sign for us to follow, led us to the Guard House. A young, tall Russian officer came, he could speak German and understood our predicament. He also made it quite clear that we were not crossing his bridge, and ordered us back to Zerbst where we would find a displaced-persons’ camp. Our pleadings were of no avail. I then told him we were hundgry [sic] and thirsty and this seemed to please him. He led us to a farm house that sounded like bedlam. In fact, it sounded like a dangerous bedlam with shouting and singing interrupted by rifle shots.
[page break]
8.
The officer spoke to a scruffy, fat man, dressed in jack boots, army trousers and a dirty, greasy vest, and left. We had found a friend, he put his very large arms around us and for a moment I thought I was going to get my first Russian kiss. Leading us into the farmyard, in Russian, he introduced us to fifteen or sixteen other scruffy men, dressed in trousers and vests. They seemed delighted that we had joined their party and proved it by thrusting bottles at us and firing shots in the air. It dawned on us that we had joined a bunch of drunken Russians having one hell of a celebration. Our fat friend, who spoke about a dozen words of English, and some German, frequently left us to stir a massive iron couldron [sic] in which floated several chickens cooking in a bubbling brown stock. We couldn’t take our starving eyes off it.
It didn’t take long for our weakened bodies to become as drunk as our hosts were. The cauldron stirrer became our particular chum and through him I learnt that the war was over and that this was a Red Army NCO’s party celebrating Russian VE Day. I learned later that the Russian VE Day is the day after the British and American VE Day.
Amid more drinking, more rifle fire, and the eating of chicken stew, our friend described, with difficulty, the good times the US and Russian soldiers had together before the bridge closed some days previously. I took the opportunity to raise our difficulty in crossing the bridge. He made a sign that our problem was solved, taking a rather soiled piece of notepaper, he wrote a message on it to give to the bridge guards. After more drinks, more hugs and handshakes we left the party to a loud fusillade of rifle shots.
Confidently we approached the bridge and handed our ‘pass’ to the guard, who looked rather puzzled as he read it, or maybe he couldn’t read. He led us to the same guard house and the same officer. As he read the piece of paper his face grew red with rage. I thought he was going to order our execution, but he pointed to the Zerbst road and we fled, and I really mean fled.
The trudge back to Zerbst was the most miserable of journeys and it was not made any better by two of us being violently sick on the way. Reaching the town we wandered around, lost and uncaring, but we were determined not to go back to Luckenwalde or any other Russian camp.
As we came to a large square in the City centre, we could believe in the sight of the large ornamental wrought-iron gates in front of us. We could believe in the four smartest Red Army soldiers we had ever seen, guarding the gate with fixed bayonets. We could believe the palace lying two-hundred yards along the drive from the gate. What we couldn’t believe was the line of about thirty armoured cars outside the palatial building. We couldn’t believe it because they were all wearing big American white stars.
[page break]
9.
We moved towards the gates and the guards made threatening moves with their bayonets. We stood respectfully ten feet away watching the US Army convoy, two khaki-clad figures moved around the armoured cars and we shouted “Yank, Yank, Yank” at the top of our voices. They heard us and even we could see from a distance they looked puzzled. However, they decided to investigate and walked uncertainly down the drive towards us. When they arrived at the gates the guards snapped to attention and we could see they were both US Army Majors. We still kept our distance, telling them our story through the gates.
They listened and then signalled to the guards that it was okay to let us in. The sentries looked very doubtful but they opened the gates. On the way to the cars the Americans explained that this was Marshal Koniev’s headquarters and that the American Commander from across the Elbe and his staff were here to celebrate Russian VE Day with the victorious Red Army Marshal.
We were told to get into two armoured cars, “Lie down, keep quiet; and for Chrissake [sic] keep your heads down.” We didn’t need to be told twice. After an hour one Major returned, leant over the car and dropped a bottle of whisky in our laps. Whisky was what we did not want, but the gesture was a thoughtful one. Time passed by and we heard a lot of movement. Peering through a crack in the armoured car we saw what appeared to be half the top brass of the Red and US Armies, lined up with Marshal Koniev in the centre. Cameras clicked and many photographs were taken. I have never seen one and would very much like to do so.
After more toasts, handshakes and back slapping, the Americans moved to their vehicles. The Major whom we knew, and a Colonel whom we didn’t know, climbed in with the driver. The senior officer, face flushed with either good drink or vexation, looked down at us; “What the hell?” The Major hurriedly explained, and this time the Colonel told us “for Chrissake [sic] keep your heads down.”
The convoy started up and we did as we were told. Sometime later we could hear that we were crossing a bridge, and after a few seconds a voice said, “You’re okay now.” We stood up and looked back at the Russian guards at the other end of the bridge. We gave them the ‘V’ sign and I am quite sure those impassive Ruskies could not understand the English colloquialism ‘up yours’.
A week later we were back in England. The other prisoners who had remained at Luckenwalde arrived in England eight weeks after us. They had returned via Odessa and the Middle East. I often wonder what would have happened to us had we gone to that displaced-persons’ camp in Zerbst, and when I hear “God Bless America”, I join in the singing.
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
Memoirs of Des Matthews
Description
An account of the resource
The author was shot down over Linz, Austria whilst bombing a Panzer works. The other six in his crew perished. He was taken to Dulag Luft at Frankfurt then Stalag Luft VII. In January his camp was evacuated and he joined the Long March to the west, ending up at Luckenwalde (Stalag 3A). In April the camp was overrun by Russians but they were kept as prisoners. An American convoy arrived to take them west but the Russians refused to release them. Together with three friends they escaped and worked their way west until stopped by a river. On VE day they were refused access across a bridge, held by the Russians at one end and the Americans at the other. After being fed and liquored by friendly Russians they met up with Americans in Zerbst. They were then smuggled across the bridge and freedom.
Format
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Nine typed sheets
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BAutonJAutonJv10001,
BAutonJAutonJv10002,
BAutonJAutonJv10003,
BAutonJAutonJv10004,
BAutonJAutonJv10005,
BAutonJAutonJv10006,
BAutonJAutonJv10007,
BAutonJAutonJv10008,
BAutonJAutonJv10009
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
South African Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany--Berlin
Austria--Linz
Italy--Foggia
Italy--Brindisi
Poland--Warsaw
Germany--Luckenwalde
Germany--Zerbst
Great Britain
England--Hull
Europe--Elbe River
Germany
Italy
Poland
Austria
England--Yorkshire
Creator
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Des Matthews
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
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Tricia Marshall
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05-08
178 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Dulag Luft
escaping
evacuation
evading
navigator
prisoner of war
Red Cross
shot down
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
training
Warsaw airlift (4 August - 28 September 1944)
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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
King, Edward James
E J King
Description
An account of the resource
46 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Edward James King (b. 1920, 1377691, 182986 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs and an album of charts and newspaper cuttings. He flew operations as a navigator with 96 and 15 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Patricia Joan Potter and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-11-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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King, EJ
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] VILLERS BOCAGE [/underlined] [underlined] 30th June, 1944 [/underlined]
[underlined] Panzer Concentrations in Woods. [/underlined]
Daylight operation at request of Field Marshall Montgomery. Formation flight with very heavy fighter escort. Very good visability [sic] & weather. Many ships seen in [deleted word] Channel and at the beachheads with many wrecked landing craft. H.M.S. "Rodney" observed near to the beaches with convoys everywhere. Landing strips in Normandy see in operation with Liberators, Spitfires and Lightnings. Cherbourg seen[deleted] i [/deleted] in distance. Bayeaux very peaceful. Only light flak seen but it was very accura[missing letters] Fighter escort mainly Spitfires with a few Tempests.
[page break]
[map]
[inserted] VILLERS BOCAGE [/inserted]
[page break]
[map]
[page break]
DAY 30TH JUNE 1944.
3 GROUP ADOPTED A NEW ROLE YESTERDAY WHEN THEY MADE A DAYLIGHT ATTACK ON VILLERS BO[deleted]S[/deleted]CAGE. APART FROM THE DAWN ATTACK ON 'D' DAY THIS WAS THE FIRST FULLSCALE OPERATION CARRIED OUT BY THIS GROUP OVER ENEMY TERRITORY BY DAY, SINCE THE BREST DAYS OF 1941.
127 LANCASTERS TOOK OFF FROM.
15 SQUADRON. – 17 DETAILED. – 16 PRIMARY. – 1 ABORTIVE.
622 SQUADRON. – 14 DETAILED. – 13 PRIMARY. – 1 CANCELLED.
90 SQUADRON. – 19 DETAILED. – 19 PRIMARY.
115 SQUADRON. – 27 DETAILED. – 27 PRIMARY.
514 SQUADRON. – 29 DETAILED. – 27 PRIMARY. – 1 ABORTIVE. – 1 MISSING.
THESE IN COMPANY WITH 105 HALIFAXES OF 4 GROUP SET OUT IN IT IS HOPED, GOOD FORMATION WITH FIGHTER COVER. THERE WAS 3.5/10 CLOUD AND MOST OF THE CREWS WERE ABLE TO SEE THE TARGET AREA QUITE CLEARLY THROUGH GAPS IN THE CLOUD. HOWEVER, OWING TO THE TERRIFIC CLOUD OF SMOKE AND DUST CAUSED BY THE HALIFAXES WHO WENT IN FIRST, THE AIMING POINT WAS COMPLETELY OBSCURED AND VERY FEW SAW THE MARKERS. THIS DID NOT PREVENT A GOOD ATTACK AND BOMBING WAS CARRIED OUT ON INSTRUCTIONS OF MASTER BOMBER ON CONCENTRATION OF SMOKE, THE MAJORITY FROM 10/12,000 FT. BUT A NUMBER CAME DOWN BELOW CLOUD AND BOMBED FROM 3,600 TO 4,000 FT.
SOME EXCELLENT PHOTOGRAPHS WERE OBTAINED BY ALL SQUADRONS AND ABOUT 90% SHOW THE AIMING POINT OR WHAT WAS THE VILLAGE COVERED BY CLOUDS OF SMOKE AND VERY LITTLE BOMBING APPEARS TO BE OFF THE TARGET. THE VILLAGE AND RODS [sic] SEEM TO BE OBLITERRATED [sic], AND IT IS HOPED MANY 'PANZERS' WITH IT.
THERE WERE SOME SCATTERED ACCURATE LIGHT AND HEAVY FLAK IN TARGET AREA, SEVERAL AIRCRAFT BEING HIT. THIS IS BELIEVED TO ACOUND [sic] FOR THE ONE LANCASTER AND ONE HALIFAX CASUALTIES.
NO ENEMY FIGHTERS WERE SEEN
ONE OF 75 SQDN WAS HIT BY FLAK OVER TARGET AND FORCED DOWN, BUT MANAGED TO LAND ON ONE OF THE LANDING STRIPS BEHIND OUR LINES, THE ONLY CASUALTY BEING ONE MEMBER OF CREW SLIGHTLY WOUNDED BY FLAK.
VILLERS BOCAGE
THE WHOLE AREA IS A MASS OF CRATERS. ALL THE AREAS ARE STILL BLOCKED.
[page break]
[photograph]
What Monty ordered
THE bombs going down in bottom centre of picture were part of the 1,000 tons dropped by the R.A.F. on a special target in answer to a call from the battle-line in Normandy
The target was a forest in the Villers Bocage area which held concentrations of German tanks. More than 250 Lancaster and Halifax night bombers, with fighter cover, made the daylight attack
The picture was taken at the height of the attack when the target was a sea of smoke and fire. In 12 minutes Rommel's armour was obliterated
"Your action will not be forgotten by the enemy," said Gen. Montgomery in his message of thanks to Bomber Command
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items, Edward's description of the operation to bomb Panzer concentrations in woods, requested by Field Marshall Montgomery. As the operation was in daylight Edward was able to describe the scene not too long after D Day. There is also Edwards navigation plot, a map showing the target area with their track and the target. Part of an official report on the operation, it details the aircraft from 3 Group that took part and their squadrons, together with 4 Group Halifax aircraft with a heavy fighter escort. It makes the point that this is the first full scale operation by 3 Group in daylight since D Day. The visibility was good until obscured by dust created by the bombs exploding, the operation was judged a success. There is also a press cutting captioned 'What Monty ordered' describing the operation.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Edward King
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-30
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
England--Suffolk
France--Villers-Bocage (Calvados)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Map
Map. Navigation chart and navigation log
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten documents, a nav plot, a map, a press cutting
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SKingEJ182986v10084, SKingEJ182986v10085, SKingEJ182986v10086, SKingEJ182986v10087, SKingEJ182986v10088
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-06-30
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Title
A name given to the resource
Villers Bocage, Edward King's 19th operation of his tour
115 Squadron
15 Squadron
3 Group
4 Group
514 Squadron
622 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
bombing
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
P-38
RAF Mildenhall
Spitfire
tactical support for Normandy troops
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2191/39854/EKillenFReidKM450925.1.pdf
2db5fb0a517170a2dabb4b3534f0e606
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
Reid, Kathleen
Reid, K
Reid, Kathryn
Reid, Katy
Description
An account of the resource
92 items and a <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2219">sub-collection with thirty-seven poems/songs</a>. The collection concerns Kathryn (Katy) Reid (Royal Air Force) and contains memoirs, correspondence, poems and photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by David Stuart Miers Reid and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-23
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
Reid, K
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
San Antonio
Texas
Sept. 25, 1945
My darling Cathie:
“Untold want, by life and land ne’er granted, [underlined] Now, Voyager, [/underlined] sail thou forth, to seek & find.”
Honey, Walt Whitman wrote those lines, from which Olive Higgins Prouty took the title for her famous best seller, “Now Voyager”, which I have just completed, after hours of complete joy & undivided interest, and to me it is greater than Margaret Mitchell’s – with no disrespect to Mrs. Mitchell, because I think she is truly a genius – “Gone With The Wind.” But what a nice title for a book, and a nice source from which to derive a title. I don’t know if you’ve ever read this book, but it is one I can highly recommend, & I believe you WOULD like it.
But let me not wander onto subjects of a literary nature, when I have much nicer things to try to convey to you. Today – (we have no mail call on Sundays, so my letters piled up,) I received an unprecedented stack of letters (18) from about half a dozen correspondents. And they came from the four corners of the U.S. – from the great North West (Washington state), to New York, to Lousiana, [sic] to California – East, North, West & South, also your letter No 4, from England. Not bad for a “buck” Sgt. in one day, but I pity my fingers after I have written a reply to everyone of these epistles. One day last week I penned 8 masterpieces & wound up with a severe case of
(OVER)
[page break]
II
Writer’s cramp, but it was worth it, because I never get tired of writing, & as long as my friends will comply with a retaliation, or rebuttal, I will be perfectly pleased.
Outside – on the grass –
The heat in an upper story of a two-storied barracks is unbearable, so out into the shade created by the building. These barracks are really nice – every one of them made of white (or grey) stucco (plaster-like) and each barracks has its individual bath, shower, central heating system (why that was installed here in San Antonio I shall never know – because as the city advertises itself – it is where the “sunshine spends her winters. They tell me it rains twice a year, & I believe it. I have seen little (& very little at that) just once since I’ve been here. Such a contrast to England’s weather where it [underlined] doesn’t rain twice a year, [/underlined] but [underlined] twice [/underlined] a day. I’d give anything for a small bit of that climate I [underlined] USED [/underlined] to curse. I suppose it is no more than human nature to desire those things which are forbidden us momentarily. And when we finally get it we long for what we’ve just been removed of –
Do you remember Armstrong (remember he was dark haired, very quiet, & wore glasses – a math. professor from Texas?)I received a letter from him today. He is with the 36th Sqdn. yet, 4,000 miles away, in Tacoma, Wash. You remember Chilek, I know. He was the blonde-haired one you called Bob, I think – used to run around with “Mr. Moto” I received
[page break]
3
a note from him also, and he ALREADY IS A CIVILIAN, and so is BILL BLAISE – Ann’s old flame. The slightly (very, I should say) bald one. It was good to hear from Chilek. He’s a nice guy. Said he & his wife were in New York City the day the official Jap surrender was announced, and what a time THAT CITY had.
Poor old Robin, Big-Noise, & the rest are still sweating out a boat-ride in England. I was darn lucky to get to fly home. It shouldn’t be too long before I should be out of here. I have 89 points & only 80 are needed for a discharge. And to think that I haven’t spent 3 years in the forces yet, & am not too old, and have no physical handicaps, as yet, from the war – I consider myself darn lucky. Both my brothers are safe, & soon will be on their respective ways home – one from France, & one from Tokyo. My oldest Brother, Ben, who spent 3 years in the Infantry in the Pacific (and those are the guys who really had it rough, doing the actual fighting) said that before he came home he would probably see Tokyo. His prophecy came true! But in October he sails for home (it says in the papers his outfit is scheduled to sail at that time) and my bro. in France hopes to be home by Christmas. And I should be a civilian long before then. Know what I’ve decided to do. Go either to New Orleans or New York, rent me a hotel room, get me a case of Scotch & about a dozen cartons of cigarettes, lock myself in & write my book –
[page break]
4.
between hangovers of course. If the book sells, I will consider myself already a genius, & don’t need the education a university can offer; if it doesn’t sell, to college I go! It’s too late to enroll [sic] in the Fall semester, as the mid-term semester begins in January. I should have sufficient time by then to complete my “Masterpiece” – if I buckle down.
My best friend’s mother has almost demanded that I come to N.Y. to do my writing. She is a colorful [sic] character herself – an orchestra leader, also a farmerette. She owns a large estate up in the mountains & has thousands of chickens, and she’s married to an Englishman, (born & reared in England) but they don’t get along very well – she’s too independent & he expects her to play wife to him & mother to his kids (each had been married before & had several kids) I’ll possibly settle in the East – in New England, or somewhere North. I can’t stand the torture of the Southern climate any longer.
Cathy (I mean Cathie) I had some snaps made while I was home which came out better than I expected. I only had 1 print made because I was afraid of the results. Now I’ve sent the negatives back & will have several reprints made. When I receive them I will send you a print of each – that is if you think you’re strong enough to bear the brunt of a shock they will, undoubtedly, afford you. If you have a garden you may put them there to keep the crows away.
I’ve just come back from afternoon mail call - & feel a little disappointed that I didn’t get any. But with this mornings sum total, I have no
[page break]
5.
kick coming –
TWO HOURS LATER:
Since beginning this seemingly ill-fated epistle, I have been to the P.X. [symbol] for a couple of bottles of beer; I’ve had chow (supper); and I’ve read 60 pages in Col. Robert L. Scott’s “God Is My Co-Pilot” – the true story of a man who was “too old” – 34 (so the gov. told him) to go to war. Non-fiction. Everytime I go to the library I select a fiction, and a non-fiction because I’m partial to stories & adventures that are true. At one time I used to think I’d like to write the all-American classic from pure imagination, but my first effort is going to be a plunge into the autobiographic world – people tell me I’m too young to write one; that I must wait until I’m old & then write my memoirs, but I say – baloney! I’ve had enough experiences since I’ve been in the Army – of every nature, gay, tragic, ordinary, to fill a dozen volumes. So if I make a hit with my initial effort, I shall, more than likely, follow up with a sequel. As my “great” work of fiction – a novel I’ve had in mind a long time. You read “The Yearling” – the poor people of the everglades in Florida? Well, my brain conceives a plot involving a wild young girl brought from the everglades by a philanthropic fellow from New Orleans – to learn to read, & to write – because she is very beautiful – of Spanish & Irish ancestry – black eyes & raven hair of the Spanish, & smooth white skin of her Irish father (you know Florida WAS settled by Spanish (Ponce de Leon finally
(OVER)
[symbol] P.X – Post Exchange – (base store) – you know though, I suppose.
[page break]
6.
came there searching for his fountain of youth) Ponce de Leon sounds French, but I think [underlined] he [/underlined] was Spanish. It doesn’t matter.
The story will relate how she changed from a sweet, demure, innocent young girl, with a puppy-like devotion for her benefactor – to a scheming, heartless, shrewd wench, after she realizes what effects her beauty and personality have on men, until she completely wrecks the life of her [indecipherable word], driving his wife to suicide, and one of his sons to his death through her scheming and lying.
But I’ll wait & send you a copy if I ever complete it, and let you pass judgement. I got this idea when I was spending a Christmas holiday in Florida in 1939 – in the balmy, tropical climate, away from the icy snows of winter. I was visiting an uncle’s relatives, when I met this girl. She [underlined] WAS [/underlined] of Irish & Spanish descent, & she was very beautiful, AND illiterate. I felt sorry for Martha (she was past 30 then) and her family was ashamed of her. I remember it was Christmas day, so I decided to take her to the movies. She knew she was unwanted, and when we got out of the car (there was a queue) and I started to the end of it, but she, poor girl started on up to the box-office. So we were separated, and when she saw me going the other way she figured I was ashamed of her – (I wasn’t Cathie – sorry for her, but [underlined] not [/underlined] ashamed) She caught up with me, & told me I didn’t have to go with her; she’d understand. I told her not to be foolish; that in the cities you HAVE to go to the end of the line (queue) & wait your turn. She told me that in this small town you didn’t. I finally persuaded her to believe I wasn’t ashamed of her, & we saw the movie. And I’m glad I did – I’ll be happy to my dying day that I did handle this
[page break]
7.
situation with tact, & restraint, & that I didn’t blow up & leave her there, for it wasn’t long afterwards that she died. When I’d go to Florida (I used to go every year) I’d invariably take her a load of gifts. Usually I’d buy her a fairly expensive Yardley makeup kit, & boxes of candy, because living so far from civilization, she saw these “luxuries” only at Christmas. The last time I was there I gave her a nice Houbigant set with powder, talc, soap, cologne, perfume, etc. – in a nice satin-lined case (she had never even seen anything so nice, much less to really own one) and when I left she told me that whenever I returned – if it were 20 years she’d still have it.
So I got to wondering what it would be like to take her back, give her a private tutor & get her educated in basic fundamentals – not everything - & turn her loose on New Orleans society. I could never do this, but I dreamed of it, and presto! I figured out just what would happen – I invented all kinds of escapades for her in my mind – and the idea for a novel was born. So my great classic won’t be entirely fiction after all.
So much for that. It’s growing pale around me, and lights are beginning to bob up here ---- and there, the sky is battleship grey, and a few acquamarine [sic] clouds fringe the horizon, a lone B-24 (Liberator) drones overhead (bringing back memories (over)
[page break]
8
of my flight across the Atlantic; there is an acrid smell of burning waste in the air. Occasionally a G.I. – dressed in his summer gabardine uniform passes, headed for the P.X for a beer or ice-cream soda, or to the theatre, or service club. Immediately aft of our barracks is a large frame built of timbers, across which is hung G.I. laundry – limply, and blowing slightly in the evening breeze. Now the barracks are bright with light, and from one of them comes low, soft music, of a dance band. This is truly the saddest part of the day – neither light, nor dark, when Mother nature rings her curfew and tells the day to prepare for bed, but the day – reluctant to admit it must gather her treasures and make way for a different shift, lingers just as long as it is possible, until other father night creeps in on her, shoving her out of sight & mind for a few hours. When she departs, though, the day is gay & not sad, because she knows that in a very short time she can return & play a similar trick on her rival. I hear several G.Is barking like Wolves. Undoubtedly they have spotted a pretty girl & are howling their approval.
Now it is so dark that I have difficulty writing a straight line, so I’ll bid you fond adieu, hoping I haven’t bored you with all this chit-chat. You barely guessed your fate when you made friends with a potential author, to whom 5,000 words are a puny beginning, did you, darling?
So I’ll say, Goodnight my love & may the time be short, & the Gods favorable, [sic] until I can see you again – As Always
“Always” Yours, Heathcliffe
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 Cathie from Ford Killen
Description
An account of the resource
Writes some literary philosophy and mentions receiving many letters from various correspondents. Describes his location and reminisces about acquaintances and family. Interrupts letters and goes on to describe activities. Writes that he would like to write a book and outlines plot. Follows long rambling reminiscing about old flame and flight across the Atlantic in B-24.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
F Killen
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-09-25
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-09-25
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
United States
Texas--San Antonio
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
United States Army Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Eight-page handwritten letter
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Pending review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EKillenFReidKM450925
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
B-24
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2191/39865/EKillenFReidKM470513.1.pdf
48731074e02c4d60bc9482423fca2543
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
Reid, Kathleen
Reid, K
Reid, Kathryn
Reid, Katy
Description
An account of the resource
92 items and a <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2219">sub-collection with thirty-seven poems/songs</a>. The collection concerns Kathryn (Katy) Reid (Royal Air Force) and contains memoirs, correspondence, poems and photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by David Stuart Miers Reid and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-23
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
Reid, K
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Mitchel Field, N. Y.
May 13, 1947
My darling Cathie:
I received one of your letters today and a belated one a couple of days ago… It had gone to the squadron mailroom, to which I seldom go, as I pick up the Beacon mail at the postoffice. [sic] I liked your first letter, but your last one made me sad. I decided that I was going to go all out to try to improve your dampened spirits. It makes me feel blue when I know that you are feeling blue, Cathie, because you are the only one that makes life bearable for me now. I work, work work, with this newspaper. I’m sick of it; I’m sick of anything to do with the newspaper business.
If we had more help maybe I wouldn’t mind it so bad, but now I hardly have time to evn [sic[ write to my mother.
I’ve heard and read how things are in England now. Darling, can’t they do something? Britian [sic] didn’t lose the war. From all reports, even Germany is being better fed now. If something were done, instead of all the bickering and the armchair stragetists [sic] that tell the world how to get along, but do nothing about it. When I think of how much we have; how much we waste; enough to keep hundreds of thousands.
What to do? Spring, almost summer, is here. The fields are green…. what little there is here. And the trees are all in bloom. Green leaves. Maytime. It’s not like Romberg’s “Maytime,” because this is not the proper setting. Long Island is so thickly populated, that you have few miles without villages and towns. I don’t like urban life. I wish we were situated in the country, like Cyderstone, where you could hop on a bicycle and breeze down the road, pass brooks and farms and forests…
A change of typewriters because I had to be alone to really get down to business writing this letter to you. A couple of guys in my office were arguing and I couldn’t get into the mood to write.
What was it about England--with all her privations, her wartime restrictions that got under my skin? It wasn’t only you Cathie, dearest. Because I loved London, and all the other places that I visited. But especially London. I have menus from Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, and other restaurants there, which I take out of my suitcase occasionally and read over; it seems that I have not left London; that I can take the train and in three hours be there. Oh, why did I have to rush right back home. Having been away for two years, I was eager to get back, to the states, and I was only here a short while when I realized that I shouldn’t have been so hasty. If only I had stayed around long enough to have married you before I left, things would be so much easier now. But as it is, we have to wait, and wait and wait.
I am waiting, but not very patiently. Time goes on. It has
[page break]
been two years--over since I saw you… In fact, I remember the exact day; the exact hour, I boarded the liberator and left the base at Chetingtion, [sic] for Prestwick, Scotland. It was about 10 a m, on July 9, 1945. Then we stayed around Prestwick for quite a while, and I never realized that I was preparing to leave this country behind. This country with its age-old villages; its ancient Gothic and Norman churches; this country with its tiny farms, its tea, its Yorkshire pudding, and its stubbornness, which brought the people through the dark times. This country that had produced a girl which was to steal my heart forever and ever. The girl who raced down the hill on the bicycle, laughing and her hair blowing in the wind… so tiny, but so real, so alive. The girl who liked to sing “Always”, who was so sweet and kind that before she would say anything unkind about a person, she would say nothing.
Now you wonder, Cathie, darling, you wonder if I want you; if I could live without you. I may as well tell you again, as I have over and over, that you are the only girl I’ll ever love. You’re not the only girl I’ve thought I’ve loved, because when I was going to school, I used to think that I surely would die if I could not have some little 16 or 14 year old girl who was my “puppy love”. How [deleted] yo [/deleted] you can ever doubt that I could love anyone else as long as I could remember your eyes, your funny little laugh…. I can still see you standing under Nelson’s statue (I never did get to see you standing there, thanks to fate) but I can imagine how you would have looked. Why don’t you go there sometimes, darling, and feed the pidgeons [sic]…. watch the crowds who seek temporarily to get away from the hubdub [sic] of the teeming city. And walk down into the Strand, across from the Tivoli theatre to the queen’s head. There you will find Mom; she is the sort you can’t miss because she is the typical Mom, huge, round and very kind, She used to treat me kindly. I wrote her a letter, she answered it and I failed to write, but you can ask her about the guy she wrote to at Mitchel Field. Tell her that I still think of her and that I will write to her. Explain how being in the Air Forces, and trying to edit a paper without 1/5 of the staff I need occupies most of my time.
But that I could just stroll down the Strand with you. You know that is my favorite [sic] section of London. Piccadilly is second because it is the entertainment center [sic] of the city, and I think I like Marble Arch next. I want to cry when I look back at the wonderful times I had there. Of all the laughing young Americans who tramped London’s streets, thinking they didn’t like it, but all the time loving it. Again I think how sad it would be to go back to that city and find it all changed…. find all Americans gone. You probably think of it as an interlude that has passed. You knew London when it ss [sic] didn’t have Americans. I never did. To me London is filled with Americans… in the pubs, in the streets, restaurants, in the hotels. I can’t picture it without them. So perhaps it is best that I don’t go back, because doubtless I would be disappointed. It all would be so different… so unlike the London I remember. Even the friends I made in London have changed.
I could sing the praises of the island for days, and whenever I get the chance to do so, I sing those praises.
I, at last,, have my teeth, after more than 120 hours in the dentist’s chair. They fixed me a permanent bridge that can not be detected (they say) or removed. Everyone says they [deleted] a [/deleted] can not be detected… to me they don’t look natural, because I know how my
[page break]
real teeth looked. They were crooked, but these are so perfect that I can’t imagine them as my own. I’ve had them in for a couple of days. Tomorrow I’m going to have them cemented in. then it’s permanent. The doctor has been very nice to me, although I have become an institution there. Its going to seem odd not to be able to go back to the dentist again after four months, I went once ever [sic] day, and sometimes twice a day.
The picture “Odd Man Out” which you saw in London, and said you didn’t like, got rave notices in New York and is doing a landslide business. Have you, by chance, seen “Oklahoma” which opened there recently; the reviews that reached this side of the ocean said that it was the greatest American play to have opened since the Belle of New York in 1898.
LATER;
Since I’ve started this letter a lot has happened, and I’ve put out an issue of The Beacon, too. First I received your telegram. Then I received your letter. Happy days. I’m so glad that you could get things arranged--I still don’t know why you’re coming. I want to warn you again of all my faults. You probably won’t be able to stand me, but shall we give it a try anyway. Sometimes I get temperamental. You know that though. I live a keyed up life, fly off the handle easily, but get over it soon, and am sorry. I suppose it’s the Irish temper though.
I’m taking a pass this weekend, going out to Elmira for 5 days, to renew old acquaintances. May go to New York, too and see some shows. Joan of Lorraine as treated by Author Maxwell Anderson and Ingrid Bergman, the star, was a simple country girl; neither a mystic nor soldier.
I haven’t had a pass since I went home on furlough last December. I need one terribly…. I have to get away from newspapers for awhile or go crazy. I work too hard on this darn rag, and let every thing else drop while I’m doing it. I don’t know why. It’s not getting me anywhere.
Of course I’ll write a letter to your Mother. Flying is
[page break]
safer than travelling by automobile or train now. The percentage of accidents in the air are much less than travel by land.
Things will be all right after you get settled here, because the Army provides a fair allowance for dependents, but it will take a month or two for things to get straightened out. If I can obtain permission to live off the post (and I’m sure I can) they grant you another $37.50 a month for quarters… perhaps its more. The main problem, now, is to find a place to stay… an apartment. The housing situation is nil. Too, I only work five days a week here, and could possibly get a spare-time job over the weekends and in the evenings.
I think I could arrange a transfer near home, which would help a lot, as I would be able to build or buy my own home down there. But Long Island, being just a little more than 20 miles from New York, is the ideal place… if I’m to continue to try to say in the newspaper business, or you want to continue your career. It’s a shame for you to waste all that knowledge of makebelieve [sic] (which you call a hindrance) and which I love. I want to hear you as Lady Macbeth… (not that I think you are a Lady M) But I like to see actresses dig in, something they can get their teeth into, and turn in a performance. Maybe we can collaborate on a starring vehicle for you. [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] Remember the plot (or Plots) of the story I sent you before?
If I didn’t tell you in Chapter One of this book, I have my teeth now, after a long delay. They look good--are not removable, so I won’t have to worry about being seen without them. Four of them replaced.
It’s a beautiful day here today, after rain last night. Spring has arrived, definitely. Before I thought it had arrived, but was fooled.
[page break]
I’ll check with the Legal Dept. on the status of getting into the U.S. It can’t be very tough, though, because we don’t even need passports to get to the country to the North. Laws are easy, they trust us and we trust them. Never were two countries more alike. We have the same accents, both like apple pie and coffee, and are brothers under the skin.
I’ve got a dental appointment in about 5 minutes, so for the present I’ll have to suspend this “issue.” Had more [deleted] the [/deleted] time than I thought, so I can continue (& perhaps complete) this “note.”
I’ll be seeing you, I hope, and until I do…. let me say… all my love to you. You’ve already got my folks and Aunt Cat on your side. They told me if I didn’t ask you to come over, they would. They all want to meet you. There’s a lot I want to tell you but it will be better to reveal all my past to you in person. It’s not lurid, though, I can assure you. A little hectic, but not bizarre. So darling, until we meet….
All my love, forever and ever,
Just…
“Heathcliff”
Dublin Core
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Title
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Letter to Cathie from Ford Killen
Description
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Writes about her recent letters. Mentions poor state of things in England and reminisces over his time there. Writes about the last time he saw her and his journey back to the United States. Continues to express his feelings for her and speculates on a future. Goes on with mention of visit to dentist and describes his current activities and speculates more on future plans for them.
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F Killen
Date
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1947-05-13
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1947-05-13
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United States
New York (State)--Mitchel Field
Great Britain
Scotland--Prestwick
Coverage
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United States Army Air Force
Civilian
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eng
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Text
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Five-page typewritten letter
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Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Pending review
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EKillenFReidKM470513
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Tricia Marshall
B-24
love and romance
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1441/29093/BPerkinsFWJPerkinsFWJv1.1.pdf
399a52b273385620102351e9d4c96d5e
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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Perkins, Frederick William James
F W J Perkins
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-09-17
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Perkins, FWJ
Description
An account of the resource
23 items. The collection concerns Frederick William James Perkins (1143173 Royal Air Force) who served as an engineer on radar research and as an armourer in the middle east. Collection and contains a memoir, propaganda leaflets and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by F Perkins and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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Transcription
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[underlined]The Memories of LAC Fred Perkins[/underlined]
Frederick William James Perkins
Leading AirCraftman (LAC) 1143173
Main Service: Fitter Armourer General, Liberator Bombers, Middle East Theatre.
Joined Full Time Service 23 May 1941
Began Overseas Service 13 August 1943
Ended Service 26 May 1946
Transcribed from the dictated 2015 memories of Fred Perkins, aged 94.
[underlined]Joining and Basic Training[/underlined]
I volunteered to join the Royal Air Force in February 1941. I went to Worcester to volunteer and I wanted to be an aircrewman. I was enrolled and sent up to Padgate, in Lancashire, to be tested for an aircrew roll. Straight off, I could see what I was up against for a place in aircrew training. Everyone else was from a university at a time when being a student meant you were the cream at the top, and I knew I didn’t stand a chance. They accepted me into the RAF but put me on deferred service for aircrew. I got sent back into civi-street and I had a card that said I was in deferred service so I couldn't be put into another branch of the military, but could get called up at any time to the RAF. Eventually I was called up and sent to a different airbase for training as an engineer, instead.
[underlined]First Posting[/underlined]
I had my first proper posting down in RAF Christchurch, by Bournemouth (the airfield no longer exists). It was a radar research place, then, and they were experimenting on improving the radar system that had just been invented. I was assigned as general ground crew to part of the Telecommunications Flying Unit (Later the Radar Flying Unit). It was civilian billets at that point, a couple of us in each house: one airman and one technician. They were quite big houses and they looked out over the sea. Being on the south coast, the beach and the bottom of the gardens were strung with thick barbed-wire in case of invasion by boat. On a Friday, I went to the Paymaster General, to collect the rent, twentyfour and sixpence for the week, bed and breakfast. Often, in the morning, we would have to go out and round up the New Forest ponies that would wander onto the airstrip in the night. We had to get the tractor and move them off before the planes could take off. One day, I was walking past the Flight Officer’s office, an old cricket pavilion, and he said to me “You wanted to be aircrew, didn’t you?” I said I did. He said “I’ve got just the job for you. Go down to the flight office and pick up a parachute, then go up to the end of the
[page break]
runway”. When I got to the end of the runway, not much more than a grass strip, there was an aircraft called a FaireyBattle. It was a lovely aircraft with a Rolls-Royce engine, and it was all metal. They were supposed to be a fighter-bomber but weren’t very good, so they were being used for training radar. It was perfect for radar testing as the metal body was great for screwing all these little di-pole reflectors into. So I got in this thing, in the back as an observer and lookout, and off it took, the wingtips wobbling as it went over the grass. We went out over the Channel and I was to look out for German fighters. In those days, the Germans were there, only twenty nine miles away in France. We flew out over the Channel, then came back in and they would test the radar detection zones with the aircraft to determine the distance and direction that the early warning system would work. We would go out into the Channel, come back in, then down towards the west coast and over Torquay, then come back to Christchurch. As we came back in, the pilot said “How do you feel, you look a bit green?” I told him “I feel a bit green!” He told me to come back the next day, and sure enough we went up again, almost in the same area, then off towards Southampton to test that coverage. Southampton was an important area with all the docks. I felt a bit ill, then, with all the ducking and diving there, what with having to avoid all the barrage air balloons and the like. I went up a number of times, as a look-out. When I wasn’t in the back of the FaireyBattle, I would work on the petrol bowsers. They carried a thousand gallons of highoctane petrol, with a fifty gallon oil tank dragged behind. I would fill up the aircraft fuel and make sure the engines and controls were well oiled. I had a few days leave, then. When I came back, I asked if there was any chance of going up again in the ‘Battle. The Flight Officer said “You’ll be lucky, the aircraft was shot down over the Channel!” No-one knew what had happened, it had disappeared over the Channel, and that was it. They carried on the effort with several other planes, but I didn’t get to go up again. We weren’t at Christchurch for that long. We built some dome huts to live in, moving out of civilian billets, and I remember one night playing cards in one of these huts. The Germans came along and dropped some bombs right down the back of us and I thought they’d hit us directly. The explosions blew out the candles and plunged us into darkness and I thought for a moment that I was dead. We had a lot of aircraft there: Beaufighters, Mosquitoes, FaireyBattles, others, all fitted up with radar and camouflaged with trees and nets. Parts of the airfield were hit, but the bombs missed all the planes, they didn’t touch any of them. I nearly got hit several times. One night I went to the cinema and there was a raid. The Lyon's Cafe, on the corner, got hit and when we came out of the shelter, the cafe wasn't there anymore. Another time, I was cycling from Christchurch to the nearby airfield of Hurn. I heard the sirens go off, so I was peddling like mad, and all of a sudden I heard a swissssh. A line of bombs was dropped in front of me, in between Christchurch and Bournemouth. Of course, now the Germans knew where we were. They knew we were developing radar in such a way, and that it was such an important technology. They knew where we were, and seeing as we were just the other side of the Channel to them, it was too dangerous to stay. We had to move.
[page break]
We spent three days getting everything into the back of lorries, three dozen of them, and we moved up to Salisbury Plains. From there, we used the cover of darkness to go north. The lads in the back had no idea where we were going. We just piled into the back of some jeeps and followed the lead truck. Eventually, we arrived at Defford, in Worcestershire, just east of Malvern. It was just fields of tall grass and broad beans, when we got there, and the sweet smell hit us as we got out of the jeeps. We had to get the farmer out to plough the fields before we could use them. After the planes had arrived, we built a better runway and we stayed there for some time. RAF Defford was born and we carried on with radar work. You can still see some of the radar dishes there, today. One day, I was helping the top engineer with one of the fighters. He was having problems getting the oil pressure up in the engine and was revving the engine very high. The plane was jumping up and down with the vibrations until it jumped right over the chocks holding it in place. It started off down the runway with the engineer inside. It took him to the bottom of the runway to put the breaks on and get it stopped. We had to tow it back up the field with a truck, eventually, when everybody had finished laughing!
[underlined]Full Time Fitter Training[/underlined]
After that, I was called up to Kirkham, in Lancashire (what is now HM Prison Kirkham) for a training course for fitters and armourers. The course would normally have run for several years, but was condensed down into about fourteen months for us. (Between 1939 and 1945 RAF Kirkham trained 72,000 British and allied service men and women. In November 1941 Kirkham became the main armament training centre for the RAF, with 21 different trades and 86 different courses on equipment and weapons varying from 22 riffles to 75mm guns.) We were trained by Rolls Royce civilian trainers. There were about five hundred of us in a big hangar, twenty-five in a row, each section with an instructor. The training was great, there was no better training than the RAF. I used to enjoy it, I was quite keen on the job. We were trained in a number of different trades including blacksmithing, tin smithing, copper smithing, hydraulics, the lot. They took you from scratch. We had weeks of filing and grinding six-inch blocks of steel. You would file it flat, by hand, or make dove-joints, splits, rivets. Then you would start over on a new piece. The raw material would come on a tip-up truck and would be dumped in a pile for you to grab a piece when you needed it. It was easy to take a bit more of the metal off, but if you made a mistake and took too much off, you couldn't put it back on, you'd have to start again! We had the best tools, too. We had some lovely sets of tools, especially later when I was working on the Liberators. I had a big leather wallet with about twenty files in it: flat, smooth, round, square. We had to work with very fine tolerances, when we made or filed the work, because these things would end up as crucial parts of an airplane and if they failed, or didn't fit properly, the plane could crash and the crew could die. Right from the start, the trainer came over and said “That’s not the first time holding a hammer, is it? You seem to know what you’re doing.” I told him that I had come straight
[page break]
from making ceramic and steel fireplaces, on civi-street, so this was something I had been taught before. We had lots of planes to train on, too. There were six big hangars at Kirkham. Six big hangars with full sized bombers, spitfires, hurricanes, and a night-fighter called a Boulton-Paul Defiant with a turret at the back and painted black. About half-way through, the Adjutant called me into his office and said “You volunteered for aircrew when you joined.” I said “Yes, but they didn’t seem to be too eager at the time, there was no place for me on the aircrew course so they sent me to another squadron to be ground-crew.” The adjutant said “Well, there’s a place for you now.” I told him I wasn’t very interested now, I was training to be a fitter and was halfway through the course. He said “It’s not what you want, Perkins, it’s what the air force wants!” This was fair enough. They were keen, at that time, to get people onto the aircrew section because by that point, the Germans were shooting people out of the sky faster than we could train new men. However, because I had spent so long training to be an armourer, already, they had me finish my course. By the end of the fourteen weeks training, I was a Special Armourer, as opposed to the basic Armourer I was to begin with, which meant that I could work on just about anything and put me into the top group. As soon as I was finished, I was put on the list to be called up for posting overseas.
[underlined]Leaving Liverpool for the Middle East [/underlined]
As soon as my training was finished, I was to report to Liverpool, which was close to where I already was. On Sunday afternoon, we set off for Liverpool. When we got there the docks were full of all these big ships. We were headed for the Empress of Australia, a former cruise liner converted to a troop carrier. There were lots of men getting on her, very few were air force, most were army, marines and commandos. There were, I think, four thousand of us. We set off at around 8pm in the evening, three or four tugs pulling us into the Mersey. By 9pm, the Navy dropped two depth charges because they thought there was a German submarine in the vicinity. We didn’t know what was happening. They dropped these depth charges and I thought we’d been hit by a torpedo! I thought “Oh well, we won’t be going any further.” But instead, the Captain throttled up to full power and we shot out of the area as quick as the ship could go. Everyone was vaccinated, before we got onto the ship, and a few days later my elbow and arm swelled right up with vaccine fever. It took two days for the doctors to get to me, there were only a few on board and if you missed them on their round you had to wait until the next day. When they found me, they put me straight into the hospital quarters where I was waited on for a couple of days, which was lovely. Of course, when there were so many of us on the ship, finding a space for a hammock was very difficult. They were strung up everywhere with no space in between. If you weren’t there to keep a claim on your slot, like if you spend several days in the hospital, you lost your place.
[page break]
We left British waters and went out into the Atlantic, where we sailed around for about a month. We had some ships on the left of us, some on the right, but we were waiting to make up a big convoy. I think we joined a Canadian convoy to make up the numbers. We eventually went down towards Gibraltar. There were, I think, two aircraft carriers, three destroyers, us, some others. About forty odd ships in the convoy as we went through the mouth into the Mediterranean. I think we were the first allied convoy to go through the Mediterranean. Before that, to get to Egypt, the ships had to go all the way round Africa. We could see Gibraltar in the mist, with the Germans on the left, and we knew they had fast boats with torpedoes on them. We went through the strait on the North African side, down passed Benghazi. We spent about a week sailing along there because it was quite a way. I constantly thought we were going to get hammered as soon as the Germans realised we were there but we never saw more than a few German planes in the distance. It was a miracle, really. I heard the ships behind us, in later convoys, got hit, and I remember seeing a tanker in flames, on the horizon. The thing that I remember the most, about going though the Med, was the heat and smell when we hit North Africa. From spending a month in the cold Atlantic, the heat that hit us, coming of Morocco, was like an oven. The smell was strong, too, like spices. Every country I have been in has its own smell. We were so close to the coast, following it all the way around, that you could see people walking on the beach.
[underlined]Palestine and Egypt [/underlined]
We pulled into Port Said, at the mouth of the Suez Canal, on Sunday morning. We had to use pontoons to disembark and walk across to the land because the ship was so big it couldn’t get close enough to let us off. We all had two kit-bags and a Sten gun each. Of course, when we went across the pontoons it was a bit wobbly as there were so many troops getting off. Most of the troops got off first and went along the Suez Canal. Thousands and thousands of them, marching twenty miles down the side of the Suez. We didn’t go that way, there were maybe fifty or sixty of us from the RAF and we went straight to Cairo. It was a Sunday afternoon, but for the people over there it was like a weekday. We drove up to Cairo airport and there was a transit camp for RAF personnel. We were posted, from there, all over the Middle East. It was just tents on sand and we were posted off individually as needed. I was there for two or three weeks. I got to see the Pyramids, at that point. I went right inside with just a little wick candle to light the way. If you blew out the flame it was pitch black. Right inside, as far as you could go, I got. Right into the King's Chamber. I also saw the small hole that went up to the sky and lined up with a certain star at a particular time of the year. I was able to go back, as well, in 1943. About twenty of us were eventually sent off, by train, through the Sinai to Palestine. I was stationed at RAF Lydda (now Ben Gurion International Airport) in Tel Aviv. We stopped there in a small camp, just a tent village. It was a small airstrip to begin with, only small aircraft could use it, so the RAF built it up. We stripped out all of the orange trees,
[page break]
levelled the land and built a proper runway for the bombers. It was probably one of the first parts of the Middle East Bomber Command. We were attached to the Special Airborne division for a couple of months. At that point, we were sending off the bombers on bombing runs to attack the Germans. I broke my leg in Palestine. It had been raining and the ground was very slippery, but we were playing football. I played a lot of football in the RAF, and a lot before too. We had some big games when I was overseas: it was something to entertain the men so it was very popular. I always played Inside Right for the RAF teams and on that day we were playing the Army. They were all tough as hell and just as rough. I got the ball and played it down the wing. I went to kick the ball across the pitch and these two army guys both tackled me and fell across my leg. I broke both the leg and the ligament. They just moved me to the side line and didn't take me off anywhere else until the match had finished! There weren’t any ambulances over there, so I was put in the back of a pick-up wagon. It felt like part of my leg was going in one direction, and the rest in another. They drove me to Nazareth to the make-shift hospital. It was a convent, converted for military use for injured servicemen in the Mediterranean. They fixed me up and plastered my leg. The next day, I thought my leg was itching. The hospital was riddled with bugs and they had gotten into my cast. I had to push them out with sticks and flush them out with water because they were eating my leg. A day later, they took us all out of the hospital, because of the infestation, and put us on a first-aid train. It was like a cattle-wagon full of stretchers. It was open-sided and I thought it would be chilly but as it was Palestine it was nice and warm. They brought us all cups of tea, bread, cheese and a pickle. The train took us to a huge hospital in the middle of Palestine, a huge place, full of all the wounded troops from all over the Middle East. I had my leg in plaster for quite some time, so I was in a wheelchair for a bit. There was this one guy who said they had a cinema, so he took me off to see it. We had to go down a steep hill to get to the cinema. He was pushing me in the wheelchair and fell over as we were going down the hill. Off I went, bouncing down the hill and there was a ditch at the bottom of the hill. I hit the ditch, the chair went over and the wheel was spinning in the air – I can still see it now. All the others did was stand there, laughing their heads off! After that, I joined the 5th Bomber Conversion Unit, working on Liberators. This eventually changed to the 1675 Heavy Conversion Unit and moved back down to RAF Abu Sueir, in Egypt, near to the Suez Canal. I was there for two and a half years. From that airfield, you could see ships going through the main canal. Most of the time it was the tops of the ships in the distance. We couldn’t see the water, just the dunes between us and them, so it looked like the ships were going through the sand. I went swimming in the Suez, on more than one occasion. The last time I did was when I nearly drowned. My mate and I watched a big ship go by and waited for about five minutes before we went in, but it wasn't long enough. I went in and the undercurrent from the ship's wake dragged me under and pushed me down. I fought it but didn't get anywhere and I didn't think I would ever come back up. Luckily, I eventually got out of the current and made it back to the surface, but my lungs were burning like mad.
[page break]
[underlined]The Planes[/underlined]
For most of my overseas time, I worked on Liberators (American B-24s). We had nine Liberators and six fighters: three spitfires and three hurricanes. Liberators were my favourite. They had a good payload and were easy to get inside when you were ‘bombing up’ with the bomb trolley. They weren’t too far up in the air, so you could almost walk in and you pushed the bomb trolley right into the bay. You would put the swan-hook of the winch through the eye of the bomb and you would roll the winch up until the bomb sat in between the two saddles, one on each side. Then you would tighten the saddles on the bottom to keep the bombs steady when the plane was flying. After that, you would put in the detonators into what we called the pistol, at the back of the bomb. You’d put the arming vane into the pistol, followed by the safety pin. The vanes and pins would be kept in a box, fifty yards away from the plane, in case anything happened, and you‘d put the arming vanes into the bombs, to make them live, before the planes took off. I remember one time, we had just finished ‘bombing up’ one side of a Liberator. Everything was in place, all ready to go, and a flight technician went into the aircraft to go through the checklist. He accidentally pulled the wrong lever and all the bombs suddenly fell out onto the ground. Of course, we ran in every direction to get away from the bombs. Not only could they have gone off if the safety pins came out, but they were damn heavy chunks of metal that would roll, as well. You could either get crushed or blown up. Or both. We shot off in every direction and didn’t stop until we were hundreds of meters away. Finally, the technician came out with a red face. I’ve never run so fast in my life! We were more angry, though, about having to sort it all out afterwards. It took us hours to check the bombs, make sure they were safe and then re-fit them. There was lots of sweating, swearing and blinding. We kept the planes and bombs separate, most of the time. The planes were spaced out a long way apart, sometimes it was a fifteen mile round trip to fit all the planes, a mile or so there and back for each separate plane. They needed to be spaced in case there was a bombing raid on the airfield. You didn’t want all the planes and all the ammunition to go up in one lucky hit. We had a big building, in Abu Sueir, that was just for the armoury. We had guns and ammunition and other such things stored there. A big brick place. I was in charge of the munitions and there were three or four guards posted there at all times. There was thick netting and wire, all the usual things, and the guards were supposed to patrol around the outside. I went there, early one mourning, with an officer to inspect the building. When we got there, there was this big hole in the wall, at the back, where all the guns and ammunition were kept. The guards were there, and I asked what was going on, but they just mumbled. Someone’d stolen it all! They left about two or three camels and donkeys there. They had loaded all the guns and ammo they could carry on donkeys and stole off into the night. They must have been disturbed because they left a couple of animals. They’d broken through a double brick wall! They probably waited for an aircraft to come and then hammered like wild on the brick wall under cover of the noise of the aircraft engine.
[page break]
The Liberators were very loud when they took off, they had four engines, and would go on lots of bombing runs over the Mediterranean countries. Sometimes they would drop saboteurs into Italy and Albania. The Liberators would go over in the middle of the night and drop these guys, they were SAS or similar, that type of person. When they did raids in Turkey, we would fit them up to drop leaflets over the enemy territory informing them we would be bombing there in twenty-four hours, giving the civilians time to clear out of the area. For fun, sometimes we would add old crates of waste from the naafi. The crates would be wooden and would whistle when they were dropped, like bombs, and the enemy wouldn’t know if it was a bomb that hadn’t exploded. We dropped supplies, too, all kinds of supplies. Medicines, ammunition and supplies for allied troops. We dropped a lot of medicine in all the areas. They had yellow parachutes on then so you could see them. Of course, the people would gather these parachutes and keep them. The local blankets and beds were rough as hell, so people would take the parachutes as they were nice smooth silk. As a Special Armourer, I also worked on the guns. They were mainly .5’s (0.5 calibre, 12.7mm Browning Gun) which were a good gun. On the Liberator, you’d have probably about 6 stations where you had at least two .5 guns. They did away with the rearturret’s upper guns because when they fired, the crew would have two guns firing each side of their ears, and they didn’t like that very much. But, as I said, the Liberators were easy to work on. You had two side gunners, two .5’s in a side slot. The swivel range of these was limited with a cable. If the gunners were new or got a bit panicky, they could swing the gun round hard and break the cable or stretch it. We would have to reset the cable after each run. We’d get a guy with a long rod, stuck in the end of the barrel, to simulate where the bullets would go. The guy outside would walk around and we would clamp up the new cable inside to where we wanted the range of movement to be. You’d have to stop the range about six feet from something you didn’t want to hit because when you fire the guns, you get a cone of fire and had to build in some leeway. You also had to make sure that if the cable stretched again on the next flight, the gunner couldn’t shoot off the plan’s wing or tail if the cable allowed the gun to turn further than it should. The Spitfire was another one we had to change the guns on. They had .303 guns, there were eight of them. A lot of the British planes had the 303’s, which were no good at all, they had no firepower, they were like pea-shooters. The Americans used all .5s, they were definitely a better firepower. With the fighters, you would put the plane on a trestle, in the flying position, and you had a target about five hundred and fifty feet in front. You had a periscope on the gun and you lined it up to the target so that all the bullets converged in the same place. On occasion, we fitted a 20mm canon, one on each wing, but you had to have a little bit more of an anchorage if you did that on a Spitfire, because of the extra recoil. The 20mm had a special recoil-spring, a square spring. You had to have a special clamp to squash and compress it, as it was so strong to deal with the extra force of the canon when it fired. You’ve probably seen the canons in the old war films where the 20mm would strafe enemy trains.
[page break]
There were different types of ammunition, too. You’d have armour piecing shells, but we never liked them because they would wear out the barrel on the canon. You’d have incendiary ones, normal shells, they were both fine. But we used the canons more on the Hurricanes because those planes were more substantial. So we used to like to put them there. The Hurricanes also had a bit more room to move about with. The Spitfires were cramped to mount the guns. You had to be careful on the Spitfires, more than the Hurricanes, because the Spitfires used to catch fire. There was excess oil, sometimes, in the Spitfire exhaust cylinders, that could be left behind. So the flight mechanics would stand by with fire extinguishers in case the thing caught fire when it was started. The mechanic who was testing the plane would keep the engine going to blow out the flames because it was too late by that point to do anything else. We had a lot of problems with the Spitfires, out in the desert, because they were so light and flimsy, compared to the Hurricanes. You’d see them land at the end of the runway and not come any further. When you got down to the end of the strip, the thing would be tipped up on its nose! The front end would be dug into the ground. It was too front heavy and easily caught gusts of wind. It caused no end of trouble for us and the pilots. All sorts of things would happen, or go wrong, when I was out there in the Middle East. One bomber came back late, from a run over Greece. It finally came into view, coming from the Sinai towards us in Abu Sueir, over the Suez Canal. As it was nearing the end of the runway, there was this tremendous bang and the plane just blew up! We never found out what had happened. When we got to the site of the wreckage, it was all just burning fragments, too little to find anything else. It wasn’t like now with forensic teams to check every last millimetre. On another occasion, a plane came in without the undercarriage down. It scrapped along the ground and everyone was okay, but the plane was a write-off. We had to winch it up, put it on a large lorry and take it off for spares. We often had to clean out the planes, once they had returned from a bombing run. The aircrew would be trapped in these things for many hours and there was often waste that needed cleaning out. Some of the crew would get airsick and there would be vomit. Sometimes the Germans would attack the planes and shoot at them and if the plane was hit, there may be blood as well. What ever it was, we sluiced it all down with paraffin. One time, a Liberator came back with fewer crew than it left with. The plane didn't get into combat, but the rear gunner was missing. The hatch was open and the guy was gone. We thought he must have had enough and jumped out. It happened, sometimes, if someone decided they couldn't take it anymore. Being an aircrewman could be very stressful and sometimes someone would just snap.
[underlined]Local Wildlife[/underlined]
The difficulties of living out there were not limited to the aircraft. I went to a lot of places, but they all taught you to get used to varied, tough conditions. In one place there were four of us sleeping on a concrete hangar floor. Out in the desert, it was just sand and
[page break]
dust and tents. You had to check your bed, or hammock or what ever, for snakes before you got in for the night. Every morning, you‘d have to turn your boots upside down and hit them with a stick to get any scorpions out! You’d get bedbugs and things, the way we got rid of those was to thrown paraffin over the bed and blankets, then watch all these things come scurrying out. The paraffin evaporated off quickly in the desert. I slept in the armoury, quite often. I remember having to turn the light on, at night, because the scorpions would come in under cover of darkness and run across the floor. The light would dazzle them and you could hit them with a stick. I remember, as well, one night I was lying in a bed and a snake fell onto the mosquito net. I was in Palestine at the time and thought a terrorist had lobbed a grenade into the room. But I thought “If it is going to go off, it goes off, I’m not getting out of bed!” The next morning, the Palestinian guard came round, whilst I went off for breakfast, and he found the snake coiled up in the warmth of my blankets. When I came back, he’d already hit it with the butt of his rifle and laid this four foot snake out on the floor. We’d get eaten alive by mosquitoes, too, quite often, especially in Abu Sueir. We would work at night, as often as not, refitting the bombers for an early morning raid. We’d work under arclight, the Sweetwater Canal ran right along the side of the aerodrome and the light would draw the mosquitos right to us. There were bigger animal pests, too. There were a lot of stray dogs there, and they had a lot of diseases. Every Tuesday morning, early, I had to go around with a rifle and shoot any strays. On one particular day, I was doing my rounds and some wild dogs were running across the field. So I got my rifle and shot all three of them. When I got closer, to collect the bodies and burn them, I saw that one of the dogs was an alsatian. It was only then that I realised that only two of the dogs were wild, and they were chasing the alsatian. The alsatian was the pet of the Chief Engineer, and I had shot it, too. The Chief was okay about it, the dog should have been locked up and had gotten loose, but I still felt bad. What ever the problems you dealt with them because you were all in it together. You had comrades. You didn’t fight amongst yourselves, the comradeship was so unique, you stuck together as a unit, you had a great temperament and it all blends in to those harsh conditions. You put your life in everyone else’s hands, so you trust them, you look after each other. It’s hard to understand when you are in another walk of life.
[underlined]Iraq [/underlined]
When the European war ended, there was nothing left for us to do in Egypt, so I was allocated to another post and taken into the Navy Fleet Air Arm. I was sent to Basra, in Iraq: RAF Shaibah. There wasn’t much of anything there, before the RAF got there. It was built for the war. They were short on fitter-armourer generals. There were only five of us there. When you were a fitter general it meant that you could do everything. The work ranged right from the cameras that were fitted along side the guns for reconnaissance and records, to the fluid for the hydraulic systems that operated the turrets. You had to bleed and feed that fluid at different times of the day because it would expand and contract with the big temperature ranges you got in the desert.
[page break]
I taught some of the local Iraqi army how to shoot. They had guns but they didn't have any proper training on how to shoot correctly. Every Friday afternoon I would take these guys to the range and teach them how to sight up a gun, how to adjust the fore- and back-sights to correct the bias. The foresights would often take a bashing, being on the tip of the barrel, and the men would be rough with the guns and knock the irons. Teaching the Iraqis to keep the gun sights lined up meant the difference between being able to hit their targets and missing by miles. One day, one of the recruits shot wide at something. The round ricocheted and hit a tractor in the fuel tank. There was a hell of a bang, a lot of shouting in different languages, and a tractor on its side, blown over by the explosion. The Iraqis were friendly, but the Sudanese were a problem. We had an open-air cinema and we were all sitting round watching a film. There was a lot of banging going on and we thought it was the film. That was until someone shouted "Duck!" It was the Sudanese, driving around in the desert nearby, shooting off their rifles! Everyone was more annoyed with the disruption than with the threat of being shot! Then the Japanese war ended and there was no more use for us at all.
[underlined] Coming Home [/underlined]
I was in the RAF until my last posting in Iraq in 1946. I remember leaving Shaibah in a Dakota transport plane, heading back to towards Egypt. We took off and the plane was overloaded with troops and gear. After a short while into the flight, there was a huge sandstorm right in front of us, thousands of feet high and tens of miles wide. We couldn’t get over the top as we were already overloaded, so the pilot tried to go through. I felt the pressure of the sand hit the plane, then there was a huge gust of wind and the plane went over on its side and scythed through the air, dropping like a stone. We were lucky we didn’t hit the deck and all get killed. I thought I’d been out there for four, five years, survived the whole war and nearly been wiped out on my way home! Once I got to Egypt, I came back across the Mediterranean on a ship from Alexandria. It took a week to cross the sea to France, Toulon. I remember the harbour was absolutely packed with ships that had been sunk. (The French had scuttled their own fleet to prevent the Germans from getting their hands on them). The locals had very little to eat, at that point, and almost no bread. On our ship we had so much bread that it had gone stale by the time we arrived in Toulon and it was all thrown overboard into the sea. I don't know why it wasn't saved, but I remember loads of loaves of bread floating in the sea. When we got into port, you couldn't buy even a biscuit! We stayed in what was left of the German’s camp, there, for a week or so before heading to Calais. It was several days across France, by train, mostly at night. I remember it was a moon-lit night as we passed Paris and I could see the Eiffel Tower in the moonlight. I also remember taking a walk out into the fields, when we stopped for an hour at one point, just walking through the crops.
[page break]
We finally crossed the Channel, back into Dover, at about ten at night. The next morning, I was de-mobbed in Stratford. I got my de-mob suit, a quick medical, my money and was out of the gate. As quick as that I was out of the Air force. Done. When you come out of the service, you do feel a bit lost. You had a regimented life in the service, and they looked after you. The RAF looked after you really well, but when you leave, it’s all down to you. You have to completely adjust yourself. It’s probably harder to come out than it ever was going in. You had to work all times of the day. In the service, you are paid to work 24 hours a day and you work for 23 hours 59 minutes. I wasn't relieved to be out of the air force, to be honest. We travelled so much, spent so long in different countries, that I felt immune to much of the feelings of 'home'. No matter where you went, you were the same person, you weren't excited, you weren't depressed, you just went with it. I never thought "Thank God I survived that" or "I made it through". You had to be immune to all of that, if you wanted to keep your sanity. So much happens to you, and you are pushed and pulled in all directions that you just had to go with the flow. It was almost like brain-washing, in a good way. "Do as you are told, go where we tell you and you will be taken care of" was the feeling you got in the RAF. They looked after you, as much as they could. You never knew what the enemy was going to do, but you knew those around you had your back. If you didn't keep that in mind, you would have gone mad. I had about six weeks of leave stored up, when I was de-mobbed, at the end of which they called me and asked if I wanted to go back into the air force. I would have been sent back to Iraq but I’d already done several months over my time. Twice they asked me back, but by then I’d had enough. We all had.
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 memories of LAC Fred Perkins
Description
An account of the resource
Covers joining the RAF, training as an engineer and first posting to RAF Christchurch which undertook radar research. Writes of life and flying as observer in Fairey Battle on radar measurement flights. The unit then moved to RAF Defford. Goes on to describe his training as a fitter and armourer and his journey to the Middle East before arriving in RAF Lydda Palestine. Provides details of life and activities in middle east bomber command working on B-24. He then moved back to RAF Abu Sueir in Egypt. Gives account of working on B-24 as well as Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft. Gives account of armourers work on all three aircraft. Provides a paragraph on local wildlife. After the war was sent to RAF Shaibah in Iraq and he describes life and activities there. Concludes with description of journey home.
Creator
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F W J Perkins
Format
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Twelve page printed document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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BPerkinsFWJPerkinsFWJv1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Worcestershire
England--Pershore
England--Dorset
England--Bournemouth
Egypt
Middle East--Palestine
Israel
Israel--Tel Aviv
England--Hampshire
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-05-23
1943-08-13
1946-05-26
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
aircrew
animal
B-24
Battle
bomb trolley
bombing up
Defiant
demobilisation
fitter airframe
fuelling
ground crew
Hurricane
military living conditions
military service conditions
observer
petrol bowser
RAF Abu Sueir
RAF Defford
RAF Kirkham
RAF Padgate
recruitment
service vehicle
Spitfire
sport
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/115/3594/ABaileyHH160501.1.mp3
c187bc9461210d109c6c12f4c52d0e9e
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
Bailey, Harold H
H H Bailey
Bill Bailey
Description
An account of the resource
The collection consists of an oral history interview with Harold Hubert 'Bill' Bailey (b. 1925, 2221922 Royal Air Force) and eight photographs.
Bill Bailey completed 37 operations as a rear gunner with 31 Squadron, South African Air Force as part of 205 Group. He flew from Egypt, Palestine and Italy and took part in supply drops to partisan groups in Italy and Yugoslavia.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bill Bailey and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-01
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bailey, HH
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.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GR: Right. This is Gary Rushbrook with Warrant Officer Bill Bailey on the 1st of May and we are at Bill’s house near Nottingham and I’ll hand you over to Bill who will tell us a little bit about his early life.
HHB: Right. Well, I was born in Stafford in 1925. 21st of January. And er we moved around different houses there.
GR: Brothers and sisters?
HHB: I had a brother. He was three years older than me. Mum and dad were, father was in the First World War but he came through it all right.
GR: Yeah. What was he in? Was he in the army?
HHB: He was in the royal artillery, yes.
GR: Royal artillery. Yeah.
HHB: And so I went to school there but unfortunately when I was about six or seven mother and father split up so just left there me, my dad and my brother and he worked at a local electricity works
GR: Right.
HHB: Doing general maintenance work, I think. Anyway, when I got to about nine he got offered a job and a house in Stoke on Trent. Shelton, Stoke on Trent so we moved there, and he went to do metre reading so of course I went to school then at Cauldon Road School in, in Shelton till I was just over fourteen. Course being fourteen in the January just over the Christmas period I had to go to the Easter to leave. So, whenever I was off school I always used to go back to Stafford to an aunt and uncle of mine. So, when they knew I was leaving school, unbeknown to me, they applied for a job at the Stafford Post Office as a telegram boy and the next thing I know was I got a letter, ‘You’re starting work on Monday.’ I left on the Friday and started work on Monday at Stafford, you know, as a telegram boy. I’d not even had an interview so I wonder -
GR: So you had two days at the weekend from school to going to work.
HHB: Yeah. I think there was a bit of something going there ‘cause I’d got an uncle who worked there at the Stafford Post Office. He was a supervisor there so I don’t know whether he pulled any strings. I don’t know but I never had an interview. So on the day I had to report I reported there and I saw the head postmaster. I think his name was Adams. Had a chat and out I went to, in to a room where all the other telegram boys were. They were five of us and our names all began with B. Bailey, Buckshaw, Buck, Beaver and Blakeman all began with B and of course the five Bees. So anyway I went out with one of the boys to get the hang of what you did and then I had to go and report to be measured for a uniform which was a few weeks coming but anyway eventually I got that. And so I stayed there until I was about just over sixteen, seventeen and then I got the option then of either going in to the, as a postman, the postal side or the engineering side.
GR: I presume war had already broken out by then.
HHB: Yeah, war had broke out -
GR: Yeah,
HHB: September 3rd. Yes. I’d been at work since April. So, yeah so I was there as I say seventeen and then I went on the telecoms side, Post Office telephones, as an apprentice, two year apprentice. So, of course time went on. It was five year, five year apprentice sorry. I er of course by this time all my friends who had gone on the postal side had been called up. Unfortunately, or fortunately whichever the case you look at it I was classed as a reserved occupation. Course with telecoms which in them days was probably more important than what it is now.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Anyway, I did one or two courses. Went to in Birmingham and that was there once when they had a bit of a raid. Fortunately, it wasn’t in the part I was on. And I got a bit, thought I wish I’d, wanted to join the air force when I left school. I remember the woodwork teacher saying what are you going to do? I said I’d like to go in the air force and that was in 1939. Anyway, so I saw this advert in the paper air gunners said they wanted. It was only a very little slip so I cut it out, didn’t tell anybody, filled it in and posted it off. Course I was still living with my aunt and uncle then in Stafford and, and out of the blue I get a letter back to go to Birmingham Air Crew Attestation Centre, ACAC, on such and such a date for three or four days for interview and tests.
GR: So, you actually filled in a form that was in the paper.
HHB: Yeah. Yeah.
GR: To join up.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: Incredible.
HHB: It was only a little thing.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: A big, “Join the Air Force” and this little thing. Anyway, I went there and we had various tests, eye tests.
GR: I’m just going to pause it for one minute.
HHB: Yeah. Right. So I went to the Air Crew Attestation Centre at Birmingham and had fitness tests and general knowledge test and eyesight test and goodness knows what and then I had to [parade eventually in front of I don’t know what rank they were now, got quite a number of rings on their sleeves, ‘Why do you want to be an air gunner?’ Blah blah. ‘I don’t know why. Because I want to be,’ you know. ‘What’s your parents say?’ Well I hadn’t told my dad. I hadn’t told my auntie. So I said, ‘Well they don’t mind.’ ‘What about your employer?’ That was the post office telephones. ‘Have you asked permission?’ I said ahem, ‘Yes.’ I hadn’t.
GR: You hadn’t.
HHB: So they said, ‘Right.’ So they’d got some model aeroplanes on the table. ‘What’s that?’ ‘A Blenheim.’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘A Wellington.’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘Junkers 88.’ ‘You know your airplanes don’t you?’ Anyway, I, that was more or less it. Off I went. Later on they called us all in, called the names out you’ve been accepted. You’ll be hearing from us. So of course I went back to work at Stafford in Telecoms and I got a letter from them, ‘We haven’t received a letter from your employer giving you permission.’ So I wrote back and said, ‘It hasn’t come back yet.’ Anyway, they must have got fed up with this because they wrote to the area manager at Stoke on Trent and I got instructions to go to Stoke to see the area manager. So I walked in, I forget his, Sefton I think his name was. I walked in and, ‘Oh yes, Bailey. You’ve applied to join the air force.’ ‘Yes sir.’ ‘You didn’t ask me if you could go.’ ‘No sir.’ Oh well. Anyway, had a general natter. He said, ‘Alright, well I’ll let you go. I’ll write to them and say you can go.’ About a fortnight after that I got my call up papers.
GR: Right.
HHB: October and off I went down to the usual place, Lords Cricket Ground.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Found my way across London. I’d never been to London before at eighteen and a bit, just over eighteen years old, you know. Anyway, I got to lords cricket ground and we all formed up. ‘Right, in here.’ We went in a long room which everybody else must have done as well.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Drop your trousers. Well people, well, I forgot to say I’d been in the Home Guard for a while. I was underage but of course the captain wanted, the lieutenant wanted to get enough recruits to make him captain he let me go in, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Anyway, I’d been used to all this sort of thing, you know when we went on camp. So of course I dropped my trousers, ‘C’mon drop your trousers’ and then of course the MO came along with his stick. Right, everybody, ‘Alright off you can go.’ So I walked out then and then they called out names and we were billeted in blocks in St Johns Wood. Blocks of flats. And we was there a fortnight and we had general tests again. I had two teeth out but they wouldn’t let you fly, they said with filled teeth.
GR: With fillings in your teeth.
HHB: With filling yeah so I sat in this chair and put my head back and getting ready to shout and this lovely blond face came over. She said. ‘It’ll be alright.’ Well, I couldn’t shout out then could I but anyway I had that out and that was it. I then waited. We were going to Bridlington to ITW of course so we went up to ITW and we was there for six weeks.
GR: That’s initial training isn’t it?
HHB: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: While we was there they decided that people who were higher qualified in the course would go straight to Dalcross Gunnery School instead of going to Elementary Gunner School at, was it Cosford? So, many of us went straight up to AGS Air Gunnery School at Dalcross, outside Inverness, for a three month course. So, by the time I got there it was just before Christmas, I think. Anyway, we went there and did the usual training on Ansons like we all did, you know, shooting and all the rest of it and it was quite a, I earned a bob or two there because we used to do skeet shooting. Clay, clay shooting -
GR: Yeah. Clay pigeon shooting.
HHB: We always used to put a bob in and I was quite good at it. I don’t know why but I was so I always used to earn a bob or two.
1049
GR: A little bit extra.
HHB: I got friendly with a WREN there and used to go to Inverness to see her and one day I saw the gunnery instructor there. So, the next day at lectures he was saying, ‘And don’t get sitting in the YM looking all dewey eyed at the girl with you,’ he said. ‘You need to be air gunners.’ Knowing that he meant me. Anyway, I passed out the course and went on leave. I got a telegram, ‘Report back.’ Went back. Being sent overseas. Oh God.
GR: Straight away.
HHB: Yeah. So what I got I got kitted out. I got a fortnight’s leave and the day after had to report to 5 PDC, Personnel Despatch Centre at Blackpool up there. You were just hanging about till I got the boat out from Liverpool. Didn’t know where we was going although the rumour was Cairo. We set off on this boat and found that we found out we were being sent out to the Middle East. Cairo. Got to Cairo. Landed at Port at Suez and was there for two or three days in tents and that was an experience because the people who’d been in these tents before us had been a load of Indian troops and their health habits weren’t very good. So we had quite a few -
GR: I can imagine.
HHB: In the sand.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Course we were only sleeping on sand on ground sheet. Anyway, eventually we all eventually got sent up to Cairo.
GR: Did you have any inclination, ‘cause obviously you’d joined you were an air gunner.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: And obviously the natural progression would have been Bomber Command in England did you have any idea where you were going or -
HHB: No. No.
GR: What was going to happen to you?
HHB: No.
GR: No.
HHB: We were sent from, we got off the boat at Suez. We went up to Cairo. That was another PDC and there we just milled around waiting to be posted to OTU and I was sent to 76 OTU in Palestine at Aqir which was training for bombers. So, I finished up there. So we got on the train from Cairo across the Sinai Desert up. That was a journey on its own as well and that’s where my [?] big things they were [?]and were always something difficult to pack.
GR: Right.
HHB: So I said I’m fed up with this blooming thing. So, somebody said, ‘Don’t you want it.’ ‘Not really.’ The next minute it went out the window. It’s in the middle of the Sinai Desert somewhere. Anyway, we carried up to Palestine and we were in a PDC there and it was from there we sent to Aqir and there we got crewed up. Just went out one day. We didn’t have a hangar to go in. Just [parade] milled around the parade ground, get crewed up, you know. So I didn’t know what to do and all of a sudden this chap comes to me, ‘Have you got a crew?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Come on then I’ve got one, I’m a pilot’ So, we went and he was a South African Van der [Valt]. So we had a chat and he said, ‘Do you want to come, join me?’ So that’s how I joined him and then we got a navigator, bomb aimer and what have you and that was it. We started to fly doing our training but also flying on Wellingtons, you know.
GR: Right.
HHB: And that was interesting. Of course I flew Wellingtons of course we just had one that was going on a six or seven hour cross country flight and we’d only be air borne about forty minutes. I’m sitting in the rear turret and I thought, ‘Am I seeing things?’ Sparks come by and then bits of something was flying by, rings and pieces. I said, ‘Is the port engine alright skip?’ He said, ‘We’re just looking at it.’ I said, ‘Well it looks like it falling to pieces. There’s bits flying off it.’ So we feathered it and we had to turn back so but by then the starboard engine started perform so we decided to land at Lydda. So we called up, got clearance to land, coming in it was a Liberator, heavy con unit [ydda was and this Liberator was cutting out so we had to stagger around in the air on this one good engine. Well this happened twice.
GR: God.
HHB: And the third time, the second time of course, the engine, the starboard engine just packed up so we finished up in a big heap on the desert.
GR: Crash landed.
HHB: Crash landed but fortunately we was alright except the wireless operator. A chap named [Stoner] The wireless operator’s table with his equipment on it collapsed and he’d broken his leg so we lost, lost him but there was another one there without a crew so we got him. Chap named Shelby from Halifax. So we went, the MO called us in. He said, ‘Everybody alright? Anyone banged their head?’ Well I had but I didn’t say yes. So he said, ‘Alright then. Off you go then.’ So that was it.
GR: That was it.
HHB: That was it and the next, that night we were flying again on a night trip.
GR: On Wellingtons again.
HHB: On Wellingtons again.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Again.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Yeah. The story is that that Wellington that we crashed in had just come back from a seven hundred hour inspection. Major inspection. So somebody had slipped up there.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Anyway, we staggered on through that and then we got leave in, well we went to Alexandria because I was friendly with a chap named Pearson and he was engaged to a girl in, she was a South African girl but living in Egypt and we went to their house and billeted there for our leave and then we came back again and then we were sent down to [Aberswayo] which was a con unit, heavy con unit for Liberators. So we did about a month course there and of course with being a South African crew half the crew were South African. The pilot, navigator and flight engineer were South Africans. We hadn’t got a beam gunner then. And the rest of the crew, bomb aimer, two gunners and a wireless operator were RAF. Anyway, we got sent to South African Air Force base depot at [El Marsi] just outside Cairo and there we stopped there then waiting for a posting to a squadron which eventually came about the end of September time and sometime in September 1944 and bundled on to a Dakota as far as to about Tunis and then we got American Air Force Commando aircraft flying across to Bari and from Bari we went to what they called the advanced SAF base depot at Bari waiting to be posted to a squadron.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And about October time, beginning of October time, we went to 31 SAF squadron based at Fuji, well [Saloni] just outside Foggia, and that’s where we started to fly our ops.
GR: Yeah. How many was on the Liberator? What was the full –
HHB: There was eight crew. There was -
GR: Eight crew.
HHB: Pilot, flight engineer and navigator, mid upper gunner, rear gunner, bomb aimer, beam gunner.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: So, but we didn’t get the beam gunner till we got to the squadron.
GR: Right.
HHB: And all of a sudden this young lad, forget his name now, it’s in the logbook, he rolled up. He was a warrant officer and the South Africans when they were posted to a squadron they were immediately made up to warrant officers.
GR: Right. So were you all flight sergeants at the time.
HHB: Sergeants then, we were.
GR: Sergeants.
HHB: And he come straight from gunnery school as a, they didn’t even go through OTU and con unit. So, anyway, he was a warrant officer so there we were with this, but we started flying various ops, you know. Various supply drops, bombing raids.
GR: What was your first operation Bill?
HHB: Do you want to look at the logbook.
GR: Yeah I’ll just pause it for a sec.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: So we’re just having a look at Bill’s logbook and yeah your first operation, I’m just looking there, 14th November.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: 1944 yeah. Supply drop to Yugoslavia. What was that like? I mean -
HHB: Well, you know, we was all a bit, the skip had already done his second pilot trip to know what was what, like. Yeah.
GR: Yeah. So, yeah, just looking at the logbook. Yeah, and the first, the first one was a supply drop. Did you know it was a supply drop or did you think -
HHB: Oh yes we’d got supplies in the big canisters in the fuselage.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And we were looking for a, I haven’t got it there but we had a certain area to go to and look for the area to go to and look for this, perhaps a cross or a triangle or something in flames or lights on the ground.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And then they’d signal us you know somewhere to drop. They were dropped by parachute, you know
GR: Yes.
HHB: And er yes that was, that was the first one. They’d break us in gently you see.
GR: Yes.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: And just looking at the logbook. Yeah, there was a couple of supply drops.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: And then the, I think your third operation.
HHB: Yeah. Bombing.
GR: Was bombing some German troop concentrations. So that was the first bombing run.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: So what was that like, Bill?
HHB: Well it was, it’s a long time ago now.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: It was just another trip like, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Nothing much exciting happened on it. This one to [Sarajevo].
GR: Yeah. So -
HHB: So that was, that was, bomb doors froze up so we couldn’t drop the bombs.
GR: So the bomb doors froze -
HHB: Yeah, we was.
GR: Closed.
HHB: Twenty thousand feet, you see.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And yeah, they froze up. So, we had to drop the bombs, come down and drop the bombs in the sea as I say.
GR: And return to base.
HHB: Jettison in the sea [heavy light flak and that at Sarajevo]
GR: Flak. Yeah.
HHB: We went there in daytime as well with these.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: But most of the raids at this time were the first one was -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: A daylight one that one.
GR: So most of the operations were at night but then your first daylight operation 19th of November.
HHB: November.
GR: 1944.
HHB: Yeah. That was River Bridge in Yugoslavia.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: I think the Germans were retreating through Yugoslavia.
GR: Yes.
HHB: And they wanted this bridge cutting. I don’t know whether we hit it or not. I can’t remember now. Probably missed it. So, I carried on like this until I finished my tour which was just before VE day.
GR: And I think I’ve seen there’s a total, total -
HHB: Yeah.
GR: Of thirty -
HHB: Eight or nine or something
GR: Thirty seven operations. We’re just going back.
HHB: Yeah there’s one, no, should be this one here.
GR: Should be, should be here Bill. Thirty three. That’s March.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: And then, yeah, there’s one in April there.
HHB: Yeah. Thirty six, thirty seven. Oh it’s there thirty seven.
GR: Yeah. So your last operation was on the 5th of April.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: Yeah. Well your tour, it probably wasn’t the last operation by the squadron but certainly your tour -
HHB: Yeah. My tour, yeah.
GR: Which was thirty seven operations so I mean over those thirty seven operations any close calls or was it a relatively -
HHB: The usual. We got trapped in searchlights over the [Rhone] one day. A couple of fighters we saw and I’ve got it somewhere. Got it somewhere
HHB: Yeah.
GR: Couple, couple of fighters we saw -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: But we evaded them when we saw.
GR: Yeah. Did the squadron suffer many casualties while you were there?
HHB: No. No, not a lot.
GR: No.
HHB: No. Not a lot. We had one or two. They suffered a lot just before I joined them because they were on the Warsaw raid.
GR: Yes.
HHB: And they lost quite heavy then and then after that just before I joined them and this is why we went and then they sent aircraft up to drop supplies in Northern Italy to the Italian partisans and it was in the mountains and they’d got to get in to this valley to drop them. Of course if you dropped them too high they just floated away you see. You’d got to get down.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: A lot of these places were in valleys so you’d got to get down to about six or seven hundred feet just or to get just the height for the parachute to open.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Otherwise they floated away.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And when we got back they were in radio contact. When we got back they’d tell us whether it was a good drop or not. So they sent them to this Northern Italy and we lost six that night.
GR: God.
HHB: One has never been found. They found all the others crashed in the mountains but this one that’s never been found and one of the, the bomb aimer was a New Zealander and I had a letter from his, his daughter. She lives in, I can’t think off-hand. Anyway -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Anyway she [that was that] an advert anyone on 31 squadron, used to be a series on the television, comrades, old comrades to get in touch.
GR: Yeah. Yes.
HHB: And this one anyone on 31 SAF squadron so I rang it and it was her husband [and I know] cause he left, he was one of the crews that we’d gone to replace. He’d died just a week or so before us -
GR: You got there.
HHB: We got there. So [I’m still in touch?] every Christmas still get a card from her I send one to her you know but she had a plaque laid, made and laid in this village near where we were dropping the supplies.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And it’s mounted there in English and in Italian. The crews name and all the -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And he was, he was actually a New Zealander but her mother was English. She’d married, married him and she was born, she was, her mother was conceiving while he was on ops.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And he was killed before she was born.
GR: That’s right.
HHB: So that was why she was trying to find out anything about him.
GR: Trying to find anything about it all so -
HHB: So we didn’t, but um -
GR: When you were doing supply drops how many aircraft were flying in the squadron.
HHB: Well, there’d perhaps be -
GR: Roughly. You know, just -
HHB: Eight, ten.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: But there was a group you see. The whole group went.
GR: Ah.
HHB: It was 205 group.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And that was the heavy bomber squadron and that came all the way up through the desert.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And I’ve got a book there, “Bombers Over Sand and Snow”. It’s all about 205 group coming up from the start of the war up through Egypt and into Italy.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: So this was 37 squadron, 45 squadron. There was quite a group of -
GR: Yeah. So, 205 group.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: Would do.
HHB: But we were the only ones, on our squadron was 31 squadron South African and 34 South African. We were the only ones on that group with Liberators. The others were still on Wellingtons.
GR: Right.
HHB: But by January ‘45 they’d all converted to Liberators.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: But so on these trips sometimes there was Liberators and Wellingtons as well. Yeah. And also on the unit was an American squadron, whatever they called them, the fortresses.
GR: The B17s. Yeah the B17s. Flying Fortresses.
HHB: So [right Mick] so we er, but we had quite a lot of activity during the daytime. We were going up at night. Well, all we was landing on was pierced steel planking.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: For runways and as the weather deteriorated and in ’44, ‘45 at that time was the worst winter in living memory in Italy. Snow, rain, everywhere was muddied up. We wasn’t in, all we lived in was tents. We didn’t live in huts. It was tents. Eight man tents. But eventually a friend of mine, Shorty Pearson, we were both on the same squadron, we got a small two men tent which was better but there was no room in it.
GR: No.
HHB: I mean, we eventually to sleep on we were sleeping on the floor or on the ground sheets you know but eventually we got the bomb tails when the bombs came the tails were protected by a, they were like a small, looked like a stool about [eighteen] inches high.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And about a foot square.
GR: And that was protecting the fins on the bombs.
HHB: Protecting the fins, yeah. So we eventually collected enough of them to make a bed which only left a narrow gap in between but at least we was off the floor.
GR: Incredible.
HHB: So, but so -
GR: So -
HHB: What happened, what I was going to say was that in the January time we were starting the Americans didn’t want the Libs there cause they were breaking the runways up so we all had to move off to [Foggamin] to a concrete runway.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: The main airfield at Foggia. So after one raid I haven’t got it in my book but after one trip we had to land there and they picked us up in lorries and took us back to base
GR: Right.
HHB: And of course that was tough on the ground staff having to service the aircraft out, you know, there and all the equipment. Anyway, we managed for a few weeks and er, till the, till the place had dried out a bit you know and it was fit for us to, for the Liberator cause they were breaking up the runways.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And the perimeter track was all hard core. There was nothing permanent, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And the conditions there were only two, three buildings on, on, on the squadron. Well there was four actually, buildings. One was the church which was wooden, one was the sergeant’s mess and the airmen’s mess, the officer’s mess and the ops room and one of the other farm buildings was used as a parachute section and that was it. The rest of us were all in, under canvas
HHB: Yeah.
GR: All through the winter.
GR: ‘Cause Foggia was a big base wasn’t it?
HHB: Yes, there was -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: In that area I think there was eight airfields around Foggia.
GR: Right.
HHB: And you’d be sitting there and you’d hear a boom and you’d see a big cloud and oh another Liberator crashed or gone up, you know. You heard a big bang. That was a Wellington, another Wellington gone up. Yeah. But of course we were losing a lot to accidents, you know.
GR: Yeah. Probably more to accidents than -
HHB: Probably.
GR: Yeah, than fighters and -
HHB: Anyway, thinking about the squadron you’d be lying there on your bed and also the Americans, the South Africans had army ranks they weren’t pilot officer and that they were second lieutenants, lieutenants, captains.
GR: Right.
HHB: And warrant officer. The station warrant officer was a sergeant major. He’d be out there and you’d hear, ‘Wakey wakey. Following crews. Ops room half an hour.’ Look at your watch, 5 o’clock.
GR: Oh.
HHB: Oh no. And you’d lie there hoping he didn’t call your name out and you’d hear him say Captain van der [Valt]. Oh God that’s us. Got to get up and so it was down to the ops room and while we were in the ops room and while we were in the ops room getting briefed and that the cooks would be getting a breakfast of sorts, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Then we’d go and have breakfast and take off would be about two or three hours later, you know. Yeah used to lie there. The electricity supply was the [eight wire] all the way through the camp and we used to just wrap a piece around and take a lead to your place and try and hope it was waterproof. Half the time you know it would go on and go off of course, you know.
GR: What was the food supply like in Italy cause obviously back in England it was quite severe rationing.
HHB: Yeah well we was rationed there. I mean it was corned beef with everything.
GR: Oh right.
HHB: One day I went in the mess and this, ‘Oh fried fish.’ Opened it up. It was a piece of bully beef in batter.
GR: Bully beef in batter.
HHB: Yeah and the coffee, they had coffee but that was in a big urn and you -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Used to dip your mug in, you know.
GR: And drink it.
HHB: ‘Cause it was, what annoyed us with the Americans there they got a little portable generator. Every tent had got these little portable generator putt putts as they were called, they actually had one on the Liberator as alternative power supply. When they landed you switched it on, you know and this was so you got these on little stands and every tent had got one and they just used to start it up. Lights. Yeah.
GR: So definitely the RAF was
HHB: They got, they got –
GR: Poor relations to the Americans.
HHB: Yeah. They got, they got duck boards all over the place. Yeah. And they’d even got a cinema allowed us, certain nights, to go to the cinema but –
GR: Oh right.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: What happened at the end of tour? Did you stay in Italy or –
HHB: No. After the end of tour I got sent back up to Naples which was a closure of a PDC for despatching people.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And I got put on a ship back to Suez and on the way back VE day came in May so by the time I got to Cairo back to [El Marsa] again which was another Cairo air force dump it was VE night.
GR: VE night. Yeah.
HHB: And that night, that day, a lot of WAAFs had just arrived. The first big load of WAAFs to come out I think and they were in this camp as well but that was all [laughs] wired off you know and so it was about one hundred and twelve degrees there that night. Cor it was hot. Anyway, I stopped there for a while until I got my posting home. I suppose, of course I was young and they got me back to retrain me you see but they didn’t realise there was a class B man who was going to get released anyway.
GR: Right.
HHB: I didn’t know this. Anyway, I got home and went to Catterick, Catterick RAF camp and that was a despatch centre, you know. Went and had an interview
GR: Yeah.
HHF: And decided, they sent me to Cranwell on a signals course. Being telecoms I suppose they thought I’d know all about it you see.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
HHB: So I went there and just, can’t say that, we learned a lot about radio and all that and how to operate the VH direction finder. Anyway eventually got posted from there again, abroad. Up to Blackpool again 5 PDC and I flew out to India.
GR: Oh right.
HHB: In a Stirling.
GR: Out to India in a Stirling.
HHB: Yes. I’ve got it here.
GR: Was there any, had victory in Japan been achieved by then or -
HHB: No. Yes. Yes.
GR: Yes oh yes so there was no possibilities of them sending you out to the Far East.
HHB: [] sent to India. Stradishall to Castel Benito seven hours. Castel Benito to Cairo West, five hours. Cairo West to [?] or something, five hours.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Mayapur in India five hours. Mayapur to Pune four hours. Pune to [arro] something.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And then -
GR: And so a long trek to India.
HHB: Yes and I went right down there and eventually got down there and eventually were at a place called [Momatagama] in Ceylon.
GR: In Ceylon.
HHB: Just below Kandy. Actually it was Kandy airstrip. A little airstrip in the middle of nowhere.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And the radio set was a little TR9 which was something they had pre-war, you know. Anyway, and all they did there was sit in flying control and you’d open up 6 o’clock till two or two till six, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And people would call up and, you know, planes would land, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: At one time it was very busy when Kandy had been very busy when Kandy was the Headquarters for SEAC.
GR: Yes. South East Asia Command. Yes.
HHB: Yeah, but it was very quiet. There was, passed one aircraft a week sometimes. Lovely sitting there it was, doing nothing and then I got posted to a place called Mowathagama which was, this airstrip was called Mowathagama.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: I went from there to [Cowgla] so I flew down there in a little um Expediator.
GR: Oh right.
HHB: An American two engine -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Passenger plane. Twenty five, fifty minutes to [?], [?] to Mowathagama forty five minutes. To [Cowgla] and that was in Ceylon.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: I went there and got put on a Liberator direction finder and you’d sit there on the beach. Lovely sand. Blue, blue sea. Palm trees.
GR: Warm weather.
HHB: Ooh.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And somebody’d call up ‘bearing,’ so you’d give them a bearing, you know, and not very often. Only two or three times while I was there and so that was -
GR: Around about February ‘46.
HHB: No, I was there then.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Yeah. It was February.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: ‘46 I went there and I as I say sat on the beach doing nothing. Six till two, two till six. The early shift was long but that one wasn’t and when we wasn’t flying we used to go swimming. A load of, after the war the landmines, the mines they’d got, the sea mines, they took them and blew space in the rocks for swimming pool.
GR: Right.
HHB: So that was -
GR: Good use of the mines.
HHB: Yeah. Swimming up there. And so I was there until March and one day I got a call to go to the adjutant’s office. Knocked on the door and went in. ‘Ah yes.’ He said, ‘Your class B release has come through.’ Well that was the first I knew about it. So he said, ‘Do you want it? Go outside and think about it.’ So, went outside, shut the door, knocked the door and went in and said, ‘Yes.’ So, good, I came out on B but the best bit of it was coming home. I got about, the records for about twenty five other airmen. And he said, ‘Here you are. Look after these’ and you’ll be starting from wherever it was now going up to Pune eventually to fly back home from Pune.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And I got these records all the time, had to look after them, a pile -
GR: A great big pile of records.
HHB: A lot of these people I mean I was only twenty one then, you know these were time expired, been out there five years.
GR: Five years.
HHB: Yeah and one of them was a sergeant getting demobbed and he was most upset. Of course he’d got no family back home.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And he’d been in air force all his life and he was coming home. He was really upset he was but all the others, you know.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: They were looking forward to it so the last I saw of them we went to Hednesford. There we went through the demob thing and the suits and all.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Whatever you had. I had the sports jacket and flannels and mac and shoes and shirt and what have you and we got no money then but I found a postal order. I think it was for a pound that the unit had been on when I was in telecoms. Post office engineering sent to me in Italy so I went and cashed this thing so four or five of us went out that night on this pound and had a drink and it lasted -
GR: Out on the town with a pound.
HHB: Yeah. We drank, drank what we could out of it. I mean in them days six shilling for a pint.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
HHB: So, the last I saw of them I jumped off the truck at Stafford station ‘cause that was the station they took us to. They went on the train and I picked my bags up and walked home. Course I lived in Stafford at the time.
GR: And that was it. You were out of the RAF.
HHB: Out the RAF. Yeah.
GR: When I came back I flew from Pune to Barakpur. Barakpur to [Shiboor, Shiboor] to Lydda, Palestine, Lydda
GR: Yeah.
HHB: To Castel where we crashed, Lydda. Lydda to Castel Benito.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Castel Benito to Waterbeach.
GR: Waterbeach.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: So coming home, a total of thirty one hours -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Flying time.
GR: Yeah, that was in a Liberator.
HHB: in a Liberator.
GR: And the flight engineer, I said to the flight, you know, I said I was on Libs, you know.
HHB: Oh he said do you want to test the undercarriage for me. Course when you went in a Lib the tricycle undercarriage always checked the nose wheel.
GR: Yes.
HHB: ;Cause it didn’t always lock in position. Had to go down and see a little red button there and he said, I said, ‘No, I’ve done it. I know what’s going to happen when I get down there and especially over these places, desert and that, that’ll be sand’ -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Sandpaper on your face. I said, ‘No. Thank you very much. I’m not doing that.’ That was another job for the air gunner by the way. When we came in to land in a Lib you always had to come out the turret because it was too heavy, the tricycle, the undercarriage would be up and down.
GR: Up and down yes.
HHB: It would hit the ground if you were in there so we had to come out of there to the beam position and that was our landing position.
GR: Landing position, yeah.
HHB: But when you landed you had to open the hatch and the pilot was on the port side. You had to get the Aldiss lamp and shine it up, ‘Up a bit. Hold it there,’ So he could see the edge of the perimeter track. Course the landing lights were shining too far in -
GR: Too far in front.
HHB: So you had to sit there with all the mud and muck coming into your face. Of course they were muddy, muddy ground.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Getting splattered yeah. You were dirty when you got out, you know. Yeah. And that was your job. You had to check the two red lugs come down on the undercarriage, you had to make sure -
GR: That they were down.
HHB: They were down and checked the front. I never did the one on ops but I couldn’t get down the bomb bay.
GR: No cause you’d be -
HHB: Cause with the kit on. The bomb bay was only about -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: [eighteen] inches wide, if that. I couldn’t get through them without taking your clothes off you know your harness, Mae West.
GR: Couldn’t’ do that.
HHB: And all that. Which you didn’t. So that was my time in the air force.
GR: Your time in the air force. What happened after the war? Did you -
HHB: I went back to Telecoms
GR: Yeah.
HHB: And I stopped there forty eight years.
GR: Forty eight years.
HHB: Forty eight years in total. I had forty six years as Post Office Telephones and two years as British Telecoms
GR: Two years as British Telecom. Yeah.
HHB: Yeah but by then it wasn’t the same. The spirit had gone out of it. I mean I’ve stood in manholes when I was a jointer before I got promotion and that, like this, water up to here holding the joint up in the air so it didn’t get wet.
GR: Can you imagine that now with health and safety?
HHB: I’ve worked, I’ve worked up poles you know trying to plumb cables up. I mean -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Now, they’ve got gas blow lamps but they, they were paraffin.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Or petrol and they’d go cold in the middle of wiping a joint the lamp would go out you know, especially if it was paraffin it would go cold. You’d have to chuck it down and get another one up, you know.
GR: Did you actually go back to exactly the same job that you’d left?
HHB: Yeah.
GR: Straight after the war. Yeah.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: So they, in theory your job was kept open. There was a vacancy there.
HHB: There was a lot of newcomers there that I didn’t know they were.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Ex-servicemen, they took a lot of ex-servicemen on. Well -
GR: Yeah.
HHB: Most of them were. Yes, I went back there and I stopped at Stafford for a while but by then I got in touch with my mother ‘cause she was in Nottingham.
GR: Right.
HHB: So, actually I got in touch with her during the war. Course she realised I would be going up and she made great efforts to locate us. Anyway, so I went back to Stafford. I came to Nottingham in ‘46 and stopped in Nottingham all the time. Started off as a cable jointer. Actually while I was in Italy I got a letter from the post office saying I’d been promoted to USW unestablished civil service, it was a civil service then. You got established.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: I’d done five year established I’d done five years, skilled workmen that was so of course when I came that was it so of course eventually over the years I eventually got promoted to assistant executive engineer and that was underground maintenance. A group of about eighty men.
GR: Did you see, obviously you said you saw your mum.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: After the war?
HHB: Yes. I saw her before the war.
GR: Yes. Did you see your dad after the war or -
HHB: Yeah, I saw my dad.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: He still lived in Stoke he did.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: He eventually got married again.
GR: Yeah. But you saw them both.
HHB: Yeah.
GR: So even though they were separated.
HHB: Yeah. Yeah.
GR: Oh that’s good.
HHB: My father died in 1962.
GR: Yeah.
HHB: My mother died 1992. Something like that.
GR: 1992 yeah. Oh that’s good.
HHB: So, that was it.
GR: Thank you Bill that was excellent. That was very, very interesting thank you.
HHB: We can nip down and have a pint now.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Bill Bailey
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Bailey was born in Stafford. After finishing school he went to work for the Post Office Telephones service as a telegram boy. He decided to join the Royal Air Force and began training as a rear gunner at RAF Dalcross. He joined 31 Squadron of 205 Group. He was then posted overseas to Egypt, Palestine and Italy. He and his crew undertook supply drops to Yugoslavia and to partisan groups in Italy.
Creator
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Gary Rushbrooke
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-05-01
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Julie Williams
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:48:23 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABaileyHH160501
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
South African Air Force
Conforms To
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Pending review
Spatial Coverage
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Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina--Sarajevo
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
Great Britain
Italy
Italy--Bari
Italy--Foggia
North Africa
India
India--Pune
Temporal Coverage
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1944
31 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
B-24
crash
crewing up
forced landing
ground personnel
Initial Training Wing
medical officer
memorial
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
RAF Aqir
RAF Bridlington
RAF Dalcross
recruitment
Resistance
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/812/23484/SEllamsG49286v20074.2.pdf
3ffd9e69cbee5c16e987e4ab7c266cd3
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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Ellams, George
G Ellams
Description
An account of the resource
60 items. An oral history interview with George Ellams the son of Wing Commander George Ellams OBE (b. 1921), and documents and photographs concerning his fathers service. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 223 and 199 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Stephen Ellams and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-06
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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Ellams, G
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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George Ellams curriculum vitae
Description
An account of the resource
Written for a post RAF career.
Creator
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George Ellams
Format
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Typewritten document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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SEllamsG49286v20074
Coverage
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Civilian
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
199 Squadron
223 Squadron
B-24
Stirling
Sunderland
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/971/10025/MMolloyS[Ser -DoB]-160212-01.pdf
31dff3d389965a32008336afe506ab34
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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Molloy, Shae
S Molloy
Description
An account of the resource
One Luftwaffe intelligence file on Allied aircraft.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Shae Molloy and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-02-12
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Molloy, S
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[Partial transcription]
Frontnachrichtenblatt der Luftwaffe
Nicht zum Feindflug mitnehmen!
Der Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe
Führungsstab I C
Sonderausgabe:
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte
Teil I: Britishe Kriegsflugzeuge (einschl. Der USA-Lieferungen)
Teil II: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der USA.
Teil III: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Sowjet-Union
Leistungen und Bilder
Stand: 1. September 1942
INHALT
Vorbemerkungen Anlagen 1 und 2
Teil I: Britische Kriegsflugzeuge (einschl. Der USA.-Lieferungen)
Hoheitsabzeichen der britischen Kriegsflugzeuge Anlage 3
Leistungstabellen Grossbritannien (einschl. Der USA.-Lieferungen) Anlagen 4a-4c
Schattenrisse im Maßstab 1:1000 der wichtigsten britischen Kriegsflugzeuge Anlagen 5a-5e
Westland “Lysander” Anlagen 6a-6c
Hawker “Hurricane I” Anlagen 7a, 7b
Hawker “Hurricane II C” Anlagen 8a-8c
Supermarine “Spitfire I” Anlagen 9a, 9b
Supermarine “Spitfire V” Anlagen 10a, 10b
Supermarine “Spitfire” (Aufkl.) Anlage 10c
Westland “Whirlwind” Anlagen 11a-11c
Boulton & Paul “Defiant” Anlagen 12a, 12b
Bristol “Beaufighter I” Anlagen 13a, 13b
Bristol “Blenheim-Fighter” Anlagen 14a, 14b
Bell “Airacobra” (P-39) Anlagen 15a-15c
Brewster “Buffalo” (F2A-2) Anlagen 16a-16c
Lockheed “Lightning” (P-38) Anlagen 17a-17c
Grumman “Martlet” (F4F-3 “Wildcat”) Anlagen 18a-18c
North American “Mustang” (P-51)Anlagen 19a-19c
Curtiss “Tomahawk” (P-40B) Anlagen 20a, 20c, 20d
Curtiss “Kittyhawk” (P-40E) Anlagen 20b, 20d
Curtiss “Warhawk” (P-40F) Anlagen 20d
Bristol “Beaufort” Anlagen 21a-21c
Bristol “Blenheim I” Anlage 22
Bristol “Blenheim IV” (“Long-nosed”) Anlagen 23a, 23b
Bristol “Blenheim VIII“ Anlage 23c
Handley-Page “Halifax I” Anlagen 24a-24c
Handley-Page “Halifax II” Anlage 24d
Handley-Page “Hampden” Anlagen 25a-25c
Handley-Page “Hereford” Anlage 25d
Avro “Lancaster” Anlagen 26a-26c
Avro “Manchester” Anlagen 27a-27c
De Havilland D. H. 98 “Mosquito” Anlage 28
Short “Stirling” Anlagen 29a-29c
Vickers “Wellington I” Anlage 30b
Vickers “Wellington II” Anlage 30c
Vickers “Wellington III” Anlagen 30a, 30c
Armstrong-Whitworth “Whitley V” Anlagen 31a-31c
Martin “Baltimore” Anlagen 32a, 32b
Martin “Maryland” Anlagen 33a-33c
Lockheed “Hudson” (A-29) Anlagen 34a-34c
Lockheed “Ventura” Anlage 35
Douglas “Boston” (A-20A) Anlagen 36a-36c
Boeing “Fortress I” (B-17 C, D) Anlagen 37a-37c
Boeing “Fortress II” (B-17 E)Anlagen 38a, 38b
Consolidated “Liberator” (B-24) Anlagen 39a-39c
Brewster “Bermuda” (SB2A-1 “Bucaneer”) Anlagen 40a-40c
Vought-Sikorsky “Chesapeake” (SB2U-3 “Vindicator”) Anlagen 41a-41c
Curtiss “Cleveland” (SBC-3) Anlagen 42a-42c
Fairey “Seafox” Anlage 43
Supermarine “Walrus” Anlage 44
Saro “Lerwick” Anlagen 45a-45c
Short “Sunderland” Anlagen 46a-46c
Consolidated “Catalina” (PBY-5 “Catalina”) Anlagen 47a-47c
Consolidated “Coronado” (PB2Y-3 “Coronado”) Anlagen 48a, 48b
Martin “Mariner” (PBM-2 “Mariner”) Anlagen 49a, 49b
Fairey “Fulmar” Anlagen 50a, 50b
Blackburn “Roc” Anlagen 51a-51c
Fairey “Albacore” Anlagen 52a-52c
Fairey “Swordfish” Anlagen 53a, 53b
Blackburn “Skua” Anlagen 54a-54c
Northrop N-3PB Anlage 55
Bristol “Bombay” Anlage 56
De Havilland “Flamingo”, “Hertfordshire”Anlage 57
General Aircraft “Hotspur II” Anlagen 58a, 58b
Teil II: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der USA.
Hoheitsabzeichen Anlage 59
Allgemeines Anlage 60
Leistungstabellen USA Anlagen 61a, 61b
Schattenrisse im Maßstab 1:1000 der wichtigsten USA.-Kriegsflugzeuge Anlagen 62a, 62b
North American O-47Anlage 63
Curtiss O-52 Anlage 64
Republic P-43 “Lancer” Anlage 65
Republic P-47 “Thunderbolt” Anlage 66
Douglas A-24 Anlage 67
North American B-25B Anlage 68b
North American B-25C “Mitchell” Anlagen 68a, 68c
Martin B-26 “Marauder”Anlagen 69a, 69b
Douglas SBD-3 “Dauntless” Anlage 70
Curtiss SB2C-1 “Helldiver” Anlagen 71a, 71b
Vultee V-72 “Vengeance” Anlagen 72a, 72b
Vought-Sikorsky SO2U “Kingfisher” Anlage 73
Curtiss SO3C-1 “Seagull” Anlage 74
Boeing PBB-1 “Sea Ranger” Anlage 75
Consolidated 31 Anlage 75
Vought-Sikorsky F4U-1 “Corsair” Anlage 76
Douglas TBD “Devastator” Anlage 77
Grumman TBF “Avenger” Anlage 78
Transportflugzeuge Anlagen 79, 80
Lastensegler Anlage 81
Kleinluftschiff (sog. “Blimp”) Anlage 81
Teil III: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Sowjet-Union
Hoheitsabzeichen Anlage 82
Allgemeines Anlagen 83a, 83b
Leistungstabellen Sowjet-Union Anlage 84
Schattenrisse im Maßstab 1:1000 der wichtigsten Kriegsflugzeuge der Sowjet-Union....Anlagen 85a-85c
R-5 Anlage 86
R-10 Anlagen 87a, 87b
I-15 bis Anlage 88
I-153 Anlagen 89a, 89b
I-16 Anlagen 90a, 90b
JAK-1 Anlagen 91a, 91b
MIG-1, -3 Anlagen 92a, 92b
LAGG-3 Anlagen 93a, 93b
SB (bisher SB-2) Anlage 94
SB (bisher SB-3) Anlagen 95a, 95b
AR-2 Anlagen 96a, 96b
DB-3 Anlagen 97a, 97b
DB-3F Anlagen 98a, 98b
JAK-4 Anlage 99
PE-2 Anlagen 100a, 100b
SU-2 Anlagen 101a, 101b
IL-2 Anlagen 102a, 102b
ER-2 Anlage 103
TB-7 Anlage 104
KOR-1 Anlage 105
MBR-2 Anlagen 106a, 106b
MDR-6 Anlage 107
GST Anlage 108
TB-3 Anlage 109a, 109c
PS-84 Anlagen 109b, 109c
U-2 Anlage 110
UT-1 Anlage 111
UT-2 Anlage 111
JAK-7 Anlage 112
Teil I: Britische Kriegsflugzeuge (einschl. Der USA.-Lieferungen)
Achtung!
Wichtige Vorbemerkungen!
In den Leistungstabellen sind die Flugzeuge der USA.-Herkunft durch entsprechende Überschrift kenntlich gemacht und die militärische und Werksbezeichnung in USA. in der Spalte “Bemerkungen” angeführt.
Bei den Schattenrissen im Maßstab 1:1000 tragen die Anlagen links oben die Überschrift:
“Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte” Grossbritannien (einschl. USA.-Lieferungen)
Diejenigen Flugzeugmuster, die bei der britischen und bei der USA.-Fliegertruppe eingesetzt sind, tragen in Klammern unter der britischen militärischen Bezeichnung auch die militärische Bezeichnung in USA.
Bei den Bildtafeln und Bewaffnungsskizzen wird unterschieden a) zwischen den Mustern britischer Herkunft, b) den Mustern amerikanischer Herkunft, die nur bei der britischen Luftwaffe eingesetzt werden und c) den Mustern, die bei der britischen und USA.-Fliegertruppe Verwendung finden.
Die unter c) angeführten Muster werden in Teil II “Die Kriegsflugzeuge der USA.” nicht mehr angeführt.
Die Anlagen tragen deshalb in Teil I links oben folgende unterschiedliche Bezeichnungen:
Zu a) Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte” Grossbritannien
Zu b) Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte” Grossbritannien (Herkunft USA.)
Zu c) Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte” Grossbritannien und USA.
Im Fall b) werden die USA.-Werksbezeichnungen in “Fußnoten” gebracht.
Im Fall c) werden die militärischen USA.-Bezeichnungen in Klammern hinter der britischen Benennung, die USA.-Werksbezeichnungen in Fußnoten gebracht.
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte - Anlage 1
Vorbemerkungen:
1. Die Steigzeiten werden auf 0,5 min, die Dienstgipfelhöhe auf 0,5 km, die Geschwindigkieten auf 5 km/st abgerundet.
2. Bei den Motorenleistungen sind die Höchstleistungen und dahinter die Höhe angegeben, in der die Höchstleistung des betreffenden Motorenmusters erzielt wird.
3. In der Rubrik bew. MG.-Stände/ MG. in den Tabellen (Anlagen 4a – 4c, 61 a, 61 b und 84) bedeutet die obere Zahl die Anzahl der Mg.-Stände, die untere Zahl die Gesamtzahl der MG. Die Anordnung der einzelnen MG. siehe Bewaffnungsskizze des betr. Musters.
4. Flugdauer und Gesamtflugstrecke sind naturgemäß abhängig vom Grad der Drosselung. Die Flugdauer kann sich schätzungsweise rund in den Grenzen 1:3 bewegen, die Gesamtflugstrecke in den Grenzen 1:2. Die angegebene Flugdauer und Gesamtflugstrecke bezieht sich zumeist auf eine mittlere Drosselung von etwa 66% oder auf die angeführte Marschgeschwindigkeit.
5. Unter normaler Flugstrecke und normaler Eindringtiefe sind die Werte bei größter Bombenlast angegeben.
6. Die Leistungen und näheren Angaben der Flugzeuge für mehrere Verwendungszwecke werden nur in der Tabelle der Hauptverwendung angeführt.
7. Bei Unterschieden zu den Angaben der früher herausgegebenen Leistungstabellen sind die Angaben in den Zusammenstellungen dieses Heftes maßgebend.
8. Bei der Betrachtung der Bilder ist zu berücksichtigen, daß die Tarnbemalung entsprechend den verschiedenen Kriegsschauplätzen verschieden ist.
Alle Angaben sind nach dem Stande vom 1. September 1942 neu bearbeitet.
Die in den bisherigen Frontnachrichtenblättern erschienenen Bilder und Zeichnungen der wichtigsten Kriegsflugzeuge sind, soweit brauchbar, wiederholt und ergänzt, die Leistungsangaben berichtigt worden.
Vorliegendes Sonderheft zum Aushang bringen und zum Unterricht benutzen!
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte - Anlage 2
Anordnung der Bewaffnung, der Kraftstoffbehälter und der Panzerung bei den wichtigsten Kriegsflugzeugen der Feindmächte
In den Zeichnungen sind die Bewaffnung, die Kraftstoffbehälter und die Panzerung nach nachstehendem Schema eingezeichnet:
- Kraftstoffbehälter geschützt
- Kraftstoffbehälter ungeschützt
- Panzerung
- MG
- MG. in Bola [Bola= short for “Bodenlafette”, a ventral gun carriage or gondola]
- Kanone
Die Skizzen sind ohne bestimmten Maßstab. Die Eintragungen wurden auf Grund der zur Zeit vorhandenen Unterlagen – soweit möglich unter Auswertung der Beuteflugzeuge – durchgeführt.
Es ist anzunehmen, daß alle Flugzeuge mindestens mit einem Rückenpanzer für den Flugzeugführer behelfsmäßig ausgestattet sind. Bei den Flugzeugmustern, bei denen an Hand von Beuteflugzeugen eine Panzerung festgestellt wurde, ist diese in den Skizzen eingezeichnet.
Bei den neusten Flugzeugen finden sich nunmehr auch geschützte Kraftstoffbehälter.
Bei den Angaben über die Bewaffnung ist zu berücksichtigen, daß ein und dasselbe Flugzeugmuster verschiedene Bewaffnung aufweisen kann, z. B. Doppel-MG. statt Einfach-MG., Kanonen statt starre MG. usw. Alle bisher bekanntgewordenen Bewaffnungsarten sind bei den jeweiligen Mustern in der Beschreibung auf der Skizze vermerkt.
Die Skizzen von Feindflugzeugen mit Eintragung der Bewaffnung, der Kraftstoffbehälter und der Panzerung werden entsprechend eingehender neuer Unterlagen laufend berichtigt und für neu eingesetzte Flugzeugmuster laufend ergänzt werden!
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte - Großbritannien (einschl. Der USA.-Lieferungen) – Anlage 3
Hoheitsabzeichen der britischen Kriegsflugzeuge
Flügeloberseite
Flügelunterseite
Neuerdings sind der gelbe Ring um die Kokarde, desgleichen der weiße Ring in der Kokarde und der weiße Streifen an der Seitenflosse wesentlich schmäler gehalten. Bisher waren alle Ringe der Kokarde und alle Streifen an der Seitenflosse gleich breit.
Teil II: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der USA.
Achtung!
Wichtige Vorbemerkung!
In diesem Teil sind die Muster nicht mehr aufgeführt, die auch in der britischen Luftwaffe eingesetzt sind. Diese Muster sind im Teil I “Britische Kriegsflugzeuge” (einschl. der USA.-Lieferungen) in den Anlagen 15a-15c, 16a-16c, 17a-17c, 18a-18c, 19a-19c, 20a-20d, 34a-34c, 36a-36c, 37a-37c, 38a, 38b, 39a-39c, 40a-40c, 41a-41c, 42a-42c, 47a-47c, 48a, 48b, 49a und 49b gebracht. Diese Anlagen sind dadurch besonders kenntlich gemacht, daß sie links oben folgende Bezeichnung tragen:
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte
Großbritannien und USA.
Die meisten Bilder tragen noch di bisherigen Hoheitsabzeichen.
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte – USA. - Anlage 59
Hoheitsabzeichen der USA.-Kriegsflugzeuge
Hoheitsabzeichen auf Flügelober- und –unterseite. Neuerdings häufig nur auf einer Flügelseite (linker Oberseite und rechter Unterseite). Die Flügelunterseiten der Heeresflugzeuge tragen außerdem häufig die Aufschrift: US-Army.
Hoheitsabzeichen auf beiden Seiten des Rumpfes.
Sowohl bei Heeres- als auch bei Marineflugzeugen nicht regelmäßig vorhanden.
Hoheitsabzeichen auf beiden Seiten des Rumpfes, nur bei Marineflugzeugen. Nicht regelmäßig vorhanden.
Hoheitsabzeichen: fünfzackiger weißer oder hellgrauer Stern in kreisförmigem blauen Feld. Nach einer unbestätigten Pressemeldung ist das Hoheitsabzeichen von gelbem Ring umschlossen (warscheinlich am Rumpf). Weiß, gelb, blau
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte – USA. - Anlage 60
Allgemeines
Bedeutung der Bezeichnung der Flugzeugmuster der amerikanischen Heeresfliegertruppe
Die einzelnen Flugzeugmuster werden durch Buchstaben und eine Zahl gekennzeichnet. Die Buchstaben vor der Zahl bedeuten die Kategorie, die Zahl gibt an, um das wievielte Muster in der betreffenden Kategorie es sich handelt. Die Bezifferung ist hierbei laufend, ohne Rücksicht auf die Herstellerfirma und ohne Rücksicht darauf, ob das Muster nur als Versuchsmuster oder in Serie gebaut wurde. Ein weiterer Buchstabe nach der Zahl gibt die verschiedenen Serien (Ausführungen) des betreffenden Musters an. Die Kategorien werden durch folgende Buchstaben bezeichnet:
O (Observation) = Aufklärer
B (Bombing) = Kampfflugzeug
A (Attack) = Tiefangriffsflugzeug
P (Pursuit) = Jäger
FM (Multiseater Fighter) = mehrsitziger Jäger (Zerstörer)
C (Cargo) = Transportflugzeug
OA (Observation Amphibium) = Aufklärer-Amphibienflugzeug
Ein X (Experimental) vor der Bezeichnung bedeutet, daß es sich um ein Versuchsmuster handelt, ein Y, daß es sich um ein Flugzeugmuster im Truppenversuch handelt. Zum Beispiel:
B-18 = das 18. Kampfflugzeugmuster
B-18A = die 2. Serie (1. Abwandlung des 18. Kampfflugzeugmusters)
YFM-2 = das 2. Zerstörermuster, im Truppenversuch sich befindend
P-40D = die 5. Ausführung des 40. Jägermusters
Bedeutung der Bezeichnung der Flugzeugmuster der amerikanischen Marinefliegertruppe
Die Fluzeugmuster werden durch eine Gruppe von Buchstaben und Zahlen bezeichnet, die durch einen Bindestrich getrennt sind. Durch die Gruppe vor dem Bindestrich wird die Art der Verwendung, die Herstellerfirma und die Musterzahl gekennzeichnet, während die Zahl hinter dem Bindestrich die betreffende Serie angibt. Der letzte Buchstabe vor dem Bindestrich ist das Kennzeichen für die Herstellerfirma, wobei die einzelnen Firmen wie folgt bezeichnet sind:
A = Brewster
B = Boeing (auch Beech Aircraft)
C = Curtiss
D = Douglas
F = Grumman
H = Hall
J = North American
L = Bell
M = Martin
N = Naval Aircraft Factory
O = Lockheed
P = Spartan
R = Ryan
S = Stearman
T = Northrop
U = Vought-Sikorsky
Y = Consolidated.
Die vorangehende Zahl gibt an, um das wievielte Flugzeug dieser Kategorie der betreffenden Firma es sich handelt, wobei jedoch das erste Flugzeug nicht speziell durch eine Zahl angeführt wird. Die Zahl 1 wird daher weggelassen. Vor dieser Zahl wird der Verwendungszweck des Musters durch 1 bis 2 Buchstaben ausgedrückt. Der erste Buchstabe bedeutet hierbei den Hauptverwendungszweck, der zweite die zusätzliche Verwendungsart. Es werden folgende Buchstaben verwendet:
P = Fernaufklärer (Flugboote)
O = Aufklärer (Artilleriebeobachter)
S = Nahaufklärer
B = Kampfflugzeuge (Stuka)
F = Jagdflugzeuge
J = Arbeitsflugzeuge (Amphibien)
N = Schulflugzeuge
R = Reiseflugzeuge
T = Torpedoflugzeuge
PB = Fernaufklärer-Kampfflugzeuge
OS = Artilleriebeobachter und Nahaufklärer
SB = Aufklärer-Stuka
TB = Torpedo-Kampfflugzeuge
SN = Aufklärer-Schulflugzeuge
JR = Arbeits-Reiseflugzeuge
Ein X (Experimental) vor diesen Buchstaben bedeutet, daß es sich um eine Versuchsauführung handelt. Die Zahl hinter dem Bindestrich bezeichnet, um die wievielte Serie des betreffenden Musters es sich handelt, wobei die einzelnen Serien verschiedene Motorenmuster oder sonstige Änderungen aufweisen.
Zum Beispiel:
S U-4
S: Kategorie “Aufklärer”
U: Fa. Vought (Da keine Zahl voraussteht, bedeutet es das 1. Muster dieser Kategorie)
4: 4. Serie
S B 2 U-3
S B: Kategorie “Aufklärer-Stuka”
2: 2. Muster dieser Kategorie (der Fa. Vought)
U: Fa. Vought-Sikorsky
3: 3. Serie
X T B F -1
X: Versuchsmuster
T B: Kategorie Torpedobomber
F: Fa. Grumman (1. Muster der Kategorie)
1: 1. Serie
Teil III: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Sowjet-Union
Achtung!
Wichtige Vorbemerkung!
Um die Feststellung von erbeuteten Flugzeugen zu erleichtern, sind die Muster auch mit den russischen Buchstaben bezeichnet, z. B. I-16 = И-16.
Bei den seit 1940 engeführten neuen Flugzeugmustern erfolgte ab 1941 eine Änderung der Bezeichnung: die Neubezeichnung führt nicht mehr die Kategorie der Flugzeuge an, sondern ist aus den Namen der Konstrukteure gebildet. Diese neuen militärischen Bezeichnungen werden in der vorliegenden Zusammenstellung in der ersten Überschriftzeile in der deutschen und der russischen Schreibweise angegeben, die bisherigen Bezeichnungen in Klammern darunter (nur in der deutschen Schreibweise). Bei den schon früher eingeführten Mustern ist die alte Bezeichnungsart beibehalten worden.
In diesem Teil werden nur die Kriegsflugzeuge gebracht, die in der Sowjet-Union selbst hergestellt werden.
Die Muster britischer und amerikanischer Lieferungen sind in Teil I (Britische Kriegsflugzeuge einschl. der USA.-Leiferungen) und Teil II (Die Kriegsflugzeuge der USA.) zu finden.
Zur Zeit (September 1942) sind folgende fremde Muster bei der Luftwaffe der Sowjet-Union festgestellt worden:
Jagdeinsitzer Hawker “Hurricane” (s. Teil I, Anlagen 7a, 7b, 8a-8c)
Jagdeinsitzer Bell “Airacobra” (s. Teil I, Anlagen 15a-15c)
Jagdeinsitzer Curtiss “Tomahawk” (s. Teil I, Anlagen 20a, 20c, 20d)
Kampfflugzeug Douglas “Boston II” und “Boston III” (s. Teil I, Anlagen 36a-36c)
Kampfflugzeug North American B-25 (s. Teil II, Anlagen 68a-68c)
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte – Sowjet-Union - Anlage 82
Hoheitsabzeichen nach sowjetischer Vorschrift von 1941
Seitenansicht
Ansicht von oben
Ansicht von unten
Die Vorschrift wird nicht in allen Fällen genau durchgeführt. Es wurde festgestellt, daß der Sowjetstern auf dem Seitenruder gelegentlich fehlt oder daß die Flügeloberseite das Hoheitsabzeichen trägt.
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte – Sowjet-Union - Anlage 83a
Allgemeines
Die militärische Bezeichnung der älteren Muster erfolgt nach der Kategorie des betreffenden Musters mit einem oder zwei Buchstaben und einer darauffolgenden Zahl.
Es bedeutet hierbei:
I (Istrebitelj) = Jagdeinsitzer
DI (Dwuchmestnyi Istrebitelj) = Jagdzweisitzer
B (Bombardirowschtschik) = Bomber
SB (Skorostnoj Bombardirowschtschik) = Schneller Bomber
DB (Daljnyj Bombardirowschtschik) = Fern-Bomber
BB (Blishnij Bombardirowschtschik) = Nah-Bomber
TB (Tjashjolyj Bombardirowschtschik) = Schwerer Bomber
PB (Pikirujuschtschi Bombardirowschtschik) = Stuka
BSch (Bronirowany Schturmowik) = Gepanzertes Schlachtflugzeug
R (Raswedtschik) = Aufklärer
SchR (Schturmowik Raswedtschik) = Teifangriffsflugzeug – Aufklärer
U (Utschebnyj Samoljot) = Schulflugzeug
UT (Utschebnyj Trenirowatschnyj) = Schul-Übungsflugzeug.
In der darauffolgenden Zahlenbezeichnung ist kein System zu erkennen. Die Zahlen sind weder aufeinanderfolgend, noch nach Werk, Konstrukteur oder Motor durchgeführt. Weiterentwicklungen werden manchmal durch eine nachfolgende Zahl, z. B. I-15 ………. I-153, manchmal durch einen nachfolgenden Buchstanden, z. B. DB-3……………Db-3F, bezeichnet.
Bei den neu eingeführten Flugzeugmustern erfolgt die Bezeichnung seit 1941 nicht mehr nach der Kategorie des Musters, sondern nach den Namen der Konstrukteure (vgl. Vorbemerkung).
Die Werktypenbezeichnung erfolgt durch eine Nummer.
Neue Bezeichnung:
JAK-1
JAK-2, -4
JAK-7
MIG-1, -3
LAGG-3
AR-2
PE-2
ER-2
SU-2
IL-2
Ursprüngliche Bezeichnung:
I-26
BB-22
UTI-26 (I-26 als 2sitziges Übungsflugzeug)
I-200 (Werksbezeichnung I-61)
I-301
SB-RK
Bei den neuen Mustern wurde oft eine Verschiedenheit in der Konstruktion oder in der Bewaffnung vorgefunden, was darauf schließen läßt, daß die serienmäßige Entwicklung noch nicht abgeschlossen ist.
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte – Sowjet-Union - Anlage 83b
Bei Meldungen über abgeschlossene oder zerstörte Flugzeuge ist künftig die neue Musterbezeichnung anzuführen!
Hinweise für den Flugmeldedienst:
Die Unterschiede zwischen einigen Flugzeugmustern sind derart gering, daß ihr einwandfreies Erkennen im Luftraum schwierig ist. Für den Flugmeldedienst werden daher zweckmäßig sich sehr ähnlich sehende Muster (die auch immer gleichen Verwendungszweck haben) unter nur einer Bezeichnung zusammengefaßt.
1. I-15bis und I-153 werden nur als I-153 angesprochen. I-153 ist nur eine Weiterentwickung des Musters I-15 und hat wesentlichstes Merkmal ein einziehbares Fahrwerk. Außerdem sind beim Muster I-153 der obere und untere Flügel geknickt.
2. Die drei neuen Jagdeinsitzermuster LAGG-3, MIG-1, -3 und JAK-1 (“Spitzmaus”-Muster) werden nur “Lagg” angesprochen.
Am Boden ist die Unterscheidung wegen der verschiedenen Bauweisen ohne weiteres möglich.
Das Muster LAGG-3 ist in Ganzholzbauweise ausgeführt,
Das Muster JAK-1 hat einen Holzflügel (durchlaufend) und einen Rumpf aus Stahlrohr geschweißt, mit Stoff bespannt,
Das Muster MIG-1, -3 hat die Außenflügel und den rückwärtigen Teil des Rumpfes ab Führersitz in Holzbau, den Rumpfvorderteil und das Flügelmittelstück in Metallbau.
Diese drei neuen Jagdeinsitzermuster haben flüssigkeitsgekühlte V-Motoren, die beiden älteren Muster haben luftgekühlte Sternmotoren.
3. Alle SB-Muster (SB-2, -3) und das Muster AR-2 (SB-RK) werden unter der Sammelbezeichnung “SB” angesprochen.
Hauptunterscheidung am Boden:
Alle drei Muster haben flüssigkeitsgekühlte V-Motoren, aber verschiedene Kühleranordnung: SB-2 Stirnkühler, SB-3 Bauchkühler, AR-2 (SB-RK) Flügelkühler.
SB-2 und SB-3 haben einen Bugstand mit Schwenklafette, wobei jedes MG. sich in einem Längsschlitz in der Bugnase bewegt, das Muster AR-2 hat einen geschlossenen Bugstand mit einem MG. in Kugellafette.
Das Muster AR-2 hat Sturzflugbremsen, ähnlich wie die Ju-88, die beiden SB-Muster haben keine Sturzflugbremsen.
4. Die beiden Muster DB-3 und DB-3 F werden unter der Bezeichnung “DB-3” zusammengefaßt (zum Unterschied vom Muster TB-3 = “TB-3” Ansprache zweckmäßig “Dora B-3” und “Toni B-3”).
Beide Muster haben luftgekühlte Sternmotoren und unterscheiden sich nur durch die Art der Bugkanzel. Das Muster DB-3 hat eine stumpfe Kanzel mit einem MG.-Drehturm im Bug, das Muster DB-3 F hat eine langgestreckte Kanzel mit einem MG. in Kugellafette.
Alle anderen Muster sind mit ihrer Bezeichnung anzusprechen. Ähnlich sind sich noch die Muster SU-2 und R-10 sowie die beiden Muster PE-2 und JAK-4. Ein sicheres Unterscheiden dieser Muster wird nur bei einigen Fluglagen möglich sein. Ein gutes Unterscheidungsmerkmal bei den Mustern SU-2 und R-10 is die Lage des Führersitzes, der beim Muster R-10 ganz vorn, unmittelbar hinter dem Motor angeordnet ist, während er beim Muster SU-2 weiter zurücklegt. Bei der Ansicht von unten weist das Muster R-10 eine gerade Flügelhinterkante (Keilflügel) auf, während das Muster SU-2 einen Doppeltrapezflügel hat. Als Unterscheidungsmerkmal am Boden dient auch das Motorenmuster: R-10 mit einfachen Sternmotor, SU-2 mit Doppelsternmotor.
Die Muster PE-2 und JAK-4 sind in der Luft schwer zu unterscheiden, am Boden aber infolge der verschiedenen Bauweisen leicht zu erkennen. Das Muster PE-2 ist in Ganzmetallbauweise ausgeführt, das Muster JAK-4 in Gemischt-, der Flügel in Holzbauweise.
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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Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte
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
1942-09
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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223 printed sheets. The following pages are missing: 25b, 25d, 43, 61a, 73, 75, 76, 79, 80, 81.
Language
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deu
Type
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Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
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MMolloyS[Ser#-DoB]-160212-01
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
United States Army Air Force
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Conforms To
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Pending review
Temporal Coverage
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1942
Description
An account of the resource
Contains photographs, silhouettes and drawings of British, American and Russian aircraft, showing dimensions, armament, armour plate or glass, and position of fuel tanks. Tables set out aircraft capabilities, including range and bomb loads.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Creator
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Germany. Wehrmacht Luftwaffe
B-17
B-24
B-25
Beaufighter
Blenheim
Boston
Catalina
Defiant
fuelling
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Hampden
Hudson
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lysander
Manchester
Mosquito
P-38
P-40
P-51
Spitfire
Stirling
Sunderland
Swordfish
Ventura
Walrus
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1554/27322/MMcDermottC1119618-161216-02.1.pdf
624267a84d728d1c0104e2bbfc6dc87d
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
McDermott, Colin
C McDermott
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-11-03
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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McDermott, C
Description
An account of the resource
87 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Colin McDermott (1119618 Royal Air Force). He served as an air gunnery instructor and flew operations as an air gunner with 98 Squadron. Contains his log book, papers and photographs and includes issues of 'Evidence in Camera'. <br /><br />The collection also contains albums of photographs from his training at <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1696">Evanton</a> in 1943, taken during his service in <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1699">Denmark </a>and some <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1698">duplicate </a>photographs.<br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Barbara Bury and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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VOLUME 4 – NUMBER 2 – JULY 12th 1943
ISSUED BY AIR MINISTRY A.C.A.S. (1)
[picture]
EVIDENCE in camera
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
[page break]
EVIDENCE IN CAMERA
1. This O.U.O. document may be issued to Officers' Mess and Station Reference Libraries. (K.R. & A.C.I. 882.2236(c). 2287.)
2. The only legitimate use which may be made of official documents or information derived from them is for the furtherance of the public service in the performance of official duties.
3. The publication of official documents, information from them, reproduction of extracts or their use for personal controversy, or for any private or public purpose without due authority is a breach of official trust under the OFFICIAL SECRETS ACTS. 1911 and 1920, and will be dealt with accordingly. (K.R. & A.C.I. 1071, 1072, 2238).
4. Copies not required for record purposes should be disposed of as Secret Waste in accordance with A.M.O. A.411/41.
SEE FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS ON BACK OF COVER.
[page break]
[cartoon]
[signature]
Don't give the game away.
25
[page break]
[photograph]
[photograph]
Two striking oblique views, taken from 26,000 ft. as the bombers leave the Synthetic Rubber Plant at HÜLS, showing the immense column of smoke and steam rising above the surrounding cloud formation to an estimated height of 7,500 ft.
28
[page break]
[photograph]
[photograph]
Liberator B-24s of the U.S.B.C flying in formation, during a daylight attack on the U-Boat base at LA PALLICE, 29.5.43.
29
[page break]
[photograph]
De Schelde Shipbuilding Yards at FLUSHING were attacked on 24.6.43 by twelve Venturas of Bomber Command with fighter escort. This photograph shows a Ventura over the target and a concentration of bomb bursts (A) across the engine shops and adjacent buildings in the Marine Dock. Further bursts are seen among oil storage tanks and buildings (B) on the East side of Verbreed Canal.
30
[page break]
[photograph]
[photograph]
ST. NAZAIRE LOCKS BOMBED
At least three probable direct hits were scored on the Eastern Entrance Lock (arrow) at ST. NAZAIRE during the first wave of the U.S.B.C. daylight attack on 28.6.43. The second wave of attacking aircraft approaching the Port nearly 20 minutes later, dropped more bombs around the Bassin de St. Nazaire and at least one direct hit was registered on the caissons of the adjacent lock under construction.
Inset: (A) The Eastern Entrance Lock. (B and B1) Concrete shelters of similar construction to the bomb proof U-Boat shelters, are being erected over the ends of the lock, presumably to protect the lock gates.
31
[page break]
HEAVY DAMAGE INFLICTED ON KREFELD
[photograph]
Extremely heavy damage was caused at KREFELD in the attack on 21/22.6.43. Approximately 900 acres of the built-up town area were devastated while factories in the industrial belt to the North East sustained severe damage. Industrial premises almost completely destroyed including the factories (A and B) and those of Gebr. Peltzer A.G., velvet manufacturers, (C) Carl Neiss, silk weaving, (D) and Krefelder Teppichfabrik A.G., carpets, (E).
32
[page break]
[photograph]
KREFELD. Over 75 per cent. of the silk weaving factory at Vereinigte Seidenweberein A.G. (A) was destroyed by fire and H.E. and the military barracks (B) were severely damaged. The factory (C) of Taschner A.G. (machinery) was destroyed over an area of 3,500 sq. yds. and approximately six acres of damage was caused to the factory and administrative buildings (D) of Scheiblers Fabrik.
33
[page break]
[boxed] SCUTTLED FRENCH FLEET [/boxed]
[photograph]
Salvage works on a number of the units of the French Fleet scuttled in TOULON Harbour (27.11.42) has been proceeding for several months. These photographs may be plotted with vertical cover on Pages 36 and 37.
Left: Commandante Teste (aircraft tender).
Centre: Provence (ex-battleship).
See Inset A (Nos. 1 and 2).
Right: Condorcet (ex-battleship).
See Mosaic Photograph (No. 8) and Inset C (No. 5).
[photograph]
Marseillaise (La Galissonniere Class cruiser). See Insets C and D (No. 4).
[photograph]
Algérie (cruiser). See Inset C (No. 3).
[photograph]
Scuttled escort vessels. See Mosaic Photo (No. 5).
34
[page break]
[boxed] Inset letters and numbers in parentheses agree with annotations on photographs on Pages 36 and 37. [/boxed]
[photograph]
Left: Strasbourg (battle cruiser).
Right: Colbert (cruiser).
See Insets C and D (Nos. 1 and 2).
[photograph]
Wreck of the cruiser Colbert. See Insets C and D (No.2).
[photograph]
[photograph]
Another view of the Strasbourg. See Insets C and D (No. 1).
Strasbourg and cruisers. See Insets C and D (Nos. 1, 2 and 3).
35
[page break]
[photograph]
SALVAGE WORK ON FRENCH FLEET.
At least four contretorpilleurs, three destroyers, the net and minelayer GLADIATEUR, three escort vessels, two torpedo boats, two submarines, two armed trawlers and two submarine chasers of the French Fleet have been raised in TOULON. Three contretorpilleurs and a destroyer have been transferred to Spezia.
Two La Galissonniere Class cruisers (No. 6 on mosaic), which had settled in the dry dock off Missiessy Basin, have been raised, removed to dry dock and now berthed (Inset A, No. 3).
The Suffren Class cruiser DUPLEIX (No. 7 on mosaic and Inset B, No. 1), on fire for at least a month, has been stripped of her superstructure.
The superstructure of the ex-battleship PROVENCE (Inset A, No. 2) is being dismantled.
Dismantling work has progressed on the battle cruiser STRASBOURG (Insets C and D, No. 1), which had settled.
The ex-battleship CONDORCET has been moved from near the entrance to the Old Basin (No. 8 on the mosaic) to Port Lagoubran (Inset C, No. 5).
The aircraft tender COMMANDANTE TESTE, which was listing to port and had settled by her stern (No. 9 on mosaic and Inset A, No. 1) has been raised, visited dry dock and returned to her former berth.
Most of the superstructure of the Suffren Class cruiser COLBERT, which had been burning for nearly a month and had settled by her stern, has been dismantled (Insets C and D, No. 2). The FOCH, of the same class, was submerged on an even keel (No. 10 on mosaic), was raised, visited dry dock and is now at Port Lagoubran (Inset C, No. 6). The cruiser ALGERIE, on fire for nearly a month, has had most of her superstructure dismantled (Insets C and D, No. 3).
The cruiser MARSEILLAISE, which was on fire for over a month and had a heavy list to port, is now probably being dismantled (Insets C and D No. 4).
The battle cruiser DUNKERQUE, which was lying damaged in dry dock, rose by her stern when the dock was flooded. Dismantling work has taken place on her superstructure (Inset A, No. 4).
36 and 37
[page break]
BEAUFIGHTER ATTACK ON CONVOY
An attack on a Southbound convoy off Den Helder was made by Beaufighters on 24.5.43. Torpedoes and bombs were used during the attack. The convoy, consisting of M/Vs from 1,500 tons to 4,000 tons and including the 5,180 ton "Stadt Emden", was escorted by "M" Class Minesweepers and armed trawlers. Several of the M/V's were flying balloons.
[photograph]
Above: A Beaufighter engaged in combat with one of the escort vessels.
[photograph]
Above: At this stage of the attack three Beaufighters can be seen with a 4,000 ton M/V in the foreground. The more distant vessel is the 420 ft. "Stadt Emden".
[photograph]
Right: A Beaufighter leaving two burning vessels.
38
[page break]
[boxed] ANTWERP FORTS [/boxed]
Ancient forts in the ANTWERP area are now in use as barracks, stores and ammunition dumps, and M.T. Repair Depots.
[photograph]
Right: Fort No. 3. Aircraft Shelters (A), camouflaged with netting on which dummy roads have been painted (B), have been erected on the outer ramparts. A machine gun testing range (C) is under construction and there are ammunition dumps at (D). Other buildings are probably being used as quarters for personnel from the adjoining airfield, ANTWERP/DEURNE.
[photograph]
Left: Fort No. 4 is being used as a barracks and M.T. depot. The roofs (A) have been disruptively painted and there is a three gun light flak position (B). Other light flak batteries have since been placed on the ramparts of several of the ports.
[photograph]
Right: Fort St. Marie, an ammunition and explosives depot. (A) Unoccupied searchlight. (B) Unoccupied four gun heavy flak battery.
39
[page break]
[photograph]
Above: Fw 190s on PERPIGNAN/LABANERE Airfield at the time of the German occupation of Southern France. Emphasis to the slimness of the streamlined radial nose is given by the long shadows.
[photograph]
Left: More Fw 190, showing typical dispersal of German fighters at the perimeter of an airfield.
40
[page break]
[boxed] FOCKE-WULF 190
A large proportion of the reinforced fighter strength of the G.A.F. consists of Fw 190s. The radial-engined designs of the Fw 190 (the first successful fighter produced by Focke-Wulf) is a departure from the usual German practice of using in-line engines for single seat fighters. [/boxed]
[photograph]
Right: Fw 190s near covered aircraft shelters at ABBEVILLE/DRUCAT.
Below: Effective dispersal of fighters. The Fw 190s near the hangars would be hardly visible on small scale photographs.
[photograph]
41
[page break]
[photograph]
[inserted] NEW BASIN No. 1)
MERIDIONALE BASIN
CIANO DOCK
PISA DOCK
FIRENZE DOCK
VITTORIO EMANUELL IN HARBOUR
CAPPELLINI DOCK
OUTER HARBOUR
MEDICEO PORT
SEAPLANE BASE
LAUNCHING BASIN [/inserted]
KNOW YOUR PORTS – LEGHORN, ITALY
Light cruisers, minesweepers and other minor naval units are regularly seen at the Port which is used for building and repairing naval units. Leghorn is also a supply port for Corsica and Sardinia.
42
[page break]
[photograph]
LEGHORN
Above: The Eastern side of the New Basin No. 1 is used by light cruisers and merchant vessels and in this photograph the BARI (A) and TARANTO (B) are seen. The Western side of the basin is used by merchant vessels up to approximately 5,000 g.r.t. Part of the important industrial zone of Leghorn appears to the right of the photograph with the National Radiator Co. at (C).
[photograph]
Right: Shops, slips and quays of Odero-Terni-Orlando were severely damaged in an attack on 28.5.43 and this photograph, taken in 1942, shows a Regolo Class cruiser (A) and a destroyer of the Aviere Class (B) fitting out. Other units include two 210 ft. escort vessels (C), a destroyer without bows waiting repairs (D) and two destroyers (E) and three escort vessels (F) building.
43
[page break]
AIRFIELD CAMOUFLAGE IN DENMARK
[photograph]
In October, 1941, the landing field and three runways at AALBORG/WEST (RØDSLET), the most important bomber base in Denmark, were effectively camouflaged with dummy cultivation patches and roads (A). Painted lines on the runways represent drainage (B) which is seen on the centre of the field. Two of the dummy roads have been outlined by painted tree shadows (C). When the landing ground was later extended the open aircraft shelters (D) were removed (see next page).
44
[page break]
[photograph]
AALBORG/WEST (RØDSLET). The runways which have been extended (arrows) are now more conspicuous, the camouflage having faded. A painted pond (E) has "streams" leading away and one of these joins a genuine stream (F) leading to the sea. A similar painted stream is seen on another runway (G). The shelters are covered with dark-toned netting which is draped out at the sides and a light flak battery has appeared on the coast (H).
45
[page break]
[boxed] KERLIN BASTARD AIRFIELD [/boxed]
[photograph]
The site for KERLIN BASTARD Airfield was cleared in July 1940. Actual construction, which was commenced in April, 1941, has proceeded steadily. Its strategic situation and proximity to the submarine base at Lorient make it ideal for aircraft engaged in anti-shipping activity.
Above: The site as it appeared in July, 1940.
[photograph]
Right: June, 1941. An area of 2,750 yds. by 2,400 yds. is enclosed by a long perimeter track and, judging by the amount of levelling work which has been carried out recently this will eventually form the landing ground.
46
[page break]
[photograph]
KERLIN BASTARD. The Airfield has a formidable layout. The runways, with prepared strips, are approximately 2,200 yds. and 2,300 yds. long. The runways are approximately 90 yds. wide and the prepared strips on each side are approximately 120 yds. in width. Parts of the runways have been roughly painted with dummy roads but no attempt has been made to hide the marks of constructional activity.
47
[page break]
PROBLEM PICTURES.
[photograph]
[photograph]
WHAT ARE THESE?
Answers at Foot of This Page.
[boxed] ANSWERS TO PROBLEM PICTURES ABOVE.
Upper Photograph: Dummy trees on umbrella framework at AUGSBURG Airfield.
Lower Photograph: Open aircraft blast shelters adjacent to which are cocks of hay, piles of spoil and more dummy trees. Two of the shelters have been camouflaged with netting. [/boxed]
48
[page break]
(4374.) 51-9832. 2900. 12/7/43. 45.246.
C. & E. LAYTON LTD. London, E.C.4.
[page break]
EVIDENCE IN CAMERA
This weekly document will consist of a collection of illustrations varying in number in each issue according to the quantity of material of sufficient interest and suitable for reproduction that is received.
2. Requests for material to be included in this document should be submitted to Command Headquarters, who, after consideration, will submit them to Air Ministry, A.D.I.(Ph.). Any useful suggestions as regards contents will receive full consideration and will be welcomed.
3. Distribution is carried out by the Air Ministry (A.I. I) and any requests for fewer or additional copies must be made through Group Headquarters who will ensure the maximum possible economy.
4. Under no circumstances must any of the illustrations be reproduced by Units in the British Isles. Further copies can be printed from the existing blocks and independent photographic reproduction would be a waste of material and labour to the detriment of the National War Effort.
5. The distribution of photographs to the general public is carried out through the Press who are supplied with photographs which have been specially selected for their general interest and have been published after careful consideration by the Security Branch and by the Ministry of Information; it is therefore unnecessary as well as undesirable to communicate any of the contents of this document, either directly or by discussion in public places, to persons not enjoying the privilege of serving in H.M. Forces.
6. The document has not been officially graded as Secret or Confidential in order that the widest distribution may be given, but Commanding Officers should use their discretion to ensure that the appropriate information is available only to those whose work will benefit.
7. The necessity for security cannot be over emphasised, for although this document is not marked Secret some of its contents may occasionally be of value to the enemy. Every care must be taken to prevent such information being disclosed.
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
Evidence in Camera Vol 4 No 2
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of aerial photographs of B-17s and B-24s on operations, shipyards, factories, scuttled French fleet, an attack on a convoy, Antwerp forts, airfields, Leghorn port, the camouflaged airfields at Aalborg and Kerlin Bastard and two images to identify.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-07-12
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
26 page booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMcDermottC1119618-161216-02
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany--Krefeld
France--La Pallice
Netherlands--Vlissingen
France--Toulon
Netherlands--Den Helder
Belgium--Antwerp
France--Perpignan
France--Abbeville
Italy--Livorno
France--Lorient
Germany--Augsburg
Italy
France
Germany
Denmark
Belgium
Netherlands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Denmark--Ålborg
France--Saint-Nazaire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Air Ministry
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Babs Nichols
aerial photograph
B-17
B-24
Beaufighter
bombing
Fw 190
reconnaissance photograph
runway
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1554/27343/MMcDermottC1119618-161216-06.1.pdf
b509cf7e347e222d9222b9d4e8f5b864
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
McDermott, Colin
C McDermott
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McDermott, C
Description
An account of the resource
87 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Colin McDermott (1119618 Royal Air Force). He served as an air gunnery instructor and flew operations as an air gunner with 98 Squadron. Contains his log book, papers and photographs and includes issues of 'Evidence in Camera'. <br /><br />The collection also contains albums of photographs from his training at <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1696">Evanton</a> in 1943, taken during his service in <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1699">Denmark </a>and some <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1698">duplicate </a>photographs.<br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Barbara Bury and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
VOLUME 4 NUMBER 7 AUGUST 16TH 1943
EVIDENCE IN CAMERA
[Sketch]
ISSUED BY AIR MINISTRY A.C.A.S. (1)
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
[page break]
EVIDENCE IN CAMERA
1. This O.U.O. document may be issued to Officers’ Mess and Station Reference Libraries. (K.R. & A.C.I. 882, 2236(c), 2287.)
2. The only legitimate use which may be made of official documents or information derived from them is for the furtherance of the public service in the performance of official duties.
3. The publication of official documents, information from them, reproduction of extracts or their use for personal controversy, or for any private or public purpose without due authority is a breach of official trust under the OFFICIAL SECRETS ACTS, 1911 AND 1920, and will be dealt with accordingly. (K.R. & A.C.I. 1071, 1072, 2238).
4. Copies not required for record purposes should be disposed of as Secret Waste in accordance with A.M.O. A.411/41.
SEE FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS ON BACK OF COVER.
[page break]
[cartoon]
This is the height of insecurity.
So is careless talk.
145
[page break]
STUDIES IN MASS FLIGHTS
[Photograph]
An impressive photograph from an unusual angle of Liberators in formation.
146
[page break]
[Photograph]
An aircraft of the R.A.F., returning from a reconnaissance over Hamburg, photographed these Fortresses of U.S.B.C. over the North Sea.
147
[page break]
[Photograph]
The Argus Motoren G.m.b.H. of BERLIN/REINICKENDORF produces aero-engines of its own design and also for Junkers. The area (A) shows the factory in 1930. The additions were made prior to the war but little progress has been made during the past two years. The machine or assembly shops are at (B) and it is believed that some production is taking place at the unfinished shop (C). The aero-engine test beds are at (D) while aircraft wheels and brakes are manufactured at (E). Two sites (F) have been cleared for further construction; one is water-logged and the other is used as an air raid shelter. A small Heinkel factory (G) is making aircraft components.
148
[page break]
[Photograph]
Extensive damage was caused in the U.S.B.C. daylight attack (22.6.43) on the important Synthetic Rubber Works at HULS, N.W. of Krefeld. This plant, the second of its kind in Germany, was built in 1940 as an addition to the existing plant which was producing ethylene glycol. Many of the most important plants and buildings were damaged in the attack and it is considered that the plant will be out of production for at least four to five months. Six gas holders were destroyed.
149
[page break]
KNOW YOUR PORTS – ST. MALO
[Photograph]
ST. MALO is a fortified seaport town standing on the eastern side of the mouth of the River Rance. The rocky island on which the town was built is connected to the mainland by Le Sillon, a narrow causeway three-quarters of a mile long.
150
[page break]
[Photograph]
This oblique photograph of ST. MALO was taken by an aircraft flying south of the port. St. Malo has been converted into a base for minesweepers, while the activity of merchant shipping has increased and material is transported to the Channel Islands.
151
[page break]
CAMOUFLAGE AT AMSTERDAM
[Photograph]
Hangars, huts and flak towers of the Schellingwoude Seaplane Base, to the East of the port of AMSTERDAM, have been extensively camouflaged. Compare this photograph of the base before being camouflaged with that on the next page.
152
[page break]
[Photograph]
The two main hangars (A) and nearly all the buildings on the triangle of land have been camouflaged with netting on framework. A large area of overhead netting completely covers a group of small huts (B). Four flak towers (C) have been mounded with netting, two being joined to camouflaged hangars. The road system, equally obvious on both photographs, discloses the layout of the area.
153
[page break]
SEVERE DAMAGE TO ARADO FACTORY, WARNEMUNDE
[Photograph]
Very severe damage was caused to the Arado Aircraft Factory, WARNEMUNDE, during the U.S.B.C. daylight attack (29.7.43). A smoke screen had been started but a heavy concentration of bombs fell on the factory (inset). Eighteen of the 27 buildings of the factory were destroyed or damaged. They included one of the main workshops (A), with a hole of 200 sq. yds, in the roof; the assembly or sub-assembly shops (B), severely damaged; boiler house (C), almost destroyed; and another main workshop (D), 800 sq. yds. of roof destroyed. Warehouses and other buildings (E) on the quayside were seriously damaged.
154
[page break]
FIRST ATTACK ON REMSCHEID
[Photograph]
An important Steel Works, the Bergische Stahlindustrie (special alloy forgings for aircraft and aero-engines), was very heavily damaged when REMSCHEID, E. of Dusseldorf, was attacked by Bomber Command on 30/31.7.43. The main station, also in this area, was severely damaged. The rest of the town was devastated by fire and H.E., the damage from H.E. being particularly severe.
155
[page break]
[Photograph]
THE DEVASTATED PORT AND CITY OF HAMBURG
Damage to commercial and industrial property in HAMBURG, caused during five Bomber Command night attacks and two U.S.B.C. daylight attacks between 24/25 and 28/29.7.43, is on an enormous scale. Since these reconnaissance photographs were taken Hamburg has been attacked again.
156
[page break]
[Photograph continued]
The mosaic photograph shows the vast area of severe damage between Aussen Alster, just north of the Main Railway Station (A), and the River Elbe (B). The Main Station, which was extensively camouflaged (see Vol. 1, No. 10, Page 313), was seriously damaged.
157
[page break]
[Photograph]
HAMBURG. A night photograph taken during the attack on 24/25.7.43 revealed incendiary bombs outlining the camouflaged Binnen Alster (A) and burning on the bridge (B). Note the dummy bridge (C) over the Aussen Alster. Sticks of incendiaries are burning in the Altona and Dock districts (to the right of the photograph) while the approximate site of the gas works, seen damaged in the next photograph, is indicated (arrow).
158
[page break]
[Photograph]
HAMBURG. Two large gas holders (A) were destroyed. Many warehouses near the Sandthor Hafen (B) and the Binnen Hafen (C) were completely destroyed and throughout the area photographed there is evidence of the great destruction by fire and high explosive bombs.
159
[page break]
[photograph]
HAMBURG. Warehouses on each side of the Baaken Hafen (A) and Ober Hafen (B) were destroyed. A three-island type merchant vessel of 350 feet (C) has been sunk and is lying with most of its superstructure above water. Railway facilities suffered heavily and practically all the buildings of the Hanover Goods Station and Depot (D) were demolished. Wrecked rolling stock is seen in storage and dock sidings and locomotive round houses (E and E1) were severely damaged.
160
[page break]
[Photograph]
The Neuhof Thermal Electric Power Station (A), one of the largest and most important in HAMBURG, was damaged during the attacks. The Hansa Műhle Seed Crushing Plant (B) has been considerably damaged, storage tanks being demolished. There are a number of craters on the railway sidings (C). INSET: An explosion (D) indicating that the oil storage tanks were hit during the U.S.B.C. attack on 25.7.43.
161
[page break]
TWICE BOMBED RAIL WORKSHOPS AT COLOGNE
Several buildings of the important Nippes Railway Workshops, COLOGNE, have been wrecked, rebuilt and destroyed again.
[photograph]
Left: The Locomotive Repair Shop (A) and other workshops (B and C) were severely damaged in the summer of 1942.
[Photograph]
Extensive building operations followed during the ensuing twelve months. The Locomotive Repair Shop (A) and the buildings (B) appeared to have been restored while considerable progress had been made in repairing the workshops (C).
162
[page break]
[Photograph]
Nippes Railway Workshops. After the attacks in June and July, 1943, locomotives were again visible in the building (A) which measures 275 yds. by 120 yds. and had been shattered a second time. An area of 250 sq. yds. of the rebuilt workshop (B) was damaged, while the roof of the building (B1) was burnt off. The workshop (C) was again damaged by fire and H.E. Many of the other railway workshops are seen to be seriously damaged or destroyed.
163
[page break]
[photograph]
MINE CLEARANCE VESSELS
The Germans have developed a new type of vessel which not only functions as a Sperrbrecher but also transports a number of motor boat minesweepers (30 ft. long) and acts as parent ship to them.
Above: This vessel (350 ft. o.a.), seen at HAUGESUND, S.W. Norway, has twelve motor boat minesweepers on her deck and is capable of carrying at least two more.
Right: This vessel (445 ft. o.a.) of the OSNABRUCK type, seen alongside at DOKSTAER (BERGEN), has a deck cargo of fifteen motor boat minesweepers. She is capable of carrying one more.
[Photograph]
164
[page break]
PROGRESS OF SALVAGE OPERATIONS ON THE ‘KONIGSBERG’
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
Salvage operations on the German cruiser KONIGSBERG at BERGEN have reached a new phase and recent photographs show that she has now been righted. She is afloat with a slight list to port and down by the stern. Part of her deck is submerged though her main and part of her secondary armament is clearly visible. INSET: A photograph taken a few weeks before she was righted shows the ‘Konigsberg’ lying bottom upwards in Bergen and supported by at least twelve camels. (For photographs of earlier salvage work on the ‘Konigsberg’, see Vol. 3, No. 3, Page 59.)
165
[page break]
FRENCH AIRCRAFT USED BY GERMAN AND ITALIAN AIR FORCES
The LeO 45 is one of the few modern bombers of French design which exist in any numbers, and many LeO 45s have now been taken over by Italy and Germany. The Germans are modifying this type and using it as a transport.
Right: LeO 45s in Italy. Four seen at CAMERI/NOVARA with S.M.84s (A).
[Photograph]
Below: LeO 45s at ISTRES with German Fw 190s (A) and a Ju 52 (B).
[Photograph]
166
[page break]
[Photograph]
LeO 45s, some of which still bear Vichy Air Force markings, lined up at BOLOGNA/BORGIO PANIGALE with S.M. 79s (A) and an S.M. 84 (B).
167
[page break]
PROBLEM PICTURE
[Photograph]
CRASHED OR IN FLIGHT?
Answer at Foot of This Page
ANSWER TO PROBLEM PICTURE ABOVE.
[Text upside down in original]
This is a Mustang in flight over France. (Note the shadow of the aircraft on the ground below.) The illusion that the aircraft has crashed is created by the port wing apparently being on the ground.
168
[page break]
(4506) 51-9832, 2900, 16/8/43. 45.246,
C. & E. LAYTON LTD. London, E.C.4.
[page break]
EVIDENCE IN CAMERA
This weekly document will consist of a collection of illustrations varying in number in each issue according to the quantity of material of sufficient interest and suitable for reproduction that is received.
2. Requests for material to be included in this document should be submitted to Command Headquarters, who, after consideration, will submit them to Air Ministry, A.D.I.(Ph.). Any useful suggestions as regards contents will receive full consideration and will be welcomed.
3. Distribution is carried out by Air Ministry (A.I. I) and any requests for fewer or additional copies must be made through Group Headquarters who will ensure the maximum possible economy.
4. Under no circumstances must any of the illustrations be reproduced by Units in the British Isles. Further copies can be printed from the existing blocks and independent photographic reproduction would be a waste of material and labour to the detriment of the National War Effort.
5. The distribution of photographs to the general public is carried out through the Press who are supplied with photographs which have been specially selected for their general interest and have been published after careful consideration by the Security Branch and by the Ministry of Information; it is therefore unnecessary as well as undesirable to communicate any of the contents of this document, either directly or by discussion in public places, to persons not enjoying the privilege of serving in H.M. Forces.
6. The document has not been officially graded as Secret or Confidential in order that the widest distribution may be given, but Commanding Officers should use their discretion to ensure that the appropriate information is available only to those whose work will benefit.
7. The necessity for security cannot be over emphasised, for although this document is not marked Secret some of its contents may occasionally be of value to the enemy. Every care must be taken to prevent such information being disclosed.
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
Evidence in Camera Vol 4 No 6
Description
An account of the resource
Aerial photography covering images of Liberators and B-17s in formation, factories, St Malo port, a seaplane base to the east of Amsterdam, a steel works, the devastated city of Hamburg, rail workshops at Cologne, a new mine clearance ship under construction, salvage operations on a German cruiser at Konigsberg, French aircraft being used by the Germans and Italians and a puzzle picture of a flying P-51.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-08-16
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
28 page booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMcDermottC1119618-161216-06
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
United States Army Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Krefeld
Netherlands--Amsterdam
Germany--Remscheid
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Cologne
Norway--Haugesund
Norway--Bergen
Italy--Novara
France--Istres
Italy--Bologna
France--Saint-Malo
Germany--Rostock
Italy
France
Germany
Netherlands
Norway
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Air Ministry
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Angela Gaffney
aerial photograph
B-17
B-24
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Fw 190
P-51
reconnaissance photograph
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1554/27351/MMcDermottC1119618-161216-09.2.pdf
409928d76fe16db3333a0de5bd60f85f
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
McDermott, Colin
C McDermott
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McDermott, C
Description
An account of the resource
87 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Colin McDermott (1119618 Royal Air Force). He served as an air gunnery instructor and flew operations as an air gunner with 98 Squadron. Contains his log book, papers and photographs and includes issues of 'Evidence in Camera'. <br /><br />The collection also contains albums of photographs from his training at <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1696">Evanton</a> in 1943, taken during his service in <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1699">Denmark </a>and some <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1698">duplicate </a>photographs.<br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Barbara Bury and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Indecipherable pencil markings] [signature][Indecipherable initials]
EVIDENCE IN CAMERA
[Sketch]
CHESSELL
VOLUME 3 NUMBER 13 28th JUNE 1943
ISSUED BY AIR MINISTRY A.C.A.S.(I)
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
[page break]
EVIDENCE IN CAMERA
1. This O.U.O. document may be issued to Officers’ Mess and Station Reference Libraries. (K.R. & A.C.I. 882, 2236(c), 2287.)
2. The only legitimate use which may be made of official documents or information derived from them is for the furtherance of the public service in the performance of official duties.
3. The publication of official documents, information from them, reproduction of extracts or their use for personal controversy, or for any private or public purpose without due authority is a breach of official trust under the OFFICIAL SECRETS ACTS, 1911 and 1920, and will be dealt with accordingly. (K.R. & A.C.I. 1071, 1072, 2238).
4. Copies not required for record purposes should be disposed of as Secret Waste in accordance with A.M.O. A.411/41.
SEE FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS ON BACK OF COVER.
[page break]
[Sketch]
Scott.
“Even if you have got a job of work to do, there is no need to talk about it.”
289
[page break]
NIGHT ATTACK ON DUSSELDORF
[Photograph]
A vivid impression of the shower of incendiaries dropped on DUSSELDORF is provided by this night photograph taken over the centre of the town in the early stages of the attack on 11/12.6.43. The River Rhine (A), the Rhine Bridge (B) and Karls Platz (C) can be plotted.
290
[page break]
[Photograph]
Another aircraft, flying over DUSSELDORF, approximately half an hour later, photographed smoke billowing over the target at a great height. Incendiaries or small fires produced dozens of light tracks while the camera shutter was open.
291
[page break]
INDUSTRIAL DAMAGE AT MÜNSTER
[Photograph]
In the attack on MÜNSTER by the R.A.F. on 11/12.6.43 damage was almost entirely concentrated in the Port and industrial area to the S.E. of the town and in the district of Sankt-Mauritz. Fires were still burning at many points when this reconnaissance photograph was taken. Dockside buildings (A) and industrial premises (B) were destroyed or severely damaged. A gas holder and buildings (C) of the Town Gas Works were destroyed and the Halle Münsterland (D) almost demolished. A building (E) of the Municipal Power Station and three-quarters of the main building (F) of the Goods Station were gutted. The Railway Repair Shops (G) were damaged.
292
[page break]
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
REGGIO DI CALABRIA
When 17 Liberators of the U.S.A.A.F. attacked REGGIO DI CALABRIA on 24.5.43, a direct hit was made on what was probably a munition train. An oblique photograph (right) taken during the attack shows a column of smoke which rose thousands of feet in the air after a violent explosion.
293
[page break]
WILHELMSHAVEN NAVAL BASE AGAIN ATTACKED
[Photograph]
When these U.S.B.C. Fortress aircraft were over WILHELMSHAVEN on 11.6.43 the windward smoke generators had only just started while smoke generating boats (A) were proceeding to position in the Jade River. Bomb bursts (B) were photographed in the reclaimed area north of the harbour and more bombs (C) are dropping. The attack was developed in two phases and barracks, workshops and railway premises were among the buildings damaged. Quays, roads, bridges and railway tracks were also hit.
294
[page break]
[Photograph]
WILHELMSHAVEN
In a concentration of bomb bursts in the Scheer Hafen-Tirpitz Hafen area several hits are seen in the vicinity of five camouflaged oil storage tanks. Two of the bombs caused explosions which sent up columns of smoke to heights of 2,000 ft. and 1,500 ft. respectively at the time of photography.
295
[page break]
[Photograph]
CAPTURED ENEMY EQUIPMENT
Oblique and vertical photographs of medium semi-tracked tractors similar to vehicles seen in the ground photographs on the opposite page.
[Photograph]
296
[page break]
ENEMY EQUIPMENT.
Semi-tracked Tractors.
[Photograph]
Semi-tracked tractors are widely used in the German Army as gun tractors and for other purposes. Of the several types the 12 ton model towing an 8.8 cm. flak gun is illustrated (right) and the three ton model (below) is towing the standard field piece, a 10.5 cm. gun howitzer. The gun crew and ammunition can be accommodated on the vehicles.
[Photograph]
297
[page break]
[Photograph]
ENEMY TANKS
Two oblique photographs of captured enemy tanks at a British Depot in the Middle East. (A and A1). Two rows of Italian M13/40s, some damaged. German Pz Kw 111s (B) and one damaged Pz Kw IV (C).
[Photograph]
298
[page break]
[Photograph]
A vertical view of the same area as the oblique photographs on the opposite page, showing part of the row of M13/40s (left), the Pz Kw 111s (right) and one Pz Kw IV (bottom right). All these tanks show some signs of damage either to their turrets, tracks or body plating.
299
[page break]
[Photograph]
NORTH FORMATION SIDINGS – ANTWERP
The North Formation Sidings situated North of ANTWERP have direct access to the dock areas and the main railway lines. These sidings were originally constructed to deal with an anticipated increase in dock traffic but came into disuse during the slump of 1931 before they were completed. A comparatively small amount of traffic is now being regularly handled in two of the groups of sidings, the other four groups being invariably empty or used for the storage of a limited quantity of rolling stock.
300 – 301
[page break]
KNOW YOUR PORTS. CATANIA.
[Photograph]
CATANIA is one of the supply ports on the East coast of Sicily, and at which vessels from Naples and Messina have recently berthed.
302
[page break]
[Photograph]
CATANIA. Smoke from fires started in the first phase of a daylight attack on CATANIA Harbour on 11.5.43 was pouring across the target when the second phase of the attack was made. Two direct hits were registered on a medium-sized merchant vessel and there were several near misses, while rolling stock on the main quay is seen blazing fiercely. There are two Me 323 six-engined aircraft on the airfield.
303
[page break]
GERMAN AIRCRAFT REPAIR FACTORY IN NORWAY
[Photograph]
A variety of German seaplanes is usually seen at the HORTEN seaplane base and repair factory. An He 59 (A), a Ju 52 floatplane (B) and the assembled fuselage of an He 115 (C) are seen at the moorings, and an Ar 196 (D) is beached. A Do 24 (E) and an He 115 (F) are ashore. Fuselages (G), rows of floats (H), two assembled fuselages (I) and part of a damaged aircraft (J) are evidence of the repair work done here.
304
[page break]
FIGHTER COMMAND COMBAT FILMS
These enlargements from a cine gun film show an Fw 190.
[Photographs]
[Photographs]
[Photographs]
[Photographs]
[Photographs]
The well streamlined exhaust outlet is a recognition feature of the Fw 190 seen from the rear.
305
[page break]
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
CAMOUFLAGED SHELTERS, DUNKIRK
Left: E/R boat shelters at DUNKIRK before camouflage. The flak positions (A) are conspicuous.
Above: The concrete roof has been disruptively painted in startling patterns (B) which help to conceal the flak positions. Work on the roofing over the recesses (C) for housing the two outer caissons of the new lock appears almost completed. (Compare with Page 95, Vol 3, No. 4.)
306
[page break]
HANGAR CAMOUFLAGE
Right: Hangars (A) at the Blohm und Voss Factory at HAMBURG/FINKEN-WARDER have been camouflaged with draped netting which has been disruptively painted (B) and garnished with dummy bushes (C). (See Page 8, Vol. 2, No. 1 for earlier cover.)
[Photograph]
Below: The hangars at BRUSSELS/EVERE have been heavily camouflaged with dummy gables (A), chimneys (shadows at B), etc., to blend with the buildings in the adjoining town. Factory type buildings have been combined into blocks by covering with darkened netting (C) and dummy houses (D) erected round the edges.
[Photograph]
307
[page break]
HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHS OF U-BOAT’S SURRENDER
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
A Hudson operating from Iceland on 27.8.41 attacked a U-boat that was starting to submerge. Two minutes after the explosion of the depth charges the U-boat resurfaced and a number of the crew appeared on the conning tower and deck. The Hudson machine gunned the U-boat and a few minutes later a white flag was displayed. The lower photograph shows the crowded conning tower after the surrender. The Hudson, which kept the U-boat covered while surface craft were on their way, was subsequently relieved by Catalinas and other Hudsons. The upper photograph was taken the following day with the crew still crowded on the conning tower and deck.
308
[page break]
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
Ultimately an anti-submarine trawler and, at dawn on the 28th, a destroyer arrived. The U-boat was taken in tow and beached safely on the coast of Iceland. Right: Two naval officers from the destroyer in a Carley float going alongside the U-boat. Above: Another view taken a few minutes later after the officers had gone aboard.
309
[page break]
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
BREASTWORKS AT OSTEND BATTERIES.
Owing to the amount of water in this area near OSTEND breastworks for defensive purposes had to be constructed instead of trenches. These consist of parallel mounds of earth, breast high, with the gap in between being comparable with the dug trench. The hard cast shadow seen at (A), (left) is effectively reduced by the draping of the camouflage netting over the breastworks (A1) (above). Left: (B) Light flak; (C) Wire; (D) M/G posts. (E) Range finder; (F) Ammunition bunkers; (G) Command post. Above (H) Wire; (I) Light flak; (J) Command post; (K) M/G posts; (L) Ammunition bunkers; (M) Auxiliary command post.
310
[page break]
[Photograph]
LEEUWARDEN Airfield was originally a civil aerodrome and was ploughed up at the time of the German invasion. The Germans enlarged the airfield to more than double its size, built runways, hangars, dispersal areas, etc., and transformed it into one of the most important operational bases in Holland. It has been used as a base for minelaying bombers, single and twin-engined fighters and night fighters and also as an alternative aerodrome for bomber and reconnaissance aircraft based on other Dutch airfields.
311
[page break]
PROBLEM PICTURE.
[Photograph]
WHAT IS THIS?
Answer at Foot of This Page
ANSWER TO PROBLEM PICTURE ABOVE.
[NB: Text is upside down in original]
Aircraft hangar at EINDHOVEN camouflaged with draped netting and dummy bushes.
312
[page break]
(4334), 51-9832, 2900, 28/6/43, 45.246,
C. & E. LAYTON LTD, London, E.C.4.
[page break]
EVIDENCE IN CAMERA
This weekly document will consist of a collection of illustrations varying in number in each issue according to the quantity of material of sufficient interest and suitable for reproduction that is received.
2. Requests for material to be included in this document should be submitted to Command Headquarters, who, after consideration, will submit them to Air Ministry, A.D.I.(Ph.). Any useful suggestions as regards contents will receive full consideration and will be welcomed.
3. Distribution is carried out by Air Ministry (A.I. I) and any requests for fewer or additional copies must be made through Group Headquarters who will ensure the maximum possible economy.
4. Under no circumstances must any of the illustrations be reproduced by Units in the British Isles. Further copies can be printed from the existing blocks and independent photographic reproduction would be a waste of material and labour to the detriment of the National War Effort.
5. The distribution of photographs to the general public is carried out through the Press who are supplied with photographs which have been specially selected for their general interest and have been published after careful consideration by the Security Branch and by the Ministry of Information; it is therefore unnecessary as well as undesirable to communicate any of the contents of this document, either directly or by discussion in public places, to persons not enjoying the privilege of serving in H.M. Forces.
6. The document has not been officially graded as Secret or Confidential in order that the widest distribution may be given, but Commanding Officers should use their discretion to ensure that the appropriate information is available only to those whose work will benefit.
7. The necessity for security cannot be over emphasised, for although this document is not marked Secret some of its contents may occasionally be of value to the enemy. Every care must be taken to prevent such information being disclosed.
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
Evidence in Camera Vol 3 No 13
Description
An account of the resource
A magazine of aerial photographs covering incendiaries dropping on Dusseldorf, port and industrial areas, captured enemy equipment, railway sidings at Antwerp, a seaplane base, a Fw 190 under attack, boat shelters at Dunkirk, camouflaged hangars at Hamburg, U-boats surrendering, breastworks at Ostend, a rebuilt airfield at Leeuwarden and a problem picture of a camouflaged hangar.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-06-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MMcDermottC1119618-161216-09
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
United States Army Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Italy--Reggio di Calabria
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Belgium--Antwerp
Italy--Catania
Norway--Horten
Germany--Hamburg
Belgium--Brussels
France--Dunkerque
Iceland
Belgium--Ostend
Netherlands--Leeuwarden
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Düsseldorf
France
Italy
Germany
Belgium
Netherlands
Norway
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Air Ministry
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
28 page booklet
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Angela Gaffney
aerial photograph
B-17
B-24
bombing
Catalina
Fw 190
Hudson
incendiary device
Ju 52
reconnaissance photograph
submarine
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6693/LJonesTJ184141v1.2.pdf
5748d2448d5ea2cadc0c3e9a2aadc8de
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones, Thomas John
Tom Jones
T Jones
Description
An account of the resource
62 items. An oral history interview with Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs, correspondence, service documents, aircraft recognition manuals, medals and a memoir. He flew operations as a flight engineer on 622 Squadron Stirling and 7 Squadron on Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection also contains an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2566">Album</a> of 129 types of aircraft. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Jones and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-12-04
2017-12-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, PW
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
Tom Jones’ navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for Sergeant Tom Jones from 17 August 1943 to 27 August 1945. Detailing training schedule, instructional duties and operations flown. Served at RAF Mildenhall, RAF Warboys, RAF Oakington, RAF Nutts Corner, RAF Riccall and RAF Dishforth. Aircraft flown were. Stirling, Lancaster, Oxford, C-47 and York. He flew a total of 11-night operations with 622 squadron and 51 operations with 7 squadron pathfinder force. 18 daylight and 33-night operations on the following targets in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland: Aachen, Amiens, Aulnoye, Berlin, Biennias [sic], Cabourg, Cagney [sic], Chalons sur Marne, Chambley, Dortmund, Duisburg, Emden, Essen, Falaise, Fougeres, Foret de l'Isle-Adam, Franceville, Hannover, Homburg, Karlsruhe, Kassel, Kattegat, Kiel, Le Havre, Lille, Liuzeux [sic], Ludwigshafen, Lumbres, Montrichard, Mt Couple [sic], Mantes, Normandy battle area, Oisemont, <span>Œuf-en-Ternois</span> [sic], Renescure, Rennes, Schweinfurt, Skagerrak, St Martin d’Hortiers, Stettin, Stuttgart, Tergnier, Thiverny, Tours, Valenciennes, Venlo aerodrome and V-1 sites. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Phillips DFC, Wing Commander Lockhart and Wing Commander Cox. The log book is well annotated with comments about events during operations.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LJonesTJ184141v1
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.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea)
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Skagerrak
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
France--Amiens
France--Cabourg
France--Chambley Air Base
France--Falaise
France--La Pallice
France--Le Havre
France--Lille
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Lumbres
France--Mantes-la-Jolie
France--Montrichard
France--Nord (Department)
France--Normandy
France--Nieppe Forest
France--Oise
France--Oisemont (Canton)
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Rennes
France--Somme
France--Tergnier (Canton)
France--Tours
France--Valenciennes
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Netherlands--Venlo
Northern Ireland--Antrim (County)
Poland--Szczecin
France--Neufchâtel-en-Bray
France--Châlons-en-Champagne
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Œuf-en-Ternois
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1943-09-21
1943-09-22
1943-09-27
1943-09-28
1943-10-02
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-11-18
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
1944-01-30
1944-01-31
1944-02-20
1944-02-21
1944-02-24
1944-02-25
1944-03-01
1944-03-02
1944-04-09
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-12
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-06
1944-05-07
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-11
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1944-07-01
1944-07-04
1944-07-06
1944-07-08
1944-07-12
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-07-21
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-08-01
1944-08-04
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-28
1944-08-29
1944-08-30
1944-09-01
1944-09-03
1944-09-05
1944-09-06
1944-09-09
1944-09-10
1944-06-05
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
1657 HCU
622 Squadron
7 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-24
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
C-47
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oxford
Pathfinders
RAF Dishforth
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Nutts Corner
RAF Oakington
RAF Riccall
RAF Stradishall
RAF Warboys
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
target indicator
training
V-1
V-weapon
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/377/6710/LDawsonSR142531v2.2.pdf
49c83001650f4a5f72ee40cfc1a96250
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
Stephen Dawson's pilot's flying log book. Two
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDawsonSR142531v2
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Stephen Dawson, covering the period from 6 April 1942 to 30 August 1944. Detailing his instructor duties, flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Swanton Morley, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Swinderby, RAF Wigsley, RAF Bourn, RAF Gransden Lodge, RAF Market Harborough, RAF Silverston and RAF Boscombe Down. Aircraft flown in were, Oxford, Wellington, Lancaster, Boston, Mitchell, Buckingham, Marauder, Halifax, Liberator, Harvard, Avenger, Defiant, Barracuda, Hampden, Black Widow, Hurricane and Mosquito. He flew a total of 32 Night operations with 97 Squadron. Targets were, Krefeld, Mulheim, Wuppertal, Cologne, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Essen, Nurnburg, Milan, Leverkusen, Berlin, Mannheim, Munich, Hannover, Frankfurt, Fredrichshaven, Modane, Cannes and Ludwigshaven. The log book included pictures of examples of some of the aircraft flown, also handwritten list of targets and bomb loads.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Northamptonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
England--Wiltshire
France--Cannes
France--Modane
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Wuppertal
Italy--Milan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1943-06-23
1943-06-24
1943-06-25
1943-06-28
1943-06-29
1943-07-03
1943-07-04
1943-07-08
1943-07-09
1943-07-10
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-26
1943-07-27
1943-07-28
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-08-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-10
1943-08-11
1943-08-12
1943-08-13
1943-08-22
1943-08-23
1943-08-24
1943-09-05
1943-09-06
1943-09-07
1943-09-22
1943-09-23
1943-09-24
1943-09-27
1943-09-28
1943-10-02
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-05
1943-10-07
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-11-10
1943-11-11
1943-11-12
1943-11-17
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
14 OTU
1654 HCU
97 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
B-25
B-26
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Boston
Defiant
Halifax
Hampden
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Bourn
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Silverstone
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Swinderby
RAF Wigsley
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/377/6711/LDawsonSR142531v3.2.pdf
f1359ce7683613fc3af56ef7cf471088
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
Stephen Dawson's pilot's flying log book. Three
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDawsonSR142531v3
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
one booklet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
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
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Pilot's flying log book for Flight Lieutenant Stephen Dawson, covering the period from 3 September 1944 to 5 March 1946. Detailing his instructor and test flying. He was stationed at RAF Boscombe Down and RAF Ossington. Aircraft flown in were, Typhoon, Boston, Lancaster, Mosquito, B-25, Anson, Swordfish, Halifax, Beaufighter, Hudson, Invader, Lincoln, Auster, B-24, C-47, York and Oxford. Also included in the log book is a copy of form 1771 claim for travel expenses. Some handwritten notes on aircraft types and hours flown.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946
Anson
B-24
B-25
Beaufighter
bombing
Boston
C-47
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 3
Lincoln
Mosquito
Oxford
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Ossington
Swordfish
training
Typhoon
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/474/8362/LClydeSmithD39856v1.2.pdf
eb7cf0f79771738c84dfe6e7cee923db
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
Clyde-Smith, Denis
Clyde-Smith, D
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains 26 items and concerns Squadron Leader Denis Clyde-Smith Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Flying Cross, who joined the Royal Air Force and trained as a pilot in 1937. He flew in the anti aircraft cooperation role including remotely piloted Queen Bee aircraft before serving on Battle aircraft on 32 Squadron. He completed operational tours on Wellington with 115 and 218 Squadrons and Wellington and Lancaster with 9 Squadron after which he went to the aircraft and armament experimental establishment at Boscombe Down. The collection consists of two logbooks, aircraft histories of some of the aircraft he flew, photographs of people and aircraft, newspaper articles and gallantry award certificate.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Clyde-Smith 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
2016-09-19
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clyde-Smith, D
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/.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LClydeSmithD39856v1
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Pilot's flying log book for Denis Clyde-Smith covering the period from 1 June 1942 to 19 July 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations and test pilot duties. He was stationed at RAF Honington, RAF Wigsley, RAF Waddington, RAF Boscombe Down. Aircraft flown in were, Wellington, Lysander, Manchester, Lancaster, Tiger Moth, Halifax, Proctor, Stirling, B-17, Liberator (B-24), Marauder (B-26), Anson, Warwick, P-51, Mosquito, Spitfire, Lincoln Stinson, Typhoon and York. He flew a total of 24 operations with 9 Squadron. Targets attacked were, Essen, Bremen, St Nazaire, Borkum, Wilhelmshaven, Baltic coast, Duisberg, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Munich, Wismar, Aachen, Kiel, Genoa and Milan.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Borkum
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Munich
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Wismar
Italy--Genoa
Italy--Milan
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1942-06-01
1942-06-02
1942-06-25
1942-06-26
1942-06-27
1942-07-02
1942-07-03
1942-07-07
1942-07-08
1942-07-09
1942-07-11
1942-07-12
1942-07-13
1942-07-14
1942-07-21
1942-07-22
1942-07-24
1942-07-26
1942-07-28
1942-07-29
1942-09-10
1942-09-11
1942-09-13
1942-09-14
1942-09-16
1942-09-17
1942-09-19
1942-09-20
1942-09-23
1942-09-24
1942-09-29
1942-09-30
1942-10-01
1942-10-02
1942-10-05
1942-10-06
1942-10-13
1942-10-22
1942-10-23
1942-10-24
Title
A name given to the resource
Denis Clyde-Smith's pilot's flying log book. Two
1654 HCU
9 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
B-17
B-24
B-26
bombing
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lincoln
Lysander
Manchester
mine laying
Mosquito
P-51
pilot
Proctor
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Honington
RAF Waddington
RAF Wigsley
Spitfire
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Typhoon
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/477/10243/LBrileyWG1586825v1.1.pdf
1fafc8f88de868c2a3d32e67ebd8d4b0
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
Briley, William George
George Briley
W G Briley
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Briley, WG
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer William George Briley (1586825, Royal Air Force), his log book, service material and a sight log book containing <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/987">18 target photographs</a>. After training in South Africa, George Briley completed 39 bombing and supply dropping operations as a navigator with 40 Squadron flying Wellingtons from Foggia in Italy. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William George Briley and catalogued by Barry Hunter, <span>with additional identification provided by the Archeologi dell'Aria research group (</span><a href="https://www.archeologidellaria.org/">https://www.archeologidellaria.org</a><span>)</span>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
William George Briley's observer's and air gunner's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Observers and air gunners flying log book for Wiliam George Briley, covering the period from 2 December 1943 to 24 November 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and communication flight duties. He was stationed at, East London, RAF Qastina, RAF Foggia and Athens. Aircraft flown in were, DH82 Tiger Moth, Anson, Empire flying boat, Wellington, Defiant, C-47, Fairchild Argus III and Liberator. He flew a total of 39 operations, 26 night and 13 daylight operations, consisting of 28 bombing operations and 11 supply drops. Targets were, Ferrara, Bologna, Milan, Athens, Brescia, Szekesfehervar, Solonica, Borovnica, Danube, Verona, Bronzolo, Tuzla, Sinj, Vragolovi, Predgrao, Zakomo, Podgorica, Novi Pasar, Chiapovano, Szombathely, Bugojno, Matesevo, Casarsa, Susegana, Salcano, Doboj, Circhina and Udine. His pilot on operations was Sergeant Hanson.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LBrileyWG1586825v1
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia
Greece
Hungary
Italy
Montenegro
Middle East--Palestine
Serbia
Slovenia
South Africa
Bosnia and Herzegovina--Bugojno (Opština)
Bosnia and Herzegovina--Doboj
Bosnia and Herzegovina--Tuzla
Croatia--Sinj
Danube River
Gaza Strip--Gaza
Greece--Athens
Hungary--Székesfehérvár
Hungary--Szombathely
Italy--Bologna
Italy--Brescia
Italy--Bronzolo
Italy--Casarsa della Delizia
Italy--Ferrara
Italy--Foggia
Italy--Milan
Italy--Susegana
Italy--Udine
Italy--Verona
Middle East--Palestine
Montenegro--Kolašin
Montenegro--Podgorica
Serbia--Novi Pazar
Slovenia--Borovnica
Slovenia--Cerkno
Slovenia--Solkan
South Africa--East London
Greece--Thessalonikē
Gaza Strip
Danube River
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1944-09-02
1944-09-06
1944-09-10
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-14
1944-09-17
1944-09-19
1944-09-21
1944-09-26
1944-10-04
1944-10-05
1944-10-09
1944-10-10
1944-10-11
1944-10-12
1944-11-01
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-06
1944-11-08
1944-11-10
1944-11-16
1944-11-17
1944-11-18
1944-11-19
1944-11-22
1944-11-25
1944-11-26
1944-12-11
1944-12-13
1944-12-14
1944-12-15
1944-12-16
1944-12-19
1944-12-26
1944-12-27
1945-01-03
1945-01-05
1945-01-15
1945-01-20
1945-01-21
40 Squadron
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
B-24
C-47
Defiant
mine laying
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Resistance
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/734/16285/LCattyMA164193v2.2.pdf
8ef7f9ecc4da1e7d48bbd7c4e504e2c2
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
Catty, Martin Arthur
M A Catty
Description
An account of the resource
19 items. An oral history interview with Martin Catty (b. 1923, 1802887, 164193 Royal Air Force), log books, photographs, service documents, maps, and folders containing navigation and Gee charts. He flew operations as a navigator with 514 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Martin Catty and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-22
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
Catty, MA
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
Martin Catty's Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot. Two
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot for M A Catty, covering the period from 15 October 1943 to 21 September 1946. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and post war flying duties. He was stationed at RCAF Winnipeg, RAF Llandwrog, RAF Benson, RAF Chedburgh, RAF Waterbeach, RAF Dunkeswell, RAF Feltwell, RAF Melbourne and RAF Bramcote. Aircraft flown in were, Anson, Wellington III and X, Stirling, Lancaster I and III, Oxford, Halifax, B-24 and C-47. He flew a total of 40 operations with 514 squadron, 30 daylight and 10-night operations. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Ness. Targets were, Bottrop, Homberg, Solingen, Koblenz, Kastrop-Rauxel, Dortmund, Heinsburg, Oberhausen, Merseburg, Duisberg, Witten, Siegen, Trier, Cologne, Wohwinkel, Neuss, Krefeld, Munchen-Gladbach, Wiesbaden, Hohenbudburg, Chemnitz, Wesel, Gelsenkirchen, Reckling Hausen and Hamm. One Operation Exodus sortie is recorded.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Cara Walmsley
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LCattyMA164193v2
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Devon
England--Norfolk
England--Oxfordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Warwickshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Castrop-Rauxel
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Koblenz
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Recklinghausen (Münster)
Germany--Siegen
Germany--Solingen
Germany--Trier
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Witten
Manitoba--Winnipeg
Wales--Gwynedd
Germany--Wuppertal
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Heinsberg (Heinsberg)
Manitoba
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1944-10-31
1944-11-02
1944-11-05
1944-11-06
1944-11-07
1944-11-11
1944-11-15
1944-11-18
1944-11-20
1944-11-21
1944-12-04
1944-12-07
1944-12-08
1944-12-12
1944-12-15
1944-12-16
1944-12-21
1944-12-22
1944-12-28
1944-12-31
1945-01-01
1945-01-02
1945-01-03
1945-01-05
1945-01-06
1945-01-07
1945-01-22
1945-01-23
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-04
1945-02-09
1945-02-10
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-16
1945-02-18
1945-02-28
1945-03-10
1945-03-12
1945-03-17
1945-03-20
1945-03-23
1945-03-27
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-05-18
12 OTU
1653 HCU
514 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
B-24
bombing
C-47
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Benson
RAF Bramcote
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Dunkeswell
RAF Feltwell
RAF Llandwrog
RAF Melbourne
RAF Waterbeach
Stirling
training
Wellington