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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1011/BBriggsDWNealeWv1.1.pdf
517c696d7b7ef0bf110c35395391be88
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Briggs, Donald
Donald W Briggs
D W Briggs
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
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2017-03-27
Identifier
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Briggs, DW
Description
An account of the resource
21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[underlined]Tribute to a Pathfinder Captain [/underlined]
Squadron Leader William G. Neale DSO DFC Croix de Guerre
1912-2001
It was April 1944, and I had just completed the Flight Engineer training course at R.A.F. St Athan S. Wales. Shortly after arriving at R.A.F. Lindholme near Doncaster to commence training on the Halifax bomber, about twenty or so of us new Flt Engineers attended a “crewing up parade”. The crews were lined up in sixes awaiting the additional member to make a full crew of seven. The pilot in each crew broke away and approached our group. I was asked for by name and stepped forward to meet Flying Officer Bill Neal. He know from my training records that I had some limited flying experience through accompanying pilots on air tests following engine changes etc. Bill explained that his crew had all completed one tour of ops and they had been selected to go to a Pathfinder Squadron directly after four engine bomber conversion. He explained what it all meant and what the duties of a Pathfinder crew would be. Bill asked me if I would like to join his crew and I accepted without hesitation. And so it was that fate decided that I should sit alongside this outstanding pilot for the next twelve months!! All the crew were commissioned officers but Bill promised that he would do his utmost [?] to get me commissioned after completing a tour of ops. That evening I received my “initiation” into the crew at one of the local “watering holes”!! I was not allowed to buy any beer!!
As our training on Halifaxes proceeded I quickly realized my extremely good fortune in becoming part of this very experienced bomber crew. In fact on our first night navigation exercise, an engine suffered a burst coolant header tank, quickly overheated and had to be to[sic] shut down and the propeller feathered. Bill calmly and skilfully carried out his first night landing on three engines! Of course he must have done numerous single engine landings as a flying instructor on Wellingtons.
[underlined]William G. Neal (Bill to all the crew) First impressions [/underlined]
I was approaching my twentieth birthday and Bill was almost twelve years my senior. His mature friendly nature and jovial personality transmitted a feeling of well being in all who came into contact with him. I personally regarded Bill as my mentor and felt that he was the one who would get us safely through the war.
His leadership qualities were of the highest calibre, namely: great courage, example, coolness under fire, tenacity, professionalism, and the ability to maintain high morale in his crew. Above all, Bill was a superb pilot!! We were all encouraged to stay fit and healthy and our skipper set a good example by playing squash regularly!
[underlined] Operations and Training [/underlined]
[page break]
Having completed training on the Halifax, the next stage was our introduction to the magnificent Lancaster. This was accomplished at the Lancaster Finishing School RAF Hemswell nr. Lincoln. It was only a short familiarisation course, both day and night flying, and Bill was immediately “at home” with this superb aircraft! So now we were all set to join The Pathfinder Force and proceeded to the PFF Navigation Training Unit at RAF Warboys nr. St. Ives Cambs. (only five miles from RAF Upwood). It was a very short course lasting only four days. We flew a training sortie each day consisting of navigation and practice bombing. During this course I was taught how to use the bombsight, how to give corrections to our pilot, and after practice in a synthetic trainer, dropped smoke/flash bombs on a nearby bombing range. The reason for the flight engineer having to become the visual bomb aimer in a Pathfinder crew, was due to the normal bomb aimer or observer being fully pre-occupied on his radar (H2s). He would probably have to mark the target indicators (Ti’s) if the “Master Bomber” called for them.
On the 25th May 1944 we arrived at Royal Air Force Upwood to join No. 156 (PFF) Squadron.
[underlined] Our First Crew on PFF [/underlined]
[underlined] Flying Officer W.G. (Bill) Neal [/underlined]PILOT and CAPTAIN (one tour of ops on Wellingtons and recent flying instructor at RAF Harwell, Oxon)
Sergeant D.W. (Don) Briggs FLIGHT ENGINEER (ex NCO aero engine fitter)
Pilot Officer Alan Lewis NAVIGATOR (one previous tour of ops)
Flying Officer George Hodges 2nd NAVIGATOR and H2S RADAR OPERATOR (one previous tour of ops on Wellingtons)
Flying Officer John Carrad WIRELESS OPERATOR (one previous tour of ops on Wellingtons)
Flying Officer “Jock” McViele [?] MID UPPER GUNNER (one previous tour of ops)
Flying Officer “Paddy” Kirk REAR GUNNER (one previous tour of ops)
The settling in period for the crew before commencing operations, was about two weeks of intensive training flights. These involved mostly radar navigation, practice bombing, fighter evasion which gave Bill some “corkscrewing” practice (we had a Spitfire making simulated fighter attacks from astern). Needless to say the gunners had their guns safe!! They were able to get live firing practice later on a sleeve being towed by special aircraft – even I had a go after being shown how to operate the guns in the front turret!!
During our training on the Halifax at Lindholme, Bill had very kindly given me an introductory flying lesson (I had never handled an aircraft in flight before!) After taking my place in the pilot’s seat, he showed me how to maintain the correct nose altitude for level flight and how to use the roll control to level the wings also make gentle turns. Once we were established on the Squadron we had a training commitment in navigation and bombing to fulfil. This was necessary in order to “hone” our skills and maintain the very high standards demanded of PATHFINDER crews. During most of these flights Bill and I would change places and under his close supervision, I would take control of the big Lancaster – what a fantastic feeling! By
[page break]
giving me plenty of handling practice, Bill, being a very responsible captain was ensuring that someone was capable of flying the aircraft in emergency. Thus I can take pride in saying that my first flying lessons were given by the excellent Bill Neal!! It’s worth noting that no Lancaster on the squadron was equipped with dual controls, which is why it was necessary for the pilot to vacate his seat to allow me to fly the aircraft.
We were now declared “fully operational” and on 11th July 1944 Bill called us together and said “we’re on the Battle Order for tonight chaps”! We lost no time in getting our flying kit on, then carry out a thorough check of our aircraft that we would be flying on the raid and by a short air test. The aircraft would then be prepared for the operational sortie by our ground crew (they were a dedicated band of men and took great pride in their own Lancaster). The fuel load was usually maximum. Then last of all would come the bomb load on special trolleys quite often towed by a W.A.A.F. The bombing up team would then winch the bombs/flares/Target Indicators into the bomb bay.
After a few hours rest in the afternoon it was time to attend a mass briefing. The target for our Op No. 1 was to be the marshalling yard at TOURS in Southern France. With all the flight planning completed we sat down to a good pre flight meal then made our way to the locker room. The air gunners had to wear plenty of warm clothing, as the outside air temperature at twenty thousand feet could be -10oC[?] and very little heat from the aircraft system reached the turrets. Both gunners were issued with electrically heated thermal suits and gauntlets. The rest of the crew wore thick rollneck pullovers under the battledress jacket and of course everyone wore fleece lined suede flying boots. Each crew member had his own parachute harness and chest[?] type parachutes were issued separately. We then boarded coaches and were dropped off at our own aircraft. The ground crew were already at the aircraft and the Form 700 (servicing record) was presented to Bill for signature. After the obligatory external inspection including an inspection of the bomb load and removal of safety pins, each crew member took up his position in the aircraft. It was my job to start all the engines when our skipper gave the order, and we had a precise time to start taxying. To see twenty or so Lancasters in a stream round the perimeter track was a thrilling sight!! There was always a crowd of station personnel by the side of the runway to see us off (lots of W.A.A.F.’s!!) It was vital that each bomber took off precisely on its allocated time. When it was our turn, Bill entered the runway lining up the heavily loaded Lancaster as close to the end as he could. At the end of the navigator’s countdown, Bill used to say “OK chaps as the earwig said – EARWIGO”!! as he advanced the throttles to full power accelerating down the runway for a perfect take off. Ask my ex Lancaster crew member and he will tell you what a wonderful sound those four Merlins made at full power!! I suspect the “earwig” saying was not only routine but superstition also, but it was part of every operational take off for our crew.
Once we had set course and were climbing to operational height the “butterflies” disappeared as we all had plenty to do. The flight engineer’s log had to be completed every half hour, recording all engine gauge readings and that fuel usage was according to plan. It was vital not to show any light in the cockpit. Bill’s flight instruments were dimly lit by u/v lights directed on to the luminous dials, and I had to use a torch with a very small hole in the blacked out glass when filling in my log.
[page break]
Both navigators worked under black out curtains. We had a very strict microphone discipline in a bomber crew. If a mic. Was left ON after saying something there was a hissing noise caused by oxygen flowing into the mask[?]. It was essential to keep the intercom quiet in case the gunners reported a night fighter and called “corkscrew (port or starboard) GO”. Our skipper Bill was a strong chap and could certainly throw a Lancaster around!! On my very first op with the crew I had my “baptism” in the form of two fighter attacks. Paddy our rear gunner saw the fighter before he could get in close and during the violent corkscrewing the four brownings in the rear turret made a noisy “clatter”. This was exciting stuff for the new crew member!!! In both attacks the fighter’s shots went wide and he broke away.
On this sortie and several more night ops to follow we were part of the “illuminating force”. This meant that we were one of the first to arrive at the target and would drop a stick of very bright parachute flares to enable the Master Bomber to visually identify the aiming point. He would be either a Lancaster or a Mosquito at a low altitude and would then drop cascading target indicators (mixed reds and greens). Further pathfinder aircraft were required to “back up” the marking by dropping more TI’s. Later in our tour we took on this role. Although anti aircraft fire (flak) on our first series of French targets was not intense, German targets were very heavily defended. Our first German target was Hamburg (op no. 13!!) and as we prepared for our bombing run the barrage of flak looked terrifying. Just as I was having doubts whether we could get through it, Bill said “don’t worry it always looks worse than it really is and the puffs of flak you see are the ones that can’t do any harm”. I felt slightly better!! The flak guns were radar predicted and the Germans had developed accurate height finding equipment. To make their job more difficult we used to fly a “weaving” course initially until the actual bombing run when the aircraft had to be held steady apart from small left and right corrections from bomb aimer to pilot. This is when we were most vulnerable to predicted flak and being "coned" by searchlights. Even after bomb release we still had to maintain heading until over the target and the photograph taken. This was a great relief to all the crew as it meant that Bill would usually dive for a few hundred feet then climb again and so on, until well clear of the target area. Our route away from the target was always planted to keep us clear of heavily defended areas, however, the threat from night fighters was ever present. Some ME110 fighters were fitted with upward firing canon. The pilot would fly formation below the bomber (in a blind spot to the gunners) and fire upwards with devastating results. In our Lancasters at the bomb aimer’s position there was a rearward facing perspex scoop through which we used to drop bundles of “window” (each containing millions of thin strips of silver foil to fog the enemy radar screens). I used to spend as much time as possible with my head down looking through this perspex in case a fighter was underneath.
One of the most sickening and demoralising sights was to witness a bomber aircraft being shot down. The bomber would be spinning down in a mass of flames and when it impacted (possibly with a full bomb load) there would be a massive explosion and fireball. Our navigator would make a note of the time and position, then we tried to put it out of our minds. Throughout our operational tours this experience was to be repeated many many times. We felt great sadness at the loss of our comrades, but thankful that we were spared.
It was a relief to be back over friendly territory on the way home and once we were
[page break]
crossing the North Sea the gunners could relax slightly. The aerodrome lights of Upwood were a most welcome sight and the controller had his work cut out fitting all the returning Lancasters into the circuit. Bill invariably brought our machine in for a well judged landing, tired though he must have been! Our ground crew were there on the dispersal to greet us climbing out of our trusty Lancaster and were always keen to know which target we had bombed. WAAFs with mugs of hot coffee laced with rum and the Padre having a chat as he handed out American cigarettes!! Then followed a debriefing by the intelligence officer and other specialists. Many times I remember walking back to the Mess for breakfast as dawn was breaking!
Some ops were very long flights (see record of operations following) and one might well ask “how did you stay awake and fully alert the whole time”? Well we had the option of taking “wakey wakey” pills as we used to call them. They were actually Benzodrine tablets (a stimulant) and most of us took them.
The remainder of our operation followed the general pattern previously described, however, we flew many daylight ops particularly in support of our ground forces on the Normandy Battle Front. We also attacked flying bomb sites in the Pas de Calais area using a special method. Six Lancasters flew close formation on a Mosquito equipped with “Oboe” (an extremely accurate blind bombing device). At the same split second the bomb left the Mosquito every Lancaster released its full load of bombs. Thus the V1(buzz bomb) site was totally obliterated possibly saving the lives of many Londoners. Ops 2, 3 and 4 were carried out on successive nights but were all fairly short trips to targets in France. On 14th October 1944 we flew a daylight raid on Duisburg in the morning, and with hardly any rest, attacked the same target that night! The target was an armaments factory in the Rhur and was heavily defended.
After completing my first tour (40 ops) having already had my commissioning interviews, sure enough exactly as Bill had promised, my commission came through. I was now able to join Bill and the rest of the crew in the Officers Mess.
At this Bill had completed[underlined] two tours [/underlined] of ops and decided to keep going as did Johnie Carrod, George Hodges, and of course myself (I wanted to complete two tours also). However, Alan Lewis (nav), Paddy Kirk and Jock McVitie (the two gunners) decided to “call it a day”. Thus our crew became:-
Flight Lieutenant (later Sqn. Ldr.) Bill Neal DFC Captain
Pilot Officer Don Briggs Flight Engineer
Flight Lieutenant George Hodges DFC H2S Radar Operator
Sergeant …..? Archer RCAF Navigator
Flight Lieutenant John Carrod DFC Wireless Operator
Flight Sergeant (later Warrant Officer) …..? Patterson (Mid Upper Gunner)
Flight Sergeant Eric Chamberlain Rear Gunner
And so we pressed on! From then on every op except one was a German target. We flew some very long trips (two of them were over [underlined] (eight hours)[underlined] Our longest flight was to Stettin
[page break]
On the Baltic coast – almost to Russia – eight and a half hours! That was stretching a Lancaster endurance to its limits I seem to remember.
We bombed Chemnitz and Dessau in Eastern Germany and of course on 13th Feb.1945, we were sent to Dresden. The firestorm was an awesome sight.
On the 24th March 1945 I flew my last operational sortie with Bill – it was a daylight raid on a Rhur target!
No words can do justice to the piloting skill, leadership, and fearless tenacity, coupled with the ability to maintain high morale, of our Captain, Comrade in Battle, and good friend, William G. Neal – Bill to all of us in his Lancaster bomber crew.
It was an honour to be part of his team, and I shall be eternally thankful that he got me through the most dangerous era of my life. Sadly, Bill Neal died on the 22nd November 2001. I shall miss him enormously.
[underlined] RECORD OF OPERATIONS [/underlined]
OPS 1 11th June 1944 Lanc III “J” (NE120) TOURS (M/Yards) 5hrs 55min.
OPS 2 15th June “ Lanc III “B” LENS 2hrs 20min.
OPS 3 16th June “ Lanc III “A” RENESCURE 2hrs 05min.
OPS 4 17th June “ Lanc III “H” MONTDIDIER 3hrs 30min.
OPS 5 24th June “ Lanc III “K” MIDDEL STRAETE 2hrs 15min.
OPS 6 27th June “ Lanc III “J” OISEMONT 2hrs 30 min.
OPS 7 2nd July “ Lanc III “J” OISEMONT 2hrs 50min.
OPS 8 7th July “ Lanc III “J” VAIRES (M/Yards nr PARIS) 4hrs 25min.
OPS 9 10th July “ Lanc III “J” NUCOURT 3hrs 00
OPS 10 12th July “ Lanc III “J” TOURS 5hrs 05min.
OPS 11 14th July “ Lanc III “J” PHILIBERT 3hrs 05
OPS 12 18th July “ Lanc III “J” CAGNY (Battle Front)
Wg.Cdr.Bingham-Hall Sqn. 2hrs. 50
OPS 13 28th July “ Lanc III “F” HAMBURG 4hrs 55
OPS 14 30th July “ Lanc III “K” BATTLE FRONT (Low level) 3hrd 05
OPS 15 3rd Aug. “ Lanc III “J” BOIS De CASSAN 3HRS 35
OPS 16 5th Aug. “ Lanc III “F” FORET De NIEPPE 2hrs 05
OPS 17 7th Aug. “ Lanc III “J” BATTLE FRONT A/P 5 2hrs 45
OPS 18 9th Aug. “ Lanc III “F” FORT D’ENGLOS 2hrs 20
OPS 19 12th Aug. “ Lanc III “D” RUSSELSHEIM (nr FRANKFURT) 4hrs 20
OPS 20 15th Aug. “ Lanc III “J” EINDHOVEN Airfield (Holland) 2 hrs 55
OPS 21 16th Aug. “ Lanc III “H” KIEL 5hrs 25
OPS 22 18th Aug. “ Lanc III “E” CONNANTRE (M/Yards) 5hrs 20
OPS 23 25th Aug. “ Lanc III “J” RUSSELSHEIM 7hrs 20
OPS 24 29th Aug. “ Lanc III “J” STETTIN (Our longest flight) 8hrs 30
OPS 25 31st Aug. “ Lanc III “D” LUMBRES 2hrs 35
OPS 26 15th Sept. “ Lanc III “J” KIEL 5hrs 05
[page break]
OPS 27 16th Sept. “ Lanc III “J” MOERDUK Bridges (Holland) 2hrs 55
OPS 28 20th Sept. “ Lanc III “J” CALAIS Area A/P 6B 2hrs 10
OPS 29 23rd Sept. “ Lanc III “J” NEUSS (DUSSELDORF) 3hrs 30
OPS 30 25th Sept. “ Lanc III ”A” CALAIS Area A/P IC 2hr 55
OPS 31 26th Sept. “ Lanc III ”A” CAP GRIS NEZ (CALAIS) 2hrs 30
OPS 32 27th Sept. “ Lanc III “A” CALAIS A/P 11 1hr 50
(Our shortest Operational Sortie!)
OPS 33 5th Oct. “ Lanc III “K” SAARBRUCKEN 5hrs 00
OPS 34 7th Oct. “ Lanc III “J” KLEVE (Flak damage to port wing) 3hrs 20
OPS 35 14th Oct. “ Lanc III “J” DUISBURG (RHUR) 3hrs 30
OPS 36 14th Oct. “ Lanc III “A” DUISBURG 4hrs 10
(Twice in one day!!!)
OPS 37 18th Nov. “ Lanc III “J” MUNSTER (Plt. Off. Don!!) 3hrs 50
OPS 38 28th Nov. “ Lanc III “J” ESSEN (RHUR) 4hrs 30
OPS 39 30th Nov. “ Lanc III “B” DUISBURG (RHUR) 4hrs 25
OPS 40 5th Dec. “ Lanc III “J” SOEST M/Yards (End of my
First tour of ops!) 5hrs 40
OPS 41 6th Dec. “ Lanc III “J” OSNABRUCK 5hrs 15
OPS 42 29th Dec. “ Lanc III “J” COBLENZ 4hrs 15
OPS 43 2nd January 1945 Lanc III “J” NURNBURG 7hrs 40
OPS 44 4th Jan. “ Lanc III “J” ROYAN (Nr. Bordeaux) 5hrs 05
OPS 45 5th Jan. “ Lanc III “J” HANOVER 4hrs
OPS 46 14th Jan. “ Lanc III “J” LEUNA (Morsburg) Oil Plant
(Diverted Tangmere – fog at Upwood) 8hrs 05
OPS 47 16th Jan. “ Lanc III “J” ZEITZ (Oil Plant Nr. Leipzig) 6hrs 30
OPS 48 28th Jan. “ Lanc III “0” STUTTGART
(Flew with Flt. Lt. Williams) 6hrs 00
OPS 49 7th Feb. “ Lanc III “J” GOCH (Bombed from 4500ft) 4hrs 40
OPS 50 8th Feb. “ Lanc III “B” POLLITZ (STETTIN) 8hrs 05
OPS 51 13th Feb. “ Lanc III “J” [underlined] DRESDEN [/underlined] 7hrs 45
OPS 52 1st March “ Lanc III “J” MANNHIEM 5hrs 05
OPS 53 5th March “ Lanc III “J” CHEMNITZ 7hrs 40
OPS 54 7th March “ Lanc III “J” DESSAU 7hrs 50
OPS 55 8th March “ Lanc III “J” HAMBURG 5hrs 15
OPS 56 12th March “ Lanc III “J” DORTMUND 4hrs 25
OPS 57 15TH March “ Lanc III “J” MISBURG Oil Refinery 6hrs 20
(Nr. Hanover)
OPS 58 16th March “ Lanc III “J” NURNBURG (3 fighter attacks) 6hrs 50
OPS 59 19th March “ Lanc III “J” HANAU Nr. Frankfurt 5hrs 45
OPS 60 20th March “ Lanc III “H” HEMMINGSTADT (Nr. Heide
30 miles South of Danish border) 4hrs 35
OPS 61 22nd March “ Lanc III “J” HILDESHIEM (Nr. Hanover) 4hrs 25
OPS 62 24TH March “ Lanc III “J” HARPENERWEG (RHUR) 4hrs 25
[page break]
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined]
Operations printed in RED were flown at night. Those printed in GREEN were daylight operations.
[underlined] Forty one [/underlined] operations were flown in Lancaster “J - Johnnie” (that would be “Juliet” in present day international phonetic alphabet).
The most concentrated months were August 1944 (eleven sorties), and March 1945 (eleven sorties)
Author: Flight Lieutenant Donald Ward Briggs, DFC RAF (Retd.)
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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Tribute to a Pathfinder captain
Description
An account of the resource
Tribute to Squadron Leader William G Neal Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Flying Cross, Croix de Guerre, 1912-2001. Describes how Don Briggs met and was crewed with Bill Neal’s crew who having completed one tour had been selected for a second on Pathfinders. Describes training as well as Bill Neal’s piloting and leadership qualities. Notes that Bill Neal gave Don Briggs the opportunity to learn to fly. Describes first operation on 156 Squadron Pathfinders to Tours in France in great detail including being engaged by night fighters. Describes various Pathfinder techniques and attacking V-1 bomb sites formation on Oboe-equipped Mosquito. Describes operations over Germany with reference to ant-aircraft fire and night fighters. Explains that some of the crew including Neal and Briggs volunteered for a further tour completing a total of 62 operations. Ends with a list of all 62 operations.
Creator
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Donald Briggs
Format
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Eight typewritten pages
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
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
Identifier
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BBriggsDWNealeWv1
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.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
France--Tours
Germany
France
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1944-06
1944-07
1944-07-18
1944-07-30
1944-08
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-15
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
David Bloomfield
156 Squadron
aerial photograph
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
bombing up
crewing up
debriefing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
fear
flight engineer
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Master Bomber
Me 110
military service conditions
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oboe
Pathfinders
perimeter track
pilot
promotion
RAF Hemswell
RAF Lindholme
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
searchlight
superstition
tactical support for Normandy troops
target indicator
target photograph
training
V-1
V-weapon
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1601/PBanksP15010116.2.jpg
7ace4041086d2887d5d50a3358dd22a3
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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Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Format
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One photograph album
Identifier
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PBanksP1501
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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
F/Lt A. L. Taylor
Description
An account of the resource
Top centre a full length wedding group portrait. An officer in uniform tunic carrying a peaked cap. On the right a women in full length white wedding dress carrying a bouquet. Behind bridesmaids partially visible and in the background a church arched doorway.
Bottom centre an air-to-air view of a Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfire LY flying right to left with clouds below.
Captioned '"He gave his life Dec 4 1941" DFC 2 Bars DSO & Bar, page 128 "Evidence in Camera" Constance Babbington-Smith, Publisher David A Charles'., 'F/Lt A. L. Taylor'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-12-04
Format
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Two b/w photographs mounted on an album page
Language
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eng
Identifier
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PBanksP15010116
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
Civilian
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
love and romance
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
pilot
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/247/7455/PDorricottLW15090102.1.jpg
a6fe6533a94a31bee3a0432af904c930
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
Dorricott, Leonard William
Leonard Dorricott
Len Dorricott
L W Dorricott
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. An oral history interview with Rosemary Dorricott about her husband Flying Officer Leonard William Dorricott DFM (1923-2014, 1230753, 1230708 Royal Air Force). Leonard Dorricott was a navigator with 460 and 576 Squadrons. He flew 34 operations including Operation Manna, Dodge and Exodus. He was one of the crew who flew in Lancaster AR-G -George, now preserved in the Australian War Memorial. He was a keen amateur photographer and the collection contains his photographs, logbook and papers. It also contains A Dorricott’s First World War Diary, and photographs of Leonard Dorricott’s log book being reunited with the Lancaster at the Australian War Memorial.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Dorricott and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-07
2015-11-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Dorricott, LW
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
APRIL 28, 1942 Page 5
Left to right: Flight-Lieutenant D. J. Penham, D.S.O., D.F.C., Sergeant D. N. Huntly, D.F.M., Pilot - Officer D. O. Sands, D.F.C., Flight-Lieut. B. R. W. Hallows, D.F.C., and Sergeant R. P. Irons, D.F.M. With them is the Minister of Information.
[inserted]a large oval photograph[/inserted]
Squadron-Leader J. D. Nettleton, the leader of one formation of bombers, has been awarded the V.C. One by one the aircraft of his formation were shot down until only his own remained.[symbol] image of a finger pointing to the photo [/symbol]
‘HEDGE-HOP’ MEN HONOURED AND VC for the leader[sic]
LEADER of the “hedge-hopping” bombers which raided Augsburg in daylight on April 17, Squadron-Leader John D. Nettleton,.has been awarded the V.C.
Other honours awarded to the returned crews included one D.S.O., eight D.F.C.s and ten D.F.M.s.
Nettleton, of No. 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron, displayed “the most conspicuous bravery,” the official citation stated. The enterprise was daring, the target - the M.A.N. U-boat engine factory - of high military importance.
Nettleton led is of the twelve Lancaster Bombers which made the raid. Soon after crossing into enemy territory they were attacked by twenty-five to thirty fighters
{underlined]Point-Blank Fire[/underlined]
In the running battle which followed Nettleton saw four of his six bombers shot down. His own rear guns went out of action - but, almost defenceless, he held to his course, the other remaining Lancaster following.
Flying mostly at only 50ft. above the ground the two bombers reached Augsburg and skimmed the roofs towards the target.
They were fired at from point-blank range, but their bombs hit the factory.
Then Nettleton saw the other Lancaster burst into flames and crash-land.
His own aircraft, now riddled with holes, he got safely home - the only one of the six to return.
Altogether eight of the original twelve Lancasters bombed the target. Only five returned.
Telling his story of the raid yesterday, Nettleton referred to the lost aircraft [missing]
[underlined]”Worth While”[/underlined]
“Families of the splendid chaps in them,” he said, “may ask, ‘Was the raid worth the loss? The answer is ‘Absolutely.’
Nettleton, 25, a Rhodesian, is an admiral’s[sic] grandson. He trained for a sea career, spent eighteen months in the Merchant Service, and then went into civil engineering. He entered the RAF in 1934, and has bombed Berlin and Essen
[underlined]Other Awards{/underlined]
The following officers and airmen who participated, in various capacities, as members of the aircraft crews, displayed courage, fortitude and skill of the highest order:-
D.S.O. - Flight-Lieutenant David Jackson Penman, D.F.C.
D.F.C. - Flight-Lieutenant Brian Roger Wakefield Hallows, Acting Flight-Lieutenant Charles Curtis Granmer McClure, Acting Flying-Officer Ernest Edward Rodley, Pilot-Officer Ernest Alfred Deverill, D.F.M., Pilot-Officer Gilbert Campbell Hooey, Pilot-Officer Edward Lister Ifould, Pilot-Officer Desmond Ossiter Sands.
D.F.M. - Flight-Sergeant Frank Howe Harrison, Flight-Sergeant Brian Gordon Louch, Flight-Sergeant Leonard Henry Mutter, Sergeant Charles Fleming Churchill, Sergeant Thomas Henry Goacher, Sergeant Donald Norman Huntly, Sergeant Ronald Percy Irons, Sergeant Kenneth Oswald Mackay, Sergeant Douglas Leonard Overton, Sergeant John Thomas Ratcliffe.
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
Hedge-hop men honoured and VC for the leader
Description
An account of the resource
Details about the operation on the MAN u-boat engine factory in Augsburg and the decorations awarded to the crew members.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-04-28
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One newspaper cutting
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDorricottLW15090102
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
Germany--Augsburg
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-04-17
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jon-Paul Jones
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Dorricott, Leonard William. Folder PDorricottLW1509
44 Squadron
bombing
Bombing of Augsburg (17 April 1942)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
Distinguished Service Order
Lancaster
submarine
Victoria Cross
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/442/7870/PTwellsE15070083.2.jpg
75572568975dd909226ceb6234d2f9bb
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/442/7870/PTwellsE15070082.2.jpg
a62f79fb389502d0e882eec0fe0c099c
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
Twells, Ernie. Album
Description
An account of the resource
A scrapbook containing photographs and documents of Ernie Twells' wartime and post-war service including squadron reunions. The photographs and documents are contained in wallets in a scrapbook. The wallet page has been scanned and then the individual items rescanned. The scans have been grouped together.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Twells, E
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Flight Lieutenant Bob Knights
[italics] Pilot who bombed the Tirpitz three times and became a training captain with British Airways [/italics]
[photograph]
Knights (third from left) with his crew from 619 Squadron at Woodhall Spa on December 20 1943, just before taking off for a raid on Frankfurt
FLIGHT LIEUTENANT BOB KNIGHTS, who has died aged 83, flew his Lancaster bomber of No 617 Squadron on the three major attacks against the [italic] Tirpitz [/italic] that culminated, on November 12 1944, in the sinking of the powerful German battleship which had dominated British and American naval strategy in the European theatre.
With a firm foothold on the European continent, the Allies were anxious to deploy their naval forces to other theatres, but the threat posed by the [italic] Tirpitz [/italic] prevented this. Churchill pressed incessantly for the destruction of the “beast”, as he called her. Bomber Command and the Royal Navy had mounted many attacks against the battleship, and some damage had been inflicted; but the ship was still capable of making dangerous forays against the convoys to Russia.
In September 1944 Lancaster bombers of Nos 9 and 617 Squadrons were sent to attack the battleship with the 12,000-lb Tallboy bomb and mines. [italic] Tirpitz [/italic] was moored in Alten Fjord in the extreme north of Norway, beyond the range of the Lancasters operating from Scotland, so the force flew to Yagodnik, near Archangel, on September 11.
Knights and his crew were were [sic] accommodated on a houseboat, where bedbugs were their main companions. Four days later, Wing Commander Willie Tait, the CO of No 617, led the force to attack the battleship, but their efforts were thwarted by a dense smokescreen. Knights lost an engine over the target and returned to Yagodnik with his bomb still on board.
The Germans moved [italic] Tirpitz [/italic] south to Tromso, which put her just within range of the airfields in northern Scotland, from where another attack was mounted on October 29. The bombers faced heavy anti-aircraft fire, but Knights was able to drop his bomb, which landed very close and rocked the battleship. He remained circling the target as other bombs fell around the ship. Reconnaissance photographs suggested that the battleship remained intact, but, unknown to the Allies, she had sustained sufficient damage to render her no longer a threat.
On November 12 the bomber force carried out their third attack, this time in perfect weather.
Knights dropped his Tallboy, which was “a very near miss”, then descended to low level and flew around the ship, which he saw roll over on to her side after three direct hits. Short of fuel, Knights landed at a small fighter airfield at Peterhead. It was his last bombing operation of the war.
The crews of Nos 9 and 617 received a number of decorations, with Knights being awarded the DSO.
The son of a carpenter, Robert Edgar Knights was born on January 18 1921 at Fulham, London. He attended Fulham School for Boys, where he excelled at football. He played for the London Schoolboys’ XI that won the Schoolboys’ cup at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea, in 1935. He volunteered for service as a pilot with the RAF and was called up in March 1941.
Knights was trained in America under the “Arnold Scheme”. When flying over Florida, his instructor managed to get them lost and Knights was forced to bale out – a farmer thought he was a German.
After returning to England to complete his training, he was forced to bale out again, badly injuring his hand, when his aircraft crashed through the roof of a barn. He was commissioned six months later.
In June 1943 Knights joined No 619 Squadron flying the Lancaster. Soon afterwards the Battle of Berlin began, and Knights made eight attacks against the “Big City” – Bomber Command’s losses were particularly high. On another occasion he was en route to bomb Hamburg when one of his engines failed shortly after reaching the Dutch coast, and he would have been justified in turning back; but he pressed on and bombed the target successfully. Within six months he had completed his tour of 30 operations and was awarded the DFC.
He and his crew were due for a six-month rest, but decided that they wanted to “do something more challenging”. They volunteered for service with No 617 (Dam Busters) Squadron, and, after an interview with Leonard Cheshire, No 617’s CO, they were taken on.
Cheshire had developed low-level target-marking techniques with No 617 and, with the arrival of Barnes Wallis’s new Tallboy bomb, the squadron specialised in attacking pinpoint targets such as concrete U-boat and E-boat shelters, aero-engines works and the V1 flying bomb sites.
During the lead-up to the Normandy invasion, Knights bombed tunnels, rail marshalling yards and bridges to block German reinforcement routes to the invasion area. The Tallboys, dropped with great accuracy on the target markers by Cheshire and his fellow marker-crews, caused devastating damage. Once the Allies were firmly established in north-west Europe, No 617 turned its attention to the [italic] Tirpitz [/italic].
After flying 67 bombing operations, Knights was rested, and in June 1945 he was seconded to BOAC to fly converted Lancasters on routes to the Middle East and Australia, which the airline was re-establishing.
Knights left the RAF at the end of 1946 to join BOAC, and over the next few years he flew the Argonaut and the Boeing Stratocruiser, the latter on the North Atlantic route. After a spell on the Britannia, Knights converted to jets; he flew the inaugural VC 10 flight to Montreal in 1966. Later he flew the Boeing 747 and was one of the fleet’s training captains. He retired from British Airways in 1976.
A very modest man, Knights gave strong support to RAF charities. He was president of the Guildford branch of the RAFA and a long-standing member of the Aircrew Association. He developed a keen interest in bell-ringing and became captain of the bell tower at St Peter and St Paul at Albury, near Guildford. A good golfer and tennis player, he was also a lifelong supporter of Fulham FC.
Bob Knights died on December 4. In 1947 he married a serving WAAF, Helen Maloney, who survived him with their two sons and a daughter.
[page break]
[previous page repeated as entry in scrapbook]
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
Bob Knights' Obituary
Description
An account of the resource
The obituary of Flight Lieutenant Bob Knights. It details his operations on the Tirpitz, his early life, his training in Florida, his time with 617 Squadron and his role with BOAC after the war until his retirement in 1976.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
A newspaper cutting from a scrapbook.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PTwellsE15070082, PTwellsE15070083
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Norway
Russia (Federation)
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
Steve Baldwin
617 Squadron
9 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Catechism (12 November 1944)
pilot
submarine
Tallboy
Tirpitz
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/474/8418/MClydeSmithD39856-160919-05.1.JPG
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
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/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Denis Clyde-Smith certificate for award of Distinguished Service Order
Description
An account of the resource
Signed by King George, formal certificate of award for Distinguished Service Order to Denis-Clyde Smith Distinguished Flying Cross on 9 Squadron on 9 February 1943.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-02-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MClydeSmithD39856-160919-05
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-02-09
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain
9 Squadron
Distinguished Service Order
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/474/8420/NClydeSmithD-190916-01.2.jpg
d00c222f4c0bc69607fd77694c46ab58
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
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HALIFAX BOMBER’S TOUR
FROM OUR AERONAUTICAL CORRESPONDENT
The Handey [sic] Page Halifax bomber which has been making a tour of Rhodesia and South Africa has now returned to this country. The return journey from Capetown was made via Bulawayo, Ndola (where it was the first four-engined aircraft to have landed), Nairobi, Khartum, Cairo,[sic] and Rome. In all, the machine covered some 12,000 miles.
At Capetown demonstration flights were made with members of the S.A.A.F. as passengers. In addition to Government officials, some 1,000 members of the services were shown over the Halifax during its stay in South Africa.
The Halifax was manned by an R.A.F. crew under the command of Squadron Leader Clyde-Smith, D.S.O., D.F.C., who piloted it throughout the tour.
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
Halifax bomber tour
Description
An account of the resource
Newspaper article about Halifax on tour of Rhodesia and South Africa via Bulawayo, Ndola, Nairobi, Khartoum, Cairo and Rome. Mentions demonstration flights in South Africa and that the aircraft was commanded by Squadron Leader Clyde-Smith Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Flying Cross.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One newspaper cutting
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
NClydeSmithD-190916-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Italy
Kenya
South Africa
Sudan
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Egypt--Cairo
Italy--Rome
Kenya--Nairobi
Sudan--Khartoum
Zambia--Ndola
Zimbabwe--Bulawayo
North Africa
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
Steve Baldwin
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Halifax
propaganda
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/474/8421/PClydeSmithD1603.1.JPG
b43e829f5d184bc8342bd8248c101791
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/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Denis Clyde-Smith
Description
An account of the resource
Head and shoulders portrait of Squadron Leader Denis Clyde-Smith wearing peaked cap and tropical tunic with pilots brevet and ribbons for Distinguished Service Order and Distinguished Flying Cross.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PClydeSmithD1603
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
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
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
pilot
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/554/8821/PPattersonGE1502.2.jpg
38c2680d1699d350eecb4aed227391a1
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/554/8821/PPattersonGE1501.2.jpg
66fba105a1d1ee2367331ee22cac69ab
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/554/8821/APattersonGE151008.1.mp3
f32cabc127e0718595b075fed6b0fc4a
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
Patterson, Ernie
Gilbert Ernest Patterson
G E Patterson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Patterson, GE
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-08
2019-01-26
Rights
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An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Gilbert Ernest Patterson DFM (b. 1922 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 635 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Hang on then.
EP: Can’t we just chat before you start doing that?
AM: Ok Right. Well, we can, we can, but let me just say. Just, ‘cause they need this for the recording in a minute, that my name’s Annie Moody, and I’m here on behalf of the International —
EP: Anne who?
AM: Moody.
EP: Is that what you’re —
AM: No. He’s called Gary Rushbrooke.
EP: That’s right.
GR: She wouldn’t take my name.
AM: I wouldn’t, I’d never change my name, Ernie. And I’m doing the interview for the International Bomber Command Centre, and I’m, today I’m at the house of Ernie Patterson in Darlington, and it is the 8th —
GR: Yeah.
AM: Of October 2015, and you can talk now Ernie, and what I want you to tell me, first of all, is where you were born and what your parents did, and what your background was.
[pause]
AM: See you’re not talking now, come on [laughs].
EP: I was trying to tell you I was born at —
AM: Right. Middleton St George. Tell me about that.
EP: [unclear] Road, Number 19.
AM: Right.
EP: My mum was living with her sister at the time, and she had a baby boy a month after I was born, and we were both christened at the St Lawrence’s Church which is down by Middleton One Row. Right.
AM: Right.
EP: Because — he’s died by the way, two or three years ago. That was where I was born.
AM: Right. And you were telling me that that was right near Middleton St George.
EP: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. Which is now Teesside Airport, but which was a big bomber base.
EP: That was part of my working career. I helped to build which is, which was Middleton St George bomber station, and I also worked and helped to build which is now Newcastle Airport.
AM: Right.
EP: When the RAF took it over.
AM: So, you were born there. Did you have brothers and sisters?
EP: Eh?
AM: Did you have brothers and sisters?
EP: Yeah. I was one of six.
AM: Right.
EP: There’s three of us left.
AM: What did, what did your parents do?
EP: My dad was in the Boer War.
AM: Yeah.
EP: He, not the Boer War, rub that out. He was in the Battle of the Somme.
AM: First World War.
EP: And he was badly, he got badly shot up there.
AM: Right.
EP: ‘Cause I’ve been — can I jump? I left school when I was fourteen. I’ll go from there, eh?
AM: Yeah. Ok.
EP: I left school when I was fourteen, and I decided to serve my time as an apprentice joiner at fourteen, and my pay was twenty seven P a week. True that.
AM: Five and four pence.
EP: Five and ten pence.
AM: Five and ten pence.
EP: In old money.
AM: Yeah.
EP: That was then, and I was, and I was in to the deep end straightaway by putting rooves on with improvers, they were called, and when you got to twenty one in my day, you got the sack, ‘cause they had to double your pay.
AM: Right.
EP: You had to go and work for somebody else. In my working career, I’ve been a joiner all my time, which is why — and I’ve got no City and Guilds, Higher National. Nothing.
AM: So that’s what you did.
EP: Experience. I just seen it happen and I just took it all in. Mind before I built this, I built a few garages for people and that give me the incentive and this — I took it on myself. And I was working twelve hours a day some days to get. It hardly rained.
AM: Yeah. So, at fourteen —
EP: Yeah.
AM: You started off as a joiner.
EP: Apprentice joiner. Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
EP: I was getting — the pay was twenty seven, you know, for forty four hours that.
AM: Blimey.
EP: That’s what it was. Twenty seven P.
AM: Did you enjoy it, Ernie?
EP: I enjoyed every work of my time of my working career.
AM: Right.
EP: And I was never out of work. I left school when I was fourteen and I worked until I was seventy eight, and I had a week off on the sick in all that time. Apart from giving the RAF four years.
AM: Four years. So why the RAF? What made you go for the RAF?
EP: I liked Brylcreem, didn’t I [laughs].
AM: What do you mean you liked Brylcreem?
EP: Well, we used to be the Brylcreem boys, weren’t we?
AM: True
EP: I used to use it, so I had to join the RAF, didn’t I?
AM: There must have been more.
EP: But what annoyed me was, I didn’t get the Defence medal because I was non-operational, such as being in the Home Guard or the Fire Service or anything. Yet I helped to build two big bomber stations. That should have counted, shouldn’t it?
AM: Right.
EP: So, you can check on that for me and get it for me. The Defence medal.
AM: Right.
EP: I was in touch with Gloucester, well you know what I mean, and this is what he came on the phone with. He said, ‘You only had two years’. Well, that was the two years when I was training in the air, how to be aircrew.
AM: Right. So, wheeling back a bit. So, when you, so you joined because you wanted to a Brylcreem boy. I’m not sure I believe that was the whole reason, but it’ll do.
EP: I had black wavy hair. I couldn’t. In the Army, you do a lot of marching don’t you? And in the Navy, I’d be seasick.
AM: Right. So, you decided to join the RAF.
EP: So, I joined the RAF. I was whipped in to the cream.
AM: You were whipped in to the cream. Where did you, where did you did you —
EP: I was deferred for a while. I was nineteen when I was called up.
AM: Right. So, what happened between eighteen and nineteen then, because I thought, weren’t —
EP: I was working in 1941, building bomber stations. Middleton St George and the satellite at Croft.
AM: Right. Tell me what you mean then. You were working there.
EP: Yeah.
AM: Working for whom?
EP: Helped to build, helped to build, working on [pause] such as Teesside there. Twelve flat rooves, you know, pitched rooves.
AM: Right.
EP: It was all shuttering, you know. We had to build —
AM: When you say you were working as a joiner? You hadn’t joined the RAF
EP: I’ve been a joiner all my life.
AM: Right. Got you.
EP: I built this place but I had no experience of brick laying. Just I’d seen them doing it.
AM: Just built it
EP: Built it.
AM: So, so from, so you started off as a joiner at fourteen.
EP: Yeah.
AM: And at eighteen you were working on the airport.
EP: 1941. When the war started in 1939 — I can take you to the pair of bungalows. I was seventeen at the time.
AM: Right.
EP: And I did all the joinery work on this bungalow for a builder who, he was working as a boss on another building firm, but he built these pair of bungalows in Darlington. Woodcrest Road. And I did everything on that, I was only seventeen then. Then when the war — that was in 1939, the day the war started. I can see it as if it was yesterday. They stopped building. You couldn’t get, you couldn’t get material to do building. They needed it for war work, didn’t they?
AM: So, what did you, so what did you do at that point?
EP: I got with a firm that was doing [pause] which is — not Middleton St George. Croft. It was a satellite of Middleton St George. I started work there as a joiner.
AM: As a joiner.
EP: It was a satellite of Middleton St George.
AM: Right.
EP: And then from there, I went to, when I got moved from there, for the same firm to Newcastle. I was lodging in Lady Park Road and it was about five shilling a week bed and breakfast at the time. Five shilling a week.
AM: All still as a joiner.
EP: I’ve never been, done anything else
AM: So, when you actually joined up with the RAF then, how old were you at that point?
EP: That was in September 1942.
AM: Right.
EP: I was nineteen, wasn’t I?
AM: You were nineteen.
EP: Work it out. Yeah.
AM: And where did you go to join up?
EP: I just got called up, didn’t I? I had to go.
AM: Right. Ah, so you got called up.
EP: You had to be registered. I had to go.
AM: But for the RAF.
EP: No, I volunteered for that.
AM: Right. So, you got —
EP: Flying was. Aircrew was voluntary.
AM: So, you got called up but you volunteered for the RAF.
EP: That’s it.
AM: Right. Ok. Got you. So, having volunteered for the RAF what happened then? What was the sequence of events?
EP: It was in the February of 1942. I can always remember. I was, I had to go to Edinburgh on an aircrew selection board.
AM: Right.
EP: And it was there they decided to make me a wireless operator. Because they do you tests and they could see that I could, they send you Morse code, and they’d send you a note or something, and they’d send you something else, and you had to say if they were both the same. That’s how they were testing you. But they found I could take Morse code in.
AM: Right.
EP: And they made me a wireless operator.
AM: Right. So where did you go?
EP: It was on my mum’s birthday. 4th of February 1942.
AM: Right.
EP: And I was accepted into the RAF then but it wasn’t until the September that I was called up, and by then, I was eighteen, nineteen or something.
AM: Right. So, so when you were called up, when did you start doing the training for the wireless operator? Where did you do that?
EP: When I was called up in the September.
AM: Right.
EP: ‘42.
AM: Still — yeah.
EP: Blackpool, wasn’t it?
AM: Was it? Blackpool.
EP: You learned the Morse code in the Winter Gardens. And they were all civilian ex-GPO bloody operators. It was Morse code then, wasn’t it? Telegrams and all that.
AM: So, what was it like then? Going, going to Blackpool.
EP: There was RAF all over. Everywhere, every, every boarding house had RAF in. You could see them at parading and that. And Woolworths, I think it was Woolworths or Marks and Spencer where they kept all your documents. We used to have to do guard duty on, on, I remember they used to say you had to learn something if you were challenged at night by the orderly officers and that, but you were protecting government property. And Burton’s was an aircraft recognition place. All these places were taken over by the RAF.
AM: Yeah.
EP: We used to do PT on the sands and we used to — where else did we go? We got [unclear], known as a pressure chamber, that happened there, but we did a route march to somewhere. Shooting ranges. You did everything in Blackpool. Then from there, I was posted to a place called Madley. This was the RAF now, Madley. I was trained to be a ground wireless op. We learned Morse code as a ground wireless operator. Then from there, I went to Yatesbury and I was trained to be an air wireless operator. Then from there, I was sent up to Evanton, up in Scotland and made an air gunner, which I was never in the turret. That was a waste of time because I was never in the turret. I was a wireless operator all the time.
AM: So, you — but your training was wireless operator, and then you were trained air gunner as well.
EP: I was a wireless operator air gunner.
AM: What was the training like at Yatesbury?
EP: Well, you flew in Proctors. Single aircraft with just a pilot and you, and you got, you got your, you had your transmitter, receiver in front of you. You had to push it back to get in, then pull it over like that., and you were experiencing air sickness and all that weren’t you? Then from Yatesbury, we get — do you want me to keep going?
AM: Yeah.
EP: Then from Yatesbury, we went to Abingdon.
AM: Yeah. You’re all over the country, criss crossing the country.
EP: Not Yatesbury. After Evanton, up in Scotland, I was a fully-fledged sergeant there. I got my brevet and then from there, I was sent to a place called Milham. Have you heard of Milham? It was an Advanced Navigator’s Flying Unit, and we flew with scrubbed navigators and wireless operators in Ansons. And from there, we were all sent to Abingdon but we all — pilots, all the —
AM: Right. So —
EP: In this big hangar.
AM: So, Abingdon is the Operational Training Unit where you crewed up.
EP: Where we crewed up.
AM: Tell me about crewing up.
EP: Well, they never said, ‘You’re flying with him’, and, ‘You’re flying with him’, you picked your own crew in there didn’t you?
AM: So how did it happen for you then? Who picked who?
EP: Well, someone just comes. I don’t know who picked me, but this I always remember, he was Jack Harold. He was a pilot and he was about a couple of years older than me at the time. What would he be? He’d be about twenty two and I was twenty, and it was just a matter of you just got together. I can’t remember how it happened, but from there, we flew down as a crew to this satellite of Abingdon, which was called Stanton Harcourt.
AM: So, who, who were the crew at that point? How many of you?
EP: There was seven of us then
AM: Were there a full seven of you?
EP: Seven of us.
AM: Right. Ok.
EP: Do you want me to give you the names?
AM: Yeah. Go on.
EP: Well, there was the pilot, that was Jack Harold which — he’s dead now. Jack Garland, the navigator. Lofty Thompson was the second navigator. Ernie Patterson, me, was the wireless operator. Snowdon was the mid-upper gunner and George Sindall was the rear gunner. And Alan Purdy was the flight engineer.
AM: Right.
EP: How about that from memory.
AM: Well done.
EP: And we trained at Acaster Malbis.
AM: Yeah.
EP: And it was there where Lady Luck was on our side for the very first time. We were sat waiting for this Whitley to come back. Is that? I think, let’s get this right first, but we were fired on the first time, we’d been flying in the daytime in this Whitley, and for some reason, we were flying in the same aircraft on the night cross-country run, and we had this crop who had an instructor pilot and an instructor wireless operator and for some reason, they changed the aircraft. The instructors wanted to fly, you know, we changed aircraft for some reason. They crashed and they were all killed. That was the first time when Lady Luck was on our side. And the second time, the second time we had that Lady — the second time, we were waiting for this Halifax to come back at Stanton Harcourt. It was doing two engine overshoots and that, and they crashed and they were all killed. Lady Luck was on our — and we were waiting for that aircraft. We were sat outside waiting for it to come back so that we could take it over, but it had engine trouble and they crashed.
AM: And this is all while you were all just doing your training.
EP: That was while we were doing — there was about nine thousand killed training.
AM: Yeah.
EP: But let me think. So, when we went on to a squadron, the pilot, you see after, we ended up at Rufforth flying Halifaxes from Whitleys. But this was Whitleys at Stanton Harcourt. But we ended up — but the next one was Rufforth near York, in the York area, and when we graduated, we’ had about forty hours on Halifaxes. We had the chance to go on to Main Force, which was 10 Group which was Melbourne or 635 Squadron, see. So, we plumped for the Pathfinder squadron.
AM: Right.
EP: And we went there for the Path. We were there a month before we did any, any op, and training all the time. And all this time we had this aircraft we were given for pre-flight training in and went to do a DI on it. Daily Inspection.
AM: Ok.
EP: And across, I did a crow flies. I walked towards the plate to it and I found this horseshoe. Threw it over me shoulder like that. I thought I’ll keep that.
AM: And you’ve still got it.
EP: It flew with me. All the flying I did from there.
AM: What was the extra training you had to do as Pathfinders then?
EP: Well, in the first place you had to do two tours. Main Force, you did one tour which was —
AM: Yeah.
EP: Well, we went on this squadron. The pilot flew with an experienced crew to give him, as second dickey, to give him extra to see what it was like before he took his own crew.
AM: Ok.
EP: So consequently, he did thirty trips. We all did twenty nine.
AM: You did twenty nine.
EP: And the pilot and the two navigators — they were posted overnight. We didn’t even get to say cheerio. But I’ve seen the pilot a couple of times since the war.
AM: So, when you got there to 635 Squadron.
EP: Yeah.
AM: Pathfinders. Can you remember your very first operation?
EP: Oh aye.
AM: Go on. Tell me about it.
EP: It was in August. We went to Stettin. You’ve heard of that haven’t you? In Poland.
AM: Yeah.
EP: And we went up. It was an eight and a half hour trip.
AM: For your very first operation.
EP: Yeah, and we lost twenty three bombers that night, I’ll always remember that. But you see with the pilot going around another crew to get experience, he done thirty trips. We had done twenty nine. But when you’re just, you’re supporting the markers.
AM: Yes.
EP: You’ve got markers on the Squadron. Certain ones. But when your brand new, you’re supporting the markers. Well, this is why, after he’d did thirty trips, him and the two navigators, well we never got off supporting those. We were supporting the markers all the time.
AM: On right.
EP: So, I got on with another crew. They’d lost their wireless operator. He was, he crashed, they crashed. That’s another story. They were on two engines coming back to this country and he ended up on one engine and heading for Woodbridge. Crash landed, and the wireless operator was killed and he’d done about eighteen trips and I’d done about the same. And I got him, I got his job.
AM: So, after about eighteen operations, you swapped over on to a different crew.
EP: Yeah.
AM: And who was that? —
EP: No. I’d done twenty nine.
AM: Oh, you’d done - right Okay
EP: I’d done twenty you see. That was a tour you see.
AM: Yeah.
EP: They liked you do two tours because you’ve got all the latest equipment.
AM: Yeah.
EP: And you’re using the equipment that the main force doesn’t have.
AM: Tell me what it was actually like Ernie. Going up and doing that. An operation.
EP: Well, you used to get the battle order going up in the mess, didn’t you? As soon as you saw your name on the bloody battle order, you couldn’t get in the toilet. You had all the toilets there, wash basins there, but you’re going to be coming and then when we come out of the toilets. The fear.
AM: Everybody?
EP: People say, ‘Were you were frightened?’ But constipation wasn’t a problem in those days.
AM: Were you frightened?
EP: Of course, you were. You were shit scared.
AM: Right.
EP: That was it. You wanted to go, that frightened feeling, you wanted to go to the toilet but you were waiting. All the toilets were occupied when the battle order went up.
AM: Right. And then what?
EP: Well, it —
AM: Describe it to me. What it was — you know, from actually getting the battle order right through, doing the operation, and coming back.
EP: Well once you knew where you were going to, you stayed over at the bomber. They didn’t let you out, and you’d maybe be over an hour, an hour and a half waiting to take off. Much of the time you did that, they’d come out, it was cancelled, and everybody went back to their billets, got changed and out for the night. You lived for the day.
AM: Why would they cancel it?
EP: Don’t know. Maybe a lot of cloud. Something.
AM: Yeah.
EP: But I survived. You know how many ops I did, don’t you?
AM: I do.
EP: How many?
AM: Well, he’s told me. Fifty.
EP: One.
AM: Fifty one.
EP: Yeah. We kept going until we all had done the fifty.
AM: But I want to know what it felt like, what it was actually like going. So, on the ones that weren’t cancelled. That’s it. You get in the plane. And then what? [pause], I know [laughs], I know you’re laughing at me but —
EP: Well, you settled down. You got daft you know; it’ll never happen to me. It’s not the [unclear]. As soon as you knew you were going, you thought, ‘Dear me, is this it?’ You know, and you couldn’t, you couldn’t get in the toilets for the [unclear].
AM: Right. Once you’re on the plane though, you set off. In — other people who have talked to us have talked about the bomber stream, but you were the Pathfinders so —
EP: Well, the elite of the Bomber Command was the Path. Now to be Master Bomber which we did five.
AM: Yeah.
EP: You’re the elite of the elite. When I got in to the second crew.
AM: Right. I’ve —
EP: And the first time — they used to mark the target. Mosquitos. There were a lot of Mosquito squadrons and they’d be the first to drop the white flares. The aiming point somewhere there. Now, you had to have a good bomb aimer and he’d pick it out like that. He’d be the first there, and I can always remember, and our call sign was Portland One and we had a deputy with us, and he was Portland Two, and main force was called Press On.
AM: Right.
EP: That was the call and he’s had to set thing up and tell the skipper, he could talk to them, and we would be approaching the target he starts. The Pathfinders. The flares would go down. Some would be on the target, some would be off, then you’d get another colour going out. Green maybe. And you’d tell them to ignore the greens, that’s off the target, and bomb the reds that’s fading away. They were still over the target area.
AM: When they dropped the flares? So, they dropped the coloured flares to mark the position.
EP: Yeah.
AM: Did they drop bombs as well?
EP: Yeah.
AM: Or did you just do flares.
EP: You make the bomb up. Yeah.
AM: You had a full bomb load as well.
EP: You carried it all, yeah, and I can always remember, sticks to my mind, full tanks. If you went on a long trip was two thousand one hundred and fifty four gallon. That, that’s full tanks which sacrificed bomb load for fuel.
AM: Yeah.
EP: If you were going on a long trip. For the Stettin raid, seven and a half hour trip, and we flew over Sweden, didn’t we? As we were flying over Sweden, they opened fire because it was a neutral country wasn’t it. Wasn’t it?
AM: Yeah.
EP: You remember that. Neutral country. And they fired up, and this pilot was listening out and he said, this person said, ‘You are’, he listened to them and they said, ‘You are flying over neutral territory’. And this pilot answered him, ‘We know’. Coming back over the same route, they opened fire again, and this pilot spoke to them and said, ‘You are three thousand feet off target’. And they says, ‘We know’. You get that.
AM: Yeah.
EP: True story that. They would open fire, they weren’t trying to hit you, they were just warning shots. ‘You are flying over neutral territory’. The pilot said, ‘We know’. Then coming back so they opened fire again, he said, ‘You are three thousand feet off target’, and they said, ‘We know’ [laughs]. They weren’t trying to hit you, just warning shots. That was that. And we lost twenty three bombers that night, I’ll always remember that. Some of them come down in the North Sea or something. But the most, the biggest raid I was on, was Hanover, when we lost thirty one bombers that night. And on Chemnitz, we lost thirty five bombers on the two raids we went to Chemnitz. But I did a Master Bomber raid on Dorsten, Kiel, Nuremberg, Osnabruck and Heligoland. How about that from memory?
AM: Wonderful.
EP: And we did two deputy Master Bombers.
AM: So, tell me what, tell me what the Master Bomber does.
EP: You go around and around on operations.
AM: You’re the first one though.
EP: Yeah. You go around, and you can contact your deputy. He’s there, he’s there with you and you’re going around and around all the time. And you see red flares went down and the, no, they might not be on the aiming points, because our bombers identified the aiming point. The target could have been in front or behind the flares or to the left, and you’d tell the skipper to speak to all the bombers. To main force. To bomb in front of the reds, or to port.
AM: And it’s the bomb aimer who drops the flares.
EP: Yeah.
AM: And it’s the bomb aimer who says whether it’s —
EP: Yeah.
AM: Hit the target or —
EP: So, then the next flares would go down. It may be green because it would confuse them and they might be way off, and you’d tell them to ignore them. The Master Bomber would speak to all the bombers and say ignore the greens, bomb the feeding reds, or the instructions he’d given for the flaming reds.
AM: And it’s the Master Bomber who’s saying that.
EP: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: Not you as the wireless operator.
EP: No.
AM: I imagined it would be you as the wireless op.
EP: I had to write everything down he says, because I’m the only one who can write it down.
AM: Ok.
EP: But I’m writing everything he says down. And when I got back, Intelligence took my log book off me. They could tell how that raid went off by reading my logbook.
AM: Right.
EP: This is what I have to get to, after the raid was over, my skipper would assess the raid, whether it was successful or not. He’d tell me, and I’d be in touch with, I’d be in touch with our headquarters which was at Huntingdon. In Morse code it was 8LY, I’ll always remember that. And I put them in the picture about whether it was a success or not in bomber code. Nothing — you didn’t use plain language; it was all in code.
AM: Right.
EP: And bomber code altered you read at 6 o’clock at night. At 6 o’clock the next morning was different. The same thing meant something else, because you had to have all your information on sugar paper. Just for a bit of extra. We used to tear it off and chew it, just to make sure. It was sugar paper.
AM: Sugar paper. I’ve never heard of sugar paper.
EP: Yeah. All the information had to be destroyed, you know, if you crashed you had to eat that.
AM: Oh, you had to eat that. Literally. You’re not pulling my leg.
EP: Yeah. That was, it was sugar paper, you had to eat it.
AM: Right.
EP: And when I first went on the squadron, they gave me a bloody 38 revolver. We had a revolver each. I thought, what are you going to shoot. Who are you going to shoot with that? They’ll fire back at you, won’t they? I had, I had to draw it out. You had to go on the range and fire the bleeding thing. In those days, you fired like that. You used to go up. Nowadays it’s like this isn’t it? Two, have you noticed?
AM: So, its two handed now instead of one handed.
EP: It’s two hands now. In those days you fired like that. Two hands now.
AM: So where was the revolver in the, in the —
EP: Well, I should put mine down me flying boot.
AM: Down your flying boot.
EP: And the ammunition down that one. If you bailed out, then they’d drop out wouldn’t it [laughs].
AM: Can we go back?
EP: That used to be my biggest fear, seeing the bloody places burning. To think I’ve had to bale out into that lot.
AM: You never did though, did you?
EP: It used to frighten the bloody life out of me.
AM: Were you ever [pause] right. Right. Wheel back a minute. When you changed crews. So, at what point was it that you changed crews, and who was the new crew?
EP: That’s him there. That’s Alex Thorne.
AM: Alex. So, Alex Thorne was your pilot.
EP: He was, he was thirty three year old then.
AM: Which was old.
EP: And he’d a lot of experience.
AM: At the time.
EP: Thirty three year old and experienced, wasn’t he?
AM: Yeah.
EP: He was an instructor at one time.
AM: And who else was on the crew with you, Ernie?
EP: Sorry.
AM: Who else was on the crew with you?
EP: Well in that, I can always remember. There was Alex Thorne. Harry Parker, the navigator, the wireless — the flight engineer. Boris was the nav, so the second navigator.
AM: Boris Bressloff.
EP: Graham James — Graham Rose was the navigator. Scott was the mid-upper gunner. Jimmy Rayment was the rear gunner. How’s that? And Joe Clack was the bomb aimer.
AM: Right.
EP: I think we had two or three. I think we had three. But we were experienced crew. As I said, to a be a Master Bomber in the Pathfinders, you were the elite of the elite.
AM: And that was when you became — did the Master Bomber. So how many times, you said you were the Master Bomber five or six, I’ve forgotten.
EP: We did five. Last couple as deputy Master Bomber.
AM: And two deputies.
EP: Towards the end of our, to the end of second tour, if our squadron wasn’t supplying the Master Bomber, we were the only crew stepped down. Different squadrons would supply a Master Bomber for different raids and towards the end there — it’s in the, I’ve got my logbook there.
AM: I’ll have a look at your logbook in a minute if I may.
EP: It’s good reading in there. There’s a couple of raids we were on. Master Bomber there.
AM: Ernie’s showing me pictures here of the —
EP: Take offs. I took ten take offs in Dominies, thirteen in Proctors, fifteen and thirty five in Ansons, forty eight in Whitleys, sixteen in Halifaxes, a hundred and five in Lancasters, three in Liberators, one in Catalina, and twenty two in bloody all other aircraft.
AM: In a Catalina? What were you doing in a Catalina?
EP: I went to India when I finished flying. You’d got —
AM: I’ll come back to that after.
EP: That’s a long time.
AM: Yeah, I’ll come back to that story after. The two pictures are pictures of, describe, just describe those to me. What are they actually pictures of?
EP: Well, that’s — that’s Heligoland.
AM: Right. Yeah.
EP: You’ve heard of that? And on there, you see, there’s a fighter base, the garrison and the U-boat pens.
AM: And who would have taken that picture? The bomb aimer?
EP: No, the aircraft.
AM: The aircraft. The air. Oh, it’s an automatic camera, isn’t it? Yeah.
EP: And that one’s Oldenburg. It tells you that and that was Alex the day I was, they are the target indicator. Did you know that the target indicators cascaded a thousand feet? Did you know that?
AM: No.
EP: There’s a fuse on the end. I can always remember. They were eight pound a piece then. What happened? The flares don’t go up? You see them cascading, don’t you? Well, the pressure at a thousand feet ignites them.
AM: And that’s the flare.
EP: That’s the flare. But the full, full amount of five hundred pound bombs and you’ve got the four thousand pounder, to be carrying the four thousand pound bomb all the time. And you know, they’re distributed off the aircraft you know. They don’t just all go off. It’s distributed so that it keeps the aircraft level.
AM: Yeah. So, you don’t —
EP: So, it doesn’t go top heavy. They distributed off the bombs so the aircraft —
AM: How many would one aircraft drop? How many flares would you drop?
EP: Well six or seven.
AM: Yeah.
EP: Of different colours. But —
AM: So, you’d do your first colour first.
EP: Whatever — you see. You’d make it —
AM: And you’d drop them all together, but you’d know which one had —
EP: Everything’s dropped in a big —
AM: Right. Ok. So, tell me —
EP: You’ve got the full five hundred pound going down together, but they all balanced off to keep the aircraft level, you know. They don’t all go ruddy together. Should keep the nose down.
AM: ‘Cause I’m imagining that you dropped —
EP: You see, at night time, there’s a photo, you’ve got a photoflash and you’ve got a photoflare in the chute. Half way down the aircraft. It’s a quarter of a million candle power. That’s what you measure light with isn’t it? Did you know that?
AM: No.
EP: That’s candle power. And it was a quarter of a million candle power did this flash. Now, when you drop your bombs at night, your camera takes over and takes up the release point in case you’re not in the position, ‘cause you’ve got to be straight and level to get the photograph at night you know.
AM: You’re supposed to be still and level aren’t you, as it’s taking it?
EP: It works out so when your bombs hit the deck and flares, the bombs hit the deck and the flares are going down behind them. The photoflash flashes and your camera takes, all synchronised together so your bombs hit the deck, your flashes and your camera take over. Take a picture. All three together. Nobody operates it. You relied on [unclear], that was one of the things. Marvellous.
AM: Yeah.
EP: But I used to have to be sent back to put my hand down the chute to make sure the bugger had gone. What would have happened if we’d landed and it had stuck? And it stuck on its way down. What would have happened if we’d gone with —? That operated at a thousand feet as well.
AM: So, what did you do if it hadn’t gone?
EP: You had to make sure that it had gone. There was ways of ejecting it.
AM: Right.
EP: What would have happened if you’d got down to a thousand feet?
AM: Oh yeah, I can imagine.
EP: It would have exploded and that would have been the aircraft.
AM: I can imagine.
EP: It would have been on fire.
AM: I can imagine. Yeah. I just had, I just had this picture of you crawling back along the aircraft to make sure it’s gone.
EP: Yeah.
AM: And it’s still there.
EP: Yeah, if it was, you would have had to make sure. There was ways of releasing some the bombs and that.
AM: Why would you have released it.
EP: You can take the plates off. If you’ve got bombs hanging off. Sometimes you’d maybe land with the bombs stuck up, but you make sure they’ve gone. You can always tell. When you lose the bombs, the aircraft goes up like that, you know. When you lose bombs in the air, in day light was the worst. You could see the bloody aircraft go over and over and the bomb doors open, and some of the shear bombs shooting past you, just goes past your wing tips. They knocked turrets off as well, didn’t they? You can’t see them. It was a hell of a thing. Aye. Daylight was the worst. Everyone jockeying to get near the target and the bomb doors were open, and they’re going over to get into position. He drops his bombs and he goes up like that. You’ve dropped yours at the same time and you’re going to be back alongside him again. But that’s what it was like.
AM: If you were at the front. So, you’re the Pathfinder at the front and there’s all the other aircraft behind you, did they come up alongside you then.
EP: You see, you’ve got to be, you had to work to time. Time was essential. You had to be in that position in the air at that very — so you didn’t bump into one another. That was worse? You were colliding with one another. You had to be in that right spot all the time. Otherwise for every, if you go, for every hour in the air to a target, you’ve got five minutes to play with. Now, if you found that you were right, you had to pick a spot where you’re going to lose time. If you were five minutes earlier than where you should be. So, you could either make a big orbit in the bomber stream, which wasn’t very nice, or you could alter course sixty degrees to port. Fly out of the bomber stream for five minutes. A hundred and forty degrees. You fly back in in five minutes. Everything was — and you got back on course and you’ve only gone that bit and that’s where you lost a bit of time.
AM: Who made that decision?
EP: Well, it’s [unclear], it’s all, that’s what you’ve got to do as a navigator.
AM: It was the navigator.
EP: He told us. And we had H2S on there you know, which had an eighteen mile radius. He used to check with the pilot. He used to just tip the aircraft like that, to keep the nose, to keep them on course. You could be on course and off track you know. You could be there, on course, but off track in relation to the ground. See what I mean?
AM: No.
EP: You can be on course and on track.
AM: Right.
EP: That means you’re in the right position on the ground, in relation to the ground.
AM: So, what, what’s HS2? Is that the — ?
EP: That’s the big blister. I forget what it’s called but that — it had an eighteen miles —
GR: Radar.
AM: A radar.
EP: Radius. If you were going past some built up area and you knew what was there. They knew all this. You just had to just, skipper to the tip the aeroplane and it flickered, so it sent the rays out there. It picked the building up and gave you some idea. He was wonderful. You wouldn’t think he was on operations. Our navigator, Graham Rose. He was that all the time. Very vigilant. And he was plotting our position every six minutes. A little diamond on his route. Wonderful navigator. Wonderful pilot. Wonderful. I think this is why we survived. We were in the right place at the right time. I was asked that when they interviewed me at the Teesside airport, when the Canadian Lanc was there — how come I survived like that. I said, ‘I think we were in the right place at the right time’, and I’ve seen bloody aircraft blow up in the sky.
AM: Eric, Eric said didn’t he, another chap that we know, said that they kept safe all due to the navigator.
EP: Yeah.
AM: Who kept them in the middle of the bombing stream all the time.
EP: He was the main man, not the ruddy pilot in my eyes. The navigator was the main one in the bloody Lanc. Definitely. He wasn’t, I’d ask him to have a look, have a look at it. I’d step down. Have a look now. Your pals can’t see bloody much, there’s fog and there’s wingtips. They can’t see bloody much on the ground. It’s everybody else can.
AM: Did you ever get shot at? Well obviously, you got shot at. Did you ever get hit?
EP: Just with flak.
AM: Yeah.
EP: I remember I seemed to suffer more with that with the first crew I was with. We used to get out with all the paraphernalia and walk around the bomb site when we knew we could count. Flak mad.
AM: What? While you were still up there?
EP: No. When we landed.
AM: When you landed.
EP: You could walk around and see how many holes in it. And you could whip through ruddy wires that were all clipped together like that, whip through them like butter if you got hit by flak. You see, in my compartment, I had what they called Fishpond and you could see any aircraft underneath you, ‘cause you had it up. It could fly underneath you and shoot you down. We had no protection at all underneath, they used to fly and fire upwards into you. That’s how he shot. There was a show on recently. A bloody German fighter pilot, that’s what he used to do. Shoot them down like that. Shot many a Lancaster down. He was showing them in his logbook where he shot you down, even took the letters of the aircraft that he shot down, this German pilot. If you could see them, well you see with this Fishpond, it took the centre of the H2S and if an aircraft, a fighter were going underneath you or anything you would see them. It would blip.
AM: Did your gunners ever manage to shoot anybody down?
EP: Well, if they don’t fire at you, you don’t fire back at them, you just bloody ignore them. But what do you do if you get a fighter on your tail, there was a recognised corkscrew. Did you know that? If they’ve got a fighter in front of you know, to hit you, like, when you know you see the American things. They’re coming up the side but I don’t know how they do it, because you’d be all flying that way. He’s coming this way. See what I mean? Well —
AM: Because of the speed of the aircraft. And the guns.
EP: The German fighter’s going to fire came in front of you ‘cause you’re all going that way.
AM: Yeah. So, you fly into it.
EP: So, if he’s coming at you and you’ve got the back. If you come this way, you’ll hear the rear gunner telling him to corkscrew to starboard. Go like that with a Lanc. Take it down like. The German fighters got to come around like that. He breaks away and he comes down and he, and you come around and you come back up like that. And you can see the bloody propeller just fanning around with the force of gravity all the petrol away from the bloody, from the propellers. From the engine. You can just flip them around. You come go on to there and get back on course. Come at this again. They don’t fire at you. You just keep out of the way.
AM: You just keep out of the way.
EP: Don’t blow your — that you’ve seen them but night time, everything’s is black. You can’t see anything. And coming back fifty miles from base, this is another tip, I had to call up base to get the barometric pressure of the base so that the pilot could put it on his altimeter. Of course, there were no lights on. You’ve got to get other side before you can see the runway lights. And we had FIDO then. Do you know what that was?
AM: I know what FIDO was. Did you ever have to land at a FIDO airport?
EP: Yeah. One or two. I can always remember though the very first trip I did with this new crew, we went to, it think, was it? It was Chemnitz, I think, but we got, I got a call from Group headquarters. We had to go and land at Ford of all places. Yet we had FIDO on account of training command — a lot of them had landed there, but when you get a group broadcast, you’ve got to do what they say. We could have got down and landed at FIDO but I got a message, and we had to go and land at Ford, down near Southampton it was. I can always remember that, and we were stepped up to ten thousand feet. There was that many bombers needing to land there.
AM: What’s it like seeing that because it’s petrol burning, isn’t it? Along the runway.
EP: Aye. That’s all it is. It just disperses the fog. When you fly over, did I tell you, you drop like that when you’re coming in to land. There’s one coming this way, when you’re coming in to land and when you fly over, you can feel the aircraft drop down with the heat does it. But when we went to Ford there, course it’s a straight bloody bomber station. When we did eventually land, these women bloody controllers they were the ones. They used to make their voices very clear. They knew what they were doing. I used to — a women operators at flying control. They brought them all. They’d speak to every bomber ’cause they made touch with you there. Some were calling up on three engines, wanting to get down. Giving them priority, and they’d talk to everyone. Bring them all down like that, speak to every one of them. Then when we landed, where did we go, a little van used to pull up in front of it and big words, “Come on. Follow me”. This little — and you followed this little van and you followed, and he switched his lights off, and you knew that was where you’ve got to stop. The next day, you had to go and find your bomber.
AM: I was just going to say.
EP: There was that bloody many there.
AM: So, you’ve all landed. You’re there. What? And you’re at “foreign”, in inverted commas, airport.
EP: Yeah
AM: And that’s — where did you sleep? Just where ever you can.
EP: Pick your own. That was ok, you just picked your billet. There was empty billets.
AM: Oh right. Ok.
EP: You slept in all your flying gear, and maybe there was a meal for you as well, which you got every time you went on ops. You got proper eggs bacon and chips every time you went on ops. And when you came back, you got it. They were all rationed in Civvy Street. Yeah.
GR: Ford was the emergency landing base.
AM: Yeah.
GR: On the south coast.
AM: Yes.
EP: And the next day, they went to find our bomber and we get, I think, I don’t know whether we got fuelled up or something, but we were hedge hopping all the way back.
AM: What does that mean?
EP: Very low. We called it.
AM: Right.
EP: When you’re very low, you call it hedge hopping. I was that low. It took us about an hour to get back, it took us about an hour to get back because I had to phone up base. Call up base to let them know we were on our way. Did you know bomber aircraft wasn’t allowed to go in the air without a wireless operator?
AM: I didn’t.
EP: Navigator? Yes. I can remember when I was flying in the Whitleys. It’s in that book. The numerous air tests I did, with just me and the pilot. Used to always call for me from the sergeant’s mess. I could find, if he got lost on an air test, I could get him back to base. He didn’t have to have — that was why no aircraft was allowed off the ground without a wireless operator.
AM: Because you’re the connection.
EP: Well, you can call me.
AM: Back to —
EP: You can call it.
AM: Yeah.
EP: The navigator wants to make sure I can get a fix for him from in the air, as a wireless operator you know. There’s three stations in the country, you call that one up and these two are listening to him working you, so then you go through the procedures. He takes a bearings on you.
AM: Yeah.
EP: He takes a bearing on you, and he takes a bearing on you, and he plots them all on his charts and where they all cross — that’s your position.
AM: And tells you where you are.
EP: Five minutes after, you can ask him again if there’s nobody else bloody working them. And you turn them all together, you could see where you are in the sky. You needed a wireless operator all the time.
AM: Yeah.
EP: Yeah.
AM: Gary was telling me a story as we were coming up, about a day when you were ready to take off and your fuel gauges was showing nil.
EP: Oh, that was when the skipper got a DSO for that. We were the Master Bomber that day.
AM: So, what happened? Tell me. What was the story?
EP: We’d been training in the day time right. And the Army couldn’t take Osnabruck. Whoever was trying to take the opposition. So, when you’re doing training, cross country, if you’re not on ops, you’re doing cross country training and bombing in The Wash. And I’ve got to contact base every half hour and I got the [unclear] for me to return to base. So, we came back to base. We were briefed straight away and we were taken out to the bomber and we took off straightaway. That’s how urgent it was. Otherwise, you’re waiting for an hour, an hour and a half before you go, and we took off before we should. In the end, we got in and found we hadn’t enough petrol. Skipper said to Harry, ‘Can you work out how much we’ve got?’ So, he said, ‘We haven’t got enough to get us there and back’.
AM: So that was when it was Alex Thorne.
EP: That was Alex Thorne.
AM: Yeah.
EP: So, he said, ‘We’ll go and we’ll bale out over France’, so, we were taxiing out to take off, got to the end of the runway and he pulled in to one of the dispersals. Broke RT silence and then we had to get the fella — the bowser driver had gone to the NAAFI for his break and they had to get him back. And so, we got the navigator, we cut that leg off and dogleg to the target. Cut that leg out and go to that one. Time was going by. Cut that leg out and go straight to the target. We took off on the wrong runway and flew straight to the target. And we got, and that was the day the highest we ever got, we got up to twenty three thousand feet. I’ll always remember that. And I can remember as we were approaching the target, skipper was weaving to get predicted with the radar. And there was about six bursts of flak on our tail. Straightaway, the rear gunner said, ‘Dive skipper, dive’, and we were up at twenty three thousand feet that day and he put it in to a dive, and you can imagine them reloading and firing and I was in the astrodome looking out. You could see all the bursts following us down as we were going down. You could see all the bursts. You know that, you know the feeling when you’re the last one to go to bed. You go up the stairs, thinking some buggers behind you and that, when you’re a kid, and that’s the feeling I got. When you could, you wanted to go faster. And you ruddy, you could follow this flak burst. That split second earlier, they would have hit us. And of course, the skipper, we started, and all the bombers were approaching the target and we were coming this way, and the skipper got in touch with the deputy, and that’s how the raid went on. And the skipper got the DSO for carrying that raid. We were the Master Bomber that day. We had to go. Now, if we didn’t, it would have happened? No Master Bomber. The raid would have been a flop. But we couldn’t. They couldn’t. They would have promulgated. He got the DSO on that raid. It was on Nuremberg. Another raid. We did a Master Bomber raid on Nuremberg, and we were on the approach. We were approaching the target, we got, I think we were just going to drop our bombs, and we got a wall up and the aircraft went into a dive, and Harry said — he had his back up against the pilot, pushing the stick back for the skipper, and it didn’t respond, and all the bombs gone. It eventually responded on its own, but by the time he had he got it around, it had gone in to the [unclear], because the deputy took over and took them further into Germany. As if Nuremberg wasn’t being far enough. But this [unclear], we were all on our, weren’t we? They’d all gone, the raid was over. There’s these two fighters coming towards us, I could see the gunners were waiting for them. They were two Mustangs. Better aircraft than the bloody Spitfire by all means. And do you know what? One of them came right alongside us. He had his hood back and he was a coloured pilot, American, and he was smoking a big Havana cigar. To let the smoke out. What do you think of that? And the other one was on the other side, and they escorted us back a hell of a way and as soon as they left us, in no time, a Spitfire came alongside and escorted us back.
AM: And escorted you back. Was the one in the Mustang — were they the Tuskegee’s were they called?
EP: I don’t know, but it was a coloured pilot.
AM: Yeah.
EP: And he had the hood back to let the smoke out.
AM: With his cigar.
EP: Smoking a Havana cigar.
AM: Waggling his wings at you.
EP: True story that.
AM: Yeah.
EP: We were escorted back a couple of time, with a Lancaster once, then it got shot down. Jack Harrold. I think it was on the Ruhr. We got, we’d gone three engines and this bloody Lanc flew up alongside. I’ve got a letter from what the skipper wrote to him, I’ve got the letter somewhere, but he found out after he got killed. He got shot down that lad, and in his letter, he said, ‘Do unto others as they would do unto you’. He said, if I’d left you, because when you lose an engine, you know, you lose all bloody sorts, you know, ‘cause all your power and that to your guns and dropping your wheels and hydraulics, and all the power comes from your engine.
AM: So, it’s not just the engine. It’s everything that it was powering.
EP: So, if an engine bloody stops, you know, the ways you could lose if you. I don’t know which engine it was but if you lost power with that you can’t — your wings. You’ve got to drop your wings, crank them around to get to lock them. Now where I sat in my place, I could see, I could see the wheels. I used to tell. When the skipper selected me, when we were coming in to land anyway, you could see the wheels had dropped down and I could feel the power build up then. You could see them do that, and I used to tell them they’d done that. I let him know that at least they had locked. If you’ve got, if you hadn’t got the indication on your panel on the aircraft. It’s a wonderful bloody aeroplane, the Lancaster, wonderful aeroplane.
AM: Wonderful.
EP: I’ve got three hundred and fifty hours flying one, and I think about two hundred and seventy operational ones, and we used to, when we were going on ops or were going on bloody training, we used to do cross-country’s for the navigators. We’d meet up with a bloody Spitfire or a Mustang for the gunners to have, you know, for the fight, and in The Wash, there was a triangle in The Wash. Did you know that? We used to drop ten pound smoke bombs. You could see them. Just ten pound in weight. They were little tiny bombs for the bomb aimer and this used to fascinate me. When we, this was on the way back, that was part of the training, and when you, the pilot would make contact with the base [unclear], whatever, and we were going to drop these bombs, and you had to tell them what height you were at. Do you know what they used to use for the height? Angels. Now isn’t that nice? We’re at Angels 10. Ten thousand feet. Now, isn’t that lovely?
AM: Yeah.
EP: That was a difference of not saying ten thousand feet. Angels 10.
AM: Ten. Angels 10.
EP: Wasn’t that lovely? That’s what they used to tell us what height we were at, ‘cause you just had to keep flying low, turn around and keep coming back and drop a one or two. That was —
AM: So, was there continual training in between the operations then?
EP: Oh aye. You would turn up when you were on ops. Every day was the same. Saturday. Sunday. There was no Saturday and Sunday. Any day. Aren’t you saying something?
AM: That was to Gary who is sat with us. Aren’t you? Have you got anything to say Gary? Any questions? Any extra questions?
EP: I think he’s put a bit of weight on as well, you know
GR: Oh, thanks Ernie.
EP: Haven’t you. Eh?
GR: I’ve lost weight.
AM: Never mind weight. Have you got any questions?
GR: When did you get your DFM?
EP: After we finished, didn’t we? I was recommended for a commission you know, after the war. I think, you know, how that worked if there was officers left. Officer’s mess if a crew get approachable, two of his crew. Now Jimmy Rayment, the rear gunner and me, after we’d, we’d finished flying, I think, I think it was after we bloody got out of the ruddy bomber at Heligoland. That was the last trip I did. And he said he’d recommended us both for a commission. Of course, we got a fortnight’s, leave, didn’t we? We all went on a fortnight’s and while I was on my fortnights, we decided to get married, didn’t we? So, I waited for another fortnight to get my —
AM: Oh, I was going to ask you when you met your wife and all that.
EP: Because what they do — you ask for a fortnight. They say seven days granted.
GR: Yeah.
EP: So, I’d asked for a fortnight, I only wanted seven days and I got the bloody, I got the fortnight and during that fortnight, the war ended. I was married on the 5th of May and the war ended on the 8th, didn’t it?
GR: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
EP: Did you know that? I was on leave, weren’t I, and I got bloody posted to do another bombing, to another Pathfinder squadron. Off my leave. I thought, well what about my commission? They must have thought, well the war’s over now. We were surplus, or they’ve, ‘cause Jimmy, he went back, didn’t he? And he got his commission but I didn’t. I ended up in bloody India. I had to do something. I ended up in charge of flying control in India.
AM: I was going to ask you what —
EP: And this why, this is why I got the trip in the Catalina. Out there.
AM: So —
EP: I was then put in charge of bloody flying control out there. And I was dealing with flying bods coming from Hong Kong to the UK for demob.
AM: So, hang on. So, the war finished, then you got married.
EP: I got married on the 8th
AM: And then before demob —
EP: I got married on the 5th of May.
AM: Yeah.
EP: 1945.
AM: Yeah.
EP: The war ended on the 8th of May.
AM: Yeah. So then when did you get — so the war’s ended but obviously, it’s a long while before your demob.
EP: That was always first in were first out, but I did get, I was offered my class B release.
AM: What does that mean?
EP: Because I was a builder, wasn’t I? Joiner.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Yeah.
EP: They wanted you in Civvy Street then. Right. I was going to jump the queue and come out before I should do.
AM: So how did you end up in India then?
EP: The thing was if you, if you took your Class B, you go where they’re sending you and you got a fortnight’s leave. Well, I didn’t want that, I wanted to pick my own bloody job, so, I waited for my Class A release which was about five or six weeks after my release would have been up. I got, I took the month’s leave I was entitled to and I went and worked. Picked my own bloody job which was near home.
AM: Right. Tell me just —
EP: You had to go where they sent you when you did that.
AM: Just before you tell me about the job, tell me about going flying your Catalina and going to India.
EP: From Chelmsford I went, I think from there.
AM: Did you go on your own or were Harry or Boris or any of them with you?
EP: Lots of them were posted then until your demob number came up. It was always first in, first out, when your demob number come up.
GR: Was that just you Ernie? It wasn’t any of the other crew. It wasn’t Harry, or Boris or any of them.
EP: No. No. I think Harry — he went flying straightaway with Cheshire, didn’t he?
GR: Yes.
EP: Did you know that?
AM: Yes, I did. Yeah.
EP: Harry. Harry and Cheshire went up in to Scotland and bought two Mosquitos for seven hundred and fifty pound, and one of them only had twenty flying hours in. And Harry flew with Cheshire, setting up Cheshire homes in Europe.
AM: Yes, I remember that.
EP: Harry did that.
AM: So, where, where did, tell me again why you went then, before you were demobbed.
EP: I went to a place called Korangi Creek in India, near Karachi.
AM: And what were you doing?
EP: I was just — you had to do something until your demob number came. I ended up, I was in to accounts but I didn’t do it, go into it. I was in, it was a Flying Boat base which was in the process of closing down, and we were dealing with Sunderland Flying Boats coming from Hong Kong to UK for demob, and I used to have to deal with them. You see, once they left Hong Kong, they were my pigeon. Then when I left them — they left me, I had to organise petrol for them and all the meals and whatever. Fill them up. Then when I, then when they left me, Bahrain was the next stop. But it was, I used to wire Bahrain to let them know it was on its way. It was their pigeon. And it was there, and I used to, and these Sunderland Flying Boats used to take off the next day, and I used to arrange them for the meals for them and accommodation where I was, and I’d go with them to the launch with them, with the Anglo Indians, to see them off. And on this particular, we were in in this launch going along, and this Sunderland Flying Boat coming alongside me. Well, all of a sudden, for some reason, they turn off the bloody flarepath, like that, and this bloody fella driving the launch — he didn’t see him [laughs] and we were all bawling at him. There was a few of us on this launch with him, and I spoke to the pilot about it. He said, ‘I’m sorry’. I’ll always remember that. It was, and I think, do you know what? They approached me to join them. BOAC took it over. He said, ‘You’re a wireless operator. We need wireless operators. Why don’t you join us?’ I said, ‘Well I’m in the bloody RAF, aren’t I?’ When you get out you join us. We need wireless operators. I didn’t.
AM: Why didn’t you, why didn’t you?
EP: I wanted out. I’d already had enough of bloody flying, I wanted out, and they used to approach me. They had ones that would, they had their staff, we had ours. He said, ‘Why don’t you join us? We need radio officers in BOAC’. What might have — because I’d been pulled over the coals by the family for not taking it on. I wanted out, I’d done enough. Anyway, the thing was, I wasn’t up, when I was offered this commission. And the war ended. Whatever happened after that didn’t apply. But in a way — what they did with you, if you got a commission after you finished your flight, Transport Command they’d put you on. And I wanted out, I’d had enough of bloody flying.
AM: Yeah.
EP: But you never know. I’d been lucky up till then and that’s it. Only bloody birds and fools fly. But I wanted out and that was why I didn’t pursue it. I could have pursued it and they might have got me something earlier, and they posted me to another Pathfinder squadron, and I got posted from there. I ended up at Biggin Hill. I could always remember that. How [unclear] I was
AM: What were, what were you doing there?
EP: Just in transit all the bloody time ‘til they decided what to do with me. [Unclear] was there. I met up with him, he was at Biggin Hill.
GR: When did your demob finally come through?
EP: When?
GR: Yeah. When did you actually finish in the RAF?
EP: September ’46.
GR: ’46.
EP: See, another thing, if I accepted, if I’d accepted a commission — another way I looked at it. You get discharged out the RAF and brought back in as an officer, different number and that and you’ve got stay in at least twelve month from being a commission.
AM: Right.
EP: I thought I want out, I want out sharpish. I didn’t. it was another bloody twelve month before I didn’t come out. So that was it. I turned it down, I didn’t pursue it, but that was it. I ended up as a warrant officer which was automatic.
AM: Yeah.
EP: But my bonus out of the war was meeting to meet my beautiful wife. She was in the land army
AM: Where did you meet, where did you meet, Ernie.
EP: She was in the land army. She was in the land army in Wisbech.
AM: Right.
EP: I met her in the November. We were engaged and married in six month.
AM: So, she was in Wisbech. Where? Was that when you were based near there then?
EP: I was based at Downham Market.
AM: Oh, at Downham Market. Of course, you were. Yeah.
EP: I was based about fifteen miles away.
AM: Where did you meet her then?
EP: At a dance.
AM: At a dance.
EP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AM: What was she called, Ernie?
EP: Kathleen.
AM: Kathleen.
EP: Yeah. She was a lovely person.
AM: She was your bonus.
EP: I’d have died a thousand deaths to keep her. I could have packed. On Pathfinders, you know, you’ve got to do, they like to do two tours. Main force you do thirty.
AM: Yeah.
EP: Which is one tour, and you go away to be an instructor somewhere and they get you back to do another fifteen, but towards the end of the war, they weren’t doing that. They were just doing the thirty. Now, Americans only did twenty five, and then they went home, didn’t they? ‘Cause they all flew straight and level all the time, but we flew a different pattern altogether. Americans.
GR: Do you know how many ops Alex Thorne did in the end?
EP: He did about fifty three. Fifty four.
GR: Fifty three. Fifty four.
EP: Yeah, but I keep referring to this. When I read anything, I keep referring to this, it’s all in here.
AM: Ernie’s got his logbook.
EP: I’ll just show you some. An operational page [long pause] In red, it’s night time. Green, it’s day time.
AM: Yeah.
EP: And it’s, here in the, the number of ops I lost. On the fifty odd raids that I was on, we lost two hundred and seventy five bombers. But it’s the number of ops and the number of aircraft lost on that raid. So, it’s all, it’s a very interesting book this. Look at all. Look at that page for a kick off. In that. See all the —
AM: Yeah. I’m looking now at, I’m looking now at the different raids so Chennai, Dessau
EP: Chemnitz. See, all the times I was in the air is in the next column.
AM: Eight hours. Yeah.
EP: And the number of ops and the number of aircraft we lost. If you go the other way, that’s there’s some more. Some more. It’s quite a — one of my proud possessions that. Did you know, did you know when you’re selected as a Pathfinder, you’ve got to be marking and you get a certificate. You can be pulled up by the RAF police in the town. You could have a permit to wear those little gold wings. Did you know that?
AM: No.
EP: You’d have a permit and when you finished flying you got a permanent certificate from Bennett. I’ll show you.
AM: I’m looking, I’m looking at this one here. So, the operation — Heligoland.
EP: That was the last one.
AM: As Master Bomber, and then you’ve written in blue underneath, abortive sortie. So, there was a final abortive sortie after the Heligoland.
EP: That was, that was another one. I don’t know whether — I think if you can get within a certain distance, you can count it as one.
AM: It was like a quarter of an operation
EP: So, I did. So that’s it. it could have been fifty two. On the countdown. But go back to where you see more ops.
AM: Oh yeah. There’s —
EP: See.
AM: Yeah.
EP: Do you see all those amongst the people you interview?
AM: Yeah. Lots of people have got logbooks. Some haven’t but some do.
EP: Have you seen them all?
AM: Hmmn.
EP: How many had the DFM then?
AM: Sorry?
EP: How many had the DFM?
GR: Not many.
AM: I can’t. Not many.
EP: Do you know there were twenty thousand DFCs given out? Eight hundred and seventy DSOs. Six and a half thousand DFMs. This is why the DFM is more.
AM: Is more. It’s more.
EP: Did you watch that Antiques Roadshow the other night? Monday night.
AM: No.
EP: There was a lad on there. He’d had his grandad’s DFC, his medals, I have, and his logbook like that, and do you know how much they valued it at? Between three and four thousand pounds.
AM: Blimey.
EP: Now, I’ve got the Pathfinder certificate.
AM: The Pathfinder. Yeah. I’ve found the, I’ve found that one where you were Ford to base.
[Recording paused]
GR: Not with my interviews but when I’ve visited —
AM: So, I’m looking here at Ernie’s award of his Pathfinder Force badge, which certifies that, “1567159. Flight Sergeant Patterson, GE. Having qualified for the award of the Pathfinder Force badge and having now completed satisfactorily the requisite conditions of operational duty in the Pathfinder Force, is hereby awarded permanently his Pathfinder Force badge, issued on the 22nd of April 1945”. Signed by —
GR: Bennett.
AM: Bennett. Who was the air officer commanding of the Pathfinder force. And Ernie’s going to show me his badge in a minute, I think. What’s he fetching me now? I’ll try and get some scans of some of this information.
EP: This is, this is a permit to wear it before you get that.
AM: So, what Ernie’s telling me is that you have —
EP: You could be pulled up by the police.
AM: Come and sit. Come and sit down again and tell me about this
GR: Do as she says [laughs]
AM: So, the permit says, and it’s issued from the headquarters of the Pathfinder Force, again, to Flight Sergeant Patterson. “You have today qualified for the award of the Pathfinder Force badge, and are entitled to wear the badge as long as you remain in Pathfinder Force”, and again, signed by Bennett, Air Vice Marshall. So, what did the badge mean? Tell me. Tell me again. What?
EP: You can see them.
GR: It’s there.
AM: Yeah, but you were telling me. Yeah, I’ve got it. And you were telling me that if you were pulled up by the police
EP: RAF police. They used to have red hats on and —
AM: Yeah.
EP: In the town. Because people used to masquerade as wearing them, in the town, and wear it.
AM: Why. Why did they wear it?
EP: Swaggering.
AM: Oh, to swagger around in it.
EP: Showing off. That’s how they were. Another one.
AM: And I’ve got the letter from Buckingham Palace, “With the award that you have so well earned, I send it to you with my congratulations and my best wishes for your future happiness”.
EP: That’s what, that’s what appeared in the paper.
AM: And I’ve got a clipping in here from April 1945. A Darlington joiner gets the DFM.
EP: That was, that’s in the, I think that was taken on the —
AM: Blimey and I’ve got a picture here of Ernie with a wireless.
EP: That was 1154.
AM: I’m going to scan some of this stuff, but before we finish, I’ve switched it back on because I want you to tell me. I don’t — I don’t think it’s anything to do with the RAF, but you know your, your interest Ernie, in knowing all the different —
EP: I’m making sure my memory is still there
AM: Right. Hang on. Collective nouns.
EP: Yeah. What do you want to know?
AM: I want, I want to know loads of them. I want you to come and tell me some.
EP: You’ve seen the DFM haven’t you?
AM: But first of all, I’m getting to look at Ernie’s DFM.
EP: Have you seen some who have them?
AM: No, let me. I haven’t seen, I’ve not seen your one
EP: Of course they don’t
AM: Let me have a look.
EP: There’s the Pathfinder wing.
GR: That’s the Pathfinder wings which you wore
EP: There’s a Pathfinder wing.
AM: And there’s your DFM. So, the Pathfinder wing is actually a really beautiful — is it —
GR: RAF wing.
AM: Is it on a tie pin?
EP: Yes. It’s alright.
AM: And it’s the RAF eagle looking out towards the left. With the beautiful gold wings and the DFM, of course, is the one with the diagonal striped ribbon as opposed to the DFC one.
GR: And is the only medal with the recipient’s name on the edge.
AM: And is the only medal with the recipient’s name on the edge. Which I didn’t know. So, tell me some of these collective nouns.
EP: What time are you going?
AM: Tell me some, tell me some interesting ones.
EP: I’ve got dinner coming at 12 but I’ll put it –
AM: Why did you become interested in knowing what all the collective nouns are for groups of animals?
EP: I just read them. Some of them fascinated. Like a lot ravens. Unkindness. Isn’t that nice?
AM: A kindness.
EP: Unkindness.
AM: Unkindness sorry. Of ravens.
EP: Ravens. A lot of ladybirds. A love of ladybirds. Isn’t that nice?
AM: Lovely.
EP: Flamingos. A flurry of flamingos. A bale of turtles. A posse of turkeys. How many do you want to know?
AM: All of them.
EP: What they call a lot of moles. A movement. And that’s a nice name, isn’t it?
AM: A movement of moles.
EP: A movement, Moles yeah. And a lot of sparrows. A quarrel.
AM: A quarrel.
EP: You know what a lot of owls are. A parliament. A parliament of owls. It doesn’t sound right does it? Another nice one. A lot of snipe. Have you ever heard of a snipe?
AM: Yeah.
EP: A whisper.
AM: A whisper of snipes.
EP: Of snipe. Yeah, I looked them up.
AM: The wings just whispering. I could —
EP: And a covoy of pheasants. A covoy.
AM: A covoy.
EP: C.O.V.O.Y.
AM: I know that one.
EP: A covoy of pheasants.
AM: Yeah.
EP: No. Partridges that. A covoy of partridge. And a bouquet. A bouquet of pheasants. A town of giraffes. A crash of rhino. A pod of hippos. There’s lots of them. A destruction of wild cats. There’s a deceit of lapwing. An exaltation of skylarks. An ostentation of eagles. A mustering of storks. A flight of swallows.
AM: Just a flight of swallows.
EP: A flight. A flight of swallows. There’s lots of them. And what else? A sloth of bears. A sloth. A skulk of foxes.
AM: Some of them you can really see why and some of them you just can’t.
EP: Some are nice. And you get, what is it? A pace of donkeys, a barren of mules. You know why it’s called a barren?
AM: No.
EP: They don’t breed do they? They’re barren.
AM: Oh, a barren. Barren.
EP: Barren of mules. A mule is a cross between a donkey and a horse, isn’t it? They don’t breed mules. Did you know that?
AM: No. I did know that. But when you said barren, I was thinking baron.
EP: She can’t have kids, can she? I thought that was a good name for them. Mules. And you’ve got a charm of goldfinches. And a chime of Wrens. An army of frogs. A bevvy of otters. Do you know where otters live? Do you know what it’s called? Where otters live? A holt. H O L T. A holt. An army of frogs. A nest of snakes.
AM: What about toads?
EP: I don’t know about that one.
AM: No.
EP: But you get an array of hedgehogs. What do you call a lot of grasshoppers? It’s in the sky. What’s in the sky?
AM: Sun.
EP: Cloud.
AM: A cloud.
GR: A cloud.
AM: Oh cloud. of course.
GR: A cloud of grasshoppers. Yeah.
EP: I can remember the, what the great granddaughter — we met up with her when she was with her mum and dad one day and she had a pen and paper with her and I gave her fifty names.
AM: Brilliant.
EP: Yeah. That’s some of them. Some of them are a fascinating. Some of them — like a lot ravens. An unkindness. That’s my favourite. Nice, isn’t it?
GR: What was crows?
EP: Crows, a murder wasn’t it?
GR: A murder of crows.
AM: A murder of crows.
EP: That’s terrible that is. A mutation of, a murmuration of starlings and a mutation of thrushes.
AM: Is there one for swans?
EP: Eh?
AM: Swans.
EP: Swans. A bank.
AM: A bank of swans.
EP: That’s what it says. Some of them there’s three or four names for them but I just remember one of them.
GR: Yeah.
EP: A deceit of lapwing. An exultation of skylarks.
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 Ernie Patterson. One
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-08
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APattersonGE151008, PPattersonGE1501, PPattersonGE1502
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:14:01 audio recording
Description
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Ernie Patterson DFM was born in Middleton St George in Darlington. At the age of 14, he left school and took on a job as an apprentice Joiner.
He joined the Royal Air Force at the age of 19 in 1941, but whilst he was waiting to be called up, he was helping to build a bomber station and what is now Teesside Airport, also completing work at the satellite station of Croft.
Ernie trained as a Wireless Operator, where he did well with Morse Code. He did his training in February 1942. He was sent to Evanton in Scotland, where he also trained as an Air Gunner.
He flew Proctors, Whitleys, Dominies, Avro Ansons, Halifaxes, Lancasters, Liberators and had a trip in at Catalina Flying Board. Ernie flew with 635 Squadron, which was part of the Pathfinders Force.
Ernie completed 51 Operations, flying to Stettin, Chemnitz and Hanover. He was part of the Master Bomber Crew to Dorsten, Kiel, Nuremburg, Osnabruck and Heligoland.
After the war, he was in charge of flying control in India, handling the closing of a Flying Boat base and arranging for them to be returned to the UK.
Ernie left the Royal Air Force in 1946 and returned to work as a Joiner, retiring from work at the age of 78.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Vivienne Tincombe
635 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
B-24
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Catalina
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Medal
Distinguished Service Order
Dominie
fear
FIDO
H2S
Halifax
Lancaster
Master Bomber
Operational Training Unit
P-51
Pathfinders
Proctor
RAF Abingdon
RAF Downham Market
RAF Millom
RAF Stanton Harcourt
RAF Yatesbury
Sunderland
superstition
target indicator
training
Whitley
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8828/PStockerEE1601.2.jpg
dc2149cee1df664fefc275fb3f1a16c4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/560/8828/AStockerEE161013.2.mp3
a6ef8f8aef1748927c2931c8116ebbf3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Stocker, Ted
Edward Ernest Stocker DSO DFC
E E Stocker
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Stocker, EE
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker DSO DFC (b. 1922, 573288 Royal Air Force). He flew 108 operations as a pilot and navigator with 7, 35, 102 and 582 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-23
2016-08-30
2016-10-13
Rights
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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
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: So, I’ll just introduce myself. Make sure this is working OK.
ES: OK?
DK: I, I — you’re sometimes beaten by the technology. So, it’s David Kavanagh inter— interviewing Flight Lieutenant Ted Stocker at his home on the 13th of October 2016. I’ll, I’ll just leave that there. If, if I keep looking down, I’m not being rude, I’m just making sure it’s, it’s going.
ES: Er, I’m one of the lucky ones I suppose. If you’ve seen how many trips I’ve done, you’ll know I’m a lucky one.
DK: No, I’ve seen the statistics and they’re terrifying. It’s — they’re covered in your book obviously. What I wanted to ask you was first of all, what were you doing immediately before the war?
ES: I was in the Air Force. I was an apprentice at RAF Halton. I joined the Air Force in 1938, January ‘38, and I — when the war started, they — it should have been a three year apprenticeship but when the war started, they cut it down. They [cough], I did two years and three months I think, so I was a bit short, but they, to make up for the shortcomings, we lost our Wednesday afternoon sports and Thursday afternoon, er, Friday afternoon, um, drill so they stopped the apprenticeship short and gave us accelerated apprenticeship, so I came out. Oh dear, I was still an apprentice — I was an apprentice when the war started because I heard Mr — I was on church parade. We were at church, um, on the 3rd of September and, um, the padre cut his sermon short to say that Chamberlain was talking on, on the BBC and we would go back early so we could actually get in the NAAFI to hear the Chamberlain broadcast. Remember, in those days there wasn’t — radios were expensive but they were all batteries and batteries cost more than you earned in a week, so that’s why we had to use the, the NAAFI to hear the broadcast. Anyway, we heard this broadcast and we’re now at war, which was very good, nice to know [cough] because — as I’d just heard that news, I walked out of the NAAFI to go back to get my irons to go to the cookhouse to get some food and, um, the war had been on for a good ten minutes, maybe a quarter of an hour, and there was a snotty little PTI corporal said, ‘You’re on a charge. You haven’t got your gas mask with you. Don’t you know there’s a war on? You’re supposed to be carrying your gas mask’. I hadn’t — there wasn’t a war on when I left the barrack room and that’s where I left my gas mask [slight laugh], so that was a good start to the war. Anyway, I carried on, er, 1940, in April, March or something, my, er, my apprenticeship was foreshortened and I was passed out as an aircraftman first class. When you’re an apprentice, you can pass out either as an AOC, which there was very few of them (I think in our entry there were two), and an AC1 which was the middle of the road and most of us did, and AC2 which was those who weren’t very bright. And there had — I had a very good posting really, I was posted to Boscombe Down. So, unlike most of the people, when they left their apprenticeship, they went to a squadron and whatever aircraft the squadron had that was the aircraft they worked on but, being lucky, and going to Boscombe I had all sorts of aeroplanes. We had the first prototype Stirling I, I worked on and we had all sorts of funny fighters we were getting. The RAF took over aircraft that the French had ordered but the Germans rather stopped the Americans delivering to them so we took over things like the Mohawk and things and, um, so I, I got into working as a fitter on all sorts of different aeroplanes and then I applied for — I went in to see the flight commander and said, ‘I’d like a pilot’s course’, and he said, ‘No, you can’t do a pilot’s course with AC1. You’ve got to be AOC before you can apply for a pilot’s course’. Anyway, I went back to work and did some — my trade test and became an AOC. I went back into the flight commander and said, ‘I’m an AOC now, can I have a pilot’s course?’ He said, ‘You’ve got to be an AOC for six months at least’. Unfortunately, five months later they made me a corporal, so now I can’t be a pilot because I’m too valuable but then the first of the four engine, as I say all those — I worked on the Stirling, the first of the four engine bombers, and, um, they came with an AMO. They wanted exceptional AOCs, corporals and sergeants and the fitters trades, fitter trades to become flight engineers because before the war, you didn’t have flight engineers because they didn’t have any four engine aircraft, apart from the Stirling, and so I thought — Stirling, Sunderland flying boat, and, um, so I thought well — I didn’t [slight laugh], I didn’t know about this AMO until the flight c—, um, the flight clerk came down — I was working on an aeroplane — with this bit of paper in his hand and said, ‘The flight commander thought you might like to read this’. It was the first, er, call for flight engineers and flight commander had his head in his hand on the right way. He thought that was the [unclear] tell about it so I went back with the flight commander, flight clerk to the flight commander and said, ‘I’d like to be a flight engineer’. Well, I got that, um, sort of got back to barracks, about — it must have been within forty-eight hours, they really were desperate, um, I was called back to the flight commander, given an hour warning, sent off to, off to — where was it in Scotland? Er, oh dear, just north of inverness, north-west from Inverness? I was off on a three week air gunner’s course. I didn’t want to be an air gunner, I wanted to be a flight engineer but, um, I did the three, this three week air gunner’s course, flying in some decrepit old airplanes, and I was then posted to 35 Squadron in Linton as a flight engineer on Halifaxes. I hadn’t done, apart from being a fitter and the three weeks’ air gunner course, I was now a flight engineer. Fortunately, at this, they got the crew but they hadn’t got the airplanes. Point of interest perhaps, my flight commander at that time was a guy called, er, Leonard Cheshire, Flight Lieutenant Leonard Cheshire was my flight commander and —
DK: What were your feelings about Cheshire as a man?
ES: Well as a man [unclear], didn’t have a great understanding of aeroplanes, little or no knowledge of engineering but, um, he had the knack of flying the aeroplane. He could fly it quite well.
DK: Did you, did you fly with him at all?
ES: Only, er, local flying from the thing.
DK: And he was a competent pilot, was he?
ES: He was a — he seemed competent but a little bit slap happy. He talked myself and several other flight engineers, who were new to the squadron, up in the Halifax on a very nasty day in Yorkshire. We sort of took off straight into a cloud and he plugged into the intercom and said, ‘Now I’m running the engines on hot air because of the — to stop them icing up. I’m now going to switch two of them off onto cold air’. Of course, within about three minutes, they’d iced up and the engines had stopped. ‘Now you see what happens when you don’t use hot air’. Yes, I know but we’re flying in cloud at about three thousand feet somewhere over the Yorkshire Moors, no real radio, or any thought. It was a bit stupid. Stating the obvious.
DK: Was he a slightly eccentric man then?
ES: No, not slightly.
DK: No. OK. Completely [laugh].
ES: He was an academic from an academic background. I think he didn’t have a very high regard for engineers or any engineer, and, er, Paddy O’Kane was his flight engineer. He was an Irishman who kept — must have let his temper well under control.
DK: Were you, were you quite pleased to get down then after that flight?
ES: Oh, I wasn’t that — it was interesting. I thought I was too young to be too worried, I just didn’t like it. It knew it wasn’t the right thing to be doing [slight laugh] and, er, I messed about on the squadron there. As I said we were very short of aeroplanes, plenty of crews, there about three flight engineers to every engine, every aeroplane. But I just went back, a lot of us went back to working on the flights as a fitter, ordinary fitter again. And, um, I went there I think Ap— March or April ‘40. It wasn’t until October that I got a crew with an aeroplane, joined a crew and started operating over Germany. I wasn’t very impressed when we did start. We were supposed to be bombing Essen at night, and we — in those days they had very little in the way of range. When they dropped the bombs, I wasn’t that impressed. I said, ‘How –?’ I looked out and I couldn’t see how the hell they knew where they were, and listening to the navigator talking to the pilot, I don’t think he had that much of an idea. It was a very hit and run, well hit and miss, mainly miss, flying in the first few months of the war or the first few months when I started flying. But I, er, what did I do? Oh yes, I know. Early on, with the flight commander, by saying, briefing us for our second trip, ‘We’re going to Nuremberg#. It was rather a long way to Nuremberg from Yorkshire, particularly when we were flying in the early Halifaxes, which did not have as many fuel tanks as the later ones and I, being a sort of awkward bloke, I knew what fuel load we’d got and I had a chat with the navigator, he was another sergeant so I could talk to him, got the air miles and the fuel load and I did some sums. We haven’t got enough money to — enough fuel to get there and back let alone have a reserve and anyway, still being young and cheeky, I said to the flight commander, ‘Sir, I don’t think we’ve got enough fuel for this trip’. To which he replied, ‘Nonsense lad. Group know what they’re doing’. Well, they didn’t. We came back and I was keeping the throttles closed as much as I could, getting the best air miles out of it. We actually could see the airfield and when we crashed, we were almost within walking distance of the airfield [slight laugh].
DK: You just literally ran out of fuel?
ES: Yeah. Well, we ran out on one — because we were low, I was running, um, each side’s engines on all the tanks in that wing and, um, two engines stopped on one side, so I went down the back and put a cross feed on, um, and so I ran four engines off an empty tank but —
DK: So was anybody hurt in the crash or —
ES: Er, no. When we were sort of getting organised I, I‘d dumped the escape hatches over myself, the pilot and myself, and I was actually on — the skipper had started to bail the crew out. There should have been only two of us left in the aeroplane at that stage but the engines finally ran out of fuel and stopped and, er, we went down, hit the ground on a rather nasty bump, bounced over one hedge and landed in the next field and —
DK: So, there was just the pilot, yourself and one other still on board?
ES: Should have been the pilot and myself but we hit the field, the ground and bounced as I said. I was amidships with the hatch open there, the skipper was in his seat but the hatch over his head was missing, so when things grew to a halt, and the engines started burning, um, we decided to leave so the skipper came up on the wing next to me. I’d got onto the wing, which was the back edge of the wing because the undercarriage was up of course (when you’ve got to crash you don’t have the wheels down) and slid off the wing. The cows in the field didn’t like the intrusion. The skipper and I were looking around to find a quick way through and while we were doing so, a voice from behind said, ‘Wait for me’. It was the, um, the air gunner. He should be the first out. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten to take his parachute down the back. He’d left the parachute amidships by the door and he was actually in the fuselage, walking up the fuselage, to get this parachute pack when we hit the ground. Anyway, he got out alright and, um, we were going, er, out of the field and eventually, er, two ambulances arrived. ‘Are you injured?’ ‘No’. ‘OK, go away. This is for injured’. The other ambulance, ‘You’re not dead? This is for bodies’. So, we were still left there by the aeroplane and eventually the CO came over in his little car. As I say, we were within sight of the airfield when we actually hit the ground and the CO had driven over in his Hillman, and he sort of had a few words with the skipper. He kept well away from me. I told him we was short of fuel and I was bloody right [laugh]. But, um, he must have borne that in mind because, having done four operations with 35, um, I’m called in and told I’m going to a new squadron, where they‘re just going to get Halifaxes to instruct the flight engineers and pilots on the Halifax. I’d done four operations and there I am, I’m an instructor on 102 Squadron and obviously the CO at that time was a squadron leader, um, he’d got the message I might know what I’m talking about and there I was, an instructor. Much later on in the war he was the fli— squadron commander of the Pathfinder Squadron, I was the engineer leader and when he wanted to fly, guess who he took as his flight engineer? But, um, anyway I went to this 102 Squadron, had two qualified flying instructors to teach the pilots and things, and I had to explain the workings of the Halifax and things to the pi— new pilots and check up on the en— blokes that were posted in as engineers. And so there I was, twenty years old, telling these people. I said, um, the flight, flight commander who was the flying instructor, like me was an apprentice from Halton, trouble is he was about six years before me [laugh]. However, he thought, he must have thought I was making a good job of it, telling these people, because he suddenly called me into his office. He said, ’What do you think about taking a commission?’ A twenty-year-old sergeant. ‘Ay?’ I said, ‘Well you, you did it. What do you think?’ And he said, ’I think you should’. So, I suddenly found myself twenty years old, commissioned and — being commissioned anyway. I wasn’t actually commissioned at that time. I was put in for it. Later, on the Pathfinders, were starting and they were asking for crews and they asked for volunteers from other squadrons. There was a, a couple of Canadians, a pilot and navigator flew together, and they thought it would be a good idea to go to Pathfinders. Their flight engineer lived locally to New York so he wasn’t keen at all so, er, Hank, the skipper that was, he came to me and said, ‘We want a flight engineer. What do you think?’ I said, ‘OK. Put me down. I’ll go with you’, so I was posted to Pathfinders on 35 Squadron and, um, I was still a sergeant. And suddenly one day, the adjutant called, er, sent for me and I go to the adjutant’s office. The adjutant was sort of absolutely horrified, ‘You’ve been commissioned’, so I was the first flight engineer, one of the first flight — batch of flight engineers to be commissioned. Mind you, I did have to go for an interview at the Air Ministry first. It was quite an interesting one because at — down at Pathfinders at Graveley, which has its own station down the road to get straight into London, about an hour, three quarters of an hour ride to London so I knew, um, when I was told about this interview at the Air Ministry, I was flying that night. So went, you know, did my trip, came back, changed, had a shower, changed into my best blue, down the station and on the train up to Air Ministry for this bloody interview. I didn’t really know what it was all about but, er, they want to see me they can see me. So, I staggered into this interview thing and lots of sen— brass there, mainly group captains or wing commanders but there wasn’t a pilot or anything amongst them. They were all engineers you see, and, um, they didn’t know really know that much about it, they’d got to interview me and that was it. I sort of staggered in and I went asleep in the waiting room outside and they woke me up to go in, and I was sort of wiping the sleeping dust from my eyes as I went in for the interview. And one of these officious men obviously, um, thought I was on, been on the booze up in London that night, ‘Where were you last night?’ I gave them the name of the target [laugh]. Oh dear, atmosphere changed [laugh]. They gave me the wrong answer to the right question and, um, after that the interview went quite well. I ended up them telling them more about what went on than they knew about. Well, so that’s OK, so I’m told I’m commissioned, I go down to London with a bit of — coupons and some money and buy myself a uniform as a pilot officer. I go back to the office, back to the squadron and I get called in again, ‘We haven’t got a, what is it? An establishment for pilot officer flight engineer, only a flight lieutenant. You’re an acting flight lieutenant’. So I went, in about a matter of weeks, I went from a scruffy sergeant to a blown-up flight lieutenant [laugh] and I’ve been all sorts of flight lieutenant ever since. That was pilot officer acting flight lieutenant, flying officer acting flight lieutenant, war [unclear] flight lieutenant, end of the war flying officer acting flight lieutenant, er, proper flight lieutenant. There you go. I’ve been promoted to flight lieutenant so bloody often that I don’t know — but, um, that’s how it goes.
DK: So, so once you’re in the Pathfinder Squadron then, what was your — what did you do there? What were the Pathfinders doing?
ES: Well, it’s, um, the first thing they said was if you go into Pathfinders instead of doing thirty operations and being rested, you’ll do sixty. That didn’t last long. They cut those down to forty-five and —
DK: How did you fell about that, having to do two tours?
ES: Not too worried. I was young and stupid. Anyway, um, having being made a flight lieutenant, I was in charge of all the flight engineers, and when my crew finished their forty-seven, forty-five, they were posted away and I stayed on as flight engineer leader, and then suddenly somebody, something clicked, ‘Oh he shouldn’t be here, he’s done it’. And, um, I did, I did a couple more afterwards with other crews that hadn’t got an engineer at the time. And, um, shows you how stupid I was, I thought I’ve never, never tried — I’d like to try a trip as, um, a gunner so I volunteered to go on a trip as a mid-upper gunner on a flight just for the heck of it and, er, they suddenly realised I shouldn’t be there and I got posted straight away to a Training — a Pathfinder Training Unit. I arrived there just as 7 Squadron had taken a beating. They’d lost a squadron commander, two flight commanders and all the leaders. They had a hell of a time and so they suddenly they needed some experienced people in the Squadron, so they came to NTU to get them and, er, so they gathered — drew a few of us together and posted us to 7 Squadron. The only thing is, I hadn’t been there very long so before I knew where I was, I was back on op— on an operational squadron, on 7 Squadron, but they’d got Lancasters and I didn’t know a bloody thing about the Lancaster. The Halifax — I’d been on propeller courses, engine courses, er, aircraft course, airplane courses, everything and they had the, the Linc— the Lincolns. The Lancaster, I didn’t know anything about really apart from they had four Merlins and they were much the same as the Merlins in the, er, Halifax except they were made in America and had a better, er, better, um, type of — better design cylinder block, didn’t get internal leaks, and, um, I thought, ‘Well I must find out something about this aeroplane’. And I was still sort of feeling my way trying to find some books and things and they suddenly said, ‘You’re on ops tonight. Oh, and you’re a bomb aimer as well’. Because on Pathfinders, on Lancs, they used their flight engineer as a bomb aimer. Well, I don’t know a thing about bomb aiming and so they gave me a quick run through on the ground on how to set the bomb sight up and they said, ‘You better try it. Have a go’. They put, they put eight practice bombs on one of the Lancs then go off to a bombing raid, do my first bombing, eight, eight training ship. Trouble is, I dropped one and then the thing didn’t turn out right, the rest wouldn’t drop, so I had dropped one practice bomb. I was a bomb aimer with one practice and I’m on ops. I dropped four — about 80,000 tons of bombs, bombs that night, just practising [laugh] and that’s how life goes on.
DK: So as, as a flight engineer then, what did you prefer the Halifax or the Lancaster, once you got to know the Lancaster?
ES: If I was going to crash, I’d rather do it in a Lanc, in a Halifax. If I was going to go to war and not get shot at, I’d go in a Lanc. The Lanc was a much less sturdy aeroplane and it had the most diabolical position to bail out from. The, the door is right in front of the tail plane. On the Halifax the escape hatch in the fuselage is on the bottom corner of the fuselage and you dive out there, and the tail plane is way over. The only thing you’ve got to worry about is hitting the tail wheel. But, um, so if I had to bail out, I’d rather bail out of a Halifax and, um, I think I’d rather crash in a Halifax. It’s a much sturdier aeroplane, much — old fashioned pre-war des— design. The Lanc was a, a lash-up, um, it would never, it would never have flown, been allowed before the war because, um, aeroplanes had to fit in a hundred foot hangar. Well, the Manchester, which was the forerunner of the Lanc would go in a Halifax, in a hundred foot hangar, but when they took the Eag— Rolls Royce Eagles out and put a Merlin there, and then a bit of wing with another Merlin, that put an extra bit of wing on and the thing wouldn’t go in the hangar. So, it would, it would never have been allowed pre-war. But it, it gave an extra form of — the later Hali 3, they did have extended wing tips, they extended the wing on the Hali 3s which was a good solid aeroplane. I would like to have seen a Hali 3 with four Merlins, um, I think it would probably have been as good as the Lanc, but it didn’t —because it was built like — I was going to say a brick shit house [laugh]. As it was very well built, it didn’t have the same bomb carrying cap— capabilities and it didn’t have a bomb door, a bomb bay. The Lanc had this enormous long bomb bay which the Americans, the Americans saw that bomb bay and said, ‘Good God’, and so, um, you could you could carry a eight thousand pounder in a Halifax, which was two fours joined together, but it wouldn’t take any of the big things and it was very narrow and it had these extra bomb, er, bomb bays in the inner wing too. It wasn’t as well designed as the Lanc was. The Lanc wasn’t designed that way. It was a bit like Topsy. That was the way it grew. Yeah, I tried them both.
DK: As a flight engineer though, and purely as your role as a flight engineer, you preferred the Lancaster?
ES: Well on the Halifax, you had a much better instrument panel, you could see what’s going on, but you had a very complex fuel system. You started out with four tanks on the Hali 1s, early Hali 1As, that soon went to —from four tanks to — it went up again, and I think we ended up with 7 or 8 tanks in each wing and all little bits where they squeezed a bit in, um, which gave a very complex fuel system. To keep the CG right you had to keep messing about. I say the nose tank, number 2, which was on the leading edge of the wing, er, you couldn’t use that for landing or take off because of the change, sudden changes of altitude. So, the Halifax, you had — needed an engineer or somebody who knew what they were doing to manage the fuel system. The Lancs, with four bloody great tanks, you didn’t. Basically, you didn’t need a flight engineer on a Halifax, it was just another pair of hands, another pair of eyes and somebody else to keep an eye on the gauges —
DK: On the Lancaster, on the Lancaster, you didn’t need a flight engineer?
ES: No, but you did need somebody in the right hand seat.
DK: Right. OK. Yeah.
ES: And the flight engineer was cheaper than a, a co-pilot, a pilot, that’s really what it was, they were a cheap pilot substitute in a way.
DK: On the Lancaster so you didn’t need, really need a flight engineer on the Lancaster?
ES: Not as an engineer. I’ll tell you, the fuel cogs were two little handles but they had very big tanks. The Lanc, the Lanc, the original design of the Lanc was based on the premise that you would have sealed wings and there’d be a filler cap in the wing and you filled the wing up. But that meant that — that was fine until they said all tanks have got to be self-sealing, and you can’t put self-sealing on the outside of the tanks and that’s why they ended up putting little tanks in. But um, it’s a matter of history there. The Lanc arrived just at the right time. The Halifax was before its time and was outdated as soon as it arrived really but it was better than a Stirling.
DK: Yes. Did you fly ever on the Stirling or —
ES: Yes, I had, down at Boscombe.
DK: Not operationally though?
ES: No.
DK: No, no. So can you say a little about what the Pathfinders actually did and their, their role that was different to —
ES: Oh, quite different, um, initially it was a matter of, er, developing the technique. Don Bennett developed the tech— developed the, or developed the technique, I say, initially on Pathfinders, it was a matter — we had people going at H – 4 and dropping flares like mad and then other people following on trying to find the target. Later on, it got much more sophisticated. You still had the supporters and the important people in the H – 4. Supporters were supplied by the squadrons from the new boys in Pathfinders, this was in the opening stages. The crew in Pathfinders, first thing flying as a supporter, going in as H – 4 and, um, then later on getting promoted to being a flare dropper, still going in early, er, usually several rows of flare droppers, H – 4 and H – 2, and then you had the king-pins dropping the target markers, er, target indicators, from — with the light of the flares of the others and then once the master had put, um, put his marker on the target the supporters came along to keep it going. Basically, that’s all there was to it really, but it got a bit more sophisticated.
DK: Did you actually meet Don Bennett at this time?
ES: Oh yes. I knew, I met him.
DK: What did you think of, of Don Bennett?
ES: I — he didn’t need any crew. He knew it all. No, I was a great admirer of Don Bennett.
DK: You actually flew with him, did you?
ES: Yes, I did some — the first time we had a Hali 3 deli— delivered to, um, Graveley as a possible aircraft for Pathfinder Group because at that, at that stage we had Hali 2s, Lancs, Wellingtons, er, all in different squadrons. And Don wanted — was trying to get all his aircraft —
DK: Standardised —
ES: Same aircraft right through the Group, um, but anyway a Hali 3 had been sent to Bos— to Graveley for him to have a try. Well, he’d flown the Hali 2s and 1s, he was an experienced Halifax pilot but there was this Hali 3 he had been sent to try, so just he and I got into the aeroplane, nobody else, and he tried to fly the Hali 3. Well compared to the Hali 1s and 2s with four Merlins, four Hercules were a whole different proposition and one of the flight engineers’ job is following the pilot, as he opens the throttle, keep your hands behind so as if he moves his hands, the throttles won’t go back. And unfortunately, we were on the end of the runway, two of us in the aeroplane, not big fuel, no great fuel load, and he’s sort of half way up and I was following, and suddenly we were airborne. Now that was quite a different experience. Anyway completely opened the throttles, I held them and locked them open or locked them and that was his first experience of the Hali 3 and mine [laugh] but only the two of us in there anyway.
DK: But presumably, he then made the decision not the Hali 3, but go for the Lancaster then, did he?
ES: He flew the Hali 3 and he flew the Lanc.
DK: And he decided on the Lancaster then.
ES: Yeah, he was also — there was some talk of a teed-up Wellington with a pressure cabin.
DK: Oh right.
ES: It was only — I don’t think we even had one with us, I knew it existed and I’d seen pictures of it. They actually put a pressure cabin inside, inside the Wellington. It was quite a high-altitude aeroplane. I think they used it for high altitude research afterwards. Yes, so Don knew what he was doing and wasn’t wor— never worried, it was fine with him. A man than can take a tuner off, the control locks on, flies around Hamburg and land the bloody thing with the stick stuck.
DK: That’s what he did? The control lock was still on?
ES: Yeah.
DK: And he flew to Hamburg and back?
ES: No, he flew, took off from Hamburg. He should have been going to Berlin but he turned round, went round the airfield, and got it back down on the ground again, took off the control locks and flew to berlin on the Berlin shuttle.
DK: On the Berlin airlift.
ES: Yeah.
DK: On the Berlin airlift, yeah.
ES: Yeah. Oh, he knew what he was doing.
DK: So how many operations did you actually fly altogether then?
ES: Hundred and eight. Forty-seven on Wellingtons, on Halifaxes and sixty-one on Lancs. I know they say it isn’t allowed, you shouldn’t last that long. I hadn’t read the statistics [laugh].
DK: Well, if you didn’t know the statistics.
ES: It only happened by chance really. I did my forty-seven on Halifaxes and I was sent to NTU. 7 Squadron had a chop and NTU were asked to supply replacements. I was there, I was one of the replacements. They wanted a replacement, you know, they’d lost a lot of their top end. They wanted experienced people and I — so I was off operations for a few weeks and I was back on the Lancs, um, once I’d got through the — with first with 7 and then, um, 582 was formed, one flight from 7 Squadron and one flight from 156. I went there and, um, I just soldiered on. I was sort of a decoration round the place, I think I was a bit of a show piece. You know, a funny thing, when I did my hundredth operation, I was keeping quiet, I wasn’t making any fuss about it. But I used to help, deal with the crew list for the CO, and there was a young lad coming through as a skipper. He was a bit of a nervous type, he was worried because he was going to do his thirteenth trip. I thought, what the hell, I put myself down as his flight engineer. He came back and, um, we landed back at base and he said, ‘Ah that’s good, I’ve made my — done my thirteenth’, I said, ‘Well done. I’ve done my hundredth’ [laugh].
DK: And that was the first he knew?
ES: That was the first he knew. Nobody had reached three figures before. We’d lost two people at ninety-eight. We never lost one at ninety-nine but we did lose two at ninety-eight.
DK: Was there any recognition for the hundredth operation at all from the squadron or —
ES: Not from the squadron but I think there’s mention, um, in my DSO. I went over my hundredth anyway but, um, that’s really all there was. I got my DSO, I think I was the only flight engineer I think that did.
DK: How do you feel now looking back on that period [unclear] operations?
ES: I was lucky. I don’t know. It was my job. I was in the Air Force for a job and it was part of the job, sort of.
DK: And now if we move to the post war period. I was reading that you went to South America?
ES: Oh, I did the South American trip with Harris, yes.
DK: What was, what was Harris like?
ES: Well, he knew who I was when we got there [laugh]. But it was quite a crazy thing, we didn’t see much of him really. He was the top brass and we were the, we were the tail end. Funny thing is, when we first flew over, we went down to Gambia, went across to Recife, just by the mouth of the Amazon and, um, we had — Harris himself and his, his PA had been in America with the RAF during the war and they had the correct drill for America. They had long — they were in khaki but they had long trousers. We were issued with khaki appropriate to, er, West Africa but we had shorts. Oh dear, when we landed in Brazil, what a kerfuffle, ‘[unclear] get those men back in the aeroplane out of sight’. Anyway, we were pu— pushed back in the aeroplane and, um, the top brass, me, Harris and his little entourage and they were marched off to a decent hotel, and somebody came out to us, ‘Put your trousers on’, and we were allowed to go and get a meal as well [laugh]. It was ridiculous. We didn’t know what was going on.
DK: So, it, so it was three Lancasters you took to Brazil then?
ES: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. And how did they perform going across the —
ES: Oh, no problems there. Um, the fuel was — you had to watch the fuel. We weren’t over dressed for it. We didn’t have long range tanks or anything which are available, were avail— or eventually became available for the Lancs, but there was no problem.
DK: So, what was the purpose of the visit then? Was it just an invite for Harris by the Brazilians?.
ES: Brazil was our allies. They had a division fighting in Italy and we were there. We —the division for me — because Brazil did not declare war on Japan, er, mainly because they had too large a Japanese population. The only thing that the Brazilians did about the Japanese is they all had to live at least a hundred kilometres from the coast. That was the Brazilian, um, result of Japan entering the war, um, and their Army only fought in Europe with the American 5th Army and they came back. We were there when they came back. We were flying over them as they went down the main street in Rio, we were over— overhead.
DK: Oh, I see, so it was a kind of com— celebration for the return of their army, in effect?
ES: Er, you mentioned the three Lancs. Well, when we turned round to come back, one of them had engine trouble. It wasn’t my aircraft but of the flight engineers, I was the only one that could change an engine or knew anything about it so I ended up staying behind waiting for the new engine. And the Brazilians were very good, they gave us a lot of coffee beans and they were tied up in the bomb bay and the aeroplane was flown by the 617 Squadron crew, and 617 Squadron took off from the airport at Brazil, at, er, Rio, which is six hours from the, er, air— from the promenade. Um, being 617 Squadron, they didn’t have bomb bays. They weren’t used to bomb, bomb doors so they took off with the bomb doors open (because you always park with the bomb doors open), so they took off with them open and some of us left behind saw them turn out over the harbour and watched our coffee beans descend into the harbour.
DK: Oh no.
ES: One, er, bag didn’t detach and when we got back instead of getting a whole bag of coffee beans which were of course rationed around, almost unavailable in England, we had a two-pound bag of them. But anyway, yeah.
DK: So, after that, is this when you then went for pilot training?
ES: Not immediately, no. I went — I did an engineering officers course, um, I was already, although I was a fitter and a qualified fitter, um, I went on to — down to St Athan, I think for four months, an accelerated engineering officer’s course, filling in the gaps between what I’d been through, what I knew as an apprentice, what I knew as a flight engineer, just filling in the gaps. I come out as a fully trained flight engineering officer which was quite useful in the end. But I went back to the Squadron and I was then on 20, on 24 Squadron, the VIP Squadron, flying Lancastrians, er, VIPs around the place. I managed to save the life of myself, Sir Robert Watson Watts and Ralph Cochrane all in one go. I — if they’d gone down and I’d been with them. We had Lancasters, Lancastrians sorry, but they had a belly tank to increase the range, because the Lanc couldn’t fly the Atlantic, so the Lancastrian couldn’t unless they put long range tanks in the bomb bay. Since it was a [unclear] thing, it wasn’t a proper — it wasn’t a well thought out plan. The filling was, um, on the side of the bomb bay with the — the flight engineer had an extension which you undid a hatch on the bomb bay, took the cap off the, er, tank, put this extension on and then you could fill the fuel up, fill the long range tank up. Good idea. Well, on going to America we were carrying two flight engineers, so I was filling the port wing and the other guy was filling the starboard wing, and I filled my wing and I look down and this bloke who was filing the bomb bay, belly tank seemed to be having a lot of trouble, seemed to be stopping and starting and whatever. So, I went down to see what, you know, the problem was. We were out in the Azores and I don’t speak Portuguese so I was chattering away, took the thing out. No wonder he was having trouble. What was he putting in the tank? Engine oil.
DK: Oh dear.
ES: I had a quick thought, er, I could see us, another one in the Bermuda Triangle. We’d have been somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle when I switched over to that tank. We wouldn’t have gone much further. Anyway, I got him out of the way, and I go the crew and anyone standing around. I got a pan out from the side of the airfield and pushed the thing back and got the wheel, the bit, the tail wheel and a bit more of the fuselage over the grass, got my tool box out [slight laugh], undid the, this false bomb door that we had, it was only two sheets of metal, opened that up. I could then get to the Pulsometer pump, which was used to transfer the, er, petrol as it should have been to the wing. But fortunately, it wasn’t switched on I don’t think. I quickly disconnected it actually in case anybody did switch it on and, um, took the Pulsometer pump off and, er, of course all the oil flowed out, straight onto the grass, er, put the thing back on again, got the fella with the petrol bowser and put a couple of hundred gallons in the tank. I’m not paying [laugh].
DK: It makes you wonder if that happened in the past if —
ES: Oh yes. I think that’s what happened with MacMillan in the Star Tiger. A very similar installation on the, on the Tudor. The Tudor had the tank in the same position.
DK: Because several went missing, didn’t they?
ES: Yeah, well if you put oil in the bloody thing. The Portuguese people, they come out with the tanker and you can’t see what’s in the tanker. But, um, anyway I did, er, swirled this thing out, pumped this fuel, fuel oil mixture out with the Pulsometer pump, got a bucket with, um, pure petrol in, stripped the Pulsometer pump out down to its essential bits, washed out the inside, swirled it round and, um, pumped some, put some more petrol in the tank, swirled it round and hoped for the best, put the Pulsometer pump on and we got to Washington DC on that fuel. Otherwise, there’d be no me, no Sir Robert Watson Watt, no Sir Ralph Cochrane or anybody but, um, that’s what flight engineers are for, aren’t they?
DK: Exactly. I guess they, they never knew. Never knew how close to disaster they came.
ES: No, they were too busy scoffing. We didn’t get a meal, the other engineers and I didn’t get anything to eat at all until the other — Washington, actually Indianapolis. We didn’t stop long in Washington, then we went on to Indianapolis. It’s all a story.
DK: So, it was then soon after that you took the pilot training then, was it?
ES: Yes, ‘47 or, ‘47 I think I took the pilot training.
DK: And ended up on the Neptunes?
ES: No, I ended up on Lancasters.
DK: Oh right. OK.
ES: At first. As soon as I took the pilots course, I thought, ‘What’s going to happen now?’ Well, I’d been on Transport Command, been on Bomber Command. Oh, put him on Coastal Command. And what do they give him to fly? A Lancaster. And, um, I was flight commander on 217 Squadron and I was off to the States [slight laugh].
DK: And so how did it feel now you were a pilot of a Lancaster, after so many operations as a flight engineer?
ES: It seemed quite natural, though I must admit, when I first went as a pilot for the conversion course, as a pilot up to Kinloss, I had the first instruction for pilot. I’ll teach him all about the Lanc. He can teach me all about the Lanc [laugh], He knew who I was and I knew who he was [laugh].
DK: He couldn’t teach you much then?
ES: Eh?
DK: He couldn’t teach you much?
ES: Well, he didn’t bother. I sat there and listened to it all. You got to show willing and, er, that’s how it went
DK: So, once you converted to the Neptunes then, what were they like?
ES: A dream, a dream. You could do anything with them. They had these spoilers in the wing. When you put the spoilers on, when you put thing on, it went vroom. Of course, when we first got the Neptunes, all the top people wanted to fly them so we had a, a group of MPs come up to Kinloss to see us and find out all about these new aeroplanes. We didn’t, they were not our aeroplanes, the Neptunes, the RAF never owned any Neptunes. They were only on loan waiting, because the Sund— the Shackletons were late on delivery and these were taken as, in a sort of stop gap until we got — Avro got their finger out, started producing Shackletons. I quite enjoyed flying the Neptune. Nicest aeroplane I’d ever flown.
DK: Did you get to fly the Shackleton then, eventually?
ES: No. It was just a heavy Lancaster. The Neptune was a whole different ball game, you could do things with that.
DK: Do you think the Nim— Shack— Neptune should have been used instead of the Shackleton then?
ES: It was — the Neptunes were loaned, loan to us until we could get enough Shackletons delivered. They were only on loan. They went back to the States and went on loan to somebody else no doubt. Other — the Aussies they picked up two Shackletons, two Neptunes at the same time. They weren’t bare backed robbers but they bought theirs.
DK: Do you think we should have bought the Neptune then?
ES: I think they were better. I think it would have been a better deal than the Shackleton ever was. To give you an example, er, Churchill was coming back from America on one of the Queens, and the idea was that the RAF should go out to the mid-Atlantic and beyond to welcome him, and this was the plan and I was sitting in the mess having breakfast and saw the Shackleton taking off to meet Winny. Then I finished my breakfast, went down to flight, did my briefing, got into the aeroplane, flew off and once we got the Queen on radar I, we homed in over the Queen and then I looked on the radar and, oh yes, there’s a Shackleton coming in. We’d guide him in to —
DK: Because they were so much slower.
ES: Slower? They didn’t — they only had one speed. You see, we used to transit at ten thousand feet which gives you a much better air speed, but they did everything at about two thousand, the Shackleton, which gives us about a hundred miles an hour advantage at ten thousand. And, um, so anyway we guided them and we had a fly round the Queen and, um, Churchill could see them and then it was time for them to go. So, they went off there. We watched them go and a little bit later, we flew off and I was back in the mess when the Shackletons landed [laugh]. That’s the difference you see. They were no faster on attack really. I was going to tell you, when we first got the Neptune, a group MPs came up to have a look at it. My squadron commander, he was a hard drinking man, so we, after they arrived so I left, er, I had a dinner with them, and spoke to them and that and left the squadron commander to take care of them. He was quite happy drinking all night. Oh, that car’s — the car’s just driven two houses up and stopped there. Never mind, it’s not in your way. But anyway, they had there thing in the mess and the next morning they were going for a flight. Well, one of the things the Neptune could do which the Shackleton never got round to doing, was rocket attacks, [unclear] sixteen rockets, sort of equivalent of two, um, salvos from a cruiser and for a rocket attack on an aircraft, ship or submarine, your flying indicators about twelve hundred feet, and you put the nose down to about seventy degrees, take aim, fire the rockets. They were very, very accurate too. I say, to practice we had old wrecks of cars out on the range. You expect to hit a car with a rocket. It’s not that big a target but you hit a car with a rocket, a ship will be a big problem because of course the salvos, that car doesn’t fire back at you, but, um, we’d got two 20 mm cannons and a nose sight and they can do some damage. Anyway, so I take these MPs up and they’d had a good night out the night before [laugh], and I was flying at a thousand feet and we’re going into attack, vroom, MPs on the ceiling [laugh] and we go in and attack, fire the rocket, horrible. You got to have fun, you got to have your fun somehow.
DK: Were the MPs impressed by that?
ES: I don’t know [laugh]. They were quite quiet when we came back [laugh].
DK: I can imagine.
ES: Not used to big aeroplanes. They liked fighters. But I had fun.
DK: So, when did you actually leave the RAF then? What year would that have been?
ES: Oh dear. Oh, I just managed to — it was Army, aft— after, um, flight commander at 617. I spent some time doing my stint as a ground eng— ground fitter, a ground officer. I was quite lucky. I got rather a cushy number for my two years. I was posted out to Germany as adjutant with an AOP Squadron with Austers, and, um, it was when I finished my, just finishing my two years out there when the Army MO called me in for the annual medical, and he said, ‘You’re too deaf to fly’, And that was it. Oh yes, a bloody Army bloke, a Pongo got me out. Actually, he didn’t get me out, he said, ‘You’re unfit to fly’. The Air Force said, ‘You can stay in in your current rank until you reach retirement age’. Well, I was thirty-five, I didn’t want to do another twenty bloody years doing bugger all, nothing interesting, so I elected to take an early retirement. Been drawing a pension ever since. I’ve been drawing my RAF pension, this is the first month of my sixty-first year of drawing a pension.
DK: Excellent. Well, I think on that note we’ll —
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 Ted Stocker. Three
Creator
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David Kavanagh
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-13
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AStockerEE161013, PStockerEE1601
Conforms To
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Pending review
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:11:31 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Ted joined the air force in January 1938 as an apprentice at RAF Halton. This was accelerated because of the war, and he was posted to RAF Boscombe Down.
Although he wanted to be a pilot, Ted’s skills were needed as a flight engineer. He was posted to 35 Squadron at Linton-on-Ouse in 1940 where he encountered Flight Lieutenant Leonard Cheshire. Later that year, Ted found a crew and aircraft and started operations over Germany. After only four operations, he went to instruct pilots and flight engineers on Halifaxes at 102 Squadron.
Ted was posted to Pathfinders 35 Squadron and was the first flight engineer to be commissioned. After 47 operations, he volunteered and was sent for training as a mid-upper gunner to a Pathfinder Training Unit and 7 Squadron, who needed experienced people. He had to learn about Lancasters, which he compares in some detail to Halifaxes.
Ted outlines the work of the Pathfinders and how the system became more sophisticated. He encountered Donald Bennett and once flew with him, as well as flying with Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris to Brazil.
Ted flew 108 operations (47 on Halifaxes and 61 on Lancasters). He was awarded a Distinguished Service Order.
Ted did an engineering officers’ course at RAF St Athan, followed by 24 Squadron, a VIP transport squadron, flying Lancastrians.
After pilot training in 1947, Ted was flight commander on 217 squadron. He flew Neptunes, which he compares favourably to Shackletons. Ted was then posted to Germany for two years as adjutant with an Air Observation Post squadron and flew Austers. He left the RAF because of impaired hearing.
Temporal Coverage
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1938
1940
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
Vivienne Tincombe
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
102 Squadron
35 Squadron
582 Squadron
7 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crash
Distinguished Service Order
fitter engine
flight engineer
fuelling
ground crew
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Lancaster
Lancastrian
military service conditions
Pathfinders
promotion
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Halton
RAF Linton on Ouse
Shackleton
Stirling
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/10657/NHolmesGH161021-03.1.jpg
5190a63b7fc2262c295bad2d162d37b9
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Holmes, George
George Henry Holmes
G H Holmes
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Holmes, GH
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with Pilot Officer George Holmes (b. 1922, 1579658, 187788 Royal Air Force) his log book, records of operation, newspaper cuttings and photographs of personnel. He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 9, 50 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by George Holmes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
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2016-10-21
2017-01-14
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.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[photograph]
Squadron Leader J. L. Munro,
DSO, DFC
[inserted] W/C. WOODROFFE [/inserted]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Wing Commander Woodroffe
Description
An account of the resource
Newspaper clipping showing a head and shoulders photograph of a Wing Commander with a Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar ribbon and pilot’s brevet. He is wearing a name badge 'Woodroffe'. It is captioned 'Squadron Leader J. L. Munro DSO, DFC'. Below the caption is a handwritten caption 'W/C. Woodroffe'.
Format
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One newspaper cutting
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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NHolmesGH161021-03
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
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.
Language
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eng
Contributor
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Steve Baldwin
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
pilot
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2468/11768/AWhymarkR171103.mp3
d15b6bbb5d4a4b59a1d617d0068cd018
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
Whymark, Jack
John Percy Whymark
Description
An account of the resource
X items. <br /><br />The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Whymark DSO DFC (1920 -1945, 616289, 53481 Royal Air Force) and contains a<span>n oral history with his son, Robert Whymark. </span><br /><br />He flew operations as an air gunner with 103 Squadron and was killed 04 October 1945 during Operation Dodge. <br /><br />The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Graham Thurlow and Robert Whymark and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan. <br /><br /><span>Additional information on Jack Whymark is available via the </span><a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/230288/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-03
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
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Whymark, JP
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
[his log book, correspondence, documents, objects and photographs].
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RM: Tactical.
JM: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin and the interviewee is Mr Robert Whymark. And the interview is taking place at Mr Whymark’s home in Little Haywood in Staffordshire on the 3rd of November 2017. Robert, could you please tell us a little bit about your background and your awareness of your late father’s service.
RW: Right. Thank you, Julian. Very firstly my thanks to the IBCC for this opportunity and all the volunteers that are doing the work. I’m Bob Whymark. Only son of Jack, or John as he was christened. He was also known as Johnny. Flight Lieutenant John Percy, but we don’t talk about that, Whymark DSO DFC RAF. He was an air gunner. Robert is a name slightly out of the family tradition. I’m not sure where that come from. I don’t know of any others but the surname is originally Breton I’m told. We could claim 1066 and all that if we did the connection. There was a Robert de Whymark who was the Sheriff of Southend in 1086. They say everybody’s descended from a royal so we might be Harold the III’s lot. He was a big friend of William the Conqueror. However, more realistically we are immediately down from a load of farm labourers in Norfolk and Essex. I’ve gone back about mid-1700s. My dad’s father went to school with my other gran, my mother’s mother in the1890s in the village. My dad was born 10th of January 1920 in Grays, Essex. He had a sister nine years younger. He seems to have been quite bright because he got a scholarship to Palmer’s Boys College for secondary education. His first job was at the Bata Shoe Factory in Tilbury which was seven miles each way on a push bike. Rain or shine. Character building as we called it. He joined the Royal Artillery Territorials when he was fifteen, 1935 to ’38. And then he went into the Air Force in October of ’38 as a ground crew mechanic armourer. He went to St Athan for a mech’s course. I followed twenty-six years later in 1964. His first posting was 17 Squadron Hurricanes at Debden and Martlesham Heath. He was also on the Allied Air Strike Force in North West France, Le Mans, Channel Islands. The same time as Dunkirk was going on. He had to burn the Hurricanes as they French wouldn’t give us any fuel. He was evacuated in July 1940 and went air gunner for safety reasons as he told my mother. He’d gone to school with my mother. They had boys and girls separate schools with a fence between them of course. His best friend was somebody called Mervyn who married Eve who was my wife- my mother’s best friend. There’s more on that at the end of this tale. So, he went aircrew. Evanton in the Cromarty Firth was an air gunner’s training place and Salisbury Plain. There were two areas there. Twenty-four hours of flying time later he was put on first tour with 149 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall. December ’40 to April ’41. He was a Wellington rear gunner. He did fifteen ops from December to March over Europe. The first five all ended in some sort of tears. One with two crash landings, one shot up by anti-aircraft fire and two diversions for fuel. Then there was an outbreak of peace until operation number fifteen over Cologne where they were coned in searchlights for six minutes. I spoke to a guy who’d been coned at twenty thousand feet for about four and he said he’d never felt so helpless in all his life. After that 148 Squadron was formed in Kibrit which is on the Suez Canal. They also went to Malta. This again was on Wellingtons. April to September ’41, he did two hundred hours for a tour so that ended up as thirty-nine ops. He did twenty-four ops in North Africa. A lot of Benghazi’s and Malta in the thick of their bombing. They were actually bombed by a Junkers 88 on landing and ran off into the quarry which snapped the Wellington in half. People who know how they are built, which is rather like the Forth Bridge know that was quite an achievement. They also discovered when they got back one time that a shell had gone through the fuselage side to side. Didn’t explode of course. Nobody noticed. He then came home by troop ship from Suez, stopping off at Aden, Durban and Trinidad. He then had about two hundred hours of instructing duties at RAF Manby and West Freugh near Stranraer February ‘42 until October ’43. This was while the Battle of Berlin was on so he may have been rested from that or else I wouldn’t have been here. He did have one off operation mid-way November ’42. They used to take training troops and boost up the number of crews for some raids. He was detached to RAF Syerston, 106 Squadron. There was an American pilot who’d come up through Canada and over, Joe [Curtin?] He had a DFC from his first op which was while he was on pilot training. They’d been hit by a phosphorous shell in the cockpit and it blinded him for a while. The flight engineer kept it going and then he landed it. He got another DFC later on before he was killed. This was Guy Gibson’s squadron before the Dam Busters. Their op was to Danzig. Or Gdansk Harbour. It was ten hours fifty-five minutes in November of ’42 as a rear gunner. He went into Leconfield for fuel. So, it was fairly tight because it was only twenty minutes hop over to Syerston, between Newark and Nottingham. Back to West Freugh. Promoted to warrant officer and then at the end of that was commissioned. His second tour was from February ’44 to May ’44. Quite quick. 10 squadron- 101 squadron, sorry. RAF Ludford or Mudford as it was called, Magna. He did twenty ops in less than three months. The last one was his number sixty, the night I was born, 20th of May ‘44. He got a DFC for this tour. The first one was to Leipzig and there were seventy-nine aircraft missing which is about three hundred and fifty-three men, I think. No. Four hundred and fifty-three, I beg your pardon. He then flew in DV290 Lancaster five times. Once to Berlin, seventy-three aircraft were lost then which is four hundred and seventy-five people. The same, same as Afghanistan over fifteen years. Now, while those deaths were obviously terrible it does give a perceptive. Four hundred and seventy-five in less than eight hours. The Nuremberg raid — he should have been killed twice on that — ninety-seven aircraft were lost including the photo Mosquito the next day, plus eleven that crashed in UK on recovery. So, about six hundred and fifty people there. He’d flown in DV290 so many times he wrote it down again for that raid. It crashed at Welford near Newbury. They were all killed. Over the target they were nearly hit by a Halifax on its bombing run. He had to side slip. He also had a do at Aulnoy which was a railway yards in North East France. They were coned for nine minutes at six thousand feet with, “accurate flak” as he put it. A night fighter pilot got seven aircraft in two sessions there. He was cruising the searchlights. When the ack-ack stopped our crews knew that night fighters would come in. He must have been down refuelling when they were in the lights. Nobody knows how they got away with that. Another tactic the night fighters did was to attack the mid-upper gunner first as he couldn’t help the rear gunner. They did say that the rear gunner was the loneliest job in the aircraft, and I’m sure it was, but the mid-upper wasn’t that mid, it was quite well back and he could fire backwards. So, they took him out first if they could. The only time he’s recorded attacking anything was at over Schweinfurt where they were attacked by a Junkers 88. He said he fired three hundred and eighty rounds and hits on the fuselage. He didn’t claim anything and they were damaged by flak. He then did a gunnery leader’s course. And then third tour, which nobody could make you do, was from September ’44 to October ’45. That was on 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds. The main runway is now the slip road up to the Humber Bridge. It’s almost all Severn Trent Water. A heavy gravel type company operates on the main field and there’s a big industrial estate. One hangar is left. The big one. They can’t get that down. He was a mid-upper gunner on all of these trips. He was gunnery leader so he didn’t have a dedicated crew but was still busy. He started daylight ops then as well. He did a few Manna, Exodus and Dodge operations. That was dropping food to the Dutch, Exodus was re-pat of prisoners of war and Dodge was bringing people back from Italy. He did eighty-one ops but as he was grounded in January by the big boss he didn’t record all of them. Two or three veterans I’ve spoken to have said he was probably up to ninety-five or ninety-seven. His DSO citation says that he flew with weak or disturbed crews. Not a good idea I don’t think. There was a Canadian crew. [ Sachs?] was his name. It doesn’t say whether they were weak or not but he flew with him six times on the trot. Then he changed crews and they both went off to Dessau near Berlin and Sachs was shot down. His DSO for this tour was one of eight hundred and seventy to the RAF. As he was not a captain it was very rare, if not unique for a flight lieutenant to get that medal. Probably the leadership element came from his appointment as gunnery leader. He was then killed October, yeah October the 4th of 1945. This was a Dodge operation. He and the pilot were going mental doing admin, the pilot said. I’ve got a letter from him to his nephew. They picked up nineteen women passengers at Glatton or Honington, Peterborough Airport now. It was a filthy night. Many aircraft turned back to Istres, Marseilles, as did they after an electric storm and engine trouble, they radioed. I’ve spoken to crew members on this operation and they confirmed the weather. I’ve spoken to the navigator of the other aircraft that was with them and they were the last to talk to the aircraft. They were posted missing. Nothing was ever found. Six crew, seventeen ATS and two nurses were lost. A week before, twenty-five passengers, male, had been, went missing. Same area — plus a crew of six of course — same weather conditions. And a month later the same numbers. So, three Lancasters, ninety odd people all vanished within six weeks. No trace of any of them ever found. One of the girls was a Lance Corporal May Mann. She was engaged to a Warrant Officer Basil Henderson who was on General Alexander’s staff. And this is where Mervyn comes back in. He was waiting in Naples, Pomigliano for my dad. Basil was waiting for his fiancé. Basil had been the filter warrant officer for General Alexander’s staff and Mervyn had spent the whole of the North African Campaign trying to get past him. Basil eventually met my mother through correspondence over this accident and they got married in 1948. I was four. I remember Mervyn turning up, took one look at Basil, he spoke just like Lionel Jeffries, and he said, ‘Oh gawd,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose you’d let me in here either.’ That’s my first memory. That’s the family link if you like. Basil died in 2008, my mother in 2014. My dad of course, when he was twenty-five. He would have been ninety-eight in January. I’ve been through his logbook, I think he should have been killed about thirty-seven times properly. All raids were difficult, in fact even flying was because of crude navigation equipment — not the navigators — technical problems, maintenance was difficult, weather, and they used to say, lastly, the enemy. But he had some scrapes and lucky escapes by changing crews or aircraft or what have you. They say that for every one hundred aircrew, fifty-one were killed on ops, nine were killed in UK training type crashes, three were seriously injured, twelve were POWs, twenty-four survived. Now, if you’re very sad you’ll have totted that up to ninety-nine. I can only assume that the one spare bloke went AWOL or something like that. However, that’s the basics of his story. I — all I know is that I have no memories of him. Luckily, he met me. I know many people who were killed, their fathers were killed before they were born etcetera. So, we had a little bit more than they did.
JM: Thank you. Thank you very much.
RW: Alright. That was —
JM: Was, was your decision to join the air force in any way influenced by your father’s career?
RW: Yes. About fifty percent. I was at grammar school. I did two years in the fifth form to achieve four GCSEs. Mainly because of these guitars we’ve been talking about and I was trying to be Eddie Cochrane really, and I missed any sort of technical training. I was too old for an apprenticeship. I had a couple of years at the telephone manager’s office, telephone engineering, and then went in the Air Force as much for the education as my dad. But certainly, that was that. My stepfather had no problems about talking to me about it. He said — I remember him when I was four saying to me, ‘I want to marry your mother but I’m not going to make you change your name because of your dad.’ Well, I didn’t know anything about him then of course. But I found out later on. Mervyn, my dad’s best friend from school was a big help. He tidied up some puzzlement I had about this last accident because my mother had the idea that my dad had been pulled out of bed because somebody had broken their leg playing football or something. Well, he’d obviously had time to arrange it. In fact, they were all up at Brigg on the Monday. On the weekend before they had a big dance, probably for VJ-Day. She was up in Brigg, stayed probably at the White Hart. They all piled off back on Monday morning. He telephoned her to say that he’d be down on the Saturday. Of course, they took off on Wednesday, crashed on Thursday morning. The pilot was a big friend of his. He’d just been picked to be Bomber Harris’ personal pilot and he’d done some — he’d got a lot of hours but there’s not much about him, so I don’t know what he was up to. He may have been slightly clandestine. He’d written a letter to his family, I think they were in Leeds, and he said, ‘We’re going mad, Jack and I, so, we’re off to Naples’, he said, ‘I’ll see you on Saturday for my great coat.’ Right, he had a very young brother who didn’t have any kids ‘til he was about thirty-seven. So, he had a nephew of the pilot who’s the same age as some of my kids. He’s about fifty now. And all he knew was, his uncle — he thought he flew Lancasters, and he found the 103 site so he wrote to David Fell, the historian then. He passed it all to me and we emailed and I said, ‘Your uncle’s service number was —’ this that and the other. And it was weird talking to this lad. That I knew more about his uncle than he did. Now, we’d been brought up in just south of Middlesbrough because Basil was a Durham lad originally. He was living down in Harold Wood at this — during the war. ,He moved back up north. I said, ‘Where are you?’ to this nephew of Jeff Taylor’s, the pilot. And he said, ‘Oh. We’re in Thirsk.’ Which was about eight miles from where we were living. And he came over one Christmas Day and he had a crew photo and this letter. It’s a bit poignant. And I helped him a lot I’m glad to say. I’ve got a pile of research from all the veterans on 103 and other historical branches. They had my dad down as second pilot in one letter. So, I queried that, and they said, ‘Oh, he may have been in the bomb aimer position,’ because this last — these Dodge ops were part of bringing back the 8th Army who were about to mutiny. It was called Dodge because some cretin at Air Ministry decided they’d dodged D-Day by daring to be overseas for six years all through North Africa. I hope he was —had it explained to, you know. So, that’s what they were doing there.
JM: So, the nurses that were on board. The women that were on board. Do you know what they, what they were doing? What was their role?
RW: Seventeen were in the ATS. Army auxiliary.
JM: Territorials.
RW: Territorial girls. They were sort of secretarial I believe. And drivers maybe. They were all — they’d been right through the North Africa Campaign from Tunisia right through. My stepfather was at Dunkirk. He got off the last ship from a jetty. Didn’t have to do any wading out. Because he was a Durham lad it upset him because the Durham Light Infantry were left as a rear guard. He wouldn’t talk about that. I persuaded him to give me his medals to get mounted and we found he’d been mentioned in despatches three times. Which was — he was in the Supply Corps.
JM: Very unusual.
RW: So, that was one down from a decoration frankly and so on, but he was well thought of. He didn’t get back from Italy until 1946. They lived in Warwick Road opposite Earl’s Court and we moved. That was my first sort of basic memory is up from Chadwell.
JM: Can I —
RW: Yeah.
JM: For the tape. Can I just clarify, my understanding is that on occasions the Lancasters might well be full of Italian POWs going home, and when they got to Bari or to Pomigliano then there would be British servicemen coming back to the UK.
RW: Yes.
JM: And it was this route that these ladies were on when the aeroplane went down. It was the return journey.
RW: No. Going.
JM: They were going.
RW: Going.
JM: Right. So, they were going out to Italy.
RW: Yeah. It has been put in some research that was, not stolen from me, but passed on without my knowledge. I corresponded with a Canadian guy who’d been at Elsham in ’42 and he wanted to know if anybody knew anything of that era. I said, ‘Well, I don’t but you might be able to help me.’ Told him that story briefly and he crossed it over that we were coming back. They were coming back.
JM: That’s fine.
RW: But they were actually going out.
JM: Yes.
RW: Now, the army I’m convinced had lost these girls. They’d been up to Liverpool twice on, for a troopship which would have had to come right out around the outside of Ireland because of the mine fields that were still about. They weren’t reported missing ‘til this troopship docked a fortnight later. The army would not release any information. Basil, on the staff of General Alexander couldn’t find anything out. And his — this girl’s mother, Mrs Mann, she put an advert in the paper and my mother was told about that so they corresponded. I’ve got a lovely letter from Mrs Mann about this and she’s saying ‘We couldn’t find anything out. We’ve written to everybody.’ And my mother was able to put her in the picture immediately. In fact, this Mrs Mann was more — as — concerned about my mother losing her husband of course. And so on. They were living near Harold Wood.
JM: Another aspect of it which is interesting and I don’t understand clearly is we are now in peacetime —
RW: Yes.
JM: It’s the October of 1945. The war has been over some months and yet the Lancasters were still carrying gunners. Why was this? Because you would have thought that had they not had those there would have had room for more passengers.
RW: Yeah. I’m not — I don’t think they’d removed the guns but that wouldn’t have affected the number of passengers. My dad was basically doing admin. I think he was virtually on a jolly as we call it.
JM: Right.
RW: Hence this bomb aimer’s position. Crowd control or what. I’ve seen how they load up the Lanc for that when I was instructing at Cosford. They’ve got a museum and there’s a big clump of them in the middle and then they go front to back for weight and balance. So, fifteen was in the bomb aimers position. It would be a cosy little fit. Sixteen was right at the back by the toilet you know. Which was no fun. There were nineteen passengers. So, there was a number fifteen. So, it’s nineteen to one whether my dad was sitting next to the, this ATS corporal, my stepfather’s fiancé. Which would have been a bit spooky.
JM: Yeah.
RW: Her middle name, funnily enough, was Eleanor. Which my stepfather said he never knew. He had her shoe brushes as a souvenir which was what you used to do. My mother was Eileen and my dad called her Eileena. And he always said that if he knew he was going in he’d shout her name out. Now, she says that on the day, Thursday morning, she sat upright in bed thinking she’d heard his voice. And then they got a phone call that night from a friend of his at Elsham. He said, ‘Look, they’ve gone missing. I’ve asked them not to send this awful telegram,’ which they did. He said, ‘I’ll come and see you. I’m on my way to Ramsgate. I’ll drop in on you at Grays,’ near Tilbury, in Essex. Now, that’s a bit of a trek by train and stuff for him so that was very good. He turned up on Saturday morning with my dad’s father and it all came out. He’d got the full chapter and verse by then.
JM: Yes.
RW: But the army would not tell anybody anything for some time.
JM: My understanding is that the passengers in the Lancaster would sit on simple seats and they had no oxygen which would have —
RW: Yes.
JM: Limited the height at which they could fly at.
RW: Yes.
JM: Is that correct?
RW: Yes. And the heating wasn’t brilliant either. But they were both — there were two of them with passengers from Honington. I beg your pardon. That should be Conington. It was because of Honington and Coningsby they called it Conington. I hope I’ve got that right. Yes. It was an American B17 base so they knew. The, Glatton, was on the other side, there was a grass strip for Spitfires and such. Different accents. Yeah, they were sitting on rudimentary canvas seats or their kit bags. You’d think something like that would have floated up to the top but it didn’t. Three times.
JM: Do you have a theory as to what caused your father’s aircraft to crash?
RW: They did report to the other guys that they were down at two thousand feet. I went off the point there because I spotted that mistake. They were down at two thousand feet. They were in a filthy electric storm. The other two, ten minutes behind. The other aircraft was in pitch black but clear, if you understand that. They could see Corsica so they knew they were that far. They crashed off Cap Corse which is the north point of it. There are sort of pot holes in the sea so there’s — the three other crews saw an explosion or fire on the sea, they knew what they looked like of course, and they plotted a latitude longitude which I’ve plotted myself. There was a misprint in one of the reports which made it east-north-east of Cap Corse which was too far, too close to Italy. It was the other way, west-north-west. And that was that. But as I say, they were both low down. The rest of them — there was about twenty aircraft up that night going — they went over high level because they were on oxygen and whatever. Yeah.
JM: So, it might well have been weather related.
RW: Well it was —
JM: The electrical storm may well have been a factor.
RW: Yeah. They were struck by lightning. Or, they did report engine trouble so they were turning back to Marseilles they said.
JM: Robert. Thank you very much.
RW: Ok.
JM: Is there anything you wish to add? You’ve given us a very, very, thorough account.
RW: Right. Good. Thank you very much. No. If anybody wants to get in touch by all means. I’ll pass my — I’m on record with the IBCC people. And, Julian, I’m sure will be able to —
JM: Yes. Absolutely.
RW: Tidy up the link.
JM: Yes.
RW: But I’ll be delighted to help anybody with any further information or questions.
JM: Thank you very much on behalf of IBCC. Thank you very much Robert.
RW: Thank you.
JM: Thank you.
RW: Cheers, Julian.
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 Robert Whymark
Creator
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Julian Maslin
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
2017-11-03
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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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AWhymarkR171103
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:30:54 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
North Africa
Poland
France--Cape Corse
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
Poland--Gdańsk
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945-10-04
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Whymark’s father John ‘Jack’ Whymark took part in three tours of operations. Initially Jack was trained as a mechanic and was posted to 17 Squadron at RAF Debden and RAF Martlesham Heath. He then volunteered for aircrew and trained as a gunner. He was posted to 149 Squadron, 106 Squadron, 103 Squadron and 101 Squadron. He was killed when his plane flew into a storm en route to Italy as part of Operation Dodge.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Emily Bird
101 Squadron
103 Squadron
106 Squadron
149 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Hurricane
killed in action
Lancaster
missing in action
Operation Dodge (1945)
RAF Debden
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF Manby
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Syerston
RAF West Freugh
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/11929/[1]DAVID AND THE RAF2 [2].pdf
35b5401702ea96880cafe22e9866fad0
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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Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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DAVID AND THE RAF
My brother David’s very distinguished wartime career with the RAF - two DSOs and a DFC, and promotion to Wing Commander at 28 - warrants a separate appendix to these family notes. He has kindly helped me to compile it by giving me the run of his log books, and I have supplemented them from a number of other sources.
He became interested in flying in the early 1930s. I recall him taking his small brother of 9 or 10 to an air show at Eastleigh and abandoning him while he went up as passenger in a Tiger Moth doing aerobatics. That may well have given him the incentive to join the RAF Volunteer Reserve in 1934 as a weekend pilot. He did much of his training at Hamble, on the Solent. When war broke out in September 1939 he was called up immediately and had to abandon his legal training. He spent the “phoney war” towing target drogues at a bombing and gunnery school at Evanton in Scotland. His log books show him rated as an “average” pilot.
At the end of April 1940, just before the Germans attacked in the West, he went to Brize Norton for intermediate training (earning an “above-average” rating) and then to Harwell for operational training on Wellingtons, the main twin-engined heavy bomber of the early war years. On 20th September, just as the Battle of Britain was ending, he was posted to his first operational squadron, No 149, part of No 3 Group, at the big pre-war air station at Mildenhall. His first operational sortie was over Calais towards the end of September, no doubt to attack the invasion barges.
Over the following five months he took part in some 31 night raids. The German defence at this time was relatively feeble by comparison with what was to follow, and so the tour was correspondingly tolerable; however bitter experience had shown that day bombing was much too costly, and the night bombing techniques were very inaccurate. His first raid on Berlin, at the end of October, was particularly eventful; they got hopelessly lost on their return, came in over Bristol, and ended up over Clacton as dawn was breaking with very little fuel left. There both the Army and the Navy opened up on them, and even the Home Guard succeeded in putting a bullet through the wing. They eventually made a forced crash landing at St Osyth. The Home Guard commander, a retired general, entertained him generously and he finally got back to Mildenhall where his Group Captain forgave him for the damaged aircraft and advised him to go out and get drunk. He took the advice, and in the pub he met a WAAF whom he married eight months later (maybe that is why he remembers that particular day so well.)
The gauntlet of Friendly Fire seems to have been a not uncommon hazard to be faced. On another occasion, when he had to make three circuits returning to Mildenhall, the airfield machine gunners opened fire on him from ground level; he thought they were higher up and judged his height accordingly, and narrowly missed the radio masts which were not, as he thought, below him.
The longest raids on this tour were trips of over ten hours to Italy: to Venice, which they overflew at low level, and to the Fiat works at Turin. He described the latter raid, and the spectacular views of the Alps it afforded, in a BBC broadcast in December 1940. The commonest targets were the Ruhr and other German cities, and some raids were made at lower level on shipping in French ports. The raid which won him the DFC was on 22nd November, on Merignac aerodrome near Bordeaux, which “difficult target he attacked from a height of 1,500 feet and successfully bombed hangars, causing large fires and explosions. As a result of his efforts the task of following aircraft was made easier ......... He has at all times displayed conspicuous determination and devotion to duty.”
It was at Mildenhall that he featured in a series of propaganda photos by Cecil Beaton,
“A Day in the Life of a Bomber Pilot”; they were given a good deal of publicity and in fact David appears in one of them on the cover of the recently published video of the 1941 propaganda film “Target for Tonight”, also made with the help of 149 Squadron - though he did not take part in the film. Beaton describes the occasion at some length in his published diaries, though he has thoroughly scrambled the names and personalities, and he “demoted“ David from captain to co-pilot in his scenario.
On completion of this tour, early in March 1941, David was detached on secondment to the Air Ministry to assist with buying aircraft in North America, and later to ferry aircraft within North America and across the Atlantic - he flew the Atlantic at least twice in Hudsons, taking 12 hours or more.
The “chop rate” in Bomber Command increased substantially during the first half of 1941. [Footnote: The average sortie life of aircrew in the Command was never higher than 9.2 and at one time was as low as eight, and during the dark days of 1941-1943 the average survival chances of anyone starting a 30-sortie tour was consistently under 40% and sometimes under 30%. In one disastrous raid, on Nuremburg in March 1944, 795 planes set out, 94 were shot down and another 12 crashed in Britain. During the war as a whole, out of some 125,000 aircrew who served with Bomber Command, 55,500 died.] This coupled with increasing doubts about the value of the results obtained led to a serious decline in aircrew morale. During the summer of 1941 the Germans had considerable success with intruders - fighter aircraft attacking the bombers as they took off or landed at their own bases. At the end of September David returned to No 3 Group and joined No 57 Squadron at Feltwell, still with Wellingtons. His third raid, over Dusseldorf on October 13th, was particularly difficult; they were badly shot up and with their hydraulics out of action they crash landed at Marham on their return. After two more raids the strain finally proved too much and he was admitted to hospital just before Christmas 1941; for the next two months he was there or on sick leave. From then until mid-July he was Group Tactical Officer at HQ No 3 Group, and not directly involved in operations. In July 1942 he was posted to No 15 Operational Training Unit, at Harwell and Hampstead Norris, where he spent six months as a flight commander flying Ansons and Wellingtons, though he did participate in one raid on Dusseldorf while he was there.
In spite of the appointment of Harris early in 1942 and the introduction of the Gee radio navigational aid, results were still considered disappointing, particularly over the Ruhr, and serious questions were raised about the future of Bomber Command. To improve matters, in August 1942 the elite Pathfinder Force was set up under Don Bennett, albeit in the face of considerable opposition from most of the group commanders who were reluctant to lose their best crews to it. At least initially, all the crews joining it had to be volunteers, and to be ready to undertake extended tours. Their task was to fly ahead of the Main Force in four waves: the Supporters, mainly less experienced crew carrying HE bombs, who were to saturate the defences and draw the flak; the Illuminators, who lit up the aiming point with flares; and the Primary Markers and Backers Up who marked the aiming point with indicators. Their methods became more and more refined as the war went on. The increased accuracy required of them, and their position at the head of the bomber stream, inevitably exposed them to greater danger and a higher casualty rate than those of the Main Force.
No 156 Squadron was one of the original units in the Force; it operated from the wartime airfield of Warboys with Wellingtons until the end of 1942 and thereafter with 4-engined Lancasters, the very successful heavy bomber which was the mainstay of Bomber Command in the later years. The squadron flew a total of 4,584 sorties with the loss of 143 aircraft - a ratio of 3.12%. David joined it in January 1943, again as a flight commander. In the following four months he carried out a further 23 raids (all but one as a pathfinder) in Lancasters. The log books note occasional problems - “coned”, “shot up on way in”, “slight flak damage”, and so on. [Footnote: "Coned" = caught in a cone of converging searchlights, an experience which he says put him off hunting for life.] Much of the period became known as the Battle of the Ruhr, though other targets were also being attacked. He told me once that the raid he was really proud to have been on was the one where instead of marking the targeted town (I think Dortmund) they marked in error a nearby wood, which the main force behind them duly obliterated; only after the war did the Germans express their admiration for the British Intelligence which had identified the highly secret installation hidden in the wood.........
One of the pages in his log book has a cutting from the Times inserted, evidently dated some years later, recalling how in April 1943 the spring came very early and the hedges were billowing with white hawthorn blossom. This puzzled me until I read in a book on 156 Squadron how that blossom had come to have the same significance for them as the Flanders poppies of the 1914-1918 war.
David was promoted to Wing Commander half way through the tour (pathfinders rated one rank above the comparable level elsewhere), and awarded the DSO towards the end of it. The recommendation for this said that he had “at all times pressed home his attacks with the utmost determination and courage in the face of heavy ground defences and fighters. As a pilot he shows powers of leadership and airmanship which have set an outstanding example to the rest of the squadron” - and Bennett himself added, noting that David had just flown four operational sorties in the last five days, “he has provided an example of determination and devotion to duty which it would be difficult to equal.”
On the end of this tour in June 1943, he was sent to command No 1667 Conversion Unit at Lindholme and later Faldingworth. In December 1943 he transferred to a staff appointment at the headquarters of the newly formed 100 (SD) Group at West Raynham and later Bylaugh Hall. At this stage in the war the methods of attack and defence were growing increasingly complex, and this group was formed as a Bomber Support Group, including nightfighters, deceptive measures, and radio countermeasures (RCM). In June 1944, just after D-Day, he was given command of No 192 (SD) Squadron based at Foulsham, another wartime airfield. This squadron had been formed in January 1943 as a specialist RCM unit, and it pioneered this type of operation in Bomber Command; it flew more sorties and suffered more losses (19 aircraft) than any other RCM squadron. While RCM and electronic intelligence were its primary purpose, its aircraft often carried bombs and dropped them on the Main Force targets. RCM took a number of forms - swamping enemy radar and jamming it with “window” tinfoil, looking for new radar types and gaps in its coverage, deceptive R/T transmissions to nightfighters, and so on - and one of the attractions of the work was the considerable measure of autonomy, and the freedom to plan their own operations. These extended to tasks such as searching for V2 launch sites (recorded as “whizzers” in David’s log book) and trying to identify the radio signals associated with them, and supporting the invasion of Walcheren in September. The squadron was equipped with Wellingtons (phased out at the end of 1944), Halifaxes and Mosquitoes, plus a detachment of USAAF Lightnings.
This role was the climax of his career, and lasted until the end of the war and after. It involved him in 25 operational sorties, all in Halifax IIIs, the much improved version of this initially disappointing 4-engined heavy bomber. They carried special electronic equipment and an extra crew member known as the Special Operator. The record of these sorties in the log books, for the most part so formal and statistical up to this point, becomes a little more anecdotal: “rubber-necking on beach” (when he took two senior officers to see the breaching of the dykes at Walcheren), “Munster shambles”, “Lanc blew up and made small hole in aircraft [but only] 4 lost out of 1200!” The furthest east he went was to Gdynia in Poland; on returning from there he had the privilege of becoming the first heavy aircraft to land at Foulsham using the FIDO fog dispersal system. “Finger Finger Fido” was the cryptic comment in the log book.
A number of these sorties were daytime; on one of them, on September 13th, he was chased home by two ME109s which made six attacks on him. One of them opened fire but thanks to violent evasive action his aircraft was undamaged: his own gunners never got a chance to fire. No doubt it was skill of this sort, as well as his survival record, which gave his crew great faith in David’s ability to get them home safely. An encounter on December 29th 1944, on a Window patrol over the Ruhr, was not quite so satisfying; they claimed to have damaged a Ju88 which subsequently proved to be an unhurt Mosquito X from Swannington - and the Mosquito had identified them as a Lancaster. The log entry concludes “Oh dear. FIDO landing, flew into ground. What a day.”
He was awarded a bar to his DSO in July 1945. The recommendation, made in March, recorded that “since being posted to his present squadron he has carried out every one of his sorties in the same exemplary fashion and has set his crews an extremely high standard of devotion to duty and bravery. This standard has had a direct influence on the whole specialist work of the squadron.
“He has been personally responsible for the planning of all the sorties carried out by his special duty unit and by his brilliant understanding and quick appreciation of the everchanging nature of the investigational role of his squadron, much of the success of the investigations performed by his aircraft can be attributed to him. He has shown himself to be fearless and cool in the face of danger, and towards the end of his tour made a point of putting himself on the most arduous and difficult operations.
“Both on the ground and in the air he has been untiring and has not spared himself in his efforts to get his squadron up to the high standard which it has now reached.”
The squadron was disbanded in September, by which time David had completed 501 hours of operations against the enemy in 86 sorties, the great majority of them as captain of his aircraft. He had no ambition to make a permanent career in the RAF; he has commented to Richard that this fact gave him a degree of independence in his dealing with his superiors that he thinks they appreciated and valued. He was demobilised in November and returned to his interrupted law studies.
* * * * * * * * * *
I showed these notes to David, who thought them well written but suggested that they gave a twisted view of the reality - a reaction that I can understand. Since then, however, I have managed to contact one man who flew with David: H B (Hank) Cooper DSO DFC, who first met David in 149 Squadron which he joined in January 1941 as a wireless operator / air gunner for his first tour, and later did two tours as a Special Operator in 192 Squadron, the second of them under David's command. On two occasions he flew as a member of David's crew.
He has written of David that "he was always completely fearless and outstandingly brave and pressed home his attacks to the uttermost. As the Squadron's CO he generated loyalty and warmth, he was an outstanding model to follow. He spent much trouble and time encouraging his junior air crews as well as helping and seeing to the needs of the ground technicians who serviced the aircraft, generally in cold and difficult conditions. He was completely non-boastful, in fact he belittled his own actions (which were always of the highest order) when discussing air operations. [That rings very true!] He was an outstanding squadron commander in all respects, much liked and completely respected by all his air crews and ground crews."
G N D
March 2002
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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David and the RAF
Description
An account of the resource
Account of Wing Commander David Donaldson's RAF career from his early interest in flying and joining the Royal Air Force volunteer reserve in 1934, call up in 1939 and operational tours on 149 Squadron, 57 Squadron, flight commander 156 Squadron pathfinders and commanding 192 (special duties) squadron. Includes training, descriptions of notable operations and incidents, postings between tours to headquarters and training units, pathfinder techniques, radio countermeasures and award of two Distinguished Service Orders and a Distinguished Flying Cross.
Creator
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G N Donaldson
Date
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2002-03
Format
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Four page printed document
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BDonaldsonGNDonaldsonDWv1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Hampshire
England--Hamble-le-Rice
England--Eastleigh
England--Oxfordshire
England--Norfolk
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Scotland--Evanton
England--Suffolk
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Bristol
England--Essex
England--Clacton-on-Sea
Italy
Italy--Venice
Italy--Turin
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dortmund
Netherlands
Netherlands--Walcheren
England--Berkshire
France
France--Bordeaux Region (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Poland
Poland--Gdynia
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Gloucestershire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1934
1939
1940-04
1940-09-20
1940-10
1940-12
1941-10-22
1941
1941-04
1942
1942-07
1942-08
1943
1943-01
1943-04
1943-06
1944
1944-06
1944-09-13
1944-12-29
1945
1945-07
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
100 Group
149 Squadron
15 OTU
156 Squadron
1667 HCU
192 Squadron
3 Group
57 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
FIDO
forced landing
Gee
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Ju 88
Lancaster
Me 109
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
P-38
Pathfinders
pilot
propaganda
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Evanton
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Feltwell
RAF Foulsham
RAF Hampstead Norris
RAF Harwell
RAF Lindholme
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Warboys
RAF West Raynham
target indicator
training
Wellington
Window
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[RAF Crest]
8188547
F/O Ashworth C. W.
OFFICERS'S MESS,
R.A.F. STATION,
MORETON-IN-MARSH,
GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
TEL. MORETON-IN-MARSH 34 AND 64
Dear Wing Commdr Donaldson,
I would like to thank you & S/Ldr Kendrick for your good wishes on my award, which came as a complete surprise to me, in fact until I received your letter I has no idea of it, I feel very happy and pleased on getting it.
I am on the last few days of a 2 week Instructors course at Little Horwood, & last week we were fortunate enough to be at home on our day off, when Japan gave in, so I was able to celebrate the end of the war at home. How this will affect the O.T.U. courses I can't say, but obviously we can't keep taking new courses in.
Since leaving the squadron I found it hard to settle down, & I am sorry to hear that 192 is now close to dissolution, I shall always remember my stay there with you.
I would like to offer you my congratulations on your Bar to the D.S.O. I was very glad to [sic] it announced in the Aeroplane last week.
Please remember me to
[page break]
[circled 2]
S/Ldr Kendrick & the Adjutant & the other friends I left at Foulsham, I do hope everyone is going on alright & I wish you the best of luck for the future, & thank you for your kind letter.
Yours sincerely
[underlined] C.W. Ashworth [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to David Donaldson from Flying Officer C. W. Ashworth
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks David for sending good wished on his award. Describes current activities at Little Horwood. Congratulates David on the award of bar to Distinguished Service Order. Comments that he is sorry that 192 Squadron is close to dissolution.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
C W Ashworth
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-08-19
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EAshworthCWDonaldsonDW450819
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-08-19
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
192 Squadron
Distinguished Service Order
RAF Foulsham
RAF Little Horwood
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
H.Q. Northern Ireland
Lisburn
Co Antrim.
14/July/1943
Dear David
I have heard via my mother that you have soared to the dizzy height of Wing Commander and that ypu have achieved a D.S.O into the bargain.
Please may I offer my very best congratulations
[page break]
on these truly olympian achievements. Now you cannot say D.S.Os are two a'penny as you said about your D.F.C. and I am sure they were both very well deserved and hardly earned.
It is avery good thing to hear that you are finnished with operational [word deleted] flying which will be a great relief to your
[page break]
wife and mther.
It seems to have fallen to my lot to remain in Ireland for a length period but I cannot truly say I am sorry as I like it very well here.
I shall look [character deleted] forward to meeting your wife one day annd also introducing you to mine.
Is there any possibility of you visiting these pats again on duty? If sobe sure to let me know.
Yours
ever
[undelined] Farrar [/underlined]
M.C.F Bell.
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 David Donaldson from Farrar Bell
Description
An account of the resource
A letter to David Donaldson congratulating him on his award of a Distinguished Service Order and on his promotion to Wing Commander. Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
M F C Bell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-07-14
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EBellMCFDonaldsonDW430714
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Northern Ireland--Antrim (County)
Northern Ireland--Lisburn
Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-07-14
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Distinguished Service Order
promotion
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
24. Ranelagh Road
Winchester
26.VII.45
My dear David
I am so sorry not to have written before this to congratulate you on the Bar to your D.S.O. - You are indeed a nephew to be proud of – though I have no doubt that you will merely remark that it is all merely a lottery & so on & so forth! (But [underlined] we [/underlined] don't agree so you may as well refrain!). I was away a good deal last week & since I came back I have been grimly working my way through a list of 17 letters, which I stuck up in front of me and & crossed off when written – new ones get added every day, which is rather discouraging – like one of the more imaginative forms of purgatorial punishment or Sisyphus with his Stone.
I got your message from Irene about the cheque: it came rather aptly on top of the decoration, didn't it – sort of “for a good child”!
I have just got my cheque for royalties
[page break]
rather less than half what it was last year (which was enormous) – but still a very nice sizeable little packet. Apparently there is not only a paper shortage – but very few printers and binders – the old ones who came out of retirement for the war are retiring again & the de-mobbed ones are not yet on the job. So books will continue scarce – Still I can't – & don't complain. I think I am very lucky
Lots of love
from
Nettie
I don't know how to add the Bar on the address – so please forgive the om[deleted]m[/deleted]ission!
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 David Donaldson from his aunt A E Clark
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to David Donaldson from his aunt Nettie congratulating him on the Bar to his D.S.O and talking briefly about her publishing – royalties and printing shortages.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A E Clark
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-07-26
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EClarkAEDonaldsonDW450726
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Hampshire
England--Winchester
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-07-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Distinguished Service Order
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
St. Andrew’s
May 19th. 43.
My dear Joyce
Dorothy wrote yesterday & told me about David’s D.S.O.. Isn’t it splendid - I do feel quite set up with pride and pleasure! I don’t know David’s address so I must just leave it to you to pass this on to him. I am so glad.
I am spending two comfortable days with nothing to do except enjoy myself with the Head of St. Leonards School St. Andrews. This is a lovely old house – weather, after being incredibly bad nearly all the time for three weeks, has quite suddenly become perfect and St. Andrews – which is always like a little old grey town out of a fairy-tale – is almost too good to be true. But all along the sea-front the trees & flowering shrubs look as if they had been scorched – scarcely a leaf or a flower, from the terrible N.E. gale of Saturday week. I was at Aberdeen & it was awful.
I shall be back on the 25th – but I
[page break]
am very much afraid I shall be too late to see you & Frances. I [underlined] am [/underlined] so sorry. Anyhow this brings much love to you all three & please tell David how awfully pleased I am.
This doesn’t need an answer you know!
.With love from.
Nettie
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 Joyce from his aunt A E Clark
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to Joyce Donaldson from his aunt Nettie. Writes she has heard about David's Distinguished Service Order and asks her to pass on congratulations. Describes her current activities, weather and local area of St Andrew's.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A E Clark
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-05-19
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EClarkAEDonaldsonJ430519
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Scotland--Fife
Scotland--St. Andrews
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-19
Distinguished Service Order
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/11964/EClarkDMDonaldsonDW430529-0002.2.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
24 Ranelagh Road
Winchester
May 29th
[deleted telephone no.]
[deleted] Kenython,
St Just,
Cornwall. [/deleted]
Dear David
I do feel so bad at never having written to congratulate you on your D.S.O. I was most frightfully pleased when I heard of it & feel very proud indeed of you. I was also delighted last Sunday when your Mother presented me with one of your latest photos. It has been so nice having a chance of getting to know Joyce while she has been at Brambridge House & also being able to see your charming daughter. She really is a most attractive infant as well
[page break]
as being a model one. Nettie is just back from Scotland & having encountered snow up there, has now come back to a real summer. I was glad to see your mother looking better again last week. How I wish this cursed war was over & that everyone, but most of all you people, could settle down to our old normal existences.
The best of luck to you & again many congratulations
With love
from Dorothy
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 David Donaldson from Dorothy M Clark
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to David Donaldson from his maternal aunt, Dorothy Clark, congratulating him on his Distinguished Service Order and catching up with family news. Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
D M Clark
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-05-29
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EClarkDMDonaldsonDW430529
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Hampshire
England--Winchester
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-29
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
Distinguished Service Order
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
24 Ranelagh Road
Winchester
July 22nd 1945
Dear David
I was away in Haslemere when the [word deleted] news of your latest honour came through. The very best congratulations & I am sure you well deserve the honour. I feel proud of my godson!
I am so glad that you have the chance of a house in London, though I gather it will need a good bit doing to it.
We were at Brambridge this afternoon & a letter from Ian in which he spoke of hoping to be home [word deleted] in September. Certainly it does
[page break]
not seem as if the climate agrees with him. How tantalising to think of him & Norman in different hospitals in Calcutta & neither knowing the other is there. Your mother said she had cabled to both & one only hopes the cables arrive before either moves on.
My love & renewed congratulations
Your affectionately
Dorothy.
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 David Donaldson from his aunt Dorothy M Clark
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to David Donaldson from his aunt Dorothy congratulating him on his second Distinguished Service Order. She comments on news about David's brothers, Ian and Norman, who were both independently in Calcutta. Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
D M Clark
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-07-22
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten l;etter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EClarkDMDonaldsonDW450725
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Hampshire
England--Winchester
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-07-22
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Distinguished Service Order
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[circled 1]
Please note change of address} [arrow pointing to new address]
From:- H B Cooper [Hank]
15 Renwick Park (West)
West Runton
Norfolk NR27-9LX
[underlined] 21-03-02 [/underlined]
[underlined] Dear Norman [/underlined]
Thanks very much for letting me see a copy of your “write up” about David (Don) and his time in the RAF. Take it from me that it is factually correct in all aspects. But of course Don was always larger [word deleted] than “facts” and I will try and say what I mean in a Post Script at the end.
I first met Don in 1941 in B Flight of 149 Squadron at Mildenhall. He was a fairly senior captain of a crew when I arrived in Jan '41 as a Wireless Operator /A G. W/Cm Speedy Powell [* see comments] was the Squadron C.O. and [inserted] S/Ldr [/inserted] Sawrey Cookson was our Flight Commander. Other namrs which I am sure Don will remember are:- Franks – Fisher – Wand. I left on rest in Sept '41 – awarded MID.
I was recalled to Ops in mid 1943 to 192SD Squadron as a Special Operator (recording German radar and Don appointed Squadron CO early in 1944 and we renewed memories of our time in 149 Squadron I finished my 2nd tour Mayish 1944 (awarded DFC) and was posted on rest to Air Ministry London. People in 192 which again I am sure Don will remember are :- Roach Willlis (Station Commander) – Harry Crow – Jimmy Magdon - “Ken” Kendrick – Leslie Banks etc.
[word deleted]The job at Air Ministry was awful – no flying – no pals – no squash - no beer ups and I
[page break]
was constantly on the 'phone to Don to see if he could get me back to 192 for another tour of Ops. Some how he managed this and I returned to 12 September ish 1944 and started a 3rd tour in 192 under the command of W/Cmdr Don. I completed this tour April 1945 (awarded DSO).
There our RAF paths finished; but during this time I went on two Ops with Don:-
1) 17/9/44 – Halifax 706 – War Operations – 7.35 hrs
2) 19/2/44 – Halifax 706 – War Operations – 7.50 hrs
I then went into GPO (B/T) management and as Deputy Manager of the City of London B/T [inserted] (1978) I “sacked” one of my staff – his Union took the case to appeal which was duly heard by the Appeal Board under the Chairmanship of DWD. I did not contact Don before the hearing but afterwards (it went in our favour) I 'phoned Don and we had a long natter.
Thats about it
Yrs etc
Henry Copper
(Hank)
[underlined] P.S. [/underlined]
I am sorry to hear that Don is poorly in health – but perhaps some of the names I have mentioned will strike a chord. I shall never forget him.
Hank
[page break]
[underlined] Post Script [/underlined]
I (H B Cooper) served with David Donaldson on 149 Squadron (Bomber Command) at RAF Mildenhall in early 1941 and later on he was my Squadron Commanding Officer (W/Cmdr) on 192 SD Squadron at Foulsham Norfolk.
He was always completely fearless and outstandingly brave and pressed home his attacks to the uttermost. As the Squadron's C.O. he generated loyalty and warmth he was an outstanding model to follow. He spent much trouble and time encouraging his junior Air Crews as well as helping and seeing to the needs of the ground technians [sic] who serviced the aircraft generally in cold and difficult conditions. He was completely non-boastful, in fact he be-littled his own actions (which were always of the highest order) when discussing air operations. He was an outstanding Squadron Commander in all respects, much liked and completely respected by all his Aircrews and Ground Crews.
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 from Hank Cooper to Norman Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to David's younger brother Norman. Hank thanks him for the opportunity to see a copy of Norman's write up of David's Royal Air Force career and confirms that it is factually correct. Hank reviews his association with David and aspects of his own career. He mentions crossing David's path in his subsequent career as an Industrial Tribunal Chairman in 1978. Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
H Cooper
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2002-03-21
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ECooperHBDonaldsonGN20020321
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--London
England--Cromer
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-01
1941-09
1943
1944
1944-09-12
1945-04
1978
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
149 Squadron
192 Squadron
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Halifax
RAF Foulsham
RAF Mildenhall
sport
wireless operator
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Brambridge
Wed. July 18
Dearest David
I cannot tell you how pleased & thrilled I was when I arrived home last night & Mrs Masters said she had a message for me, but it was a nice one, and when she told me I was so afraid that she had not got it right, & whether it was a bar to the D.S.O or D.F.C & then the miserable telephone went out of order like it always does at Brambridge & so I could not ring anyone up to tell them.
But I have got hold of tonights Echo & its in there alright, and now all I want to know how does one address a D.F.C. & DSO & Bar, are you really now so grand that I merely put D.S.O etc.? I have been going round looking superciliously at everyone all day
[page break]
& thinking to myself, none of you poor things in the road have got a son who is as grand as mine, the result being that I forgot to hoot going over the bridge here & nearly had [word deleted] a collision with a car coming in the opposite direction - . I have managed to control myself all day and have not told anyone, leaving them all to see it for themselves in the Echo
Papa is up in London & the telephone having recovered I have just rung him up to tell him. He was supposed to be staying at the Goring Hotel, but when he got there they said they had to board him out & sent him on to a place in the Cromwell Rd where he found he had to share a room with a stranger & “there was no lavatory accomadation [sic] so he fled to the Aunts, who as usual acted nobly and took him in, although Eric was already
[page break]
staying there . - He was duly suitably impressed & for once did not disown you & explain you were nothing to do with him, which is what he generally does if he thinks any of his family are distinguishing themselves at all.
I enquired about John Francis engagement & if it was official & ought I to write, her name is Warwick & she comes from Wickham where her father has a small business, do you think she is a relative of Rene's, she used to live at Wickham for years, they had a saddlers shop there ?
Will you thank Joyce very much for ringing me up to tell me about you, I was terribly sorry to miss her, I got caught on y way home by Mrs Heseltinne who took me in to have a drink & she
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
Part of letter to David Donaldson from his mother
Description
An account of the resource
Mother expresses her delight and pride at hearing the recent news of his second Distinguished Service Order. Writes of father's visit to London and catches up with family/acquaintance news.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
F Donaldson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-07-18
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDonaldsonFIDonaldsonDW450718-01-Part
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Hampshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-07-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Distinguished Service Order
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Postmark]
[Postage stamps]
Wing Commdr David W Donaldson DSO DFG RAFVR
RAF Officers Mess
Warboys
Huntingdonshire
[page break]
Brambridge House
Bishopstoke Hants
[inserted] Ian & Co were all packed up for Blackpool but it was “as you were” [\inserted]
May 15th / 43
Dear David,
Hearty Congratulations on your well earned DSO We are all feeling like Peacocks. Your wife was simply beaming when I got back and even Frances seemed more cheerful – if possible – & all my friends run saying here's that d-d old bore again
Eyston [?] said there was someone of your name where his brother was i e Harwell but he must have made a mistake. I told him it was Warboys
[page break]
Rhodes was so taken with the Photo of you 3 in the avenue that he enlarged & coloured – said he could not resist. I sent copies – uncoloured – to your M-in-L, The Aunts & [underlined] The [/underlined] Aunt.
Many thanks for your letter as Mr Einstein would say I note that time for you is greatly accelerated by your velocity approaching that of light – its 3 years since you left SH&T not 2 as you suggest.
[changes to mother's handwriting]
Your daughter will not allow me to leave her side she has just swallowed a large crust whole & seems none the worse for it & looks
[insertion] [changes to father's handwriting]
Norman is here for a weeks leave seems a bit tired [/insertion]
[page break]
[changes to mother's hand writing]
a terrible sight oozing crumbs in all directions – I long for some D.S.O. ribbon to tie her up with all round, – [insertion] I feel it would suit her so well [/insertion] I am so glad you've got a pink ribbon, I think they look nicer than any others, & said so to Joyce the other day, but she said that was beyond anyone's wildest dreams as it was only D.S.O's or V.Cs, anyhow I feel terribly proud, as Norman says like the [indecipherable word] basking in reflected glory
Joyce has been walking on air all day, she burst into my room in such excitement with
[page break]
the news I could not think what had happened
Smith sent you his congratulations & all Brambridge purrs with [word deleted] pride -
I must stop Frances says she must have some attention
Joyce says she is writing tomorrow she is too excited to write today
Very much love
from your very proud
Mamma
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 David Donaldson from his mother and father
Description
An account of the resource
Letter congratulates him on award of Distinguished Service Order and catches up with family news.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
F Donaldson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-05-15
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page handwritten letter and envelope
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDonaldsonT-FIDonaldsonDW430515
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Hampshire
England--Bishopstoke
England--Huntingdonshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Distinguished Service Order
RAF Warboys
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AIR MAIL LETTER CARD
[postage stamp]
[censor stamp]
W/C Donaldson DSO, DFC,
[deleted] 42, Peartree Avenue,
Bitterne,
Southampton. [/deleted]
c/o R.A.F.
Foulsham
Nr Dereham
Norfolk.
U.K.
[underlined] THESE CARDS ARE FOR THE USE OF H.M. FORCES ONLY [/UNDERLINED]
Written in: English
No.: 282266
Rank: Capt
Name: G.N. Donaldson
[page break]
8 Aug 45
APIS, HQ 14th Army,
SEAC
Dear Willie
Further to our combined (for economy) wire or 26 July, many hearty congratulations on the new DSO. Ian and I have been frantically adding up stars to see what we can produce in the way of ribbons. I can make 3 if you count the Defence Medal, which I haven't had the face to put up yet. Ian is as yet bare-breasted he says he's not sure whether or not he's qualified for the Burma, but personally I think he's just being snobbish about it. Presumably you are well into two rows by now.
We had a pretty Donaldsonish sort of leave – no women, wine in great moderation, and you can scarcely imagine us doing much singing, though Ian [deleted] has [/deleted] practically murdered [inserted] me [/inserted] one night for whistling under my breath in his mess. We swam a good bit, and Ian turned salmon pink and my mecrapine yellow went a little darker in shade, and I had a lovely attack of squitters, and beat him hollow at picquet [sic] (though he will probably maintain that he had bad luck.) my opinion of the RAF has sunk considerably since a very nasty-minded Wingco turned me out of their living quarters there, in spite of the fact that they had bags of empty charpoys, and also from seeing the remarkably phoney excuses they seem to get home on. Definitely a sissy service. Too young to know better, I suppose. But otherwise the leave was good.
I believe I owe both of you and your ever-loving a letter; in fact I don't think I've ever thanked you for the [word deleted] for the very worthy Captain Foulenough. (A brow type, of course.) I take it that you will be going back to school again shortly. If
[page break]
I get home in time, I shall come & take you out and buy you some sweets one Sunday. But I'm afraid I shall be too late.
I hope Frances is getting on well with her English catechism; she must have that off pat by the time I get home so we can cracking on the Greek & Latin versions. The Hebrew can well wait. Better start her off on some Elementary Karl Marx, too, just in case. Incidentally I was conning over the christening group recently. Some detailed discussions must obviously be held with the Fairy Godmother. Name like Lavender of [sic] Petunia or something, wasn't it?
Yours,
[underlined] Norman [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to David Donaldson from his brother Norman
Description
An account of the resource
Written from HQ 14th Army, South East Asia Command where he is now a Captain. Congratulates David on award of bar to Distinguished Service Order and offers banter about his medals. Writes of recent leave and complain of action by Royal Air Force officer. Catches up with family news.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Norman Donaldson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-08-08
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter and envelope
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDonaldsonGNDonaldsonDW450808
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
British Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Hampshire
England--Southampton
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-08-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Distinguished Service Order
RAF Foulsham
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
12/11/43 84 Oakwood Court W 14
My dear David
We were delighted to get the watch & clock especially my gold one I took it to Barkers & two other shops & they said it was quite impossible till after the War, now it has been going for nearly 4 days without loosing or gaining a second as far as I can see & I've had the wit to remember to wind it.
I did not write at once because I thought we would go to your daughters birthday party first. She is a [emboldened] duck [/emboldened] (no resemblance
[page break]
to Donald) her diving act over the sofa reminds me of you coming downstairs when young.
I do hope you will all come to lunch when you come up for your D.S.O
Yours affect
I Donaldson
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 David Donaldson from his aunt Isobel Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks him for watches and clocks. Hopes he will come for lunch when he comes up for Distinguished Service Order.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Isobel Donaldson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-11-12
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDonaldsonIDonaldsonDW431112
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-11-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Distinguished Service Order
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Brambridge.
16th May
Dear David,
I am so pleased and proud that you have won the D.S.O. and I am sure Frances is too though she doesn't understand now she will in years to come. You have no idea how happy you have made us all, there is great rejoicing here.
I used to say medals were not much [inserted] use [/inserted] as there were so many brave deeds that go unrewarded, but now while recognising that I understand that they are very greatly to be prized as they cost a lot to get and it is quite right that everyone and especially ones nearest and dearest should rejoice over an award.
I am longing to see you and I do so hope
[page break]
it will not be long now. I wanted to rush up to Huntingdon at once. I have made arrangements to go home on Tuesday next 18th May so that I could come up [inserted] on [/inserted] next [deleted] on [/deleted] Wednesday or any time afterwards.
Of course I quite understand I may have to wait a week or even two if it is not convenient for you but I feel I must go home so that I can come when you want me.
I wish we could be wafted back here for your next leave as it is so much more peaceful out here than at Oxshott.
My mother rang up yesterday just as you had rung off in the morning as William Bishop saw the notice in the paper at 8 a.m & rang up to ask if it was [deleted character] really you & if so to offer his congratulations so Mother rang me up as soon as she knew.
[page break]
Norman was faintly annoyed that Frances could not walk yet but now he has got over that he shouts Goo Goo at her; this frightened her at first but now she has got used to it she has accepted him & merely gazes in wonder that anyone can make so much noise.
Her two teeth both show quite white now & are very becoming she is also getting an [sic] adept at managing to put rusks etc in her mouth first go off.
With all my love & congratulations to you.
Joyce.
Francie sends a kiss. P.T.O
[page break]
Dear Daddy
Congratulations
Love from
Francie
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 David Donaldson from his wife
Description
An account of the resource
Pleased and proud that he has been awarded Distinguished Service Order. Hopes she will see him soon and writes of possible travel arrangements. Catches up with other family news. Writes news of daughter. Note from daughter Frances on back page.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
J Donaldson
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDonaldsonJDonaldsonDWXX0516
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-05-16
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Distinguished Service Order
-
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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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[crest]
May the 28th 1943
WEIRLEIGH,
MATFIELD GREEN,
KENT.
My dear David,
I am so delighted with the photgraph of you all – it is so much pleasure to me to learn of your having the D.S.O. [underlined] Congratulations [/underlined]
Wish I could see you and your wife in the flesh – not only in the photograph. What a fine baby she is & very like you as far as I can see. What good news from the Ruhr – the smashing of the Damms [sic] is a wonderful help to us. You will know how thankfull [sic] I am that now we have cleared
[page break]
the Germans out of Africa. Have had no news from the boys sinse [sic] April the 23. Hamo said that they thought the end was near. Now all is finished of the fighting. Hope to get news soon. Les is a staff major and Hamo in the I [sic] [word deleted] batt- of the Tanks like Les. Pat in the rescue boats of the R.A.F now at Gib. I could not write before have not had your address. I thought you would have left Brambridge. Daddy tells me that beloved Irène [sic] is not very well I .
[page break]
2
am writing to know how she is, Hope she is better. Your fresh honour will do her good.
Hoping that the awful war will soon be over and I shall see all you beloved young people
With much love to you from your aunt
Theresa Sassoon
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 David Donaldson from Aunt Theresa
Sassoon
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks him for photographs and congratulates on award of Distinguished Service Order. Comments on Dams operation and other war news. Continues with family news and hopes the war will soon be over.
Theresa Sassoon was Siegfried Sassoon's mother. She mentions a photo she has received from her nephew Thornycroft – a b/w version of PGrundyAF1503. In EDonaldsonT-FIDonaldsonDW430515-0003 she is referred to as The Aunt.
Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
T Sassoon
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-05-26
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ESassoonTDonaldsonDW430526
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Kent
England--Tunbridge Wells
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
Distinguished Service Order
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)