1
25
46
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/53/518/EBoldyDABoldyAD420224-0001.1.jpg
3237bc5ab0929220770d9d1ed495ec80
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/53/518/EBoldyDABoldyAD420224-0002.1.jpg
6f2dc4ec4a296a19db6274c7f0f225bc
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
Boldy, David
Dave Boldy
D A Boldy
Description
An account of the resource
334 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant David Adrian Boldy (1918 – 1942, 923995 Royal Air Force) and consists of his school reports, letters from school and photographs of family and locations in India, letters from training and service, and photographs from his social life and time training. It also includes newspaper cuttings and letters about him being missing in action. David Boldy was born and attended school in India and studied law at Kings College London. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force and trained as an air gunner in South Africa. He flew operations in Manchesters and Lancasters with 207 Squadron from RAF Bottesford. His aircraft failed to return from an operation to Gdańsk 11 July 1942. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by David Boldy and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.<br /><br />Additional information on David Boldy is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/102182/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
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. 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
Boldy, DA
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
923995 Sgt. D.A. Boldy.
5 Chepstow Ct.
Chepstow Crescent.
London. W.11.
24th Feb. 1942.
My darling Dad,
Thanks awfully for your letters & all the news. Very pleased to hear you got in some good tennis at the club. Glad to hear all about the business too.
Yes those damn [deleted] Japs are coming closer. Anyway Dad you’ve got the right spirit, give them a really warm reception if they suceed [sic] in getting through. We did a lot of raids last month but have been slack this month. Just one night raid on Brest & a daylight on the Scharnhorst & the Gneisenau.
A daylight is much more thrilling & yet in some ways a less strain than night bombing.
My crew had 48hrs leave over
[page break]
the week-end. As I had a very bad throat & was grounded for a couple of days I managed to get away earlier. Returned to camp this morning almost quite fit & refreshed. Had a marvellous time. Last night Steve, Ajan & I & three girls one of them Ajan’s sister went to the Trocadero where we danced & had dinner. It was a really grand party. Only cost 7/- a head including drinks. It was a jolly good week-end all together. We get our crew leave in a fortnight’s time. We get a week for crew leave. Looking forward to it.
Ajan (my gunner pal) & I are staying in this evening recuperating from the hectic week-end. We have a lovely fire on in the room & the radio on. Getting off quite a bit of my outstanding mail. Will write again soon.
God bless you Dad. Look after yourself.
Lots of love
Dave.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Letter from sergeant David Boldy to his father about seeing action in day and night operations. Mentions the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst battleship. He had some leave and went out to the Trocadero with Steve and Ajan.
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Bombing, Aerial
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. Correspondence
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EBoldyDABoldyAD420224
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--London
Atlantic Ocean
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-02
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-02-24
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Boldy
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.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from David Boldy to his father
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Janice Waller
bombing
entertainment
Gneisenau
Scharnhorst
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1481/PBanksP15010062.2.jpg
9c44b20b9d127601eeb93aa0f0a0f34f
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
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
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
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
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
Description
An account of the resource
On top an aerial inclined photograph of a warship inside a dock with moles either side. Title 'Seeking the raider in his lair'. Underneath an aerial vertical photograph of a coastline lined with dock facilities and buildings running top to bottom. At the top is an inlet surrounded by a town. Half way down down a breakwater sticks out from the coast joining another breakwater running parallel to the coast. Just above this is a warship, possibly Gneisenau, is moored pointing upward alongside the coast. Photograph caption '? 27.5.41 F/20'. Captioned 'Scharnhorst & Gniesnoe [sic]'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-05-27
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One newspaper cutting mounted on an album page
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010062
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
France--Brest
France
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-05-27
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.
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated (cumulative polygon)
aerial photograph
Gneisenau
reconnaissance photograph
Scharnhorst
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1486/PBanksP15010063.1.jpg
a483521307bc451390521785a4fd51d3
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
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
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
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
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
Description
An account of the resource
An aerial vertical photograph of a coastline lined with docks and buildings. At the top and inlet with docks and town buildings to its left. Below a peninsular are three docks pointing down and left. A large warship is moored in the bottom dock. Just down the coast a further large warship is moored alongside the coast To the left of the dock area a large number of residential buildings are spread out. Photograph caption '620W/642. 1.P.R.U. 27.5.41. F/20:R'. Captioned 'Scharnhorts & Gniesnoe [sic]'.
To the left a newspaper cutting with disjointed text title 'Coastal Command' with some history of Coastal Command concerning attacks on a ship by Beauforts and Swordfish on 12 February 1942 with both leaders awarded VC. Also attacks against a winter sports centre in Norway frequented by German officers on 18,20 and 22 December 1940.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. No 1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-05-27
1940-12
1942-02-12
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
One partial page typewritten text mounted on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010063
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
France--Brest
Norway
France
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-05-27
1940-12
1942-02-12
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated (cumulative polygon)
aerial photograph
Gneisenau
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
reconnaissance photograph
Scharnhorst
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1498/PBanksP15010068.1.jpg
6d2ca65c295d6f94351166e5043db4d6
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
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
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
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
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
Description
An account of the resource
Aerial vertical photograph showing a coastal town with docks on the coast and a river running through the middle. On the right open water with a breakwater in the top right corner pointing down. Above the river on the four large jetties point into the sea. Town buildings are on both sides of the river which goes right to left in the centre. The left end of the river has many ships moored on both sides. Below the river three docks pointing left and down. the bottom one has a large warship. At the bottom the bow of another ship moored alongside. Label with arrows point to the two ships with 'Scharnhorst' pointing at ship in dock and 'Gniesnoe [sic] ' at the bow of ship moored alongside. Photograph caption '622 W/642. 1.P.R.U. 27.5.41 F/20:R'. Captioned 'Brest'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941-05-27
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010068
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
France--Brest
France
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-05-27
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.
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated (cumulative polygon)
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. No 1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
aerial photograph
Gneisenau
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
reconnaissance photograph
Scharnhorst
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/2148/WoolgarR [Pesaro].jpg
6696b37cde158c2d6a039b276028b19f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/2148/AWoolgarRLA160614.2.mp3
b9431c15a89852018320c9d130b2f688
Dublin Core
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
Woolgar, Reg
Reg Woolgar
R L A Woolgar
Jimmy Woolgar
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Bombing, Aerial
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/browse?collection=87">17 items</a>. The collection consists of an oral history <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/2148">interview</a> with air gunner Reginald Woolgar DFC (139398 Royal Air Force), correspondence to his father about him being missing in action and subsequently rescued from the sea, his <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/2205">log book</a>, <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/854">service and release book</a> and nine photographs.<br /><br /> He flew operations as an air gunner with 49 and 192 Squadrons.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Woolgar and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. <br /><br />This collection also contains items concerning John William Wilkinson. Additional information on John William Wilkinson is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/125319/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Woolgar, R
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Please scroll down to see all X items in this collection.
Reg ‘Jimmy’ Woolgar was born and schooled in Hove. He began working life as a valuations assistant and was training to be a surveyor, which was interrupted when, in December 1939, he joined the RAF. Although he had aspirations to become a pilot, he trained as a wireless operator/air gunner instead. His wireless operator training was carried out at the wireless training school, RAF Yatesbury. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/849/PWoolgarRLA1609.2.jpg His air gunnery training on Fairy Battle aircraft was conducted at RAF West Freugh. On 15 November 1940 he was promoted to sergeant and posted to No 10 OTU at RAF Upper Heyford. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/845/PWoolgarRLA1601.2.jpg Initially flying Anson aircraft and then Hampdens with C Flight, he had his first ‘Lucky Jim’ moment, on 6 February 1941, when his Hampden aircraft was forced to crash land in a field near Cottesmore, in Lincolnshire. The aircraft was written off, but he and the pilot survived with minor injuries. At the end of operational training, instead of going directly onto operasations, he spent the next 5 months as a screen operator instructor. Eventually, on 1 September 1941, he was posted to 49 Squadron, Hampdens, at RAF Scampton https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/852 where his very first operational trip (described as a baptism of fire) was to Berlin. With headwinds going out and coming back, and nil visibility, it was likely the crew would have to bail out. Fortunately, the skipper found a break in the clouds and the aircraft landed wheels down in a field near Louth. The aircraft had to be recovered back to base, transported by road, on a low loader. On another occasion, on a mine laying operation to Oslo Fjord, his aircraft was peppered with anti-aircraft fire, it returned to base with 36 bullet holes in the fuselage and mainplane. A bullet had also passed through the upright of his gun sight while he was looking through it, whilst another tore through his flying suit. The nickname ‘Lucky Jim’ was beginning to stick.
In February 1942, on an operation to Manheim, the port engine, hit by flak, cut dead. Despite jettisoning all superfluous weight, which unfortunately included all the navigation equipment, the aircraft rapidly lost height, and the pilot ditched the aircraft in the English Channel. Whilst the crew had struggled to keep the aircraft airborne, (on a single engine), it had steered on a massive curve and unbeknown to them was headed down the English Channel, before it ditched. The crew scrambled out onto the wing and managed to inflate the dingy, then had to cut the cord attaching the dingy to the aircraft using a pair of nail scissors, moments before it sunk. In the water for hours, the crew thought they were drifting near the Yorkshire coast, but were rescued by a motor anti-submarine boat, much to their surprise, near the Isle of Wight.
Operational flying was intense, Reg would feel wound up before take-off and there was much apprehension on the way out to the target. Often, they flew through intense flak that was sometimes so close they could smell it. There was always a sense of sense of relief once they came away from the target. In between operations, each day was treated as it came along with many off-duty hours spent socialising in the local hostelries https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/853
After his first operational tour (he completed two) he was commissioned and became gunnery leader with 192 Squadron in 100 Group.
After the war ended, he signed on for an extra two years and was posted to Palestine as an air movements staff officer. Luck was again on his side when, one day, he was on his way to an Air Priorities Board Meeting at the King David Hotel when the hotel was bombed, resulting in many army and civilian casualties.
After a short tour in Kenya, as Senior Movements Staff Officer, he returned to Palestine flying with 38 Squadron until August 1947. In his flying career he amassed over 1000 flying hours. For services to his country Reg was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/858
He was released from the RAF in September 1947. Initially employed as an assistant valuations officer, he studied to become a Chartered Surveyor and secured a job as a senior valuer with the City of London. He later became the planning valuer of the city. After 14 years he was made a partner at the firm St Quintin Son and Stanley. Reg retired in 1971.
08 December 1939: Joined RAF as a wireless operator/air gunner
28 August 1940: 145, 3 Wing, RAF Yatesbury - Wireless Operator training
29 October 1940 - 15 November 1940: RAF West Freugh, No 4 Bombing and Gunnery School, flying Battle aircraft
November 1940: Promoted to Sergeant
15 November 1940 - 20 August 1941: RAF Upper Heyford, No 10 Operational Training Unit flying Anson and Hampden aircraft
02 September 1941 - 24 March 1942: RAF Scampton, 49 Squadron, flying Hampden aircraft
28 April 1942 - 24 June 1942: 1485 Target Towing and Gunnery Flight flying Whitley and Wellington aircraft
02 July 1942 – 3 July 1942: RAF Manby, Air Gunnery Instructor Course
4 July – 10 July 1942: RAF Scampton, Air Gunnery Instructor flying Manchester and Oxford aircraft
25 July 1942 – 10 August 1942: RAF Wigsley, Air Gunnery Instructor flying Lancaster aircraft
3 October – 27 October 1942: RAF Sutton Bridge flying Wellington and Hampden aircraft
28 October 1942: RAF Sutton Bridge, Gunnery Leader Course
End of 1942: Awarded RAF Commission
09 Nov 1942 – 18 March 1943: RAF Fulbeck flying Manchester aircraft
14 May 1943 – 11 June 1944: RAF Sutton Bridge flying Wellington aircraft
20 June 1944 – 27 July 1945 RAF Foulsham, 192 Squadron flying Halifax and Wellington aircraft
29 April 1946 – 30 August 1946: Palestine, Air Movements Staff Officer
01 September 1946 – 21 January 1947: Kenya, Senior Movements Staff Officer
30 January1947 – 10 June 1947: Ein Shemer, Palestine, 38 Squadron flying Lancaster aircraft
13 July 1947 139398 Flt Lt RLA Woolgar released from Service.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: Start the, start the interview.
RJW: On our seventieth wedding anniversary my grandson stood up and said Papa, Reg, Jimmy because they had all three, all three generations there. Sorry. Sorry.
DE: Ok. So this is an interview with Reg Jimmy Woolgar at the International Bomber Command Centre in Riseholme Lincoln. It’s for the IBCC Digital Archive. My name is Dan Ellin. It is the 14th of June 2016. Reg. Jimmy. Just for the start of this tape could you tell me about your early life and your childhood before you joined the RAF.
RJW: Well before I joined the RAF I left school in Hove and I joined the rates department as the junior clerk and it was really the office boy who made the tea but I became a valuations assistant in the valuation department there before the war and started to train as a surveyor and in 1939 on the 8th of December I went to the Queen’s Road Recruiting Office and I joined the RAF and there I was in a few days on my way to Uxbridge with about five or six other guys all from office appointments. When I joined I, like everybody else who wanted to join the RAF, I wanted to be a pilot. Well I actually went to the Queen’s Road office in September and they wrote to me and said, ‘We have an influx of pilot training but we can take you as air crew.’ I went to see them, asked what that meant. They said, ‘Well you will fly as a member of an air crew.’ I said, ‘Well can I ever become a pilot?’ ‘Oh yes,’ they said, ‘Once you’ve trained as air crew you can become a pilot.’ But of course it never happened because it just seemed to be that whenever I, wherever I went I eventually became an instructor and after being trained as instructor they didn’t really want me to be a pilot or anything else so I concentrated on doing wireless operating/air gunnery. That really is what happened to me before the war. Is there anything else you’d like to know?
DE: Well, yeah. What was, what was training like?
RJW: Pardon?
DE: What was training like?
RJW: Training. Ah. Well now we went to Uxbridge for the ab initio course, the square bashing. Famous words which you’ve used, heard before, you know the sergeant who comes in to the billet and says, ‘Anybody here play the piano?’ ‘Oh yes, I play the piano.’ ‘I play the piano.’ ‘Oh well you two go and move the piano from the officer’s mess to the sergeant’s mess.’ Having got all through all that, off we went. First of all we went to Mildenhall doing absolutely nothing because there was a bottleneck of getting to the wireless training school so we spent about three or four weeks at Mildenhall doing guard duty. Sometimes going in the cookhouse even and then we went to a station called North Coates Fitties on the east coast and we, we mainly did guard duty there. We were, it was a fighter squadron and we were sent out to guard the beacons around, around the runway, all that sort of thing. Waste of time but never mind. That took us until the early part of 1940 and then we were posted down to Yatesbury, wireless training course. I think that took, I can’t be absolutely certain, the dates are in my logbook but I think it must have taken us until about April, oh, yes, it took us ‘till about April and then we went to West Freugh on the east coast er west coast of Scotland for gunnery training and low and behold we all became sergeants. I can always remember the advice given to us by a warrant officer, the peacetime warrant officers and people of that ilk they did some, a little bit resent that air crew would automatically become sergeants but they did try to knock us into shape and I remember we had a cockney warrant, station warrant officer who tried to guide us on etiquette in the sergeant’s mess and he said, ‘Ah, er, you will be at liberty to invite ladies to a mess dance but make sure you invite ladies [emphasise] and not ladies.’ And he said, ‘Now you’ve got three stripes, the girls will be chasing you but just be careful who you pick if you marry them,’ and he gave jolly good advice, he said, ‘Take a good look at her mother because what she’s going to be like in twenty to thirty years’ time.’ Anyway, off we went. They sent us on leave and said that we would be, receive instructions for posting and we did. We, we, a new, another bottleneck for OTU so in the meantime we went to Andover. Now, Andover, I was there at the time of Dunkirk. I remember that because going into the local town, cinema and that sort of thing the local army chaps that were coming back from Dunkirk were a bit fed up with the RAF because they hadn’t seen any Spitfires so it wasn’t a very comfortable time but from there we went to OTU. Now that was number 10 OTU at Heyford, Upper Heyford. We had our first real flights. Started off in Ansons, staff pilot taking a delight in trying to do aerobatics in an Anson to see how many guys they could make sick but anyway [laughs] we, we were supposed to crew up but it was a bit of a haphazard thing. You found yourself in one crew one week and another crew the next week. I had my very first Jimmy escape there. Um, it had been snowing and we were grounded and then suddenly there was a break and we were sent off and I was sent off with a New Zealand pilot, Sandy somebody. I can’t remember, and he was a bit dodgy. Anyway, we took off and the cloud base came down, fog or, no, cloud base and I couldn’t get a peep out of the wireless set, I couldn’t get a DCM back to base so we stooged around for a bit and he said over the intercom, ‘Jimmy I’m going to land in a field.’ ‘Oh ok.’ I decided, I came out of the rear upper turret and I crawled back and I sat up behind him. He came down to a field, through a break heading for some trees I thought but he put his wheels down and of course it was a ploughed field underneath the snow. He came in very fast and we went, tipped right over, right over. At the very last moment apparently, I never remember doing this, I leaned over his shoulder and knocked his, the quick release of his harness and he flew out of the cockpit and down. He hit the ground, he broke a rib I think, and the aircraft went over and I shot back, right back to the back bulkhead and I had a bit of a head wound but it wasn’t very much and the aircraft was a right off. Right. It didn’t catch fire thank God. We were called away. When we had the inquest with the CO I got a right rollicking 'cause I couldn’t get through to base on the radio but I couldn’t get anything out of it but I even got a bigger one for releasing his harness and they said, ‘That was, you should never have done that but you saved his life.’ They said that, ‘Had you not done that he would have broken his, he would probably, he probably would have broken his neck or broken his back.’ So it was a good thing that it happened but it shouldn’t have done [laughs]. I had another, I was in another crash there where we ran up behind another aircraft and damaged it and injured the rear gunner but I was at the far end so I was ok. But this seemed to happen to me for some reason or other and I don’t know why, at the end of the course instead of going off on ops with a crew I was what they called screened. I was a screen operator instructor and I flew in Hampdens and Ansons with crews coming through. Just looking after them actually. Making sure that the wireless operators did what they should do or got through if they couldn’t and that sort of thing. I was there for oh far too long. I didn’t arrive on to the squadron, 49 Squadron, until the 1st of September 1941. My very first trip was to Berlin. The very experienced pilot, Pilot Officer Falconer, who was quite elderly, he was twenty six so we called him uncle [laughs]. He eventually, he became a wing commander, he commanded a squadron but he was killed unfortunately. Very nice guy. Anyway, after we went to Berlin and on that occasion it was quite a famous one. Head wind going out, head wind coming back. Ten tenths cloud and nil visibility coming in. Being given the order to go on to 090 and bail out so we got there and Uncle Falconer said to the crew, ‘We may have to bail out chaps.’ So then squeaky voiced me from the back said, ‘Oh skipper, I’ve pulled my chute.’ Actually I’d pulled it on the way out and I was more scared of having a DCO that is, Duty Not Carried Out, DNCO and being responsible for returning than actually taking my chance with the chute so I kept mum, I didn’t say anything. And when I told him I can’t actually repeat for the tape exactly what he said but it wasn’t very polite and I don’t blame him. In actual fact he found a break in the, in the overcast and he landed with wheels down in a field at a place called Withcall. Withcall near Louth and um, er, near Melton Mowbray. It was under some high tension cables and it was so tight they couldn’t fly the aircraft out. They took the wings off and put it on a loader to get it back. That was my first trip. Baptism of fire. Every trip, nearly every trip has an anecdote but the ones that stand out are, we went up to Inverness or somewhere. I can’t remember. It’s in the logbook. Inverness or somewhere like that to do a trip to Oslo Fjord laying mines, being told, ‘Chaps pick the right fjord because if you don’t you’ll come up against a blank face of rock and you won’t be able to turn around.’ Anyway, we did. It was almost daylight all the time. Up we went, down the fjord, laid our mine. Coming back, on the headland, as we passed across the headland em we were fired on. Some light tracer stuff came up. Very small. I said, I was at the rear of course as the wireless op. I said, ‘Oh, let’s go around and shoot them up because there’s other guys behind us.’ And the skipper said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ So we circled around, we came back and all hell let loose. They peppered us. We had thirty six holes on our starboard side wing, starboard fuselage mainplane but it didn’t affect the aircraft. I think the flak was a little bit dodgy but anyway came back all right. As I got out of the aircraft the ground crew came and they said, ‘Hey sarge,’ they said to me, ‘Have you seen your cockpit?’ I said, ‘No, what’s wrong?’ ‘It’s got bullet holes in it.’ ‘It’s got bullet holes in it?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ And they said, ‘Look your flying suit’s all torn’. And there’s a bullet hole at the back of me and then you know after I’d been sent to recover [laughs]. They next came to me and said, ‘You’re never going to believe this.’ The upright of the gun sight on my VGO twin guns had a bullet hole through it like that. The armourer gave it to me. I had it for many, many, many years. Unfortunately, it was lost but it was, I was proud to be able to show a bullet came out [?] as I was looking through it [laughs] so you know why the name lucky Jim sticks doesn’t it?
DE: Yeah. Definitely yeah.
RJW: Well that was then. We were, er, we tasted one of the first delights of the master searchlight. They introduced a blue central searchlight beam, radar controlled I think and all the other beams came on it and we were over Hamburg and we caught that and we had a hell of a pasting with the flak but old Allsebrook was very good and he got us out of that. We had one or two other things but like everybody else did. You never got, you couldn’t get through trips without having some sort of trouble sort of thing.
DE: Sure, sure.
RJW: Anyway, my last, no, next to last trip of course was by ditching which I’ve written about. Would you like me to — ?
DE: If you could talk about that for the tape that would be wonderful as well. Yes please.
RJW: Oh yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Well here goes. We took off about, I don’t know when it was. We were on Hampden G for George A397. We em, we were going to Mannheim. I think it was our twenty third trip and by this time we were a bit blasé. We thought going to be a piece of cake this. Mannheim. Yeah. That’s alright. So we weren’t really worried about it. The trip out was perfectly alright, over the target there was some flak but it wasn’t heavy flak, it wasn’t very much and we didn’t think that we’d caught any but just as we left the target our port engine cut dead and Ralph wasn’t able to do the relevant, it just stuck there. So we started to lose height. We lost height, we were somewhere about seventeen, eighteen thousand feet and we came down to four thousand eventually. In the process of doing that we got rid of all the heavy stuff we could think of. The guns. The bombsight. Unfortunately, Bob, the navigator, Bob Stanbridge stuck all his nav gear into parachute, one of the parachute bags that he used to take it out there, opened the doors in the navigator’s position, they swing inwards and to get rid of the bomb sight and the nav bag went out as well so we didn’t have any —. Anyway, off we went. Ralph was getting cramp in his leg holding the opposite rudder because of the loss of the port engine. Bob tried to tie the rudder pedal back with a scarf but couldn’t. Then I had a go. That was the scariest moment of all 'cause I had to unplug my intercom and had to crawl underneath in the dark but I did — I did actually manage to tie it up and that lasted for a while. I sent a plain language message out while we were still over France to say that we’d lost our port engine and may have to bail out, and although I was never a good wireless operator and I hated being a wireless operator, that message got through [laughs]. Anyway, eventually the fuel was down to zero and Ralph said, ‘Well, we’re over the sea, we’re going to ditch.’ So by this time of course we’d got all the hatches open because we’d been ready to bail out so all the sea came in. Anyway, he made — he made a good landing on top of the fog to begin with [laughs] but after that he made a jolly good landing and down we went. We scrambled out on to the wing, on to the port wing. The dinghy was supposed to burst out of the engine nacelle because of an immersion plug but of course it didn’t but Bob knew the procedure and with the heel of his flying boot he dug into the port engine nacelle and pulled the plug and up came the dinghy and started to inflate. It didn’t fully inflate but it started to inflate and by this time the four of us were standing on the, on the wing. All our ankles were awash in water. We then saw that the dinghy was attached by a cord disappearing into the engine nacelle and one of us said, ‘Well if the immersion plug didn’t work this won’t work, we’ll be pulled down,’ and Ralph said, I don’t know whether he said, ‘Just a minute chaps,’ but I think he might have done. He undid his flying jacket, went into his tunic pocket, pulled out a little tiny leather case out of which he took a pair of folding nail scissors, he then — he cut the cord, he did the scissors up, put them back in the case, back in to his pocket and he stepped into the dinghy with the rest of us. As we shoved off dear old G for George went down under the waves and there we were. We had to pump the dinghy up with the bellows because it wasn’t fully inflated but we managed alright. We were absolutely enhanced with the rations that were actually sealed in the bottom because there was a notice on it that said “Only to be opened in the presence of an officer” [laughs] so we said, ‘Well good for you Ralph.’ He was a pilot officer. And come daylight, in the far distance we did just spot what we thought were high tension pylons and some cliffs and we thought, well we were heading for Scampton of course, we thought oh well perhaps we’d drifted too far north, over-compensated and we were off Yorkshire, Whitby or somewhere like that. Anyway, not long after that that disappeared, we drifted around. We used the coloured dye, fluorescent dye in to the sea to identify ourselves and paddled and paddled around and eventually came back and found we were at the same spot again. The sun came out in the morning. It was very cold and very choppy. It was the 14th / 15th of February. It was cold. Anyway, we suddenly saw a school of porpoise and that was light relief until one of the crew said, ‘Yeah it’s all very well but what happens if one of these guys comes up underneath the dinghy?’ he said. Furious paddling away. We weren’t really gloomy, I don’t know why. I seem to think oh yeah, well we may get picked up but for no particular reason. We did see an aircraft which we thought was a Beaufighter in the distance but it didn’t see us. We sent the flares up but it didn’t do any good and then quite late in the afternoon we heard an aircraft engine and out came a Walrus. Circled round, waggled it’s wings, stayed with us, only a short time and off it went and it was almost two hours later when a motor anti-submarine boat pulled up and dragged us aboard. Eh, first question was, ‘Where are we?’ And somebody said, ‘We’re off St Catherine’s Point.’ ‘Oh, St Catherine’s Point. Where’s that?’ ‘The Isle of Wight.’ [laughs] And instead of being off Yorkshire we’d taken a huge curve and we’d been flying down the channel so luckily our fuel had run out when it did and we didn’t go too far out but the other thing was that the navy crew told us, ‘You’re dead lucky because you’re near a minefield. If you’d been in a minefield we wouldn’t have come out.’ So it was jolly good. We um, we survived all that, all three of us. Jack had frostbite. I remember cuddling his feet under my jacket actually ‘cause he was very cold. He got frostbite because he’d been sitting in the tin and he’d had the hatch open all the way but that was the only casualty that we had but it was quite a week because if I remember rightly at the beginning of the week we went to Essen, which was never much of a cup of tea that place, it was always pretty hot. And in the middle of the week we went on the Channel Dash. The Channel Dash was when the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau left Brest and that was quite curious because we’d been standing by for several days and we’d been given a sector. Our sector was off somewhere near Le Havre. If they ever got that far we were told that we would have to go out. On this particular morning after a while on standby we were stood down from the Channel Dash and the weather wasn’t very good but our bomb load was changed from armour piercing to GP bombs and we were sent off on a night flying test possibly for ops that night. We were recalled while we were actually in the air and sent off but not to Le Havre but off the coast of Holland because the ships had gone that far and been undetected and off we went. We didn’t see the ships but we saw, we think, an armed merchantman or something or other which was firing away but we didn’t really get near. The weather was so bad we really couldn’t see. What we did see, we saw a Wellington and we didn’t know that Wellingtons were on the trip but later we discovered that there was an armed, an unmarked Wellington which the Germans had captured and they were using it as an escort for the ships and it was coming in and some crews actually did encounter it firing you know. We only just saw it. We didn’t get through [?]. Anyway, it was uneventful for us in actual fact. I think we lost four crews out of the twelve that were sent up. I think I’m right about that but it’s in our journal. One more trip we did together as a crew and then later I’ll talk, I’ll talk about my rear gunner.
DE: Ok, yeah, yeah.
RJW: Our pilot, J F Allsebrook was posted away, the crew was split up. I think Bob Stanbridge was also posted but myself and Jack Wilkinson, Jack Wilkinson, he was the rear gunner we were left hanging around to be crewed up as wanted. Anyway, we started to crew up with Reg Worthy. A very competent pilot and we were very happy with that and in March we were crewed to go with him on ops. Unfortunately I had contracted sinusitis. Oh I remember. I’ll talk about that later, I’d contracted sinusitis and at times I got it very badly. It was very painful so I went up in the morning to sick call [?] — sick bay to try to get some inhalations to help me and they tested me and grounded me. They said, ‘You’re not flying like that. You won’t be able to hear anyway.’ [laughs] I protested a lot because I wanted to do the trip but no, no and when I broke the news to Jack he was extremely despondent. He didn’t want to go. He wanted to opt out. ‘I don’t want to go without you Jimmy because you’re lucky.’ I persuaded him that he’d be alright and, because I was replaced by McGrenery [?] who was a very competent WOP/AG who’d flown with me on a number of occasion and he was a hell of a nice guy. Sadly, the trip was to Essen and they were caught by an ace night fighter pilot called Reinhold Knacke on the way back, off the coast of Holland, just on the border and they were shot down. All killed. Reg Worthy and McGrenery were buried in Holland and Jack was washed up off the coast of Denmark. It’s quite amazing actually. And he’s buried in Stavanger. So there’s sad [?]. I had this sinus trouble. It was because much earlier on, on a trip to Brest we were in the target area and we lost oxygen and when you lose oxygen you dive down so we did a very steep dive very quickly and apparently my left frontal sinus became perforated. This bedevilled me a lot. In fact the problem was if you went through the medics with it too much you got yourself grounded and of course you lost your rank as a sergeant, you lost everything. So you didn’t sing too much about it. I remember that after the, after ops I was posted to a couple of training units. One at Wigsley. I’ve forgotten the name of the other just for the moment but it’s in my logbook, anyway, not far out of Lincoln and I can remember later on my wife came out to live in Lincoln. I remember we sought a doctor up in Lincoln in private practice to try and get some treatment for this sinusitis and you’re leaping right now to the end of the war. At the end of the war I was posted to air ministry, movement’s branch and I still had sinus problems and so I thought I’d seek the advice of the air ministry doctor. I got a good guy there. His advice was, ‘Well we can drill, we can drill a hole through the roof of your mouth for drainage but I don’t advise it. It may not be successful but if you had a couple of years in a warm dry climate that would do you good,’ and as a result of that I had a medical post for an extended period of two year service and I went, of all places, to Palestine of course but after that to Kenya but I’ll talk about that later on.
DE: Sure, yeah.
RJW: Anyway, coming back to 1942, during the ops period the intruders started following aircraft coming in and landing and so air crew were billeted out. We were sent to small holdings. I was sent to a small holding, an absolutely delightful elderly couple who had strawberry fields there. Very nice indeed. I spent one night there. I told them, ‘Take the payment but I’m not going to be here. If anybody wants to know, oh yes I’m here but I’ve gone to town.’ And with a friend of mine, Mick Hamnett from 83 Squadron, we found a couple of rooms in the City of Lincoln pub in, in the centre of Lincoln and whenever possible we actually spent the night there. It was quite a pub. It was run by a lady by the name of Dorothy Scott whose husband, Lionel I think his name was, was a nav, was away in the RAF as a navigator. Anyway, it was an air crew haunt. At the back of the pub she had converted what had been a store room into a very cosy bar and that was where air crew from various squadrons accumulated. In fact at the end of 1942, towards the end of 1942 my wife came up and we, we lived there, lived out there. Unofficially of course. And one night while we were out there was an incendiary raid on Lincoln, huge chandelier flares and the City of Lincoln was hit with a fire bomb, particularly our bedroom but the local fire brigade did far more damage with their water then the actual firebomb. Anyway, coming back to the ops period, I’m sure that you’ve heard all these stories before but of course we were bounded with rumours and things like that. The first thing we heard was that oh the vicar of Scampton did a hasty retreat when war started because he was a Nazi spy [laughs]. The other story was of the policeman who was standing at the erm, at the Stonebow one evening and the aircraft were taking off, going off and he made a remark to a passer-by, ‘It’s going to be pretty hot in Berlin tonight.’ It so happened that they were going to Berlin and he was removed. But the other story, well whether that was true or not I don’t know but the other tale which is perfectly true. There was a hotel by the Stonebow called the Saracen’s Head which we called the Snake Pit for some reason. Very good. Good food. You could get a steak there. Very nice. There was a barmaid there by the name of Mary. She was a New Zealander and she was older than any of us. She was probably late thirties, early forties. She was a charming lady and she had an amazing memory and she was our local post box because we’d been to OTUs either to Upper Heyford or Cottesmore. We’d got pals on that and then we were posted to squadrons around, different squadrons around Lincoln and you wanted to know how your pals got on and you could, you could tell her. She knew, you know, you know that George Smith or somebody would say, ‘Did he get back? He was on 44 on Waddington.’ ‘Oh yes he’s alright.’ All this sort of thing you see and the story goes and I think this is in one of Gibson’s books that at the time of the 617 training at Scampton Mary was lifted out of the bar and sent on some paid leave down at Devon. I don’t know whether you’ve heard that story before. Yes. It’s written down somewhere but I can tell you that that wasn’t a rumour. That was true. The other delightful story is really good. In those days there was a lady entertainer by the name of Phyllis Dixie. She was a fan dancer. Probably the first stripper in England right, and she was performing at the Theatre Royal. Some lads, some air gunners got hold of a twelve volt acc and an aldis lamp, got themselves up into the Gods. The end of the act was the dear lady removed her fans strategically as the curtains closed and they shone the aldis lamp [laughs] which I gather was true. Anyway, going on from Scampton and Lincoln I was posted, I was sent on first of all air gunner instructor’s course at Manby. Came back from there and instructed at Wigsley and then sent to Sutton Bridge on a gunnery leader’s course. I did rather well on the course simply because I think I was able to drink as much beer as the course instructor [laughs] and we, I got an, I got an A which meant I was a gunnery leader A and when I came back to base the gunnery leader said, ‘Oh you can’t be a, you can’t be a gunnery leader A, you can’t be a gunnery leader as a sergeant. You’d better apply for a commission. Fill these forms in.’ So, this is true. It was incredible. I filled the forms in and I said something about, ‘Oh I can’t remember,’ and he said, ‘Oh don’t worry about it they don’t check anything,’ he said, you know, I thought this was a bit casual. Anyway, anyway I did remember what was necessary and my interview, however I was, I had a sort of an office, well not really an office, a place, kept stores [?] and things like that where I operated from. Schedules of flying and things like that looking after air gunners as an instructor and one day a little guy came in, in to my office with some papers and in some flying overalls and one of the epaulettes was flying down like that so I didn’t know what he was actually and he started asking me questions about the, about the commission you know like, ‘What’s your father do?’ And that sort of question, you know. Anyway I suddenly looked at his other shoulder and he was a wing commander and it was the famous Gus Walker and this was before he lost his arm. I was on the station when some incendiary bombs were, no photoflashes or something, something went wrong with an aircraft out in dispersal and he rushed out from flying control in a van to try and get the crew out and the bombs went up and he lost his arm. He was a hell of a nice guy. So informal it wasn’t true. I think he became an air marshal, air chief marshal or something. A big rugby referee. And I think that’s about all I can think of that of that era but then when I went to, when I, yes when I was commissioned, commissioned, gosh when was it? Probably the end of ‘42 beginning of ’43, almost immediately I was sent back to Sutton Bridge as an instructor instructing gunnery leaders and then we stayed there. Oh well that was quite good. We had a number of Polish pilots who were really very good pilots and we did a lot of low level flying quite illegally. There was one stretch where a road and the canal and a railway was spanned by high tension cables and if you felt like it they’d fly underneath them if they could and pray they weren’t found out. But these guys were really, really low level and we used to, we had a front, there was a guy in the front, we were flying Wellingtons mainly, sometimes Hampdens but mainly Wellingtons and put a guy in the front turret and aim for a group of trees you know [laughs]. Dear me. Those were the days. And then we moved station from there up to Catfoss and there when I was at Catfoss my pilot, old pilot Ralph Allsebrook came back, landed one day and said, ‘Jimmy, I’ve joined 617 Squadron. It’s a special duties squadron.’ We didn’t know, I didn’t know anything about the, we didn’t know about, it was before the dam raids but we didn’t know what they were doing but he said, ‘I’d like you to be in the crew.’ So I said, ‘Yes. Good. Fine.’ I was a flying officer by that time and so I said, ‘How do you go about it?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Leave it to me, I’ll push the buttons and see the CO.’ Well he did but they were adamant that I wouldn’t go. He said, ‘No, you can’t go. You’re an instructor, a trained instructor here. We want you as an instructor and,’ they said, ‘In any case Trevor Roper is the gunnery leader of 49 Squadron. They don’t need two gunnery leaders. So I didn’t go. Ralph wasn’t on the dam raid because I don’t think he was finished training, whatever it was but he wasn’t on it but much later on he was on another raid, I think it was the Kiel Canal and many of the aircraft were lost including him. It was bad weather I think mainly. So I was lucky again, I didn’t join them. But I did get a bit fed up with not, not being allowed to go back on ops and we had a guy, one of our instructor’s, fellow instructors, a chap called Griffiths I remember, he went to, left us and went to Bomber Command headquarters I think it was. Either to Group, no, it was Bomber Command headquarters that’s right and he came back, he visited the squadron one day and I said, you know, ‘Could you get me a squadron?’ You know. And he said, ‘You want to do a second tour Jimmy?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind doing a second tour.’ He said, ‘Yeah, leave it with me.’ So I got posted to 192 Squadron at Foulsham. I got, I got a rollicking from the CO at the, at Catfoss because of the gunnery wing, CO of the gunnery wing. He eventually found out that I’d, I’d wangled it through Griffiths you see but anyway I went. I arrived on the squadron which was fairly newly formed. It had been a flight before. I can’t, off the back of my head I can’t tell you the details of that but it was a flight and it had become a special duty squadron. It was doing radar investigation. We carried special operators. They were civilians dressed in RAF uniform just in case they were prisoners of war and at the same time David Donaldson joined the squadron. A hell of a nice guy. And it was a very happy squadron. We shared it with, I can’t remember the actual number of the squadron, six something, six hundred and something Australian squadron shared the station with us at Foulsham. A bit primitive but it was alright and I had about fifty gunners. We had two flights of Halifax 3s and a flight of Wellingtons and we also had some Mosquitos and a couple of Lightnings and we would fly with main force, carrying bombs of course. Not all the time but we did carry bombs and we were endeavouring, or the special duties operators were endeavouring to discover radar frequencies and wireless frequencies on which the enemy were operating. Early warning systems and the fighter aircraft they were using and that sort of thing. It was quite interesting. All highly secretive. They had a lot of gear set up in the centre of the fuselage and it was all screened off with canvas. You couldn’t get at it and you couldn’t get any gen out of them about what happened, but it was pretty good. We initially we flew as a crew. The leaders David Donaldson, Roy Kendrick the navigation leader, Churchill, he told me his name was Churchill actually, he was the signals leader I remember that. Anyway, and Hank Cooper who was the head of the special, the special duties guys and anyway, and myself as gunnery leader and 100 Group put a stop to that because they decided that if they lost the aircraft they lost all the leaders so we were “invited”, inverted commas to occasionally fly with a crew that might have been a bit dodgy to try and put a finger on if there was a weakness. So from flying with the very best pilot on the squadron suddenly found yourselves with the worst one but it didn’t amount to anything. It was ok. I didn’t have any scary times. My logbook shows the trips I took. We did the normal things with the main force. I didn’t do any Berlin ones. A bit late in the day for that I think but they were the ordinary trips that everybody else was doing. Oh well, there were occasions. We did stooge off from main stream. I think the theory, the theory was that if, they didn’t mind if we attracted the odd fighter so they could find out what they were operating on. Now look, here’s is a really good story. We had on the squadron a pilot by the name of H Preston [?] who was quite a joker. I flew with him on a trip and we got diverted on one occasion to a station down in 3 Group. Stirlings I think. And we had the usual eggs and bacon breakfast and all that sort of thing and we wanted to get back to base in the very early morning and when we got out to the aircraft we had quite a lot of air crew on the station walking around it because we had antennae sticking out all over the place, you see. So Hayter-Preston was asked about a particular thing that was coming out of the back and he said, ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘That’s marmalade.’ They said, ‘What?’ ‘Well haven’t you got that? They said, ‘No, he said, ‘What does it do?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘If a fighter comes up behind you and that’s turned on, it stops their engine.’ ‘Oh,’ he said. Anyway, off we went back to base and went through briefing and about half way through the morning a loud shout from the CO’s office, ‘Hayter-Preston’s crew to my office immediately.’ Off we trot to his office. David Donaldson said, ‘HP, what’s all this thing you’ve been talking about down at,’ wherever we were.’ ‘I don’t know sir.’ He said, ‘I’ve had Group on to me.’ He said, ‘Crews down there are on to their CO, been on to their Group, been on to 100 Group.’ He said, ‘They might have even got the Bomber Command, I don’t know, but they all want marmalade.’ See. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I was pulling their leg.’ [laughter] Anyway, we walked out of the CO’s office, walking off. David sticks his head out of the door, ‘HP. Why marmalade?’ He said, ‘Well I thought I’d be topical because we’ve been doing jamming.’ [laughs] You know.
DE: Of course. Yeah.
RJW: I did find, I must say I found my second tour very much easier than my first tour. Mind you I was privileged I suppose, in actual fact. I recognise that but it was a time when all the heavies were going. The raids were very heavy indeed but I didn’t, I didn’t seem to run into any trouble at all. Anyway, we were, we were flying on the very last trip. I flew on the very last trip to a place called Flensburg which was very near to the something lunars, is it? I can’t remember the name. The place where the armistice was signed on the Danish peninsula on the night before. The idea was to make sure they signed it. We were one of the last aircraft to return and there’s always been a bit of a fight as to who was the last aircraft over the target in the war. All I can say we might have been one of them. [laughs] Anyway, war ended and we started having, we started taking station personnel on tours. Flying, flying over the cities and back again. We did two or three trips. We landed over there at some of the stations. Went to Northern Germany and I don’t know, somewhere in Denmark I think in actual fact. We were taking people and coming back. Anyway, by about the middle of, probably a bit later then by the middle ‘45, July maybe, something. I don’t know. We were being posted to various parts and we were asked what would we to do. Anything we’d particularly to do before we were demobbed and so I said I’d like to be a, what do they call them, Queen’s courier, you know, King’s courier. That’s right. Thought that would be interesting. No. No. Can’t do that. Eventually I got sent to Air Ministry in High Holborn in the movements branch. It was at the time when there was some big food crisis going on and lots of VIPs were going backwards and forwards to America and we were finding aircraft from Blackbushe to get there. We were dodging around all over the place setting up aircraft, setting up things. Anyway we, I was there for a while and I was conscious of the fact that my sinus was still with me so I thought I’d take the opportunity to get the, unless I’ve already said this.
DE: Well you said you’d come back to it so, yeah.
RJW: Oh I see. I’d take the opportunity to get the air ministry doctor people to say what I could do about it and one of them suggested that they could drill a hole through the roof of the mouth which was painful and not necessarily successful and he did suggest a warm dry climate would probably heal the perforation. Anyway, eventually I signed on for an extra two years and I was posted overseas. Of all places my initial posting was to Palestine. There I was, there I was air movement’s staff officer, they called me and I was secretary and chairman of the air priorities board. Because there was a lack of civilian passenger aircraft we were providing passages through UK for the army, navy, air force and the other government people. The Air Priorities Board would look at applications and give them the priorities as they needed them and that was the job that I was doing. I remember I was, we had our officer’s mess and the hospital overlooking the mass cityscape [?]. The whole city was out of bounds to us which meant of course we went there [laughs]. At various times we had to be armed and it was quite, quite a time in actual fact but the one big thing that did happen we had a number of atrocities by the Stern gang and the Ernham vi [?] Lohamei. They were trying to get rid of the British. Didn’t seem to be any trouble between the Arabs and the Jews. It was the Jews and ourselves and they were pretty aggressive. Anyway, on one, we had our Air Priorities Board at army headquarters which was in the King David Hotel and one day I was being driven up there to an Air Priorities Board meeting and there was a loud bang and big piles of smoke went up and my driver said, ‘I think we’ll turn back sir.’ I said, ‘Yes, I think we will.’ And of course it was the King David Hotel that was bombed, sent up and a lot of army people were killed, and civilian people. Great tragedy actually because so I understand and read that the Jewish guys that did it they stuck bombs in milk churns and they actually ‘phoned and told them that there was bombs there but they said ha ha you know, took no notice of it. Very bad. Anyway, after a while I angled for a posting to Kenya. My brother was there. What had happened to him was he had joined the war, joined the RAF before the war and he was a fitter 2E. He’d been to St Athan’s and he, early in the war he was posted to the Far East. The ship was torpedoed off Mombasa and he got ashore and he was sent to Eastleigh there and he stayed there throughout the war. He married there, English girl there and so he was there and after the war he joined an aircraft company. East African Airways I think but he was a, he became a senior engineer, became chief engineer of a Safari Airways eventually. So I angled for a posting there and I got it. They called me SMSO Senior Movement Staff Officer. I knew nothing about, I knew about air movements, I knew nothing about road and rail. I signed an awful lot of documents [laughs] but I, you know, had no training for it at all. It was, it was a very nice posting. A very easy posting. Originally, we were billeted out in hotels but there was a housing shortage there and all that sort of thing and they thought as an example we ought to have an officer’s mess so an older hotel we took over we used it as headquarters and we had an officer’s mess set up and I can remember we had a very easy going AOC who was a non-flyer. Actually a peacetime guy but a nice guy, very easy going and he never seemed, never seemed to send for you in his office, he came to see you and one day he came to my office and he said, ‘Woolgar I’ve a job for you.’ ‘Yes sir.’ ‘I’m going to make you the mess secretary.’ I thought, ‘Well yes sir but you see I do have to go to Cairo once a month for conferences, air conferences and I also have to visit stations around, you know, Aden, Eritrea and places like that periodically. I am away from base quite a bit.’ ‘Oh, oh alright, I’ll think about it.’ So comes back the next day and he said, ‘Jerry Dawkins is mad with you, Woolgar.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Cause I’ve made him the secretary of the mess,’ you see, ‘But I’m going to make you the PMC.’ So I was the president of the mess committee and I knew nothing. I really didn’t know anything, you know. There was much older people than me, senior to me to do it but anyway they all dodged it and I couldn’t dodge it the truth was but it was interesting because it was in the days they did a lot of entertaining and this AOC he entertained the army guy, the naval guy and on one occasion the Aga Khan. I met, I met a lot of people. I don’t know whether I should put this on the tape but Mrs AOC was a pain in the head.
DE: Right.
RJW: The flowers were never right, or she sat in a draught, or the meat was tough, ‘Flight Lieutenant I didn’t like –’ [laughs].
DE: Oh dear. Oh dear.
RJW: But you know, you know I was only in my, I was in my twenties, middle twenties and I always thought it was good because it taught me a lot. It gave me experience which I never would have had otherwise. Anyway, eventually I went to Ein Shemer I thought I’d like to do a bit more flying. I went up to Ein Shemer in Palestine to join number 38 Squadron. I was the gunnery leader come armament officer, come radar oh everything. Everybody was leaving and they said, ‘You can do this.’ ‘You can do that.’ And a bit of a mixture I think but the main role of the squadron was finding illegal immigrant ships. Illegal ships were probably like what’s happening now but these ships were coming with Jewish people from the Balkans you know and from the middle of Europe and they were coming in to land in Palestine because the intake was on quotas and the idea was that 38 Squadron should locate them by radar on patrols and then get the navy to intercept them and when we did find them the navy used to miss them and they landed and the army picked them up. They put them in detention centres, that sort of thing, for a while but that is, that is what we were doing and I was there until about August, August 1947 and then I came home. Do you want to hear what happened to me after that?
DE: Yes, please, yeah, yeah.
RJW: Well I came back to the Hove Corporation. They’d promoted me to become the assistant valuation officer. I wasn’t qualified. Two hundred and fifty pounds a year. God. [laughs] Salary. And I realised I had to become qualified quickly. There were two exams. The Chartered, Chartered Auctioneers and Estates Agent’s Institute and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, so I got my head down and fortunately both organisations and others I believe, they introduced special war service conditions. I was able to take the direct final which was good. It was a three year course but I did it in eighteen months. Ah yes. I put my family, my wife, my daughter through hell because we didn’t do, I didn’t go out, I didn’t do anything. I just studied because I realised that I wouldn’t get anywhere unless I did and having passed and become a chartered surveyor I marched off the council and said ah you know and they said, ‘Ah well yes, we don’t think you’ll be any more service to us as a chartered surveyor than you were before Mr Woolgar.’ Twenty five pounds a year increase in your salary and we’ll give you a grant of twenty five pounds towards the cost of your studies. Well that prompted me to search for another job and I was very fortunate. I went to, I secured the job of the senior, a senior valuer in the city planning department of the City of London. So from knocking the hell out of Germany I came back to rebuilding the fire bombed city which was very, very interesting. It was a fantastic job in actual fact. I dealt with Barbican, St Paul’s area, all the war damaged areas. I was fourteen years there. I — I eventually I was deputy and the boss left and I got his job. For five years I was the planning valuer of the city and it was really good but that’s a whole book.
DE: Yeah, I can imagine.
RJW: About what happened. Various things, lots of public enquiries, you had some very famous people of course and QC’s and things like that and we had a New Zealander who was the city planning officer called Meland[?] and he was a very informal guy. Not a bit like the city fathers were and his famous words were, he was under cross examination by a QC at a public enquiry and he was asked why it was necessary to compulsorily acquire a group of buildings to put a road through and he said, ‘Well you see the bombs didn’t always drop in the right places.’ [laughs] You know. Anyway, after, after fourteen years I was poached by a firm by the name of St Quintin Son and Stanley to become a partner there and to be responsible for all their planning work and that was very good, very interesting because I, having negotiated with the partners as the valuer for the city I was now negotiating with my deputy who had come up on the opposite side. He often said, ‘Yeah but Jimmy you said, so and so'. I said 'Oh well yeah' [laughs]. But that was, I’ve had a very, very interesting life really. The city was full of tradition. Full of everything. That’s a whole book really. Having dealt with Barbican, the redevelopment of Barbican, the city —
DE: Yes.
RJW: I was now dealing on behalf of developers for developing other parts of the city. The idea, the main idea the city leased most of its land out on ninety nine year building leases by tender. So the developers all had to make a tender, ground rent condition and the design of the building and that sort of thing. That’s really the way it worked and from time to time there were planning enquiries and I was instructed sometimes by clients as a valuer, as a planning valuer to deal with various appeals for land, on land that they wanted to develop which the city didn’t want them to and or they were local protests and got myself in the witness box and highly cross examined by very clever QCs but also roamed around the country because we had a lot of clients in the city that were elsewhere in the country. We acted for the Bank of England, we acted for the Stock Exchange and the, and quite a number of the banks, Midland Bank and Lloyds, people like that and so it was, it was all done at a high level. It’s kind of amusing some of the things that I was asked to do which I knew nothing about [laughs] and I always remember a firm Denis firm [?], they were in the sand and gravel business they always wanted to extract sand and gravel from the best agricultural land by rivers you see and there was always objection to it. Anyway, I fought one or two appeals for them quite successfully, fortunately, and one day the chairman asked me to value their mineral reserves and so, ‘I can’t do that, I’m not the minerals man. I know nothing about it.’ ‘Oh that doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘I just want, I just want you to value it for me.’ I said, ‘Well I don’t know how to value it.’ ‘You’ll find a way.’ I particularly wanted to do it and I got the impression that we might lose them as a client if you know, if it didn’t [?]. My junior partner and I we put our heads together and somehow or other we found a way and he said, ‘Ah, it doesn’t matter. Nobody else will challenge it because they don’t know the way either.’ [laughs] Anyway, we, what did we do? Well leisurely [?] we, during that time the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors celebrated its hundredth year. I had a bit of a role in that as chairman of one of the committees that dealt with it which was very interesting. Oh yes. I was, I was picked up by a building society and became a non-executive director. It was called The Planet, and over the years, I joined them about 1963 I suppose, as soon as I became a partner of St Quentin and over the years we merged with the Magnet Building Society, that’s right and then we took over a midland society that had called itself the Town and Country Building Society so we then adopted that name and eventually, for the last three years I became chairman of that. I had the most interesting time because we had overseas conferences. Notably one in Washington which was extremely good and oh and Cannes. They really looked after themselves these that was the international thing you see.
DE: Wonderful.
RJW: Very nice, very pleasant and during all this period we had various dinners in the Mansion House, dinners in the Guildhall and in 1971 St Quentin firm celebrated it’s sesquicentennial which is their hundred and fiftieth year.
DE: Thank you for telling me.
RJW: Yes. Right. So by that time we were three joint level senior partners right and we split up the duties of what we were going to do. We had a year. I got the job of having the dinner in the Guildhall. I was manager, because the city surveyor was a friend of mine he managed to get us, we were the first outside body to have a dinner in the Guildhall and we had it and got the governor of the Bank of England as a principal guest, Lord Donaldson, the Master of the Rolls, Lady Donaldson his wife who was to become, he was the sheriff at the time and it was a pretty high ranking do. It was very good but I’m telling you the story because it’s kind of amusing. We had a chap in the firm who looked after all those sort of things you know. He was very good. He got the nuts and bolts done for us. So I said to him, ‘I think you’d better go tell the police up at John Street Police Station that we’ve got some VIPs coming to the Guildhall on this particular date because they might want to take some precautions. So he takes the guest list up, goes up to John Street. He sees a cockney desk sergeant and this desk sergeant looks at this list and he says, I’ve forgotten his name now, the governor of the Bank of England, ‘Oh no he don’t rate.’ Master of the Rolls. ‘Oh no he don’t rate.’ Lord something, I don’t know and he went down and at the bottom it had Her Majesty’s Band of the Royal Irish Guard. ‘Oh my Gawd,’ he said, ‘George, got the Irish Guards coming. Full emergency.’ And because the Irish guards, it was at the times of the troubles and because the Irish Guards were coming they had all sorts of precautions. These chaps had to come in individually in civvies and all that sort of thing you know, by themselves and yeah. I thought that was rather amusing.
DE: Crikey.
RJW: Anyway, I retired in 1971, no 1973 that’s right. 1993 at the age of seventy three, got it right. We spent a lot of time cruising. We like cruising. We went on quite a few cruises. We got, we had a place in Majorca, an apartment there. A little place on the coast which was very nice. We spent quite a bit of time out there. That’s really it. Just got older. A bit more infirm, you know. The wheels don’t grind as well as they used to. I hope I haven’t bored you.
DE: No. It’s been absolutely wonderful. There’s —
RJW: I haven’t given you an opportunity to ask any questions.
DE: Well, I’ve as you’ve seen, I’ve jotted some questions down. I mean, again they’re quite, quite broad questions. What, what was it like flying in a Hampden?
RJW: Well you see, strangely enough there was no comparison was there because I’d flown in an Anson which was alright but the next type aircraft you flew in was a Hampden so it was, it was alright. Probably thought all flying was like that but for the wireless operator, rear gunner it was a bit dicey I think. People don’t really know this, you have a wireless set in front of you and what they called a scarff ring with twin VGO guns with pans of ammunition on them, right and a cupola which closes down over the top of it over the guns but in order to operate the guns the cupola has to be back which means when you’re over the other side you’re in the open air and you were standing up to be vigilant. Well I mean you couldn’t see sitting down. You wanted a turret standing up and eventually you have an electric motor on it but originally there wasn’t. It was [unclear]. There was a heating pipe came off the starboard engine I think, exhaust or something. Unfortunately it used to burn the living daylights out of you down on the ground and it was ice cold when you got up top [laughs] but you know. So it wasn’t that comfortable and the other position, the rear gunner was in a belly thing. A blister underneath and that was very, very difficult. You were hunched up, you know, you would get cramp in it. It wasn’t very nice but you know other than that it was alright although I must admit that when I mention to people, RAF guys, I was in a Hampden they say, ‘You were in a Hampden?’ They say, ‘You flew in Hampdens and you’re still alive.’ [laughs] No, no, no. They weren’t, they weren’t that bad really. I think our pilot like any, Ralph, he was quite happy with it. I don’t know whether the navigator was. Sorry.
DE: No. No. That’s, that’s wonderful. So what was, what was your favourite aircraft to fly in?
RJW: Sorry.
DE: What was your favourite to fly in?
RJW: The —
DE: What aircraft was your favourite to fly in?
RJW: The other aircraft.
DE: Yeah. What other aircraft?
RJW: Oh well I flew in Halifax 3s. Wellingtons. I think I flew in a Mosquito once or twice. Ansons. Passenger in a Tiger Moth. That sort of thing, you know. Oh and Lancaster, Manchester. Manchester and Lancaster yes but I didn’t do any ops in a Manchester or Lancaster. The Manchester was the forerunner as, you know about that. Yes. Yes. We had them on, they were introduced on 49 Squadron in about, I think about September 1942, something like that. One of the early ones and then fairly quickly replaced by the Lancasters. Oh the Lancaster were marvellous. I flew in the Lancasters of course in Ein Shemer. They were Lancasters. Yeah.
DE: I see, right, yeah.
RJW: They were good. We had, at Ein Shemer I’ve got to tell you one of the duties there was to provide an airborne lifeboat at Malta so we had a little jolly there for three weeks and so. A couple of aircraft with airborne lifeboats stationed at Valetta. You were on twenty four hours standby. Then twenty four hours down the pub [laughs] that was quite good and we did one, we did one exercise, the exercise was that we were taken out by the navy, cast adrift in a dinghy and the other crew had to home on it and drop the airborne lifeboat and the crew in the dinghy had to get in to it and sail it back in to Valetta harbour. We were the crew in the dinghy. We got told off for eating all the rations [laughs], but you know it was fun. It was quite good. Malta was nice too in those days. Post war you see.
DE: What was –?
RJW: Oh and Cyprus. That was another place we had to go to. We went to Cyprus. Yes. Sorry.
DE: What was, what was it like, what was the difference between being a sergeant and becoming an officer?
RJW: Oh well. It was quite good. It was more comfortable. The sergeant’s mess was very good. The food was always good. I never grumbled about the food. I think the air crew seemed to get additional rations or something. It all went in altogether but somebody once told me you get more dairy products because as air crew or something like that. I don’t know. But being an officer obviously was more comfortable. You didn’t have to make your bed [laughs]. You had a batwoman, batman or batwoman. You know a WAAF who did it for you. Cleaned your shoes that sort of thing. The chores. You had more chores done for you I found, but yes it was it was comfortable. Flying. Right. Oh I forgot to tell you an incident which is recorded in David Donaldson’s obituary. We were flying on patrols to locate the launching pads of the V2. In fact, we saw, I was with David Donaldson, we saw the first one go up and we got a fix on it and that is quite interesting because we told the special operator and he got his head down and we tried to get a lot of information out of him when we got back as to what he found. We got nothing out of him of course but of course what we did eventually find out and this is public knowledge now it wasn’t radar controlled. It was clockwork controlled but Churchill insisted that the patrols continued so even after they found out we were still going up and down on the line and on one occasion, daylight. It was on daylight a couple of, I don’t know what they were, I can’t remember, mix them up, I can’t remember what the aircraft were. A couple of German fighters. I can’t remember what they were now, a couple of German fighters came up, come up and we were just about to take evasive action when they tucked them in, they tucked themselves in the wing and the pilot went like that.
DE: Waved at you.
RJW: Waved at David. David. You know. Like that. Like that and then they peeled away and off they went. This was over Holland and they were quite friendly. This would have been, oh I don’t know, probably March, April something like that 1945. And do you know I remember that so well for years and years and years and I wonder sometimes did that really happen or did I dream it? And then in David Donaldson’s obituary it was mentioned and I thought goodness that is true, it did really happen. I meant, I should have told you before.
DE: No. That’s, that’s wonderful. What was, what was David like?
RJW: Yeah. Actually of course they’d, if they’d, if they’d have split up you know they would have, they would have had us you know, in fact.
DE: Sure.
RJW: Yeah. Yeah.
DE: What was David like?
RJW: Sorry?
DE: What was David Donaldson like?
RJW: Oh lovely. He was a hell of a nice guy. Easy going. He was a good CO. Firm, right. Never panicked. He was a solicitor by profession and he was very calm. We did the first FIDO landing at Foulsham. We went to Gardenia [?] and did our stuff there and incidentally on the way back, was it Balcom [?] Island, the Swedish island on the Baltic, fired various tracer bullets up in a V sign [laughs]. Nobody went near of course. Anyway, when we got back it was fog and David said, ‘Well we’ve got an option of landing on FIDO or being diverted.’ He said, you know, he said, ‘What do you want to do chaps? Do you want me to land or go somewhere else for your eggs and bacon.’ ‘Oh no David,’ you know and he did a perfect landing. Real, you know. The risk of FIDO was that you veered off it but, perfect. Yeah. He was like that. He said, ‘What do you want to do?’ [laughs]
DE: Wonderful. Yeah. So when you saw these two fighters —
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Were you mid-upper upper or were you the rear gunner?
RJW: Sorry?
DE: Were you mid-upper gunner or the rear gunner? When you saw the two fighters.
RJW: Yes.
DE: Were you the mid-upper gunner or the rear gunner?
RJW: I was in the mid upper.
DE: Ah huh.
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Was that your –?
RJW: I was, yeah because I, the mid upper was the controller, in other words we used to take evasive action. If you were in daylight you take evasive action and once you had come back you’d take control. You would tell him corkscrew right, corkscrew left because the pilot can’t see.
DE: No.
RJW: They can’t see. They come in on a curve of pursuit like that and you’d corkscrew in, down and roll and up the other way you see, but if they split up either side you’d had it.
DE: Yeah. Did you did you ever fire your guns in anger?
RJW: Hmmn?
DE: Did you ever shoot at a fighter?
RJW: Ever see a fighter?
DE: No. Did you ever shoot at one?
RJW: Oh yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: At night time. Well I hoped it was a fighter [laughs]. No. Once or twice you know you saw the thing come out of, but never, I never had a sustained fight. Never had something come in two or three times but I can’t remember. Not on the Halifax. Never had anything on the Halifax or the Hampden. Fired the guns several times on the Hampden but I can’t remember exactly when they were. Sorry about that.
DE: That’s quite alright. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, which did you like better the night ops or daylight ops?
RJW: Oh we didn’t do much daylight. We did very little daylight. We did some mining in daylight but it was nearly all night ops. We always thought daylight was a bit scary but [laughs] but no I suppose the scariness really was in the middle of the flak. Then you really, in a Hampden you could hear it, you could smell it and you could see it. Puffs of puffs you know if you got there. If you were — Essen and Hamburg they were, they were the places that you got, and of course Berlin but I only, I only did one trip to Berlin. My first one. But that wasn’t very good because it was covered in cloud anyway. If you, when you, when we went to France, if we were bombing France if you couldn’t see the target, initially anyway, you had to bring your bombs back and that’s recorded quite a bit.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: By the way have you got “The Hampden File?”
DE: Yes.
RJW: Harry Moyle?
DE: No. Yes. We’ve got a copy of that.
RJW: That’s very good. Have you got, “Beware of the Dog”?
DE: I don’t know about that one.
RJW: 49 Squadron history. The whole history of 49 Squadron written by John Ward and Ted Catchart. It was actually published by Ted Catchart. If you get in touch with Alan Parr, you know Alan. He’ll tell you where and how you can get a copy of it. You should really have a copy of that.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Because that details everything.
DE: Yeah. Wonderful. I will do. Thank you.
RJW: Yes. It’s called, that’s our crest you see.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Cave Canem.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: So —
DE: Yeah. I’ll make sure we get a copy for the library.
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Yeah. And the “Bomber Command Diaries.” You’ve got those.
DE: Got those. Yeah.
RJW: Yeah. I’ve got all those.
DE: They’re worth, worth a bit as well, they are as well. How how did you cope with flying nights?
RJW: How did I cope?
DE: Yeah. Flying nights. What —?
RJW: How?
DE: Flying operations at night how, how —
RJW: Finding them?
DE: Yeah. How did you, how did you cope, you know with interrupted sleep patterns and —?
RJW: I’m not quite with you sorry.
DE: No. Flying operations at night —
RJW: At night time.
DE: Yeah. Your sleep was interrupted.
RJW: Oh sleep.
DE: Yeah how, how did you, how did you —?
RJW: Oh well yes you went to briefing in the morning if ops were on. No not briefing. You’d do a bit of exercise and that. Go to the flight and then you’d have an early briefing and then you’d have a rest, have your eggs and bacon and then night time you kept awake. There were tablets they used to give you to keep awake. I can’t remember the name of them now but they didn’t do much good I don't think. And then of course after de-briefing when you came back, eggs and bacon and you had a long sleep. Sometimes you were on the next night but not very often that happened. Not in my day. It did later on of course.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: It did later on.
DE: Did you, did you take tablets to keep you awake?
RJW: Yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: I can’t remember the names now.
DE: Wakey wakey tablets.
RJW: Yeah. I can’t remember what they were. Caffeine. Yeah I think it was —
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Something like that. You could, if you wanted them you could have them but I can’t remember the name of them.
DE: Was it, was it Benzedrine?
RJW: Yeah. Yeah but I never found. You were wound up. Let’s put it, let’s be honest about it. Everybody was. You were apprehensive.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Ok. You knew the target. You kitted up. You went out. You were taken out to the aircraft and you fiddled around with all your gear. You had to make sure everything was ok and eventually you took off. Sometimes you often, sometimes you took off in twilight so you could see the setting sun as it were, you know. See Lincoln Cathedral. And because you were in the rear you were looking west you were seeing some of the light and ok you got a bit of jitters maybe you know. A bit. Apprehension more than anything else but you had to be very alert. Very alert. You had to be watching all the time and you reported back anything you see. Getting over the target, doing the bombing run. That was a bit of a wait you know. Flying steady, straight and steady and hearing the navigator or the bomb aimer going to the skipper. Everybody else was quiet. You could see the activity going on but if there was cloud below or the flashes coming up and everything else. If you were near flak as I said you could smell it and see it and all that sort of thing. Got away from the target. There was always a sense of relief once you come away from the target but of course it was just as dangerous coming away. You couldn’t — you couldn't relax or you shouldn’t relax, let’s put it that way. Probably that’s what did happen. You just had to be on your toes all the time but on the way back over the sea, over the North Sea coming back you were a bit relaxed then. Coming in to land of course you had to be very careful. You could have intruders, you know. You really, you couldn’t sit down. You couldn’t take a rest. And you know there were times and I’m sure others have told you this, you had a very dicey trip and you say, ‘If I get back I’m not going to come again.’ [laughs] Why come back? If I get out of this one that’s it, but you did, you know. You didn’t, you didn’t think much about, you didn’t think too much about it on the ground. At least I didn’t. You didn’t dwell about it. You didn’t think. You got wound up for ops. Then they were scrubbed so you were off to the pub you know it’s not oh, everything goes and you just, you just tended to live for that night, that night. You were in the pub with your pals drinking away and you didn’t give many thoughts to the fact that you would be doing the same thing tomorrow. At least I didn’t and I don’t think many other people did either. Some might have, but I didn’t. You just treated each day as it came along. You got scared, of course you got scared you know, got scared out of your life when you were in the dinghy but you thought, oh well, you know, something will happen. I’ll get out of it. Eventually you did. I don’t know but the greatest thing [?] was though, to be honest was to see your pals go although because in the main you didn’t know whether they were killed or not. They didn’t return. They were missing. Right. Failed to return. And there was always the hope that they’d be prisoners of war or they’d landed somewhere else but it, it didn’t sink in. It wasn’t like that, being in the army and seeing the person next to you killed. That didn’t happen unless your own aircraft, you could see an aircraft gosh I can’t remember the number of lucky breaks I had. Yes. On the, on 49 Squadron when I first joined Allsebrook I was a bit concerned and this is not against the guy at all but it is recorded somewhere this happened. He came to the squadron. He had flown into a balloon barrage under training and he was the only one that got out. On the first trip with him he was very keen, they’d made him the photographic, he wasn’t the, he wasn’t the station fellow, he was some sort of, something to do with photography and he wanted to hold the aircraft straight and level over the target to take the photographs [laughs]. So you know that was my first trip or second trip, I can’t remember which and I got a bit, a bit concerned about it and there was a sergeant pilot, or flight sergeant pilot that I’d been drinking with or knew quite well and he wanted a rear gunner and I thought, he wanted a WOP/AG, I thought. Well ok I’ll go and see if I can get switched into his crew and I went to see Domestra [?] who was our flight commander, Squadron Leader Domestra and he he said, ‘Oh no, I’ve done the crew schedules for the night,’ he said, ‘Come and see me tomorrow.’ His name was Walker this chap. He took off behind us. Engine cut. Went straight in. The bombs went up. Killed them all. I thought, I didn’t know it was him at the time. I saw it. When I got back we said, ‘Who was it that went, that went in?’ It was him. I thought oh my God, you know. Strange isn’t it? I must have somehow had a lucky penny. Oh yes and you will have heard this story and Eric will have told you. Others will. We had, the CO was called Stubbs. Wing Commander Stubbs. One day after briefing for ops, we were going on ops. ‘All the NCO’s will remain behind,’ remain behind. We got a real right rollicking about our form of dress, not wearing regulation boots or shoes. All sorts of things you know. Slovenly behaviour. Then he said, famous words, ‘Just remember the only reason you’ve got three stripes on your arm is to save you from the salt mines in case you are taken prisoner of war.’ Have you heard that? Oh yes. Yes. Yes. He said that. He said that and he got the name of Salt Mine Sam. Sam Stubbs. That is recorded somewhere but Eric Cook he was with me. I was on the squadron when Eric Cook was there you see and but he famously used to quote that quite often actually but yeah and it’s quite well known. There was a guy that was, I don’t know what his name was now but he was, he was an honourable bloke, honourable, he was a sergeant pilot and he was a bloke, he was an odd bloke, he refused to take a commission. I can’t remember his name but he was some sort of landed gentry of some sort and he was able to talk in high places as you did and we got a very meagre, half-hearted well it wasn’t an apology it was some sort of, you know it wasn’t really meant sort of thing you know. Sorry about that.
DE: No. That’s wonderful. I’m going to, I think I’m going to draw the interview to a close because you’ve been talking for nearly two hours.
RJW: Oh gosh. Have I?
DE: Yeah. That’s —
RJW: Have I really?
DE: Yes. Yeah.
RJW: I’m sorry.
DE: No, it’s –
RJW: I’ve probably bored you stiff.
DE: No. It’s absolutely marvellous and I’ve said nothing on the tape so it’s fantastic.
RJW: Eh?
DE: I’ve not spoken at all. It’s all been you so —
RJW: Do you, it’s funny everything else is going but that memory.
DE: It certainly is. Yeah. It’s fantastic. Yeah. Well I’m going to –
RJW: And while I’ve been talking to you Dan I’ve been living it visually.
DE: I could tell. Yeah.
RJW: I can see it.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: I can see the incidents right there.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: As you know.
DE: It’s been an absolute pleasure.
RJW: I didn’t realise, I didn’t realise it was —
DE: Two hours look. So I shall, I shall press pause and stop it. Thank you very, very much. That’s absolutely wonderful.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Reg Woolgar
Description
An account of the resource
Reg Woolgar was born in Hove. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force in December 1939 and trained as a wireless operator/air gunner. He flew Hampdens with 49 Squadron. His aircraft was damaged by anti-aircraft fire on a mine laying operation to Oslo Fjord, including a bullet that passed through his gun sight. He recounts ditching a Hampden in the English Channel and being picked up by the Royal Navy off the Isle of Wight. He describes evenings out in Lincoln at the Saracen’s Head. After his first tour he was commissioned and became gunnery leader with 192 Squadron in 100 Group. Reg Woolgar was posted overseas in 1945 and recounts a bomb exploding near the King David Hotel, in Jerusalem. He also recounts tales of his time in Kenya and provides details of his career outside the Royal Air Force, as a planner and valuer for the city of London. He retired in 1971.
Creator
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Dan Ellin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-14
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Chris Cann
Format
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02:00:47 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWoolgarRLA160614
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Lincoln
England--Norfolk
England--Oxfordshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
Germany--Mannheim
Middle East--Jerusalem
Middle East--Palestine
Germany
Germany--Kiel Canal
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-09-01
1942
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
10 OTU
100 Group
192 Squadron
49 Squadron
617 Squadron
83 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
ditching
entertainment
fear
FIDO
final resting place
Gneisenau
Goldfish Club
Hampden
killed in action
mine laying
missing in action
Operational Training Unit
RAF Foulsham
RAF Scampton
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Yatesbury
Scharnhorst
searchlight
training
Walrus
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/187/2467/SMarshallS1594781v10031.1.jpg
127f75d875563164a3ceb15110f8de91
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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Marshall, Syd. Album
Identifier
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Marshall, S
Description
An account of the resource
77 items. The album contains wartime and post-war photographs, newspaper cuttings, and memorabilia assembled by Warrant Officer Sidney Charles Marshall (1924 - 2017, 1594781 Royal Air Force). Syd Marshall was a flight engineer with 103 Squadron and flew operations from RAF Elsham Wolds.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Syd Marshall and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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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.
Date
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2015-05-08
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
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ELSHAM WOLDS’ GREAT PART IN BOMBING CAMPAIGN
Four Years of Magnificent Effort
ELSHAM Wolds began to operate with R.A.F. Bomber Command in July, 1941. The airfield was not quite completed when No. 103 Squadron arrived from Newton on July 11, but the Squadron soon settled in and has remained there ever since.
In nearly four years Elsham has built up a high reputation in the Royal Air Force. There was little delay before the airfield was placed on an operational basis and the Wellingtons were out on July 24, from 11 a.m. to 6.45 pm., attacking the battle cruiser “Gneisenau” at Brest.
Before long the Germans knew of the new bomber station, and in August, 1941, enemy aircraft attacked it. They did no serious damage. They tried again several times in later years, though never in strength.
The “Wimpeys” held the fort while the factories got busy with the production of the new four-engined bombers.
On September 10, 1941, Wellingtons flew to Turin for the loss of only one aircraft. By the end of December, Elsham was able to record as many as 17 Wellingtons airborne on a single night.
On one occasion two sergeants brought back their aircraft after four of the crew had baled out; a flare had caught alight in the rear fuselage.
AMONG THE 1,000
After taking part in the May and June 1,000 bomber raids in 1942, there was a lull.
Halifaxes began to arrive and in August made their first sorties from the station, against Dusseldorf. Hardly had the engineering staff accustomed themselves to these aircraft when there was another change, this time to Lancasters. By November 21 the Lancasters had replaced the Halifaxes and were doing excellently.
On the night of May 23-24, 1943, No. 103 Squadron put up 27 Lancasters, which at that time was a Command record.
The Commander-in-Chief, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, G.C.B., O.B.E., A.F.C., visited the station in September and addressed the crews.
One of the flights of No. 103 Squadron was transferred to No. 576 Squadron, which was being formed at Elsham. This left 103 a two-flight squadron. The two squadrons were together in close association and friendly rivalry until October, 1944.
OVER BERLIN
No. 103 Squadron had 30 aircraft over Berlin on the night of November 26-27. Elsham became a base station from December 1 and controlled the airfields at Kirmington and North Killingholme.
The wild weather of January, 1944, made life at Elsham what the R.A.F. call “pretty raw,” but the ground staff worked wonders in clearing blocked roads, and runways.
During the spring the Base Commander, Air Commodore Ivelaw Chapman, O.B.E., D.F.C., A.F.C., was shot down over France and taken prisoner. He has recently returned to this country. Air Commodore F.R.D. Swain, O.B.E., A.F.C., who broke the altitude record some years ago, took over from Air Commodore Chapman.
In June both squadrons at Elsham dropped a thousand tons in a month for the first time, and kept this up for some time. In the summer people in the neighbourhood were able to realise the full power of Bomber Command. Daylight operations against V sites, railway centres, and in close support of the Army enabled them to see the sky full of four-engined aircraft day after day.
In October, No. 103 Squadron dropped 1,277 tons, and 86 aircraft of both squadrons operated against Duisburg within 24 hours. On October 31, No. 576 Squadron left Elsham for Fiskerton. With 103 Squadron they had dropped 5,748 tons in the previous five months.
BOMBER COMMAND’S PRIDE
Elsham was the home of Lancaster “M.2,” the pride of Bomber Command. Its long life showed what a high standard of maintenance had been kept up. “M.2.” first flew on operations on May 4, 1943, to Dortmund, with 103 Squadron. It was later transferred to 576 Squadron, and had been on 103 operations by the beginning of 1944. It was retired with 144 trips to its credit, 97 of them to Germany and 15 to Berlin.
During the last winter everyone at Elsham was working at full stretch, and the Lancasters were fully employed on targets like the Ruhr, Ludwigshafen, Nuremburg, Munich, Chemnitz, and Dresden. Many mines were laid in enemy waters.
For the last month of operations No. 103 Squadron was joined by No. 100 Squadron from Waltham (Grimsby), and both were in the attack on Berchtesgaden on April 25.
When there was no more bombing to be done, large convoys of Army vehicles began to drive up to the station. They carried food for the Lancasters to take to Holland. Another task was to bring back hundreds of freed prisoners of war from the Continent.
Many Elsham names will go down in history for acts of heroism. On May 4, 1944, an aircraft of No. 576 Squadron, captained by Pilot-Officer Reed, of Wellingborough, Northants, landed with the flight engineer helping Reed to hold the control column and the air bomber clinging to the rudder pedals. The Lancaster looked a total wreck. It had been shot up by a fighter over Mailly-le-Camp; it had caught fire, a large hole was knocked in the floor, electrical and navigational instruments were smashed, the rudders and elevators were damaged, and the rear-turret was hanging by a threat.
Two Lancaster from 103 Squadron were each attacked by two fighters on July 29, 1944, when bombing Stuttgart. All four of the enemy were destroyed in a couple of minutes.
Another 103 crew shot down a Ju. 88 over Karlsruhe on April 25, 1944, but sustained serious damage. The pilot had to ditch, and the crew were on the Goodwin Sands for seven hours before being picked up.
Just before the end of the war one of Elsham’s aircraft came back with a 250lb. bomb embedded in a wing. The pilot told the crew to bale out, and the baled out himself near base.
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
Elsham Wolds' Great Part in Bombing Campaign
Four years of Magnificent Effort
Description
An account of the resource
A history of 103 Squadron's operations at RAF Elsham Wolds.
Format
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One newspaper cutting on an album page
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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SMarshallS1594781v10031
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France--Brest
Italy--Turin
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Munich
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dresden
Netherlands
France--Mailly-le-Camp
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Karlsruhe
France
Italy
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Govert J. van Lienden
100 Squadron
103 Squadron
576 Squadron
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
ditching
Gneisenau
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Ju 88
Lancaster
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Kirmington
RAF North Killingholme
rivalry
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/202/3337/PBartonER1701.2.jpg
071666ab6479ce7a37ce4cb7127bc494
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/202/3337/ABartonER170121.2.mp3
3cddedabe14a45c9452ae83e436c2bba
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
Barton, Eric Reginald
Eric Reginald Barton
Flying Officer Eric Reginald Barton DFC LdH
Eric Barton DFC
Eric Barton
Eric R Barton
E R Barton
Description
An account of the resource
One interview with Eric Reginald Barton DFC (423589 Royal Australian Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Barton, ER
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BJ: Ok. It’s Barry Jackson continuing the interview with Eric Barton. Eric, we spoke before about your training and, and where you came from and all that sort of stuff. When you were flying different types of aircraft were there the good, the bad, what was the good things about the good aeroplanes and what was the bad things and was there anything that you thought was, that you remember about the different types of aeroplanes?
EB: Yes Barry. Well first up of course was the Tiger Moth and mastering the art of flying and I can recall nearly getting scrubbed as a pilot because I used to land about twenty feet up high and the CFI said where do you look and I said straight ahead and he said that’s wrong look out to the side you’ll see exactly where you are at forty-five degrees. And I did a first one it was a greaser, a three pointer and he said OK you’re off, away you go. And I remember that all throughout my flying years that no matter where, what sort of aircraft, if you looked out to the side you’d see exactly where you were and I was able to do, what we call then, three pointers. Just as a side comes to my mind, we had a thing with the crew my rear gunner used to come up on the intercom after we’d like come back from a raid and he’d say we’d land back at base and he’d say excuse me skipper but tell me have we landed and I [laughs]
BJ: Showing off now [laughs]
EB: That got to be a real line shoot you know. So —
BJ: Yes. Yes.
EB: Never, never forgotten that.
BJ: And what about —
EB: We, going from the little Tiger to a war plane type situation like with the Anson was the next one. Which was a twin engine, Canadian Ansons. Finally, when we went to Canada in Macleod and Alberto which was we went through winter and summer but the early twin engines, that our first twin engine aircraft the old Ansons was a wind up under carriage so it was about, I don’t know about sixty or seventy winds of the crank handle to wind the wheels up and sixty or seventy to put them down. And, of course, when you are doing circuits and bumps you were supposed to take off, flying the wheels up do your circuit and wind your wheels down to land. Well, being Aussies we didn’t take too kindly to all that bull, bull dust so we would give her a couple of turns and the wheels were still there. Half way through our training they, they replaced those aircrafts with the, the Canadian built Ansons which I see had Jacobs L6 motors and they were hydraulic and that was, they were then constant speed propellers, the early ones were fixed speed which entails a different way of flying. Constant prop and hydraulic landing so that was our, our thing to a, a good war type aeroplane. From Ansons we went to Oxfords and then we did our final training as far as twins are concerns then a little bit more into Wellingtons. Wellington was of course and ex, early bomber in the early RAF days that was a very good bomber and very, very good aircraft to fly. A beautiful aircraft to fly. From there we went, we went, we went to, to OTU. That’s where we crewed up. You’ve probably have heard stories about how you crewed up. Very briefly you were — pilot would be told OK you go and select your crew and go and get yourself a cup of coffee or something I don’t think it was a lager or beer. Go to this big hanger and there was milling around a lot of chaps, find yourself a navigator a wireless operator, bomb aimers and so on and so forth. The first crewing up situation was the pilot, would be select your navigator, your wireless operator and later on, further you would select your bomb aimer and your air gunners. The air gunners were the, were the last to be selected. At, at the point of first selection you were put in with New Zealanders, Aussies, Canadians, South, South Africans, all the, the British Empire chaps. They were the ones that were that supplied the pilot, navigator, wireless op, bomb aimer, if you like, the highly technical like people. The gunners were all British, RAF they were. There was no gunners from the Empire outside. So [clears throat] I was fortunate, I think, to get together a bunch of fellows that all filled in together. The thing that comes to my mind just now I’m thinking, when you first made your selection as a pilot you started to be accepting some responsibly. Up until that time I was just a bit of a wild boy I, I was living for myself doing whatever the hell I wanted to do and it was lovely flying airplanes and so on and so forth. When I got to get a crew I thought, I remember thinking to myself, my god I’m going to be responsible for these fellows’ lives for the next what, however long we live.
BJ: And how old were you then?
EB: I was then just turning nineteen
BJ: Right.
EB: And I’d never accepted any responsibility for anything.
BJ: Yes.
EB: And it was when. I can still remember the first time I sat in a Lancaster ready to go I thought this is it, this is where the whole thing starts from now.
BJ: Big responsibility?
EB: Yes. There by, their lives are in my hands.
BJ: Yes. Can I ask you —
EB: Banff in Scotland. There were two Banff I was at actually one was Banff, Calgary, Alberto which was up in the Rockies and the other Banff was in Scotland which was the Northern most part of —
BJ: Was probably just as cold [laughs]
EB: Lands End, Lands End to John O’Groats. But anyway, we were at Banff in Scotland and we were doing a night flying exercise at the end of my training there. We did start to do a cross countries we came back in with I think two, two crew, a navigator and myself. I can’t remember if it was more. Anyway, we came in and we put the thing down a perfect three pointer on the runway but the Oxford had a, sort of a nose, it’s three pointer was the wheel in the front and two wheels under the wing so it was a tricycle sort of under carriage. We landed and the front tyre blew out and with the result that it ended up on its nose and I can remember sitting, the Oxford has a plexiglass nose you can look through it from the pilot seat. You look between your legs and down through the instrument panel you see the runway and I can remember flying and hearing next to you and I’m on the runway and I can see sparks and I thought what a pretty sight.
BJ: [laughs]
EB: Here’s, here’s two wheels and I’m sliding along on the thing on the runway until it finally came to a halt. Fortunately, it didn’t go off to one side and stick it’s nose in and turn ourselves upside down but we’re still strapped in and I thought now, what do I do now. How the hell do I get out of this jolly thing? First time I’d had a really good prang in an aircraft and I thought perhaps I better get out of this quick smart as there’s bloody petrol and all that which I did. And later on, I got castigated from my mates who were sent flying around and around and around in circles until they got Barton off the end of the bloody runway to make room. Cause there was only one runway [laughs]. So that was that. Now then we went to Stirlings and throughout [phone ringing] now you know you are going to ops and how good a pilot I am I’m still a pilot and flying and [long pause]. The Stirling was a very difficult thing to taxi and take off. It had breaks and a, and the, the steering wheel had clamps which is how you steered it. Taxi wise it was absolutely terrible. Very difficult but once you got it up in the air it was, it was – no we were talking about the Stirling actually and its way of taxiing but once you got it up in the air it was a beautiful aircraft
BJ: Yep.
EB: But we didn’t do too much, too many hours in the Wellington but that was my first four engine aircraft and I can see in my log book that we only did about a month in training of a four engine then we went straight onto Lancs because they needed pilots very quick smart.
BJ: Yes.
EB: So, we didn’t get too much training as far as going from twin engines to four engines. The, the Stirling had huge [unclear] legs and you could drop, drop it in from a great height so it didn’t matter very much.
BJ: Yes.
EB: But going from twins to four engines wasn’t to my mind, wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might be. You had to have a flight engineer. Be aware that the Aussie RAF and I think most of the RAF we didn’t have second pilots. We had a pilot and we had a flight engineer. The engineer was responsible for checking your mechanics of, of the thing, how much fuel you got and motors were ticking over alright, etcetera, etcetera. So [pause] going from twins to four engines taxiing wise you, you used your two outer motors because that was, so to enable it to be manoeuvred easily rather than the inner motors. So, you’d land with four engines, get off the runway with four engines and shut, not shut down but idle the inners and use the outers for steering and so forth. Very quick. The important thing was you had to manoeuvre and get yourself off the runway very quickly because you had mates coming in behind you. Some needed urgently to land, pretty much I, I was never in a bind or a problem in landing. Two or three times I had to land on three motors, couple of times I ended up with two motors which is something that is very, very difficult to do. Talking about three motors, the [laughs] I’m trying to remember which motor was the worst. If you lost an inner it wasn’t too bad, losing an outer was bad enough. I’m sorry but I forget which ones had the hydraulics and which ones didn’t. The inners had hydraulics to them I think, some of the outers had [pause] dynamos charging, charging your batteries, charging things. The, an occasion I can recall we lost one motor we were hit by flak on one motor and it burst into flames and I said to the flight engineer, a fellow of the, the port outer and it’s on fire, further put it outer and pull the tip. Which is pull the fire extinguisher. In his panic, and we were over, we were under, under attack from various sources, in his panic he fell at the port inner but when I told him to pull the tip on the port inner, the fire extinguisher, he pulled the wrong one, so the fire extinguisher went off on the starboard inner, so with the result that we ended up with two motors instead of three. Fortunately, they were on either side.
BJ: Yes.
EB: Rather than two on one side. We were able to fly, just to maintain height and things with two motors. From memory I think we were pretty close to the target, but I can’t remember where the target was but if I look in here I can find where the target was, but we were able to get to the target on two motors and get rid of the bombs and then gradually come home. I don’t whether we’ve touched on one of the raids I did on Skagerrak in Norway. Did we do that? Did we touch on that one?
BJ: No.
EB: When you, when you done your briefing and all the rest of it and all the crews are all clued up and ready to go. We probably, mostly we did night time trips and usually we’d do our briefing early, sometimes it was put back a little bit so we’d end up at the pub and we’d have quite a, I reckon I used to fly better when I had a few beers in, pretty damned happy than when I didn’t. Traditional thing is as you know is to piddle on the tyre, as you kick the tyre and piddle on that’s for luck. Everybody climbs on board so by enlarge you, you [unclear] on board personally and a fair amount of liquid inside [laughs]. A pilot cannot, he has a parachute which he sits on, he can’t easily leave the stick but operations, the reason is the pilot, you kept, you did, the Lancaster does have an automatic pilot but the automatic pilot is hydraulic so any pilot worth his salt never ever left it or engaged the automatic pilot because it was a) too hard to get rid of the jolly thing if you wanted to cancel it out and b) by the time you sorted it out if somebody was attacking you and had a good go at you before so you always flew with your hands on and you [phone ringing] always sat. So, on one occasion I can recall having a need to do a whizzer in fifteen, sixteen thousand feet and icy conditions and I had an ability that I adopted through my pilots window just to slide it back a bit. They were sliding windows, we call them windows and I used to be able to in those days being much younger, quite easy to get the proverbial, necessary things organised and I’d let the whiz go just, must beside the venturi and out, the liquid would be sucked out quite easily.
BJ: [laughs]
EB: So, we’re flying along in icy conditions in a very nice clear lovely night and the mid upper gunner came up and he said skipper, skipper please get down quickly, get down we’re icing up, we’re icing up and I looked out my, my cockpit, my window and I said what’s wrong Jordy you’re crazy man, there’s nothing wrong it’s beautiful up here. Oh, my cockpit’s all covered in ice, I’m iced, I’m iced up I said oh my god I’m sorry mate I just let, let go. He said I’m all covered in, in brown ice, oh my god. Oh, I said I had to let it go. Oh, you dirty rotten nasty skipper, you’ve [laughs]. That was that sort of a situation
BJ: [laughing]
EB: As I say a couple of times we lost loaders we got shot at a few times. The three main things. The three main areas of, shall we say, activity that you were very aware of. One was searchlights. We were routed to go zig zag routes towards the target never in a straight line for the reason that a) the, the in the wisdom the bosses had planned out that the track to be taken to dodge searchlight, known searchlight stations, known pockets of searchlights, anti-aircraft guns, fighter aerodromes and so forth. So, you had to zig zag right a sort of a zig zag situation and, and [pause]. So, yes, the three main things were searchlights. Now there’s two types of searchlights, the blue searchlight and the normal white searchlight. You got caught with a searchlight it’d shine in your eyes and most uncomfortable you couldn’t see instruments and so on and so forth so, you’d immediately do a zig zag or take evasive action to get out of the, the white of the searchlight. Now if you were caught with a blue searchlight however, that’s the master searchlight and if you got caught with that, which is, they are all electronically controlled and he fixed onto you it was very, very difficult to get away from him but more importantly he controlled probably eight to ten other searchlights so the key searchlight the blue one. So, if ever you got caught in a blue one you could start counting where, where you might be or where you might not be. To get a searchlight whether blue or white, evasive action could be called for importantly and a Lanc had a, a very nice aircraft to fly in in all respects and it was easy to, to do evasive action. I’m trying to think of evasive action you used to just about every facet of your, your hands, your ability, your feet, your rudders, ailerons, throttles, pull the throttles up, stall the aircraft pretty near. Do everything but stick it on its back. Some people got stuck on their back and that was very difficult with a loaded aircraft. I can recall a guy in one, one of our aircraft, XYG, it had, had a bad back door a crook lock on the back door and they were trying to fix it but eventually they did but on this occasion they didn’t and so I said to wireless op, I said Johnny, go down and shut the jolly back door and so he went down to shut the back door and as soon as he did we got caught in the searchlight and I remember taking evasive action [clears throat] and half way through that there was an almighty scream on the intercom and Johnny said what the bloody hell are you doing I’m, I;, shutting the back door and next minute half I’m out of the aircraft and the next minute I’m back in again oh Jesus Johnny I’m sorry mate I forgot you were down there, so that felt, was not accepted very well either but anyway. So, the searchlights are the other thing, fighters were always around. I had pretty good gunners we used to do a lot of training, air gunnery training though at the attack from above or behind and often you, you knew when you were going to get attacked, my other mates would let you know they would see you in a, in a stream. You would sometimes still see your mates from one side or the other so we kept, kept lookout for each other but the worst fighter, and I’ll talk about a raid we did which was [pause] in a moment, but the worst fighters was called the Schlarge[?] fighter which is a Messerschmitt, or [unclear] or one of those twin engine things with a, a vertical firing cannon, gun. So, he would fly under your belly and pull his trigger firing straight upwards and it was very, very difficult to get out of those they were responsible for many, many losses of our mates. If you didn’t know you had a fighter under your belly you were pretty near had it.
BJ: You were relying on your crew to spot it weren’t you?
EB: Yes, and more importantly of course the, they gunners were the ones and the bomb aimer when the bomb aimer is also the front gunner and he was also a gunner to look down.
BJ: Yes.
EB: So, he was pretty near the only one that would, could spot a fighter under your belly. Of course, the mid upper obviously can’t and the rear gunner can’t they were looking out for aircraft attacking from either side anyway.
BJ: Yeah, yeah.
EB: Shall we, shall we talk about, one raid which was, was quite important and I was chosen, myself and two other aircraft to lay mines in the Skagerrak in Norway in the Norwegian Fjords. A special very heavy parachute mines to trap the, the two German battleships, the Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau and also the Emden later but the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were in dock, they were in, they were our target. The idea was they’d send three of us to Skagerrak in Norway which are in the Fjords where these battleships, German battleships would hide and rest at night. They would rest rather. They would come out of the Fjords into the Atlantic and pounce on the, on the convoys coming from the States full of aircraft and, and supplies and these two battleships would wreak havoc very badly to the, the [pause] supply ships, shall we call them. So, we were sent to Lossiemouth north of Scotland. My aircraft was a newly issued, I’d bent the other one [laughs] and they gave us another new one and she had beautiful motors. She had a, a, the Lancaster Merlins Mark 12, Mark 14’s.
BJ: Wow.
EB: Packard Merlins not Rolls Royce. No sorry Rolls Royce Merlins the previous one was a Packard the American Merlin but the Rolls Royce Merlin was a much better Lancaster. There was three of us we were recruited to go across to the Skagerrak and lay two mines. We had very good navigators who were trained to be Pathfinder navigators. We did some raids but not many we weren’t proper Pathfinders we were attached to go on some of their raids. So, our navigator was pretty good, and we were to fly at two hundred feet from Lossiemouth across the North Sea to the Skagerrak, lay our mines exactly latitude and longitude where they said they were because it had to be exactly, because the British Navy had to know exactly where the mines were.
BJ: Um.
EB: So here we go, night time, they fitted us with lay lights, twin lights similar to the technology of the Dambusters. Two hundred feet, black, pitch black, no lights no nothing starring down your, your front nose because your altimeter was no good to fly at two hundred, two hundred and fifty feet across. Four and a half hours, I think it was about an eight-hour trip there and back, about four hours across the North Sea. It wasn’t too bad going across but later on, I’ll come back to it, it started to get a bit blowy and bumpy but we got to the coast, up, up to three thousand, four thousand feet over the, the mountains, the ridge, down to about three thousand, lay your mines exactly where they were and get rid of them and climb up, out and, and off ideally straight back home at full pelt. But we did lay the mines and all the rest of it, however what we didn’t know was that it was near a German fighter base just over the other hill. We got hit with one fighter, it got one of our motors just as we got to the top of the ridge so it wasn’t too bad we were able to come down on the three. The Lanc can climb on three.
BJ: Right.
EB: Which we, we basically did pretty much but anyway we got down onto the thing so I thought oh well, ok. Now I was planning on going back home at about five or six thousand feet, you know just literally a quick thing back home. But I thought now hang on this thing is a Schräge fighter which is the first time I’d been attacked by a Schräge fighter well if that bugger is going to have another go at us we better get down on the Sea again so it can’t get under our belly, so we did. Well that was alright until we got about half way across, not far, not too far away from home, and the other motor packed up because the, the wind had blown up and the water had, had we’d got hit by the spurt or something and had buggered up the carburettor. So, we ended up with two motors. And so, I said to the fellas, well we’ve only got two I don’t know whether, we can, we got, you got two or three chances what should we do. We could throw out, we could ditch it but not too good at ditching a Lanc or an aircraft. We could be successful or we could not. We could, it’s too low to jump out with a parachute, so that’s, that’s out. The only other thing is I’ll try to make and go for base should you join me I’ll take the aircraft back, yes, they say, they all said yes, yes, yes. So, we threw, throw everything out and anyway cut a long story we did and we got back home quite safely on two motors. We landed at the big drome, I think it was called Manston or something, where you can just put any sort of an aircraft down and it’ll, it’ll got plenty of room to land. So that was showing you what fighters can do and what a good Lanc can do.
BJ: Yeah. OK Eric, one last question. How do you think Bomber Command and the sacrifices of the men who served in it should be remembered by future generations?
EB: Um, Barry that’s a very good, a very good question and I can just answer that in a, in a couple of little fashions. One we know today and some of the, our, our people, the Vets, who are, we’re still alive we feel very, very bad, very disappointed that the British Government that the British didn’t remember Bomber Command. You’ll know from your history that there was never a Bomber Command medal struck whereas there were for other services. After the war because of our, our ability to wage a very good war, we wiped out a lot of targets and that was necessary. I didn’t touch too much on the Dresden raid, but we did the Dresden raid and I saw the, that devastation so there is, hasn’t been a proper memorial until now. I think it is very, very important that a, a, a solid memorial is, is struck and, and erected, shall we say, a, a physical thing that children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and generations can look to and say well what, I, I understand my grandfather, my heritage goes to a man who served in Bomber Command and he achieved certain things and he and he’s, a lot of his mates gave their lives for safety of a country that we now have. If it wasn’t for the sacrifices that, that our people made we wouldn’t have the country we’ve got. Now we talk about Bomber Command. Bomber Command waged a war which was very successful. We carried out our duties, our duties very successfully. Its been written up in history how effective it was. I’m not forgetting of course there are a lot of fellows in the Navy and lots of fellows in the Army who did likewise sacrifices, but for the fifty-five thousand people in Bomber Command that didn’t come back, their contribution far exceeds the blood, sweat and tears, shall we say. So, they gave to wage the war and so I, I think it’s terribly important that we have a physical memorial and that once a year is recognised and there’s a dedication carried out in, in any, every little part of Australia in particular and other countries that I think the Australians we do it very well compared to a lot of other countries. So, I think that’s terribly important too.
BJ: Well done.
EB: Is that sufficient?
BJ: Yeah, no that’s good.
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ABartonER170121
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Interview with Eric Reginald Barton
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Sound
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eng
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00:38:52 audio recording
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Pending review
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Barry Jackson
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2017-01-21
Description
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Flying Officer Eric Barton flew operations with Bomber Command. Eric Barton talks about the various aircraft he flew in, and recalls an incident at Banff in Scotland where following a night exercise his tyre blew out on landing. He gives an account of an operation to at Skagerrak in Norway where they were sent from Lossiemouth to drop mines on the German battleships; Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the return journey where they ended up flying back on two engines. He talks about the losses of Bomber Command and how he feels they should be remembered.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Australia
Canada
Great Britain
Norway
Atlantic Ocean--Skagerrak
Scotland--Moray
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Tracy Johnson
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crewing up
Gneisenau
Lancaster
memorial
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Lossiemouth
sanitation
Scharnhorst
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/359/5527/PFraserDW1504.2.jpg
e83b7596b2100cb8c2b204db7e6daf7f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/359/5527/AFraserD150713.2.mp3
8a9fa28cd8459c111675c687c272ffe4
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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Fraser, David
D Fraser
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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.
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Warrant Officer David Fraser.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-27
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Fraser, DW
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AM: Ok, so this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is myself Annie Moody and the interviewee is David Fraser. The interview is taking place at David’s home in Winchelsea in Kent. No.
DF: Sussex.
AM: Sussex.
DF: East Sussex.
AM: In East Sussex.
DF: Yeah.
AM: On the 13th of July 2015. So if you can just tell me just a little bit about your, your family background, schooling and childhood?
DF: Yeah.
AM: Schooling and what have you.
DF: I was born in Northumberland. And I was there until I was seven. Then we moved to Wales and that’s where I was educated, in Wales. But, but education was nil. Just the three Rs and I didn’t get to grammar school or, I sat the scholarship but failed [laughs]. Then pressed on and left school at fourteen. And I was too young to join the RAF even as an apprentice but I was determined to join the RAF from an early age. From the time I was a toddler I was always interested in aircraft. And so I had to wait till I was seventeen and a half, which I did.
AM: So what did you do in between?
DF: Oh.
AM: Between fourteen and seventeen?
DF: I had various, I had a great time ‘cause there was plenty of jobs about and I just went - I had a factory job in a radio factory. I had one in a motorcycle factory. And I just bided my time until I was seventeen and a half and then I joined the RAF.
AM: So when you say I joined the RAF. Just talk me through that. How? What did you do first? How did it work?
DF: Oh I just made an application and they gave me an appointment up in London – Kingsway and I had this exam to be done which was easy and wrote an essay about my experiences in London and I joined as a flight mechanic. I thought, I was under the impression that a flight mechanic would be associated with flying and, but I wasn’t. I was a humble mechanic.
AM: Did they give you a choice or did they say that -
DF: I could have had any choice really. When the flight sergeant read this essay he said are you sure you want to be a flight mechanic? I said yes. So I enlisted as a flight mechanic.
AM: And this was in? 19 -
DF: 1939.
AM: ’39.
DF: February ‘39.
AM: So before the war had started.
DF: Yeah and -
AM: So then what happened?
DF: And then I went on a flight mechanic course which involved a lot of filing metal and God knows what and I, I tried to fail the course. I just wasn’t interested in flight mechanicing and at the end of the course I saw the CO and I explained that I was not interested in the thing and they passed me with forty percent, the lowest possible pass mark. He said when you get to your squadron when you’re posted you’ll [remaster?]. So that’s what I did and what they wanted pilots, navigators and gunners and I volunteered for the pilot’s course but the waiting list was three or four months and I was afraid I might miss the war so I got the gunners course.
AM: Where, where, where were you living at this point?
DF: Cranwell. I was at Cranwell then.
AM: Ok.
DF: Which is not far from Lincoln. And -
AM: So you went, you went on the -
DF: Went on the gunnery course in Scotland.
AM: In Scotland?
DF: Evanton Gunnery School.
AM: And this is still just pre-war or?
DF: No the war was on then. That was 1940.
AM: Was on. Oh right. Ok, so what was that like?
DF: Great fun. Flying about. We had lumbering pre-war aircraft and in a high wind they’d fly backwards.
AM: What, what aircraft were they?
DF: They were Harrows, Handley Page Harrows. They were so slow that coming back one day I was in the rear turret and we were trying to fly over the High Street parallel with the high street and which was rather, which was forbidden and I saw the local copper get his book out and take our number [laughs]. He took our number. When we got back we got reported and hauled up before the CO for low flying.
AM: And this was still, so this is while you were in training
DF: 1940.
AM: And this is while you were training?
DF: Yes. While training, yes.
AM: Ok, so what, what was the training actually like? What did that consist of?
DF: Oh. Firing. Air to air firing from air to air firing and air to ground firing. Stripping guns and learning all about the mechanism of them and how they worked and we had a month. That took a month and then after that we went to operational training unit which is another three months.
AM: So where was OT?
DF: That was in Scotland.
AM: That was in Scotland as well?
DF: Yeah. Yeah. Lossiemouth, Scotland.
AM: So what did you do there? What did that consist of?
DF: We got there and one morning we were told to report to the hangar and the hangar was full of bods just milling around. The idea was to just mill around and find people you had something in common with and that’s how you crewed up. It was a marvellous system. And you, you found chaps you took a liking to and they reciprocated and that was the way a crews was formed. There were six of us in the crew.
AM: Who chose who?
DF: Hmmn?
AM: Who actually chose who? Who took the lead in it?
DF: Oh pilot, one of the Australian pilots. We had two Australian pilots. They’d been around the offices and seen who got the best marks. And that was what happened. I had good marks at gunnery so they, ‘well he’s a good bloke’ and picked me and that was it.
AM: Were you with anyone else that you’d done the gunnery training with? Oh no you would all have been together wouldn’t you and milling around as you put it.
DF: Oh yes we were all there and we just formed up crews at that, on that morning.
AM: So you’ve got your crew. Then what?
DF: Then we started training as a crew.
AM: As a crew.
DF: Yeah.
AM: In what kind of aircraft?
DF: Wellingtons.
AM: In Wellingtons.
DF: Yeah and -
AM: So how did that go? What was that like?
DF: Well it was a bit dicey because we used to lose on average one crew per course. There were six crews per course and we used to lose one, an average one, one every course. Weather conditions primarily, hitting mountains or getting lost, snowstorms and God knows what, not and aircraft maintenance wasn’t the best ‘cause they were rushing things through and I think things got missed and -
AM: So as a rear gunner training?
DF: Ahum.
AM: What were you shooting at?
DF: Oh whatever they – sometimes they’d send a spitfire up and we’d have cameras, and have camera gunnery and they would develop later on, see how we’d got on. And and other aircraft again drogue, with a drogue towing - you’d fire at that and it was good fun really. We were there for about three months – November, December, January, February, March – yes just over three months. Then we went to the squadron.
AM: And at -
DF: At Marham.
AM: At Marham so -
DF: Norfolk.
AM: Which squadron?
DF: 115 squadron.
AM: 115.
DF: Yeah and we were only there just over a month, then we were shot down. [laughs]
AM: So how many operations did you actually do?
DF: Four.
AM: Four.
DF: Yeah.
AM: Where did you go on operation?
DF: Emden was the first one. Then Brest after the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau battle ships and the last one was Hamburg when we were shot down.
AM: And this was in, still 1940?
DF: ‘41.
AM: We’ve moved to ‘41 now.
DF: ’41. May 10th ‘41 we were shot down.
AM: So describe that to me. The shooting down, and what happened.
DF: Well we were, went up and approached the target and just before we got there we were knocked off course by a, with a blast of blasts so we went around again and that was our undoing. If we’d just got out, got out of it we’d have been ok but went around again doing the job properly and then caught in a cone of searchlights. There was one pilot beam which, and that latches on to you and the rest follow and you’re caught in this cone of lights like a sort of gnat [laughs] and they shot the hell out of us and hit, hit the hydraulics so I couldn’t operate any guns. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t operate, I had no gunsights which was electrical had been knocked out so I was useless. Nothing. I couldn’t manipulate anything. The gun, nothing would move ‘cause we rely upon hydraulic pressure for movement. And there I was. And then there was a silence. That meant a fighter was coming in and come in he did and he proceeded to sort of knock the hell out of us, set fire to the flares in the flare rack and she started blazing and that was the start of the, the whole thing.
AM: So then what happened? Describe it to me if you can.
DF: Of course, normally as a rear gunner you could just turn, turn the turret around, jetison the doors and just drop out but of course I couldn’t do that because the damned thing was jammed up so I squeezed back in, went up the fuselage towards the nose and there I saw Alex the second pilot, Aussie, he was lying bleeding profusely. He was bleeding in the arm and chest and I got him, stuffed him through the hatch, put my hand through to the rip cord. I said, ‘pull for God’s sake’ and anyhow I pushed him out and I looked out and saw him. His parachute opened so that was ok [laughs] and he recovered later on but he was badly wounded.
And then I bailed out and the country I landed in was very much like Romney Marsh. All level and no cover at all, there were no trees [laughs] or anything. I really felt exposed but I hit the ground and as I hit the ground I was swinging. I swung forward and landed on the base of my spine and I thought I’d broken my back. So I just lay there manipulating toes and hands to see if I was ok. Everything moved, worked. And a great herd of cows gathered around me. Friesian cattle. They all came out sniffing around the parachute so I just lay there for about half an hour ‘cause they were good cover and they just, they were nice and warm too these cattle, and I just laid there.
And then when I came to my senses I got the parachute and stuffed it into a dyke and sank it by putting a great, a bit of rock on top of it and I thought now where I shall go. The obvious thing was Denmark and that was occupied by Germans so anyhow I made, I was making for the Danish border. I thought I might have a bit of luck, get over it, get picked up by Danish patriots.
I hadn’t gone more than about a quarter of a mile and as dawn was breaking I came to a hut. It was a hut occupied by searchlight crews and there was a sentry outside and he saw me. He said, ‘ach Englander flieger for you the war is over. Come’. And that was it. I was hauled in to this hut and there I saw Alex lying on this table.
AM: Alex was the Aussie?
DF: Who was wounded, yeah
AM: Ahum.
DF: I thought he was dying. But he was breathing, shallow breathing and he said to me, “Look what they’ve done to my best shirt.” His shirt was all mangled and bleeding and then I was whipped away and put on to a lorry and taken away. And I I didn’t know what had happened to Alex. I thought, honestly thought he’d died until nine months later he turned up in the camp. He’d recovered.
AM: What happened to the rest of the crew?
DF: Well Bill the navigator, when I bailed out I put Alex through the hatch I looked across at Bill who was bent over the main hatch and I yelled, “Come this way.” But he made a gesture like that - so I left, at him waving, went out assuming he’d got out from the main hatch. But what had happened, I didn’t realise, what what had happened, when my turret caught fire Bill came down to give me a hand with the fire extinguisher by which time I’d got the fire out so on returning, he was returning to position and he got the second burst of machine gun fire, was hit in the intestines, went right through the back and right through the front and I didn’t realise he’d been wounded. Yeah.
Then the skipper called out and got no reply so he assumed we were all out and he bailed out and Bill was left in the machine on his own. He was a navigator, he wasn’t a pilot and he thought, ‘well I think I may as well, I’m wounded I may as well dive into the, dive into the deck and get it over with’ and he suddenly thought no he’d carry on. He took over and brought the aircraft down, the wheels, brought the aircraft down and he just came below some high tension cables, past a row of cottages in front of a hospital [laughs] and again they came and cut him out of the aircraft and whipped him into the hospital and this eminent French surgeon who was there, one of the the leading surgeons in France performed an operation on him and that saved his life. But later on he got dysentery and the stitches all broke and that was it. He never ever recovered properly. He always had this open wound and, but the skipper, Andy he bailed out and drowned in the river. He just didn’t release his chute obviously and there was - so one killed and two wounded and three whole.
AM: Three in one piece. So you’re on the lorry. You’re being taken away somewhere.
DF: Yes.
AM: Then what?
DF: And went, went to the officer’s mess, of the -
AM: The mess in?
DF: The squadron who’d shot us down. German officer’s mess but first of all we were interviewed by the couple of bods there and they were trying to get information out of us there and I just gave my name, rank and number. And they said, “Hang ‘em. Hang ‘em.”
Anyhow I didn’t say anything at all and they let me go into another room. Then they took us, a car came and took us to the mess and then we met the guy who shot us down. And he gave us Cognac and coffee and had a general chin wag with them and they said don’t worry the war won’t last long about another six months and the Fuehrer will be riding on a white horse down Whitehall and we said, “Wait and see” and this amused them this ‘wait and see’. And we finally left and they all came on to the front steps to see us off and they all said, “Wait and see” ha ha ha and we said, “Yes wait and see.” And I often wonder how many of them remained alive to wait and see.
AM: And you say us. So how many of you were there?
DF: There were two, there were two of us there.
AM: So, you because -
DF: Two of us and one was a bit further afield and he joined us later on. So there were three of us at [unclear] we were picked up and eventually made our way – or were taken to Hamburg station, put on a train and taken to Dulag Luft which was a reception depot.
AM: Ahum.
DF: And again we were interrogated by, by a guy speaking flawless English. He was, he could have been English and we gave our name, rank and number and he wanted to know what squadron we were from and they were interested in the Stirling. The Stirling at that time had just come operational and they had no information on it and they wanted to know about it. Anyhow, I didn’t give them any information and he pushed a packet of cigarettes and he said, “Didn’t I compete against you at the University Games in London?” I said, “No. No.” And he gave me these cigarettes which I politely refused. I was a non-smoker. After about an hour he, they let me into the compound with the rest, the rest of the bods and we met up in the, in the main sort of main hall. And there were about thirty aircrew there who had been shot down in the last few days. And they had permanent staff there who had been shot down way back. And we then went, the RAF camp wasn’t ready, hadn’t been built so we went around various other camps, army camps and we went to Austria, Poland a sort of cooks tour of Germany and we finally settled up and we ended up in Lamsdorf which an army camp near Breslau and there we remained until the RAF camp was ready which was Stalag Luft III.
AM: So how long were you at the one before Stalag Luft III? How long were you there for?
DF: Oh about, our wanderings, we were wandering about almost a year.
AM: On trains or -
DF: On trains yeah. We’d go, they’d take us to a camp. We might be there two months. Another camp we might be there for three months.
AM: And who was in, you said they were army camps.
DF: They were army camps yeah.
AM: So who else was in them?
DF: Well the last one, in Austria in a place called Wolfsburg, was a French army camp. There were about eighteen thousand Frenchmen. And -
AM: What did you do?
DF: We just -
AM: When you were in there?
DF: We just lived. Existed really. We commandeered the ablutions there and made them fit for use, our own use after the French had made a terrible sort of mess of them. The odd French peasant he doesn’t mind where he, where he sort of goes does he?
AM: But you were a bit more discerning.
DF: And we cleaned it up and it became our own, our own ablutions and everything.
AM: So then Stalag Luft III. Tell me about that.
DF: Oh that 1942 we got there. End of ’42. And that was where we really organised there. An organised camp. There were libraries there and skilled teachers. That’s where a lot of guys started their university experience. Qualified in the intermediate.
AM: Amongst the POWs?
DF: Yes.
AM: So they, who ran the -
DF: Ran the, ran the camp, yeah. Now my pilot, the one who was wounded, he took his intermediate economics exams on [?] university and he ended up being the deputy vice chancellor of the University at Perth.
AM: What did you do?
DF: What did I do? I did, I learned German. I read a lot and increased my knowledge generally and of course mixing with all different types of people what they knew rubbed off on you and I just gleaned information that way.
AM: And you were there for how long?
DF: All told four years.
AM: Four years.
DF: Ahum.
AM: I can’t imagine it.
DF: And we dug tunn, I was involved in five tunnels.
AM: Oh tell me a bit more about that.
DF: Well the first one we dug was what we called a moler and it was just, the actual tunnel was about the same size as your body, your shoulders and it was a question of knees and elbows and digging with a implement and the earth was shoved back like a mole does and after about a half an hour you had to give up and signal you were passing out. Of course you had a rope around your ankle and when you gave a signal they pulled you, hauled you back. Next man in and so it went on.
There was a brand new washhouse there the Germans had built, they weren’t using it, between us and the fence and we thought if we could get to that washhouse and crack a pipe and get some fresh air and I happened to have been digging with the pipe and there it was, this lovely salt glaze pipe and I had a bit of a rock with me and I gave it a couple of bangs and it broke and the fresh air came and, oh marvellous. And then the winter came along and the position we were in it was visible. We had dug during the summer by putting up two sticks with a blanket and just were sunbathing ostensibly but it was just that it was just the cover and there was just the blanket was just high enough so that the guard couldn’t see over it. And we dug this and yes carried on for some weeks and then we had to give up because winter started you couldn’t sunbathe.
AM: Don’t sunbathe in winter. So that was one tunnel.
DF: That was the first one.
AM: And what happened to it? Where did it, did it actually get to the outside?
DF: Oh yes it got about forty yards and we had to give it, had to leave it so I don’t know what happened to it. It probably caved in in the end.
AM: So that was the first one?
DF: The first one.
AM: And then?
DF: The second one was one from the one that had been discontinued, again in a washhouse and that was, that was quite a big one and I started on that and that’s when the Americans came into the camp then. American officers and I’ll never forget this ‘cause I was familiar with Roger and Wilko they were the sort of references to Roger and out or Wilco - will cooperate and this guy was a captain. I was handing up sand and he kept saying Roger. And I honestly thought he had two blokes up there - one called Wilkins and the other called Roger. [Laughs] You simply say passing the bucket to one guy Roger, Roger,
AM: And that was sand?
DF: That was compact sand really.
AM: So how did you stop the tunnel collapsing?
DF: Well we dug with, I had a big tablespoon just with the handle off and dug like that ‘cause it was easy digging. Too easy actually. Got some collapses and so had to retain a dome shape. So it kept its own shape and that damp got in to that and we gave it up. And the big tunnel, the best tunnel was the biggest one and that was again near a wash house, near a soakaway. We started on that. Dug down about ten feet down for the shaft and then along towards the wire and it hadn’t rained, we got about fifty yards, it hadn’t rained for about, nearly a month and suddenly it belted it down and it didn’t stop for about five days and we were digging near the soakaway so there was a subsidence in the soil and we saw a German ferret, we called them ferrets, snooping around and we saw him probing cause he saw the ground subsiding and so we went, we went to the barrack hut and the next thing we knew there was a hell of a commotion and there was German fire engine came dashing in and this guy had fallen in through into the soakaway and this fire engine came in and they got a special harness and put it around him and hauled him out and everyone cheered and they got their pistols out and started firing. I’ve never seen blokes move so quickly.
AM: Firing in what direction? At you?
DF: Oh in the direction of us, yes. So I saw blokes making for the huts, diving through windows and [laughs]
AM: Was anybody killed?
DF: No.
AM: Was anybody shot?
DF: No.
AM: No.
DF: No and then, it was then that they started issuing notices saying that all materials because you had we had to used beds and bed boards which in the German eyes was sabotage and they just said that anyone caught tunnelling in future and misusing German material would be guilty of sabotage and would spend a long time in prison or might, could even be shot. That didn’t dissuade us. We just carried on.
And then we went up to Barth a place called Barth on the Baltic coast and started a tunnel there cos the Yanks were there and we.
AM: So you moved up.
DF: Yes.
AM: From where you were.
DF: Yes.
AM: To a different camp. And what camp was that?
DF: Barth B A R T H
AM: It was actually called, right ok.
DF: And we started a tunnel there with the Americans and we were sent back to our own camp again then we started another one from a barrack, from a barrack hut which meant moving a big stove each time, each time and that got us, it was arduous so we gave it up and that was the end of the tunnelling really.
AM: So you never actually got any of them out?
DF: We didn’t no.
AM: Were you aware of what was happening with the ‘great escape’ tunnel?
DF: No we, we knew the Germans were getting trigger happy. They were very concerned about people using materials, sabotage and God knows what and they issued notices in the camp - escape is no longer a sport, it could result in death. And the first information we had was when we got – where were we then – up near Konigsburg. We’d all had to go, move camp and in through the gates came a convoy of motorcycles and vehicles all armed with heavy machine guns and they proceeded to cordon around us. We were out in the open some sort of roll surrounded us and this German, CO, German CO read out what had happened. He said that fifty, fifty officers had been shot and we all booed and then they clicked their safety catches and started getting - so our senior man said, “Cool it blokes, cool it blokes” don’t want any disasters but we knew. They said they were shot while trying to escape but they they’d been recaptured and then shot. We found -
AM: Did you know that or found out later on?
DF: Later on yes yeah. Marvellous, good men lost their, the whole secret organisation leaders were shot and there were several Germans hanged for it after the war.
AM: So what, going back to you and where you were then. So we’re getting towards the end of the war. What things started happening?
DF: Yeah.
AM: What?
DF: Well we ended up at a place called [Fallingbostel?] it wasn’t far from the main autobahn between Hanover and Hamburg and things were getting a bit tight and all of a sudden one day you’re going to march, got to get out and march. So everyone packed up their belongings and gathered, and carried what they could and assembled outside the gates. We thought to hell with this. This could lead to hostage taking so we said no we’re not marching so there were five of us avoided the Germans. They were searching the whole camp get people out of it. We hid up in various places and when the coast was clear we went out through the wire and made contact with our own army.
AM: How? How?
DF: We just went out into the open and we passed through the German lines and saw Germans laying mines in culverts and we met up with - we saw a tank coming towards us over the brow of a hill and the gun swung around and the gun, comms tower was opened and a black bereted head popped out. We said, “Don’t fire. We’re English.” So they drew up about twenty yards from us, the crew got out and gave us cigarettes and there we were smoking and -
AM: You were a non-smoker.
DF: No. No. I tell you what, when I was twenty one, on my twenty first birthday there was a consignment of Red Cross parcels. So everyone – ‘oh food, marvellous’ but it wasn’t food it was tobacco. Cigarettes. The issue was thirteen per man so I had my thirteen cigarettes. I thought well I can’t eat I might as well bloody smoke. That’s when I started smoking. Twenty one.
AM: So here’s the tank.
DF: And, and they drew up and we sat there chatting on a grassy bank and we’d earlier, before we’d met the tank, we’d come to a farm. Went into the farmhouse and there at a long farm table were the farmer’s wife and about six Germans – troops. So we questioned them and obviously they were no longer interested in fighting, they just more or less deserted, or given themselves up. And when we, when we spoke to the tank commander and told them about the guys in the farmhouse his eyes lit up so he sent a guy, one man up to the farm about a mile back and he came back not with six blokes but about thirty. They were all skulking in the cowsheds.
And this guy he’d sent up there was an Austrian and who’d been in England since 1936 and he joined the British army, marvellous bloke. And I always remember this squadron, this tank commander was called Major Hepburn and everyone called him Kathy [laughs] and when these, these Germans came down, he lined them all up and they put their packs in front of them and he said, “Right open them up” and they opened them up. There were tins of beef and pork and eau de cologne and cigarettes, cigars so he said, “There you are blokes take what you want” so we took, there were tins of meat and God knows what and put them in our packs. And then he said you’re running, you’re running a bit of a risk he said ‘cause there are still troops hiding up in woods. This was the SS. And so they armed us with rifles and ammunition and gave us a driver and a jeep and we went back about ten miles up to divisional headquarters and dropped us off there. So we were free once again.
We just we went back through the lines again everywhere like a lot of bandits with rifles and and yards of ammo wound around us and if we felt hungry we just caught up with the nearest army thing and they fed us and gave us a bed for the night and it was a marvellous week really. It was, was blazing hot sun. Marvellous.
AM: And you just worked your way.
DF: Yeah worked our way across the -
AM: Where did you end up?
DF: Well we saw six RAF blokes coming down the road so we said, “Where are you from?” And they said, “Oh we’re from a transport squadron he said but a bit further back, about a mile along there’s a fighter squadron flying Tempests,” and we thought they’re the boys so we walked up there and the sentry said, “Halt” and brought the guard out and took our weapons away and we made statements they gave us pieces of paper saying the bearer is an escaped prisoner of war.
And then we had a marvellous shower and then were, we were guests of the officer’s mess where we drank and oh I’ve never drunk before in my life and funnily enough it must have been because we hadn’t drunk for ages but we couldn’t get drunk. We just, it was a marvellous sense. But the CO, the group captain he went slowly under the table, just collapsed really under the table.
And then there was another guy who saw us - he turned around and embraced one of our mates. He was, Gerry Clark who was with us, he was bilingual French and this guy saw him who was a French, French ace and he turned around and he saw him and, “Oh Gerry” and they were from Biggin Hill. That’s where they’d last met. And Gerry had collided with a German in a dog fight and he and the German were in the same hospital. But Pierre Clostermann was the name of this, this French ace. He wrote two books Flames in the Sky is one and Big Show is the other one.
AM: Ahum.
DF: And he always wore, always wore a pair of guns like he was some old cowboy. He was quite a flamboyant creature and after the war he became an MP.
AM: Ahum.
DF: Alsace yeah from Alsace.
AM: So how did you actually get back to England?
DF: Oh then they thought there’s an Anson going back to Dunsfold tomorrow and oh lovely we can go back just as we are and just as we are dressed in scruff order but they had to, they had to inform Movement Control and we had to go through channels and they gave us army uniforms, all brand new and we had to go through, go through with the rest of the guys and we ended up at Brussels and they were flying in petrol in jerry cans and flying out prisoners of war. So we flew back in a Stirling and I flew back in the rear turret. And then we, we had, after that we went, we had, to Cosford to be debriefed at Cosford and given RAF stuff. RAF uniforms.
AM: Proper uniforms.
DF: That’s it. And then given pay, indefinite leave and that was it. Anti-climax.
AM: So what did you do?
DF: I went back. I went home and that was it. Show over.
AM: When you said they gave you your pay so that’s for all the time that you’d been gone.
DF: Oh they didn’t give us the lot. They gave us an instalment.
AM: Right. So what did you do afterwards then?
DF: What?
AM: You’ve had the anti-climax. You’re back. You’re home.
DF: Yes.
AM: Then what?
DF: I just remained in the RAF till my demob number came up and meanwhile I met my wife. Met her in June and we were married in October. And it worked out marvellously well and she was demobbed first and then I was demobbed and then I thought well what do we do now?
So I got a government grant and trained as a chartered surveyor but I failed the ex, again my mind wasn’t a hundred percent. I just went through the motions and I just failed the exam in one subject and then I gave it up. And I’m glad I did because the idea, in retrospect the idea of being in a routine job never appealed to me so what I did I joined, later on I joined a company selling farm buildings and it was marvellous. I was a freelance representative out every day, living in a place I wanted to live in – Cornwall. It was marvellous. That’s where the family were brought up. We were twenty years down there.
AM: Right. And here you are.
DF: Here we are.
AM: In Winchelsea.
DF: Yeah. In our second love, Romney Marsh.
AM: Ahum. Any other stories for me or shall we switch off?
DF: Hmmn?
AM: Any other stories for me or shall I switch off?
DF: I could go on forever I think but -
AM: Do feel free.
DF: No, then we were in Cornwall and the company, the company I was with, I was a freelance agent and the company I was with thought it was too far too come to erect buildings in Cornwall. They were, they were in Herefordshire so they just withdrew the labour from Cornwall and left me high and dry. So I thought to hell with it I’ve just about had enough of this bloody rat race so I gave it up and I started gardening and I’ve never had a more pleasant time in my life. Self-employed gardening. Marvellous. I used to do a bit of building.
AM: Out in the weather.
DF: Marvellous yeah.
AM: Wonderful so you had a good life.
DF: I had a good life. Very fortunate, very lucky. I had sixty nine years of married life. Marvellous. Got two nice daughters and a son in Australia. Good family.
AM: And you go swimming
DF: Yeah.
AM: When you can. In the sea.
DF: Yeah.
AM: At 94.
DF: Yeah.
AM: I think on that note.
DF: Yes.
AM: I’ll switch the recorder off.
DF: Ok
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with David Fraser
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-13
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AFraserD150713
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
David Fraser enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1939 and was trained as a mechanic. He remustered as soon as he was able and flew four operations as an air gunner with 115 Squadron before his aircraft was shot down over Hamburg, in May 1941. He spent the next four years as a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft 3.
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.
Creator
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Annie Moody
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Format
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00:45:54 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Norfolk
Poland--Żagań
Germany--Hamburg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941-05-10
1942
115 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bale out
bombing
crewing up
Dulag Luft
flight mechanic
Gneisenau
ground crew
Harrow
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Evanton
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Marham
Scharnhorst
searchlight
shot down
Spitfire
Stalag 8B
Stalag Luft 1
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 6
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/486/8370/ABurdinJR170206.1.mp3
110add58ae6a4b4edfbbb17f5230f227
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
Burdin, James
James Roy Burdin
J R Burdin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Burdin, JR
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with James Roy Burdin (b. 1920, 1109124 Royal Air Force) and his service and release book. He worked as a radar technician.
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
2017-02-06
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is Monday the 6th of February 2017 and I’m in Longton near Preston with James Roy Burdin and we’re going to talk about his work in the RAF in the war largely to do with radar. What is your earliest recollection of life Roy?
JRB: Living on our small holding in Longton and helping my dad from a very early age with his, with his work on the small holding.
[pause]
CB: And where did you go to school?
JRB: I started school at five I think I would be. I’d be five when I went to Longton, Longton Primary School. That’s not a very satisfactory [question?] is it? You know, the local village school. Longton Primary School and I was there until I was, I went in for the scholarship examination as we called it then. It was before the eleven plus day and it was virtually the entry to grammar school. Only the ones that the teachers at school thought had a chance were put in for the exam because we had to go to Preston to sit the examination and I passed and was awarded a place at Hutton Grammar School and I studied there for the school, for the, what did they call it in those days? It wasn’t the GCE was it? The equivalent of today’s GCE anyway and I I passed that and got my certificate for that but there was no question in those days, very few people went on to further education after that. For one thing I knew that there wasn’t money in the family to support me to go on to university or anything of that sort even if I’d been eligible for it so I I left school with that qualification and it was at the time of the big Depression in the ‘30s and jobs were very difficult to get but eventually I went to work for a small business in Preston. Radio repair and sales. Just a one man business [at that point?] but that didn’t last very long because the main trouble was that it was I had to use a bus to get into Preston. Although I’d only been with this situation for a short time the proprietor usually had calls to make on his way down to work from his home in Longridge and I was left to open up the shop although very inexperienced at the time and very often he’d be out either delivering or collecting radio sets for repair until quite late at night and the shop hours were very long anyway so my dad thought that I was, shall we say, I don’t know how to put it really. Anyway, my dad thought that I would be better off coming and helping on the, on the small holding so I went to the agricultural, or horticultural rather, training station at Hutton and took their course which was only a short course and I continued working on the holding. We had greenhouses and market garden mostly and orchards and it was quite a pleasant life but not exactly a pot of gold, you know but I was doing that until, until the war started and eventually of course as I said before, I think, I joined, I volunteered for the RAF.
CB: Why did you choose the RAF rather than one of the other forces?
JRB: Well, some of my ex schoolmates discussed it all and we thought that the RAF would be a good unit to, to get into. We thought the conditions were better for one thing and you wouldn’t get involved in the dreadful trench warfare of the previous, previous war which everybody expected might recur again and so it was actually at the time of Dunkirk that I realised, I seemed to have rather a blank in a way about the international situations and that sort of thing and I wasn’t very, very quick to realise the danger that Germany was presenting to the, to the world and when the near disaster occurred at Dunkirk and the Germans were more or less on our frontier I decided it was time to, to join up so that’s when I volunteered for the RAF. When I first went for my interviews for the RAF they said, ‘Well there will be a, a gap. We won’t take you right away. We’ll call you at a bit later date.’ So in the meantime the, what became known as the Home Guard but started off as the Local Defence Volunteers was formed and I joined the local group and we did a bit of rifle practice and general infantry training really and we had a patrol on Longton Marshes. We did a night patrol down there and from there we could see the, the German bombing of Liverpool but of course we were a little country district so we didn’t attract any of the, of the bombs and I I was with that until the RAF called me up and then -
CB: When did they do that?
JRB: I was posted to Blackpool and billeted in one of the boarding houses there. We, we were kitted out and given basic training, foot drill and all that sort of thing on the promenades at Blackpool and the Winter Gardens became a Morse school. It was all fitted out with tables with Morse keys and that was where a lot of the air crew in the RAF got their Morse training. As I mentioned to you my speed didn’t build up satisfactorily on Morse. I could, I could learn the code easy enough but I couldn’t get, I wasn’t confident enough to get any speed up and so they said, well there’s a new branch opening up and since you’ve had experience of radio repair work and actually radio had always been my hobby right from school days so they said, I think they said, ‘Do you know what a supersonic hetrodyne is?’ So I had to tell them that which a lot of people didn’t know and that got me on to the, it was, it was highly secret at the time, nobody would mention the word RDF which was our original name for the, what became known as Radar. It wasn’t until the Americans came in that they started calling it Radar but to us it was RDF which was Radio Detection Finding. So there was some delay in starting the course that I was destined to go on and in the meantime I was sent over to a place called Bircham Newton which was a Coastal Command station on the Norfolk coast and I spent some months there waiting for my course to be organised and there I was just doing ordinary general duties. You know just, it was a sort of a standby position but I saw quite a bit of the, the Coastal Command life and I was there when the, what do you call it? I’m not very good at this I’m afraid. I was there when the Fleet Air Arm, I think they were Gladiators. Would they be Gladiators?
CB: Yeah.
JRB: Or would they be -?
CB: Yeah. No. They’d be Swordfish.
JRB: Swordfish probably. The old, the old biplane.
CB: Swordfish.
JRB: I was there when they dropped in at our station to refuel and have a break and a meal before taking off to bomb the German battleships.
CB: Oh Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
JRB: Yeah. And of course most of them were lost anyway on that raid. So I was there at that time. And then I was sent to London to join a course at Battersea Polytechnic on general radio principles and that type of thing and at the time we were billeted in premises that the RAF had taken over next door to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square so we had the whole place taken over and converted into RAF billets really. We were taken each day by coach to Battersea to do the course at what later became London University or part of London University. The end of that course I was posted to Yatesbury on Salisbury Plain and that was the first glimpse we got of radar equipment or RDF equipment. They had obviously, they’d got the school all set up there and they’d got the equipment, the transmitters, receivers and ancillary equipment for a radar station and we studied there for several months and on, on passing out there it was practically Christmas time. This would be in ‘41 wouldn’t it?
CB: Ahum.
JRB: So we were all posted to our various units and my friend and I got postings to St Bride’s in the Isle of Man. So we duly arrived at Liverpool expecting to get a sailing across to the Isle of Man but they said, ‘Oh, no more boats sailing until after Christmas. You’d better have Christmas leave.’ So we weren’t displeased about that and went off home. He to Manchester where his home was and I to Longton. And on reporting back again, beginning of January they said, ‘You’re not going to the Isle of Man anymore. You’re going down to a place called Ruislip near London.’ So we went down to Ruislip and reported there to find that it was a small unit that was building up convoys into radar stations. The, the equipment, the transmitters and receivers and other equipment were made by commercial firms obviously such as Metro Vickers, they made transmitters and Cossors and other people made receivers and so on but I think the reason they were scattered about in that way was because they didn’t want the people to know what it all, put together, what it all became when it was assembled together. Anyway, we, that was our job. To, to set up mobile radars ready for going overseas mostly. I seemed to gravitate to, to being on the transmitters which were a very massive piece of equipment made by Metro Vickers of Manchester and they were about two tonnes a piece. Well we had to manhandle those into, into vans which were on the old Crossley vehicles of which the RAF had a lot. Big hefty thumping old, old type vehicles and they, they had bodies specially made at Park Royal body builders and so on at, at London. So we had to receive these by road from the manufacturers and manhandle them with crowbars and and whatever equipment we needed to get them in to place in these vehicles. Then we had to tune them up to the required frequency and check their output and all the functions and alongside us the receivers were being treated in a similar manner. And a convoy would consist of a transmitter vehicle, receiver vehicle, a trailer for the antennae and the wooden towers which they used for the transmitters, for the signal for the aerials for the transmitters so altogether there would be oh and there would be a diesel generator on a, on a separate trailer and all that together would form a radar station and after, after us doing all the tests and cabling all the connections and everything they would be sent off to wherever the army or the RAF wanted them. So I worked on that for quite a while. Do you want me to carry on in this –?
CB: Please do.
JRB: Yes.
CB: What was the crew, the number of people who would be on this crew for the convoy? How many people?
JRB: We never saw the full, we never saw it go out as a full unit. I don’t know how -
CB: Oh so you -
JRB: There would probably be, well you see with radar it would have to work pretty well twenty four hours a day so they’d have enough people to, to form crews to cover the twenty four hours and -
CB: So these were, you were able to move them around but what, what were they used for? Was it for training other people or were they used inland because the chain radar didn’t read inland?
JRB: Oh this, no this was, the chain radar was already in place.
CB: Yes.
JRB: Now the chain radar had heavier equipment still and the transmitters for that were pretty well built on sight, you know. They weren’t moveable really but that was operating because there had already been the Battle of Britain and the chain stations were very active during that time.
CB: Yeah.
JRB: But these were mobile convoys which would go overseas and wherever the theatre of war needed them they’d, they’d go but that didn’t, that didn’t tie up directly with the chain stations because as I say they were a very, a fixed, absolutely fixed installation.
CB: Yeah. And only -
JRB: They used, they used three hundred and sixty foot transmitter towers, steel towers and they used two hundred and forty foot receiver towers. You know, the chain system had fixed antennae which, looking back on it, it seems quite a primitive type of equipment to us but in its day it was the front of technology and we all thought we were very big stuff to be associated with it. But the purpose of the chain was to cover mostly the south and east coast although there were stations further, further afield along the coast. Every so many miles you would have a chain station and they all had to work together.
CB: So those were large and static. You’re using mobile but I thought, what I want -
JRB: These were, these were very static stations.
CB: Yes.
JRB: And of course the chain with these aerials and the frequency they worked on only looked one way.
CB: Yeah. Outwards.
JRB: The transmitter aerials or antennae were a fairly widespread beam. Not the, not the highly directed beam that we associated with higher frequency stations but the, the frequency they were working on was what we would consider very low today but obviously aerials of that sort couldn’t be swivelled around on a gantry. They had to be fixed. The receiver aerials likewise on separate towers were what I refer to as cross dipoles. That means to say that one aerial is north south and the other is east west and by using an instrument known as a Goniometer the operator on the receiver could swivel this knob that was a Goniometer which was graduated in degrees of the compass and could differentiate the direction from which the echo was coming. The whole system of radar of course as you are probably well aware is that you transmit a pulse and you measure the time it takes for that pulse to get back reflected from an aircraft or whatever, it might be a flock of seagulls and when you measure that, that time interval of the return trace you know since electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light you know what the distance is so that’s how we were able to forecast the approach of bombers and the operators were largely recruited from the WAAFs and they became very adept at, at this work. From experience they could tell pretty well how many aircraft were involved. If it was a raid with say fifty aircraft in it they would be able to tell the controllers pretty well the size of the numbers involved in the raid which was very useful of course. So that was operational all during the Battle of Britain time and continued on right through the war actually but other forms of radar came along later on. Higher frequencies as you know with the, with the rotatable antennae. The first one I knew of that type was what we called CHL. That was Chain Low. CHL, Chain Low, because the original chain stations didn’t see the aircraft if it was quite low down so they wanted this other. Now that was on a higher frequency and it could detect aircraft at lower levels and also it used what we call a PPI which was a Planned Position Indicator tube which was a round tube. The original chain station drew a straight trace across the Cathode Ray tube and aircraft caused a downward deflection of that trace so it was like a V would form on the trace. That meant it was picking up a return signal.
CB: On the screen you mean?
JRB: Yeah, on the, on the -
CB: Cathode Ray tube.
JRB: Cathode Ray tube screen. Now the PPI, the aerials rotated and you had the display more like a map. It looked, as it swept around the, the location of your station was the centre point of the, of the tube and the trace would turn about it actually, axially so that you could get the direction and the distance of the incoming echo which was a big improvement really. I don’t think anybody would think of a radar receiver without that facility nowadays because now that we’re on much higher frequencies that is a generally accepted way of displaying it. So back to 4 MU at Ruislip where we were setting up the, the stations which were working on the same principal as the, as the chain station. They had fixed aerials and had the same drawbacks you might say as the, as the chain as the big chain stations but they were supposedly mobile but they were rather clumsy awkward things to, to consider as mobile. Then a lighter equipment called, what did you call them? [pause]. Anyway, it was a sort of a much more mobile and much more, much lighter equipment than the, than the forerunners and they started to arrive at Ruislip for us to set up and so there was a separate flight formed. B flight, which I was put into and we, we used to fit those into fifteen hundred weight trucks or vans and they had, they had a rotating aerial. They ran off a petrol generator which was adapted from a motorcycle engine I believe and then of course there was a receiver vehicle and the, the aerials were mounted up on the top of the same vehicle.
CB: Was the principal of these the same as chain? You weren’t on to parabolic aerials by then were you?
JRB: We’d got, we’d got a step forward on to higher frequency so that’s why we could use rotating aerials.
CB: Right. Rather than parabolic ones.
JRB: Yeah. And the whole equipment was very much lighter and more mobile than the previous one. Well some of these we were fitting into, into these fifteen hundred weight trucks which were very common in the army and the air force in those days and we also had, to accompany them, a jeep with the radio communications equipment so all told that made up a convoy which again were ready for going out to, well again they were used quite regularly in, in the desert and later on in, on the continent.
CB: So they’re main, mainly going to the desert were they in those days.
JRB: Yes.
CB: To North Africa in other words.
JRB: A lot went to North Africa and of course when we invaded D-Day at they went over to the continent with them and that was what I worked on for most my time there.
CB: So you were loading up these vehicles but who were the crews to look after them? Were you training the crews for the equipment or did they -
JRB: No. The crews -
CB: Come already trained?
JRB: The crews were trained at the radar schools, I expect. At Yatesbury and places like that you see. All we did was just put the convoys together and get them ready for operational use.
CB: And were they air force people who were running these radars or army?
JRB: Mostly air force I would say. Yeah. So that’s what we were doing.
CB: So they went to Algeria after the Torch landings and then on to Tunisia and then they were coming from the other end. That’s what you’re saying are you? In other words coming across the desert from Egypt.
JRB: Yes. So wherever radar was needed to follow up the forces. Of course the, being an RAF scheme it would be directing our aircraft where necessary to attack the enemy.
CB: And detecting the German attacks on the British forces.
JRB: Yes.
CB: Now you mentioned the fact that later version could the CHL gave you, gave the lower altitude detection. Was that only on the Gee, on the CH chain or was it on your mobile ones as well?
JRB: No. On the, on the mobiles as well. That was -
[pause]
JRB: Various other equipments came along and they more or less all passed through our hands at Ruislip. I don’t know. I think we’ll have a break.
CB: Ok. We’ll have a break. Thank you.
[recording paused]
JRB: I don’t think I’m doing, completely ready to switch on.
CB: So in those days -
JRB: [When it left us?]
CB: In those days everything was done by using huge valves, well valves anyway, but big, how big were the valves that would be used in your mobile radars?
JRB: In the mobile, in the lighter one they were very much smaller. I should say about six inches tall. Something like that. Probably a bit less than that. More like four inches.
CB: Each valve.
JRB: But -
CB: Was the different, was there a difference in valve size between the transmitting part of the radar and the receiver?
JRB: Oh definitely.
CB: So how big were the transmitter ones?
JRB: Well the transmitter ones I’m talking about really.
CB: Oh right.
JRB: Because I had more to do with the transmitters than the receivers. For some reason I always seemed to be picked to be a transmitter man.
CB: Right.
JRB: And I quite enjoyed working on the transmitters. Of course they were using very high voltages and a lot of people didn’t want to know about them. They were a bit scared of them.
CB: Yeah.
JRB: We’d a, I remember on one occasion at Ruislip we had a, I don’t know what his rank would be but he was, he was Ministry of Defence and he was not exactly like a signals officer but he was, he was, he classed as an officer and he used to come around more or less overseeing what we were doing and one day I believe that he got a bit too near the high voltage and got himself knocked out but he came around again but the transmitting side you’d be talking about two thousand five hundred volts and that sort of thing you know which were really very lethal if you didn’t know what you were doing but anyway that’s -
CB: So what was the process? You mentioned earlier that the equipment was built by different companies so that it wasn’t obvious what the package was.
JRB: What it was going to be when it was all fitted together.
CB: So it arrived with you from the manufacturer. Then what did you and your colleagues do with all these parts?
JRB: Well as I say we fitted them in to the respective vehicles and did all the cabling and necessary inter-connections and tuned then up to the correct frequencies that was designated and that was about it.
CB: And with the convoys was -
JRB: Any, any, any faults we had to correct and put new parts in if necessary.
CB: And each convoy had a generator.
JRB: Each convoy had a generator.
CB: What, what was that and what was its capacity?
JRB: Well, the, the ones for the original mobiles, that is the ones that were very similar to a slightly smaller version of the, of the chain station the, the generator was a, I think it was a three cylinder Lister diesel engine driving a three phase generator. Quite a hefty piece of equipment and these particular diesels, diesel isn’t very easy to turn over by hand anyway but there were no self-starters on them. The only way to start them was by a crank handle and in cold weather in the winter it was very difficult to, to turn that handle around. In fact we resorted to tying ropes to it and having a couple of men on either end of the rope and push pull to get, to get it over the top dead centre of the starting point but that was that. We had to use whatever equipment was sent to us. I think these, like a lot of the wartime equipment I think it had been adapted from some civilian usage but the ones for the lightweight convoys they were much more manageable. They were a two cylinder horizontally opposed engine. I think they were a firm at Coventry called Climax I believe had those.
CB: Again, diesel was it?
JRB: That was, that was a petrol driven generator. It was adapted from a motorbike engine. Now going on from that eventually we, they were stepping up the frequencies anyway. It was always, always trying to find equipment which would work on a higher frequency which was preferable for radar purposes and also it meant that the aerial size was smaller and we were supposedly, the magnetron was developed which would, which would operate where the old, the old type valves wouldn’t and we could, we could use much higher frequencies with that.
CB: So the magnetron was the key to reducing the size of the kit was it?
JRB: That was the key, the key to improving the radar system altogether really.
CB: What was the key point about magnetron? It’s ability to handle high frequency?
JRB: Well it worked, it worked on an entirely new principal.
CB: Right.
JRB: It would be a bit too to difficult to explain [unclear] but it involved especially designed core which had a number of cavities on a cylindrical pattern and by, its difficult to explain really. By subjecting this to a very strong magnetic field you could get, you could develop an oscillation from it whereas an ordinary valve wouldn’t oscillate above a certain, certain frequency so that was, that was much, a big improvement for it.
CB: So that was the key to the centimetre wavelength.
JRB: Yeah.
CB: Now when you go first, fast forward now to D-Day, how was the equipment handled there? Packaged and handled.
JRB: Well, prior to D-Day we had a programme for water proofing equipment and we had to, we had to make up convoys which were swathed in [blue?] fabric and Bostik cement to keep the sea water from getting on to them but they were still in the same vehicles so they could only go in shallow water virtually. They weren’t on a tracked vehicle of any sort but we all got in a horrible mess with all this Bostik and stuff around and it got on to all our tools and you couldn’t pick a screwdriver up without sticking to it [laughs] but that apparently saved them from being damaged on the landings. I don’t say they went in at the very first landings but they’d have probably followed on very shortly afterwards. So that was, that was -
CB: Now -
JRB: D-Day.
CB: Was, were there two sizes of equipment all the time or was it simply that they were being made smaller as time went on? In other words was there a bigger one for longer range and the shorter one was for -
JRB: No.
CB: More tactical use.
JRB: I don’t think so. I don’t. I think I think the original mobiles were sort of gradually phased out. I think we went more on, on to the lighter weight ones. LW. Lightweight Receivers they were called and there was another occasion when we, when we had a special job. At some stage, I think it was before D-Day the Germans started a night bombing campaign which became known as the little blitz. I don’t know whether you’ve ever heard of that.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
JRB: But the little blitz was designed to renew the, the bombing campaign against Britain, against London in particular and the Germans thought that they’d got an advantage because they’d developed a rear, a rear looking radar which they would fit to the tails of the bombers and so they could see our night fighters coming up from behind. ‘Cause as you probably know the object of downing a bomber is to put the rear gunner out of action first and then it’s the bomber’s a sitting duck virtually so with this they thought they could get away with it and come up behind our our aircraft and -
CB: So how did that link in with you?
JRB: Well I was going to say, [pause] just a minute I’ve got something [unclear].
CB: This is interesting because they actually lost -
JRB: Lost something there I think.
CB: They actually lost sixty percent of their aircraft in that mini blitz, so, shot down -
JRB: I’m not talking about our raids on Germany.
CB: No. No. We’re talking about their, their mini blitz.
JRB: Of the German’s raids -
CB: Final fling.
JRB: On this renewed bombing against London. Now -
RB: You were going to say something about Meershum the other day weren’t you? Is that to do with it?
[pause]
CB: Did you get hold of one of these as a result of it being, the aircraft being shot down?
JRB: That was, wait a minute. I’ve got a bit lost I’m afraid.
CB: Ok. We’ll have a break.
RB: I’ll make another cup of –
[recording paused]
CB: So we’re just talking about the mini blitz and the fact that the Germans had got a rear facing radar detector.
JRB: That’s right.
CB: So what came out of that?
JRB: Now then, it turned out that the frequency that their rear, rear radar was working on was quite near to the frequency of our, some of our transmitters so we were asked to retune to get on to the German frequency and to put out a jamming signal which we did by modifying a transmitter so that instead of sending out the usual radar pulses it would send out a continuous noise signal which would block the display of the German rear radar and we always presumed that we were successful with that because we did a [panic?] programme, modifying equipment and setting it up. We went out on fitting parties along stations, the old chain station sites such as Pevensey, Pevensey and along the south coast and we went and fitted up this modified equipment in, in these mobile vans that we were using for the, the radar, anyway but instead of sending, you know that radar sends out a pulse from the transmitter and then it, it shuts off. It’s just a short pulse and you wait for the echo to come back. Well, now we were, we were asked to modify a transmitter so that instead of doing that it would send out a noise signal continuously and we set these stations up, mostly at the existing sites of chain stations and it wasn’t very long before the Germans called off their night raids so we always, we never got any direct feedback on it really but we always claimed that that had, that had influenced them in deciding to call it off and for some reason or other they named that Operation Meershum which of course is the name of a German type of pipe isn’t it?
CB: How is it spelled?
JRB: I think you spell it M E, M E, would it be M E E R S H U M or something like that. Meershum.
CB: Ok. We can look it up. So these mobile transmitters were placed where to achieve this?
JRB: They were sited on -
CB: On the CH stations.
JRB: Mostly the old, the old existing stations, you see.
CB: Yeah.
JRB: We were -
CB: Facing inwards.
JRB: Eh?
CB: Were they facing inwards in to the country these, these mobiles because they were on the back, the German radar was on the tail of their aircraft
JRB: They were -
CB: So to jam them they’d need to have, would they -?
JRB: Do you know I can’t quite remember.
CB: Was the idea to get the Germans before they reached the UK or more -
JRB: No. It was too -
CB: When they were inside.
JRB: After they got inside I believe.
CB: Yeah. So, so the, what I’m asking is if the mobiles were facing inside to be able to do the jamming.
JRB: Well I imagine that -
CB: They must have been mustn’t they?
JRB: The aerial would be sweeping around. On it’s usual -
CB: Ok.
JRB: Every time it came around it would -
CB: Ok.
JRB: Block them out wouldn’t it?
CB: Yeah.
JRB: I’m not quite sure about that but I know that we always thought that we stopped this mini blitz on London anyway.
CB: Right. Right. So there’s an important point here isn’t there? The CH stations only were for the protection and identification of aircraft coming towards Britain. In this particular case we’re talking about aircraft that got through the coastal area and were inside but your aerials were effectively giving a rotating beam whereas the CH stations were only directed out.
JRB: The CH stations were just directed outwards. Yeah because of course the equipment of the CH was, it would be quite impossible to –
CB: Yeah
JRB: Have it rotating anyway.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. I’ll stop there.
[recording paused]
CB: So -
JRB: The landing like Arnhem and that -
CB: They used gliders extensively.
JRB: They used gliders a lot and we, we had a, you’ve heard of the old Hamilcar glider have you?
CB: Yes. A big lifter.
JRB: A big one. Well the manufacturers sent us a dummy body of one of those to our station at Ruislip and the idea was that we were to build equipment which could fit in to this Hamilcar. So the thing was they wanted to make sure it would drive in as opposed to do it on the rule of thumb you might, might say and we had, we had specially set up equipment. These transmitters and other equipment which were in vehicles. I think the, I think the radar, yeah the radar would be in a specially built up body in a fifteen tonne truck and it had to be possible to drive it in and out of the Hamilcar so we, we had those made up locally and we’d one or two, not, not everybody could drive in those days you know.
CB: No.
JRB: And we’d one or two people who were quite good drivers and we trained them up to get these vehicles in and out the Hamilcar car. Well, we made up, I think it was six convoys like that to go with the troops and there was -
CB: That was for Arnhem was it? Or for D-day? D-day was a sea landing.
JRB: No.
CB: Was it for the vehicles.
JRB: It would be the -
CB: For Arnhem?
JRB: The river crossings wouldn’t it? The, like -
CB: Oh ok for crossing the Rhine.
JRB: Arnhem and that type of -
CB: And the Rhine. Yeah.
JRB: Wouldn’t it because that’s where the gliders were mostly used wasn’t they?
CB: Ok. Yeah.
JRB: We had special equipment for that and there was one, there was a station down near Bournemouth, Tarrant Rushton and that was a big depot for the gliders. I suppose quite near the coast to make a fairly short crossing and we took one set down there and there was some snag about it and it was suggested that I and one of my mates would accompany it. They were, they decided to do test flights to about six different stations up and down and one of them was a station near Bedford and we said well we’ll go on that one and there was a fault on it or something. I can’t quite remember just what it was at the time. So we got a trip in the glider which was quite an experience.
CB: To Twinwood Farm.
JRB: And -
CB: Twinwood Farm was the -
JRB: Yeah.
CB: Airfield there.
JRB: But you know when you, when the, when the glider casts off its rope you’re entirely at the mercy of the glider pilot and he knows that there’s no case of going around again and trying again. He’s got to put the thing down somewhere and pretty quick and it was a grass field and he, he had to land on the grass which was a bit, a bit hairy really but anyway.
CB: Were you looking our or did you close your eyes?
JRB: [laughs] No. We were looking out. But I don’t think we were very, very happy about it but of course a lot of the gliders were lost weren’t they? They were shot up and shot down before they ever got there [I reckon?]. That was about the only excitement we got with it really.
CB: What was the purpose of the tests? Was it to see whether the equipment would survive?
JRB: To see if it would be, the operational feasibility to do it, you know.
CB: I was thinking of terms -
JRB: To get out of the, to get the equipment out and rolling and get it set up isn’t it?
CB: I was thinking of the vulnerability of the valves to a heavy landing.
JRB: Well they had to take their chance didn’t they? And also it had to carry goodness knows how many jerry cans of petrol for the generator so it was a thing liable to go up in smoke at any minute sort of thing.
CB: I’ll stop there for a mo.
[recording paused]
JRB: The space between D-day and VJ, wait a minute. Not D-day.
CB: Arnhem.
JRB: No. No. I’m moving on.
CB: Oh ok so crossing the Rhine.
JRB: Yeah but after, after VE day.
CB: Oh yes.
JRB: Victory in Europe.
CB: Yes.
JRB: We concentrated on the war in the east of course and we expected that to go on for quite a long time. Now the, we got reports back that the termites were eating all the insulation off the wires and that in the, in the ordinary sets so we had to strip them all down and rebuild them with this new development. PVC wiring. Because apparently they couldn’t eat that and so we had a big job taking all the receivers and transmitters to pieces and rewiring them with this termite proof wire and things like transformers and components of that type, they had to be immersed in a solution of Perspex or something very similar and dried off so that they were coated in a something that the termites wouldn’t eat which of course as you well know the American atomic bombs put a rapid end to that war so these things weren’t really needed much longer than that.
RB: Although I suppose in, would they have termites in Korea after that.
JRB: But we’d, we’d modified quite a few equipments ready to go over there.
CB: Yeah.
JRB: But that was about the end of the war wasn’t it?
CB: So that was August ‘45. Then what did you do?
JRB: Well I stayed on at Ruislip and of course things got very quiet and we didn’t do very much more until the end of the, until getting demobbed but of course as you know we all had to wait our turns for, for demob.
CB: How did they keep you busy during that period? From August ‘45 to when you were demobbed?
JRB: What did I?
CB: How did they keep you busy from that, during that period ‘cause we’re talking about eighteen months?
JRB: I think there were one or two new developments coming out because there was one case where we, it was when the parabolic reflectors started coming out more and we had one or two sessions with developing or testing those of different types. I’ve got a photograph somewhere of, of a team of us setting up one of the parabolic reflectors but I just couldn’t lay my hands on it at the moment. But that was about it really you know just thinking about new equipments coming along and developing for peace time use I suppose. More or less.
CB: So the development of the parabolic aerial. What did that do to the overall size of the convoy.
JRB: Well it wouldn’t make much difference to the convoy but they were gradually getting more into microwave technology and just general, general developments that were coming along, you know but nothing very outstanding as far as I -. The pressure was off, you know. It was -
CB: Yeah.
JRB: But we were getting, going down to TRE and setting up -
CB: So what was TRE?
JRB: Technical Research Establishment I think it was and no, it was just, of course I suppose the modern radars are a big advance on what we were using at the time but we were just experimenting and testing out some new developments during that period.
CB: ‘Cause that was at Malvern at that time wasn’t it? So did you go up there?
JRB: Malvern was a centre for that sort of thing.
CB: How many vehicles were there in these convoys? What were, what were, what were the vehicles?
JRB: Well, the big the original ones. The heavy ones there would be a transmitter, a receiver, a communications, a trailer of the aerial and a trailer for the diesel generator so there would be about five, five items in a convoy really.
CB: And as time went on they did -
JRB: And then of course when we got on to the light, the light warning system
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
JRB: There would more or less be only a transmitter, a receiver and communications vehicle but all all very much smaller vehicles. More manoeuvrable.
CB: And where was the petrol stored when you were travelling? With the generator or in a different trailer? ‘Cause you used a lot of petrol or diesel.
JRB: Well as I say the ones that we did for the airborne landings they’d got to carry the petrol with them in jerry cans. Enough to run for a good time and then I suppose they’d get their supplies through normal channels you know but it wasn’t a good thing to be carrying loads of petrol on board when you’ve got troops in as well on the gliders. But I always think that I had a very easy and comfortable war compared with many, many people.
CB: So what was the accommodation like at Ruislip?
JRB: Our site, it was only a small unit, our site I think we’d two, two billets. Two huts about thirty men to a billet in the middle of a field. No, no heating unless you could scrounge some coke and get the coke stove going. No proper toilet facilities. No, no baths but there again you rely on somebody to keep the, keep the coke fired boiler going to give you hot water and and of course a few toilets but quite basic accommodation really at that place but we, we had to put up with that for several years. When I was promoted up to sergeant I had the choice of going either into, we, we were just across the, the railway tracks from the records office at Ruislip and I could have used the sergeant’s mess there but I elected to take up an option of being billeted with some friends in the area.
CB: Yeah.
JRB: So I finished off being in in billets with these people.
CB: You had to pay them rent.
JRB: Well that was all done automatically through the, through the exchequer, you know.
CB: Right.
JRB: I just had to, I suppose they got, they got sort of postal orders or something like that. They never complained. They always, always seemed to think they’ve been paid alright for it.
CB: They had your ration book.
JRB: They had my ration book yes. They [could draw?] my rations.
CB: So the accommodation for you -
JRB: ‘Cause you see in, in, when you were in RAF billets in the camp you didn’t need ration books anyway. They just -
CB: No.
JRB: You just had a cookhouse.
RB: Were you always segregated in the accommodation?
JRB: Well, eh?
RB: Were you always segregated? I mean, in your hut there would only be radar people or would there be other RAF personnel as well?
JRB: No. Just reckon that we, we were all working together in the radar.
RB: So you were all in the same boat.
JRB: Yeah all -
CB: What was the unit called? MU was it?
JRB: 4 MU.
CB: 4 MU. Yeah.
JRB: 4 MU. 4 MU at Ruislip.
CB: And where did you eat in the daytime?
JRB: We had a little cookhouse and meals were, meals were done there. And we had a NAAFI. Again, just sort of temporary. I think the NAAFI was just a, like a wooden hut but we were only a very small unit altogether you see. So that’s about what I -
CB: Good. Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: Now yours was mobile radar but the whole concept was based on the original chain radar. So how did that work Roy?
JRB: Well the -
CB: And where was it?
JRB: The British aircraft carried a special piece of equipment which would send out a signal when, when it, when the initial pulse from the transmitter reached the aircraft it triggered this equipment in the aircraft which would send a, a varying signal back and if the, if the echo on the CRDF was pulsing they would know it was, it was this IFF responding.
CB: So what was IFF? Identification -
JRB: Identification Friend or Foe.
CB: Right.
JRB: IFF. So if it was a British aircraft it would be, it would enable it to send out a signal which would cause the echo on the tube to vary and that’s why they would know that it was a friendly.
CB: So where were the chain radar stations?
JRB: Where were the chain stations? Well they were all along the coast. They were at Pevensey. Isle of Wight. You name it there was a whole string of them all along the coast. Every so many miles apart. I can’t tell you -
CB: And what was the purpose of the chain system?
JRB: The purpose was virtually to detect incoming raids. ‘Cause you see there, there were various systems. They realised, when war was pretty imminent they realised that we’d no way of detecting incoming bombers until they were right overhead and they tried various systems. One of them was based on the sound of the aircraft engine. They built, they built a few of these big concrete dishes supposed to pick up the sound of an engine and amplify it and give warning in that way but of course that didn’t work awfully well at all and the principal of radar was well known because it had been used, it had been, been experimented with before the war and one of its uses that they foresaw was that they would be able to measure distance to planets and so on because the same, the same theory applies. If you, if you send out a radio pulse it becomes reflected from anything it hits so if you, if you directed it towards the solar system you could, by measuring the time lapse and converting it from the well known formula of the speed of electromagnetic waves and time you could, you could work out the distance so the scientists of the day were experimenting with that sort of thing and it was just that Watson Watt seemed to get the credit for it but I think that the principal was already known before that and I have always believed that the Germans had quite good radar equipment although we always claimed it was a British invention and it was, it was a big saviour to us. Which, no doubt, it did help a great deal in the Battle of Britain but its main reason for its success was the fact that with our coastline we could form a chain of stations which would detect incoming aircraft. Now the Germans were at a disadvantage because they had such a long and dispersed coastline that they couldn’t very well cover it anyway but I’ve always had in my mind that the Germans knew quite a bit about radar and in fact do you remember we sent over a party, RAF, an RAF flight sergeant I think in charge of it. A secret landing on the French coast to capture equipment from a German station and I’ve no doubt at all that the Germans knew quite a bit more about radar than what we would admit. We were always, always, always claiming that it was an entirely British invention but it was, I think it was common knowledge in the scientific world that a radio transmission would be reflected by a solid object.
CB: What did you do after the war? You were demobbed in ’47 so what did you then do?
JRB: I came back here. My dad had carried on with his little smallholding business all during the war years and I came back fully intending to take over because he was retirement age and becoming less able to do the work and I thought that would be my future which it was for quite a few years wasn’t it Ray? When you were born it was.
RB: About, about ten years wasn’t it?
JRB: About ten years I was, I was running that.
RB: I think it was a combination of -
JRB: And we -
RB: Of cheap imports and fuel prices.
JRB: Yeah. We were, we were producing well a very nice orchard in those days which is now defunct and greenhouses and we were making our living from that. I got married just after the end of the war and my wife came. She was a girl from London but she came up here and threw her lot in with, with me helping on the smallholding and that’s what we did for, as Ray says, about ten years and then there was a time when prices were very bad for produce and unless you’d a lot of capital to develop in a big way the small, the small units were beginning to get faded out. You know, they were getting superseded and I think it was when, we used to sell our produce on the market at Preston you see. Well you could go, you could go and set up your stall on Preston Market and sell your own produce but that all seemed to fade away didn’t it Ray? You know I don’t think they have that your way now do they?
RB: I think supermarkets really -
JRB: And supermarkets.
RB: The nail in the coffin weren’t they?
JRB: Supermarkets were beginning to come along and of course they were only interested in making contracts with the, with the big producers and it just got it wasn’t really a viable thing and of course with having had my wartime experience and knowledge of radio I applied to -
RB: The civil service. Barton Hall.
JRB: I think, there was an air traffic control centre just outside Preston just on the A6 going north from Preston called Barton, Barton Hall and that was, it, there was a Met section and what do you call it Ray? A meteorological section.
RB: Oh yeah. Yeah.
JRB: And there was a civilian section which was connected with Manchester Airport and that was, it had an airline for civilian aircraft coming down from Scotland into Manchester and that was like a first contact point this, this civilian air traffic control and also running alongside it more or less the RAF had got a emergency system. The idea being that we did twenty four hour coverage and but we had what in those days was considered to be state of the art technology which enabled us to position accurately an aircraft anywhere over the north of England virtually which was called auto triangulation. Now the idea being that we had, of course, remember this was entirely before the days of the, of the satellites and the the navigation that they’ve got today. We had a selection of RAF airfields in the area. Woodvale, Bishop’s, what were it? Bishops Court Northern Ireland, one on the Isle of Man, another up on the Cumbrian coast and one or two further inland over the Pennine areas and with this equipment which was put in by Standard Telephones we could get a position from each of these, each of these RAF stations could give you the bearing of on aircraft.
CB: They could triangulate it.
JRB: They could triangulate it by, we had this big, big screen with the map of the area on it and the position of each of our forward relay stations as we called them and if an aircraft, it was, it was designed specifically for aircraft in distress, civilian or RAF and when an aircraft transmitted on the international distress frequency it would draw traces from the various stations on our big map and a cross, well it was never a perfect cross it was always a little bit ambiguous but roughly call it, they called it a cocked hat. It would form a little, maybe like a little five sided area of probability so that you could say, you could, you could call the pilot up again on a forward relay station. You see all this, we’d got land lines, GPO lines to each of these stations so our controller could use, well, say for instance valley in the isle, in the -
CB: Anglesey.
JRB: Anglesey was one of them. We could use their transmitter if the aircraft was in that area.
CB: Yeah.
JRB: Or we could use one of the other transmitters, speak over the landline to that local transmitter and of course you’d get a better signal than if it was coming all the way from Preston and, and we could give him, give him his position pretty accurately and we could say, you know, ask the nature of his emergency and say well fly such and such a vector to such and such an airfield you see and direct him to try and get down.
CB: This is because you were using a big planned position indicator with a map on it aren’t you?
JRB: Yeah.
CB: And when he squawks then the line comes out.
JRB: We used, you know the television, the early television projector sets? They had a little, a little tube which would project on to a bigger screen hadn’t they? Not very distinct I would always thought but anyway we used those same -
CB: Same principal.
JRB: Those same tubes to project on to this big map that we had on our control desk and so it worked very well that did but we, we had to run on it on a watch system because it was covering the twenty four hours.
CB: Yeah.
JRB: And it was the emergency service you see.
CB: So what were you doing there?
JRB: I was maintaining all the equipment.
CB: Right.
JRB: At the Preston end.
CB: Now, you were, you during that period you trans -
JRB: You see, we had to, over our land line we could talk to the people at, at each station and if the, if we suspected that their signals were not quite right we’d have to call them to go and have a look at their equipment on the airfield and check and of course we, we used to have the authority over them to call them out if necessary for that sort of thing but it was quite a, quite a good system really but of course the sat nav type thing has entirely put that into the history books hasn’t it now?
CB: Yeah.
JRB: You’ll have heard of the RAF equipments called CADF and CRDF. Well they were installed on the airfields and each control tower if the, if the aircraft in his area called up his own station could give him his bearing to fly to the station but it couldn’t give him how many miles away it was or anything like that so this would give him a fixed position. So we used to have, thankfully we didn’t have a lot of emergencies, true emergencies but we used to do a lot of test, tests with aircraft in the area. So call, call up on the emergency channel and just check that everything was in order you know. It worked very well I thought.
CB: Now that was a transition. During that period you were, the technology was moving from valves to printed circuits. Well to -
JRB: Only just. This equipment -
CB: Transistors was what I meant to say.
JRB: This equipment was still on valves.
CB: Was it?
JRB: But -
CB: So we’re talking about the fifties and the sixties are we?
JRB: A friend, a friend of mine who served with me in the RAF after the war, this is Terry Parnell, he got a job at Standard Telephones and he, the two direction finding equipment that I mentioned CADF and CRDF they were in use by the RAF using the valve technology and I believe he converted it and brought out the transistorised versions of it and that worked alright for quite a long time.
CB: So when did you retire?
JRB: When did I retire?
RB: Well there was, there was another stage in your career when Barton Hall closed down in the early 70s. You went to Sealand didn’t you and you were working for the civil service at the, on laser, laser guided things.
JRB: Oh that was later on wasn’t it? Yes, of course.
RB: After Barton Hall closed down. So you actually retired from the laser -
JRB: Originally –
RB: Thing.
JRB: Originally we had five control centres. There was Preston, Barton Hall, Uxbridge and one up near the Scottish borders somewhere wasn’t there? Anyway there were about five, five areas. Well gradually they combined them. We took over the Yorkshire stations as well as our western stations and Uxbridge took over from somebody else so it was centralised from five to about three and then eventually it was centralised all on Uxbridge so of course the Barton Hall equipment was superfluous as regards this auto triangulation system. It was all being done collectively through Uxbridge.
RB: That’s when you were transferred to Sealand.
JRB: And that’s when, that’s when I transferred to Sealand which as you know is on, near Chester and I worked there until the end of the war er till the end of the, of my service.
CB: Which was 19 -
JRB: To my retirement and -
CB: 75 was it? 1970’s
RB: ‘85.
JRB: Sixty five wasn’t I?
RB: Yeah but ’85 you were sixty five.
CB: 1985
JRB: Yes I retired at sixty five and the last bit of my time there I was on, 30 MU at Sealand was a big RAF station. It had been a wartime flying station.
CB: Yeah.
JRB: And it became a central maintenance unit for airborne radio for the RAF. Most of the, most of the stations, if they had faulty equipment it would be sent to Sealand to be sorted out at that one place you see instead of each station doing their own repair work.
CB: Yeah.
JRB: It would come to a sensible point which was Sealand. So I worked on that for several years and then the Cossor’s, not Cossor’s, Ferranti’s. Ferranti’s of Edinburgh, they developed a laser equipment.
CB: At Sealand.
JRB: Now laser as you probably know is quite similar to ordinary radar but it’s using a different part of the spectrum.
CB: Infra-red.
JRB: It’s using infra-red and they, I don’t know whether it’s still in use but they fitted it in the Jaguars and I think in the new, the new fighter that replaced, well it was the Jaguar wasn’t it but I can’t remember what that was called but anyway but that was known as, I’m just trying to remember the [pause] Oh mark, laser ranger and marked target seeker. Now that had two purposes. From an aircraft it could, it could detect and range on a target or alternatively somebody on the ground, hopefully a little squaddie with a pack set, could direct this laser on to a bridge say that he wanted eliminating and that would be detected by the aircraft who could then range on that specific target you see so that’s why they called it the marked target seeker. So I worked on that which was a new technology again altogether using, as you said, infra-red instead of -
CB: To illuminate the target.
JRB: Radio waves. And I believe they used that in the Shetlands.
RB: The Falklands.
CB: In the Falklands war.
JRB: In the Falklands. Sorry. In the Falklands and one or two incidents since I believe but I don’t know whether it’s still, you see this, this is, we’re going back now what thirty years Ray. Something like that.
RB: Well yeah it was before Kit was born. Kit’s thirty at the end of this month.
JRB: Yeah.
RB: That’s my son, dad’s grandson.
JRB: Yes. That’s right.
RB: He’s thirty in a few weeks.
JRB: So presumably that equipment is now out of date anyway.
CB: Well just more sophisticated isn’t it?
JRB: It was the start of the, start of the laser usage for this purpose.
CB: Yes. Right. Excellent.
JRB: And then of course that was what I worked on right up to the end of my civil -
RB: Until you retired.
JRB: Service type of thing.
CB: So how many years did you do in the civil service? About thirty I suppose.
JRB: Something like that.
CB: ‘55 to ’85.
JRB: Something like that. Yeah. At, I was up at Barton Hall for quite a number of years wasn’t I Ray and then at Sealand again.
RB: Yeah.
JRB: About thirty years I suppose. Yeah.
CB: Right. We’re stopping there for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: As a final point Roy what was the most memorable point about your service in the RAF?
JRB: In the RAF.
[pause]
JRB: I don’t know. It’s hard to say really.
[pause]
CB: Ok. What about in, in, when you, in civilian life? Was there a memorable part of your activities when you became a civil servant with radar, laser and so on?
JRB: No. There was nothing very exciting about it I’m afraid. It was just, just the same humdrum stuff.
CB: And what was your interests in the background in all that time? Were you keen on sport or some other -?
JRB: Never been much of a sportsman but I think, would you say our, our overseas holiday trips? That sort of -?
RB: Yeah. Well you went on foreign language courses didn’t you and did evening schools in various things.
JRB: Yes.
RB: Did you do a maths course? What was that -
JRB: No. I didn’t do a maths course.
RB: You didn’t do maths. Some, some
JRB: You see Peter, Peter -
RB: Sort of, was it a City and Guilds course you did? Something in -
JRB: Yes. Well that was more to do with my service life wasn’t it? The City and Guilds. It was qualification for -
RB: You did sort of later, qualifications in later life didn’t you?
JRB: Yes.
RB: And did you do Italian courses? And French.
JRB: Well I did one or two study courses. Yeah.
CB: Good. Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: Just clarifying the mini blitz because clearly that was a memorable thing for you. You had to react quickly did you to this situation and so was this a particularly memorable event? The Meershum.
JRB: Yes it was because it was a sudden request that we got and we had to pull the stops out and design a modification to the equipment and get it, get it out to the airfields. We’d quite a hectic time going around and installing it at the various -
CB: At the CH stations.
JRB: Fields.
CB: Was it at airfields or CH stations?
JRB: It was at CH stations.
CB: Right. Thanks.
RB: That the [unclear?] isn’t it?
CB: Yeah.
JRB: Have you got it there?
CB: How long did it take you to do this? Literally a weekend or was it weeks?
JRB: Literally, literally just over a weekend.
CB: Amazing.
JRB: We were going all over the place, split up into different fitting parties and took one, one equipment to each station you see and set it up. So we landed down at Pevensey and that was the one that I was most involved in and the rest of our company did likewise. We were all separate, separate little fitting parties going along the various -
CB: You went by road -
JRB: Stations.
CB: I presume.
JRB: Yes.
CB: Yeah.
JRB: Yes. They laid transport on for us and of course we went, went straight to these stations.
CB: Good.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with James Burdin
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-02-06
Format
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01:51:55 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABurdinJR170206
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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. Coastal Command
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
James Burdin went at Hutton Grammar School and worked on radio repair and sales. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force but had to wait and joined the Local Defence Volunteers instead. He did some rifle practice, general infantry training and patrols. James had his initial training at Blackpool where the winter gardens had been converted into a Morse school. Owing his background in radio, he later went to work on radar: he discusses his postings at different training establishments and provides details of radar technical advances, installation, modify and repair, vulnerability and equipment mobility. James served in mobile equipment units in Algeria (Operation Torch), Tunisia, Egypt, Normandy (D-Day landings), crossing of the Rhine, Netherlands (Operation Market Garden), Mauthausen camp (Operation Meerschaum). Discusses the end of the war, continuing to work at 4 Maintenance Unit at RAF Ruislip developing equipment, components and technologies. He then worked at the Technical Research Establishment until demobilised in 1947.
After an unsuccessful attempt to run his family business, he applied for the civil service and worked until 1985 on radar development, auto triangulation, Cathode-Ray Direction Finder, Identification Friend or Foe, infrared devices, laser and chain radar stations.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Lancashire
England--Blackpool
Algeria
Austria
Austria--Mauthausen
Egypt
France
Germany
Rhine River
Netherlands
Netherlands--Arnhem
Tunisia
North Africa
Temporal Coverage
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1944
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
civil defence
demobilisation
Gneisenau
Home Guard
military living conditions
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
radar
RAF Bircham Newton
RAF Ruislip
recruitment
sanitation
Scharnhorst
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/551/8814/PLancasterJ1501.1.jpg
794d475655253509adf90821a41de268
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/551/8814/ALancasterJO150406.2.mp3
5eafd09ebb3a1d2459a7b55f8591b8a7
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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Lancaster, Jo
John Oliver Lancaster
J O Lancaster
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Lancaster, JO
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with John Oliver 'Jo' Lancaster DFC (1919 - 2019, 948392, 103509 Royal Air Force), photographs and six of his log books. Jo Lancaster completed 54 operations as a pilot with in Wellingtons with 40 Squadron, and after a period of instructing, in Lancasters with 12 Squadron from RAF Wickenby. He became test pilot after the war and was the first person to use a Martin-Baker ejection seat in an emergency.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jo Lancaster and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-18
2017-03-08
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Andrew Panton. The interviewee is Jo Lancaster. Mr Lancaster was a pilot in various aircraft during World War Two and the interview is taking place at xxxx on April the 6th 2015. Apologies for the poor sound quality during various sections of this interview due to static on a tie clip microphone. Talk a little bit about that raid July the 24th 1941.
JL: Well at the time the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen were in the harbour at Brest. On that day the Scharnhorst made a run for it down the coast to La Pallice but the Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen were still in Brest and a number of Wellingtons, I think of 3 Group were ordered to carry out a daylight bombing raid on the harbour there. We were at Alcon, operating from Alconbury at the time. Near Huntingdon. And we were routed right down to the Scilly Isles. Then doubled back towards Brest and you could see a black cloud of flak smoke from quite a distance away. It was a beautiful, a beautiful clear day and we just had to barge straight in. There was, we only saw two ME109s, one of which went right through the middle and got severely shot up by everybody and the pilots baled out. Everybody claimed it of course but nobody knows who did it. But, anyway, we were in two vics of three. We [weren’t in company?] but our trio sailed through without too much damage. A piece of flak came through the windscreen alongside me and dropped on the floor which I still have and we’d used up a lot of fuel trying to keep formation with constantly altering the engine settings. And so, having, as I say, got away again out over back over the channel we and several others headed for St Eval in Cornwall and quite a number landed there. Many of them in various stages of damage. We’d had our hydraulic system knocked out but apart from flak holes we were intact.
AP: Did the searchlights sort of —?
JL: Well when that happened you were singled out for particular attention by the flak which happened to me several times. On one occasion it was right over the middle of Essen and did some violent evasive action and lost a lot of height and gained a lot of speed and finally outflew the searchlights.
AP: What was the evasive action? Did you corkscrew or did you dive?
JL: Well just various. Mainly sort of spiral diving but keep trying to keep a heading away from the searchlights all the time.
AP: And flying through the flak and the anti-aircraft again.
JL: Well there was nothing we could about that. We heard it and smelled it and when you got back you found lots of holes.
AP: Right. One of the things she was asking about was what it was like when you’re coming in on the final approach to your bomb run. You as the pilot. What are you doing? What’s the crew doing?
JL: I think you made yourself as small as possible. I just used to [unclear] and went in.
AP: So you were just taking orders from the bomb aimer. He was in control. Not the pilot.
JL: Yes. He would take over and he’d say. ‘Steady. Left. Left’ or ‘Right,’ and we would keep laterally level and try and make these small adjustments in heading until he was satisfied and then eventually he would say, ‘Bombs gone.’
AP: And then what?
JL: You felt the thud as they left and usually we had a camera aboard so they had to hold, hold the heading for a few, well about thirty seconds or more. I forget now. Until a camera had, the camera had flashed, had gone off, and then we were free to leave. On the Lancaster we had, usually had cookies and incendiaries. With the Wellingtons the target was usually the Ruhr. That was standard nine, five hundred pounders.
AP: Right. And what was the age? How old were you when you were flying? Can you say a little bit about how old you were? And your crew?
JL: In 1941 I was twenty two.
AP: And your crew. Could you say?
JL: Well, all much the same. I had a Canadian navigator, a Welsh wireless operator, a Canadian front gunner and a New Zealand rear gunner. The navigator, in the Wellingtons the navigator went forward to do the bomb aiming. Later on of course we had the bomb aimers on this, on the way back from Berlin. In a Wellington. And we were rather taken by surprise because you come down with the change in the wind over ten tenths cloud and we adjusted north and we came, we were flying back over Wihelmshaven and Emden and were getting shot at all the way through the clouds and then eventually there was a gap in the clouds and I could see, see through the clouds, the clouds across the causeway across the mouth of the Zuiderzee. And I think we were probably all looking at that and then an ME110 shot overhead and circled around and went into them and I went into a deep spiral dive and he tried to collar us and showed us a bit of [unclear] and I think he should have [unclear] went into the cloud and we never saw each other again so we don’t know what happened to him. In 1941, on a Wellington squadron such as 40 Squadron, each Wellington had its own ground crew. There was a fitter for each engine. That was his engine. And then there were two airframe fitters. And they were more or less permanently with the aircraft so we became very friendly with them. And on operational days they would do what they called an NFT — Night Flying Test and some of the guys would always come with us on that. They were very industrious and proud of their aeroplane.
AP: And other? Other people that you had to rely on? Was there? Can you say, talk about, some other people?
JL: The only people I can think of were the [lovely ladies?] in the parachute section which, on 40 Squadron our parachutes went to [unclear] RAF Alconbury had virtually no buildings at all. A couple of wooden huts and that was about all so all the things like parachutes and things were at Wyton which was our base station. I never went to the parachute section there but at Wickenby on 12 Squadron we had a parachute section there and it was always WAAFs who looked after the parachutes.
AP: OK. Any, any —?
JL: And we had WAAF drivers of course.
AP: Yeah. Ok. Any thoughts about the aeroplanes that you flew like the Wellington or Lancaster? A favourite or, you used to fly? Or —
JL: The Wellington is a well-designed aeroplane but it is grossly underpowered. When they finally put in decent engines in her. The Hercules instead of the Pegasus. It was a very good operational aeroplane.
AP: Right.
JL: But I think everybody loved a Lancaster.
AP: What was so special about it?
JL: I don’t know. It was viceless. It was doing, carried a big load, doing a good job and with the Wellingtons I had two complete engine failures and by the grace of God we were within easy distance of an airfield. On one occasion we took off on operations and the port engine started — oil started pouring out of it and eventually it stopped and we were able to, it was still fairly light and we just lobbed down into nearby Wyton. And the other one I was on in the, actually in the circuit at Wymeswold when I was an instructor at OTU and we were just able to go straight in from there because on the —
[Recording paused]
JL: Oh well. Yes. Well. I was, before the war I’d served an apprenticeship in Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft at Coventry and after the war I went to join Saunders Roe at Cowes but they didn’t have very much going on and I got a bit fed up with that and re-joined Armstrong Whitworth as a test pilot. There were three of us there Eric Frenton was a test pilot and another one — Bill Else, and they had, there was a lot of work going on. Amongst other things we had the AW52G which was a glider, a tail-less glider. Two thirds scale of the bigger versions of the AW52. There was two of those. One with Nene engines. One with Derwent engines. The Nene were more powerful. And the Nene engine one, when I went there, was out of action having the structure stiffened. And then it came out and had the limited speed increased by quite an amount and I was only on my third flight with it and the job was to explore the higher ranges, speed ranges and it’s rather difficult to explain technically but the controls were called elevons. They were combined elevators and ailerons. And in order to get them light enough for the pilot to control them manually they had what they called spring tabs which meant that the connection from the pilot’s control was actually, to the flying control was actually through a spring. And what happened was that while I was doing something like three hundred and twenty miles an hour, we didn’t use knots in those days and a flutter, what they called flutter set in and it became very very violent. Very very noisy. I anxiously estimated the frequency as one and a half cycles per second. The amplitude we don’t know. You could only guess at. It was probably six or eight feet as I was going up and down at that rate and I was rapidly disorientated and I thought the thing was going to break up anyway. But if it didn’t break up I was going to be unconscious so I decided to eject. A thing I’d never even anticipated before and I wasn’t in a very good state by then so I didn’t do the drill properly. I managed to jettison the canopy and I pulled the overhead blind down over my face which fired the seat. I should have put my heels on the, on the rest on the front of the seat which I didn’t do. I just was very lucky I did that because the aircraft had sort of spectacle controls and I think, as an afterthought, they realised that wasn’t very good combined with an ejection seat so they put in another system which jettisoned the hood and fired some cutters which, which disconnected the controls from the stick and I think you was just supposed to push the stick forward too. It was a bit of Heath Robinson system but I couldn’t do that because it was wired off anyway. Anyway, I got away with it with a lot of bruises on my shoulders and on my knees. I landed very badly. I thought I was going to land in a canal and tried to remember the drill we’d been given in the RAF but I only succeeded in making the descent worse by swinging. And when I landed I broke a chip off my shoulder bone and they took me away and x-rayed me and they said that I’d sustained a compression fracture of the first and second along the vertebrae and they said, ‘Not only have you done that but it’s been done before.’ And I have to say that it was in, I don’t remember the date. The 1st of January 1947. We had the SRA1 — that was at Saunders Roe — which has an ejection seat and we went up to Martin-Baker’s and went up on the test rig and after that I had a rather sore tail for a while. That must have been what it was. 30th of May 1949. And after all the kafuffle had died down on it I wrote to Sir James Martin. He wasn’t Sir James then. He was just James Martin to thank him and got a very nice letter in reply and also a custom made little wooden box which came through the post marked, “Explosives — danger” [laughs] which was delivered to Armstrong Whitworth. To me at Armstrong Whitworth. It contained a very nicely inscribed Rolex gold watch and [pause] I’m sorry am I —?
AP: That’s alright. No. That’s alright. Got to watch the microphone. Yeah. The watch. Yes.
JL: [unclear] In 1975 when I was living in the South. In West Sussex. I had a little bungalow with casement windows and some, one of the local villains I think, got in and took that watch and another one and several other small valuables and I presume that both watches had gone straight down to The Lanes in Brighton and by now would probably be melted down but — and just two years ago I was invited to go up to Martin-Baker’s and they showed me around, gave me lunch and I wondered what it was all about. Then they started asking me about my ejection and finally got on to the watch and eventually Andrew Martin produced from his pocket my watch. And the story is that they’d had an email from somebody in New York who had read the — it had my name on it and James Martin and somehow or other they put it together and connected it with Martin-Baker. Whatever company, I don’t know who it was in New York who went over or whoever it was contacted this chap who they said was a very shifty character and they bought the watch back. I don’t know for how much and they gave it back to me.
AP: That’s an amazing story.
JL: What happened then was that I didn’t really want the watch so I asked them to auction it but then they said instead of auctioning it we’ll put it in our company museum and we’ll put five thousand pounds in to the Bomber Command Memorial Trust. It applies to almost everybody. We usually crewed up completely at random and almost always within twenty four hours we were as thick as thieves.
AP: You relied on each other didn’t you?
JL: Loyalty all down the way.
AP: Strong teamwork and trust.
JL: Yes. I was with these two Canadians and a New Zealander. Yes. The two Canadians. I’d never met a Canadian before and I was mildly surprised that they sounded like the Americans I’d seen on the films. And I hardly knew where New Zealand was. But —
AP: I think it’s good to mention that it was an international crew wasn’t it? That they were from all over the Commonwealth.
JL: Yes.
AP: You had Canadians, British.
JL: Yes. And later on on the Lancaster squadron I had an Australian navigator.
[Recording paused]
JL: In the Wellington was to Stettin. That was a nine hours something. And the longest in the Lancaster was to La Spezia which is about sixty miles south of Genoa. A sea port. And that was, that was about nine and a half hours I think.
AP: You were the only pilot. Right?
JL: Yes. We did, we did carry a second pilot but he was just supernumerary. Usually he just stayed back in the astrodome helping to keep the, keep a lookout.
AP: Can you talk a bit about what it was like to fly so long? I mean did you eat anything? Drink. How did you survive on those hours?
JL: I don’t think I ever ate or drank anything until back in, back in safe area. In a safe area. I think most of us were the same. In those days everybody smoked and we sometimes smoked when we were below oxygen level which was ten thousand feet but we probably weren’t supposed to. We didn’t on operations anyway. Once again that would be when we were safe and nearly home.
[Recording paused]
JL: One long drag over France. And we had a thing called Mandrel which was a microphone in one of the engines to the wireless operator and he had, the wireless operators were given a recording of German night fighter RT traffic and they didn’t understand it but they could recognise it and I had a Canadian wireless op, Jordan Fisher, at that time and he was listening out on Mandrel and he was highly excited. He was apparently getting very good results. He could, he could tune in to one of these frequencies where the night fighters were operating and he was doing his Mandrel trick and they get very annoyed [laughs] Shouting.
AP: How did he use it? Did he block their signal? Or reduce it.
JL: Yes. Yes having identified the frequency he transferred the engine noise on that frequency.
AP: I see. So he could block their frequency.
JL: He was having the time of his life apparently [laughs]. Mandrel was a microphone mounted in to, actually in the port inner engine, the [strength of it?] the wireless operator, the wireless operators had been given some training to identify but not necessarily understand German night fighter RT traffic and they would listen out, looking for this RT traffic and when they found it they would tune in the transmitters to that frequency and then transfer the engine noise which blotted out everything and frequently made the night fighter pilots very cross.
[Recording paused]
Having completed a tour you then became a screened aircrew and you went to an OTU where you became an instructor in your particular aircrew job. As a pilot I went to Wellesbourne Mountford OTU and my job was conversion on to Wellingtons which are just circuits and landings, circuits and landings and not only in daytime but at night. And in the winter when I was there the night flying programme was divided into four three hours stints 6-9, 9 to12, 12 to 3 and 3 to 6 and you can imagine what it was like having to get up or be prepared to go down and be ready to start doing circuits and bumps at 3 o’clock in the morning.
AP: Yeah.
JL: It was bad enough at 12 o’clock. So I hated it. I wasn’t a very good instructor anyway. And then they started with these two one thousand bomber raids I was on. They started doing quite regular operations with screened, so-called screened aircrew at OTUs and I thought it was far better to be on a squadron if I had to do all that.
AP: Were you on, did you say a two thousand bomber raid?
JL: I was on the first two.
AP: Two thousand bombers in one raid? Or one thousand bombers?
JL: There were two one thousand bomber raids.
AP: Two one thousand bomber raids.
JL: May the, May the 30th and June the, June the 2nd I think.
AP: Could you say a little bit about what happened? I mean, was that Cologne?
JL: The first one was Cologne. The second one was Essen.
AP: Essen. And so you were flying Wellingtons.
JL: Yes. Wellesbourne Mountford OTU put up about twenty aircraft that night and we lost four. My aircraft still had the dual control in which made it very very difficult to get in and out because the entry was via a hatch under the nose. So in a hurry it would have been very awkward. And the aircraft were generally fairly clapped out. And on the way back I had a screened navigator and a screened wireless operator. And on the way back, when we got back over England the wireless operator came. Came up front and sat beside me. I think together we saw the oil pressure on the port engine just drop off to nothing and fortunately the wireless operator, he was familiar with Wellingtons, knew what had happened. It had run out of oil. We had a reserve oil tank down in the fuselage with a hand pump and he knew what to do immediately. He went scuttling back down. Started hand-pumping oil back in to the engine.
AP: That’s before you got to it.
JL: No. This was on the way back.
AP: On the way back.
JL: What I didn’t say — over Cologne we were quite high and I had two Canadian gunners. You know, they were students and they got very excited and wanted to spray their guns around [laughs]. I told them to sit quiet and keep a good lookout.
AP: What was the weather like on that night?
JL: Clear.
AP: So you had a good shot at them.
JL: Oh yes we could. We were late. Late on target and we could see it from miles away.
AP: It was already lit up.
JL: We were, we were more or less unmolested I think.
AP: A thousand bombers. Did you see the other ones around you?
JL: Oh yes.
AP: Can you say a little bit about what it was like?
JL: Yes. I saw them. Quite a lot. Yes.
AP: There were Lancasters, Halifaxes. Stirlings.
JL: Everything. Most of the ones I saw were Wellingtons.
AP: But you’re not in formation.
JL: No. No.
AP: Loose formation.
JL: Completely random.
AP: But you’re on your course and you’ve got aeroplanes.
JL: Yes. Had to try and keep an eye open. Very occasionally you’d hit the slipstream of one of them [laughs]. There’s one not very far away in front.
AP: So you had to keep a constant picture of that.
JL: Oh yes. There must have been hundreds of collisions we never heard about. Fatal ones.
AP: So when you arrived it was well and truly lit up. .
JL: Yes.
AP: Yeah.
JL: I don’t, I don’t remember actually being shot at.
AP: No? And then the other one was Essen.
JL: Yes. And that was a complete disaster because there was thick haze over the whole area and we just couldn’t see anything so I think we just let them go and came home.
AP: Right. Yes.
JL: Stood down for six weeks to convert. We were operational again on Lancasters on the 1st of January 1943.
AP: The operations that you did then. Can you say a bit about what you did?
JL: I think I did three mining operations. My first operation on a Lancaster was to Norway, to Haugesundfjord, and dropped, I think it was four, fifteen hundred pound mines in the fjord there. When we got caught out by searchlights and the gunners were able to reply and they, they won. Off Emden and the islands. We put a stick of mines there. And another one was at the entrance to St Nazaire harbour.
AP: Oh yeah. That was in France.
JL: Yes. That’s where we did, there’s an island, I think it’s called Belle ile and we had to do a timed run from Belle Ile. Went right up the estuary and let them go. I think the load was four, fifteen hundred pound mines. Parachute mines.
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 Jo Lancaster. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Andrew Panton
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
2015-04-06
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALancasterJO150406
PLancasterJO1501
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.
Description
An account of the resource
After leaving school, Jo Lancaster was an aircraft apprentice with Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company in Coventry. After volunteering for the Air Force, he trained as a pilot and completed a tour on Wellingtons with 40 Squadron from RAF Alconbury. Following a period as an instructor at an operational training unit, he flew another tour of operations. After the war Jo became a test pilot and was the first man to eject from an aircraft in danger using a Martin-Baker ejection seat.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Essen
Italy--La Spezia
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1943
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:30:15 audio recording
12 Squadron
3 Group
40 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
fitter airframe
fitter engine
Gneisenau
ground crew
Lancaster
Me 109
Me 110
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Alconbury
RAF Wickenby
RAF Wyton
Scharnhorst
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/654/9902/LWarnerJ1623709v1.1.pdf
91709a60b0ecc39d87beb002ea42b4f3
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
Warner, Jack
J Warner
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Warner, J
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Jack Warner DFM (b. 1923, 183090, 1623709 Royal Air Force) his log book, his memoir, a newspaper cutting and photographs. He completed a tour of 37 operations as a flight engineer with 428 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jack Warner and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jack Warner’s navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book for Jack Warner, flight engineer. Covering the period from 2 July 1943 to 28 January 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Topcliffe, RAF Leeming, RAF Croft, RAF Middleton St George and RAF St Athan. Aircraft flown in were, Halifax and C-47. He flew a total of 37 night operations with 428 squadron. Targets were, Montlucon, Modane, Hannover, Kassel, Dusseldorf, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Kiel, Oslo, Brest, Meulan le Mureaux, Lille, le Havre, Rostock, Laon, Cherbourg, Villeneuve, Morlaix, Morlaye, Borcum, Heligoland, Mont Couple, Dunkirk, Merville and Coutances. His pilot on operations was Pilot Officer Sinclair. Notes on the last pages of the log book discuss his operations on 5 and 6 June 1944 and the hazards of minelaying.
Creator
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Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWarnerJ1623709v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Yorkshire
France--Brest
France--Cherbourg
France--Coutances
France--Dunkerque
France--Laon
France--Le Havre
France--Lille
France--Merville (Nord)
France--Modane
France--Montluçon
France--Morlaix
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Borkum
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Rostock
Norway--Oslo
Wales--Glamorgan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Durham (County)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1943-09-15
1943-09-16
1943-09-17
1943-09-22
1943-09-23
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
1943-12-03
1943-12-04
1943-12-20
1943-12-21
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-01-28
1944-01-29
1944-02-03
1944-02-05
1944-02-06
1944-02-11
1944-03-02
1944-03-03
1944-03-04
1944-04-09
1944-04-10
1944-04-13
1944-04-14
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
1944-05-05
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1944-05-24
1944-05-25
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-02
1944-06-03
1944-06-04
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1659 HCU
1664 HCU
408 Squadron
428 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
C-47
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Croft
RAF Leeming
RAF Middleton St George
RAF St Athan
RAF Topcliffe
Scharnhorst
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/865/10825/AGillRA-JT170930.2.mp3
ee2bdb54a700a6de722a519acf341d1e
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
Hazeldene, Peter
Peter Vere Hazeldene
P V Hazeldene
Description
An account of the resource
19 items. An oral history interview with Rachel and John Gill about their father, Peter Hazeldene DFC (b. 1922, 553414 Royal Air Force) and 16 other items including log book, memoirs, medals and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 106 and 57 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rachel and John Gill and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hazeldene, PV
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 30th of September 2017. I’m in North Hykeham with Terry and Rachel Gill and we’re going to talk about Pete Hazeldene, Hazeldene, who was Rachel’s father, and his experiences in the RAF. So we start talking to Rachel. What do you know about dad in his earliest life?
RG: Well, I know he was the eldest child of seven and he was born in Barry Island. Dad always loved the sea and I think this is, was because he was born near the sea. He had diphtheria as a very small boy and was in an Isolation Hospital. He was a member of the choir, sang in the choir and an altar boy. And then they moved to, to Cardiff. Dad enjoyed life. He loved camp. He loved to go and take, with his friend take his tent to the bottom of Caerphilly Hill. And —
CB: What did his father do?
RG: Oh, Grandpa was in a drawing office in Cardiff. Grandma stayed at home with all these children. Dad left school around about fifteen and was an errand boy for a jewellers but his love of the Air Force started when he saw a poster in a window offering to see the world from a different angle. And that’s when dad decided he would join the Air Force. Grandpa was against it because he wanted him to join the Welsh Regiment but dad was adamant and away he went. I’m not quite sure if grandpa signed his forms or whether it was Grandma. Dad joined the Air Force and came as a boy entrant to Cranwell.
CB: So this is 1939. Beginning of ’39.
RG: Yes.
CB: Although he’d showed his interest in 1938.
RG: Yes. Yes.
CB: Right.
RG: He was, he did the training in Cranwell as a, what did he do? Wireless operator.
CB: Just stop there a mo.
RG: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Doing technical training.
TG: Technical training.
RG: Oh right. Yeah.
TG: With a —
[recording paused]
CB: So, tell us a bit more about him leaving home.
RG: It was quite an adventure coming to Lincolnshire for dad because it was his very first time he’d left home and his very first time he’d actually been out of Cardiff. Out of Wales. And he got here as a sixteen year old and he never left Lincolnshire all his life.
CB: So, we’re going to get Terry to talk about the technicalities here because he came to Cranwell as a boy entrant in the days when they were doing that sort of training at Cranwell. So what do we know about that?
TG: Well, from what he told us and from the books we have that he wrote at the time, his technical notes, he was being trained on radio and electrical theory. And at that time of course he was too young to join aircrew but when the war did break out he did volunteer for bomber crew and he was accepted for that. He was sent from Cranwell to a Gunnery School at Upper Heyford and he trained on wireless op, as a wireless operator and he was trained in Morse Code. Subsequent to that training he joined or was posted to 106 Squadron at RAF Finningley.
CB: I think as a wireless operator/air gunner then he went to an outpost somewhere to be trained in gunnery.
TG: Yes. He went West Freugh.
CB: West Freugh.
TG: Freugh. Yes.
CB: In Scotland.
TG: Yes. His first flight was from West Freugh in March I think it was. 1940.
CB: Right.
TG: According to his log book.
CB: So he would have just been eighteen then.
TG: He would. Yes. He’d just turned eighteen a couple of months before. And obviously he was successful and then was sent to Finningley.
CB: Right. Just stop there a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: We’re just going to go back to the Cranwell experience because he’s away from home and there are things there that are different —
RG: Yes.
CB: From being in Wales. So —
RG: Very different. His mum was a very good cook and there was always very good portions for the family but at Cranwell the portions were very small and obviously it didn’t meet dad’s appetite. So the only thing that he could fill up on was cabbage. Dad hated cabbage but he learned that, you know if he wanted to feel full cabbage was the way forward and eventually got to like it and grew them. Yeah.
CB: Extraordinary. But he was being trained in ground radio and electrical activities so most likely he then did some work on the ground.
TG: He did. I understand it was at Abingdon to start with before he was posted to Finningley.
CB: Before he did his gunnery course.
TG: Before his gunnery course. Yes.
CB: Yes. So while he was at Abingdon he, it sounds as though it was when he was there that he volunteered for aircrew.
TG: That’s right. He, after, he then attended a gunnery course and was posted to Finningley where he then flew as a wireless operator and air gunner with 106 Squadron.
CB: What aircraft were they flying?
RG: Hampdens.
TG: They were Hampdens at the time.
CB: Right.
TG: And he later, he was posted with 106 Squadron to Coningsby. And he did thirty operations with 106 Squadron. One of his pilots was a chap called Bob Wareing who on one particular raid they attacked the Schnarhorst and the Gneisenau in Brest and they were successful in putting that ship out of action. And the Scharnhorst. And for that raid I understand that his pilot was awarded the DFC and Peter was mentioned in dispatches. At the end of his thirty raids, thirty operations he, he was posted to Polebrook and seconded to the Americans. But I should add that whilst he was Finningley of course they used to occasionally listen to Lord Haw Haw who correctly broadcast that the clock in the sergeant’s mess was ten minutes slow. Which he often used to laugh about, didn’t he? Your father. That he was correct in Lord Haw Haw. But whilst he was at Polebrook with the Americans he flew in their B17s and he taught them wireless operations and Morse Code. And he flew quite on a few, on a few training exercises with them. One particular rather unsavoury incident took place when he took the class out, of Americans to a pub one night. Amongst them was a black crew.
RG: American.
TG: American crewman. And while in the pub the American military police came in and dragged the black lad out, beat him up and dragged him away because he was in the wrong sort of pub. They say. Your father couldn’t really understand it could he? Peter couldn’t. Pete couldn’t understand that. They charged, the barman charged your dad sixpence. Peter, Pete was charged sixpence because in the melee they broke a beer glass. But he, he never forgot that incident and he couldn’t really rationalise it. It was not what he had expected so to speak. On another occasion he told us that the flight engineer went berserk on the aircraft and in order to subdue him Peter had to, or Pete had to knock him out with an ammo box. I understand there was, and he was grounded for LMF afterwards. Not Pete. The flight engineer.
CB: The American. American flight engineer.
TG: No. No.
RG: No, this was —
TG: This was while he was at Finningley.
RG: Yeah.
CB: Oh, Finningley. Oh, right.
TG: Yeah. Sorry. I’m getting things out of order aren’t I, a little bit?
CB: Yeah. Right.
TG: Slightly. Doesn’t matter.
CB: Ok. So this is 106 Squadron.
TG: As far as I remember it was 106.
CB: At Finningley.
TG: Yes. On another occasion that they went on a couple of gardening missions which was obviously dropping the mines. But they’d got one on board still after this operation and they ventured into France to see whether they could drop this mine somewhere else. And they didn’t take much notice of it but a light aircraft gun opened fire on them and as far as they were aware nothing had happened but when they landed the rear gunner was dead and the thing was awash with blood. His area. And they could never get rid of that blood off that aircraft however much they washed it.
CB: We’ll stop there.
RG: Yes, I—
[recording paused]
CB: So, just going back to the gardening bit.
TG: Gardening of course was dropping mines into the sea and to do that one had to fly very low otherwise the mines would break up. So when they flew in over the land they would also be very low and in range of the, the light anti-aircraft gun that obviously caught the rear gunner.
CB: What sort of anecdotes did he have about training and what was going on there? So, on the airfield.
TG: Well, he did tell me on more than one occasion that he recalled two acts that appeared to be of sabotage when he was, I think training as a gunner. On one occasion he said, on one evening or one night five aircraft who weren’t parked together caught fire almost simultaneously. On another occasion he was on board an aircraft which, as it took off and it had taken off only managed to travel just over the perimeter of the airfield when they crash landed in to a field and the aircraft caught fire. They all managed to get out although Peter said he was burned a little bit. Such was the mark of the man. But when the aircraft was examined because it had failed to gain height the chain that operated the elevators had a, had a bolt inserted in to stop it from operating fully. What became of any enquiry into that he didn’t know and I don’t know. So that was a couple of sort of sad incidents, or suspicious incidents that he, he mentioned to us.
CB: What affect did the loss of the rear gunner have on the rest of the crew?
TG: He never said because —
RG: Dad passed out.
TG: Your father passed out, I think. Peter —
RG: At the sight of the blood.
TG: Pete passed out at the sight of the blood when they landed. But as I’ve already indicated that however much they tried to clean that aircraft the stains of that blood remained. But I rather think that was with 106 Squadron.
CB: And that would need a replacement. So how did the replacement fit in to the crew? Do we know about that?
TG: Peter never said. He didn’t elaborate too much on that side of the operations. He never really mentioned the losses he witnessed when he was on the raids. Although we do know that those losses and what happened haunted him for the rest of his life.
CB: Because this is the early part of the war we’re talking about here.
TG: Yes.
CB: So the Americans came in in ’42.
TG: Yes.
CB: That’s why they were getting help. So what else did he tell you about dealing with the Americans? Working with the Americans.
RG: One story was that dad had been on, I can’t tell you where he’d been on the raid but he was flying back and the aircraft had got minor damage and they couldn’t make it back to East Kirkby. So they had to fly and land lower down the country. Was it lower? Or upper? Well, he landed —
TG: South.
RG: Yes. And dad was doing the Morse Code. The colours of the day and who they were etcetera and he flew over an American base and they opened fire on them. And dad was firing away, not firing away, he was doing his Morse Code. Who he was and the aircraft. And eventually after they’d fired at them, eventually the penny dropped who they were and they landed. They were escorted. The crew were escorted by gunpoint to a higher level. Dad and his crew should have been in the officer’s mess but they weren’t. They were separated. Eventually the aircraft was made airworthy and they took off. And being as they were a whole load of young lads they raided the stores and filled it with toilet rolls. Filled the bomb bay with toilet rolls. They should have flown off and come home to East Kirkby but no. Young lads as they were the pilot did a turn around and as they flew over the airfield the bomb bays opened, the toilet rolls flew out and dad tapped away, you historically say, ‘You crapped on us [laughs] Here’s the bumph to go with it.’ When they got back to East Kirkby they thought oh my goodness we’re all going to be in trouble but nothing was ever said. So, yes. That was, and dad didn’t have a great love of the Americans.
CB: This is, this is later in the war we’re talking about here.
RG: Yes. Later. Yes.
CB: But it’s prompted by the earlier point about being at Polebrook.
RG: Yes.
TG: So —
RG: The Americans. Yeah.
CB: What else do we know about when he was there?
TG: After thirty operations which Peter thankfully survived he volunteered and was, as I say an instructor, went as an instructor to the US Air Force at Polebrook. Teaching them Morse Code and wireless operations procedure and I think we’ve already mentioned about this business about going to the pub haven’t we?
CB: Yes.
TG: Shall I read —
CB: What other, what other experiences did he have with them?
TG: Well, they, they used to fly all over the country of course but Peter at that time, I’m not sure if that time he was probably married to Olive which we’ll come to later but, who was at Spalding in South Lincolnshire and he used to persuade the Americans to land at Sutton Bridge which was only about fifteen miles from Spalding, when he’d been on a trip with them. And he’d disembark from the aircraft and he’d cadge a lift one way or another into Spalding to see Olive. So he was using them as a rather an expensive taxi but it served his purpose very well.
RG: Mum and dad met when dad was visiting a crew member who’d got badly burned in an aircraft and, I don’t think it was one of dad’s crew but it was a fellow RAF man. And he was at Stamford Hospital and I think they went on a motorbike, two of them to see, to visit this friend and they stopped back at Spalding obviously for a beer or two. And they went to the Greyhound down Broad Street in Spalding and my mum was, Olive was the bar maid there. And obviously there was some attraction and dad kept visiting. Yeah. But that’s where they first met. And if he hadn’t have wanted a beer and pulled in they would never have met. And mum and dad were married in April 1942.
CB: So, how did they keep contact during the war?
RG: I think it was dad visiting home. They lived at, with my nan in Little London which is very close to Spalding. I think it was just a question of dad coming and visiting and letters. That sort of thing. Yes.
CB: Ok. So at the end of his posting to Polebrook to assist the Americans.
TG: Yes.
CB: How long was that posting there? Do we know?
TG: Well, he, he volunteered for a second tour and he was posted in 1943. In November 1943 if I recall correctly to Husbands Bosworth where he trained with a [pause] with his second crew. A rookie crew.
CB: That was an OTU.
TG: Yes.
CB: 14 OTU. Yeah.
TG: But from February 1941 he’d been at Coningsby just to go back. He did his thirty raids. Then to Polebrook. And then by November ’43 he, he, he, he went to Husbands Bosworth and there he was crewed up with, as I say the new crew who were under training and the pilot was, flight well then he was flight lieutenant then, but a chap called J B P Spencer who was nicknamed Tuesday for reasons that Peter could never discover. Tuesday was from Durham and from quite a well to do family. They and the rest of the crew after they’d finished training were posted to East Kirkby in the run up basically to D-Day.
CB: And then what was the Squadron number there?
TG: It was 57 Squadron.
CB: Right.
TG: At East Kirkby at the time.
CB: Flying?
TG: Lancasters then.
CB: Well, normally there would be a link of a Heavy Conversion Unit between the OTU and the Squadron but it’s possible they didn’t have them operating at that time. When did he go to East Kirkby?
TG: In March 1944.
CB: Ok.
TG: That’s from memory but —
CB: Stop there briefly.
TG: I’m sure it is.
[recording paused]
CB: So we’re chopping and changing a bit but let’s just go back to Finningley.
RG: [unclear]
CB: So what, what, yes what anecdotes do we have about dad flying in Finningley?
RG: Well, I haven’t any recollection of dad talking about it at the time of that he was in there but later on life I and my husband went on holiday and we flew. It was then Robin Hood Airport and we flew from Finningley as it was and dad said oh, well his pilot, Spencer was rubbish at flying. Flying a plane. He would just throw it in to the sky and when he landed he would equally do the same. It was always a hit and miss affair whether they actually got down ok. Dad said that Finningley had got a crosswind and you had to fly, land it sort of diagonal. I didn’t believe him really but off we went on this holiday. And when we came back the wind was that strong that we basically had to fly as dad had said that his Spencer did. But it was typical. We landed and we were home. But yes. So Finningley has never got any better over the years. Or is it the pilots?
CB: Or is it the crosswind?
RG: Crosswind. Well, yes I suppose it’s how, how the airfield is. Mind you they don’t call them airfields now, do they?
CB: Well, it’s an airport now.
RG: An airport. Yeah. But to me they’ll be aerodromes.
CB: Home of the Vulcan. Yes.
RG: Yes. Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
CB: Right.
[recording paused]
CB: Ok.
TG: Right. From the OTU at Husbands Bosworth and at Market Harborough Pete then was posted to the HCU at Wigsley where they flew Stirlings. And then on to Syerston where he —
CB: Lancaster Flying School.
TG: Well, the —
CB: Finishing School.
TG: The Lancaster Finishing School, I beg your pardon at Syerston where I think they’d also pick up the engineer, would they not?
CB: They would have done that at Wigsley.
TG: Yeah. Sorry at Wigsley.
CB: Yes. But he doesn’t mention that in his tour because it’s expanding the crew to the final seventh man.
TG: I see. He never, he never mentioned much about some details.
CB: No. Then he went on to his second operational Squadron which was?
TG: 57 Squadron.
CB: Yeah.
TG: Where —
CB: That was, where was that?
TG: East Kirkby.
CB: Right.
TG: And that was in April 1944.
CB: Right. We’ll stop there for a mo. Thank you.
[recording paused]
TG: The attrition rate was very very high.
CB: So he joined 57 Squadron in 1944.
TG: Yes.
CB: Early part of ’44. Didn’t he?
TG: With Tuesday Spencer as his pilot. And the rest of the crew, Clarke, West, Hughes-Games, and Grice and George I think his name was. And they flew twenty five missions and I think they were very intense at the time. The enemy fire and such. But they managed to survive it but at the end of the twenty five raids Peter was told by the commanding officer he could not continue to fly. He’d had, he needed a rest and he was stood down. And he went for about ten days leave and when he came back he discovered that the rest of his crew were dead or at least missing. And it transpired that they’d been shot down on the 31st of August 1944 after a raid on the railway yards at Joigny La Roche. About a hundred and twenty kilometres south west I think of Paris. And when he arrived back on base he was summoned to the station commander’s office where he was introduced to Tuesday Spencer’s parents who wanted to meet him as the friend of their late son. And —
RG: Twenty.
TG: Sorry?
RG: The lad was twenty.
TG: He was only twenty years old was Tuesday. And Pete was only a little bit more and they gave Peter five pounds to spend on a good night out.
RG: No. They sent him to mark his commission and his DFC five pounds.
TG: Of the —
RG: Because of their, yes that’s in here. Yeah.
TG: Yeah. And instead of spending it on drink because probably his first inclination would be to do he and Olive decided to spend this money on a pair of candlesticks in memory of the crew. And those candlesticks are still with Rachel’s elder sister. Pride of place on the mantelpiece no doubt. In memory of them. What happened to that crew was that from research we’ve carried out and what Peter was told at the time that the aircraft at least blew up returning from the raid. As far as we can work out. And from, again from records we obtained from the Public Record Office at Kew Hughey, Hughey Hughes-Games was the first to parachute out of the plane followed by Sergeant Grice who Peter didn’t know but was acting as Pete’s replacement while he was stood down. And the Germans later said a third parachute caught fire on the way down but no other men escaped the plane. And the Lanc which was called Q for Queenie ND954 burned out on the ground. Hughes-Games it transpired was taken prisoner of war as was Sergeant Grice and the rest of the crew were killed. And they’re buried at Banneville-La-Campagne near Caen. I might have pronounced that incorrectly. Sadly, Hughes-Games who was interviewed by the Red Cross and from some of the information I’ve given to you about it catching fire and whatever came from him he contracted meningitis and died in, Stalag 3 was it? And is buried in Poland. The rest of the crew as I say are buried near Caen. And I took Peter back there and we’ve been back to their graves several times. Sergeant Grice survived as a prisoner of war and I think he ended up back at home and he lived to be in his mid-eighties in Shropshire. But we never met him and Peter didn’t know him. So that was really the last of his memories of 57 Squadron and the loss of that crew. He did commence a third tour. Incidentally, the crew he lost at 57 Squadron were on their thirty first raid. And it’s commonly thought that thirty was the limit but temporarily it was lifted to thirty five around that time I understand. And sadly on their thirty first raid when they died.
RG: The only plane on that day to be lost from East Kirkby.
TG: On the 31st of July that raid went, basically things were a lot easier for the bombers at that time and it was the only aircraft lost on that raid, on that day from East Kirkby.
CB: How did he feel about the loss of his crew?
TG: Peter never spoke much about the experience he had until he retired from his business when he was about seventy. And I discussed it at great length with him and I took him as I say back to France, down to Kew, to Runnymede, St Martin in the Fields. All the Memorials because he started to open up but he never gave much detail about the bad side of it. He mentioned the crew had been killed and he was quite matter of fact about it but that was the surface.
RG: Say now about dad’s nightmares all his life.
TG: But subconsciously we know that he, he was greatly affected by, by his experiences. You’ve got to bear in mind that he, his flying hours exceeded a thousand. A thousand hours in these, in these terrible conditions. I mean they weren’t sitting back. They were bitterly cold, frightened to death and as he often told us more ammunition was wasted on the Morning/Evening Star than shooting at other aircraft because they were quite obviously tense and wound up. But when I met him and he was in his mid-forties then occasionally if we were staying there we would hear him in the middle of the night when he was asleep.
RG: [unclear]
TG: And also at our house in later life if he was ill he would start up talking to his skipper on the radio in his sleep. In talking almost as if it was happening. These episodes of talking to the skipper and warning him about approaching aircraft or, ‘Let’s get out of here,’ didn’t last for a few minutes. They would last for hours in, in the night. Where he would, he would start off and then ten minutes later he’d had another instruction to the skipper, the pilot to warn him of approaching aircraft. And this was when Peter was seventy five or eighty years old. This was forty years later. And it was obviously imprinted on his subconscious indelibly and whilst to talk to him it didn’t affect him if he talked about it a lot at a function when he was later in life because as I say he didn’t disclose much at all of, of the worst side of things but it was obviously there underneath. And if he, if he’d been talking to you now like I’m talking to you tonight he would have been flying again. In his sleep.
RG: In the mornings he would say, ‘Oh, my goodness. I’ve been flying all night. All night.’ Right up until he was in hospital and Helen went to see him, my sister and just before he died he was still flying.
CB: So, who used to go and see him in the night?
TG: We —
RG: Me. Usually me. Or when he was with mum, mum would.
TG: Mum.
RG: Yeah. But when he, after my mum died and he would be here with us it would be me.
TG: But he was ok the next day as a rule. The one thing I noticed about him and maybe many, many other bomber crew he didn’t have any friends from those days. Like some of the army chaps. Simply because there were none left. They had all been killed. All his crew had been killed hadn’t they? I think he stayed in touch with Bob Wareing briefly.
RG: Yes.
TG: Until he died. And about [unclear]
RG: He stayed, he stayed friends with a lot of the RAF people.
TG: But they’d not flown with him.
RG: Through his association with the Royal Observer Corps and the RAF Association.
TG: And the British Legion.
RG: And the British Legion. And also he was a member of Fenland Airfield and he loved to go and spend time down there.
TG: But he never knew or could talk to anyone who flew with him.
RG: Except —
TG: On those raids.
RG: Except —
TG: Except on one occasion at the —
RG: Metheringham.
TG: Metheringham. The reunion which was held, held every year of 106 Squadron he bumped into —
RG: Well, he nearly didn’t go.
TG: He nearly didn’t go. He was very ill. Quite ill at the time and it was not that long before Pete’s death. But we took him to Metheringham, to the old airfield and he bumped into a chap and they got talking and it transpired that on the Scharnhorst raid this chap remembered it clearly and had been in another aircraft on that same raid. And he remembered some talk of Peter shooting down an enemy aircraft. But Peter, Pete always said he thought, they thought he had originally but he never claimed it was him, did he?
RG: But he, this gentleman knew the formation. He said, ‘And your pilot pulled out of formation to go in again.’ And it was just listening to these two old gentlemen who were well into their eighties talking as though they were there that present moment. But for two old age people to be there just by chance on that reunion was amazing. Terry has that on video because we’d just got a new video camera. Yeah.
TG: That’s with IBC, they’ve got the copy of that. Well, we’ve got it here.
RG: Yes.
TG: But I video’d that conversation and it’s now been —
CB: Brilliant.
RG: Yeah.
CB: So we’re really talking about 106 Squadron when they were flying Hampdens.
RG: From Metheringham Airfield.
CB: From Metheringham.
RG: This one. Yes.
TG: He’s written Coningsby but it was definitely —
CB: Metheringham.
TG: Well, it was a satellite wasn’t it?
CB: Yes.
TG: He flew from there. He met, he once, he met Gibson once or twice and knew him. He wasn’t a very popular man, was he? Gibson.
CB: No.
TG: Very officious. But it’s not on there is it? Is that switched off?
CB: Yeah. No. No. It isn’t. We’ll stop there just for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: The matter of how to speak about these things was difficult for most war veterans. Aircrew particularly. Perhaps because of the high losses. But then there’s the effect on the families. So he’s speaking in his sleep in these times.
RG: Yeah.
CB: What affect did that have on you?
RG: Well, I was mainly concerned for Dad’s well-being really and I would go and chat to him. Although he was asleep his eyes would be open and he didn’t really know I was there. But obviously he did and then he would calm and then in the morning he would say, ‘Rachel, I’ve been flying all night.’ And I would say, ‘Yes, dad. I know.’ But he’d no recollection of me being there. But it was, it was quite upsetting to hear that he was, and he was talking and as though you know he was there, ‘Skip, they’re coming in at — ’ so and so, you know, ‘Do we fire now?’ And it was just as though he was there. But obviously, you know it was affecting his mind. And right up until the minute, well not the minute but the day before he died he was still flying. Yeah. It was —
TG: He was eighty one when he died.
RG: But as a child Dad the war was not spoken to about a lot but on the days when Dad would be slightly not well I was told that I’d got to behave because he wasn’t very well. And that was the reason. But yeah. But in the night he didn’t seem to be agitated by it. It was just as though it was happening and he was coping with it.
CB: So it’s no shouting.
RG: No.
CB: It’s just a conversation.
RG: Yes. Yeah. As though —
CB: As though he’s on the intercom.
RG: Yeah.
TG: As calm as you and I now. Controlled. And so and so’s happening, Skip.
RG: Just as though they were getting on with the job.
TG: A normal tone of voice as if and then an hour later or ten minutes later he’d give an update of some sort. ‘Let’s get the bloody [pause] out of here skipper.’ And that was it.
CB: Because he was acting as a lookout.
RG: Yes.
TG: Well, yes.
RG: Yes.
TG: Oh yes.
CB: As a child though you were told that he was, it was a bad day. So what did you feel as a child when you, he had these episodes?
RG: I just took it, I just took it as, as I’ve got, behave myself. I think I was a bit of reckless child but you know I just got to behave myself and that was it [pause] But no, he was, no. Just my dad.
CB: But he was always calm in what he was doing. It was —
RG: Just turn that off a minute.
CB: Yeah. Sure.
[recording paused]
CB: So how did your mother handle this?
RG: Well, very calmly I think. Dad would on, on what I now know was his sort of bad days he would be prone to picking arguments and probably doing a bit of shouting which was quite unusual for dad because he was quite a calm person. But in, you know he would be probably be shouting at mum but I just sort of took it as I’d just got to behave myself and that would be it. But mum always, when dad was like this was always very sort of calm, and well I suppose she was talking him down a bit. But it was never mentioned why he was like it and I just thought oh well other people’s dads shout and that, you know and that was it. But as a general rule he was such a calm sort of person. Took everything in his stride really. But on these occasions that, that used to happen. Yeah.
CB: To what extent do you think over the years he had spoken to your mother about his experiences?
RG: I don’t really know. I wouldn’t. I would imagine not a lot. It was, I wouldn’t, I never overheard them talking about anything but then I wouldn’t always be there but, no it was usually, if dad spoke about anything it wasn’t how it affected him. It was usually telling a tale of what he’d been up to. What raid he’d been on and different aspects of what they, you know, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t the horrors. It was more of the good bits. You know. Tearing about on a motorbike and that sort of thing as you would expect lads of that age to be doing.
TG: And he was only twenty or so.
CB: Yeah.
TG: When all this was —
CB: Yes.
TG: You know, that was the average age of these —
CB: Sure. Oh yes. Absolutely. So she was in the Spalding area.
RG: All the time. Yes.
CB: Surrounded by Air Force. They were married in the war.
RG: Yes.
CB: She continued did she in her bar work?
RG: Yes. She was a nanny and, to a family who had four children and they kept the Greyhound. So in the day mum would be looking after the children. Helping with that sort of thing. And then she would as and when she was required she would be the bar. The bar girl. Yes. So she stayed with the family. Well, they’re godparents to me and later John one of the sons went into partnership with my dad as a nurseryman and, but mum didn’t live always at the Greyhound. She lived with her parents in Little London. And then when my sister Helen was born she, she was with nan and then mum would be continuing to work and home as normal mum’s do. Yeah.
CB: The reason I ask the question is because to some extent she was programmed to the losses and the stoic reaction of the other crews.
RG: Yes. Yes. I don’t honestly know whether it was all talked about but no doubt it would be you know mentioned. You know. Particularly the loss of all the crew. The last, last one.
TG: I’ve mentioned Tuesday and then of course she had the incident with the DFC. Your mum was disappointed.
CB: So what was that?
RG: Well, dad was awarded the DFC. And mum saved all the coupons and my nan, all the coupons for a new outfit. Coat. A new coat was, I think she had it made and, and you know all ready to go to London, to the Palace and then the king was very poorly so of course it, they couldn’t go. And the DFC was given to dad by his commanding officer over the counter more or less at East Kirkby. And it was very, very disappointing for mum not to be going on that.
CB: I can imagine. Yes.
TG: The king did write. We’ve still got the letter of course.
RG: Oh yes. We, yeah.
CB: Not the same as having it —
RG: No. But no —
CB: Conferred on you.
RG: Well, in those days where they lived, a little village. Oh, you know. Olive Hazeldene. She’s going to the Palace, you know. And a new coat was got. You know it’s just, well, it was one of those things isn’t it? The poor old king.
CB: Well, people didn’t travel much in those days so —
RG: No.
CB: It was a major —
RG: It was a big thing.
CB: Task.
RG: Yes.
CB: We’ll pause there for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: You were, so let’s just catch up on here.
RG: Do you know, I’m really, I’m really a very strong character but when I start crying I cry for days. Mr Panton, we were talking to him, oh I forgot what I was going to say. We were talking to him one day about dad.
CB: Just to that in to context the airfield was bought by the Panton’s for their chicken farm.
RG: Yes.
CB: And then they bought what is now called, “Just Jane.”
RG: Yes. Yeah. From Scampton. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So you were saying though that before that happened.
RG: No.
CB: We used to go there.
RG: No. No.
RG: Yeah. We used to go.
TG: Go back to the beginning.
CB: Dad would just go in.
RG: We used to go there, but we never used to speak to anybody because we were like trespassers trespassing and but we used to go and just like look and that was it and you know we girls would probably play hide and seek and that would be it.
CB: On the airfield.
RG: On the airfield. Yes. And then when after dad died we got the Memorial cabinet set up. We were talking to Mr Fred Panton one day and he was saying, and I said my dad would never come in the Lancaster. And he said that they had, when they started doing the taxi runs they had this gentleman who booked himself on one of the flights as they called it. He would come early, have a bit of lunch and sit there and then he would be ready, his flight would be ready, they would call him but he just couldn’t bring himself to get on it. And he said he did it numerous times. Not just the once. Numerous times. Where he really wanted to go on the taxi run but couldn’t bring himself to. And he was, like dad had flown from there.
CB: What do you think was the origin of that reaction?
RG: I would imagine that it would be bringing back all the horrors of, of going. You know, on these raids.
CB: In your case was it your father’s reaction of the loss of the crew without him being there?
RG: He never actually said anything about it but no if I mentioned, ‘Oh, shall we go on one of those taxi runs?’ ‘No. I don’t think so Rachel.’ And that was it but he did [pause] he got a tree planted just around the corner from the mess and in memory and he had a plaque put for his crew. You carry on. Oh dear.
CB: We’ll stop a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: Even though —
RG: Even though dad never actually said how he felt about his crew he did have a tree, bought a tree, a big flowering cherry, had the tree planted and he had a plaque with the all the names of his crew and why we put it there. And now we’ve got, and now we’ve got one by the side of it for dad.
CB: This is a really emotional and emotive activity and task to follow up. But taking the bombing war itself what was his attitude towards bombing in general?
RG: He just, he just, he didn’t do too much commenting on it but I got the feeling that dad was given a task to do and they just went and did it. And didn’t give a great deal, no I was going to say a great deal of thought to what they were doing but obviously they were. But they were just following orders I think. That’s, but he didn’t, dad didn’t say too much. He was a very private sort of fella. Yeah.
CB: Terry, what do you think?
TG: Well, he told me that it was a job that had to be done and he did as he was told and he kept at it. It was the only way. Bearing in mind at the time the only people that were taking the war to Germany was Bomber Command. And he, I asked him sometimes why they’d not been recognised and he just said that’s just how it was. He wasn’t, he got to the stage where he wasn’t, he wasn’t bothered that there was no particular medal for Bomber Command in the war. We all know the political sensitivities about that but that was the way it was. He had a job to do, he said and he did it to the best he could. And he said he was just very, very lucky to have survived.
CB: We talked about his DFC. His navigator also had a DFC. Doesn’t look as though the pilot had a DFC. But what was the, his 57 Squadron pilot because his 106 had two DFCs didn’t he? Wareing.
TG: I think Bob Wareing, 106 Squadron had a DFC and probably a DFC and bar. Peter eventually got his. He said he got it because he was lucky to be alive. But read the citation. Continually went into some of the worst and most heavily defended targets. Sorry. You asked me what?
CB: Yeah. I was going to say what was the reason that, given for his receiving the DFC? Because it was a particular point.
TG: It was a non-immediate award.
CB: Right.
TG: And it was I think the citation and it’s around somewhere was continued enthusiasm and leadership going in to some of the, as I say the worst defended targets repeatedly again and again and again. When he was eventually put forward for it and he received it in 1944. Yes, it was 1944.
CB: Ok.
[recording paused]
TG: It was, it was some years or quite a long time after I had married Rachel that he even mentioned he’d got it. It wasn’t something that was a big thing with him.
RG: As a child dad was a member of the Royal Observer Corps. He was chief, Observer Corps at the post at Maxey, and on ceremonial occasions, on marches and Remembrance Sundays the medals always came out. So he was very proud of them, but as to talk about it that would be a different matter. But on an occasion where other members of the Royal Observer Corps and the British Legion and all that he would wear them with pride. Yeah.
CB: Now, his 57 Squadron tour finished at twenty five ops for him.
TG: Yes.
CB: What did he do after that?
TG: Well, he, he, he started a third tour at Syerston. From Syerston on Lancasters. But he did a few operational tours before the war finished.
CB: Which Squadron was that?
TG: I can’t remember.
CB: It doesn’t matter. But he was on operations. Not training.
TG: No. He was on operations. We see from his logbook he made at least one or two trips to Berlin. Four or five days after Germany surrendered.
CB: Oh right.
TG: And that was the end of his operational duties but I think he stayed on for another eighteen months or so before finally leaving the RAF.
CB: What, what — how did he come to be in the Observer Corps?
RG: My Uncle Bert. He was my godfather. He was a member of the Royal Observer Corps and dad went. Followed him sort of thing. Yeah. Got the Queen’s Silver Jubilee for services to the Royal Observer Corps. And he was chief observer at the Maxey post.
CB: Which is where exactly?
TG: Just outside of Peterborough. Between Peterborough and —
RG: Yeah. Market Deeping.
TG: Until, until it was disbanded.
RG: Yes.
TG: He, he stayed ‘til the end.
RG: He did all the talks on the, you know when the bomb, what was going off. I used to go with him on those talks. We talked to all sorts of organisations. I was in charge of the slides. You know. To show them. I felt as if I knew everything about it. Yes.
TG: I did talk to him about D-Day. I asked him if he’d been on an operation leading up to D-Day and in fact as his logbook proves he was. 5 Group went and bombed on the evening of the 5th of June 1944. Maisy Grandcamp and that area there. I asked him what he thought about it and what he knew about it. When he went on that raid he had no idea it was D-Day. He didn’t know it was D-Day and neither did anybody else but the top brass. As you probably know. And he said he thought it was funny because as he flew over the Channel, he thought on his screen there was a lot of Window. The silver.
CB: Radar jamming.
TG: The radar jamming stuff that was flying around but it, they did the raid and they got back and he went back and went to bed. And then when he woke up the next morning they told him it was D-Day and what he’d seen on his screen wasn’t Window. It was the boats. It was, it was the invasion fleet going. And that was the first he knew it was D-Day because of the secrecy of everything.
CB: This was on his H2S radar.
TG: Yes.
CB: He was seeing it.
TG: Yes.
CB: Yeah.
TG: But that’s, but that’s his recollection of that. But he remembered some, some raids and he’d tell me briefly about them. I think once they, shortly after D-Day they were detailed to attack Caen. The Germans there, and bomb at a certain point. But between taking off and getting this message our side, I think Canadians advanced further and I think there was quite a lot of allied troops killed by our own side in that raid. You probably know more about it than I do. Similarly we talked about the Scharnhorst earlier. That was a raid he told me that went slightly wrong. The plan had been, I think it was Poleglase was the station commander who led them in. But the plan had been for bombers to go in early at high level and get the bombs, the ships guns pointing upwards when Pete’s group would come in low and give them a good hiding. But I think the timing went wrong and they were waiting for them and hence the first three aircraft were shot out of the sky and then Wareing took that detour inland and came and got them from the other way. But these are the things that are probably not documented anywhere else.
CB: Now, the other major ship of course, capital ship was the Bismarck.
TG: Yes.
CB: So to what did he, extent did he have an involvement with that?
TG: He told us and it came to light after a chance conversation forty or fifty years later. Forty years later. With a chap in the Mail Cart pub at Spalding. But Pete told us that they knew where the Bismarck was heading but they didn’t quite know where it was as I understood it. So they went off to lay some mines in the Bay of Biscay and they were talked down as to where they should plant these mines by some of the Naval vessels. And that is what they did. And obviously a short time later the Bismarck was sunk by other means. But the chap in the, in the pub years later it transpired was on one of our Naval vessels and he was a wireless operator talking with the RAF and giving them instructions. So it was probably that Peter actually had spoken to this man before but never met him in entirely different circumstances than over a pint in the Mail Cart.
RG: Steward and Patteson’s.
TG: Yeah. So Steward and Patteson’s was a, that was another. Pete. Pete knew his beers. He knew them like no man I’ve ever met. And he could drink probably more than any man I’ve ever met [laughs] But when I first met him he used to take me to the Dun Cow at Spalding. Well at Cowbit. And he had this Steward and Patteson was one of the local brewers and Pete with his favourite pint but they used to grow barley in Norfolk for the beer, and they used to grow barley in Lincolnshire on the other side of the River Nene. And Pete could tell from the drink which side of the river the barley had been grown. Now, whether he was shooting the line.
RG: He would be.
TG: Which I’m sure he was but people believed him. So there you go. That’s, that’s the man. He was a very tall man, you know. About six foot two, wasn’t he? Very gentle. And he could speak equally to Prince Phillip or the Queen who he met a time or two.
RG: Garden parties.
TG: Or to the local drunk on his bike going past his nursery. Couldn’t he?
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
TG: Couldn’t he? He was at ease with anybody.
CB: And talking of nurseries. After the war how did he come to take up horticulture?
RG: Well, he went to work for Nell Brothers. Horticulturalists in Spalding. And he went as worker there. And then he went to Swanley Horticultural College and did a course on growing and all that sort of thing. And then he came back home. And then one of the Prestons, John Preston was of school leaving age and he thought he might like a career in horticulture. Growing type things. His father was loosely connected. And so they set up the nursery. They rented the land from Uncle Bert and they set up the business of Redmile Nurseries. John was the young lad and my dad was the expert as it were. And they worked there ‘til dad retired. You know. Quite a successful. Growing tomatoes, lettuce. The land had a bit of wheat on. They did lot of potato chitting. Cut flowers in the greenhouses. They expanded a little bit but that’s it. That’s where dad worked.
TG: He spent all his, his remainder of his working life.
RG: Yes.
TG: The Preston family that Rachel mentioned are the same ones that Olive was nanny too.
RG: Yeah.
TG: And who owned the Greyhound at Spalding.
RG: Yes.
TG: And in fact, John, his partner only died last week. He was eighty five.
CB: Ok.
[recording paused]
CB: Do you want to just say that again.
RG: Yeah. Dad grew all sorts of veg and things like that. Tomatoes and lettuce. But he absolutely hated tomatoes. It was quite funny really. You grow them, you know and yeah. But he hated them.
CB: What was the origin of that?
RG: I’ve absolutely no idea really but yeah. Yeah. It’s [pause] yeah.
TG: But his —
RG: But we never ate tomatoes like they do in supermarkets now. Red. They’d always got to be firm and orange and they’d always got to be of a certain size. Other things like you have beef tomatoes and things nowadays they just went on the skip. It had got to be if I can remember pink, or pink and white. That was the grade of the tomatoes.
TG: If they were red they weren’t fit to eat.
RG: No. They were thrown out. They were only for frying.
TG: But of course Rachel does the garden. That’s been inherited from her dad I think.
CB: Looks smashing.
TG: Well, your other sister is a horticulturist.
RG: Yes. Helen is horticultural.
TG: In a big way big way down in Spalding.
RG: Yes. Yeah.
TG: Yes.
CB: Stop there again.
[recording paused]
RG: And they went on their honeymoon. The Preston’s had a bungalow at Surfleet Reservoir. And mum and dad went down there. I suppose it was all the time they’d got. They went down there for the honeymoon to the bungalow at Surfleet Reservoir. It’s where the river comes in and there’s a, there’s a sluice gate before it goes out into the sea. Surfleet Reservoir. In the day it was quite a nice little place to be. Yeah, and that’s where they went on their honeymoon.
TG: About three miles from home.
RG: Yes. Well, why not?
CB: Might have got recalled.
TG: Well, yes.
RG: Well, that’s always a possibility isn’t it?
TG: That was it. But —
CB: Stop there.
[recording paused]
CB: So, did you go back to France quite often? Where the crew were buried.
TG: Rachel and, Rachel and I went on holiday in France quite often and always drive. One time when we were coming back we went to Normandy where my father fought and went to some of the cemeteries at Omaha and others. And at the time I think I managed it was sort of pre-internet days really. But I managed to find where Peter’s crew were buried from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and on the way back we travelled to Banneville and to the Commonwealth and found Tuesday Spencer and Weston Clark and Anderson. Their grave. And we came back on the Tuesday and Peter had never set foot abroad. He’d left his mark. By golly he had in France and in Germany from high, from on high and I mentioned I’d been and I didn’t know really how to put it because I didn’t know how it would affect him emotionally. And I said we’d been and found the graves and he did say, ‘I’d like to go.’ So this was on the Tuesday. On the Saturday we jumped in his Rover and I went back to France with him and we had the whale of a time. We had a whale of a time. We not only visited. We visited some hostelries there and we visited Pointe du Hoc and Omaha, and I took him to the graves and he stood beside them and he signed the book. He was very quiet but he was completely controlled and he was able to speak quite easily of them. And so he did and we’ve got photographs of the graves and Peter with them.
CB: So what did he talk about?
TG: When he was there? He would talk about Tuesday. He was, I think the closest because he didn’t know anything much about other crews and that was fairly [pause] fairly part of the course wasn’t it? He knew his own crew but Tuesday had a motor bike and he’d got a girlfriend. I think he was having trouble with this girlfriend and I think Pete used to advise him a little bit on the, on procedure and protocols and things like that. But I think he also used to take Pete to Spalding to see Olive and that sort of thing and have a few pints.
RG: Dad put in here that he socialised an awful lot with Tuesday. He had a little bit more money than dad and if they went somewhere, probably go to London and he would put them up and I think dad quite liked that idea.
TG: That happened once. They made a forced landing somewhere down south and Tuesday had the money and he put the whole crew up in a hotel in London. And Pete was quite happy to participate. He put his back in to that evening I think [laughs]. Really put his back into so, and enjoyed that wouldn’t he? But having said that and between meeting him and Tuesday dying was only eleven months or so wasn’t it? So they were, they were, they were friends but they, they must have known that, well what was going through their minds having looked around you didn’t make plans for the future necessarily.
CB: No. You said he was asked to speak to Tuesday’s parents.
TG: Yes.
CB: What did he think about that?
TG: He described it as it was, didn’t he? He, he, they wanted to speak to him and he was summoned to the office. The station commander. When he returned after ten days or so. And they really wanted to talk to him about Tuesday and how he’d found him because obviously they knew or they had been told that Pete was his best friend while he was down there. I think all he could tell them was —
RG: How it was really.
TG: How it was. And when he’d last seen him and that sort of thing. He didn’t express any emotion at all.
RG: No.
TG: To me. He never expressed any emotion. He just told it how it was and that was all his experiences. The only clue you got to the effect was as we mentioned was the night.
RG: Nightmares. Yeah.
TG: The nightmares if you like to call it that. When he was flying at night. That was the only time he, you would know that there was anything amiss. That he’d been affected. He would talk about his drink. The drinking sessions and the good times. He’d talk about not being able to remember because they’d had just to blot it out. But the middle bit. The bit where it happened he, he didn’t go into any detail other than the funny bits usually. And occasionally obviously the rear gunner being hit. But he was, he was baled out twice. Wasn’t he?
CB: So why did he have to bale out of the aircraft?
TG: I think the aircraft made it back to the UK, in England both times. I think on one occasion he landed in a field and it was foggy. And I’m sure he told me that there was somebody had reported this fellow had come out of an aircraft and a police car was, was on the road and he was the other side of the hedge. And I think they thought he was a German or something to start with because he was running down this hedge side with the police opposite until they could sort of meet up and he identified himself. He did get some shrapnel in the backside once. Didn’t he?
RG: Yes. I think mum used to have it in her sewing box. I don’t know if it’s still there [laughs]
TG: It’s probably —
RG: Yeah. I don’t, I don’t think it is now. Yeah. You always, when I was a kid that, ‘Oh, no. That came out of dad’s, dad’s bottom,’ like, you know [laughs]
TG: It had gone through the seat.
RG: Yeah.
TG: Wherever he was.
RG: And when he landed in the tree I think he ripped his leg. But that’s the only injury he got. Yeah.
TG: I think he landed in Norfolk on one occasion if not both. Then struggling back.
RG: The thing is though when you’re growing up you hear, and later on you hear these things and because you’re so engrossed with living —
CB: Yeah.
RG: You don’t take it on board. And then all of a sudden when you get older and you get interested in these sorts of things you think oh, I wish I’d learned more. I wish I knew more about my granddad because he was in the First World War and he, I just knew that he was a horseman but I didn’t know whether he rode a horse. I didn’t know what he did, but he was, he looked after the horse —
TG: A blacksmith.
RG: No. He wasn’t a blacksmith. He looked after the horses that pulled the big guns. You see, I didn’t know any of that.
CB: No.
RG: You know. I didn’t. I mean, ok apart from a picture at my nan’s of him in uniform I wouldn’t have thought. It wasn’t until later on that I’ve got some spoons and knives and things in there stamped with numbers. And they are my granddads and my great uncle’s that they took to the war with them.
TG: They’d be stamped and issued to them, wouldn’t they?
RG: With their, with their service numbers.
CB: No.
RG: I didn’t know. You know, I didn’t know any of that.
CB: No.
RG: And then of course when you get interested it’s too late because everybody’s gone then. Isn’t it?
TG: You see, we’d been across there a lot. Both to the Normandy and to Ypres and the Somme. I nearly lived there. Certainly, if you look behind you when you’re upstairs you’ll see books. I’ve got the 57 Squadron book. The, “57 Squadron at War,” which is very difficult to get a hold of now. I’ve got it. I’ve got it upstairs there but, when I go around to some of these places I mean I often go or used to go to Sleaford and one other, and Norfolk where they’re doing all these re-enactments and you think gosh these are really, because I’m really into these things as you probably gathered. And I start talking to these and they’re all dressed and they, when you actually talk to them they know very little. They want to get dressed up and do battle. They’ve never been to Normandy. They’ve never been to those. They don’t know about, they just want to get dressed up and look you know. They don’t get into it.
CB: They’re actors.
RG: Yes.
TG: Yes. But they’re just enthusiast who want to get dressed up and think it’s fun.
RG: I went.
TG: It annoys me. That they should go and look at those cemeteries, you know. And they’ve never been. I said, ‘What do you think to Omaha?’ ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘Omaha.’ You know. Or, or, or Tyne Cot, or Passchendaele or some of these, you know.
RG: I challenged one at Metheringham Open Day one day. He was there and he had DFC things on, you know.
TG: He was dressed up.
RG: He was an officer and he’d got the DFC. You know, the ribbons.
TG: He was a postman. He’d never been in a —
RG: I said to him, ‘Oh, you’ve got, I see you’ve got a DFC there,’ you know. He did not know what I was talking about. I said, ‘That, that ribbon there. That’s a DFC.’ ‘Is it?’
TG: Yeah.
RG: And I thought, what are we doing here? You know. Yeah.
TG: If they’re going to do that they want to know more than I do.
RG: Yeah.
TG: And my dad was there and he, you know he was reported killed, missing in action to my mum on the 18th of June 1944. Fortunately, in the same post she got a letter from him. He was in Carlisle Hospital with a great lump of shrapnel in him. At Ranville, at Ranville, just up from, from Pegasus Bridge. He’d been smashed up. But as I say after three or four months he was fit enough to go back. That’s where he got this.
RG: I don’t know.
TG: He lived ‘til he was ninety six my father. Red beret and airborne.
RG: Yeah.
TG: And all this sort of thing.
RG: Before he died it was the, was it the seventieth anniversary or something. VE. VE Day.
TG: The week before he died.
RG: Yeah.
TG: My dad was in a home here. My mum died a few years before. And he managed to reach the seventieth anniversary of D-Day.
RG: Yeah. And at the home they did a big, a big thing. It was a Care Centre there. And they did a meal and everything like that.
TG: They got him dressed up with his medals.
RG: And he went and it was, it was a good day. He wasn’t quite sure where he was.
TG: It was his last Friday or Saturday on earth.
RG: Yeah, but he, yeah it was —
TG: He died the following Thursday.
RG: But he’d got his red beret on. And he’d got his medals up and he’d got the photograph sat on his knee all day. Clutched. Of him when he was a young man.
TG: A young man in uniform.
RG: And that. Yeah.
TG: And you couldn’t get it off him.
RG: No.
TG: He had it like this.
RG: He clutched it all day.
TG: He died the following Thursday.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Oh right.
TG: Two years, three ago.
RG: Yeah.
TG: Two and a half years ago now.
RG: But, you know a lot, a lot of people don’t know what you’re talking about when you say these things.
CB: They don’t. No.
RG: No.
TG: No.
RG: I mean, this film I haven’t been to see it. Terry went with some lads in the family.
TG: I went to see “Dunkirk.”
RG: Dunkirk. And I listened to a report on the radio and they, was it the radio? No. Wireless. Whatever you call it, you know. And they said that it’s been made because a lot of people don’t know what they’re talking about.
TG: They don’t know the difference between Dunkirk and D-Day.
RG: And people when they were interviewed them, and they said, ‘Do you know about Dunkirk?’ ‘No.’ You know. And I think to myself, oh dear. It is a shame.
TG: But they don’t know why they’re here.
RG: No.
TG: We, I’m ashamed to say that one of our friends we used to go to France and Germany a lot. Just jump in the car and book a ferry and go down the Moselle or whatever. Last time we went to Lille and Bruges. We ended up right on the coast at Dunkirk waiting for a ferry, I think we came back from Dunkirk.
RG: Oh, I can’t remember.
TG: But we came to the very end where there’s still some guns there. I don’t know if you’ve been on that coast. There’s still some German guns there. And Sheila, who is just a few months older than you and we’re talking Dunkirk and she said, she turned and said to me, ‘Is this where they all came up on to the beaches then? And the invasion.’ And I think, they weren’t going that way. I mean she’s seventy. I mean, I just think how can you go through life —
RG: Yeah, but don’t you think though like I’ve —
TG: Without knowing that it happened hundreds of miles away. D-Day. And they were coming — we were going up there.
RG: But I’ve grown up with Lancaster bombers. I’ve grown up with them, you know. And my girls they’ve grown up with them as well through granddad. And this is how we’ve been. And all, aircraft in the sky, ‘Oh look. There goes the Dakota,’ or whatever. I’ve grown up like that. But a lot of people just don’t know what you’re talking about. I know a few years ago I was at work and it was, it was a nice day and we were in the canteen and we’d got the windows open. And we sat there having coffee and I said, ‘Oh, listen. Oh, there goes the Lancaster.’ No one looked. They looked gone out at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. I said, ‘Listen. Can’t you hear the engines?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘It’s a bomber. It’s going over.’ ‘What are you talking about Rachel?’ I said, ‘It’s the Lancaster.’ I said, ‘It’ll be going back to Coningsby and do its circuit around the Cathedral.’ And they had no idea what I was talking about. Now, that is sad isn’t it? Yeah.
TG: The other thing your dad didn’t like to see and it must have affected him. I sometimes wonder about why he said it, is every time he saw an old airfield in Lincolnshire and he saw the control tower standing derelict he would say, ‘I wish they would pull them down.’ He said, ‘I wish they’d pull them all down.’ I think it was a reminder. He didn’t, he didn’t like to see them. Did he?
RG: No. Not derelict anyway. No.
TG: I mean, I didn’t know —
RG: He was ok at East Kirkby. You know, because it’s all been restored.
CB: It’s restored. Yeah.
RG: Yeah. But he always went to East Kirkby just for a ride. You know, ‘I’m just going to ride.’ Woodhall Spa. East Kirkby. That way on. But yeah. There we go.
CB: Just going back to the, your parents in the war people took very different views as to whether they should marry or not. So why was it that your parents married essentially in the middle of the war?
RG: Just turn that off a minute.
[recording paused]
RG: Wouldn’t like to hear that. She, you know. Why mum and dad got married in the war. I think they, you know had a good relationship. Romance blossomed and I think the idea was well, why shouldn’t we get married? You know. In those days it was the way forward regardless of how long they had got together. I don’t think that entered into it. So, yes. They, they married. Yes.
CB: And we talked about their links and because they were physically not next to each other while the flying —
RG: Yes.
CB: Was going on. So that covers that matter. Thank you.
RG: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: So, Terry. On your case.
TG: My dad was in the army and he was on the beaches at D-Day and wounded just after. But they married in 1941 and my dad was on a few days leave and they had a special licence. They decided to get married on the Wednesday night and the ceremony took place at the church on the Saturday. And everything was pretty quick in those days although I was three or four years coming along and the eldest of five brothers. They caught up for it later on, didn’t they? But he survived the war. My father.
RG: And they were married for nearly seventy years.
TG: Nearly seventy years.
CB: You had a long and auspicious career in the police force and to what extent did you come across policemen who’d been in the war and did they talk about it?
TG: Well, only early on did I come across it and only for a short period because the chaps on the patrol car with me were much, much older and had served.
RG: Lofty had, hadn’t he?
TG: There was one chap who was, I remember distinctly. Never had a cigarette out of his hand. And he’d been on the Northwest Frontier, was it? As a stretcher bearer and drummer boy. And he told me a few tales.
CB: In India.
TG: Sorry? In India. Yes.
CB: In India. Yes.
TG: And his skin was still leathery. They called him Lofty. A wonderful character. But he didn’t go too much into, into his experiences and I didn’t see many others who were old enough.
RG: And Vic’s dad. Was he in the war?
TG: Yes, but he didn’t serve with —
RG: No. No.
TG: Vic’s dad. No. I met one or two people. One chap had been, he’d worked in an office in Lincoln and he was, you’d call him an insignificant little chap and he wasn’t very noisy. He kept quiet but when he spoke everybody listened because he’d been on the, in the Navy, I think the Merchant Navy and been torpedoed twice and survived. That sort of thing. I think Alf Dixon who was the office man at Spalding when I joined had been torpedoed in, in the Navy. But I was only nineteen when I joined. And I mean I had school masters who had been, all of them had been in the war. One had lost his leg. The deputy headmaster. That’s a thing.
CB: And what about the felons that you dealt with? Had any of those been guided by the forces originally?
TG: No. No. They, young as I was most of them and they just jumped on to the one side of the fence while I’d fallen on the other at the time. I was on the law enforcement side. But no it didn’t.
CB: So, going back to the war itself you talked about the experience of one of the crewmen and being [pause] we were talking about, touching on LMF.
TG: Oh yes. Yes.
CB: So, what was that dimension as far as Pete was concerned? What his knowledge.
TG: The man was out of control. He said he was. He just had him, you know he was shell shocked was probably —
RG: Flak happy.
TG: Flak happy was, was the word. He’d gone flak happy. Completely flak happy and gone berserk on the aircraft. Endangering it. As I said, Pete said he hit him with a ammo box and knocked him out. And then he was charged. Probably court martialled. I don’t know for LMF. In these days you’d have probably got a handsome sum in compensation for all the stress he’d been put through. But that’s as far as it went. I don’t think Pete came across it. Or if he did he didn’t mention anything about that at all. Even if he was stressed. I mean obviously what he said they were terribly stressed. You wouldn’t go out and get blind drunk to forget what you’d just seen, done and been through like they did. It was the only release they had. The only release. They above all went from relative safety to the most terrible danger in a very short time. Whereas no other arm, arm of the armed forces experienced that, did they? They were, either they were out there fighting at a fairly consistent level, I know it went up and down but the bomber crews and I suppose the fighter pilots as well went from sitting at home in a pub in England or with a girlfriend and hours later being subject to the most horrendous barrage and being attacked from above and below. And it was a huge contrast for them.
RG: And the frequency of the flying and the raids. If you look at dad’s logbook it sort of says you know, he’s made up the logbook and its flying such and such and where they’ve gone. Good long way away. Then they’re back. And then it’s not five minutes or so before they’re off again, you know. And they would be going at 9 o’clock and 10 o’clock at night. Flying. Night flying. Coming back. Then afternoons. And there wasn’t a good long rest period in the middle so they, they would be tired out, you know. Head wise as well as body. Physical. Yeah.
TG: Sometimes a crew would be lost and of course their uniforms would, and everything they’d left in their billet was moved and their beds made up for the next crew to replace them. The next crew would come. And then before they went to bed they’d probably gone on a raid and be lost and they’d never use the beds that were made up for them. I mean. As you know. This was the —
RG: I don’t think modern society can understand what a lot of they had to put up with that and go through really. I know there’s different things. Different aspects now. But they just had to get on with it in those days. Well, from what I can understand.
CB: You touched on a point indirectly which is that the socialising of the crew and in this particular case Tuesday’s crew was mixed airmen of sergeants and officers.
TG: And, and —
CB: So, how did that work?
TG: There was I think there was pretty well classless. I think those, those divisions were not, Peter never, Pete never mentioned anything of that nature. The only thing he objected to was when they were marched off at gunpoint by the Americans at this base and they were all put in the sergeant’s mess when he said he should have been in the officer’s mess. But they were questioned and all sorts. That’s the only time he ever, but I think he had taken umbridge at the Americans attitude rather than anything else because Pete had no thoughts for what anybody’s background was. He’d treat everybody the same.
RG: No. Absolutely.
TG: Whether he was a prince or a pauper. Quite literally. And he spoke to all people from all of those classes and you could be with him and he could hold a conversation with anybody from any background but he never ever —
RG: Never judged anybody.
TG: He never judged anybody.
RG: No.
TG: And he never sort of said, ‘I’ve got the DFC,’ and everything. He never got, it never got entered into conversation.
RG: He was just a nice chap.
TG: He was just a nice sociable chap who liked a pint after a hard days work at the nursery. And sometimes in later life he’d go down to the Mail Cart on the bus wouldn’t he because of the road safety. But one of the funny things I’ll tell you about Pete when I was first was going out with Rachel. I think I was first married.
RG: I think we were married.
TG: I think we were married. And Pete and your, and Harold.
RG: And his friend George Samsby.
TG: And George Samsby.
RG: And some, one other.
TG: They were a right drinking group.
RG: Oh dear.
TG: And they all used to go to the Dun Cow at Cowbit. Now, me and my mate who was quite a lot older than me were in a patrol car one night and it was about one in the morning coming back into Spalding along Cowbit Bank. And I could see some of the cars outside the well-lit pub because closing time was about ten thirty and this was 1am. The lights are still on. There were a few cars outside amongst which was your dad’s.
RG: Harold’s.
TG: Your brother in law’s and George Samsby’s and my co-driver, he said, ‘Look at that pub. Let’s go and raid it.’ I, I was appalled that these, you know, he says, ‘They’re all drinking.’ So I said, ‘I’m sorry, Brian. I can’t Brian, I can’t.’ He said, ‘Why not?’ I said, ‘Because I’m at court in the morning. If I get tied up with that lot I’m going to be here ‘til 4 or 5 o’clock.’ I didn’t mention whose cars they were because I could see it in the paper that, “PC arrests whole family illegally drinking.”
RG: Oh dear [laughs]
TG: Dear me. In the local pub. And I could imagine quite a rift, you know and I’d have to go and give evidence against him and then bail him out.
RG: Oh dear.
TG: But he was wonderful company. He was wonderful. He were wonderful company your dad was. Wasn’t he? He was. He used to work like anything. But when they used to be at Maxey they used to get an allowance to cut the grass at the Royal Observer Corps Post. To pay somebody to do it. Well, they didn’t. They kept the money and cut it themselves. So every year they had a right old booze up and a dinner to which we went with the money for the grass cutting. Resourceful to the last. Wasn’t he? Yes.
RG: He used to have these, you know exercises and they’d you know pretend that there was going to be a —
TG: Nuclear war.
RG: Nuclear war, you know. And away dad would go there. And the first thing that went down into the post as they called it was the beer laughs] It went down, you know. The beer.
TG: That was because they were underground weren’t they?
RG: Yeah.
CB: They wouldn’t want to get it contaminated by radiation would they?
RG: Absolutely not.
TG: It didn’t matter about anything else but they’d be locked down there for a few days, wouldn’t they?
RG: Yes.
TG: With the luncheon, didn’t they? The luncheon meat and —
RG: I felt as though I knew everything about the Royal Observer Corps.
CB: What would you think Pete would have said was his most memorable experience in the war?
RG: Golly. That is a question. In the war.
TG: Well, only the things that he’d mentioned really because he didn’t go into that much detail. He mentioned the Scharnhorst thing because they lost those aircraft and they put it out of action for about a month. The loss of his crew, and those things we’ve already highlighted.
RG: I think he would probably have said it would be his mother in law’s cooked breakfast because when he was at home on leave nan, my nan would always make sure that he got the eggs and he got the bacon and had a good, you know a good breakfast. But I can’t think of anything on the raid side or operations that dad would talk about more than another.
TG: He just, he just did it.
RG: Yeah. I think the loss of his crew. He talked about that a bit but, yeah. No.
TG: It was a, it was a period in his life that —
RG: He just did.
TG: They did. And when it was over he wanted to put it behind him.
CB: Yes.
TG: And what he did subsequently was in complete and utter contrast. Wasn’t it? Growing plants and, and selling them. It wasn’t a noisy machine driven —
CB: Destructive force.
TG: Destructive force. It was a constructive effort.
RG: But all his hobbies and things were RAF connected. Yeah.
TG: They —
RG: Yeah. He had a great love of flying and things.
TG: He liked, liked flying. As I say. The Holbeach Club and his wireless op. His amateur radio and obviously the ROC, RAFA and all this sort of thing.
RG: My sister. My younger sister. She —
TG: There are three of them.
RG: Three of us.
TG: We’ll not mention Jane.
RG: Jane. She lived in Bath and she’d just bought this house and they were having it converted. Fantastic place it was and she wanted dad to see it. Now, dad was a very, very sick man and she wanted us to go. And I said, ‘Dad won’t survive a road trip or a train trip.’
TG: He had a heart attack when he was about seventy eight, so.
RG: Yeah. I said, ‘Dad won’t survive that, Jane. It’ll just absolutely knock him out.’ So she chartered a helicopter to come and fetch us.
TG: [unclear] anyway.
RG: Yeah. But dad was absolutely in his element. He, we set of from Fenland Airfield. Right. You know. Little Fen.
TG: In this helicopter.
RG: All his mates were watching him and this chappy in the uniform and off we went.
TG: To Bath.
RG: Terry and I went to Bath.
TG: With your dad.
RG: Yeah. With dad. And dad sat in the front like this. And as we got, we went over where Prince Charles lives. Highgrove, and that. And when we got —
TG: Highgrove. Yes.
RG: When we got near somewhere or other there was two Hercules in the sky. Now, helicopters fly quite low.
TG: It was over the —
CB: This is Lyneham.
TG: No.
RG: No.
TG: No. The one that was closest.
RG: No.
TG: Fairford.
RG: Where the —
TG: Fairford. It was closed at the time.
CB: Because —
RG: Yeah. Because they were converting for the —
CB: Americans. Yes.
RG: Yeah. Two helicopters, two Hercules were coming like this and we’d got, we were all sat in the back. Got these headsets on and I said, ‘Oh, oh look at those Hercules across there. Look at those.’ You know. We were coming like this. These two Hercules were coming like that. And I thought to myself I don’t know but we’re just a little bit too close to those. So I said to the pilot about these. I said, ‘Oh they’re a bit close to us, aren’t they?’ He went, ‘Silence in the cabin.’ Closed me. So then he kept saying to the radar people and whatever.
CB: Control room. Yes.
RG: Yeah. Control room. He kept saying such and such, ‘This is Echo Tango Lima 546,’ or whatever we were, ‘We are a Jet Ranger. We have five people on board. We are flying from Fenland Airfield in Lincolnshire to a private landing spot in Bath. We are a Jet Ranger. We have five — ’ And I kept thinking and I kept thinking, I kept thinking you keep telling them. And he kept saying it, repeating and the control place said you are de, de, de, der like this. And he kept saying and, ‘Yes. We are a Jet Ranger.’ And he kept repeating it. ‘We are a Jet Ranger.’ And then the call sign like that. I thought, yes you tell them who we are because when we hit there’s not going to be anything left of our Jet Ranger. And then all of a sudden this voice said whatever the call sign. ‘You are a Jet Ranger. You are flying — ’ you know repeated everything. He said, ‘Yes. We are.’ And the next minute our little helicopter, well it wasn’t a little one, we went down like this. We went right down like that. I thought I don’t like this, we’re going down, and these Hercules literally went over the top. And when we got calmed down the captain said, ‘Phew.’ And what it was the call sign of us was very similar to one of those Hercules and they’d got us muddled up.
CB: Oh.
RG: But do you know dad sat in the front and dad said something, ‘Well, Skip. That was a good, good shout.’ Or something like that.
TG: Good show.
RG: Good show. Yeah. And the fella said, ‘I bet you’ve had more experiences than that one.’ And dad said, ‘Yeah. But not as exciting,’ or something like that. But oh dear. But, yeah.
CB: Crikey.
RG: Dad was laid up for quite a few weeks after that one. Oh, you haven’t been recording me have you?
[recording paused]
RG: And he obviously had —
CB: So Terry I just want to go back to what talked about the parents of Tuesday coming down to see Pete. What do you think they were looking for?
TG: Well, Durham is a couple of hundred miles away from East Kirkby at least. And travel wouldn’t be very easy at that time. And they were there waiting for Peter when he returned from his, his short period of rest. Expressly having requested to see him. And there must have been a terrible gap in their yearning to find out more about their son in his last days and to speak to his closest friend of that time. His drinking mate. His flying mate. And Pete was able to fill them in. How they were. What his attitude was. What his spirits were like. Right up until the last time he saw him which was obviously some time after his own parents. The fact that they went out to dinner with Pete when they were down there, the fact that the station commander had accepted them on to the base because it wouldn’t be easy for civilians to get on there at that time must have been a great —
RG: And the five pounds.
TG: Must have been a great comfort to them. And having then travelled home. Probably having had to stay down in Lincolnshire for a day or two. To post him the five pounds in recognition of both the comfort he’d brought to them and also for his recent commission, Pete’s commission, clearly shows to me that the effort that they put in the, that it’s the terrible desire to fill in the gaps in their son’s life as much as they could was for closure.
RG: And dad had done it.
TG: And Pete had fulfilled that and filled that gap as much as he possibly could. He brought them closure. And hopefully they went away, well clearly were much happier than they had have been. But to have lost him without any of this detail would have, they would have always wondered. And it wouldn’t have been an easy journey for them to make because they didn’t know what they were going to hear really.
[recording paused]
CB: So what did he particularly appreciate when he was on his trips?
TG: Coming home. He said, he said that often coming home particularly coming home they’d waste a huge amount of ammunition shooting at the Morning or the Evening Star. Whichever time of day Venus was up. When they were very tense and they thought maybe there were fighters waiting for them to land. But one of the loveliest sights he said was the landscape below. England was always greener and he knew he was in England just from the colour, the density of the green rather than on the continent. He didn’t look out for the Cathedral as, as a lot of crews did. Boston Stump was the, was, was more visible than the Cathedral when they came home.
CB: The Lincoln Cathedral.
TG: Than Lincoln Cathedral. But he particularly loved the greenery. That’s more than anything else he loved to see the green green grass of home as they say. And it was greener than over the water.
CB: Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: I want to take you both together.
RG: Oh dear.
CB: And where shall we do it because it’s nice here. Or we can for it outside?
TG: You can do it outside. Or wherever you like.
RG: Yeah. Do it where you like.
CB: Well, we just have the picture with you.
RG: Yeah.
CB: Just hold it between you. It’ll be nice to do it outside wouldn’t it?
RG: I’ll put a bit of lipstick on I think.
TG: She’s got to do her hair.
CB: That’s good. Let me in the meantime just write my email address on there.
TG: I’ll try and send you three and four at a time. Or whatever.
CB: Whatever. Yeah.
TG: Yeah. I’ll just get my shoes on.
CB: Ok.
[pause]
RG: Yes. It would be quite appropriate to be in our garden.
CB: Well, I think so.
RG: Dad and I spent an awful lot of time on it.
CB: Did you? Yes. I think it looks super. Well, I’m looking to move. To downsize my house.
RG: Oh yes. I don’t —
CB: Thank you.
RG: What was I going to say? I think we ought to downsize.
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 Rachel and John Gill
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGillRA-JT170930
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:38:47 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Hazeldene joined the RAF from Wales when he saw a poster to see the world from a different perspective. He trained as a wireless operator and during training suspected a couple of incidents of sabotage on the base. Peter was posted to 106 Squadron at RAF Finningley. On a mining operation they were hit by anti-aircraft fire. It was only when they returned to base they realised the rear gunner was dead and his turret was awash with blood. On another occasion the flight engineer apparently went berserk and Peter had to subdue him by hitting him with an ammunition box. After his first tour of operations Peter was seconded to the Americans at Polebrook as an instructor. He then was posted to RAF East Kirkby with 57 Squadron. While he was on leave he returned to find his crew were dead or missing. The parents of his pilot travelled to East Kirkby to meet him and come to terms with the death of their son. He started a third tour at RAF Syerston and completed several operations before the war ended. After the stress of operations Peter suffered terrible flashbacks and nightmares for the rest of his life.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
106 Squadron
57 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
B-17
bale out
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
final resting place
Gneisenau
H2S
Hampden
Heavy Conversion Unit
heirloom
killed in action
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
memorial
mine laying
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Cranwell
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Finningley
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Metheringham
RAF Polebrook
RAF Syerston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF West Freugh
RAF Wigsley
Royal Observer Corps
Scharnhorst
Stirling
take-off crash
training
wireless operator / air gunner
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1015/11304/ALeedhamHJL181212.1.mp3
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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
Leedham, Bob
Herbert John Lewis Leedham
H J L Leedham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Bob Leedham (b. 1922, 1183577, 160986 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 90 and 57 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-12
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.
Identifier
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Leedham, HJL
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HB: This is an interview between International Bomber Command Centre volunteer Harry Bartlett with Mr Herbert, Bob, Leedham, who lives at Ashbourne in Warwickshire. He joined the RAF in 1940, but we’ll no doubt will come to that shortly. Bob, if I can just ask you what were you doing on, in the few years before the war?
BL: My family, my father was a skilled carpenter, but on my mother’s side, she had three brothers all of which were very keen engineers and one of which was exceptionally keen and he worked for a local motor company and he was involved in motor bike racing at Donnington, mainly, and it was him that inspired me with a heavy engineering interest, and consequently when I left school, I was educated in Burton on Trent, the dear old brewing place, I finished up there, I was, won a scholarship to be educated at the main system, which was the central system and the grammar school and so on in Burton and I survived that. And on leaving I decided my real choice was to follow my uncles as it were, into the motor trade, which I did. And I was trained fairly quickly as an apprentice in the motor trade and of course when the war started most of them were already on the reserve and they were the first people to be called up. So myself and a couple of my colleagues of my age, and at that time we are talking about an age of seventeen, sixteen to seventeen, I had already passed my driving test and was driving of course and we were left to run the very large garage very quickly after all the others had been called up, and so it was hands on experience with a vengeance. We were left to run the garage and carry on operations and consequently even a relatively short time I had a good engineering background. However, when I got to seventeen and a half, all my mates that I knew and went to school with and so on had all got into the air force, they’d volunteered in some way or other. In fact some of them were actually called up and I knew that sooner or later I would be called up as soon as I got to the age of I think it was eighteen or nineteen and the chances were that I would maybe put in to the Army. Well I had no interest whatsoever of going into the Army. My first choice was always the air force. Unknown to my parents, at seventeen and a half, I went over to the Assembly Rooms in Derby to the recruiting centre and signed up to join, but I had to give my age as eighteen. They probably accepted this with tongue in cheek knowing that I’d lied a little bit about my age. However, I was accepted and instructed to come for a medical a couple of days later. Very amusing and perhaps interesting thing was, that bearing in mind I had been brought up in a relatively conservative sort of area in Burton on Trent as opposed to big cities and so on, so we were living in a relatively closed environment, despite the fact we were all qualified, and highly qualified tradesmen then. So I went over to have the medical. There was about twenty of us lined up. The doctor came in, he says, ‘right, take your shirts off boys, I’m going to check your hearts.’ So he went along, checking everyone, all the way along, and when he got to the end he says, ‘Right, put your shirts on boys,’ then waited a few minutes, said, ‘drop your trousers then.’ I thought ‘drop my trousers!’, bloody hell! I’d never been exposed to anyone in my life before, you know! And I feel that at that moment I changed from being a boy to a man. That’s the way I felt about it, I couldn’t believe, having to drop my trousers and expose myself even to a doctor. That was the sort of background we were brought up in of course, in those days. It’s totally different now of course. So really from then on the next few days I was down at Cardington for the, attestation and so forth and then I was allocated for training. So initially because of my engineering background the RAF at that time were quite short of experienced engineering people, and they’d set up training units and so on but, they were very good from a theory point of view but nothing in the way of hands on. So I was immediately shuffled into training as a fitter 2E. But I wasn’t happy that, I wanted to fly. So it didn’t last long, and I managed to wiggle my way in to ITW at Blackpool, and found myself on a pilot’s course.
HB: ITW?
BL: ITW: Initial Training Wing.
HB: Right.
BL: Which was at Blackpool in those days and that’s where they carried out the tests as to whether you were suitable to fly in an aircrew capacity. So I was accepted to fly an aircrew capacity to be decided specifically by the selection board’s requirements. And the next thing was, at that time the pilot training was being geared up dramatically. The original pilots in the air force at the start of the war and going right up to probably about the end of 1941, were pre-war pilots, mostly people who’d come from quite wealthy backgrounds who could afford to train them as pilots and by the end of 1941, these were the people that the air force had to rely on in the early days. When I look back historically on some of the situations, bombing raids and that sort of thing using obsolete aircraft like Lysanders and stuff like that, it was dreadful really and by the end of ’41 most of these boys had disappeared: they’d either been shot down, been killed, they crashed or were POWs. Result was that there was a colossal demand for fully trained new aircrew. This was done from a pilot’s point of view in Canada, or America, or Southern Rhodesia as it was then, which is now Zimbabwe, of course. Those were the three, main three areas where the pilots would train from about 1941 onwards. And they set up very, very good systems. But there was a difference between Rhodesia trained and particularly American trained. The American instructors were extremely, quite different to us: they were very hard, very dedicated and they set up a system for training pilots, that if you didn’t go solo in twelve hours, you were thrown off the course. You were downgraded to either a navigator or a bomb aimer or anyone else that had any sort of background which would be useful to the air force, in my case an engineering background. And when you consider, you know, people, ex bank managers if you like, and people from a whole variety of trades in civilian life, there they were, shipped over to America to train as pilots and expected to go solo in twelve hours. Just dreadful really. However, that was the way the system worked. It wasn’t quite so severe in Canada, but nevertheless it was similar to the American system but the ones trained in Southern Rhodesia of course, it was very much more realistic, and they didn’t stick to any specific hours to go solo and things like that you see. So the result was when finely trained aircrew of any category then came back to the UK, the usual routine was Initial Training Wing and then on to type training unit and so on and find a way into things like Wellingtons and Hampdens and Lemingtons, er Wellingtons and things like that.
HB: Can I just take you back a little bit Bob? [Cough] excuse me. When you joined up, you started your initial training as a fitter.
BL: Yup.
HB: But you then went for aircrew training.
BL: Yes.
HB: Did you go to train as a flight engineer, or did you go to train as a pilot?
BL: No, I went to train as a pilot initially.
HB: Right. And where did, which you, where did you actually go train as a pilot?
BL: I went to 32 SFTS in Carbery Manitoba, Canada.
HB: Canada, right.
BL: But I didn’t make the twelve hours solo so I was downgraded, the same as three quarters of them. There were very few, at that time anyway, who were competent enough after twelve hours to go solo. So it was a very hard path really. I came back to the UK, together with many others, who’d been diverted then in to training as a navigator or a bomb aimer or a gunner – I’d forgotten that one – and, but in my particular case the fact that I had the engineering background, which they wanted, they downgraded me to co-pilot and flight engineer. So predominantly I was trained as a full flight engineer, despite the fact I was accepted that on aircraft for instance like the Stirling I had to act as co-pilot as well. So I had to take link training and all that. I was never allowed to take off and land, but I was there to relieve the main pilot and to act as co-pilot duties. And that applied pretty well throughout: Stirlings, Lancasters, Halifaxes and so on. So we were always virtually the number two so far as the mechanical operation of the aircraft was concerned. As opposed to the gunners who had their job to do, bomb aimer had his job to do and the navigator. A number of the early bomb aimers of course were also trained as type of navigators but very few of them flew as navigators, they flew mainly as usually as bomb aimer come front gunner. There was always a front turret, gun turret on the Lancs and the Stirlings and Halifaxes, so the bomb aimers were expected to man the front turret and also act as the bomb aimer so far as the targets were concerned. And the navigators of course, they did the actual navigation guidance to the pilots.
HB: So you came back to England and you went to do your flight engineer training for aircrew.
BL: Yes. At St. Athan.
HB: At, St Athan, right. So at the end of that training, where did you sort of stand in the scheme of things?
BL: I was at training, already I’d had my link training as a co-pilot as well, before I went to St Athan, when I left St Athan, fully qualified, the next thing then was to join a crew on either Lancs, Stirlings or Halifaxes. In fact in my particular case I was posted to Stradishall which was a main training base for Stirlings and then the crew of seven were created. There was nothing directed, they put us all in hangar and between ourselves we had to get to know each other and put ourselves together as a seven man crew, which is how it happened. Once that’s established as a crew then your flight training started, which we did at Stradishall of course, on the Stirlings in our particular case.
HB: Where did your, is it all in this hangar, did somebody come to you or did you think oh I like the look of him, I’ll go with him? Or? How did it work? What were the mechanics of it?
BL: It’s a variety really. Our captain, our skipper, was an ex Birmingham policeman and personally, personality was absolutely first class, but he was a strict disciplinarian being ex-police, of course, and so he was highly respected despite the fact he was definitely one of us, but very highly respected. And we got to know him, chatting away and he said well, he says ‘I’ve just come from OTU from Wellingtons,’ he says, ‘I’ve got a navigator and I probably have a bomb aimer.’ He says, ‘I’m looking for a couple of gunners and a flight engineer co-pilot to get the seven man crew together,’ and so from then on it was a question of who you knew and whether you thought they were capable, and see whether they were already in a crew or not that was how we all created seven together. It was done quite amicably, in various reasons, various forms, whether you knew each other or you say well I know old so-and-so, he’s a bloody good navigator, try and get him on our crew, you know, and that sort of thing. So we finished up as a very tight crew and it so happened, subsequently, that when we were doing our ops on the squadron, the camaraderie within the seven man crew was very tight indeed. The result was we found that we had seven first class crew members. Everyone worked together, helped each other and that was the way it went on the Stirlings. Unfortunately the Stirlings of course had a very bad reputation subsequently. The reason for this was because in its early days, [cough] it was built pre-war of course, a long way pre-war, and was a very good four engined heavy bomber when it was produced, extremely good, but unfortunately it came under the influence of the political decisions, the politicians came along and said that aircraft’s got a wingspan of a hundred and sixteen feet! We won’t get it in to the hangars at Cardington, they’re only a hundred feet, you’ll have to take sixteen feet off the wings. So, reluctantly, they put pressure on the manufacturers and the Stirling was modified to have sixteen feet, either, eight feet either side taken off the wings. Not only that by doing that they had to alter the structure quite considerably and raise the undercarriage very high in order to cope with this. Disaster so far as performance’s concerned, the result was the Stirling was always very, very much – what shall I say - the underdog as far as the heavy bombers were concerned. Result was the highest we could ever get to bomb was about twelve thousand feet. The Lancs and the Halifaxes were up above at twenty two thousand and frequently if your time was slightly out we were bombed by their bombs from above us. Frequently happened, there was a lot of aircraft were lost that way. Just one of those things. So really, although at that stage, when you think that the Lanc didn’t come in to service till towards the end of ’42, so in the early days the Stirling was the only heavy bomber and he was restricted in its performance by this political intervention and consequently it had a reputation of being something of a, I won’t use, I want to use the words death traps, but Bomber Harris had his own ideas on this and he was fully aware of it. In fact as ‘43 went on we were doing the Ruhr bombing and then of course Hamburg and then the start of the Berlin offensive which was in the autumn of ’43, and at that stage our losses were running on average seven, eight percent, we had one occasion when our losses were seventeen [emphasis] percent. And it got to the stage where Bomber Harris, he couldn’t stand it any longer, he was at war with a lot of the politicians himself of course by his insistence that Germany had to be bombed in order to minimise their war effort, and consequently it’s on record in one of, I think it was Max Hastings’ book Bomber Command I think he mentioned it in there, the extract of a meeting that Harris had with Churchill in round about October, I think, or maybe November ’43, and he was thumping the table and he said to Churchill, he says, ‘if I send my boys out [thumping] to get lost any longer in these bloody death trips, death traps called Stirlings they’ll call me a murderer.’ He says, ‘what I want is Lancasters, Lancasters and more Lancasters.’ there was a hell of a row went on and Churchill didn’t say a word. But finally he leaned across and said you’ll have your Lancasters. And it was then that the production on Lancasters was even, set up considerably higher than what it was already.
H: So when [cough] -
BL: So really, just interrupting,
HB: No, no.
BL: so going back from our training at Stradishall as a crew were posted to 90 Squadron to a little place called Ridgewell which was in Cambridgeshire, and not terribly well known and we were the first people in. A couple of farms that had been demolished and replaced with an impromptu quickly built runway. There was no, shall we say buildings, which were you might say were suitable for an operational squadron. There was mud everywhere, conditions were foul. They put a series of nissen huts up for us to live in and also for headquarters and the conditions there were not terribly good at all. However, there we were in the spring of ’41, er ’43, expected to use that as a base to operate, operationally against the various targets which were set out. We were at Ridgewell I think for no longer than about three months, four months, something like that and we moved then to a place called, it was West Wickham when we moved there but it was renamed Wratting Common, and consequently conditions there were far better. Again, it wasn’t a wartime, it wasn’t a peacetime airfield, but it was a good airfield and conditions there were far better airfield than Ridgewell. I don’t quite know what happened to Ridgewell in the end, whether it survived or not. I shouldn’t think it did: it was foul. But nevertheless we went to Wratting Common and we continued to fly our ops from Wratting Common on 90 Squadron, until, as I say, the autumn when the squadron was destined to change from Stirlings into Lancs and consequently they were moved to just outside Mildenhall at Tuddenham.
HB: How many ops did you actually fly in Stirlings for your tour?
BL: On Stirlings alone I think we did about twenty one I think it was, on the Stirlings, before we went on Lancs. As I say during that particular time conditions using the Stirling were very difficult, to make an understatement. Our losses were constant and it was amazing really, I mean for instance there was a Canadian pilot called Geordie Young. He was the senior pilot on the squadron, he’d got a lot of experience, and they went off on their last trip, their thirtieth trip, and they got blown up over Dusseldorf on their very last trip and that was, had a very, what shall I say effect on morale on the squadron, because they were regarded you know, the top boys on the squadron. One of the problems, in those days throughout Bomber Command, not just 3 Group which was a Stirling Group, but all the other groups as well, is that when Don Bennett set up the 8 Group, Pathfinder Group, he got old Hamish Mahaddie who he took on as his recruitment boss to collect all the very best crews off the different squadrons he could get hold of, to go into Pathfinders, and of course there was a colossal amount of opposition to this from all the squadrons. No squadron commander wants to lose their best crews, and consequently there was a war going on particularly on 5 Group, with Cochrane was the AOC on 5 Group in those days, based at Swinderby and he was very, very strongly opposed to it. There was open warfare going on the whole time, and despite the fact that 5 Group at that time of course, was the elite group which contained all the 617 boys and various other specialist crews for specialist bombing trips and he obviously didn’t want to lose any of those. And consequently he managed to get some political background particularly from Arthur Harris two of the Pathfinder squadrons in 8 Group would be transferred back to 5 Group. So he eventually had his own Pathfinder boys. Of course then when Gibson set up 617, that was also again from selecting top quality experienced crews. In the early days that was, but before the Dambuster raid, but not so much later on when they were really struggling to get replacement crews from the various crews they’d lost. So really Bomber Harris, Arthur Harris, he was very much supporting the 5 Group people, it was his elite group in Bomber Command and he always gave it sort of first preference on everything. There’s one, a very amusing aspect came at a conference they were having at Swinderby when at the time Princess Margaret was having this affair with Fighter Command Townsend and there was all speculation in the press about whether she’d marry him or whether she’d marry somebody else, and so on, and at this particular meeting, this conference of crews at Swinderby, it was a bit of a hilarious topic and someone was saying, ‘well it’s unknown who she’s going to marry, but it won’t have any effect on us here in 5 Group.’ And somebody stood up and said, ‘well there’s one thing for certain, whoever she marries, it’s bound to be somebody from 5 Group!’ [Laughter]
HB: Yeah. Can I just take you back a little bit Bob.
BL: Yes of course.
HB: I just noticed in some of your notes, I know this is jumping right back, it says you [cough] were posted to Coastal Command, 86 Squadron and flew on Sunderlands.
BL: Yes. That was when I was on 86. We were, we did a detachment down to Gosport actually.
HB: Oh right.
BL: And then to St, St Athan, when the two battleships Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst were at Brest and they were trying to get up the channel to get away and consequently we went down there with 86 Squadron to carry out operations against the two battleships. But for some reason or other, some of the squadron was detached to, in Coastal Command, to a flying boat squadron, which was 10 Squadron based at Mountbatten, at Plymouth. I don’t quite know why this happened, it was only a very short time, but I was one of the people that went on the flying boats for about three months.
HB: So you were there as a co-pilot engineer?
BL: Yes, on the flying boats. And again, bearing in mind our engineering background was what they wanted more than anything because we had to get involved with the maintenance schedules and so on as well. So I only had three months, I didn’t like it at all. Flying boats was not for me, and that was the main reason I thought that there must be a better way that I enjoy so I volunteered while I was there for Bomber Command. That’s where I started into Bomber Command
HB: Right. It’s all right, I was just trying to get the sequence of events into some sort of order.
BL: That was really how the sequence went through. Of course in Bomber Command, very lucky with our crew to survive a tour on 90 Squadron.
HB: What were the operations, you know, you’re flying operations into the Ruhr in the Stirling, and you’ve very clearly explained the shortcomings of the Stirling. What was it, you know, what was, what were your experiences of those, those individual sort of operations?
BL: Well it varied actually. But the Ruhr targets at that time I can remember them vividly. Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Krefeldt, Essen. And Essen was the one everyone hated [emphasis] because at that time that was the home of Daimler Benz, Krups and all the munitions factories, and they had a ring right the way round Essen, three thousand anti aircraft guns and radar controlled searchlights and when you’re flying towards Essen and you looked ahead, you think, ‘Christ you’ve got to get through that to get to the target point,’ and usually at briefing when the curtain was finally pulled back - we were never told what the target was until the very last minute of course - and when the target was pulled back you see Essen area, ‘oh Christ, not Essen,’ you know. However, going from what I say, first five trips Essen, then we went on to Gelsenkirchen, Wuperthal, Mulein, Bochum, Cologne, Munchen Gladbach. Now in my history of 90 Squadron book, there’s various aspects of the work that we did, and there’s a typical battle order printed there as an example. And that was August the 26th I think it was, on Munchen Gladbach and we were on the battle order for that particular night. I think the squadron was putting up something like thirty two aircraft or something that night. There was eight hundred and fifty on the, the full main force. And at that time the procedure on ops on the squadrons was that you didn’t do, as a pilot or co-pilot or anything like that, you didn’t go out with your own crew until you’d done a familiar flight with an experienced crew as a supernumerary and it just so happens that on that battle order I had one under supervision and there was one other crew with another one under supervision. It was on the 31st of August ’43. And these two chaps, I had one of them under supervision, and another crew had the second one. Out of curiosity, in the back of the book there’s seven pages of casualties on the squadron, and when I looked for the names down, both these boys’ names were down on the casualties, one, bear in mind, was on the 22nd of September bear in mind that was just 22nd, twenty two days after we had taken them on the supervision. One of them went on the 22nd, the next night the second went on the 23rd. So they only survived twenty three days on the squadron. And that was typical, absolutely typical. We used to live in a long nissen hut, seven beds each side, two crews in there. Three times we had a new crew come in, and three times we’d wake up after an op the night before, about midday, be woken up by the military police going through the, collecting the bits and pieces, belongings of the other crew who had got the beds on opposite. Three times we had new crews come in and three times we lost them very quickly, in two cases within the first three ops, and consequently we had, as a crew, we had a reputation of being a Jonah crew and nobody would move in with us. [Laughter] But in all seriousness that was the way it happened, you know and we lost some very quickly and didn’t even get to know them. There we were, soldiering on and finally got to the stage as I say, when the Stirlings were taken out of service and deployed on other work, mainly glider towing and things like that. Then the Lancs took over as the Lancaster production of course, got higher and higher.
HB: What do you put down to, I don’t want to use the word success, your ability to have got through those twenty something operations?
BL: A lot of people would say you must have been one of the lucky ones. Yes, to a point. But we had a very good crew; highly [emphasis] dedicated crew to the individual job they had to do and it was, there were various aspects of the operation that needed high concentration and dedication to execute that. I mean our rear gunner, Eddie, he’s still alive now in New Zealand, and he had eyes like a bloody hawk; he could spot these fighters coming in and he would control the operation immediately if he saw a fighter, to the pilot at the front, saying, ‘corkscrew, corkscrew,’ and instead of flying at straight and level from a to b to a target on our particular crew, we would fly perhaps just for a minute or so, then start weaving like that, so that there was no chance of the fighters beaming on to us in, as if we’d been flying straight and level they had a much easier job of coming in to us, and under from mid or something like that, shoot us down. But by weaving like that, was one of the things which we did continually, it was uncomfortable but it was very safe. But apart from the anti aircraft of course, it certainly kept the fighters at bay from us and I mean I think three times we were attacked by fighters and three times we got away from them. Largely due to Eddie in the rear turret. Who shot one of them down actually.
HB: Did he?
BL: Yup, He opened up, he waited till he got it in his sights, and let fly and it blew up in front of him, or behind him should I say. So really that aspect of it is the thoroughness of the type of flying and the operation which was necessary, but on the other hand of course, where anti aircraft was concerned it’s a different story. We, in the Stirling we were in the middle of it, weaving through it and if you had a direct hit or a hit which say damaged the aircraft severely you could say right you were just bloody unlucky like Geordie Young on his thirtieth trip, and that sort of thing, so. The worst night of for Bomber Command for all losses was the Nuremburg flight, you may or may not have heard of this, but it was on the Nuremburg trip when the met people made a complete balls of the forecast. They were forecasting plenty of cloud so that you could fly comfortably in and out of cloud and the fighters couldn’t detect you quite so easily. But on this occasion the weather didn’t turn out as they predicted and consequently it was a full moon clear, crystal clear night and the result was that the main force – there was eight hundred and fifty aircraft on that particular target. This was in the autumn of ’44, I think it was, and that particular night we lost ninety four aircraft on that night, and when you think there were seven men in each aircraft. Work that one out. That was the worst night ever [emphasis] for Bomber Command.
HB: And your crew were on that.
BL: No. We weren’t on that.
HB: You weren’t on that one.
BL: It just so happened that we were on leave at the time so we weren’t on it. But that was, that’s the hard statistics of it.
HB: Because I was interested in the, in the thing you were saying about the Lancasters and the Halifaxes going at twenty two and you know, the Wellingtons, obviously the Wellingtons were at eighteen thousand and the poor old Stirling’s down at twelve.
BL: Yeah.
HB: I mean that must have, that must have influenced your pilot and your crew at that point, when you were on, when you were on the bigger raids.
BL: Well, yes, to a point, but you had to admit it was one of those things. I don’t think, it was only when we got to grips with the Stirling and training and so on and realised what effect the modifications had had on the performance of the aircraft. It was not easy to get off the ground with a full load on. For one thing the inertia of the engines meant that it was, always had this sort of pull to starboard, to the right, which you had to maintain correction on, and not only that but the fact that the undercarriage had been raised quite considerably, very high up. There’s a picture here will show: that was our aircraft and the one that saw us all the way through our tour, and it was so high up it that when this sort of inertia from the engines, it was very difficult to keep it straight down the runway. In fact there was numerous occasions when the aircraft just couldn’t control it with a full bomb load on and it crashed or something and numerous messy situations like that developed. But this is why as I say, I meant occasionally that when I went from Stirlings up into 5 Group, I was posted up to the elite group. How that happened was, that at that time the Lancs were coming on stream and 5 Group at Swinderby was the training base for the Lancs, but again they needed them on the squadron so rapidly that they were pushing the crews through probably too fast, not quite enough training. And the result was that a lot of the crews had been trained on the twin engined Wellingtons and stuff like that, which didn’t give them any [emphasis] experience on four engined stuff. So in the, when we finished a tour on Stirlings, it was decided then by the powers that be as it were – Harris and co – they’d put a few Stirlings up to be based at Swinderby to get, be engaged on the Lancaster training programme so that we could give them experience on another four engine aircraft which was more difficult to handle than what a Lancaster was, and consequently I was one of the eight crews that were, instructors that went up there and that’s how I got in to 5 Group, posted up there on the Stirlings. And I always remember when we got up there about 7 or 8 o’clock in the evening. So we parked the aircraft went over to the officers mess, went in the bar straight away for a drink of course, and we were standing there and there was another group of the instructors and so on and amongst them was Dave Shannon and Mickey Martin – ex 617 – and quite a number of others who’d survived and they were curious as to who we were. And finally old Dave Shannon, who was a big Australian as you probably know from 617, came across and said, ‘who are you blokes then and what are you doing here?’ ‘Oh we’ve brought some Stirlings up to give you some help in the training programmes here.’ ‘Stirlings!’ he says,’ bloody hell!’ He said, ‘have you done a tour on Stirlings?’ I said, ‘yes’. He rubbed his hand over here, says, ‘Well where are your VCs then boys?’ [Laughter] And that was their attitude towards us.
HB: Yes. That tells the tale.
BL: But there again, life’s about winners and losers isn’t it, you know. And what we had we had went out to do the best you can, and as I say, it’s sad really that our losses were consistently high.
HB: So when you’d done, you did, you know, when was you last operation that you did with the Stirling? Can you remember?
L: It was on, I think it was either Hannover or Stuttgart, it was not the Ruhr, north of the Ruhr, but that was my, our last op. We did two Berlins on the Stirling, surprisingly, and relatively quiet trips too, long trips but relatively quiet, for us anyway.
HB: What was your feeling on, you know, you’re going to do your thirtieth or your last tour on the Stirling? What was going through your mind then?
BL: I don’t really think there was any feeling about it. I mean on our crew there wasn’t any suggestion of any feeling of stress or concern or the fact that you might be, the crew expression was – you might get the chop. No, we were a very good competent crew. We operated very correctly and safely as far as we could and I think that had a, that was the predominant factor in the crew. I mean a lot of people today often say to me well what about all the stress and everything? I said well the simple answer was we couldn’t even spell the word. You know, I mean the stress wasn’t there, it was concern. Admittedly we had one occasion when our mid upper gunner, Mick, suddenly went down with something, tonsilitis or something and he couldn’t, he had to go sick and consequently they stopped him flying that night and we were doing an op that night, on, I’ve forgotten where it was now, somewhere in the Ruhr, so we had to have a mid upper gunner, spare mid upper gunner who apparently for some reason or other he’d lost the rest of his crew, he’d done no ops at all, but he was spare, so they said oh you’re joining Cawley’s crew tonight because the gunner’s gone sick so he came to us and was a dreadful situation. He was absolutely petrified of the thought of going on ops, and halfway towards, over the Dutch coast on the way to the target, he suddenly started firing off indiscriminately at what he thought were fighters but they were clouds. And of course it immediately was bloody dangerous because if fighters around they see tracer bullets going out they home in on us. And Charlie was absolutely crackers, he went mad. What the hell’s going on? Go back and have a look!’ And this bloke was sitting in his turret there, absolutely terrified and it happened again, at a very dangerous point, he suddenly started firing off. Anyway when we, we survived the op, we got back and we landed, the crew bus was there to take us back to the base for intelligence and debriefing and he never said a word, wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t get on the bus, he walked back and of course when he was interviewed by the Station Commander he said, ‘what’s the problem?’ The medical people there saw the condition of him and the RAF had a very cruel aspect of dealing with situations like that. They immediately used to braid you, used to name you as Lack of Moral Fibre which was dreadful really. You were immediately stripped of your rank back to basic and sent off to a unit which was down at Brighton to deal with these people who were so called Lack of Moral Fibre and that went on your records throughout your, a very cruel way of looking at it really. But that happened to us on this particular flight and as I say amazing really, the bloke was just absolutely petrified. Couldn’t face up to what he was asked to do, despite the fact he’d gone through training and managed to survive to train to become a qualified gunner, but there we are. Just one of those things.
HB: What did you do when you got back from your last op?
BL: [Laughter] Well I normally drink a gin and tonic but I think I had something a bit stronger than that that night! No. we had a, all went down to the pub locally and had a nice evening and then we knew the next day we’d be posted out, we’d all be posted to different directions and it was a question then where everybody went. It just so happened that in my particular case I was posted, for a very short time, to a place called Wilfort Sludge which is on the A1, but from there of course this deal came up to send some Stirlings up to 5 Group, so I was then posted out of 3 Group into 5 Group. And previous to that I’d, before I finished my tour I’d been recommended for a commission so my commission had come through so I was, and that came through six months late, so I went straight in as a commissioned Flying Officer then and went to Swinderby then as an instructor and it was, the rest of the crew: Johnnie went up to, he was the captain, he went up to near High Ercall, which is up near, in Shropshire somewhere, near Whitchurch to start training Stirling crews up there to tow gliders in anticipation, of course, of the Arnhem offensives and so on, so he went up there on towing gliders. The two rear gunner, the two gears, er gunners, the mid upper gunner and the rear gunner, they were posted to somewhere on special duties. Where they thought they were going on rest they suddenly found they were on ops again, on the special duties, doing, dropping these Resistance guys in France and so on. Harry our wireless operator, the navigator by the way, suddenly when I went to Swinderby I found he was already there and I was sharing a room with him in the mess for a while. Unfortunately, he’s the son of a clergyman in Cornwall, highly religious, he used to spend all his time playing the organ in the local church where we were down the pub having a drink, but he had a heart attack right at the end of the war and died straight away. The bomb aimer, little Barry, little short bloke, he went on rest for a short time and then decided he’d go on a second tour, But got shot down on the third trip of his second tour, but he was lucky. He managed to bale out and he was a prisoner of war for about the last six months. But Harry, our wireless op, his previous job in life he was, worked in the Metropolitan Police, on the vice squad and he was absolutely obsessed on flying against the Germans on Bomber Command, absolutely [emphasis] obsessed. His one aim in life was successful bombing Germany and when we were tour expired and they say, sent out as instructors or rested and so on, and what they called screened as they said, screened from operations. He refused point blank he says, ‘No, I’m not going,’ he said, ‘I’m going to carry on.’ There’s a little bit of discussion with the commanding officer about it and the adjutant and so on, but anyway he got his way was posted on to a Special Duties squadron somewhere, and he carried on flying. He did seventy four ops in the end. And in the end he got shot down over Denmark I think, on one these special, highly secret operations on his seventy fourth. If you go back to Lincoln his name is on the, one of the what do they call it, the metal -
HB: The walls.
BL: The walls.
HB: wall 118.
BL: That’s what happened to all of us in the end. And as I say, the two gunners they survived, despite the fact they were amazed to find themselves on this resistance dropping and that sort of thing. So that was where we all finished up.
HB: So you ended up at Swinderby as the instructor on, you know, giving people experience on four engines.
BL: Yes. So, when I went to Swinderby I was instructing on Stirlings and Lancasters at the same time.
HB: Right. So how did you, how would you relate to the engineering side of the ground crew?
BL: Well, very closely indeed, in fact the whole crew did. I mean our ground crew was our survival in many respects and we respected them, we had a very good ground crew. They kept our aircraft serviceable against unprecedented odds at times. I mean there’s numerous occasions we’d come back with shrapnel holes down the fuselage and that sort of thing, and there was one occasion when there was, we had a near hit, this was Dusseldorf again funny enough, the intelligence people used to say well when the anti aircraft batteries are shooting at you, if you can’t hear on, if you can’t hear any noise you know you’re safe, but if you hear a bang you’ll know it’s very close. We heard this bloody great bang over Dusseldorf and that was very close and it finished up with Norm Minchin, the mid upper turret, with the perspex turret round his head, a piece of shrapnel came up and cut right through the back of the perspex and cut the back of his turret off, and he didn’t know it! Without touching him at all! It just cut through this Perspex and the back, and after we had left the target we were flying back home and he came on the intercom and said, ‘Christ it’s bloody cold up here, have you got some heating on?’ Didn’t even know it had happened! Of course when we got back to base not only that but there was a hole in the side of the aircraft you could damn near crawl through. So the maintenance people had a pretty big job, you know, to patch up all the holes on it. And that sort of thing, but the, yeah, the ground crew were very much part of the team, very important and we had a very good ground crew, very good.
HB: And when you got to Swinderby, you would, you would continue that relationship as you do in the training of the crews.
BL: Well not with the ground crew, not at Swinderby.
HB: Right.
BL: No, I mean we were, at Swinderby all we were concerned with was training the new crews coming through, and the ground crew was general ground crew, not to with, nothing to do with individual aircraft whereas on the squadron each aircraft had its own maintenance crew and its own flight crew and that was our particular aircraft which took us all the way through.
HB: Ah right, yeah.
BL: That finished up by the way, when we handed that over to another crew, actually I read historically in one of the books somewhere it was listed, I forget where the, I think it was the Bomber Command Diaries, every aircraft that was lost they gave indications where they were lost and where they were found and so on and our particular aircraft, the other crew that had it and it finished up in the Zuider Zee!
HB: Oh right.
BL: It was recovered eventually, by the Dutch people, who were, the Dutch people were doing the archive details and so on and there was actually some photographs of it being pulled out of the sea, they’re printed in the Daily Mail I think it was actually, so I couldn’t believe it when I saw this, when I saw the number on the side BF524, that was its serial number. WPNN and it was just being pulled out the water and you could just see the name, the number BF524 on the side of it. Couldn’t believe it. Recovered it and there’s a bloke, a very elderly gentleman, he’s a semi historian based at Alconbury and he’s very much a Stirling enthusiast and he’s got a workshop there full of all the bits and pieces of crashed Stirlings and so on and he works hand in glove with the, his counterparts in Holland and one of the major museums in Holland loan him parts of aircraft which he’s, he’s rebuilt a complete cockpit of a Stirling.
HB: Has he!
BL: At this. Yes, Andrew found this out and took me over there and we had a morning with him. I was intrigued and he’s got this bloody old shed there, old hangar I think it is, a small hangar, packed with all these bits and pieces of a Stirling and in the middle he’s got a cockpit he’s already built. And when we went over there he was sorting out an undercarriage and he was showing us that the Dutch archive people were loaning him stuff out of their museum which he photographed and copied and so on and sent it back to them. He said he had a very good rapport with them. Very interesting this guy. I can’t remember his name. Andrew knows it, but it was at Alconbury where he is based.
HB: Well I think, what we might do, Bob, is we might just have a break now because I’ve just gone to check the battery and we’ve now been talking for over an hour! So if we have a quick five minute break. I’m going to have to change the batteries anyway. So we’ll just stop the interview for the time being.
BL: Yeah. Okay, fine.
HB: Well we’ve had a comfort break and we’re just going to, we’ve had a battery change. So we’re just going to resume the interview -
BL: Oh these bloody things! I hate these!
HB: Just having a problem with a hearing aid battery at the moment. [Whistling]
BL: That’s better.
HB: So we should be go, on the run now. So we’re all settled now for our second part of our interview.
BL: Yes. What I was going to say was, when we were talking about the losses on the Stirlings, the turning point I think, was when it was decided, when Goebbels was boasting that the German fighters and defences were quite adequate against the RAF Bomber Command, he made statements saying that they’ll never touch Berlin or our second biggest city, Hamburg, they’re quite safe with our defences and so on, they’ll never touch them. And that was the challenge which Bomber Harris took up, and decided in conjunction with the naval people, who were very concerned because all these u-boats and subs were based at Hamburg and they were going out into the Atlantic to pick off the convoys and so on, and naval people said we’ve got to get rid of these u-boat pens at Hamburg. So Bomber Harris decided we’d obliterate Hamburg; it’s in July ’43. And at that time, as I was saying, particularly on the Stirlings, our losses were very high indeed and morale was very low and they introduced for the first time this metal foil thing called window. That was these patches of metal things which we discharged through the flare hatch at the back of the aircraft every twenty seconds I think it was, or every thirty seconds, something like that, and these packs, when they went out into the slipstream, developed into a big screen of metallic which completely killed the German radar defences and those, radar, the German defences were based, anti aircraft, were based on the radar picking up the aircraft or picking up the target with a blue, bright blue light, searchlight and once it picked you up, it then brought all the other normal searchlights into a cone and you were in the middle of it, and once you were coned like that, it was curtains it just picked you off then because they had you, and the whole secret of their success was this radar control and when we used this window for the first time it killed their radar. The result was, the first time it was used on Hamburg, it could have been used very early in 1943 but the politicians and defence people were so concerned they thought that if we use it early the Germans will follow this, copy it, and use it against us. So they were very reluctant, but it was only that when our losses got so high they had to introduce it. And our losses immediately on Hamburg dropped to one percent: fantastic! I we went to Hamburg, we did the four nights out of six: I did all four of ‘em. The fourth one was a disaster in that the first three were completely successful and I can remember it now, looking down, a whole wave of fire throughout, it just wiped this whole place out, just like that. The fourth night we went of course the met people again, they were predicting storms, but nothing like as severe as we found. The result was I think of, the storms were so bad, we were struck by lightning and St Elmo’s fire which is on the windscreen, and goes down the fuselage, all the compasses were knocked out and our radar and Gee box was knocked out. We hadn’t the faintest idea how we were, how to navigate back again and I think out of seven or eight hundred aircraft there’s only about twelve or fourteen actually reached the target. All the others had turned back because of the weather, and we were icing up very heavily and on the Stirlings the oil coolers were slung underneath the engines and you know what happens to diesel vehicles in cold weather, the fuel starts waxing and clogs up the carburettors, and the engines stop and that’s exactly what used to happen to us. These coolers which start icing in the middle, and what we call coring, and you had to keep hot air flow going through them in order to keep them serviceable. We suddenly found that we’d got two engines with, suffering from this icing and then there was chunks of ice coming off the wings, battering against the side of the fuselage like, dreadful we had to abandon short of the coast. We jettisoned our bombs into the sea and the only way we could navigate back to the UK was star navigation, and Cyril, our navigator, he was particularly good, he could take star shots with his, with his, my blinkin’ names, what my memory’s going.
HB: Sextant.
BL: Sextant, yes, with a sextant. And a combination of that and following the stars he managed to get us going back in the direction of the UK. When we finally hit the coast instead of being, coming over the coast over Essex or somewhere, we were in the north of Scotland, over the Hebrides and that’s where we came in and of course we immediately identified where we were and we were able to fly back down to, in fact we made an emergency landing ‘cause we were running a bit short of fuel, at Wattisham, in Suffolk. That was on the fourth trip, but the first three were so highly successful, we absolutely wiped the place out, and as I say the losses dropped right down to one percent because of using this window. The rise in morale then was just fantastic, you know after that. Of course sooner or later the Germans found that they could, they changed their system and they found that they could nullify this window by using different types of radar and so on, so it didn’t last, obviously, but we were able to use it for some months actually, and it was very good. We’re just having a new kitchen put in at the moment.
HB: Ah right. That explains the banging.
BL: And the other thing about the ops on the Stirling, in ’43 when our losses were so high, when you counted the number of ops you’re doing, the way it was calculated by Group headquarters, it was decided that because when they analysed the losses and how it was happening and so on, they came to a system of doing thirty ops in a tour and the total would depend entirely on the type of ops. For instance when 90 Squadron went to Tuddenham on Lancasters in the end of ’44, or half way through ’44, their main job - they did very, very little main force bombing – but ninety percent of the jobs of their work and I’ve got it all listed in my history book of 90 Squadron, was on either, was mainly on resistance work dropping resistance and equipment for low level intervention into Europe, dropping arms and equipment to the French and the Dutch resistance movements and so on, and consequently this was done individual very low level operations and the result was that the ops compared with ’43 were very easy and the losses were very low and consequently because, and the short ops as well, and because of this to count one trip as an op they had to do four trips to count as one on the tour, and consequently this system which was introduced before we finished, was that because of the severity of a lot of our ops on the Ruhr operation were so incredibly high losses and so very difficult that they allocated that some of the ops, because of their severity, would count, you had to do one op was counted as two on your tour, because of the severity of the operation and the high level of losses. So it wasn’t, it didn’t always follow that you did a straight forward thirty trips, you could have done say twenty five trips but they counted as thirty on your log book and the severity of the targets.
HB: Did you ever do mine-laying, gardening?
LB: Mining? Yes. Gardening as they called it. Yeah. We did two actually. One off Le Creusot and one other, I’ve forgotten what it was now. We did, our particular crew we only did two mining operations, those were, they were easy ones too.
HB: Yeah. So. You got to Swinderby. You’re doing the training there. How did you move forward from there? So that would be 1944.
BL: Well it was the end of, Christmas, yes Christmas time ’43 when I went to Swinderby, and most of ’44 and as I said earlier I was a fully qualified instructor on Lancs and Stirlings then and towards the end of ’44, I think it must have been round about September, October, something like that, some of the Lanc squadrons in 5 Group were having very heavy losses and the analysis of those losses, was in many cases put down to the fact that, to inexperience, training not sufficient for them, because they’d been rushed through very quickly because squadrons, with their losses, need quick replacements and so on. The result was that at East Kirkby 57 Squadron and 630 Squadron were both there at East Kirkby, and 57 particularly although they’d been engaged on very difficult targets their losses were astronomically high and a hell of a lot of them put down to pure inexperience. So myself and Dicky, we were both instructors at Swinderby, we were seconded to 57 Squadron for three months to set up a revised training unit there, which we did, to give the training, give the operational crews quite a bit more familiarisation and training and so on to try and cut these, some of these losses down. So I had that period there. And it was whilst I was at 57 and about to go back to Swinderby, ‘cause I was still on the strength at Swinderby despite the fact I’d been loaned to 57 at East Kirkby to do this training programme, 463 Squadron at Waddington, the Aussie squadron, had been suffering a few losses here and there, and the, one of the leaders of the squadron, the co-pilot and flight engineer leader there had been lost, so I was posted to 463 as his replacement and I was lucky to stay there until the end of the war.
HB: So that was back on to operations.
BL: So, yes, so I went back on to ops. Of course when I was at 463, because I was the boss of A flight, I was the leader, I didn’t have a crew, so I could only put myself on to do ops when there was a, somebody had gone sick or something you see, so I did them with any crew, and by extremely strange coincidence, I said to you about Essen earlier, my very first trip on my second tour here was a low level daylight on Essen. [Laugh] I couldn’t believe it! But I’ll tell you what, it was so bloody easy, it was so different to 1943. But, so I stayed there really, and at the end of the war as I said earlier, I went to Skellingthorpe, just outside Lincoln when Tiger Force was set up. I was posted on to Tiger Force.
HB: And Tiger Force was - ?
BL: That was the equivalent to 617 to go to Japan to do the [cough] vital targets into Japan, very similar to what 617 had been doing, because the adjacent to 617 Squadron was 9 Squadron. They were both based then at Woodhall Spa and Wing Commander Cheshire was the, was one of the commanding officers at 617 at that time, amongst others. But so when I went to 463 as I say, I was there till the end of the war then, and doing ops from there, and because I was the leader there the flight engineer leader on 463, I was posted to Skellingthorpe to join Tiger Force and I was promoted then at Tiger Force to be in charge of that particular section to go to Japan and we were half way through their training when the bomb was dropped of course and it all came to a halt then. Consequently I found myself in civil flying.
HB: Yeah. You did tell me before the interview started, you were, you were made an offer by the RAF before you -
BL: Yes, offered a, I was a substantive flight lieutenant then, and for a very short time I was an acting Squadron Leader but only for four weeks! [Laugh] Because it all ended then. But I was offered a extended seven year flying, extended flying committee, er, commission and given the choice. I didn’t know much about, well I didn’t know anything about civil flying. I didn’t even understand what BOAC meant until I got there.
HB: But you were originally offered Transport Command weren’t you.
BL: Yes.
HB: What was your view on that?
BL: But I turned that down. I turned that down flat. But there’s a very, there’s another, a very ironic twist that I’ll tell you about. So immediately because we were then seconded from the air force to BOAC we had to get civilian licences. We had to get civilian licences and then they decided what they were going to train us on, so we had to go through the basic theory and all that sort of stuff to get civilian licences and we were allocated I think it was about either fifty or a hundred block licence numbers in the very early days. Once we’d done type training on, at that time on Avros produced the very first post-war airliner called the Tudor and the first dozen Tudors were just being built and they were destined to go to BOAC to start up to date pressurised passenger aircraft. They were quite nice aircraft actually, very good. So since we’d just, we were the first people to be trained on the Tudors. So we did our training on the Tudors and when they were just about to start to take, BOAC to take delivery of the Tudors, for some reason there was a political change and instead of coming to BOAC, they went to British South [emphasis] American Airways, and at that time was run by the old 8 Group Pathfinder chief, Air Marshal Don Bennett, who was a real press on type. [Cough] Highly successful with Pathfinders of course and he was the boss at British South American. They’d previously been running some converted Lancasters into what they called Lancastrians before long distance flying in South America and so on, and they hadn’t got a particularly good record they’d lost three or four of them I think, for different reasons and so they took delivery of the Tudors. Tudor 1s these were, Mark 1s. And I did quite a bit of flying with the, on the Tudors on the South American routes, down to Bermuda, and the Caribbean and so on, and I was put in charge of training at BSA as well. And then, as things went on, we got as far as 1948 I think it was, ‘46’ 47’ ’48 I think it was, yes, ’47 ‘48. Suddenly the Berlin Airlift comes up, and from nowhere I suddenly found BSA, because of their Tudors, the air force was already in force on the Berlin Airlift using mainly Dakotas, the old C47s and they couldn’t cope with, couldn’t make it that economical to cope with the heavy loads that was necessary so they asked a lot of the civilian charter companies and so on, if they could provide crews and aircraft to come on to the Berlin airlift to increase the load factors, and British South American got one of the contracts to, with two Tudors, to go on the Berlin Airlift and I was one of them selected to go on the first one. So I found myself flying over to Wunstorf near Hannover where we were based, to fly on the Berlin Airlift these two Tudors between Wunstorf and Gatow, Berlin. And ironically, I think, when I think that three years before, when I did my last operational trip with 463, there we were still bombing and knocking hell out of ‘em; three years later, there I was at Wunstorf flying into Berlin to try and keep the so-and-so’s alive. Ironic really, they were three years the difference. Anyway, I stayed at Wunstorf for nearly a year, I think it was. I did nearly three hundred flights between Wunstorf and, there were only three of us on board.
HB: What sort of things were you taking in?
BL: Well when I first flew out there, we were taking huge packs of canned meat and stuff like spam and all that sort of stuff, corned beef, and all that, which was fairly easy to handle, in big cases and so on. And then the RAF were getting a bit uppity about what they were going to do and what they were carrying and bear in mind that the US air force was also on the operation with their C54s and Skymasters and so on, they were based at Schleswigland I think it is. I’ve got maps showing all the different air bases that we used over there but we always used Wunstorf and because we were larger aircraft, they decided that instead of carrying packs of food and so on, we suddenly found ourselves carrying coal, huge packs of coal, great big sealed bags of coal, about a hundredweight apiece. So we spent some months then, this coal at Berlin. Landing at Berlin was quite something. It was the ground force of people doing all the unloading and so on was predominantly very elderly German ladies, old grandmothers and mothers and so on, and it was sad to see them. They were dressed, whatever they could find to wear, and they used to come on board. They did all the work of loading and unloading, all the heavy work and they used to come on board to us carrying these lovely family heirlooms like Leica cameras and stuff like that to exchange. They were desperate for two things: cigarettes and coffee, and you could get anything for a couple of packs of coffee, in fact I got a lovely Leica camera in exchange for two bags of coffee at one stage. They used to come up, had it all laid out on the nav table there when they were unloading and they’d bring these heirlooms up and do deals with us. Anything we could, anything they wanted we could give it to them, you know. Children we gave cigret – we gave sweets and chocolate to the children. The children loved it. The Americans set up, at one stage, when they flew into Gatow, over the Frohnau beacon flying on to finals for landing, all the children used to sit round the lake underneath waving to the Americans going over and the Yanks were throwing out chocolate and sweets to them. At one stage they set up, got large handkerchiefs which they tied up sort of like a parachute, and tied these bags of sweets to them, were throwing them out and in dropping them out and the kids loved it. Absolutely fantastic.
HB: Amazing.
BL: But anyway, as I say, another aspect came up then, some time after been carrying the coal, which was a very dirty operation, dust and everything in the aircraft and they suddenly decided that what they wanted desperately in Berlin was medicinal, what do you call it? Two things they were short of, one was straight run gasoline and the other one was, oh dear me, some large amount of some sort of medicinal fluids. I’ve forgotten what they were now, what they were called. But these were in great big packs but the hospitals were desperate for them. So when it was decided that they’d fly the stuff in, it meant that the aircraft that were going to do this had to be modified with huge tanks in the back to carry it. And the air force said point blank they wouldn’t do it, they refused absolutely point blank to carry straight run gasoline in bloody great tanks down the back of the aircraft, they said its far too dangerous, so they refused point blank to do it. So the civilian contracts were asked to do it and we had then replaced our two Mark 1 Tudors with two Mark 5s which had been built and never been put into service but they were much larger and so our two Mark 5s were then equipped with these bloody great tanks for straight run gasoline and this medical stuff and so for the last few months we were flying that into Berlin.
BH: How did you feel about that?
BL: Oh dear me. Well it was just a bloody big laugh I thought, we thought. Bear in mind we’ve still got this enthusiasm from Bomber Command which we’d brought from the air force to the civilian and it was such a big change, you know, but to us it was more of a bloody big laugh than anything else. But anyway, we settled down to it and it was a good operation, it worked extremely well. When you are turning on to final approach into Gatow, Berlin, you came in over the lake on the outskirts of the city and the final beacon was at a place called Frohnau, Frohnau Beacon, you had to call over the beacon which was virtually the outer marker for final approach and the timing was so accurately it had to be done. The timing of aircraft over Frohnau was every twenty seconds between aircraft.
HB: Blimey.
BL: When you think there was a variety of aircraft, everything from small Bristol freighters to Dakotas and converted Lancs and Halifaxes and anything the charter people could lay their bloody hands on. They buy them for peanuts and take them out there to take part because the airlift they pay very big money and we were no exception with our Tudors and it’s an amazing operation really.
HB: So you went through the Berlin Airlift. Just one thing just I’m just quite curious about. You started off I think, on particular kinds of aircraft as a fitter.
BL: Yeah.
HB: What was, what was the system for re-training you when you went to different engines and different engine management systems?
BL: Well there were various training stations set up. I think the initial one for fitter 2Es, or 2As, that’s the difference between fitter rigger and fitter engines was at Kirkham, Lancashire and that was the number one training base, apart from Halton of course which is still there and still doing it today! And Halton of course was always the base of the so called Halton Brats as they call them. They go there as small, young apprentices and three year training straight away and they’re still doing that today. Yeah, they’re still churning out young lads from Halton.
HB: Right. So when you were working with the Stirling –
BL: Yeah.
HB: And then you go on Lancasters, obviously you’ve got Merlin engines, you’ve got Hercules engines, you’ve got all sorts, you’ve got air cooled, liquid cooled. You’ve got all these different engines.
BL: Yes.
HB: So was there an element of self training or was it all formalised?
BL: Well it was to us, to a point where we were fully trained and fully experienced with a lot of hours in on Stirlings when we went up to Swinderby, the 5 Group elite Group., but we hadn’t been trained on Lancs. So we had, it was virtually self-training on the Lancs there by virtue of working on them and flying on them and training every day. So that part of it, yes, was to a large extent I think we did, there were short courses laid on for us. I did one at Cosford for instance, and places like that, but generally speaking more than anything you were self taught, and as instructors you were expected to be experienced and knowledgeable on all the different aspects, so that was how it worked. But go back to the Berlin Airlift though, when that finished, I came back, by that time British South American, there was a lot of demands because they had a very poor safety record. We lost Star Tiger and we lost Star Ariel, both in the Caribbean. Those were Tudor 1s, from the first Tudors that we trained on. The first one was lost over the Bermuda Triangle as they call it, up at twenty thousand feet, no idea what happened to him; it just disappeared. And the second one was, had flown out of the Azores which at that time was a very difficult operation, flying over the south Atlantic from the Azores to South America and weather conditions and very poor nav and all rest of it was very prevalent round the Azores; very difficult route to operate.
HB: How many passengers did the Tudor 1 carry then?
BL: It varied, on whether, the Tudor 1s, I’ve just forgotten. I think up to about eighty or ninety passengers, something like that. The Tudor 5s were much larger but they didn’t actually go into passenger service after the Berlin Airlift. I don’t know what happened. They were scrapped I think, in the end. But anyway, as I say, because of the loss of the two Tudors and the BSA had lost quite a few Lancs so Don Bennett was criticised very heavily and finally he was forced to resign. So he was taken over by BSA who was then taken over by one of the old traditional north Atlantic BOAC captains, Gordon Storr his name, and it was Gordon Storr who I was with, on the, we were the first two Tudors at Wunstorf when the Airlift started and then shortly afterwards after Bennett had left, they decided BSA would be would up so what was left of it came back into, it came into BOAC. But that stage I was still being paid as a flight lieutenant substantive from the air force, seconded to BOAC so I was paid by BOAC who in turn seconded me to BSAA so I was paid by three companies, very interesting situation. But then of course, having come back to BOAC then, BOAC were operating Yorks and converted Halifaxes called Haltons, and, oh there was still a few Dakotas being used, but generally they were waiting for the next civil airliner which came from Handley Page called the Hermes and that was a very good aircraft. I liked the Hermes very much. Performance wise it hadn’t quite got good altitude performance as such, but it was a very easy aircraft to fly, very comfortable, it was designed specifically for the comfort of passengers and so on. And it was after then that the Comet 1 came in from De Havillands, the DH106, which was designed and built by DHs and was at least twenty years before its time. And then of course to us anyway, a huge attraction to get on the first jet aircraft into service. So in no time at all I was, I joined the Comet 1 fleet. We were flying, first of all flying down to Johannesburg and then it was extended to the Far East and out to even as far as Tokyo and Hong Kong and so on. Then of course you know the story that Xray Kilo blew up over Elba on its way between Rome and London. They were immediately grounded, no one could understand why it had, how it had happened. There was a huge inquiry and after ninety-odd modifications they decided that one of them must have been the reason so they put it back into service. And in no time at all they lost a second one which blew up over Naples Bay. That was flown by a South African crew who were on loan to BOAC. We’d also got French crews flying them, and it, so it was then decided that because two of them had blown up, they couldn’t leave them into service any longer. Unfortunately a third one went. The third one was out of Calcutta and that had just taken over from Calcutta and was flying through heavy cloud and they put that down to the fact that it flew into a cunim cloud and the stresses were so great the aircraft just broke up. So then they were grounded completely and when Farnborough rigged up the test rig there, and put a whole aircraft on this water test bed, and they found out exactly why it had happened. The general opinion from the public and in aviation generally was that the pressurisation caused the windows to blow out but that wasn’t true at all. The fault arose through bad engineering practice on the design of the hatches in the roof. The hatches which covered the radio communication, adf system and these two hatches were like that square like that. Engineering practice is that if you design something that’s a square and it’s put under pressure, you see that little crack there, where that join is -
HB: Showing me on the photograph frame.
BL: That little crack there.
HB: In the corner. [cough]
BL: If a crack occurs, it will always come from a corner, and find its way across and finally disintegrate and that’s precisely what happened to the Comet. It was bad engineering practice because if you round the corners those cracks wouldn’t occur. Simple [cough]. Again, in fairness to De Havillands, they produced some very fine fighter aircraft, put in their own engine, the Ghost 50 engine in them, Vampires and stuff like that but they had no experience ever of high altitude pressurised aircraft, and so they built them to what they considered would be strong enough and so on. But I’ve got a book upstairs which Andrew’s been reading, of the whole story, the whole official story of the enquiry and the way they found out all the reasons for it at Farnborough. The summing up at the end of it, when they said officially you know, that the initial fault was the adf hatches that disintegrated because of the bad engineering practice, how it was designed. The general feeling was that the aircraft was twenty years before its time but it simply wasn’t strong enough, because De Havillands, or anyone else for that matter, had experience enough to build them strong enough, when you think that at forty two thousand feet the pressurisation equivalent in the cabin was only eight thousand feet. That was the highest the cabin pressure was ever taken up to give passengers comfort without having to go on to oxygen. So the difference between eight thousand and forty two thousand across the structure of the aircraft was eight and a half pounds per square inch which is massive [emphasis] from the outside to the inside, and it has to be extremely strong, the sort of structure, in order to withstand these pressures. So you can imagine that it was not only not built strong enough, but of course the fault occurred on the hatches which caused it to blow up anyway. The first one that went, Xray Kilo, I had flown that on quite a number of occasions, got it in my log book in a number of places prior to it blowing up. I think previously I’d, we operated it from Tokyo to Hong Kong only the day before I think it was, before it blew up at Elba, but that aircraft had only done seventeen hundred hours. The second one that blew up over Naples had done just over two thousand hours and the one that disintegrated at Calcutta had done less than two thousand hours. They were all going at the, virtually the same time. That was another factor that the inquiry of course dug up, when they said that, Tom Butterworth I think it was, that because of lack of experience at DHs on high altitude stuff the aircraft simply wasn’t built strong enough. You’ve got to go back to Con Derry who was the chief test pilot at De Havillands a few years before when he was doing demonstrations at the Farnborough air show in a, I think it was a Vampire, he was doing very, very tight turns demonstrating and on one of those tight turns the bloody wings came off. He crashed into the crowd there and killed a few people, including himself. That was another example that under extreme stress conditions, that DHs aircraft wasn’t strong enough.
HB: Yes.
BL: So all those factors, you know. So result was that going back to the Comet days, I was involved very heavily with the whole Comet story because then it was decided that they’d have to, they’d build the new aircraft much stronger and up to date. The other thing was, by the way, that De Havillands had their own engines, the Ghost 50 which only produced five thousand pounds thrust, which was quite adequate for the fighters, but for a aircraft like the Comet 4 Ghost 50 engines, they insisted on putting their own engines in and all the experts said no, we needed Rolls Royce Merlin engines, or Avon engines they were, but they refused point blank, they said no, its our aircraft, we’ll put our own engines in and they simply weren’t strong enough. We couldn’t even do a safe level cruise at altitude, you had to do a five degree climb the whole time to get to top of descent, largely because by continuing to fly like that you’re reducing your fuel flow and consequently you had adequate fuel to start your descent. It was because of the consumption levels and the lack of real thrust on these DH engines, it was extremely [emphasis] critical on fuel, extremely [emphasis] critical. They devised this method of five degree climb. You had to fly, when you flight plan you fly backwards starting at top of descent instead of top of climb and things like that, you know. So anyway, when it was decided then they’d build the new Comet 4 much stronger and it would have Rolls Royce engines of much higher quality and it had Rolls Royce Conway engines. So, they’d, after the 1s, they built some Comet 2s, which were destined to go to the air force. But of course after the crashes they never even got airborne, never even delivered, they were just stuck there at Hatfield. So they decided that they’d have to carry out a two year test flying programme to make sure that everything that was being put into the Comet 4 had been well proved, correctly and properly using these two Mark 2s which were used as test beds. So they modified these two Mark 2s, strengthened them up and made sure they were adequate to do the work. They put the standard Conway engines on the inboards and then the new big 524 engines on the outboards which were destined to go into the new Comet 4. So they hadn’t got any crews to fly these at De Havilland, so they asked BOAC if BOAC could loan them I think it was six, was six crews to fly a two year test flying for De Havillands on these Comet 2s, 2Es as they called them. So I was one that went on to those, on to test flying. The first year we, every day we flew non-stop to Beirut from London and back, every day for a year. The aircraft hadn’t got a certificate of airworthiness, of course it was experimental, so there was only three of us allowed on board, no one, none of the boffins were allowed on so they got all the, all the usual test equipment and everything was loaded all the way down the fuselage and it was all fed up to the cockpit where we were and we used to have, they used to give us a list of things we had to check and write the results down, the results of this stuff as we flew, and we had to fly at thirty two thousand feet and record all this stuff for them which was really interesting. I loved it actually. It was a bloody good programme and extremely well paid as well! [Laugh]
HB: Right!
BL: So the first year we did London Beirut every day and the second year they decided we’d have to do the Arctic North Atlantic trials to make sure it was adequate for very low temperature conditions so then we started a programme going from London to Keflavik in Iceland and then across to Goose Bay and Gander in to the Maritimes and then back to London. So we did that for six months. That was a very interesting programme, I liked that part of it particularly. And then of course decided to try and get permission to fly into America. So the Americans were very keen on noise abatement and the Comet did make quite a bit of noise on take off of course, and so they said yes you can fly in to America but not land there, and not do take offs and landings. So then we had a period where we were flying out to different places around America using the new VOR navigation systems and so on, and then eventually politically we got permission to do landings over there and it was at that time then when a lot of the American airlines were looking very enviously at the jet Comet to replace traditional old fashioned piston engine aircraft and we did a series, we were doing a series of demonstration flights when, at the time when Pan American, the number one American outfit had just received, they’d just taken delivery of the first of the civilian Boeing 707s and they were pushing out a lot of typical American bullshit that they were going to be the very first pure jet passenger flight on the Atlantic, transatlantic ‘Fly American. Fly pure jet’, and all that, you know. Anyway, at the time we were down in Detroit doing some demonstration flights for United Airlines, they wanted to buy some of these Comets, so we were doing demonstration flights there. And it was there when we suddenly got a call to fly back to New York and, for some reason, and we found we got to New York we were going to do the first transatlantic flight the next day. We beat the Yanks by sixteen days! And when the Yanks had put all this, all the usual stuff in the papers, and they got the big banners out: ‘Fly Pan American the first jet flight across the Atlantic’ and so on. And after we beat them like that they had to change it all and where it said, ‘we are the first,’ they had to put in: ‘we are one of the first.’ They never bloody forgave us for it! Amazing story! [Laughter]
HB: Oh dear.
BL: But anyway, as I say I was very, very strongly involved in -
HB: How many people were on -
BL: - the whole Comet programme from start to finish.
HB: How many people were on that first trans-atlantic flight?
BL: I think we had about sixty, sixty passengers, something like that, yes. You’ve seen the menu of course.
HB: Yes, yes. Got a copy of the menu there [cough]
BL: We got back to London and it was a very historic occasion. They gave us immediate take off at New York and cleared all the flights from London to give us number one priority to land. BBC and everyone were all were there in force to welcome us, and it was headed by Eamon Andrews on BBC.
HB: Oh right. Yes.
BL: They got our wives there and so on waiting. There was two aircraft actually. We did the eastbound New York London and the other one went the other way, London New York and we crossed over at about twenty degrees west I think it was and acknowledged each other, but you know, two of them, one going one the other. And when we went through all the procedure at London old Eamon Andrews said, ‘We’ve got a coach here for you, we’re taking you up to,’ um to, I’ve forgot where the studios were now, I’ll think of it in a minute, ’taking you up to, see we want to put you on TV tonight.’ They’d decided to put us on that programme ‘What’s My Line?’ And old, the panel at that time dear old, oh my bloody memory’s going, bloke who was extremely well known on the BBC, was the chairman of the panel there. Anyway we went on TV and on this programme and all that sort of publicity and so on; it was really interesting. And then of course the following year I was picked to go to, one of the flight crew to go to Ottawa, Canada to pick up Duke of Edinburgh, Philip. We went in the Comet; he was very keen to fly in the Comet, so we went there to pick him up. He’d been there doing a series of talks and so on. The Queen was at Balmoral at the time so we were to pick him up at Ottawa and fly him back to Leuchars in Scotland, which is quite close to Balmoral, drop him off there. But anyway, we picked him up at Ottawa and we were just, hadn’t been airborne very long when a signal came through to say there’d, a big mining disaster had just occurred at Monckton in the Maritimes and would we divert to Monckton and so the Duke could just put in a quick royal visit, two hours royal visit to the disaster area. So we dropped him off at Monckton and then we flew down, further down to Gander and we waited at Gander for him to come, come back and then we brought him from Gander and flew him to Leuchars, dropped him off there. Oh it’s here somewhere I’ve got a picture of it. On board on the way back he was fascinated with the Comet 1, he loved to fly in the Comet, oh the Comet 4 I should say and on the way back he got a lot of individual special pictures of himself and he signed one each for us, and a handshake.
HB: Oh lovely.
BL: I thought she’d got it up here, it’s been on the wall here somewhere. She must have put it away. But it’s personally signed: Philip.
HB: Oh lovely.
BL: Which is, very has, carried a lot of weight, in the years to come. It’ll be worth a few bob I should think!
HB: So when did you actually stop flying Bob?
BL: Well, from then on, after the Comet programme, first BOAC decided to buy the Boeings so they ordered these new Boeing 707s from Boeing of course, from America and in January 1960 the first delivery of, or first Boeing 707 was ready for us to collect. And there was nobody trained on it or anything at that time of course, since we hadn’t got any Boeings. But in America the military version of the Boeing was the KC135 and they’d already built eight hundred of those, they’d all gone to the American air force and the American navy and so on. So having had that number built, all the bugs and problems had all been ironed out, needless to say, unlike so many of our aircraft you see. So it was a well [emphasis] tried and well proven aircraft before it even went into service. So in January ’60 I was, one of the, I was, been an instructor on Comets for some time I’d always been instructing quite a lot and so there’s four instructors, myself and three others were sent out to Seattle to get trained on the 707 and the first Boeing 707 to come off was number hundred and eleven off the line, the production line, so we were still quite a way behind other airlines. Anyway, when we got to Seattle we were trained by the Seattle test flight crew. At that time there’s no civilian aircraft, aerodromes rather, in the UK that could take the 707 except Heathrow and obviously you couldn’t use Heathrow for training but they could use it for service, not for training. Shannon hadn’t got a long enough runway at that time anyway, but they were building a new one. So there was nowhere in the UK where they could train us. So Boeings decided, got permission to use Tucson, Arizona. So Tex Johnson was there, er Tex, not Johnson, Tex Gannard, Tex Gannard was the Boeing Chief Test Pilot at that time and he decided that we’d, he’d take us down to Tucson and we’d set up a training base there and he would train us as instructors and so on, to stay on at Tucson to train the BOAC crews as they were sent out from the UK. So we stayed there to run the training unit [cough] and the crews had come from London, we trained them and they went back and then flew the aircraft in service. So we had a very nice six months so, Tucson and the trainer, super that was. But hard work. I’ll tell you what impressed me more than anything else when I went to Seattle, to Boeings: the difference between the British way of life in [coughing] workload, dedication and that sort of thing in the British aviation industry, was so different to that of the Americans. Soon found the Americans are far ahead of us in their dedication to the work they were doing. It was a bloody eye-opener, believe me. Hard work, but they knew how to do it and it was an absolute revelation to us. For instance when we were doing flight training unit details at London they’re usually about two and a half to three hours at the most, something like that, and then the time we went to Tucson the thing that surprised us was that the minimum flights times were five hours! [emphasis] Bloody long details, oh Christ, but that was typical of the Americans and the hard work they put in. They had three of the test pilots at Tucson with us and a fleet to train us and certify us as being fully trained instructors on Boeing aircraft. And I’ve got a certificate to say that.
HB: Yes. That’s grand.
BL: And anyway, BOAC then got a bit hot under the collar about the cost of running Tucson and all the British bases, so they got permission to use St Mawgan at St Athan, at Newquay. They got permission from the aircraft, from the air force for us to move from Tucson to Newquay and used St Mawgan for training from then on so I then moved, as I say, from Tucson to the Bristol Hotel in Newquay. And being a typical seaside resort, very popular, they didn’t want any weekend flying Saturdays and Sundays, there’s all sorts of objections from the local authority and so on, so it was a bit of a doddle down there.
HB: Good grief!
BL: So it was on the 707 where eventually that was my last flying for BOAC.
HB: I see. There’s a good few years in the air there Bob!
BL: Forty years.
HB: Can I just –
BL: The reason I retired in the end by the way, I was very close to retiring at that time, but I was on training at Shannon at the time on the Boeing fleet. We were doing our winter training at Shannon and one of the details we had to do was to demonstrate the capabilities of the aircraft at high, high speed characteristics of the 707. The normal cruising in the 707 was point eight one mach, but the “never exceed” was about point eight eight, which you should never exceed on a Boeing and we used to have to demonstrate though as you got somewhere near the point eight eight the flight control characteristics changed aerodynamically and you had to be aware of this to happen should you ever stray up there in flight. So we had to demonstrate this and we used to fly at forty odd thousand feet from Shannon across to five degree west in the Atlantic then back again doing these high speed runs and I was doing one of those with two students and we suddenly hit a bloody air pocket – bang! It threw us up in the air and down again, hit it really hard, couldn’t, didn’t even realise it was there just clear air turbulence, and I got thrown up on the ceiling and when I dropped down I dropped right across the arm of the co-pilot’s seat with my hip like that and it buggered up something in my hip and I couldn’t even walk off the aircraft carrying my briefcase. So I had to go sick straight away. I went through all the usual palavers of different Harley Street specialists and lord knows what and all they could tell you, ‘oh you’ve slipped a disc in your back,’ you know and all this. They threatened to send me off for a laminectomy operation, but the BOAC doctor at Heathrow who looked after the flight crews, he was ex-RAF and he was bloody good doctor, Doc civil and liked gossip here with the boys, and he really looked after us, one of us, you know.
HB: Very much so yes.
BL: He says, when finally I got to the end of my tether, I couldn’t clear this up, the bloody pain was there, could virtually, almost couldn’t walk and he says, ‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ll pull a few strings for you,’ he said, ‘you’re an ex RAF officer’ he says, ‘I’ll get you in to Hedley Court.’ So a couple of days later he says, ‘I’ve managed it, you’re going off to Hedley Court they’ll sort you out there.’ So I went off to Hedley Court which of course is very famous today because all these guys from Afghanistan are going in there for amputainees and that sort of thing you know, so I went into Hedley for three months. Within three days of being there they found out exactly what was wrong with me. What I’d done when I fell down like that over this arm, I’d stretched what they call the sacroiliac joint in my hip, it’d stretched it and bent it and that was the cause of all of the trouble.
HB: Good grief!
BL: And they found that after three days there! All these bloody Harley Street specialists I went to see kept telling me all I’d got was a bloody slipped disc. But the outcome was that I spent three months there and they cured it ninety nine percent. And when I finally got to, they wanted to discharge me I went to see the old Group Captain medical and he says, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘we’ve cleared it up for you,’ he says, ‘you’ll be all right,’ he says, ‘there might be the odd occasions when you get a recurrence but the only thing is,’ he says, ‘I’ll have to put a four hour restriction on your licence,’ and of course BOAC wouldn’t accept that because I was on a world wide contract so they said no we can’t accept that but you’re very close to retirement we’ll give you an immediate retirement on pension. So that’s really how I finished. But it didn’t end there.
HB: Oh right.
BL: Another little facet came. I’d been very interested in act, different aircraft accidents and accident investigation. I was on the accident committee for a few years before that, while I was still flying and somebody at BOAC obviously realised that I’d got experience on them and they said well we’ll keep you on but not in a flying capacity, would you like to become a CAA FIA flight accident investigator. I said yes, so they said right. So they sent me off to the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, to do the full official FIA accident inspector’s course so I had a couple of months over there, and did the course in the university and I qualified, graduated and got my little badge and everything, as an official accident investigator. So I came back to London and I went on two of the accidents actually, one of which was a Boeing which landed with a wing on fire at Heathrow after one of the engines had dropped off into the Staines reservoir. I’ve got a photograph of that landing, with the wing on fire, amongst this lot here somewhere.
HB: Good grief. Yeah.
BL: And anyway after that I found it was a bit boring and of course by that time I’d got a farm in Surrey and I’d got, we were milking a hundred and twenty five Jersey cows, and I’d got thirty thousand chickens, got five vans on the road delivering fresh eggs and cream around London and it was taking up so much time I thought well I haven’t got bloody time to go in so I finally decided I’d quit completely and carry on farming and that really was the end of it.
HB: Yeah, it does bring it to an end, doesn’t it really.
BL: So, quite a lot of various incidents in my career.
HB: Just a few, just a few. Just going back, I meant to actually ask you this ages ago. When you were on 463 Squadron -
BL: Yes.
HB: With the old, the Australians, that would be towards the end of ’45. Did you ever, when you were there on operations did you ever come across the German jet fighters?
BL: Er, no. Not, not the jets, no.
HB: No. All right.
BL: Incidentally, talking about that, of course, when Peenemunde came up, it just so happened, we didn’t, on the Stirlings by the way, the Stirlings from the squadron, I think we put about a dozen Stirlings up on the Peenemunde operation and we’d been briefed from weeks and weeks and weeks that something very special was coming up, no one knew what it was except it was something very special operation but it was tied in very closely to the right weather. It had to be absolutely perfect on weather forecast and of course it turned out it was Peenemunde. And it just so happened that when the Peenemunde trip came up we were on two weeks’ leave. So we missed it.
HB: Yeah. Right.
BL: But it was from then on of course we were very active on bombing these flying bomb sites in France and various parts of Europe. But we never came across any of the jet fighters at all. No definitely not.
HB: Right. Well I think. I think Bob, we’ve come to a natural sort of end, and I just thank you very much. Absolutely fascinating.
BL: Well I hope I haven’t bored you too much.
HB: Oh no! Well I haven’t gone to sleep! [Laughter] No absolutely fascinating, absolutely fascinating.
BL: I’ve been lucky really in a sense, that you know, had all these different variants, military and civilian, I’ve very lucky to be on you know, these special products, projects. Rather like the as I said, the two years I was test flying with De Havilland, that was really interesting.
HB: Yeah. I’m going to, one of the things I forgot to do at the beginning, I didn’t actually say at the beginning: it’s Wednesday the 12th of December 2018. I forgot about that at the beginning, I got a bit excited! So I’m going to terminate the interview Bob and get on with the paperwork. Thank you very much again.
BL: Yeah.
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 Bob Leedham
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harry Bartlett
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-12
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALeedhamHJL181212, PLeedhamHJL1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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02:16:46 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Leedham was a flight engineer who carried out twenty-one operations on Stirlings. At the outbreak of war Bob was an apprentice motor mechanic, and along with other apprentices, was left to operate the garage when all the engineers were called up. In 1940 he enlisted in the RAF and following initial training, Bob was selected for pilot training but did not achieve the requirement of flying solo within twelve hours. His engineering background meant he was posted to RAF St Athan and trained as a flight engineer. A posting to RAF Stradishall followed, and conversion to Stirling aircraft. Now part of a crew and posted to 90 Squadron at RAF Ridgewell, operational flying commenced. Bob suggests political interference restricted the performance of the aircraft resulting in a higher casualty rate amongst Stirling crews, and explains how the introduction of Window anti-radar equipment improved this. In Spring 1943 the squadron moved to RAF Wratting Common and in Autumn, converted to Lancasters. With more Lancasters coming into service, there was a lack of experience on four-engined aircraft, and some Stirling’s were deployed to RAF Swinderby for crew training. This move coincided with Bob obtaining his commission and he became an instructor on both Stirling and Lancasters. Late in 1944, Bob was back flying operations with 463 Squadron at RAF Waddington, where he was senior co-pilot/flight engineer. Following peace declaration in Europe, Bob joined Tiger Force in preparation for moving to Japan, but the war ended before this materialised. Bob began a post-war career in civil aviation, initially operating the Avro Tudor, and flying approximately three-hundred operations during the Berlin airlift. He also gives an account of the development of the DH 106 Comet and details the faults which resulted in the aircraft being grounded. While undertaking demonstrations in America, Bob was recalled to New York, where his crew discovered they were to operate the first civilian jet flight eastbound across the Atlantic. In 1960, Bob was one of four certified to instruct on the new generation of aircraft, the Boeing 707. An injury sustained from clear-air turbulence curtailed Bob’s flying career, and he progressed into the investigation of aircraft accidents.
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Anne-Marie Watson
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Azores
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
United States
Zimbabwe
Arizona--Tucson
England--Burton upon Trent
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Essex
England--Hampshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Peenemünde
India--Kolkata
Italy--Elba
Mediterranean Sea--Bay of Naples
New Brunswick--Moncton
Ontario--Ottawa
Scotland--Leuchars
Wales--Glamorgan
Washington (State)--Seattle
England--Cornwall (County)
Arizona
Ontario
New Brunswick
India
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Staffordshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943
1944
10 Squadron
463 Squadron
5 Group
57 Squadron
617 Squadron
86 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
C-47
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Pathfinders
pilot
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
radar
RAF Alconbury
RAF Halton
RAF Ridgewell
RAF St Athan
RAF St Mawgan
RAF Stradishall
RAF Swinderby
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Waddington
RAF Woodhall Spa
RAF Wratting Common
Scharnhorst
Stirling
Sunderland
Tiger force
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1147/11704/PStonemanMW1801.2.jpg
509d5227e21a19d7e4a5cb777fffce65
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1147/11704/AStonemanMW180605.1.mp3
5383088c11d268370aacf1062d3a73e3
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
Stoneman, Maurice
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Maurice Stoneman (1923 - 2018). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 57 and 9 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stoneman, MW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: Let me introduce myself. So this is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Mr Maurice Stoneman [buzz]
Other: In Farnborough.
DK: in Farnborough.
MS: [unclear] Cameron.
DK: I’ll, I’ll just put that there. The date is the, where are we? 5th of —
Other: 5th of June.
DK: The 5th of June 2018.
Other: Right. So I’m going to have a cigar.
DK: Ok.
Other: I’ll be back in a minute Mog.
DK: Ok. So, can, can you remember much about your time in the RAF?
MS: Very well. I knew my crew. And from there I went to the parachute school.
DK: Right.
MS: Excuse me.
DK: That’s ok. Take your time. It’s alright.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Is this your crew here?
MS: That’s the crew. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. So which one’s you?
MS: There’s me.
DK: That’s you.
MS: Yeah. There’s the skipper. And he, he’s no longer with us. He had a prang.
DK: Really.
MS: He was crop spraying and ran into a tree.
DK: Oh dear. Can you remember his name?
MS: Yeah. Johnny Ludford.
DK: Donny Lodford?
MS: Ludford.
DK: Ludford. Johnny Ludford. Right. Ok.
MS: Yeah. That was a headmaster of a school in Edinburgh.
DK: Right.
MS: And he was an Eton schoolboy that one.
DK: Right.
MS: And that was Buzz. He’s just passed away.
DK: Right.
MS: I don’t know what happened. There was Canadian. I know.
DK: That’s you.
MS: There. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
MS: I don’t know what that bloke’s doing now.
DK: So, so that’s you. You. Right. Going on.
MS: That’s me there. That was our mid-upper.
DK: Right. So you were the flight engineer.
MS: I was the flight engineer. Yeah.
DK: Right. So that’s the flight engineer. You. That’s the pilot.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Mid-upper gunner.
MS: Yeah. Navigator.
DK: Navigator. Yeah.
MS: Bomb aimer.
DK: Bomb aimer.
MS: Wireless op.
DK: Wireless operator.
MS: Rear gunner.
DK: Right. Can you, can you remember their names?
MS: No. No.
DK: No. Ok.
MS: Johnny Ludford. Buzz, wireless op. Woody, he was the schoolboy. He attended [pause] what was that place near Windsor?
DK: Eton.
MS: Eton.
DK: Eton. He went to Eton did he?
MS: He was an Eton schoolboy.
DK: Right.
MS: And, and a very posh talk, you know and we used to pull his leg. But he flew. He flew in to a tree. He was low flying crop spraying and there should have been two on board. One was a lookout. He was the pilot and he hit a tree.
DK: In South Africa. And was killed. Oh dear.
MS: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know which school but he was the headmaster of that school.
DK: That’s the navigator.
MS: Yeah. And that’s the wireless op.
DK: Right.
MS: And the rear gunner. Canadian. Mid-upper gunner.
DK: Right.
MS: Flight engineer.
DK: Right. Ok. So, can you, can you recall which squadrons you were with?
MS: Yeah. 57.
DK: Just making sure we’re ok.
MS: 57. Yeah.
DK: Right.
MS: At East Kirkby.
DK: East Kirkby. Right.
MS: And I remember we were near Boston and we used to come across the North Sea around there at Boston. What did they call it?
DK: The Boston Stump.
MS: The Stump. Yeah. The Stump. Go round, round, we used to, and around Lincoln Cathedral and land. But when we saw Boston Stump we said we’re home.
DK: Home.
MS: We made it.
DK: So, how many operations did you fly?
MS: Twenty nine.
DK: Twenty nine.
MS: They wouldn’t let, they wouldn’t [pause] but I laid, one part I laid mines.
DK: Right.
MS: In the Konigsberg Canal and we went low and laid these mines. And there was two German warships there. Gneisenau [pause] I can’t think of the other.
DK: Scharnhorst. Was it the Scharnhorst?
MS: There was two warships.
DK: Right. Ok.
MS: Gneisenau. And I went through this this morning in my mind and now I’ve forgotten it.
DK: Was it the Prince Eugen? The Prince Eugen?
MS: Yeah.
DK: Ah right. The Prince Eugen.
MS: Eugen. Yeah. Eugen. Yeah.
DK: So, so you actually saw those two battleships.
MS: Yeah. There was two of them and they were trapped in there for three weeks. Couldn’t get out because we were laying mines there. And we went down that low and off to port across Poland all the Polish people were —
DK: Waving to you.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Waving.
MS: Yeah.
DK: So you were that low. Yeah.
MS: We were that low dropping food and we were that low we were [pause] that middle picture there.
DK: Ah.
MS: Yeah
DK: Let’s have a look.
MS: The Duke of Edinburgh gave me a copy of that.
DK: So, that was —
MS: For each of the crew.
DK: So, that was, that was Operation Manna.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. How many? How many Manna trips did you do?
MS: Altogether I did twenty nine. Plus laying the mines. And thirty one.
DK: Thirty one. Is it ok if I have a look at your logbook?
MS: You’re very welcome.
DK: Thank you very much.
MS: I’m afraid it’s got a bit worn.
DK: It’s a bit old now, isn’t it?
MS: Yeah.
DK: So, you had a nickname of Mog then, did you?
MS: Mog. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
MS: The crew didn’t call me Mog.
DK: No.
MS: It’s the people here call me Mog.
DK: Right. Ok. So, so you were 1943 then. I’m reading from the logbook. So you were with 57 squadron.
MS: Yeah.
DK: And your pilot was Ludford. L U D F O R D.
MS: Yeah. Johnny Ludford.
DK: Johnny.
MS: Johnny Ludford, and he, as I say he was crop spraying in Africa and he flew in to a tree.
DK: Oh dear. Was he, was he a good pilot?
MS: Yeah.
DK: You felt, felt happy with him? Did you?
MS: Yeah. Because my seat was next to his and I operated the, Johnny just used to steer it.
DK: Right.
MS: And I’d operate the throttles and the rev counters. I did all that. Otherwise it would have been monotonous.
DK: Yeah.
MS: But I sat next to Johnny. I met his, his father who took that photograph of the crew.
DK: Right. So, so you, you and the pilot had to work as a team did you?
MS: We certainly did. Yeah.
DK: So he’s, he’s controlling the aircraft and you’re controlling the engines.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Right.
MS: Yeah.
DK: So you had to know what the engines were doing then, did you?
MS: Yeah. Well, he would start them off at the take off, and then when we got to a certain speed I would follow his hand up with all four engines.
DK: So you’d follow his hand up on the throttles.
MS: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And then, and then you took over the throttle controls then.
MS: Yeah. He would, he had to steer it.
DK: Yeah.
MS: Now, I controlled the throttles until we were airborne and get the flaps up, and got the revs out.
DK: So did, is it something you could still today do you think? Could you get into a Lancaster today and take off?
MS: I could do it I think.
DK: Yeah.
MS: But the controls are a bit more modern.
DK: Right. So just, I’m just looking at your logbook here.
MS: Yeah.
DK: So, it’s 1943, and November the 5th and you’re doing a lot of training flights by the looks of it. Training.
MS: Doing what?
DK: Training flights.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Bullseye.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Remember a bullseye?
MS: Yeah. I enjoyed that actually.
DK: So what was a bullseye then?
MS: I’d sit next to the pilot and I would operate the throttles. Everything. He would steer it.
DK: And on your right you’ve got the controls to the engines, haven’t you? Dials.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. So what, what did you have to do with the dials?
MS: Well, usually once we got airborne I didn’t have to do much.
DK: Right.
MS: But I’d pull up the flaps. The undercart. Yeah. I did all that. The flaps.
DK: Right.
MS: Undercart. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the flying side.
DK: Did you, did you control the flaps and the undercarriage when you landed as well?
MS: Yeah.
DK: So as you’re landing.
MS: Before —
DK: Johnny’s, Johnny’s controlling it.
MS: That’s right. When we came in to land the skipper would say, ‘Wheels down.’
DK: Put the wheels down.
MS: I’d put the wheels down. The flaps, fifteen when we took off.
DK: So just looking at your logbook you’ve done an operation here. Your first operation to Berlin.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Do you remember? Do you remember going to Berlin?
MS: Nine times.
DK: Nine times.
MS: Yeah.
DK: And what was it like? A trip to Berlin.
MS: You got flak up your bum [laugh] It was dodgy. And one time we landed. I’d got across the North Sea on two engines.
DK: Right.
MS: And then we crash landed in the Wash.
DK: Oh.
MS: In the Wash. And Boston Stump was just over there. And the air sea rescue people were there to pick us up.
DK: Right. Can you remember what happened to the two engines?
MS: Yeah.
DK: Had they been hit by flak?
MS: They were, they were alright. It was the supply. A shell hit the supply.
DK: A shell.
MS: A shell.
MS: Yeah. Ack ack.
DK: Right.
MS: Hit the supply. And so I switched them both off otherwise you’re losing fuel.
DK: So the shell hit the fuel supply and you’re losing fuel so you switch off the engines.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
MS: Switched them off. Switched the supply to starboard off.
DK: And, and can you remember much about crashing on the sea then? Because you said you landed in the Wash.
MS: Yeah. On a sandbank.
DK: On a sandbank. Ah. You weren’t actually in the water.
MS: Not actually in the water but RNLI came in and saw we were ok.
DK: Right.
MS: And they took us [pause] from, from 57 Squadron. They came and picked us up. Went to the mess. But we reported it. One of their fighters was shot down.
DK: Right.
MS: And we saw the pilot on a parachute.
DK: Right.
MS: And we reported it and he then came to the mess. He then, he married an English girl [laughs]
DK: So, so he was a German pilot.
MS: German pilot shot down but we took him to the mess.
DK: Right.
MS: And —
DK: He later married an English girl.
MS: He, yeah he married one of the girls there.
DK: Can, can, can you recall where this German aircraft was shot down? Was it over England?
MS: No. The North Sea.
DK: Right. Ok.
MS: North Sea. And the RNI, RNLI went and picked him up.
DK: Right. That wasn’t your aircraft that shot him down was it?
MS: No.
DK: No.
MS: No. He was shot down by a Mosquito.
DK: Right.
MS: Yeah. The Mossie had a bit more fuel than the single seater fighter.
DK: Did you have a drink with him in the mess then? Did you?
MS: We did indeed [laughs]
DK: What was it like meeting a German then?
MS: Well, the point is he seemed to know Great Britain. So he weren’t a complete stranger.
DK: Oh.
DK: But he talked good English anyway.
DK: He talked good English. Yeah.
MS: Yeah. We, well, broken English.
DK: It must have been very strange meeting your enemy then.
MS: Yeah.
DK: So just looking at your logbook again. So you’d done nine trips to Berlin.
MS: Yeah. Out of all the trips we did nine to Berlin.
DK: Right. And you’ve also got Leipzig. Do you remember going to Leipzig?
MS: Yeah. Leipzig.
DK: And Frankfurt.
MS: Yeah. Leipzig and Frankfurt.
DK: So you got Brunswick on the 14th of January 1944.
MS: Yeah. We bombed a dam.
DK: Oh.
MS: When what’s his name got all the publicity about bursting a dam —
DK: The Dambusters.
MS: We were bombing a dam further over.
DK: They didn’t make a film about you then.
MS: No. Möhne and Eder Dam.
DK: So, I’ve just got here you did an operation to Berlin.
MS: Yeah.
DK: 15th of February 1944. And it says diverted to Swinderby.
MS: Yeah. Swinderby. Yeah.
DK: Can you remember why you had to go there?
MS: Yeah. We lost our brakes.
DK: Right. Ok.
MS: And at Swinderby, I think Swinderby [pause] I didn’t think it was Swinderby. Anyway, we touched down at a special aerodrome where they let you touch down, across came out a wire.
DK: Oh right.
MS: On our tail wheel. And that slowed us down.
DK: Oh ok. Ok. And you’ve got on here 19th of February 1944 you’d gone to Leipzig again.
MS: Yeah.
DK: And you’ve written in here, “Junkers 88. No hydraulics, oxygen. Electrical failures.”
MS: Yeah.
DK: Right.
MS: That was the worst raid.
DK: Can you remember that? So you were attacked by a German JU88.
MS: Junkers 88. Yeah.
DK: Can, can you remember much about that?
MS: I remember him coming over the top and he hit the mid-upper gunner and wounded him.
DK: Right.
MS: But we got him back and he was in hospital.
DK: Right.
MS: He didn’t make it.
DK: Oh [pause] So the JU88 attacked you and killed your mid-upper gunner.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Right. You’ve put here brackets, “Shaky do.’’ Is that, is that an understatement? Right. So you remember the attack by the JU88 then.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Did your gunners fire back?
MS: Yeah. They, oh yeah. The rear gunner he was really good too. He was quick. And we know the rear gunner got one of the Junkers 88. But in the main the Mosquitoes and what’s the twin boom aircraft?
DK: The Lightning?
MS: Lightning. Yeah. Yeah. The Lightning.
DK: That, that —
MS: Yeah. He got, he came with us and he followed the Junkers 88 and we know that that aircraft pranged in the North Sea.
DK: So it was shot down then. Right. And, and can you remember coming back then ‘cause from Leipzig because your aircraft’s damaged?
MS: Yeah. Yeah. I remember that and Boston. There was a Boston Stump. And we’d go around Boston Stump, around Lincoln Cathedral and touch down.
DK: At East Kirkby. Yeah. So just going through your logbook again you went to Stuttgart twice. Frankfurt. Essen. Nuremberg.
MS: Frankfurt was a difficult one.
DK: Right.
MS: There was a lot of ack ack on the way in.
DK: So I’ve got here Frankfurt. That was on the 22nd of March 1944.
MS: Yeah.
DK: So that was a lot of flak fired.
MS: Yeah. I can’t remember all those dates
DK: No. No. No. No. And you’ve got an interesting one here. It’s the 5th of April 1944. Toulouse.
MS: Toulouse. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. And you’ve put here, “Nine tenths target destroyed.”
MS: Yeah.
DK: Was that a successful raid then?
MS: Yeah. Mind you sometimes it was awkward because the Germans were in France and we, we took them on. I don’t know where. Toulouse. Yeah. Yeah. Toulouse it was, I think. And we took, took them on.
DK: Right. And it says you actually attacked at six thousand feet in a full moon so —
MS: Yeah.
DK: Can you remember that? Clear conditions.
MS: Yeah.
DK: So you’ve got here Danzig Bay where you’re dropping mines. Dropping mines.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
MS: Yeah. Yeah. The two German warships. We dropped in the entrance and we dropped mines there and the Germans couldn’t get in.
DK: Right.
MS: Took them three weeks to clear the mines.
DK: So that was very successful then.
MS: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
MS: I remember we kept the, kept the Germans at bay for another three weeks. I remember the Toulouse raid.
DK: Right.
MS: The Toulouse raid. That was a close call.
DK: Can you remember what happened?
MS: Yeah. We got hit in several places. I had to shut the engines off and we landed in the banks of a [pause] I can’t think of it. We were in the banks of the Wash anyway.
DK: Yeah.
Other: As I said, David, I don’t know if it’s in there but he was actually on the Tirpitz raid as well.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
Other: Presume that was with 9 Squadron.
DK: Yeah. So you finished with 9 Squadron then and you’d gone off to the Lancaster Finishing School.
MS: Yeah. I was an instructor.
DK: And then it looks like you spent a bit of time with 50 Squadron. 50 Squadron. Five zero Squadron.
MS: Yeah. Well, 57 was my main squadron.
DK: Right. Oh, hang on. I’m going on a bit. Sorry. My fault.
MS: The main thing that annoyed us was I was commissioned and a friend of mine I went through the ATC. The lot. But he failed his exam and he had a, he had a separate room to me and I said no, on the train this was going down to Cosford to the engineer’s course. And then they came and I said I wanted to stay with him. And the squadron leader came and ordered me out of that. I had to go in to the first class.
DK: Right.
MS: He ordered me to go and I left this bloke. My friend. We went through the ATC, the lot together. And he just failed his exam.
DK: Right. Ok. Do you want to take a bit of a rest there? I’ll just stop this for a moment.
[recording paused]
DK: How do you look back now on your time now in the RAF? In Bomber Command. How do you look back on it?
MS: Yeah. [pause] Yeah. I just wish that the skipper was alive. The last one as far as I know was the wireless op, Buzz.
DK: Right.
MS: And his son rang. Rang me up to say, ‘We lost dad.’ So —
Other: That was a couple of years ago.
DK: Right. So —
[pause]
MS: Yeah.
Other: And your skipper was Johnny Ludford.
MS: He was a good bloke.
DK: Yeah. Done that.
MS: A good crew we had really.
DK: A good crew. Yeah.
MS: Good and friendly. A Canadian. When we got back we had a moon stand down of four days. Our rear gunner, Canadian, he went back home and he got three months holiday [laughs] And we had just about four days I think it was.
DK: So the Canadians got three months and you got four days.
[pause]
DK: So, in 19 — you then went to 9 Squadron. Do you remember 9 Squadron?
MS: No. I did the one trip in 9 Squadron.
DK: Only one.
MS: And then peace was declared.
DK: Right. So you went to 9 Squadron. You flew Lancaster WST and you did one operation to Pilsen. Pilsen. P I L S E N.
MS: Yeah.
DK: So, that’s when the war’s ended.
MS: Yeah.
DK: And did you do the Operation Manna trips then? Dropping the food.
MS: Well, I was posted to Kidlington.
DK: Right.
MS: And from there I was at High Wycombe. That was a parachute school.
DK: Right.
MS: And I did several jumps, you know. Parachute jumps. And when I got to Kidlington they, they wanted to know what I did, and as a favour I did a parachute jump and landed in a field near the officer’s mess. Then we all went and had a drink.
[pause – pages turning]
DK: Ok. I’ll end it there. I can see you’re getting a little bit tired. If you want to have your drink I’ll turn that off now.
[recording paused]
DK: Just put that back on again. you’ve got some photos here. So that’s from 1945. [pause]
MS: Yeah. That’s me.
DK: Ok.
MS: I was second. Second in command.
DK: So, that’s at Skellingthorpe in 1945 and you’re third one in, is it? That one.
MS: Yeah.
DK: So, is that you there?
MS: No. Next to him. Yeah. Next to —
DK: Next.
MS: Next to the silly bugger there [laughs]
DK: Right. That’s you there. Right. Ok.
[pause]
MS: Those are photographs of the parade.
DK: So, they’re after the war, are they?
MS: I had to attend them. Yeah. There’s me. I’ve got a mark over them. There.
DK: Oh that’s you there. Right. Ok. So that’s post war then. That’s 19 —
MS: It was a bit difficult because those rifles look a bit like that. And that bloke was doing his National Service. And that was the CO.
DK: So that’s 1955 then.
MS: Yeah.
DK: So what year did you leave the RAF? Do you recall?
MS: I don’t know.
DK: No. Ok. Ok.
Other: I think it was ’54.
DK: Oh ‘54. Yeah. From ’45. Ok. Let’s stop that there.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Maurice Stoneman
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AStonemanMW180605, PStonemanMW1801
Format
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00:35:15 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Maurice Stoneman was posted to 57 Squadron at RAF East Kirkby as the flight engineer on Lancasters in 1943. He recalls that on returning from operations they used to fly around the Boston Stump and around Lincoln Cathedral before finally landing. In total Maurice flew 29 operations across Europe. During an early operation mines were dropped in the Königsberg canal, blocking the exit of the German ships the Prinz Eugen and Gneisenau for three weeks. On one operation, anti-aircraft fire had cut the fuel to two engines. They had to crash land on a sandbank in the Wash. Air Sea Rescue came out and picked them up. In February 1944, their aircraft lost its brakes and was diverted to RAF Swinderby where a cable across the runway was used to catch the tail wheel and bring them to a safe stop. During a flight, a German pilot was seen to parachute out of his aircraft and land in the sea. The Air Sea Rescue collected the pilot. He was taken to the squadron mess and entertained by Maurice. An operation to Leipzig resulted in his aircraft being attacked by a Ju 88. The mid upper gunner was seriously wounded, dying later in hospital. The aircraft lost hydraulics and oxygen. Maurice describes this operation as ‘a shaky do’. Transferred to a Lancaster Finishing School as an instructor, and then to 9 Squadron for one final bombing operation before the war ended. He also took part in Operation Manna.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Boston
England--Lincoln
Russia (Federation)
Russia (Federation)--Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai︠a︡ oblastʹ)
England--The Wash
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Leipzig
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-02
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
57 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
air sea rescue
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bombing
crash
ditching
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
mess
military ethos
military service conditions
mine laying
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
prisoner of war
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Swinderby
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/976/16154/LManningR52870v1.1.pdf
247348241574f6d9c13acee159d9d84f
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
Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Log Book
Description
An account of the resource
The Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Log Book covering the period 15 June 1941 to the 16 August 1963. Manning qualified first as an Air Gunner on the 4 July 1941 and second as a flight engineer on the 1 September 1941. He was commissioned on the 4 July 1943 as a Pilot Officer and promoted to acting Flight Lieutenant in April 1944, and again to acting Squadron Leader in March 1946. He reverted to Flight Lieutenant in April 1947 but was made substantive Squadron Leader in April 1956 in the Engineering Branch. He retired 16 August 1963. There are very few entries relating to his time as a Gunner. Most entries are as Engineer.
He was stationed at RAF Stormy Down; RAF Middleton St George; RAF Linton-on-Ouse; RAF Leeming, RAF Aqir, RAF Fayid, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Snaith, RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Finingley, RAF Scampton, RAF Binbrook, RAF Henlow, RAF Seletar, RAF LLandow, RAF Swaton Morley, and RAF Medmenham. He flew in the following types manly as Engineer ; Arvo Tutor, Armstrong Whitworth Ensign, Handley Page Hannibal, Hawker Hart, Handley Page Heyford, Douglas DC 4 and 5, Handley Page Harrow, Handley Page Halifax, Miles Magister, Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Avro Lancaster, Fairey Battle, Airspeed Oxford, de Havilland Mosquito, Avro Lincoln, Handley Page Hastings, Gloster Meteor, Avro Anson, Vickers Valletta, Vickers Wellington, Percival Prentice, Bristol Britannia and Handley Page Victor. He flew with 10 Sqaudron, 462 Squadron, 51 Squadron, and 614 Squadron. He was awarded the DFC. Pilots he flew with were Richards, Sobinski, Lewin, Turnbull, Hacking, Godfrey, Trip, Peterson, Lloyd, Bell, O’Driscoll, Allen, Declerk, Gribben, Gibsons, Wyatt, Clarke, Snow, Hardy, Haydon, McDonald, Murray, Jones, Dennis, Fisher, Connolly, Cheshire, Woolnough, Cat, McIntosh, Pope, Alcock, Smythe, Williams, Freeman, McKnight, Gillchrist, Moore, Faulkner, Carr, Espie, Brown, Price, Wiltshire, Spence, Symmons, Kirk, King, Burgess, Wilson, Pugh, Johnson, Reynolds, Roberts, Ringer, Minnis, Lowe, Everett, Renshaw-Dibb, Mathers, Sullings, Flower, Jarvis, Chopping, Widmer, Yates, Day, Spires, Huggins, Watts, Haycock, Owens, Liversidge, George , Banfield, Hunt, Porter, Goodman, Ayres, Shannon, Laytham, Lord, Rhys and Blundy,
War time operations were to Sharnhorst and Gneisenau, Cologne, St Nazaire, Kiel, Paris, Aysen Fjord, Terpitz, Trondheim, Hamburg, Mannheim, Essen, Osnabruck, Tobruk, Heraklion, Maleme, Lens, Colline Beaumont, Bourg-Leopold, Trappes, Mont-Fleury, Abbeville, Nucourt, Le Harve, Boulogne. Post war destinations were to RAF Netheravon, RAF Hemswell, RAF Scampton, RAF Lindholm, RAF Marnham, RAF St Eval, RAF Aldergrove, RAF Wyton, RAF Stradishall, RAF Binbrook, RAF Bagington, RAF Waddington, RAF Topcliffe, RAF Upwood, Kai Tak, Changi, RAF Pembrey, RAF Llandow, RAF Filton, and RAF Bruggen.
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
Manning, Reg
Reginald Manning
R Manning
Description
An account of the resource
Six items, concerning Pilot Officer Reg Manning DFC (567647 Royal air Force) including his flying log book and photographs. He served as an air gunner and flight engineer with 10 Squadron, 462 Squadron, 51 Squadron, and 614 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Manning.
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
2016-06-28
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
Manning, R
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
Reg Manning's observer's and air gunner's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
The Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Log Book covering the period 15 June 1941 to the 16 August 1963. Manning qualified first as an Air Gunner on the 4 July 1941 and second as a flight engineer on the 1 September 1941. He was commissioned on the 4 July 1943 as a Pilot Officer and promoted to acting Flight Lieutenant in April 1944, and again to acting Squadron Leader in March 1946. He reverted to Flight Lieutenant in April 1947 but was made substantive Squadron Leader in April 1956 in the Engineering Branch. He retired 16 August 1963. There are very few entries relating to his time as a Gunner. Most entries are as Engineer. He was stationed at RAF Stormy Down; RAF Middleton St George; RAF Linton-on-Ouse, RAF Leeming, RAF Aqir, RAF Fayid, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Snaith, RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Finningley, RAF Scampton, RAF Binbrook, RAF Henlow, RAF Seletar, RAF LLandow, RAF Swanton Morley, and RAF Medmenham. He flew in the following types manly as Engineer; Avro Tutor, Armstrong Whitworth Ensign, Handley Page Hannibal, Hawker Hart, Handley Page Heyford, Douglas DC 4 and 5, Handley Page Harrow, Handley Page Halifax, Miles Magister, Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Avro Lancaster, Fairey Battle, Airspeed Oxford, de Havilland Mosquito, Avro Lincoln, Handley Page Hastings, Gloster Meteor, Avro Anson, Vickers Valletta, Vickers Wellington, Percival Prentice, Bristol Britannia and Handley Page Victor. He flew with 10 Squadron, 462 Squadron, 51 Squadron, and 614 Squadron. He was awarded the DFC. His pilots on operations were Warrant Officer Peterson, Flight sergeant Whyte, Warrant Officer O'Driscoll, Sergeant Declerk, Flight Sergeant Clarke, Sergeant Gibbons, Sergeant Wyatt, Flight Lieutenant Freeman, Flight Sergeant McKnight, Pilot Officer Gillchrist, Flight Sergeant Moore, Warrant Officer Skinner, Warrant Officer Faulkner, Flying Officer Carr and Flight Sergeant Espie. War time operations were to Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Cologne, St Nazaire, Kiel, Paris, Aasen Fjord, Tirpitz, Trondheim, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Essen, Osnabruck, Tobruk, Heraklion, Maleme, Lens, Colline Beaumont, Bourg-Leopold, Trappes, Mont Fleury, Abbeville, Nucourt, Le Havre, Boulogne, Gibraltar, Kasfereet. Post war destinations were to RAF Netheravon, RAF Hemswell, RAF Scampton, RAF Lindholme, RAF Marnham, RAF St Eval, RAF Aldergrove, RAF Wyton, RAF Stradishall, RAF Binbrook, RAF Baginton, RAF Waddington, RAF Topcliffe, RAF Upwood, Kai Tak, Changi, RAF Pembrey, RAF Llandow, RAF Filton, and RAF Bruggen.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1942-02-12
1942-02-14
1942-02-15
1942-02-16
1942-02-22
1942-02-23
1942-02-26
1942-02-27
1942-03-03
1942-03-04
1942-03-30
1942-03-31
1942-04-27
1942-04-28
1942-04-29
1942-05-03
1942-05-04
1942-05-06
1942-05-07
1942-05-19
1942-05-20
1942-05-30
1942-05-31
1942-06-01
1942-06-02
1942-06-03
1942-06-04
1942-06-05
1942-06-19
1942-06-20
1942-06-22
1942-07-11
1942-07-12
1942-07-18
1942-07-19
1942-07-20
1942-07-21
1942-07-24
1942-07-25
1942-09-03
1942-09-15
1942-09-16
1942-09-17
1942-09-18
1942-09-29
1942-09-30
1942-10-05
1942-10-06
1942-10-12
1942-10-13
1942-10-18
1942-10-19
1942-10-23
1942-10-24
1942-10-27
1942-10-29
1942-11-05
1942-11-07
1942-11-23
1943-07-24
1943-07-26
1943-07-27
1943-07-29
1943-08-01
1944-05-10
1944-05-11
1944-05-12
1944-05-27
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-06
1944-06-11
1944-06-12
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-07-15
1944-07-17
1944-09-11
1944-09-17
1945-06-19
1944-06-05
1944-07-18
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
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
Great Britain
Egypt
Middle East--Palestine
Singapore
China--Hong Kong
England--Yorkshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Rutland
England--Norfolk
England--Bedfordshire
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Suffolk
England--Warwickshire
Wales--Carmarthenshire
Belgium
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
Greece--Crete
Greece--Ērakleion
Libya
Libya--Tobruk
Norway
Norway--Trondheim
France
France--Saint-Nazaire
France--Paris
France--Lens
France--Colline-Beaumont
France--Soligny-la-Trappe
France--Abbeville
France--Nucourt
France--Le Havre
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Essen
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Stuttgart
Gibraltar
Norway--Aasen Fjord
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Northern Ireland
North Africa
France--Ver-Sur-Mer
Scotland--Shetland
China
Greece
Great Britain
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Durham (County)
Greece
Greece--Maleme
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LManningR52870v1
10 Squadron
1652 HCU
1668 HCU
462 Squadron
51 Squadron
614 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
air sea rescue
aircrew
Anson
Battle
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Cook’s tour
Distinguished Flying Cross
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Halifax
Harrow
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lincoln
Magister
Me 110
Meteor
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oxford
promotion
RAF Aqir
RAF Binbrook
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Filton
RAF Finningley
RAF Hemswell
RAF Henlow
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Honington
RAF Kasfereet
RAF Leeming
RAF Lindholme
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Marham
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Medmenham
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Pembrey
RAF Scampton
RAF Snaith
RAF St Eval
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Stradishall
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Upwood
RAF Waddington
RAF Wyton
Scharnhorst
tactical support for Normandy troops
Tirpitz
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22515/MCurnockRM1815605-171114-007.2.pdf
22e42a1f8a320022dd43710f17b18b85
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Kriegie December 2000
Description
An account of the resource
The news-sheet of the RAF ex-POW Association. This edition covers the recovery of a crashed Blenheim in Holland, Roy Winton's fourth visit to Barth in 2000, the proposed erection of a memorial to RAF POWs, the Fallingbostel memorial project, Obituaries, Recco Report on POWs, the Association's Annual General Meeting, a visit to RAF Stafford, Book reviews, the Autumn dinner at RAF Henlow, Remembrance Day March, the commissioning of a Canadian painting 'Stalag Luft III - Tunnel Martyrs', a helpline for veterans, a visit to Dunsfold airfield where many returning POWs first returned to after the war, a story by WAAF Billi Watkins about Dunsfold and finally the Association accounts.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The RAF ex-POW Association
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2000-12
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
12 printed sheets
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
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-007
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
South African Air Force
Royal Navy
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Netherlands--Waddenzee
Germany--Barth
Great Britain
England--Headcorn
Malta
Gibraltar
England--Stafford
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
England--London
Canada
Alberta--Calgary
England--Dunsfold
Poland--Żagań
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
Poland
Alberta
Germany
Netherlands
England--Kent
England--Surrey
England--Staffordshire
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.
37 Squadron
57 Squadron
75 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-17
bale out
Blenheim
bombing
C-47
crash
Dulag Luft
evading
Gneisenau
Goldfish Club
ground personnel
Halifax
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hurricane
Ju 87
Lancaster
Me 109
Me 110
memorial
mess
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
prisoner of war
RAF Cosford
RAF Dunsfold
RAF Harwell
Red Cross
Scharnhorst
Stalag Luft 1
Stalag Luft 3
Stirling
the long march
Tiger Moth
Typhoon
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1365/22920/PThomasAF20010035.2.jpg
2fe804252fa64796dfcedd12c6fbe654
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
Thomas, Arthur Froude. Album 1
Description
An account of the resource
An album containing 50 pages of photographs of Arthur Froude's family and his pre war career and service as a flight engineer with 90 Squadron. The album also contains family photographs dating from 1900.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thomas, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
1938.
Cecil William Reid & Arthur Thomas with Peter (Pluto) Reid the family pet.
Doug on his own & Algy. Two friends on a course at Locking. Doug killed in action on H.M.S. Illustrious off the Norwegian Coast.
[Photograph]
[Photograph]
H.M.S. Glorious was sunk by the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off northern Norway on June 8th 1940. Of 700 men from Glorious who went into the water only 37 lived to be picked up by a Norwegian steamer three days later
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
Arthur Thomas and Friends
Description
An account of the resource
Photo 1 is a man with a dog.
Photo 2 is man sitting on a fence.
Photo 3 is a man sitting on a tractor.
Photo 4 is a man sitting on a fence.
Photo 5 is a man standing on a brick wall.
These five images are captioned '1938 Cecil William Reid & Arthur Thomas with Peter (Pluto) Reid the family pet.'
Photo 6 is a sailor identified as Doug. Doug was killed in a action whilst serving on HMS Glorious.
Photo 7 is two sailors identified as Doug & Algy.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven b/w photographs on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PThomasAF20010035
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 Navy
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Somerset
England--Weston-super-Mare
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1940
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Anne-Marie Watson
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Workflow A completed
Gneisenau
killed in action
Scharnhorst
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1367/23034/PThomasAF20040036.1.jpg
d5526d5fb32efdb1ee0a24b4568205cf
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
Thomas, Arthur Froude. Album 3
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-02-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thomas, AF
Description
An account of the resource
49 Items. An album containing 35 and 149 Squadron target photographs and pictures taken on a sightseeing tour over German cities to see bomb damage.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[photograph]
HAMM
1946. Hamm.
A photograph of probably the most famous railway station in Germany. In the early days of the war it seemed as if our aircraft were always going to Hamm. The amount of bomb craters around the target shows the amount of attention it received.
[photograph]
[underlined] G1105 [/underlined]
[underlined] BREST. [/underlined]
1939-45. Brest.
An aerial reconnaisance [sic] photograph of the harbour area of Brest, one of France’s principle ports. Clearly seen is the German Battleship ‘Gneisnau’. Also marked are other Dock installations & coastal shipping.
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
Hamm and Brest
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph one is an oblique aerial photograph of Hamm, showing extensive damage and bomb craters throughout.
Photograph two is a vertical aerial photograph of Brest naval base and ports, with numbered annotation.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PThomasAF20040036
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
France--Brest
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Steve Baldwin
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Workflow A completed
aerial photograph
bombing
Cook’s tour
Gneisenau
reconnaissance photograph
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1320/25674/LHarrisonEW2204970v1.2.pdf
5f467d1f57572be2ae091fc75af0390a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Harrison, Eric William
E W Harrison
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Eric Harrison (b. 1925, 2204970 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 195 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Eric Harrison and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-09-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harrison, EW
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
Eric Harrison’s RAF flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
E W Harrison’s RAF Flying Log Book for Navigators, Air Bombers, Air Gunners and Flight Engineers, from 2nd October 1944 to 12th January 1950, detailing training and operations (1944-45), and instructional duties (1948-50), as a flight engineer. He was stationed at RAF Chedburgh (1653 HCU), RAF Feltwell (3 Lancaster Finishing School), RAF Wratting Common (195 Squadron), RAF Little Rissington (Central Flying School), RAF Hullavington (Empire Flying School) and RAF Manby (RAF Flying College). Aircraft in which flown: Stirling, Lancaster I, Lancaster III, Lancaster VII, Harvard, Tiger Moth, Lancastrian, Prentice, Auster, Anson, Hastings and Lincoln II. He flew a total of 31 operations (11 night, 20 day). Targets in Belgium and Germany were: Altenbogge, Bocholt, Cologne, Dortmund, Dresden, Duisburg, Erkenschwick, Gelsenkirchen, Gneisenau, Homberg, Kamen, Kiel, Krefeld, Merseburg, Neuss, Oberhausen, Rheydt, Scholven (Buer), St Vith, Vohwinkle, Wanne Eikel, Wesel and Witten. His pilot on operations was Flight Sergeant Fitton.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Leitch
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LHarrisonEW2204970v1
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.
Belgium
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
Belgium--Saint-Vith
Germany--Altenberge (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Bocholt
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Oer-Erkenschwick
Germany--Rheydt
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Witten
Poland--Gdynia
Germany--Wuppertal
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1948
1949
1950
1944-11-20
1944-11-21
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-08
1944-12-11
1944-12-12
1944-12-26
1944-12-27
1944-12-28
1944-12-31
1945-01-01
1945-01-06
1945-01-11
1945-01-15
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-01-22
1945-02-03
1945-02-09
1945-02-18
1945-02-19
1945-02-22
1945-03-08
1945-03-10
1945-03-12
1945-03-17
1945-03-22
1945-03-27
1945-04-09
1945-04-13
1653 HCU
195 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lancastrian
Lincoln
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Feltwell
RAF Hullavington
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Manby
RAF Wratting Common
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1405/26420/LRobinsonFA33520v1.2.pdf
708f1dc7bd64207eea63cd6cffe934ff
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
Robinson, F A
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-06-17
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. 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
Robinson, FA
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader F A Robinson (b.1920, 33520 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books and a poem. He flew over 130 daylight operations with 1 PRU and 543 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by P A Robinson and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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 A Robinson’s flying log book for pilots. One
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for F A Robinson covering the period from 8 September 1938 to 22 January 1951. Detailing his flying training and operations flown, includes flight certificates, congratulatory messages and notes of appreciation from senior officers, a poem about 'Gremlins', newspaper clippings, photograph of a radar installation. He was stationed at RAF Cranwell (RAF College), RAF Old Sarum (S of AC), Abbeville (2 Squadron), RAF Odiham/Hendon (ROC Flt), RAF Hatfield/ Hendon (116 Squadron & 24 Squadron), RAF Benson/St. Eval (1 PRU & 543 Squadron). Aircraft flown in were Tutor, Hart, Hind, Audax, Hector, Lysander, Magister, Master, Roc, Stinson, Proctor, Spitfire, Anson, Wellington, Expediter, Oxford, Gladiator, Blenheim, Harvard, Tiger Moth, Hornet Moth, Meteor, Vampire. He flew over 130 daylight operations with 1 PRU and 543 Squadron. Photographic operations were flown over Le Havre, Honfleur, Cherbourg, Boulogne, Abbeville, Zeebrugge, Cap Gris Nez, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Ostend, Charleroi, Douai, Den Helder, Amsterdam, Lille, Bethune, St Omer, Leipzig, Ruhr, Flushing, Gronigen, Heppel, Cologne, Weert, Calais, Dunkirk, Nurnberg, Dortmund, Ems, Kiel, Emden, Cuxhaven, Franco-Spanish border, Brest, Bordeaux, St Nazaire, Ploumanac, Le Croisic, Ushant, St Lannion, Lorient, St Nazaire, Douarnez Bay, Pt Duraz, Morlaix, Toulouse, St Malo, Poissy, Lubeck, Travemunde, North German ports, Dortmund, Cologne, Stuttgart, Heilbronn, Frankfurt, Mezieres, Essen, Amsterdam, Swinemunde, Hamburg, Brussels, Liege, Gironde ports, La Pallice, Martha, Saarbrucken, Mealte, Aachen, Rouen, Alten fiord. The log book also lists his post war flights.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike French
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LRobinsonFA33520v.1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Norway
Belgium--Antwerp
Belgium--Brussels
Belgium--Charleroi
Belgium--Ostend
Belgium--Zeebrugge
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Hampshire
England--Hertfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Middlesex
England--Oxfordshire
England--Surrey
England--Wiltshire
France--Abbeville
France--Béthune
France--Brest
France--Calais
France--Cherbourg
France--Le Croisic
France--Douai
France--Douarnenez
France--Dunkerque
France--Le Havre
France--Honfleur
France--Lannion
France--Lille
France--Lorient
France--Charleville-Mézières
France--Morlaix
France--La Pallice
France--Poissy
France--Rouen
France--Toulouse
France--Ouessant Island
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Cuxhaven
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Heilbronn
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Lübeck
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Saarbrücken
Netherlands--Amsterdam
Netherlands--Den Helder
Netherlands--Groningen
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Netherlands--Weert
Norway--Altafjord
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Saarbrücken
France--Saint-Malo
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
Belgium--Liège
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Ouessant Island
France--Saint-Nazaire
France--Cap Gris Nez
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1940-05-13
1940-05-14
1940-07-10
1940-07-11
1940-07-12
1940-07-23
1940-07-24
1940-07-29
1940-07-30
1940-08-02
1940-08-03
1940-08-06
1940-08-07
1940-08-10
1940-08-11
1940-08-14
1940-08-15
1940-08-18
1940-08-19
1940-09-11
1940-09-13
1940-09-18
1941-08-10
1941-08-17
1941-08-18
1941-08-19
1941-08-21
1941-08-22
1941-08-26
1941-08-27
1941-08-31
1941-09-02
1941-09-04
1941-09-16
1941-09-21
1941-09-22
1941-09-23
1941-09-26
1941-09-28
1941-10-02
1941-10-06
1941-10-13
1941-10-20
1941-10-23
1941-11-01
1941-11-03
1941-11-06
1941-11-12
1941-11-14
1941-11-18
1941-11-20
1941-11-24
1941-11-25
1941-12-01
1941-12-05
1941-12-07
1941-12-11
1941-12-13
1941-12-15
1941-12-19
1942-01-02
1942-01-04
1942-01-06
1942-01-09
1942-01-11
1942-01-12
1942-01-15
1942-01-16
1942-01-24
1942-01-26
1942-01-28
1942-02-02
1942-02-03
1942-02-05
1942-02-07
1942-02-08
1942-02-10
1942-02-11
1942-02-18
1942-02-19
1942-02-27
1942-03-05
1942-03-09
1942-03-24
1942-03-26
1942-03-27
1942-03-29
1942-04-02
1942-04-06
1942-04-12
1942-04-14
1942-04-16
1942-04-25
1942-04-30
1942-05-03
1942-05-06
1942-05-16
1942-05-18
1942-05-24
1942-05-28
1942-06-06
1942-06-17
1942-06-21
1942-06-22
1942-07-08
1942-07-18
1942-07-30
1942-08-06
1942-08-17
1942-08-18
1942-08-19
1942-08-23
1942-08-28
1942-09-11
1942-09-18
1942-10-04
1942-11-09
1942-11-10
1943-01-18
1943-06-25
1943-09-03
1943-09-05
1943-09-09
1943-09-13
1943-09-14
1943-09-19
1943-09-24
1943-09-26
1943-09-29
1943-10-09
1943-10-16
543 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Blenheim
bombing
Flying Training School
Gneisenau
gremlin
Harvard
Lysander
Magister
Meteor
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
pilot
Proctor
RAF Benson
RAF Cranwell
RAF Hatfield
RAF Hendon
RAF Odiham
RAF St Eval
Scharnhorst
Spitfire
Tiger Moth
Tirpitz
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1414/27746/BWareingRWareingRv10001.2.jpg
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08771a6065529eee984d3ff1de6eb37a
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
Wareing, Robert
R Wareing
Description
An account of the resource
258 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Robert Wareing DFC* (86325 Royal Air Force) and contains his flying logbooks, prisoner of war log book, memoirs, photographs, extensive personal and official correspondence, official documents, pilots/handling notes, decorations, mementos, uniform badges and buttons. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron. After a period of instructing he returned to operations on 582 Squadron but was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Wareing 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
2016-10-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wareing, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Start of transcription
In the Autumn and Winter of 1938/39 we observed from the Airfield boundary at Scampton, Hampden bombers landing at night using, in those days, the “chance light”, which lit up the landing path when the aircraft was on the last part of the landing approach.
I thought at the time, how great it would be to handle one of these massive machines. So I joined the R.A.F. V.R., and on 26th February 1939 had my first flying experience in a Miles Magister initial training aircraft at Waltham, near Grimsby. It was most exhilarating.
On the declaration of war on 3rd September, 1939 the R.A.F., V.R., was called up for service and I was despatched to N0.4 Initial Training Wing at Bexhill on Sea.
Further initial flying training was carried out at Perth and Prestwick in Scotland, followed by a period at the Advanced Training School at Sealand, Cheshire.
In July, 1940 I was posted to No 14 Operational Training Unit at Cottesmore where I could now, after some further training on Ansons, be able to fly the Hampden with which I had been so impressed in 1938/39.
Owing to restricted cockpit space it was not possible to have the usual dual instruction. So one went through the necessary flying instructions in a Hampden jacked up in a hangar with a compressor motor to activate the hydraulic system to operate the landing gear, flaps etc.
After having done a few exercises in the hangar one was allotted an aircraft with an instructor to oversee the engines being started and final preparations made for take off.
So finally the engines were opened up and the Hampden was eased off the ground and into the air. It felt great to be airborne on a particularly fine day being august 18th 1940.
After becoming [inserted] more [/inserted] familiar with the aircraft “dusk and dark landings” were undertaken. Take offs and landings were carried out by “pounding the circuit” and as the light faded and it became dark, one was then night flying.
At the beginning of November 1940 I was posted to 106 Squadron, then based at Finningley, as an operational pilot. Our first tasks were low level mining operations termed “Gardening”, at Brest, the Elbe, Keil and Lorient.
On 23rd February 1941 the Squadron moved to Conningsby which was a new airfield just opened, near Boston, Lincs.
[page break]
-2-
The operations of the Squadron now concentrated on sorties to Germany including the Rhur [sic] area.
On 4th April 1941 a low level attack was made at night against the battleship Sharnhorst [sic] and Gneisenau during a brief break in the high level bombing at the port of Brest. I had my aircraft damaged after a second attempt and I was really surprised to receive an award of a Distinguished Flying Cross which was the first decoration received by a member of 106 Squadron.
Formation bombing was practised with our Squadron commander W/C Bob Allen for a daylight raid with fighter escort on the battleships at Brest. Unfortunately the three squadrons which took part suffered heavy losses.
On 12th august, 1941 a similar sortie was carried out against the Gosnay Power Station.
Wing Commander Bob Allen was a great inspiration to the crews and he was decorated with the Distinguished service order during August.
On 3rd September, 1941, having completed my first operational tour I was posted to 14 O.T.U. Cottesmore as an operational pilot instructor and was awarded a bar to my D.F.C.
1940/41 was a period of experimental or pioneering work for the heavier onslaughts built up with the Lancaster.
I trust that the foregoing gives a brief idea of my experience with 106, Squadron, which had some excellent personnel in those days.
End of transcription
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
Robert Wareing memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Brief Resumé of Initial Flying Training and operational experiences on 106 Squadron, led by Wing Commander Bob Allen DSO with sorties against the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau Battleships in the Port of Brest.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
R Wareing
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Robin Christian
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BWareingRWareingRv1
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--Lincolnshire
England--Sussex
England--Bexhill
England--Cheshire
England--Chester
England--Rutland
France
France--Brest
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-02-26
1940-07
1940-11
1941-02-23
1941-04-04
1941-08-12
1941-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
106 Squadron
14 OTU
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Gneisenau
Hampden
Magister
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Coningsby
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Finningley
RAF Grimsby
RAF Scampton
RAF Sealand
recruitment
Scharnhorst
training
-
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d140cacf9f05fd382b216917761bce92
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
Wareing, Robert
R Wareing
Description
An account of the resource
258 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Robert Wareing DFC* (86325 Royal Air Force) and contains his flying logbooks, prisoner of war log book, memoirs, photographs, extensive personal and official correspondence, official documents, pilots/handling notes, decorations, mementos, uniform badges and buttons. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron. After a period of instructing he returned to operations on 582 Squadron but was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Wareing 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
2016-10-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wareing, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[inserted handwritten] Written by one of our Sergeants. [indecipherable word] [/inserted handwritten]
[underlined] AN ODE TO THE DAYLIGHTERS OF 106 [/underlined]
‘Wingo’ Allen, and Wareing, and Paramore, we
Led the formation in boxes of three;
Setting a course almost due South West,
Our target? The Gneisenau residing in Brest.
After three hours flying – I’ll say at the most,
We met our Spitfires just on the South Coast,
And led on, with Waddo and Hemswell behind
To give the old Hun a bit of our kind.
With Erly as nav. we crossed the French Coast,
To help do our bit; and to keep up our boast,
To smash up old Adolf by night and by day,
In the R.A.F’s. own impeccable way.
In sixteen full minutes we saw not a sign
Of Jerry’s now famous ME109,
And by that time, in beautiful light,
The harbour of Brest came into the sight.
With no ‘dummy runs’ in view of the flak,
We dropped off our loads and made to come back;
But by then the fighters of much vaunted fame
Decided to come and join in the game.
The Boeings above us were ready to swear
The three of the Huns went out of the air,
Before the Spits came to chase off the rest
And let us get back – as how we knew best.
So we left the French Coast and came back to the land
Which needs no Gestapo to keep us in hand,
Back to the country we all love the best,
For a good cup of tea and a blooming good rest.
(continued overleaf)
[page break]
Still we kept tight formation though the danger had passed,
Until under our noses, came at long las
The welcome sight of our own aerodrome,
And they knew that all had arrived safely home.
But before that day’s flying was over and done,
We just let the camp know we’d had some good fun
By a formation shoot-up which every one saw
Midst wild imprecation and many a “Good Lor!”
Then when we checked up on the kites after landing,
We found that all of ‘em had had some rough handling,
From Jerry’s Ack Ack, although not too severe,
It put ‘em u/s for a day – never fear!
And when the next job of work comes our way,
(We don’t give a damn – either by night or day),
During our 200 we’ll just do our best,
Then hope we’ll all have a blinking good rest.
[centred] ---oOo--- [/centred]
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
An ode to the Daylighters of 106
Description
An account of the resource
Eleven verse poem or song concerning a daylight operation against the Gneisenau in Brest. Mentions Spitfire escort, Me 109. On return most aircraft were damaged by anti aircraft fire. Annotated 'Written by one of our sergeants'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page typewritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Poetry
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MWareingR86325-161005-38
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Brest
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
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
Sue Smith
106 Squadron
arts and crafts
bombing
Gneisenau
Me 109
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1414/28039/SWareingR86325v10001.2.jpg
f66be7cc0021207e6c3250f4648fa380
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
Wareing, Robert
R Wareing
Description
An account of the resource
258 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Robert Wareing DFC* (86325 Royal Air Force) and contains his flying logbooks, prisoner of war log book, memoirs, photographs, extensive personal and official correspondence, official documents, pilots/handling notes, decorations, mementos, uniform badges and buttons. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron. After a period of instructing he returned to operations on 582 Squadron but was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Wareing 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
2016-10-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wareing, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SCUNTHORPE DAY BY DAY
By “OREMAN”
“Telegraph” House, Friday.
A WELCOME home to Squadron Leader Robert Wareing, Scunthorpe D.F.C. and Bar, who arrived this week after several months in German hands.
He was taken by the enemy
[Photograph]
Squadron Leader WAREING
[Missing text]
us,” he writes, “has naturally evoked many expressions of thankfulness and joy, but there are many to whom feelings of joy will not come easily, those whose boys are maimed in body or in mind, or who will never return.
“To such people I would send a message of goodwill and hope that we ourselves may learn to live up to the standard these boys have set for us, so that all need not be wasted.”
SATURDAY, APRIL 26th, 1941.
D.F.C. FOR LOCAL AIRMAN
[Photograph] Daring Bomb Attack on Brest Harbour
For his part in a bombing raid on Brest Harbour, Pilot Officer Robert Wareing, 24-years-old son of Mr. and Mrs. R. Wareing of “Centralia,” Cemetery Road, New Brumby, has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
The award was officially announced by the Air Ministry on Thursday, after a week’s delay in confirmation of the news which was received in Scunthorpe eight days ago.
The story told by members of his family is of a daring “dive” through the inner defences of the harbour, in which Wareing, whose crew was one of four to volunteer for the attack, dropped a heavy bomb on or near a ship in the dock.
Persisted In Attack
It will be remembered that the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, the important German battleships, were in the harbour, but it does not appear certain which of them suffered from Wareing’s bomb. Wareing’s ‘plane was caught in a cluster of searchlights and met heavy anti-aircraft fire from the inner defences, but he persisted in the attack, while the rear gunner machine gunned the searchlights.
Pilot Officer Wareing, who is engaged to Miss Joan Walker, of West Common Gardens, was a former pupil of the Scunthorpe Doncaster Road School, and later attended the Evening Technical School. He was employed by Messrs. Stephenson and Smart, accountants, when he joined the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve a year before war broke out.
His brother, Sgt-Pilot Stanley Wareing, joined up at the same time.
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
Newspaper cuttings
Description
An account of the resource
Two newspaper cuttings. Left - Scunthorpe day by day: account of Squadron Leader Robert Wareing returning home after several months in German hands. Right - For local airman/daring bomb attack on Brest harbour - announcement of award of DFC to Robert Wareing's for his part in bombing Brest harbour. Some description of attack and that Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were in port at the time.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two newspaper cuttings mounted in frame
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
SWareingR86325v10001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Brest
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Scunthorpe
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
David Bloomfield
Anne-Marie Watson
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Workflow A completed
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Gneisenau
Scharnhorst
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1414/28042/SWareingR86325v10010.2.jpg
3e887c50eae1b22f92d4477a7de6463c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1414/28042/SWareingR86325v20001-0002.2.jpg
26c18ea038b43a0577e660b7202f6cb5
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
Wareing, Robert
R Wareing
Description
An account of the resource
258 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Robert Wareing DFC* (86325 Royal Air Force) and contains his flying logbooks, prisoner of war log book, memoirs, photographs, extensive personal and official correspondence, official documents, pilots/handling notes, decorations, mementos, uniform badges and buttons. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron. After a period of instructing he returned to operations on 582 Squadron but was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Wareing 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
2016-10-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wareing, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SQUADRON LEADER BOB WAREING A PRISONER OF WAR
[Inserted] TELEGRAPH – SEPT. 1944 [/inserted]
Scunthorpe Double D.F.C. Baled Out From Blazing Plane
A FRENCHWOMAN who handed a letter to a British Army officer entering liberated Fecamp and then slipped back into the crowd, was responsible for giving Mrs. Joan Wareing, of West Common Gardens, Scunthorpe, the first news that
[Photograph]
SQUADRON LDR. WAREING
her husband, Squadron Leader Robert (Bob) Wareing, D.F.C. and Bar, is in German hands.
The letter, evidently from material dictated by Squadron-Ldr. Wareing, was sent on to his wife.
It appears to be a translation into English by someone French, and says that his aircraft was “touched by a night fighter,” and had “fallen down in fire,” but that he had time to “jump off in parachute.”
The letter goes on: “I got several important bruises and burns, but a French doctor attended them with great skilfulness. I hope soon to be in good health. I am now a prisoner in hospital at Le Havre.”
The Army officer who sent on the letter says that as they were entering Fecamp, a woman gave him it (in an envelope addressed to Mrs. Wareing), and slipped back into the crowd.
“QUITE WELL”
Further news comes from a Canadian flying officer who was in hospital with Squadron-Leader Wareing.
With the approach of Allied forces, he says, the majority of the patients, including Bob, were moved inland, but the writer was left behind because he was a fracture case, and is now in England.
The Canadian gives Mrs. Wareing the good news that her husband’s burns were rapidly improving, and those on his face had completely cleared up. He was quite well.
Squadron-Leader Wareing was reported missing last month, but the official notification that he is a prisoner has not yet arrived.
He is 27, and holds the D.F.C. and Bar for work on bombing operations, in one of which, in October, 1941, he attacked the German battleship Gneisenau. He was promoted Squadron Leader in 1943, and was awarded his Pathfinder’s Certificate in June this year.
His parents are Mr. and Mrs. R. Wareing, of Cemetery-road, Scunthorpe, and his brother, Squadron Leader Stanley Wareing, also holds the D.F.C.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Newspaper cutting
Description
An account of the resource
Squadron Leader Bob Wareing a prisoner of war. Scunthorpe double DFC baled out from blazing plane. Includes head and shoulders portrait of a man wearing uniform tunic with pilot's brevet. Account of how message got back to his wife and that he was recovering from burns. Mentions previous operation on October 1941 against Gneisenau. Mentions that his brother Stanley also holds the DFC.
Format
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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
SWareingR86325v10010, SWareingR86325v20001-0002
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--Lincolnshire
England--Scunthorpe
France
France--Le Havre
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Anne-Marie Watson
bale out
Distinguished Flying Cross
Gneisenau
Pathfinders
prisoner of war
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1414/28047/SWareingR86325v10026.2.jpg
324172246b10588d50070ccdba96409a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1414/28047/SWareingR86325v10027.2.jpg
7c857e723a448c2168e94282a5cc96f1
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
Wareing, Robert
R Wareing
Description
An account of the resource
258 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Robert Wareing DFC* (86325 Royal Air Force) and contains his flying logbooks, prisoner of war log book, memoirs, photographs, extensive personal and official correspondence, official documents, pilots/handling notes, decorations, mementos, uniform badges and buttons. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron. After a period of instructing he returned to operations on 582 Squadron but was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Wareing 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
2016-10-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wareing, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
In the autumn and Winter of 1938/39 we observed from the airfield boundary at Scampton, Hampden bombers landing at night using, in those days the “chance light”, which lit up the landing path when the aircraft was on the last part of the landing approach.
I thought at the time, how great it would be to handle one of these massive machines. So I joined the R.A.F.,V.R., and on 26th February, 1939 had my first flying experience in a Miles Magister initial training aircraft at Waltham, near Grimsby. It was a most exhilarating. [sic]
On the declaration of war on 3rd September, 1939 the R.A.F.,V.R., was called up for service and I was despatched to No.4 Initial Training Wing at Bexhill on Sea.
Further initial flying training was carried out at Perth and Prestwick in Scotland, followed by a period of the Advanced Training School at Sealand, Cheshire.
In July 1940 I was posted to No 14 Operational Training Unit at Cottesmore where I could now, after some further training on Ansons, be able to fly the Hampden with which I was so impressed in 1938/39.
Owing to restricted cockpit space it was not possible to have the usual duel [sic] instruction. So one went through the necessary instructions in a Hampden jacked up in a hanger with a compressor motor to activate the hydraulic systems to operate the landing gear, flaps etc.
After having done a few exercises in the hanger one was allotted an aircraft with an instructor to oversee the engines being started and the final preparations made for take off.
So finally the engines were opened up and the Hampden was eased off the ground into the air. It felt great to be airborne on a particularly fine day, being August 18th 1940.
After becoming more familiar with the aircraft “dusk and dark landings” were undertaken. Take offs and landings were carried out by “pounding the circuit”, and as the light faded and it became dark, one was then night flying.
At the beginning of November 1940 I was posted to 106 Squadron, then based at Finningly, as an operational pilot. Our first tasks were low level mining operations termed “Gardening”, at Brest, the Elb, Keil and Lorient.
[page break]
2
on 23rd February, 1941, the Squadron moved to Coningsby which was a new airfield just opened up, near to Boston, Lincs. The operations of the Squadron now concentrated on sorties to Germany including the Rhur area.
On 4th April 1941 a low level attack was made at night against the battleships Sharnhorst and Gneisenau during a brief break in the high level bombing at the port of Brest. I had my aircraft damaged after a second attempt and I was really surprised to receive an award of the Distinguished Flying Cross which was the first decoration received by a member of 106 Squadron.
Formation bombing was practised with our Squadron Commander, Wing Commander Bob Allen, for a daylight sorties [sic] with fighter escort against the battleships at Brest. Unfortunately the three squadrons which took part suffered heavy losses.
On 12th August, 1941 a similar sortie was carried out against the Gosnay Power Station.
Wing Commander Bob Allen was a great inspiration to the crews and he was decorated with the Distinguished Service Order in August 1941.
On 3rd September, 1941, having completed my first operational tour I was posted to 14 O.T.U. Cottesmore as an operational pilot instructor and was awarded a bar to my D.F.C.
1940/41 was a period of experimental or pioneering work for the heavier onslaughts [sic] built up with the Lancaster aircraft later.
I trustvthat [sic] the foregoing gives a brief idea of the events which led up to me becoming a member of 106 Squadron, which had some excellent personnel in those days.
[signature]
Robert Wareing
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
Robert Wareing's memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Second version of a brief Resumé of Initial Flying Training and operational experiences on 106 Squadron, led by Wing Commander Bob Allen DSO with sorties against the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau Battleships in the Port of Brest. Slight amendment to last paragraph,
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
R Wareing
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWareingR86325v10026, SWareingR86325v10027
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--Lincolnshire
England--Sussex
England--Bexhill
England--Cheshire
England--Chester
England--Rutland
France
France
France--Brest
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939-02-26
1940-07
1940-11
1941-02-23
1941-04-04
1941-08-12
1941-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jan Waller
106 Squadron
14 OTU
Anson
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Gneisenau
Hampden
Magister
Operational Training Unit
RAF Coningsby
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Finningley
RAF Grimsby
RAF Scampton
RAF Sealand
recruitment
Scharnhorst
training