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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/17105/BHollisANHollisANv1.2.pdf
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Title
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Hollis, Arthur
Arthur Norman Hollis
A N Hollis
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Arthur Hollis (b. 1922) who joined the RAF in 1940 and after training completed a tour on 50 Squadron before becoming an instructor. At the end of the war he was deployed as part of Tiger Force. Collection contains a biography and memoir, his logbook, correspondence, training records, photographs of people, aircraft and places, his medals and flying jacket. It includes an oral history interview with his son, Richard Hollis.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard Hollis and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-11-07
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Hollis, AN
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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A Memoir
By
Arthur Hollis
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[photograph of Arthur Hollis]
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A Memoir by Arthur Hollis
I was born in Highgate, North London, on 11th August 1922. My parents who had married a year earlier had an apartment there.
In 1924 they moved into a new bungalow near Hornchurch in Essex. It was all very rural then. We had gas for lighting and mainly coal for heating but no electricity. A special treat for me was to be taken down the lane to a forge to watch the horses being shod. At the age of four or thereabouts I was sent to a local "dames" school. It was mainly girls but there were a few boys. I didn't like it as the boys were not particularly favoured. I did have one little girl friend, Tina Branston. We were inseparable for years - in fact until my parents moved from the area around my eighth birthday. Tina was the penultimate child of a large family; the eldest was 22 years old and taught at the school. I was reproved by my mother for calling her "Christine" as, of course, all her family did. I was told very firmly "Miss Branston to you". Such were the manners of those days. Tina and I did have a favourite pastime which was to get into the long grass to explore in detail the differences between boys and girls. I thus had a very good early education between the ages of 6 and 7. I could also read, write and recite the multiplication tables up to number 12.
Events which took place during our stay in Hornchurch were the births of my brother Gerald and sister Rosemary. On each occasion I was sent off to Dover to stay with Grandpa Leigh (mother's father) and Aunt Mary who house kept for him. I loved my stays there in an old house in the lovely old town it was then and I was "spoilt rotten"
A great day at Hornchurch was when my mother was given a wireless - an old set which was operated by batteries. In the evenings we used to sit "listening in" with headphones over our ears.
As I have already recalled during the summer of 1930 my parents decided to move. The Ford motor factory had just come to Dagenham and the whole area was changing. They bought a house in Carshalton Surrey. The move took place during August. My parents chose a school for me to go to, more on the basis that I could walk there taking Gerald with me than for its academic attractions. It was an awful place and taught me very little. Anyway in the course of events I would have moved to a local secondary school at the age of 9 or 10.
My principal activity outside school was in the Cubs. By the time I left, when I went to Dulwich, I was a Sixer (platoon sergeant) with an arm full of badges indicating my ability to boil an egg or sew on a button or swim a length.
As mentioned later I was at the age of 8 in hospital for a mastoid operation. Shortly after discharge I was back in hospital again for a few days having gashed my leg very badly while riding another boy's bicycle. My parents thought things might be safer were I to have my own bicycle. For my 9th birthday I was taken to the then cycle manufacturer James and Co. in Holborn and bought a simple bicycle. This made a huge difference to my life. Apart from a few main roads which were taboo, I was free to cycle all over the district and beyond. It gave a great sense of freedom. Before my 12th birthday the bicycle was passed to Gerald and I was given a larger machine - a Raleigh with hub brakes and a three speed gear - a veritable Rolls Royce. For years thereafter Rodney Dove and I used to cycle frequently together all over Surrey and on some days would get to the south coast and back. When I was about 14½ years old I cycled alone down to Dover to stay with Grandpa Leigh. It was useful to have a bicycle there as another school friend (one "Clod" Jarvis) was in the Dover district at the same time
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and we were able to spend time together. I have used the word "Clod" as that was his nickname. He went to Rhodesia after leaving school and we wrote to each other rather infrequently. I found it difficult to write to an elderly gentleman as "My dear Clod" but I found out only from his widow that his name was Alan.
In 1932 my mother received a legacy from the estate of a widower uncle, Harry Webb, which amounted to about £2000. This gave my parents the background capital which was a financial protection for them. The plans for me were that I was to go to Dulwich College at the age of 11. Shortly after my 10th birthday I sat the Entrance Exam but was found to be weak in all subjects. I was immediately removed from the awful school mentioned above and sent to Wallington High School as I was now deemed old enough to cycle or take a bus. I flourished there under the headmaster who was an excellent teacher and determined that I should pass the Dulwich Entrance Exam next summer. I responded well and happily worked hard for and passed the exam.
In September 1933 I started in the 2nd form at Dulwich. It was hard going. Most of my contemporaries were there on scholarships from the London, Surrey or Kent County Councils and were therefore a pretty bright bunch. I was rather idle for the first few terms and content to coast along halfway up the form. When my time came to go into the Upper 3rd I was put into "Treddy's" form. Mr Treadgold is a legend to many Old Alleynians as a very strict task master. Personally, I respected and liked him. Whether through fear or dislike of failure I soon learned that by working hard I could be amongst the first few in the form. This stood me in very good stead later on.
I have jumped about slightly and could have mentioned that in the summer term of 1935 I was persuaded by my great school friend Rodney Dove, who was a very good swimmer, that we should try for a quarter mile standard medal (under 10 minutes for a bronze and under 7½ mins for silver). We both got a bronze, I in 9 min 7 seconds and he in under 9 mins. Not bad as we were both about 13 years of age. Rodney was an exceptionally strong swimmer. This may have contributed some years on in 1942 to his being picked, as an RNVR sub lieutenant, to carry out the horrendous task of riding a "human torpedo" and putting an explosive charge under an Italian troop ship. He did this and received a well earned DSO but was a prisoner of war until 1945. He was also a good boxer and we used to box together a lot when we were about 11 or 12. I later went on to become the Dulwich Middleweight Champion in 1939.
My mother spoke fluent French having spent some months at the age of 16 living with a French family. Between the two wars my mother's married brothers, Norman and Jack, lived and worked in Paris. Both had French wives. My parents visited them for Easter 1936 and took me with them. I had a tourist's view of Paris. During September 1937 I was kindly allowed to visit them for a fortnight on my own and spent many hours in the International Exhibition then on there as well as wandering on foot around Paris and Versailles.
I tend to be rather cynical when I hear someone say ''the best days of my life were at school." My reply is apt to be ''what a dull life." Nevertheless I did enjoy my years at Dulwich. I had many friends, some of them lifelong I was very sad when in the spring of 1939 my father said "I think that you have achieved most worthwhile things at Dulwich. I think that you should leave now and I will help you to become a Chartered Accountant." He was probably right and I was grateful. I had sat under some excellent mentors. I had obtained credits in all subjects in school certificate. I had obtained rugger and boxing colours. I was a corporal in the OTC with Cert "A". I was Form Captain and had been so on previous occasions. There was not much more that mattered to do. The Master (i.e. the Headmaster) was rather upset at my going but that was natural.
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So in early May I reported to the offices of Legg and Smith Chartered Accountants in the City of London. There were about five other Articled Clerks several years older than I was. My immediate senior Donald Draper became a life long friend. As junior I was given only rather menial jobs to do and I was rather bored but when war broke out four months later the managing clerk and myself were the only staff left, all the others being mobilized in various territorial units. My Principal, J.F. Legg said to me "You have rather quick promotion. I will give you any help you need." I had eighteen months very hard but rewarding work ahead of me.
One could not have had a more excellent man to work for than J.F. Legg. He was a friend of my father, they both having been soldiers in the 1 st battalion of the London Rifle Brigade when it went to France in 1914.
Unfortunately during the May of 1940 I suffered a burst appendix and was in the War Memorial Hospital at Carshalton for some weeks. This was a very serious condition at that time as there were no antibiotics although I think I did have penicillin when I had rather a relapse after three weeks.
I had had a four week stay in the same hospital when I was 8 years old having a mastoid operation, again very serious. During my stay there I was very sad to be told that Tina Branston had died of meningitis. That, together with scarlet fever and TB, were killers of children on quite a large scale. I mention these rather grisly facts to record how medical science has made great strides during my lifetime.
As soon as I was well enough after discharge from hospital I joined the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers) when invasion by the Germans looked a probability. A parade looked like the Peasants' Revolt - no uniforms, no arms (apart from the odd shotgun or pitch fork). Afterwards as arms became available from the USA the Home Guard replaced the LDV. Although we all enjoy a good laugh at Dad's Army it was generally more efficient than that. There was not much time between the two wars. Men who had fought in the trenches were still only in their early forties; they could shoot fast and straight. There would have been a lot of dead Germans had invasion been attempted. I was made a corporal probably on the strength of having Cert A from the OTC. About this time I embarked upon my life of crime. I was cycling on Home Guard Duty without front or rear lights when a special constable loomed out of the blackout and charged me. I had to go before the local magistrate. I made an impassioned plea and thought I had won when he said "Very dangerous, Mr Hollis, pay ten shillings." A severe punishment - it was a week's allowance.
After my 18th birthday in August 1940 I felt eligible to join one of he [sic] services. Not the Army or the Navy as I was too young to be considered for combat duty and I decided therefore to go for pilot training in the RAF. I mentioned this to JF (as Legg was known). He was very sympathetic having himself risen to the rank of Lt. Col. in the 1914-18 war but he asked if I would defer for a few months to allow others to catch up with me for work in the firm. I agreed and volunteered my services to the RAF early in 1941.
The RAF had rather a bottleneck of potential pilots at that time and for a start I was sent on a 6 month course at Manchester University to study such subjects as higher mathematics, mechanics, meteorology, air navigation etc. I arrived at Hulme Hall, Manchester in early April 1941 and found myself with about 20 other RAF cadets. We were a happy bunch who helped each other along. Some were more advanced than others in various subjects. I do remember our being always hungry. Although the food in Hulme Hall was well cooked and wholesome, the whole country was now severely rationed and we were very lacking in meat and fats. We used
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to meet in each others rooms of an evening and make toast; a small amount of butter and plenty of jam was produced.
After leave in September we were ranked as LACs with white flashes in our caps to indicate air crew in training and mustered for a sea trip to the USA to be taught to fly. We sailed from Avonmouth at the beginning of November in a 7000 ton ship which in previous days had done the New Zealand meat voyages. We were now the carcasses. The North Atlantic in November is a cruel place. We had an escort of naval corvettes for the first part of the voyage but one could seldom see them as the poor devils spent much of their time half under water. We were in hammocks close slung together and as most people were sick, the nights were very unpleasant. I volunteered to fetch food from the kitchen to mess table, partly because I was the only one interested in eating anything and the kitchen was warm and fairly close to the centre of the ship thus having the least movement. It was a great relief to reach Halifax, Nova Scotia. I shall always remember that first breakfast on shore. Plenty of eggs and bacon etc. etc.- things then unknown in the shortages of the UK. Life was not very comfortable in this staging station where we stayed for three weeks. It was December, the outside temperature was -20c., the huts were grossly overheated by primitive coal stoves and the latrines outside in the open air were very primitive.
After about three weeks we boarded the first of several trains on our journey to Florida. A most interesting journey. In three days we passed from the snow covered land of eastern Canada to the semi-tropical atmosphere of Florida.
The RAF station of modem comfortable huts around a parade ground and a swimming pool was just south of Lake Okeechobee (Fort Myers 70 miles west on the Gulf of Mexico, Miami 100 miles south east on the Atlantic). After the sun went down the insects on the screens to our living quarters had to be seen to be believed. Four engined mosquitoes. We slept under nets. The station was run by three RAF officers. The flying and ground instructors were American civilians. The flying instructors were good, the ground instructors were useless. If we were to pass the written wings exam we should need to study our manuals very resolutely.
After a day or so of settling in, we were paraded and inspected by the CO Wing Commander Kenneth Rampling. He appointed me as Course Commander. I was made an acting corporal (unpaid) and had general responsibility for the behaviour of the Flight (about 50 cadets). There were four Flights in the school at one time. As one passed out another one arrived. We trained on the PT 17 which was the primary trainer of the US Army Air Corps - like a Tiger Moth but rather more solid. After about eight hours in the air, most of us went solo. Thereafter the training continued until the mid-term ten days leave. People went various ways. Some adventurous chaps got as far north as New York. I preferred to stay with a couple of fellow cadets, Peter Cowell and "Flossie" Redman on the Gulf of Mexico coast. We ended up at the home of three elderly ladies who had befriended us. I have since renamed them "The Golden Girls". I have also since been told that one of them took "a particular shine to me". - the opportunities one misses in life!
After leave we went onto the Vultee BT13A - a monoplane, and after a further short leave, onto the Harvard, at that time the fighter aircraft of the Army Air Corps - just as well they didn't have to fight the Battle of Britain although the Harvard was a very nice aircraft to fly. At the end of that course we took the Wings exam and qualified. On the evening before the Wings Parade I, together with my two section leaders, was invited by the three officers to a celebration at the Clewiston Inn where they stayed. What a night. I arrived back at camp wearing the C.O.'s trousers, mine having got wet in a rainstorm. The next morning the Flight was drawn up on parade and I marched up to Kenneth Rampling to report "all present and
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correct. Sir." He said "Christ you look 'orrible" to which I replied "not 'alf as 'orrible as I feel". Just as well the doting onlookers could not hear these remarks. Dear Kenneth Rampling; he was killed two years later as Group Captain DSO DFC. CO of a Pathfinder Squadron.
We were at that time officially sergeants although a number of us were expecting to be commissioned officers once we got to Canada. We set off on an evening train. After three days of various stops and changes, including several hours in New York, we arrived at Moncton, New Brunswick, from where we had set off the previous winter.
Life was better. I was now a Pilot Officer. I met up again with other friends of the horrible voyage out. They were now fellow officers, some of them destined for distinction such as Bill Reid V.C.
After several weeks wait at Moncton, we boarded a train for New York where we went aboard the Aorangi, the ship which was to take us back to UK. This had a maximum speed of about 15 knots. I have since learned that it was the worst month of U Boat sinkings. We were nevertheless oblivious of this and had a happy voyage. As we neared UK shores the Americans on board, feeling that they were entering a war zone, mounted machine guns around the deck rails. After they had nearly shot down a Spitfire, which was foolish enough to come too close, we RAF officers were detailed to stand by the guns telling them when not to open fire.
We landed at Greenock, the port of Glasgow, and boarded a special train which took us all the way to Bournemouth where we spent two or three weeks getting uniforms, having medical and dental checks, several days leave etc.
I was then posted to Little Rissington in the Cotswolds to fly Oxfords, twin engined machines, so as to practice map reading (much more difficult than in USA) and to prepare for the larger machines of Bomber Command. After several weeks I was posted to a Wellington OTU at North Luffenham, Rutlandshire where I crewed up with FO Dick Palmer (navigator), Sgts Ted Kemp (bomb aimer), Tom Cheshire (wireless operator) and "Jock" Walker (rear gunner). We started working together on cross country flights, range bombing etc. It was all rather dangerous; a number did not finish the course. When we stepped out at night there was generally a blaze indicating that Cottesmore, our neighbouring station, was flying. As opposed to the Wellington Mark Ills which we had, they had only MKICs which I had later to discover by experience were underpowered. I had one or two near scrapes. I was a pupil one night with others when the aircraft flown by another pupil went out of control. It was righted by the instructor who then "bailed out" the remainder of the personnel. I had my parachute incorrectly fastened so that when I jumped the harness would have gone straight up over my head. Fortunately it caught on the edge of my flying jacket, giving me just enough time to grab hold of it so that I could come down holding it by hand and I slipped it off on landing. As I lay on the ground sweating somewhat, although it was a cold dark December evening, I heard a voice "Don't shoot Dad ! It may be one of ours". I yelled "Don't shoot I am one of yours!" Soon afterwards I was before the fire of a Fenland labourer's cottage being restored with cups of tea. I should have liked something somewhat stronger! Soon I was pleased to learn that all had landed safely. I still have the flying jacket with the small tear in it that saved my life.
The last exercise at the OTU was to fly over enemy territory. I set out with three other aircraft to drop leaflets over Nancy one night. There was a massive cold front over the English Channel with dangerous cumulonimbus clouds. Two older more experienced pilots turned back. I pressed on but as there are dramatic wind changes on the other side of a cold front, it is unlikely that our leaflets went anywhere near Nancy. After a rather eventful return I landed at base. The fourth aircraft was missing. I will just elaborate on the words "eventful return". The whole of our journey there and back over France was over cloud. When I judged on our return
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journey that we had reached the English Channel or the low lying land over northern France I ventured to break cloud. I was then able to see what I thought to be the Cherbourg Peninsular. It was in fact the English coast, probably near the Isle of Wight. Feeling now completely lost I called May Day (the SOS signal). Immediately what appeared to be every searchlight in England lit up and waved me towards North Luffenham. I was so impressed that I forgot to cancel "May Day". I duly landed to be met by a very irate Wing Commander (Chief Flying Instructor).
We next moved on to Swinderby, Lincolnshire to convert on to Lancasters. There I collected two more crew, Sgts Bob Yates (mid upper gunner) and Don Adshead (flight engineer). The only incident there was a fire in an engine on a night cross country flight. The curious thing was that there were no visible signs although the engine was burnt out. Another lucky escape.
On finishing the conversion course we were posted to 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe, very close to Lincoln.
I have heard since the war from Tom Cheshire (wireless operator) and quite recently from Bob Yates (mid upper gunner). Both son with wife and grandson of Bob Yates have been to Westwell to see me. Letters are in my Log Book.
Our tour of operations was mainly spent in what was afterwards known as the Battle of the Ruhr.
The Ruhr area, although separate towns, constituted the German industrial area and was therefore very heavily defended. Its one consolation to us was that it was reasonably near (large bomb load, small fuel load). I hated the place. Late in our tour I was badly shot up over Essen, the main town. This is recorded in the citation for my DFC and written up in the Daily Telegraph. I'm told that it is also on the internet. Earlier in the tour I had about six feet of wing cut off over the Dutch coast and had to make my only early return. In order to achieve the maximum concentration of aircraft over the target, the practice was to congregate together over the Dutch coast and then move on to enemy territory. As it was very dangerous from the collision point of view to have so many aircraft circling around, the instruction was if one was early to do a "dog leg" so as to arrive at the rendezvous at exactly the right time but not before. One aircraft, I think flown by a Wing Commander no less, did not follow the instruction to "dog leg" but was circling with disastrous results for my wing and our morale. I could just about hold the aircraft in the air back to base.
We also carried out raids on the U boat pens at St Nazaire (rather useless as the concrete was too strong for the bombs then carried), Berlin, Pilzen, Hamburg etc. An interesting trip was with a special force chosen to bomb Friedrichshafen where special radar spare parts were stored. As it was then mid-summer, there was not enough darkness to return to the UK. We therefore went on over the Med to North Africa. The personal map which I marked up and tucked into my flying boot is in my log book.
The last trip of my tour was to Milan. Italian targets were regarded as fairly soft. My usual aircraft was pronounced unserviceable rather late in the day. Group Captain Elworthy. (later Marshal of the RAF Lord Elworthy) the then Base Commander was very anxious that I should finish on this trip. He therefore arranged for an aircraft at another Station to be available and took me personally in his staff car to that Station .. My crew were taken there by bus. There was at that time an accusation going around that crews were bombing short. I maintained that the aircraft cameras which were meant to record where the bombs landed were wrongly set. I therefore arranged with Ted Kemp that when the target came into his bomb sight he would give me a sign. I would count to ten and then call Bomb. We brought back an aiming point photograph. Many years later Bun and I were lunching with some Italian friends in Milan.
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After lunch we were taken for a walk and visited a rather ruined church which had been bombed in August 1943. An important feature which was being repaired consisted of a mural of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. As we were going home, I said to Bun "Guess who destroyed the Last Supper?" Shortly after August 1943, the Italians withdrew from the war. I think that the destruction of a religious artefact was too much for them! I recently told the story to an artist friend who remarked dryly that the bomb damage was not half as serious as the damage inflicted by the subsequent garish and overdone restoration.
I was then posted for instructor's duties to an OTU at Westcott, Bucks. I felt it was rather like leaving the Brigade of Guards for the Ordnance Corps but there was no choice. Most of the instructors were New Zealanders - a very jolly bunch of chaps. My immediate senior and Flight Commander was one Squadron Leader Fraser Barron DSO DFC DCM., a New Zealander.
He ranked at the age of 21 as a Pathfinder ace and was killed next year as a Group Captain, the immediate successor to Kenneth Rampling mentioned earlier in this narrative.
I also mentioned earlier the underpowered Wellington Ic. Westcott and its satellite station Oakley had Ics. I was sitting one night in the instructor's seat next to an Australian pupil pilot who was doing a cross country exercise. On returning he made rather a mess of the landing approach and I said "Go round again." Immediately ahead of the main runway at Oakley was Brill Hill. Good pilots could clear it easily but my pupil was not in that category. After looking up at the trees as we went over Brill Hill I let him have another attempt at landing. He did the same thing again, after which I said "Up to 3000 ft and we will change seats". The aircraft used for cross country flying at Oakley had no duel controls.
The autumn and winter continued. During March 1944 I had a message that my dear mother needed a surgical operation for kidney disease. I got compassionate leave and spent a week visiting her and we had nice talks. Alas, the other kidney, which had been expected to pick up and do the work of two, did not do so. She died within a few days. It was a severe blow to the family and her many friends as she was much respected and loved.
In the late spring of that year I had the great good fortune to meet Betty Edmunds, one of the staff in the watch tower at Oakley. I was OC night flying at the time. We soon discovered that we both came from Carshalton and had many mutual friends. Our friendship developed. We used to play tennis together. She always won. Partly because she was a much better player than I but also because whenever she bent over to pick up a ball I was completely unnerved and my mind was not on tennis. On her days off, if I was on leave, we met for a day in London. We also visited Cambridge on one or two occasions to see my brother Gerald who was spending two terms at Jesus College prior to National Service. In early September we got engaged. I said at the time " I suppose we ought to wait until the end of the war to get married.". She said" Oh do you? I was thinking about this coming 2nd December". And thus it was. We had a very quiet wedding as most young people were away on active service and anyway catering was very difficult to arrange. But it was a very happy day and we set off by train for honeymoon in Torquay.
We already knew that we both wanted children. Betty wanted four. I thought this might be rather too many to educate properly. Thinking about things over the years and knowing my darling Betty's quiet way of getting what she wanted, I think she had made up her mind to start our family on her honeymoon. I had no hesitation in helping.
After returning to duty, we used to cycle into Thame to spend the night at a hotel. This is rather an exaggeration; they were mainly rooms over bars in pubs. The beds were generally
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rather primitive and rattled terribly. I often wondered why the bar conversation would suddenly cease. We spent Christmas with Betty's parents at The Bull in Aylesbury.
At New Year there was an officers' dance at Oakley. As Betty was only a Sergeant she had to get her CO's permission to attend. This was refused. My fellow officers were most indignant that the Oxford ''tarts" were likely to be there but an officer's wife was refused. I didn't particularly mind as the signs were that Betty was pregnant and would therefore automatically leave the WAAF.
I have raced ahead and not mentioned that throughout our engagement we frequently spent nights with our friends Steve and Sylvia Hogben in their caravan. Betty slept on one of the narrow beds and I slept beside her on the floor. She had a firm intention, which I respected, of going to her wedding a virgin. I mention this as most young people these days would consider such conduct rather strange.
About two days into New Year I was telephoned by Group that I was promoted to Squadron Leader and was to command an instructor's flight at Turweston (Northants) satellite of Silverstone (now a racing track). I had 2 months earlier been categorised A2 by a visiting examiner from Central Flying School. An A2 instructor's category was rare and the highest one could obtain in wartime. At about the same time Betty was posted to Upper Heyford. Still in the same Group but quite far apart. Anyway news reached me that Betty was in hospital at Stoke Mandeville. She was suffering from the family weakness of cystitis which combined with the pregnancy and being generally run down made her quite unfit for RAF duty. After about a fortnight she returned to Upper Heyford to be discharged from service. I had previously phoned up the senior medical officer at Upper Heyford, explained the situation and told him rather emphatically that I didn't want her having to wander round the Station getting clearance chits which was the usual procedure. She told me afterwards that she got out remarkably quickly. She went to stay with her parents. Meanwhile I was searching for somewhere near Turweston for us to live together. A hard task. Any sort of accommodation was very difficult to find. Fortunately a Flight Lieutenant was posted and offered me his billet which consisted of 2 rooms with facilities in a council house in Brackley.
The tenants of the council house, Mr and Mrs Blackwell, made us very welcome and were pleased to accept some rent. I had at that time Sue, a miniature bull terrier bitch, a 21st birthday present from cousins Harold and Vi Fuller-Clark. When I was posted overseas as I later record, I was in some quandary as to what to do with Sue. Betty and I decided that we would give her to the Blackwells. They were delighted to have her and gave her a very happy life. Nearly every Christmas thereafter we were sent a photograph of Mrs. Blackwell with Sue. There was a strong resemblance but Mrs Blackwell was always the one wearing the hat.
After only four happy months at Turweston I was telephoned by Group to say that that I was posted as a staff officer to the advance party of Tiger Force then being formed to set up a Bomber Command on Okinawa. I was to proceed as quickly as possible to the assembly point which was a dreary RAF equipment storage station in Staffordshire. Having said a profoundly sad farewell to my beloved pregnant wife I proceeded there on VE day. The saddest day of my life as there was a strong risk that we would not see each other again. Events changed that somewhat as it became apparent that British Forces were not wanted in the Pacific by the Americans although Winston C was determined that we should go. I had a series of embarkation leaves and I finally sailed during early July.
During our stay at Turweston I was sent for a month to the Advanced Administration Course at Hereford. Betty came to visit me over a long week-end. We attended the Easter Sunday service
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at Hereford Cathedral. I was informed during the service that "the Widger'' (later named Jennifer) had quickened. I don't whether anything is to be read into that.
The ship that was to take me to Okinawa was the "Empress of Australia", a 25000 ton ship with four funnels. It had been the Kaiser's yacht (quite a yacht) until it was taken over by the British in 1919. Apparently our route was to be across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal across the Pacific and then on to Okinawa. We set forth from Liverpool.
The weather got warmer and warmer. As we neared the West indies we were amused by dolphins playing alongside in the bow wave. A wait for a day or so in the mouth of the canal and we then had the wonderful experience of passing through it. Fabulous locks and tropical birds of many colours flying alongside. For about two weeks we crossed the Pacific to Hawaii where we docked and were allowed shore visits over two or three days. Wonderful swimming and we were well entertained by the local residents. I was flirted with and mildly seduced by a beautiful young woman in the presence of her husband and boyfriend. I should put it the other way round as the boyfriend was clearly the favoured one. How one envied him.
While we were in Hawaii the atom bomb was dropped. I remember the mixed feelings with which I discussed the situation with my fellow officers. We were horrified that science had reached this far but grateful that our lives and probably about two million others had been saved.
What was to be done with us? There was a shipful [sic] of about 3000 craftsmen, builders, medical units, air sea rescue units etc. Surely we must be useful somewhere. After a certain amount of cruising around with a shore stop at the Admiralty Islands we went through a formidable storm to Hong Kong.
At Hawaii something must have got into the ship's drinking water. The whole ship's company was smitten with sickness and nausea. I went round to see the senior medical officer and said "Can't you do something?" He replied "Hollis, old boy, you'd better have some of my pink stuff-this is what I am giving out today but it won't do you any good."
We docked in Hong Kong a day or so after the British Pacific Fleet. They were very pleased to see us. They had declared martial law and were trying to stop the Chinese from looting the place. Headquarters had been set up in the Peninsular Hotel on the mainland side of Hong Kong. The original colony is on Victoria Island reached by Ferry. I had an office on the ground floor of the Peninsular Hotel. It was a cross between an information centre and a command post. I had a constant queue of ex civilian internees wanting a passage back to UK, Australia etc. , Japanese officers fully armed who with their discipline were being sent for guard duties etc etc. I scarcely slept for several days and was somewhat hungry as we had given up our rations to the ex occupants of the internment camps. The Japanese were later used for hard work in repairing the colony. They lived in POW camps and were not overfed.
After about a fortnight things became rather more normal. Marine Commandos arrived from Burma as did elderly colonial administrators from UK, the latter dressed in Colonel's uniform straight from Moss Bros. And I moved over to a newly formed RAF Headquarters on Victoria Island which at that time had a small provincial town atmosphere. There was Government House, the Cathedral, the cricket pitch and, of course, the statue of Queen Victoria and, about two miles away, the race course. At about this time I had word from the UK that I had a baby daughter and that Betty and she were both well. I think that a signal had been most kindly arranged by my father-in-law, Chase Edmunds, who had important contacts in maritime circles.
The air journey Hong Kong/UK was six days. One went by Dakota. The route leaving Hong Kong was Kung Ming then "over the hump" to Karachi -Aden-Cyprus-Rome-UK.
[page break]
Although distressed to be deprived of my loved ones, one could not have been in a better place than Hong Kong at that time. The weather was perfect between the great heat of summer and the murkier weather of winter. In winter it does not get very cold.
Although we wore normal blue as opposed to tropical kit, I swam in the sea on New Year's day. I was alone. There were few non Chinese apart from the forces. We had all the transport. A jeep was always available to me. We virtually owned Hong Kong. As Org1 (as I was in RAF language) I was involved in accommodation for growing numbers of RAF personnel. This involved a small amount of requisitioning but I did this distasteful task with great sympathy towards the Chinese population , a number of whom became good friends. I was invited to dine on several occasions with one H.S. Mok who was a fellow Old Alleynian . I was also involved in conducting Courts of Enquiry on various matters. A difficult job as the Chinese coolie always gave as evidence any story that came into his head. I also sat on a number of Courts Martial, being sometimes president, During my stay in Hong Kong both brother Gerald and cousin Dan Hollis arrived at different times on HM ships. We were able to see quite a lot of each other.
I had earlier put my name down for a permanent commission in the RAF. After my marriage Bun and I decided that this was not a good idea and the intention was that I would revert to the original plan of being a Chartered Accountant. Bun sent me out some books and I started to study - not very hard as the social life was too good.
In July 1946 my turn came to be demobilised. I set course for home first by taking a passage in one of HM ships to Singapore. After a pleasant three weeks there I got a place on the Empress of Australia (by a strange coincidence) and set course for the UK. I arrived in Liverpool one wet afternoon. The ship's tannoy went requiring the presence of Squadron Leader Hollis in cabin X. I proceeded thence and was greeted by an Air Marshal who was there for the purpose of offering me a permanent commission. I have always been pleased that I didn't accept. There were severe service cuts a few years later and I have had an interesting life.
I arrived home to Carshalton Beeches where Betty and Jennifer were. My first memories of Jennifer were of a nappied bottom hastily disappearing under the bed - no doubt to avoid the strange man who had suddenly appeared ..
After a short holiday period I had to get down to work. The final exam to become a Chartered Accountant was a formidable hurdle. We had no home but were offered a flat in Dover. Betty and Jennifer lived there and I went there at week-ends. I spent the week getting more practical experience with Legg London (as my original firm had become) or staying with my father to study. I had the right atmosphere for this as my father liked silence. All very well but for poor Betty it was a lonely life. After some months we received an offer to share a house with some cousins of Betty in Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex. At least we could be together although we disliked the area.
In summer 1948 three events almost coincided: we moved into a flat in the Paragon Blackheath where we spent fifteen happy years, I passed the final exam and became a Chartered Accountant and Sylvia was conceived. Our joy at the last happening was tempered by the fact that Betty had five months of very intense pregnancy sickness. At about the end of this time she contracted measles. As a result Sylvia was born very prematurely and her life was only saved by being put into neat oxygen. It was discovered a short while later that neat oxygen destroyed the retinas of premature babies. Thereafter the oxygen was mixed with air but too late to avoid Sylvia's blindness.
[page break]
After some months I joined the firm of Hugh Limebeer as an assistant with partnership prospects. It was an interesting firm. After some weeks I was engaged on an audit in Paris and in the summer of 1950 I was asked to spend some months with a client in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The British had been a powerful force in the Middle East until about that time; shortly after my visit it was to change. I flew first to Paris, thence to Cairo where I was well entertained by representatives of the client. Lunch at Shepherds, a visit to the Pyramids, then tea and dinner before I boarded an Aden Airways Dakota to Jeddah.
Jeddah was then a very primitive town. I felt myself back in the Old Testament. Through the initiative of the client I was visiting, ducts had been built to take water from mountains about 100 miles away into Jeddah. Prior to that the water supply had been by donkey cart. Non Saudis were allowed to have alcohol provided that this was kept strictly private. I arrived on a Thursday; there was a party that evening which was normal. It was a place for parties but one met always the same people. The next day, Friday, was the Sabbath and therefore a holiday.
The custom was for small parties to meet at lunchtime on the Sabbath and drink beer. I was taken to a party and amongst the guests was St John Philby, the famous Arabist and Muslim. This didn't stop him drinking a large quantity of beer before going off to say his prayers. During my three months there I attended a few Arab parties; one in the desert given by a prince who I think was Foreign Minister. They were deadly dull affairs. Refreshments normally tea and sweet cakes, no alcohol, no women.
When my time came to go back to UK I decided to travel by sea and land. I first flew across the Red Sea to Port Sudan and waited there for the British India ship which was expected to arrive that week. It did arrive on the Saturday and after I had returned on board hospitality to my friends there, we sailed. This B.I. line started in Mombasa and called at all the African ports up to the Suez Canal. Thence Marseille and the U.K. I intended to disembark at Marseille, take the Blue Train to Paris thence to U.K. This I did. The Med can be very unpleasant in February.
During my absence in Jeddah Betty had some gynaecological pains. She consulted the local expert Keith Vartan. He advised that all would be well if she had another child. So on my return we bore this in mind. After a few months she was again pregnant but had a miscarriage. We put things on the back burner for a few months. After starting again Richard was conceived. Betty had some hormone injection to prevent any miscarrying. Shortly after that she was smitten with polio in July 1952.
During the period after my return from Jeddah in February 1951 and July 1952 Betty and I were very occupied with the girls' education. Jennifer was doing very well amongst the juniors at Blackheath High School - that was normal - she was always a self starter. Our problem was helping Sylvia with her blindness. A very harrowing experience. How does one teach one who has never seen about colours? How does one answer the question "Shall I be able to see when I am ten?"
I had a very full Autumn 1952. Apart from daily visits to Betty in the Brook Hospital, Jennifer also had a spell in hospital. Sylvia was living with her Edmunds grandparents. A cheering note was when in November I was offered a partnership with Limebeer and Co. starting next 1st April.
Becoming a partner did not immediately change the work I was doing. One is for at least a year or so doing work and services for clients provided by others. I inherited from others work in Belgium and Germany. In doing some work for an Italian client I met William Middleton who was a Solicitor. He had an Italian mother and English father. He had been brought up in
[page break]
Rome and had law degrees from both Rome and London Universities. His English and Italian were impeccable. Many leading Italian companies were putting a toe into U.K waters at that time. The first thing they did was to go and see Middleton and he invariably involved me. He must have been very impressed by our first working together. Also during the 1950s Limebeer and Co. took over a small practice through the death of a sole practitioner. He had rather specialised in musical clients but when we took over, some famous names had either died or disappeared. However one of those left was Yehudi Menuhin. We soon became good friends. I was able to help him become resident here without his being made bankrupt by our tax laws.
He expanded his activities and always involved me. I soon got to know his leading Swiss lawyers and they produced some work for me. I was well away. I also got involved with some stage clients - Dinah Sheridan and her daughter Jenny Hanley. All these people were not only clients but became good friends.
Soon after Yehudi had taken up residence in Highgate he set about his long held ambition of founding a school. For the first year or so it had few pupils, shared premises and no money. A management committee, of which I was one, was formed. Things changed shortly with the appointment of an excellent secretary, one Monica Langford. I well remember visiting with her and a fellow committee member (an old friend), F.R. (Bobby) Furber the premises which are now the Y.M. School. They were discovered by Monica They were then much simpler and on sale for around £25,000. We decided to persuade our fellow committee members that the premises must be bought and the money raised. What a task. I was looked to as the person to go about this together with a newly appointed Governor, Major General Sir John Kennedy. We gradually enlisted help from corporations and individuals, Lord Rayne being prominent. Sir John unfortunately died after a short while. Bobby Furber and I were joined by Lord Redesdale (Clem) and Sir Maurice Fiennes (Maurice). We got things well underway and had a lot of fun in doing so. I well remember some rather noisy and lengthy lunches at the City of London Club of which I was a member. I have been Vice President of the school since 1989 and from 1977-90 I was a governor of Live Music Now.
One of the Governors of the Y.M School was Ruth, Lady Fennoy (a Lady in Waiting to the Queen Mother and grandmother of Princess Diana.) She was a fine musician and very close to the Royal Family. Following her death the Prince of Wales organised a concert at Buckingham Palace in her memory. Betty and I were invited and when we were seated the whole royal family from the Queen downwards entered to sit in the front row.
During the late 1950s Bun and I had the idea of leaving the Paragon flat as our main home but buying a country house with some land for mainly summer use. A silly idea but whilst we were looking around we suddenly came upon Court Lodge. I immediately said "That is where we are going to live. Sell the Paragon flat and go for it." So in 1963 I bought Court Lodge. It was terribly run down and needed a lot spent on it. We bought from a most charming person, Mrs Harvey Moore. She was a niece of Lord Baden Powell and therefore keener on camping than creature comforts.
We moved in January 1964. It was rather cold and cheerless. There were open :fireplaces in every room but keeping them stoked was a full time task. We virtually camped from one room to the next while a team of artisans did their work. Anyway, we were able to put things back as they should have been and being a house of at least three periods of history we set out gradually to acquire furniture etc. to suit the rooms. I am forever grateful to my son-in-law Maurice Fitz Gerald for guiding me in the realms of books and paintings in which he has considerable knowledge. We attended many sales at Sotheby's and Christies where we had a lot of fun.
[page break]
Betty and I became very active once we were settled into Court Lodge. I particularly so during the late 70s and early 80s. I was Chairman of Westwell Parish Council from 1976-9 and in 1980 became Chairman of Ashford Constituency Conservative Association and in 1991 Vice President. Ashford Constituency extends from Chilham near Canterbury in the north and southwards almost to the sea on the Sussex border. During May 1982 I was installed as Master of the Worshipful Company of Woolmen for the coming year. I later wrote a full account of my year which was typed and bound. Copies are amongst my mementos. I was delighted when Richard later became Master in 2008.
During the 1970s/80s Betty and I enjoyed a considerable amount of social entertaining at Court Lodge. One highlight of our year was the occasion that came to be known as Jesus Night. This took place when our friends Peter and Belinda Gadsden (Sir Peter ex Jesus Cambridge and about that time Lord Mayor of London) stayed with us for the weekend so that Peter could shoot with me. We had a number of friends in the vicinity who were also Jesuans. We were joined by my brother Gerald (two classical firsts at Jesus) and his wife Audrey. I, although without the benefit of a Cambridge education, represented my grandfather Hollis who was at Jesus where he obtained two mathematical firsts in about 1880. Later as the older Jesuans tended to pass into higher service it opened into a Cambridge occasion and we were joined by a number of younger Cambridge friends including my nephew Adam, Gerald's son, and his wife Sarah, and of course Jennifer and Maurice.
Betty and I were very lucky with our continental travels during the 1970s and 1980s as apart from my fairly frequent visits to Italy, Maurice was in the Diplomatic Service and he and Jenny were during the 1970s resident first in Paris then in Strasbourg and finally in The Hague. We had most enjoyable stays with them. At least once a year when I went to Florence I took Betty with me and we used to manage about ten days holiday either in Florence or Venice where we were lent an apartment on the Canale Grande by friends Manfredo and Veronica Moretti degli Adimare. We also used to go annually in July to Geneva where I had some work to do over a few days. We stayed at the Hotel du Lac in the charming little village of Coppet.
One year in December I had various continental visits to make so we booked a rail journey starting in Amsterdam and ending in Rome, leaving the train at Mannheim, Milan and Florence en route. The whole of the journey was in snow. Rome was free of snow but very cold.
Whilst writing about travel I must not fail to mention a very good friend at Westwell, Simon Jervis Read C.B.E., M.C., scion of a distinguished family, Wykehamist, Chindit, Lt. Col., Diplomat and very knowledgeable naturalist and ornithologist. He quickly invited me to join in shooting activities, not only on shooting days but also for rearing and keeping. He was about to become UK representative of the EEC Field Sports Association when he suffered severe heart problems and was unable to travel. I was invited to stand in for him where travel was involved. This entailed travel to various places in Europe - Brussels, the Ardennes, Nuremburg, Paris, Zurich. Later Betty and I were invited as private guests on visits to Copenhagen and Senegal. The last was especially interesting. Senegal has great virtues in climate and people. The only disturbing thing was the poverty. On one occasion I was particularly moved to be asked by a young girl for "un stylo pour aller a l'ecole." Alas I didn't have any; I would like to have given her a boxful.
I have now lived in Court Lodge for more than four decades. During this time the house from many sources has acquired great character and beauty. When my darling Bun was in hospital for the penultimate time, just after our 65th wedding anniversary, she complained "I shall never see my lovely house again". I was warmed by the thought that she viewed it thus and she did see it again but, alas, not for long.
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Title
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Memoir by Arthur Hollis
Description
An account of the resource
Second page has colour photograph of Arthur Hollis, wearing blazer with medals, standing in a field at an event. Narrative covers early life in Hornchurch and Carshalton including schooling and hospital admissions. Writes of Dulwich College studies and sport. Mentions visit to Paris. Career as chartered accountant. Joined local defence volunteers in 1940. On 18th birthday decided to apply for pilot training. Covers training in Manchester and the United States. Life in the States and training on PT-17, Vultee BT 13-A and Harvard. Describes subsequent training in Canada, journey back to United Kingdom and training on Oxfords and Wellington. Goes on with conversion to Lancaster, posting to 50 Squadron and describes life and operations. Instructor tour follows and goes on to describe meeting future wife and subsequent career in RAF including posting to Tiger Force and trip to Hong Kong and subsequent activities. Finishes with post war career and activities.
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A N Hollis
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Fifteen page printed document with one colour photograph
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eng
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Text. Memoir
Photograph
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BHollisANHollisANv1
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
United States Army Air Force
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Great Britain
England--London
France
France--Paris
England--Lancashire
England--Manchester
Canada
Nova Scotia--Halifax
United States
Florida
New Brunswick
New Brunswick--Moncton
England--Gloucestershire
England--Rutland
England--Lincolnshire
England--Buckinghamshire
France
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Hamburg
Czech Republic
Czech Republic--Plzeň
Italy
Italy--Milan
Germany--Friedrichshafen
England--Oxfordshire
England--Northamptonshire
China
China--Hong Kong
Nova Scotia
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
5 BFTS
50 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
British Flying Training School Program
civil defence
Distinguished Flying Cross
Harvard
Home Guard
Lancaster
love and romance
military living conditions
military service conditions
Oxford
pilot
RAF Little Rissington
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Turweston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Westcott
Stearman
Tiger force
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/697/10100/ABassettFG180517.1.mp3
c76a4674418dcf52e322e714612bd4d8
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Title
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Bassett, Frank Gerald
F G Bassett
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Frank Bassett (b. 1924 1860826 Royal Air Force).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-05-17
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Bassett, FG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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FB: It was bloody hard work humping bombs out for them.
AC: Right.
FB: Good job though. Good old blokes.
AC: So, I’ve got to, I’ve got to do an introduction. I’m, I’m Andrew Cowley. I’m from the International Bomber Command Centre. I’m interviewing Frank Bassett.
FB: Yeah.
AC: And also here are his son Gary Bassett and his granddaughter, Helen Howard.
FB: Right.
AC: It’s, we’re at his [redacted] It’s the 17th of May 2018 which is the seventy fifth anniversary of the Dambusters raid.
FB: Christ.
AC: And it’s 10.32. So Frank, I’m going to put some questions to you, but before we get on to the RAF just tell me about, a bit, a little bit about your childhood, your family, where you went to school, how you came to join up.
FB: I went to school at Wood Street School, Woolwich. When I left there, I went straight to a firm that I was going to learn a trade with. That would be [unclear] case making and all that. From there, I stayed there until I done a silly thing. Decided that I’d join the RAF [laughs] I don’t know why because I was already in the Home Guard and things like that and I was only about sixteen then. I was about eighteen when I went in the RAF, and where? I can’t even think where. I know it wasn’t too long before, where you are down in, I can’t even think of the names. I couldn’t even tell you the names of the ‘dromes there. But I was in the bomb dump there, or in the armoury and unfortunately that was another silly mistake. Apart from where we did the most work and it was bloody heaviest too. And where were we talking? I couldn’t even tell you most of the ‘dromes I’ve been on. But when you think we’re talking about when I was eighteen and I’m now forty five [laughs] ninety four. So that gives you an idea, you know, but I have to say that. Well, I don’t know. I suppose I was a bit silly at the time, but I thought well both my brothers were in the Army and I thought well, although I’ve got a trade here that’s alright. They, when I, when I told them they said, ‘Oh don’t worry about it. You won’t have to.’ I said, ‘But I want to stay.’ ‘What?’ I was learning a trade there. So, I said, ‘Well, I aint going to.’ Cor, Christ. So, they said, ‘Well, it’s up to you.’ And I left there and I went in the RAF and when I came out although I’d still about three years to do they said, ‘That’s alright. You can come straight in as what you’d been trained in.’ So that was alright as far as that go. But I can only remember I was doing fire watching and in the Home Guard and when I think you know, what’s the matter with me? And when I came out I went back to my old job again. And when I was in the RAF, apart from doing my training, where was that now? One of those coastal places. Anyway, most of the time I spent in, apart from going abroad I spent in where you are now in, I’m trying to think. Was there just one ‘drome there? But it was a Bomber Command one. You know. And as far as I’m concerned I don’t think I was always, well I would be if I was in aerodromes and that, that’s where you’re going to be isn’t it? Humping bombs about. And bloody hard work I have to say but so, but I don’t know why. I suppose I went in there as a kid and as you know there’s AC1 and AC2 and all that lot and I was a corporal when I came out. So, I was still only twenty four. So that’s not bad going really I don’t think. And I have to say that to be honest I think they were a good lot really, you know. I wasn’t keen on going in the Army although I’d been in the Home Guard and that. But yeah, they was quite nice and I think 617 was a really good squadron. The only thing is that as I say as far as I was concerned it, it meant getting bombs out the bomb dump, loading them up and then getting them out of there and of course the squadron blokes put them on but that’s the easy part, wasn’t it? And then we’d have to unload more when they came in and if they was a bit late at night we wouldn’t get no dinner until, I don’t know about 8 or 9 o’clock at night so, but I was only young so it didn’t really worry me. But I think that as I say I thought 617 was a really, that was one of the strong ones, weren’t it? They were really good them blokes, I reckon. Very nice fellas. So was, aircrews and that. But as I say, perhaps ‘cos I was a bit young. Perhaps I should have chosen something a little bit better but there you go. I chose the RAF and that’s it.
AC: Was there a reason you chose the RAF?
FB: It was strange really because I was, as I say I was in the Home Guard, which was Army and no I never thought about it but for some reason or other. I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because it’s a young lot wasn’t it? You know. And somehow or other I took to a fancy to it. And I soon learned better of course, but I, I really believe that they are, so was the Army I suppose and the Navy but I mean when you look at some of these kids nowadays, or these idiots as I call them no wonder the Germans said, ‘Christ [unclear] the only good was the Army.’ No. I think I quite liked it and what did I do? About four years I suppose. So, but I can’t say as I’ve got any complaints. I didn’t get into any trouble but I also didn’t do silly things which I think was quite good. And I liked Lincolnshire. That was quite good.
AC: Did you have any choice about the job in the RAF?
FB: Well, yeah actually we did but I don’t know. Well, of course I’d experienced the bombing at home, but when I went to the recruiting place they said, ‘What do I want to join the RAF for?’ and I thought as a young, a young, that’s sounds alright. So I said, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind the RAF.’ And to be honest I haven’t got a bad word to say about them. Not like some blokes do, you know. I quite liked it even though I got in the wrong lot. Getting in the Army, by Christ. I should have, have gone in the office or something like that. Doing nothing [laughs] But no, I think they were a good lot of blokes, and I think 617 Squadron really were a fine lot. Well, they all were really. But they were a nice lot of blokes, I think.
AC: Did, did you get a choice of about whether you wanted to be an armourer or anything else in the RAF?
FB: I was in the RAF.
AC: No. Did you get a choice about what you wanted to do in the RAF?
FB: I couldn’t tell you now. For some reason or other I can remember roughly going to one of the ‘dromes and they said, ‘Well, we need blokes in the bomb dump.’ So [laughs] if they’d have said, ‘We need blokes in the café,’ I suppose I would have been in the café. No. So I got used and I had a few friends there and that’s it. So, I thought it was quite good. I don’t think that was a bad I say. Well, I would say that but I do think they were a good lot. There was none of this you know like some blokes they don’t want to be. As a matter of fact, there must be because when I had my photo taken they wouldn’t allow. ‘Your hat’s not on right.’ [laughs] but I was about twenty something then, I suppose.
AC: So, can you, can you describe to me a typical day for you in the armoury?
FB: A miserable day?
AC: A typical.
FB: A typical day. Oh. Well, we come out from the billet. We’d go down to the armoury. We’d be told what had to be done. If there’s anything going out that day there could well be a couple of lorries coming in with bombs on board which meant of course you had to do that. So therefore, you didn’t have a nice little job sitting somewhere. You’d do that. You’d have to make sure everything was as it was and it was hard work. I mean, you probably know yourself you get those long sodding bombs and you get one bloke on each end. It’s not easy. And then you get the hard ones where you’ve got a crane. And to be honest we never used that crane. You see you’ve got a crane there, a lift there. Nobody ever touched it. All done, done by hand. And when I think about well, I don’t know get four or five of you on it. That’s not bad. But you have to remember I was only twenty or so if I was about forty something I might have had a different view. But I thought they was, I thought they was quite good. I liked the places, and I suppose in a way just because you was in the Army didn’t mean you didn’t have anything else to do. Oh yes you did. When there was other things there you might be, I don’t know, route marches, or, whatever else had to be done. But like, as I say I was only young then so it didn’t worry me.
AC: Good.
FB: And where I worked wasn’t a piece of cake so it never worried me. So —
AC: Just going, you mentioned your billet. What was that like?
FB: Well, I had various billets but I have to say even about that for a billet it’s not bad. I don’t know what the Army’s like but this wasn’t bad. I mean it wasn’t like a hotel but [laughs] but the billets were alright. And you had to keep the place clean but I think that’s a good thing because I even say it to the kids sometimes if you’re, if you’re not organised you’re just a rabble and I don’t think the RAF was a rabble. Or any of the other services. And I found that most of the blokes, providing you were sensible you was fine. None of this old [moaning] None of that. As I told these I do have to have to have a bit of a laugh sometimes because I remember a bloke coming along the road and he said, ‘Oh, I want to get a paper.’ He said, ‘It does fold up I suppose.’ There’s all these blokes coming along and he said, ‘Ah, just a minute mate. Where do you get a paper?’ ‘Mate? Mate,’ he said, ‘What do you think they are? Report to the guardroom.’ But I mean, they weren’t all that bad really but I mean as I said before I do believe if you don’t have discipline it’s just a bloody rabble. And apart from, I don’t like to say that, apart from the German Army the British Army is the best in the world. That’s my one. I’m sure the RAF is also [laughs] alright. But no. I did my bit quietly really. I was glad to get home mind you but I went to Palestine and Egypt and that but I don’t know, you know.
AC: Did, did you have any contact with the aircrew?
FB: Not an awful lot because you have to remember the crews are out there. Me and my comrades were down in the bomb dump, and it wasn’t just a question of, ‘Oh, well that’s alright then. We haven’t got anything coming.’ It wasn’t like that as you probably know. There was bombs coming in all the time for you to unload apart from doing the rest of your work and it wasn’t easy but, I don’t know. I suppose I was, as I say I was only twenty or so. It didn’t worry me. I didn’t worry about cranes or anything like that. And I think it was, I can’t honestly say, I can’t remember it all, the difference when I was up but I can’t honestly say I was disappointed in the attitude or anything like that, and no, I think it wasn’t always, hey up, stand to attention. But when you was off duty it was quite good. So, I don’t think there’s, I think personally, I suppose I would say that but I really think they are a good force. I don’t know what they’re like now of course but, you know.
AC: Were you involved with loading bombs actually on to the planes?
FB: No. Actually, what we, what we did we got the bombs out the bomb dump and done what we had to do with them. Got them on the trucks. Pushed them out the trucks, and the aircrew had their own blokes so really in a way amongst the armourers they were the easiest. They had to unload them, load them on and that’s it finished. But not us. We might have loaded them on, got them out there. And then go and have your tea. When you come back there’s three trucks coming in. And it was bloody hard. But that’s another strange thing because I know I’d never done an easy job when I was in civvy street, but they was never what I would call [pause] it wasn’t easy, and you know yourself when you get one of these with a load of bombs on it, it’s not that simple but I’d find it a bit harder now I suppose, but no. I think they were a good lot and I think, well I think all the British forces are good. I would think that. But I’ve, I have no complaint about which is basically, I know there are some blokes in there in a nice office jobs, I suppose but that’s just one of these things. But other than that, I think they were a good lot of blokes. And the crews were good and all, I think. They weren’t [unclear] they was good blokes. So, and I really think that in a way they had a very hard job. I mean it’s not easy flying over somewhere and so —
AC: In your bomb dump can you remember any particular smells or anything about it?
FB: Not off hand, I can’t. The thing is as I say, because I didn’t choose any particular, what I wanted to do I suppose they’d go, oh good another bloke for the bomb dump, and that’s why you know I always worked in bomb dumps but it didn’t worry me.
AC: Was it, was it particularly hot. Cold. Can you remember?
FB: Sometimes it would be when the weather was a bit warm, you know and you’re humping bombs around. Remember you might have had a crane to do some things but like most blokes, ‘I don’t want a bloody crane. Get hold there,’ you know. But I’m, I’m saying that I don’t really, I suppose I’m biased really but when I say the RAF is the best one. There’s not one as good as that in the world. Never mind. You know. So, perhaps I’m biased.
AC: And can, can you remember any of the mates who you worked with? Any personalities?
FB: Well, I worked with a few blokes [unclear] I can’t remember. I can’t remember their names. Not even, look you can see one here [paper rustling] but I couldn’t remember his name either. Not him, I mean he worked in the bomb dump. He’s not [laughs] That’s me. I know you shouldn’t have your photo taken like that but I did. No, I’m trying to think of. As I say once I came out the RAF that was it. I went back to me work and —
HH: [unclear]
FB: It’s a long while ago. A long while ago. Trying to think. Probably might have been, might have a lot of jokes about different things but basically I think when you hear people talk about oh bloody this, and that I can understand it but they were a good lot of blokes and we knew what we had to do and that’s it. And if you wanted the war to end as quickly as possible you did that, didn’t you? You didn’t do silly things. I can’t think of any complaints. Even with the NCOs and that. They were quite good blokes. So, I think [unclear] we did but they were quite good.
AC: I’m going to read four placenames where 617 Squadron were just to see if it jogs your memory about where you served.
FB: Christ.
AC: There’s Coningsby.
FB: Yeah.
AC: Scampton.
FB: Yeah.
AC: Waddington
FB: Yeah.
AC: Woodhall Spa.
FB: Yeah. I’ve done all of them at different times. I remember them clear as anything but if you’d have said to me who was the captain of so and so, Christ, who would that be now? You know. But no, I really thought that and I still think they were the best aircraft in the world.
AC: So, did, did, did you have a favourite place out of all those?
FB: Well, I liked Lincolnshire. I don’t know why but I did. I was up there. Quite good there. Used to get out you know when we wanted to and the camp itself was quite good you know I thought and even the grub wasn’t bad really.
AC: But which —
FB: I know you hear these people moaning about everything but if you were honest it’s a bloody sight more worse than that so but no I can’t even remember what ‘dromes I was on. I’ve been on all them ‘dromes. I was at the one when the Lincolnshire blokes come in. You know, the Dam ones. But I can’t, I can’t remember. There were other ‘dromes I was at and of course I’d done certain courses at times and things like that but I can’t honestly say that oh, bloody awful you know. I think, and I might be wrong but I think a lot of young blokes they got it bloody easy in the forces. You know. The kids these days look at you they wouldn’t have that for five minutes. But you know I’m a bit scruffy myself now I suppose. Mind you I’ve got some better clothes but no. No, I have to say that although I don’t know why I really chose them. Perhaps it might have been glamour but if I was of that age again that would be who’d I’d prefer to join. The RAF.
AC: You said you did some courses. Can you remember what those courses were?
FB: Oh, Christ. Now you’re asking. It’s about ninety years ago. Oh Christ. They must have been armament courses some of them I suppose. Various other ones what you do, you know. I don’t know. They would all be to do with war. It wouldn’t be dancing or anything like that. But no. I can’t think. I can’t even think of the names of the blokes. But you wouldn’t, all that time ago, would you? I was only twenty or so. In fact, I was only, I think I was eighteen when, when I went to join the RAF and as I said I might have been about eighteen and a half by the time I got in there. But no. I met some nice fellas and I thought the, you know it was better than just marching all day or something. I understand, I suppose the Army has to do that probably amongst the other things but I was always, I’m even trying to even think of some of the names of the squadrons. 617 of course. You don’t forget them. And as far as I’m concerned they were without doubt, I’m not saying all the rest of the crews weren’t. They were. But 617, well, you know. But it was hard work but what do you expect? So —
AC: I think you may have loaded some Dambusters bombs. Is that right?
FB: Yeah. Oh yeah. But as I say, as you probably know first of all they come in from wherever they’re made. We unload them there. When they go out we load them again and the only difference was the aircrews had their own blokes for putting them on board. Bloody lucky. That’s all I can say. But no, I have to say that I’m not like some people, bloody war. I mean it was a war and that’s it. You could be in the Army which would have been worse. Both my brothers was in the Army and it wasn’t too great for them. No. I think [pause] Yes, I could have stayed out. In fact, the governor said to me, ‘You are doing a job where you won’t get called up.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ve got no objections to being called up.’ [Unclear] But you wouldn’t ask that now. I know that. I suppose a bit silly at the time but I don’t regret it. Not really. You’ve got to do this and that’s it as far as I [pause] I wouldn’t do it now if I was, you know but I wouldn’t say no to anything like that and I realise you’ve got have to have a certain amount of discipline. I know that. But looking at it another way I think they was pretty good in lots of ways. So —
AC: Were, were any of your ‘dromes ever bombed while you were there?
FB: I think, vaguely, vaguely, I can’t remember, I suppose. I can’t even remember which ones it might have been. Why? I don’t think the damage if I can remember correct was too much. They were soon shushed up I think. But it must have been Lincolnshire, that’s where I was at, that’s where I spent most of my time before I went abroad, you know. And I can’t even think of the name until you mentioned the names of them ‘dromes. And I can’t even remember the commanding officers or anyone else. But as I say it’s ninety years ago. I’ve had nothing to do with the forces since then really, you know.
AC: Did you ever watch planes taking off or landing?
FB: Yeah. Yeah. I suppose I’m a bit biased but to me the RAF, there was no one like them. They couldn’t land like that and couldn’t take off and they couldn’t be like them but that’s how you’ve got to be I think. You’re not concerned with the enemy. Yes, I think there was some very good crews there. I was only looking in the paper the other day about their, what’s his name now. Apparently, he had short legs and he couldn’t get in to the RAF. But then he was a squadron leader with them. That just shows you. I met one or two blokes mind you but I suppose basically once you either go in to a trade or you gone in to whatever it was you stuck with that because as far as they was concerned that job was yours wasn’t it? And I think they were quite good blokes really. I don’t think there’s any real nastiness amongst them. They were quite all right. Maybe I was just lucky and most of the blokes were just good blokes. I never thought that sometimes you might go out to the ‘dromes but you never got any of these squadron leaders, ‘Oi you —’ and their weight you know and I thought that was bloody good really. They didn’t have to be like that but they were. Maybe I was just lucky and had lucky crews there.
AC: Did you know any aircrew? Did they tell you of any of their experiences at all?
FB: Christ, now I’m trying to think. I can’t think of any. I can’t even think of some of the raids they used to make. I know sometimes of course unfortunately they didn’t all come back. Sometimes they came back a bit, but I never, I never heard anyone saying, ‘Sod this,’ you know. Might have been one or two. I never heard anything like that and I thought they was all good blokes and certainly they never sort of laid the law down. As far as they were concerned they were aircrew and that’s it. And providing you was sensible it didn’t matter, you know. I thought they were good. Most of them crews. And yeah, there must have been something. A few of them shot up and that and various things. But as I said being in, it would be where you got Bomber Command. So of course most of my time was concerned with bomb dumps. I was getting bombs out, bringing them in, doing all this, doing all that so you didn’t get a lot of time really to, a bit of time off now and again and things like that but you worked. There’s no doubt about that. But I couldn’t think of any, I can’t think off hand that nobody liked. Obviously, I didn’t have so much to do with the aircrews but obviously when they weren’t training or anything they wouldn’t just stroll around the camp. But as I say if I had to join another force I know I’d, as I say I was in the Home Guard but they would be the ones that I would probably and it probably the same sort as I was with. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because I got used to it and there was some good blokes there, you know so, but no, sometimes the air raid would go off and but I can’t think of any real, real bad ones, you know. I can think of some being shot up a bit and things like that. Fortunately, when the crew weren’t in them [laughs] but I can’t really think of [pause] I suppose, in a way, thinking of it now working a lot of the time and you would be in the bomb dump wouldn’t you? Someone’s got to bring the bombs in. Someone’s got to arm them up, someone’s got to load them and get them out to, and the aircrew blokes, not them but their crew who had to do it for them. But they was a nice lot of fellas so, but no I can’t think off hand. If I was that young again and I wanted to join it would probably be the Air Force again. I don’t think it would be, perhaps I’m being biased but I’m being honest when I say I don’t [unclear] I didn’t find any of that providing you behaved yourself and dressed yourself properly. I think these blokes bellowing their heads off, a load of rubbish some of that is I think. But there you go.
AC: What did you get up to in your time off?
FB: Well, of course, being in London [laughs] you would be dodging bombs and things like that wouldn’t you because the raids was going on here just the same. And I don’t know. I suppose those blokes said, ‘Why the bloody hell did you want to join the Air Force when bombs come over here.’ But there you go. No. I didn’t do an awful lot. There wasn’t a lot you could do. And obviously I only had Air Force pay then. I wasn’t earning more than people on the outside. But I can remember, you know when I got demobbed as I told the kids once I went down to where I used to work, saw the manager, had a word and the bloke, I should have done a six, five or six year course. Actually, I’d done three of them when I went. I came in and one of the blokes said, ‘Hello.’ I said, ‘Hello.’ He said, ‘Are you coming back now?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Oh, can I find you a job on the bench.’ No. He’s not going to find me a job. I’ll tell you what. He’s been doing the same job you were doing but I don’t care about that. While you were still here I was somewhere else. So other than that, fine. So I’ve never had push here, push there. All those. And I’ve always considered I’ve done a job well so —
AC: So, when you were on the ‘dromes —
FB: Yeah.
AC: On your time off did you go to pubs or, what did you do with your spare time?
FB: I’ve never smoked except a very little when I was young. Never drank. Did I [unclear] I don’t think so. No. I used to go out with the lads and might go in one of the cafes down there or things like that but we didn’t have a lot of money did we so we didn’t you know. But no, I might go to the pictures now and again. It was only about fourpence I suppose. No. It was all right. But nice enough blokes. We never had every day off of course. [unclear] sometimes but I can’t really have any moans about it. You know, I mean you don’t go to war and expect to have strong wine and [unclear] and got plenty of money do you? And I never had plenty of money so I accepted. No. I liked Lincoln as I say. I don’t think I’ve been there since but I did, perhaps it’s because the RAF was mainly a lot of young blokes weren’t they? I think, you I know. I think so. But no, it was alright.
AC: What about RAF songs? Have you got any of those for me? Songs.
FB: Songs?
AC: From the RAF.
FB: Yeah. I can’t remember them off hand. There were a few of course. Some were a bit more than the others but basically as I say I think as one German bloke put it there’s only two real armies. The British Army and the German. He’s probably right. But no, we had some good blokes there. Obviously, we must have had a few blokes who were a bit, you know but judging by today I don’t think so. I mean even your hair cut. I can remember them saying, ‘Get your hair cut.’ It was no good saying you had it cut yesterday. ‘Well, they didn’t cut it right.’ No. There must have been some things I didn’t like. I mean I have to say at times I’d think, ‘Oh Christ, there they go. They are on a day off. We’ve got to go back and unload another load of bombs.’ But it might have been a bit of a moan. But wouldn’t be now though so —
AC: Did you get sent stuff from home? You know, parcels from home.
FB: A few. Some blokes might have got a few more but that never worried me but as I say I didn’t used to drink and I smoked very little which I soon packed up when I came out the forces. I haven’t smoked for I don’t know how long. And no, sometimes I would get bored and have a kick about. If you were a lucky boy you’d get in a team, you know. But I’m trying to think. Obviously, someone must have had a moan. It doesn’t matter what it is and who it is. Someone is going to have a moan, aren’t they? But I can’t think and I have to say by that and large I think most of the officers and people like that were quite good. They didn’t go out of their way to be bloody nasty to you or anything like that. Certainly not in the bomb dump. They’d got no time for that. So, you know. No. No. No. I’m saying that if I had to join the forces again maybe I’d have a different view now but they would be who I would join. Well, if you look in that what’s the name you’ll see a 617 Squadron plane there. That’s how, just on the top there. But no, I think, I can’t think [pause] I wouldn’t want to do it now of course. A bit older now [laughs]
AC: Did you ever think where the bombs were going?
FB: Oh yeah. We had an idea where they was going. We weren’t told but we had an idea by the load so we knew roughly where they was going and I have to say we never thought poor sods or anything like that. They didn’t think that about us and obviously we didn’t them. To us they were the enemy, that’s it. Unfortunately, I suppose the civilians weren’t. But I don’t believe our blokes were so any old how. I don’t think they were like that. I think they would, did what they had to do. I don’t think they just went and dropped bombs any how. I don’t think that. Apart from the photos they brought back. But no, I suppose, I mean when you look at some of these young kids today. Christ. I suppose they could be smart enough. No. I think [laughs] I don’t know why. When I, when I got posted, first one, you know for joining I don’t know why I didn’t think, oh Christ, fancy getting Bomber Command. Letting me in. But there’s no doubt about it Bomber Command did do a lot of work in spite of all the others. I’m not saying they didn’t but Bomber Command was bloody hard work and certainly for the crews. I mean, some were very unfortunate, weren’t they? But I think they were nice sort of blokes. So —
AC: You, you mentioned that you went abroad.
FB: Yeah.
AC: Was that with Bomber Command?
FB: Yeah. I went to Palestine I think it was. Probably a photo there. Palestine and Egypt. But I think by that time it would be about nineteen, I’d been in the forces about two years then and there were rather funny things with that at times. Very funny.
AC: What sort of funny things?
FB: Well, on one camp I was at we used to have a place about two, two miles from the camp and you’d go out and I went out there and by that time I had four blokes and I would be in charge of them. And somebody rang up one day and they said, ‘How many men have you got there?’ And I went, ‘You what?’ ‘How many men you got?’ I said ‘Well, you just tell me the code.’ ‘I’m an officer.’ ‘I’m sorry what you are but — ’ ‘Well, you tell me.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t.’ And he slammed the phone down. So, when we got back I told the blokes. They said, ‘Oh Christ,’ they said, ‘That’s one of the Stern Gang people.’ Them sort of people, ‘You were lucky.’ I said, ‘I know I was.’ Nobody would do it [unclear] And I think it was two months after that they done away with that. But so, considering we were bloody lucky really. So, I didn’t get too many of them, you know. We were —
AC: So, what was this place that was two miles away?
FB: Who I was with?
AC: No. You told me about a place that was two miles away from where you were.
FB: Oh, just a caravan. What it was for I don’t know but they used it for some reason or other. It was out there. Wasn’t out there much longer. I’m glad it wasn’t, you know. But obviously there must have been some nasty things going on at some places. We were lucky I suppose but there you go.
AC: And were you doing the same job in Egypt and Palestine?
FB: Mainly. But all to do with the armoury of course. Unless you wanted to do something else, I suppose. No point then. You were already in that sort of thing, weren’t you? But no. I was, I suppose from the time I finished my training basically that’s what I did. Armoury. I wasn’t asked [laughs] whether I wanted to of course. But, but as I say I don’t think it was all a bit of cake but I don’t think there’s a lot of people realise what they’ve got to thank these people. Particularly some of the air crew. There you go.
AC: So, after the war did anybody speak to you about what Bomber Command had done?
FB: I can’t think off hand, you know and I could have gone on. Strangely, I’d only been home about three weeks and I think I got a letter saying, perhaps you are fed up now being in civvy street and we, if you want to come back in to the Air Force you would get immediate upgrade, you know. Higher rank, you know. But I was home then. I’d got a couple of kids so I wasn’t interested in. I suppose I’m a little bit, you know. You never hear me making any complaint about what they were or even the ones that weren’t too good. If you was in the war you was in the war. And that’s it. Better than my brothers. They was in the Army. Well, I don’t know.
AC: Did, did you ever miss the RAF?
FB: I suppose I can’t really say yes because I was still only young. Back home, back in my job, I’d got two kids, earning good money and fairly, you know, no one saying what I got to do and if I wanted to go anywhere I’d go anywhere. But I still think that I know you get blokes saying you must have been bloody mad. But I really think that if you had to go, I didn’t have to I know but I think really by and large I think they were good lot of blokes really. There must have been some of the blokes that weren’t but by and large I think they were quite good and I can’t ever remember being in any real trouble, you know. I might have had my hat put on the wrong way but other than that I think they was quite good, you know and certainly the rest of the blokes and definitely the aircrew were. None of this, the aircrews that were in the station none of them [unclear] No. No. They’re all good blokes but perhaps we were just biased at the ones we chose.
AC: Did you stay in touch with any of your mates?
FB: No. Not now. I wouldn’t be. I did one or two. I saw one or two and then of course I went to visit one or two blokes who I was in civvy street with but that was a long while ago. I couldn’t even tell you their names now. So not, no as I say I married and got a couple of kids who have also got kids. So no, I don’t think and I stayed in the job I left right up until the firm closed down. And other than that, so I was still working when I was fifty eight so, you know.
[recording paused]
FB: To get to any reasonable rank you had four lots to get through there. AC1, AC2, AC1, LAC before you got to a corporal rank. So I, and I was, remember I was only young then but I did —
GB: You got promoted, didn’t you?
FB: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
GB: Was that a few things —
[recording paused]
FB: Really, what I told you. I don’t think I was deliberate. I’m just not that way. I’m not going to say I would like it. I might not like it but there you go. But for me you know but I’d like to think I did my best while I was in the force. I didn’t do anything really I might have done one, two or three silly little things but I didn’t do nothing that you shouldn’t do. So therefore, as far as I know I never had a bad word anywhere and I, as I say it takes you a while to get these promotions but when you think about it I was a boy in a sense but I don’t know if somebody said to me would you be proud to be in the forces? And I would say yes. The RAF. That’s what, I chose that. They didn’t put me in it. So, you know, and I’d sooner think I did the right thing even though I sometimes speak to people, ‘ Cor, Christ, I wouldn’t have liked to have been in that lot. Didn’t you have any time off?’ I said, ‘Time off? A bloody war on. What are you talking about? Time off.’ We did get a certain amount of time off but no I found most of the blokes and most of the officers and that, even the commanders I didn’t find them [unclear] I think if you behaved yourself they were alright. They don’t expect you to always, but they, they’re not nasty blokes like some of these people say. Bloody ridiculous. But there you go. But I’ve got a nice big one of those down at my daughter’s. That’s where that’s come from. But no —
AC: So, you came from quite a poor family.
FB: Yeah.
AC: Is that right?
FB: We were all poor in those days unless you were in work and had a job.
AC: And do you think you sort of built up your health and strength when you joined the RAF?
FB: Well, basically I must have done because I mean I had to leave school when leaving age was about fourteen, I suppose. Something like that. Because you needed to get out and get a job and I was fourteen and as far as I can remember to be honest now I don’t think I was, I’ve got a few things now but I was still doing things when I was eighty [unclear] And I think, I think the, I don’t know how bad the Army really is, or the Navy but I think the RAF was quite good and they were who we got the training from. They weren’t all mugs or anything like that but they were decent blokes. If you behaved yourself that was all they were asking for. So I’d already got, I don’t know perhaps I was just lucky. It might have been that.
AC: I’ve been told you did PT on Great Yarmouth beach. Is that right? Do you remember that?
FB: I don’t know whether I can. I must have done it. Must have done it. And route marches and things like that on a course like this, you know. Well, I mean I’d been in the Home Guard. I’d done a few. Not like that but it didn’t worry me. And I thought, by and large I still think if you’ve got to compare different countries I don’t think there’s one to [unclear] our country. Perhaps I’m just biased, you know.
AC: And when you were doing the Dambusters stuff.
FB: Yeah.
AC: Is that right you realised that there was something was going on? The bombs were a bit different.
FB: Oh yeah. I mean these were on a, weren’t like the ordinary bombs, you know. These were on a you know, on a [unclear] they looked like that but on a great big long what’s the name and you’d got up there. You’d got a crane but you’d no time for that. And so you’d dump them on as I say. Push the tray and then someone would take it over and take it out to the ‘drome and their blokes would put it on and they’d finish with it then. We weren’t of course because as soon as you got stuck down in would come a load more and you had a lot of work to do but so had lots of other blokes and some poor sods were in the front line so how can you, you know. I’ve never been that way. Just as now. I mean, lots of blokes now say, ‘Sod that,’ you know but I’ve never been like that and I like to think I behaved myself when I was in the forces. But yeah, I must have put some weight on. I think I must have been about, I don’t know eight or nine stone and a little while ago I weighed just on eleven stone. I don’t know. Twelve stone. Obviously, I don’t work now in that way. But no, I think when you talk about, we know it’s all rubbish about the grub‘s wrong but it’s not that bad and the cooks are not bad blokes either. So, I don’t think it was, it wasn’t like going to the Royal but I mean what do you expect? And I suppose we all had our little moans but I still think, I might be wrong but I think choosing the RAF was the wisest one. I think they were not so bad as maybe it’s different in the [pause] you know. I mean in the RAF you’re dealing with not only ground staff but you’re dealing with aircrew so I suppose perhaps don’t get so much, you certainly get some hard work but, you know. So —
AC: You mentioned the food there. I think sometimes you had to make do with sandwiches you weren’t keen on.
FB: Well, we did. Not the, all the camp didn’t. They were all right. 5 o’clock tea or whatever. We did because we had, as I say we got to get the loads out and you know talking about one lot, you’re talking about I don’t know could be ten or fifteen loads you got to get out and you’ve got to get them out and you’ve got to put them on there and you’ve got to send them out and the squadron armourer would take over then but their’s was not bad. They had a good job but I mean they didn’t have to get them out. They had to put them on. But that’s not, and that’s just them. You’ve got all the other bombs remember, even, you know for all kinds so you would be working all day a lot of the time and at times they’d say, ‘Well lads, we’ve got some nice grub for you coming out the line.’ [groan] Yeah. Because you’ll be working out here ‘til 8 o’clock. [laughs] So, but I don’t know. I suppose you must let them moan, isn’t it? I have a moan now sometimes. [unclear] I have to put him in his place. I don’t know. I don’t know how he’d have got on. I really don’t. Blimey, he’d been in the guardhouse and not come out for a long while I reckon. No. I think if you’re honest about it if you’re in the forces you’re in the forces and that’s that. There’s no good being [unclear] about it. You’ve got to [unclear] haven’t you up to a point so that’s it. I’ve never been in any trouble.
AC: Going, going back to your time in Palestine and Egypt I think there was some stuff going missing from your camp was there? Do you remember that?
FB: I can’t honestly say I do because we’re talking about ninety years ago nearly.
AC: In the latrines, was it?
FB: I thought basically where ever we were was not bad but I suppose I would say now, ‘Cor sod that. All that hard work,’ but like I say I was only twenty so, eighteen when I went in to the forces which I didn’t have to do but I did and so I don’t think, I still say that alright I’m biased I suppose but I still say the RAF is the best air force in the world. Whatever they say. Probably the other countries say the same but, you know.
AC: Is there anything I ‘ve not asked you about that you think might be of interest. Anything you can think of?
FB: Well, I can vaguely remember some. Vaguely, when there might have been some outside attack on the camp or something you know from outside. But I can’t even remember where they were or who they were. But they were nothing to them. Well, they were. They got in the way I suppose. But like as I said before there would probably be some things I wouldn’t know because like I said before if you was in the armoury that meant you had to work. There’s no doubt about that. Not like working in the office or some cushy little job. It wasn’t like that. You could be bleeding working hours all day. Grub brought out to you for your dinner. You know. Your dinner was, I don’t know 12 o’clock but about 8 o’clock at night. Get home by about often, where you was working at. You know. But no. I suppose in a way if I was one of these sort of persons that didn’t like [unclear] I’d probably say bloody [unclear] but I can’t say that. I’m not saying I would volunteer again. I’m a bit older now but you know. But no. I mean some of the times I went on was really good. Really good. But some weren’t so good of course. But there must have lots of things that went on that I can’t recall. I think I can vaguely, must have been something wrong with some, one or two aircraft got blown up somehow or other but I mean ninety years is a long while to think. I couldn’t even tell you the names of the camps I’ve been in. I couldn’t even tell you that and I liked that. We were there for a few years so I don’t know why. I don’t know and I don’t think [pause] I can’t say about today but I certainly don’t think it’s as bad as a lot of people would try and make out. If you’ve got to behave yourself you’ve got to behave yourself. So, I can’t say anything about simply because you know you think you’d go out when you liked and you can’t do that but I don’t think that’s myself. I’m not sure as I would do it again of course. I know better. But if we all thought that we’d all be marching along with the bloody Germans or something. You can’t do that. So, I don’t know.
AC: Well, that’s —
FB: Oh well. I’ll think. I could make it [unclear] When Gary’s, ‘What’s he on about. What’s he [unclear] I don’t know who they are?’ And I don’t know who you are of course, but I suppose I don’t know. I said, I don’t know [unclear] Bloody honour, I think. I don’t know but there you go, you know.
AC: Well, that’s, that’s been very interesting Frank and it will be very useful for our purposes so thank you.
FB: Well, as long as I’m only discussing things probably at one time I wouldn’t have bothered to answer it but I’ll try to be honest. I haven’t tried to pretend [unclear] several people or nothing like that. I haven’t done that. But what you really want it for I don’t know. But there you go, you know.
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 Frank Gerald Bassett
Creator
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Andrew Cowley
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
2018-05-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABassettFG180517
Format
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01:00:02 audio recording
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Language
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
Frank was brought up in Woolwich. He joined the RAF at the age of 18 and became an armourer. Frank describes the difficult physical work, loading and unloading bombs. He served 617 Squadron and loaded bouncing bombs, which were different. He remembers RAF Coningsby, RAF Scampton, RAF Waddington and RAF Woodhall Spa. He also went with Bomber Command to Egypt and Palestine. Frank expresses his pride in the RAF.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Middle East--Palestine
North Africa
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Carolyn Emery
617 Squadron
bombing
bombing up
bouncing bomb
civil defence
ground personnel
Home Guard
military ethos
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/510/8412/PDunnG1501.2.BMP
505c4b2651ad5389c9a6458077b498ac
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/510/8412/ADunnG150405.1.mp3
d86cd9b1133884331255b8b76f63465f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dunn, George
George Charles Dunn
G C Dunn
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dunn, GC
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. Two oral history interviews with George Dunn DFC (1922 1333537, 149315 Royal Air Force), a photograph a document and two log books. He flew operations as a pilot with 10, 76, and 608 Squadrons then transferred to 1409 Meteorological Flight.
There is a sub collection of his photographs from Egypt.
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
2017-03-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
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 George Dunn, Mr Dunn was a RAF Pilot who flew various types of aircraft during the Second World War, the interview is taking place at Princess Marina House in Rustington West Sussex, on the 5th April 2015.
GD: My name is George Dunn, I was seventeen years of age when the war broke out and I was born at Whitstable on the North Kent coast, so I saw quite a lot of the Battle of Britain and being facing the Thames Estuary all the hoards of German bombers that were coming in to bomb London, when the London Blitz started, at, I joined the local defence volunteers, and then that became the Home Guard, and when I reached the age of eighteen I volunteered for aircrew. I was interviewed up at Chatham and I originally registered for wireless operator/air gunner, but they said to me would I consider pilot training, which I agreed, and after a written exam and a selection board, I was advised that I could take up pilot training. First aircraft I flew was a Tiger Moth because I did all my training in Canada, the first place was at Saskatchewan, a little place called Caron west of Moose Jaw and from there I went on to A V Roe Anson’s at a place called Weyburn again in Saskatchewan. When I came back to the UK in September 1942 I was then posted to Chipping Norton which was a satellite of Little Risington on airspeed Oxford’s this was to acclimatise us to the flying conditions in this country, we had been used to flying with full town lights and city lights, but this was of course flying in blackout conditions. From there I was posted to Lossiemouth which was number 20 OTU, and formed my crew, and we did my OTU on Wellington’s.
AP: So can you say a little bit about the Wellington Bomber, how you found it to fly and what you did [inaudible word]
GD: Well the Wellington Bomber I found was a nice aircraft it wasn’t difficult to fly and we had quite an easy course on it.
AP: What about op’s with the Wellington? Can you remember any?
GD: No I didn’t do any operations on Wellington’s
AP: So from the Wellington, where did you go next?
GD: From Wellington’s I was sent to Heavy Conversion Unit which was at Rufforth just outside York, on Halifax aircraft.
AP: And was that your first op aircraft?
GD: No, surprisingly enough, normally if you went to a Heavy Conversion Unit, you had, you flew a certain number of hours and then you were seconded to a squadron where you had to do two operations with an experienced crew, but in my case I was sent to number 10 squadron at Melbourne to do my two second dickey trips as they were called and believe it or not I had not set foot in a Halifax aircraft until that first raid. First raid was Essen, which was rather a heavy place to go to, to start with but we got through that alright and the following night I did my second, second dickey trip to Kiel, so I got two fairly good targets under my belt to start with.
AP: And could you talk a bit about the experiences you had on those trips, I mean did you engage fighters, flak, ack ack searchlights?
GD: What when I was on my own crew?
AP: yes.
GD: Yes, our first trip as a crew was to Dortmund, and right throughout our tour we were fairly lucky we were never attacked by a fighter but we were coned at one stage.
AP: So can you talk about what that means?
GD: Yes, coning is when you initially get trapped by a blue searchlight, a radar searchlight and once that’s on to you the white searchlights form a cone so you could be, you might call it sitting like a fairy on a Christmas Tree, and the only suitable manoeuvre to get out of a coning, is by a corkscrew method, if you can do that then you’re ok, but on this occasion we managed to get away from the cone.
AP: And
GD: Yes if you are coned the thing is, is to keep your eyes on your instruments, don’t look outside because you will get blinded by the light. On the 17th, 18th August 1943 I was based at Holme on Spalding Moor south east of York and on this particular afternoon the first thing we noticed when we got to the briefing room were there were extra service police on the door which we thought was rather unusual, and when we got into the briefing room and they drew the curtains across we saw this red ribbon going all the way up to Denmark up the North sea, across Denmark, missing the North German coast because of the heavy flak and then we saw this tiny little place on the Baltic coast, and we thought what, what’s going on there, what’s this all about, never heard of it. When we were briefed we were only told that it was a secret research station connected with radar, at no time were we given any indication of the real work that was going on there. The chilling remark that was made at the end of the briefing was that the target was so important that it should be destroyed that night, otherwise we were told quite firmly that we would go back the following night, the night after that until it was destroyed, and you can imagine the feeling we had knowing what reception we would get if we had to go back on the night after. After the briefing of course we went back to our usual pre-op dinner or meal, bacon and eggs usually, and eventually to the parachute room picked our parachutes up, and into the crew room, dispose of all our wallets and anything that might identify us, and took off, reached our climbing height, and proceeded through the Yorkshire coast up towards Denmark. Included in the main force was a low number of Mosquito’s which were used as a spoof raid on Berlin, this was to make sure that the German authorities were thinking that the main force was going to Berlin, and of course as we got nearer the main force veered off to Peenemunde, and the Mosquito’s carried on to Berlin. This caused quite a lot of consternation amongst the German aircrew controllers because they weren’t sure where the main force were, and when the German night fighters were alerted they had no idea what was going on, the German ground controllers were in a bit of a state and one German pilot realising what was going on proceeded to Peenemunde without being told, so of course by the time the German fighters had got there the raid was virtually half over. We were fortunate we did our run in from the Island of Roden which was about a five minute run in from the North, and we went in on the first wave, the target was well marked we went in at about seven thousand feet it was a brilliant moonlight night and my bomb aimer got quite excited because this was the first time that he had actually been able to identify the target because normally we were bombing from eighteen or nineteen thousand feet, so this was quite an occasion, and I can remember telling him don’t get too excited just concentrate on what you are doing. So we moved in no trouble at all the flak was very very light we were able to, despite the pathfinder markers we were able to identify our aiming point visually, dropped our bombs and came out without any problem. We were very lucky that we were in the first wave because we were able to bomb and get away from the target before the fighters arrived, in the original plan, four group which I was a member of, was scheduled to go in on the last wave, but because they were frightened of smoke from the ground generators obscuring our aiming point we were reverted to the first wave which was very fortunate but not so fortunate for those who were transferred back from the first wave to the last. There were three aiming points on Peenemunde itself and our aiming point was the living quarters of the scientists and the technicians, and one wag on our squadron said there would be a prize given to the first aircraft back with a scientists spectacles hanging from its undercarriage. Once you begin your final run in you are really under the control of the bomb aimer because he, he’s the one that can only see the actual line of path to the target so he will be giving you instructions, such as, right, left left, right right, steady, until you actually came to the point where he’d say bombs gone. We were only told that it was a, as I said before, a secret RADAR station, and it was some time afterwards before that it was revealed that it was for rocket research. So, of course the best thing was that the day after, it was only after a Spitfire reconnaissance which evaluated the amount of damage that we knew with some relief that we were not going to have to go back that night. The aftermath of course was what was the overall result and it was generally recognised that the rocket programme was put back by at least two months, and in his book Crusade to Europe, General Eisenhower said that the second front would have been seriously compromised had the Peenemunde raid not taken place when it did. It is possible that the raid on Peenemunde could have taken place a lot earlier, because in May 1940 a note was pushed through the door of the British Naval attaché in Oslo, from the writer claiming to have very important information connected with German activities, and if the intelligence people were interested would they put a coded letter or word in the broadcasts that were made usually to the resistance, this was done and another letter was pushed through the door and the sort of information the writer indicated that they had, was to the intelligence people so ludicrous that they thought it must be a hoax, and it was ignored, and it was many many, well this was 1940, it was some years later when snippets of information came through and two German Generals who were in a , they were prisoners of war, were in a bugged room and amongst the things that they discussed was that they couldn’t understand why Peenemunde had never been bombed, this of course brought it to the notice of the authorities and from then on every endeavour was made to secure other bits and pieces of information, to ascertain whether this was true. The final answer to the problem I think was when a WRAF intelligence officer very keenly spotted a launching ramp on one of the reconnaissance photographs, and this really was the, was the result of good reconnaissance, and it really gave the answer that there really was something going on at Peenemunde, and from then on of course a committee was formed Mr Churchill appointed Duncan Sands to chair this committee and eventually after a few meetings it was then that they decided that this would, Peenemunde would have to be bombed. Of course one of the things was how were they going to do it, Air Vice Marshal Cochrane of five group who’s group had been used to some time and distance bombing wanted to go in with about, I think about 150 Lancaster’s, it was also discussed that a small force of Mosquito’s would go in, but Sir Arthur Harris the chief of Bomber Command, he felt that if a raid was going to take place it would have to be successful one hundred percent at the first go, and he made the decision that it was going to be a maximum effort, so all groups of the Bomber Command were going to take part. Consequently almost six hundred aircraft were sent, probably the decision was right because the place was destroyed, virtually destroyed on the first raid. Four days after the raid on Peenemunde, the place was visited by Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and Albert Speer the armaments manager and they, after a survey Hitler himself decided that the place would not continue to operate, at least on the scale that it had done, and it was then that the whole project was moved to various places particularly the Harz Mountains. Of course the success of the raid was not achieved without some loss and unfortunately the total aircraft loss was forty and two hundred and twenty aircrew were killed, mostly occurred in the last two waves of the, of the raid so as I said before we were very very lucky that we had been moved from the last wave to the first wave, because we were virtually in and out without any problem. Of course the success in some ways of flying on operations is the team work, the crew have got to work together and I was very fortunate I had a very good crew, we originally formed up at OTU at Lossiemouth, it was a question of one person getting to know another. I well remember my bomb aimer coming up to me and saying “have you crewed up yet?” and I said “no” “how about crewing up with me” “yeah sure do you know any navigators?” “Yes I know a navigator” and that’s how it went on, so we finished up with five, and later on we acquired a Mid-upper gunner and a Flight Engineer who was actually allocated to us. We were lucky in this respect because my Flight Engineer’s Wife and Mother ran a pub just outside Horsforth in Leeds so on our nights off all seven of us used to pile into a Morris Eight, and go off to a night out and as you can imagine the customers made a great fuss of us, and we were never short of free drinks. [laughter] I can well remember the only time when my navigator did suffer from, I don’t know what it was, but he suddenly came up on the intercom and said “ Skipper were about ten miles off course” and my reply was “well look we can’t be, I’ve been steering this course that you gave me without any deviation, so get your finger out and get us back on course, otherwise I’ll get the bomb aimer to take over the navigation” this really put the wind up him and he, he got us back on course, don’t ask me why but whether he’d made a mistake with his GEE box fixing it turned out ok at the end. Of course most of our navigation was dead reckoning but the saviour that we had, but it was only I think to about five degrees east that the GEE box from where we could get a fix on our position enabled us to keep to a reasonable course. Of course whilst the aircrew got most of the glory, it was the auxiliary staff that really supported us people like the parachute packers, the ground crew, as far as we were concerned we had an excellent ground crew on our aircraft, everything was tickety boo, the windscreen was all polished they went completely out of their way to make sure that the aircraft we were flying was in one hundred percent condition, and the only way we could reward them was taking them down to the pub on the occasional evening and buying them a few beers, it was our way of saying thank you to them. I well remember that on our last night our very last raid which was a castle, outside the control tower there was a whole host of personnel waving to us a lot of air cadets and when we got to the runway for our final take off the crowd round the caravan way, the crowd outside the caravan the controller which gave you a green light when it was ready for you to take off, and then finally opening the throttles for what you knew was going to be your final operation, and wondering how it was going to go, but of course at that time you were really concentrating on getting the aircraft safely off the ground. I well remember, I don’t know which raid it was but probably my fault we had not secured the front escape hatch properly, and on take off it blew open, my oxygen mask, tube rather was ripped off and I had to borrow the mid-upper gunners oxygen tube, he had rather an uncomfortable flight trying to breathe his oxygen having given up his tube to me, but we did get over it, and we did manage to close the escape hatch with some difficulty, I must take full responsibility for that error. Yes on that final flight when you got the green light knowing that this was going to be your final operation, you had that feeling of great support from those people that were standing there, they knew that it was your final op, and they were willing you to go on and come back safely and that was, that was really comforting, but of course you were more or less concentrating on the take off at that time because that was a very dangerous time for a fully laden, fully fuelled, fully bombed aircraft, until what you reach was known as safety speed, where it was, you were then able to climb to your normal altitude.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with George Dunn
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
2015-04-05
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ADunnG150405, PDunnG1501
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Format
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00:25:12 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
George was born at Whitstable and was 17 when war was declared. He joined the local Defence Volunteers which became the Home Guard. When he reached 18 he volunteered for air crew. He was interviewed at Chatham and sat an exam and selection board to train as a pilot. All of his training was in Canada and his first aircraft was a Tiger Moth. When he returned to England, he was posted to RAF Chipping Norton on Oxfords flying in black-out conditions. From there he was posted to RAF Lossiemouth, operational training unit on Wellingtons. He was then sent to a Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Rufforth on Halifaxes. George was posted to 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne. He flew operations to Essen, Kiel and Dortmund. On 17/18 August 1943, while based at RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor, he took part on the bombing operation to Peenemünde rocket research station.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Canada
Germany
England--Chatham (Kent)
England--Kent
England--Oxfordshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Moray
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Essen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-08-17
1943-08-18
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
10 Squadron
20 OTU
aircrew
bombing
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
civil defence
crewing up
Gee
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
military ethos
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Chipping Norton
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Melbourne
RAF Rufforth
searchlight
Tiger Moth
training
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
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e3a345bb092e974dc8b0907b99431d4c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/538/8774/AWinterH150708.1.mp3
af948046d23b15114df2b093cdfc73b5
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
Winter, Harry
H Winter
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Winter, H
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Harry Winter and two photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 431 and 427 Squadrons before he was shot down and became a prisoner of war. He was one of ten members of the Ex-Prisoner of War Association invited to 10 Downing Street in 2014.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AS: Okay so, this is Andrew Sadler on Wednesday 8th July 2015 interviewing Harry Winter on behalf of the Bomber Command Archive at his home in Streatham South London. Can I start Harry by asking you where and when you were born?
HW: I was born in Cardiff in 1922.
AS: And can you tell me what your family background was?
HW: Yes my father was an er Engineer and Fitter Turner he was a tradesman er he spent the First World War at sea as an engineer on ships and when he got married he worked for the Cardiff Gas Light and Coal Company as a Maintenance Engineer. Er I went to school in Cardiff from about five years of age to Lansdowne Road Boys School and I left there at fourteen years of age, in those days er jobs were difficult to obtain and money was very very short although my father being a tradesman he was in in work all of his life er he had no problem with regard to employment, um and I left at fourteen and I went to the local paper making mill it was a very large mill I went there and I started in the office there as an assistant stock keeper then I went on to costing and finished up er on um on the order department for one particular machine making vegetable parchment, er I was on that until 1941 er when the war had started and I first went into the Home Guard and spent twelve months in the Home Guard and then on January 2nd 1941 Cardiff got blitzed and I decided to pay them back by endeavouring to bomb them, my age nineteen, I was coming up for nineteen when I would have had to be conscripted in any case and I didn’t want to go into the army so I volunteered for air crew, er I was sent to Weston Super Mare for my air crew selection board, passed and er waited er for a few months while er they they organised the er recruitment etcetera. I was called up in September 1941 sent to Padgate er in Lancashire where I was kitted out and then on to Blackpool where we did our initial training such as square bashing and learning Morse, although I had been learning Morse in the Home Guard I was very helpful that I knew most of it when I got there which helped a great deal, um I was in Blackpool from September until the second week of January 1942 er then I was sent on leave and went to Yatesbury Number 2 Wireless School at in Wiltshire er to learn the technical side of wireless etcetera etcetera, and learn about all the various instruments etcetera, and of course drill and er various other things. I left I passed out there as a wireless operator in March 1942 and er I was sent on er oh am not quite sure what you call it on I was sent to Angle a fighter station near Milford Haven to get experience on the radio communication, I spent the summer there until September 1942 er then I was posted to Cranwell Number 1 Radio School where we had more technical work on the more advanced radio instruments etcetera etcetera, and the new inventions. I spent from September until December at Cranwell then I was posted back to Yatesbury for a refresher course in January 43. I left Yatesbury as wireless operator fully fledged in March 1943 and I was sent to Manby Air Armaments School for a short course on air gunnery, then on to er advanced flying unit at Bobbington in Worcestershire where we were flying on Avro Ansoms with navigators, and trainee navigators. From there we were posted to 23 OTU at Pershore er where they were using and er what do you call them using what’s the aircraft er, oh dear –
Other: [?]
HW: Wellingtons [laughs] they were using Wellington bombers, er there we got crewed up I met the navigator of course at Bobbington and er by the time we got to Pershore we had agreed to join together and try and make a crew, er when we were all assembled at Pershore they put us in a hanger and the pilots and bomb aimers and rear gunners were all assembled there and we just mixed together and made up our own crews we weren’t forced to fly with any person we met each other and er we er crewed up together and er there we did our OTU, and from there I did my first operation. Um about June 43 we were sent on a sea search er in the North Sea there had been an American bombing raid the day before and some aircraft had come down in the sea so we went over over the North Sea to er search for a er dinghies etcetera, er we went over as far as Texel and er we got fired on by the anti-aircraft guns at Texel and one of the shells had hit the port engine and er put it out of action so we limped back to an aerodrome near Rugby where my the pilot had been trained as an advanced pilot, er my pilot was an American my navigator and bomb aimer and rear gunner were all Canadians, er we landed at this aerodrome just outside Rugby and the next day we were picked up by another aircraft and returned back to Pershore, that was the only exciting thing I had up to that present moment. From Pershore I was sent to Topcliffe Number 1659 HGU Heavy Conversion Unit where we were converted to Halifaxes and we were there for a month and then we were posted, I was posted, we were posted first of all to 431 Squadron at Tholthorpe in Yorkshire, we did a few trips there and um wee the apparently 427 had lost a few aircraft at that time so they transferred us to 427 Squadron, er 427 Squadron it was this was all 6 Group which was all Canadian Air Force, um er 427 Squadron was adopted by the Metro Goldwyn Mayer Film Company so we were called the Lion Squadron and we had a model lion presented to us by one of the Director’s of Metro Goldwyn Mayer in June 1943, there is a record of it er Pathe Newsreel recorded it I have a recording of it on my computer showing them presenting the lion to the Squadron Commander. We settled down at Leeming, various operations came up and we did various operations over Germany, oh France, Italy and Germany, and during the August and September and then in October er we were doing a few bombing raids in various places in Germany again and on 22nd October we were, oh, [I’ll just finish my coffee, whispers]
AS: Your going now.
HW: Yes we did various trips they varied um er sometimes they were quiet other times a lot of flak and night fighters attacking and er [?] sometimes very heavy cloud, intense cloud, icing etcetera, we experienced all this and um the er er sometimes we had a bomb on sky markers and sometimes if it was clear we bombed on ground markers, er these all went under special names, er they they these names had been invented by the air by er er, what was it, a New Zealand er Marshall who was in charge of um, let me think of it, oh dear my mind wait a minute, er he he introduced what did they call it, pathfinders yes pathfinders, pathfinders used to drop these various target indicators and we used to have to bomb target indicators. Er on 22nd October 1943 we were informed that we were on another operation er we went for our briefing and we were informed that we were 560 bombers were going to bomb Kassel er we were briefed and er went to our aircraft to test them er we were allocated “L for Love” which had the name “Lorraine Day” on one side and “London’s Revenge” on the other side, we went then for our pre-flight breakfast er and er we were due to take off at five thirty in the afternoon, we kitted out went to the aircraft got in the aircraft and um the pilot tried to start the engine and the port inner wouldn’t start we tried three or four times so it was getting near five thirty then so er I got the Aldis lamp out and signalled across to flying control that the engine was US unserviceable, er a few minutes later a seal [?] came over in a car and the pilot informed that the aircraft wouldn’t start the engine wouldn’t start and of course the er maintenance flight sergeant he confirmed it just wouldn’t go so er the the commanding officer said ‘G George is bombed up a spare aircraft go over to that’, er we the transport that had taken us out to dispersal had gone so we had to transfer all of our kit across to “G George”, “G George” had no window that’s the strips of foil for anti-aircraft er er radar blotting out and er so we had to carry all the bundles of window between us from one aircraft to the other, er we got into the aircraft and that started up and of course five o’clock five thirty just after five thirty we took off. We flew down to Cromer where all the aircraft er that were bombing that night congregated to assemble for the final trip across the North Sea, we flew across the North Sea and of course immediately we arrived over the Dutch border we started getting attacked by flak, um there was a diversion er flight going to Frankfurt so we were our course was towards Frankfurt for a while and then we turned off north of Frankfurt to er for Kassel, just before reaching Frankfurt the rear gunner er informed the pilot there was a night fighter coming up on the stern, er the mid upper gunner confirmed he could see it also so er he of course the rear gunner took over then and he requested he demanded the aircraft be put into a um corkscrew the er the pilot corkscrewed the aircraft and at the same time the two gunners started firing on the night fighter er we by the time we came out of the corkscrew the night fighter had gone so we carried on towards Kassel, er we were the second wave into Kassel er there were three waves altogether we were the second wave um five minutes before reaching Kassel we saw all the first TI’s going down and the first bombs going down etcetera etcetera and er we followed in and by the time we got to Kassel the night fighters had estimated our course and er they put a line of er fighter flares above us so we were flying just like going down a high street with all the lights on and er we were lit up just like daylight and the night fighters were above us observing us, and the navigator, the bomb aimer took over for the bombing run and we dropped our bombs and er we turned put to port towards Hanover, [have a drink of tea, whispers], the night fighters of course had been following us we couldn’t see them because they were behind the fighter flares, and er about five minutes after leaving Kassel there was a terrific bang, series of bangs and the pilot said ‘we’ve had just been hit’ apparently canon shells had hit us, er he endeavoured to contact the rear gunner there was no reply, he tried the mid upper gunner there was no reply, so he asked the engineer to go back to see what whether they were okay, the engineer said ‘he couldn’t go back because he was watching the petrol tanks’, so he asked me and I went back I went back to the mid upper turret and hit the mid upper gunner on the thighs and er shook him but there was no reaction at all he had his head down and there was no reaction, so I dashed back then to the rear turret and the rear turret I banged on the rear turret doors I could see the the rear gunner in there er shot down so there was no reply from him so I tried to open the doors but they wouldn’t open so er just as I turned to return er the fighter came in again and attacked us, er I was running at the fuselage and I felt a terrific pain in my right thigh and by the time I reached the pilot I put my thumbs down to indicate there was no life with the gunners and I noticed then that the port wing and engines were all on fire, the pilot shouted ‘bail out, bail out’ so I dashed down the stairs to my position underneath the pilot er which was just behind the navigator, the navigator lifted up his chair and table and lifted up the escape hatch I handed him his parachute and I put my parachute on and as I put my parachute on I noticed I had his name on mine so I tapped him and indicated so we changed parachutes and I went out and er I was out first er I landed in a tree er and er hit a branch with my left thigh and I had a terrific thigh when I hit one of the main branches, er it was quite dark but I could see the branches against the night light and I put my right foot on one of the branches er released myself from the parachute because I was hung about twenty I suppose about twenty feet up in a tree released myself and then put my left leg on the branch to climb down and my left leg gave way and I collapsed and fell from the trees and knocked myself out, er the next thing I knew it was getting dawn I suppose be about seven thirty in the morning this was about nine twenty five at night when we were shot down it was about seven thirty in the morning it was just getting light and er I noticed that I was in this small wood er and er I tried to stand up and I couldn’t so and I was feeling very very thirsty I didn’t realise then that I had lost a lot of blood and that’s why I was thirsty, so I looked around and I could see that it was lighter down below than it was up above so I crawled to the edge of the wood and there was a field there and I noticed there was a farmer and two boys spreading manure etcetera etcetera on the ground, so I shouted to them they came over and I asked them for water er they stood me up and I collapsed again and went unconscious the next thing I remember I was on a horse and cart going across a field I momentarily came conscious and realised what I was doing what’s happening then I lost consciousness again, the next thing I woke up I was on a bed in a hospital with a doctor and nurse looking over me and er when they realised I had regained consciousness they said ‘you have er er broken your left leg and you are wounded in your right leg’ I said ‘where am I?’ they said ‘in Germany’ I said ‘I can’t stay here I’ve got to get back to England’, er I tried to get off the ch the bed then I realised I had no use in my legs so I laid back on the bad, er I was there overnight [takes a drink] and the next day a German medical orderly came and informed me in broken English er that he was escorting to Dulag Luft, they put me on a stretcher I’d been my leg had been strapped up by this time of course and they put me on a stretcher and took me to the railway station which I noticed the name was Lugde [spells it out], um they was only the medical orderly so they had to get an outsider to help carry me on the stretcher and the outsider when we got to the station he left me just left the medical orderly with me the train came in so I had to get off the stretcher I had the use of my right leg by this time and er the the er medical orderly got me into the train er we travelled a short way and we had to change trains [takes a drink] er he took me out and er where we were changing trains there was no platform so we had to get down onto the side of the railway er he took me um the stretcher out then helped me down then helped me across to the platform and then brought the stretcher down for me to lay on the stretcher, er he went to get some refreshment and while he went to get refreshment a big a to me a great big German er huge German with a walking stick came and stood in front of my er stretcher looked down and said ‘my house in Kassel has been bombed’ er I looked at him and er I thought seeing the walking stick etcetera etcetera discretion being the better part of valour I kept my mouth shut, at that time the medical orderly came back with the drinks and er the this civilian went off, er we got back on another train travelled another distance and we had to change trains again, er the same thing he there was no platform so he had to help me down and he took me into the canteen in this station where there was a lot of soldiers, er he went to get some soup for me and er when he came back with the soup a German soldier with a Schmeisser came over he wanted to shoot me so the medical orderly looked around and found a er another soldier of higher rank he’d found a Feldwebel which was a sergeant, the sergeant came over and immediately this German with a Schmeisser went, I felt very grateful to the medical orderly for what he had done so I gave him my name and address which wasn’t against the law anyway because we were allowed to give name address and rank etcetera, we got on to another train and er there oh just before we got onto the next train a a a another escort came up with three other airmen and one of the airmen was my bomb aimer, so er he said to me ‘both the gunners and Bob the pilot were dead’ er he had been picked up er near where the aircraft crashed taken to the scene and er there in the turrets the turrets had come out with the shock of the crash the gunners were still in the turrets the pilot was still in the pilot’s place and of course the fire had burned him, so er he identified the rear gunner by his dentures er half his head had been blown off by a canon shell, er the mid upper gunner had one had been shot in the stomach and of course the pilot er he must couldn’t have got out don’t know why but he went down with the aircraft and was killed in the crash and then burned after. Anyway the bomb aimer and the other aircrew were taken to one compartment and I was taken to another, er we arrived in Frankfurt am Main the next morning er at about ten o’clock and they took us onto the station and er they informed us that as I was wounded they wanted an ambulance so they phoned for an ambulance [pauses to take a drink], so after a while an ambulance came and the three other aircrew and myself were put in the ambulance and we were taken a short distance to Dulag Luft at Ober, Oberursel, the bomb aimer and the other two aircrew were taken off there and I was taken about another kilometre or so to a hospital called Hohemark [spells it out] it was a clinic for mentally disturbed people before the war it had been taken over by the Luftwaffe and the first the ground floor was used for German wounded er the first floor er for British wounded and the third floor and the second floor for the staff to sleep, er I was taken in by on the um taken into Hohemark onto the ground floor into a room and locked in er about five minutes later a German officer came along and he offered me a cigarette and put a form in front of me with a red cross on the top and on there it had my details requesting my details of name, rank etcetera home address, squadron and all the details of the squadron, er I filled in my name, rank and home address and handed it back to him and said ‘that’s all I’m afraid I could inform him about’ he said ‘I will tell you your history’ so he informed me the date I had volunteered in Cardiff, he informed me of every station I had been sent to in Britain er and the dates etcetera etcetera he informed me of all my crew and er then he left and he came back and he said he came back about five minutes later and oh he said ‘I left out Bobbington you were at Bobbington as well weren’t you?’ I said ‘well if you say so’ ‘yes’ he said ‘you were’ so er after about half an hour oh then they had him told me to undress and get in the bed there took all my outer clothing away with him, incidentally the medical orderlies who took me in were all British, er one was a warrant officer mid air front gunner who’d been shot down a year earlier he was a Liverpudlian, there were two Welsh paratroop medical orderlies they had been captured in North Africa and the rest of the staff there was a German corporal, er two German gefreiters and a German doctor, er after the interrogation the two medical welsh medical orderlies came and took me up to the first floor and there were various rooms and ere r various beds had been taken over there were other aircrew with broken legs and broken arms and of course there was a lot of burns there was one ward there with a lot of burnt aircrew, I was put in a bed and handed back my uniform and on my uniform I had two buttons one an RCAF button and one an RAF button the RAF button had a compass in that had been taken off I also had a compass in my front collar stud that had been taken out taken away so they had realised what was in there they had tested and found these compasses and took them away otherwise I had my my er cigarette case and all my own er belongings returned to me, um they put me in a bed there and er oh they had they asked me to stand up so I stood up and er ‘oh they said your legs not broken get in bed’ so of course the next day one of the medical orderlies came to dress my right thigh where I had a lot of proud flesh where this canon shell had hit me part of it and it gave me a wound when I lost a lot of blood and of course he started dressing the wound and looking down he said ‘your leg is broken’ he noticed that it was at an angle so I doctor came along and confirmed it, this doctor who’s name was Doctor Ittershagan [spells it out] er he was a specialist in broken bones er apparently he had taken up a new invention where instead of putting the leg in plaster they opened the wound opened the leg er stretched the leg to put the bones back in place opened the leg and put a metal pin inside the femur pushed it up through the thigh put the bone together and knocked the er pin into the bottom part of the femur and sewed the leg up so and we were able to get around on crutches there and er apparently they were seven six other aircrew there some with arms that had been broken and some with legs that had been broken and they had all had the same operation we were treated as guinea pigs because this was a special new idea, um so Doctor Ittershagan was there to oversee us. Er we spent a few months there and just before Christmas time a fighter pilot came in he had crashed er he was a PRU Photograph Reconnaissance Pilot and apparently he’d been flying over France er taking details of the weather and he hadn’t noticed that his oxygen had given out he’d broken his oxygen pipe and er the next thing he knew he was on in the aircraft the aircraft had flown into the landed pancaked itself into the ground he was slightly wounded, apparently when he got out when they took him to Dulag Luft they found he had two dummy legs he was the second legless pilot er so of course he was sent up to Hohemark and er to have his slight wounds er seen to and er this was at just Christmas time so we spent we had Christmas dinner at Hohemark with Colin Hodgkinson which was his name er he was featured in “This is Your Life“ some years after in the BBC. I was there until right throughout Christmas and various as we were oh Christmas Day we were able to get along on crutches so we went out on Christmas Day and met some of the German wounded so we started playing football on the grounds [laughs] in Hohemark, anyway various aircrew were coming in with wounds, burns etcetera etcetera some of them died there of burns etcetera, one pilot he was a member of the Dunlop Family and he got seriously burnt and he died on the operating table there. There was another Welshman came in er at the end of er March he had been on the Nuremburg raid and shot down and when he was when he bailed out the propellers caught his left arm and left leg and took his left arm off at the elbow and left leg off at the knee and he was on crutches, er various other, oh another one came in he had his legs both legs blown off and he landed in icy water and he had the sense to get his parachute shroud lines to tie around his thighs two girls German girls picked him up and took him to hospital and er he’d been sent to Hohemark before being repatriated of course because he was seriously wounded. We were there through the spring and summer part of the summer and er met quite a lot of er German officials etcetera and some of the German fighter pilots used to come in and have a chat with us about er flying etcetera and of course the interrogators used to come in and every afternoon about three o’clock we used to have coffee so the er interrogator had the habit of coming at about three o’clock when we were having Nescafe and of course he would come and have a cup of Nescafe as against the Acorn coffee that they were issued, and we used to chat with them and er we said to one we said to one of them one day ‘how is it you’ve got all this information about us?’ so he opened his briefcase and get a folder out and showed us details of an American Squadron he said ‘this is Amercian B17 Squadron’ he said ‘they are still in America they are due to fly over to England’ he said ‘we’ve got the details of every aircraft and every member of the crews’ and we said ‘well how do you get a lot of this?’ well he said ‘there is a lot of Irishmen working in America and a lot of Irishmen working in England and the information gets through’, so anyway so that satisfied out curiosity. Anyway one of the er guinea pigs, what was his name?, er oh dear Mike Sczweck [?] he was an ex Polish emigre to America he was a ball turret gunner [?] he’d had his arm broken and he’d had a metal pin put inside it and he was getting rather restless, so we used to be allowed out every afternoon from about two to three o’clock before coffee to walk round the grounds etcetera for a bit of exercise, er this was about the 4th June and the er he informed us that he was going to try and escape so er we er when we got back in we got to our window and of course they had long u um venetian blinds there and the windows were open and the long chords if you put them out of the window they’d reach to about six feet above the ground below so er there were two Canadians and myself er we were in a room and we helped lower him down and this was about half past three in the afternoon, very hot afternoon about four o’clock we had a thunderstorm er we covered as Mike had a habit of laying on his bed they were double bunks he was on the top bunk he had a habit of laying on the bed we made up his bed to look like he was laying on it, there was seven of us “The Seven Pin Boys” guinea pigs in this room so that night er we all went to bed and the German medical orderly came in Adolf Dufour he was ex ex er World War One soldier he came in so and he noticed we were all in bed so he closed the door and we all went to sleep the next morning we got up and had our breakfast and of course they put out the all the meal so er a few of us surreptiously took part of the roll etcetera and marmalade ate it and drank the coffee etcetera then about eleven o’clock in the morning the English warrant officer, Liverpudlian came up and he said ‘where is Sczweck?’ so we said ‘well on his bed I suppose’ he said ‘he is not on his bed’ and he went straight away and reported him as being escaped.
AS: So he’s just been found missing?
HW: Yes and he this Liverpudlian as I say he reported straight away they got in touch with Dulag Luft which was a kilometre away and er they came up with dogs etcetera but of course this was the day before he got away and there had been a thunderstorm in any case so er they said ‘right’ they picked the three of us and said ‘pack your bags’ and they took us down to the cooler at Dulag Luft they walked us down came down to the cooler and we spent a couple of days there, and then two days later they came and told us they wanted our braces and boots er now there was one of the ambulance drivers German ambulance drivers a German American he again had been er er living in America went to Germany at the beginning of the war and they kept him there so he could speak perfect English with an American accent so we said to him ‘why have you taken our braces and boots?’ he said ‘there’s been a landing on the French coast’ he said ‘we don’t want you to try and escape again’ anyway two days later they handed us our braces and boots and sent us to a hospital just outside Homberg and all the other pin boys were there and we all had our pins extracted er and we sent back to Hohemark er on on walking sticks etcetera for a few days until the wounds had healed and they took the stitches out, and then oh by the way incidentally when we were there at Hohemark there used to be a warrant officer an English warrant officer he was down at Dulag Luft and I don’t know what he was doing but er he used to come up periodically he was dressed in full RAF warrant officer uniform, Slowey his name was warrant officer Slowey he had been shot down about two years earlier and no doubt he was collaborating with the Germans so of course whenever he was around we kept our mouths shut he of course he had came up for information, there was also a girl who used to come up from Dulag Luft, her mother was Scottish and her father was German and er at the beginning of the war she went back to Germany and stayed over there and she used to be sent up to talk to us at times to no doubt try and get some information from us but of course they had all these sort of things like going on and tricks to try and get some information from us, anyway I don’t know what happened to Slowey ‘cos as I say we were sent back to Hohemark for a few days then I was posted er er to sent to Obermarshfelt[?] a clearing hospital near Meiningen in the centre of Germany, er it was a mixture of various prisoners there was English soldiers there etcetera er so I was there until er we could walk properly and then in July middle of July we were informed we were being sent to prison camp, er they put us on a train and er they were seven of us eight of us altogether and two guards the two guards only had little hand pistols to guard us with so er on the journey in the morning there was an air raid went and er we heard the aircraft going over and when the all clear went the train started again and we got as far as Erfurt and actually Erfurt had been bombed so we had to change trains at Erfurt, so we got on the platform there was crowds on the platform of people who had been bombed out and there was one particular person with a Swastika ensign on his arm and he noticed us and straight away he started shouting ‘terror fliers’ in German ‘terror-flieger’ informing the crowd that we were terror fliers we should be hung er at that moment a German troop train came in and stopped momentarily on the platform and the guard said to the Germans ’asked where they were going if they were going via Leipzig’ they said ‘yes’ so he got us all on the troop train with the German soldiers and we went off otherwise we would have been hung [laughs]. We got as far as Leipzig where we changed trains again and er then we er the next train was overnight to Dresden, we reached Dresden the next morning and they put us in the basement of the station where we had a sleep etcetera and er of course they’d given us a few rations, a box of Red Cross box of rations so we had our rations and er then we were transferred in the afternoon on a train again and went on to Upper Silesia Bankau which was Luft 7 we reached there about six o’clock the next morning and we marched from Bankau er from the town of Bankau to the prison camp er we were admitted into the prison camp and it was a new one just been built and there was only about forty prisoners there but a lot of huts, the huts were only eight feet high, ten feet long and eight feet wide, and they put six of us in there, there was no beds we had to sleep on the floor no tables no chairs or anything we just had to oh and they gave us a bowl and a spoon and a cup, I’ve still got the cup I got at home with my I still got my German prisoner of war mug, so we were there and there was another compound next to it which was being built with substantially bigger huts the Russians were building that, so in the summer we had just had these huts to live in and the only water we had was a pump in the centre of the field centre of the parade ground er like a village pump where we got our water and where we could only get underneath there and have a bathe. We were there until mid September end of September and then we were transferred to the next compound where we had better accommodation we had double bunks double tier, two tier bunks etcetera etcetera and about sixteen of us to a room um we settled down there and of course they had water laid on there and once a week we were allowed a shower we were taken in batches rooms each room went into the shower, under the shower a German soldier would turn the water on to get us wet let us have a shower a wash turn the water on again to take the soap off and about ten minutes that was our shower that was our cleaning. We were there until January 19th er 1945 when the Russians started advancing so they decided we had to move er we were informed there was no transport we would have to walk, so early in the morning of 19th January they took us out we had no Red Cross parcels none had arrived, er so we went out with no food and we walked thirty kilometres that day to a place called Vintersfelt [?] where they put us up in various er er um cow sheds etcetera etcetera er and some sat out in the open, er we did that forced march then from the 22nd from 19th January to about mid February forced march each day er the camp commandant he informed the Germans and the doctor the English doctor prisoner of war we had informed the Germans we were exhausted we couldn’t go any further so the Germans after we’d marched forced marched through storms etcetera in the night minus forty degrees er with sleet and snow etcetera for about fourteen days um they they marched us to a station where they put us in cattle trucks forty to a truck locked us in and er we were there in this train for two days weren’t allowed out er two days later we arrived at a place called Luckenwalde er which is about twenty kilometres south of Berlin it was a very big camp all nationalities in there so er we were marched into Luckenwalde camp there again there were no beds we had to sleep on the floor er we were issued with the minimum amount of food er I lost about two stone actually in that time er and er we were there until about the 22nd 23rd April er when we woke up one morning to be informed the Russians were outside we looked out and there were Russian tanks out there and they they ploughed down the outer wire and came in they informed us that we could go east if we wished but we couldn’t go west we could go out and forage for food if we wished so various parties went out foraging for food into the town er in the meantime the Russians and the Americans had met at on the Elba. The Americans came over and the Russians stopped them at the edge of the camp and the Americans wanted to take us away and the Russians wouldn’t allow us they were keeping us hostage until they got all the Russian prisoners that had joined the German forces back into Russia to shoot them. So er the Americans informed us that down the road a few kilometres away they would station some trucks and if we could make our way down there we would get away, so after the next day I walked out with one or two others and walked down to this copse there was an American truck there we got in a soon as it was filled up the American truck took us across the Elba that was on 8th May which was er VE Day, so we crossed the Elba into er into a German town and we were put in er a barrack part of an aircraft factory that the Americans had taken over and of course there they fed us er we stayed there for about a day then they trucked us from Luckenwalde sorry from the camp er to um er where was it Mankenberg [?] no not Mankenberg and we finished up at Hanover, er we stayed overnight at Hanover and the next day they put us on Dakota aircraft and flew us to er Belgium Brussels and we arrived in Brussels in the early evening and there they deloused us kitted us out in army uniforms and told us gave us a few francs and told us we could go in town and have a beer [laughs] which we did we came back to be informed we were back on a train er which was a prisoner of war train with all barbed wire and bars on and we were shipped to er er from Brussels to Amien er there we stayed overnight and the next morning there were aircraft landed at Amien and they flew us they flew us to England where I landed just south of Guildford the next day, again we were deloused er kitted out in British uniform and er sent up to Cosford where we were medically examined and if we were fit given a pass and sent home. I arrived home about the 10th or 11th of May er and that was the story of my life up at that up until that time.
AS: Fascinating.
Other: [Laugh] [?] trying to transcribe all that.
HW: ‘Cos there again I as I’d been a prisoner of war I was due for discharge but they wouldn’t discharge me until I had my tonsils out so I had to wait a year before going into a hospital an RAF hospital immediately they came out they discharged me and I went back to my civilian job in paper making and I have been in paper making ever since.
AS: Why did they want to take your tonsils out?
HW: Actually I got tonsillitis in October and I’d been reported sick and of course the day we were to take off I didn’t bother I felt better so I didn’t report sick so I told Bob the pilot ‘I wasn’t reporting sick’ and he said ‘right we are on tonight’ and that was the fateful day [laughs].
AS: Can you tell me about what happened with the German medical officer who stopped you from being shot?
HW: Yes, I he was a medical orderly Gunter Aarff [?] his name was he was about nineteen years of age about two years younger than myself and he could speak fairly good English so of course having met him in Dusseldorf at the Control Commission and we went there and we gave I gave my report he gave his report.
AS: Can you tell me can you just tell me again because you mentioned it when this thing wasn’t on how you were contacted about?
HW: About er er he wrote me and said he introduced himself that I was the person he had escorted to Dulag Luft.
AS: Because you’d given him your home address?
HW: Yes his father had been killed etcetera and he wanted to become a dentist. So of course I arranged it I wrote to the Control Commission they gave me permission to go over I met him we went there together he gave his story I gave mine and er of course he went into university and he became a dentist and of course from then on we kept in contact each year those candlesticks there he sent they were Christmas boxes each year we used to exchange Christmas boxes etcetera etcetera.
Other: Have you got a photograph don’t know?
HW: Yes I’ve got one, as I say we kept in contact ever since we went over there he’s been over here we went one time and he took us down the Rhine boat trip all day trip back up to Cologne etcetera so we did a cruise on the Rhine etcetera.
AS: So he really saved your life and ?
HW: Oh yes he saved, yes that’s why I gave him my name and address because if he hadn’t got this sergeant er the German he was drunk of course he would have shot me, so of course we kept in contact as I say until two years ago er we sent him a Christmas card and we had no reply we did again last year we still had no reply er we had heard in the meantime that he had cancer but er no doubt this has overcome him and he has passed on.
AS: So you really went to the Control Commission to act as a character witness a character reference so he could get into university?
HW: Yes, they said they couldn’t er order the German authorities to give him a place but they could recommend it of course he was recommended and he went into university yes.
AS: Can you tell me after all this how you managed to settle back into civilian life?
HW: Yes, I went back into my er into the paper mill of course they had taken on other staff but they were forced to take us back er and of course they offered us such low salaries that a lot of them just couldn’t afford to go back and they found another job, I was lucky that I had twelve months leave paid leave with warrant officers pay so I was getting £6 a week as a warrant officer and £3 a week civilian pay so I was able to manage to but they gave me didn’t give me my same job back they gave me another job on costing and while I was there I took up paper making studying paper making at City and Guilds etcetera and passed the City and Guilds on papermaking and we had an associate mill at Treforrest where they coated the paper put on this coating for photographic paper, chocolate wrappings etcetera, er waxing, er they used to put the purple coating on the paper for Cadbury’s wrappers etcetera etcetera, er wax craft etcetera er waxed brown paper that is for various jobs in the metal industry um papers for the books for printing books etcetera coated paper and er that was 1946 I went back to the paper mill, 1949 I understood there was a job going in the order department in Trefforest so I applied and of course I got it so then I was in charge of the paper coating on the on all the coating machines, er I was there for about two years inside the office then they decided they’d like me to go out selling paper so I went out travelling they provided me with a car and I started travelling selling paper. In 1953 er there was an upheaval in the with the directors of the mill and the managing director resigned and they decided to take me back in to do the job until they could find another managing director er having experienced outside work I didn’t want to stay inside so I said well I would do it for a year they said right they would find somebody in a year, they found somebody but they still kept me in. At that time my wife’s parents who had been evacuated to Cardiff during the war had moved back to London er and my father in law had contracted er er cancer so we came up for a holiday and er I had a customer in London who had offered me a job if ever I wanted to come up to London so we came up for a holiday and er I went to see him they said yes they would like I could start straight away so I left my wife up here we looked round found a house left my wife here and er I went back put my notice in worked a month and came up to London to live and I started in the paper trade again selling paper to printers and that I did right until I retired in 1986.
AS: Was it difficult when you came out of the RAF fitting back into civilian life?
HW: Yes yes having had the freedom of the RAF I found it very very difficult being tied down to a desk yes.
AS: What do you mean by freedom you were a prisoner of war for several years?
HW: Sorry
AS: You were a prisoner of war for several years that wasn’t
HW: For eighteen months yes.
AS: Eighteen months?
HW: Yes yes and of course er there was the life fighting for food because the Germans gave us the minimum amount of food so we wouldn’t have the energy to try to escape, er we used to play football or cricket etcetera er in the centre of the camp and each day do a march around the perimeter we would all be exercising walking round for miles and miles round the perimeter between the escape wire and the huts to keep keep fairly fit which we were glad of because of the forced march. In September 43 of course there was Arnhem and of course the glider pilots although they were in the Army the Germans treated them as Luftwaffe so they came into our camp and we got really depressed we felt that with the Russian advance we would be home by Christmas and of course that made us our morale dropped a great deal of course we had the paratroopers not the glider pilots there with us joined they the camp. By the time we came out of the camp in January 45 there were fifteen hundred of us when I went there there was about twenty five so you see the number of prisoners of war that was NCO prisoners of war taken in those few months and er only about twenty about ten percent of people flying over Germany that were shot down were made prisoners the rest were killed so you can just imagine the number of people fifty five thousand five hundred and seventy three were killed during the war.
AS: Afterwards did you have you managed to keep in touch with any of your comrades?
HW: Yes I kept in contact with all my crew with the remainder of my crew and of course the parents of the er er members that were killed, there again the parents of my pilot died after a while and er the mid upper gunner then kept writing to me but when in 1949 I told them that I was going to Germany to speak on the part of the medical orderly I think I might have upset them ‘cos they stopped writing, anyway the rear gunners mother she came over here and she went to visit his grave etcetera etcetera we kept in contact with them we went all over we visited them I visited my navigator and my bomb aimer we’ve been over in Canada a few times there so we er kept in contact ever since. Now about five years ago er my bomb aimer died and about four years ago my navigator died we are still in contact with the daughter no the yes the son no grandson of the rear gunner and his family, the navigator’s wife we’ve been in contact with them until last Christmas we sent the usual letter we had no reply er so therefore I am the only survivor the last survivor of the crew.
AS: Well Harry thank you very much indeed.
HW: That’s all right.
AS: It’s been a fascinating tale.
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 Harry Winter
Creator
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Andrew Sadler
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-08
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWinterH150708, PWinterH1508
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Pending review
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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
Harry Winter grew up in Cardiff and worked in a paper mill from the age of 14. He served in the Home Guard before he volunteered for the Air Force. After training as a wireless operator at RAF Yatesbury he flew operations over Germany, France, and Italy with 431 and 427 Squadrons. His Halifax, LK633 (ZL-N) was shot down over Hameln returning from Kassel on the night 22/23 Oct 1943. Four of his crew were killed and he sustained injuries to both legs. He escaped summary execution through the intervention of a German Army medical orderly. After the War, Harry helped the medical orderly with his application to train as a dentist.
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Luckenwalde
Germany--Oberursel
Wales--Cardiff
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1943-10-22
1944
1945-01-19
Format
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01:19:33 audio recording
1659 HCU
23 OTU
427 Squadron
431 Squadron
6 Group
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
Dulag Luft
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
Initial Training Wing
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Cranwell
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Leeming
RAF Pershore
RAF Tholthorpe
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Yatesbury
shot down
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
target indicator
the long march
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/8852/PHolmesGH1604.2.jpg
134f273cd93e015a7d789b8e877b159b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/8852/AHolmesGH161016.1.mp3
cc225552ec17450d62364d1a1b362db0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Holmes, George
George Henry Holmes
G H Holmes
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Holmes, GH
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with Pilot Officer George Holmes (b. 1922, 1579658, 187788 Royal Air Force) his log book, records of operation, newspaper cuttings and photographs of personnel. He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 9, 50 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by George Holmes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-21
2017-01-14
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles. The interviewee is Mr George Henry Holmes. The interview is taking place at Mr Holmes’ home [deleted] Lincolnshire on the 16th of October 2016.
GH: Yes. I had some very lucky escapes. We had, we were going to [pause] I’ve written it down. I’ve got a terrible memory.
[pause]
GH: Stuttgart in Germany. And of course they originated in France thinking possibly that there wouldn’t be many, many night fighters there but we got caught and we got shot and it took off the bomb bay doors. They fractured the starboard wheel, ruptured the main spar and left us with cannon shells stuck in the fuel tanks which is actually really instantaneous. And we did a belly landing when we got back and I was one of the first out and running. Somebody said, ‘Are you frightened?’ I said, ‘Have you seen a Lanc go up in flames?’ And the bloke said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Well. Well, when you do you’ll run faster than I do.’ And actually they took these cannon shells away by the, if you handled the armament, whatever and emptied them they found out that the cannon shells actually had been filled with sand instead of explosives. Otherwise we would have gone up in one. And that was once. And another night someone on a circuit when we were coming, of course I was at Skellingthorpe at the time and there were about five or six airfields all around. And we had a bump and nearly got tipped over by the windstream of another aircraft. And when we landed there was about five foot off the end of the pit, of the end of the aeroplane gone. That was, I think we could call a very near miss. And all through my career they used to say you’ve got to get it right. The good crews survive and the bad crews don’t. But when you’re dealing with an aeroplane that’s attacking you at about between five and six hundred mile an hour you don’t have time to work out all the superlatives. You just learn how to, well you have to try to get him in to four hundred yards for the ammo to be, do any damage whatsoever. And these would wait about a thousand yards and pump these things in to you, you know. But, yes we lost a lot of young men at the time. Look back sometimes and I think how the hell did we get through it?
AH: How did you come to join the RAF?
GH: Mixed feelings. I was living in Kettering at the time and I would be about six years of age. I’d only just joined school which was a joining age in those days of about six years I think and I saw the R100 or the R101 in the sky. A most amazing sight. And of course everybody was reading Biggles books so I wanted to be a Biggles man. And my father wouldn’t sign any papers for me so when I was eighteen I went down and joined the RAF as an air gunner. But there were so many enlisting at the time it was over twelve months I think before I was called. And they wanted me to be a pilot or navigator. I said, ‘No. I want to be an air gunner W/Op.’ Anyway, I finished up there. They made me a wireless operator / air gunner. Well, up to going into the air force I’d hoped to be a semi-professional musician because I played the violin from seven years of age to when I went in the air force, eighteen. And I played the violin, trumpet and a mandolin. And the man who was teaching me he used to make instruments and he was going to teach me how to make them. And, you know when I went in the air force I was in the air force for just over five years. I couldn’t get back to the standard that I was in and work for a living at the same time because you’ve got to put about two to three hours a day in you know, to it. So I abandoned the musical stuff. And actually I was at an old miner’s school. A corrugated tin hut thing and when we moved to Leicester and I was a top boy at the school. The teaching, they taught us in that stinking little old tin hut was beyond their, what they were teaching us in there. They told me I couldn’t do joined up writing. We’d got to go back to scroll, you know. But I went to a school that was attached to the College of Art and Technology and I was studying textiles and hosiery. And I earned a very good living through the entire working life producing socks, stockings, knee socks and things like that. Of course you got paid in on production in those days. You didn’t get a standing wage. The more you made the more you got paid. And you were allowed ten needles per week and if you broke more than that you had to pay for them. Six pence each I think they were then. The unions would go bloody mad now wouldn’t they? [laughs] I had a very good education really. I was very fortunate. I was almost fluent in French. The French master said, ‘I can’t understand you, Holmes. You’re the worst pupil I’ve ever had. You’re always talking, take no notice, I can’t understand how you’ve got top of the class in French.’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s simple. You gave us a half an hour’s homework and I always got an hour. So I worked harder than anybody else.’ [laughs] But I had a very good — my parents were not wealthy. My dad was a manager of a, the management of a grocery shop. You know these, what they were before the war. Several strains of food, food retailers and I really thought I was going to be a semi-professional musician. But I abandoned that scheme altogether and I got my sleeves rolled up and got stuck in this hosiery thing. ‘Til the war of course and then I couldn’t get, I couldn’t wait to get in the air force. And I finished up as a wireless operator / air gunner due to the fact, I always presumed, I don’t know whether it’s true or not but the fact that I had learned music, got some dashes and all like that. Morse code came easy and I was a very good operator. But apart from that I had a very happy marriage. I’ve got one son. He’s sixty seven now. And a he’s a fourth [unclear] at Judo. But life is a wonderful thing. Not to be wasted. And when you look at the war and see the number of thousands of young people who were wasted in the war. And the building and the costs. At the end of the day you have to sit around a table and talk it over from the first day. Save a lot of trouble and strife. But of course in those days Bomber Command was the thing.
AH: So you wanted to join Bomber Command?
GH: Oh yes. But then when you say wanted to join Bomber Command I’d always worked shifts. Night shifts and three shifts and things. I thought if I go in to the air force I’d be alright. And what did they do? They stuck me on Bomber Command. It was night work. But it wasn’t altogether good so as you look in the book you’ll see I did quite a number of daylight operations.
AH: Where did you train?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Where did you train? Where did you do your training?
GH: Where did I do my training? It was wonderful really. I I went to Blackpool first of all. That was the Number 10 RS something it was called. Signals Reserve or something. And they were all radio personnel in the air force up there. And we had a bloke called corporal [pause] I forget his name now. Corporal. Used to take us to the arm drill and foot drill. And his stage name was Max Wall. Can you imagine a man like Max Wall teaching you? Amazing. And then I went down to Yatesbury for a radio course. And I was posted then to Manby in the ground wireless op ‘til they could fit me into an air gunner’s course. Well, Manby in those days was number 1 AS. Air Armaments School and they taught bomb aimers and air gunners. We kept going to see the groupie and saying, ‘Get us on the course for air gunners.’ ‘No. You have to wait until you come through officially.’ When it did come through we was at a place called Evanton. About forty mile north of Inverness. First time I’d been to Scotland. In June it was. And it was a wonderful summer. And it was the first time I’d seen the shaggy Highland cattle. And I was taken by Scotland ever after that. Then after that, the gunnery course, I was sent to Market Harborough which is now a prison. And I used to push off home every night. After being there about three weeks the CO said, ‘We’re getting rid of you. You’re never here.’ It used to take me an hour to get home from Market Harborough on the local bus through all these villages. Little villages. And I was posted to Silverstone. And at Silverstone if you went in and out by railway you could get a train called the Master Cutler which was a high speed train from Sheffield to London and back. It used to do that in forty five minutes. That was quicker than being in [laughs] And I got crewed up there then and joined the [unclear] so to speak but I suppose if you were young men you had to be in something. You had no objection. I mean, no one wanted you to be a conscientious objector or anything. There we were. I joined Bomber Command and I was very lucky because I got with some good crews and I must admit I was commissioned towards the end of the war as a wireless op and I got operational strain and one thing or another. I was a bit of a drunkard. The only way of overcoming some of the strenuous [pause] I mean the beer we were drinking in those days I think was 1.2 percent alcohol. The water you washed the glasses in was stronger than the beer.
AH: So did you drink mainly beer? Or did you drink other stuff?
GH: No. No. The doc said, our doc on the squadron, ‘Go out and get pissed. It’ll do you good. Don’t go on spirits.’ And I was based around here. Around Louth. One way or another. It’s so that when my wife and I decided to come and live here it was after I’d retired. It was a home away from home really.
AH: Where were you first based? Where were you based first?
GH: Where was —?
AH: Where were you first based? Which was your first base? Where were you sent first?
GH: Oh. At a place called Bardney. Just outside Louth. And we got there. The place was, looked vacant and we got out the transport and looked around and looked in the ditches and it was full of bodies. We said, ‘What are you doing down there?’ They said, ‘Bugger off, there’s a fire in the bomb dump.’ So we said, ‘Oh, we’ll leave you to it then.’ But anyway a guy put it out. And then we went from that place. I did six ops there. And then we went to Skellingthorpe where the pilot was made up to a squadron leader. And we were only allowed two or three operations a month due to the losses of experienced crews. And by the time we’d done twenty trips together he, the pilot and the navigator went over to Pathfinders as the rest of the crew did. And the, the crew got sort of crewed up but the wireless, he didn’t want a wireless. He brought one with him, the pilot. So I was a spare bod and I went with an Aussie crew. His name was Cassidy and he’d got it painted on the side of a Lancaster. “Hop Along Cassidy’s Flying Circus.’ And I finished up at the one near Boston. What is it?
AH: Coningsby?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Coningsby?
GH: Coningsby. Yes. Yes.
AH: What squadron were you in first?
GH: 9. And then I went on to 50 at Skellingthorpe and then I went on to 83 at Coningsby.
AH: And what planes?
GH: Lancs. Well, after the war, if you look in the book look I went on a tour to South America. They sent three what were called Lancaster Mark 21s I think. But in actual fact they renamed them to Lincolns. It was a bigger aircraft that the Lancaster. Especially built for the war against the Japanese. And we went right down the west coast of Africa and then across over the Atlantic to Brazil and then right down to Santiago. Flew over the second highest mountain in the world I think it is. Aconcagua. But by then I’d decided I would take a course, this course on radiography, radio operating and get on to the public airlines. And I’d met my lady who I married and I found out that to be on public airlines you were away for home for anything from six weeks to three months. I thought well that’s not right. So I docked that and as I say I stayed in the hosiery trade. Yeah. Had quite a varied existence one way or another.
AH: What did you do in South America?
GH: Demonstrated the aircraft. I think they’d got that many four engine aircraft they didn’t know what to do with them and they were trying to flog them to anybody who’d buy them. God knows where all the aeroplanes went to. They just suddenly disappeared.
AH: And what was it like there?
GH: Pardon?
AH: And what was it like? Were they interested?
GH: Interesting.
AH: Were they interested in the aircraft?
GH: Oh very much so. Yes. Yes. Whilst we were there there was an earthquake in Peru and they wished us to send someone who would take some supplies over to Peru for the earthquake. And the air force said they couldn’t be allowed to do that because although we’d get to Peru and land they hadn’t got an air force runway long enough to take off so we’d be stuck. But yeah. Funny thing was we all decided when we were going to Brazil we would get together and learn Spanish. And when we got to Brazil they didn’t speak Spanish. They spoke Portuguese [laughs]
AH: How long were you out there for?
GH: Oh not very long. I should think, well if you look in the book it’ll tell you how long. About four weeks I think. We did one leg of the journey per day. And —
AH: And when were you demobbed?
GH: When? I think it was June of 1945.
AH: And how long were you in 9 Squadron?
GH: Pardon?
AH: How long were you in 9 Squadron?
GH: Only a few weeks. Not very long.
AH: What was it like?
GH: Quite an eye opener really. Mainly we were supporting the invasion. In fact that was the first time I’d ever seen the white cliffs of Dover coming back from France on D-Day. As I say all the boats going over.
AH: How did that feel?
GH: Have I —?
AH: How did that feel?
GH: Satisfied I would think would be the only expression. That we were doing something. And of course that’s another point. I mean I don’t know whether you’ve watched it on telly but they give you films of the actual landings in France and they chuck the blokes out into the water that was about six foot deep. They were drowned. Never got to France at all. Instead of waiting for the tide to go out. Some damned idiots in this military attitude.
AH: What did you think of Bomber Command?
GH: Well organised. To a certain extent they were very well organised. Many actual Bomber Command crews packed up before they’d completed a tour of course because it was a great strain. I remember doing a daylight on, I think it was at one of the flying bomb sites when they were launching flying bombs. And of course Bomber Command never flew in the way the Yanks did. They had three people from leading in and everybody was sort of doing what they called a gaggle at the back. And we were close up behind this three Bomber Command [pause] well, leaders I suppose and I looked up and saw an aircraft above was opening his bomb doors. I thought it’s going to drop on him shortly. Anyway he did. He dropped them and then it just floated down. Hit the aircraft on the right hand side, the starboard, knocked his wing off and he spun over and tipped the wing of the other who went that way and he tipped the wing of the other and went that way. And there were bodies without parachutes floating around and everything. And it was Cheshire who was controlling the raid. Called the raid off because he said the chaps didn’t stand a chance if we bombed it. So we flew back to the North Sea and dumped the bombs and went home. But the things like that they were happening every day. You know, I mean I’m afraid you accepted it.
AH: Do you remember where you were going on that raid?
GH: Not completely. No. Because there were one or two launch sites for flying bombs. I mean at one time as far as I know they were, they were launching something like ten thousand pound. Ten thousand flying bombs in a matter of a month or whatever, you know. I mean they were really showering the south of England with them. And —
AH: And how did you feel when you saw the bombs coming?
GH: I hope to God it misses me. To be truthful. But it was a sight, you know. Their only, these aircraft which they hit and damaged were only about a hundred, hundred and fifty yards in front of us. A matter of three seconds or something isn’t it? The speed we were flying at it could have been us. But many of the young lads who joined up when I joined up never finished. They were killed. A great deal of loss of human youngsters. Many of them technicians and people we missed after the war finished because of their experiences. And if you take that you promise me I will get it back?
AH: Yeah.
GH: Because I applied for the Aircrew Europe Star which was allotted to everybody who did two or more operations before D-Day which I did and I was told I didn’t, I hadn’t done enough. So when they issued the Bomber Command medal at the end of the war they said I couldn’t have that either because I’d got the 1939-45 Star or something. I don’t know. I thought well that’s great. I did twenty one ops and I never got a bomber medal. It’s unbelievable some fairy in Whitehall who was domineering the life span of the one doing the work. But the main thing I need at the present moment is some backup somewhere to get, I mean I mentioned to you earlier how much it cost. I was only getting two hundred and ninety pound a month. That’s about seventy pound a week towards the cost of being here and it was costing [pause] what was it? Well, a monthly, the monthly cost here is three thousand and forty one which is quite expensive. I think it’s a very good. I get my monies worth. But I think the company, the government or whoever, the Department of Works and Pension allow me something to help me pay for it and they want [coughs] they just knocked off the pension credit. I’m about two and a half thousand pound a month worse off when I got a pay rise of two pounds and fifteen pence [pause] In other words hard luck isn’t it? You know I mean I’m not the sort of person who is laid back and you handed something but I’ve worked all, all my own life. What I’ve got I’ve chased the work of one kind or another. Whether it was in the air force or out. And I’m disgusted actually to think the money that gets wasted.
AH: Could I just ask you a few more questions about the war?
GH: Yes.
AH: What did you think of the way Bomber Harris was treated?
GH: Disgustingly. As I said earlier he was blamed for bombing the population whereas the targets were selected by the War Committee. And the two leaders of that were Lord Portal and Winston Churchill. Bomber Harris was behind his crews all the way. Next question.
AH: Where did you go after 9 Squadron?
GH: With 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe. That was, it was so far to the sergeant’s mess from where we were displayed in Nissen huts we used to go into Lincoln for breakfast [laughs]
AH: What sort of squadron was it?
GH: What 83? Er 50?
AH: 50.
GH: Very very compatible actually. The man who was my pilot took his place as flight commander was Metham. He finished up deputy leader of some bomber group. Was it Metham? He’s a well-known, established leader of the Royal Air Force.
AH: Was that a Pathfinder squadron?
GH: No. No. They only had two Pathfinder squadrons. They were both at Coningsby. 83 and 97.
AH: Were you in them at all?
GH: I was on 83. I did, I think nine trips with 83 Squadron. They said that it was easy on Pathfinders of course. You, if you’re first flare leaders putting the flares down you went over and laid your flares and shot off home but they didn’t tell you when you started laying your flares you had to put it in automatic pilot and you couldn’t drift. So by the time you got to the end of laying the flares the Germans had got all the information of what you were doing [pause]
GH: And I have the greatest admiration of the German people and Germany itself. Moreso than any other European country. I have a great ideal, great ideals of them. They’re a wonderful people. We should never have gone to war against them. Well, should we?
AH: What do you think we should have done?
GH: Pardon?
AH: What could, what could Britain have done instead?
GH: Shot Adolf Hitler. It was a dictator. A man who believes beyond his experience. I think, well what’s happening in the world today? I mean we’re now fighting the, oh ethnic crowds that we were fighting in the days of Christ. For two thousand years we’ve been fighting. Still doing it and we’ll lose in the end. Of course people say they mean good. If you read the Koran as far as I remember the first rule is thou shalt now kill. And I think the fourth one is thou shalt kill all non-believers. So it leaves you in a sticky mess. And they’re gaining popularity all the while.
AH: When did you read the Koran?
GH: I haven’t read the Koran. I’ve read extracts from it. I’m quite interested in reading other people’s religions and of course in actual fact I believe in the bible which says when you die it’s ashes to ashes and dust to dust. I don’t think there’s a heaven up there. I don’t think there’s anything like that. I think it’s just, you’re just dead meat. Unfortunately. And many many people leave their readings, writings and paintings to be perused over and you get the benefit of their experience.
AH: Have you written anything?
GH: Written anything? Only rude things on the wall [laughs]. No. I wish I could have written things. I was too busy with music. As I said I went to a school where we had possibly an hour to two hours homework every night of various kinds and I didn’t really get out amongst other young fellas of my age because I was doing one to two hours music training as well. Now, the school I went to had started a school orchestra. Violin, banjo and drums. And I loved music. But as I say when I went in the air force I didn’t take a violin with me and I should have done I suppose. After being in five years my fingers were all stiffened up with, didn’t work. So I abandoned it straightaway and got on with earning a living
[knocking on door]
GH: Come in.
Other: Sorry to disturb you.
AH: I’ll just put this on pause.
[recording paused]
GH: They don’t look like reading my writing for a start. But there’s a cutting in there I think I mentioned it earlier on from Stalin who stated he wanted the Bomber Command to burn Dresden because they were using it to refuel the battlefield. And it wasn’t so because after the war I were working with some of the replacement Polish people and they said they’d been in Dresden and there were no army facilities there at all. There was no reason for them to bomb it.
[pause]
GH: And I have a younger sister who’s ninety in October. Laurie. So we’re quite a long lived family aren’t we?
AH: How old are you?
GH: Ninety four. Feel a hundred and four [laughs] some mornings. Yes.
AH: You’ve got a picture here of Squadron Leader Munro.
GH: Yes. He wanted to crew up with us. He’s just recently died you know. A New Zealander. That was when I was at gunnery school at Scotland.
AH: Which one’s you?
GH: How dare you say that [laughs] I haven’t changed that much at all surely. I’m the shortest one. Yes. And that’s my favourite photograph of myself.
AH: That’s nice.
[pause]
GH: Yes. It’s a wonderful world and I’ve met some wonderful people and I’ve had some wonderful friends and relatives. It’s been enjoyment. Mixing the good with the bad makes you appreciate it all the more. We came out of there as you go in.
AH: You talked about the strain of it. What was the worst strain?
GH: Being with Bomber Command? Well, naturally the, the operations themselves. They were well organised, I don’t mean like that but I mean they always taught us the best crews will get through. Did I mention to you before luck has a lot to do with it? And I mean a matter of seconds in some cases. I never flew as an air gunner though. I was in the Home Guard before I went in the air force. In Leicester. Well a little village outside Leicester called Narborough. And they used to send me out on a railway bridge defending the bridge at night time with a bayonet fastened to a broomstick with string. I don’t know what you were supposed to do with it. I had a few thoughts. But by the time I went into the air force I was fully trained and I’d got a Canadian Ross rifle that was in a cloth bag with about two inches of grease all around it. And I cleaned it up and the stock of it was beautiful. Lovely gun. And one of the chaps, he was a sergeant. I think he must have been a sniper. He said, ‘I’ll teach you how to fire a gun George.’ Because,’ he said, ‘Let’s face it. Who’s the last person that knows when you’re going to pull the trigger?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘Well you don’t pull the trigger. You squeeze your hand. And you don’t jolt it.’ And I could hit an eight hundred target, a bull at eight hundred yards. Which is quite good shooting I think. But I never did fly as a air gunner. I flew once as a tail gunner. And the tail one was like that. You knew all I got it I knew I wouldn’t have that for long.
AH: Did you get bombed yourself?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Did you get bombed yourself? In Leicester.
GH: Well, Leicester got bombed while I lived there. But we lived on the outskirts. And of course like most targets they usually go for the city centre first where all the main multiples are. And I was, I was quite happy in the Home Guard because we got very very good training. Initially it was useless. For the first two years. But when they got organised they got organised. And I sit and watch “Dad’s Army,” you know. And I I don’t know who picked the cast but it’s amazing to think [laughs] they look like real people [laughs] Anything else?
AH: Did you meet your wife during the war?
GH: No. I met her after the war. One of the boys who’s died in the last two years from Leicester was in training with me all the way through and he finished up at Coningsby on 97 Squadron and I finished up on 83. And his wife and my wife or future wife or his future wife, they used to go dancing Saturday nights together. And I met this girl one night in the RAF club. And I can’t understand that, I can’t explain the feeling but she was wonderful. And I said, ‘Can I see you again?’ And she said, ‘Well, I can’t see you for two weeks because I’m going up to Lincolnshire. To a town that you’ve never heard of.’ Well, I’d done all my training and everything here so I said, ‘Well, try me then.’ She said, ‘Louth.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve got news for you. I can’t go to Louth again [laughs] They’d shoot me.’ And she was always dying her hair. I think after the first two months I knew her she must have had about six or seven changes of colour. She was lovely though.
AH: What was her name?
GH: Barbara. And when we first got married we had to live in the front room of my mum and dad’s house until we could get somewhere. Everyone does I suppose. And her uncle was a butcher and he used to do all the joints of meat for Leicester. And this friend of his, a friend of his or someone in the trade he dealt with was the housing minister for Leicester. And in those days you couldn’t get housed if you hadn’t got a wood licence. You had to have a timber licence. And he mentioned to this gent that I was having trouble with my wife’s breathing because my mother and father had a dog and she was allergic to dog hair. And he said to this young gent, ‘He’s just come out the air force and he definitely wants a house but, and his wife is allergic to dog hairs and has to get out, you know of home and have his own place.’ And the fellow twiddled it a little bit and got me a timber licence and away we went. We bought a semi for nineteen hundred quid. And then after a while we bought, we bought a complete des res like, you know what do you call it? A house on its own at, in Oadby near to Leicester at the back of the racecourse and you got a full view of the racecourse. And I used to say to people, ‘I’ve got a nice place. There’s about four furlongs of grass at the back and they came and cut it, you know regularly,’ [laughs] But as I say we had this problem with this hooligan who was threatening her so that’s how we moved to Louth. But I mean moving to Louth was like going next door to the pair of us because we’d both been here so many times.
AH: Did you like Louth?
GH: I think it’s very nice. And I think once you get into Louth the people will do anything but they’re a little offish at the start. But it’s a lovely little town. I was born in Mansfield. In the Sherwood Forest. But I did like Louth there. Very much.
AH: What was your home like there?
GH: Where?
AH: In Mansfield.
GH: Well, I was brought up with my grandparents. I wasn’t brought up with my mother and father. They couldn’t get anywhere to live in, although my sister had been born. They wouldn’t accept anyone with two children so they farmed me off with my grandparents. My grandmother Holmes, when I was six or seven or eight years of age taught me how to sew and darn and knit.
AH: Did you have use of that later?
GH: Yes. Because I went into the hosiery trade and it was the machines that knit things make exactly the same loop as you do a knitting pin. And of course as I say I, I had a quite a few jobs. The job I had at Byfords. The other chap working next to me who was in his forties hadn’t been taken to the army. Hadn’t been called up. With a wife and two children. He always used to go down smoking in the toilets about once every hour and I used to run his machines as well as mine. And one day, you used to put your earnings under the table where they kept all the yarns and everything. He had a sneaky look and he found out I was earning more than him. So he went to the manager and he said he didn’t see any reason why someone’s underage that were in machinery should be earning more than he did. So they said, ‘Oh alright, we’ll give you two of his machines. They had me in the office and they said, ‘You’ve been bragging.’ I said, ‘What about?’ They said, ‘What you earn.’ I said, ‘I daren’t tell my father what earn. He’d go mad.’ I was earning as much or twice as much as my dad. And they said, ‘Well, we’re going to take two of your machines off you and you’ll run them for him.’ So I said, ‘I have an idea now. You can stick them up your arse.’ And they gave him the bloody lot. I got sacked for insolence. I got another job. I was never out of work. I got training that was necessary and I could go anywhere. I worked at Byfords. They sacked me three times after that incident and a very good job. The only snag is when I went into it before the war you were using cotton and well, wool and the machines were covered in like a white powder from the cotton in the wool, you know. And after the war when they started using synthetic fibres I think the synthetic fibres were so small you swallowed them. And I have a difficulty with breathing actually which is due to that I think. But nobody would say so because you then would jump then and say I want paid for being. I don’t think, I don’t think there’s more than one or two hosiery factories left in Leicester and it used to be the main city for hosiery. But that was all, that was all shift work. Night work and not very conducive for family life. I used to go to work because I mean you were busy. It didn’t bother you but my wife was stuck at home on her own you know and I didn’t realise until after I’d lost her that that’s what the problem was really. Basically. But we had a good life together. Yeah.
AH: Was your father or your grandfather in the First World War?
GH: Both my father and my wife’s father were in the First World War. My wife’s father was stationed at Louth here. In the Leicester, what did they call it? It was a mountain brigade. And he was only a little bloke. Smaller than me. And he looked like, well you just couldn’t imagine him sat on a horse.
AH: What he was called?
GH: Pardon?
AH: What he was called?
GH: His surname? Evans. Evans. Good Evans. I went to Edmonton for my gunnery course and we had a group captain called Group Captain Evans Evans and he got awarded the French medal. The Croix de Guerre. And he said, ‘Although I flew in World War One I’ve not flown in World War Two and I don’t think I deserved it. So I shall get a crew together and fly.’ So I went to my CO and I said, ‘Look, old Evans Evans is getting a crew together.’ We had a chance to get in because at that time I was a spare. And he said, ‘No, I don’t think so. My wireless op is covering that because he’s one behind everyone else in the crew and we all want to finish together.’ And off they went and they were shot down by the Americans before they got to the war. Before they got to the war line they were shot down by the Americans. And the only one that got out was the rear gunner. So that was another lucky escape. Just how the penny drops isn’t it? Am I boring you? Say so if I am. Anyway [pause] I am suffering really from the breathing quite badly.
AH: Shall we finish?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Do you want us to finish?
GH: Yes.
AH: Thank you very much.
GH: Quite all right. If it’s been of any —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with George Holmes
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anna Hoyles
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-16
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHolmesGH161016
Conforms To
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Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Brazil
Chile
Germany
Great Britain
Peru
Chile--Santiago
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Stuttgart
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
1946
Description
An account of the resource
George was born in Mansfield and was bought up by his Grandparents until he was seven when he moved back to his parents in Leicester where his Father ran a coffee shop. He was a semi-professional musician playing violin, trumpet and mandolin. He studied hosiery at college and worked in hosiery production his entire working life. He joined the Home Guard in Narborough, and recalls how he defended the railway bridge at night time with a bayonet fastened to a broom stick with string. After volunteering for the Air Force he was sent to Blackpool for training. The corporal who taught him foot drill went on to be the comedian Max Wall. He was then sent to RAF Yatesbury for his radio course, and then forwarded to the Air Armourers school. After completing the course, he was posted to RAF Evanton for a gunner’s course. His next posting was to RAF Market Harborough, but was only there for three weeks before he was sent to RAF Silverstone for crewing up. His first station was RAF Bardney with 9 Squadron for a few weeks. He remembers that when they arrived at Bardney it was deserted and they found everyone lying on the floor in the kitchen as the bomb dump was on fire. The crew were then posted to RAF Skellingthorpe in 50 Squadron and they completed 20 operations. George recalls a daylight operation on a V-1 site, and he witnessed the Lancaster that was above them blown up and seeing the bodies of the crew falling past their aircraft. The crew were then split up when the pilot and navigator joined the Pathfinders and he became a spare bod. He eventually joined an Australian crew in 83 Squadron at RAF Coningsby and completed a further nine operations. His pilot was called Cassidy and the nose art on the Lancaster was “Hop along Cassidy’s Flying Circus.” After the war he took part in a tour of South America and discusses an earthquake in Peru. He discusses his religious beliefs and how the war, Bomber Command, and Arthur Harris have been remembered. He met his wife Barbara after the war at a dance in the RAF club and they had one son.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:08:02 audio recording
50 Squadron
83 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bomb dump
bomb struck
bombing
civil defence
crewing up
faith
forced landing
Home Guard
Lancaster
mid-air collision
nose art
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Bardney
RAF Coningsby
RAF Evanton
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
training
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/450/7970/AHarrisonR151116.1.mp3
78c4628fae306c070946abd90f7380e4
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, Richard
Richard Harrison
Dick Harrison
Description
An account of the resource
10 items. An oral history interview with Richard Harrison (b. 1924, 1833947 Royal Air Force) a page from his log book and documents about gunnery training. Richard Harrison flew operations as a B-24 air gunner with70 Squadron, 231 Wing, 2015 Group in Italy.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard Harrison and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harrison, R
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Okay then so, this is Annie Moody for the International Bomber Command centre and Lincoln University, and today I’m with Dick Harrison in York, and what I’d like you to tell me is, first of all, is just date of birth and just a little bit about your family and your, your upbringing, what your parents did, that sort of thing.
RH: Yeah, I was born of the 5th of February 1924, I was born in Köln en Rhine, Deutschland, Cologne, Germany and er yeah, Dad English, Mother German, we came back to England in I think it was 1926, I was two years old.
AM: How did your Dad meet your Mum then if she was German?
RH: He was in the army of occupation.
AM: In? In Cologne or?
RH: In Germany.
AM: In Germany, yeah.
RH: Yeah, because he’d been on the Western Front from 1915 to 18, he was a regular soldier when he was in Cologne and various other places in the Rhineland, but he met my Mother in Cologne.
AM: Right.
RH: I think they were married there in 1922, something like that.
AM: So, what did he do when you came back to England? What did your parents do?
RH: Well he was a regular soldier and he carried on being a soldier.
AM: Right. Right through, yeah?
RH: Yeah until 19, yeah 1936.
AM: Oh blimey, right.
RH: He left the army and became a civil servant.
AM: Ah, me too, well that’s another story.
[laughter]
RH: And me too.
[laughter]
AM: So, tell me a bit about your school years then.
RH: School years, well Dad’s camp was near Salisbury, Winterbourne, so I went to a primary school in Winterbourne, and although people say today, you know, how good the schools were back then, this was a truly appalling school [laughs] well, and from there, I can’t remember what it was called, you sat the exam when you were eleven. And from there I went to Bishops school in Salisbury which was a local grammar school, then unfortunately my Dad left the army, the civil service post was in Gloucestershire, so we had to move to Gloucestershire, and I went to and I had to transfer schools, from a very [emphasis] good and excellent school in Salisbury to certainly a below par one in Gloucester.
AM: Right.
RH: Near Gloucester.
AM: What age were you when you left?
RH: When I left what?
AM: When you left school.
RH: Sixteen.
AM: Did you do schools certificate and everything?
RH: No, I didn’t.
AM: No.
RH: No, I had enough of that school.
AM: Right. [laughs] So what did you do when you left school?
RH: Worked in an office.
AM: Yeah, doing?
RH: Pardon?
AM: Doing just normal administrative?
RH: Yes.
AM: Office work.
RH: Yes, just clerical work, that’s all.
AM: Yeah.
RH: It was a company that, it was a [unclear]company so I was dealing with invoices and things like that.
AM: Right. So what year are we up to now? Sixteen, nineteen, I’m just trying to work my own arithmetic out, if you were sixteen?
RH: I left school in 1940.
AM: Right, so the war had started.
RH: Yeah and I was already involved.
[background noise]
AM: Right, and I’m looking now at the County and City of Gloucester air raid precautions, and this is to certify that mister Richard Harrison completed his course in anti-gas training, under the auspices of County and City of Gloucester air raid precautions central authority and has acquired sufficient knowledge of anti-gas measures to act as a member of the public ARP service. Tell me about that then, what was that like?
RH: Erm, and that’s what I—
AM: Oh, I’ve missed a bit, nature of the course attended was—
RH: Was a cycle messenger.
AM: Right, what did that mean?
RH: We were about ten miles north of Bristol, so when they were attacking Bristol, you know I was very interested, the first time I saw flak [laughs] but—
AM: What was that like then?
RH: Well, I mean as a kid it’s all very interesting, isn’t it? I mean we, the village hall was our local ARP post, and every Friday night that was my job, even when I was at school, every Friday night, get there for six or seven o’clock, I think it was, until six, seven o’clock the next morning, with my bike ready to go anywhere. And all over Bristol, it was a fantastic sight really was, searchlights, flak, German bombers coming over lit up, one crashed about a mile away from us here, but no it was quite a, quite a sight, and when they attacked Avonmouth and the oil tanks were set on fire, the whole of the horizon was red, yeah amazing sight.
AM: So, where were you sent off cycling? Taking what sort of messages?
RH: [sighs] Well we was just, I can’t remember the details. I remember one, one regular one was to cycle down to the pub and bring them back a pint of cider or something, and that was a regular run.
[laughter]
AM: Right, so the message was, how many drinks?
RH: Yeah.
AM: So, so when, so that was it, you did your cycling in your messenger training.
RH: Yes.
AM: And then what?
RH: What?
AM: What made you join the RAF? Oh, what came next should I say with regards to?
RH: The Home Guard.
AM: Right.
RH: I joined that when, yeah before I was seventeen I joined that and despite what people say and that, because there’s that film—
AM: Dad’s Army
RH: Dad’s Army. I mean, it was one of the most useful things ever because I was in a platoon where the officer commanding was World War one soldier, my Father was a platoon sergeant, World War one soldier, there were several of them, I mean when I went into the RAF, foot drill, arms drill, using a rifle, shooting on the range, using a machine gun.
AM: You’d already done it.
RH: It was easy, yeah, it was easy. I also joined the Air Training Corps about the same time.
AM: Right.
RH: So, at one time I had three balls in the air [laughs] ARP, Home Guard, Air Training Corps.
AM: And [unclear]
RH: And in addition to that, I took a St John’s, St John ambulance first aid course and got a certificate for that, so—
AM: Right.
RH: Yeah.
AM: Blimey. So, when you joined the RAF, but I think Gary said RAF regiment?
RH: Pardon?
AM: I think Gary said you joined the RAF regiment?
[phone rings]
RH: Excuse me.
[interview paused]
RH: Where were we?
AM: So, where were we?
GR: You were juggling three balls, ATC.
AM: We were juggling all those balls with your ATC, and your Home Guard.
RH: In the end I packed up the, one of them became civil defence from ARP, so I packed, I packed that up, I couldn’t get—
AM: Right.
RH: Otherwise I was chasing round four nights a week [laughs] and weekends with the Home Guard.
AM: And working in your office.
RH: And working as well.
AM: And working as well.
RH: Yeah.
AM: So, you’re coming up to eighteen, why the RAF? Where did you join? What was, what was you’re, what was it like?
RH: For a young lad I mean it’s, it’s just the glamour of the thing. King and country had nothing at all to do with it [laughs] don’t say that—
[laughter]
AM: We’ll cut that out.
RH: All I wanted, well I mean, one saw a war films didn’t you, ‘target for the night’ and all the rest of it. But unfortunately, I had a heart condition and my, on my medical records which I saw, because I wanted to go into aircrew, I wanted to be a wireless operator.
AM: Right.
RH: Wireless operator [unclear] because I’d been, Father had taught my brother and I morse code, and in the house, he’d rigged up two keys and we used to use that, even when we were ten or eleven years old we knew the morse code, and in the Air Training Corps, when the CO discovered I already knew morse, I became the morse code instructor for the squadron.
[laughter]
RH: And, but when I went for the medical, I think I was, temporarily unfit for aircrew duties, they said that would right itself eventually, and I remember being interviewed by the, this officer, he said, ‘well, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘ that you’re fit for ground crew duties but you’re not fit for aircrew duties,’ I said, ‘right, in that case I don’t want to join the RAF, I’m going to join the army,’ [laughs] because I was fit enough for the army, and I had a mate, a school friend who was up at Catterick driving a tank, saying how great it was and I could picture myself in that, so I said, ‘I’m going to join the army, the Armour Corps,’ ‘no you’re not,’ he said, ‘no you’re not,’ he said, ‘we’re not going to waste, what was it twelve months or more Air Training Corps and then you go in the army,’ he said, ‘you’ll be called up,’ and that’s what happened. I got, yeah, before Christmas it was, 1942.
AM: Right.
RH: And I got my call up papers and went to Penarth in South Wales where they sorted you out, and because I’d been a clerk in civvy street, I went through trade tests, maths, English, I could type, type writing, book keeping, and that took all morning, and then at the end of it they said, ‘alright you’re now a trade group for clerk general duties,’ but it did mean that whereas a lad going in without any trade at all was getting three shillings a day, I got four shillings and threepence a day because I was a trade [laughs] and of course guys like one of the guys I sort of chummed up with, he had been a metal worker, and I can’t remember what trade he went into, but I know he was getting sort of, six shillings and something a day because he was a group one trade as against group four. Right, so what do you want next then?
AM: Ooh, well, what happened next? Tell me about it. What were you actually doing then? So, you got three a day—
RH: I can think, in my eight weeks I think it was, square bashing and then I was posted to RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire.
AM: Right.
RH: And, that was the base for the special duties squadrons, 161 and 138, and they were dropping supplies and people for the resistance.
AM: Right, okay.
RH: And it was all top secret, I mean I suppose I didn’t know what they were doing.
GR: There was Maurice Buckmaster and Vera Atkins.
RH: Well, maybe so, Wing Commander Pickard, DSO, a couple of bars and all the rest of it, he was, he was the C.O. and, but I knew something about aircraft, and so what struck me was these Halifax’s, they had no mid upper turret, and I thought well that’s strange, and bomb trolleys were parked alongside the hangar with grass growing through them, so they weren’t being used [laughs] but no one told you anything. Eventually one of the guys in the office said, ‘Dick, do you know what we are doing?’ and this was after a month or so, I said, ‘yeah, I reckon you’re dropping agents into, into France,’ I said, because I had to do a what, a sort of duty every now and again, overnight, man the phone and so forth, and during that time, you would see a couple of black saloon cars going, going by, and they were going over to, what I discovered later, was a farm, an old farm where they were kitted up before they did their jumps. And, yeah, very secret, so I remember a guy crashed on take-off and they were all killed, and that night or the next night the father was calling and I answered the phone, and I said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything,’ you know, ‘was he on the raid to Berlin?’ I said, ‘I’m sorry,’ [laughs] I knew what had happened to him but wasn’t allowed to say. And another little story, no need to record, as I say it was all top secret, this Halifax was missing, so that was seven guys as well, so into the HQ, came their, the NCOs, their pay books and in the pay book was a next of kin listed. Now the wireless operator in that crew had listed his next of kin as a girl in Sandy village, which was four or five miles—
AM: Yeah, I know where you mean.
RH: Away, you know?
AM: Yeah, I know exactly where you mean.
RH: You know where I mean? So, the Padre and another officer went down to give her the bad news, sort of thing he was missing, but I mean I wasn’t witness to this, I only heard about it afterwards, and apparently when they gave her the bad news, she said, ‘well he’ll be alright wont he?’ they said, ‘what do you mean?’ ‘well I mean, they are dropping supplies to the French resistance and they’ll —
AM: Oh God.
RH: Get him back. Which they didn’t. While I was there, not him, but while I was there a guy came back, but the only thing I saw was her arriving with an RAF police escort in a car, and she was wheeled in to see Wing Commander Pickard, and I suppose he read the riot act to her, keep your mouth shut.
AM: Yeah.
RH: And some years ago when I was caravanning down there, I went back to see if I could get onto Tempsford, but it was all wired off, but you could see the huts in the background, and I met, a local woman came out of her house, and as a wee child she remembered this place and she said, ‘you see that hedge there?’ she said, ‘we lived up on the hill and we weren’t allowed to come below that hedge, no civilians were allowed below that hedge line,’ it was so, so secret.
AM: It’s amazing isn’t it.
RH: On one occasion Wing Commander Pickard, flying a Hudson, that’s that one up there, that was—
AM: I’m looking at, I’m looking at models here.
RH: Yeah, that was his aircraft, and he’d taken people down to the south of France to a landing ground down there, and when it came to take off, he’d bogged down, because it was just a field, and so they had to turn out local farm horses and so forth and pull him onto hard ground so he could take off. I remember next morning in the HQ, one of the guys said to me, ‘have you seen the CO’s Hudson take off?’ I said, ‘no,’ he said, ‘well go and look at hangar so and so,’ and there it was parked up outside, still with mud up into the engines themselves, and he got a, I think he had three DSO’s, was it, Wing Commander Pickard? He was shot down in the end on another raid, yeah. So, there we are, what’s next then?
AM: So that’s that, well you tell me. What came next?
RH: I must have been the worst clerk general duties that the RAF ever had, because I wasn’t a bit interested in what I was doing [laughs] and I was always on the—
AM: Wanting to be up there.
RH: Back in front of the adjutant flight sergeant being given a lecture about something I’d done wrong. Then one day two guys came into the office and I knew they’d been in north Africa, and they said, ‘can we have a form to volunteer to go overseas,’ I said, ‘but you’ve only just come back.’ [emphasis]
AM: Two aircrew this?
RH: Pardon?
AM: Two aircrew you talking about?
RH: No, they weren’t aircrew.
AM: Oh right, okay still—
RH: They were two groundcrew. Said, ‘we’ve only just come back,’ and I said, ‘you want to go back out there again?’ ‘well, [emphasis] England, terrible place isn’t it, full of Yanks and all the rest, no, the sooner we get out of here the better,’ so I thought, what a good idea.
[laughter]
GR: Get me one of these forms.
[laughter]
RH: Get me one of those forms, yeah. And then I had a medical and this medical officer said, you know, as I said to you on the phone yesterday, he said, ‘right, condition no longer, so I’ll put you forward shall I, for the aircrew medical?’ I said, ‘no, no thanks I want to go overseas.’
[laughter]
RH: Did you read that letter?
GR: This one?
RH: Yeah, the one, the regiment one?
GR: Yes, I’m reading it, yeah.
AM: I’ll take a copy afterwards. So, you went overseas rather than aircrew?
RH: Yes, I volunteered to go overseas, it was all very quick, in fact I was sent on what they called, embarkation leave.
AM: Hmm, hmm.
GR: Yeah.
RH: And I think that was one week or two, and while I was at home in Gloucestershire, a telegram came telling me to report back to Tempsford, and I’d only been home two or three days, and so I went back and there was my posting notice, and I think, I thought the RAF were taking their revenge on me for not carrying on with aircrew because they posted me to an RAF Regiment squadron. And believe me in 1943, to be in the RAF Regiment, you know, I mean today, yes, they’ve got a good reputation, but that was really the backend of everything. And there were about a dozen of us, tradesmen, clerks, cooks, vehicle mechanics, armourers, wireless guys and so forth, and all resentful [laughs] at being posted to the regiment.
AM: Where was that though? Where were you posted to?
RH: Oh yeah, that was near Peterborough, near Peterborough. And, when I arrived there, there was a corporal clerk in the, what do you call it? Orderly room, in the orderly room. And as soon as I arrived, he sent off a signal under the adjutant’s signature, under who was away at the time, to the airman’s records at Innsworth in Gloucestershire saying, that Corporal so and so, can’t remember his name, was unfit for overseas duty. And so about, a couple of days later a signal came posting him out, didn’t get off kindly. [laughs]
AM: So where, where from, where did you go from Peterborough?
RH: Overseas.
AM: Yeah, but where though? Whereabouts?
RH: Sicily.
AM: Sicily.
RH: We went to, yeah it was a, it took a month altogether, although I think it was three weeks to Algiers on a troop ship as a convoy—
AM: I was going to say—
RH: As it was, but— Yeah, although in my letter I said, not eventful, in fact it was interesting at times because a U-boat got in amongst the convoy, and there were destroyers dashing up and down dropping depth charges. [laughs]
AM: It’s probably quite exciting when you are eighteen, nineteen.
RH: It was, when you are a kid, when you are a kid.
AM: You’re still a teenager, really aren’t you?
RH: Yeah, I remember saying to one of the seamen on our, on our troop ship, you know, ‘why is that, why are they flying a black pennant?’ he said, ‘that’s because they’ve detected a boat,’ he said, ‘they’ve detected a U, U-boat.’ Then we went to Algiers, and then we left Algiers, still didn’t know where we were going at that time. And then, I was in what was called the headquarters flight, which all the tradesmen were in that flight and we were called up for a briefing by the adjutant, and then we knew we were going to Sicily, and there were maps passed round for us to look at, and we were going to takeover, it was a light anti-aircraft squadron by the way, it had a twenty-millimetre cannon.
AM: Okay.
RH: We were going to take over defence of the Gerbini airfield near Cantania in Sicily, and that was the plan. But unfortunately, the Germans, you know, didn’t know what our plan was—
[laughter]
RH: And so, when we got to Sicily they were still there. [laughs] And er, yeah, we landed, we went to Malta first, I think we stayed there overnight or a couple of nights, and then we went to Sicily, and it was over the, over the side, down scrambling nets onto the landing craft and then onto a little [old?] pier sort of thing. And then we formed up and marched up into an olive grove and we were there for about a week. We were waiting for our trucks to arrive and the cannon, but they’d all been sunk. It was funny when we were en route from Algiers to Malta, there was a, ‘boom,’ bang and a great column of smoke over in the distance, that was the ship going down, and we heard later that was our ship [laughs] with all the trucks on.
AM: Blimey.
RH: So when we got to, then we were posted and moved to Lentini and that was a new, new landing ground, and we were sent there for anti-parachute troop duties. The Germans had dropped paratroopers into Sicily, not, not straight into combat, they dropped them as reinforcements to the guys who were already there.
AM: Yeah.
RH: And, but some of them were dropped too far south, and when the 8th Army had pushed up and they were left behind.
AM: I’m just looking, thinking about the geography, so you’re in the south of Sicily?
RH: Pardon?
AM: I’m just thinking about the geography of Sicily, so the Germans were on the island?
RH: Oh yeah, and eventually, eventually they had four divisions there. They had three to, three to begin with and then, then they dropped in two regiments from the 1st Parachute Division, and they were dropped in as reinforcements, behind their own lines. But they were the guys who eventually who stopped the 8th Army, you know, getting any further. But, and so when we got to Lentini, they were forming patrols of about a dozen guys and an NCO, and they [unclear] [laughs] searched the local olive groves and go through, and as I said in, in the letter, you know, God help them if they come across any German para’s because I’m sure we would have been sending out the first missing in action signals.
[laughter]
RH: Because they wouldn’t have stood a chance, they wouldn’t have stood a chance against those guys. So, that was that.
AM: So, how long were you there for, on Sicily?
RH: Pardon?
AM: How long were you on Sicily for? Ish?
RH: Yeah, we landed there a week after the invasion began, July, August, and then, when did we go into Italy? September the 3rd? So, we went into Italy on September the 10th, something like that.
AM: Right, so, so the Germans had been pushed back?
RH: They evacuated.
AM: They evacuated.
RH: Yeah, they got everything away, they got everything away, they had a defensive line sort of thing, and they just took it step by step back, and meanwhile they, I think forty thousand men all their guns and tanks, everything they managed to get across the Straits of Messina. And, [pause] the regiment squadron, we were on, we moved from Lentini to the Scordia landing ground, again it’s only a rough strip through, through the fields and that was the American 57th Fighter Group. They were equipped with P-40 Warhawks and they used to go out day after day trying to stop the Germans evacuating the—
AM: Getting across the Straits.
RH: Their, their stuff. And that was the first time I’d come across American, Americans and they were great guys, [emphasis] they really were. And later on, we were on the same airfield, when I was in aircrew and again, you know, they really are first, first class blokes, I thought.
AM: So, you’re on, we’re on the push now, what, what month did we say we were? August? What, what—
GR: No, September into Italy.
AM: And September into Italy.
RH: September into Italy.
AM: So you—
RH: I’ll just tell this little story while we—
AM: Go on, yes.
RH: At Scordia, I mean they were suffering losses because I mean they were having to make quite low level attacks with their fighter bombers. And we were watching these guys coming back, and, and one of them he came in rather high, banged [emphasis] down onto the ground, up in the air, bang [emphasis] and then turned over onto his, onto his back, so the pilot was trapped under, underneath. But I mean, they were very, very quick, in no time there was a, the er, a fire tender, an ambulance, and a mobile crane. And the mobile crane lifted the aircraft up, turned it over—
AM: [inaudible]
RH: And they forced the canopy open and out [laughs] got this young lieutenant, stepped on the wing, walked away a few paces, reached into his overalls, pulled out a cigar—
AM: [gasps] Oh no.
RH: Lit it and went on walking.
[laughter]
RH: And I thought, well there’s, there’s a nerve for you, [laughs] there’s a nerve for you. But on the other side of the coin, I remember, I used to like going out into their dispersal and watch them come in. And, they’d taken off—
[background noise]
RH: And then one of them left the formation, came round, landed and then taxied up to where we were, we were, sort of thing, switched off the engine, pilot got out and he walked over to the, the er. There was a sergeant who was a sort of an engineer mechanic, whatever, and I can’t remember the words after all these years what the pilot said, but he was complaining that there was a fault in the, in the engine, there was something, something wrong, and then he walked away. And I said the sergeant, I said, ‘what do you thinks wrong with that then?’ Now, you’ll have to excuse the language.
AM: It’s alright. [laughs]
RH: He said, ‘nothing he’s just shit scared,’ he said.
[laughter]
AM: Fair enough.
RH: So then we went into Italy, [pause] now tell you, this was a regiment [laughs] with a squadron, and so I knew [emphasis] very well, being, being in the HQ, the squadron had been told they had to go to Crotone landing ground which was sort of under the, that part of the—
AM: The heel.
RH: Italian boot.
AM: The heel.
RH: And of course, and we were following a Canadian division along the coast. They were way, way, way ahead, we never ever saw them. When we got to Crotone landing ground, nothing there at all because it had already been evacuated. Now the same time as the 8th Army landed on the toe and moved up on the north coast, the Canadians were moving along the south coast and the British 1st Airborne Division came in by sea to land at Taranto to push up on the Adriatic coast. And when we were somewhere west of, of Taranto we came across the Airborne guys, and, and they were stopping our convoy. Now in our convoy would be about a dozen three tonne four by four Bedfords, three or four jeeps, two Italian trucks that we had pinched, stolen and, and motorcycles and so forth. Yeah, we spotted these Italian trucks in a little town called Catanzaro down on the toe and the C.O. had seen them, two big Fiat trucks, and so he said to our corporal fitter, engine fitter, ‘do you reckon you can get those going?’ he said, ‘yeah right.’ So sometime around midnight he and another mechanic went out and started them and drove them up the road a bit and then we found them [unclear]
AM: Appropriated them. [laughs]
RH: And then painted them in RAF camouflage and off we went. And then so, yeah, we met the guys with the, with the red berets and from what they were saying is, ‘go careful, keep your heads down because there are German para snipers in the area,’ [laughs] and I thought to myself, we shouldn’t be here, we had no business to be there with just our, just the C.O. You know, woo, let’s just going, you know so think you can imagine we were some kind of Panzer unit or something. And then we drove into Bari, you know that?
AM: Yeah.
RH: Well as we went to Bari, there were people on the pavements, waving and cheering and then passing out bottles of wine.
[laughter]
RH: And I thought, well this can’t be right, and, and where are our guys? I didn’t see any British soldiers at all, and we drove through Bari, and I can’t remember the name of the town now, but about ten miles north of Bari on the main coast road, we came into this little township, and again, [emphasis] people came out and they were waving and saying oh—
AM: Italian civilians you mean?
RH: Yeah, [emphasis] Italian civilians, I thought it’s got to be something, it’s got to be wrong you know, and then the word quickly came down the, the line, the Germans left here this morning.
[laughter]
RH: Well that decided the C.O., all the trucks were turned round. [laughs]
GR: You were the spear guard you were, you were out in front.
[laughter]
RH: We go back to, we went back to Bari, and he looked at his map. Bari airport which was an Italian air force base then, we’ll go there, and we’ll the, we’ll take over the airfield, we had no business—
AM: Is this just you the RAF Regiment, you’re talking here?
RH: Yeah.
AM: Right.
RH: No business at all to be, to be there. And we drove up to the entrance and there were gates and as we drove up, there were armed Italians carrying their funny little carbine rifles, they shut the gate. Now I wasn’t there I didn’t hear what, what was said but they refused to let us in. So, then the order came down the line, ‘get your rifles out men and load them, and stand by the trucks.’ And of course, in our headquarters truck, where are the rifles?
[laughter]
AM: We’re laughing now, but I bet you weren’t laughing at the time.
RH: Scrambling, put ten rounds in the magazine, get out the truck. Meanwhile the Italians, a lot of them, had crossed the road and were in the olive grove in that side, so I thought, God, we are going to be between two lots here, but I think that fact that they saw a hundred guys or more getting out the trucks with their rifles ready, and that decided the Italians to open the gate and let us in.
[laughter]
RH: Yeah, so.
AM: Blimey.
GR: So you’re fighting your way up Italy?
AM: And your C.O. wanted you to be fighting your way up.
RH: Pardon?
AM: And your C.O. wanted you to be fighting your way up.
RH: And the, what do you call it? SWO, he was, he was another sort of, you know, let’s get up there and we’ll, all the rest of it. But, yeah then we went up to Foggia and there were several airfields there which the Germans had used, and yeah, we were, I think on two different airfields there, if I remember rightly, well airfields, landing grounds it was just a single strip. But I can’t remember anything worth reporting there. And by that time, we were subordinate to Desert Air Force, and so you’d get the daily orders from Desert Air Force. And on one they were appealing for air gunners, air gunners, now I thought right—
AM: This is it.
RH: We’ll have a go at this, and so I, you know, I applied and went to Desert Air Force headquarters to get the preliminary medical as such. And, it was, it was quite interesting, because they had my records there and the first officer to examine me, flight lieutenant or squadron leader, doctor or whatever he was, he said, ‘I can’t understand why you were failed in, a year ago,’ he said. He said, ‘there’s nothing wrong,’ and I said, ‘well it says temporarily unfit,’ ‘I can’t see nothing wrong, well, we’ll get a second opinion,’ and he called in the chief, the group captain, and he came in and checked me over, ‘yeah,’ he said, ‘no,’ he said, ‘I can’t think,’ he said, ‘why you were failed a year ago,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing wrong with your, with your heart.’ I used to think afterwards, they failed me because when they looked at my background, they realised in fact, that Mum was a German.
[laughter]
RH: I’ve thought that might be a—
GR: That’s possible.
AM: Yeah.
GR: Yeah, yeah, possible.
RH: Yeah. Because when it came to the aircrew selection board, that was the next thing.
AM: Are you still in Italy at this point?
RH: Yeah, oh yes.
AM: Yeah.
RH: The, the aircrew selection board, and they asked, they asked that question, ‘what if you were ordered to?’ I mean there was no possibility for me to fly from Italy all the way to Cologne, but still, [laughs] They said, ‘what if you were ordered to bomb Germany, bomb something in Germany, you know, you were born there and your Mothers German, what, what if you were ordered to do that?’ [laughs] And I said, ‘I would obey orders.’ [laughs]
[laughter]
RH: Yes, so then there was, I was still with the Regiment Squadron, but I mean they hadn’t, they hadn’t fired a shot in anger and they were anti-aircraft, there was no need for them, so they found a new job for the RAF Regiment. That was to go up to the, our artillery gun line which would be a three, or four miles behind the front line, and by day if our guys were flying and bombing, they would put out smoke indicators to show where our front line was, so that our guys didn’t bomb in it. And by night they would put out flares and I was only there less than, less than, less than a week and but apparently, they did have some casualties later, later on. But, so that was it, now I went to Desert Air Force headquarters, and I had three or four weeks there, and then before I went back to the Middle East. Desert Air Force headquarters was the best posting ever I had in the RAF of a, really good guys to work with, we had an Australian flight lieutenant who was our, the C.O. of what’s called the organisation section where I worked. And he used to share his food parcels with us and he knew I was sort of going through them and I was going on for air, aircrew training and he called me in one day and he said, ‘Harrison,’ now I know this sounds like a line shoot, but he said, ‘Harrison, you’ve done a really good job here,’ he said, ‘we’re very pleased at the way you’re, you’re working.’ That’s because I had a gen, I wasn’t responsible to anyone even though I was only an airman I was doing my own, my own job, sort of thing, which was location of units.
AM: Right.
RH: And briefing people who came in asking questions about you, he said, ‘now why don’t you forget this aircrew thing,’ he said, ‘and I can guarantee,’ he said, in a few months you’ll have your first stripes,’ he said, ‘and I can see you going on from there,’ and I said, ‘no thank you, very much.’ [laughs] And so that was it, now I went back to Egypt
AM: Right. Where did you do your training, your aircrew training then?
RH: Air gunner training.
AM: Air gunner training, where did you do that?
RH: Yeah, a place called El Ballah.
AM: In, in Egypt?
RH: On the canal zone.
AM: Right. And how long, so how long were you training for?
RH: Right. [pause]
[paper rustling]
RH: You can take these away.
AM: Okay.
RH: Later. There were three six-week courses.
AM: Right.
RH: The first one was at 51 Air Gunner Initial Training School, and they’re all the subjects.
AM: Yeah.
RH: Then you had a forty-eight-hour pass into Cairo and then you came for another six weeks—
AM: Okay.
RH: At 12 Elementary Air Gunner School.
AM: Yeah.
RH: From there are all the subjects again.
AM: So, I’m looking at, I’ll, I’ll copy this, and but I’m looking at things like, different gun turrets, the Frazer Nash, the Boulton Paul, the Bristol.
RH: Yeah that’s right.
AM: Pyrotechnics, the Very pistol, the flares, forty flashes. Smoke floats?
RH: Yeah, smoke floats, yeah.
AM: Yeah, what’s a smoke float?
RH: Well it was, about, about that big and the idea was that, that in daylight, over the sea, over, over water, the navigator would ask someone to drop a smoke float, okay? And then the tail gunner, the rear gunner—
AM: Yeah, yeah.
RH: Himself. You see that smoke float and you take a bearing on it with your sight, and there’s sort of a compass ring—
AM: Right.
RH: And you say,’ okay, it’s at so many degrees,’ and then the navigator would count off so many seconds and say, ‘okay take another reading,’ so you take another reading and it shows you your drift.
AM: Right.
RH: The difference between the two readings.
AM: Yep.
RH: Yeah, smoke float by day, yeah.
AM: Oh.
RH: And that’s 13 Air Gunner school where you finally get to fly.
AM: I’m looking at this one because I was, I was going to ask you, what were, what did you actually train in? And we’ve got Avro Anson’s?
RH: Yes, it’s up there, somewhere.
AM: One of those up there? Dinghy drill. Did you all have individual dinghies at that point?
RH: No, seven-man dinghies.
AM: Because—It was a seven-man dinghy. Right.
RH: Then we trained in, in the Suez Canal, and the canal was only a couple of miles away from the, from the air field, so the instructor would tow an inflated dinghy out into the middle of the canal. And that was another, another thing and I’ve never come across it before and I’ve mentioned it to other aircrew types and they’ve never heard of this before. You had to swim fifty yards [emphasis] and if you did not swim, if you couldn’t swim that fifty yards you failed.
AM: That was it, you were out.
RH: You failed the course. So, I mean you had a life jacket on which was a damn nuisance believe me if you’ve got a Mae West and you try swim. [laughs] So you went out, two of you at a time, went out to a dinghy and righted it.
AM: Oops.
RH: Sorry. Righted it, then got into it, and then when the instructor was satisfied, when you got out you pulled the dinghy over you so it was upside down for the next pair.
AM: Right, and swam out from under it.
RH: To go out, yeah.
AM: I can’t imagine what the canal was full of?
RH: Oh yeah, [emphasis] yeah. Now and then whistles are blowing and everyone would have to get out if a ship came by. [laughs]
AM: Theres, there’s crocodiles isn’t there?
RH: No, no.
AM: Is there not? No. Alright then.
RH: There’s far more—
AM: I was thinking about horrible [unclear]
RH: Theres worse stuff floating in the canal, believe me.
AM: I can imagine.
[laughter]
AM: So, you’ve done your training.
RH: Yeah.
AM: Then what?
RH: Then we’ve went to [paper rustling] from Egypt—
AM: Hmm, hmm.
RH: To Palestine.
AM: Right.
RH: For the O T U.
AM: Right. [pause] So, I’m looking now at the, it was the 76 Operational Training Unit.
RH: That’s right.
AM: And you were on Wellington medium bombers at this point?
RH: Yeah, yeah.
AM: Tail gunner you said you were, weren’t you?
RH: Yeah, yeah.
AM: Tail end Charlie.
RH: Yes, we formed up of, as you may know, you know, the people weren’t detailed, we all assembled in a hangar.
AM: You did the crewing up.
RH: And we sort of—
AM: No other end.
RH: Pardon?
AM: No other end, is an expression—
RH: Is it?
AM: An expression, I’ve heard.
RH: Yeah well. And Joe, the other gunner, he, he eventually found a pilot who wanted two gunners, and so we met this Eddy who came from the Midlands, and he said to us, ‘who’s best at aircraft recognition?’ and Joe said, ‘he is,’ pointing to me.
[laughter]
RH: ‘So, right you are the rear gunner then.’
AM: So that was it? That was how that was decided. But then, so when was heavy Conversion Unit, were you still in Palestine at that point?
RH: No. We went back to Egypt for it.
AM: Back to Egypt for that, right.
RH: That was only four weeks I think at that point.
AM: So this is the 1675 Heavy Conversion Unit, into B-24 Liberators.
RH: B-24 Liberator, yeah. At least we got into a decent aircraft.
AM: Yeah. What, how many crew were on that? Was there seven or more? Seven.
RH: Well, seven. We trained as a crew of seven but operationally on the squadron, you carried an extra gunner, who manned the two waist guns.
AM: Right, so there was waist guns on there?
RH: There was also these, yeah, I did two or three [unclear] trips as a beam gunner, but you were the odd job. I’ll come to that when we get to the squadron then.
AM: Alright, okay. So, carry on—
RH: Well, [unclear, interviewer speaks over]
AM: Tell me about that and what happened and any stories about the conversion unit course or on to what happened after that?
RH: I can only think of a funny story on that. Sometimes, the nose wheel of the Liberator wouldn’t come down. And so, someone would go from the flight deck, for landing on the flight deck was a pilot, the engineer, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator and top gunner, six of them all on the flight deck in that area. If the nose wheel didn’t come down, there was a, a drill for it. One of them would go back into the nose and help to pull the thing down. Well, we’d been on a night exercise, and Joe our top gunner, a Lancashire lad, he always had intercom trouble. He was an electrician by trade, but he was a real jinx [emphasis] when it came to in, in, intercom. And the nose wheel hadn’t come down, so I mean I’m hearing everything on intercom, so the skipper said to, I think it was the bomb aimer Ron, ‘Ron go on down into the nose right and see if you can do it,’ and so Ron goes down there. Then the next thing I here, Ron’s on the intercom, ’no, I can’t do it and I need some help,’ ‘ah yeah, okay,’ and so the navigator is sent down. So, now there’s two of them in the nose trying to pull it—
AM: Yank the thing, yeah.
RH: And get the wheel down, and then they come back on the intercom, ‘no I can’t do it,’ so skipper, Eddy turns to Taffy our engineer and says, ‘Taff, go down and sort it, will you?’ So, Taff gets out of his seat and goes down. Theres a hatch in the flight deck that goes down into the nose. Now, Joe the top gunner, knows that the nose wheel hasn’t come down, and then his intercom goes dead. And one after another he sees the bomb aimer—
AM: Oh God.
RH: The navigator and the engineer all disappearing through that hatch down below, and what does he think? He thinks they’re all baling out. So, his seat release is a wire handle and he pulls that, drops out of his turret, goes straight through the hatch into the end of the bomb bay.
AM: Oh no.
GR: [unclear] [laughs]
RH: He just had a few bruises that was all.
AM: I was going to say, I thought you were going to say he went right through and had to pull his parachute. [laughs]
GR: Well, the thing is to anybody listening, obviously Lancaster, Halifax, B-17 all land, and land tail down, but the B-24 was one that landed, and landed with its nose up.
RH: Nose wheel
GR: The same, yeah. So, it landed, straight—
RH: Yes.
GR: As opposed to sitting back on the tail, so when you were on about the nose wheel coming down that’s—
AM: That’s why it’s important.
GR: Yeah
RH: Well, I— [unclear, interviewer speaks over]
GR: In fact that was the only bomber that, that—
RH: Yeah.
GR: The only, only four engine bomber that, that happened.
RH: If I remember rightly in HCU and I mean, I knew guys who were ahead of me and so forth, and Norman, and he came back and he came up to the truck as we were getting off it, and he said, ‘have you heard Mick Berry’s gone?’ Now, Mick Berry had been a corporal armourer and he was in our tent at gunnery school—
AM: Right.
RH: And he taught us more about the machine guns than the instructors. After all, that was his, his trade, he was a, I can still remember, he was a great [emphasis] man, he really was a good lad. And there they had, had crash landed and burst into flames, and Mick was in the mid er, top turret. Now that was held by, I think it was four bolts and it was a common fault that bang [emphasis] on, on the deck and that turret would drop out, and he was trapped and he couldn’t get out, yeah.
GR: Oh God.
RH: Mick Berry, he’s buried in the cemetery near Cairo.
AM: Oh, right. How big is it? I’m looking at a model of the Liberator here. How big is it in comparison then to the Halifax and the, and the Lancaster?
RH: [unclear] it’s a hundred and ten foot wingspan, the Liberator and the Hal, well Lanc, well it’s just over a hundred feet, in total.
AM: I was going to say, it looks a bit bigger to me.
RH: Yeah.
AM: On the, on the model, I know [unclear]
GR: Well at the same scales, they’re actually, the Liberators on a par with the Lancaster, probably slightly bigger.
AM: I’m showing my ignorance now, is it American?
GR: The B-24 was originally was an American bomber.
RH: Oh yeah.
AM: Oh.
RH: Yeah, consolidated to the aircraft company, yeah. [pause] Nice aeroplane to fly because after flying in the Wellingtons as the rear or tail, tail gunner, the heating system, well, didn’t really exist. And, in O.T.U. going out on a flight at night, and we’d six hours, six and a half hour flights sort of thing in freezing [emphasis] weather and you’d have long johns and, and then your shirt and your pants, and so forth. And your wool, pullover, woolly, the battle dress, then over the battle dress, the, an inner flying suit—
AM: Right.
RH: Which was sort of kapok something or other, brown silky, you put that on. Then over that, the outer flying suit which wasn’t padded at all, then over that your life jacket, then over that your parachute harness. Now, some of the gunners at O.T.U. there was only one entry hatch and that was in the nose, so the guys used to take their kit with them and get dressed when they got down into the fuselage. But I had an arrangement with the navigator, and the bomb aimer, and the armourer who would turn the turret of our aircraft to a hundred and eighty degrees, so I could get in from the outside. And they would lift [emphasis] me up into the turret, and then when we got back I would turn the turret a hundred and eighty degrees, open the doors, fall out—
AM: We’re talking about the rear turret then?
GR: Yeah.
RH: Pardon?
AM: Yeah.
RH: Yeah. And they would—
GR: Tumble out.
RH: And they would get me out.
GR: [unclear]
RH: The advantage of the Wimpy of course, and the rear, and with the Lanc and the British aircraft wasn’t it, you opened the doors as a tail gunner and you just bale out and go backwards—
AM: You just flipped out.
RH: Couldn’t do that on the Liberator.
AM: So, we’ve done Heavy Conversion Unit, you’ve got your crew, you’ve done your training with your crew, when was—
RH: I can’t think of any incidents.
AM: When was your first operation then?
RH: In February 45.
AM: Right, and where, where was it too?
RH: That’s a very good question, I think—
AM: Germany somewhere?
RH: No, I, no we were in Italy.
AM: Oh, oh.
RH: Yep, I think that’s just March, isn’t it?
GR: That’s just March, yeah.
AM: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Can you remember what it was like going up? Right because now you’re doing it for real instead of training? Did it make a difference?
RH: It was just a job. I think, you know guys of our age at that stage of the war, nine, you know, coming up to the end of the war, and you, I can’t think of the term really, indoctrinated or whatever, and you are used to it, you are used to it.
AM: So, were you scared?
RH: No I wasn’t, no.
AM: No.
RH: Because I didn’t have enough up there to be scared.
[laughter]
GR: Am I right in assuming that the, the bomber force in Italy at the time, was doing things like marshalling yards—
RH: Yeah.
GR: In northern Italy.
RH: Yeah.
GR: Austria.
RH: Yeah.
GR: Southern Germany? I think that there was a couple of trips.
AM: I think, yeah, I thought, I thought you went to southern Germany?
RH: No, we there were, I never went on a trip into Bavaria.
GR: But that was some of their, their area of operations.
RH: Yeah.
GR: There was the northern Italy marshalling yards, the Turin’s, that sort of thing, Verona, to try and stop—
RH: It was mainly the railway lines coming down through Bremen.
GR: Yes.
RH: And also down to Trieste and so forth.
GR: Which was the main supplier [unclear]
RH: And also, we, yeah, we bombed, what was it? Monfalcone, a little port, Ancona and Assa [?] yeah, they were, they were where the Germans had ships and used to supply their troops by night by running these boats along the coast, sort of thing.
GR: Did you normally fly with an escort? With a—
RH: On daylight, yeah.
GR: Daylights, yeah.
RH: Yeah, yeah. We had the Americans.
GR: Yeah.
RH: American B-51’s.
GR: Tuskegee, Tuskegee airmen?
RH: I don’t know who they were.
GR: They, they were the black—
AM: Yeah.
RH: I remember on one, on a trip to Monfalcone in the daylight, I mean we didn’t fly in formation, I mean our guys didn’t know how to fly in formation I never, not on heavies. And it just the usual stream, and so there were, sort of sixty, eighty aircraft in a stream. And we picked up the American escort, this was at the top end of the Adriatic, Trieste.
AM: Yep, yep.
RH: Right, it was the port next to Trieste.
AM: Yep.
RH: And, we picked up the escort and it was coming up, and our wireless op was listening out on their frequency, there had to be some sort of contact for, for, I didn’t hear this. But I remember we’d said, said afterwards, he said, ‘when they saw us coming,’ he said, and they were [laughs] saying about look at those sort of God damned limeys they’re not in formation, you know, all that how do we protect this lot and all the rest of it. [laughs]
AM: It’s like herding sheep.
[laughter]
RH: Yeah.
AM: Or herding—
GR: Are the Luftwaffe putting in much of an appearance?
RH: No.
GR: Towards that stage of the war?
RH: No, no.
AM: Were they not?
RH: No, they had, they were 109’s on the Italian, northern Italian airfields, but I think most of those were in what was called the Italian Republican Airforce.
GR: Yeah.
RH: You know, Mussolini’s lot, so you did see them, you did see them. Right and I remember seeing a strange sight one night as we were coming away from wherever it was in northern Italy. It was all a tremendous glare of course and, and looking out I saw these three Lib’s flying in and they were in [laughs] formation more or less and then at the back end of the [unclear] was a Bf 109. [laughs]
GR: Oh.
[laughter]
AM: Following you.
RH: Following the—
AM: Did you ever get shot at?
RH: With flak.
AM: With flak, but not, not as Gary said, not from a fighter?
RH: No, no, I saw, yeah there was a, we were 70 Squadron, 37 Squadron operated from the same airfield. I mean I didn’t know who they were, were at the time but and coming back at night from somewhere, Austria I think it might, might have been, the, and then suddenly seeing green tracer which I knew it was German. And then red tracer [laughs] sort of thing, and then ‘woof’ [emphasis] up went the Lib and down he went, yeah and that was 37 Squadron. Liberator, all lost.
AM: All gone. Did you ever shoot your guns at anything?
RH: No.
AM: Never?
RH: No, no you even if, and we were tailed one night by a fighter coming back from Trento I think it was, Trento, Trento marshalling yards you know, and I just reported it to the, to the crew, it was a 109. And he was sitting out and sort of, sort of four hundred yards or so away, you’d just see them occasionally with the glare in the background but he didn’t close and I certainly wouldn’t fire at him because it would show where we were.
GR: Were you were.
AM: Other people have said that, why would you fire—
RH: Yeah. Quite.
AM: And you know, mark yourself out to them.
RH: Yeah.
AM: Effectively.
RH: Yeah. Yeah, no you never, never fire unless you’re fired at. Okay?
AM: Yeah. I think, have you got any more questions?
GR: No, no.
AM: How many operations did you do in the end?
RH: Bombing, eighteen.
AM: Eighteen.
RH: And then we converted to supply, as the war was coming to an end—
AM: Okay.
RH: And the bombing stopped, and then they put some sort of racking inside the bomb bay so we could carry four-gallon cans of petrol and things like that.
AM: Right. So, what did you do between the war ending and demob?
RH: Er, yeah, we carried, you see although the war ended we’d already converted to transport.
AM: Yeah.
RH: And so, yeah for two or three weeks after VE Day we were flying, we were talking up supplies up to the north of Italy. And then after that they converted the bomb bay so you could carry bodies, troops, we could carry twenty-two.
AM: Live bodies?
RH: Yeah.
AM: Live ones.
RH: Twenty-two in the bomb, bomb bay. Poor blokes, [emphasis] I mean they just had to go down into the, down onto the catwalk and then climb over the back of these seats and then sit down. And there was the aircraft fuselage wall, just there sort of thing, and they had to sit there and on flights back to the UK, it took six and a half hours.
AM: You can’t imagine, can you?
GR: No.
AM: Were these troops or did you take any prisoner of war back?
RH: No, no—
AM: It was troops.
RH: These were troops. The ones we were flying back were due to be retrained and reformed to go out to Burma. These were the, I remember, you see they didn’t need the air gunners as such, so you became an odd bod sort of looking after these soldiers and so forth. And I remember on one occasion we were flying back with some guardsmen from a guard’s regiment, and the truck arrived and this lieutenant got out with his twenty odd bods. And they piled around and he said to our skipper, ‘we were all NCO’s, we were all senior NCO’s, he said, ‘have you anything to say?’ to the men sort of thing, and he said, ‘no.’ Since I was Harrison, generally I was called Harry, and so Ken said, ‘now Harry will look after you,’ well that wasn’t good enough for the, for the lieutenant. He turned around and he said, ‘when you are in the aircraft I don’t want you putting your hands out and grabbing any wires or anything.’
[laughter]
RH: So I saw them on board and we were flying up to Peterborough, Croughton, just south, it was an American base at that time and I used to bring them out one at a time and with the beam hatches open they could have a smoke—
AM: Right.
RH: Sitting there. And I think it was one of the last guys, came out and he sat on the other beam gunners seat, and he didn’t have intercom of course, we could only talk to each other by shout, shouting really, and he shouted, he said, ‘do we go through customs?’ he said, I said, ‘well I don’t.’ Crewmen didn’t, you just went straight through, [laughs] I said, ‘you, yes you will have to go through customs,’ and I said, ‘why?’ and he pulled back the sleeve of his battle dress and [laughs] there were watches—
[laughter]
RH: On, on there. And I said, oh, how did you get those?’ and they disarmed an SS unit or something and so, and relieved them of all, of all their odds and ends. And er, and then he reached into his blouse, fiddled about and pulled out a pistol, and I said to him, I said, ‘I don’t think you’ll get through with that,’ he said, ‘I’ve got another one in my kit bag.’
[laughter]
AM: I thought you were going to say you took them through for him.
RH: No, no, no.
AM: If you didn’t have to go through customs.
GR: They’re here.
AM: [laughs]
RH: No, after, after we’d landed and I got my travel warrant, and had a forty-eight-hour pass to get back to Bristol.
AM: Right.
RH: Or near Bristol. And so, it was late evening when I caught a train from Peterborough to Kings Cross, and Kings Cross to Paddington, and Paddington to Temple Meads, then Bristol. Which, I arrived about seven o’clock in the morning, then I had to walk over to the bus station and get a bus, and I arrived at my parents’ house I think, yeah it must have been about nine o’clock in the morning. Knocked them up, then I had, since it was a Saturday, I had to leave next day, just after lunch—
AM: To get back.
RH: To get back, yeah, so my forty-eight-hour pass in fact was about thirty.
AM: In the middle.
RH: Oh, so, anything else I can help with?
AM: Yes, this is, just out of interest this question. So, your Mum was German, how was she treated during the war?
RH: Yeah, okay.
AM: Were people okay with her?
RH: Yeah, you see we were, when I say Dad went in, into the civil service, he did, he and a lot of other guys including the major commanding who is based and so forth. Some of them were sort of even if they hadn’t given their time were said, okay you’re finished, because now you’re going to an establishment in Gloucestershire where you’ll be training police, fire, in what today are called civil defence duties. And so, you know, my environment from a child and all the way through to the time I left home was, was semi military because all the other guys were like Dad, they all ex-army.
AM: Right.
RH: They were all ex-army and some of them I remember when we lived at Salisbury, I remember a couple of German women coming there to visit Mum and they were again were wives of soldiers and so forth. But, no and of course we had relatives in Cologne and at the time of the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, we had a telegram which came through the Swiss Red Cross, from Mums sister Gerda, in Cologne, asking if we were all okay. [laughs]
AM: Were they all okay, did they ask to—
RH: No.
AM: Did your relatives not survive?
RH: No, no they were, they lived, well as most Germans do in the cities, they live in an apartment block and the block was, was—
AM: Blown up.
RH: Hit, and Uncle Johan as he was, he died of phosphorus burns. And my aunt and my two cousins, saw one cousin, they were evacuated into, into central Germany. The other one, my, he was about a year or so younger than me and had been like you know like all the rest of them in the Hitler movement and so forth. And then when he was sixteen I think, he volunteered for part time duty on a flak battery, and then when he was seventeen he became a full-time member of the Luftwaffe [emphasis] on a flak battery. When I met him, you know after, we used to have a joke about it.
[laughter]
GR: That’s a, well at least you had the opportunity.
AM: At least you never shot at me.
RH: Never fired at me because you were in, on the Rhineland and in the Ruhr, yeah
AM: Yeah, Happy Valley, the Ruhr.
RH: Pardon?
AM: Happy Valley, I’ve heard the Ruhr described as.
RH: Yeah, yeah. But they’re all, my cousins and my aunt are not, they are all dead now so, no contact.
GR: What I’ve just found amazing is, you’ve saying like yeah, during the Battle of Britain, and Bristol was being blitzed and all that, and a family in Germany sends a telegram [laughs] to a family in England saying are you okay?
AM: Are you okay?
RH: Yeah.
GR: And that’s just like, that’s incredible.
AM: Ordinary people in the war.
GR: Yeah.
AM: As opposed to the Nazis and all the rest of it.
GR: But the fact is, so you are in Germany, and you’ve got Hitler, yeah, we’re going to invade Britain and do this, do that, but you can send a telegram. So, it goes from Germany oh yes, certainly a lot of it went through Switzerland through the Red Cross.
AM: [inaudible as speaking at same time]
RH: Yeah.
GR: But you got the telegram in England, are you okay? Is everything alright?
RH: Yeah, yeah.
AM: What did you do then after the war then, after you’d been demobbed?
RH: I became a civil servant.
AM: Which bit? Which, which department?
RH: The Home, Home office—
AM: Oh.
RH: Was the governing training department but again [coughs] it was, it was, it civil defence training I sort of followed on, I and my brother we were lucky having a father in it. [laughs]
AM: Not what you know, but who you know.
RH: Yeah, well yeah, well you had to go through selection board.
AM: There was always full fair and open competition and all that, allegedly weren’t it. I’m just looking at this, the warrant on the wall here, which is?
RH: The what?
AM: I’m looking for the year, 1962.
RH: That was commission—
AM: You became a, well you tell me what it is?
RH: Yeah, I was commissioned in the volunteer reserve training branch here.
AM: Ah ha.
RH: The Air Training Corps.
AM: As a pilot officer.
RH: Yeah. Eventually I was a flight lieutenant.
AM: Yeah, crikey. Well I think on that note we’ll switch off.
RH: Have you been recording all—
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 Richard Harrison
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-16
Format
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01:07:06 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHarrisonR151116
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Conforms To
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Pending review
Spatial Coverage
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Egypt
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Italy--Sicily
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
1965
Description
An account of the resource
Richard Harrison was born in Cologne in 1924 to a German mother and English father. His desire to be aircrew was thwarted initially by a failed medical, something he later surmises could be on account of his mother’s nationality. A member of the Air Raid Precautions, Home Guard and Air Training Corps, he was called up in 1942. He was posted to RAF Tempsford, base for Special Duty Squadrons 161 and 138, who dropped supplies and people for the resistance. In 1943 he was posted to Sicily in the RAF Regiment Squadron for anti-parachute troop duties and then to Italy. He successfully applied to join the Desert Air Force and had air gunner training at El Ballah in Egypt. He went to Palestine as a rear gunner on a Wellington for the Operational Training Unit, followed by the 1675 Heavy Conversion Unit in Egypt with B-24 . His first operation was in Italy. After VE Day, they transported supplies and troops. After the war, he worked as a civil servant in the Home Office. In 1962, he was commissioned as a pilot officer in the Air Training Corps and eventually became a flight lieutenant
Creator
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Annie Moody
Gary Rushbrooke
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Sally Coulter
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
138 Squadron
161 Squadron
70 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
B-24
bombing
civil defence
crewing up
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
Operational Training Unit
RAF Tempsford
Resistance
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1111/11601/ASaundersJ170609.1.mp3
9eb6de7875d7e6d31dad307ae215e888
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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Simon, Francis William
Frank Simon
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. An oral history interview with Jillian Saunders about her father, Francis William Simon (b. 1917, 2211910 Royal Air Force), his log book and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 153 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jillian Saunders and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, some items are available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Simon, FW
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Right. I’m just going to pop that there but just ignore it. So, today it’s Friday the 9th of June. The day after the election 2017. And this is Annie Moody for the International Bomber Command Centre. I’m with Jill Saunders today and we’re at Jill’s home at [ buzz ] Whiston, in Rotherham. And Jill’s going to talk to me about her mum and dad and their experiences during the bomber war. But then we’ll also come on and talk a little bit about Jill’s experiences since with regards 153 Squadron and also with regards to research into a specific plane. So I’m going to start off, if that’s ok Jill just to ask you a little bit about what you know and what you can remember about your mum and dad’s childhood. Perhaps we’ll start with your dad first. How old would he, can, can you remember what year he was born?
JS: He was born, he’d have been, he’ll be a hundred in, next month.
AM: Ok.
JS: So he was born in 1917.
AM: Right. Ok. So just towards the end of the First World War then.
JS: Yes. Yeah.
AM: Where was he born?
JS: He was born in Salford. His mother died when he was twelve. And his father died about eighteen months later.
AM: Right.
JS: Of a heart, of, well no. His mother died, she’d had an operation for, to have her tonsils out and they left a swab in and she got septicaemia and she died. Which he never got over. And his father I’m not supposed to know it but he was found hanging in the outside loo about eighteen months later.
AM: Right.
JS: So my father was actually brought up by his much older sister, Margaret who he idolised. She was his mum virtually.
AM: Yeah.
JS: And he lived with her until after the war. Until he got married.
AM: Did he have brothers and sisters?
JS: No. No. No, he didn’t.
AM: No. So did Margaret.
JS: Well he had his sister. Margaret was his sister who brought him up.
AM: Of course.
JS: Yeah.
AM: But you said she was considerably older than him.
JS: Yes.
AM: Yeah.
JS: That’s alright.
AM: I’m thinking aunt rather than sister there.
JS: Her son, Les died last year, in fact. He was eighty. He was my cousin obviously and he thought the world of his Uncle Frank and Auntie Peggy. And told me once how, I think it would be in November ’44 he’d be about ten or eleven, something like that. He went to school one day. They were preparing for the Christmas concert and they needed some gold paint for something so the teacher said, ‘Anybody got any gold paint?’ So he said, ‘I’ve got some at home, sir.’ ‘Go home and get it then.’ And when he got home his mum, that’s my dad’s sister Margaret was there making tea and toast for a full seven aircrew who were all sitting around on the living room floor. So, young Les walked in and sort of wow. And they made a fuss of him and he had some tea and toast. And it was the naughtiest thing Les ever did in his life. He didn’t go back to school. They took him to Bellevue for the afternoon.
AM: The zoo.
JS: Yeah. And funfare as it was in those days. And he thought that was great fun. And you know they all made much of him and he remembered my dad and all his crew until the day he died which was last year.
AM: Yeah. It just shows you doesn’t it? So did your dad go to school in Salford?
JS: Dad went to school in Salford. Yes. He was Salford born and bred. Proud to be a Salfordian. And started work. He got an apprenticeship as a fitter.
AM: So, did he leave school at fourteen or —
JS: I don’t know what age he would be.
AM: No. Because it was usually the fourteen for school certificate.
JS: Something like that. He was bright though. Totally wasted. And he was a brilliant engineer. And I think he served his time at Reynold’s. Reynold Chain. That was in Trafford Park, I think in those days. In fact, he worked at the time with Harold Goodwin the actor who was in a lot of war films including, ‘Bridge over the River Kwai.” Little man. He was in quite a lot of war films. And every time one of these films came on TV my dad would go off. ‘There he is the little so and so.’ He was a conshy. He wouldn’t go in the war.
AM: Ok.
JS: But he made all these films afterwards which really wound my father up.
AM: I can imagine.
JS: So, yeah. So he, as I say he served his time as a fitter. In his latter years he was such a good engineer his nickname was Two Thou Frank because everything had to be done to two thousandth of an inch or less. He was just meticulous with everything. The paperwork. You know. He drove me mad with my homework. You know. I had to underline my answers and it had to be neat. He was just that sort of guy really.
AM: So what, so if he started work and apprenticeship.
JS: Yeah.
AM: As a fitter.
JS: Yeah.
AM: What year would that be then? ‘Ish?
JS: I don’t know.
AM: Or am I, obviously pre-war.
JS: It’s pre-war. Yeah. And I know he was a Volunteer Reserve.
AM: Right. So, so this is when?
JS: Because I’ve got his little VR badge. And I think he moved onto AV Roe’s working there and was classed as Reserved Occupation.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So, he was actually older and later joining the fray.
AM: Right.
JS: Than most his contemporaries —
AM: So he actually worked at AV Roe as an, as and engine, a fitter.
JS: Which is where, where he met my mum.
AM: An engineer. Yeah.
JS: Yeah. And he finally got his call up papers and kept for years his one way ticket. His rail ticket. Which —
AM: Yeah.
JS: I threw it out of course. He called it his one way ticket. So, yeah. So then he, he trained for the, they wanted him, they were short of engineers in the RAF and it was the obvious place for him to go really. He trained at St Athan as most of them did. Then he, I’ve got his logbook there. He went through various places but ended up in 166 Squadron at Kirmington.
AM: Ok.
JS: And then in October ’44 he’d crewed up with six Australians at Kirmington.
AM: Right.
JS: Formed a crew, and they were sent down to Scampton to form 153 Squadron with a number of other crews.
AM: Did he tell you anything about the crewing up process? And how they, how that particular —
JS: Yeah. He didn’t, he didn’t but the two guys in his crew that I spoke to and that I met in 2006 did in that they were all just more or less shut in to a room and said form yourselves into a crew. Now, I don’t know whether my dad picked them or they picked him but he ended up in an all Australian crew apart from himself.
AM: I think that was what was in my mind. How did he end up with six Australians then?
JS: Whether the six of them had got together and we need an engineer he’s the only one left. I have no idea. I don’t know who would. Whether the skipper picked them all or who knows.
AM: We’ll never know.
JS: No. No.
AM: But from there they would have gone on to —
JS: So they started ops, I think late October ’44.
AM: They would have gone to Heavy Conversion Unit.
JS: They did that before. He did that before.
AM: Ok. So then the crew.
JS: If you, if you can stop that I’ll go and get his logbook and —
AM: We’ll have a look at that afterwards.
JS: Yeah. Alright.
AM: Oh, well hang on. So what I’ve got here in my hand is a copy of Jill’s dad’s logbook. Jill’s got the actual logbook. And once they’d crewed up and were actually ready to start operations they moved from 166 Squadron to 153 Squadron. Jill, have you any idea why? Why did they move squadrons?
JS: They were just for, as far as I’m aware they were just actually forming a new squadron, 153.
AM: Right.
JS: And I, I don’t know that it was only 166 that was sent there or whether there was others sent there as well to make up the squadron. I could find that out for you. I only need a phone call to Bill Thomas and he would tell me.
AM: Yeah. No. It’s just interesting.
JS: Yeah.
AM: To wonder. Because obviously I’m looking. I’m looking at [pause] I saw the training and the familiarisation. The circuits and landings. All the rest of it. The night bomber. Fighter affiliation. Diversion and bullseye. Almost all with Pilot Officer Mettam.
JS: Yeah.
AM: As the pilot. But for some of them, and we’re in Halifaxes at this point as well. So, Pilot Officer Mettam. Was he one of the Australians then that became the —
JS: Yes.
AM: The final crew.
JS: He was his pilot.
AM: Right. Ok.
JS: Right the way through.
AM: Yeah.
[pause]
AM: So what we’re looking at now is that in —
JS: Also had to do dual and solo. The flight engineer had to be able to fly.
AM: Right. Yeah.
JS: Himself.
AM: Yeah.
JS: In case anything happened to the skipper, of course.
AM: So then in September 1944 when the training had finished that was when they moved the following month in October ’44 to 153 Squadron. So he was based —
JS: At Scampton.
AM: At Scampton. And did he, what did he tell you, if anything, did he tell you anything about the operations? Any stories. Any — or just what it was like.
JS: He — no. He only told me about coming back with the full load on. But I subsequently found out a couple of stories from the skipper and tail gunner when I met them. The tail gunner was a real comedian. Apparently, when they all got back and went for their bacon and eggs Ned didn’t. He went straight to the parachute shed to chat the girl’s up who were folding up parachutes. But that was what Ned was like. He said they were coming back, I don’t know whether dad was with them or not at the time, from one op and he said they were on fire. He was in the rear turret and there were sparks and all sorts flying and they were coming down and he could hear them jettisoning fuel, and you know and preparing for a nasty. And he got on his mic and said, ‘Are we baling out, skip?’ And Mettam, in his voice, ‘No. That won’t be necessary,’ And brought it down sweet as a nut. He also, then Mett himself did tell me once they were diverted to Manston. I don’t think it was the one that dad was on because I’m sure he would have told me but he overshot at Manston which is very, not like Mett but the problem being that as he overshot he hit a ploughed field and the furrows instead of going the way he was going went the opposite way. So I said, ‘Well, what happened?’ He said, ‘Well, the nose dug in,’ he said, ‘And it flipped over.’ Completely flipped over from the back end over the front end. I said, ‘What the hell did you do?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We all got out and scratched our heads, looked at it, laughed and hitched a lift back to Scampton.’
AM: What happened to the plane though upside down in the ploughed field?
JS: That’s right. It wasn’t their problem was it? So, yeah, I mean I did found out a little bit from them two. Dad didn’t speak a great deal apart from he did tell me a few times about the time he came back with a full load on and I think that must have really frightened him. Having to land with a full load that they had been trying to get rid of for a few hours.
AM: Did, did he ever say anything about what he saw as the differences between, because looking at it most of the training was done on Halifaxes and then right towards the end of the training in September they went on to Lancasters.
JS: That’s right.
AM: Did he ever talk about the difference between the two?
JS: No. He only ever spoke about Lancasters.
AM: Right.
JS: He never mentioned Halifaxes at all to me. I think like most of them he was in love with the Lancaster and still are.
AM: And that was the one he did all his operations on.
JS: Yeah.
AM: So. So, I’m looking at the logbook and the first operation was to Essen. And then a couple of Colognes. Nights. A fair mix actually. Mainly, mainly night. Mainly night operations. Cologne. Dortmund. Düren. [unclear] Freiburg. And did he ever say anything about the operations. How he felt about them or —
JS: The only thing he did tell me about was having his bacon and egg and them saying, ‘Flying tonight, sir?’ Which when I watched the “Dambusters” film and having eaten in the mess at Scampton I found it very difficult to actually eat in there. To even go through the doorway. It was just, yeah it sent shivers down my spine.
AM: I think you said, so I’m looking at the operations and we’ve, let me just find the right page. I think in total he did —
JS: I think it was nineteen. I think.
AM: Nineteen.
JS: I think it was nineteen.
AM: Yeah.
JS: I’m trying to find out because they were, they were transferred as a crew down to 582 Pathfinders at Little Staughton in January ’45. Dad was admitted to hospital in Ely in February ’45 and mum did tell me that he, he had done an operation in Pathfinders.
AM: Right.
JS: But there’s no record of it anywhere.
AM: No.
JS: And I think that’s perhaps because he was, didn’t get his logbook filled in and was whipped in to hospital quickly.
AM: Right.
JS: I don’t know.
AM: Because, yeah because on the logbook as you say it shows the last one as number eighteen in January ’45 over the Bay of Biscay. And then you said he was ill.
JS: Yeah.
AM: What, what was, what was wrong? What happened?
JS: He took bad with stomach ulcers and in those days if you had a stomach ulcer they cut you vertically from top to bottom and removed all sorts of things. And he suffered for the rest of his life.
AM: Right.
JS: With duodenal ulcers. I mean today you take a course of antibiotics. I did myself only a few months ago.
AM: How long was he in the hospital? You say he was in the hospital in Ely.
JS: Ely.
AM: Yeah.
JS: In Cambridgeshire. Yeah. Because he was taken from — he was taken from Little Staughton which is Cambridgeshire way isn’t it? And I presume Ely was the biggest hospital.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Looking at the photographs of him just after the war and on honeymoon painfully thin and gaunt. It had obviously, the war and the operation had really taken it out of him.
AM: Well, you know it’s a huge operation.
JS: Yes. Yeah.
AM: And he wasn’t tall to start with. Five foot seven and a half I’ve read on his, on his commencement papers.
JS: Yeah.
AM: So, obviously then he was that was it he didn’t fly again.
JS: He was. Yes. He then went into, he was made to, made to go in the Home Guard.
AM: Because he left. He was actually discharged in May ’45. So then he went in the Home Guard. Any stories about that?
JS: No. He just found it all very amusing and like little boys playing with sticks over their shoulders. Just like Dad’s Army, in fact.
AM: And he would be quite a bit older than them.
JS: Yes.
AM: Well, older than the young ones.
JS: Of course.
AM: Obviously then there’s old.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Old ones as well.
JS: Yeah. And I think he was one of the few that had actually seen action.
AM: Yeah. He would have been twenty eight by then. Which was actually quite old for a flyer.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: So, tell me a bit about your mum and then let’s come back to your mum and dad together. Tell me a little bit about your mum’s early background and where she was born.
JS: Mum was born in Kendal in the Lake District. A country girl. She was one of nine in a small house up there. Left school reasonably early. She was born in 1920.
AM: If she was one of nine did she ever describe to you, talk to you about what sort of house they lived in?
JS: Oh, my God. Yeah.
AM: Go on. Tell us about that.
JS: I’ve been in there.
AM: Oh, you have.
JS: I have.
AM: Describe it for me then.
JS: Just an ordinary [pause] well they were all grey stone built.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Got to be in grey stone in Kendal. Just an ordinary semi with three bedrooms and a downstairs toilet. They did have an indoor toilet and a little bit of a bathroom downstairs off the kitchen. But very small and there was five boys and four girls. And they all had crazy senses of humour. She’s often told me about how they were all tops and tails in bed and many a night the boys would sneak in when they had just gone to sleep, crawl under their bed and just lift the bed up. Frightened them to death. They, they were all she had one brother who she came in one day, she ran in from the garden because she could hear her sister screaming. And her brother had a roped down on to the kitchen table with a carving knife dangling on a rope wrapped around the light fitting swinging. Lowering it like a [laughs]
AM: As you do.
JS: Yeah. And those were the sort of things. They had to make their own fun.
AM: Well, yeah.
JS: And they sort of tortured each other.
AM: The television. Sitting in front of the television.
JS: That’s right.
AM: Where was she in the age range? Somewhere in the middle? Top or bottom?
JS: She was right in the middle, I think.
AM: In the middle. Right.
JS: In fact, the youngest of them mum always said our Lenny was born, she was on the change when she had him. He was the first to die in actual fact. My mum was the last one to die. She died three years ago. She was ninety four.
AM: So she left school at fourteen.
JS: Yeah. And as you do in Kendal you go to work at the K Shoe Factory which later became Clarks. And she was there with all the girls doing piecework. She did piecework all her life and quite happy.
AM: Describe for the tape what piecework is.
JS: Piecework is, you get paid for, per item. So the more items you do per day the more money you get. So it had a great impact on her life because her idea of doing something well was doing it as fast as she possibly could. She went to the gym which she did in her fifties and sixties it was, ‘I’ve finished,’ in ten minutes flat because she’d just tear around like a lunatic. Everything she did was at break neck pace because she was used to being on piecework. She later went on, she carried on for the rest of her life as a machinist. And worked for a number of years making nurses uniforms.
AM: It’s just piecework’s not a phrase you would hear now.
JS: No. No.
AM: And of course —
JS: I don’t know what they’d call it now.
AM: When you said she did piecework.
JS: Yeah. Yeah. It was the only thing.
AM: So, so back to she worked at —
JS: Yeah.
AM: The K Factory.
JS: She worked at Ks. And then the war broke out so she would be about nineteen. Nineteen and a bit. They were obviously stopped from making shoes into more useful footwear and she ended up on flying boots for the RAF. And she told me how as the flying boots went along the production line and they all did their little bit to them and all the girls to relieve the boredom and because they felt they had to, no. They wanted to. Slipped little notes in the boots as they went along in front of them. Little slips of paper. You know, “God bless the RAF.” “Good luck.” “Stay safe.” All that sort of thing.
AM: Nowadays it would be have my mobile number.
JS: Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So then after a while there she was all her brothers and sisters were doing their bit in various places, she was sent down to Manchester to work in the munitions factory in Trafford Park. And while she —
AM: Did she have a choice of what war work she did?
JS: No. No. She was just —
AM: Quite the opposite. That’s where she was sent.
JS: She got a notice that’s where she was going and that’s where she went. And then once she was sent there of course there was a little bit of room left in the home where she was brought up so her mother, my grandma then had to take in evacuee children. She had two little boys. One didn’t last too long. And then the second one was from the North East. A pale sickly child and of course nice fresh air and good food as far as, well to what he’d been used to his parents came to visit him and didn’t recognise him. So, yeah mum’s now in, I think it was AV Roe she was in. It was, she was making parts for Lancaster bombers and she was doing something with a bit of metal. I don’t know what it was and in came a load of airmen and dad was amongst them. They were obviously all engineers. As part of the training learning how it was all put together and their eyes met over, I don’t know whether it was a lathe or something like that and that was that. they started going out together. And they got engaged. He sent her money to go and get a second hand ring somewhere. He wouldn’t get married until after the war. She used to go home at weekends, I think. Now and again. And her sister, my auntie did tell me that whenever she saw dad by this time was on ops and whenever she got up in the morning and read the newspaper and it said a thousand bomber raid over so and so again last night. Apparently, the colour just drained from her face and she wouldn’t eat her breakfast and couldn’t do anything. And they all left her alone until she got a telegram because dad always sent her a telegram when he, as soon as he got back. After he’d his bacon and eggs I suspect. And as soon as she got the telegram she was alright. But he wouldn’t get married ‘til the war was over. And his war was over when he got [pause] well when he came back of the Home Guard I suppose after he’d been discharged from the RAF.
AM: You were telling me some stories about your mum. So when she’d moved to Trafford and was working at the AV Roe factory obviously she would end up in digs.
JS: Oh yes. That was the only thing she would ever spoke about. I mean she never spoke about the work or the girls or anything. It was just the horrible digs she was put in and there and it was bed bugs and fleas and it was filthy dirty and icy cold. And she couldn’t wait to go home at weekends. She hated it and she was lonely and she was a very timid soul. A very nervous person. You know to be taken from her nice comfortable country existence like that to be sent to a big city to have to do that and put up with all the bombing and everything else. I remember when it was D-Day she said, she said they knew it was brewing and that morning she said all through the night they’d heard aircraft going over. She said it was just a constant drone all night long and they knew that something was, was happening. And that morning the hooter went in the factory, Everybody to the canteen,’ and they all lined up in the canteen and the guy said to them, ‘Let’s just say a prayer for the lads. This is it. This is D-Day,’ and she said they all just you know had a few minutes for the, for the boys.
AM: Sorry that gulp was me sipping water. So then obviously you said he sent this telegram every time he got back.
JS: Every time. Yeah.
AM: From ops. I’m just trying to piece together in my mind so she’s still there working when he was in hospital in Ely as well.
JS: Yes. She must have been.
AM: She must have been, mustn’t she?
JS: She must have been. Yeah.
AM: And then come the end of the war he’s in the Home Guard.
JS: Yes.
AM: Well, not the end. From his discharge which was in May ’45.
JS: Yes. He went into the Home Guard.
AM: He’s in the Home Guard.
JS: In the Manchester area again, I presume. I don’t know for sure but I presume it was in his home town. I think it was in Salford.
AM: And she would still be in Trafford Park or would she have moved back up to Kendal.
JS: I have no idea when she moved back. I’ve no idea.
AM: But obviously they’d got engaged by then so —
JS: It was all go then. Yeah.
AM: So when did they get married? ‘ish?
JS: Well, I was born in ’49 and I think they’d been married two to three years before they had me. 18th of April err 27th of April.
AM: Where did they end up living?
JS: She moved down to Salford to be with him. They moved in a, oh it was an awful house. I can remember it even as a kid. It was four back to backs next door to the school. And when it rained we had buckets everywhere. It was cold. It was damp. The toilet was a hundred yards away in a block with three others to go with the other three houses that were back to back with.
AM: Just explain what back to back, what you mean by back to back.
JS: Well, these were, it was two semis and then attached to them at the back of them was another two semis. So it was a square block of four properties.
AM: And that means that the windows were only on the front because the —
JS: That’s right.
AM: Back wall is the dividing wall.
JS: Two walls.
AM: Between the two properties.
JS: Two walls.
AM: Which is why we call them back to back.
JS: That’s right.
AM: It’s like four in a square as you say, isn’t it?
JS: Yeah. Yeah. And torn up newspaper for loo roll. I can remember my mum always going mad that, ‘Mrs Garforth, next door has been using our toilet again. I can tell.’ [laughs]
AM: So the toilet was at the end of the —
JS: The toilets were along the side. So [pause] let me see. You’ve got the four houses there.
AM: You’ve got your four houses in a square.
JS: Back to back.
AM: Yeah.
JS: And there’s a bit of a garden here and the road there.
AM: Right. So in the front of each house.
JS: And there.
AM: There was a garden but then at the side of them —
JS: No, there wasn’t. No.
AM: No.
JS: The front of that house and this one were on the, on the road.
AM: Oh right. Ok.
JS: Right. This was ours. This one here. And the front door was here.
AM: Right.
JS: So it was on the corner and was that one. And the toilets were there.
AM: Right.
JS: Difficult to explain.
AM: And were there four separate toilets then?
JS: And so we had to go from, yeah.
AM: Ok.
JS: In a row. So we had to run from here.
AM: But you were further away.
JS: The furthest away.
AM: Because you were furthest away house from there really.
JS: Yes. That’s right.
AM: From the toilets.
JS: And that was Mrs Garforth’s. And our toilet was quite handy for her [laughs] And my primary school was here.
AM: Right.
JS: The school yard gate was there.
AM: Right.
JS: So whenever they couldn’t find me as a two year old I was in the school yard playing with the kids. And the teachers knew me and they’d take me in to class with them at two and three years old.
AM: I’m trying to think. 1949. Would rationing still be on?
JS: Yes.
AM: It would, wouldn’t it, then. So no sweets or anything like that.
JS: Oh no. No. No. You were lucky if you had clothes on your back. Times were really hard. Tin bath in front of the fire.
AM: Yeah. Once a week.
JS: By this time my dad was working at the power station. At Agecroft Power Station. And he used to go off on his bike. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of Agecroft Brew, but it’s about one in one. Cycle down there to do his stint at the power station and then have to cycle all the way home and many a time we didn’t see him. I didn’t see him for days on end because he’d go to work and then it was can you do some overtime? So he’d go straight into overtime and then during the overtime there’d be a breakdown so he could be there for forty eight hours. And there was no phones or anything.
AM: No.
JS: He’d go off to work and we really didn’t know when he was coming back.
AM: Did your mum work? Or was your mum at home.
JS: Mum was working full time as a machinist. Yeah.
AM: Oh, you said she worked her whole life [unclear] Yeah.
JS: Yeah. So the next door neighbour was the caretaker of the primary school that I’ve just described and they became great friends. And she was the grandma that I never had was Auntie Nellie. She babysat so that they could both go to work. She was a wise old soul. She virtually brought me up.
AM: So how long did you live in in those houses?
JS: We lived there until I was about seven.
AM: Right.
JS: And then we thought we’d hit the big time because we were granted a council house a couple of miles away. And I mean it was the business, you know. We’d made the big time.
AM: Indoor bathroom. Indoor loo.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Nice big garden. It was in a state and dad set to and he made it lovely. It was his pride and joy. But in those days the rent man came on a Friday or whatever it was. You had to pay him in cash. No pets. You did as you were told else you were out. No benefits. No nothing in those days.
AM: No. Well yeah. Its, I’m just trying to think what year National Health came in. ’50. I can’t think.
JS: I think there was national health but there was no benefits as such.
AM: No.
JS: I mean you were privileged if you got a council house and you made sure you paid your rent. And you had to be, you had to be a good upstanding family with a full time job and able to afford the rent. There was no housing benefit or anything. If you couldn’t afford the rent you couldn’t have a council house. Times are different now.
AM: So then you grew up.
JS: I grew up.
AM: Got married. Moved away.
JS: Yeah.
AM: Your dad carried on working. I think you said your dad died.
JS: He carried on working. He worked hard all his life. Yeah. And then he had a heart attack in ’73. Died in ’73. He was only fifty five. It should never have happened.
AM: So quite young.
JS: Never have happened.
AM: Relatively speaking.
JS: I mean in this day and age they’d have put a stent in and he’d have been alright.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Again. And the care was dreadful. Within ten days his back was covered in bed sores. I didn’t believe him. I thought he was joking. Then he leaned over and I saw his back. It was raw. Absolutely blistered from top to bottom.
AM: It’s just how things have changed. When you do look back at something like that it makes you realise how much things have changed.
JS: I saw him the night before he died and he was fine. He’d watched the Cup Final. Manchester United. He was made up, buzzing. ‘Look at, they’ve moved me up here.’ ‘Well, that shows you’re getting better. Look. Your charts back.’ ‘Yeah. Ok.’ And then I got home and I got a phone call 6 o’clock the next morning, ‘It’s the hospital here.’ I said, ‘Is it my dad?’ ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Is he dead?’ She said, ‘Yeah. There’s nothing you can do. We’ve told your mum on the phone to get down there as soon as you can and then come here at 9 o’clock for his things.’ Well, by the time we got to my mum’s house she was running up and down the stairs just completely hysterical. They just told her over the phone and she was on her own. And we got there and he was still in his bed with the curtains around. Oh, there’s a bag with his things in. Sign for it. Sign for a post mortem. Come back tomorrow.’ And my husband said, ‘No. You’re not doing a post mortem.’ ‘But we’re — ’ He said, ' No. He’s dead. Peggy, don’t sign.’ I’ve never seen my husband be like that before. It was quite barbaric really. He didn’t deserve it. He worked long and hard all his life. He had a really tough life.
AM: So, tell me a little bit now about you and afterwards and 153 Squadron and and your relationship and what you do.
JS: Yeah. Well, because of dad’s discharge from the RAF Mett, his skipper was his hero and dad was all set for going back to Australia with him after the war. But of course because he was hospitalised and everything he lost touch with them all. And he tried ‘til the day he died to find them all but they were all Australian and there was no internet and phones or anything in those days. And he spent hours in the library but he wasn’t able to come up with anything. And on and off from thereafter I kept having a dabble myself and then the internet struck up and in 2006 I got hold of a guy who was on the internet, down as a representative for 153 squadron. And his phone number was there so I rang him and I said, ‘Is that Bill Thomas?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘153 Squadron.’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘My dad was with 153 Squadron.’ And he said, ‘Just a minute. What was his name?’ And I told him and he said, ‘That’s right. Came down from Kirmington. 166.’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ He said, ‘Yeah. His skipper was Hal Mettam.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Hang on a minute,’ he said, ‘I’ve got Mett’s phone number here. Do you want it?’ Well, I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t believe it. I sat on it for two or three hours before I rang him and he, he was quite curt with me when I, when I rang. He was a bit off guard. He was moving house. He was about to eat his dinner and that was that and I put the phone down. Well, he put the phone down. And I thought well at least I’ve spoken to the guy and I set to and I wrote him a letter. Enclosed a few photographs and my contact details and I stuck it in the post. I got home from the work the following night and this Bill Thomas called me again. He said, ‘How did you get on speaking to Mett?’ So I said, ‘Well, it was a bit of a weird conversation really.’ He said, ‘Yeah. He was a bit aloof.’ He said, ‘I’ve got another one for you.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Another member of his crew.’ I said, ‘Oh, go on then.’ ‘Ned Kennedy, his tail gunner.’ I said, ‘Yeah. That’s right.’ He said, ‘He lives in Scarborough.’ I said, ‘Oh wow.’ And he gave me the phone number. I said, ‘Scarborough?’ He said, ‘Yeah. Scarborough, New South Wales.’ I said, ‘Oh right. Ok.’ So I waited ‘til the early hours of the morning and I thought right I shall ring now, because of the time difference. A little lady answered the phone and she put me on to Ned and he said, ‘Hello.’ I said, ‘Is that Ned Kennedy, 153 Squadron?’ ‘Yes. ‘I said, ‘Do you remember your flight engineer?’ He said, ‘Frank. Yes.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m Frank’s daughter.’ ‘Well, bugger me,’ he said in a broad Australian accent. He said, ‘You sound just like your dad. I can hear him now saying “Want a cup of tea, skip?”’ So, cutting a long story short I got home again the next night and lo and behold there was an email from Mett, the skipper which took me by surprise. Apologising and saying yes he did remember and everything. And, and we kept in touch. And in May ‘07 Mett came to the reunion. I went to the first reunion. And Ned, very sick, in a wheelchair got on a plane and came over from Australia and we all met up at the reunion and there wasn’t a dry house in the house.
AM: Where was it? Where was the reunion?
JS: It was at the Holiday Inn in Lincoln. Prior to that they had them at another hotel in Lincoln and we had it then at that hotel for three or four years and I started to get involved. And now we have it at the Bentley.
AM: So, how did you get involved in doing more?
JS: I got involved, particularly. There was one year we went and one of our vets was taken poorly the day before as happens because they’re all getting elderly and said he couldn’t make it and the staff at the hotel were insisting we paid for his room. And the secretary at the time was, ‘Oh. Ok then. Yes.’ And started to write a cheque. And they were also insisting that in future years all these veterans must be insured in case they couldn’t come. And being the rubber gob that I am stuck my two penneth in and said, ‘No. You are not being paid. You can’t tell me you did not sell that room last night.’ ‘Well um —' I said, ‘No,’ I said, ‘There’s no way you’re having money out of us,’ I said, ‘These guys are veterans. They’re OAPs,’ you know, ‘Stop taking the mick,’ I said, ‘And regards insurance you can stick it.’ And they were sort of oooh. And then one or two people said, ‘Good on you, Jill.’ De de de de de de. Bill Thomas, in those days used to write a newsletter three times a year handscript and send it out to people. I said, ‘I’ll type that out for you Bill if you like.’ ‘Oh, will you?’ And it just sort of snowballed from there. I was elected to take over from madam who was saying yes to everything. And I started typing the newsletters for him and adding a little bit and then it got to the stage where I was actually doing them. And then arranging they decided after that particular incident to move hotels for the reunions. And we moved and I took over the bookings of that and then, you know as the vets have sort of either died or not been able to, to keep up Bill Thomas who was the secretary decided we should have an honorary secretary, an honorary treasurer and what have you. The next generation down. So that was how I got the post of an hon sec.
AM: That was you. So do you still have an annual reunion?
JS: Yes. We had it last month.
AM: How many Second World War veterans have you still got?
JS: Well, on the books we’ve got [pause] about half a dozen or so. Maybe more.
AM: Yeah.
JS: But we only had three show up this year. In fact one of them with his family came over from Majorca. He lives in Majorca now and he comes quite often. He’s a case is Jack, er the year before we went to the BBMF and we were having a look around and he got in the Lanc and he was sat in the pilot’s seat. He was a pilot. He’s the only pilot we’ve got left. He sat in the pilot’s seat and as we were walking away he was walking with his two sticks. I said, ‘Did you enjoy that, Jack?’ He said, ‘Aye. But I couldn’t remember where the undercarriage switch was.’ He’s got a wicked sense of humour. A very nice chap. The other one is Taf Owen. He did a Manna drop.
AM: Aneurin.
JS: Hmm?
AM: He’s called Aneurin.
JS: Yeah. We all call him Taf. Yeah. He did Manna drops. He’s our president. And Les Jenkin. Les [pause] Oh God. I forget his surname now.
AM: I’ll find out off you after if they’ve all been interviewed.
JS: Yes. Yes. He has. Les. Oh. my goodness. Well, his daughter’s treasurer anyway.
AM: Yeah.
JS: So —
AM: Tell me a little bit about the research you’ve been doing into a specific Lancaster.
JS: This specific Lancaster.
[recording paused]
AM: Well, tell me. So go on. So tell me about the plane.
JS: Right. Right. As part of my role as hon sec I decided one year a few years ago that we should get a bit more high tech and develop a webpage and a Facebook page. So I started them off and we’ve had all sorts of contacts come in via both. We’ve picked up a lot of new members. Particularly this last year. I think it’s because a lot of people going into their genealogy and stuff now. And things are beginning to tie up. Coincidences are happening. And, you know we had a couple meet up at the reunions whose fathers were, flew together and that sort of thing and it’s been, it’s almost spooky at times. Anyway, sometime last year via our webpage I got an enquiry. I was contacted by a guy in Germany called Roland. ‘I have some pieces of an aircraft. One of your aircraft from 153 Squadron. Would you like them? I found them in the forest.’ And he gave me the number of the aircraft. He’d done a little bit of research himself so, ‘Yes please.’ So arrived a box full of pieces.
AM: And I’m looking at —
JS: Yeah.
AM: Exactly that.
JS: Yeah.
AM: A box full of pieces.
JS: Yeah.
AM: From, blimey.
JS: They smell weird.
AM: I will take a photograph.
JS: Yeah. Well, I’ve got. I did take some photographs. Somebody reckoned that that particular, we thought that was leather but he was thinking it was part of the self-sealing liner for a fuel tank.
AM: Ok.
JS: Anyway, after a bit of research I discovered that this particular aircraft, it went down in March ’45. It was on a raid to Nuremburg with a crew and it was their first operation. And it was fully loaded with a four thousand pounder and fourteen hundred and seventy incendiaries and it was hit by a night fighter. It was virtually vapourised. But this gentleman in Germany has done a lot of research. He’s been and found their graves. He’s sent me all the information he’s got plus photographs of the crash site plus a report from the local mayor about the incident which I’ve had translated. And I’ve managed to find relatives of [pause] how many members of the crew now? I think it’s, well it’s four lots of relatives I think I’ve managed to contact who’ve become members. Yes. There we are. One. Two. Three. Four lots. So, that is still ongoing. We, at our AGM discussed it, wondering what to do with it all and seeing as the pieces are so small first refusal on the pieces has been to relatives or descendants of any of that crew. And the rest we thought we would take the most convenient bits and put them in a little presentation box. A glass fronted thing with a document which I’m trying to pull together of what exactly happened to it and give it to them at the Scampton Heritage Centre to put with the other 153 stuff that they’ve got there. That’s as it is at the moment. I’ve made lots of notes but we’ve not put a document together and we’ve not had a presentation.
AM: And did, did you say your dad had flown in that plane?
JS: Yeah. Yeah. And part of my research shows that my father flew in that, in that particular aircraft on one occasion. I think it, did I say it was October ’44 and it went down in March ’45. There’s also Tom Tobin who you have on your records. It was his, his favourite aircraft. He did about fourteen ops in it before it went down.
AM: But not that one.
JS: I’m in touch, regular contact with his daughter in Australia. A Douglas McCourt also flew in it on March the 2nd. I’m in contact with his son in South Africa. And Doug is ninety five and still going strong. And there is another. You have Peter Baxter’s memoirs on record. His son, Mike Baxter is in our Association because his father was the engineering officer for 153 and he actually flew in it as well. And he says in his memoirs, “We flew in Lancaster W-William. Appropriately numbered with my initials PB642 Peter Baxter.” So yes. It’s quite incredible really tying it all together. We’ve got a couple of photographs of members of the crew. We’re still trying to find more. As I say I’m still pulling it all together.
AM: Those pictures of the graves at the back.
JS: These are pictures of the graves.
AM: Where are the graves?
JS: At —
AM: Durnbach.
JS: Durnbach War Cemetery. And this is where he found the pieces. These are photographs of where he actually found the pieces of the aircraft.
AM: Given that there were that many, I mean you describe it as virtually vapourised.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: Given that there were that many incendiaries on them.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: It sort of makes you wonder.
JS: Yeah. Tiny little pieces.
AM: What went in the graves.
JS: According to, according to the mayor in his report he says [pause] where is it? [unclear] Yeah. That, that’s what Tom [pause] Tom Tobin was in it. Flew fourteen ops in it or something. I’m just —
[pause – pages turning]
AM: Yeah. it’s, it, it is absolutely fascinating to look at the, to look at the photographs of where he dug the pieces up from.
JS: Yeah.
AM: It actually looks like wood smell.
JS: It is.
AM: It’s come down in woods.
JS: I’ve got the actual crash site and a map with it plotted on it. As I say, I’ve really got to bring all this together.
AM: Yeah.
JS: That’s my ongoing project at the moment.
AM: Yeah. but although you describe them as quite small pieces, which they are there’s quite a lot of it.
JS: Yeah.
AM: There’s a whole box of it.
JS: Well, there’s two boxes arrived. I mean one box arrived within days. And another one a few weeks later.
AM: How did he know?
JS: I have no idea. I have no idea. I mean most of that information in there in the graves and everything all tallies up and he, there’s a lot of Germans now doing this.
AM: Oh yeah.
JS: With metal detectors.
AM: Yeah.
JS: And then following it up and researching it.
AM: Yeah.
JS: And that’s what he does a s a hobby etcetera. But I found it particular spooky when I opened the box. It was just a cardboard box. It had leaves and mud and twigs and things in it as well. And the smell as I opened the box and as I touched a piece and thinking dad’s flown in that.
AM: Yeah.
JS: We just, we both just stood there and we actually shivered.
AM: A little shiver.
JS: There’s one place. Is it that page?
AM: Your dad could have probably told you.
JS: Yeah.
AM: What they were and where they were from.
JS: Like this one we worked out that this piece we worked out at the AGM that that’s got to be part of the one of the seats because they’re screws rather than rivets. Right. So it would have been screwed into the wood.
AM: So I’m looking at a piece of metal that’s maybe eight inches long.
JS: Yeah. And you see that’s the interior colour paint.
AM: And maybe about, yeah, about three quarters of an inch wide. You can see the green paint on it and the one, two, three, four, five, six screws with the screw heads. And on the other side of the metal where the screws have gone through it, the whatever it was and it looks like some sort of leather seat cover.
JS: That would have been a washer of some sort on the other side with it being screwed you see.
AM: It’s, I will take some photographs of this. It’s fascinating.
JS: As I say we decided in our infinite wisdom that that would be part of a seat.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Because it will have been screwed to something wooden which would be a frame for a seat.
AM: Yeah.
JS: As opposed to rivets in, in other bits, you see.
AM: Crikey. So we’re looking at a Lancaster with rivets through it here and I wish I could bring Rosie the riveter in. I’ll tell Jill about Rosie the riveter later.
JS: That would be interesting. You know they’re quite heavy.
AM: It is absolutely fascinating.
JS: Yeah.
AM: To look at and think what, what they are and what they were
JS: We’ve scoured them all to try and find numbers on them but you can, you can feel the different metals. [unclear] probably a bit of shrapnel judging by the weight of that.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s absolutely fascinating looking at all these. I’m going to switch the tape off now and then take some photographs.
JS: When it first arrived —
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 Jill Saunders
Creator
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Annie Moody
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
2017-06-09
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASaundersJ170609
Format
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00:53:45 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Jill Saunders’s father Frank Simon was born in Salford in 1917. He served an apprenticeship as a fitter before joining A.V. Roe. He had joined the RAF volunteer reserve but as he was in a reserved occupation, he was only called up in 1944. He trained at St Athan as a flight engineer and was subsequently posted to 166 Squadron, based at RAF Kirmington, in October 1944. The remainder of his crew were all Australians. They were one of the crews sent to RAF Scampton to form 153 Squadron. Altogether, Frank flew 19 operations before his crew were transferred to the Pathfinders at RAF Little Straughton in January 1945. However, he became ill and was hospitalised in February 1945. It was while working at A.V. Roe that Frank met his future wife, Peggy. She was born in Kendal in 1920 and had worked at a shoe factory before being conscripted to a munitions factory in Manchester. They married after the war. Frank worked at a power station until his death at the age of 55 in 1973. Peggy lived into her 90s.
In about 2006, Jill made contact with the 153 Squadron Association and through it, with two of Frank’s former crew. She became involved in the running of the Association and remains Honorary Secretary.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Manchester
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Julie Williams
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
153 Squadron
166 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
civil defence
final resting place
flight engineer
Home Guard
Lancaster
love and romance
RAF Kirmington
RAF Scampton
RAF St Athan
shot down
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/512/8743/PFranklinJB1616.1.jpg
795421ad1dfce4657298441a0a2fd3a6
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/512/8743/AFranklinJB160331.2.mp3
f6e3050fce261c63a251a84f549d2b34
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
Franklin, John Brown
Jack Brown Franklin
John B Franklin
John Franklin
J B Franklin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Franklin, JB
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with John "Jack" Brown Franklin (1921 - 2018 1484256 Royal Air Force)and fourteen photographs of people and aircraft. He served in the Liverpool Home Guard before enlisting in the Air Force. He served as ground crew with 109 Squadron between late 1942 and 1944 before being posted to Burma with 28 Squadron in 1945.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by XXX and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-31
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing mechanic John Brown Franklin of 109 and 28 squadrons RAF at his home in Walton, Liverpool on Thursday 31st March 2016 and the time is 1.45. Also, with me is his nephew Neil Hayes and if you would like to start us off please Jack. You’ve asked me to call you Jack as -
JBF: Yes that’s right. Yeah.
BW: That’s how you’re referred to.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Would you give us your service number and date of birth please?
JBF: Yes. Ok. Service number is 1484256. Date of birth 28 6 1921.
BW: And have you always lived in Liverpool?
JBF: Yes.
BW: And do you, you mentioned you had, I think, a brother. Do you have brothers and sisters or did you have brothers and sisters?
JBF: I’ve got a brother and sister. My brother was world famous as a ballet dancer.
BW: What was his name?
JBF: Frederick Franklin. And if you want to get his history I believe it’s all on the –
NH: All over the web.
JBF: In the computer. And here’s Neil with his CBE presented by the queen to him at Buckingham palace.
BW: Right.
JBF: And unfortunately -
BW: Wow.
JBF: He died just a couple of years ago aged ninety eight.
BW: And whereabouts in Liverpool were you living at the time?
JBF: Oh at birth. Over a café on the corner of Wavertree Road and Durning Road. We were all three born over the café and my father ran it with his mother and it lasted ‘til about 1923 and then we went to live higher up Wavertree Road in Janet Street and then about ten years after that, it would be about 1933 we moved to Gordon Drive, Pilch Lane, Huyton and that’s where I married from and lived here. I’ve lived here since 1957.
BW: Wow.
JBF: We bought the house then with my wife Dorothea.
BW: And so what was your home life like? Was it -
JBF: Well it was great. We were, they were musical people. My mother was very musical and my sister and they were in to all sorts of shows like the Maid of the Mountains and The Chocolate Soldier and Rosemarie. That kind of show. They loved it. And when my brother decided he wanted to be on the stage they were over the moon simply because he wanted to be on stage and so -
BW: And did he get a scholarship for his dancing or anything like that?
JBF: Oh no what he did was he went with the Jackson Boys to, his first job was he joined the Jackson Boys, a troupe of people dancing and they finished up in Paris at the, I think it was the Casino de Paris and he was there ‘til the Germans, the war started in ‘39 and they were either threatening to overrun France or they had actually started but my mother lost touch and was worried stiff and then the next thing we heard about him was that he was in Holland with the company, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo run by a fellow called Leonide Massine. He’s also a world famous performer if you care to go through the, and the next minute we heard he was in America so of course he was delighted that he’d got out of it ‘cause there was no way he would ever have made a servicemen of any kind. He was just, he was a piano player, played the piano, singing and dancing you know. One of the times he was playing the piano and Miss [Stangette?] whom you no doubt have never heard of, she used to sit on the piano and she was the toast of Paris and she used to come out in this café, Casino de Paris or whatever it was, a nightclub and do the singing while Fred played. My sister was also a pianist so we –
BW: And were you musical yourself?
JBF: Oh yes. I, I was the only one that didn’t get the lessons because the money ran out. My father had a stroke. My father was a veteran of the Boer war complete with medal.
BW: And you’ve got his medal here.
JBF: And -
BW: Which has got to be a rare item in itself.
JBF: Yes well its solid silver, unlike the tin ones we got from the last war.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: With bars and -
BW: Yeah.
JBF: And he was shot off his horse somewhere in South Africa and he said the worst thing about it was the two hundred mile trip in a cart, [bullock?] cart to get to the boat to come home. Well he came home and survived and they invalided him out of the army in 1900 and he was never called up for the ‘14 war. He was unfit for further service and that’s, and he had a stroke about, what, 1931 sometime in the early 30s. I never knew him as a man really. He was, like all Victorians he was here and you were over there, you know. That’s just how it was. He was a nice guy you know, it just -
BW: Yeah. More of a father figure.
JBF: A father figure.
BW: A strict father figure in a sense.
JBF: Exactly. Yeah. Mother did all the slogging, you know. Kept us all together.
BW: And what was school like for you?
JBF: Oh a bit disastrous because I just didn’t get on somehow or other. I just didn’t get on. I left at sixteen and a half and I was really contemplating. I thought well I’d better do something about it so I just started to do the school certificate rerun at night school and the war started.
BW: And what subjects were you studying in your certificate at night school?
JBF: I got credits in history, English, and geography and I failed in chemistry and math er French and chemistry. That was it. And as a matter of interest I had my French book stolen for the last nine months before the exam and so there was no way I was going to pass it anyway you know. I just. Anyway I got out of school. Got this job with paper merchants LS Dixon and Co Limited. Very old fashioned, very conservative Liverpool Company.
BW: And what were you doing in the paper merchants?
JBF: Clerking. Booking orders, arranging for the orders to get out to the warehouse, seeing that they were all packed up properly and delivered to whoever, you know.
BW: And so presumably you had this job for about year eighteen months.
JBF: That’s right.
BW: Until war broke out.
JBF: Well, the story about the war thing is sitting opposite us was a veteran of the war. He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘It’ll be over by Christmas,’ you know. It was exactly the same as the pre-war people. It will be over by Christmas and ‘course it wasn’t and then it got around to Dunkirk you know when the three hundred and thirty three thousand were being picked up in France and Eric, sitting opposite me, Eric [McKim?] he said, ‘You know, Jack. We should do something about it really. I know we’re underage.’ We was, I was eighteen I think or something like that and we went to the police station in Derby Lane and signed on and then from Derby Lane I got the call to report to the abattoir in Prescot Road and I was given that.
BW: And this is a card that says you’re joining the Local Defence Volunteers.
JBF: That’s right, yes.
BW: G division.
JBF: Yeah
BW: Dated 13th of June 1940. So this is right after the evacuation of Dunkirk. Right at the height of -
JBF: Well it was Dunkirk that, Dunkirk was the end of May.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: 1940 and we finished up in this abattoir with that and we had instructions when the church bells landed er sounded you know we were told to destroy our identity you know, and so we joined the Home Guard and, or the LDV as it was. We had neither uniforms nor rifles or anything you know and we used to do marching about and guard and such like and the one terrifying moment in the, as an LDV was that the church bells had rung. A corporal came around, 2 o’clock in the morning, ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘It’s on,’ so we get up to the orphanage and we’re stood in two lines at the back of the orphanage facing Speke in front of trenches full of water that we’d dug, you know in the 1914 style.
BW: Yeah. Zigzag.
JBF: And everybody was mystified but we were all looking from Speke for the parachutists you know and we were there for a couple of hours and then suddenly, you know, we, it all vanished. The whole thing fell apart. There was nothing. Nobody landed. And we, we’d been given twenty four hours rations which was hard tack and corned beef. Well we ate those in about half an hour. Just sat around and ate it all. By 3 o’clock we’d eaten the day’s rations you know and that’s how the, it’s perfectly right, I’m Pike in the Dad’s Army because I was that age and everybody else who carefully avoided guard duties and all the nasty bits were bank managers or foremen and something else or assistant managers in bread shops or whatever it was, you know and Mr Mainwaring is a dead ringer for the CO you know.
BW: Of your unit.
JBF: Ex, in the, ex in, he was a bank manager you know and he got the atmosphere you know. It was typical and that went on for fifteen months until I was called up and then finally I got the call up papers and joined the RAF on the 15th of September 1941.
BW: And did you see, during your time as an LDV volunteer did you see any raids over Liverpool because -
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: There were quite a few raids by the Luftwaffe on the -
JBF: That’s a separate chapter. We were formed by the company which was in town, Cable Street, into parties of three and we did night duty on the premises during the blitz and the most graphic one of the blitz was we were playing table tennis as something to do while it was all going crash bang wallop ‘cause we were near the docks and they were really and then this hell of an explosion. It shook the place absolutely, we thought and we were in the cellar so we managed, we decided we’d better go around and see everything was intact. Nothing. So we went outside. Went up Thomas Street into South John Street and at the junction of North John Street and Lord Street was a huge pile of debris, masonry and out of it was sticking arms and legs and so we went up like this, you know the real -
BW: Yeah. Sort of -
JBF: John Wayne, sort, you know.
BW: Covering your eyes. Yeah.
JBF: And on the, on the traffic light was a sailor trying to knock out the lights with a brick so we get up there looking and thinking oh my God what are we going to see and they were all tailors dummies. There wasn’t a person in it. The shops around that area were tailors shops and the bomb had hit Church House, blown that to pieces and the blast had blown all these dummies out of the shop windows and somehow or other they all arrived together in the middle. So we got over that. That was the most graphic of the, and then the next one was during the May we had, I don’t know if you know about the blitz but Liverpool, before Hitler invaded Russia he blitzed Liverpool as a good start to stopping the shipping in the May. The May blitz it’s called and that week we had a floating land mine drift over the house and blew up on the Swanside estate. Blew all those houses up and the blast took the windows out of the back of our house and holes in the roof, hole in the roof and all the celings had holes in where the draft had came down but the most awful thing was the soot because we all had chimneys and everywhere was covered in soot you know so on the Sunday my mother and I we started clearing up and I said, ‘I’ve got to go to work,’ you know so I got the bike out and we started down for the, for the town and I got to [Clatton] Street and the place was covered in glass. I thought well this is the end of the bike if I ride so I picked the bike up, put it on my shoulder and walked down to Lewis’ which was just a hollow wreck. There was nothing visible at all. It had been on fire and they’d put it out and there was just and they ground that down to Boots on the corner, round the corner and I got as far as the bottom of Lord Street, Whitechapel and Paradise Street and there was a tape across so I got to there and the strange thing was where what we could see of Cable Street which was right at the back of Lord Street you could see daylight you know. I thought well that’s funny, it doesn’t look too good so I said to the man, ‘My job’s around the corner.’ He said, ‘No it isn’t,’ he said, ‘It’s finished. You can’t go around there.’ And two four storey buildings that was the office, the warehouse, the factory and the second warehouse were about this high. It had just burned. The whole thing had gone because it was a paper warehouse. Couldn’t be better, you know, once, and it was fire that, on that particular blitz.
BW: Raised the building to about two foot high.
JBF: It was just about two foot high and I was standing there dumb. I thought, ‘Well ok the house has gone up now the jobs gone up. What do we do now for an encore?’ Sort of thing. And I got a tap on the shoulder. I looked around and it was the manager Mr Lloyd. He said, ‘John,’ he said, ‘We’re all around at the Allied Paper.’ So I hot footed it around to the Allied Paper in Hood Street and the entire office collection was sitting there looking at each other you know. So they didn’t know what to, ‘cause there was not even a place to go to. The place had vanished. Literally. Four storey buildings just vanished and Mr Packer was the export manager, he said, ‘Well John, if you need something to do come with me and we’ll see what’s happened to the shipping.’ So I was delighted, so, ‘Certainly Mr Packer.’ So off we set down to the pier head and we went around people like James Dowie, Gracie Beasley the whole line, that kind of thing, JT Fletcher’s and made enquiries to find out what was missing and what wasn’t you know and we made a list of everything because he had cargo on boats you know. He used to do business with the West Indies and the unfortunate thing for him was that Mr Woodley who was about, there was no pension scheme in this particular company and Mr Woodley the export manager was about seventy three and he was still coming to work because there was no pension and he got knocked down and killed in the blackout so that was the end of the, of the export information so they just had to start from scratch you know ‘cause even Sid Woodley had disappeared, you know, and then there was, I can’t really remember because it was the in-between but we ended up in the banana rooms in Fitzpatrick’s in Queens Square. That’s where I left to join the air force. The Banana Rooms, of course there were no bananas coming in during the war and there were just these big spaces and they started the firm from that that the lucky thing was they had a government quota for paper and that didn’t alter despite all that had gone on so they started with the quota that they had and they stocked these Banana Rooms with paper and started to carry on the business and the other intriguing thing was the books had been in the cellar in Cable Street and they were in fireproof safes which was great except they were cooked. They weren’t burned. They were just cooked. So the senior members of the accounts department were transported every day to Mr Dixon’s house on the Wirral and they each had an egg, an egg slice you know and they would lift each page up and turn it over and find out how much ‘cause the books were handwritten. It was just antediluvian but it was part of the course.
NH: The time. Yeah.
JBF: Antediluvian, you know, everything was by hand. We wrote orders in books by hand. The books were sent to the forwarding man and he’d organise the stuff you know and finally I got my call up papers and Mr Cook said, ‘Ok,’ he says, ‘Well as things stand, Jack,’ he said, ‘Your job will be open when you come back,’ and that’s exactly how it was. The job was open when I came back five years later.
BW: And during the time and this was all through 1940. The bombing raids and things.
JBF: Up to September the 15th 1941.
BW: Did you happen to see anything of the Battle of Britain? I know that was concentrated over the south east but there were raids and intercepts from squadrons up here. Did you see anything of that?
JBF: In Liverpool during the lunch hour when we were out there was a couple of times when German aircraft were over and everybody was out looking at them you know and there was a bit of fighting as far as I can remember but I don’t think there was too much this end.
BW: No.
JBF: It was the blitz for Liverpool. That was the thing.
BW: And were you on duty during the night time and sort of working during the day?
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: Did you alternate your civilian job with your LDV duties?
JBF: The big plus factor was that after your night’s duty you went in to Brown’s, the café in Cable Street, and had a bacon and egg breakfast and then you went home you know from the day ‘cause there, there wasn’t really that much happening at that stage of the war. Everybody was non-plussed. Nobody knew whatever was happening. You know. It hadn’t settled down to anything. And -
BW: And what drew you to join the RAF? Did you apply to join or
JBF: Well –
BW: Were you offered a choice of which service?
JBF: When I went for the call up interview I said, ‘Well I’d like to join the RAF.’ They said, ‘What would you like to be?’ So I quickly said, ‘Oh I’d like to be a mechanic,’ you know. They said, ‘’Ok.’ Then the next minute I was sent to, what’s the local RAF place there?
BW: Woodvale.
NH: Woodvale.
JBF: No. Not Woodvale. Closer.
NH: Closer?
JBF: Yeah. Where, where were the Yanks locally?
NH: Oh Burton Wood.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: Burton Wood. It was in that area as far as I can remember and sat an exam.
BW: There was a recruiting centre or an RAF station at Padgate. Does that, that was near Warrington.
JBF: Well it might have been.
BW: Sort of Burton Wood area.
NH: Yeah.
BW: Ok.
JBF: I went in the Warrington area.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: And took, and sat an exam and I passed that and so I was down to be a mechanic.
BW: And when you say mechanic were there different types of mechanic that you could apply to be? Did you have a choice in that or were you directed simply as -
JBF: I’ve no idea. I didn’t even know what a mechanic was -
BW: Right.
JBF: I just said I’d like to be a mechanic because if I played with anything it was with Meccano before the war and I think I had some sort of mechanical ability you know and so I thought well I’m going to be an office for the rest of my life. I’d just like to do something different never realising I’d be doing it for the next five years but there you are.
BW: Did, did the thought of being aircrew ever appeal to you at all?
JBF: Yeah. I volunteered for aircrew and got halfway through the medical until the eyesight test and that was the end of that.
BW: What would you have liked to have done as a member of aircrew? What do you -
JBF: Well -
BW: Think your preference would have been?
JBF: In the talk I was at Wyton at the time and the flight engineers were in vogue at the time. I thought well with the basic knowledge I’ve already got I think I could have passed the rest of it to become a flight engineer so when they asked me at the medical lark I said, ‘Flight engineer.’
BW: Ok. And instead once, once they’d done the assessment and found your eyesight wasn’t up to scratch you were then posted to another base for -
JBF: No.
BW: Mechanical training.
JBF: I just went back to being where I was in Wyton.
BW: I see. So while you were still working as a mechanic you then volunteered for aircrew.
JBF: That’s right. For aircrew yes.
BW: They said you couldn’t be selected for aircrew and you returned to your trade.
JBF: I went back to the trades and being a mechanic. Yeah.
BW: And what squadron were you at there?
JBF: At Wyton it was 109.
BW: And you say this was a Pathfinder squadron.
JBF: Yeah. This was a Pathfinder squadron, yeah. The sister squadron was 83 squadron. They were Lancasters.
BW: And they were on the same base were they?
JBF: Same base yeah.
BW: And –
JBF: We were there for about nine months at Wyton and it was at Wyton that the first Oboe raid by Mosquitoes took place which was my squadron and my aircraft was the first aircraft to do something with the Oboe. The pilot was Squadron Leader Bufton and the navigator was, I think it was a Flight Lieutenant Ifould, an Australian.
BW: So this was Squadron Leader Buckton. Is that -
JBF: Bufton. B U F yeah.
BW: B U F T O N.
JBF: They’re famous in the air force because he had a brother also in the air force and he had a son er another brother rather, a sergeant in the mechanical line.
BW: And his navigator was a flight lieutenant.
JBF: Ifould. I F O U L D.
BW: And so servicing this particular aircraft do you remember anything specific about it? Possibly even the registration or the -
JBF: Well it was -
BW: Code.
JBF: DK33, I think it’s four. The three three’s right but the fours and it was -
BW: Ok.
JBF: D-Donald.
BW: D-Donald.
JBF: Yeah it was D Donald. It was changed to L-Leather later on but it was D-Donald when it was flying when it flew to this, I found out later it was a power station in Holland right on the edge of the German border and that was the first time, I can confirm all this, these books, I’m in these books and pictures you know. This is Tim, you know, he just, ‘Look dad,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen this,’ so -
BW: And did you know Squadron Leader Bufton and Flight Lieutenant Ifould very well? Did they stay with that aircraft for -
JBF: Oh yeah they stayed for -
BW: For a period?
JBF: Quite some time. I mean Bufton became a group captain. I’m sure Ifould did because they were, they were dyed in the wool, I think, pre-war airmen if you know what I mean. They were really the real McCoy you know. This is how the air force won the Battle of Britain. With people like them really because they knew what they were doing.
BW: And I’m assuming that they had already done a tour on bombers prior to becoming -
JBF: They must.
BW: A Pathfinder.
JBF: I should say so. The squadron from Wyton came from Boscombe Down were all the experiments were done.
BW: And what kind of guys were they. These, these two?
JBF: Very nice. Very nice men. Excellent blokes.
BW: Did you have a good rapport with them?
JBF: All the time yes.
BW: And so this remained your aircraft, D Donald for –
JBF: If you want -
BW: Some months.
JBF: If you want a little anecdote with it being the very first raid with Oboe it was the very first Oboe raid for 109 Mosquitos and they decided that nothing should happen to the aircraft so we, they did the MFTs, they did the flying and then they carried the tractors, you know, hooked up the tractors and put the three of them in a hangar. This is, it’s dark at this stage and they’re busy doing and I’m on one wing and I’m bawling, ‘You’re too close. You’re too close,’ and the next minute we’d cracked the [?] on this wing. Pandemonium and, ‘Who’s,’ I said, ‘Look I’ve been bawling my head off.’ And the corporal who was doing the manoeuvring were all too excited to listen, you know. Anyway, it was superficial and in no time they’d got it put right but the interesting thing about this particular time was that the squadron was paraded in a hangar and addressed by the CO and he just simply said, ‘You are engaged in a very special operation and if I hear the word Oboe mentioned in any pub around this district,’ he said, ‘Your feet won’t touch the ground.’ And out of nowhere we were surrounded by plain clothes which I suppose were detectives and everybody was suitably terrified of course and I didn’t mention Oboe till about 1960 [laughs]. There was three types of bomb aiming equipment. There was Oboe, Gee and H2S and they were, they followed on, you know and I think by the time we got too Little Staughton we were in to the H2S or Gee.
BW: And did you work on these bits of kit or were you -
JBF: No. All the -
BW: You still on the airframe?
JBF: All the, the advanced kit, it was Canadians, they all, it was a Canadian unit. They were all Canadians. They all got drunk together, they went out together. It was just like that you know. They were told not to speak to anybody and they were all nice guys it’s just they’d been frightened like us, you know.
BW: So you never worked on these sets but you knew they were on the aircraft.
JBF: Oh yes. We, what we used to do, they did the NFT.
BW: What’s the NFT?
JBF: Night Flying Test. The -
BW: Right.
JBF: In the afternoon. We’d fill them up with oil, petrol and coolant and look at the engines. The big problem with the mark 4 Mosquito was because they were flying a lot higher than the bombers, thirty, twenty eight, thirty thousand feet they were prone to oil leaks so we got quite adept. What we used to do was they’d say that, a bit of a mess coming down and you’d see it everywhere and so they used to take the cowlings off and start the engine up and we’d all, before they started the engines up we’d crawl up the back of the aircraft and hang on and look in to the engine and see if we could spot the oil leaks because there was a million nuts there you know and quite, we did spot -
BW: And so were you, were you on top of the wing at this point?
JBF: You were on top of the wing with about, what, a foot off, well three foot off the propeller.
BW: I was going to say ‘cause you’re having to look over in to the cowling and the blade is spinning.
JBF: The blades are going around full pelt ‘cause they went up high they were at full throttle you know but it worked. It was primitive but there was no other way. The thing was leaking but when they got up that high and with the thing going and we just thought we used to see dribbles coming down. The carburettor was on the back and we used to see dribbles coming down and then we’d work it back. Well it was those nuts and Stan, the corporal, Corporal Wright when it stopped he’d, I said, ‘We’ll check this section,’ and he did do and they were loose you know. We got quite good at that really.
BW: And these, this is clearly in the days before any sort of protective safety equipment and goggles.
JBF: Oh no there’s -
BW: Ear defenders and things.
JBF: Well to give you an idea, when they, have you ever been close to a Mosquito? It’s quite tall you know.
BW: I’ve been to one in a museum, yes, but -
JBF: It’s quite, the end -
NH: Not with engines running [laughs]
JBF: The, we had ladders to get on the back, you know. Well of course within no time the ladders had disappeared because we’d no fuel in the huts so everybody chopped up the ladders and we used to use, when they, as you know you get in a Mosquito in the centre underneath and there’s a metal stair thing.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: Well we used to use those to get on the back and my souvenir was this finger.
BW: And this is on your left hand.
JBF: Yeah. There’s a stich here and a stich there, a stich there and a stich there because -
BW: On your little finger.
JBF: It was wet and being tall you know I was able to go it. I mean Handley, he was about five foot three, couldn’t even get near the thing you know ‘cause I could reach and put the ladder on and it was wet and the ladder slipped and my hand went around the engine nacelle and there’s, I went to the Chiefy, you know, Lendrum and he said, ‘You’d better go and get that fixed,’ so I went to the sick bay and they said, ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘Yes.’ They cleaned it up and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was that, you know. And they said, ‘Oh yes. We need a few stitches. Right. Stand by.’ So when I’d got over that he said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Two hours excused duties for bawling.
BW: And so they’d done the stitching in your hands without anaesthetic.
JBF: Well I did two hours excused duties. Well I didn’t do.
BW: That was it.
JBF: I went back to the unit and said to the chief, I said, ‘Sorry I’m on excused duties.’ ‘Oh, well, just before you go have a look at this’ [laughs]. So -
NH: Oh dear. Yeah
JBF: That was that.
BW: And the Mosquito clearly used Merlin engines. Do you know what -
JBF: That’s right. Merlin 20s.
BW: And how did you rate those?
JBF: Oh they were smashing. I never worked on anything else other than the, in Burma we had Hurricane, Hurricane 2Cs cannon and they were Merlin engines and then when they converted after the war to Spit 9s they were a very posh but we had to have training for these they were so posh. You know the latest Merlin engine that was in the Spitfire 9 which was of course was five years after the original Spitfires and we just, we knew how to fill them up with the oil and coolant and so on -
BW: And did you specialise in engine maintenance or were you working on the airframe of the Mosquito as well?
JBF: Oh no the air frame was a rigger called Alan Fraser, the rigger. Each aircraft had a fitter and a rigger as we were called. The airframe was a man who’d been trained as an air frame mechanic and I was on the engines as the engine mechanic.
BW: And so who was the air frame mechanic?
JBF: Alan. Alan Fraser.
BW: He was the rigger.
JBF: The rigger. That’s right.
BW: And is that the same.
JBF: That’s right.
BW: Same name as an air frame engineer.
JBF: Air frame mechanic, it was the rigger.
BW: Ok.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: And you had a corporal in charge of the team.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Stan Wright.
JBF: Stan Wright was the corporal.
BW: And did you mention an LAC Handley?
JBF: Oh he was my pal in Burma.
BW: Ok so he was -
JBF: LAC Handley.
BW: Not part of this particular -
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Team.
JBF: He wasn’t part of this set up.
BW: And your chief tech, is that right, was, who was your chief tech -
JBF: Oh Chiefy Lendrum.
BW: Lendrum.
JBF: Yeah. Lendrum was the -
BW: Is that one, one word L E N D R U M.
JBF: I think so yeah.
NH: It wasn’t Len Drum.
JBF: He was the flight sergeant, you know. He was in charge. In fact I think without, off the record as you might say he was responsible for the ladders. [laughs]
BW: He was the one, he was the one who took them away to use as firewood.
JBF: And they were all, we’d burned them all. I mean there was quite, it wasn’t hilarious, you were working until you, you know feel asleep sort of thing and it was a real band of blokes you know. It was, I think that’s really what won the war was the fact that everybody just got stuck in. Churchill was marvellous. And everybody got stuck in, you know. I don’t think Hitler could have realised what he’d awakened in the British when he was busy refusing Chamberlain’s piece of paper, you know. He didn’t realise exactly because Goering said, ‘Oh you know we’ll subjugate the British. The air force will do this,’ that and the other you know and of course he didn’t. Battle of Britain. And they turned to Russia.
BW: And so just thinking about the maintenance unit or the mechanics involved on the base here.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: So there’s, there’s the two guys there’s yourself and the rigger responsible for the aircraft and a corporal. Was he over more than one aircraft or just -
JBF: No. Just the one.
BW: Ok. So there was the three of you assigned to the one aircraft.
JBF: That’s right.
BW: And the chief tech presumably looked after -
JBF: He was over the flight.
BW: The whole lot.
JBF: A flight yeah.
BW: Ok.
JBF: Yeah. The six aircraft.
BW: Did you know the other crews at all? The other flying -
JBF: Well we knew them but –
BW: Crews on the Mossies?
JBF: We stuck together really, you know. Yes we knew all of them really, by name but -
BW: And you you didn’t have cause to work on any of the other aircraft. Say if one riggers went down.
JBF: Oh sometimes. It depends. One of the features of the Rolls Royce engine was I think it was to do with the carburettor and there was this cup and it used to accumulate water so what we had to do was we had to take off the locking wire, unscrew the cup, drain the water out, put the cup back and put the locking wire on and the finished article had to be supervised by the corporal, you know, that you’d actually done what you were supposed to do and -
BW: And the paperwork that they use nowadays certainly was a form 700. Was that still in place then?
JBF: Yes. Form 700. Yeah.
BW: So that’s been right the way through the service.
JBF: That you signed to say that, yes, you’d done the -
BW: And you obviously knew the crew well in terms of the ground crew who you worked with. Did you socialise together and live together in the barracks?
JBF: We lived together in the barracks. The ground crew. Yes. We didn’t socialise, and it was discouraged, any of the air crew. The air crew were under strict instructions to say nothing when they got out of the aeroplane and in the five years the only time two aircrew ever got out and said something was when they were steaming along at three or four hundred miles an hour in a Mosquito and an aircraft went around them like this.
BW: In a circular motion.
JBF: And they got out of the Mosquito, ‘We’ve seen it. We’ve seen it.’ We said, ‘What?’ And it was the first type of German jet fighter.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: And it was doing five hundred miles an hour or something and it just went around them while they were busy coming home or whatever they were doing, you know.
BW: And so the aircrew never talked to the ground crew.
JBF: Never.
BW: About the mission that they’d done.
JBF: Oh no. No. You didn’t get anything off them. No.
BW: But they must presumably have told you about anything to you like oil problems in the engine.
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: Or anything they’d seen.
JBF: There was a report you see. What used to happen was the air crew would come in and they’d get out the aircraft. Then they’d go and see the adjutant or whoever was in charge. They had to write a report on the raid and a report on the kite and that was relayed through Chiefy Lendrum to Stan Wright and Stan Wright would get it and say, ‘There appears to be a leak on this,’ and, ‘That’s not happening,’ or, you know. They were very reliable aircraft I must say. The only fault with them when the first Mosquitos came the cowling section of the construction hadn’t been talking to the body and so the cowling went up past the intake on the front so when you were getting, you could get it off but you couldn’t get it back in, you know so they very quickly instead of having the cowling to go that way they just had it below the intake because the two intakes are either side of the cockpit and the problem with that was they were having birds in them as they were flying. They used to get birds wedged in these.
BW: So they had regular bird strikes. Is what you’re saying?
JBF: Oh regular, bird strikes were fairly common.
BW: And did that happen during the raid or normal flying testing or was it mainly around the airfield?
JBF: Oh it was around the airfield. I don’t think it was in -
BW: No.
JBF: While they were bombing, you know.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: ‘Cause they went up at least, I think it was, twenty eight thousand feet and the Lancasters were all getting shot down and they were about what about, what, twenty six, twenty four thousand feet. What happened to the Mosquitoes was they’d come back with tiny little holes in and it was the, where the anti-aircraft shell had exploded as they were wooden they took everything. Nothing bounced off and when the chippies came, if there were holes they used to get to this and look through and see the other hole where it had gone straight through, you know. The marvellous thing about the Mossie was despite it being wood it was almost indestructible. It was marvellous, you know. Just a marvellous aircraft.
BW: Because it could take so much battle damage -
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Without being lost if you like. It wasn’t going to -
JBF: That’s right, without it being. What, the chippies had this technique if it was a biggish hole they’d cut a kind of the top layer of the plywood or whatever it was off and fit.
BW: Yes.
JBF: A new piece of plywood in and put the tape, you know, around and that would and do it all up with the dope and it would, you wouldn’t know it was there, you know.
BW: So they’d sort of cut a square patch out around the -
JBF: Cut a square patch out around the hole, yeah.
BW: Around the hole and -
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Replace that.
JBF: And if it was small enough they’d just cover it over and do the same thing. They wouldn’t take any wood out. They’d just cover it over.
BW: And the air crew found that quite satisfactory.
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: There were no difference in handling or anything like that?
JBF: It didn’t detract from the performances.
BW: So, I guess the most complex part of the Mosquito for you was actually the engine that you were working on.
JBF: That’s right. Yeah.
BW: You found them pretty reliable.
JBF: Oh yes. Yeah.
BW: Did you find them easy to work on or were they particularly complex in their own right?
JBF: Oh no once we’d learned the basics, funnily, the lucky thing for me was at Cosford we trained on Merlin engines and so when I was posted to a Merlin, I was first of all posted to an air gunners school with Blenheims and I’d never seen a radial engine because there were no radial engines in, we’d worked on Merlins you know. So I got out of there, I didn’t like it. I put in for a posting which is how I got to Wyton and the big thing about South Wales was the rugby. I was playing rugby for the station because it’s, you know it’s a, you know a big rugby area you know, miles away from the war. It was an air gunners school and the air gunners were carefully separated from the crew, the ground crew, and they were trained and passed out with all the pomp and ceremony and they went on to whichever squadron the were allocated to and lasted about ten minutes, you know, because the technique of downing a Lancaster was to get after the guns to start with so there was the one sticking out of the front, nothing underneath and the upper. The -
BW: Mid upper gunner.
JBF: W/Op AG you know, so the Germans shot underneath behind the tail so that the fellow, nobody could get at them, straight into the cockpit. I mean people go on about the Lancaster. How marvellous it was. It was a death trap and these books will illustrate how because the number, you know they lost fifty or sixty thousand men and they were sitting ducks once a night fighter, and they would never dream of, where you see on all the films where they’re all coming down this way they just went underneath and it was the same with the Flying Fortress. They had to stop flying daylight raids despite all the under guns. They had, they had a fella sitting in a thing with guns underneath. It didn’t matter. The first one that lost his lives was the gunner and then it was a sitting duck. They could do what they liked. I believe one German ace shot a hundred and seventy three Flying Fortresses down. Just one bloke.
BW: The sister squadron on the base you mentioned was 83 squadron.
JBF: That’s right, yeah.
BW: So did you hear back from ground crews and, and talk in the barracks let’s say or the mess about what was happening on their side.
JBF: No. Nothing. They was billeted in separate, 109 was billeted here, say. The other side of the aerodrome was 83.
BW: So completely separate squadrons
JBF: Completely.
BW: With own messes.
JBF: Yes. Well, with us being, they were Pathfinder bombers and it was secret at that stage, this Oboe thing so they wanted the least person that knew you know and they had you suitably terrified. You felt you had private men, you know under the bed sort of thing. As kids, we were only kids. I mean I was about twenty two or something, Twenty three.
BW: Thinking back then to repairing a Merlin what would you say was the most complex thing to repair? What was the most difficult -
JBF: Well -
BW: Sort of repair or work you had to do on it?
JBF: We didn’t do repairs. What happened was they went in after a number of hours for scheduled maintenance and they got the plugs changed and the oil completely changed and the coolant and they did tests on the engine itself to see that it was still workable because they were work horses you know, they was. I mean we never ever had an engine change in the Mosquito. I don’t ever remember one having to go in for an engine change. They all went in for repairs because of damage or wear or whatever. But just a marvellous piece of equipment, you know.
BW: And when they were brought back or once you’d finished the repair did you have to do engine run ups to verify that it was working alright?
JBF: Oh every day, part of the night, you had to run, you had to DI the engine to see it was, you know, add the coolant in and the oil and all the rest of it. Then it had a test run on the ground. The engines were test run on the ground and to start off only the corporal did the testing and then finally we did that, I did, you know I’d been there a couple of years finally and we did the test runs if they were on leave or anything. So you get to, you’ve got to run, a Mosquito is quite, you know, terrifying to start with. The corporal had someone sitting with you and that.
BW: And so this was done on, on a test bed presumably on -
JBF: No. No. Just where it was in the grass.
BW: Ok.
JBF: They didn’t go anywhere.
BW: Ok. And -
JBF: It was part of the night flying test to run the aircraft before it went up.
BW: And although you mentioned previously that when you were looking for a leak you got on the top of the wing to look in.
JBF: On top of the wing, yeah.
BW: Did you have to do the same once you’d repaired, once you’d serviced the engine?
JBF: It was only for oil leaks.
BW: Ok.
JBF: If they came back and mentioned any kind of leak we used to do this on the back of the aircraft and look in just to see if we could see, you know.
BW: Did you ever get to go in the cockpit to start the engines?
JBF: Yes. I’ve actually flown in a Mosquito. Wing Commander Green was going up for an NFT and Stan Wright fixed it for me to go with him and the problem was at twenty thousand feet there was a juddering. It was very slight, he said, but at twenty thousand feet down and it started to do this you know and it turned out a mixture problem. Something was going wrong at that particular height with the mixture and they fixed it up and it was ok. I only did the, I had one trip in a Mosquito.
BW: How long was that? How long did it last?
JBF: Well, basically the NFT about half an hour, three quarters of an hour.
BW: And what, what did you experience during a flight? What was it like?
JBF: Well I was just gobsmacked. I was absolutely, you know, like this, sort of thing.
BW: And he didn’t, did he let you have a go at the controls or not?
JBF: Oh no. No. They wouldn’t let you do anything. God. Strewth. That would have been it.
BW: But you got to sit next to the pilot while he’s –
JBF: You’ve got to, well the -
BW: Was doing the test.
JBF: The navigator’s here and the pilot’s here you know and –
BW: Yeah.
JBF: The throttles were in between.
BW: It was exhilarating I’m assuming.
JBF: Oh absolutely. Yeah. I was, I felt, you know, Group Captain Franklin, here we go, you know. Real Mr Mainwaring job you know. There’s one, I don’t know whether you want any story out of it but there was one graphic story that, that happened. I think it was at Marham and I was on the main plane waiting for the bowser to fill up and suddenly there were screams underneath the aircraft, ‘Help. Help.’ So I got off the main plane and got down and the armourer had primed a five hundred pound bomb and then he couldn’t hook it in so he was standing there so I got the bomb on my back and slowly, I was, you know strong in those days and I lifted it up.
BW: So you crouched underneath it, took the weight on your back.
JBF: I took the weight on my back and while he hooked it in. He said, ‘We’re alright now.’ I said, ‘Well we’re not being blown up at least,’ and the aftermath was I think the op was over because they were filling, we used to have to fill them up immediately they came back you know in case and Stan Wright came to me. He said, ‘You know, Jack,’ he said ‘Were you on the starboard wing?’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I got this scream from underneath and I went down and helped the armourer. We managed to get over the problem.’ When I came out everybody had vanished and the aircraft as far as we could make out had been to France or Germany and back with no petrol caps on the right side. So, he said, ‘You know,’ he said, ‘This is a court martial offence.’ I said, ‘Hang on.’ So I thought about it. So I got on the bike, went, cycled around into the hangar, all the lights were on and there were Mossies being maintained you know so I couldn’t see anybody so I climbed up on the back of this Mosquito, took off the two petrol caps, and the tops, put them in my jacket and got down. Nobody, didn’t see me so I, so I went to Stan. I said, ‘You’re alright, Stan. You won’t be court martialled.’ I said, ‘Here they are.’ [laughs] Gave him the two tops and the petrol. He was absolutely, you know, he was gobsmacked [caught the phrase locally?] and so hurriedly because the people that would have been up for the trouble were the mechanic that was on the other side of the Mosquito ‘cause he’d signed the 700 to say it was full and how the aircraft got to Germany and back with no petrol caps on we never knew and nobody else did because they didn’t know they were off.
BW: And the air crew normally do checks before they -
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: Take off as well.
JBF: Well they start the engines up and all that you know you had to. The method of starting was you had the trolley acc and you primed the engine. There was a little flap on the side and you primed the engine and then you give the signal up to the bloke on the trolley acc, he presses the -
BW: Thumbs up.
JBF: Electrics and it starts up, you know and he, if there was any worry it was when we hadn’t enough ground crew to go around. You had to do the two engines so you had to prime the one on the port side shall we say and then you had to come and prime the one on the starboard side and then you give the, and fortunately despite you know, I think it’s the quality of the workmanship really because we never ever had a failure. You know. Overheating. They both started each time even when there was only one man doing it because we’d no people to do it.
BW: And in all weathers too.
JBF: Oh well it was, you know, Norfolk in the winter is quite something else. The thing they used to do when it was a long raid we knew it was a long raid because they’d come out with urns of cocoa and corned beef sandwiches about that thick.
BW: About two inch thick.
JBF: And you could get, there was an unlimited supply. You could do, if you felt like running around a lot as we were during the night and so we got stuck into these. You know it was fine. Didn’t mind. The, really you have to be the age we were at. Anybody else, it must have been, you know if you were thirty five or forty or whatever it was it must have been awful, just, and with a family you know. Well one corporal developed shingles and it was the family. He was on the phone to the wife and the kid had measles or whatever it was you know and he was beside himself. I was exactly -
BW: And yet -
JBF: The right age for the war. It couldn’t have been better.
NH: Yeah.
BW: And as a single man you were quite happily sharing a barracks with your mates.
JBF: Oh yes. I hadn’t got a girlfriend. I was just a single man, you know. In fact, one Christmas I gave up my leave for one of the married men who had kids you know. Which was nothing heroic. It was just common, you know.
BW: Did, did you feel that your efforts were appreciated by the crews and the -
JBF: Oh yeah.
BW: Officers on the base?
JBF: Oh everybody. It was a together thing. I mean working that close and their lives were involved. It was a very close knit, all the squadrons were the same. A very close knit unit. There was no Captain Mainwaring standing around, you know. I mean there was no saluting.
BW: Really.
JBF: You just got on with it and first names, you know they called you.
BW: So -
JBF: You always called them whatever they were like squadron leader, you know, Bufton and you gave them their rank but we were just Jack and Alan and Stan.
BW: Were there any, you mentioned an error in someone leaving petrol caps off? Were there any incidents that you knew of elsewhere in the squadron perhaps?
JBF: Well -
BW: Where there was something that had been missed that resulted, for example, in an accident or the loss of an aircraft.
JBF: Oh the only thing that we watched from start to finish was U-Uncle and two lads, they could have been more than twenty five, navigator and the pilot, you know and they were very excited. It was their first trip and we got them in and watched them and they took off and went straight, straight in.
BW: So the nose pitched up and they went straight down.
JBF: They went straight down and burned to death, the two of them. Big explosion. Bang. And I said that, there was this old sergeant and I said, he said they probably didn’t lock the throttles. They were that excited about getting up because they had to do a lot of homework in while they were in the aircraft to find out what they were going to do, you know. They just went straight in.
BW: And that was close to or over the base.
JBF: Well we just watched the whole thing. Yeah. And the ,our aircraft finally, when I say our aircraft this DK number 334 I think it was or 335 it crash landed and it was that old the aircrew hated it because it was absolutely on its tips you know. Did a hundred and eleven ops and it landed and the undercarriage went up into the -
NH: The wing.
JBF: Into the engine nacelle and just they weren’t hurt and that was it. They took us around and we were photographed, the three of us Alan, Stan and myself in front of this wreck.
BW: So moving on from Wyton and Marham.
JBF: Yes.
BW: You mentioned that later in your service you transferred to 28 squadron.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: So what happened in the period between -
JBF: Little Staughton -
BW: This would be -
JBF: Was the next thing after Marham.
BW: And did you request a transfer to another squadron?
JBF: What happened was I put in for overseas and said I’d serve anywhere because I I thought, well, realised, that we would never go anywhere else. We were, the war was well on from D Day. They were going into Germany, the armies, France and there was less, and it was rather backing up troops rather than bombing anywhere so I put in for overseas and said I’d serve anywhere and that’s how I came to go to 28 squadron. Next minute I was on a troop ship and then I was in North Western India at a place called Ranchi.
BW: How do you spell that?
JBF: I joined 28 squadron.
BW: How do you spell Ranchi?
JBF: R A N C H I.
BW: And this was in North West India.
JBF: North West India. Yeah.
BW: And so the attraction of going was really because you felt there wasn’t going to be that much more -
JBF: I was -
BW: To do on the squadron.
JBF: The age I was. Twenty four you know.
BW: And you fancied the opportunity of going abroad.
JBF: At least, I thought, yeah. The next minute the CO said, ‘Don’t unpack your kit you’re going to Burma.’ So I thought well this will be a change. So we gave in our blue, all the winter clothing and put in a kit bag and the marvellous thing was when it came back to us in Malaya it was intact for those two years. So with 28 squadron they were on rest and then they suddenly said, ‘We’re off. We’re starting off,’ and we went to Burma by road and rail and we got on the train. It went right up into the North West provinces of India you know, up to, by rail a change to the narrow gauge railway, Assam. That’s it. All that through I think it’s around the top of what is now Bangladesh you know and you go well India’s what you might call semi-primitive to absolutely basics. When you get up there the Naga tribesmen are still in the outfits, you know. I thought gee whiz if these fellas were in the Olympics they’d win everything. Their leg muscles were like this because they were hill men. Apparently, the English had civilised them and they were no longer head hunters. But they chased the Japanese. But what used to happen was you’d be standing there and they’d come down from the mountain and do what we called the shopping which was trying to get food, I think was the main thing. Then on the way back they had conical baskets which they put their provisions in and they each held the bottom of the conical basket and then they started a rhythm of steps and they went straight up the mountain like that. None of this we’ll climb here and all the movement was about fifteen of them all holding on. Nothing was out of place. Nothing. Must have been doing it all their lives. It was great.
BW: Just out of interest how did you get shipped out to India? Did you fly out there or were you -
JBF: No. It was the Cameronia.
BW: Troop shipped.
NH: Tell them about your Suez Canal.
BW: Well the Suez Canal was -
NH: I’ll make some tea while you -
JBF: The reason I’ve told it is on the boxes of dates before the war you always had an Arab pulling two camels and I’m just lounging on the side of the Cameronia and suddenly an Arab pulling two camels appeared on the side of the Suez Canal. So I’ve seen it. You know. Right off the box. So, we, we finally landed in Bombay. Worli was the transit camp and then we were on the trains going to our different placements.
BW: And this is Worli.
JBF: Worli that’s the transit camp outside Bombay.
BW: How do you spell Worli?
JBF: I should imagine it’s something like W R O R L and L I somewhere on the end of it. And the thing to watch out for on the Indian trains are the hookers because they are going that slow when they go up hill the hookers jump on to the train with hooks and hook all the equipment out of the windows which are always open and Handley, my pal gets out in his underwear with just shorts and he gets out with an officer in a dressing gown.
NH: All the gear had gone.
JBF: We’d lost it all with the hookers. And well a real introduction to India, on the floor on the station was this old man covered in flies. He was just covered in flies and I said to one of the Anglos, I said, ‘Well what’s that?’ He said, ‘He’s just dying.’ And that, that sums India up for me you know. That was it. Another time I saw a man, he was quite a big man, he was on a piece of corrugated and four men were holding him you know and I said, ‘He looks dead.’ ‘He is dead. They’re just carting him off. He’s just died.’ It was just like Fu Manchu you know. Flares and this one had been. And we finally we were taken by truck to Burma and it was along the Manipur Road and then it’s, it’s a flat road in between mountains where Kohima and Imphal where they did the fighting and then the road goes like this and suddenly it turns right and starts to go up called The Chocolate Staircase when the monsoon was on because it was, and we were in these trucks, you know, and just went up one side and the other side and these trucks were just and Tamu, that was the first airstrip. Jungle. It was thick jungle you know. Thick jungle airstrip and the first casualty of 28 squadron happened at Tamu. One of the, flight lieutenant [Hewlis?] an Australian, he’d forgotten, they said, to lock, you had to, because the trees, it didn’t taper off the airstrip it came straight up so you had to bounce along the runway and suddenly do this.
BW: Lurch in to the air.
JBF: Well his undercarriage caught on the trees, tipped him over and he was hanging upside down burned to death. You know. And we just, that was the first introduction. Watching him burn to death in Tamu.
BW: And 28 squadron, what did they fly? Were they [?]
JBF: Hurricane 2Cs they were. Clapped out Hurricanes that, I mean, by that stage of the war the government, I should imagine was penniless and you name it and they hadn’t the wherewithal to replace them and it was a reconnaissance unit and the issue, the side sort of activity, shall we say, was shooting up the Japanese on the ground and that’s where we lost most of the aircraft because they were, the Japanese were very good shots and they used to shoot them down when they were doing the ground strafing and we were in the jungle from January, February and we went down the Kobor Valley in a truck which was thick jungle full of malaria and you name it and one thing we learned at that particular, you can’t pee out of a moving truck. It was in a convoy so he couldn’t stop so we each went to the back of the, we had a competition, we each went to the, got off our toolbox, went to the back, hanged up, everything organised and nothing came out and everybody was the same. You can’t pee out of a moving truck.
BW: And what time of the war was this? This was after -
JBF: This was -
BW: D Day wasn’t it so was it late ‘44 when you transferred out there?
JBF: This was ’44. Yeah.
BW: Going in to early ‘45
JBF: Well forty, it was the end of ‘44 ’45.
BW: So this was after the Battle of Kohima when you’d gone through the -
JBF: Oh that was all.
BW: Towns yeah, yeah.
JBF: Oh all that would have been the ‘43 yes. All those, oh yes that was absolutely, the people that did that they should have been, what was left of them, they should be pensioned for life. They were fighting, they were fighting over a tennis court in one of the places.
BW: And so you say 28 squadron was a reconnaissance squadron.
JBF: That’s it. Reconnaissance and two cannon.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: That why they’re called 2Cs, two cannon, heavy, heavy machine gun, you know. What is it? Five?
BW: Twenty millimetre.
JBF: That’s it. Yeah. Twenty five millimetre. Quite heavy shells you know and when we got down to this Kalaymyo and it was just bush and we didn’t see an aircraft because the war was moving that quick. The next thing we were, by truck to a place called [Yau] which was an airstrip in the paddy fields.
NH: Do you want another cup Brian?
BW: Yes please. Thank you, Neil. And this is further into Burma.
JBF: This is further into Northern Burma. Tamu’s up here and you come across like this to Mandalay. Well we went down the Kobor Valley and across to [Yau?] and [Yau?] we went to Sadong.
BW: Thank you.
JBF: Sadong was the airstrip outside Mandalay. The Japanese were still in Mandalay and this is where we lost the aircraft. The aircrew. We lost two or three aircrew here because the Japanese could shoot them as they come over the fort. They were in the fort, you know. They lost them there.
BW: And even that was just down to small arms fire.
JBF: I think it was small arms, I never saw ackack guns or even, we heard all the row that was going on but I don’t ever recollect, I think it was small arms fire. The Japanese rifle is 256 the, the calibre. You know, ours are 303. Their rifles were 256. Smaller bullets but just as lethal but of course they’re all five foot three so carrying something lighter was part of the course for them. So we were in Sadong and we were there quite some time and they used to have the mule trains going up to supply the troops. Like Sadong’s here and Mandalay is there and thirteen miles I think was the difference and they came one day and said, ‘You’re not going to bed. You’re going to fly down to Meiktila.’ And so we didn’t go to bed that particular night, struck the tents, got in the Dakotas. All the Dakotas had no doors on. If you want to be frightened go on a Dakota with no doors. And we landed in Meiktila and they hadn’t cleaned up the airstrip. All the Japanese they’d killed were everywhere which was the first time really I’d seen what you might call a battlefield and well we just got stuck in from there with the aeroplanes.
BW: You mentioned that you’d struck tents.
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: Were all your accommodation presumably out in the Far East was in tents was it?
JBF: While the campaigning was on it was tents. You had a piece of coconut matting with two sort of slide holes and through that went two pieces of bamboo. Now I pinched two full sets of runway grating. I’d call them nails. They were pieces of metal and they were driven into the ground so that when it was the monsoon they had the metal over and the aircraft didn’t sink so I got hold of four -
BW: Pierced steel planking.
JBF: Of these and I drove those in the ground put the bamboo on, tied on and my bed was off ‘cause you couldn’t, they wouldn’t let you sleep on the ground because there were scorpions, you know. All the stuff that’s there. Scorpion. If you left your tent flap open you couldn’t get in because of the bugs. Somebody did to see what would happen and it was an absolute carpet of every conceivable type of flying bug you’ve ever heard of. So we never did that again.
NH: No.
JBF: We got down to Meiktila. It all went very well and we knew the war was going well because the Arakan forces who had taken Meiktila our, our army was General Slim coming this way. The Yanks were on the outside coming that way and the Indian army was coming this way along the Arakan and it was the –
BW: The opposite end.
JBF: Arakan that had captured Meiktila and so we got on to Meiktila and, you know, set up and they were doing everything as usual. It was exactly the same. Seven hundred. Oil, so on and then see them off, bring them in and run them and so on. Keep them -
BW: So even though you were working on different aircraft you were still working on the same engine to all -
JBF: That’s right.
BW: Intents and purposes.
JBF: Merlin 20s. That’s why I was posted to the Hurricane squadron, because it was home from home. We knew what to do and could do it right away.
BW: Even in those adverse conditions and presumably not as well supplied.
JBF: Well -
BW: Did you, did you have trouble with supplies?
JBF: Well we had nothing to eat. That was the trouble with supplies. But I mean hens eggs in Burmese is [ju ug?] [koplar?] is cloths. So you had a pair of underpants and you’d go [ju ug] like that [koplar] and so you’d get the hens egg and they’d get the underpants. So the net result it -
BW: So you’d trade.
JBF: We had nothing to wear either. [laughs]
BW: So you traded your under -
JBF: Not that it mattered ‘cause you never had a shirt on anyway. It was just a pair of shorts, socks and boots you know that’s the and with your boots you had to knock your boots out every day because the scorpions loved, it must have been the smell of your feet, they loved getting in the boots so we had to be, and tool boxes. If you, when you opened your toolbox the first thing to do is wait and see if anything moves. Then you’d know there was something in there that shouldn’t be in there you know. So we’re getting on with it and I think the most distressing part of Meiktila was a trench full of Japanese who’d been, they’d used the flame thrower on them. There was about anywhere between fifty and a hundred Japanese who’d been fried.
BW: All in a trench.
JBF: All in the trench. ‘Cause they, they were facing either this way or that way and the flame thrower had come this way and just fried the lot.
BW: And was this at the edge of an airstrip or near the airstrip -
JBF: Yeah. It was Meiktila airstrip.
BW: Where you were working.
JBF: There were shell holes with Japanese in. The first time we saw, there was one Japanese well over six feet. He was dead of course, in the shell hole. It was the first time I’d seen a big, they were all about this big but, anyway -
BW: And this, this was obviously all after the battle but you never came into a closer contact with the Japanese at any time.
JBF: No. Only as prisoners, not as - the next thing that happened with Meiktila he said, ‘Nine of you are being flown into the [Tongu] Box.’ Well I was picked as one of the nine so we were flown into the [Tongu] Box and I know when it was simply because we, over the radio that we heard that the Germans had packed up so it’s got to be the 8th of May. And we were in the [Tongu] Box and the laugh about that was we’d got two tents, we only had two tents. There was nine of us and suddenly the ants started, up and they had a procession going in no time. There was millions you know. Ants, you name it. They’ve got it. They were going up the guide ropes up to the top right up to the fourteen foot EPI down the other side so we thought we’ll have a bit of fun here so we got the lighted taper thing and we started chasing the ants off the, the next minute they was, your feet, being bitten and the fighter ants were biting, they were all over us, on the feet, biting. Some bad. So we’re in this in this Box thing and I could see the sergeant was getting a bit frustrated you know. The aeroplanes didn’t appear by the way. It was monsoon so they couldn’t land and take off anyway. The Dakotas had a job doing it and he said, ‘Right. We’re going to make a dash for Rangoon.’ So we thought ok, you know, ‘Rangoon. Great.’ So, so he got two West African trucks and we started off and it got to about 11 o’clock in the morning and we stopped and made a brew up. Put it on the tree and we got the fire going and the stuff out, the tea out and everything and as we were doing all this and thoroughly enjoying it out of the jungle came a patrol of British. So we just sort of, ‘Hello.’ He said, ‘What the f’ing are you,’ you know, he said, ‘Don’t you know where you are?’ We said, ‘Yes. We’re on route to Rangoon.’ He said, ‘Of course you are.’ The place was full of Japanese. He said, ‘Get the hell out of it now.’ So we never even got a cup of tea. It was like the keystone cops. The two trucks and drove off and we kept driving and it got, you know it goes dark at 6 o’clock at night there so we’d got to half past five, quarter to six and even the sergeant was getting a bit worried you know. Finally we hit an army emplacement. I don’t know how we managed to do it but they must, the sergeant must have known and he said, ‘Thank God for that,’ so we drove and he asked the officer could we bunk in for the night so we got on the floor there and at least we were surrounded by the military, you know. And so we started off the next morning and finally around about midday, 2 o’clock or something we arrived in Rangoon and they were living in a bombed out hospital at the time. The squadron. There were no buildings. Everywhere was flat, you know and the only question that was asked was, ‘Where the ‘FH’ have you been?’ They thought we’d already died. And so we arrived there and I think the most graphic thing that happened to me then, we still had Hurricanes and they used to do the cooking fires in front of this building that had no roof, no windows, no doors, nothing but at least it was, you were on the flat and it was not, it wasn’t raining you know. Marvellous and a jeep, a jeep drew up. The adjutant and two sergeants, ‘Who’s Franklin?’ So I said, ‘I am.’ ‘Get in.’ So no breakfast. Get in with the cup and the plate, you know. Driven to the flight and there’s a Hurricane standing there and the CO said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘Start that machine.’ So I knew it was tricky because the, it wasn’t one where you just, they press the trolley acc and you had to do clever stuff with the accelerator. You know.
NH: Throttle. Yeah.
JBF: And so I got in and just eased it and it was making funny [ch ch ch], the engine you know and then I just eased it on ‘cause I’d done it before, it wasn’t and it started and I did the, you had to go up to two thousand seven hundred revs to test the engine and then you test the magnetos. You switch one off and it works and you switch the other off and it works so I went through the procedures, came down and got out. So I was utterly relieved. You know, at least the thing had worked and this, Blackie his name was, he was the sergeant. He said, ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘You’ve just made me look the biggest f’ing fool in Burma.’ I said, ‘How’s that?’ He said. ‘I’ve been half an hour trying to get this thing started. You come down and it starts first time.’ First time. So I was driven back. They said, ‘Get out.’ Back to the squadron. No breakfast. That’s the only thing that happened to me out of that lot.
BW: So much for their thanks. And within a few weeks or months the squadron transferred to Spitfire 9s you said.
JBF: That’s right. What happened was from Rangoon we were suddenly changed over to Spit 9s it was. The Hurricanes, by the way the aircraft were just thrown in the bushes. Hurricane aircraft I mean. You know. When you went to dig a hole for the lavatory you went behind one of these because at least you had some sort of privacy. They were just there upended and that’s the other joke about Burma is that there were no toilets of course and when you had to go you had to go so the first, to start with you think oh that’s a nice piece of grass, at least it looked like and everybody in the Japanese army had already been there before. It was black. You were waist deep in it you know. That was one of the Burma experiences that you can forget about. That and the bread full of ants. I thought they were currants to start with. I thought that’s unusual, you know currant bread for breakfast and you handled, it was all ants, dead bodies of ants, they couldn’t get them out of the flour so they cooked them.
NH: Oh right.
JBF: And finally we went, the most graphic thing that happened in Rangoon was we were sitting there and the adjutant came through and he just looked at the four of us and he said, ‘The war’s over.’ [long pause] Seventy years late.
[machine pause]
JBF: And I said, ‘Where are we going?’ He said, ‘You’re going to Malaya,’ So, it was a terrible camp. It was a transit camp and we got in these kites and suddenly the kite I was in developed engine trouble and so we locked in to Siam and we spent oh at least three weeks, four weeks in Siam, at the, waiting for replacements or whatever it was you know and then we were flown in and became garrison squadron on Penang island. That was the next RAF station.
BW: So this is obviously -
JBF: This is after the war now.
BW: August. August ’45, September ’45.
JBF: This is ‘45, yeah -
BW: Were you getting news of being demobbed at anytime?
JBF: Oh nothing. What happened was we were, we were supposed to be, it was an army pre-war barracks beautifully built. Nothing, nothing there. The Malayans had pinched everything you know which was what happened to the cockpit covers. They came down with the new aircraft and all the cockpit covers disappeared overnight. So these Chinese detectives appeared out the woodwork you know and all the kids in the surrounding villages had got new clothes which was our cockpits covers [laughs]. And so we were there six months on rest and then we were transported by train along with thirty million cockroaches. The cockroaches are everywhere on the trains and the way to get them out is not to have a light so there’s no lights and you hear this [tapping noise] and the place is covered in cockroaches about so big. Cockroaches. So once they got the petrol mix and the lights they all went back and hung underneath. Fantastic. Even the loo which was a hole in the ground you know, shoulder to shoulder around the hole where you’re supposed to form are cockroaches waiting.
BW: Strange.
JBF: And we went down to Kuala Lumpur and we were in tents and it was, the thing was there was no aeroplanes and then some aeroplanes arrived and then they started educational vocational courses. We thought we’ve got to be on one of these, you know, sort of thing.
BW: This was preparing you for civilian life presumably.
JBF: This was, yeah. I had, I had an interview and I said, ‘Well I left a job and the man promised me I’d have it when I came back,’ So I didn’t need, really need the interview I felt. And there was a football team and I played in that. And things went on and suddenly the demob, the demob numbers started appearing. Well I was number forty and just one day right out of the blue six years, five years later you know they said, ‘Your number’s up.’ Forty. So within a week I was on the train going to Singapore and stayed at that, what is it, Changi is it?
NH: Changi. The airport. Yeah. Well and the Japanese camp of course.
BW: [I was there?] last year.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: And we handed the weapons in to the armoury. All Japanese. Japanese took the weapons.
BW: That must have felt quite strange.
JBF: Well it was ridiculous you know. Well it was ordered but what I’ve forgotten, I’ve just remember was the armistice in Rangoon. The rumour went around that the Japanese were coming for the armistice for Southern Asia. That bit. So they, a Japanese, they got a Japanese bunker and whereas when they captured Singapore they had all the military, the troops lined the Streets and the Japanese commander standing up in a motor car commanding, you know. All the poor squaddies were just stood there you know. We did, they had officers on the runway but everybody, it was like a football crowd so we all crowded around. I tell you what it’s like. General MacArthur on the boat where he accepts the surrender of Japan. It was like that, like a football. Well I sidled around the side and they had a desk a bit bigger than this and two of our generals were standing there and the aircraft, they were like Dakotas only much smaller pulled up and into this compound thing and this general said, ‘Do we salute?’ He said, ‘We don’t f’ing well salute them.’ So they pulled the, and there was the Japanese generals, the Japanese in full evening dress. They climbed out, marched over to the table and they just nodded and pointed to the trucks and they were put in trucks for Rangoon for the surrender and that was the surrender in Rangoon. It was just like a football match.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: There was no ceremony at all. It just -
BW: And that was it.
JBF: As it was, you know.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: Then finally the final news was the boats arrived so of course we couldn’t wait so that’s the only time I saw Raffles Hotel was in the truck going past to the troop ship.
BW: I was there myself in November.
JBF: And came home to Liverpool.
NH: What? You docked in Liverpool.
JBF: Docked in Liverpool.
NH: Marvellous. Yeah.
JBF: Then we got on the train and went to [Worley?].
NH: Back to the beginning.
JBF: Just outside Blackpool and were demobbed from there and so we had the kitbag with your uniform in and bits and pieces. You were in your RAF and your, the bag was your civilian, you know. They kitted me out with a suit, a shirt, a tie, socks, underpants, vest and shoes and it came in a series of boxes it seemed to me, just holding. We were all the same, holding up these boxes and then they just said, ‘Ok, your train’s arrived,’ and we got on the train to Liverpool and I caught the tram home.
NH: They found shoes to fit you did they?
JBF: Yeah. Got, got to Gordon Drive. Nobody’s in. Nobody in the house so [Winn Roth?] called over, ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘Come in for a cup of tea.’ So I sat in there until my sister came back from work and when I got in the house was full of mice because nobody had lived in it you see and all the scratches were on the sideboard and the various places. The meat safe thing. So I started and I caught mice every night for seven days and the technique was we, we, we had a ewbank cleaner and we chased them out of the dining room and I realised they all went in this ewbank cleaner. Every time. No change. So I said to my sister, ‘Fill up the sink.’ So she fills the sink up and takes the bowl out. I lift up the ewbank cleaner and depress and of course the doors open and out drop the mice. I killed eight in one night. The final night. So that was the trick. You know you see these pictures where there’s a party and -
NH: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
JBF: All the relatives. I never even got a party. My mother was in America seeing my brother.
BW: Who must have been in a show in America presumably.
JBF: Oh well he was –
NH: He was touring with his -
JBF: At that stage -
BW: Right.
JBF: He was with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and they, Agnes de Mille, you know the, what is she? A sister of de Mille himself you know.
BW: Cecil B.
JBF: You know.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: She was a choreographer and she choreographed Rodeo, was the name of the ballet and my brother was the champion roper in Rodeo and that was, and it was, well it was you know he was famous and it wasn’t in England.
NH: He was famous over there.
BW: Quite a showman.
JBF: Yeah.
NH: Never over here but he was in America, you know. Well known in the ballet world.
JBF: Yes. So basically I think and oh just one nice touch. I hadn’t been paid. Nobody had been paid you know all the way through from India I can’t remember. We got nothing in India.
NH: I suppose you couldn’t do anything with it anyway.
JBF: And these cheques started to appear. I thought, the five years I’ve worked so I didn’t go to work. I didn’t tell them. So the cheque came through and I said to my pal Tom, who was also demobbed, I said, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘Let’s go to London. Just to see what it’s like.’ So we get the cheque and off we go to London. He was the same. And it went on ‘til the week before Christmas when the cheques stopped. I said, ‘I’ve got to go to work Tom,’ I said. ‘There’s no more cheques.’ So I started work about the 15th of December that year having had off September, October, November and part of December. I thought well that’s all the leave.
NH: Yeah. That’s it. Well you’d earned it hadn’t you by that stage?
BW: And were you able to go back to the job that you’d been -
JBF: Oh yes I went back.
BW: Left.
JBF: I was the last in ‘cause I was, I was the last out the youngest and I was the last in and they’d taken, I went back to the Banana Rooms but they’d already taken a building in Sir Thomas Street and built and extension to it so we went back to reasonable offices and started to build up the business from that moment and that’s how it was. I finally retired forty seven years from Dixons.
BW: So you stayed at the same firm -
JBF: Yeah.
BW: For forty seven years.
JBF: Yeah. Well what did I know? I was twenty six you know. I had to learn to play tennis and badminton and in fact be normal. It was something I’d never experienced you know actually coming home at night and sitting down to a meal. We thought it was wonderful, Tom and I, you know. Marvellous.
BW: And subsequent to that there have been in recent years a bit more prominence and commemoration given to Bomber Command.
JBF: There has been hasn’t there? Yes.
BW: How do you feel about that?
JBF: ‘Cause they, well you’ve only got to read those books to know the price paid by the people who actually did it. When they say there’s fifty five, fifty seven thousand aircrew killed in those books that I’ve got.
NH: They’re on the chair there.
JBF: They’re talking about. There they are. Seven or eight Lancasters disappearing in the night. That was fifty six blokes. And it was every night. It wasn’t just [next?] and then there’s a month’s delay. I mean the Mosquitos, we lost about three. One received a direct hit of an anti-aircraft shell and blew up and the others were just shot down. But the rest of them, I mean, our kite did a hundred and eleven ops –
NH: Yeah good.
BW: Not with the same crew though presumably -
JBF: Oh no we had all kinds of crews.
BW: Just thinking back to your time in the Far East did you get to know the pilots on the squadron, 28 squadron at all well?
JBF: Oh yes very much so. They were very, one pilot wouldn’t let you touch his aircraft. He used to, Eddie Hunter was a Canadian. He said, it was my turn to DI his kite he said, ‘Look Lofty,’ he says, ‘I know about aircraft.’ he says, ‘I’ll do the necessary,’ and he filled up the, I filled up the juice and he checked the engine and did the oil and the coolant and that and he got shot down that day. What happened was he, from his, they used to go in twos you know. The second man, the report was, Eddie went down strafing the Japanese and as he was coming up he hit a tree, just caught the tree coming up and he crashed and killed him.
BW: Just clarify a couple of expressions if you don’t mind. DI what does that stand for?
JBF: Daily inspection.
BW: Daily inspection.
JBF: Each aircraft has a daily inspection and it was very important because it’s always after a raid, you know or a flying test or whatever and you have to sign the form 700 to say it’s, your bit’s ok.
BW: And trolley acc. That’s a trolley accumulator is that right?
JBF: Accumulator. There’s twenty four volt is it?
NH: Yeah. It’s like a –
BW: Yeah.
JBF: And they’re on two wheels.
NH: Generator thing isn’t it that they charge the engine with instead of having a starter motor.
JBF: Plug it into the aeroplane.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: You’ve primed with the pump, there’s a little hatch and you open that. Prime and screw up and then press the trolley acc. It starts. And the Merlin 20 was like that all the time.
BW: How did you rate the Spit 9s that you worked on?
JBF: Sorry?
BW: How did you rate the Spitfire 9s that you worked on?
JBF: Well they were very interesting. Not that we knew anything about them but there was nobody to tell you anything. They were just dumped on us you know and we just sort of –
BW: Were they Merlins 66s in the 9 mark 9.
JBF: They were much, they were engines we’d never seen or we knew where the oil was and we knew where the coolant was but the rest of it was just totally different.
BW: Did you feel that they were more reliable then the Mark 20 engines?
JBF: Oh yes. Well it was the, what you might call the essence of all the experience because the Lancasters had, you know, starting with Spitfires, Lancasters, Mosquitos all had Merlins in.
NH: So yeah.
JBF: I mean they were all, the Merlins underpinned the whole shooting match you know.
NH: Right. Yeah.
BW: And you still found the 66s to be pretty reliable.
JBF: Oh yes. Yeah.
BW: And they had a supercharger on them.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Didn’t they?
JBF: That’s right yeah.
BW: Did you know much about those or work on those?
JBF: Oh no. They were just stood there you know. One thing I haven’t mention was watching a B17 fly into the ground if that’s of any interest. Is it? At Little Staughton which was very close to a lot of American bases I was DI’ing this kite and I looked up and I saw this aircraft low flying. I thought God strewth and they did a lot of low flying and it kept on flying and then it dipped and I just watched it coming towards me and it dipped into the ground and suddenly everything started to fly off it and it finished about eighty yards from me. It finally disintegrated and blew up and I’m mesmerised. You can’t, I don’t know what it is, you can’t run away and then I heard a voice, ‘Lofty’ he said, ‘Come here,’ he said, ‘Get under this,’ and so we hid under a Mosquito with six hundred and forty gallons of petrol [laughs] and we’re under the engine, you know, because it was the most protection but what I remember of the, of that was one of the cylinders complete, when the explosion of the engine it blew the cylinders out and you recognise it mid-air, ‘Oh yes there’s the’, and it just came out and dropped just short of where the Mosquito we were under you know.
BW: And so you watched this bomber coming towards you -
JBF: Yeah just watched it and -
BW: Disintegrate as it hit the ground.
JBF: Into the ground. Nothing. Not one of those.
BW: Yeah not going straight in. Going in at a sharp angle.
JBF: There was nobody in it. It was on glide, you know. It was on pilot. The Yanks came around, ‘Oh is this where it fell?’ You know.
NH: Autopilot.
JBF: All our aircraft were full of holes but -.
BW: So they must presumably have baled out.
JBF: They’d baled out. Yeah.
BW: And left it to fly on.
JBF: Well I wouldn’t say it was common baling out but we could look in, we watched the Liberator on fire in the air and suddenly five or six of the crew jumped out in parachutes and you know it was all part of the course if you know what I mean. It wasn’t, and the flying bomb was the same, we were walking into, at Staughton walking into the cookhouse, 4 o’clock in the morning. We’d done the op. It was all buttoned up and ready and there was an erk leaning on the side of the door smoking a cigarette. He said, ‘Do you want to see a flying bomb?’ So we said, ‘Ok,’ you know so he said, ‘Just turn around and watch that,’ and there was a light and a putt putt putt putt putt putt putt and then suddenly it stopped. The only flying bomb I saw was just that one.
BW: So thinking back to your experience of Bomber Command and looking back at it how do you feel the service has been commemorated? Is it, it is getting better or -
JBF: I was disappointed to start with because I did hear that somehow or other Bomber Command was pegged out, you know. Pushed around the back because it wasn’t right bombing Germans you know. Bombing civilians and all that. And I was delighted to see that they’d got this commemoration up to the air crew in London and of course Eric Brown, my cousin, he was killed and my friend Eric [McKim?], he was killed. Both aircrew. Both on these.
NH: Missions.
BW: And so from the Green Park Memorial to the Centre that’s going to be at Canwick Hill did you get to the unveiling of the Memorial -
JBF: Oh no.
BW: Last year.
JBF: I’ve never been in any kind of Association like, you know, old comrades and all that. I’ve been to two or three reunions but you were only friends in that, once you’ve, you were all looking at each other. Perfect strangers.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: You know, solicitors were looking at accountants and accountants were looking at clerks and clerks were looking at petrol attendants or –
NH: Yeah.
JBF: Garages.
NH: Had nothing in common by then did you?
JBF: I remember two.
NH: Who was the guy that you, there was the fella with a ‘tache wasn’t there that sort of set himself up as a, as a leading light in that thing and you said he was, you knew him anyway, there was a guy that sort of ran it or tried to get -
JBF: Oh yes. Yeah. Well -
NH: That organised the reunions.
JBF: Organised the reunions. Yeah, well.
NH: Who was that fella?
JBF: To be honest except for Handley and Dom and Clive and Bill Gill, that was our little gang, and we all went to the reunions, we went to two reunions but there was nothing in common.
BW: Right.
JBF: We had nothing in common. Pat Handley was a big lorry driver on the motorways. Dom worked in a garage. I don’t know what Clive did. And I went back to office work.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: And the friendship was just at the time you know. In Meiktila for instance Handley had the brilliant idea. Japanese built the bunkers for their aircraft and of course there’s a trench around where they got the air to make the bunker so Handley has this brilliant idea he won’t bother with pegs and that he’ll just put the tent over one of these bunkers which is great except for the monsoon started. He’s standing in two foot of water and instead of rushing to help him we all died laughing, you know.
NH: Yeah.
BW: And so you’ve yet to see the memorial spire to Bomber Command crew at Canwick Hill at Lincoln where -
JBF: Is it really?
BW: So you’ve yet to go and see that.
JBF: Do I?
NH: Well he can’t get around much these days.
BW: Yeah.
NH: That’s the problem.
BW: Yeah.
NH: He’s not very mobile.
BW: Yeah.
NH: Are you? So you -
JBF: Oh no. I’m housebound you know.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: I can’t go out.
NH: Yeah.
BW: Yeah.
NH: He gets to his art.
BW: That’s a shame.
NH: He painted all these.
BW: These pictures on the wall.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: There’s, there’s -
BW: [?]
JBF: The one that’s see the latest underneath that see that one.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: Of the skyscrapers, right at the bottom, beside the little girl.
BW: Yes. This one.
JBF: That’s, Tim’s got that one. That was the last one I painted.
NH: So that’s, that’s as far as he gets these days.
JBF: You know they’re sort of this size.
BW: They’re wonderful paintings.
NH: Yeah.
BW: Ok.
NH: They’re his.
BW: Ok. I think that is all the questions that I have for you Jack unless there is anything else that you want to add.
NH: The only other thing is you mentioned my mum. Didn’t you used to meet up? She was at Bletchley and you used to meet up.
JBF: She was at Bletchley Park and I was at Little Staughton and we arranged to meet and I used to go to Bedford I think it was, catch the train and we’d meet. She’d bring a WAAF friend and invariably we went to the pictures and I never ever saw the film. I fell asleep immediately because I’d come off duty to get there so I’d got myself washed and dressed and in my best blue and out and we used to go to the pictures and I never saw a film because I just fell asleep.
NH: Did you ever know what she was doing at Bletchley? I mean.
JBF: No. I only knew what she was doing about 1960.
NH: You knew she was there though.
JBF: Yeah.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: It was very very -
NH: Oh absolutely.
JBF: Yeah.
NH: That’s right.
JBF: It was like the Oboe. The start was very, you know.
BW: And they were told not to speak about it and many of them didn’t for you know sixty years -
JBF: Well 1960.
BW: Let alone thirty.
JBF: The first time I even mentioned the word you know. I don’t even like to say it now to be honest.
BW: Different times.
NH: Absolutely.
BW: Right. Ok. I think that is everything for the interview so on behalf of the Bomber Command Centre thank you very much your time Jack. It’s been a pleasure.
JBF: Here’s the, do you want to have a look at some of the pictures?
BW: I’ll have a look at some of the -
JBF: Let’s see what’s in here.
BW: Items.
NH: So what is this centre?
BW: It’s going to be a digital archive for the audio and any documents that -
NH: Yeah.
BW: People hand over.
JBF: That’s the kind of terrain in Burma.
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 Jack Brown Franklin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brian Wright
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-31
Format
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01:51:22 Audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AFranklinJB160331
PFranklinJB1616
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Brown Franklin grew up in Liverpool and worked in a paper merchants. He discusses Liverpool being bombed and his service in the Local Defence Volunteers. He joined the Air Force in 1941 and trained as an engine mechanic. He served with 109 Squadron, Pathfinders before being posted to 28 Squadron in Burma.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Burma
Great Britain
Burma--Meiktila
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Liverpool
England--Norfolk
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
109 Squadron
bombing
civil defence
crash
demobilisation
fitter engine
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
home front
Home Guard
Hurricane
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
Oboe
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Little Staughton
RAF Marham
RAF Wyton
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1158/11717/PThorpJF1601.2.jpg
ff1f3350206f6261bc6dec0c3a9ef84c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1158/11717/AThorpJF160412.1.mp3
fd9fa4392a3c236f3815a3bff1903dc9
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
Thorp, John Foster
J F Thorp
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer John Foster Thorp (1924 - 2018, 1623333 Royal Air Force), a list of his operations, a page from a log book and notes on 467 Squadron and Lancaster R5868. He flew completed a tour of operations as a rear gunner with 467 Squadron.
The collection was 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
2016-04-12
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thorp, JF
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Warrant Officer John Foster Thorp of 467 Squadron at his home in Bamford, Rochdale at half past one on Tuesday the 12th April 2016. Also present with us are his eldest son Derek and his wife Betty. Warrant Officer Foster, excuse me, Warrant Officer Thorp if you can just describe for us please your family set up. Where you were born and grew up? How many people in your family? Please.
JT: Yes. I was born in Manchester and I grew up in Manchester. In Higher Blackley mainly. And I was there until I was eighteen years of age at which point I went into the RAF.
BW: Was there only you in the family? Did you have any brothers and sisters?
JT: I have. I had one sister. She’s now deceased. But no brothers. No.
BW: And where did you, whereabouts did you go to school?
JT: I went to the local school first until I was fourteen. Sorry. The local school until I was ten. And then I went to North Manchester Grammar School, Chain Bar, Moston. And I left there in September 1939 when the war broke out and the school was evacuated but my father wouldn’t let me be evacuated.
BW: And so you stayed in —
JT: So I stayed at home. And when I became seventeen years of age I joined the local Home Guard which gave me some insight into military training.
BW: And did your sister remain at home at the same, same time? She wasn’t evacuated either or did, did she leave?
JT: She was in a different school.
BW: I see.
JT: So — yeah.
BW: And what prompted you to join the Home Guard at first? Why? Why them?
JT: Just to be military I suppose and wear a uniform. My father was in the ’14/’18 war, in the army and he told me, ‘Don’t go in the army,’ he said, ‘When you’re eighteen.’ So I, I had visions like most eighteen year olds of flying a Spitfire. So, I went to the RAF station, RAF recruiting office in Manchester and volunteered for pilot training. I was accepted. I eventually had to go to Cardington in Bedfordshire to have the aircrew medical and written examination. And then I was waiting then. I was on deferred service until I became a full age for military service. That’s turning eighteen. And, when was it? September 1942 I was called up to the RAF. And they, they had a general course for pilots, navigators and bomb aimers. They called it the PNB Scheme. And you took a general course in navigation, elementary navigation, meteorology, signalling, Morse code and RAF law. And other odds. Engines. Engines. And I did that initial training at Scarborough, Yorkshire.
BW: How long were you there?
JT: About four months I think it was. And then from there I went up to Scone in Scotland, near Perth, where there was a flying, flying school.
[recording interrupted]
BW: So, just to pick up we were, we were saying that you joined the Home Guard and been selected for pilot training and that you’d then completed your initial training and been posted back to Heaton Park. Coincidentally just a mile away from where your parents actually lived.
JT: Yeah.
BW: And your home was in Manchester. So, you were waiting there for your name to come up on a, on a list to either be sent out to Canada, South Africa or where ever.
JT: Further training. Yes. That’s right. And while I was at Heaton Park we used to have a morning parade and a roll call to make sure nobody had buzzed off home with being so frustrated waiting at the, at the — [pause] And so, one morning at the morning parade the person in charge of us said a course had been started for air gunners. And if anybody would like to volunteer to go on to this course then report to the office. So, like a lot of others, they wanted three hundred volunteers and they got over two hundred for these. You see, the point was that Lancasters, Stirlings, Halifaxes carried two gunners and they needed, so they needed more gunners than that. Than any other trade. And so I went and volunteered for air gunner and I was posted to Andreas in the Isle of Man. And there was one of two, one of three airfield on the Isle of Man. There was Andreas was the gunnery school, Jurby was bomb aimer’s and the Royal Navy had taken over Douglas Airport for their, training their Fleet Air Arm people.
BW: Where? What was the first base called?
JT: Andreas.
BW: Andreas?
JT: Andreas. A N D R E A S.
BW: Ok. And that was specifically for air gunnery was it?
JT: Air gunnery training. Yes. Yes. Used to go up on an, in an Avro Anson which had an upper turret and about six of you would go up with the pilot and then an aircraft would come along towing a drogue and you fired from the turret at this drogue. And then when they dropped the drogue on the airfield when you’d finished the exercise they counted the number of holes. And there was six of us firing at it so they divided it by six and that was your score. So, whether you’d hit it or whether you peppered it, you know.
BW: Yeah.
JT: That was the way they worked it.
BW: Nowadays they use, they use coloured paint on the, on the bullets but they didn’t then.
JT: No. No.
BW: They just — right.
JT: So —
BW: This is interesting because at this time in your life you’ve joined the Home Guard. You volunteered for pilot training. You’d been accepted as a pilot.
JT: Yeah.
BW: As you say in your view you were going to fly Spitfires.
JT: I wanted to.
BW: What, what changed in your mind to go for air gunner? What, why the change from pilot?
JT: Frustration.
BW: Simple as that.
JT: Frustration. Not making progress. And that was what it really was. And the same with a lot of other people. And so I passed out on the basis of the number of shots in the, in the drogue. I passed out as an air gunner. As a, they gave me the rank of sergeant and the wing. I got my AG wing. And I was then posted to Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire which was a base where pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, radio operators and so on came there and they formed into crews. And what happened with the pilot this was the, of course the skipper of the crew and he used to be wondering around with a piece of paper and a pencil and he’d go up to a person and say, ‘Have you got a crew yet?’ ‘No sir.’ ‘Would you like to go in my crew?’ Well, an Australian, an Australian flying officer. Flying officer rank pilot said to me, ‘Would you like to join my crew?’ So, I said, ‘Yes. Yes.’ He seemed a nice fellow and I said, ‘I’ll join your crew.’ So he said, ‘First of all, before you definitely decide,’ he said, ‘I’m on retraining because I had a crash and my bomb aimer was killed. We were flying in a Wellington and one engine cut out’. The Wellington didn’t fly very well on one engine and that’s why he crashed. And so I said to him, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Everybody is allowed one crash.’ So, I said, ‘I’ll join you.’ And I never regretted it. He was a smashing fellow. He was about, I think he was thirty years of age. Which was getting old in flying ranks you know, really. And he said, ‘Come on then. Now you’ve joined me,’ he said, ‘What’s your name?’ So I said, ‘John.’ ‘Right, Johnny.’ And I was Johnny from then on, ‘And, I’ll introduce you to the, I’ll introduce you to the crew. The other members of the crew,’ he said, ‘I’ve been looking for a rear gunner,’ he said, ‘And that’s the final one I wanted.’ So, I said, ‘Ok.’ And there was Herby Phillips the navigator, Canadian. Eric Clem was the mid-upper gunner. Poor Eric never, he didn’t last the war. He was killed. And then there was [pause] do you want the names if I can remember them? There’s Herby Phillips —
BW: Yeah.
JT: Who was the navigator. Canadian.
BW: Eric Clem was the Aussie.
JT: Pardon?
BW: Eric Clem was an Aussie. Is that right?
JT: Eric Clem was an Aussie. Yes. Eric. Yes.
DT: He was your mate wasn’t he?
JT: Pardon?
DT: Eric was your mate.
JT: Can you throw me that red book? That red book off there please.
DT: Yeah.
JT: I made a list of it the other day and — thank you very much.
BW: Was your pilot called MacLaughlin?
JT: David MacLaughlin was the pilot and when he introduced himself he said, ‘My name is David MacLaughlin,’ he said, ‘While we’re flying you call me skipper. But all other times it’s Mac.’ Showing the lack of rank. Not pulling rank you see. So, anyhow, oh dear. I damaged it [pages turning]
DT: Do you want to carry on talking dad?
JT: Here we are.
DT: And I’ll have a look for you.
JT: There we are, Derek.
DT: You’ve got it.
JT: David MacLaughlin pilot. Aussie. Herbert Phillips — navigator. He was Canadian Air Force. The bomb aimer I could never, I can’t remember his name. He was rather a fellow who didn’t mix very well.
BW: Was it Craven? Does that sound familiar? Craven.
JT: Yeah. It does. George Craven was it? Have you got a list of them somewhere? [laughs] Albert Smith, the radio operator. He was from the northeast of England. Reg Hodgkinson was the engineer. He was, he was from Warrington. Eric Clem was the mid-upper gunner. Australian. And myself then. Rear gunner.
DT: Didn’t you start out with another mid-upper?
JT: Pardon?
DT: You started out with another mid-upper gunner didn’t you but he wasn’t able to — ?
JT: Well, we had one. A Canadian. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t stand altitude flying. He used to pass out if he got up to altitude. So that’s when —
BW: And so you swapped him, did you?
JT: Pardon?
BW: You swapped him, did you?
JT: We swapped him. Yeah. Yeah.
DT: It was, was it his skull? His skull hadn’t closed up properly.
JT: That’s right. Yeah.
DT: And there was a hole in the middle of his skull. And when he went up to altitude he passed out. So he was —
JT: Medical problem.
DT: Medical. Yeah.
BW: Wow.
JT: He was a Canadian.
BW: And George Craven. Was he an Aussie or was he, was he British?
JT: George Craven. He was an Aussie. Yeah. But Eric Clem, I said he didn’t last the war. He, he’d done, he did twenty ops with us. Twenty trips with us. Eric. And then he was taken ill with tonsillitis. Went into the sick bay and when he came out he didn’t re-join our crew. And he joined another crew and went, he went to Stuttgart and didn’t, they didn’t come back. He was my room-mate actually. We shared a room. He was a very special little chap. He was twenty nine years of age which was getting on for aircrew really.
BW: Where did you live with the crew? Were you in a Nissen hut or were you in married quarters on the station?
JT: At Waddington? Waddington. Well, it was, was a peacetime base so they had proper built up accommodation over the sergeant’s mess. There’s accommodation for sergeants and like I say I shared a room with Eric until he was killed.
BW: And at this time, you, you’ve met the crew at Upper Heyford and you then were posted as a crew to 467 Squadron at Waddington.
JT: Well, well at first we were at Upper Heyford. We were flying Wellingtons in training. Crew getting, crew getting used to being a crew. Crew training.
BW: What did you think of Wellingtons?
JT: They were alright. Good solid aircraft. Yes. A bit heavy and all that but we didn’t fly in them operationally. It was purely cross-country flying. Bombing practice and things like that. Just straight general training. And then we went from there to Stirlings to swap on to four-engined mark types. Be on four engines then. And that’s where we picked up a navigator - flight engineer. And then from Stirlings we went on to Lancasters. Just a short session. Conversion on to Lancasters and then from there to Waddington.
BW: And do you recall the Conversion Unit where you flew Lancasters?
JT: Was it Wigsley? Was it Wigsley? I’m not sure. I thought it was Wigsley. We went around a bit. No. That was Stirlings. Not Syerston were it? [pages turning]
BW: But as you say you weren’t flying operations at this time. You were just learning to work together as a crew.
JT: To knit together as a crew. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody was still being trained to some extent. Syerston.
BW: I see.
JT: Syerston. That’s where we converted on to Lancasters.
BW: And how long was your course there? How long was your course there? Do you know?
JT: Syerston? Was about a fortnight. Three weeks. It was purely getting used to that type. I mean we’d converted from Wellingtons on to Stirlings for multi-engine. Four engines. And then we’d gone from Stirlings then on to Lancaster conversion because Lancasters were in short supply, you know. Being they were building up the Lancaster force on Bomber Command.
BW: So, so what time, what sort of stage of the war was this? Was this ’41, ’42? Or —
JT: That was in April 1944. That was before D-Day that was of course.
BW: And how did you rate the Stirling aircraft? How did you find them?
JT: It was fairly solid but it was a bit cumbersome. Lumbered along you know. And the thing that struck me really was I was, I was airborne before everybody else because it was quite a long fuselage. They put the tail up to keep the nose down while, while they’re going down the runway and I’m up in the air and everybody else is down on the ground.
BW: And so when you moved then to Waddington to join 467 and start on Lancasters what was your, your impression then? What was the feeling between you and the crew about getting on to Lancasters? Was it like moving from a biplane to a Spitfire? Or was it —
JT: No. From my point of view it was always the same because it was just a turret. Flying in a turret, you see. More and more different for the pilot really and the engineer and that. But from my point of view I just sat in the turret there.
BW: Did the aircraft itself feel different? Lancasters are notoriously cramped.
JT: Yes. It was a comfortable aircraft to fly in. Yes.
BW: You found it comfortable.
JT: Yeah. Found it comfortable. Yes.
BW: And you joined in April ’44. I suppose a similar time of year to what we’re in now but this is in the run up to D-Day which we know now.
JT: Yeah.
BW: Did you sense anything about the coming invasion? Invasion.
JT: No. Not really. What happened, there was a tannoy, you know. The tannoy loudspeaker system around the airfield and there was a tannoy message went out, ‘Will all crews of 467 Squadron report to the briefing room.’ That was one afternoon. And the commanding officer of the squadron told us that, they didn’t say it was D-Day of course because it was still secret then so much but he said, ‘You may be called for an early morning flight. Operation. So, get in to, get, get to bed early tonight and make sure you fully sleep.’ Slept like you see. And about 3 o’clock in the morning there was a hammering on the door and [unclear] much shouting on the corridor. People were being sent to waken all the crews up. And Eric and I got up, got dressed went down to the mess. Had a meal. The usual meal of bacon and egg and all that kind of thing. And, and then from there out to briefing and then we went out to the aircraft. And the thing we noticed as we were going out to the aircraft was they’d painted black and white stripes underneath the wings for recognition purposes. And we, we took off on D-Day morning about, I think it was about 3 or, about 3 o’clock in the morning or something like that. June the 6th [pause pages turning] D-Day. Excuse me. A bit slow.
BW: That’s alright.
DT: You’d done a few ops before then hadn’t you dad?
JT: Pardon?
DT: You’d done a few ops before then hadn’t you?
JT: What? Before D-Day?
DT: D-Day wasn’t your first.
JT: Oh, we’d only done a few before D-Day. Yeah. 2.40. Take off 2.40. St Pierre du Mont in France. That was 2.40 in the morning. And D-Day was quite a thing with us because we went, we went out at like I say 3 o’clock in the morning and as we were flying over, coming back, flying over the Channel — over the Channel there was a vast armada of ships going out. They were going to the landings. And I was going to say about them [pause] anyhow [pause] we flew back, we flew back to our base and they told us then that the D-Day landings, the landings had taken place. And, and again in the afternoon he said you’d be wanted again this evening for a flight. And that was midnight. Now, this was an interesting day. At midnight on D-day. And we took off and of course the Germans always anticipated that the invasion would take place from Dover to Calais. The shortest distance. And they’d stationed a lot of armour and troops south of Calais ready to repel the invasion but it came — it never came. And, so, we, we were detailed on that night of D-Day to bomb some railway, railway tracks. To stop this armour and these troops being transferred from south of Calais, taken over to, to Normandy to, to attack the British forces you see. Anyhow, as we rolled out about, just about midnight almost. Queued up to go on to the runway and then eventually our turn came. We went on the runway. We started, charged up the runway. We were about three quarters of the way along and heard a very loud bang like an explosion. Mac, Mac, in his Aussie twang said, ‘What the bloody hell was that?’ [laughs] And of course nobody knew. Anyway, he pulled it off the ground. We were about three quarters of the way down the runway so we couldn’t, couldn’t stop. We were too far. So, he pulled it off the ground and we carried on and after a few minutes he said there was no, whatever it was it hadn’t affected our controls. So, and the flight engineer said the engine readings are normal. So, Mac said, ‘Ok. We’ll carry on.’ And we carried on, we bombed and we started back and as we crossed the south coast Mac radioed to base and told them we’d got this. Oh no, sorry, before we got to there, as we got to the Channel Mac said, ‘We’d better check the undercarriage,’ and as the wheel went down a big black object flew past my turret. And the engineer looked out. He said, ‘We’ve lost our starboard tyre.’ That big bang was a tyre bursting as we were taking off. So Skip, Mac radioed base at Waddington and told them that we were having this problem. And another thing was as we were heading down towards, towards Waddington we got a constant speed unit in the propeller, in the propeller was, went faulty and we had to shut an engine down. So we were on three engines then. Anyhow, that was on the way to Woodbridge in Suffolk where there was an emergency landing place with a big runway and such. They were kitted out with ambulances and fire engines and all sorts there ready for emergency landings. And so I thought well how was Mac going to get this down, you know, with only one wheel? Anyhow, he went in. He kept this wing up with the dovetail, with the bad wheel and he landed on one wheel and the tail wheel and rolled down the runway and gradually, as we lost speed this wing dropped and the hub that was left after the tyre had gone, the hub hit the ground and we spun around and off the field. Off the strip on to the grass at the side. So, it was a marvellous bit of flying really. To fly a big aircraft like that on one wheel. Yes. So that was D-Day night.
BW: And so you didn’t, you didn’t get out to the target in France? You had to divert before you got there. Is that right? Or did you —
JT: Yeah. No. No. We got to the target. We bombed.
BW: You got to the target. Bombed the target.
JT: And on the way back but we didn’t, we didn’t know what the problem was then. It was only when we started on the way back and we started thinking about what was it? This noise and all that. And Mac put the wheels down and the engineer told us that we’d lost our starboard tyre. So, that was when we first knew about it.
BW: And did you get to find out how successful your attack on the target had been after all that?
JT: Sorry?
BW: Did the, did you get to find out how successful your attack on the target had been after all that?
JT: No. We never did. No. You’d usually get an aiming point photo. They had this, the camera and it was geared up with the bomb, bomb release and it switched, switched on when the, when your bombs had landed. And it should show your bombs. The effect of your bombs. A little camera.
BW: And this aircraft you were flying in at the time, I believe it was S Sugar. Is that right?
JT: Pardon?
BW: I believe the aircraft you were flying in at the time was S Sugar. Is that right?
JT: No. We flew in S for Sugar on our first operational flight.
BW: Just your first one.
JT: First one. June. 28th of May I think it was.
BW: Yeah.
JT: It was S for Sugar.
BT: Handy that log book, isn’t it?
JT: Hmmn?
BT: Handy that log book.
JT: Yes.
BT: Are you looking for something?
JT: July. May. June. What were we talking about? It’s got a W. It wasn’t W. That’s [pause]
BW: Yeah. So that, that’s your first, your first trip.
JT: Well, that was a special exercise, that was a —
BW: But then after that the aircraft you were in on D-Day wasn’t S Sugar then was it? It was, it was another one.
JT: Not D-Day. No.
BW: But that first one you flew in went on to be a well-known Lancaster didn’t it?
JT: It is. It’s, I’ll tell you something about that a bit more [pause] Oh yeah. There. 28th of the May. S for Sugar. 28th of May that.
BW: That’s it. Yeah. Bombing Cherbourg.
JT: Cherbourg. That’s it. So, actually it wasn’t our first. Yes. It was, it would be our first op that. First op because that was a special exercise. That was a special exercise when we flew in it. It was something to do with the radar check on something. And that’s our first trip. That was S for Sugar. Divert a little.
BW: And these are photos that you’ve got of the aircraft in the RAF Museum at Hendon. Is that right?
JT: These. No. No. No, these are Derek’s.
DT: My daughter.
JT: Two grandsons.
DT: My daughter and her husband and my grandsons went down to Hendon.
BW: I see.
DT: A few —
JT: Went down there and —
DT: Well, a few months ago and they took a load of photographs because of my dad’s association with it. They made a little booklet up for him and —
BW: Right.
JT: They allowed them, they allowed them in the prohibited area didn’t they?
DT: Yeah. They did. Yeah.
BW: Yeah. Well, that’s good of them.
JT: There they are.
BW: Yeah. That’s them in front of your turret.
JT: Yeah.
BW: And have you been to the same aircraft in Hendon? Have you seen it yourself?
JT: Well, I’ve been there a couple of times. Yes, and introduced myself. And they sent a young lad, a young chap with us who was on the section and he said he could he could take you to the aircraft. He took us down there and he undid the door and let us climb in. He said, ‘I can’t,’ he said, ‘I don’t know a lot about it,’ he said, ‘Because I’ve only just come on this section. So, I can’t tell you a lot about the Lancaster.’ I said, ‘Well I’ll tell you shall I?’ [laughs]
DT: Is that when you said it didn’t smell the same?
JT: Pardon?
DT: It didn’t smell the same.
JT: No. No. That was one thing that struck me was the smell. And then I realised a long time afterwards that there was no fuel in it, you see. It was an exhibition piece. There was no fuel in it for precautions. Safety precautions. So the aircraft didn’t smell the same [laughs]
BW: And when you were going on ops it presumably had a heavy smell of fuel in it.
JT: Oh yes. Yeah. Well, it always did when you were going on ops or not, you know. You could always smell the aircraft. Yeah.
BW: And when you were preparing for these early trips what sort of things did you have to do? What, what were you doing yourself to prepare for the, for the operations?
JT: Well, of course you had, you had your meal first and you were waited on by WAAFs. They volunteered to wait on us. A courtesy measure, you know for the lads that were going on ops. And anyhow then you went to, along to the, one of the hangars and they got to give you your flying rations. Which were boiled, a packet of boiled sweets, packets of chewing gum and [pause] what else was there? Boiled sweets, chewing gum, oh a block of chocolate. And depending on how, how long the flight was going to be depended on when you got two bags of chocolate [laughs] And then you went and picked up your parachute. You’d already picked up your flying gear from your locker and you picked up your parachute from the parachute store. And then you’d go out to the crew bus and they’d take you out to the aircraft. And that was the only preparation we did really. Picking up stuff we needed. Yeah.
BW: Did you attend the briefing with the rest of the crew?
JT: Oh yes. Yes. Oh yes. They had a long table. A long, you know, a collapsible table and benches, seat, chairs. And each crew used to gather around a table and the navigator usually had a map in front of him and he was already working on a flight plan. Yeah.
BW: And when you see it in films, where they unveil a map on a wall, was that the same kind of thing or different?
JT: Yes. Yes. Sometimes. I mean, once everybody was in they shut the door, the blinds were down and everything and then there was a map on the wall with a tape, a red tape going from your base down to where ever the target was. And the squadron commander would give, first give a chat about what the target was for and why it was picked for a target. What was being done there. Aircraft production or bombs or whatever. And then of course the Met officer. The meteorological officer would then give the weather report for the flight. What it was expected to be like over the target. Clear or not and, and what it would be like when you came back. And diversions. Possibly diversions if, if your airfield was fogged out. Of course Lincolnshire. You got quite a bit of mist in Lincolnshire. And you had to perhaps plan to be away from home when you come back.
BW: Most of your targets at this time are over France in preparation for D-Day. Did you get to fly over Germany at all?
JT: Oh yes. Yes. I’ve never logged precisely how many of each. Each way. But —
BW: Was there a difference in the operation between targets in France and Germany? Did you, did you feel one was more dangerous than the other? Or one was easier than the other?
JT: Well, Germany was obviously — particularly in what they called the Ruhr Valley. That, that was a bad place to go. And I can’t think what we used to call it now but I mean we were at Cherbourg, France which is only just on the coast you see. It isn’t so bad. We did one flight to Königsberg on the Baltic and the actual time was ten hours or something like that. So, it was a long flight. Down Stuttgart. That was where Eric was killed. But this wasn’t, he wasn’t on this flight. That was a eight hour. Eight hours. You notice, you notice the writing changes because Mac, the pilot’s, captain, the crew captain used to collect all the logbooks for his crew and he used to mess about with the logbook, you see. And Mac said to me, ‘You’re not putting enough information on. I’ll keep your logbook for you in the future.’ And that’s why. Why the writing changes.
BW: I see. So —
JT: I just used to put Ops — [unclear] Ops — St Pierre du Mont and then, but Mac put all sorts of, these sort of things down,
BW: What has he put on that one?
JT: Which one?
BW: What has he put on this one?
JT: “Ops Rennes. Landed at Skellingthorpe. Diversion was unsuitable.” Skellingthorpe was next door to our base. Next door to Waddington. There was Skellingthorpe, Bardney and Waddington were in a little group. That says, “Landed at Skellingthorpe.” It must have been fog. So, we were diverted there. I think we did about a third were German and the remainder were France because it would be about D-Day. Around about D-Day of course when we were very much involved in things. Königsberg, East Prussia. Ten hour fifty.
BW: And on such long trips like that how did you keep yourself occupied?
JT: Keeping my eyes open [laughs]. That was important. Yeah. Keep a look out you know. At night time of course. I remember one instance we were on a daylight operation actually. We were flying along and we were coming back and another aircraft just in front of us like that and I saw a Junkers 88. A fighter, German fighter, the 188 which had radar on the nose. And we were flying along and I saw this 188 so I told the skipper like, I said, ‘Junkers 88 starboard quarter. Starboard quarter level.’ So far, such a range. I forgot what it was now and so he said, ‘Keep your eye on it.’ Anyhow, the mid-upper gunner said, ‘I think he’s creeping up on this other Lancaster. And they don’t seem aware that he’s there. He’s coming up on them.’ I said, ‘Shall I fire a burst at him?’ So, the bomb aimer was a bit, you know. The bomb aimer said, George, he said, ‘No. No,’ he said, ‘Don’t you fire at him,’ he said, ‘He may come and turn on to us.’ I said, ‘Well we can’t sit here and watch. And watch him shoot that fellow down can we?’ I said, ‘Let’s give him a warning shot.’ And that’s what I did. Skipper said, ‘Yes. Go ahead.’ So, I gave a warning shot at this Junkers 88. And then the rear gunner of this other aircraft then opened up. And our mid-upper opened and he just dived away. The 88. And so then it was where had he gone to? Had he come around or was he coming around the other side. Where was he? Was he going to be a bit spiteful at us depriving him of his target? But we got away with it.
BW: And the other aircraft remained unscathed as well.
JT: Oh yes. Yeah. Yes.
BW: And when you fired that burst what, what sort of guns are you firing? Are they the 303s or did they change to the .5s at this time?
JT: The 303 Brownings. Four. Four 303 Brownings. And they were [pause] Yeah.
BW: How did you rate them? Did you find them effective weapons?
JT: Yes. Yes. I mean when I fired at this 88 I could see my bullets striking his [pause] they had the port. The port engines. They call it covers. Striking the cowlings on the, on the starboard. On the port engine. But how effective it was I don’t know. It didn’t shoot him down.
BW: But it winged him.
JT: Yes. It frightened him off perhaps.
BW: And was that the only time that you fired your guns at a target?
JT: No.
BW: Or did you get opportunity to use them on other occasions?
JT: Well, had one or two pops off at different ones. But we weren’t, we weren’t really, I wouldn’t say attacked. We were never attacked by a fighter. I got the impression if you fired at them and showed them that you were awake they went off. They weren’t interested. Yeah.
BW: So, just coming back to the start of a mission. When you get in to the aircraft to get into your turret what sort of actions are you going through then? What do you do to settle yourself into the turret?
JT: Well, just get in. Check the gunsight is lit up and of course plug into your intercom so that you’re in communication with the skipper and others. Couple up to the oxygen system. And you’re sitting on, in the latter part you were sitting on a parachute as a cushion of course.
BW: A seat pack.
JT: Yeah. A pilot, a pilot’s type pack they called it. Meaning the other one is the observer pack they called it. That was the one with the chest. Chest pack.
BW: But when you were carrying your ‘chute you had the seat pack. You, you sat on your chute. You didn’t stow it.
JT: Sat on it. Yes. Sat on the parachute. That was an advantage being in the rear turret really because if you had to bale out you turned the turret on the beam so that you were facing that way as you were going along this way say. Open the doors behind you, uncouple your, your plugs and pick your knees up and roll out backwards. And you sit on your parachute. So it was an easy place to get out of. Safest place. Safer than the mid-upper. I wouldn’t have liked sitting on the mid-upper turret.
BW: Did you ever, you never swapped positions?
JT: No. No.
BW: Or flew in that position at all.
JT: I didn’t want to.
BW: You stayed purely rear turret.
JT: No. As a mid-upper he’d got to come down out of from his turret. Down the roof of the bomb bay. Down on to the back. Back end. And then turn to the door, open the door. And if the aeroplane was going like that that, you know it was a bit of a job.
BW: But you never had to bale out.
JT: Oh no. No. I got it planned in my mind. I knew just what I would do.
BW: And what did you, what was your plan if you had to bale out?
JT: To bale out? Well like I say —
BW: You would turn the turret around and bale out but did you, did your plan extend to what you would do on the ground once you were down there?
JT: No. Well, some of the lectures you had were on escape procedures and all that kind of thing. To try and get what they called a home run. You’ve been aware of all this haven’t you? What’s your connection with the RAF?
BW: Me personally? I, I had a couple of years in pilot training in the mid-80s but it was, well for me personally, I was nineteen, twenty years old and, you know flying a jet at that age was ultimately not something I was cut out for so, you know, I left. But in the same manner that that you were briefed on escape and evasion procedures we had as well. And we had exercises in the country about things, you know. You were briefed on what you could expect. And of course flying over enemy territory you had escape kit as well, didn’t you? You had things like silk handkerchiefs with maps on them.
JT: Oh yeah. Yes.
BW: Compass in buttons and things like that.
JT: That’s right. A compass. Two buttons. Two buttons. You’d cut them off and one had a little pin in it like that in the middle and a dimple in the top one and that was, made a little compass in those. Yes.
BW: Thankfully you never had to use them.
JT: No.
BW: You had a good pilot who got you back every time.
JT: Oh yes. Got me back. Oh yes. He was a good pilot.
BW: You said you got on pretty well as a crew altogether.
JT: Hmmn?
BW: You said you got on pretty well as a crew altogether.
JT: Oh yeah. Yes. We got on.
BW: But did you socialise together after the operations?
JT: Not really. No. No. Didn’t [pause] That’s one thing I regretted really. That we didn’t have a sort of a get together after. When we’d finished. Mac was awarded a DFC and when he was going he came to me one day he said, ‘I’m going down to London,’ he said, ‘And he didn’t say about his DFC but I found out afterwards.’ He said, ‘I’m going down to London,’ he said, ‘And they’re flying me down there,’ he said, ‘I believe you’re going to — ’ what is it called? Near Market Harborough. He said, ‘I believe you’re going to,’ so and so, ‘Can we drop you off there?’ So, I said, ‘Oh yes. If you don’t mind.’ So, I got my two kit bags and my other pack and all that and he said, he said, ‘I’m in a hurry,’ he said, ‘So, as quickly as you can.’ And I never got time to say anything to the other lads before I went. And I thought afterwards, you know, it was a bit rotten after flying together all that time.
BW: And so that sounds as though it was the end of your tour when that happened. Is that right?
JT: End of the —
BW: Was it the end of your tour when that happened?
JT: Oh yes. Yes. See they stipulated that you were required to do thirty five ops. The squadron’s commander decided how many trips you had to do to complete what they called a tour of operations. And different squadrons had different numbers. Some had thirty. Some had thirty five and ours was thirty five. Mac, when the crew first arrived on the squadron from training the pilots of course had no operational experience so, they used to send them on a trip or two trips if possible with an experienced crew. And to get, see what, what the Pathfinders approach to things, you know. Over the target and that. And the, I was going to say [pause] anyhow I never got the chance to say goodbye to anybody or exchange addresses or anything. So completely lost touch with them. That was it.
DT: That’s why you did thirty three ops wasn’t it?
JT: Pardon?
DT: That’s why you did thirty three operations and not thirty five.
JT: Oh well, we did thirty three.
DT: Because Mac had done two.
JT: Out of thirty five. Well, Mac did two of these experience trips so we needed thirty five. They said that’s it. So we only did thirty three.
BW: And you, you didn’t go on to serve with another crew. You stopped at that point and finished altogether.
JT: That was it, yeah. Yeah.
BW: And in your log there are some targets that you attacked at the end of June which were V-1 sites. Do you recall what was briefed about those at all? Were they static sites or just storage areas or —
JT: Well, there was Peenemunde of course which was attacked. That was where the Germans were concentrating their rocket activities. But no it was at a targets, you know. You were given a target and that was it. You go and do the job. It’s rather strange you know because our last trip was, was to Mönchengladbach in Germany. And we bombed there one night. That last one and that was it. And 1956 I think it was, our swim, we belonged to a swimming club, the boys and Betty and myself belonged to a swimming club in Manchester. And one of the boys had been in the army at Mönchengladbach and he had formed a friendship with youngsters in the swimming club there [unclear] himself. And he formed this friendship and then the club, their club decided to come over to England and have a joint swimming competition with our club. And it was from Mönchengladbach. And they asked us to, would our members accommodate some youngsters? So we said we’d have two boys. Having three sons of our own. And Heinz and Hans Peter. Hans Peter has died since but Heinz and his wife Sabina, we’re still in touch with them. We’ve been over a few times. They’ve been over here. And I’m walking around Mönchengladbach and think well I bombed this place a few years ago, you know.
DT: Didn’t they take you to a hill dad?
JT: Pardon?
DT: They took you to a hill that was built out of rubble.
JT: Oh yes. Yes. At the back of Sabina and Heinz house there’s this mound. Big mound grassed over and a path leading up so you go up and seats and a garden on the top. A memorial garden. And Sabina said to me one time, she said, her English was very good. She said, ‘Do you know what this is, John?’ I said, ‘What? No.’ So she said, ‘This is rubble from when they were bombed during the war.’ So, I said, ‘Oh dear,’ you know. I didn’t tell her we’d made it, we helped to contribute to it because they were a smashing couple. Yeah.
BW: Did you ever get to see any of the V-1s that you were attacking the ground —
JT: No.
BW: Targets for.
JT: No.
BW: It was just another —
JT: Another target.
BW: Another target.
JT: Yeah.
BW: There were a couple of times where you flew in support of allied troops. One was over Caen and the other was over Königsberg. Did you get to see any of the troops on the ground or were you too high for that?
JT: Oh, too, we would be too high. Yes. Yes.
BW: Your CO, I believe was a Wing Commander Brill.
JT: Brill. Yes. Yes.
BW: What do you recall of him? He was Australian, wasn’t he?
JT: Australian. Yes. Wing Commander Brill. Yes. Deegdon was the flight commander. A fellow called Deegdon.
BW: Deedon?
JT: Flight commander.
BW: And which flight were you in on your squadron?
JT: I can’t remember.
BW: Ok.
JT: No. I can’t remember. He was Australian. Deegdon. I’m not sure whether Brill was killed later in a flying accident. I seem to remember.
BW: Your last trip in your log is to, is it Rheydt. R H E Y D T is that?
JT: Rheydt. Rheydt. Yeah.
BW: Rheydt.
JT: Yeah.
BW: And there was a notable incident on the, on that that raid. Do you recall what it was?
JT: To Rheydt. That was Mönchengladbach. Rheydt. Mönchengladbach.
BW: And who was the master bomber?
JT: Oh yes. Gibson. Guy Gibson. He was killed on that raid. Yeah.
BW: Was there any information given to you about what had happened to him?
JT: No. No. No. I don’t recall. Guy Gibson. Yeah. Wait a minute, yes. Just a minute. I saw, I could tell you something on that. As we were coming back over Holland, we were coming back over Holland and I saw, looking down I saw this twin-engined aircraft on fire. Flying on fire. And it was obviously under control because I thought it was trying to force land. And I saw it hit the ground and burst into flames. And when we got back to base they told us Guy Gibson hadn’t reported back. And I never connected the two facts of seeing this twin-engined, this twin-engined aircraft on fire. I never connected that with him at that time and it was a long time after that that it really hit home that it, there was a possibility.
BW: Because he was in a Mosquito.
JT: A Mosquito. That’s right. Yeah.
BW: And killed over Holland.
JT: Yeah.
BW: It was said that he was heard giving the crews on that raid a pat on the back before turning for home. Was that something that you recall and was it something that was broadcast to crews? Were you able to hear something like that or, or not?
JT: Well, we would have heard. We would perhaps would have heard it over the intercom but I don’t recall anything of that. No.
BW: Were messages broadcast between aircraft that you could hear on the intercom as well or was that only between the wireless operators on each aircraft? Could you? Could you hear exchanges on any raids with other aircraft?
JT: No. I don’t think there was never much communication between aircraft. The master bomber used to, used to communicate with the crews and you know, call in. You were in a flight. You were a wave. You know, you were wave one, two or three. You were told that when you were being briefed. You would be on such a wave. And timings were based on that and [pause] but the master bomber would, if the target, if the aiming of the target, you know, they dropped a marker to, as an aiming point. If it wasn’t accurate they’d say add two or three seconds or something like that to, for overshoot. If the targets, if the flare drops there and the target’s there and you’re coming this way he’d say three. Add three. And you’ve got your bombsight goes through, through the marker and then you’ve got the one, two, three - bang. Drop yours.
BW: Yeah. So, if the marker has fallen short of the target.
JT: Short of the target.
BW: And you’re heading in the direction of the marker you then add three seconds in order to hit the target.
JT: That’s right. To do that.
BW: And when the master bomber was giving you those kind of instructions could you as crew members hear that on the intercom?
JT: Oh yes. We’d hear that. Yes.
BW: And were there occasions when you recognised master bombers perhaps? Like Gibson. Had you heard him before?
JT: Not really. You knew who the master bomber was. And Willie Tait was another one. Willie Tait. Guy Gibson. One or two. One or two were a bit unpopular because they made a cock up of it sometimes. Some of these master bombers.
BW: And did you get to meet Gibson or —
JT: I saw him once. When I was at the Isle of Man. When I was in training. And there was a squadron was walking along, marching along to a lecture and the chappy who was in charge of us said, ‘Oh, here comes the CO.’ And they were coming, a group of about four or five people. Officers. And of course eyes right, you know. That kind of thing. And one of them was Guy Gibson. Yeah. And it was after the dams raid so he was known, you know, and that. And that was at, that was at Andreas. Want to see if it is in the logbook? I’ve got his logbook here. A copy.
BW: How did you come by that?
JT: I forget now. Somebody gave it me.
BW: And what was, this was after the dams but what was his reputation?
JT: I couldn’t really say. Supposed to be umpty, a bit huffy sometimes, you know. This is when I was at Andreas. It would be somewhere about [pause pages turning] Trying to pinpoint when Gibson was [pause] he had a friend on the camp. Some other officer. And he’d come to visit him and he’d flown in to —
BW: I see.
JT: Andreas. To see his friend. That would be August ’43.
BW: Right.
JT: It was round about that time but if it’s in his logbook I don’t know.
BW: Yeah. The log here that you’ve got a copy of says September 16th 1944. This is a copy of Gibson’s own logbook. It says his last recorded trip was in a Lightning. Which would be a P38.
JT: Yeah.
BW: From Langford Lodge. So, prior to that he’d been flying Oxfords but interspersed with Lightnings and Mosquitoes. So —
JT: It doesn’t say his destination does it?
BW: Langford Lodge. To and from Langford Lodge. That’s all. But —
JT: No. I mean I wouldn’t have —
BW: It seems he’s not been long on that op. On those, on that tour. But when you were out over the targets of these places particularly over, over Germany what was, what was the area like? I mean, were you able to see much or was there frequently heavy cloud or were you able to see a lot out of the —
JT: Well, you could see a lot. You could see the, you could see the fires and things like that. And we were too high to see, see much you know. You couldn’t see people or anything like that.
[pause]
BW: You’d done, in total thirty three ops in just over four months which was pretty consistent flying really. Did you want to continue and carry on and do another tour?
JT: Well, I did. I went from operational flying on to instructing at OTU. Operational Training Unit. And then one of the pilots [pause] I’m trying to think which one it was [pause] One of the pilot instructors said to me one day, ‘I’m getting a crew together to go back on ops. Do you want to come with me?’ So, I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll come with you.’ So, and, well that must have been before, before June. June ’46 was it? ’45. Anyhow, he said, I said, ‘Alright, I’ll come with you.’ So, we went into the training and while we were in training we went to, we went to 100 Squadron for training and [pause] just casting my mind back and it developed then that the war was over. So, there was no point in us completing. And then he decided to cut down squadron strength and of course we were all old stages more or less — due for early de-mob. We were the first lots to be de-mobbed. So, so they made us redundant. Our crew. And, and then I was told I was going to 9 Squadron. At Waddington strangely enough. Back to Waddington. Of course, 9 Squadron was an old First World War squadron. Number 9. Oh and a chappy, Pete Langdon, he was the, he was the deputy commander of the squadron. And that’s when we went out to India. I went and reported to the 9 Squadron adjutant when I arrived. I was posted as a single, as an individual rather than with a crew. And I went in to the adjutant and he said, ‘Hello John, how are you?’ and he was, he’d been one of the instructors with me instructing. And so he said, ‘Did you come to join us?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘We’re going out to Hong Kong.’ So, I said, ‘Oh, I’ll come with you. I’ll join you on that.’ And anyhow, we finished up at Salbani in India. Which was a different place altogether.
BW: And what was it like out there?
JT: Pardon?
BW: What was it like out there?
JT: What? Salbani. Well, just, just out in the wilds. Out in the wilds really. There was, there was the airfield. The airfield, the railway station and that was about all.
BW: Did you get much time off? Off duty? Were you able to go off base into the nearby town?
JT: No. No. Didn’t go off. The nearest place was Calcutta. I went there twice. I went on the train and went twice. I got nose bleed and, I broke my nose when I was a kid you see and it used to bleed sometimes. They said it was the heat causing the rise in blood pressure. I went sick and they sent me to Calcutta to see the ear, nose and throat specialist. I went twice.
BW: How long were you out in India for?
JT: About four months. Yeah. Be four month. Yeah. January to April. January the 2nd we took off. Should have gone on the 1st but the weather wasn’t suitable. Flew to [pause] North Africa and then along over the desert to Karachi. Sorry. To Egypt. Egypt. Egypt to [pause] oh my mind’s going. From Egypt to —
BW: Would you fly to —
JT: Karachi. North Africa.
DT: You went to Italy first didn’t you?
JT: Pardon?
DT: Didn’t you go to Italy first?
JT: I went to Italy. I went to Italy on, that was Operation Dodge.
DT: Oh yeah. Yeah.
JT: Dodge they called it. The flying troops back. Flying the 8th Army chaps back. In fact, there’s a picture of them in. This aircraft was included in it.
BT: Are you warm enough love?
BW: I’m fine thank you, yes.
BT: Are you warm enough David?
DT: I’m fine, love. Yeah. No problem.
BW: Yeah. So they did. They did. Yeah, they did repatriate soldiers and POWs in Lancasters. Yeah. Operation Exodus.
JT: This wasn’t prisoners. This was the 8th Army.
BW: 8th Army. So, that’s an original photo of S Sugar with, as you say troops from the 8th Army about to board. And what were you? Were you still flying Lancasters out in India or were you flying something different?
JT: Oh yes. Lancasters. Yeah. Yeah. Glad. Yeah.
BW: And when you, when you returned back to the UK what, what happened then?
JT: Well, I got married. Didn’t we? [laughs] Yeah. 1946.
BW: And where had you both met?
JT: Hmmn?
BW: Where had you both met? Where did you meet each other?
JT: Oh, we grew up together. Lived in the same road, didn’t we?
BT: Lived on the same road.
JT: Yeah.
BW: So, you’d known each other for years before you joined up.
JT: Oh yeah.
DT: You lived at, what was it mum? You lived number 65.
BT: What?
DT: You lived at number 65 and dad lived at 57.
BT: 57.
JT: That’s right.
BT: So he knew all about me.
DT: And didn’t mess about.
BW: So he knew what he was getting in to.
BT: What love?
BW: He knew what he was letting himself in for.
BT: Oh, he knew what he was taking on. Yeah.
DT: There was no messing about because that was my mum’s dad.
BT: That was my dad. A policeman.
JT: A copper.
BW: I see.
DT: That was, that’s my grandad.
JT: She’s like her father.
BW: Yeah.
DT: He was a big man.
BT: Yeah.
JT: Thirty years. Thirty years in the police.
BT: Lovely fellow wasn’t he John? Really nice.
JT: Oh yeah.
BW: He looks like he, he’d had service too. Did he serve in the Second War or was he in the First?
JT: No. Well he’d got the defence —
BT: A policeman.
JT: He’d got, the policeman and ambulanceman and fireman all got the defence medal didn’t they?
BW: Alright. Thank you.
BT: He used to take the kids at that time you used to take the kids across, you know from, from the school to the other side of the road and they all used to run just so to take hold of his hand.
DT: He was huge. He was about — how tall was he? Six foot something.
BT: Six foot seven.
BW: Wow.
BT: Something like that.
DT: He was the police, the police tug of war team. He was the anchorman.
BW: I should hope so.
BT: Got some lovely presents. Some lovely prizes. Cups and things, you know.
BW: So, when you returned from India you got married and then you were demobbed.
JT: I was demobbed in, soon enough. I enrolled at St John’s Wood. Lord’s Cricket Ground, St John’s Wood. I was de-mobbed at Wembley Stadium.
DT: Didn’t you go on Lincolns dad?
JT: Pardon?
DT: Didn’t you go on to Lincolns?
JT: Ah yes. We went on to Lincolns for a short while. Yes.
BW: And where were you flying those from?
JT: Lincolns? [pause] Binbrook was it? Or Lindholme? Lindholme. Number 9 Squadron attached to Lindholme for —
BW: So, you wouldn’t have been months then doing that. Once you came back from India you wouldn’t be many months with 9 Squadron would you?
JT: Yes. I were with 9 Squadron until the end of the war. Until I was demobbed rather. When we were on Lincolns. I were demobbed from the 9 Squadron.
BW: I see.
JT: At Binbrook. Binbrook. When we came back from India.
BW: Once you left the RAF what did you go on to do then?
JT: I went, I worked for the CWS before. In Manchester. The Coop headquarters in Manchester. I worked for them before I went in the RAF and when I came out of course they had to give me my job back. And I went, I was in the sales accounts department.
BW: For the Co-op.
JT: For the Co-op. Yes. In their head office there and the chappy who was made the boss. The boss retired, the manager of the department. He’d stayed on extra years during the war and of course when peace came he, he opted for his retirement. And the chap who took over as boss, he’d married one of the CWS director’s daughters. So, of course he was a squadron leader in the RAF and when he came back he, they gave him, the boss gave him the bosses job when the boss retired. They gave him his job. And he said to me one day, I mean he had a bit of a soft spot for being ex-RAF as well. He said to me, he said, ‘There’s a vacancy in the taxation department,’ he said, ‘Are you interested?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘It will pay better than this department.’ So, I said, ‘Oh yeah. Certainly.’ So I got the job in taxation. Company tax work. And very interesting it was. Cut and thrust with the Inland Revenue you know and sending, we used to do audits for various Co-op societies and I used to do the tax work then. So, what they had to pay in tax from the profits or how money we got back from them for the losses and such. You know. And I finished up as managing the department at one time. And then they merged. They merged with the auditors and you’ve heard of KPMG have you?
BW: Accountants.
JT: On London Road. And they merged with them so I was just about due for retiring then so I got out. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the work. Interesting.
BW: I can think of a few people who’d be, who’d be asking for your skills. I can think of a few people who would be asking for your skills these days.
JT: Oh yeah.
BW: Somebody who lives at number 10 I think.
DT: Yours was company tax wasn’t it? You were company tax. Not personal tax.
BW: Yeah.
JT: Company tax. Not individuals. It was company tax. Yes.
DT: But you used to fill my tax forms in and you’d say, ‘Cross that out. Cross that out. Sign. Tick that, tick that, tick that. Sign that,’ he said, ‘That’ll be thirty guineas.’
[pause]
DT: You managed to fly Lancasters as well didn’t you dad?
JT: Pardon?
DT: You managed to fly Lancasters.
JT: Oh, I did fly a Lancaster once. Yeah.
DT: Yeah.
BW: How did you manage that?
JT: Well, we had a pilot who decided that it would be a good idea if different crew members interchanged. So, he said, ‘Here John,’ he said, ‘Fly this.’ I said, ‘Oh aye. Go on.’ I got in the pilot’s seat. Flew it. But just straight and level stuff, more or less, you know.
DT: He wanted to make sure you got home.
JT: Hmmn?
DT: He wanted to make sure he got home in case, if he was hurt.
JT: Well, no this was after.
DT: That was after was it?
JT: After all. Yeah.
DT: Oh, I thought it was —
JT: No. Mac didn’t. No. Mac was, Mac was the pilot.
DT: Yeah.
JT: He was in charge.
DT: Oh right.
BW: Was he pretty strict about that sort of thing?
JT: Yeah. He were a good pilot.
BW: There’s a photo here of your CO and the Duke of Gloucester. Duke of Gloucester’s on the left there.
JT: He became —
BW: And your CO —
JT: Yeah. He was at, he was made the Governor General of Australia wasn’t he. So he came to an Australian squadron to say, when he went to Australia there he could genuinely, could say, ‘I’ve met the lads in England,’ you know. That kind of thing. Yeah.
BW: Do you recall that visit taking place? It would be about the time you were on.
JT: No. No.
BW: Waddington.
JT: I do remember actually. We were told he was coming but I, we’d been on operation that previous night and I said, I’m not getting up to go and see him [laughs] Yes.
BW: There was a couple of Australian crewmen in that photo too.
JT: Yeah. Wing Commander Brill. Yeah.
BW: Did you happen to know them? The other, the other crewmen. They’re named.
JT: No. I don’t. Where did you get this from? Got secret information. Got me here.
BW: That’s from the Australian War Museum that particular photo. But you shared that that base at Waddington with 463 Squadron as well didn’t you?
JT: 463 and 467. That’s right. Yes. Yeah.
BW: And did you get to mix with them at all from the other?
JT: Not really. You didn’t really know. You know there was just a mass of fellows and you didn’t know whether they were 463 or 467. The only, the only near association and strangely enough it was, that was through Derek. That mate of yours who [pause] they formed [pause] what do you call it? Oh God. What’s his name? His father. Johnson.
DT: Johnson. Max Johnson.
JT: Johnson. Johnson. That’s right.
DT: Peter Johnson. Max Johnson was his father and Max Johnson was on 467 Squadron wasn’t he?
JT: That’s right, yeah.
DT: Yeah. And he’s actually listed as one of the pilots of POS at the time.
JT: Yeah.
DT: Yeah.
JT: That’s right. Yeah.
DT: Another coincidence, Brian. I worked for a company. I worked in the chemical research department and I was seconded to a university in Australia to do a research project over there. I was there for two months I think it was. My wife and my daughter came with us and and in the department there was, I was talking to some of the lads in the lab and in the research area and I was saying, ‘Oh, my dad was in the Royal Australian Air Force.’ And they said, ‘Oh you want to come and see Doc Pete. A fellow called Peter Brownall.’ And they said he was on Lancasters during the war. So, they took me along to see this elderly university lecturer and we got talking. A really nice guy you know. And he says, he says what squadron were you with? I said, ‘What squadron were you with?’ So he said 467. I said, ‘Oh that was my dad’s squadron. 467.’ But he was slightly after my dad and I think he was just there, he was there just as the war finished. He’d done his training and he got on to the squadron but 467 then was at Metheringham. And so he was absolutely hacked off because the war had ended and he hadn’t been able to —
BW: Yeah.
DT: Go on operations.
BW: Participate.
DT: So, he was flown, he flew back then to Australian and took up his post as, I think a botany lecturer. Some sort of science lecturer, you know.
BW: Yeah.
DT: So I was talking to him and it was interesting. And there was a not a DVD but a tape of that time. This was 1994. A tape had been produced about, called, “The Lancaster at war,” and I told him about this. So, when I got home I searched out a copy of it and posted it off for him. And I got a really nice letter back you know, thanking me for this. And he said he’d had to go out and buy a tape player and people had been coming around and he’d been, you know he’d been showing this Lancaster thing, Lancaster tape to all his, all his pals. But he was a nice chap. And do you remember that cartoon that he gave me? And it was —
[recording paused]
BW: Last, I think, section to, to cover. Since your retirement and since you left the RAF how does it feel to see Bomber Command being commemorated after all this time? There’s now the Hyde Park Memorial and there’s the Spire in Lincoln?
JT: It should be. It should be.
BW: Have you been to the unveiling of the Memorial Spire in Lincoln?
JT: No. No.
BW: Did you go last year?
JT: No. No.
BW: So, you —
JT: I don’t think that should have been built in London. It should have been built in Lincoln.
BW: Well, the Memorial in Green Park was unveiled a few years ago but they are, they have unveiled a Memorial Spire at Canwick Hill which is what the Bomber Command Centre are responsible for. Have you, have you seen that? Have you been?
JT: No.
BW: No.
JT: I haven’t. No.
BW: But it’s in, and certainly I’m sure you’d agree it’s in the right place. You know, it’s —
JT: Oh, it is. Yeah.
BW: So, there’s a spire which is the height of a Lancaster’s wingspan and it has memorial walls made of steel situated around it. And that’s where the Centre will be built. The Chadwick Centre which will house the digital archive which, you know, this information is going to go into. But you can —
JT: I don’t know if I’ll ever get over to Lincoln now.
BW: Well if you do it’s, it’s worth seeing.
JT: Yeah.
BW: They had a, they had a beautiful unveiling ceremony last year and a flypast. Unfortunately, the Lancaster couldn’t make it but they got the Vulcan instead. And that was, that was really special. If you do get the chance do go and have a look. So, are you, are you glad these sort of commemorations for Bomber Command are coming about now?
JT: Sorry?
BW: Are you glad these sorts of commemorations for Bomber Command are coming about?
JT: Oh yeah. I am glad. Yes. There’s, because there are so many uniques in the army and so on, and navy and they were specifically honoured. And Bomber Command, I think people regarded them as dirty words because of bombing civilians. I think that’s been a failing really.
[recording paused while John leaves the room for a moment]
JT: A while later. A few years later I went to see him. He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘The firm’s selling up. They’re merging with someone else,’ he said, ‘I’m retiring.’ So, he said, ‘Good luck,’ and all that. So, anyhow a few days later a partner from the firm came with a parcel and he gave me that. Gave me that picture. And I rang this chappy up to thank him for sending it and he said, ‘Well, it belongs to you more than it belongs to me,’ he said, ‘You did some good work for us,’ and all that and so —
BW: And that’s —
JT: He gave it me.
BW: And that’s how you acquired the picture.
JT: That’s how it came. Yeah.
BW: And so you’ve always, you’ve always got that association now with.
JT: [unclear] yeah.
BW: POS and you know.
JT: Yeah.
BT: That was good of them wasn’t it?
BW: And it’s, you know, on permanent display now in the RAF Museum.
JT: Yeah.
BW: So, that’s brilliant. So, when you, when you look back over your career in the RAF has it given you good memories, and?
JT: Oh yes. I’ve got good memories. Some good mates, and you know it was, it’s alright. It’ll be alright. Yes. I never regretted going. Yeah.
BW: We’ll move on to other things like the photographs and whatever. So, you know, for the, for the audio anyway I’ll leave it there for now. So, thank you very much for your time. For the interview. And for giving the information to the International Bomber Command Centre. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with John Foster Thorp
Creator
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Brian Wright
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-04-12
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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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AThorpJF160412, PThorpJF1601
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Pending review
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01:38:37 audio recording
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
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John Thorp was born and raised in Manchester where he attended North Manchester Grammar School. At seventeen he joined the Home Guard. When he was eighteen he volunteered for the RAF with dreams of becoming a pilot. While waiting at Heaton Park to transfer to further training overseas he became increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress. When invited to volunteer to train as a gunner he decided to accept because he wanted to progress. After training he was posted with his crew to 467 Squadron at RAF Waddington. Returning from the operation on D-Day he saw the massed armada waiting to sail to the landing grounds in Normandy. On take-off to an operation there was a loud bang heard throughout the aircraft. When they returned from the target they tested the undercarriage and the wheel flew past John’s turret. They had to effect an emergency landing at Woodbridge and the pilot completed a remarkable landing.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
India
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Temporal Coverage
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1939
1942
1944
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
467 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
civil defence
crewing up
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Home Guard
Ju 88
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
RAF Binbrook
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Waddington
RAF Woodbridge
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/236/3380/ACooperFA170810.2.mp3
654e9d538c89f433d64a0478a6f31ed1
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
Cooper, Frances Anne
Frances Anne Cooper
Frances A Cooper
Frances Cooper
F A Cooper
F Cooper
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Frances Anne Cooper (b. 1931), a memoir, family history and a photograph.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Frances Cooper and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-08-10
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Cooper, FA
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank, and today is the 10th of August 2017, and we’re in Sandhurst talking with Frances Cooper about her experiences in the war, and after the war, and in life in general. But what is your first recollection of life?
FC: Well, I was brought up, I was born and brought up in Uganda and my parents lived on safari, and I think [emphasis] the first serious memory I have is of the – we called them the natives - killing a goat. And I think they must have cut its throat and then it sort of danced around with its head hanging off, and the natives thought it was hysterical and they were all dancing about too and I went back to my mother splattered with blood and she was quite shocked and upset about it, she thought perhaps she shouldn’t have let me go, I think that’s the first thing I can remember. Little smatterings of life in Uganda: the smell of zinnias, I think, flowers, coming home on the boat when I was about two and a half, having a real tantrum being put on a lavatory and the water came up and wet my behind, because previously I had always been on a potty, and having a real go at my poor mother. Also as a great treat from my father being taken down to the engine room of the ship to see all these very noisy bits of machinery, you know; he thought it was interesting. My parents decided, because in those days it was thought better for European children not to stay in the tropics too long, to stay at home when I got to be about six. My father had one more two and a half year tour to go, on his contract, and so they bought what, in those days, was a cheap house in Suffolk for me and my mother to live in while he went back to Uganda to do his last tour. As it happened, war broke out and he was stuck in Africa and poor mother was stuck at home with a small child in Suffolk, and it was a very [emphasis] remote part of Suffolk, still is, and in those days it really was, but because she’d lived on safari, you know, she could cope with it. I went to a local sort of dame school, kindergarten I supposed it was called, and then somebody who was the wife of a parson in a local village near Sudbury had a little prep school, I went to that, and after my father came home in 1941, because a, I was an only child in a very isolated village, the only education was elementary school which my mother, who was a bit of a snob, didn’t really approve of, I went away to boarding school in a village called Long Melford, which was not very far away. It had been based in Felixstowe, but it was evacuated because it was dangerous on the coast, to an old rectory [cough] in Long Melford, and then when the war was nearly over everybody moved back to Felixstowe. It was quite a small, not very good school and didn’t teach children over about fifteen or sixteen, so then I left that school, went to girls’ grammar school, High School, in Sudbury, for two years, or may have been three and then I did a year’s commercial course in Ipswich, after which I joined the Air Force. All right?
CB: I’ll stop there for a mo. Thank you. That’s really intriguing, so what was your father doing in Uganda?
FC: He’d come out of the RFC. He wanted to stay on and be a pilot. His mother had recently been widowed with four younger children. She wanted him not to be in a nasty dangerous occupation. He would have very much liked to have been a river pilot, a Thames pilot which his father had been, but his father unfortunately went to the dogs. He got syphilis and um, because he was never at home, and so my grandmother didn’t want that [emphasis] for her precious son, so he had to find a job and the Ordnance Survey I think were offering to train people, they went, he went down to Southampton for a year, trained as an ordnance surveyor and then he was employed by the Colonial Office, in Uganda. [Throat clear] And my mother met him when he was on home leave, probably after about three or four tours that he did. They did two and a half years out there, six months’ home leave and so on and so on, and he was engaged for twenty years.
CB: Engaged in the job for twenty years.
FC: Yes. By the Colonial Office, and then he was finished. Because again, it was considered the white man’s grave, you know. And that’s why they ended up in Suffolk.
CB: Sure. So what sort of education did your parents prepare you with in Uganda?
FC: Well, I don’t remember being educated. I just do remember doing letters in a notebook and I just think my mother talked to me, um, just chatted. I can’t remember being educated, you know.
CB: So when you got back here you had to start school, so how did that work aged six?
FC: Yes, started at school. But it was a very small school and I suppose we did lettering and learning to write. Don’t remember much else. My mother was a great reader so I suppose I just accepted that I would learn to read and I suppose we did sums but I can’t remember. Haha.
CB: What about sport at school? Games?
FC: No. Well there was none in the dame school, I don’t remember much at the prep school, of course this was in a war, a lot of the teachers had disappeared. We did have games at boarding school, netball mainly, what laughingly called athletics in the summer – high jump, running races things like that - nothing at all, nothing like nowadays, you know. You were sent outside in very few clothes and told to run up and down, you know. It was horrible! [Laugh]
CB: So when the war started you were about eight, coming up to eight.
FC: Yes. Eight or nine. I do remember the famous broadcast, I’m pretty sure I do [emphasis] remember, and my mother being terribly upset because she was stuck in, you know, in one place and my father was in Africa. But she’d been very worried before, because she could remember the First World War, and there’d been preparations in the village, things like you had to black out your house, the Home Guard was beginning, and we had a telephone, one of the few in the village, and the sergeant of the Home Guard lived just near us and, so he of course didn’t have a telephone so mother was delegated, if the Germans came, she had to go and get him up, or out, or whatever. And she did have to go a couple of times, in her nightie, across the road, you know, she’s not happy. Fortunately the Germans didn’t come, so you know, but she was sort of nearest point of contact.
CB: Quite sophisticated really! [Laughter]
FC: Later on in the war, an awful lot of men obviously were conscripted, but farm labourers were considered to be, it was called a reserved occupation and so they stayed at home to do the harvest and they had their rations topped up by meat pies, which were sort of like meals on wheels I suppose. You had to have a ticket, an entitlement to a meat pie, and my mother – who was a very fierce woman - was in charge of the meat pies. [Chuckle] So presumably a lorry delivered them to the local school, which was unused, and she was on duty to dish out these pies to people, and you know, [telephone] it was from ten to twelve, a very strict routine, ten till twelve, she was on pie duty. If they didn’t turn up in that time the pie went back to the factory, you know. She was very fierce! So I think they were all a bit frightened of her. But anyhow, she was in charge of the pies, that was her war work.
CB: And the telephone. And the telephone!
FC: Yeah.
CB: So what do you remember specifically about the first days of the war, apart from that?
FC: Well I do remember, because in this village there was a sharp right angled turn, great convoys of troops used to come through, I don’t quite know where they were going, I think we thought they were going to the coast, but I really don’t know, and a soldier was posted on this corner to direct the traffic round the corner ‘cause otherwise they would have shot off down a little back road. So he was there on duty and I used to go and talk to him and it was a huge coincidence was his name was Frances too, so for a child, I thought that was miraculous and I don’t know, we just used to chat. And eventually the convoys stopped and he went away, but that was in the early days of the war. Otherwise all I can remember is my mother being very anxious, worried about food, although in the country you didn’t starve by any stretch of the imagination. We had a big garden and you got eggs, and we had milk from the farm and then I think milk must have been rationed ‘cause we ended up having goat‘s milk and goat’s butter from a farmer who kept goats a bit down the road, sort of top up our nourishment, and I’ve never been able to eat goat’s cheese ever since, haha, but at the time it was nice. Don’t you like goat’s cheese? No. [Laugh] Then in 1941, after a lot of hoo-ha, my father came home from Africa having had to go round the Cape instead of through the Mediterranean, on the boat back from Mombasa. Mother knew he was leaving Africa, and she knew he wouldn’t be able to come the short way so she didn’t expect him to come as quickly, I think he took six weeks, she didn’t expect to hear from him for some time. Then she got a cable from Freetown to say he was still on his way, much later than she expected and she didn’t know where Freetown was, she said ‘it must be Ireland, it must be Ireland’ – wishful thinking I suppose - and looking at in my school atlas and finding it was West Africa which was a terrible disappointment, and then, we didn’t know, but the convoy, not his boat, but one of the boats, was torpedoed coming up across the bottom of the north Atlantic, I think two ships were damaged so then they had to go to Halifax in Canada, when she heard from him again, for the ships to be repaired and then they had to come across the north Atlantic, you know, in the middle of the war. So it was, it must have been an awful time for my poor mother and he ended up in Greenock or somewhere up there, then he came home on the train and I can remember going to Lavenham station to meet him and he just said hello, there were, nothing, I suppose we were both shy of each other and really after that my family life rather deteriorated because I’d had my mother to myself for three years and suddenly this strange man turned up, you know, and before very long I went off to boarding school and really that was the end of my childhood I think. I’m making it sound very, very soppy, and it wasn’t, and they did the best they possibly could, but from a child’s point of view, looking back, it was unfortunate to say the least. They were very hard up because my father’s pension had been set in 1921 and by 1940 something money had you know, gone down the drain, so they were on edge about money I think. He tried to get a job but he was too old, tried to be an admin officer at Wattisham: too old or too awkward. He worked for some man in the Works and Bricks of the Army in Sudbury and he didn’t get on with him and he ended up in the Observer Corps. I don’t know if they got paid or not, the Observer Corps, but not much if they did. He did that for the war. We had a very big garden, so it was a bit like “The Good Life”. Grew things, kept bees, ducks and geese, mother bottled fruit, made jam. It sounds idyllic but it was bloomin’ hard work for them both there, because they were worried about money all the time. Anyhow, that’s really why I ended up joining a service, because there was nothing in Brent Eleigh. I had done quite well at school, in Geography, and I rather fancied doing meteorology which they did in the WRNS. I applied to join the WRNS but didn’t get in. It was quite a, it was a snobby thing; the WRNS was better women’s service. My father thought that joining the RFC had done him the world of good and I think he thought it would set me up, you know, so really I went from boarding school to the Air Force. It was a continuation of what I was doing, you know; it wasn’t any particular vocation. When I joined the Air Force, well you had to go and have tests and interviews, and at the time Russian, learning Russian, was the thing and I had been quite good at languages, so I said, well, you know, I suppose they asked what do you want to do and I said ‘well, anything but sums, I’ll do Russian or whatever’, and guess what, I was put on an accounts course. [Laughter] Which is, I think they might have been trying to tell me something but I didn’t realise, you know, and so that’s what I, did the OCTU and then went on an accounts course.
CB: So when you applied for the RAF did you know that you were going in as an officer?
FC: I think so, I don’t think my mother would have tolerated anything else. I think I was, it was just expected that I would go in on a Short Service Direct Commission it was called. I think that’s why, I had to go to the Air Ministry or somewhere in London; in the Strand or The Aldwych, for interviews, and doing what now they call telemetric tests or something I remember, you know, what shapes fit boxes and that sort of thing.
CB: And how long was the engagement?
FC: Three years.
CB: Okay. So you didn’t feel too happy with being put on to accounts, or did you just become resigned?
FC: No, I was horrified! But I don’t think I knew that when I went on the original Officer Training Course, you know. You were accepted, you went to OCTU and then you waited to be told what you were going to do after that, by which time you were in the Air Force, you know.
CB: No choice.
FC: I don’t remember there being, no, any choice, no. [Laugh]
CB: They were probably short of accountants at the time.
FC: Well they must have been desperate, yes, I was terrible, terrible [chuckle].
CB: Just pause there for a mo. So near where you were living with your mother and then father, what was being constructed nearby?
Fc: Well, there was a village called Waldingfield on the way to Sudbury which is where we used to do our shopping every week. We used, there was no petrol so we used to have to cycle to Sudbury through Waldingfield and the main road ran parallel with what I suppose was the peri track of a big, big American airfield and the whole place was, even our village which was four or five miles away, overrun with very glamourous American soldiers in jeeps, with their feet hanging, legs hanging out of the side, you know, whizzing about, annoying all the men, the British men, including my father. Who do they think they are, the Yanks? You know. Any woman, or female I suppose, over fourteen or so or was considered fair game by the Americans, or was thought to be, thought to be fair game. My mother, who I say was pretty fiery, was cycling home from Lavenham one day and she was stopped by an American in a jeep, I think who, well propositioned her somehow, and when she said certainly not, he gave her a tin of peaches and some other kind of gift, because they had everything and we hadn’t, you know, so she came home with a tin of peaches. And they were just so glamorous I can’t tell you. They had lovely uniforms, beautiful barathea instead of hairy old things that the Home Guard had, they were young, they had American accents like film stars. There were all kinds of terrible rumours about women going, or being no better than they should be, et cetera, you know. When I was at boarding school, one of the girl’s mothers, I think was having affairs with an American, I don’t know what had happened to her father, and she had records and shoes and nylons – that was the thing, nylons, you know. And as a child it was just so [emphasis] exciting because I wasn’t worried about people being killed or anything like that. We did have a Liberator crashed at the end of our village and all the kids went running up to look at it. It was just a big hole in the ground with bits of metal and a lot of mud, but I don’t remember being the slightest bit moved by it. When my father was looking for a job he, I think he thought he might drive an ambulance, thought that might be useful, but he went out with an ambulance and they, the people in it, said that they’d been to collect somebody who’d been a, an American in a crash, and was burnt and this man was shrieking all the time, so my father thought well he didn’t think he could stand that so he didn’t pursue that any more. They just took over the countryside, you know, and we used to cycle past all these aircraft and dispersals.
CB: They had an image that they were over paid, over sexed and over here.
FC: Well that’s what the locals thought, you know, that was just the perception. Because I was a child I didn’t really appreciate that. We did also have prisoners of war in camps, who got, if they were German they got taken out to the farms, under guard, to help with the harvest, things like that. If they were Italian they very often lived at the farm because the Italians were thought not to be interested in escaping. And I mean a lot of the Italians, particularly, were peasants, they loved working, you know, it was like being at home, they stayed, married the farmer’s daughter and you know, lived happily ever after. And we also had a Polish camp, I suppose it was a Polish Army camp at a village, can’t remember its name, called Groton I think, which was on the way to Sudbury. The big house in our village was volunteered, well, I mean they were commandeering big houses and these people jumped first and were taken over as a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, who all wore blue uniforms, with red ties, do you remember? White shirts, in case they escaped from the hospital I suppose, you know. And they were all walking about the village smoking cigarettes, thoroughly miserable, annoyed my father. Um, and they sort of, well they were more interesting than cattle, and farm labourers as far as I was concerned. And then I went away to school and very few competent teachers, [microphone banging] because even the women were conscripted, so there were all kinds of sort of fairly useless has beens who were teaching. And that’s all I can really think of at the moment. Sorry!
CB: We’ll stop there if that’s all right.
FC: And the Germans were feared, and my mother, at the beginning of the war, told me, you know, if you see a nun with boots, it’s probably a German parachutist, they really believed [emphasis] it, especially if he offered you sweeties, you know. And they, it sounds ridiculous but we all believed it in those days. They took signs off the signposts in case they help the Germans go from one small village to the next, you know, because they were [emphasis] afraid of invasion, really, seriously. We all had gas masks, which again my mother insisted on me practically taking to bed with me, where other people’s mothers were much more free and easy. I can’t really think of any more, just at the moment.
CB: So we’re talking really, you were born in 1931, so you were ten when your father came back.
FC: I suppose, yes.
CB: 1941. So at the end of the war you were fifteen, sixteen, er, fourteen, fourteen, weren’t you.
FC: Yes.
CB: So your interest was changing as time went on. How did you feel about that?
FC: Yes. But, because I suppose I’d led quite a sheltered, isolated life, being away to girls’ boarding school, then came back home to go to this, the grammar school, on a coach, and then you just came back again and did your homework, and so on and so on. Then I went, lived in Ipswich, in digs, when I was on a commercial course. I didn’t really have a life, you know, it just a case of doing courses and getting through the time. I mean I never, didn’t have a social life, went to the pictures occasionally, but always with my parents, or my mother, and because we were poor and isolated, nothing happened, compared with nowadays. It just didn’t. I don’t remember feeling deprived, but it just, nothing happened.
CB: And the catering was quite good because although there was rationing, the garden was providing what you needed. Is that right?
FC: Yes. And as I say, the farmers were generous with eggs and things like that, and when it was just mother and me we didn’t eat an awful lot of meat or anything like that. We had been established in the area before the war broke out and in those days you had a butcher who came and a grocer who came, so we were part of the system. And again, as a child, I didn’t really worry about food, it was mother who worried about nourishment and such things. When my father came home he was a very big man and he worked very hard in the garden, and I think he probably felt hungry. But every, I mean things like eggs which were rationed were always distributed fairly, he didn’t have more than his share I don’t think. He just had to fill up on bread and potatoes, things like that.
CB: What age was he at this time?
FC: He was, er 1941, he would have been forty three; he was born in 1898. [Throat clear] A different era.
CB: Yes. So this airfield was constructed and the American Air Force, Army Air Force, moved in and they’re big aeroplanes, and noisy, so how did the local population get on with this disturbance?
FC: I don’t remember any particular feeling at all, I think really they were just sexually jealous of the American airmen. We never came across any socially, at all, because we didn’t have a social life, we didn’t belong to anything, or get invited, so I don’t know. I mean they were noisy but you just got used to them I suppose, like the aircraft from Heathrow going over, you just sort of take them. And you know as a child you just accept it all, don’t you. There’s no question of querying it, it just happens.
CB: And as a girl you weren’t old enough to be going out in the evenings in any case.
FC: No, no. And because it was such a long way away from anywhere there was no social, I think the farmers’ sons went to the occasional Young Farmer’s thing, Hunt Ball, I don’t remember Hunt Balls. They did have an occasional Young Farmers’ Dance but I never, never went to them. My mother was, as I say, snobbish, she thought she was a bit, a cut above rather. But I don’t remember feeling deprived. It’s only looking back I think golly, what a funny old life.
CB: You talked about your father and yourself having a slightly distant relationship.
FC: Yes.
CB: That was something that a lot of people, after the war, found with their parents. Did this improve or did you always have this slight distance?
FC: Yes. Well of course you see I then went away to school and he remained a stranger.
CB: Away from you. Yes. And when he returned, he, you returned home and went to grammar school. Did you have a different relationship with your father?
FC: I don’t think so. I think if anything, I was a bit frightened of him. He was a very big, physical, physical man. And I think it was really because he was hard up all the time. He was always anxious and edgy and if something broke or went wrong it was a really serious problem, and it, you know, it makes people crotchety because they’re worried all the time about how they’re going to cope. They had a dreadful struggle paying my school fees but they thought it was worth it, because people did in those days. My children can’t understand it, but that’s what people did.
CB: Yeah. So the war ended on the 8th of May 1945. What do you remember about that?
FC: Yes. I remember, it was probably half term at school, and it was extended a bit because of VE Day and I, again, can remember my father being cross because he said the school was swinging the lead a bit giving us a few more days off, you know, when they should have been educating us [laugh]. But we were back at Felixstowe by then.
CB: The school was. Yes.
FC: Yeah. Big anti-climax as far as I was concerned, I mean nothing happened in Suffolk for VE Day.
CB: Nothing happened in the village.
FC: No, as far as I remember, no.
CB: What about the Americans? What did they do?
FC: Well I don’t know what they did, I’ve no idea, ‘cause I was just home on holiday, from school, and I mean it was a good thing, but I don’t, there was no celebration and you, know.
CB: And when you got back to school, then what was the school’s approach to that?
FC: I don’t remember anything.
CB: Just carried on as usual.
FC: Just carried on as usual, as far as I remember. Nothing.
CB: And VJ day was in August so that was holiday time. What do you remember about that?
FC: I just remember, I think probably general relief, but although a lot of Suffolk men were in the Far East, I suppose a lot of them didn’t come back but I’m not aware of that, and I just think was just general exhaustion and relief and then when the General Election came and Labour got in, you know – horror! [Laughter] Because it was accepted that Churchill would carry on, and he didn’t.
CB: Yes. Well the Tories got out, got caught out the same way as they did with Corbyn this time.
FC: Yes, amazing, absolutely amazing. This time last year we were joking about Trump and Corbyn, and now haha!
CB: What did your father do when the war ended?
FC: Well he tried to get various jobs and then he ended up in the Observer Corps and then when that stopped he didn’t do anything.
CB: Because he had his Colonial Pension, which wasn’t big.
FC: Minute yes, I think it was four hundred and eighty pounds a year, which wasn’t very much in 1940 something. Because of the Depression, although you were supposed to get an increment every so often, some time in the late twenties or thirties they decided that you would miss out on one, one increment, which meant that his final income was less than it should have been so then halve that, pretty pathetic by the time he got it. Just hard luck, but not enjoyable. And he had no family money.
CB: Right. So it was hard altogether after the war as well.
FC: Yup. And mother had no money, so you know, it was, I think they had a hard time.
CB: We’ll pause there for a mo. So we’ve covered the wartime. So you, we touched a bit earlier on you joining OCTU, the Officer Training Unit, so where did you sign up and get your initial training?
FC: Well I can never remember taking the King’s Shilling. I can’t remember sort of a ceremony at all. I can remember going for interviews, being told I’d passed and being told to report to RAF Hawkinge, which is in Kent, on a particular day, which I did. Was like going back to school actually. And then, as far as I remember, we were put in probably rooms of four people, in huts, that was like school. Tailors came down from London to fit us up in our uniforms – our best blues. We were issued with battle dress, you know, everyday stuff. We did drill on the airfield, marching up and down, some poor flight sergeant [chortle] who was very polite, but you know, pick up your feet ma’am, and you know how women march, putting their arms wrong, he must have nearly gone mad, but you know, we did manage to learn. We had to learn all the um, when you give the order, you know, by the left, one two, halt, all that kind of thing, because he knew we were going to be telling people who had to do it on the right thing. We learned how to salute and march up and down and yeah, mostly it was the sort of giving of the orders, you know, how to do it at the right time, because you couldn’t just say stop, it all had to be according to protocol. We must have had lessons about Air Force life. How you mustn’t put the port on the table at dining-in-nights. I suppose how to behave socially, but I think most of us knew that.
CB: Which way round the table do you pass the port? Which way round?
FC: Left to right, but they don’t do it, don’t take any notice now!
CB: Don’t they?
FC: No! We used to go to, because John was with the AEFs, we used to go to dining in nights [banging sound] thumping the port all the way round, my hair standing on end, anyhow, it was pretty trivial isn’t it, things like that. I remember we were taken to Manston to look at a Mosquito. The local Member of Parliament took us round the Houses of Parliament. Just I suppose, general, after school education. And then we had a passing out day when our parents came and then we were all sent off on leave and then on courses.
CB: How long was your initial training anyway?
FC: I think it was twelve weeks, but it might have been a bit longer. I know I went in in July and I ended up on the accounts course in January, so it was.
CB: Where was the accounts course?
FC: Bircham Newton, in Norfolk. Coldest place on earth, really awful in January. We lived in one place, we ate in another mess and we were on the accounts course in another place. We spent all the time marching backwards and forwards, one place to the other, in January, in Norfolk and it was hell, hell. [Laugh]
CB: How long was the accounts course?
FC: Well I think it was three four months, something like that, I can’t remember.
CB: Then did you get a choice of posting? Or how did that work?
GC: No, I don’t remember. I was posted to Stafford, 16 MU, which was an enormous [emphasis] Maintenance Unit on the edge of the Potteries, so it was dirty, hanging our shirts out to dry and all covered with smuts. And if you’ve lived in Suffolk and Africa, that was a bit of a shock. It was a very big, soulless place, full of all these remustered aircrew, and I was hopeless at accounts; I didn’t enjoy it at all. I don’t know, do you remember having a form called a 1369?
CB: Absolutely.
FC: Well on mine, at the end of the first year at Stafford, at the bottom of it you have to say what you want, you know, how do you see your future or something, and I put ‘a small unit in the country’. Which amused the Adjutant, very much. But I was posted to Feltwell, so they did do what I asked. [Laugh] Still as accounts, but then I managed to get transferred to P3, which was airmen’s careers, which I really enjoyed. When I’d been at Stafford I had been seconded, I suppose you would say, to the P3 department there, which was run by an elderly schoolmaster so efficiently, and so when I went to Feltwell the place was, the P3 department was a bit of a shambles but I managed to rejig it how this man had done his, and it was well thought of actually, when we had a Group inspection, I think they were quite impressed, but by that time I was on my way out so I never hit the high spots.
CB: So, what rank did you reach in the end?
FC: Flying Officer, and that was just time.
CB: Yeah. Time served.
FC: Yes. You didn’t have to do exams or anything, it was just, you know.
CB: Not for that promotion.
FC: No, no it wasn’t really promotion, it was just.
CB: Same for Flight Lieutenant, yes. But did, you were on a three year engagement but were you obliged to be in the Reserve for a while afterwards?
FC: Yes, I think so.
CB: How long was that?
FC: I think it was two or three years, but I really can’t remember. And it was all fairly theoretical, being a woman, I think the men got called up to go to Korea or somewhere, but the women didn’t.
CB: No. So while you were in, what sort of experiences did you have, with other people there?
CB: Well nothing really, well I mean yeah, he was there as well.
CB: Who was that?
FC: John was there, yeah. There were two messes, two officers messes, there was the mess that belonged to the admin part of the station and there was Number Two Mess where, it was a Flying Training School, where all the cadets messed and some of the instructors lived as well. I lived in the main, Number One Mess, and John lived in the Number Two. But I think we all ate together, as far as I remember. And you know, we just went backwards and forwards. I don’t think Number One people went to Number Two, but Number Two people came in and the WAAFs had a wing of the Number One Mess, just at one end, [cough] in a wing and I just lived in the mess. Again it was really quite like school, you know, you went to work, came back for lunch, went back again, so on. Orderly Officer, which I always thought was a bit ridiculous: there was I, nineteen years old, supposed to go round guarding the station in the middle of the night, especially at Stafford, which had lots of outposts. And you were driven round with a couple of very, or probably only one, National Serviceman who hadn’t much more clue than I had, you know. if anything had cropped up I don’t know quite what we would have done but it was what one did, you know.
CB: What was the attitude of the National Servicemen in the RAF would you say?
FC: Um, I think they just accepted it. I don’t think they were terribly pleased to be there, but I think they put their heads down; most of the ones that I came across just got on with it. They did keep applying for postings to get nearer home if they happened to be sent off into the wilds, but they went on courses, I think they just decided that they’d just get on with it, not make waves. I did feel very sorry for quite a lot of the air women who, when they joined up, all wanted to be drivers or dog handlers, and they were inveigled really. They were told well join up and then once you’re in we’ll see about you being a driver or a dog handler, and they wanted to be drivers ‘cause they wanted to learn to drive a nice big, were they Humber Hawks, with the little flag, you know?
CB: My driver.
FC: Yes, you know the feeling. But you haven’t got a flag, have you!
CB: Not yet [laughter].
FC: And that’s what they hoped, but they ended up.
CB: Driving staff cars.
FC: Yeah. But they ended up as batwomen and in the kitchens and things. And they were always coming and saying can I, what about this course, can’t I be in, hugely [emphasis] over-subscribed, even more so with dog handlers, but they were in by then, you know.
CB: So with dog handling what was the attraction, particularly?
FC: Well I suppose they just liked dogs, thought they’d like to be looking after a dog. I mean they probably lived in a slum somewhere or very poor background and they thought it would be lovely.
CB: These were not National Service. These were people who’d signed on.
FC: These were women, yes.
CB: How long would their engagement be?
FC: Well I suppose two or three years, I really don’t know. And of course because it was quite soon after the war it was almost, it was an option to join one of the services because a lot of their sisters and people had done it, had been conscripted, but it wasn’t quite such a strange thing to do in those days.
CB: So we’re talking there about what was commonly in the Air Force called the erks, but there were National Service Officers. So what was their approach?
FC: Yes. Well I think they were a bit peeved, but again I think they got on with it. I do remember being very [emphasis] impressed with the, what did they call the sub-adjutants, the ones that worked in the Adjutant’s Office, under, he was called the under Adj or something anyhow, and he was Jewish and one of, an educational process was going to a court martial. In the Maintenance Unit, people were very light fingered, they were stealing platinum points off the sparking plugs hugely. Anyhow there was a, there were court martials and we had to go to a court martial to see what happened and this Jewish person wouldn’t wear a hat, you know, for the oath, and wouldn’t take the oath, the normal oath.
CB: On the bible.
FC: On the bible, yeah. And I can remember, I’ve never ever, as far as I knew, met a Jewish person before, you know, and I admired him for sticking up for his, um, his religion I suppose, you know. I mean nobody made a fuss about it, but it was, I didn’t even know it happened, you know, I was so wet behind the ears. And another fairly funny thing that happened, when I was at Feltwell, very junior, people were given jobs to do apart from their work and one of which was being I/C badminton. Well, I have never [emphasis] picked up a badminton racket in my life and I was made I/C Badminton! And had to go to Halton for a meeting about badminton I can remember. Talk about a farce, you know! I can’t remember what happened there. It was a very nice mess, it was a Rothschild place.
CB: It’s still in use.
FC: Yes, still is. It was all terribly grand, and we all presumably talked about badminton and then I came back again, you know. It’s ridiculous wasn’t it.
CB: Everybody else was keen on it, but not you.
FC: I presume, and were fit! You know. [Laugh] And I also represented Group, I think, in the relay race. ‘Cause I was tall, could run reasonably fast and didn’t drop the baton, you know, and I got a medal [chuckle] but it was pretty pathetic really.
CB: So when you met your husband to be, John Cooper, what was his role at the time and how did you come to meet him?
FC: Well we lived in, more or less, in the same mess, he was an instructor and we just came across each other and he asked me out and you know, one thing led to another.
CB: So you kept in touch, ‘ cause he stayed in the RAF and you left.
FC: No, oh yes, he was, I left, but he was still in the Air Force. He was posted to Ternhill and we went to Ternhill together, but I was out of the Air Force by then, I was just a wife, you know.
CB: Oh, you got married while he was, you were both still in the RAF did you?
FC: Yes. But you weren’t allowed to be married, a married officer in those days. Somebody had to go and it was always the woman. And also he had more of a career than I had.
CB: Sure.
FC: And we lived in a caravan because there were no quarters for junior officers, lived in the caravan on an airfield, which eventually became the deposit for our house. [Laugh]
CB: So when you came out?
FC: Yes.
CB: So when did John leave the RAF?
FC: Well, we went to Felt, er we went to Ternhill.
CB: Ternhill. That’s in Shropshire, yes.
FC: Yeah. And then he came back to run the Communications Flight at um, somewhere near Croydon, I can’t remember the name of the airfield.
CB: Kenley was it?
FC: That’s right, Kenley. We came back down in our caravan and by that time I was pregnant with our first child. [Cough] He dearly wanted to stay in the Air Force, but there were no jobs for pilots, you know, they were just so many pilots, not enough pilot’s jobs, so he just had to come out and eventually became an air traffic controller [throat clear] and then he got mixed up with the Air Cadets and became a, what they were called, an Air Experience pilot, for the cadets which he absolutely enjoyed because he could go off to camp, fly aeroplanes at the Air Force’s expense, you know, so and I was completely out of it. [Background sneeze]
CB: So he was in the Volunteer Reserve for that.
FC: Yes, yes. But by then I’d got children so my life took a different turn.
CB: We’ll stop there, thank you. [Beep] We ran out of time with this interview, so we didn’t cover certain things to do with the war which we’ll pick up with later, and her career after she left the RAF when she became a teacher and came across a head who’d been a SWO. [Beep] Incidentally the significance of this interview is that Mrs Cooper, as a child in the countryside, had experienced living next to an airfield which the Americans operated from, and also came up against evacuees and prisoners of war, both Italian and German, and at the end of the war she was still a mid teenager, but later married an RAF bomber pilot when she was serving in the RAF herself.
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ACooperFA170810
Title
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Interview with Frances Anne Cooper
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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00:54:45 audio recording
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2017-08-10
Description
An account of the resource
Frances Cooper spent her early life in Uganda before settling with her parents in England for her schooling, then joining the WAAF. She speaks about the small village she lived in during the war, the arrival of Americans and prisoners of war, as well as the effect this had on the local population. Frances recalls the end of the war, then her time in the service before marrying a pilot and leaving to raise her children.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Uganda
England--Suffolk
Temporal Coverage
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1941
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
Carolyn Emery
childhood in wartime
civil defence
ground personnel
home front
Home Guard
military service conditions
prisoner of war
RAF Bircham Newton
Royal Observer Corps
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
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
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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
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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
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Transcription
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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
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 James Burdin
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
2017-02-06
Format
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01:51:55 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABurdinJR170206
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. 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/693/9240/PBarnettWE1701.1.jpg
7c713abda4f42e7135e9e634f0cfee24
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/693/9240/ABarnettWE170328.1.mp3
d760a82e33d828a0e77867096443f1cb
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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Barnett, William Edwin
W E Barnett
Description
An account of the resource
an oral history interview with William Barnett (b. 1924). He grew up close to RAF Westcott and was nearly killed when a Lancaster crashed. He served in the Royal Navy 1946 - 1952.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-28
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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Barnett, WE
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 28th of March 2017 and we are in Woodham, near Aylesbury and I’m talking with William Edwin Barnett about his days in the war as a resident on the edge of the airfield at Westcott. So, Eddie, what are your earliest recollections of life?
WEB: Well, earliest recollections really is going to school at Westcott School and I went to, you know, walked to, down to the village and get educated there. And from there we were then transferred to Waddesdon and that’s where I finished my education, in Waddesdon. So that’s as far as that goes.
CB: And what did your father do?
WEB: My father was a signalman on the railway and he, all during the war, he was at Ashendon Junction signal box
CB: Right. So, which railway was that?
WEB: That was like, that’s, I don’t know the railway, that’s the Oxford, is that the Oxford one? It goes, anyway, it goes below Ashendon Hills
CB: Yes
WEB: And on its way to Oxford and [unclear] perhaps I used to come from there through to here, Woodham and
CB: Yeah
WEB: And on to, on to
CB: Went on to the mainline
WEB: Mainline and onto Quainton
CB: Yes
WEB: Joined up with that one
CB: Yes
WEB: That’s as far as I know
CB: Which was the London to Wragby line
WEB: Yeah
CB: Yeah. Ok. And at what age did you leave school, Eddie?
WEB: I left school at the age of fourteen
CB: Ok.
WEB: And I, my first job was William Fenimore’s farm, which is this one down here, down, where Mr. Adams lives now, that’s where I first had my working experience and we used to get up and do, had to get down to the farm around about six o’clock in the morning to do the milking and finish it around [unclear] and come home for breakfast then and then continue the rest of the day onto the farm.
CB: And what did you do on the farm the rest of the day?
WEB: Just general farm work, cleaning out the stables and cow [unclear] and things like that and do the milking and all that sort of thing
CB: So, was this an animal farm effectively or was it arable as well?
WEB: It was until the war years, when the war started it became any arable, the ploughing and things like that, that was the first time that I ploughed and done things like that
CB: So, what animals were there, apart from the cows?
WEB: The cow. Oh, all animals like, they didn’t have horse, they had one horse, I think, one horse, and that used to take the milk from the farm up to the [unclear] on it and the rest of the day it was in the stable and [unclear] things just, you done the normal things with haymaking and all that sort of thing and the hay was all stacked in ricks and these were cut and delivered to the [unclear] as they needed it. I think that covers that sort
CB: So, in the wintertime, there was enough hay, was there, to feed the cattle?
WEB: Yes, yes, that was enough, all stacked in what they called ricks, ricks we used to call them
CB: Could you describe a rick? What’s that like?
WEB: Well, it’s built from the ground upwards and it’s round about, what, [unclear] about the size, half the size of this building long and about the same width and you take it up, build it up and then you come, when you get to round about ten, fifteen feet from the ground, something like that, you [unclear] it in which to make the roof and then you thatch it to keep the rain out
CB: So, the thatching is done with
WEB: Straw
CB: Straw. Ok. Where did the straw come from?
WEB: Straw was with the, in the fields like, where you thrashed out the corn
CB: Yes
WEB: What you call it, you thrash the corn out and then the straw was what was left
CB: Yes. So, they grew corn effectively to create straw, did they, for thatching
Web: Well, it would, it got that and then of course corn was used cause poultry and that, they had in [unclear] farm in what they called them I forget now, it was a thing that you could move and the chickens were in there
CB: Yes
WEB: The chicken, with a run and it was moved gradually about the field the chickens to get fresh grain to be on. This was, and that was all done usually nothing to do with the men farmer, just usually done by the daughter, something like that which in down here was Carrie Fenimore, that was the daughter’s name and she looked after the chickens
CB: Did they have sheep as well?
WEB: They had sheep, a few sheep
CB: Any goats?
WEB: Not goats, never had goats
CB: Right. And what numbers of cattle were involved in this? Roughly
WEB: The actual, I think it was around about up to twenty-five in, for milking purposes and that sort of thing
CB: Right
WEB: And then they did, did they have beef cattle as well?
WEB: Pardon?
CB: Did they have beef cattle?
WEB: Yes
CB: Raised for meat?
WEB: Yes, well, yes, they, that in a was a sort of a separate place because they used to have some fields that were down here but over the railway, over the top of the railway were a few more fields and those cows used to run wild there and were just, you went up with a horse and a cow straw and hay and that and you used to feed them during the winter
CB: Right
WEB: With that and they used to fatten up there and then, when they were ready they send them off to market
CB: Did the farm have a tractor?
WEB: Well, he, well
CB: At that time when you joined?
WEB: Had a tractor of a, yes, they did have a tractor, yeah, but it was a big, powerful one and it was a steam driven one they had, like, it was more like a steam engine then with which they towed anything they wanted to tow
CB: So, could that go on the road?
WEB: That did go on the road, that steam engine
CB: So, would you call that a traction engine?
WEB: Traction engine? Yes
CB: Right
WEB: And that was, that was used to take [unclear] job to describe the farms because they had another load of field round on the [unclear] road
CB: Right
WEB: And things like that and all these [unclear] just wend round and some of the sons and daughters used to look after that
CB: Right. So, how many people were running the farm?
WEB: Well, the actual who, the head of the farm was Will, William Fenimore and then there was Algernon Fenimore, he used to run and what was the other one? Algernon and I forget the other man’s name but he was married to a schoolteacher, now I can’t think of his name now but
CB: So you were supporting the family effectively. Were there other farm workers in addition to you?
WEB: Oh, there was, yes, there was
CB: How many?
WEB: Other people, was Leslie Jones and he was a real farm worker, well, he used to do that plus he used to look after me
CB: He looked after the animals
WEB: He looked after the hedging, and hedge cut
CB: Oh yes
WEB: Anything like that, he’d step in and do that sort of thing
CB: Was there a lot of hedging, hedge cutting in those days?
WEB: Only when it was necessary and he’d done, it wasn’t done on a regular basis in this day that was done very occasionally
CB: So, you were born in 1924 and you joined at fourteen, so that’s 1938, what do you remember of the next year, when the war started, in September 1939?
WEB: What do I remember? Not very much mainly actually [unclear] it was, the thing was there and that had to be dealt with I presume but it did make differences to us because we, for instance we had to join the home guard that was, if you couldn’t join, if, what I mean to say is if you was in a reserved occupation, let’s put it that way, you were not called up to do military service
CB: Right
WEB: As it goes but you were conscripted into the home guard and you’d done military training [unclear] and one odd day in the week and at no time, no time when you was later on you were let, we had to patrol the A41 of [unclear] and [unclear] you have done that for, would say, from midnight till four, and then from four till you went, four, that was, four would be the last watch, and you then, from then on you went to work so what you done, what you’re trying to do is to get you the end and the beginning of the day, merge into one so you could do the job, then go home and have your breakfast and then carry on working for the rest of the day. Does that make any sense to you?
CB: It does, yes. So, you were on four till eight, were you, and then had your breakfast
WEB: Yeah
CB: Ok. And what was the watch before that, before the one at twelve, was it eight till twelve? Were they four-hour watches?
WEB: These four-hour watches, they, you were drawn from, they started by midnight, more or less,
CB: Yeah, right
WEB: We used to think but that probably, started a little bit earlier than that but you’d done so long and then you got relieved and you left
CB: Yeah. So, at what stage did the farm operation change because of the war and why was it changed? How was it changed?
WEB: Well
CB: Because they started doing arable crops, didn’t they?
WEB: Well, this is all before the war, before the war [unclear], it was more or less just have a few cows, let them run around in the fields and do things like that, there weren’t much given to ploughing or anything that I can remember before the war
CB: No
WEB: Not, on a
CB: On a
WEB: On this basis
CB: Yeah
WEB: It weren’t really come necessary to do, what is it, to substitute the corn and that we were getting from the [unclear] and that sort of thing were coming in before the war for breadmaking and all that, it wasn’t until after when the war started and we had to make deal with bread and make bread out of the wheat and we started making bread of our own
CB: Did you?
WEB: We’d have our own wheat is what I mean [unclear] it was all done by imported corn wheat stuff
CB: Yeah
WEB: Does that make sense?
CB: Yeah, absolutely. So, then, Westcott became an RAF airfield, so when did that happen, when did they start building that and what was the reaction?
WEB: Dates, I can’t remember those dates and what was it, who was when? [unclear] to say
CB: Well, we can look up the actual date but what do you remember about it happening because your house
WEB: Yes, yes, as a matter of fact while, before that happened, I was happily working on the farm down here and then I got talking to some lads who was on the, doing the ministry job as I call it and I know he said, well, if they are getting that much money, I think it’s time I went in and had some [unclear], so I left the farm and went into the [unclear] and started doing this job and at that time I was, I was taken a surveyor [unclear] on a dumper to [unclear] we went up and came up to the bridge and what was the boss from the farm spotted me and that’s where my problems started then because he immediately went back and phoned the employment agency [unclear] I was immediately told to go and see them to get myself back on the farm, I was more important to them on the farm than the [unclear] so I was virtually took back to the farm and made to work on that farm until the wartime was over. I couldn’t please myself where I went [unclear] I had to be there. Do you understand this?
CB: Absolutely. So, there you were, in a house, a row of three, is it, next to the airfield, so did that map out as they were building it?
WEB: Well, it was, no, it didn’t affect us to in a lot of ways, you know, I mean, the only thing that we sort of did fall into was it all these, making these rain rings and putting them on where the aircraft standings were which what they called the one [unclear] behind the hazes, where I lived, was given a number of sea flight, that was its number and that’s where a lot of the fellows worked and that’s where a lot of the fellows used to nip out and go absent to drink without anybody else knowing [laughs] [unclear]. Mother used to be [unclear] nipping and give them plates of food and things like that they didn’t want give mother on a plate said, yes, you can use that more than we can, which take me now to, down on this road as we go down to Mote farm
CB: Right
WEB: Just as you go down [unclear], there they got as machine gun post, a machine gun nest then for Canadians, the Canadians were stationed in the old drive, driveway down at Lodge Garage they went that, they were stationed there, the Canadians were and they had a machine gun nest, machine gun [unclear] the bloke and what was it, and he came and he made friends with us, with myself and my brother, used to go down to [unclear] and for a pint or two of milk the farmer didn’t know about, he, they used to give us a bit of corned beef [laughs], which I, which people don’t know about, they shouldn’t have known about it then so we used to get a bit of corned beef for giving a pint of Mr. Fenimore’s milk and all went on during the war that sort of thing
CB: Nobody ever knew
WEB: No, well, I supposed they guessed I mean, Mr. Fenimore, what was it, he got these as I said, as I said the daughter of the farm, Carrie Fenimore, she used to be in charge of the chicken in these, I forget what they used to call them things, you could [unclear] them with the [unclear] and [unclear] with the [unclear], I forget the
CB: And they were called arcs, were they?
WEB: Well, [unclear] that anyway, and they shipped them about the farms and she looked after that and all the, what was it, and after, when you’d done all the those, all the milk was in churns which stood about that height from the ground were filled up and we, they had to be taken from the farm and up to the road here and stood on the road where Nestle’s milk lorries would pick them up and Carrie used to [unclear] the door, she drove the van up and I’d have to go up with her to lump the cans of milk away to where they go and that was where we got the milk to Aylesbury.
CB: These churns were about four feet high but how much milk did they carry each?
WEB: [unclear] I can’t [unclear] at the moment
CB: Probably about forty pints
WEB: I mean they [laughs] I stood about that, about that high so what was in there I wouldn’t know
CB: No
WEB: But there was but we used to send about five churns of milk per day to Aylesbury, to the Aylesbury Nestle’s, Nestle’s milk Aylesbury, [unclear] that
CB: What was the lorry? Was it a steam lorry or was it a
WEB: It was a petrol
CB: Petrol
WEB: Petrol driven lorry, lorry with a flat back where the bloke used to keep the pints of milk and get it go in to set on top of the
CB: The technique was to kick it and bounce it
WEB: Well, it was, yes, it got two little handles at the top
CB: Yeah
WEB: But he [unclear], his foot [unclear] side of the lorry, just slide it on
CB: So you
WEB: The lorry was not very high
CB: No. You brought it but he loaded it, did he?
WEB: He’d done all the, if he, if there was no, we used to leave it, if, you take it up to the road and you pick up the old churn and they used to drop the spare churns as I went down but if they were there when you were, you took the spare churn and left the milk, the milk there for him to pick up, you didn’t have to be there to see him take it
CB: But it was on a deck by the gate, was it?
WEB: That was on a
CB: Platform
WEB: Well, some [unclear] had platforms but we just set them straight onto the road
CB: Was it concrete?
WEB: To the farm you had road on, you know
CB: Ok. And how did you sterilise the empty ones when they returned them?
WEB: Well, when they returned them, they were already done
CB: Ready to fill
WEB: Straight in, straight into the caveyard and filled them up again
CB: Yeah. Right
WEB: But to, it was [unclear] in the farm there was a place where you put your milk, I forget what they called it now so, you put your milk into the top and it went through to cool it off, they cooled the milk off before it went into the can, into the churns
CB: Right
WEB: The churns that’s what
CB: Yeah
WEB: Thinking about
CB: Good
WEB: But that, that was heavy work that you had to do
CB: You were the only person who did that, were you?
WEB: You had to do it cause Carrie, the daughter couldn’t let them and so she just drove the little lost van it was at that time but they got, just [unclear] Carrie used to drive it
CB: I think we’ll take a break for a mo, thank you.
WEB: Lived on, lived where I am.
CB: Right, so, let’s just look at the farm. The Fenimores didn’t own this farm, did they?
WEB: No
CB: Who do you think owned it?
WEB: No, they rent it
CB: Right, from whom?
WEB: From the [unclear] estates
CB: Right
WEB: As far as I could think,
CB: Right. And the house you were in, who owned that?
WEB: That was, oh, some,
CB: It wasn’t owned by the farmer?
WEB: No
CB: It was owned by the Crown
WEB: Crown properties
CB: Yeah
WEB: Crown properties owned that
CB: Because it was the edge of the road
WEB: Like there sort of thing
CB: Right
WEB: That was [unclear]
CB: That, yeah. And you were one of a big family, so how big was the family?
WEB: There was eleven in our family
CB: Right. Mixture of boys and girls?
WEB: Yeah, I think it was six and five, I
CB: Yeah, ok
WEB: That was [unclear], that was five boys and six girls, yeah
CB: Yeah
WEB: And at the moment, there’s just three boys
CB: Yeah
WEB: Left
CB: Left
WEB: That’s the sad outcome
CB: So, going back to when the airfield was starting to be built, in about 1940, ’41, that was right next to your house, what could you see going on from the house? Because
WEB: Well
CB: It was land which it was a mixture of fields, wasn’t it? What did they do about that?
WEB: The field and different thing
CB: Woods?
WEB: [unclear] say that the first thing that you saw, thing was the great big caterpillar tractors around pulling down, pulling up hedges and things like that to make way for all this airfield now and as I say, I left and went over to, thought I get a few paid more than I was getting on the farm and that was Derby, this is the name of the firm if you want
CB: Yeah
WEB: It was the one I worked for was Derby Everdale and Greenwood who were subcontracting to, I can’t think now, the overall government was, what was it
CB: A big construction company
WEB: Big
CB: Like McAlpine
WEB: Well, was something like that, there, can’t think of it now but that was more or less done there and as I say, I thought I’d have some of the while I went, while they sent me back they said, Mr. Barnett, not Mr. Barnett, they called me, what was it? Get back to work, you, work, they said, you are more important where you are than where, [unclear] told me, he said, you’ll stay there until the end of the war, that’s your job, and that was all they told me, that, and during that time, the whole home guard and all that you were expected to join that but at night-time you’d have to do a stand on, from, on the road
CB: Yeah
WEB: On the A41
CB: Yeah
WEB: To ensure that there was no funny business by, you know, some people wanted to damage the, damage the things at Agnem Street station, that was all that keep you on that, because in the Agnum Street station they got that based to run petrol into that, to Wadston to store and you had to make sure that it was doing and then, as I say, you done that and the time it was, you finished that shift it was time to go and milk the cows
CB: What sort of people were they thinking were going to do these things?
WEB: Well, it was German parachuters more than anything, you know, that was what they, that was what they used to tell us, they dropped these people with parachutes and things and we believed them and you had to believe, innit? They say they would drop, I presume they could’ve done, but that we believed it and we used to do this patrolling. Two of us used to do the patrol and then get relieved, the ideal one was to start at four o’clock in the morning and do that and do that and [unclear] until six and then you went and done your farming
CB: Right
WEB: Done your milking, went and done your milking and then you went home and had your breakfast and all that sort of thing
CB: What weapons did you carry?
WEB: We had, I don’t know where, the ones we had were the imported 300
CB: Springfields
WEB: Must have been the Springfields, it was American made
CB: American, yeah
WEB: [unclear] that was the ones we had, we had Springfield and five rounds of ammunition
CB: Right
WEB: And we kept that, there was two of those and [unclear] cause me brother Sam [unclear] he had one as well
CB: Did you take it home or?
WEB: That was, that was kept at home.
CB: Yea
WEB: But you had to take it to your [unclear] on the Sunday and that one we were doing the drills and [unclear] and several on a Sunday and all that sort of thing
CB: Where did you practice your shooting skills?
WEB: Unfortunately, we didn’t get to any shooting practices, that was too, our ammunition was too, what they called? Too
CB: Too [unclear]
WEB: Too spare, too expensive, and too valuable then to expend on things like that, what we used to do was to have a target sort of thing with an air rifle
CB: Ah
WEB: [unclear] and you never practiced with the actual big machine, as I call it,
CB: Yeah
WEB: You had a little air rifle
CB: Yeah. And how good was your shooting?
WEB: Pardon?
CB: How good was your shooting?
WEB: My shooting weren’t too bad, actually. It was about fair, fair
CB: So when you briefly worked on the airfield construction, how much did they pay you?
WEB: Oh, I think it was round about that time, it was round about seven or eight pounds, something like that which normally
CB: A week?
WEB: For that time
CB: A week
WEB: A week
CB: Yeah
WEB: But the farming, that was only up to about seven or eight pounds
CB: Right
WEB: So that was what [unclear], Mr. Fenimore he spotted me on this, what was it and I was back down the next day
CB: Yeah. So, how many people were building the airfield, were there lots of people?
WEB: Oh, I don’t know, quite a lot, what was it? It was Irish, a lot of Irish people
CB: Right
WEB: At the time
CB: Where did they house those?
WEB: In a factory down sort of gypsie bombers as we called it, you know a gypsies barn is buried where the club is
CB: Yes, in the wood there
WEB: In that strip of land there to the bottom of the hill, that’s where they used to house those people, in Nissen huts sort of things
CB: Which they put specially, had they?
WEB: They put them up specially for them
CB: How long did it take to build the airfield?
WEB: Oh, I don’t know, [unclear] I don’t know, it didn’t take them long, to, I mean, it’s, I think it’s, I wouldn’t say
CB: So, you talked about these caterpillars that were ripping up the hedges, how many trees did they have to take out?
WEB: Oh, that is beyond me, I mean, as a matter of fact, I don’t know, before the war actually they were [unclear] from way [unclear] on the side of the road
CB: The A41
WEB: From there the back portal as we called it to the Westcott turn was a load of those, what we called? Birch, is it?
CB: Silver birch
WEB: Silver birch, they were lines of eight of those trees on the road, then they got four of them and then there was odd one or two down Westcott lane, these silver birch trees and that sort of thing
CB: So what happened to those?
WEB: All fell and burnt, but the most of it was burnt and the logs and that, cause people had them stacked and had them for firewood and that sort of thing
CB: They pulled the roots out?
WEB: The roots and all that were pulled all out and
CB: Where did the put those?
WEB: They put them in heaps and got rid of those with the fire
CB: And what about the runways, because they had a different type of equipment for that, did they?
WEB: What the
CB: Making the runways
WEB: That I couldn’t say, I mean, I just
CB: You could watch them
WEB: It was concrete and what was it? All the way, done, they’d done it in bays, bays
CB: In sections
WEB: In sections, that was all, don’t know what the, the machine was actually making the concrete and they’d lay there and then, when that was drawn, they moved it on and made the next one and doing, that was done in bays I think
CB: Right, yeah
WEB: Call it but it was big concrete
CB: And what about the material. How did that get there?
WEB: Came in from road, from the road, from [unclear], the Oxford area, somewhere down, I just big, some big [unclear]
CB: Were they petrol
WEB: Pits and where they loaded them up on the lorries and
CB: Yeah
WEB: They brought the stuff and loaded it and put it on, what was it, where that was to be used and that was levelled out by tractor, the things and pushed all over and levelled and rolled out and then they made concrete on the top of it
CB: Right. Now, there’s a railway that goes down beside the airfield so, how much came by railway?
WEB: Funnily enough I don’t think not a lot of it came by the rail but the only thing that sort of come by rail was petrol and storage that they sent to Wadston and stored up in the plantations of Wadston [unclear]
CB: Oh, was it? Right
WEB: Mostly [unclear] that I can tell
CB: That was fuel for the aircraft
WEB: That was fuel for, not for the aircraft, that was fuel for the general army actually but a load of these things were in tin, what they called it? Tin cans, they weren’t very thick but those weigh round about four gallons
CB: Yeah
WEB: And they were all stacked in the Wadston, Wadston plantations
CB: Right
WEB: Right where the doctor’s surgery is [unclear], all around that area
CB: On the far side of the village, yeah
WEB: Was where [unclear]
CB: So, how different was the supply, when the airfield was finished, how did they supply the fuel for that?
WEB: That used to come in by big tankers from somewhere, I don’t know where
CB: But not by train
WEB: Ehm
CB: Not by train
WEB: Not say this local station anyway
CB: Right
WEB: It came, it might, even then I might be wrong, but I think it was from somewhere else they used to come, the big tankers
CB: Yeah. Now your house and the others next to it are on the north side of the airfield, they actually with the hard standings for servicing, they also had a big petrol store underground
WEB: In where?
CB: Just across the fence from here
WEB: Ah, yes, yes
CB: So how did they build that?
WEB: That was all a big, they dug it all out, a big pit and they put a steel tank, yeah, that was, a big tank was lowered into the ground with pumps and all that and they [unclear] for petrol, well, fuel for aircraft anyway and then they [unclear] the back [unclear] where [unclear] is, are three, are standings for aircraft
CB: Yes
WEB: Cause I was saying, [unclear] or something like that, three Wellington bombers used to stay
CB: [unclear]
WEB: Were parked out there and that sort of got to know the load of the people
CB: Yeah
WEB: [unclear] Tipps Wooller, he used to run to dinner now and again he [unclear], we don’t want it, you can eat it [laughs], yeah Tipps Wooller, [unclear] to know I recall, you know, some of the names but no [unclear] to me, so I say, Tipps, he was an aircraft ambuler, he brought out to the aircraft and that at the back and then he, there was several couples I used to know in when we used to go and have a pint with them when we got in the pub to get a pint but I forget the names of those people that used to come, I know they come up into London somewhere
CB: Why was it difficult to get into the pub?
WEB: Pardon?
CB: Why was it difficult to get into the pub?
WEB: Into the what?
CB: Into the pub. You said it was difficult to get into it
WEB: The pub?
CB: Yeah
WEB: Oh well, I mean, [unclear], it was like everything else, it was shortage of beer [laughs], that was too odd difficult thing to get in there, I mean, they’d be all waiting outside there for Frank Washington to open the door, [unclear] that was, the biggest problem was to rush in and a beer, they weren’t officially rationed but they weren’t [unclear] for them to give it then, yeah
CB: Now, this big tank with petrol in, when they moved the contents to be able to fill the aircraft, to what extent was there a strong smell of fuel in the air?
WEB: I don’t know this much of it. I couldn’t notice much of the smell from it really. I mean [unclear] I presumed, which way the wind blowed
CB: Right
Web: But we, some of that we didn’t take much notice of but [unclear] the big, the tank, that when you get more of a smell than anything was when the tanker came round to fuel the aircraft
CB: Right
WEB: Which was right close to the [unclear] the aircraft and that was when you used to get more of a smell from the tankers but other than that, nothing [unclear]
CB: So, how did they get from the main road to this fuel tank? Was there a special gate near your house?
WEB: What was?
CB: The tankers
WEB: The tankers [unclear]
CB: They came in from a gate near your house, did they?
WEB: Not the actual tankers that fuelled, they used to come in and I had, they had an underground tank
CB: Yeah
WEB: Inside the aerodrome which was quite a long way from the [unclear] and they used to, at the end of where our garden and that, there was a road
CB: Right
WEB: Off there where all the tankers went in and to supply the tanks and that sort of thing
CB: Yes
WEB: Other than that, that was the only sort of thing that used to go over in there but it was a pretty busy thing I would think
CB: We’ll take a break there. So, just talking about
WEB: End of the gardens
CB: Yeah, there was a [unclear]
WEB: There was a [unclear] called Wadston terrace
CB: Yeah
WEB: There used to be a little building with a sentry, and he used to let in the lorries that’s one thing I think [unclear] lorries
CB: The fuel delivery lorries
WEB: They let the fuel delivery lorries in
CB: Yeah. So how was the airfield secured? They didn’t have a fence, did it?
WEB: Had, most of it round was concertina barbwire
CB: Right
WEB: One roll, two rolls on the floor, one on the top
CB: Right
WEB: That’s what they call it
CB: How high was that? When they were piled on top?
WEB: Well, they were, each roll was about that high
CB: Right, five, six feet
WEB: There was one, that was up from the floor
CB: Yeah, five feet
WEB: And then one, another one
CB: Yeah
WEB: Balanced on the two
CB: Yeah
WEB: That was the only thing that I can remember of [unclear] place
CB: Yeah
WEB: Being [unclear] as it stood and [unclear] we used to be a very good [unclear] for the people who come and see and have a pint without the bosses knowing [laughs]
CB: So where would they
WEB: They would walk through the garden at the end of the pub and then back
CB: Which pub are we talking about? Which pub are we talking about, in the village or elsewhere?
WEB: [unclear] go anywhere more or less where the pub, they got the beer
CB: Ah
WEB: This was the problem for me, see, with all these extra people, is, where do you go and get your pint of beer, when it don’t last long? You know, it was, they ain’t got beer all the time, these pubs, they just start to [unclear] if you [unclear] go and get a pint every day mostly, well I suppose, it was a type of rationing [unclear] but, yeah
CB: Could you buy beer to drink at home or was it not available?
WEB: Never, I never saw any of that sort of, bought anywhere, not a way, that was too, they wouldn’t sell it, I don’t think, in the pubs, avoidable for them to sell it, I don’t think, you probably would do but I can’t say that I know that you can buy beer to take home
CB: Right
WEB: But, I mean, it’s a long time ago, isn’t it?
CB: Yes
WEB: But there
CB: Now what about, when the aircraft, when the airfield became operational, that was quite a change to the quiet of the countryside so how did people take to that?
WEB: Oh, just a war time job that you had to take, it wasn’t that, the noisiest places for us, I presume, was when the aircraft was on the landing, on the site, next [unclear] and they were testing the engines
CB: Yes
WEB: They were revving up, that was the noisy part of it and to do that, we used to laugh, we got Lottie Cannon used to live one end of [unclear] and guess it’s going back and Stanley [unclear] was in the middle, I think it was the [unclear] in the middle way round there for end at the time and mum said, that lot, Lottie will be able to [unclear] she said today, she said, they grabbed the aircraft blowing straight across our garden [laughs], they used to make, that was the type of thing they’d done, you see, to test the aircraft, that was right on there, in the aircraft there and then the [unclear] is here, and they, I guess, they just revved up the engine to test them, and all that sort of thing and you had to put with it and that was it
CB: They didn’t swing the aircraft into a better position to save you
WEB: Pardon?
CB: They didn’t swing the aircraft
WEB: No
CB: Save the
WEB: No, they, that, where the aircraft come in to land, that’s where it [unclear] straight to the aerodrome and tail, facing your [unclear]
CB: Yeah
WEB: You got all the background then
CB: So you deserved the extra food as compensation
WEB: We deserved a lot but we didn’t get [laughs], oh dear
CB: So we are talking about a big family here, how many of the family had left to get elsewhere by this time, beginning of the war?
WEB: By the war all the girls had gone
CB: Right
WEB: I think most
CB: Cause they were older
WEB: No, it was because the way these people worked them days, when the girls left school they were billeted out to the place where they were gonna work
CB: Right
WEB: [unclear] they seemed to manage to all these families
CB: Yeah
WEB: I mean, I think certainly my oldest sister Winnie, she went over the back of the farmer back Quainton Hills [unclear] Quainton Hills and she was lodged in that place, that’s where she met her husband and
CB: What was her job then?
WEB: Well, she was [unclear], she kept and cleaned the farm and kept it all going
CB: Right
WEB: [unclear]
CB: What did the other girls do?
WEB: Oh,
CB: A variety
WEB: I don’t know, Alice, she was sent out to [unclear], Aston Clinton, that area, round there to do people’s ailsing and the other girls, they all, well, don’t think of the younger ones, were at home, you know
CB: So, in those days, the big houses had girls in service
WEB: Yes, they did that, that was what they had to do mostly what they’d done [unclear], business was the service for
CB: You were on the farm, were there any of the girls in the land army?
WEB: Not our girls, no
CB: And your brothers, what did they do?
WEB: The brothers were all more or less, Ernie, now, he was the star of the family actually, cause he was a cross country runner and he was transferred from Grendon, that was present man, Lord somebody who’s done Grendon Hall
CB: Grendon Hall, yeah
WEB: And he worked for them in the gardens
CB: Right
WEB: And he happened to go, happened to go to Grendon and the police were holding a sport’s day at Grendon, at Bicester and he [unclear] and went to and do his races and he eventually come home with a, what do you call it? Hang on the wall [unclear], tells the weather, a weather glass, a grandmother clock, and something else he, three things he brought home on that high school from
CB: That he’d won
WEB: He won
CB: Yeah
WEB: But the police bought it what was it, when from then on, that made him and they got in contact with Wickham Phoenix Harriers, which was at Wickham, what was it? And they got him a job in the chair factories and that’s where he spent the rest of his days in factories apart from when he was called up into the Air Force and that was it, he won the only international medal he got was when he, England and Belgium were against other sports and he was one of the runners and he got a gold medal in that, what was it, and that was his only medal he ever sort of won in international, what was it, and then on he went in the Air Force and the next thing I know he was in the Far East, Middle East, my mistake, doing his Air Force
CB: Right. When did he join the RAF? When did he join the RAF?
WEB: When did he? Oh, I don’t know, he was more or less conscripted I think into it, that was where
CB: At the beginning of the war
WEB: At the beginning of the war and that was where he done that training and all that sort
CB: How much older than you was he?
WEB: Oh Ernie, he was quite, he was the oldest and I was round about the middle, middle of the family
CB: Right
WEB: I don’t, those, I don’t know much really cause the difference in years and that, most of the girls then were sent out to work [unclear]
CB: Was that because of the war or because that’s how the things happened?
WEB: Well, that’s how things happened normally
CB: Right
WEB: Cause the war didn’t have a lot of effect on the difference what, the only difference they did sort of do then were to get jobs into factories and things so that were important to do, war efforts where before that they’d do everything else
CB: Right. And did one of your brothers do work in the mines? What was he?
WEB: Oh, well, Victor
CB: Yeah
WEB: Victor, he’s still living in Aylesbury at the moment, he was conscripted down the mines, yes
CB: A Bevin boy
WEB: A Bevin boy, yeah
CB: Yes
WEB: Yes, he was, that was it, he was a Bevin boy. I don’t know many people that done it from around here that went in there
CB: Yeah. And where was that? Up in the north?
WEB: He went up to
CB: Newcastle?
WEB: That was Newcastle and somewhere around that area
CB: Ok, we’ll take a break there. We’re stopping there. So, what we are going to do now is talk about the crashes and other recollections of the airfield. Actually, Westcott 11 Operational Training Unit lost 53 Wellingtons in crashes
WEB: [unclear]
CB: Yeah. And how many, what’s the first one you remember? You talked about one to do with a signal box.
WEB: Yes, well, that one has taken three runways out there and I think it was, I don’t know which one, which one to name, they named them, but it came from that way and he didn’t make the end of the runway properly and he was never got enough height and he hit the signal box and went into the, this side of the railway and that was where one of the fellows, I think it was one of the fellows down on the Restborough [unclear] but that was that one but I don’t think there was any
CB: Right, so then another one was one that
WEB: Another one was, I mean, [laughs] I don’t know whether anybody ever looked at, if they kept the [unclear] on the left hand side but you come down from [unclear], from [unclear] down to Woodham, I think I’m not sure but there’s three, three fences on that left hand side, where the aircraft had actually gone over the road, come over the, come to land on that airfield, failed, went over the field, down and over the road and landed with its, either its tail or its nose, over the Bicester road
CB: This explains
WEB: And I think if I’m not sure, there’s three fences have been put up in the [unclear], I don’t know [unclear]
CB: So, this is a strip between your house and where we are talking today of about half a mile and we are talking about the end of the runway that is runway 2 8, in other words goes to the North-West so there was shot out
WEB: They are the ones that come over the road then
CB: Yeah
WEB:
CB: To the A41
WEB: Yeah. Well, that’s as far as I can tell, I don’t know where they got fences in there or not, but they used to have gaps in the hedge then and they been filled in [unclear] sense or not, I don’t know,
CB: Now, there was one crash that took place on the 15th of March 1944 which was when there was a Wellington in the circuit and it was hit, this is in the night, by a Stirling that came from another direction, what do you remember about that?
WEB: That’s the first time I ever called a Stirling, we, everybody [laughs], I’ve always known it as a Lancaster,
CB: Right, that’s the other, that’s the different crash, this the one that where they were hit
WEB: This is
CB:
WEB: This is one at Westcott turn
CB: Yes
WEB: This, this
CB: Ok, that’s the other one, yes
WEB: This plane had been doing circuits and bumps as we called it
CB: Right
WEB: Been flying [unclear]
CB: Yeah
WEB: On its final, he didn’t make it, he went straight over the road
CB: Yes
WEB: But that crashed his undercarriage
CB: Yes
WEB: And he [unclear] that side of the road
CB: The other side, this is a Wellington
WEB: At night time, they’d done this big raid on Germany and these aircraft were flying back and these actually got diverted from some other airfield, this Lancaster bomber, we’ll call it a Lancaster
CB: It is a Lancaster, yes
WEB: A Lancaster bomber come flying in from the other way and he didn’t make it, he went over the road and landed on top of this Wellington that was already there
CB: Right
WEB: And that was where all the hullabaloo got started then, blokes running down the road, in their flying boots, mom looked out of the window and she said, [unclear] Charlie said, blokes running [unclear] we better get out, and we [unclear] then Kitt Rebell come along and he shouted and told us, get out and clear airfield, he said, in the roots cause all in [unclear] beyond our place were tree roots, [unclear] up when aircraft were being made, when the airfield was being made but there was a load of roots out there, so get out in [unclear] and we went out there. My father, he was out there and he was when it went off, he was pulling his trousers on outside in the field and he was pulling his trousers on and suddenly he said, I heard this thump, I know there was a lump of aircraft metal, not two yards from him but my father was near my father ever got to an aircraft, he said, that’s the nearest I ever wanna be and that was, he missed, that was when that aircraft blew up at Westcott turn
CB: So you were in the tree tumps
WEB: We were in the tree stumps
CB: And where was he, close to that?
WEB: Who, my father?
CB: Yeah
WEB: He was in the tree stumps with us
CB: Yeah
WEB: In those but he was [unclear] a little bit in the open when that aircraft blew
CB: Yeah
WEB: That of course took the roof off [unclear] the slades and things and we were covered with sheets [unclear] for ages
CB: Who came and fixed it?
WEB: I don’t know, it took, I think it was, I’m not sure where it was, [unclear] and fixed the
CB: [unclear]
WEB: Well, but the finish
CB: So this was the first of June 1944. How long did it take to get the house fixed?
WEB: I can’t say, took a long time I mean they more or less had cut [unclear] to make it waterproof then
CB: Yeah
WEB: To stop the water but to actual do the repairs, that took ages
CB: So, it blew the roofs off, what happened to the windows?
WEB: Windows were [unclear], never was blown out the windows so that they fixed those up as well. A lot of time I think some of them would bits of plaster or something instead of glass
CB: So this was actually only two hundred yards from your house that the explosion took place. What other houses were damaged?
WEB: A little bit more than
CB: Four hundred yards?
WEB: [unclear] from Westcott turn to [unclear]
CB: Yeah, four hundred yards
WEB: Something like that
CB: Yeah. What other houses were damaged?
WEB: Oh, I presume the [unclear] were damaged and all that sort of thing but
CB: There was a bungalow in the opposite direction that received an engine through the roof. And who was hurt in this?
WEB: I, I don’t know, obviously somebody I don’t know, I
CB: Ok. So, the person that hurt was the duty officer who’d been telling people to get out and he’s buried in the church yard but he was the only casualty from the blast.
WEB: Yeah
CB: The bomber landed with the full bomb load
WEB: That’s [unclear] full bomb load [unclear]
CB: Which he’d brought back
WEB: He landed on the Wellington that was lying there incumbent
CB: That’s what made it catch fire, wasn’t it? Cause it wasn’t on fire when it landed
WEB: Naturally in coming in, his engines were hot anyway
CB: Yes
WEB: And he had the bomb in
CB: That’s it
WEB: Petrol was very inflammable stuff and that, especially that aircraft fuel
CB: But unusually the aircraft came with a full bomb load, cause you would not normally land with a full bomb load
WEB: Yes, but he was diverted from another airfield
CB: Yes
WEB: I mean, you wouldn’t have got a Westcott plane coming in with a full bomb load because they didn’t have, they didn’t have a lot of bombing sites
CB: Yes
WEB: Only when they, they would make an exception
CB: Yeah
WEB: [unclear] but not many of the crashes that happened round Westcott were with people, with aircraft with fully explosive bombs on. That’s the only thing good about any crash that came round Westcott [unclear] that one
CB: Cause it was an operational training unit. Now, one of the crashes was registered as Waddesdon so where was that?
WEB: Well, as far as I know, that was the only one that went, that was in the side of the hill, was it?
CB: Right
WEB: I don’t remember
CB: But that wasn’t by the fuel dump
WEB: What?
CB: It wasn’t by the fuel dump
WEB: I don’t know much about, we didn’t know much about anything like that
CB: Right. Just stop it, just a mo.
WEB: I still, was still [unclear] went but doing tees and what I did when it went over
US: But you used to have a cafe
CB: Yeah, it is on, yeah. So, Gos ran a café, did he?
WEB: That was a café there
CB: Yeah, and he got the engine
WEB: What they called a path walk cafe
CB: Right
WEB: That was, they were a going concern
CB: Yeah
WEB: So, I think a load of RAF people used to go up there for a cup of tea or things like that
CB: Right. Yeah
WEB: But
CB: This is the bungalow that got the engine through the roof. Then there was another house I gather called Victoria House which was badly damaged
WEB: Victoria House, this
CB: That’s on the edge of the village, what happened there?
WEB: Well, I don’t know, must have been, I mean, that was as close as any other [unclear] could get really
CB: Yeah, the blast hit it
WEB: But I mean, obviously damaged
CB: Yeah
WEB: But we missed looking at our own what was it, we didn’t really know much about what happened down there and there or I suppose it was, yeah
CB: Now the
WEB: [unclear] you see
CB: The duty officer was flight lieutenant Bulmer of the cider family
WEB: Bulmer, sorry
CB: And he’s buried in the churchyard and they put in new windows in the church, did they? And they paid for it, restoring the church
WEB: Almost
CB: Restoring the church
WEB: Yeah, they come, yeah, Bulmer’s [unclear] people
CB: There is a plaque in the church to his memory
WEB: Yeah
CB: Yeah, right. Now, there is another crash which is recorded on the airfield with a monument and that was, took place on the 15th of March ‘44, when a Wellington was hit by a Short Stirling and that was near Quainton and you know somebody who was in the signal box at the time.
WEB: Well, that’s, that might be Sue’s uncle
CB: Right
WEB: Someone like that [unclear] but I don’t this Stirling, I didn’t know any Stirlings here but if they say it was a Stirling that was what it was, but I imagine that could have been a Lancaster
CB: But it was a Stirling and it landed at Wappenham, crashed at Wappenham
WEB: Yeah
CB: In the end but the Wellington landed nearby so the significance was this person in the signal box seeing it
WEB: Yeah
CB: The pilot’s wife was in a house up the road with her new child, he was an Australian
WEB: Yeah, I, well, I don’t know [unclear]
CB: That’s right. What other crashes do you remember there being
WEB: Well, I mean, as I just say, if you look what date where they overshot the runway away and landed in the fields, the only things that mark by fencing and all that sort of thing
CB: Yeah
WEB: That I can say about any others I mean, I should say, if you walked around the perimeter, you’d find a crash site anywhere around that aerodrome
CB: Yeah
WEB: Where the aircraft were taking off and landing, but you can’t, to pinpoint it’s a hell of a job
CB: On a more positive front then, how about the social life? How did you link in with that with the airmen and the air women for that matter?
WEB: Well, we used to drink together in The Swan at Westcott, that to we went out to drink, they weren’t allowed much beer about then, I mean, the pub, you’d be standing outside the pub waiting for it to open and it wouldn’t open something like that was, I mean the, when Frank [unclear] the bloke who used to keep the pub at Westcott, he used to say, said, when it’s gone, it’s gone, he said, so if you drink it now, he said, you won’t get it tomorrow, and that was his philosophy and you get rid on. I know we were young [unclear] but we had bicycles and things like that and when we hang up going up to Quainton and see any or not that was we used to take, you could always get a pint at Quainton
CB: There were three pubs in Waddesdon
WEB: Waddesdon
CB: So, how did you get on there?
WEB: Well that was, we used to get off a pint in the [unclear] now and again when we started doing the home guard, home guard training sessions at Waddesdon on Sunday morning, that was the only place you could get a pint if you wanted a pint then
CB: Would help your shooting, wouldn’t it? What about socials that they ran on the airfield, cause there were a good few WAAFs, there was a separate WAAF area
WEB: Well, didn’t take much part in the social side of the airfield, you know
CB: Right
WEB: But any time I used to [unclear] was when I got in the Swan and I did know a couple of WAAFs and their boyfriends and things like that, they used to come in the Swan and other than that I didn’t know, yeah, I get the names [laughs]
CB: Now, being in a reserved occupation meant that you were a young person amongst military people, most people were in the forces one way or the other, what sort of reaction did you get as you walked around and cycled around, not being in uniform?
WEB: No, [unclear] I think people more or less understood the situation you were in, you were in that, I never got any diverse comments about [unclear] or anything
CB: When you were in the Home Guard you’d be wearing the uniform, at other times you wouldn’t, wouldn’t you?
WEB: Well, in the Home Guard, you wore that when you went to and done the midnight walk, as we used to call it, go out at midnight and be home back by four o’clock, be in bed at four and then back up again at six and go milking [laughs], that’s how we used to, things, no, I, wasn’t anything spectacular
CB: Did they give you a badge to wear, to show that you were in a reserved occupation?
WEB: No. I never had one anyway
CB: Right
WEB: I didn’t know never [unclear] I mean there was my brother Lewis and myself, we were all working in the same, on the same farm, just one day here,
CB: Mate Farm
WEB: Mote Farm and we never did [unclear] seen any words or anything from anybody about it, you know
CB: So, what would you prefer to have done in the war?
WEB: Well, what I wanted to do and which I tried to do, several times, as a matter of fact I [unclear] from here to blooming Oxford to go to a recruiting centre and all I got in trouble was get on your bikes and go back to where you come from, you’re in a reserved occupation and you are better off where you are. And that was that, that was the only thing I [unclear]. And I went to Old Wickham, it was [unclear] come back on the, went to Wickham, come back on a train said it was a waste of time then, trying to go, you’re in a reserved occupation, you’ve got to do that reserved occupation to change jobs that blokes say if I want to move from where [unclear] the
CB: Mate Farm
WEB: Yeah, but I wanted to go to work at Waddesdon for somebody else, it was a hell of a job, you got to [unclear] to Aylesbury and see somebody in the labour exchange when I’ve been all through the, what was it? The [unclear] was, go back and behave yourself and don’t worry us again. You go back where you come from.
CB: Yeah
WEB: That was that, that was the attitude to take. You were in the, you were there and that’s where you’re gonna stay
CB: Right
WEB: [unclear] it was, you couldn’t, I mean, as I said, I tried to get away from [unclear] and only needed the farmer to spot me once and just ring [unclear] exchange and somebody was there to tell me to get back on the farm again
CB: So, which of the forces were you hoping to join?
WEB: Mh?
CB: Which of the forces were you hoping to join?
WEB: Well, I was always wanted to join the navy, that was my one and only thing, I wanted to join the navy and I went, and I tried my [unclear] to get into the navy but every time I went anywhere, was the same thing, you’re doing a better job than [unclear], but directly the war was over, this is what nickels me in a way, so as soon as the war was over, and things had settled down a bit, the first thing I got, was a notice to go and see somebody at High Wycombe and when I went to High Wycombe they said, you will be sent now to a training camp down in, what was it? To join the navy. And I said, why at this time? He said, because we want, he said the, well, what we call it? Operation, people that was, were forcibly sent into the forces, we want those people back home and we will get you training and put you in the navy and send those people back home and that’s exactly what happened. I went down too long for a round of instructions to get down to Plymouth, in that area, to a place down there, and I was conscripted into the navy then and I served seven years and five on a reserve and I was told, that was where I got to be after that and that’s what I had to do.
CB: But the conscripted
WEB: And I was seven years a complete, what shall I say? I thoroughly enjoyed my seven years I served in the navy and I got no complaints whatsoever by joining up.
CB: And what did you do while you were in the navy?
WEB: I ended up being a radar operator, you know, sort of, on any ship I could go and operate, what was it, and I’d been, the best thing really was to get into the plot room on board ship with the officer, the navigating officer and you were on the radar and told him where to put the dots and [unclear] on his [unclear], on his plot. You had two [unclear], you either served in the actual place where the PPI was, the Plot Position Indicator, which was like a little light line going round and round like that and if it hit a ship or anything like that, it would leave a spot and you reported up to the bloke in the, what was it, and from there he’d take it up and you’d keep telling him where that spot [unclear] he said you can plot the course and tell his where the ship was going. So, in a way, it was interesting in a way, but I thoroughly enjoyed it
CB: What was the balance between being on shore and being afloat?
WEB: What, in what way?
CB: How many years of the seven were you on shore and how many on afloat?
WEB: I was, oh, I don’t know, I don’t [unclear] about on any land station really. I went over to, we’d done the training down at Plymouth and that took about to eight weeks, something like that [unclear] course and that and from there, I’d done that and I was in the Mediterranean in next to no time and the first, I joined there and I started, and the coincidence here is that I joined this ship HMS Cheviot and I relieved a bloke on board of that ship by the name of Stanley Pankhurst, now, I lived at Westcott and Stanley Pankhurst lived at Bicester [laughs] and was, his, and when I went there, he said, good gracious, he said, where do you come from? And I said, Westcott. Wow! I could blow the, I could blow the bloody place up, he said, if, he said, you’re the finest bloke I’ve ever seen in this world, he said, come and relieve me. Stanley Pankhurst greeted me to [unclear], he said, here’s the keys, I said, what’s that for? He said, that’s for your locker, he said, he said, you can, I’ll take my kit out, you can put yours in there, he said, I’ll make sure it’s locked, he said, that was when I went since Stanley Pankhurst but his father apparently owned a paper shop or something in Bicester but no
CB: That’s eight miles away
WEB: Yeah, that’s right
CB: Right
WEB: I mean, wonderful, that is to think that you meet somebody who’s glad to see you [laughs]
CB: But the conscription was for less than two years so how did you come to do seven?
WEB: Ah, I, you see, that’s, that was, I volunteered for the seven, I volunteered to, wanted to join the navy and the only thing that stopped me joining the navy was my father and when you, if your father said you can’t do this, in them days, you’d done what your father said
CB: Yeah
WEB: Now, when I decided that I wanted to go, he said, well, he said, you can go now, he said, you’d done all what you need to do here and that was as far as it went and I joined up and I said, I’ll do seven, the seven years and then seven years, if, that seven years was done on a reason was that if we’d given seven years to do and then five years on a reserve that means to say that we still got a little hand on them for another twelve, for twelve years and that’s where they go and half way through that five year job they cancelled it
CB: Right
WEB: They wrote a letter who said you are no longer required and that was, from that [unclear] now I can go upstairs into my bedroom [unclear] and I can go into my, into a, what was it there? and I can pick up a little blue folder, and that’s all my papers
CB: Really?
WEB: Navy
CB: Fantastic. What did you do when you came out of the navy?
WEB: Well, I went into the brickyards
CB: Which is where?
WEB: [laughs] at [unclear], that’s where I started
CB: Just half a mile away
WEB: Yeah. I went and started into the, what was it? And it wasn’t long before Woodham disappeared and I went from there I went to [unclear]
CB: Right. London Brick
WEB: London Brick company. And that’s where I finished my work in days on the brick, I say, they made me redundant when I was, what was, I think I was fifty something,
US: Fifty-eight
WEB: Fifty-eight or something [unclear] and I had round about four, three years to do and they, I didn’t do a day, I’d done one day’s work since I was retired
CB: Right
WEB: And my [unclear] got me to go and do one day’s work for the people that he worked, worked for and [unclear] and sadly he’s gone anyway
CB: What, how far did you move up the organisation? You started doing what, little brickworks?
WEB: In the brickworks? Well, I had work all the time, [unclear] you didn’t get any advancement in any way, at all much, you’d go down into the pit or any, or down or drawing site, going with a barrel going into the [unclear] and run the brick site and load lorries off with your barrels and all that sort of thing, [unclear] anything you could do down there, paid work, I mean, that was the only thing, if you’d done, if you worked hard, you got paid more. But, I did not [unclear], there was no advantage in being in brickyard, brickworks
CB: Did you, to what extent did you find opportunities to take a more responsible job? There’s a chargehand or supervisor or something?
WEB: Chargehand and all that sort of thing, I mean, that came earlier there when somebody else had gone and
CB: Yeah
WEB: And they wanted somebody to fill the place and that was only done or any and when you got to filling out the forms and that sort of thing, but that weren’t, that was all to just fill the forms out, get it cause he took the lorry driver and he took the bricks and away
CB: Right
WEB: [unclear] keep you landing and doing the thing but all our work
CB: What would you say finally was the most memorable thing about your working life from when you left school?
WEB: Memorable? Can’t say there is anything memorable [unclear]. I know being out to more or less do what you like, do what you please and as long as it didn’t do any damage to anybody else. Yeah
CB: Well, Eddie, thank you very much for a very interesting and enlightening conversation
WEB: Well, just, piece of work then, as I say
CB: Now
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with William Edwin Barnett
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-28
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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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ABarnettWE170328, PBarnettWE1701
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Pending review
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Format
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01:49:02 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Description
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William Edwin Barnett talks about his experience of living on the edge of RAF Westcott, near Aylesbury. Remembers starting to work on a farm at the age of fourteen and describes his everyday life and duties. Tells of being conscripted into the Home Guard, where he did night patrolling and practiced target shooting with an air rifle. Tells of how he wanted to join the Navy but was rejected because he was in a reserved occupation. Talks about various plane crashes, including a Lancaster, of which he gives a detailed and vivid account. After the war, remembers being conscripted into the Navy, where he served for seven years.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1944-03-15
11 OTU
civil defence
crash
final resting place
Home Guard
Lancaster
memorial
Operational Training Unit
RAF Westcott
sport
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/11115/PHollisAN1801.2.jpg
7fea6f1398cdeabc26833d102de46378
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/11115/AHollisRE180111.1.mp3
e3e523e3265c6984d2c2ca159745a801
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
Hollis, Arthur
Arthur Norman Hollis
A N Hollis
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Arthur Hollis (b. 1922) who joined the RAF in 1940 and after training completed a tour on 50 Squadron before becoming an instructor. At the end of the war he was deployed as part of Tiger Force. Collection contains a biography and memoir, his logbook, correspondence, training records, photographs of people, aircraft and places, his medals and flying jacket. It includes an oral history interview with his son, Richard Hollis.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard Hollis and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Hollis, AN
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is Thursday the 11th of January 2018 and I’m in Cowes with Richard Hollis to talk about his father Arthur Hollis. What were the earliest information you’ve got about your father, Richard?
RH: Well, right from his, from his childhood through schooling. We know quite a lot. Quite a lot about the family. I’ve got lots of photographs and, up until when he was in the Home Guard and then joined up and joined the RAF.
CB: So if we start with early on. Where his parents were. What his father did. And then take it from there.
RH: His father got completely decimated in the First World War and was an office manager in an insurance company. He went into insurance really because it was about the only thing that he could do and my father’s mother was at home bringing up children. My father was the eldest. The eldest child.
CB: His schooling?
RH: And his schooling. He went to, he said not very satisfactory prep schools. And then my grandparents were left some money by an uncle who deceased and enabled them to send both my father and his brother to Dulwych College as day boys where my father said he rapidly learned how to work and the advantages of working and he, he did very well academically. He was also a keen sportsman. He played rugby. He was a very keen swimmer and he was an extremely fine amateur boxer. He then, well after he came out of school at sixteen after he matriculated and I think that was school certificate or, anyway and he then, my grandfather was very anxious, his father was very anxious that he’d, with the war coming that he’d have some sort of grounding for a profession which my poor late grandfather had not had and so he was articled to a firm of chartered accountants or accountants in the City called [Legge] and Company. I think Phillip, I think it was Phillip [Legge], I’m not sure. The, he, [Legge] had been a contemporary of my late grandfather in the First World War. He was there for a good couple of years and, and, but he wanted to join up. He was not, he couldn’t join the Army or the Navy for some reason but he went then, he opted for the RAF and but apparently at that time there was a bit of a blockage of new people wanting to be pilots. They obviously couldn’t process them fast enough so he was sent off to Manchester University to do higher maths and flying related subjects I think for about six months before he went off to learn to fly in Florida. In his memoirs he comments that the ship that they went out on which was to Nova Scotia had been used for, as a meat ship. I doubt if it was cleaned out very well. They just strung a row of hammocks across and people were very sick apart from him. And so he landed in winter time in Nova Scotia. They saw good food for the first time. In his memoirs he tells us that. And then they worked, went by train down through the United States into, into Florida which of course was beautifully warm. He went to an airfield called Clewiston and quite early on he was selected to be a corporal, acting corporal and to, one of the jobs was to maintain discipline. He was quite a disciplinarian anyway and so he seemed to be rather suited. His commanding officer was Wing Commander Kenneth Rampling and he got on extremely well with Kenneth Rampling and had a huge amount of respect for him. He finished his training there. He said when he was training the flying instruction in the air was excellent. On the ground it was very poor so they had to work extremely hard to, to make sure that they didn’t lag behind or or fail. When they had finished there he went back up to Canada and I think he received his commission on [pause] up in Canada. They then joined other people on a, on a ship, troop ship crossing the Atlantic and in, he said in his memoirs later on he didn’t realise at the time, he wouldn’t have known but it was actually at the height of the U-boat, U-boat war but they were all very jolly and he said, but it wasn’t always pleasant going. He said, ‘If the sea was rough,’ he said, ‘You imagine shaving with a cutthroat,’ which he did, ‘A cutthroat razer in a rough sea.’ He said, ‘I didn’t worry about it.’ He just got on. But anyway, he landed in, he landed in [pause] I think Liverpool but I’m not sure. That would have to be checked out. And then went down to, in his memoirs I think he said he goes down to the south coast to be kitted out. After that, we’ll check up in his logbook, he went to Little Rissington to start learning to fly twin engine aircraft. It would have been Oxfords. He then went, he then went on to, where did he go after that Chris?
CB: Right. We’ll pause there for a mo.
RH: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: The question [pause] Of course, when he was an articled clerk it’s the early days of the war and everybody was pressed into something. He’d had training, officer type training when he was at school.
RH: Yes. He was —
CB: So what did he do when he left?
RH: He joined the Home Guard. He had a lot of respect for the other, his colleagues in the Home Guard. He pointed out to us as a family, he said, ‘Dad’s Army is not really a true picture of what it was like.’ He said, ‘These were people who had been a part of a, at the end of the First World War, if they’d survived the First World War, a fine Army and they could certainly shoot fast and straight. And in his memoirs he says that there would have been a lot of dead Germans. Anyway, he enjoyed himself in the Home Guard and thought it was very worthwhile.
CB: Good. Thank you very much. And so that set him in good stead anyway when he joined the RAF because he already had —
RH: Yes.
CB: Military training.
RH: Yes.
CB: Now, in his logbook we have talked about him returning to Little Rissington.
RH: Yes.
CB: Returning to England and doing his twin engine flying.
RH: Yes.
CB: So that was to get him accomplished with A - twin engine and B - the British weather.
RH: Yes. He does say in his memoirs that navigation was considerably harder in in the UK than it was in the, in the States.
CB: Did he ever explain why? Why that was so much more difficult.
RH: I don’t think so. Just that the terrain, in the States you could follow a railway line or something and there was very little. And the weather of course. So after Little Rissington —
CB: He then went on to the Operational Training Unit.
RH: Yes.
CB: That was at —
RH: He then went to Number 29 OTU at North Luffenham on Wellington Mark 3s. By this stage he had done two hundred and ninety five hours of flying and and it was during this period that he had an unfortunate incident. It was in December just before Christmas. December 1942. He had to bale out at two and a half thousand feet on the orders of the captain from the Wellington and he did not have his parachute done up correctly and it started to go over his, over his body. It caught on his flying jacket. It tore his flying jacket and he came down holding on to the, holding on to his parachute with his arms. He flatly refused all through his flying life to get the flying jacket repaired where it tore because he said, ‘That tear saved my life.’ He says in his memoirs that when he landed on the ground that he was met by some farmers, or farm labourers approached him and questioned where he was from. Was he one of theirs or one of ours and he said very strongly he was one of ours. He said they then plied him with tea in a farmhouse. He said he would like to have had something slightly stronger. Anyway, he continued his training there, then went to a short course, advanced flying, again on Wellington Mark 1s. And then in February, the beginning of February 1943 he joined 1660 Conversion Course at Swinderby. Swinderby, and was flying Manchesters, Mark 1s and he then and that’s where he picked up the rest of his crew. He had picked, when he was flying Wellingtons he had pilot officer then, Palmer as navigator, Sergeant Kemp as an air bomber, Cheshire, Sergeant Cheshire as a wireless operator/air gunner and Sergeant Jock Walker his rear gunner. And he was very very fond of Jock Walker.
CB: What did he tell you about the crewing up process at the OTU on the Wellingtons?
RH: He said that you just stand. There wasn’t any, he said you chose. I don’t know how it worked but you just chose your, I think he said that he chose. You chose your own crew and how you would know if they were good. I suppose if you got on reasonably well or you talked to them and you found out a little bit about them but those were the people that he had, I believe he had chosen. Later on in the Conversion Unit at Swinderby he was joined by Sergeant Bob Yates and sergeant [pause] who would that have been? Sergeant [Adsed], Don Adsed who was a flight engineer. Bob Yates was the mid-upper, upper gunner. So that made up the crew of seven. He did say, he told me that when he was doing his Conversion Unit converting to heavy bombers of all the people on the course he was the only one to have survived the Second World War. And that was born out by when the Memorial at Skellingthorpe was unveiled in the 80s. nineteen eighty —
CB: Six.
RH: 1986. A very old man came up to him and said, ‘Are you Arthur Hollis?’ And he said yes and he said and he was with my mother at the time who also witnessed this and this dear old man said to him, ‘Oh, I know one, I knew one survived. I’m so pleased to meet you.’ Which was very touching. Anyway, then in 1943 in March, March the 11th 1943 he started flying operationally at Skellingthorpe on 50 Squadron and straightaway we’ve got the first operation to Stuttgart. According to his logbook he flew a variety of Lancasters. They were Lancaster Mark 3s but his favourite, their favourite one appeared in March, at the end of March 1943 and that was D for Dog, ED475 which took them to Berlin and then on to St Nazaire the next night. Working through his logbook they did, they were flying some part sometimes to France. I know he planted, he did some mining in the Gironde on one occasion but then it was off to Kiel, [unclear] Stettin, Duisburg and Essen. On May the 12th 1943 they were setting off to go to Duisburg. He told me that quite often to gain height they would take off, fly over and go and fly over to Manchester to gain height and then, and then cross the North Sea with some decent height. But off the Dutch coast he was with, in collision with a Halifax. What had happened was that the Halifax apparently had been early and contrary to the strict instruction not to do a dog leg and join in with the main bomber stream the pilot of the Halifax had decided to turn back in to the main stream. Go head on into the main bomber stream. They collided. The Halifax with one of its propellers cut through and cut off six feet and damaged six feet of the starboard wing and put an engine out of action. The engine must have been on the starboard wing as well. Probably the outer. They both returned to, to England and he my father told me, I had asked him at one stage why he had not been recognised for, for bringing a damaged aircraft back with seven valuable men in it and he said because he wasn’t riddled with German bullets. But he was always extremely angry that the collision seemed to have been hushed up. There is correspondence about the collision from other members of his crew that looked at it, looked at it in 1979 and some photographs of the damage to the wing. But [pause] could we just stop there?
CB: We’ll pause just for a mo.
RH: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: So after the mid-air collision.
RH: Well, he —
CB: He got no recognition.
RH: He got no recognition. In fact, it was, it was all hushed up which made him very angry because it was, he said it was two valuable aircraft and fourteen valuable men. Coming back they jettisoned the bombs. He managed to fly the aircraft he said. He told me he could just about keep it in a straight line and they jettisoned the bombs and I don’t know where he landed but he obviously did. So that was that. Then he continued on with operations. That was with ED475. Their favourite aircraft. In an article written by, or written in 1979 one of his crew which was [pause] who was that? Cheshire, his wireless operator praised my father for flying the aircraft back. But it was established that it was a Halifax because there were bits of the Halifaxes propeller wrapped around the wing of the aircraft and it contained wood and only the Halifax propeller I believe had, did contain wood. So, we then move on to [pause –pages turning], I think we’ve missed something here. We need to stop I think.
CB: Ok. We’ll stop for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: Ok. Restarting now.
RH: There is another photograph of, a colour photograph of a Lancaster. It’s actually a flight of Lancasters and my father told me that he was asked to take up a flight, a flight of Lancasters with a photographer on another aeroplane. They were to do formation flying. In his logbook he says on the 23rd of July a formation flying nine aircraft. He did say that they weren’t trained to do formation flying and basically most of the aircraft the pilots couldn’t get near this photographer so most of the photographs were taken of my dear late father in his Lancaster and his crew and the photographs are there. That has been established that it was JA899, again D for Dog and photographs have been taken up by Lincoln, copied by Lincoln University. Shortly after that, that was on July the 23rd, on July the 24th he went to Hamburg and on July the 25th in the same aircraft JA899 they went to Essen. It was on this trip to Essen that he, they were caught in searchlights and I think my father said at that stage they now had radar controlled searchlights and they were damaged by flak. It said hydraulics were u/s in his logbook. Tyres burst. They didn’t know that until they landed. Following the attack they were attacked by a fighter whilst held in searchlights in the target area and Jock Walker the tail gunner was wounded by a cannon shell and one of his other crew, the mid-upper gunner was also slightly wounded. He managed to lose the, or get out of the searchlights and, and fly the plane home and there was also, it says in his memoirs there was no, they lost their intercom as well. So it must have been a pretty unhappy time. For that he was awarded later on the DFC. Then after another trip to Hamburg they were coming towards the end of their tour. By this stage he told me that his crew, he said he didn’t believe in luck. He wanted, he purposely throughout his tour never had a girlfriend and he was a very strict disciplinarian in the aircraft. He said that there were, there were good skippers of aircraft and there were popular ones but he did not believe that the popular ones were necessarily good and he maintained this discipline. By this stage the crew had definitely established that they wanted to be flying with him and were most grateful for that which they wrote to him in a letter in 1968. And in the letter, this was written by Tom Cheshire who had visited, who had made contact with Don Adsed and it said, “We had a nostalgic hour.” This was in 1968 when they met up, “We had a nostalgic hour during which time we came to the conclusion from our total flying times that you were about the best pilot and aircraft captain we’d, either of us had flown with. I will spare your blushes but I really mean that. I afterwards flew with a motley load of crews and missed the crew discipline which you always maintained. I’m sure this was a considerable factor in allowing us to take advantage of an average share of luck.” Can we pause there?
CB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
RH: There is a photograph of, I would imagine it’s the entire squadron in front of a Lancaster. I know that my father is not in this one. I believe it was taken when he was on leave and that was at about the time of the, I think the Peenemunde operations. And he said that when he was on leave he came back and there had been such losses he arrived late in the evening and it was dark and he didn’t recognise anyone in the officer’s mess. He didn’t see anyone he knew and he said he seriously thought that he’d been dropped at the wrong airfield. And then he met someone and he said, ‘No, Arthur. I’m afraid we’ve had some, we’ve had some very bad losses.’ Moving on as they get towards the end of their, oh when Jock Walker was wounded so he didn’t do the last three operations but they were ending their, ending their tour and the last two operations were to Milan. My father told me that they were chosen, Milan was chosen because it was really getting to the stage where Italy had was on the point of, of getting close to giving up and Milan was perhaps a softer target, an easier target. They flew across France, over the Alps to bomb the marshalling yards in Milan. Unfortunately, my father told me that there had been a lot of instances where bombing raids tended to creep back from the target area as people pressed the button just a little bit early to, to get out and he wanted to demonstrate how not to bomb short. So he said to his bomb aimer, ‘You tell me when you’re ready and I’ll tell you when to press the button.’ He unfortunately got it slightly wrong and counted all the way to ten by which stage he’d completely missed the target they were shooting at, destroying the chapel where Leonardo da Vinci’s, “The Last Supper,” was on the wall in this chapel and Leonardo da Vinci’s, “The Last Supper,” was damaged but the wall stayed there. The rest of the chapel was completely destroyed and online you can, if you go online and look at the Leonardi da Vinci’s the “The Last Supper - war damage,” you can see some of my father’s handiwork. Later on, some years, some twenty seven odd years, thirty years later in his memoirs he tells us that he had, as a chartered accountant some Italian clients. He had quite a number of Italian clients. He never let on that it was he that had damaged that chapel or blown it to bits. But he was taken to see it and he quietly told my mother, ‘And guess whose handiwork this was?’ And he did also say later that he felt gratified, the fact that he had a whole lot of artisans work for the last thirty years. So that was his last operation to Milan and that was the end of his time at Skellingthorpe.
CB: Right so we’ve ended operations.
RH: Yeah.
CB: How many operations did he do?
RH: He, he did thirty. He did his full thirty.
CB: And how many hours was his total by then?
RH: And that, and that total by then was just under, was about six hundred and ninety.
CB: Ok. We’ll pause there. Have you got some more?
RH: Yes.
CB: He, he just about when he was finishing at Skellingthorpe in his logbook he says a voluntary attachment to 1485 Gunnery Flight, Skellingthorpe and it was then that his dear rear gunner Jock Walker came back on to the squadron and he, he took Jock Walker up in a Tiger Moth because he thought it would just be fun and good for Jock to get back into flying again. Very sadly Jock Walker lost his life doing his last three trips with another aircraft and in his logbook he says he was a very experienced pilot but sadly they lost their lives.
RH: Stopping there.
CB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: What was your —
RH: With the situation with Jock Walker my father was asked by the station commander or senior officer whether he thought it would be a good idea if Jock Walker went back on to operations just to finish his tour because he only had three, three to do to complete his thirty trips and my father said that he thought that Jock would like that because he would be happy with that. My father later on a night explained that, he said it was one of the worst things he ever said in his life because as I’ve said poor Jock Walker went off to, to lose his life on one of those last three trips and Jock was the only child of, my father said, a very nice Scottish couple and to lose their only child was absolutely tragic.
CB: The history of these sorts of things is that, seems that captains and others sometimes feel a sense of guilt when something’s happened to their crew that was actually beyond their control but nevertheless within their realm of concern and command.
RH: Yes. So that was the end of his flying operationally. That. His tour of operations.
CB: We’ll just stop there a mo.
RH: Right.
[recording paused]
CB: So in training and during operations people formed all sorts of alliances, experiences and admirations and some of the senior people were very encouraging to the more junior ones. What experience did he have in that?
RH: When he was, when he was, going back to Florida he had a great admiration for, for his Wing Commander Kenneth Rampling. And as I say he appointed him, he says in his memoirs course commander. “I was made an acting corporal unpaid and held general responsibility for the behaviour of the Flight. About fifty cadets.” He, he then went on to say that, at the end of his course, “We took the wings exam and qualified. On the evening before the Wings Parade together I, together with my two section leaders invited by three officers to a celebration at the Clewiston Inn where they stayed. What a night. I arrived back at camp wearing the CO’s trousers, mine having got wet in a rainstorm. The next morning the Flight was drawn up on parade and I marched up to Kenneth Rampling to report, ‘All present and correct, sir.’ He said, ‘Christ you look horrible.’ To which I replied, ‘Not half as horrible as I feel.’” Just as well the doting onlookers could not hear these remarks. Dear Kenneth Rampling, he was killed two years later as Group Captain DSO DFC CO of a Pathfinder Squadron.
CB: Clearly made a really big impact.
RH: Yes.
CB: On him and an inspiration in his life.
RH: Yes.
CB: I’m stopping.
[recording paused]
RH: If I just refer back to his last trip, tour. His last trip of the tour was to Milan. His he said his usual aircraft was pronounced unserviceable rather late in the day. Group Captain Elworthy, later Marshal of the RAF, Lord Elworthy the then base commander was very anxious that I should finish on this trip. He therefore arranged for an aircraft from another station be made available and took me personally in his staff car to that station. My crew were taken there by bus. And he then goes on to talk about the bombing short.
CB: So, when, when he went to Milan then he didn’t come straight back did he? He went on to North Africa.
RH: No. They came straight back.
CB: That was a different one.
RH: That was a different one.
CB: Right.
RH: The North African was when he was bombing, a trip to Friedrichshafen. He says in his, in his memoirs if I can find it. [pause] I think we’d better just stop now.
CB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
RH: Was when they, when they carried out raids on the U-boat pens at St Nazaire it was rather useless as the concrete was too strong for the bombs then carried. He also went to Berlin, Pilsen and Hamburg. An interesting trip was as a special force chosen to bomb Friedrichshafen where special radar spare parts were stored. “As it was then midsummer there was not enough darkness to return to the UK. We therefore went over the Med to North Africa. The personal map which I marked up and tucked in to my boots is in my logbook."
CB: Stop there.
[recording paused]
RH: After his trip to Milan he used to dine out on the story but he maintained that he had taken Italy out of the war because they were so disgusted that a religious artifact was too much for them to cope with that and he recently, he said he recently told the story to an artist friend who remarked drily that the bomb damage was not half as serious as the damage inflicted by the subsequent garish and overdone restoration.
[recording paused]
CB: What other stories have you got that ties in with —
RH: Well, my father, my father had a very [pause] he was quite careful what he would say to, to some people. Particularly, he had German and Italian clients but I remember on one occasion in the 1980s at a lunch party my father was sitting next to a very charming German lady and she asked the question, ‘Have you ever been to Hamburg?’ And, because she was from Hamburg and he said, ‘No.’ And she, this lady had to leave the lunch party early so she went and one of his other, one of the other people sitting beside him said to, said to him, ‘I thought you said you had gone to Hamburg.’ He said, ‘Well, I did go but I didn’t stop.’ He was very, he used to give talks on, about his experiences and he was very adamant that people should understand that, you know people said, ‘Oh well, you know the poor Germans,’ etcetera. He said, ‘Do understand this? That whilst Germany was completely obliterating Europe the —' perhaps we ought to be recording this actually.
CB: We are.
RH: Yes. We are. Good. That it, it turned people, some people said, ‘Oh the bomber, the bombing campaign didn’t do much.’ He said, ‘Just look at it this way. It tied up, it tied up about a million people. Manufacturing had to be geared for defending the German Reich not manufacturing shells for, for the Russian Front or tanks for the Russian Front. It tied up a huge number people as Speer said in his book.’ My father also used to refer to Speer and said that had there been nine other raids like Hamburg the Germans would have probably thought about giving up. But everything was, everything, the vast amount of armaments and work and planning was geared to the defence of Germany not the offensive. And he said, ‘If you look back in history no one has ever won a war on the defensive and we put the Germans on the defensive. That they were not going to win.’ So, and he was, people used to bring up, he’d give talks about, about the Second World War and he would, he would definitely make this point that, and he also talked about the, after the war he said, ‘I can understand the crooked thinking that the appalling and harsh lessons during the war our former enemies quickly became model citizens. I’d been delighted to share friendships with some admirable Germans and even one or two Japanese. But naturally there has always been during the war there were good Germans but the nation as a whole followed, took a disastrous turning during the 1930s and set about ruthlessly establishing itself as the master race and one must not forget that.’
[recording paused]
CB: How many aircraft did he fly on ops?
RH: In total he flew twenty different Lancasters and after the, after the war my mother did the research when it became available and found that only one of them survived the Second World War. All the others were either crashed or went missing which means they were crashed. Incidentally the Lancaster JA899 which was the Lancaster where he got shot up over Essen that was repaired. That was repaired three times. Damaged three times and eventually it was lost on the 22nd of June 1944. So it was quite clearly not a throwaway society. Right.
CB: So after ops then.
RH: After ops he went on to number 11 OTU at Westcott in Buckinghamshire and was flying, became an instructor and was flying Wellington Mark 1Cs. He used to tell us that they were grossly underpowered and quite honestly he thought at times that it was far more dangerous training people than it was flying over Germany which he absolutely hated by the way. Flying over the Ruhr. He then said, he says in his memoirs he was posted instructor’s duties to OTU Westcott. “I felt it was rather like leaving the Brigade of Guards for the Ordnance Corps but there was no choice.” Most of the instructions, instructors were New Zealanders. A very jolly bunch of chaps. His immediate senior and flight commander was one Squadron Leader Fraser Barron. DSO DFC DCM. A New Zealander who ranked at the age of twenty one as a Pathfinder ace and was killed the next year as a group captain. The immediate successor to Kenneth Rampling mentioned earlier in the narrative in my father’s memoirs. He told one amusing story about one New Zealander who said he was, father became what he termed as a shepherd. People who really couldn’t get something right and eventually were going to be, you know sent back to be an air gunner or something instead of a pilot they were given to him and, and he, he did his absolute utmost to make sure that they were, they, you know, passed. He said, but it was sometimes it was very sad because he said generally people who were poor pilots tended to get the chop first. He had one. One New Zealander. He said he just couldn’t believe how this man actually got his wings but he did. He disappeared and some months later he turned up back on the station and said, ‘Oh, hello sir.’ He said, he said, ‘Good God, what are you doing here?’ And he said, ‘I’ve come here as an instructor.’ He couldn’t believe it [laughs] He’d survived his tour. Anyway, he was also at Westcott. He was, spent a lot of time at the satellite station of Oakley which also had 1Cs. He said one night he was sitting next door in the instructor’s seat next to an Australian pupil pilot who was doing a cross country practice. On returning he made a rather mess of the landing approach and I said, my father said, ‘Go around again.’ Immediately ahead of the main runway was at Oakley was Brill Hill. He said, ‘Good pilots could clear it easily but my pupil was not in that category. After looking up at the trees as we went over Brill Hill I let him have another attempt at landing. He did the same thing again after which I said, ‘Up to three thousand feet and we’ll change seats.’ The aircraft cross country flying at Oakley had no dual controls. He said at one stage he did, I think on that occasion he did come back with some, a bit of branch or twigs or something in the tail wheel. When he was at Oakley he said in the late spring of that year he had the good fortune to meet one Betty Edmunds, one of the staff in the watch tower at Oakley. He was officer commanding night flying at the time. “We soon discovered that we both came from Carshalton and had many mutual friends. Our friendship developed. We used to play tennis together. She always won partly because she was a much better player than I but also because whenever she bent over to pick up the ball I was completely unnerved and my mind was not on the tennis.” They did eventually get married and my father said he thought they would wait until the end of the war and my mother said, ‘Oh, do you? I was thinking about the coming 2nd of December.’ They got married on the 2nd of December and, and they went away for a honeymoon in Torquay and there is a photograph of my father on honeymoon wearing, wearing a greatcoat and out of uniform. That hasn’t gone to the Lincolnshire. That’s a new one I found. But anyway, continuing on with my parents because it was a very important part of his life. He said they both wanted children. My mother wanted four but my father thought that would be rather too many to educate properly. He was particularly keen in his life that people should be educated properly thinking back of his own, of his own education. He said, “Thinking about things over the years and knowing my darling Betty’s quiet way of getting what she wanted I think she made up her mind to start our family on our honeymoon. I had no hesitation in helping.” And I think, I know life was very difficult for them there. My mother was, was still in the WAAF but, and found certain petty rules very very irksome and there was one time she was married, then married to my father said at a New Year, at New Year there was an officer’s dance at Oakley and Betty was only a sergeant. She had to get her COs permission to attend and this was refused. “My fellow officers were most indignant that the Oxford tarts were likely to be there but an officer’s wife was refused.” I didn’t particularly mind the signs that Betty was pregnant but there you are. I don’t know how he told that within a month but still [laughs] they then, they then got some accommodation, very difficult but later on they managed to get a council house or part of a council house. Two rooms in a council house at Brackley but more of that in a while. So he continued his, back to the flying he continued with his training as an instructor and there was one stage where someone started to write him down and when he went for tests in flying saying that he wasn’t very good. Fortunately, his commanding officer picked this up and realised that the man, the same man actually wanted to go out with my mother. He thought that he would be taking my mother out. So, but that was, that was picked up and he did finish up and he says in his memoirs that he finished up with a category, “After New Year I was telephoned, this was a year and a half on, “I was telephoned by Group and I was promoted to squadron leader and was to Command Instructors Flight, Turweston. A satellite of Silverstone. I had two months earlier been categorised A2 by a visiting examiner from Central Flying School. An A2 instructor’s category was rare and the highest one could obtain in wartime.” I didn’t know that. But there we are. So, after, after Westcott he then went to [pause – pages turning] Ludgate, Lulsgate Bottom. Number 3 FI [pause] FI5 or FIS?
CB: FIS.
RH: FIS. And I don’t know whether that, I think that must have been further, that must have been further training.
CB: Let’s just stop there a mo.
RH: Shall we stop?
[recording paused]
CB: Right.
RH: Right. So after further training, advanced training as an instructor his European war ended on the 1st of May leaving Westcott.
CB: No. Turweston.
RH: Sorry. Leaving Turweston and he says in his memoirs when everyone else was celebrating VE Day he was with my mother and he had a miserable time because he’d just been told that he was going off to be an advanced party of Tiger Force then being formed to set up Bomber Command on Okinawa. But he was not allowed to tell my mother where he was going and he may or may not be coming back. So, he refers to that as, ‘The saddest day of my life.’ Do you want to know about Sue the dog?
CB: Yes.
RH: When he was, when he reached his twenty first birthday, as a little anecdote he, he was given an English bull terrier called, which he called Sue which he obviously loved. And when he got married to my mother they went to [pause] they found the two rooms in a council house in Brackley which was owned for the sake of it by a Mr and Mrs Blackwell. They didn’t, when father was posted away my mother who was heavily pregnant at the time went to live with, back to live with her parents in Carshalton Beeches and they didn’t know what to do with Sue. So they gave Sue the dog to Mrs Blackwell and my father used to say that every, every Christmas there and after they always had received a photograph of Sue the dog with Mrs Blackwell. He said they looked rather similar which looking at the photograph they did but Mrs Blackwell was always the one wearing the hat. He boarded a, he boarded a troop ship which had been formerly the Kaiser’s yacht and they were, they went through the Panama Canal. He found that fascinating. And they ended up they were in Hawaii when the bomb was dropped. The Americans, he said, didn’t really want us to, didn’t really want the British contingent which I think was about seven squadrons. They didn’t want them to be part of Tiger Force. The bomb was dropped and he said he and his fellow officers were horrified. Had mixed feelings. He discussed the situation with his fellow officers in his memoirs, “We were horrified that science had reached this far but grateful that our lives and probably about two million others had been saved.” They didn’t know what to do with them. They had a ship full of craftsmen, builders, and medical units, air sea rescue units etcetera. So after a certain amount of cruising around the Pacific they went to Hong Kong. He, they landed, they got to Hong Kong and it was about two days or so after, a day or so after the British Pacific Fleet. Before the Army had arrived and my father told me a story that it was after he arrived he said the crew on the Empress of Australia, the former Kaiser’s yacht, he said they were about, he said about the fourth rate scum that they’d dug out of the, out of somewhere in, somewhere in England. I think he said Liverpool. They had been cheating the, the servicemen on board by turning up heating and then serving them some sort of orange drink to which they would add a touch of salt so they wanted to you know, sell more. And he said they really were, they were very badly done by this group. When they arrived in Hong Kong he went ashore for twenty minutes and he came back and was speaking to a very worried sergeant, RAF sergeant who told him that the crew were mustering over there and, and they wanted, they were planning to loop the medical supplies that had just been unloaded from the ship on to the dock and what should he do? And he said it was the only time he took out his service revolver in anger. He said to the sergeant, ‘Sergeant, there’s a line there. Any man that crosses that line shoot him dead and I’ll show you how to do it.’ And he would have done too. But anyway, he, they had to keep the Japanese officers as fully armed because otherwise, he said the Chinese, the Hong Kong Chinese would have ripped the place apart and looted it but he said they gave, they gave away their food, their rations because there were other people who definitely needed it more. He said, ‘I scarcely slept for several days and was somewhat hungry as we had given up our rations to the ex-occupants of the internment camps. The Japanese were later used for hard work in repairing the colony. They lived in POW camps and were not overfed. And then after about a fortnight the Marine Commandos arrived and he did have, apart from the fact he was away from my mother and he did have a grand time, or a good time in Hong Kong. Although he’d never learned to drive he was given a jeep and he said that you had to guard it all times. If you left it for five minutes when you came back the engine would have been taken out. He said the Chinese, the Hong Kong Chinese were so resourceful he said they would, they used the engines for their, to power their junks. He was initially put in as supplies officer for the officer’s mess and he had an office in the Peninsula Hotel. He said that when you went into the Peninsula Hotel you turned right into a large room. In the middle of the room the room was completely bare apart from a desk, a chair and a filing cabinet and that was his office. He was supplies officer for the officer’s mess and he said he used to go out to the Navy ships to collect the gin. He said, ‘I always remembered going out.’ He always remembered going out but he never remembered coming back. He then, also in Hong Kong went on to do the rather unpleasant job of commandeering people’s houses for accommodation and he made some good friends from the Hong Kong Chinese for that. He said it was the most distasteful job. He also would do tribunals. Criminal tribunals. He said it was very difficult because the Hong Kong Chinese at that time would make things up and tell you what they thought you wanted to hear not what had actually happened. But I don’t know whether we can put that in. Anyway, he, my mother sent him some books to study, to carry on studying accountancy but he said that the social life was, it was difficult to study because the social life was rather too good. Anyway, back, then later on in it must have been I think it was May. In May 1946 he [pause] I’ll just get, we need to stop really.
CB: Yes.
[recording paused]
CB: In July.
RH: In July 1946 it was his turn to be demobilised and he set course for home by taking a passage in one of her, his majesty’s ships to Singapore and then got a place on, believe it or not the Empress of Australia again. He arrived at Liverpool one wet afternoon and the ship’s tannoy went, ‘Requiring the presence of Squadron Leader Hollis in Cabin —’ X. He proceeded there and was greeted by an air marshal who was there for the purpose of offering him a permanent commission. He said, ‘I’ve always been pleased that I didn’t accept. There were severe Service cuts a few years later and he has had a very interesting life.’ He went on to qualify as a chartered accountant. When he came back to England — do you want this? When he came back to England of course he then had to study. He had a young child. They had nowhere to live. They managed to find two rooms in the attic of a house in Dover belonging to a relative and he only spent the weekends there because he was studying during the week time in London living with his father which was, he said since his father liked to sit in silence it was the appropriate atmosphere but very poor for my mother. They literally had no money at all. Any money that they did, he got a small grant and any money they did have was spent on, on suits so that he was well dressed when he went to work. They then moved to a house of another, some cousins in Westcliffe on Sea in Essex but they were not, that did not go down. It did not work very well. But then in 1948 they found a flat to rent at the Paragon in Blackheath where they spent fifteen happy years and he passed the final exam and became a charted accountant. And my late sister Sylvia was born in 1949. Things got a bit better for him and eventually he was offered a partnership in a firm called Hugh [unclear]. A joint [unclear] with an assistant partnership prospects and he, in 1950 — do you want to continue in this? In 1950 he went out to Jeddah and he had some work in Jeddah to do and he said Jeddah at that stage was absolutely medieval. He said he felt that he was going back to the Old Testament. He did tell me one story that he was very keen on walking and one evening he walked out of the town and on to the outskirts of the town and got surrounded by a pack of dogs, wild dogs and he really did think that he was, that he was going to be attacked and killed. But he managed to find some sticks and stones and threw them at the dogs and he walked back into the town. But he said that was a very close shave. Unfortunately, my sister Sylvia when she was born was born very prematurely and was blinded by an oxygen, use of an oxygen tent. This was when he returned from Jeddah. He said it was very difficult. My other sister was doing well at school but he said, ‘How can you tell a child who says, ‘Will I be able to see next year? Or when I’m ten?’ ‘No. You won’t.’ In 1953 I was born. Unfortunately, my mother contracted polio whilst she was carrying me and it was another great burden on the family. My father and his career he worked hard and progressed well becoming a partner in [unclear] and company. He also took on the work from a small practice where the sole practitioner had died and the sole practitioner specialised in theatrical, in the theatrical and musical world and, and he met, and Yehudi Menuhin became a client amongst others. And Diana Sheridan, the late actress. He struck a great, had a great rapport with Yehudi Menuhin. Saved him from being clobbered by vast taxation and, and he was instrumental with others in setting up the Yehudi Menuhin School. He provided for us admirably. The family. We then in the early ‘60s moved down to a beautiful house down in Kent where he lived with my mother for fifty years and was very very happy there. He was highly respected and it was the house, he was highly respected in the village and became the sort of the elder statesman in the village. And he, my mother died in 2010 and in 2013 my father didn’t become ill he just one day went to bed and never woke up. And he was terrified of ever having to go into a home but he had his wish, he died as I say in his own bed in his own house and having lived an extremely full life.
CB: What a fascinating story.
RH: There we are.
CB: Thank you very much.
RH: Sorry, I’ve gone —
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 Richard Hollis
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-01-11
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHollisRE180111, PHollisAN1801
Format
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01:06:22 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Richard’s father, Arthur Hollis, went to Dulwich College as a day boy. He left at sixteen to join the Home Guard , then worked for a firm of accountants for a couple of years before joining the Royal Air Force. He was sent to Manchester University for about six months and then to Florida to learn to fly. He went to Nova Scotia and then travelled by train to Florida. Arthur was posted to Clewiston airfield and was soon selected for acting corporal. After finishing his training, he was posted to Canada where he received a commission. His next posting was to RAF Little Rissington to learn to fly twin-engine aircraft and then to the Operational Training Unit at RAF North Luffenham working on Wellingtons. He also went on a course for advanced flying and then joined the conversion course at RAF Swinderby with Manchesters, where he picked up the rest of his crew. Arthur recalled December 1942 when he had to bale out at thousand five hundred feet on the orders of the captain. His parachute, not being fastened properly, tore his flying jacket and he came down holding the parachute with his arms. In March 1943 he started flying operationally at RAF Skellingthorpe with 50 Squadron. Off the Dutch coast he was in collision with a Halifax which had been early. It cut off and damaged the starboard wing and put an engine out of action. Arthur had brought his crew back safely. The crew continued operations flying to Hamburg and Essen. On one occasion they were caught in searchlights, attacked by a fighter, and damaged by anti-aircraft fire. They managed to get home and Arthur was later awarded the DFC. The last two operations were to Milan to bomb the marshalling yards. Arthur completed thirty operations and had flown 20 different Lancasters, of which only one survived the war. Upon completion of his tour, to No. 11 OTU at RAF Westcott and RAF Oakley, where he met Betty who became his wife.
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Manchester
Canada
Nova Scotia
United States
Florida
Germany
Germany--Hamburg
Italy
Italy--Milan
Netherlands
England--Rutland
Germany--Hesse
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Lancashire
China--Hong Kong
Germany--Duisburg
Temporal Coverage
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1942-12
1943-02
1943-03-11
1943-05-12
1944-06-22
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
11 OTU
1660 HCU
29 OTU
5 BFTS
50 Squadron
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bombing
British Flying Training School Program
civil defence
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
Lancaster
Manchester
mid-air collision
Operational Training Unit
RAF Little Rissington
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
RAF Westcott
searchlight
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/617/8886/PPackmanDE1601.2.jpg
ba8928c4bf42a6031477dbdbb826e776
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/617/8886/APackmanDE161130.1.mp3
f2b524bbfce27b88bedbdd2f83f4cea3
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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Packman, Doug
Douglas Ernest Packman
D E Packman
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Packman, DE
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Doug Packman (1925, 1866208 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a fight engineer with 630, 57 and 44 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CJ: This is Chris Johnson and I’m interviewing Doug Packman today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s digital archive. We’re at Doug’s home in Tankerton in Kent, and it is Wednesday the 30th of November 2016. Thank you, Doug, for agreeing to talk to me today, and also present in the house is Barbara Masters, a friend of Doug’s. So, Doug, perhaps you could tell me first of all please your date and place of birth and your family background?
DP: Yes Chris. My date of birth was January the 10th 1925. My parents Lucy and Ernest Packman had their one and only child, that of course was me. If my parents could have shown me the beautiful night sky due south at nine fifty-five pm, we would have observed the most wonderful sight. I refer to the Orion [emphasis] nebula. The first star to pass by this, in this constellation was Rigel. Standing at approximately 30, 25’ due south, approximately 188 magnetic. I of course, just newly born, would know nothing [emphasis] of this. My only interest would have been in the warm arms of my loving mother. We, that is mum, dad and I, lived with my grandparents at Coxett Farm, Hansletts Lane, near Ospringe, Faversham. I will give you its actual [laughs] location [emphasis]. North 51 18’, east 000, 51.116’. I very often pass by this lovely old farmhouse on my way to church at Stalisfield. I look on this as my place of birth and where my life and adventures began. When a few months old, my parents decided I must be christened. One fine Saturday, Sunday [emphasis] afternoon, my mother, grandmother and an aunt were all prepared for the short journey to the church of St Peter and St Paul at Ospringe. They looked around for my dad and found him clearing, cleaning his motorcycle [emphasis]. ‘Come on Ernest’ said my mother, ‘have you not yet thought of another name to give our lad besides Ernest?’ ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘call him Douglas.’ ‘Why Douglas?’ asked mum and grandma. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is the best motorcycle I have ever had’ [CJ laughs] ‘so why not?’ I was so grateful in later years to my old dad, but I am very glad he did not own a Rudge, B.S.A. or Matchless at that time [CJ laughing]. My parents and I very often laughed about this. We move. Some two years after my birth in nineteen, in 1927, we moved to St Marys in the Isle of Grain. I always remembered it as remote and desolate, but I suppose it did have a certain beauty. And I must say during my childhood, my father taught me to ride horses at an early age, for I have loved horses all my life. He also taught me how to handle guns and shoot in a responsible manner. When I was ten [emphasis] I could drive a car around the farm, also help repair stationary engines. I have a photo of me driving a Standard Fordson tractor at the age of thirteen [CJ laughs]. World War Two. As we all know, World War Two started in 1939. When I was fourteen I worked as a boy messenger for the GPO, both at Ashford and Chatham, and by the time I was fifteen my parents had both decided that I should work at home on the farm. I was just over fifteen when I decided to join the LDV, or home guard. I will be honest, this was not, certainly [emphasis] for patriotic reasons. I wanted a stout pair of boots for farm work [CJ laughs] so what better than British Army boots? On my sixteenth birthday, I was, I was given my first driving licence. I, it covered all groups, so now I could drive a five ton Bedford lorry, and just about everything else. I might add I have never passed a driving test [CJ laughs], it was not needed in wartime. I led a busy life. I studied for two evenings a week under the guidance of Oscar George, our rector. He was a brilliant man, he had patience with me and I soaked up all [emphasis] that he gave me to do, maths, science, history etcetera. I owe him a great deal, for without his guidance I would never have passed my aircrew exams. Long distance running was also taken up, along with boxing and unarmed combat. Being in the Home Guard meant guard duty at times. Looking back, I suppose I was very lucky for as you might know, there was a complete blackout during that time. The sky could be observed without the distraction of streetlights etcetera. I think it might have got me interested on the beauty of the night sky, and it’s always been there for me. Those times, times can never come back. When I reached my seventeenth birthday, I went into the recruiting office above Burtons’ buildings at Chatham and asked to join RAF aircrew. A few weeks later I went to Cardington and passed my medical A1 and two or three days of examinations. I knew I might have difficulties for I was a farm boy and in a reserved occupation, however after almost a year I finally wore them down. I suppose they got fed up with me, and at eighteen walked into Lords cricket ground and so started what was for me the great adventure of my life.
Watching the stars again. I suppose it was around August 1944 that we visited some part of northern Germany. I remember we delivered our presents and, there being rather a lot of flak, Alec told me to put on climbing power. I adjusted my engines to twenty-eight thousand, two-thousand eight-hundred and fifty rpm and boost pressure to +9lbs/sq. in. We entered dense cloud and about ten minutes later, emerged from this dense cloud at about ten thousand feet. The effect was truly amazing for the night sky was just brilliant [emphasis]. It was a moon and just about every star at its best. I can only describe it as like entering from a complete darkness into a brilliant theatre full of light. It has forever stuck in my mind. I well remember Claude, our navigator, coming out of his small office behind me and pointing at the Plough and Pole Star. I have, if I’d had my planisphere with me at that time I could have told the time by the star Dubhe or the Plough, pointing to the star. It was all so [emphasis] exciting. It was the wrong time of the year to see Orion in the northern hemisphere, but many years later, after Pegs and I got married, I purchased a 4½” Newtonian reflector telescope, so that we could both enjoy many evenings of watching that beautiful night sky. But of course, one could not enjoy the full beauty, for there are so many lights from our towns and cities throughout the world and it does [emphasis] affect the viewing. But I will ask the reader not to be put off. Sometimes maybe around January the 10th next year, if you are fed up of watching the box, and some silly parlour game, get up [emphasis], go to your south aspect door and just look up [emphasis] and with a bit of luck you will be rewarded with the Orion Nebula. You can always [emphasis] make the excuse that you are putting the empty milk bottles or the cat out [CJ laughs]. God bless you all.
CJ: Well thank you Doug, that was great. Could you perhaps tell me now – you said you’d been to the recruiting office and joined up and that you went through the medical, so perhaps you could tell us about your time during training and going up to joining an operational squadron?
DP: Yes. I, I was very anxious to join up, simply because we just wanted to give Hitler a bloody nose [emphasis] [CJ laughs], and, er, I, I arrived at Lords cricket ground on the, sometime in March 1943, and there I met up with a wonderful fellow who I would like to tell you about. His name is John Mannion, and John was one of those who did not [emphasis] come back. So I would like to say, to tell you about him now. Is it there? [Pause whilst shuffling paper.] I first met John at Lords cricket ground one sunny morning in March 1943. ‘Good morning, my name’s John Mannion, what’s yours?’ ‘Doug,’ I replied, and we shook hands heartily. We attended lectures and training sessions at St John’s Wood, Torquay and St. Athan’s engineering school in Wales, until the Christmas of that year when we passed our final examination and emerged as sergeant flight engineers to fly in the mighty Lancaster. John was posted to No. 1 Group. I was sent to 5 Group Bomber Command. We would sometimes meet up in Lincoln, go to dances, chase the girls, for we were young [emphasis] and the world was our oyster. No two young men enjoyed life more. Full of enthusiasm, we went to war in order to give, as I say, Hitler a bloody nose. By June 27th, 1944, I had completed about eight operations when I had one of my letters to John returned to me. John had been killed on the 25th of June 1944, somewhere over Europe, whilst flying a Lancaster with 576 Squadron. John was never to reach his twentieth birthday. My first wife Alice Ida and I went to RAF Bomber Command War Memorial at Runnymede to see his name carved in stone. It all seems like a dream now, but I shall always remember the great adventures we had in that short time together. I shed a tear. Who knows, John and I might meet up again when I depart this life, then we can resume our chatter and thoughts. Rest in peace John.
CJ: Aw that’s lovely.
DP: That is my dedication to all of those, and John, who died and never made it back.
CJ: Mhm. Thank you. So could you tell me please, which was your first squadron and how many operations you did, and the sort of operations you were doing?
DP: Yes Chris, I did thirty-four operations in total, and that was on 630 Squadron at East Kirkby in Lincolnshire. There was another squadron there, 57 Squadron was out sister squadron. Erm, we took, I suppose, about five to six months to complete that tour of operations and then we were rested and went to, I went to the Lancaster finishing school at Syerston as an instructor. I served at Syerston and flew many operations training people and then my pilot and I, the late flight lieutenant John Chatterton DFC we returned to 630 Squadron again as squadron engineers. Squadron instructors [emphasis] rather. And the war ended in Europe. We were all destined to go to Japan, or fight the Japanese, but the bombing of Hiroshima settled all of that and our squadron was disbanded [emphasis] and then John and I were transferred to 57 again as squadron instructors, and we took the place of Mike Beetham and Ernest Scott who was his flight engineer. Incidentally, Mike Beetham became Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir Michael Beetham and he died two years ago. But then we moved from East Kirkby to Mildenhall in Suffolk where we joined John’s old squadron, 44 Squadron, and from there we flew operations out to Italy bringing back prisoners of war, so that was, that was it.
CJ: So when did you actually leave the RAF?
DP: Er, I left the RAF in around about March 1946 and then I was told to go to the Adjutant and said ‘go home and if you can get a job I will secure your release under Class B.’ I didn’t know much about what Class B was but I was looking forward to going home and getting married, but under Class B I was restricted to farm work until 1953/54, which wasn’t a very good move [laughs].
CJ: And looking back on your operational missions, were there any that you remember for the right or wrong reasons, when you, you thought you’d done a particularly good job or you had any close shaves?
DP: Well there was one close shave I had, and I think this piece of the aeroplane peller, propeller – [paper shuffling] I’ll show you – it might be of interest. It was at Revigny and it was on the 18th or 19th of July I think. I’m not sure I’ll have to check about that. Anyway, that night we went to Revigny and it had been bombed [emphasis] four times previously and I think [emphasis] we all thought it was an easy run for we went in, there was very little flak, we dropped our bombs and then there was just setting course for home when all hell let loose. Er, the mid upper gunner screamed out that the plane was alight [emphasis]. There was holes that appeared all over the place and I rushed back to see if I could be of assistance but he was enveloped, or rather that part of the aircraft was enveloped in fire, sizzed my eyebrows a bit and I reported to Alec, our pilot, that she was well [emphasis] alight. He then gave us instructions to bale out, and by the time I got back the navigator and bomb aimer had taken the escape hatch out of the bomb aimers compartment and we had a routine of getting out. I went, was going to be first, the bomb aimer, navigator, pilot, wireless operator would follow, the other two if they were lucky would get out the back, the two gunners. I, I’d dropped through the hatch as I thought, but the aircraft was in a spin and I was promptly, promptly dumped back [emphasis] in it again [laughs]. And there was no escape, all three of us were penned in that small area. I obviously was not on the intercom but the navigator or bomb aimer was still in contact, and Alec said ‘get him back up here to help me pull her, see if we can save her.’ I got up those two steps with their assistance – it was like climbing a mountain [CJ laughs]. So I got hold of the control column with Alec and we tugged and tugged [emphasis], and eventually she came up, but I remember seeing the top of Alec’s head, because I was laying on top of the canopy looking down onto him, or up at him, whichever the case may have been, and the next moment I was on the floor by his side. Alec got the aircraft under control, but he said afterwards that he looked at the speedometer and we must have touched four-hundred miles an hour in that dive, and it was pretty horrendous [emphasis]. Anyway, we got back, how we got back we never knew, but we got back and we were only ten minutes behind time, so it was – we were very [emphasis] lucky. But as we got out of the aircraft at East Kirkby I picked up a bit of the propeller which had hit my right leg and that’s it there. I’ve kept it ever since. I must say, as we got out the aircraft there was really no need to go to the rear door, we could have all walked out the side of it. It was just shattered [emphasis]. No tail planes, very little of the fuselage and yet we all [emphasis] got out of there, we were all [emphasis] extremely quiet, and there was not much laughter. But we went on operations the following night. But the aircraft I thought at the time was a write-off, but afterwards I found out that it had been patched [emphasis] up and it got lost I think on Stuttgart a few months later. But that was quite a hairy situation.
CJ: So the piece of propeller that you showed me – that was from your own aircraft?
DP: Yes, it came from starboard inner propeller. I feathered the engine, I had to stop the engine afterwards but we came back on three and, the Lancaster being the brilliant aircraft that it was came back no trouble whatsoever. So that was it.
CJ: Wow. And did you have any other missions that were memorable for good –
DP: Well –
CJ: Or not so good reasons?
DP: Well, at St Nazaire, the submarine pens at St Nazaire springs to mind. The Pathfinders had gone in and marked the target. It was brilliant [emphasis]. The sky – I was able to write [emphasis] my log and my engineer’s log without any assistance, just from the reflection of the, of the searchlights, it was enough, and as we were going in, we could see that they’d – that Alec our pilot said, ‘there’ll be fighters, so when we get straight and level over the target that will be the danger point.’ He instructed me to get in the front turret, so I stood in the front turret with Walter, the bomb aimer with his head between my feet, sighting up the target, and Alec gave the two gunners and myself instructions – ‘do not [emphasis] shoot unless you know that they’re coming for us.’ I think that was good, but all of a sudden I saw a dot [emphasis] in, on the horizon, and it quickly got – as it got closer I could see that it was a Focke-Wulf 190, and it was coming straight [emphasis] at us, point blank. And at the last moment it veered off over our port wing. It was so close that with the lights from the searchlights, I could see the shape of the pilot and also the oil streaks under its belly showed up. And I never want to see a Focke-Wulf or any other aeroplane quite that close again. It was a narrow, narrow day. And just recently, I’ve read in the “Daily Telegraph” obituary column of a German colonel, a friend of Hermann Goering, who ran the Wild Boar Squadron, so called, and he gave instructions to his men that if they ran out of ammunition and they couldn’t bring them down, just ram [emphasis] them. All I can say, I think that man was very kind. He either lost his nerve and we lived another day, so that was it. But that was very, very hairy that one. But apart from that we had the usual. Sometimes it was not easy, but we always [emphasis] lived to see another day, yes. But there we are. I think we were very, very lucky and out of thirty-four operations, there was no-one [emphasis] suffered at all. We weren’t hit, so God was with us [laughs] and, you know, it was marvellous. I would like to add this, that when we used to go to, down to take off from East Kirkby, each night or sometimes in the day, we would stand at the end of the runway ready for the green light and I would open up the engines, taking over from Alec, to give it full power and when I’d got full power on I’d always say, or murmur to myself a silent prayer. And that was to, to ask God to look after my parents and Jean my girlfriend and above all, would he let me see the sun rise in the east in the morning. And I used to say that every day, and I must say that it was good because my parents lived to a ripe old age and Jean, and I, are now almost ninety-two years of age. So, thank you God [both laugh].
CJ: Hmm. And did you go on to marry Jean later?
DP: Er, no. I married Alice Ida, partner and, in 1946, and we had eleven years of marriage and then, one Christmas she was, she went to hospital and she was diagnosed with leukaemia and they told me she’d got eleven, no, eight months to live, and she did indeed die on 8th of August 1958. So that was indeed hard, and er, it was hard in many ways because I lived in a very nice council house, an agriculture council house, but she died on the Saturday and on the Monday the rent collector informed me that, having no children, I would be required to vacate the house in a fortnight. So, I lost my wife [emphasis], my house and my job all in that fortnight, which wasn’t good.
CJ: And what did you go on to do after that? Did you carry on farming?
DP: Well I, I stopped on the farm, and I started keeping a few sheep and pigs myself, and I did that for a little while but I, I became ill and I was told to go on sea cruise and I did something that I never thought I’d do. I signed on the P&O liner Himalaya, and she was about to do a world cruise. And so I went away for six months, and in that time I saw Australia, New Zealand, the States, Canada, er Japan, New Zealand, and we did forty-four thousand miles, and I came back and Peggy, Patricia Penfold, who I’d known for many years, and although she was twelve years older than me she, we were in love and we married on that, when I came back. And we had forty-one [emphasis] years of lovely marriage. She died Christmas 2000, and that was it.
CJ: And you said that you were lucky that you and your crew survived the war. Were you able to keep in touch with them and attend reunions?
DP: Well yes [emphasis], I was able to keep in touch with my last pilot John Chatterton, he was a farmer in Lincolnshire, and also my pilot Alec Swain, he was a big industrialist in Manchester, and we kept in contact right up until Alec died [emphasis] and I was able to meet also the bomb aimer and the wireless operator, and Walter is still alive now and he lives in Kettering, and he’s indeed full, full, no he’s one year older than me, so he’s ninety-three. But it’s, so he’s the only one left now, yes.
CJ: And how, how did you feel that Bomber Command were treated after the war?
DP: Well I, I think it was a bit rough. We got criticised and I think it was quite unnecessary because at that [emphasis] time I think we were the only – it was the only defence we’d got was the Air Force flying, but we got shouted at and abused for Dresden and all that sort of thing. But I always thought that, you know, the Germans were bombing Coventry and the docks of London and all [emphasis] these other places, and I thought it was a bit unjustified. But yes, I suppose we didn’t get a medal, a campaign medal, but I’ve never been, I’ve never been, never been very interested in medals anyway so it doesn’t make much difference to me. I met, I never had any brothers or sisters, but being in an RAF aircrew, in a Lancaster, member of a Lancaster crew I had six wonderful brothers, and that [emphasis] to me was worth every, every operation I did. They were lovely men, marvellous people.
CJ: And have you been inside a Lancaster since you left the RAF?
DP: Yes [emphasis]. I was lucky enough to – when I was seventy years of age, John Chatterton my pilot had a son, Mike Chatterton, and he was flying the Lancaster at Coningsby and they were doing a flight from Coningsby to Wittering and he said that I could join them, and so we, we all assembled at Coningsby, John Chatterton, Dennis Ringham our gunner, Bill Draycott the bomb aimer and myself [emphasis], and we all took off with an escort of two fighters for Wittering [emphasis]. But the big surprise that Mike spread, sprung on us was that at briefing he said to the two pilots of the fighters, ‘when we leave Wittering, I will be handing over the controls to Doug Packman, and so give him a bit of airspace please.’ I was dumbfounded [emphasis], I thought he must have been speaking of somebody else but no, it was me, and it was [emphasis], I was so [emphasis] – I was over [emphasis] the moon. Anyway, true to his word, when we left Wittering, he allowed me to take over controls because it was dual control in that Lancaster, and I must have had a smile like the cat’s got the cream [emphasis], [CJ laughs], ‘cause as we flew on I thought of all the operations, I thought of my other crews and the boys, and I was really [emphasis] very happy, and after a few minutes Mike took over to do a beautiful landing back at East Kirkby. And a few years, a couple or three years later he allowed me to start up at the J-Jane at, which is at East Kirkby, it belongs to the Panton brothers, and I was able to start that up and, without any instructions, so indeed, I had my lessons learnt during the RAF had not left me, and that was it. So I’ve been very happy.
CJ: Well thank you very much for talking to us today Doug, that was excellent –
DP: Well it’s –
CJ: Thank you very much indeed.
DP: Okay Chris, thank you [emphasis] very much.
[Tape paused and restarted.]
CJ: Doug, could you just explain please how you came to have this bit of propeller with you?
DP: Yes. The, as the, this explosion, this terrific [emphasis] explosion came, I found out later it was from the Schrage Musik from possibly a JU88 had fired straight up, and they used to aim at the mid-section, which was the petrol tanks, and in this case what they did explode was the ammunition drums, and everything. That’s what caused the, the fire. But the propeller I – the starboard engine which I had to feather because it was running rough, had made a hole the size I would imagine from memory, much [emphasis] larger than that, it was about, ooh it was about a six inch square hole, this small piece had made, and it had been – it hit my leg as it came in but my well cushioned flying boot and thick socks, it didn’t hurt me at all I just felt [emphasis] it, and there it was, laying beside this hole. And looking at it, one can tell that it is [emphasis] propeller, or bits of a propeller because there was holes literally everywhere [emphasis]. Not large holes, the one, this one I’ve described was probably the biggest, but that’s it. And I’ve shown it to many people and they all say, you know, that’s it, the starboard propeller.
CJ: And the JU88 that attacked you, that was, that had special armament?
DP: Yes, they had upward facing guns which they could – that was one of the weak parts of a Lancaster, they didn’t have a downward firing gun or no way of observing, and they could come up underneath [emphasis] you, slightly come up underneath you, and then the pilot of the JU88, he could focus his guns right underneath you and it’s well known and documented that they used to aim for the mid-section, i.e. to get the fuel tanks really and, of course, the ammunition. And this is just what it did, but very [emphasis] lucky for us, it was just the ammunition drums that exploded and I suppose the incendiary bullets on that would have caused, you know, caused all this fire. And in fact, in that area it was just devastated [emphasis]. We didn’t stop to look at it, we just wanted to get out of it when we landed. But it was just naked framework if you understand.
CJ: Okay, thank you for clarifying that Doug.
DP: Yes.
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 Doug Packman
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Johnson
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-30
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APackmanDE161130
Conforms To
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:38:48 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
France
France--Revigny-sur-Ornain
France--Saint-Nazaire
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
1946-03
Contributor
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Chris Johnson
Sally Coulter
Description
An account of the resource
Doug grew up in Kent. He joined the Royal Air Force at 18, as a flight engineer for 630 Squadron at RAF East Kirkby in 5 Group Bomber Command, flying Lancasters. He carried out 34 operations, followed by time as an instructor at RAF Syerston, returning to 630 Squadron. He describes two hairy situations over France with their ammunition tanks being hit by an upward-firing Schräge Musik from a Ju-88 over Revigny, and a very close encounter with a Fw 190 at Saint-Nazaire. They survived both situations. A move to 44 Squadron followed and he flew operations to Italy, bringing back prisoners of war. He left the RAF in March 1946. Doug describes his love of the night sky.
44 Squadron
57 Squadron
630 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
civil defence
faith
flight engineer
Fw 190
Home Guard
Ju 88
Lancaster
memorial
Operation Dodge (1945)
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Syerston
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/549/8811/AKirkDJB150610.2.mp3
b456a190eebd5766875b7ddfcfe95964
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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Kirk, Dennis
Dennis John Bonser Kirk
D J B Kirk
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Kirk, DJB
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Dennis Kirk. He served in a reserved occupation but also in the Home Guard and as an air raid warden. On 5 March 1943, Lancaster ED549 crashed attempting to land at RAF Langar. Denis Kirk was first on the scene and helped the only survivor.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-15
2015-06-10
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command centre, the interviewer is Clare Bennett, the interviewee is Mr Dennis Kirk. The interview is taking place at Mr Kirk’s home at Plungar, Nottinghamshire, on the tenth of June twenty fifteen. Right Dennis, so whereabouts were you born?
DK: I was born at Barkestone, in the next village, and my brother and my sister, and my father and my mother lived at Harby Farm, Barkestone
CB: What date was that?
DK: That was er, we lived there ‘till nineteen twenty-nine, then we moved to [unclear] Plungar in nineteen twenty-nine.
CB: So, you were born, in?
DK: April the twenty fifth nineteen twenty [laughs].
CB: And, do you remember much of your early life?
DK: Well, I, I had a good life, you know, in, in the village. Everybody played games and that, and the school was at Barkestone you see, but then, when we moved to Plungar in nineteen twenty-nine, we had to walk to Barkestone school every day then, in the morning and then back in the afternoon [laughs]. I played all sorts of games, but er, it was a nice little school it was, yeh.
CB: Was your family in farming then?
DK: Yep, yeh, well the family started farming in about seventeen ninety [laughs] but, I didn’t want to be a farmer, I wanted to be a wheelwright or a butcher, but you did what your parents told you in those days [laughs], you didn’t tell them what you wanted to do [laughs].
CB: They told you, so what did you do after school, you know, after you left school?
DK: Well, I helped the butcher for, at weekends, used to help him deliver two or three, when I left school, and then ‘cos I worked on the farm from then on, yes.
CB: And, war was started, so you’d be about er, twenty, something like that?
DK: I was twenty-one when the plane crashed, yes
CB: Right, and you were in the Home Guard?
DK: Home guard and fire watch, yes.
CB: So, was it because you were in a reserved occupation, that you were into farming?
DK: Yeh, at the time, you could have been called up, but you never, you had the medical but you weren’t called up, you see, but one or two round here were kept because the short of, short of, labour round here at the time, yes.
CB: Did you want to join the forces?
DK: I would have liked to join the forces, yeh, but didn’t have the chance, no [laughs].
CB: So, you did your Home Guard duties?
DK: Yeh, yeh.
CB: And, so, what did that -?
DK: Well, we used to have a, have a, on a Wednesday night, in the, used to do some training there, then every Sunday morning, we either did some training or in this [unclear] hill, had er, had places to jump into pits, and things to climb across [laughs], whether it made any good, I don’t know [laughs]. And then at times they would take us into, up to Eaton, where there was a lot of disused mines, where we used to use a Lewis gun or a Sten gun, but it was interesting a lot of it, but, you mean, you thought you were doing a bit of good for the country, but it was, when we were on the bridge, we never saw a soul at all, we’d just got the guns and rifle there [laughs].
CB: Of course, I’ve got to mention Dads Army, haven’t I, you’ve watched that. Does that bear any resemblance to what you did?
DK: No, [emphasis] no [laughter] But, anyway, we enjoyed the, you had a night out, once, I say, different people, each week, I mean, old people and the young ones as well. This chappie was with me, he weren’t a young chap when playing cards, he were good company [laughs].
CB: So, the, the night that we’re interested in, it was obviously just an ordinary night for you that night?
DK: yeh, well, we’d just walked up the village, we always checked in the village for lights and things, if any lights on.
CB: And this is March the fifth nineteen forty-three?
DK: Nineteen forty-three, yeh.
CB: Yes.
DK: We was just walking down back to the Home Guard hut there, and we heard this plane making a weird sort of a noise. Funny, I can’t describe the noise it made and it just went dead, and the plane just went down there and of course, we expected to find it on the rail track, but when we got down there, there was only a survivor on the rail track.
CB: Did it, was there a loud crash or?
DK: Well, it must have woken all the people up there you see, but it just went straight down.
CB: Right.
DK: And, we got the laddie off the railway line and took him there, and just, then me friend and I were walking down to see the plane and we saw these three men thrown out in a matter of space as this, they must have come out the front of the plane, and then the rear, he was in the turret upside down, but there was two more dead in the plane.
CB: So, you are right up close now?
DK: Say?
CB: You were right up close to this Lancaster?
DK: Oh yes, yes, we walked all round it, you see, yeh.
CB: You didn’t think it was going to explode or anything like that?
DK: No, no, I said, ‘any bombs?’, they said, ‘no, no’, so I think they must have run out of fuel or something.
CB: Who did you ask?
DK: Well, no one said that, but someone said, perhaps a shortage of fuel, in one of the letters, I think it said from -
CB: But, at the time, but at the time, you went up to it, you didn’t know whether it, bombs or anything else?
DK: No, within, within, quarter of an hour, the whole lot of serving aircrew, airmen from Lanc, came running to the plane, you see.
CB: I see.
DK: But then we walked away and left, left it to them because it weren’t our responsibility, you see, no.
CB: So, you could see the bodies, in and around it?
DK: Yeh, yeh, yeh.
CB: And, also, one of the, the crew had been thrown out, you say and landed on the -?
DK: On the railway line, yeh.
CB: And, did you go up to him?
DK: We, we, got him off the rail track and took him to the houses, yeh.
CB: So, did you think he was dead or could you see that he was alive?
DK: He was walking on the railway.
CB: Oh, right.
DK: No, no, we couldn’t see his face, but I think he had a head injury, but what, but what they said didn’t they, Joan?
JK: Someone said he had severe head injuries, but he was, he was, compos mentis, because you said to him, ‘are there any bombs on the plane?’, and he said, ‘no, we, we disposed’, you know, ‘we got rid of them all’.
DK: He was only eighteen, but he, he walked pretty well on the rail track, I mean got him off the rail track and took him to the farmhouse there, so, what happened to them, I said everything was lost until nineteen, until sixty-three years afterwards, when they found this, this chappie found a bit of metal.
CB: Oh, can you tell me about that, who was that, was it er, somebody with a metal detector?
DK: The man in the, who was a metal detector and he, what he said was, he found this bit of metal, that’s in Waltham, Waltham museum, all the details there, and er, he kept it for two years [laughs] in his shed, didn’t know what it was. And another gentleman on this village said, ‘ask Dennis, ‘cos he saw a plane crash there’, but erm, it was very interesting to, no one seemed to know what part of the plane it was, where from the plane it had come off, but, in the end I think someone did sort it out, where, where it, which part of the plane it was.
CB: So, you saw them, you saw the crash and the survivor?
DK: Yeh.
CB: And then they came running from RAF Langar?
DK: Yeh.
CB: To pick up the -
DK: Yeh, ‘cos it was in, if it had gone another half mile, he would have landed, but he wasn’t going the right way, he was going, if you like, would you like to see the memorial or not? [laughs].
CB: Yes, we can have a look later.
DK: He was going, how to explain, he was going straight, he would have gone to Bingham, instead of, at the rate he was going, yeh.
CB: Right, did you think he sort of lost his bearings as to where he was going, or -?
DK: Well, I think, I feel for sure, he’d run out of, he couldn’t go no further, no.
CB: Right.
DK: But, but, he, they say that then or some years or so, will never really know what happened to, until this chappie found this metal, then after that Tim Chamberlin found where three of the crew were buried at Long Bennington, but - [laughs].
CB: So, it had, he’d done a forced landing, hasn’t, hadn’t he?
DK: Yeh, er, yeh.
CB: So, er, with, as you say with little fuel.
DK: Well, if he had gone on that way, he’d have landed on the airfield, he was going, not in the right direction for the airfield, but you see below here is an old airfield from the first World War [laughs], but whether he’d got that on his map I don’t know [laughs].
CB: When did they come and take the rest of the plane away?
DK: I say, we had to work again, it was cleared, it was cleared up the same day, yeh.
CB: Oh.
DK: On one of these long, what do they call them, they used to collect them at [unclear], you see, but this plane weren’t smashed up a lot, no.
CB: No.
DK: No, but it, they say, I’ve read in books about it, flying, the pilot, there was not a spark at all.
CB: No, well no bombs and no fuel, so -
DK: No, no, no, there couldn’t have been any fuel, ‘cos I’m sure it would have caught fire.
CB: So, the, the gentleman with the metal detector has found this, and then research starts on it, on this, on this crash I take it?
DK: Pardon?
CB: Did research start then on to what had happened?
DK: Yeh, it was Chamberlin, Tim Chamberlin, who started it all up, you see, then of course, the village got involved, and then that’s when we did a collection and well. Tim got the, Tim got the whole service involved himself, didn’t he, Joan.
JK: Yes, he found the erm, Padre that retired.
DK: Air Force Padre, yeh.
JK: Air Force Padre to take the service and erm -
DK: No.
CB: Yes, the Venerable Air Vice Marshal, Robin Turner.
JK: He organised the service, for the Lancaster and Spitfire to have a flypast after the service.
CB: Who did the research to find the families of the crew?
JK: Well, we all kind of did a bit. Tim did the Canadians because he had a brother in Canada, erm, I don’t know how we found the Barbadian, erm, I think it was David Webb that found -
DK: He found the Barbadians on the wotsit.
JK: Yes, he found the Barbadian, I think, on the, by doing some research on the internet, and erm, then various people, we found out where they were all, the English people were all buried, and did research into the different areas where they were buried, but of course, why we couldn’t find out, how we couldn’t find out er, about them from that. We put adverts in newspapers and you know, in the local area but er, then you see we found the others, quite a few of them had moved, because the, well, found out that the ones from Tyneside had moved down to Daventry, and the Portsmouth ones had moved to Southampton, so we couldn’t, never occurred to us to find out in the Southampton area or the Daventry area. We did all the research in the local area where they were buried.
CB: So, you had, erm, a dedication of the memorial?
DK: Yeh, yeh.
CB: Erm, to the crew of Lancaster ED 549 of a 100 Squadron, on the twenty second of September twenty twelve.
DK: Yeh.
CB: And, erm, [pause] as you say, the Venerable Air Vice Marshal Robin Turner.
JK: That’s right.
CB: Led the, and did erm, did the survivors?
DK: There’s that, what we found at the start, you can have it [unclear], that’s all we found to start off with, you can have that book as well.
CB: Thank you. So, the survivor, erm, Sergeant Davies, erm, he was, his family, erm, he’d died by this time hadn’t he, died in his fifties?
DK: Oh yes.
JK: Died in his fifties.
CB: So, who, who was, did his, some of his family manage to come to the service?
DK: No, no.
JK: No, because we couldn’t find, we found about them after, oh I think it was in the November, after the service, and it was because he was doing, he was asked to do some, his father was asked to do some, no, his son was asked to do some research when he was living in Cyprus, erm [pause] on Bomber, erm, bomb gunnery instruction and it was through that, that he found out, about the erm, the crash here and er contacted us. And he rang up and just said, ‘I’m the survivor, er, I’m the son of the survivor of the aircraft’, [laughs] so, we were all a bit gobsmacked [laughs].
CB: So, you managed to find -
JK: Because the Air Force didn’t know, couldn’t tell us whether he had actually survived or not.
CB: Oh, so you managed to find the family of the Canadian and er -
JK: Yes, yes.
DK: Yes, we found the Canadian.
CB: And the family from Barbados, but not the, not the English survivor.
JK: That’s what we couldn’t understand. I mean, the one that we found out about after was the Hallet family, er, and Emily Hallet rang us from Southampton, but we got the names of the brothers of the, the man that was killed and we found out where they, where they lived, erm, and I say, one lived in Nottingham, and I searched through all the Nottingham telephone directory and rang every Hallet in the Nottingham telephone directory. One was in Northampton, and I forget where the other one was, there were three brothers and er, but no success at all.
DK: That’s, that’s where the plane crashed though, if you like, we can take you down and see where it is [unclear], it’s quite, it’s a rough road, if you like see where the memorial is, would you like to see it, the memorial?
CB: Yes, we can do that later.
DK: The people, the people, Gills of Newark did the memorial, because they did it for a reasonable price you see, but people all in this village contributed to the cost of that, there’s still a bit left in the kitty, to keep it, and our neighbour he did, did something else with it, where the memorial is, yeh. But Tim, now, the Chairman, is now, is redoing it, a book now about the whole families, at the time he’d only got the Barbados and the Canadian, but he’s doing a new book.
JK: Updating the book.
DK: Updating it, yeh, it’s very interesting [unclear] volunteer, yeh, while you’re talking to me.
JK: He’s an American.
CB: Well, you live quite close to RAF Langar, so, and other, and other airfields round here, so you must have seen other crashes and -?
JK: Well, yes, I said, I saw the one which crashed in Belvoir Woods, that plane flew from Syerston, a trainer plane, that killed them all, then, then, there’s one crash near Belvoir, that was all, just one survivor there, then the one crashed in [unclear] Branston there, and there was, no survivors there, then, then at Barnstone, that little village opposite Langar there, there was one crash in Langar there, no survivors and er -
CB: Did you ever get used to all these crashes then?
DK: Well, you see [laughs], you see the Lancs were flying over regular and you just took it for granted that they’d crash you see, then the one which blew up on the airfield, there was some ones not taking the ones not, the ones not, taking a certain, I don’t know, [unclear] it blew up you see, yeh, but er, no but is was er, you’d see them taking off on the way from Langar there, yeh.
CB: So, you carried, carried on your Home Guard duties until the end of the war?
DK: Yeh, yeh [laughs].
CB: And then you went back to farming, I believe?
DK: Farming, we were farming at the time as well, you see, farming in the daytime, yeh [unclear] [laughs].
CB: Did you find wreckage as you were farming round here or -?
DK: No, no, [unclear] you see, but er, let’s see, in, in [unclear] where was it? They came to bomb, bomb Derby one night during the war, but they diverted to Nottingham and did a lot of damage in Nottingham, then they dropped all the bombs round here.
CB: Right.
DK: And they dug two, time bombs off the farm and we had fifteen craters filled in [laughs], but no one was injured, no one, no one was killed, right from Cropwell Bishop to Plungar, they just scattered the bombs, [laughs] [telephone ringing] but we were lucky really, yeh. But they say you [unclear] the war, but you met a lot of lovely people, and these people who came to the dedication, you couldn’t wish for nicer families. To me, because they had a house at Normanton near the Bottesford airfield and they were very impressed with that, after we had done this function that day. My wife did that in the morning, about thirty from abroad you see, then we had the church service, and so many went back to the village hall, was a meal for everyone, the rest came here [laughs] and er, had a lovely, er, I know it was war, but it was really nice, meeting up with them. And so, then Tim found out, Tim the Chairman, found out about the museum at Waltham, so we visited that then.
CB: Do you think that the people of Plungar, erm, sort of came together?
DK: Yeh, yeh.
CB: With this memorial and finding out, and the ceremony?
DK: Mr David Webb who lived at [unclear], he did a lot towards it and then, I said, he guaranteed to find out as much as he could, and Chamberlin got, but at Bennington, there’s an old chappie still alive, he cares for those graves, for I don’t know how many years until he wasn’t capable of doing it, so someone else has taken over since then, but er, [laughs].
CB: So, it’s been er, it’s been sort of, positive effect?
DK: Yeh.
CB: On the, on the village this, to have this memorial and this event?
DK: Yeh, people who have never set foot in church [laughs], I say, my son was going to play the organ but he got this [unclear], my cousin he played for the service but [unclear], he played for the service, and we had the Reverend [unclear], he took part in the service, and I rang the bell [laughs]. And my wife, she, she put, you know, people into which places they wanted to be and we had the boy there, because as they lined the footpath [laughs] so, it was really nice, I won’t forget it you see, no.
CB: When the erm, crash happened did any official come and interview you or anything like that?
DK: No, no, they sent nothing, never heard a thing from them. I know a chap who went down to have a look at it and they told him to get out, so we left it. When the plane went down, we walked round, and when this drove of crew came from Langar airfield to check on it, we moved away and maybe just forgot [laughs].
CB: So, they picked up the remains of the crew, and also, the survivor and then, took them away?
DK: So, where, where they took the dead people too, you know, I don’t know where they took them, where they took those too, but we, as I say, and this chap we moved away and left it with them. It was their job, yeh, but I’d never seen a dead, a dead man before you see, but they were just in an awful state, so they must have gone out the front of the plane, I don’t know, yeh.
CB: With the force of it, had thrown them out I suppose?
DK: Yeh.
CB: Well, Dennis, that’s -
DK: If there’s anything else to show you while I’m at it then, [background noise] but they were very good to me, weren’t they?
CB: Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Dennis Kirk. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Clare Bennett
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-10
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AKirkDJB150610
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Civilian
Format
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00:22:34 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Dennis Kirk was born in 1920, to farming parents, in the village of Barkestone in Nottinghamshire. He says that he didn’t want to be a farmer but when he left school he had to work on the farm. When the war started he wanted to join up but because farming was a reserved occupation, he couldn’t, so he joined the Home Guard instead. He relates how, on 5 March 1943, whilst on patrol at night, he witnessed the crash of Lancaster ED549, in which six of the seven crew were killed. He tells how he helped the injured survivor to a nearby house before personnel arrived from nearby RAF Langar. He describes how, 63 years later, the discovery, by metal detector, of a part from the aircraft stirred up memories of the crash and prompted research into the event. He tells of how the whole village joined in, collecting for a memorial and trying to locate the relatives of the crew. A memorial ceremony was arranged, presided over by a retired RAF chaplain and a Spitfire flypast. A memorial stone, paid for by the village, and an information board were unveiled at the crash site.
Dennis also goes on to describe two other wartime crashes in the area.
Temporal Coverage
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1943-03-05
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Barkestone
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
civil defence
crash
final resting place
Home Guard
Lancaster
memorial
RAF Langar
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/549/8812/AKirkDJB151130.1.mp3
c049e4214c8ef271b87110e8d887eb23
Dublin Core
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Title
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Kirk, Dennis
Dennis John Bonser Kirk
D J B Kirk
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Kirk, DJB
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Dennis Kirk. He served in a reserved occupation but also in the Home Guard and as an air raid warden. On 5 March 1943, Lancaster ED549 crashed attempting to land at RAF Langar. Denis Kirk was first on the scene and helped the only survivor.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2015-11-15
2015-06-10
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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: So this is an interview with Dennis Kirk for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive. My name is Dan Ellin, we are in Plungar and it is the 30th of November 2015, and also in the room are –
ET: Ernest Twells from Barkestone-le-Vale who’s a friend of Dennis Kirk.
DE: Thank you.
AT: Anne Twells, also from Barkston.
JK: Joan Kirk, Dennis’s wife.
DE: Thank you very much. Dennis could you tell me a little bit about your early life and where you grew up?
DK: I was born at Barkston in 1920, 25th of April and went to Barkston school ‘til I was, ‘til, ‘til I left and came to Plungar in twenty – we came to live in Plungar in twenty nine. But in those it was a lovely village and everybody joined in and you played your games and you know, really, really nice living there. And a few very nice school teachers at the time, a Mrs Gulliver, a Miss Whittaker and a Miss Thorpe, they were the teachers in those days. Then we came to Plungar, but you see, then when we got to Plungar we had to walk everyday from Plungar to Barkston school to get there eight o’clock in the morning [laughs] and sometimes we came home for dinner and sometimes we stayed there full, full time. And then, then where we came, when I became eleven, you were moved to Battersby school. I was at Battersby school ‘til, ‘til I was fourteen, then left school and stayed to work on the farm.
DE: Mhm.
DK: Which I didn’t, I didn’t want to be farmer [laughs] I wanted to be a joiner [emphasis] or, or a joiner or a blacksmith you see –
JK: What?
DK: In those days your parents said what you were going to do –
DE: Mhm.
DK: Not like [laughs] it is today. So I had a good life, and of course I stayed, stayed on the farm and, and helped for a long time, and then when the war came we, it became very busy, and – so when they want someone to join the Home Guard, or join the Home Guard or the fire watch and this night in nineteen forty, forty –
JK: Three [emphasis].
DK: Forty –
JK: Three.
DK: Forty-three was it? Yep in 1943, we just been round the village to check if there was any lights on, Tom Moles and myself, and on our way back we heard this aircraft coming, and suddenly it went dead and we thought it had crashed on the railway line below the village. So we went down to see what had happened and getting onto the rail track we bumped into this young man, and I said to him ‘are there any bombs on the plane?’ He said ‘no we’ve dropped all the bombs.’ And then we got him off the railway line, which is next to the canal, and we took him to Grange farm where Mr and Mrs Bell lived, and they’d been in the seventies and he took care of him. I don’t know how long for but we went down to see where the plane had crashed. We found it – wasn’t on the railway line it was just below [emphasis] the railway line, and never seen anything like it before. And there was three, three thrown out at the front, there was a Barbados man in the centre and there was another two each side, and then we walked to the rear end and the rear gunner, he was dead inside the, in his turret, but we never saw the other couple. So we started moving away then then the fire engine came, but it, they had a look and said [unclear] ‘cause nothing they could do, and without, the ground [unclear] aircrew, well ground staff from Langar Airfield, it was only about half a mile away.
DE: Mhm.
DK: So, so we left it and went back to our Home Guard hut ‘til – now you see, when you did Home Guard in the winter time, you signed on at seven ‘til half past five in the morning, but in the summer time you weren’t on ‘til ten to half past five [laughs] in the morning, and we finished half an hour – but that was it, nothing more was heard of it and then it would be about, what was it, sixty years ago –
JK: Sixty years ago.
DK: Did you say? Pardon?
JK: Mm. Pardon?
DK: Sixty years after when he found it –
JK: Well yes, yeah –
DK: Bolton [emphasis].
JK: It would be, hmm.
DK: And they said that John Bolton found this part, kept it in his garden shed, and then someone said ‘see Dennis’ and he said ‘what would it be’ and we found it was a piece of metal from a bomber [emphasis]. Then I contacted Jim Chamberlain who had associations with Bomber Command and he sorted that booklet out [emphasis].
DE: Mhm.
DK: But other than that I – it was a shock to see three people lying dead there you see, something you’d never seen before [laughs].
ET: Didn’t you say though they looked as though they were asleep Dennis?
DK: Pardon?
ET: You said they looked as though they were asleep.
DK: They were lying there -
ET: When?
DK: They were lying just like this here, so much apart, I can see, can see, see ‘em to this day, I can see the Barbados man in the centre now but –
DK: Yeah. But, you see but all, from then on, every book which was produced said the plane burned out.
DE: Mhm.
DK: But there wasn’t a spark at all. You could just hear the engines flip, cooling off there, but that was it so. But then my wife contacted Alan [?] didn’t he, and she said they were diverted to Scampton [emphasis] where it wasn’t safe to land, then they sent them to Normanton, Bottesford, but they came round here -
DE: Mhm.
DK: Some years ago –
JK: It was misty at the time –
DE: I see.
JK: And that’s why they were diverted.
DE: Hmm.
JK: [Unclear] aircraft, airfield.
DK: And some years ago I bumped into a chappy from Harby who’s father’s on the, their look out post you see, and they saw this plane go down he said he did two circles then went down but he wasn’t in the right direction to for Langar Airfield. But it, well [unclear] it could have been on Langar Airfield, but he was going straight down instead of to airfield that was the sad [emphasis] part about it, yeah.
DE: I see so it was, so they were close but –
DK: Yeah.
DE: Mm.
DK: Mm.
JK: And with it not burning out [emphasis] we think that they had just run out of fuel –
DK: They’d been, burning –
JK: Because they’d been diverted to two or three airfields before they arrived here.
DK: See where the three lads are buried in Bennington – report there said ‘it had burned out’ –
DE: Mhm.
DK: But we said ‘no,’ there wasn’t a spark you see, no – it had just gone, yeah.
DE: So was it, was the aircraft all pretty much all there then?
DK: All [emphasis] there, I suppose the undercarriage would still be up would it Ernest?
ET: He might have actually put it down –
DK:‘Cause it seemed level you see.
DE: Mm.
DK: The thing was, where the railway head was, it was here, the rear to it was almost – so how [emphasis] they’d missed the rail track I do not [emphasis] know.
DE: Mm. Is the railway on an embankment there then?
DK: It’s, it’s still there –
DE: Mm.
DK: It was, it was a fair [unclear]. In my days all the hedgerows on the railway were cut, nicely trimmed so, you couldn’t of got through the hedge so I often wondered how, how he landed on the, on the, on the rail track –
DE: Mm.
DK: When he was thrown out the plane, he was a mid upper. What was he, a mid upper?
JK: Was he – I can’t remember. It’s in the book.
ET: Didn’t you also say Dennis –
DK: So if he was thrown out there, but you see the rail track would be as high as this bungalow [emphasis] so.
DE: Mm.
DK: No one seems to answer that – how he was thrown [emphasis] out.
DE: Quite, yeah.
JK: [Unclear].
DK: But the thing was, when we met, when we met his son, who came from, doctor from [unclear], he never talked about his air mates, you see.
DE: Mm.
DK: We been round the council –
JK: The thing was though –
DK: After he’d left the Grange Farm with the Bell, Bell family, he was staying at Normanton I think then they took him to Wrawkby [?] –
JK: Wrawkby –
DK: Where they took most of the crashed people –
DE: I see.
DK: That’s all I know about it [laughs].
JK: But you didn’t know at the time that he was injured because –
DK: No.
JK: He walked onto the Bell’s with you didn’t he?
DE: Mm.
JK: But the son [emphasis] said that he obviously had quite a severe head [emphasis] injury.
ET: Mm.
DK: So whether he’d been through a –
JK: But it wasn’t an obvious [emphasis] –
DE: Right.
JK: To Dennis on the railway line.
ET: The actual railway line now is disused, it’s when BT [?] came and shut them down [JK laughs] but when Dennis say at the time it was a good job it was three in the morning because it could probably have been hit by a train, you don’t know –
DE: Mm. Do you think it’s – do you think the three men were [emphasis] thrown out or do you think it’s, he, he dragged [emphasis] them out of the aircraft?
DK: No, he, he was nowhere near them you see. No, no, they must have been thrown. But they were, they were laying so neatly, one here, one there, yeah.
DE: Mm.
DK: And there’s any – I don’t suppose there’s anyone left on at Langar who remembers it because [laughs] there’s not many around like me.
DE: Mm, quite.
DK: No, no –
ET: Dan did say, if he, if he dragged them out and then he thought if he went on the railway line he’d, he’d actually end up somewhere.
DE: I, I don’t know.
ET: You don’t know do you?
DK: No it’s a, it’s a – at the time of the crash it was a grass field, but now the farmer’s planted trees now but, I could take you – when, when Tom Moles and myself walked up there, I can see the fence which we got over to get into the field and saw these, these men there.
DE and ET: Mm.
JK: But the mystery is how that man got on the railway line isn’t it?
DK: Yes that’s what, that’s what [laughs].
JK: The survivor, how he got onto it.
DE: Mm.
DK: Could he have been thrown out?
DE: Who knows? Who knows? No.
DK: No. But they certainly wouldn’t have got through the hedgerow, see in those days railway hedges were neat and tidy, and weren’t, where the bridge is, there’s no bridge now you see, and he wouldn’t have got it up, up the bridge because the bridge was over the railway as well.
DE and ET: Mm.
DK: But no it –
DE: And then what happened to the aircraft then?
DK: Well we never went back you see, we were farmers weren’t we, had to work. They must have moved it away the following day. There’s a lad in our, who’s, who rarely got, didn’t go on the computer [unclear], but he – my wife catered for it but it, and his family, put in – for thirty years, and then, then one day I was doing the garden, doing the garden, and he came up the drive, I was just inside the garden there doing it, and he said ‘you’re bloody selfish, you want all the limelight.’ I said ‘what?’ to him. In fact his [unclear] started shouting to me again, said ‘you’re bloody selfish, you want all the limelight.’ He said, he said ‘you never went anywhere near that crash.’
DE: Oh [JK laughs].
DK: So, so I mean, he’s my age, he’s been a pal all my life but it really grieved me for thinking that –
DE and TE: Mm.
DK: I’d seen enough of the [laughs]. So we haven’t had anything else to do with one another since.
DE: Oh dear.
DK: But no [laughs].
JK: Well he went down to the crash later [emphasis] didn’t he?
DK: Yeah, yeah. You see after we got the laddy off the railway line which is just down here you see, we walked down this, and across the field, and that’s when we went to see – but as soon as the RAF lot were down we thought it wasn’t our business to be – we were in Home Guard uniform but we moved away so as there no hassle you see.
DE: Oh I see, yeah.
DK: But the two must have been – but I’ve often thought to myself [laughs] I’d ought to have gone and touched one of those men to see if he was still –
DE: Mhm.
DK: But at that mo – you’re so taken aback with something like that [laughs] hmm.
DE: Mm.
DK: But no, I’m pleased they did a memorial to them and, hmm.
DE: And the memorial, there was nothing until sixty years afterward so –
DK: Pardon?
DE: There was nothing until sixty years afterwards, quite recently –
DK: No, no, no. No one ever mentioned it you see. There were planes crashing all around, no one ever mentioned it, the crash at Plungar, but –
DE: Mhm.
DK: But tell you, there’s crashes all the way around here.
DE: Can you tell me a bit about some of the other crashes then?
DK: Pardon?
DE: Can you tell me about some of the other crashes?
DK: Well. The, the first crash I came across was in, in, at the top of the Wood Hill at Barkston, what, a plane from Syerston crashed through there, and then, then later on there was another one crashed at Belvoir. And by all accounts the one at Belvoir – if this is true, all accounts – the only survivor he got a – but he could hear a clock striking at Belvoir Castle, and he crawled to Belvoir Castle [DE makes noise of disbelief]. And then the nanny there cared for him and got him into the Grantham Hospital.
DE: Mhm.
DK: But the one at Brampton [?], I mean you read that one, that’s what happened at Brampton you see, then there was one crashed in Heaton [?]. I don’t know where it was from but there’s a laddy in the village who saw the crash when it had happened and then there was one crashed at Barnston, the church is here it crashed in the field below [laughs], but the one which blew up, on the Saturday night they were taking off to bomb somewhere, and I was, I was cutting the lawn at the farm there, and all of a sudden whoosh, and smoke went out every chimney and the lot blew up. And then nothing more ‘til I read it in a book after it.
DE: Mhm.
DK: Hmm. Then that’s that one lady [unclear], you’ve read about [unclear], and that’s about it [laughs]. ‘Cause yeah, they were crashing all around [emphasis].
ET: Hmm.
DK: ‘Cause after, after, after we’d opened the war memorial that day, the corporal came from Melton didn’t he? When they came and had a cup of tea here where they, with the lady.
JK: Which was that? I don’t know – there was so many people [JK and DK laugh].
DK: And he was involved in a Wellington in Melton Mowbray at the time, but there’s perhaps more details in some of these places – sort it out really.
DE: Mm.
DK: Yeah.
DE: Mm [DK laughs]. The, the one that exploded on takeoff –
DK: Yeah.
DE: How close was that to houses?
JK: Very near.
DK: Well my first wife – and the runway was almost, you know where you come behind the point – it wasn’t far away.
DE: About fifteen hundred yards or something like that.
DK: Yeah. And she said at the time, it blew all the windows out.
DE: Mhm.
DK: And fired the petrol out of the plane, fired the hedgerow, but it didn’t do any damage, only the windows, yeah, mm.
DE: I see.
DK: Mm. But we loved to see those [unclear] you see them taking off because [laughs]. Yeah.
DE: Mm.
DK: Mm. So it’s any good to you, what I’ve told you [laughs].
DE: No [emphasis] it’s wonderful stuff, yeah.
ET: [Unclear].
DE: Erm, I wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about what it was like in the village during the war?
DK: Well [laughs] people just carried on doing their jobs and only that night when we were bombed very heavily, but, but no one was injured [emphasis] –
DE: Mhm.
DK: It just, they’d just dropped all their bombs all around [emphasis] they’d just – what did it say on that book?
JK: Oh we, we read the ‘Bletchley Park’ book, and apparently they knew this plane was coming over to bomb Derby from the information at Bletchley, and they diverted it from Derby, they were able to divert the route from Derby to Nottingham. And then they must have had another diversion to bring it back. And they bombed, they put some bombs, dropped some bombs on Nottingham, and then they – I don’t know how they did it. I mean the Bletchley Park –
DK: Just going for a wee [laughs].
JK: They were code breaking, it was quite beyond me in the book [laughs] but they, they diverted eventually from Nottingham and they just dropped the bombs over Plungar [emphasis], and one or two other villages –
DE: Mhm.
JK: On the way back. But it was interesting in the ‘Bletchley Park’ book because it said they knew [emphasis] they were coming to Derby and they shot twenty odd planes down before they reached the country – well, just off the coast, crossing the coast.
DE: I see.
JK: Have you read that book?
DE: I haven’t no.
JK: It’s worth reading.
DE: Okay, I’ll put it on my list.
JK: Yes, do [emphasis]. I was fascinated by it. I didn’t understand the computer business about it [laughs] in it, but the stories. And – this is nothing to do with Plungar but, it said that they knew [emphasis] they were going to bomb Coventry, and they didn’t know what to do, but Churchill said ‘it will have to go ahead, because if the Germans, if they know that they’ve been diverted or it’s been stopped, they’ll know we’ve cracked the Enig – er, cracked the code’ –
DE: Mm.
JK: That will put the end to the Enigma code.
DE: I see, yes. I have heard that, yes.
JK: Mm.
DE: And you were at university in Leicester at the time?
JK: Yes, yes.
DE: What was that like?
JK: Well it was just like a normal little town, they didn’t get that much bombing at all [laughs]. I mean I lived in Leeds [emphasis], but we got very little – I think we had one big raid in Leeds and that was it. I was ill at the time because I was in bed and we were watching it through the bedroom window [laughs].
DE: You didn’t feel the need to go to a shelter then?
JK: No, we didn’t realise it was so near [DE laughs]. We could see all the flashes and hear the noise but – I was in a suburb of Leeds so we didn’t get bombed in the suburb. They were the other side of the river. But it was the doctor that came in the morning to say that the south of the river had been bombed, and I think they’d had a bomb at the hospital too. Leeds General Infirmary.
DE: What did your parents say to you?
JK: Go on?
DE: What did your mum and dad say to you?
JK: I don’t think they said –
DE: No.
JK: In the war, you accepted [emphasis] things –
DE: Hmm.
JK: It was most peculiar really.
DE: Mm.
JK: I mean it was happening so many times and to so many places –
DE: Mhm.
JK: You just accepted what had happened.
DE: Ooh what’s that?
DK: Incendiary bombs.
DE: That’s what I thought it was, yeah [DK laughs].
ET: Don’t put it on the fire [JK, DK and AT laugh].
DK: Oh no, we put one on the fire, and it used to [unclear] we used to throw them on the fire. That’s gone off you see. When they dropped, you see, the striker was in there, and that was sealed off with insulation tape, and that came. And they just used to burn away [laughs].
DE: Mhm.
DK: I’ve had two or three at one time with the fins on still.
DE: Wow.
DK: But all around they kept [laughs]. Are you wanting it?
DE: Oh I don’t know.
DK: You can have it if you like [DE and DK laugh].
DE: Thank you very much. For the tape, I’ve been given a used incendiary bomb, wonderful.
DK: Have you seen one of those Ernest?
ET: Well, I’m worried about Dan having it in his boot and then we’ll see on the news later on that –
DE: Yes [all laugh].
ET: Can I take a picture?
AT: [Unclear].
ET: Do you want to hold it Dennis, with Dan?
DK: Pardon?
ET: Do you want to hold it with Dan?
DE: He wants to take a photograph.
AT [?]: It’s like a Christmas cracker [laughs].
DE: I’ll just pause the tape for a second.
[Tape paused and restarted.]
DE: Start the tape. So where did you find an incendiary bomb Dennis?
DK: In the field.
DE: Uh huh.
DK: See we had two time bombs dug out on the farm –
DE: Mhm.
DK: And [laughs] I remember the last one being dug out. It dropped down, and I was collecting the cows to milk them, and they wouldn’t let me move the cows because this bit of disturbance [laughs]. And this – during the war, the road from Plungar to Barkston was blocked, the road from Stallone to Plungar was blocked, the road from [unclear] was only open road for about a week or more, you see ‘cause there was bombs everywhere [emphasis]. Yeah, mm. Bombs had gone off [laughs] but on the Barkston Lane where you go to where Ernest lives, there was five council houses there, and that had to be brought out ‘cause there was a time bomb dropped in the field opposite where they were. They dropped a time bomb there and two in our field, yeah, mm.
DE: So did someone diffuse those or did they just wait for them to go off?
DK: No they diffused them all, yeah.
DE: Mm.
DK: They don’t [unclear] long time, yeah. Mm. They brought the soldier down from Yorkshire light infantry, they lived in the old school room while they guarded the road ways.
DE: Mhm.
DK: And, at night my mother used to take these soldiers on guard, either some sandwiches or something, to eat.
DE: I see.
DK: We were grateful for what they did, yeah. Mm.
DE: You were, you were saying earlier that you weren’t really short of food here.
DK: Oh no, no. We’d have been better off as we are today if we’d had the same amount of rations [DK and DE laugh]. [Unclear] no, everybody was helpful [emphasis], you see, helped one another same with the probably [unclear] in the garden, everybody shared things. There was never any –
JK: Mm.
DK: Were they? No. And with us having a farm you see there was plenty of milk anybody wanted milk.
DE: Mhm.
DK: I know we were rationed but really not being a – we didn’t know there was a war on in a way [laughs]. Mm, mm.
DE: But it must have been fairly hard work for you if you were keeping watch at night and then working on the farm in the day?
DK: [Laughs] well you got used to it.
JK: Yes, you were at watch at night and when you came off you went and milked – did a five o’clock milking didn’t you [laughs].
DK: Oh yes, that’s what had happened, go and round the cows up and milk the cows. This chappy who was with me, Tom Moles, he was a pal of mine, he was on one of the little engines on the iron horse like up at Belvoir there, he’d all of that but, yeah [laughs] had a good time.
DE: Mhm.
DK: And during the war you see, you met up with so many lovely people – Air Force men and Army lads and you even got the Yanks [emphasis] down here at times.
DE: Did you?
DK: Yeah [laughs]. One night – I must tell you this, one night the Yanks came down here –
JK: [Unclear].
DK: And they came into the pub and had a lot of ale, and then they got the horse out and was riding the horse [laughs] around the village in the morning [DK and DE laugh].
ET: And what about the Land Army?
DK: Pardon?
ET: The Land Girls?
DK: About land – well they associated with the air men, you know. They really enjoyed, they were very pally with them at the, at the Plough at Stallone.
ET: Mhm.
DK: But during the war, you helped out with a Land Girl they did a wonderful job which had never been – well they’ve got a medal now, but for what they did and the type of work they did on the farm, it’d be a dirty job, threshing machines and digging and going to – it wasn’t the best life but they stood up to it well, yeah.
DE: Mhm. And where were they from, the Land Girls?
DK: Well there was one from where [laughs] near where Ernest – I’ll show you a photograph [laughs]. I’ll put some eggs [?] on and [unclear] –
JK: Oh –
DE: I’ll just pause the tape again.
[Tape paused and restarted.]
DE: So you’ve got a – the tape’s started again and you’ve got a newspaper article.
JK: These are made of sawdust –
DE: It’s so nice to be remembered. And these are all Land Girls are they?
DK: Yeah [laughs].
JK: Well it’s alright there, yes.
ET: One of these?
JK: Yes.
DE: So where did the Land Girls live?
DK: In the old Wretch [?] at Stallone –
JK: [Unclear].
ET: It will.
DE: And did you, did you have anything to do with them then?
DK: I fancied them [DK, AT and JK laugh]. I have to tell Ernest – what have you got there?
JK: But you fancied ginger haired ones –
ET: I’ve heard, I’ve heard the ginger haired ones –
DE: Oh right, I see.
DK: Just a second.
DE: But were they more interested in fliers and aircrew then were there?
DK: Oh no they were very [unclear] – that was Bottesford Air Field at the time [papers shuffle]. That was when they drilled for oil in the village –
DE: Mhm.
DK:For ten years. That was a Lancaster which crashed in the Trent near Newark.
DE: Oh, I see. [Papers shuffle] did you ever want to volunteer and serve in one of the armed forces?
DK: I would have liked the opportunity, but you see, you were stuck with the farm with the workers gone.
JK: You weren’t allowed to, were you?
ET: No.
DK: Where’s she gone [papers shuffle].
DE: So the, the station just down the road –
DK: There’s a station at Red Mile.
DE: Mm.
DK: There’s one at Stallone. But they never put a station near to the village, that was the sad thing, quite a way away, hmm. I don’t know where that photograph’s gone.
DE: Did they open during the war, or were they –
DK: Yes, yes, no they, that was one I fancied.
DE: Oh.
DK: But, but she was ginger headed but it didn’t suit my [unclear, laughs].
DE: So that was Amy Tapplin.
DK: She came from Kimberly, Nottingham [laughs]. And they were, they – and that’s after the golden year [unclear].
DE: Oh I see.
DK: I don’t know if you’ll want any of these.
DE: I might take a photo of that page later on I think.
DK: Pardon?
DE: I might take a photo of that page later on if that’s okay.
DK: Yeah.
DE: So the stations that were opened, were they on farmland before, what was farmland before the war?
DK: Yeah, yeah, the stations –
ET: I think Dennis might think you meant railway stations –
DE: No I mean, oh sorry, I mean the RAF stations, the bases.
DK: The Langar one –
DE: Langar.
DK: There was a lot of parachuting from there, and some private planes go. But the Normanton one is quite an industrial station it is, yes.
DE: Now it is, yeah.
DK: Mm.
DE: Before the war was it farmland?
DK: Langar, at Langar before was farmland. But down here, there’s a hundred acre round here –
JK: Round here.
DK: That belonged to the Duke of Rutland, it was air field in the First World War.
DE: Oh I see, wow.
DK: I don’t know of sort of planes it was, but it was made as an airbase – because you can pick maps [unclear] little book there, and it tells you where the air fields were in the First World War, yeah.
DE: Mm. What did the farmers think to losing all the land?
DK: Well [laughs] I think they were compensated well, you see. You see the one at Langar there, think it belonged to two or three farmers, but one man bought it off since then and he’s just passed away, yeah. But it was a wonderful thing to take the land, yeah. But to help the losses [?] out, war out, yeah.
DE: Right. So there wasn’t any resentment, they thought it was a good way of making a few quid then?
DK: Pardon?
DE: It was a good way of making some money was it then, selling your land [AT, JK and ET laugh].
DK: Yes, but the worse thing actually – you were ruled by the War Ag Executive Committee during the war.
DE: Mhm.
DK: And they came round these, to tell you what to do and what not to do. Well they didn’t know a lot about what they were talking about [laughs], they offended a lot of old farmers [laughs].
DE: Because they were telling them what crops to –
JK: Mm.
DK: Mm. With us they said ‘grow potatoes’ Well no way could you grow potatoes ‘cause it was too heavy clay [emphasis] land.
DE: Mhm.
DK: But they wouldn’t listen to you, you just did what they told you [laughs]. Oh dear.
DE: But you were okay because you were a dairy, dairy farmer?
DK: We, we got everything, we got dairy cows and chickens and sheep and fat peas [?] and we worked with horses in those, it wasn’t tractors at that time.
DE: Mm.
JK: You bred –
DK: Pardon?
JK: You bred shire horses didn’t you?
DK: Yeah, mm, mm. We’ve been around since about the 1790s [laughs].
DE: Yeah. Erm, so that’s what it was like working on a farm. What was it like being in the, in the Home Guard?
DK: Well you did a parade every Sunday morning, but we did, we had to do a keep fit in the village [unclear] whether it meant much I don’t know. But in – where the property is built now, we dug a big trench, used to dive into the trench and climb up the [laughs] –
DE: Mhm.
DK: But whether it meant anything I don’t know [laughs].
JK: Dad’s Army [laughs].
DK: But no, we had to have these lessons, and we [phone rings].
JK: Oh.
DK: I was going to say –
JK: Oh it might be the dress makers –
DK: We were taught how to shoot with a Lewis gun, and we had a Stanley gun as well.
DE: Oh really?
DK: Terrible [laughs]. We went to an old disused iron ore pit with a Stanley you see, and this laddy, he – and it wasn’t ejecting the rounds, it kept [laughs].
DE: Wow.
DK: I think the people telling you what to do didn’t know much about it themselves.
ET: Mm.
DK: It was good fun though, yeah.
DE: And was it a mixture of people from the village of all ages –
DK: Yeah, all who wanted to join. Some never joined you see, but no, some of them, my father did with his friend, some were elderly people, but the young was right down to my age, at that age, we were pleased to do something for it.
DE: Mm.
DK: But for the first twelve months, where the canal’s down here, and then the railway – and we were on the railway bridge for twelve, without any cover at all from clocking on at night in the morning. And then we managed to get an old chicken hut and that’s where the Home Guard were [laughs].
DE: Right. And that was your duty, was fire watch basically was it?
DK: Yes, yes. It went around you see, yeah.
DE: Yeah.
DK: No, no I had a good life and I’m still here [laughs].
DE: Indeed, yeah. So what, what happened at the end of the war? What did you do after the war?
DK: Still farming, yeah. But after the war ended, they came round in nineteen, 1953 –
JK: It was my German friend Giezla [?] from Grantham, so I said I’d ring him back [laughs].
DK: Looking for oil.
DE: Mm.
JK: She comes on and she talks and talks and talks for half an hour [laughs].
DK: And then they came to the farm and they drilled at Barkston before the war, the Texans, they drilled at Barkston,
JK: She never stops talking.
DK: They didn’t find any oil, so they came to the farm, and they said to my father want to drill in the stack yard, that was near to the – he said ‘you can go anywhere else other than in the stack yard, and they moved a field up from the stack yard and they found oil straight away at three thousand feet down.
DE: Crikey.
DK: And then we had one there, we had one, two, three, four – we had had five pumps going, but the thing, we didn’t get any for the oil you see –
DE: So how did they –
DK: It belonged to BP and the government.
DE: Mhm.
DK: You were just compensated for the road way to the, where the oil pumps were, and, and they help you out in some way but you didn’t get any for the oil they took, they were very good. I was talking to a chappy, I was talking to a chap who lives in, he’s in Mansfield now but he was a rear gunner in the Lancaster, and he was shot, he crashed somewhere in the East Coast, and he was in hospital for six month, and then he got out and he got a job with a, with a [unclear] electric board, but about two years ago he got a phone call from someone, and it was the pilot [emphasis] off the plane, they were the only two, both thought they were dead –
DE: Oh I see.
DK: They were still alive. He, I’d got a little poem somewhere what he gave me about a rear gunner, I can’t find it, I’d like to find it sometime. But it was a lovely poem, this old chappy put together [laughs] mm.
DE: Mhm.
DK: No it was – everybody were content, they weren’t moaning [emphasis] during the war.
DE: Mm. So how do you feel about the, the crash site, you know, being remembered after so many years, ‘cause I mean it was forgotten about wasn’t it?
DK: Yeah, yeah, could be – no ‘til, what, until this chappy found this bit of metal – I was in the garden one day and he came by and he said, John Bowman [?], he said ‘you know something about the aircraft which crashed do you?’ and so I said ‘yes,’ and then he brought this piece of metal, it’s about this length –
DE: About three foot.
JK: [Unclear] yes.
DK: Mm. And then we contacted Tim Chamberlain, who he had connections with Bomber Command all the time, he does a wonderful job, he’d put two or three talks on at a time, he soon found out that the three are buried in Bennington Churchyard. The three, three that were killed here –
DE: Yes.
DK: And then there are three others Bennington Churchyard.
DE: So how do you know Tim Chamberlain is it, who wrote –
DK: Pardon?
DE: How do you know Tim?
JK: We didn’t really did we?
DK: No not really [laughs] –
JK: He must have heard about this and came to see us.
DK: Mm.
JK: He did the memorial, there’s a memorial at Langar Air Field –
DE: Mhm.
JK: And he was responsible for that, doing that.
DE: I see.
JK: Mm.
DK: No he did a lot. And when it happened, this is between us, when Tim planned all that the village didn’t want – we were gonna have a thousand people [emphasis] here you seen, but the, our locals –
JK: They wanted to keep it –
DK: Who run the village wanted to keep it quiet [emphasis].
DE: Oh I see.
ET: Mm. I remember that yeah, mm.
DE: But there’s, there’s now a stone there isn’t there?
DK: Pardon?
DE: There’s now a stone, a stone, a memorial there?
JK: A memorial.
DK: It’s a lovely one, all the –
JK: Actually [emphasis] –
DK: All the village people contributed to this here. It’s a lovely stone isn’t it dear?
JK: I don’t know whether you can get it still, but a Barbadian came up from London and recorded the whole service [emphasis] and the flypast –
DE: I see.
JK: And he put it on Youtube.
DE: I’ll have a look.
JK: And it’s under Plungar –
DK: Lancaster –
JK: Lancaster memorial, on Youtube.
DK: It’s worth listening to, to see me ringing them out [laughs].
JK: Have you seen it?
ET: I’ve seen it, I’ve forgot all about it Joan.
JK: Is it still there?
ET: Yeah, it will be.
JK: Do they delete them after so long?
DE: No it’ll still be there probably we’ll have a look.
JK: It’s about an hour and five minutes.
DK: And then we had the Lancaster and two Spitfires fly over you see.
DE: And this was two or three years ago?
JK: This was on the day that – is, is the date in that book?
DK: Is it on, on that book there wasn’t it?
JK: It’s September nineteen, two thousand, oh I can’t remember. It must be three years ago.
DE: 2012 I think.
JK: Yeah, three years ago, it was September. But he, he filmed it from the rear of the church and unfortunately, you know, it’s only a tiny church and they were all these heads [laughs] in front of him so some of it you can’t see. But the opera singer sang –
DE: Mhm.
JK: A, a song he’d composed himself, so you get all that.
DE: I see.
JK: And then Dennis rang the bells afterwards and you see him in the belfry ringing the bells.
ET: And how did you ring the bells Dennis?
DK: Pardon?
ET: How did you ring the bell?
DK: Ding dong [laughs].
JK: There were two of them.
DK: But the thing was – we were, my son and I were in the belfry there, and then there was a laddy there who’s father, in this book [pause].
ET: When I saw you Dennis you were using your foot.
JK: Yes I think he –
ET: Like that.
JK: I think he rings two bells you see.
DE: Oh right.
JK: Hand and foot [laughs].
DK: This chappy was prisoner of war you see.
DE: Mhm.
DK: He was shot down, and his son came to sit with us. This lad, he went to see the prisoner of war camp that his father was in, but [laughs] in front of me – there was two rows of seats there, there was this chappy and he’s moving his bloody head the whole time [laughs].
JK: [Laughs] you see his head moving in front of the camera [DK laughing].
DE: Oh I’ll have a look at the video.
JK: I mean it was such a tiny church that it was cramped.
DK: No, it was a lovely service, and the thing was, what was the man who took the service, he’s on there.
JK: Er Robin, Robin –
DK: It was a, was a –
JK: He was an air vice marshal.
DK: To do with the Air Force, you know.
DE: Mm.
JK: He’s a retired air vice marshal, he lives in Southwell. He sings in the choir in Southwell Minster.
DK: No it was a really [emphasis] lovely day, and I remember, we stood on the lawn here and saw the Lancaster fly over and the two spit – we were very lucky.
DE: Mhm.
JK: They did four circuits round the village.
DE: Oh smashing.
ET: It was amazing.
JK: It was lovely.
DK: Then, then was it last year sometime? My nephew who lives on the farm – his son in law works at Coningsby [emphasis].
DE: Mhm.
DK: On the plane there. And we had a day there didn’t we [laughs].
JK: Yes he got, he got permission to take us to Coningsby and we saw them repairing or doing some maintenance on the Lancaster.
DE: Yes, yes.
DK: During the war, better just tell you, during the war, they decided to take us to Melton Air Field to have a ride round in a Dakota [emphasis]. And they loaded us all up on the Dakota and then the mist came –
JK: Mist came down [laughs].
DK: So I never had a ride [laughs] so I’ve never been in a plane [laughs].
DE: Oh dear.
ET: Oh Dennis.
DE: Who was it that was trying to arrange that for you then?
DK: Pardon?
DE: Who was it that was trying to arrange that for you?
DK: The Home Guard like to get us onto the air field – it was only a small air field at Melton – but there was about lads from this village and then [unclear, laughs].
DE: Right.
DK: We got lined up and sitting down laughs]. That was the wonderful thing so when we went to Coningsby we saw the old Dakota there.
DE: Mm.
DK: It’s a wonderful plane isn’t it, the Dakota.
DE: Yes [emphasis], [DK laughing].
DK: So we’d better go and see the site had we?
DE: I think we’d better had, yeah.
DK: If you want – you want to go, do you?
DE: Yes please, yeah if it’s well, it’s not raining is it? No.
JK: I don’t think it is.
DK: We’re not bad, we’re not bad to get out here, but you and Ernest –
JK: Well you can get out, it’s not very far from the road is it?
DK: Can walk and see the memorial, but we’re not – we can take you to the plane crash and show you where it crashed then.
DE: Mhm.
DK: Is that alright?
ET: That’s fine.
DK: Have you got a good vehicle?
DE: Erm, yes.
JK: The road to where it crashed can get a bit bumpy, isn’t it?
DK: Yes [laughs].
DE: That would be great, yeah. So you’ve always, always sort of followed, I’ve noticed with your book of clippings, you’ve always followed the history of the RAF.
DK: Yes [laughs]. Anything else going. I was looking today, when Belvoir sold all the property in 1921, I’ll let you have a page you can see what they all made then [emphasis] [laughs].
DE: Oh yes.
DK: So I don’t know what’s going to happen, they’ll perhaps go on the skip when I’m gone [laughs].
DE: Oh dear, no, no.
ET: Oh Dennis no, no.
DK: Unless Ernest wants them.
ET: You must put on them ‘do not throw away.’ [JK laughs].
DK: Pardon?
ET: Put on them ‘do not throw away,’ ‘retain’ [DK laughs] or send them to an archive somewhere.
DK: Yeah, they’re not interested in old things –
DE: No sometimes, yeah, you do get that unfortunately [DK laughs].
JK: We remember too much Dennis don’t we?
DK: Pardon?
JK: We remember too much of the past [DK and JK laugh].
DK: Now when they talk about things, the price she says [unclear] years ago [laughs].
JK: Prices, prices get Dennis. ‘That cost so and so,’ I said ‘Dennis you don’t live in this world.’
DK: I’ll not be [?] –
DE: Mm. It is –
JK: ‘You can’t buy that it’s a waste of money,’ well it’s either that or nothing.
DE: Oh dear.
DK: I’ve had two hearing aids [?]. I’ve had two lots, I’ve had the national health one and then I’ve had the, what are they?
JK: Specsavers.
DK: So now I can hear a bit more ‘cause she can’t hear what I’m saying [laughs] or I can’t hear what Joan’s –
DE: Right.
JK: No you can’t hear what I say. I can hear what you [emphasis] say because you shout [JK and DK laugh]. Deaf people do shout, don’t they?
DE: They do.
DK: No you see, I’m not [unclear]. But people don’t realise – and it was a lovely life years ago you see, everyone helped one another and you lived with your – didn’t sit your parents in an old home to end their days, you looked after your parents didn’t you in those days? And you lived well and fed well and [laughs], mm.
JK: Well you did on the farm.
DK: Pardon?
JK: You did feed [emphasis] well on the farm.
DK: No, I’d have liked to be a wheelwright and join or a butcher you see.
DE: Mhm.
DK: But you see, I was saying in my day they had the say –
JK: Your parents told you what to do –
DE: Mm.
DK: So what do you think, ‘why do you think we’ve got the farm?’ Because, we worked from scratch to get the farm you see [laughs].
JK: And you owned [emphasis] it.
DK: There’s a tree up there, and you go up there – it was planted in 1852 with my relations.
DE: Really?
DK: It’s an old chestnut tree, yeah. Right at the top there [laughs].
DE: That’s smashing.
DK: And I’ve got some books, Ernest is going to take them to the archive. The, when he was an auctioneer in Valier [?] in 1852 [laughs].
DE: They would be interested in that yeah, definitely. Well thank you very much, I think I shall –
DK: Well [unclear] you [laughs].
JK: Yes.
DE: I shall press stop on there, unless there’s anything else that you can think of that you’d like to tell me [pause].
DK: No I tell the people a lot about the, this, this was gardens [emphasis] years ago – well it belonged, well the church, it was supposed to belong to the church, but it belonged to his lordship up at Belvoir.
DE: Mhm.
DK: They were very good landlord, different to what we’ve got, we’ve got now [laughs].
JK: When I bought the plot it was glebe [emphasis] land, it belonged to the church. And then a man in the village was doing research up at Belvoir for the old duke –
DE: Mhm.
JK: Last, the previous duke. And he found that this land belonged to Belvoir in 1792, and it was called Hive [?] Close. And, but nobody can find out how the church acquired it [laughs]. So whether it still really was the duke’s and he missed out on the sale – not that he got a lot for it, he didn’t ‘cause it sold just before prices went up, but –
DK: Shall we get off Ernest.
JK: Got no idea [emphasis].
DE: Yep –
DK: Get your gear on and I’ll get mine.
DE: I’ll press stop on there, thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Dennis Kirk. Two
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
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
2015-11-30
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AKirkDJB151130
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Format
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00:45:06 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Dennis Kirk was born in Barkston 1920, and lived on a farm near Plungar. Recalls when the war started and the War Executive Committee told farmers what to produce; talks about the Land Army. Being in a reserved occupation, he joined the Home Guard with military training; while on duty he responded to a crashed aircraft accident dealing with casualties before the Royal Air Force arrived at the scene. Dennis dealt with unexploded ordinance carrying out defusing. He also talks about civilian life in wartime, land use for airfields with compensation for the land owners, and BP post war drilling for oil, reunions, and the RAF Langar memorial.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Plungar
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Carolyn Emery
bomb disposal
bombing
civil defence
crash
final resting place
home front
Home Guard
incendiary device
memorial
RAF Langar
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2222/39868/PAlboneJM2201.2.jpg
61544c80dfefd3838ae77117eccf71b9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2222/39868/AAlboneJM220922.2.mp3
dd0b6a60a633b2562eb786b56f3ed0ee
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
Albone, Jan
Janet Margaret Albone
J M Albone
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Jan Albone (b. 1930). She grew up on a farm in Lincolnshire.
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
2022-09-22
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Albone, JM
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: So this is an interview by Dan Ellin with Jan Albone. I’m at her house in Scawby in Lincolnshire. It’s the 22nd of September 2022 and also present in the room is her son Alex Albone. So, Jan could you start by telling us a little bit about your early life and where you grew up?
JA: I was born at Redmond Grange which is only five miles from where I now live and I lived on the farm there with my parents and sister. Went to school in Brigg which is only up the road. So I’ve always lived in this district all my life except for ten years when I lived at Binbrook. So I know a bit about the local area.
DE: And what was, what was your early life like? What was school like? Your home life.
JA: Oh, my school. Early life was a bit grim actually because I was born on a a very sort of isolated farm in those days. It was still two miles from the nearest village but it was a long way from there. So I was born and brought up and I was very cherished. And I think my first memory was the fact that somebody when I was three, I’d been very protected and loved by everybody on the farm and then suddenly somebody came and took me upstairs and said, ‘You have a little sister.’ And I can remember seeing this thing. That’s one of my earliest memories. This thing in this cot and it was my sister so I was going to have to share things. I didn’t like that much at all. And my mother had been a schoolteacher and so she taught me at her school and I could read and write very early in life. And then it was decided that I would go to school. Well, it was a bit difficult to go to school in those days from there where, and so it was decided that I would go and live with my aunt and grandmother in Scunthorpe and my aunt was the headmistress of a school in Scunthorpe and I would go to school there and go as a weekly boarder with my parents. I hated it. I absolutely hated it because I loved the farm. I loved being outdoors and to go into a big school where your aunt was the headmistress and all the people in the school were children from, well it was a backstreet school in those days. Henderson Avenue. And it was, I just was so lost. I wanted to make friends but I couldn’t because I was the headmistress’s daughter. Anyway, it was then decided after that that I think they could realise that I was unhappy and so I came home and then was sent up to the nearest school, primary school which was at Kirton Lindsey which was two and a half miles away. It wasn’t a lot better I have to say because I was the only farmer’s daughter at the school. The rest of the people at that time were farm labourer’s children. Extremely nice children and I again I wanted to make friends but it was not the children it was the parents saying of course, ‘She comes from the, farmer’s daughter.’ So therefore, then my sister was ready to go to school by then. She was five and I was eight and so we then went to Brigg. To the prep school at Brigg and it was heaven. Absolute heaven then. But we went by bus to Brigg and I had to look after my little sister which I didn’t like much. But anyway, it got better. But I’ve always loved being at home and I can remember so many times going back to school at the beginning of term hating going into school because I wanted to be at home. And it wasn’t home. It wasn’t parents. It was being outside. It was being mainly with the horses. Loved, loved horses.
DE: Did you have many on the farm then?
JA: Well, of course the only work when I was a child there were no tractors. There wasn’t such a thing. Well, there was but we didn’t have tractors ever. All the work on the farm was done by horses and my father grew fifty acres of potatoes and all the work was done by horses and man power. So, but I always loved them you see. I mean I, and I could do things with them that other people, even when I was very small I could go and feed a difficult one when one of the men wouldn’t like doing it because I was quite relaxed of course. So anyway, that was how I started.
DE: Okay. And then, and so and then what happened?
JA: Then I got my eleven-plus and went to the local high school which was a grammar school in those days and that was fine. You know. I was reasonably clever. I loved history, loved reading and writing and everything else. But then I left school at sixteen because you see the war was over. The war finished in 1945 and it was so wonderful to be free and I didn’t want to be at school. I didn’t want to be restricted and of course afterwards I think my parents should have insisted I stayed and did A levels but never mind. I didn’t so that’s that. So it was an interesting life living at Redmond Grange where I was during the war.
DE: So what was that like?
JA: Interesting. In fact, that we, Kirton Lindsey aerodrome was only three miles away and Kirton Lindsey aerodrome was a fighter ‘drome in those days and it was the fighters were, it was mainly a rest home for people that came from the Battle of Britain. And they would come to Kirton Lindsey to rest. And we had father there. We always knew he was there when he came because he would take his plane up on a Sunday night and do all sorts of performances. And my father really got on well with the CO there and it was funny around my father really in many ways but he got on with the CO and he decided, he and the CO whether it was the CO‘s idea or not I don’t know that the men that were coming from, to rest from Battle of Britain they were traumatised. Extraordinarily traumatised, and so father said the worst thing they can do is to sit and mope and of course on the farm we were desperately short of labour. We desperately needed food in those days. And so they used to come down. I don’t know how they got there. It wasn’t so very far away. I can’t remember any vehicle bringing them but something must have brought them and they came and they helped him with the harvest. And they worked on the land and a lot of them hadn’t got a clue about well land work but they soon learned and my mother cooked enormous great meals every day and so in this kitchen there was a huge kitchen table and all these men would be. There would be six or seven and they would change. I remember one particular one. He was so young. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen. He probably was but he was so young and he was so frightened but I could see even as a child. I was, you know I was only eleven, twelve I could see that hard work, it was a hot summer, the hard work kept, made him sane because he went home and he slept.
DE: Right. Yeah.
JA: But it was, it was terrible with those young men because we never knew them anymore. They became quite friends but then they went. Did they die? I don’t know.
DE: So did that happen just just the one year or was that the —
JA: That was really only the one year of the Battle of Britain but it’s very significant that was for me because all these, I’d never seen young men. I didn’t know what they were like. And I mean I was only [pause] but and they also treated my sister and I a bit like mascots. You see, we knew about the horses and and they didn’t but it I’m I’m sure it saved the sanity of quite a lot of young men.
DE: Excellent.
JA: It was nice. It was good.
DE: Okay. Anything else you’d like to tell me about that, that time?
JA: I think the funniest thing it always makes me laugh now but at the beginning of the war my father, it was the old DV in those days. It was before Home Guard and he decided of course we had again another hot summer that first year of the war and Hitler was going to invade. And I understand later on that Hitler’s soothsayer said it wasn’t appropriate for him to invade but if he was my father was quite convinced if he invaded he was going to land at Skegness on that east coast and actually could have done. Walked across. So my father was in the LDV and he used to go and stand on the top of Waddingham Church which is only two miles away. My father had a twelve bore gun and he always took one of the farm men with him but the farm man only had a pitchfork. My father [laughs] I mean it was terribly serious at the time I mean it was. I can remember being so frightened and father took it so seriously. But in hindsight there was my father with a twelve bore shotgun and a man with a with a pitchfork. They were going to defend the nation. But I was frightened. I was terrified and of course you see in 1939 I was nine when war broke out. I was ten when this all happened and I was so aware then. I was quite grown up for my age actually and I kept, I said to my mother, ‘What is going to happen to me? What will happen?’ Because as a child you only think about what’s going to happen to you don’t you? ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ So my mother said, ‘If the Germans come you’ll be absolutely fine, dear,’ she said, because at that time I was very very fair and I had long long plaits and I could sit on them. It was long and thick as that. ‘You’ll be absolutely fine. The Germans will take you and they will look after you and they will put you on a breeding farm.’ Well, I knew about breeding because I mean I would breed these horses if I had a breeding farm. ‘And then you will breed wonderful fair haired Aryan children.’ I should actually to be honest. You know. At that time she was quite right. But that comforted me. I was going to live.
DE: Crikey. Did, you said you were, you were frightened and needed that reassurance.
JA: It was reassuring actually.
DE: Where did you get your information from? Did you listen to the radio or read the papers or —
JA: Oh yes. The radio was always on you know. And of course, my mother had been a school teacher and father was very sort of articulate and we, we had got contact. We had aeroplanes flying over us all the time and we were all very conscious of the Lancasters at the, you know only down the road there’s Scampton and we knew that a lot of the fighter planes were here to defend them. So we knew what was going, we knew what was going on.
DE: So, I mean yeah you —
JA: I had to take my gas mask to school in its cardboard container.
DE: Did you have anything to do with any evacuees?
JA: Yes, we did. But I can’t really remember very much. I know they were fairly awful. They were two girls and they came from Sheffield and they didn’t stay very long. They were not happy. They were town children landed on an isolated farm. They didn’t like the food. They didn’t really like anything and their mother came and took them home. I don’t think they were, they came to school with us but I don’t think they stayed for more than about three months. But it was, it was interesting. It was the fact that that work on the farm was so hard in those days.
DE: And you, you helped with the horses. Yeah.
JA: Oh, all the time. Yes. I remember sitting when I was twelve sitting at the back of the school, at the back of the class in school in a maths lesson. I hated maths. And early in the morning, it was a September morning when, you know I was at school and they were picking potatoes at home and I wanted to be there with, with the horses.
DE: I see.
JA: I wanted to help.
DE: So you listened to the, to the radio. Did you ever hear what’s his name? Haw Haw.
JA: Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. We had to listen to him. It was always because father always made, we got to listen to him because it was a joke. Father always said it was. I mean, we had to be amused by him.
DE: I see. Right. What about the, what about the newspapers?
JA: Newspapers. I don’t really remember much about newspapers. I think it was mainly the radio you know. It was the wireless was, wireless in those days of course and of course, father would listen to the news. I was always, I always remember later on when war ended and all the news came out about Auschwitz and you know the camps I always remember my father being so horrified by it and unbelieving to begin with. He could not believe that anything could have happened. There were a lot of people like that. It was quite quite horrendous that, well he didn’t. Well, I didn’t. We did not know anything about prisoner of war camps. Well, the Jews being in camps like that.
DE: Were there any prisoners of war camps around here? I know there was some Italians in Lincolnshire.
JA: Yes, we had. Yes, we had the Germans to start with. Big Hans and Little Hans. They came to work on the farm. They came from Pingley which was the other side of Brigg. A big, big camp there and it was mainly Germans and these two Big Hans and Little Hans they were very poor. A little man. I should imagine they were homosexuals or whatever. They came and they worked for us and they were, they were little farmers in Germany and we got very fond of them because they were just ordinary men like ours.
DE: Yeah. How long did they work on the farm for?
JA: I should think they worked for us for a good year. They were dropped off. Pingley used to take them and drop them off and we were very grateful to have them because we were desperate you see. You know, today on a farm you only have one man. In those days we needed ten because everything was done by hand.
DE: But they were never there at the same time as these British pilots.
JA: Oh no. No. This was towards the end of the war.
DE: Yeah.
JA: No. No. No. No. No. British pilots it was definitely, that was 1939 1940. When we had the prisoners of war was ’45.
DE: Right.
JA: ’50.
DE: Okay.
JA: Yes.
DE: Yeah.
JA: I remember my husband because he lived at Spridlington and they had Italian prisoners of war and he always remembered that they had one officer, well that he said. His boots were always immaculate all the time and he helped him break in a horse and he said he knew how to ride. He definitely was from, you know. It worked.
DE: Yeah. And you got on fine with them.
JA: Yes.
DE: Yeah.
JA: Oh, well yes. Yeah. We were pleased to have them and they were pleased to work.
DE: Did they, did they get their meals around the table?
JA: No. No.
DE: No.
JA: No. No. No. No. It was only the —
DE: Okay. So you said you know you had lots of aircraft flying around because there was, you know Lincolnshire known as Bomber County.
JA: Oh and of course —
DE: There was Hemswell before.
JA: Well there was either a landing ground or or a airport every few miles.
DE: Yeah. Yeah. I mean you’ve mentioned Scampton but in between Scampton there’s —
JA: There’s Hemswell. Yes.
DE: Hemswell and Ingham.
JA: Yes, yes, exactly. And they were mainly sort of landing grounds in case main the main airport had been bombed.
DE: So did you get to recognise the different aircraft flying over?
JA: Yes. I mean we knew the difference between a Spitfire and a Hurricane and a Lancaster and a, and a cargo thing. Yes. I wasn’t particularly interested but but my father was of course.
DE: Did you know of any, any of the Luftwaffe aircraft flying over?
JA: No. We didn’t. I don’t think they, as far as we were concerned I don’t think they ever came. They came to Hull of course because they bombed Hull. But that didn’t mean they came over here.
DE: No.
JA: No.
DE: Were you, were you aware of Hull being bombed?
JA: Oh yes. Yes. Yes. If we stood on the, you know on the farm we could actually see the, you know, what was happening. Very much aware of that. But then you see for when you lived here and you only had horses and you did have a car and a bicycle whatever Hull was a long way off. You know, it seemed, and it was the other side of the river. Yeah. Still in a way it is.
DE: Yes. Yes.
JA: In those days the only way to get to Hull was on a ferry.
DE: Yeah. Or the long way around. I know that —
JA: Yeah. Well, when you went then you always went across on a ferry.
DE: Yeah.
JA: But you did. You had to choose the time of day to go or else you got stuck on a sandbank.
DE: Of course. Yeah. I know the, the Auxiliary Fire Service from Welton.
JA: Yes.
DE: Went to Hull during the Blitz.
JA: Oh, did they? I didn’t know that.
DE: Yeah. I mean it must have taken quite a while to get there.
JA: Yeah. Yes. Well, I think you know because the fires were very very bad you know. We could see that.
DE: Yeah.
JA: Yes.
DE: How did it make you feel seeing the fires?
JA: Well, it just was there. You know when you’re a child, you must remember I was a child as long as you were safe with your mummy and daddy and you were in your own home it was [pause] it was a bit, in a way it was a bit like a film I suppose to us.
DE: Yeah.
JA: You know it wasn’t, it wasn’t reality really. It was very sheltered.
DE: So, what did, what did you do for entertainment then?
JA: Not a lot. I was thinking about it this morning because I thought this was one you were going to ask me. Where? Entertainment. You went, you went to school. I mean we had to leave because we had to catch, we had to leave the house at ten to eight in the morning and we walked for half a mile on the main road to catch a bus. Then we didn’t get home until ten to five at night. And then we ate and did our homework. In the wintertime it was a matter of keeping warm. And the days went by. In the holidays I was outside all the time. We didn’t actually think of entertainment actually.
DE: What about when you got older?
JA: Well, I was fifteen when war ended but that was wonderful you know because we could then, I could then be a member of the Young Farmers’ Club and I was allowed to to go. I had an autocycle. My father bought me an autocycle. That was a bicycle with a thing and I used to come in to Brigg. I was allowed to come to Brigg in the dark, it was safe in those days, to Young Farmers’ Club meetings which were absolute bliss after being caged as we were. But we didn’t know anything else. So it was lovely to be there.
DE: So what happened at these? These Young Farmers’ meetings then.
JA: Oh, that was fun. I mean we used to go to the local pub and I mean we had talks and we had [pause] I can’t remember a lot about the talks but we had competitions and of course we were allowed to go to other farms with with our friends judging cattle. It was so exciting actually, you know when you think of the young people today but it was so exciting having had nothing to have this. That’s how I met my husband.
DE: And do you want to talk a bit about that?
JA: Well, if you like. I mean he, it was exciting because he lived at Spridlington which was on the road to, you know where Spridlington is?
DE: Yeah.
JA: On the road here and all our courtship right up to us being married to come and see me he had to have a chain in the back of the car and the chain was to bring the chain from his father to my father or, and when, when going home it was to take the chain back from my father because you were not allowed to travel with petrol at the end of the war you see. You had to have a reason for using petrol.
DE: Oh, I see. Right.
JA: So to come and to come and see me he had to have a genuine farming reason to come and see me.
DE: Oh, I see. Oh, that’s clever.
JA: So this chain would have lived in the back of the car if any police stopped him he was taking the chain from his father to mine.
DE: I see.
JA: Backwards and forwards.
DE: Right. Yeah.
JA: And then he could pick me up and we could go to the Young Farmers’ Club and then there were dances then. But you see I always think people are not wise enough. When I went into the nursing home to have my first baby who is seventy next birthday I took my ration book with me. Times were so much worse after the war.
DE: Right.
JA: I don’t think people realise that.
DE: Yeah.
JA: How we had to pay back and we were very hungry and rationing was very strict after the war.
DE: And there was, that was worse after the war.
JA: It was. Yes. It was. Everybody was happy and glad to be able to do it but food was so important.
DE: So in one way you had this freedom that you were, you know —
JA: I had the freedom to go. Well, a certain freedom. It felt like wonderful freedom but it was still restricted to the fact that it had to be rural. It had to be, you know it had to be sort of [pause] and then then it became and then you see I was fifteen when war ended. Sixteen I started at the Young Farmers’ Club. By the time I was eighteen then we could have dances and we could go out and be much more social. And tennis parties. And my husband went away. He was older than me. He went away to agricultural college and I was going to go but of course I went but when it was picked that I was to go I couldn’t I couldn’t because all the ex-servicemen coming back from the war they all had priority.
DE: Sure. Yeah. Of course.
JA: And we met some and my husband was there at the Agriculture College at Sutton Bonington with a lot of the people, men who were ex-soldiers. He was a lot younger than most of them because he’d started and they came back and we had some wonderful friends actually who had been in the war. A lot of tragedies.
DE: So your husband was a little bit older than you.
JA: Yes.
DE: What —
JA: He was two years older than me.
DE: What did he do during the war? What were his —
JA: Well, he was a farmer you see. He was a farmer and he was working. He was working on the land to produce food. It was. It was work and sleep.
DE: Right.
JA: And, and that’s what [pause] that’s all we, if you don’t know anything else you accept it.
DE: Yeah. So I’ve mentioned it before we started recording but I believe you had a couple of links to RAF stations in Lincolnshire.
JA: He had a lot more links because he, living at Spridlington they were more or less in the flight path from Scampton and he and his father used to stand and count Lancasters going out at night and then they would count them coming back in the morning. And you know he always said how dreadfully tragic it was.
DE: And I understand your sister in law was in, in the WAAF.
JA: No.
DE: No.
JA: No. No. I haven’t got a sister in law.
DE: Oh, it’s [pause] was there somebody who was a driver?
JA: No, I don’t know where you got this from.
DE: No. Okay. Never mind.
JA: No. No. No.
AA: Guy Gibson’s driver. That’s Fred Albones.
JA: Oh, yeah. That is a relative of my husband’s.
DE: Oh I see. Right.
JA: Yes. Yes. Yes. Which was over there. But it was, it was a strange upbringing but the whole point I’d like to emphasise is the fact that because we knew nothing else it was acceptable and what was so wonderful and we appreciated it so much was the freedom afterwards. When by today people have freedom from the day they’re born we, I now look back and I still think we had some wonderful times when I was seventeen and eighteen which today the youngsters would just think was stupid. But we hadn’t had anything else.
DE: Yeah.
JA: And then of course which was the most exciting I left school and my father decided that because he had no son that would I like to be a farmer you see and take over the farm. So that’s why I really began to work on the farm and so then when I was seventeen, I’d be nearly eighteen he bought a tractor.
DE: Wow.
JA: And I had the tractor and it was a little grey Fergie but it didn’t have a cab but I could go plough where I’d been actually ploughing with horses and I mean ploughing. Not many women of ninety two can say they’ve ploughed a lot of land with two horses. And then I had a tractor to come plough with.
DE: Okay. So I mean you said that you really loved working with horses, you know.
JA: Yes, I did.
DE: What was it like swapping over to having a tractor then?
JA: Well, it was you were just sat on a seat. You weren’t walking behind.
DE: Oh right. So it was —
JA: But it was always cold. No, but I still I love the horses as horses but I realise that I could do a lot more work in a day with a tractor than I could with two horses.
DE: So how, how long did it take before the the horses had gone and —
JA: Well, I don’t know. Gradually tractors, things began to go so quickly when war ended you know because tanks had been in the war and tractors soon were invented. You know from the little grey Fergie we got another tractor, another tractor and within a couple of years it was amazing how quickly —
DE: And I suppose they just kept getting bigger and more powerful and —
JA: Exactly.
DE: Yeah.
JA: And less labour was necessary.
DE: How many acres did you have?
JA: My father had, it was interesting he had three hundred and forty acres and he also had another rented another forty acres of pure grassland which was in those days was a very good living for a farmer. You would need three, four times as much today to get the same benefits.
DE: So, so it was mostly potatoes was it?
JA: It was. It was arable.
DE: Right.
JA: And then we did have cows which were bought for me because I wanted, I liked animals so we had a bit, we had a small dairy herd which was mine which was very nice. I thoroughly enjoyed them but the trouble is I soon found out that cows don’t differentiate between Fridays and Saturdays or Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
DE: Yeah.
JA: And I found it rather tiresome but I had to do it because this was what was decided because when everybody else was going out on a Saturday afternoon I had to milk the cows.
DE: Sure. Yeah.
JA: Good discipline.
DE: So what happened when you, when you were married then?
JA: When I married. Oh, it was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful to be married. I mean I loved my husband but it was so wonderful to get away. I was free. I was free to make my own decisions. Free to decide what we were going to have to eat. Free to decide when I was going to go shopping. It was marvellous. It was a good job I married him because I really needed to get away.
DE: So what happened to the farm?
JA: Oh, the farm. Father carried on of course. I had a sister came in then. A younger sister.
DE: Right.
JA: Whom had got a boyfriend who hadn’t got any land and he came and sort of took over. Took charge. But I was so pleased to get away. It was wonderful.
DE: So where did you live?
JA: I lived at Hackthorn. In the rectory. I don’t know whether you know Hackthorn. We lived in the rectory for a time and God it was cold. There wasn’t such a thing as central heating. But we stayed there and then we went to live up at Binbrook. By then I’d had a baby of course and life moved on.
DE: So, can you tell me a bit more about, you know your life after the war?
JA: Oh, well as I said after the war I got married in in 1952 and then we moved. My husband was a farmer. We lived up at Binbrook. I had another baby. Then then another one and then he came along. That was it. It was hard work but but then I I’d been used to living in the country. I’d been used to being on my own. I’d been used to discipline. So it was great.
DE: Did he ever, did he ever travel?
JA: Oh yes. All the time. As we got, as we got older we got freer when the children were grown up and we came to live down here. We travelled a lot. All the time. And we made the most of it and we still do actually. It was because my husband he got leukaemia. He started when he was only fifty seven and he died at sixty five and so we made the most of those years because he’d only been given three years to live and he actually managed to live nearly ten.
DE: Wow. Okay.
JA: Crossing our fingers. Very good. And so we made the most of it you know. It was each year, ‘Come on. We’re going to go.’
DE: Explored.
JA: Make the most of it. And I don’t regret a single thing.
DE: No. Where did you go?
JA: Oh, we travelled all over. We went, we went to and travelled to and all over been to Australia. We travelled around New Zealand. We went to Europe. We went to America. I went later to the Galapagos. He didn’t go to the Galapagos with me but we did. And we had a wonderful doctor and when we wanted to go to New Zealand he said, ‘Oh, that’s alright.’ We had to see the consultant said, ‘I’ve got a colleague in the Auckland. If you turn ill you can ring him in Auckland.’ So we had a camper van and and travelled all the way around the New Zealand for the month.
DE: Wow. Okay.
JA: Making the most of it.
DE: Yeah.
JA: If you know that the end is near you. So, I’m still travelling.
DE: But you know you didn’t fancy ever settling down anywhere else that you —
JA: Actually, when we went to New Zealand my husband loved it so much the first time we went if he hadn’t, he was an only child and if he hadn’t had elderly parents who were still alive it was like that. I think it wouldn’t have needed much for us to to emigrate because he loved New Zealand. Thought it was the ideal place but there it is. Times change.
DE: So how, how much do you think Lincolnshire has changed?
JA: Oh, well it’s unbelievable how it’s changed. I mean it’s still an arable county and even when I was a child there were, there were cattle but it was beef cattle. Sort of single herds but nowadays it’s now all well of course with the war all the grass had to be ploughed up to produce food for people and so it was never laid down back again and so it is much more an arable county and of course the tracks are just huge. The machine. But the machinery is, it’s enormous. I mean progress. I mean even in this last, even since my husband died I mean the the mere fact of the television and the iPads and all those sort of things I mean he would have a fit if he came back [pause] So life moves on but it always does.
DE: Yes. Yeah.
JA: But and I think every generation has said we’ve seen the best of it. But I don’t know. I’m just in a way I’m just sad that I’m getting old because I want to know what’s going to happen in another ten years. You’ll see it. I shan’t.
DE: I don’t know.
JA: That’s what, I don’t think I want to live to be a hundred and two.
DE: I’ve interviewed someone who was a hundred and two.
JA: Have you?
DE: Last year. Yeah.
JA: Oh, come again in when I’m hundred and two and see what I’ve done in the last eight years!
DE: I just, you know I’m just wondering if you have any other stories that you’d you’d like to tell me that you might have thought about when you heard I was going to come and meet you.
JA: No. Life, I think life has been, it sounds a bit monotonous as though you know I’ve not been almost killed in an air raid or anything like that but I can’t. I can’t think of anything that there are so many bits aren’t there in life. I think the most important thing is to make the most of everything and not to be too critical. [dog growling] That’ll be the post coming. No. I, of course when you’ve gone I’ll think of all sorts of things.
DE: Oh, yeah. But if I switch the machine off you’ll think of something.
JA: That’s sods, that’s sod’s law. I mean I do regret not getting [pause] The only thing I think that I wish that my parents had insisted that I carried on with further education. It’s alright that I loved the horses and I loved the land but I had a good brain and I should have used it. But then my life wouldn’t have been the same as it is today.
DE: And then you couldn’t go to agricultural college because there wasn’t —
JA: I missed out on that.
DE: Yeah.
JA: Mind you I didn’t really mind because by then I I was realising that I was in love with my husband and that we would get married and you did get married in those days you know. You didn’t live together and that sort of thing. You got married and I mean literally I had a baby nine months after I was married.
DE: Right.
JA: And, and that was the way my life went. But I do regret whenever like I said I try to do it occasionally, you know. I loved to read. I love history. I’m interested in in everything that goes on. I wish I’d had more of a trained brain. But [pause] but it’s no good. It’s no good regretting because it’s happened.
DE: Yeah. Yeah. And I dare say you’ve educated yourself.
JA: Yes.
DE: By the things you were reading.
JA: Yes. Yes.
DE: And the places you’ve been and things so —
JA: The places I’ve been and I’ve always been a great embroideress and a great sewer and I’ve done things around the Pony Club for twenty years. I’ve always done things but but not for money if you like.
DE: Yeah.
JA: Otherwise, I’d, and I was also a marriage guidance counsellor for forty years which was interesting.
DE: Wow. Okay. Can you tell me about about those things and the Pony Club? And working in marriage guidance.
JA: Yes, if you like.
DE: That sounds fascinating.
JA: Oh yes. Well, Pony Club I loved because I, I love kids. I don’t like, I don’t like small children very much but I do like teenagers. There aren’t many people that actively like teenagers [laughs] and I used to love running the Pony Club. It was, it was great. Well you know there were kids and ponies and again it was the horses wasn’t it? And when I look back when I I see the rules and regulations now that there are about having children in groups and I mean we used to have Pony Club Camp and I would quite happily have twelve, have thirty twelve and unders sleeping in farm buildings with their ponies and I would be the only one sleeping the night with them but I never thought anything about it but if something had happened. But it didn’t, did it?
DE: No.
JA: So, I loved running that. That was okay. But so many, and even today somebody in the supermarket only last week you know came up to me. She said, ‘I think I know who you are.’ So I said, ‘Oh yes?’ she said, ‘You’re Mrs Albone aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘I was one of your Pony Club girls.’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘I’m fifty next week. Do you remember me?’ Well, I had to talk myself through it but she was slightly different at fifty than she was when she was seventeen.
DE: Of course. Yeah.
JA: And as for marriage guidance well I just, I like people you see and I like people. I like to be able to listen and help people. I mean it worked for me. And you see my generation in those days because I hadn’t got a career in inverted commas so many of my friends if you like didn’t either. They came home from school to help mother or came into their own farm home. So they either sort of played a lot of golf, or a lot of us did a lot of social work and, you know we ran the Pony Club or we did other things for other people because we had to do something that was away from the farm and it’s sad nowadays because but everybody now has a career and they earn money. So that is why I think a lot of social things they find it difficult to get volunteers. So this is why I went in to doing my marriage counselling. Then it became Relate and then I became a sex therapist which was great fun I have to say. It was because there was, no it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t because so many people had so many sadnesses and if you could help them through that it was fantastic. But —
DE: No. But I suppose you had to keep a bit of an open mind and I suppose a sort of farming background would help a bit with that would it?
JA: Well. Yes, well it was just the fact that I mean I had a lot of experience in the fact that I had been, you know I’d been alive. I’d had a family. I’d had parents. I’d had you know. I’d lived in many ways.
DE: So it’s a sort of passing down your experience.
JA: Yes, and actually you know when all is said and done with all counselling work it isn’t what you say it’s, it’s being able to listen. It’s what they say to you is what, you know, or they sound off against you.
DE: Yeah.
JA: Which I found very interesting. Quite traumatic at times but good and my husband was always cooperative. He didn’t want to do it but he was very happy for me to do it. I mean he was busy farming wasn’t he?
DE: Sure.
JA: And fishing.
DE: Fishing.
JA: Yes.
DE: Okay.
JA: Farming and fishing.
DE: So did he, did he not get involved with the Pony Club then either you were saying?
JA: No. No. He didn’t like horses.
DE: Right.
JA: Didn’t like anything to do with horses.
DE: Right.
JA: But —
DE: It was tractors and machinery.
JA: Tractors, machinery and going fishing.
DE: Right.
JA: But no but you see he was fishing and shooting and I was riding horses and hunting and so but we knew the same sort of people so we always used to say on a Saturday night we had an awful lot to talk about because we came from different angles.
DE: Yeah.
JA: I don’t know what you’re going to do with all this.
DE: Well, you know we will if you sign the form saying you’re happy for us to use it we’ll, we’ll put it as part of the archive.
JA: You want to say something Alex.
AA: Well, I was, I was just thinking that you could, you could enlighten a little bit more about, about father’s experience of being in the Home Guard and shooting rabbits during the Second World War and raising enough money to —
JA: Oh yes he did. That’s how we got married.
AA: That, that’s the story you should talk about. I think you could also could talk about having chickens in the, in the drawing room at Hackthorn when you first got married.
JA: Yes.
AA: In order that you had enough money and I think you could expand upon that.
JA: Yes, I certainly, yes.
AA: And also expand a little bit on, a little bit about what community was like during the war years. I think you’ve mentioned it but I don’t think you’ve really talked about how you actually entertained yourself just after the war. How, rural life was up to and around.
JA: Funny boy.
AA: Wartime.
JA: Okay. I, I liked about my husband he had a wonderful dog and he would shoot rabbits and he would take rabbits to market to sell and we actually got married on his rabbit money savings.
DE: Right. Okay.
JA: Yes. We went to local sales and bought furniture. The bed cost ten pounds I remember. But it was, it was a very comfy bed and, but, that’s, that’s how it moved because he had to work. So, you know. Well —
DE: So, what was the going price for a brace of rabbit?
JA: Oh, for goodness sake [laughs] I don’t, not a lot but there again well oh yes one thing is when I first got married I was you see when I, yeah that was interesting. When I, when I did get married I had in my bank account I had thirty two pounds because all my father ever paid me was four pounds a week even when I had the cows and driving tractors. Mind you I did get all my food and everything else. And I’d thirty two pounds in the bank and when I got married my housekeeping allowance was five pounds a week and five pounds a week in 1952. And out of that my husband always paid for the meat. Farmers in those days always paid the butcher’s bill and, but I managed to dress myself and feed a baby on five pounds a week.
DE: That’s inflation for you then eh. Yeah.
JA: That’s inflation.
DE: So, chickens.
JA: Oh, chickens. When we first got married we were desperately hard up and we had this enormous rectory which had a drawing room, a dining room, a sitting room, a kitchen, you know. So we thought what were, what were we going to do with the dining room? So we had, we put an incubator in and we had baby chickens. And then and then put them in the walled garden and produced eggs to help with our income. It was quite interesting when people came to the door when they’d hear the chickens in the dining room but still never mind.
DE: And Alex said something. A bit more about the sort of community life.
JA: Yes, I think the community life as far as we was concerned were dances once a week when there was, you know freedom. Tennis parties in the summertime. Grass courts when we had to cut the grass. You know, lined. No hard courts. We had to line, you know. Do it all ourselves. And that’s how we met our friends. And we did. And of course, the Young Farmers’ dances and then it got to be people’s twenty firsts and in those days it was so funny. I mean we went the ballroom at Brigg we always used to invite [laughs] for your twenty first you always invited the young people but you always invited their parents as well. So the parents would sit around the outside of the room watching the young people dancing you see. We were, we were accustomed to it. That was the way it was but looking back on it you know you couldn’t be a bit naughty or anything else because somebody was going to see. But it was the way it was and what I’m trying to say is you accepted the way it was. And that was it. Where today you know everybody has so much freedom. It’s fine. But that’s today, isn’t it? [pause] I don’t know what else to tell you, you know.
DE: So you’ve sort of painted a picture of of what, what happened in, in the summers. It was tennis and dancing.
JA: Dancing in the winter of course.
DE: Oh, there was dancing in the winter.
JA: We went dancing in the winter. Yes.
DE: Right.
JA: Yes, there were dancing in the winter. There was usually a dance every Friday night, you know. And yes, yes that’s reminded me. And I had a particular way of my mother made me, she was a most wonderful seamstress and she made me some wonderful clothes to wear to these dances because it was very important we had something new all the time. And when the New Look came in I had a New Look outfit which was extremely smart but when it was a dance a lot of the, they were ballgowns you see. Off the shoulder and I had a small pin had been given to me. A small pin of a fly and in the first place Sellotape. I used to manage to get this fly pinned on to my skin with Sellotape so I was always known as the woman with the fly. That was my —
DE: Well —
JA: Different to anybody else.
DE: What an odd thing.
JA: It was.
DE: Yeah.
JA: It was very interesting. Yes. But you had to have, you had to look different. You had to look special.
DE: Right and it obviously worked because —
JA: Oh yes, obviously it worked. Oh yes.
DE: You met your husband. Yeah.
JA: Yes, it worked.
DE: So, I mean you said it was a bit hard when you first got married and you had to have the chickens in in one room.
JA: Oh it was hard but then I was used to hard. Are you with me? I mean we we we were all of us used to hard work but we, we had each other. We had privacy. We were away from our families. And then of course I had a baby and it was a natural process but it was, it was good. It was really good.
DE: Okey dokey. Thank you.
JA: And then my husband got the opportunity of having a farm up at, up at Binbrook and so we moved up there and I always remember he was, whether this is applicable but he was, he was a lovely man my husband and he was very much liked by a lot of people and the local auctioneer who had no sons took him under his wing and I always remember him coming and said, ‘We’re going to get you a farm, Ted.’ And he did. He got this. He got this farm for him and we accepted it. And he said, ‘But you must remember,’ I’ve always remembered this, ‘Always remember you’re going to be successful but you will lose friends.’
DE: Right.
JA: And we laughed about it. Ted laughed about it. He was right. We did. Some of his school friends never spoke to him anymore.
DE: Because he’d—
JA: Because he’d suddenly become successful.
DE: Right.
JA: That was quite a powerful feeling actually in those days because when you’re young you like to be liked don’t you?
DE: So what did success mean then?
JA: Well, success meant that we moved. We moved into a bungalow that was built for us. We had another child by then. Success didn’t necessarily mean a lot more money. I mean we were still always hard up. But it meant that we were, well equity had increased. There was more opportunities. We were making a lot more friends up on the Wolds there. Completely new people. But we were still always hard up. We always seemed to be hard up actually.
DE: Well, I suppose that part of that’s, you know needing the next new tractor or bit of machinery or whatever.
JA: Well, yes. In farming one, one has stuff but you don’t have cash. I think it might apply today in many people.
DE: Yes.
JA: You have things but no —
DE: Yeah. So it’s investments. Yeah.
JA: You have land and it’s worth an enormous amount of money but it’s not much good having fifty acres of land that’s worth ten thousand pounds an acre if you haven’t got enough money to buy lunch is it?
DE: No, I suppose not.
JA: So that’s why I learned to sew and make things. Make things for my home and make things and I’ve sewed ever since. Oh and yes probably the main thing is which is not many people when I was eighty I had an exhibition of all my handiwork in the local village, in the local church because I had a friend, I always said that when I died I didn’t want a particular funeral. I would like to have an exhibition because I’ve always sewed and made things. Cushions. Everything in this house I’ve made. And so she said, ‘Don’t be silly. Do it now when you’re eighty.’ And I did and I had eighty eight pieces of from curtains to wedding dresses to embroidery to whatever that I have done all my life. I’ve collected it and never sold anything in my life but and made things for family and friends and everything else. Collected it all up and had an exhibition. It was fantastic. Raised a lot of money.
DE: Really?
JA: Yes.
DE: What charity did you choose?
JA: I gave it half to the church and the other half to, to Leukaemia Research because my husband died of leukaemia.
DE: Yes. Of course. Yeah.
JA: But he was I was glad I did it because you know, if I’d been dead I should never have enjoyed it should I?
DE: No. No. Were there many people came?
JA: Oh yes. Well, you see all my friends knew it was my eightieth birthday and it was and thanks to Alex he got it publicised in a local magazine and actually so many people have said, it was open for three days have only said to me the other day, ‘Well, let’s do it again?’ I said, ‘No way. Thank you. No way. Thank you.’ There we go.
DE: Smashing. Thank you.
JA: So what, there are lots of bits aren’t there? So what do you, do you put the bits together?
DE: No. We don’t edit anything. Shall I press pause for now.
JA: Yes.
[recording paused]
DE: So just started recording again. Electricity.
JA: Electricity. We, okay even as a child we had only electricity because we had a generator and it had a an engine but it only generated enough electricity for light. It was always going wrong I have to say but we were definitely one up on the local population who only had oil lamps. So electricity would come. I can’t remember when electricity, when we got to be on the electricity but the most important thing was the water because we had our own borehole as children and we dug a borehole. And we had cattle in the, we always had cattle even if we didn’t have cows. But we children kept saying to our parents, ‘This water tastes horrible.’ Because we drank water and those who didn’t drink the orange and this water tastes horrible. We would be eleven twelve. It would be sort of during the war but getting on in the war. Eventually my father decided to have the water tested. Of course, we lived on limestone ground and the cattle in the in the crew yards the water had, the effluent had filtered into the borehole hadn’t it. So we were actually drinking water that should have caused us illness. At that stage father decided right so we had to have water. We had to fetch it from a local bore, a local pipe two miles away with a, with a [pause] and my father and he said, right, we could still bath and everything still in this dirty water but he would never do. So my mother had to carry water from well was boiled in pans on her, the pure water for him to bath in. But we could bath in the dirty water.
DE: Right.
JA: So my father was an odd man. But this how we didn’t get any I do not know because the water was disgraceful. And that is I think both how my sister and I to be honest I wouldn’t like to say but I don’t think we’ve ever had a tummy upset.
DE: Right. It’s sort of inoculated you to everything.
JA: Inoculated us for life. Yeah. We’re both very tough.
DE: Crikey.
JA: And and and I honestly believe that it was because we were sort of —
DE: So when did you get the water better water supply?
JA: Oh, I don’t know, It would be around about, it was towards the end of the war. It would be about in 1943 ’44 when, when we [pause] No. I think we had water right to the end of the war. It would be 1945. Things began to go ever so fast once war was over. When we got mains. Mains water.
DE: What about electricity?
JA: Electricity. About the same time. About the same time we got electricity. But everything seemed to happen together. The war ended and we seemed to suddenly move up into the twenty first, twentieth century. And it was. But we didn’t die did we?
DE: No. And then you had to, you watched the Coronation on a, on your —
JA: Oh yes. A little box set. Yes. And my mother in law had bought it. Terribly expensive at the time I remember. I think about the same price as they are now. It was a lot of money in those days. And so half the village came and sat and watched it. But I was so because I loved clothes and I loved the Queen’s dress and everything else. And then later in life it was only after my husband died my daughter took me to London to see the Queen’s clothes and the Coronation dress was there in this exhibition in the ballroom at Buckingham Palace. I’d never been so absolutely amazed. It was so beautiful because on television it was only black and white and silver but in real life the embroidery on it was all in colour. It was, I’ve never seen anything more exquisite in my life as that dress.
DE: Wow.
JA: A bit disjointed.
DE: No, it’s wonderful. Thank you.
JA: Going from sewerage [laughs] to that dress
DE: Yes. Opposite ends of the spectrum. Yeah. Right. I shall press stop.
JA: Right. I think you’ve had enough.
DE: Thank you.
JA: I think you’ve had enough.
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 Jan Albone
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-09-22
Type
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Sound
Format
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00:57:11 Audio Recording
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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AAlboneJM220922, PAlboneJM2201
Description
An account of the resource
Jan was born on a farm in North Lincolnshire. She went to school in Brigg. She loved the farm, particularly the horses.
Their farm was close to RAF Kirton in Lindsey which was used as a rest home for men from the Battle of Britain. They worked on the harvest to help them recuperate. Jan was aware of the Lancasters at RAF Scampton. They had two evacuees from Sheffield for a short time. Towards the end of the war, Jan also recalls having two German Prisoners of War from the camp in Pingley, near Brigg, to help on the farm.
When the war ended, Jan enjoyed being a member of the Young Farmers Club and met her husband. There were dances and tennis parties before her husband went to agricultural college and became a farmer. After marrying in 1952, they lived in the rectory at Hackthorn where they incubated chicks in the dining room. They moved to a farm in Binbrook. Jan helped with the Pony Club and was a marriage guidance counsellor for 40 years.
Jan talks about the changes in farming and how change accelerated after the war.
At the age of 80, she put on a three-day handiwork exhibition in the church.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1952
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Binbrook
England--Hackthorn
Coverage
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Civilian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
childhood in wartime
civil defence
evacuation
home front
Home Guard
Lancaster
prisoner of war
RAF Kirton in Lindsey
RAF Scampton
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46438/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v070002-0002.mp3
5fa6f78c70bdc7d65611eb16871b5784
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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
2017-06-19
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: Ken, good afternoon. I’d like first of all could you please give us your full name and your date of birth.
KN: Kenneth Edgar Neve, and that’s N E V E. I was born on the 30th September 1925.
Interviewer: Ok. Thanks very much. And what I’d like to do to start talking about your military career really we’ll go right back to the very beginning and talk about the time that you were involved with the LDV and you were a runner I believe.
KN: I was a runner for my father who was made captain of the Home Guard. He worked with a big factory making aircraft instruments and when war was declared they said well you have, we’ve got four or five hundred people working in the factory and we’re going to give, the LDV will be that unit there. That was the first one in Basingstoke and so he would, because he retired from the, from the Army in 1936 so when was [pause] war was declared 1939. So, war was declared and they said, ‘Well, crikey you’re the guy to do the job ex-colour sergeant major, you know.’ He was retired. So they employed him as captain of the LDV which became the Home Guard of course. And because I was brought up in the Army obviously and he said, ‘Well, look —’ he said, I said, ‘Can I join dad?’ He said, ‘Well, we’ll have to call you the captain’s runner.’ They gave me little khaki things and I used to be in there throwing grenades and all this stuff [laughs] And so anyway after, after a while I decided to join the Cadet Force so they made me a sergeant believe it or not. And then eventually I thought well it’s time now to decide whether I’m going to wait until eighteen to be called up or should I do it on the, on my seventeenth. So I did that and I don’t know how far you want me to go but when I went to Reading to say yes I’m fourteen and the guy says, ‘Well, what service do you want to go?’ Army, Navy, Air Force whatever. I said, ‘Well, I really wanted something with, with ships. I thought, I thought that would be rather nice.’ He said, ‘Well, do you mean the Royal Navy? I said, ‘No. No.’ I said, ‘It’s to do with aircraft as well.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You mean the Fleet Air Arm?’ So I said, ‘Yes, that’s fine.’ So anyway, I went to RAF Henlow for six months and qualified as an engineer and I just came back to my first unit which was, which is now the, which is now the first unit of the Fleet Air Arm was where the Southampton Airport is now and we had Walruses and all sorts of things, you know.
Interviewer: That was at HMS Raven.
KN: That was my first one there look.
Interviewer: Ok. Yeah.
KN: And so anyway, so I suppose I’d only, I was not far from Basingstoke you see and so I used to get home every other weekend. That was fine. So all of a sudden I was just going to breakfast one morning and there was a notice board which said I had to go and report and they said, ‘Oh,’ He said, ‘Yes. Well, they’ve got problems with the RAF. They haven’t got enough people with your qualifications and, —' and he said, ‘We’re going to loan you to them.’ The next thing I know 190 Squadron’s Stirlings. Can you imagine looking at Stirlings after one of those bloody things?
Interviewer: Must have been massive. Was it? Yeah.
KN: I mean the main wheels were over six, six foot six high they were.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: And so because I used to wander around there and nobody said, ‘Who are you and what are you doing?’ You know. I’ve got a Navy uniform by the way you see. So eventually I joined one of the units there and, and of course then I was there until after D-Day. I stayed with them all that time.
Interviewer: So, what did, what were your duties then on the squadron?
KN: Just aeronautical engineer. That’s all.
Interviewer: Ground or air?
KN: Ground. Ground. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you just, so it was general servicing and —
KN: Yeah. Well, because I’d done quite a big study and I was, I used to do the electrics, instruments, oxygen all those sorts of things. So that was my job.
Interviewer: Yeah. Did you find it a good aircraft to work on?
KN: Fantastic aeroplane. Yeah. Whenever I could get a ride in it I did you know. I’d had probably dozens of rides. We were testing after major work in the, you know. I’m not saying the right word.
Interviewer: Servicing.
KN: Yeah. Yeah. When they did ground, the servicing up to a certain degree you ought to have a test flight afterwards and I was always on that you see and so any way one, and I enjoyed it. It was wonderful life and, and then of course we painted all the white lines and three whites on each on the fuselage all ready for and there was all these soldiers coming on the day that we left with all the parachutists and —
Interviewer: This was ready for the D-Day invasion.
KN: Gliders and everything like that. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: On the day it happened and there were people were killing themselves. I don’t know whether you know this but all these Army guys here they couldn’t face it and I think there were two or three committed suicide.
Interviewer: Really?
KN: Waiting to be boarding on to the aircraft which I just couldn’t —
Interviewer: The fear of the unknown.
KN: Couldn’t take it. I was only a young lad really still you know.
Interviewer: Yeah. That’s incredible.
KN: It was.
Interviewer: That’s the first I’ve ever heard of that.
KN: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: That’s amazing. I mean obviously then the Stirling had been employed on bomber duties but obviously when you saw it it was towing the gliders etcetera. Is that –
KN: Well, that was just before D-Day.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: Oh no. We were, we were doing normal bombing runs.
Interviewer: Normal bombing runs.
KN: And all sorts of things you know. Yes.
Interviewer: So did the squadron lose a lot of aircraft? Or –
KN: Well, fortunately not. I had two aircraft to look after and, with 190 and we never had any problems at all. We had the odd person who was shot up, the navigator or gunner you see and we used to have, well I didn’t have to do it but it was horrible inside, you know.
Interviewer: Clearing the mess. Yeah.
KN: And my, my job also was on the bomb release down in the front there you see. So I used to make sure everything when it was all loaded that it was ready for dropping you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: I just loved it.
Interviewer: From what I hear you know I mean you must have had a great affinity with the air crew then. The planes you were on.
KN: Oh yeah. Oh, yes.
Interviewer: Were they a young happy bunch?
KN: Yeah. Well, I was sort of left alone because I was this old man out you know. Who is this guy? You know. He must be something special the job he’s doing here you know. He’s dressed different and, oh yeah.
Interviewer: Did you live in a billet then on the station?
KN: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: How was that then? The after hours. What did you do in the NAAFI etcetera?
KN: Not a lot. Generally just a NAAFI you know and then of course the old wagons used to come around with the coffee and tea and —
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: Various things. Yeah. It was fantastic. And, and of course after that once D-Day took place we carried on. We were dropping people all over left, right and centre. And then eventually the senior, well from Daedalus in Lee on Solent was their headquarters.
Interviewer: Right.
KN: For the Fleet Air Arm. And this guy used to come up every so often. He was a flight lieutenant sort of type you know and he said to me, he said, ‘I think you’ve had enough here haven’t you?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve enjoyed it.’ If you know what I mean. So he said, ‘I want you, we’ve now got a Technical College.’ The Fleet Air Arm. Which we never had before. That’s why I had to do my initial training at RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire. Six months was the first one I did. So they wanted me so I did extra, a lot of extra study and don’t forget I left school at fourteen.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: And so I went to the new college and I did ever so well and so when I, it was time for me to go I joined BOAC which was at Aldermaston. What was an aircraft unit. And so I worked for them and then they sent me to America and Canada to study the new aircraft that was going to come over for London Airport when it was made. It wasn’t even made then you see.
Interviewer: Right. What was the name of this aircraft?
KN: Well, there were, there were two or three kinds but they were all American. All American. Nothing English at all. I’m sorry I can’t remember that now.
Interviewer: That’s ok.
KN: I mean, so after, after that I decided, I went to Montreal for a year to study. When I came back we were at Bristol and our aircraft was in in Bristol and they said I’d done such a good job over there and we were going to do this. Well, it never happened because there were seniors coming in from all over the place to Bristol getting ready to go to London Airport. So I didn’t have quite the seniority that they’d got and eventually, so I said well to heck with this because I said, ‘Look, this guy in Montreal said I’m going to send you a good report. You’ve done ever so well.’ He said, ‘Well we can’t because there’s people been in longer than you have and yet you are expecting me to teach them what to do, you know with these new American aircraft.’ So, one thing led, so I happened to go home at the weekend and I went and got “Flight” magazine and there was a firm wanted somebody like me, aeronautical engineer at Blackbushe near Camberley. And I did about four or five years there. They made me, I was in charge of five units there you know. Radio, electrics, this, that, and the other thing and they said, and all of a sudden somebody said to me, ‘The Canadian Air Force are looking for people you know.’ So it was in West London so I wrote to them and I got an interview and all the rest of it. I mean the thing that we, they couldn’t believe was because I did have all these wonderful things. I’d done it. Studied well and I got. So this, what was it? He was quite a senior officer and he sat down. He said, ‘Right, Mr Neve,’ he said, ‘We’re quite amazed at how much you’ve done in the aeronautical world.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve had the opportunities and I’ve enjoyed it.’ So he said, ‘Right, let’s just take some, I’ve got to send all this off to Ottawa before to say yes we’d like to have you and, of course [laughs] I’d like to tell you this story if you don’t mind. He said, he said to me, ‘Ok. Right. Now, let’s talk about education, shall we? University?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘What? Technical College or – ?’ ‘No. No.’ He said, ‘Well, where did you finish up?’ I said, ‘At Fairfield School, Basingstoke. Fourteen.’ He said, ‘You’re having a joke, aren’t you?’ You know. Sort of thing. I said, ‘No. I left 1939 at Basingstoke.’ And so he said, ‘No. I can’t, I can’t send this to Ottawa. It’s ridiculous. They might think oh he’s done ever so well and he left school when he was fourteen.’ That is grade five or something in Canada. You know whatever it was you know. So, he said, so he said to me, he said, ‘Is there any way you can get somebody to write from your school to say that, ‘Yes, you did attend,’ at least, you know. So, Mr Pill, I was in the top grade when I left at fourteen and his name was Mr Pill. He was a Yorkshireman and he was brilliant with bits of chalk. Right between the eyes if you were nodding off you know. So, I wrote a letter to Fairfield School and he’d left there and he’d gone to another big school. But eventually I had a letter to say, “To whom it may concern. Yes, I would like to confirm —” Da da da and all the rest of it. So I sent it off. It went to Ottawa and they accepted it. The next thing I know I’m four years with Sabre aircraft in Germany.
Interviewer: Wow.
KN: Without getting to —
Interviewer: They posted you straight to Germany on a fighter squadron.
KN: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. That must have been marvellous because the Sabre obviously was just for the enemy —
KN: Well, we had more prangs than whatever.
Interviewer: Really? A lot of crashes.
KN: Terrible. Their engines used to suck out you know.
Interviewer: Big problem.
KN: If you went down too low. If you didn’t keep up a certain speed when they, if they went off looking for people or looking for an object or all the rest of it and they used to get and then the engines just used to go, ‘pfft’ like that. And we lost so many.
Interviewer: Really?
KN: Believe me. So after, after four years they sent me to Prince Edward Island, Summerside and had a wonderful time there, you know. I enjoyed every bit. That was my aircraft there.
Interviewer: That’s a, is that some sort of an Electra or [pause] it looks like an Electra.
KN: No. It’s an Argus that one is.
Interviewer: Oh, is it Argus we’re looking at? We’re looking at a photograph now of a Canadian four piston engine —
KN: Yeah.
Interviewer: Obviously, a Maritimes because it’s got a boom tail on it.
KN: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: Well, what, you see this what our job was it was equipped in the front there with looking for submarines which we should have had during the war. We used to fly six foot over the water. I used to go on all the crews because I used to, well there were various reasons I did and because I was crew chief. They made me crew chief you see. So we used to leave, we used to leave Summerside, go right down the east coast of America right down to the bottom then we’d cross over and we were working with the RAF. They had submarines and we had to find them and if the weather was right we were only so many, thirty feet above the water and this was a fantastic machine. Anything within twenty miles it would pick it up. Anything metal. So then we’d go across to South Africa and we would play. We’d do the same thing for other units and we’d go all the way up through Europe and we ended up in Iceland and that sort of thing. It had thirty five flying hours. We had double crews.
Interviewer: Amazing. I mean that, it’s such a story that’s not been told really about what, what fledgling Air Forces after the war did. I mean the Canadian Air Force obviously as you know was quite small at the outbreak of war and was a huge Air Force when they finished.
KN: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Interviewer: And yeah. That’s wonderful to recount those stories. I mean I’d just like to think of you, looking back really just to go back to we talked about you ended up working on world breaking machines really but you started off there working on what was affectionately known as the old Stringbags when you first started.
KN: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you feel working on that aircraft you had a particular affinity for working with such an old aircraft? Was it something special?
KN: If I tell you something it can be taken off of there? So, I’m working on one of the old Swordfish you see and I’m right down and I’m looking at all the instrument panels behind the flying panel alright. There was something wrong with this one. It wasn’t working. So I worked on that and got it right. So I’m there laying down here and I’m doing all this with just a torch you know. And the next thing I [laughs] a pair of legs come in the cockpit and all I’m looking at is a pair of legs and some knickers. [laughs] So, I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’ You know, and she says, ‘Oh, it’s me.’ Because they were having girls then in the Fleet Air Arm, you know learning instruments and various other things. So I thought that was rather different.
Interviewer: Well, that will always stay with you won’t it forever. Yeah. A lovely little story. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Ken thank you ever so much for just recounting some of the tales there. I mean, I think you can honestly say that your time in the military was certainly and working with the military was certainly varied. To think that you started off before the war really and finished up as part of a NATO operation in Germany.
KN: I’d like you, when you, when you decide you’ve had enough I’ve got something I’d like to show you up behind you. Let me just —
Interviewer: Ok. Alright. Well, you know that’s that done but thank you ever so much as I say and we look forward to putting this on to our Archive and thank you very much, Ken.
KN: I had a wonderful war and you know I, everything just I never worried. I mean the house next door at Beaconsfield Road in Basingstoke you know all those flare bombs they used to drop there? Well, they burned out next door to me. There was a bomber, a bomb, a bomb had dropped, a German bomb had dropped one three hundred mile, three hundred yards away and that was a sort of a hospital thing for women you know I think it was and all. And I used to I mean at fourteen I used to go out at night with all the lads because all the big [pause] you know when there was a, when the siren went we knew there were aircraft coming over from the coast and that and of course we used to have all the big lights, the searchlights and we used to go up by the church if not the school where I went was not far up the road and I’d go and I would be with all the men all the time. It was just something to do you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: And we’d pick it up. Not we but where they were doing it they’d pick it up and then of course then would drop and they would release sort of bombs going left, right and centre and it didn’t bother me one little bit.
Interviewer: You’ve no fear at that age.
KN: No.
Interviewer: Yeah. It’s amazing.
KN: It was excitement.
Interviewer: Yeah.
KN: It was lovely.
Interviewer: Well, thank you so much for recounting that.
KN: Well —
Interviewer: And I hope you’ve enjoyed telling the story to us.
KN: Yeah. Ok.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve
1004,1005-Neve, Kenneth Edgar
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v07
Coverage
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Royal Navy
Royal Air Force
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eng
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Sound
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00:19:49 audio recording
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
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Dave Harrigan
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Ken Neve served as a runner with the Home Guard before joining the Fleet Air Arm. He was posted to RAF Henlow as an engineer.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England-Hampshire
Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean--Solent Channel
Contributor
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Julie Williams
ground personnel
Home Guard
Swordfish
Walrus
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/263/3411/AGrayCJ151017.2.mp3
d77b2a53b586aa10835d976fe3601a19
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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Gray, Jeff
Jeff Gray
J Gray
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Jeff Gray.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-17
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Gray, CJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DK: Right. This is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Jeff Gray at his home on the 17th of October 2015. I’ll just leave that there and if you want to -
JG: Yes.
DK: Go through your pictures.
JG: I -
DK: If I can, one thing. If I keep looking down it’s just to check that the -
JG: Yeah. Yes. Running -
DK: Old machine’s working.
JG: I was very fortunate in my choice when I joined the RAF. I was packed off to Texas. To America. And -
DK: If I just take you back a little bit.
JG: Yes.
DK: What made you want to join the RAF? Did you have any -
JG: I was -
DK: Choice in the matter or –
JG: I was in the Home Guard. LDV which became the Home Guard and I decided that I would like to join up and so I asked the farm manager I was working for if I could have a day off.
DK: So you were working on the farms -
JG: Yes.
DK: At the time then.
JG: I’m a farm boy.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
JG: Still. And he said, ‘You want a day off?’ He said, ‘But you’ve got a day off. You’ve got New Year’s Day.’ So I said, ‘I think, I think I need more than that,’ so he let me go. I went to the recruiting centre, the combined recruiting centre in Aberdeen.
DK: Yeah.
JG: The army and the navy guys weren’t there. The RAF man was and I think he thought it would be fun if he stole the would-be Gordon Highlander away who had come to see if he could get a kilt and joined the RAF. He said, ‘You’d like the RAF better. They sleep between sheets at night.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I’d love to try that.’ But he didn’t realise that I was, anyway that led to another station in Edinburgh a few weeks later and I went to that two days so I had to say to Jake, the farm grieve, ‘I need a week off.’ He said, ‘You can’t go doing that,’ he said, ‘I’ve signed. You’re producing food and I’ve signed all the documents and you’re exempt from military service.’
DK: Was it considered a reserved occupation?
JG: Yes it was.
DK: What you were doing.
JG: It was reserved.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
JG: And I said, ‘Well growing food isn’t going to be enough to stop this Hitler guy, I don’t think,’ so I went off. He gave me the week off. What defeated him was he said, he said, ‘I’ll have to take a week’s wages off you.’ My annual wage was ten pounds. I said, ‘Can you do the mathematics of that Jake?’ He said, ‘No. I can’t.’ So, so off I went and once again fortune smiled upon me. I was able to make a reasonable impression on the board but I failed the mathematics. The mathematics were truly, I hadn’t covered at my school. They said, can you retake this if we give you, if we postpone your date of joining till September can you take the, and I said, ‘I can, yes’. And so I came back and thought now how do I do this so I asked the headmaster, a chap I’d always liked, the domini and he said, ‘Well you can’t go into Aberdeen. You can’t do any of that. You’re going to join the classes here, you’re going to sit at the back,’ he said, ‘And I’ll teach you mathematics till it’s coming out of your ears.’ So that’s what I did and when eventually I was up to snuff took the exam and that was it but they had already set my date to go and so I was stuck with that and I had to earn a living for a little while and I found that there were more ways of earning a living as a farm labourer than I’d realised. It was harvest time. If I went south I could go to harvest and they would pay me five pounds. Come back to Aberdeenshire and get another five pounds for the next month and go north into the wilds -
DK: Nice one –
JG: And get another.
DK: Excellent.
JG: So in three months I’d got fifteen pounds and my annual wages was only ten. I said, ‘Jeff. I think you’ve made a discovery.’ I was never able to really put it into practice and when I reported to the Lord’s Cricket Ground they went through the training there and assembled us eventually and decided where we were going to go and they shipped us off across the Atlantic on a ship called the Banfora in a little convoy and although it was a horrible ship and I didn’t care much for it it was very useful because we had a destroyer on each side sending messages to each other so we spent the time taking down their messages, you know, from the Aldiss lamps and when we got there they assembled us in a hangar and told us where we were going. Texas.
DK: Oh.
JG: Well like every school boy of the time I’d read everything I had about you know adventure comics, all that stuff and what a wonderful thing that was. So here we are in Texas.
DK: Oh right.
JG: A photograph, and there’s Jeff Gray there.
DK: Ah.
JG: Yeah.
DK: So at this point, by the time you got to Texas there had been no flying at all. All your basic flying was done -
JG: I had to do a grading course on the Tiger Moth.
DK: Right. And that was in the UK.
JG: And that was in the UK.
DK: Right.
JG: And if you passed the grading course you could go.
DK: And then straight out -
JG: Failed that and -
DK: To America.
JG: You didn’t get anywhere.
DK: Ok.
JG: And so -
DK: So this was your class at the time then.
JG: It is yes. Here’s the full class all fortunately named Number One British Flying Training.
DK: So just, just for the recording so it’s Number One British Flying Training School.
JG: Yes. That’s -
DK: Number nine course.
JG: You will find the G men in a row here.
DK: Right.
JG: Gordon and Gray.
DK: Oh I see.
JG: And Guttridge.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
JG: And -
DK: All alphabetically -
JG: We were the G men. Eventually, they, I was the only one who survived the course.
DK: Really.
JG: Which was, but they all had a career. Gordon for instance had been a policeman. He, I forget what he did in the RAF but he went back to his native Glasgow and became chief of police there.
DK: Really.
JG: Had a splendid career and Guttridge who never got over failing the course went and did something. A replica trip of Shackleton when they sailed across that ocean and across -
DK: Oh.
JG: And so he wasn’t lacking in courage.
DK: No.
JG: So there we are. So there are a number of pictures of aeroplanes. The Wellington.
DK: Wellington.
JG: Which, of course, I spent a lot of time on the Wellington as an instructor and a picture of the -
DK: Manchester.
JG: The Manchester.
DK: Manchester. Yes. Yes.
JG: You will recognise the Manchester was the most deadly of aeroplanes. It had these unreliable engines.
DK: Yes.
JG: It was simply awful.
DK: So how long were actually in America for?
JG: I think it took nearly a year altogether you know as a journey time and what have you.
DK: Ok.
JG: Yes. And when I came back of course they said we’ve got to knock you guys into shape again you know and you’re not allowed to wear shoes because you’re not commissioned and only commissioned officers can wear shoes and these lovely shoes we’d brought back with us from the States had to be scrapped.
DK: Oh no.
JG: Very foolish but anyway this aeroplane, the Manchester, you can see from the tail unit that it became the Lancaster.
DK: Yes.
JG: Just as it was. It is in fact a Lanc with new wings and new engines.
DK: The four, four engines.
JG: And so became a, I’ve got a picture here. I don’t think anyone recognises who she is. She was one of my childhood, school heroines.
DK: Oh it’s not Amy Johnson.
JG: Amy Johnson.
DK: It is Amy Johnson yes. Yeah
JG: Yes. Yeah. And at that -
DK: Did you, did you -
JG: Meeting in Lincoln I passed that around the table and -
DK: Did you ever -
JG: So much for fame. No one recognised her.
DK: Did you ever, did you ever meet her?
JG: I never did get to met her.
DK: You never met her.
JG: No. No.
DK: No.
JG: Our paths did cross at some time when she, I arrived in a Comet, flying a Comet to Australia down to Melbourne and, by chance on the date when she had done her flight.
DK: Right.
JG: Now there’s always this rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. Melbourne said Sydney doesn’t count. She finished here. And she was carried ashore, down the street by the staff of the Menzies Hotel and when I got there the street was crowded and there was a guy who’d been a nobody on that occasion, now he’s the chief porter and he said, ‘We’re going to make you re-enact this. You’re going to be carried.’
DK: Did, did people like Amy Johnson influence you in to sort of a career in aviation? Is it -
JG: I think it was one of those things that yes you form these impressions.
DK: Yeah.
JG: And yeah. So -
DK: So when you got back from America, from your training there and you, what happened then? Did you join, go straight to a squadron or was there further training?
JG: No. No. There was a lot of training. We’d only flown single-engined aeroplanes. We had to be checked out on, on Ansons and the like to -
DK: Right.
JG: To multi-engined aeroplanes and then we wound up at an Operational Training Unit at Cottesmore. Number 14 OTU and where we flew the Wellington.
DK: Right.
JG: And when we’d done that we had to be converted to the four engine Lancasters and there was a -
DK: Did you, did you have to –
JG: Conversion Unit at Wigsley which we did that.
DK: Wigsley. Yes.
JG: And we flew Halifaxes and Lancasters because they were running low on the Lancasters and they still had a few Halifaxes so -
DK: So that was the Heavy Conversion Unit at Wigsley.
JG: That was the Heavy -
DK: Yeah.
JG: Conversion Unit. Yes.
DK: Did you ever get to fly the Manchester?
JG: No. No.
DK: No.
JG: No. I just, someone sent me some pictures of it and I kept them because it seemed to me to be such an intriguing tale of this very unsuccessful, unreliable aeroplane.
DK: Such a successful -
JG: Which turned into the most successful ever.
DK: Can you, can you remember much about the Wellingtons and Halifaxes? What they were like as aircraft to fly.
JG: I loved the Wellington. Oh yes. A great aeroplane really. It had no vices at all except maybe one thing. It had an automatic trim that when you put down the flap the automatic trim readjusted the attitude.
DK: Yeah.
JG: And if that didn’t work you had to be the automatic trim, [laughs] if it didn’t work and you had to catch on quickly but apart from that as a defect I thought it was a great aeroplane to be able to fly and it was robust, and Barnes Wallis, of course, again. Yeah.
DK: What about the Halifax? Was that -
JG: Well I don’t have much impression of the Halifax except it was very similar and the instructor pretended that it was a Lancaster.
DK: Right.
JG: And you called for the power settings you would call on a Lancaster and he set the power for the Halifax.
DK: Right.
JG: So this was very confusing [laughs] I found.
DK: I can imagine.
JG: I’m not sure I cared a lot for it.
DK: So, so although your training was on the Halifax. They were really preparing you for the Lancaster.
JG: Yes. Yes. It was just they had run out of Lancasters and they’d substituted Halifaxes which at the time they seemed to have plenty of them. Yeah.
DK: So, from, from heavy conversion unit then was it straight to your squadron.
JG: Yes. They said, they took us, they put us in a hangar and we were assembled there and told to choose our crew and we were handed a list. When that had been done that would be your crew and if you couldn’t do it they would make up your mind. They would give you a list.
DK: I’ve often heard about this where you were put in to a hangar. I find it very unusual because -
JG: Absolutely weird. Yeah.
DK: Because the military is normally you do this, you do that.
JG: It was.
DK: And this is very different to sort of the military thinking where you got -
JG: I thought it was a very clever move indeed.
DK: Really.
JG: And I stood there like an idiot. I didn’t know where to start and this scruffy Yorkshireman came up. An aggressive, little, scruffy Yorkshireman come. He said, ‘Have you got a navigator yet?’ ‘No,’ I said. He said, ‘Well you have now. Let’s go and find the rest of them.’ [laughs] So that was my first impression of Jeff Ward the Yorkshireman and we were buddies from then on.
DK: So this, this forming your own crew in a hangar, you think it was a good idea then. It seemed to, it seemed to work.
JG: It was a very smart move. Yes. It meant there was no objection. It was your choice. You’d done the rounds there and you’d picked them all and that was it. If you couldn’t decide they decided for you but mostly people were able to pick guys they liked the look of or whatever. Yeah.
DK: So after that it was then the posting to 61 squadron.
JG: No. I think, I think we did the OTU after that but -
DK: Alright. Ok.
JG: I’m not quite sure. Yes. And the 61 squadron, I don’t know, was the luck of the draw I suppose. Yes. And that’s what brought me into contact with Lincoln and the cathedral.
DK: So where were you based with 61?
JG: We started at Syerston.
DK: Syerston.
JG: In Nottingham and we were very displeased to be moved because we were just getting to know all the pubs there and [laughs] all the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem and all those and suddenly we were shifted off to Lincoln and that seemed, and then and then from Skellingthorpe they sent us to Coningsby and that I liked. Coningsby was a great place to be.
DK: So you went to Coningsby next then.
JG: Yeah.
DK: Right.
JG: And then back to Skellingthorpe.
DK: Skellingthorpe.
JG: And Skelly was a cold and sad place in a way because it was very basic where the others, Syerston and Coningsby were regular accommodation and a good style.
DK: It’s a housing estate now.
JG: Yeah but I think if, if you’re in a group and you’re living in the same nissen hut and you’re eating in the same mess and everything you all become pals.
DK: Sure.
JG: It pulls you all together. Yes. Yes. So and I was interviewed just before I went there for a commission and I was interviewed by a chap called Bonham Carter and I took a very poor, I have a very poor opinion of Bonham Carter because my school in Scotland was [Raine?] North Public School. To his mind I had defrauded someone. It was not a public school. So I had to explain to him that the Scottish educational system was better and greater than the English and when we said it was a public school the public could attend. I said, ‘When you talk about a public school -
DK: Yeah.
JG: The public may not attend.’ And he put down on my documents, “Not officer material.” Quite right too. [laughs]
DK: Oh dear.
JG: He got that right but he did me a great favour in fact in that I went as an NCO and we were a crew of NCOs and were all mucking in together as it were.
DK: Did you find on a squadron a bit difficult though that some of the pilots were obviously officers?
JG: Yes.
DK: And some of them weren’t so you didn’t necessarily mix with all of the pilots.
JG: No.
DK: Was that an issue or –
JG: I don’t think it was really.
DK: No.
JG: People seemed able to cope with that. I think I felt sorry for chaps who were allocated to senior officers because that sort of changed the relationship altogether.
DK: So the dynamics of the crew sort of –
JG: Yes. Yes.
DK: Yeah
JG: But they seemed to be able to bond quite well but I think it took them a little bit longer and we had, I always felt that this Bonham Carter had done me a favour.
DK: Yeah.
JG: Because we bonded straight away and shared everything.
DK: So your crew were all sergeants.
JG: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JG: As in that -
DK: A picture here. Yeah.
JG: [?] I showed you.
DK: Oh.
JG: Yeah, that one. Yes. There we are. Yes. So – and I’ve kept a number of things that impressed me. There’s a plot of, there’s a bomb plot for Stettin which seemed to me to be self-evident that all this scatter coming in from this direction that what they needed to do was to, instead of picking the target they should have -
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JG: Moved the target a bit beyond it and then they would have got most of the bombs falling where –
DK: Yeah.
JG: They wanted instead of wasted out here.
DK: It was known as creep back wasn’t it?
JG: Creep back. Yes.
DK: Creep back. Yeah.
JG: And it seemed to me there was a very simple solution to that rather than master bombers and that nonsense but, so I think that was why I kept that because no one paid any attention to it really [laughs].
DK: So you put the aiming point about there.
JG: Yeah. Put the aiming point -
DK: And then that would move –
JG: About a mile further on. Yes.
DK: Yeah.
JG: Yeah. An imaginary point the Pathfinder guys could find the area and identify it but then move the pretend and you would get a lot more of these bombs where you wanted them.
DK: Was it at 61 squadron then the first time that you saw the Lancaster and flew the Lancaster?
JG: Well yes. Yes that’s right. Yes.
DK: So -
JG: We had the Conversion Unit.
DK: Right. Ok. So what were your, after the Wellington and the Halifax what were your feelings about the Lancaster?
JG: I liked it from the beginning. Yeah. I thought it was a great aeroplane. It was a natural aeroplane. It didn’t have any defects that I, except getting in and out of it was a bit of a squeeze but it was a very bad aeroplane to escape from but otherwise it seemed robust and it, yeah I liked it. I thought it was great. And the sad thing is that it’s only recently that it’s sort of come into its own. Up till just recently and perhaps that Memorial it was the fighter boys, the Battle of Britain boys, they were the glamour boys. Bomber Command were nowhere and they’d rather blotted their copy books towards the end with that bombing raid on Dresden but then that Memorial seemed to change something quiet subtly in the minds of the British people and so the Lancaster has now become the aeroplane to have been on [laughs]. So -
DK: Strange that isn’t it?
JG: Yeah. I feel -
DK: So, can, can you recall your, your first mission then? Where that was to?
JG: Modane was the first one we did.
DK: That was the first one, to -
JG: And then the next one was Dusseldorf when Bill Reid got his, his Victoria Cross.
DK: So did you know Bill Reid then?
JG: Oh yes. Yes.
DK: Yeah.
JG: I knew Bill Reid fairly well because we were fellow countrymen, you see.
DK: Sure. Sure.
JG: I met him. He’d just got his medal ribbon up and he was out celebrating with his crew in Boston and we’d been to the Assembly Rooms to a dance and he wasn’t the sort of guy who danced. He was one of the guys who just looked on from the doorway and I was often one of the guys who missed the transport back to camp but I’d found a lady who would give me bed and breakfast so I’m on my way there when I come across [Ellis] and it was his radio officer [both?] looking for somewhere to sleep the night. I said, ‘Come with me to this lodging house,’ and the landlady answered the door, ‘Oh Jeff,’ she said, ‘Come in. Not him,’ she said, ‘He’s drunk. He will make a mess of my beds.’ ‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘Mrs. You will be the only landlady in Lincolnshire, perhaps in the country who has turned away a man who has just won a Victoria Cross.’
DK: Oh no.
JG: ‘Get off,’ she said, ‘I don’t believe you.’ But it was true and he behaved himself. I said, ‘He’ll pay for any damage anyway.’
DK: She let him in then did she?
JG: So she let him in. So every time I met him I would tease him a little bit about his days when he was dancing and so on and his wife really never quite followed it. He doesn’t dance, he can’t dance, he thinks it’s a route march.
DK: I’ve always heard the story, I don’t know how true it was that when he met his wife it was some years before he mentioned that he’d been awarded the Victoria Cross.
JG: Oh I don’t know about that but quite possible yes. He had quite a career after that. The MacRobert’s family took him up and sent him through university.
DK: Right.
JG: And where he got a degree which and the MacRobert’s family they’d bought a Spitfire and I think they spent money on a Stirling -
DK: Stirling.
JG: Of all things. And he was given employment with them on their fertiliser division.
DK: Right.
JG: And so every time I met him at these get-togethers I said, ‘You’re still are pushing the bull shit then.’ [laughs]. ‘You’re selling horse shit.’ [laughs] I think I’ve kept some -
DK: Yes.
JG: I think I’ve kept. There he is, a piece of information there.
DK: I did meet him actually about fifteen years ago.
JG: Yeah. Yeah that’s -
DK: Because he ended up a prisoner of war didn’t he? I believe he was shot down later on.
JG: Yes. Yes. Yes. There. What else have we got here? I went from Bomber Command to Transport Command and that’s a BOAC York. That’s a York which was a development of the Lancaster.
DK: So you flew, you flew the York as well.
JG: Yeah. I, I flew the guys back from the Far East.
DK: Right.
JG: Who had been prisoners at Changi jail and all that dreadful railway and the guys who couldn’t be shipped back were flown back and I had to sign up to do that. My demob was cancelled until we’d finished this particular project. What I didn’t realise because I was enjoying myself I told the other guys around me pick me up the best of the jobs.] [laughs] So -
DK: So how many, just stepping back a little bit, how many operations did you actually do with Bomber Command?
JG: Thirty.
DK: Thirty.
JG: Yes.
DK: So one tour.
JG: We were, we were pulled off after that dreadful Nuremberg trip.
DK: Right.
JG: And I think Bomber Command decided, I think, at that stage they weren’t going to be able to bomb the Germans into submission and that start the preparation, preparing for the invasion.
DK: Were you actually on the Nuremberg -
JG: Yes. I was.
DK: You was.
JG: Yes. It was, it was a beautiful clear night. It was going to be cloudy all the way until we got to the target when it would be clear but the reverse was true. They’d picked a southerly route. It was moonlight. It was like clear as day and I think we were in real difficulty with the, with the routing and on that occasion we quickly found ourselves with an enemy on each side. Now that is the trap. You can’t beat these two if they’re working together ‘cause you turn towards one and you’ve given the other a non-deflection shot. You’re dead men really if you try and corkscrew your way out of that one and I thought we’ll try and outrun them. I put on full power. Well of course that was useless and I knew it would be ‘cause they had twenty knots faster than we were. They could catch us at any time so they just kept position and kept signalling each other and so I then pulled off the power, put down some flap which was illegal and said, ‘You’re not going to enjoy this bit guys because we are going to see the,’ our stalling speed will be lower than theirs. ‘They’re not going to enjoy following us now,’ and sure as hell they didn’t. Their stalling speed was much higher. They daren’t risk it and I was just on this, but anyway once I’d seen them off we straightened up, put on the power and climbed back up again and, got it, ‘Done it Jeff,’ I said the other Jeff and blow me down, there they were again and I said, ‘Well I’m going to pick this guy on the left. He’s the leader I think. I’m going to ram him so stand by. We’ll hit him with the nose. We might lose a bit of the aeroplane but he will lose his starboard wing.’ ‘Yes,’ they said and we headed for him and I think the guy realised it. He shot off. He disappeared. They both did. And my navigator said, ‘I haven’t been able to follow that,’ he said, ‘I think we’re lost.’ ‘No, no, Jeff we’re never lost. We’re uncertain of our position.’ ‘So what will you do?’ I said, ‘We will add ten minutes to the eta,’ and I goofed. I should have added ten minutes to the end of that route because the last leg was down to the southeast but I added it to the run so I turned on eta and of course we were well short and we were getting to the end of this ten minutes when some searchlights came on looking for us. ‘Davvy.’ I said, ‘We’re going to give them a surprise. Bomb doors open. Let them have it.’ So we bombed that bloody searchlight battery and the lights went out but there were a lot of guys in the same position. I didn’t know until afterwards who saw the incendiaries burning and they started bombing and in fact we’d hit Schweinfurt.
DK: No.
JG: And we didn’t know until it was back plotted the next day but at that stage by the end of it I could see sixty, seventy, eighty miles away in the distance the show was beginning and we’d missed it. They’re going to be, blotted our copy book. We’ve bombed the wrong bloody target. We’ve made a horse. When I got back I was astonished. They greeted us with open arms there were so few coming back [laughs]
DK: So you -
JG: And they were trying to keep the number below the magic hundred. Yeah. They were cheating. They weren’t including the guys who crashed.
DK: Ok.
JG: [who never came back]
DK: ‘Cause it was over a hundred wasn’t it?
JG: It was over a hundred. No doubt about that.
DK: Did you see many of the aircraft go down at –
JG: No. I don’t think I did. No. We, it was only very occasionally that you saw someone being blown up. We had what were known as scarecrews which was something that we’d invented that didn’t bloody exist. We thought it was some German pyrotechnic. No it wasn’t. It was some guy, usually a pathfinder carrying all the coloured flares.
DK: I’ve heard, I’ve heard the stories of the scarecrows.
JG: Yeah.
DK: So you’re saying they were actually -
JG: They were.
DK: Pathfinder aircraft going up.
JG: Yeah. They were but we believed at the time that it was a pyrotechnic that the Germans were using.
DK: Was that a story that was purposefully put around do you think?
JG: I think it was a story that the Bomber Command guys like myself invented and the bosses decided to keep quiet about it. I think they knew but they didn’t deceive us. They just let us go on thinking what we already thought.
DK: So you weren’t in any trouble then for hitting the wrong town.
JG: There was no question, there was no question of it. No. They were just so bloody pleased to see us they didn’t give a monkey about where we’d been -
DK: No.
JG: Or what we’d done.
DK: How did you feel knowing that there was those losses and the way the route had been drawn that you were going in a long straight line for several hundred miles in, in full, it was full moonlight wasn’t it?
JG: Yeah I think the winds were a nonsense, the weather forecast was completely the opposite. When they said it was going to be cloudy all the way, we’d have cloud cover, it was clear all the way except the target was cloudy and so I think the actual attack on the target was not very clever but in a way it’s helped the end of an era. They switched us to the French targets and the French targets were such a piece of duff they were only going to count as a third of a trip but it turned out that that was not correct because to bomb a French target we could not bomb a French target while there were French workers there in the marshalling yard or the factory and we had to wait for some system of someone in the resistance would send a signal to the UK who would send a signal to us to tell us when we could start bombing so we were circling around you know with nothing to do except wait and the Luftwaffe -
DK: While you were being shot at.
JG: Began to take an interest in us and come up and shoot people down and on one of the worst of those Mailly le Camp in Belgium they shot down I think it was forty two aeroplanes.
DK: Were you on that operation?
JG: I was on that one, yes. Yes. I claimed to be the guy who put out the spot fires. I may be mistaken. It was disputed by everybody except I continued to say it and I can still to say it now the others have gone [laughs]
DK: So the spot fire?
JG: It was being marked by Cheshire.
DK: Right.
JG: And he had developed this idea of low level marking and of using these red spot fires and he had everybody waiting with the flares that his colleagues had circled this and I took one look at that and said to Jeff Ward, ‘We are not joining that. We’re heading into the darkest place we can find and then we’ll come back now and again and see what’s happening.’ And just as it happened, as we got back he had it marked and we went in and when we pulled away my rear gunner Jock [Haye] said, ‘We put the bloody red spot fires out.’ I said, ‘Jock, I don’t care we’re on our way home,’ and we could hear these arguments going on. I think it was either a Canadian or an Australian and they were giving him a hard time because he wanted to remark the target, ‘Stop bombing, stop bombing,’ and they wouldn’t because -
DK: Wanted to go.
JG: They could see what we’d done and I think it was forty two aeroplanes lost and we killed one German. They’d left an NCO to guard the camp and that was their only casualty. Our chaps busy with the crosswords and whatever, some of their intelligence was a bit duff. They thought there was a whole army there at this tank training school but they’d left the week before. So -
DK: Yeah.
JG: So it was a sad tale that one and there was nothing happy about it.
DK: What was your opinions of Cheshire at that time was he well known throughout Bomber Command or -
JG: Yes he was and I got to know him after that because when he left and he inherited this property he set up these Cheshire Homes.
DK: Yeah.
JG: Some guy that, you know, had nowhere to go he took with him and he said anyone who came along would be taken in provided they could do something useful. There was no charge. He paid for it. Yeah. And I thought he’s taken leave of his senses but then I realised afterwards that he was the first to come to his senses and I was flying this time in BOAC and on a VC10 and he was a passenger on one occasion and I talked to him at Heathrow in the VIP lounge and he was grumbling about the coffee and I said, ‘Put a shot of this in with it,’ and of course he was teetotal [laughs] Poisonous you see. And I said, ‘Do you remember a place called Mailly le Camp?’ And he said, ‘Shall I ever forget?’ So I chatted to him on this trip and I found, yeah he was the first guy to come to his senses and we became not exactly friends but I got to know him afterwards though I didn’t know him at the time. Yeah.
DK: Interesting. So is he someone you’ve got the respect for of that post war [chain of who was?]?
JG: Oh yes. I think what he did he went around after that every year visiting places where they had been bombed and delivering the cross of nails which I think I’ve got a picture here of one of the German newspaper. There I am with the chairman and that’s the cross of nails. The Coventry.
DK: Ok.
JG: [?] whatever.
DK: Yes.
JG: And every year and he visited Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
DK: Yes. Yes because he was-
JG: Check that they’d got them there.
DK: He was actually on the Nagasaki raid wasn’t he?
JG: Yeah.
DK: He was the British observer.
JG: Yeah so that’s, that’s in Germany that’s the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church that we destroyed.
DK: That’s Berlin isn’t it? I have seen that.
JG: Yes.
DK: Well not that. I’ve seen the church.
JG: Yeah. Yes. [pause] So that’s my favourite aeroplane.
DK: Ah the VC10.
JG: The VC10. I liked that beast. I liked the Comet as well but I like the beast. Yeah.
DK: The first aeroplane I ever flew on was a VC10.
JG: What?
DK: The first aeroplane I ever flew on was a VC10.
JG: Oh was it really? Yes.
DK: 1981. British Airways.
JG: Yeah. Yeah. That’s one. Yes.
DK: So, you, you were in Transport Command then.
JG: I was in Transport Command. Missed this lot.
DK: Right.
JG: You know. I struggled to get a job. When we were on 61 I did have an offer from Bennett to join the Pathfinders.
DK: Right.
JG: And I called a get-together with the crew where we would vote on the issue as to whether we stayed with 61 or if we went to the Pathfinders and it was a bit of a set up because I had got this, with this DFM I’d got twenty five quid and it was the only twenty five quid that I had at the time.
DK: Yeah.
JG: I spent it all in Leagate public house and of course it snowballed on me. Not just my crew but the ground crew and the girls from the parachute, they all came and anyone who came in the pub the bartender was saying, ‘Are you with Jeff Gray’s crew?’ And they said, ‘No. Why?’ ‘Well there’s free beer if you are.’ ‘Oh, yes, good old Jeff.’ [laughs] And so the vote was stay 61.
DK: Ok.
JG: It could hardly have been anything else but I don’t know if he forgave me or, ‘cause I didn’t ever meet him personally but after the war when I came out I missed this lot. The one guy who offered me a job was Bennett and, but he said, ‘You won’t be flying as a pilot. We’re taking off all the navigators on this British/South American route we’re starting and you will be acting as navigator.’ And I said, ‘Oh God. Never. I think it’s a dreadful mistake. A recipe for disaster.’ And it was of course.
DK: He lost a couple of aircraft didn’t he, in South America?
JG: He did and he did try to take the top off the Pyrenees.
DK: Yeah.
JG: And they cancelled the airline. Put him out of business.
DK: And it was at the point you joined BOAC then.
JG: Yes. Yes. That was about all that was left. [laughs] I looked at Quantas and I foolishly turned that down because they were the worst paid in the business but today the top but, and I knew that I couldn’t join any of the continentals because I was hopeless at language but so the BOAC as a very humble first officer was where I got to.
DK: So what did you start flying on with BOAC then at the beginning?
JG: Oh dear. I’m hopeless on dates. I don’t have that.
DK: Or the type of aircraft.
JG: On the, on the Yorks to start with.
DK: Avro Yorks.
JG: And then we moved up to the Comets and the VC10s and then one day I wound up when I didn’t go on the Jumbo which I really should have done as everybody else did but what I had in mind I knew that the Concorde was coming along and I thought that’s for me and, but when it came to it and I was interviewed for that they said you have to have three years clear service before you can repay the cost of the training and you haven’t got three years clear so there I was on this bloody tripwire that they’d set for me. I couldn’t get on the Concorde.
DK: That was a shame.
JG: And, however, as one door shuts another one opens. The Gulf Aviation in Bahrain were buying some of these VC10s and I was offered a job straightaway to train their guys because at this stage I was an instructor, an examiner and all the rest of the stuff so I went to Bahrain for two years and stayed for six.
DK: Ah.
JG: Yeah.
DK: So did you actually fly the Gulf Air VC10s or were you just training?
JG: Yes I flew the Gulf Air VC10s and then when they got the Tristar
DK: Tristars. Yeah.
JG: I flew that. And it was at that stage that I had to, I’d promised myself with the old Atlantic boys that I met on the Atlantic you mustn’t stay too long. There comes a time when you begin to lose it and don’t stay till then. Go just before. Always leave the party when it’s at its height and I thought this aeroplane can do everything I can do except it does it better. It flies, the autopilot flies better than I can. It does the navigation which was always my weak point, it’ll do the communication. What the hell am I doing here? Time to go. So I quit. Yeah.
DK: So what year would that have been?
JG: That was -
DK: That you stopped flying?
JG: ’74. I came back from Bahrain. It was 1980 I think. Yes.
DK: 1980
JG: Yeah. Came back in time for Christmas and I’ve stayed away from aviation ever since. From that time I had staff travel but they then brought me out of that.
DK: Did you ever get to fly on Concorde?
JG: No.
DK: You didn’t. Oh.
JG: No. Sadly. When I was in Bahrain one of the first flights I did was to Bahrain. I was able to see it and talk to some of the guys that were on it but I really didn’t want to know. I was really very, I was still very huffy about it. [laughs]
DK: So what did you think about the VC10? What was, what was that as an aircraft?
JG: Yes the VC10 was a lovely aeroplane, yes. Really. A winner. It was a shame that they didn’t continue the development but they didn’t. They went all American. So, yes. I was involved very briefly in the saga of the material that Rolls invented. This new, what do you call it? The new -
DK: The engine. The alloys. The -
JG: Yes. Yes.
DK: Yeah.
JG: They were making the blades of this new –
DK: Alloys yeah, yeah.
JG: And we had number four engine was fitted with that on the VC10 with these new turbine blades and they were looking for a favourable report on it and we went down to Lagos. The weather was bad and we diverted to Akra. We ran through some thunder storms and heavy rain and we had to shut the engine down. This number four. And as I walked ashore a guy at the aeroplane was shouting at me to come back. It was the engineer. ‘Come and look at this,’ he said, ‘skipper.’ And it was hanging like knitting. It had shredded. The material was no damned good.
DK: Wasn’t any good.
JG: And I did myself no good by sending in a voidance report saying, ‘Any of you guys with Rolls Royce shares, sell today.’ [laughs] The Americans took up the material and perfected it.
DK: It’s the old story isn’t it?
JG: The old story and they’ve been scoring on it ever since. Yes. And now the whole aeroplane’s made in America.
DK: Yes. So looking back on your time in the RAF particularly your time on Bomber Command how do you look back on it now all these years later? Is it -
JG: I regret to say that I have some misgivings. I had at the time, I think it was Lincoln Cathedral did it for me when I first saw that and I thought armies of men came here and built this thing and what do we do? We try and knock them all down.
DK: Destroy them.
JG: It seemed all wrong to me but that’s the business we were in and I think I kept that idea in mind and I got involved with, let me look and see what I’ve got on that. Oh I think that the, that church there is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. My wife and I set about that to see if we could do something about it and I thought I’d go down there what else have I got? Have I got anything on it?
DK: It’s not it there is it?
JG: Oh that’s it. Thanks very much.
DK: Ok.
JG: Yes. I decided that this is the -
DK: Yes I recognise that from my trips to Berlin.
JG: That is the church which we destroyed that but the bell tower is still stood and they kept it as a symbol of defiance. They’d defied the bombing, they’d defied the Russians, they’d defied, defied the partition of the city. Everything. And the bell tower stood and, but it will have to be demolished because bits were falling off it and people were objecting and the council said it would have to be demolished or rebuilt but they had no money so I wrote to them and said why not set up a fund and ask the guys who did the damage to pay for it and I think I’ve got all that here. [London Times?] of your dilemma. You should try to save it. Why not ask the guys who did the damage to make a contribution to a restoration fund and so on and I took part in a number of raids against Berlin starting on the 2nd of December 1943 and on their behalf I would like to make a contribution to the fund of five hundred pounds to start the ball rolling. To my astonishment they took it up. There is the reply from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and so the fund was successful. We raised quite a lot of money by giving the sole story to the Berlin newspaper chain that, there we are being interviewed for that. That’s the picture -
DK: Yeah.
JG: Being copied here and so they did it and there we are. That’s myself, my wife and my grand-daughter, my son’s wife Gerlinde. And ‘English bomber pilot triggers off fund raising’ and I’ve, there’s the, it stalled for a bit and then the, raising funds. The guys in this country didn’t want to join in I’m afraid.
DK: No.
JG: They were all raising money for the Bomber Command Memorial here and didn’t want to know about this one. Then, but the National Lottery came in with money and then Angela Merkel -
DK: Oh yeah.
JG: Moved in.
DK: Yes. Yes.
JG: Topped the fund out so -
DK: Yeah.
JG: The restoration started and I think it’s complete as far as I know and I would like to think there might be a big ceremony of some kind but nothing has happened.
DK: No.
JG: It should have been ready last year but then they were celebrating the Berlin wall taken, took everything. I should think if they do it it will be the 26th of November when we destroyed it so -
DK: So, how, how do you feel this is the, you obviously do, it might sound a silly question, is this an important part of your, your life and in some ways a response to your time in Bomber Command?
JG: Yes I think it was. Yes. I think it was. These are a number of smaller shots.
DK: Yeah.
JG: I had made if you want to and, yeah I think it was a reaction to that, a guilty conscience I don’t know.
DK: Did you –
JG: But anyway I’m very pleased that it succeeded.
DK: Yeah. Did you manage to get many more, any more RAF -
JG: No.
DK: Guys.
JG: Very few.
DK: Very few.
JG: I was very fortunate in that the ones I knew and I was able to ring up and talk to them or to their widow they would say, ‘Sorry Jeff. I think you’re a bit off your trolley. It’s not going to work.’ And they were quite right so I said, ‘Ok. I’ll have to do it without,’ and we did get, my wife and I did get invited to the, when they got the glockenspiel working and ringing mid-day but she wasn’t well enough to go.
DK: No.
JG: And so I didn’t get to that.
DK: Ok.
JG: But I have lost touch with them a bit since then. Yes.
DK: Ok.
JG: I’m really hopeful that this crazy Scotswoman who has appeared, Nicola Sturgeon.
DK: Sturgeon. Yes. Yes.
JG: Is moving in everywhere she can. I’ve been in touch with her because I think she’s got some good ideas and she’s one of the people who gets things done. You may not like her or like what she’s doing.
DK: No well. Yeah. Yeah.
JG: As a fellow Scot and she wrote in very sympathetic vein and so I think that I will be in touch with her again to see if there is anything is happening. If there’s going to be a ceremony could she get in touch with Angela Merkel and see if we could arrange a ceremony because having separated Scotland -
DK: Having got that far
JG: She might like to make a fuss of it.
DK: Yeah. Definitely.
JG: So wait and see.
DK: Hope something comes about.
JG: Some of these pictures I’ve got that have been made up are for her attention.
DK: Right.
JG: Because if you hit people with pictures like that they pay attention.
DK: Yeah. Definitely. So how many raids on Berlin did you actually -
JG: Nine.
DK: Actually do. Nine.
JG: Yeah. I met people who did ten and I met people who did dozens more but not of the big sixteen you see. Yeah. And that first one that they did in November which destroyed the church did a lot of damage, you know. It destroyed the zoo and there were wild animals rushing about everywhere and had to be rounded up and that. I think that rather misled the guys in Bomber Command into thinking this was going to be easy but it wasn’t and I think we set off with the wrong kit. The stuff they’d done on the short range, the Cologne and the like, medieval cities, wooden frames, narrow streets.
DK: Burnt.
JG: You set up a fire storm with a bomb that shatters the tiles and the windows and the incendiaries, you know, get into the building and people die in the fire. Lack of, suffocate. But none of us had been to Berlin. It’s not like that. Great wide boulevards and the tall buildings made of stone and brick and steel with sloping roofs and we had the wrong kit. We were never going to set that on fire. Ruined the plane trees in the street, they all burned, you know but the nature of the buildings they were sheltering in they had made passages through from one to the other so if that one caught fire they went -
DK: Yeah.
JG: Into the next one. Yeah. And in the morning they cleared up the rubbish and tidied the street and went back to work and I think the real thing that defeated us was the fact that in the blitz in the UK in Coventry and London it produced a spirit of defiance. And I think if you produce that in people you can’t defeat them.
DK: No. No.
JG: So -
DK: No.
JG: Anyway, so -
DK: And what’s, what’s the German, the Germans you’ve met there, what’s their, been their reaction to this? Has it been favourable?
JG: I think they quite like the idea of their symbol of defiance being turned into a symbol of reconciliation.
DK: Reconciliation.
JG: That’s the theme I pedal. A symbol of reconciliation and I think of late we’ve had programmes showing us Germany and some of the bombing and some of the damage that was done and showing us the places and the people who were affected and being told their stories and, yeah. And I think they’ve been doing a lot on the Dambusters of course who were, became famous because of the wonderful film they made you know and playing with those bombs and it wasn’t until recently that I realised that Churchill was worried about the bombs that hadn’t gone off and that the Germans were able to examine and began making a list of the dams in the -
DK: UK.
JG: In the UK that they could bomb. Yes. Yes. So you learn these things eventually that you didn’t know at the time but I do think that if you get that spirit going among the public that they will not, they will defy you, you’ve lost it. Yeah. You’ve lost it.
DK: Yeah.
JG: Yes.
DK: And did you meet many Germans who were there at the time, when you went out there?
JG: No. I haven’t. No.
DK: Ok.
JG: No. Of course I rely on Gerlinde as my interpreter because I’ve only got a few words -
DK: Oh right.
JG: In German.
DK: So scrape by on -
JG: She can speak German then.
DK: Yes. She’s a Bavarian. Yes.
JG: Oh I see. Right. She’s, right, ok. She’s German.
DK: So -
JG: Or Bavarian I should say.
DK: Yes she would say she’s a Bavarian.
JG: Bavarian.
DK: Yes. Quite right. She’s not German. She’s Bavarian. I’ve made that mistake before.
JG: Yeah. So -
DK: Ok. I think I’ll stop there.
JG: Yes.
DK: It seems a sensible place to stop so thanks very much for that. We’ve been talking for nearly an hour.
JG: It’s been a pleasure anyway. Yes. Yes.
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AGrayCJ151017
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Interview with Jeff Gray
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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00:57:16 audio recording
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Pending review
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David Kavanagh
Date
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2015-10-17
Description
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Jeff Gray was a farm labourer in Aberdeenshire when he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He trained to fly in Texas and completed 30 operations as a pilot with 61 Squadron. After leaving the RAF he worked for BOAC flying Yorks and VC10s.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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France
Great Britain
United States
France--Mailly-le-Camp
England--Lincolnshire
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Julie Williams
61 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
civil defence
crewing up
Halifax
Home Guard
Lancaster
memorial
pilot
RAF Coningsby
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigsley
Scarecrow
searchlight
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/337/3501/PTaylorEC1701.1.jpg
acbcb633c679d09f01c94a0f7e54d530
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/337/3501/ATaylorEC170928.2.mp3
9a15f4d3f4e54369b0747cf28be0b8eb
Dublin Core
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Title
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Taylor, Eric
Eric Charles Taylor
Eric C Taylor
E C Taylor
E Taylor
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Squadron Leader Eric Charles Taylor.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Taylor, EC
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DK: So this is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre, interviewing Squadron Leader Eric Taylor at his home on the –
BT: Where are we?
DK: 28th of September 2017. So if I just put that there, put that that there –
ET: Yeah.
DK: Put that there. I’ll keep looking down, I’m just making sure that it’s working.
ET: Yes.
DK: That looks okay. So if we leave that, yeah that looks okay. Well, what I wanted to ask you first was what, what were you doing immediately before the war?
ET: School.
DK: Right, so you went straight from school to –
ET: I left school in the June forty-three –
DK: Mhm.
ET: Sorry, [pause] –
DK: It would be 1943 wouldn’t it?
ET: Yeah it is forty-three.
DK: Yeah, yeah. So you went straight from school, straight from school to the RAF?
ET: Yes.
DK: So what made you want to join the RAF then?
ET: Because I, I joined the, the LDV I think they called it –
DK: The Home Guard.
ET: The Local Defence Force.
DK: Mhm [BT laughs].
ET: And they put me through hours of drill [laughs], and I didn’t like that very much. I thought I’ll probably better join the Air Force, and you used to get all these magazines of course, you know, with all the things about the –
DK: Yeah.
ET: Battle of Britain and that type of thing. That’s what encouraged me to, to join. I went to Edinburgh for a testation [?] which was delayed for six months, so I actually went in, in the February –
DK: Is that on? Yeah, okay.
ET: Forty-three.
DK: Right. So –
ET: That was wrong, I told you –
DK: You’re right, it says forty-two in here.
ET: Must have been forty-two [emphasis].
DK: Right.
ET: Twenty, 1923 and something.
DK: That’s 1940 isn’t it? Okay, don’t worry, don’t worry.
ET: 1940.
DK: Yeah.
BT: 1940, you’d be seventeen.
DK: Yeah.
ET: Must have been forty-one then.
BT: Forty-one was it, okay.
ET: Left school.
BT: Yeah.
DK: So forty-one.
ET: Yeah, because it was forty-two –
DK: That you joined the Air Force.
ET: That I joined the Air Force.
DK: Yeah, yeah, okay.
ET: That’s right.
DK: You left school in 1941 and then joined the Air Force –
ET: Yeah.
DK: In 1942. So what, what was your first posting in the Air Force then? Where, where, can you remember where you went to?
ET: Well the first , well I went to London, and the – ooh we attended several lectures, you know, mainly about venereal disease [all laugh] and all the rest of the things.
DK: Yeah.
ET: And the, from then on I went up to, I trained at Staverton, Gloucestershire, Number Six AUS [?].
DK: Right.
ET: And that took about a year.
DK: So at this point you were already training as a navigator?
ET: Yeah, oh initially I did a small six hours course. I went in as a PNB.
DK: Right.
ET: Pilot, navigator or –
DK: Bomber aimer.
ET: Bomber aimer. Didn’t quite make the pilot stakes [?] so I became a navigator.
DK: Right.
ET: And then I went to the CUS [?]. That was the first straight navigator course, because before that they had the air observers, they called them.
DK: Yeah.
ET: Yeah, so we didn’t do any bombing aiming at that time. Course I went through them very quickly [emphasis], it only took about a year.
DK: Yeah.
ET: Then from there I went to Stratford-on-Avon to the OTU.
DK: Yeah.
ET: Operational training unit.
DK: Yeah. Just going, winding back a bit. What, what was the training as a, as a navigator? Were you actually flying [emphasis] at the time then?
ET: Yes, yes.
DK: So what sort of aircraft were you –
ET: Anson
DK: Ansons, right.
ET: Anson mainly. And then we came onto the Wellington when we came onto the OTU.
DK: The operational training unit.
ET: Yeah.
DK: Yeah, so that was Number 16 Operational Training Unit?
ET: That’s right.
DK: Yeah, and that was at RAF Upper Heyford?
ET: No.
DK: Oop, sorry.
ET: It’s at, it was at, it, just past Stratford-on-Avon.
DK: Stratford-on-Avon, right, okay.
ET: Yeah.
DK: So that’s 16 OTU at Stratford-on-Avon. And, and what aircraft were you training on there?
ET: Wellingtons.
DK: And is that where you met your, your crew then?
ET: Yeah. Well we all met [emphasis] –
DK: Mm.
ET: And just somebody would say, ‘would you like to fly with me?’ It was very, it wasn’t a rigid [?] thing at all, you know.
DK: No. So how did that work then? Were you all pushed into a hangar and you all had to work –
ET: Well we’re in a big hall, yeah, and the pilots were there and [laughs] –
DK: Right. How did you think that worked, ‘cause it’s quite unusual for the military. Normally you’re ordered to go somewhere.
ET: Well that’s right.
DK: This was quite an unusual way of where you –
ET: Yes.
DK: Picked your crew.
ET: Anyway, that’s how they did it and it seemed to work out there pretty well.
DK: And you found your, your pilot there then did you?
ET: Yes.
DK: And can you remember your pilot’s name?
ET: Yes, Cyril Pearce.
DK: Right.
ET: I think he’s no longer with us –
DK: Yeah.
ET: I don’t think any of the crew are with us now, you know.
DK: So you would have met your pilot?
ET: Yes.
DK: And –
ET: I met them all, the bomb aimer –
DK: Bomb aimer.
ET: And the wireless operator.
DK: Yeah.
ET: And the gunner.
DK: Mhm. And, and did you all get on well together when you –
ET: Yes, we seemed to, yeah.
DK: Yeah.
ET: Yeah. And I – the navigator didn’t do a lot of the pilot training on the aircraft, you know, the local flying circuits and mops and that.
DK: Yeah.
ET: But on the cross countries of course, we, we all went on those.
DK: Mm.
ET: Some had a dual instructor and others smaller [?].
DK: Yeah. What did you think of the Wellington as an aircraft?
ET: Actually quite good after the [laughs] – it was a bit bigger. The big thing I remember is – I think the model’s a 1-C that we trained on.
DK: Right.
ET: At the OTU, but then we got a mark three I think. ‘Cause we took an aeroplane out with us when we went to Tunisia.
DK: Right.
ET: And that was a long flight.
DK: Mm.
ET: We had to go miles out to sea to avoid the Bay of Biscay, you know, ‘cause all the Germans –
DK: Yeah, yeah.
ET: Were there, and we flew from Portreath to a place called Ras el Ma –
DK: Right.
ET: On the west coast of Africa. The big thing I remember there was there was always an enormous amount of flies [DK and ET laugh]. You had a plate of soup, had a quick swipe [DK laughs], put your spoon in quickly [laughs]. And from there we just, we went on through Blida and then ended up at the Kairouan.
DK: Right.
ET: With aircraft – 142 Squadron and 150 had both just gone there. There was nothing, there were no facilities at all. There wasn’t even a latrine initially [laughs].
DK: So, so out your training then, you’ve done the operational training unit and really cross country flights around England.
ET: That’s it.
DK: And then your posted to your squadron and you’re posted out to Africa.
ET: Yes [emphasis].
DK: Oh right.
ET: Actually we just cleared [?] Africa, North Africa. Well we arrived there –
DK: Right.
ET: And when I was, we were there, we had the invasion of Sicily of course.
DK: Mm.
ET: And Italy. And most of our bombing were, they were to, you know, targets in Sicily.
DK: Right.
ET: And several, going up the coast to Italy.
DK: Right, and this was with 142 Squadron?
ET: 142 Squadron.
DK: Yeah. So can you remember how many operations you did in the Middle East and Italy?
ET: Yes I, thirty.
DK: Thirty [emphasis]? Oh right.
ET: That was a tour then.
DK: Yeah.
ET: And I came back to UK. Oh I went with a journey from Tunis to Algiers –
DK: Mm.
ET: By train, and on the carriage I’ll always remember it said, ‘forty orm [?] or five [laughs], what were they, sivar [?] horses’ [ET and DK laugh]. Took five days, the journey, and then you got on a boat, came back to Liverpool.
DK: Right.
ET: This was at the end of forty-three –
DK: Uh-huh.
ET: And the – I thought I’d move to Scotland so I went all the way up to a place called Edsoff [?] where I used to live and the last bit I had to do by bus, you know, train then bus.
DK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ET: Then I met this girl on the bus and she said, ‘what are you doing?’ And I said, I said ‘I’m going home [emphasis], what did you think?’ She says ‘I think they’ve moved’ [laughs]. Ah, I had then to go and search where they’d gone to.
DK: And this was your family?
ET: That’s my family –
DK: They’d moved while you were away [laughs].
ET: My parents – well I didn’t get the letter of course to say they were moving.
DK: Oh of course.
ET: And they’d moved to Woodhall Spa would you believe.
DK: Oh right.
ET: In Lincolnshire.
DK: Yeah, yeah, know it well [DK and ET laugh]. So when you were in Africa then, your parents moved from Scotland –
ET: Yes.
DK: To Woodhall Spa.
ET: Yeah.
DK: And you didn’t, you didn’t know [laughs].
ET: Didn’t know.
DK: No. If I could just go back a bit, your operations in the Middle East. Did you find navigating something that came to you easily or –
ET: Quite difficult.
DK: Difficult? Right, because –
ET: Actually, we did have one, one navigation error which a very lucky to get away with it in many respects because coming back from Italy, we hit this land [emphasis] and I thought it was the north coast of Africa –
DK: Right.
ET: It turned out to be the north coast of Sicily [emphasis], going along.
DK: Yeah.
ET: And, course there’s some very high mountains there. Our signaller, our wireless operator finally got a , what we’d call a QDM –
DK: Mm.
ET: You know, a course to steer.
DK: Yeah.
ET: So we turned on that. Of course we’re getting short of fuel and all sorts of things, and we threw out the guns onto the turret to make the aircraft lighter, and coasted at quite a low altitude –
DK: Mm.
ET: Thinking of the mountains there –
DK: Yeah.
ET: And landed , there was an emergency airfield right on the tip of, which we landed at.
DK: On Sicily?
ET: No, no, in North Africa.
DK: Oh North Africa was it, right.
ET: Right at the top there.
DK: Right, oh right.
ET: So that was a real bit of luck there.
DK: Did you, did you get into any trouble for navigating?
ET: Not really.
DK: No, good [DK and ET laugh].
ET: What I remember is my pilot got in trouble because there was a taxi accident.
DK: Right.
ET: That’s the worst thing that can be done, you know. I think the wing hit it [unclear] on one and knocked [?] it up and twice, and I remember the station [?] commander at briefing for an operational trip. He’d see [?] pilots in front of him and say, ‘look at these men, traitors to the cause.’ I always remember that.
DK: Yeah.
ET: Terrible thing to say really.
DK: Bit harsh isn’t it?
ET: They felt bad enough as it is.
DK: Yeah. And one of those, one of those was your pilot was it?
ET: Yes [emphasis].
DK: Stood up – so he had to stand in front of everybody and get told off?
ET: Well there was three of them.
DK: Three of them, right.
ET: Yes, two’s [?] being blamed for the trip, you know –
DK: Yeah.
ET: That night. And this came out.
DK: Oh dear. It’s not very good is it? [Laughs].
ET: Very unsympathetic.
DK: No. Were commanding officers like that then? Were they a bit tough?
ET: This is a copy, what’s it? [Papers shuffle]. Is there something in there called “Blida’s Bombers?” A book. Oh yeah, it’s about him.
DK: Oh right.
ET: There’s something in [papers shuffle, pause]. All this mail, that’s Kairouan [laughs].
DK: Right. Just for the recording, it’s a magazine or a pamphlet called “Blida’s Bombers.” B-L-I-D-A, Blida. That’s, that’s in Algiers isn’t it?
ET: That’s right.
DK: [Unclear].
ET: That was a big base, as the Army. We started going in with the first army –
DK: Right.
ET: [Unclear].
DK: I actually went there many years ago, to Blida in Algiers. And just for the recording, this is “Blida’s Bombers” by Eric M. Summers. Did you know Eric M. Summers?
ET: No.
DK: No, no.
ET: But there was a Group Captain Powel, his photograph was in there which I was trying to, to find.
DK: Right.
ET: He was a man that –
DK: Oh, Group Captain Powel –
ET: Yeah.
DK: Here he is.
ET: Yeah, but there’s a picture of him with his –
DK: That’s in there.
ET: Fly [?]. He always used to fly [laughs].
DK: So he was your commanding officer was he?
ET: He was the station commander actually –
DK: Station commander, right.
ET: Group captain, yeah.
DK: And was it him who told your –
ET: Yes.
DK: The three pilot off?
ET: Yeah.
DK: Well that’s for the recording then, Group Captain Powell [laughs]. Ah there he is, there is he is.
ET: That’s him.
DK: Yeah.
ET: That’s exactly with his – yeah.
DK: Oh, so just for the recording here. It’s Group Captain Powell, briefing for Radan Recina [?]. And it looks like he’s got a fly swat there.
ET: That’s right. He always used that as a pointer [DK and ET laugh].
DK: He looks like he must have been a bit of a character. Oh wow.
ET: Quite a forceful –
DK: Forceful, I can imagine [?].
ET: Yeah.
DK: So there’s the Wellingtons –
ET: Probably [unclear], that’s him, yeah.
DK: You were flying.
ET: Yes, yeah.
DK: So this is all – the book itself is about the Tunis campaign then?
ET: What I can remember is when we got later [?], the power, the whole, the whole instruments used to shake and [laughs].
DK: [Unclear] my phone’s on. Sorry about that. So you got Noel Coward’s poem [?] there, ‘lie in the dark and listen.’
ET: Yes.
DK: Yeah, ah. So while you were in North Africa then and you’re bombing targets in Italy, were you, was your aircraft ever hit at all or, can you recall?
ET: Er, not really. Should they call it sometimes [?], few peppered.
DK: Right.
ET: But nothing direct.
DK: Nothing serious.
ET: Direct hit.
DK: So you never got attacked by German aircraft –
ET: No.
DK: At all?
ET: No.
DK: Right. So what did you, what sort of targets were you hitting there in –
ET: Mostly airfields.
DK: Mostly airfields.
ET: There, [papers shuffle] here you are –
DK: Right.
ET: I don’t have the – oh [unclear]. That’s how we got there.
DK: Right okay, so that’s, for the recording here, that’s your logbook.
ET: That’s my logbook, yeah.
DK: So –
ET: Number one.
DK: Your pilot then is Pearce.
ET: Yes.
DK: Sergeant Pearce, and you’re the navigator down on here.
ET: We’re all sergeants –
DK: You’re all sergeants, right.
ET: At the time. There was very few, very few commissioned there on the squadron.
DK: Right, so the whole crew was sergeants then?
ET: Yeah.
DK: Yeah, so from the logbook then, so you’ve gone from Portreath to Ra –
ET: Ras el Ma.
DK: El Ma. Ras el Ma to Blida.
ET: That’s right.
DK: Then Blida to Kairouan.
ET: Kairouan.
DK: And I’ll spell that for the recording. It’s K-A-I-R-O-U-A-N. And so your base was Maison Blanche?
ET: No the base was Kairouan.
DK: Kairouan was it?
ET: Yeah.
DK: Right okay.
ET: It looks as though someone must have taken an aeroplane or something up there.
DK: Oh right [something pings in background].
ET: And I don’t know how we came back but it –
DK: Right. So you’ve done operations then to Nissena [?] –
ET: Yeah.
DK: And that’s in a Wellington, 19th of June 1943. So Nissena [?] seems to be a regular target, hmm. So Nissena [?], Italian airfield, Syracuse.
ET: Syracuse, yeah.
DK: Yeah.
ET: Masala [?].
DK: So quite a number of – so you said you did thirty operations there in North Africa?
ET: Yeah.
DK: Hmm, the Nissena beaches I noticed [page turns]. So what were the, what were the briefings like in North Africa? Were you sort of in a tent and – what were the facilities like?
ET: Yes, was all under canvas, the whole thing. The food was corned beef –
DK: Yeah.
ET: For everything. In fact, I got an attack of jaundice –
DK: Oh right.
ET: Through that. I went into hospital and they gave me tinned fruit –
DK: Rivht.
ET: And I thought this was a most wonderful thing to, to get. In fact, there was a big American camp near us and they – we used to trade whiskey [DK laughs] for tinned fruit –
DK: Yeah, yeah.
ET: You know, that they had.
DK: [Tape moved] I’m not sure that that’s such a good spot now [laughs].
BT: No.
ET: Not now [laughs].
DK: Not now, no. Oh right.
ET: I suppose thank goodness for corned beef otherwise the [laughs] –
DK: So at, at the briefings then, presumably you’re sort of sat down and told what the target – were you told what the targets were?
ET: Told what the target is, yes.
DK: Right. So in North Africa, were they mostly military targets, airfields and –
ET: Yes.
DK: I noticed here you’ve got here [reading from logbook]: ‘30th of September 1943, ops. Port engine caught fire on takeoff [emphasis].’ Do you remember that?
ET: Not really [both laugh].
DK: Well it says you landed okay after twenty-five minutes.
ET: Yeah we always – obviously we’d have just gone –
DK: Yeah.
ET: Round and there –
DK: And landed again.
ET: And landed again.
DK: So then you’ve had, got several places in Italy then. I noticed you’ve got Pisa is one, ops to Pisa.
ET: Yes.
DK: Yeah [paper turns].
ET: I remember the vehicles [?], I remember we were on that night, bobbing and the beaches, you know, before the army got in.
DK: So that’s 142 Squadron then, and you’ve done two hundred and forty-two hours, fifteen minutes operations then.
ET: Is that the end?
DK: Yeah that’s the end there, yeah.
ET: Yeah [page turns].
DK: So you’ve, you’ve come back to the UK then, you’ve come back to England. What, where –
ET: I was an instructor then.
DK: Right [laughs].
ET: Or so – we didn’t have half the instrumentation that the UK aircraft had.
DK: Right.
ET: So it was like an idiot teaching an idiot really [laughing], until we got used to –
DK: Right. So you, you went onto training then did you? You were –
ET: Yes.
DK: Right.
ET: It, I did a year –
DK: Right.
ET: Mainly at a place called Barford St. John –
DK: Right.
ET: Which is not far from Oxfordshire. Oh it’s about three miles away from, what’s the name of the town [pause], starts with a B I think.
DK: Bedford?
BT: Bicester?
DK: Bicester?
BT: Bicester, yeah?
ET: B – well down that way, yeah.
DK: Right. And that was in Oxfordshire was it?
ET: Yeah.
DK: Right.
ET: And then the –
DK: So what, what aircraft were you flying doing the training there?
ET: Wellingtons.
DK: Wellingtons again, and that, you said they were better equipped than the ones you were flying in the Middle East?
ET: Yes [DK laughs]. There’s a thing in navigation called G [emphasis] –
DK: Yes.
ET: Which we didn’t have out there, you know. It was a wonderful aid, very accurate –
DK: Mm.
ET: But I had to learn [laughs], I had to learn that, you see, when I came back .
DK: So although you were training people, you yourself didn’t know –
ET: Well [laughs].
DK: Oh right.
ET: You know radio, you know, out there, about thirty-five miles was the range of our radio. You know –
DK: Mm.
ET: If you did want to call our base [laughs] –
DK: Yeah.
ET: You had to be within thirty-five miles of it.
DK: So not very far then?
ET: Not very far at all, no.
BT: Banbury, it was.
DK: Banbury.
ET: Banbury [emphasis] was the place –
BT: I just looked it up.
ET: Yeah sorry, Banbury, Banbury’s where – it was just outside Banbury. And anyway, at the end of the year they changed from Wellingtons to Mosquitos.
DK: Right, okay.
ET: So I just stayed there and did the course, met the pilot. He was a very good pilot. He, when he finished training in Canada they kept him on as an instructor.
DK: Right. So you’ve come – I slightly misread this earlier and I want – for the benefit of the tape, your initial training was at Number Six Air Observation School at Staverton.
ET: That’s right.
DK: And then you went to 21 OTU, Morteon-in-the-Marsh.
ET: That’s correct.
DK: Then [emphasis] to North Africa.
ET: For operational training –
DK: Then to North Africa –
ET: North Africa.
DK: Sorry I misread this, with 142 Squadron.
ET: Yes.
DK: Which we’ve just covered.
ET: That’s correct.
DK: So you’ve come back then and you did a year’s training –
ET: Yes.
DK: Instructing, and that was at 16 OTU, Upper Heyford [?].
ET: Yes, that was the main base –
DK: Main base.
ET: But as I say, I spent it all at Barford –
DK: Right okay.
ET: St. John.
DK: Right. So then in early 1945 then, you’re now converted onto the Mosquito?
ET: That’s right.
DK: Can you remember your pilot’s name on the Mosquito?
ET: Yeah, Green, Dave Green.
DK: Dave Green.
ET: We didn’t have a – he was married, the chap in the, well obviously [unclear] he met a girl out there and married her, and so we didn’t spend a lot of social time together at all.
DK: Right.
ET: He didn’t drink at al so l [laughs].
DK: Was that quite unusual in the Air Force then? [Laughs].
ET: Well a bit. But yeah he was a good chap.
DK: Right. And would he have been a pilot officer or –
ET: He was a flight lieutenant.
DK: Flight lieutenant, right. So that’s Flight Lieutenant –
ET: I expect –
DK: Dave Green
ET: If you, if you finished top of your course –
DK: Yeah.
ET: You were normally commissioned, the top. So as he did well, kept him on as an instructor, I suspect he was –
DK: And you say he was an Australian?
ET: No, no, he was English.
DK: English, right okay. So, and you’re in the Mosquitos then. What did you think of the Mosquito as a aircraft?
ET: Oh it was great [laughs], with so much speed.
DK: Mm.
ET: Amazing aircraft because to carry that load, to carry one four thousand pound bomb, was like a big oil tank, you know.
DK: Mm, yeah.
ET: Oil drum, for the business. And course we’d overload tanks on the wings as well, so she was pretty heavy.
DK: Yeah.
ET: But it was wonderful. We used to bomb at twenty-five thousand feet.
DK: Right.
ET: And when the bomb went of course you shot up about three [DK and ET laugh], three hundred feet.
DK: And this was at 571 Squadron?
ET: 571, yeah.
DK: And –
ET: It was very short lived – each squadron, they were created [emphasis], you know, and of course the war, the war finished –
DK: Right.
ET: And they disappeared again.
DK: Can you remember, can you remember where you were based with 571?
ET: Yes, Oakington.
DK: Oakington, right okay.
ET: Which is a big –
DK: Housing estate now [BT laughs].
ET: Oh is it?
DK: Yeah, afraid so. It’s all been knocked down.
ET: But did it, did have all these refugee, I don’t know what they were, refugee centres?
DK: It was for while, yes.
ET: Yeah.
DK: It was a refugee centre –
ET: Yeah.
DK: After the war.
ET: Oh but, but I haven’t mentioned that I – when the war finished, they asked for volunteers to ferry the aircraft back from Canada.
DK: Oh right.
ET: SO I volunteered for that. I got out to Canada, went out by boat, and they said ‘oh you’re not wireless trained’ [laughs].
DK: Mm.
ET: ‘So you can’t do that.’ So I ended up doing about thirty hours in Dakotas.
DK: Oh right [DK and ET laugh].
ET: And I was there for about three months, and came back in a BUAC [?] Liberator.
DK: Right.
ET: [Laughs] to Prestwick, I remember that.
DK: Just, just going back a little bit to your time in the Mosquitos.
ET: Yes.
DK: Can you remember how many operations you did on Mosquitos?
ET: Yes, I did twenty.
DK: Right, so that was thirty operations, Wellingtons in North Africa –
ET: Yes.
DK: And another twenty –
ET: When we were operating on the Mosquito, we had sort of two nights on and one night off.
DK: So what was your role with the Mosquito, because you weren’t really flying with the main Bomber force were you? Were you separate to them?
ET: Well, it was diversionary [emphasis] normally. We went to targets to make them think that the –
DK: Right.
ET: Main force was going there. You had your sneaky little – I went to Berlin thirteen times [laughs].
DK: Right. What was it like flying over Berlin?
ET: Well it’s quite, quite intense. The flak was, you know, they had these predictions, the marshal [?] –
DK: Yeah.
ET: Predicting –
DK: Predicting flak –
ET: You’re very happy if you saw it bursting a bit beneath you, you know, thinking ‘oh they haven’t got it right.’
DK: Mm.
ET: And they had these incredible searchlights, and a marshal would come on you, and then all the sleeves [?] [unclear]. It’s a really lovely feeling [laughs] being all lit up at night.
DK: So when that happened, what did your pilot do? Did he –
ET: He couldn’t do much at all really –
DK: Right.
ET: For that. Because with that height, you know, it would take a long way to –
DK: To get out the searchlight. So you’re, you’re being fired on all the time while you’re in the searchlights?
ET: Well, you might be or you might not, you know. It didn’t – we had a little indicator on the aircraft, a light it was, which was supposed to switch on if you were being attacked.
DK: Yeah. So you, did you fly out with a number of other Mosquitos?
ET: Yes.
DK: And could you see them at night, or –
ET: Well that’s the amazing thing is, there’s all these aircraft together –
DK: Yeah.
ET: You suddenly see, if another one gets lit up by the searchlights you think, ‘I didn’t realise he was there,’ you know.
DK: Mm.
ET: You were like a loose formation I think, you weren’t in flying formation.
DK: Right, so you never saw other aircraft then?
ET: Not very often.
DK: So your role was then, the main force would go off to one target and you’d attack somewhere else to, to draw –
ET: Yes.
DK: Their defences there –
ET: Yes.
DK: Presumably.
ET: Of course, we had the Pathfinders.
DK: Yeah.
ET: Who would – now this, well a secret as it was at the time, called Oboe.
DK: Mhm.
ET: And they used to drop on that, and this thing was amazing. Two different aircraft flares go down, you go down one on top of the other. You’d think it was out of one aircraft, you know.
DK: Right.
ET: This was getting towards the end and –
DK: So when you saw these two flares go down, what was your, what did you have to do then?
ET: Well, I’d, it would tell you, or, if it was some apart [?] it would tell you which one to go for. Well, I had to get down into the bomb bay, and, well about ten, you had a ten minute run in when you had to stay rock steady, you know, and I had to get down into the front and set up the bomb, bomb site.
DK: Right.
ET: ‘Cause one night, an incident was that I got down there and I wasn’t making sense about it to my pilot, and he was very quick at knocking my oxygen off [laughs].
DK: Oh.
ET: And he quickly catched on what was wrong and put the switch –
DK: Right.
ET: Back on.
DK: So he switched the oxygen off then, right.
ET: Yeah just getting, getting down into the – I had a harness [?] on, you know –
DK: Yeah.
ET: Just to –
DK: So, so although you were navigating then, on the Mosquitos you actually acted as a bomb aimer as well then did you?
ET: Yes, I did both jobs.
DK: Right.
ET: Yes, I did a small bombing course with a Mosquito conversion. We did a course on –
DK: Right.
ET: With Oxfords [emphasis] it was this time, which was a training aircraft.
DK: Mm.
ET: Used to bomb in the Wash.
DK: Mm.
ET: You know, the target.
DK: Yeah.
ET: The Wash.
DK: Yeah, so, so you said you went to Berlin thirteen –
ET: I think it was about thirteen –
DK: Thirteen times.
ET: Times if you –
DK: So for the recording, I’m looking at the logbook again so, so 1st of March 1945, Mosquito. You’ve gone from ops to Erfurt, E-R-F-U-R-T.
ET: Erfurt, yeah.
DK: So you’ve got one four thousand pound bomb.
ET: That’s a bomb we carried, just one.
DK: And then 3rd of March forty-five, Wurzburg, one four thousand pound bomb again.
ET: Yeah.
DK: And then it says here Berlin on the 5th of March, the 7th of March, 9th of March, 11th of March, 13th of March. So every other day there for about a week, you were going to Berlin.
ET: Yeah.
DK: So each time it’s one four thousand pound bomb. So those trips to Berlin, can you recall, were those diversional then, or part of a, a main attack on Berlin?
ET: I, I don’t think it was a main attack because we didn’t see other aeroplanes there really.
DK: Right, so the main force has gone off somewhere else?
ET: It’s more a nuisance, you know, morale type thing I think –
DK: Right.
ET: On that.
DK: So you’re also going out there then to, not as diversions as such but to just keep the defences alert?
ET: Keep it going, yeah.
DK: So then 15th of March, Erfurt again [page turns]. [Laughs], and then here 21st of March, Berlin, 23rd of March, Berlin and the 24th of March, Berlin [page turns]. Think the people in Berlin must have got a bit fed up of you turning up [all laugh]. So your, and it says here, so the same pilot, Flight Lieutenant –
ET: Yes.
DK: Is it, was it Dave Green? Dave, Dave Green, was it? Green?
ET: Dave Green, yeah.
DK: Dave Green. And just reading for the recording here –
ET: Yes.
DK: So 4th of April, Magdeburg, and then 8th of April, Berlin, 10th of April, Berlin, 12th of April, Berlin [BT laughs], 13th of April, I’ll spell this out for the recording. It’s S-T-R-A-L-S-U-N-I, or S-U-N-D, Stralsund I think it is. 17th of April, Berlin, 20th of April, Berlin again, 23rd of April, Flensburg [page turns]. So the end must be coming to an end here then. And finally, 25th of April, a power station at Munich.
ET: That’s right, that was the last one.
DK: Mm.
ET: It, I had a son out there [laughs].
DK: Right.
ET: He worked with the, what’s it called, you know, the –
BT: Eurofighter.
ET: Eurofighter.
DK: Oh right, oh okay.
BT: After the war you want to add [DK and BT laugh].
ET: After the war, oh yes.
DK: Yes.
ET: But I said, ‘I probably passed this part,’ I said, ‘I probably bombed [emphasis] that part’ [all laugh].
BT: Yeah.
DK: So years later, your son was working on the Eurofighter in Europe?
ET: He was in the Eurofighter, yeah.
DK: So can I, if I just add those up [page turns]. Where are we, that’s Berlin. One, two, three, four, five [page turns], six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Yes as you say, thirteen.
ET: That was –
DK: So out of those twenty operations in Mosquitos, thirteen of them were to Berlin.
ET: Yeah.
DK: And your trips to Berlin, it’s obviously quite a long way. I mean, are you fired on all the way or is it mostly quite dark and quiet?
ET: Bits and pieces.
DK: Mm.
ET: Sometimes flak would come up, you know, you could see it at – you just hoped they hadn’t predicted you, your height.
DK: Hmm. But in a Mosquito you’re a lot higher than another aircraft.
ET: Twenty-five.
DK: Mm, twenty-five thousand feet.
ET: We were, and sometimes we used to get to thirty coming back, you know.
DK: And can you recall, were you ever attacked by German aircraft at all?
ET: Not that I know of.
DK: No.
ET: No.
DK: So as you’re, as you’re approaching the target then, you’ve got down into the –
ET: I get down into the, the bomb bay –
DK: So –
ET: And set up the wind and that –
DK: Yeah.
ET: On the – in fact, so that we could keep together more of the navigation, you’re trying to navigation –
DK: Yeah, yeah.
ET: The leading aircraft might pass back the wind, so as we’re all using the same wind to, to part [?] with our drift and that –
DK: Right.
ET: So as we’d keep –
DK: ‘Cause presumably wind change can really affect your navigation?
ET: Oh yeah, well effects your drift and everything you see, so if you get different winds you could be offsetting differently.
DK: Right, what was it like, if I can ask – you’d obviously have a briefing beforehand –
ET: Yes.
DK: And, and this is in the building at Oakham. What were your feelings like when you saw what your target was going to be?
ET: Well you think –
DK: Presumably they have curtains and they put it back and –
ET: Well they tell you where it is. Oh, the routine was, you take the aircraft up for an air test –
DK: Right.
ET: Up there about fifteen minutes, see it’s alright in the morning, and then, this being the morning, then the afternoon you would go to briefing. Told you where it was, you had to make charts up, you know –
DK: What was your thoughts when you saw Berlin again? Were you –
ET: [Laughs] yeah, ‘can’t you find somewhere else to’ –
DK: So you now know the target, so you’re now doing your charts presumably as the navigator?
ET: Yeah.
DK: So you’re, you’re told the winds and –
ET: Got to put a tracking of where we’re going and that, all these sort of things. Oh yeah, you get briefed by the MET officer of the winds and the weather.
DK: Mhm.
ET: And after that, you had a meal, and then you went back. The worst thing I found was you went back to your billet and then you’d devour [?] away these hours –
DK: Right.
ET: Until, ‘cause it’s always at night of course, you know, until you’re ready for takeoff.
DK: So it came as a bit of a relief then, when you got to the aircraft to takeoff?
ET: Oh yeah, once you get going, you’re too busy really to think about anything else, provided you didn’t swing. It was quite a nasty aircraft to swing in on takeoff –
DK: Mm.
ET: Mosquito, you know, the propellers going the same direction –
DK: Yeah.
ET: Until they got the tail up for a bit of –
DK: Yeah.
ET: Control.
DK: And your pilot then, Dave Green, was he a good pilot?
ET: Yes [emphasis]. But just as I say, he was a quiet chap so I didn’t really see much of him –
DK: Right.
ET: Apart from work which, which was fine [laughs].
DK: But did you – I’m presuming you’d have to work well [emphasis] together then.
ET: Oh yes.
DK: So you worked well together?
ET: Yeah.
DK: We’ve covered what you did over the targets, so you’ve come back after the operation and your landing. How did you feel then as you got back?
ET: Relieved once you got down but of course you’re coming back, you’re all coming back together aren’t you? In these airfield, the seconds [?] they overlapped.
DK: Yeah.
ET: So it was a bit dodgy at times. We landed once at the wrong airport [laughs].
DK: Really?
ET: You know, the wrong way, direction was the same.
DK: Yeah.
ET: We ended up at Wyton [laughs].
DK: Right.
ET: Anyway, they just briefed us and, and that was it. I think we took off in the morning to get back to base [DK and ET laugh].
DK: So you, once you’ve landed then, what’s the procedures then?
ET: Oh you go for a briefing.
DK: Right, a debriefing [emphasis].
ET: De –
DK: Yeah.
ET: Debriefing.
DK: And, and who would take that?
ET: Intelligence.
DK: Mm.
ET: Officers.
DK: Mm, and what sort of questions did they ask?
ET: Did you hit the target, did you think you hit the target?
DK: Right.
ET: We used to take a, a film [emphasis]. Some were better than others, you know –
DK: Mm.
ET: Of the target area and when it happened.
DK: So a photo would be taken when you –
ET: A photo when you pressed the plunger for, to release the bomb a photograph would be taken –
DK: Oh right.
ET: A little later.
DK: Right. So you’ve got back then and you’ve got feelings of relief. What happened then, you just went to bed?
ET: No.
DK: Ah.
ET: Went for a meal.
DK: Right, okay [DK and ET laugh].
ET: And a beer.
DK: Mm.
ET: And a few beers [DK laughs], otherwise I never slept really, you know.
DK: Right.
ET: It’s all night [?], but oh, it was a relief [emphasis] –
DK: Mm.
ET: Really. I mean we were very lucky in the Mosquito, we didn’t have near the number of losses –
DK: Mm.
ET: That the – the loss that I saw, well, the loss that I saw was at – one aircraft completed [?], he was up on his air test and of course he came and tried to beat up the, what we called the flight hock [?] [emphasis], you know, where our ground crew were.
DK: Yep.
ET: And these, these overload tanks in the wing. He hit a tree and knocked one tank off, and the aircraft just [unclear].
DK: Cartwheeled.
ET: I watched this –
DK: Yeah.
ET: Just rolling [emphasis].
DK: Yeah.
ET: And it went straight in the front of the, the sick quarters.
DK: Mm.
ET: That was a complete waste of lives. Another accident we had was at the – one chap lost an engine and he came roaring in far too fast. Oh no sorry, he spun [emphasis] in and of course, they were killed. It happened a second time to another person, and he thought ‘I’m not going to stall’ [laughs], so he came rolling in too fast and [taps four times] wasn’t able to stop at the far end. And then the disciplinary thing at Sheffield, so they sent them to Sheffield. [Unclear] fly –
DK: Right.
ET: But just for discipline [laughs].
DK: But at least he survived that one.
ET: He survived that one, yeah.
DK: But got into trouble for it, yeah. Okay that’s, that’s great. Just ask you, after all these years how do you look back at your time in, in Bomber Command? How do you look back on that?
ET: I don’t really look back on it all that much nowadays.
DK: Mm.
ET: I think – well I was occupied, of course seeing an Air Force and getting in transport we had the Berlin Airlift –
DK: Right.
ET: For a year.
DK: So you got involved with the Berlin Airlift then did you?
ET: Yeah.
DK: Yeah, so –
ET: I did three hundred lifts on that.
DK: Oh right. So you’ve, let, you’ve – so just reading here, that’s three hundred and two lifts –
ET: Yeah.
DK: To Berlin.
ET: That took a year.
DK: And, and what aircraft were you flying?
ET: York.
DK: Right, the Avro York. So what, what was Berlin like when you, you went there after the war?
ET: Oh they were very, very grateful that we’re keeping away from the Russians I think was a big thing, you know, there.
DK: Mm. ‘Cause it’s, it’s kind of strange ‘cause one moment you’re dropping bombs [BT laughs] and then the next –
ET: Three years later, yeah.
DK: You’re giving them food.
ET: That’s right. It’s amazing when people have nothing, you know. If anybody had a bar of soap or something like that –
DK: Mm.
ET: It was like a gold [emphasis] to them, you know.
DK: Yeah.
ET: Things like that.
DK: So what kind of stuff were you carrying in the Avro Yorks then?
ET: Oh you name it, everything.
DK: Food and –
ET: There was coal.
DK: Right.
ET: Actually the aircraft – I forget they were a lot heavier when they finished, it was all this coal dust.
DK: Mm.
ET: They erm, hay for horses, all the natural stuff that people eat.
DK: Right.
ET: Anything like that.
DK: So flying into Berlin then, did you have to stick to certain routes or –
ET: Yes –
DK: ‘Cause you’re flying over –
ET: The Northern – we used to go up north and then go down from a northern corridor, and come back at a centre corridor.
DK: Right.
ET: ‘Cause basically, Onsturfrun [?]
DK: So you went to Onsturfrun Gateaux [?].
ET: Onsturfrun [?] to Gateaux [?] yeah, yeah that’s right.
DK: Right.
ET: And –
DK: So they’re just continuous flights then, going –
ET: Yeah.
DK: In the northern route and coming out the southern route.
ET: Oh it was a shambles in this case. We had lots of different speed aircraft, you know. There was, there was Yorks, there was the Dakotas –
DK: Mm.
ET: Valettas, and what was happening, supposed to go off on waves but one wave was [laughs] overtaking the other wave, you know –
DK: Right.
ET: And things like that. It’s amazing there weren’t more accidents than there were, but after they got it settled it worked very well. You just went along, you got in. If you missed, if you couldn’t get in you came straight back, you didn’t, you couldn’t go round again, you know –
DK: Right.
ET: To Gateaux [?]I mean.
DK: So you, you had to land first time?
ET: You had to land, that’s right.
DK: Yeah.
ET: But it worked very well. And we went down to two lifts. Initially we had to do three lifts. It was a tremendously long day ‘cause you had to wait for the aircraft to get ready and complete your three lifts.
DK: Mm.
ET: That was it, but they put it down to two [emphasis] so we did a night shift or a day –
DK: Yeah.
ET: Day shift. It was well organised towards the end.
DK: Was it easier for you as a navigator, doing that then, because they –
ET: Oh I didn’t do very – there wasn’t very much navigation at all.
DK: Right.
ET: For – you just, it was a corridor, you know –
DK: Right.
ET: And took me an hour coming back ‘cause you flew over quite a bit of Russian territory coming in.
DK: Mm.
ET: The only, the odd fighter used to come and have a look at you [laughs]. Think ‘I hope you go away again,’ you know.
DK: Oh right [ET laughs]. So after that then, you’ve remained with transport and –
ET: Yes.
DK: Yeah. Just looking, so you were in Valettas, Varsitys, the Beverlys?
ET: Yes.
DK: So that was, you went out to Aden then, and –
ET: Yes.
DK: And Iran? Yes.
ET: Yeah, did two years in Aden.
DK: Was that during the conflict out there or –
ET: There, there was a bit of conflict –
DK: Yeah.
ET: But [coughs] there was a lot of trouble in – what do you call that country?
DK: Yemen?
ET: Yemen.
DK: Yemen, yeah and Aden, Aden is Yemen I think, isn’t it? Oman?
ET: There’s another one I think, further east.
DK: Right. So, so what were you doing there? Was it supplying –
ET: Oh just loads of [?] – it was wonderful, a place called Macierz [?] –
DK: Mm.
ET: Which was about eight thousand feet high, and from Aden was very steamy, you know [laughs], and you get up there, your stockings fall down because it’s so dry up there.
DK: Yeah.
ET: Byt they’ve got stuff in there you didn’t know if you could get before, you know.
DK: No.
ET: Like quite big trucks and that type of thing.
DK: So what was, what was the Beverley [emphasis] like as an aircraft then? They’re quite big, quite bulky things aren’t they?
ET: Oh dear [DK laughs]. It was slow [emphasis], it was noisy [emphasis]. In fact the navigator’s table used to be on an angle, you had to, you had to [tapping] flatten it and you had to [tapping], they tried to [?] bounce on it, you know [DK laughs]. And that had a fixed undercarriage, and if you got into icy conditions, these legs used to ice up which meant you even go slower [emphasis] than [DK and ET laugh]. But it had this great capability of short landing in –
DK: Yeah.
ET: In getting into these airfields, you know.
DK: So then you’ve gone onto the Britannia.
ET: That’s right.
DK: So what, what was the Britannia like?
ET: Oh it was lovely.
DK: Yeah
ET: Yeah, I did five years on.
DK: And what was that, mostly trooping flights was it? So whereabouts did you use to go to?
ET: All over the place [coughs]. Did a lot to Norway because the commander was a not [?] – always went there from January to March –
DK: Mm.
ET: They go for their winter training –
DK: Right.
ET: So we’d lots of flights there and back. That was an adventure [?]. We had a lot of flights out to Woomera –
DK: Right.
ET: You know, the atomic –
DK: Oh right, the atomic bomb tests.
ET: It was a little box.
DK: Oh.
ET: Didn’t know what it was [DK and ET laugh]. But we used to go down to Adelaide.
DK: Probably best not to ask [all laugh].
ET: Well, quite a lot.
DK: Yeah.
ET: When all these tests were going on.
DK: Yeah.
ET: And just [coughs] –
DK: You, you didn’t witness any of the tests then did you?
ET: Oh no.
DK: No, no.
ET: We used to use an Edinburgh field recorder, it was a RAAF base. That went on quite a lot. We did trips to Singapore and back –
DK: Mhm.
ET: But when it first started, you know, there was no slipping [emphasis] crews –
DK: Yeah.
ET: You just had a – everyday it took five [emphasis] days to get to Singapore, you had two days off there and five days to come back. And I think what a waste of aircraft it was really [DK laughs]. I suppose we had so many we didn’t bother. That was on the Yorks [emphasis] then.
DK: Yeah [ET laughs]. So finally you’ve become ATS navigator instructor.
ET: That was on Belfasts.
DK: So you’re, you’ve – and then 53 Squadron on the Belfasts?
ET: That’s right.
DK: So, so what was the Belfast like as an aircraft?
ET: Oh it was nice, nice. Well lovely, very palatial for the crew.
DK: Mm.
ET: Just the pilots could get in from the outside of the aircraft into the seat, you know, being a big aircraft –
DK: Right.
ET: It was very palatial for the crew.
DK: So what sort of loads would you have on the Belfasts?
ET: All sorts, helicopters.
DK: Yeah?
ET: Tanks, just stuff like that.
BT: You took the Concord engines didn’t you as well? Concord engines.
ET: Oh I had a big, yeah. Oh my big flight was I went – we carried an engine for Concord once. It went on a world tour.
DK: Oh right.
ET: Well, went to Far East sales pitch. It never needed the engine [laughs].
DK: Right, so it was just a spare –
ET: But it was a few pictures somewhere of that. Is it in there [shuffling].
BT: Yeah that’s the one, that’s the Concord.
DK: Ah.
ET: There’s one with the tours [?] on.
BT: I’ll have a look [ET laughs].
DK: That’s the original prototype isn’t it?
ET: Yeah.
DK: DBSST.
ET: That’s right.
BT: Oh wow.
DK: Okay, so I’ll just finish this off. So you retired in 1978 as a squadron leader.
ET: That’s right.
DK: Ah.
ET: They eventually decided to promote me after [laughs] –
DK: So they promoted you just before you retired?
ET: Yes.
DK: Ah [laughs]. Okay, well I’ll stop that there because I’m conscious of you talking for a whole hour there, but thanks very much for that. I’ll switch that off now.
ET: Well –
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Interview with Eric Taylor
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00:54:10 audio recording
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Pending review
Creator
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David Kavanagh
Date
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2017-09-28
Description
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Squadron Leader Eric Taylor joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 and served as a navigator. He served in North Africa and completed a tour of operations against targets in Italy before becoming an instructor in England. He describes the differences in instrumentation between the North African and English aircraft, such as the Gee navigational aid. He flew nuisance and diversion operations in Mosquitos over places such as Wurzburg, Erfurt and Berlin thirteen times. He was involved in the Berlin Airlift and then spent a couple of years serving in Aden and the Middle East, and remained in the Air Force until 1978 when he retired as a squadron leader.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Algeria
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Tunisia
England--Cambridgeshire
Algeria--Blida
Algeria--Râs el Ma
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Erfurt
Germany--Würzburg
Tunisia--Qayrawān
North Africa
Contributor
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Katie Gilbert
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1943
1945
142 Squadron
16 OTU
571 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
civil defence
crewing up
Gee
Home Guard
Mosquito
navigator
Operational Training Unit
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Oakington
RAF Upper Heyford
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/642/8912/ASnowballM150626.2.mp3
bbd766624aaad1dc3f596be446f736f9
Dublin Core
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Title
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Snowball, Maurice
M Snowball
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Snowball, M
Description
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14 items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Maurice Snowball (1922 - 2020, 1595147 Royal Air Force) his log book, documents, notebooks and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 550 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Maurice Snowball and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
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2015-06-26
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Maurice Snowball was born in Sunderland, England in 1922, after apprenticing at a brewery in Sunderland, whilst also playing football as an amateur and having spent time in the local Home Guard, Maurice chose to join the RAF as a volunteer. After passing his medical and joining full time in December 1944, he underwent training at RAF Bridlington. Technical training was undertaken at Locking and then at RAF St. Athan as a Flight Engineer. Starting out in Halifax Mk. II & V he then switched to the Lancaster Mk.I & III. Once training was over, he had a short tour at 12 Squadron at RAF Wickenby, Lincolnshire and was sent, to 550 Squadron, based at North Killingholme, Lincolnshire. Here he undertook four bombing operations as well as taking part in Operation Manna, the dropping of food parcels in the Netherlands, After the end of hostilities he also took part in operation Post Mortem, the testing of German Radar systems and operation Dodge, the repatriation of British troops from Italy. He was demobilised December 1947.
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/34648 Log Book
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/8912 Interview
Andrew St. Denis
Maurice was born and brought up in Sunderland, when he left school he was apprenticed to a small company manufacturing equipment for the brewery industry and had become a keen amateur footballer. Although in a reserved occupation he volunteered for aircrew and eventually did his basic training at Bridlington in January 1944. He continued his training at RAF Locking and RAF St Athan and arrived at No 1662 Heavy Conversion Unit (HCU) at RAF Blyton to fly the Halifax in September 1944. Part way through the course the HCU became a Lancaster Finishing School (LFS) and the crew converted to the Lancaster. With his crew he was posted to No 12 Squadron at RAF Wickenby. He did one flight with them there and then he returned to the LFS and by January 1945 he had re-crewed and in late March the crew were posted to No 550 Squadron at RAF North Killingholme. He did four bombing operations and one Operation Manna flight before the war in Europe ended. He continued to fly with the squadron doing the usual Post War flying, operations Post Mortem, Dodge and Cooks Tours until late March 1946. He retrained as a Mechanical Transport (MT) driver and was for a time posted to the Middle East specifically RAF El Adam.
Having been demobilised Maurice returned to Sunderland and resumed his career with the brewery equipment manufacturer. He relocated several times within the UK and at one time was the mechanical foreman maintaining the Tornado at RAF North Luffenham. He remained a keen amateur footballer never making the elevation to professional player.
He maintained his links with his No 550 Squadron crew members and Operation Manna, visiting Holland in 1985 and he also met a Dutch woman who was eight years old in 1945.
Trevor Hardcastle
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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David Kavanagh interviewing Maurice Snowball, David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre.
DK: Were you with 550 Squadron?
MS: 550 Squadron yes
DK : Were you with another squadron before then?
MS: No I was [chit chat not relevant to interview] well, we, I did my training and then I had a problem with the first crew I was in and had to go back to heavy con unit and get another crew and that was the crew I flew with afterwards.
DK: Was your training all in the United kingdom?
MS: Yes, flight engineer, all the flight engineers were trained in England and down at St Athan but when we, when I, went it was busy at St Athan and we had six weeks previously at RAF Locking and then went to St Athan and the engineers did all that training and qualified and got their wing before we even saw a four engine aeroplane, and you were posted up to heavy con unit. We went, I, was sent to Blyton near Gainsborough, and I did it there then I had to go back there to do it again with the new crew and it knocked me back 3 months, so I didn’t get to the squadron with this crew until January 45.
DK: So the crew that you were with in the heavy conversion unit were the same crew that you joined the operational unit?
MS: Yes, the second, the second visit to Blyton was the crew that I flew with and I couldn’t have got a better crew, it was a really good crew I got with, and there is only me and the navigator left now, he is a retired police superintendant that lives at Boston, and he is not very well, he had to drop out of the going to Holland this year, it would have been his first visit to Holland, and he had to drop out, and he’s now cancelled his reunion next weekend at Killingholme, he’s not well enough, so he’s, I don’t know what his problem is, I think its something to do with heart because I know he had a –
DK: Pacemaker ?
MS: Pacemakers the word, yes, he had a pacemaker fitted a while, several years ago, but, its a shame really because we get on ever so well together, he originated from Gateshead and I was from Sunderland so we were two north country, and the rest of the crew, the skipper lived down in Dorset, yes Dorset, and our bomb aimer was from London, and he was a keen golfer he used to give officers lessons at golfing, and when we split up he said ‘keep’, ‘if we lose touch with each other keep a look at the world cup team every year because I am going to play for them one day’ and it was [unclear] Laddie lucas, this is your life was on, that Ken was on that he was on that team then, and he died, about three or four years ago now might even be more. We used to meet up, the skipper the navigator and me. We used to meet at Banbury every year because it was, the hotel we went to was a mile difference between the skippers home and the navigators home, we couldn’t have got more central, and I contacted the bomb aimer and he said he would come the next year, and I rang up in the August and his wife answered the phone, and I said ‘Ken did promise to come to Banbury this year for the lunch and I’ve now got the dates, September’ and she said ‘just a minute I’m very sorry I’ve got some bad news and I’ve got some good news’ and I knew what the bad news would be, she said ‘he died in July just a month ago and the good news he always wanted to play golf to his dying day and he collapsed and died on the golf course’ so he got that - and the mid upper he lived at Nottingham I managed to contact him, he had a couple of lunches with us before he died, and the radio operator was the only one we couldn’t trace and I put a letter in the Hull papers and I got two back one from a lady and one from a man that were teenagers with him and they both said the same, although one lived - they never met each other since they were youngsters but they both said the same Geoff had died in his early 30’s from a kind of a blood disease so I don’t know whether it was leukaemia or what so that was why I wasn‘t able to trace him and it was funny when I put the letter in the Hull Echo I got nothing back from his family, so I don’t know whether there was any family left. Anyhow I finished training with the crew, and got posted up to North kilingholm 550 squadron, and we had done our first two training trips and early April we started operations.
DK: Did 550 have Lancaster’s at the time then?
MS: I trained on Halifax’s at the first one and midway through the course we switched to what we called Lancaster school but the second time they were all Lancaster’s the Halifax’s had gone, so I did training on the Halifax and we flew on the Halifax and did the whole course practically on the Halifax, the first one.
DK: What was you impression of the two aircraft, the Halifax and the Lancaster?
MS: I liked the Halifax, and it was, it was a good aircraft for the engineer, well for the crew because there was more room in it, you are not cramped like you are in the Lancaster and it was a pretty reliable aircraft with the radial engines but it didn’t get the height or anything, so the Lancaster was the better one being on operations, it was the safer one to fly, the Lancaster, but at the same time if anything happened it was a difficult one to get out of because it was so cramped so there was a lot of crew members lost by not bailing out quick enough, whereas with the Halifax it was easy to get out you see, so when you learnt about it you think well I am better on the Lancaster but once you start flying with the Lancaster that was the plane for you, you know, it was a terrific aircraft , but I never sat down as flight engineer, because it was a little tip up seat, and if I sat on that I was facing the skipper, you couldn’t see the dials properly and my panel was over here so I stood all the time and I’ve not found an engineer yet that I’ve met that did sit down much the only time you sat was when you were doing your calculations of fuel use and stuff like that, but mostly when flying plus the fact when you went on operations you were asked to, you were helping the skipper all the time but at the same time they asked you to keep a lookout and help the gunners in case you saw anything, well if you sat on your seat with your back to window you couldn’t so you had to stand. And our first two operations were both within 5 mins of 9 hours, 8 hours and 55, and people have said you didn’t stand all that time I said ‘well I was young enough then not to be worried about standing all that’, I never used to think that was a long time to stand and being an engineer in civilian life and working on heavy machinery it was a lighter job when you’re flying, and standing hours we used to work, before I went in, in 1943 I was 17 doing 12 hours shifts at work where you’re on your feet 12 hours a day anyway so -
DK: Where was that you were working?
MS: Up in Sunderland I served me apprenticeship, funnily enough it was, served in brewery machinery bottle washers, conveyers, fillers and everything like that, but we got a good engineering - because it was a family firm, you learnt electrics and plumbing all sorts of work that when you went in a ship yard you were maybe trained in one thing, or you were on one lathe, we got a bit of work done planeing, on lathes, all sorts of things and it turned out in my life afterwards, I went back to the same firm when I came out of the air force and I had altogether 25 years with them, and good experience, and then I left 1960 I left Sunderland and moved down to Northamptonshire and I worked down there for northern dairies for 5 or 6 years, then we moved up to Oakham and when I was in Oakham I finished my working life, working, first of all, I started at Ashwood prison and then when the tornados came to Cottismore I got started there as a fitter and ended up as a mechanical foreman, and retired at 65 from there. My apprenticeship came in very handy because it covered so many things you know -
DK: Do you remember now why it was the air force that you chose I understand [unclear] you volunteered?
MS: Its funny how it happened I was in a reserve job so I couldn’t, you could only volunteer for one thing that was aircrew, and I never thought about it when I was doing my apprenticeship but when I got up, I was a keen amateur footballer, and I played every Saturday afternoon and the foreman used to say to me’ wait until you’re a man out of time and you’ll have to work Saturday afternoon I can’t stop you playing football now, but once you’re a man your job will be here’ and jokingly I said ‘well if that’s the case I might as well join the air force or somewhere at least they get leaves every so often’ and that was, I just said it as a joke, but then the last year towards the time when I was 21 and out of my time, he said that ‘I’ll have you working on Saturdays next year’ and I said ‘will you?’ and I didn’t think anything else about it, but as soon as I finished my apprenticeship I thought I am not going to be working here 12 hours a day for the rest of the war, I am going to volunteer after all, and aircrew was the only one you could volunteer for, I thought, I was keen on hearing and reading about the Sunderland flying boat, being a Sunderland born man and I thought I wonder if I could join the air force and become a flight engineer on Sunderland’s so that’s what I did. I hadn’t really thought about until actually I was 21, and I volunteered straight away in the January, my birthday was January, I had my aircrew medical in the July, 3 days, and then put on deferred service, and I wasn’t called up until December of that year, so I was 12 months between volunteering and, and by then I hadn’t changed my mind, but I had settled in to the fact that well if I’m not going to get called up, I hope I can make the grade as a goalkeeper, professional, and I had a pretty good amateur life as a footballer you know, and I played untill i was 34, but when the time came to 21 I thought, I must try and get on Sunderland flying boats. We went down to be typed[?] At St Athan and when you did training you were all in the hanger, and they would say right we want so many at[?] for this and so many for that, and the first thing he said ‘how many of you chaps want to be a flight engineer on Sunderland flying boats?’, and half of us put their hands up, he says ‘well I’m sorry we’re not training flight engineers for Sunderland flying boats until they get the new Centaurus engine’, so I said ‘oh’, and then they asked for so many volunteers for Stirling’s and when they didn’t get enough what they wanted, the Sergeant said, right anybody whose last figure is so and so you’re on Stirling’s and then they did the same for Halifax’s and by then I’d done them both, I wanted to be on Lancaster’s so I thought well I’m not going to volunteer I hope he doesn’t call my number out next time and he called out whose last two numbers are so and so and fortunately it didn’t come? So he said right the rest of you are all Lancaster boys, so that’s how it came about the end of the [unclear] And we went to Bridlington and we did all our marching and that at Bridlington, and that was prior to going to St Athan, I’ve jumped the gun a bit there, I was posted up to Bridlington and I’d been in the home guard while I was apprentice up home, lance corporal, and we had a demonstration team and we never lost a competition we went in, we were drilling at Bridlington and sergeant, there was two lads couldn’t march properly their hands went with the foot when they shouldn’t have done and he came to me and he said ‘I’ve been watching you, you’ve done this business before haven’t you?’ I said ‘yes’ I said ‘I was in the home guard in a demonstration platoon’, he said ‘well take these two lads along there and see if you can get them marching properly’, and I was with them 20 minutes and by the time that 20 minutes was up when I said quick march, they marched properly, and the sergeant said ‘how you going on?’ I said ‘good’ so he said ‘bring them back’, and he got them to stand in front of him and he said quick march and they went back to what they had been, and he said ‘oh just join the ranks’ he said ‘they’ll learn eventually’ but it was just they were nervous you see in front of the sergeant. And from Bridlington you were posted to heavy con unit where you meet the crew. And,When you formed your crew. I skipped the early one to talk about the one I flew with because that’s where me memories are. I was in the hanger and I was told to find the crew of pilot officer James, just altogether you know, and you used to just, if you saw somebody that you liked you say could I be in your crew? Well, I was told to ask for pilot officer James’s crew, and I thought well I don’t know any of them so I just waited until I saw practically everybody was teamed up, and then I saw these two lads, navigator and bomb aimer walking round, and I went up and said ‘excuse me are you with pilot officer James’s crew’, they said ‘yes’, so I said ‘well I’m sergeant Snowball, I’m going to be your flight engineer’ and the navigator who come from Gateshead said ‘oh dear, we thought with a name like that you must come from the West Indies, we’ve been looking for the wrong colour’. And it was, when we met up after the war 40 years afterwards, I reminded them about this and he says ‘Maurice’ he said, ‘I should have known’ he said,’ I told you I never heard the name Snowball before’, and he said ‘the biggest department store in Gateshead was Snowball’, he said ‘so why I thought I’d never heard the name before’ and I used to really rib them about that because [pause] they didn’t actually say West Indian [laughter] they said another word.
DK: [unclear]
MS: Yes. But we got on ever so well together the crew, I couldn’t’ have got a better crew, the skipper was very good with us. It was winter of course when we got to Killingholme, by that was a cold camp, we were in Nissan huts and you had a coal, just one coal fire in the middle, you know a stove, and the coal was rationed you could never get enough to keep it -, and at one stage the coal heap outside was whitewashed so far up so that if anybody went out at night and got coal they knew somebody had been because they had whitewashed was disturbed, so anybody that did that they had to be very careful because if they saw it happen they would come into the billets and look at any coal that was in buckets or anything to see if there was any whitewash on the top. [laughter] You see it was rationed and it was unfair to pinch it and make somebody else short of it, but when you did, when you did have a good fire going you could boil a kettle on it and make yourself a cup of tea, all used to bring tea, it was loose tea in them days of course, but we always managed to have a cup of tea, didn’t always have milk, because you had to go off camp to get the milk or scrounge it off the naafi girls in the naafi, but it turned out to be a good camp. I used to go in, I had a cycle and I used to cycle up to Immingham and catch the night tram into Grimsby, especially on a Saturday night when we wasn’t flying anywhere, because I liked dancing I did a lot of ballroom dancing, and the skipper and the bomb aimer both had little cars, and you had a ration you know, and they used to go, and it wasn’t until 40 years afterwards we were talking at one of these reunions [checks if its alright to continue] we were talking at one of these reunions, and they were talking about George the navigator, he got engaged to a girl there, which he later married, and they were talking about going to his wife’s, then his girl, we used to go to your girlfriends, mothers for dinner [unclear] we always used to have egg and chips or something, and I said ‘when did that happen?’ they says ‘well you always used the bike because it was only a two seater car, you couldn’t go in the car with us and when you left the dance we went to the car you got on your bike [corrects self] ‘and got on the tram’, rather ‘to go and get your bike at Immingham, and we used to call in to Georges, girlfriend’s, and had a good supper off her mother’ so I missed all that by using the bike [gentle laughing]. Well the skipper, he was a pilot officer and our rear gunner was a flying officer, two good gunners because the two gunners had been gunnery instructors and when the gunnery school closed they were posted to heavy con to do some ops, they’d never flown on ops they had been training, so we had two experienced gunners really, which was a good thing, fortunately we never had have any bother there. I can’t remember ever whether they did ever do open up fire? The rear gunner said at one time his gunnery where he was, was lit up by a searchlight and he said fortunately it went out straight away otherwise they would have quickly gone onto us with the rest of them, but we didn’t know anything about that he told us afterwards, so we had no real problems at all, we were very fortunate we never had a fault with an engine or a plane, and we got through the four bombing operations we did safely, and then we did the food drop one.
DK: So you did four operations before that?
MS: We did four bombing, We did two night ones, and the first one Plzen[?], was near the Czech border that one was eight hours 55 minutes the next one was at Potsdam just 30 miles south of Berlin, so that was eight hours and so many minutes after, and then we did Helgoland that was about a four hour trip, 2 hour you know -, trip, and that was bombing of course, and Breman we went to Breman, oh Bremen was our first daylight one because it was the first time we had seen anti-aircraft shells. And we went through Wilhelmshaven and we could see all the flak then, and think well we’ve got to go through that, well we got through it safely, and then we got to Breman, because the cloud hadn’t properly cleared and the Canadian army was waiting to attack Breman after we’d bombed, the master bomber was cancelling it, and so we got all the way to Bremen and brought the bombs all the way back again, and landed with them, I, a little task that I had to do then was on the way back the Skipper said ‘you had better work out what fuel we’re going to use and whether we will be on our landing weight’ and I said ‘oh you will be by the time we get back there’, because I said ‘we’re nearly home, its been well down’ and, we landed with the full bomb load on but the skipper was told he should have jettisoned the 1,000 pound one because they said it wouldn’t have exploded but if you landed heavily and it had come off the hooks any of the bomb armourers that were underneath them doors could have it drop on them, so they said if it happens again you must get rid of your cookie.
DK: Was he in any trouble for that?
MS: No no
DK: Or was he just advised next time?
MS: Just advised because we were a new crew and we had never had that experience of bringing bombs back before. We knew that planes had come back when it had an engine missing or something like that, and had to turn back and they had got rid of their bomb load you see, but we were, we had no fault to get rid of the bombs, other than the fact the safety of them, we didn’t think of that, as far as we were concerned we were bringing them back safely. [gentle laughter] [pause] Then when the squadron closed in 47 no 46, October 46, I was re-trained as a MT driver until my de-mob came up and I was posted to El Adem at Tobruk. While there, actually, I had developed an injury when I was playing in goal, I couldn’t take goal kicks with my right foot my back used to be too painful and when I used to sit down any length of time, I would walk about 40 or 50 yards before I could straighten up properly, and eventually I went to the MO at North Killingholme, and he said ‘that’s [unclear] but you’ve got a bit of arthritis or rheumatism’ he said, and I said ‘well I’ve now got a posting to the Middle East’, I said ‘should I have something looked at before’, and he said ‘oh if you’re going to the middle east its nice and warm there you’ll be alright’ and I went there and I was there 12 months nearly still having this problem and then they said we’re going to send you back home now to Cosford hospital and they’ll offer you a back injury, an operation for your injury, don’t have it put up with the pain for as long as you can, don’t have that operation, and I came back to Cosford by sea, I had to get myself on the ship, in a hammock with a bad back was a problem, and when I approached the navel steward about it, I said ‘I’m coming home with an injury to my back, I’m going to hospital, I can’t get up in one of them’ he said ‘well according to this sheet you’re not bed bound or anything, so I can’t give you a bed in the hospital, when its not on your sheet’ so I had to manage, I got back alright, and I got examined at RAF Cosford, and the surgeon, two surgeons there was, they did some tests with me and then got me sitting on a chair to drop my head onto my chest, and they kept saying no you’re putting your head down, I want you to drop it, let it drop off, and eventually I did drop it, and I jumped off the chair with this pain down my leg and they said now right what it is, you’ve got a slipped disc we can put that right with an operation. Straight away I thought of what I’d been told, so I said ‘well have you got an alternative?’ He said ‘yes you can have a plaster jacket on for up to 3 months if its not right by then, well you’ve got no other -, you’ll have to have the operation’ and I got that jacket on, and sent home a month, and two days every month back to have the jacket checked, but them 3 months I was dancing 3 or 4 nights a week with no problem with the jacket on, and within two days of getting that jacket off the pain was back, and by then I knew about the operation, and I said straightaway ‘I’ll have the operation’ and they did operate on it, and they discharged me from the hospital A1, and I said ‘I’ve gone passed my date when I should have been home’ I said ‘I was in hospital when my de-mob date came up’ i said ‘and I am going back to the job where I was, its heavy engineering and lifting’ they said there is no problem with that but you won’t ever be able to touch your toes no matter how fit you get. So I came home and I did, I went back to the job, as soon as I was fit I was playing football and I played till I was 34, and it was only in later life when I started getting back problems which I have now more or less permanently, but I don’t thinks its, well I’m told its nothing to do with the disc that I had, they just said, what they’ve told me is all the discs have crunched a bit up with age and if one of them touches the nerve that’s when you get the back ache, but I don’t have the pain down my leg like I used to have but as soon as I walk, I don’t walk very far before I’ve got back ache, so my limit is I walk up the street 5 minutes and there is a fire hydrant and I sit down there for two minutes and then I walk back again so my limit is about 10 minutes walk.
MK: But you were still playing football until your mid thirties?
MS: Sorry?
MK: You were still playing football until your mid thirties?
MS: Yes, yes.
MK: You never went professional then?
MS: No. I was, I played at Locking [inaudible] we had a good wing team, and there was another wing team there that was also good, and their team was all physical instructors except the centre forward was an amateur, and we had all amateur [unclear] we didn’t have any physical instructors, our own physical instructor, he was our trainer but he never played, and when we did the tests, I played in goal in the trials and the CO that was in charge of us, Wing Commander, he said ‘well’ he said ‘you’re quite a good goal keeper’ but he said, ‘but I must put you in team Haley because’ he said, ‘he’s a professional he plays for west ham so he’s got to go in this team’ and he played in the first game we played and they put me on the forward line which I’d never played out in my life and I said ‘oh this is no good for me’ and we lost two, one, and the Wing Commander was annoyed because he said ‘Haley should have stopped them’ so he said ‘in future I’m having you in goal for my wing team he can go to the station team and play for them as he’s been doing’ so, and I played in that wing team, and Tim gave me tips and coached me a bit, he was ever so good about it, and we played in the competition for the best wing team and we met the other team in the semi-final and they wanted us to meet really in the final, but we got drawn in the semi-final, so the officers, both officers said we’re going to make this like the final ‘we’ll have some chairs round and we’ll have officers come in from other places, you’re going to be playing in front of a crowd’ and we did, and we drew nil, nil, after 90 minutes, and we were still nil, nil, after extra time, and they said right now then we’re playing, no penalties in them days, we’ll play till a team scores, and we played another half hour, and I had the game of my life [emphasis on the game of my life] they could not beat me, and then this, after half an hour, we knew we had been playing a long time, it turned out to be half an hour extra, the centre forward came through and I had been out one to one with him several times and got the ball, you know, managed to stop what he did, but this last time he didn’t wait for me going out he shot straight away and I was just moving off the line to go and meet him, and I dove and I touched the ball and it went in off the post and the next minute I was on their shoulders, I was crying my eyes out, but they carried me off, what a great game I had. My PTI came to me and he said, ‘would you like to come off the aircrew course? and become a PTI’ he said ‘you’d make a good PTI’ and I said ‘if I come off the aircrew course I’ll have to go back to my reserve job in Sunderland, he said ‘well its a great pity because this chap here’ and he had a chap who was dressed in a suit and everything, he said’ he’s a scout for Cardiff City and [unclear] Athletic and he thinks you can make the grade as a professional, and he would get you into one of them clubs’ and I said, ‘well no’, I said, if I make the grade as a professional I want to play for Sunderland where I was born and that was it, and then two of the PTI’s off the other team when we had the meal afterwards they came not together one came up and said, ‘have you thought about playing professional after the war?’ I said ‘well if I’m good enough I would, always dreamed about being professional’ he said ‘well I’m with South end’ he said ‘if you survive the war and you’re still playing football contact Southend and I’ll give you my name and you’ll get a trial’ and then this other one came up and he said he was a professional with Tottenham Hotspur and he said the same after the war if you’re still playing and you’re fit contact Tottenham and mention my name and you’ll get a trial, so that was as near as I could get to being professional, until after the war when I came home with the plaster jacket on, I met the secretary of the local team I played for before I went in the air force [unclear] it was, the next village to where I lived and he said, ‘oh Maurice are you de-mobbed?’ Because was in civvies you see, I said ‘no’ he said ‘oh what a pity’ he said ‘I’ve had the coach from Sheffield Wednesday on, they are looking for a young goalkeeper to play in the reserve team and they’ve signed a professional from Scotland but they want another goalkeeper for the second team’ and I said ‘oh’ I said ‘I’m in a plaster jacket I can’t play football, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to play again’ and he said ‘what a pity’ he said, ‘because I thought, when I saw you I thought straight away Maurice you’re going to Sheffield’ [gentle laughter] so that was as near as I ever got. But I did have a good amateur career.
DK: So how many years were you actually in the Air force for?
MS: Four, four years, I joined in 43 as I say, I volunteered in 43 and joined in the September 43 so I had been on deferred service for 6 months, because after your aircrew medical they told you that you’d passed the medical and that you were accepted but you had to go on deferred service until there was vacancies on the training [pause]
DK: Just going back a bit, how many Manna operations did you do?
MS: We just did the one, because we, being a new crew the CO shared the aircraft, you see, they didn’t get your own aircraft until you had done a few operations, and although we had done four, we still hadn’t got our own aircraft so it was a case of we did that one and then, I don’t know whether, there was one particular time when the skipper was grounded a bit with a perforated ear drum and I don’t know whether that was why we only did one or whether the fact there wasn’t an aircraft available so -
DK: And can, do you have memories of the Dutch people down looking up?
MS: Yes the, oh yes the [pause] we went on the second day which was before the truce was signed and we knew the first lot had come back alright, but they warned us that the navigators must get the course right and you must be no higher than 500 feet or they can shot at, and I since learned after the war that some crews were told if you went off the track or too high the Germans would fire a red markers telling you to get back and then if, once you got back they would fire a green one to let you know, stay where you are but we didn’t know anything about that, we just knew that ours, with the skipper keeping the speed that we wanted, 160, because it was a low speed you see, and the navigator had to be dead right to keep on the track, and we went over the north sea at 300 feet, and then as we approached the coast the navigator come and said you’d better get up to 500 now because we will be crossing the coast shortly, so we crossed the coast and we all aware of the anti-aircraft guns following the aircraft round and hoping nothing would happen which thankfully it didn’t but one or two aircraft did have small arms fire, but they put that down to the fact flying over from the coast some outlying post would see an aircraft and just fire at it without realising that they shouldn’t, but we didn’t have any damage at all, and we got our food dropped at the racecourse Duindigt racecourse and it was. [slight pause] My memories myself of crossing the coast and getting it going in, was the flooded houses and everything, water everywhere and that, that’s my main memory of approaching, I can’t remember looking out and seeing crowds of people while we were flown in, but as soon as the navigator [corrects self] the bomb aimer said he’d got the racecourse in his sight then we were able to look out and I saw the crowds round the racecourse then all waving. You couldn’t believe it, how did they all know we were coming? But you see they’d got the word through the radio and they’d seen them the first day, so there was I suppose when we went on the second day, there would be more people out who had missed the first day.
DK: How did that make you feel dropping humanitarian supplies? [pause] How did that make you feel dropping humanitarian supplies?
MS: Oh its, well again we just knew that we had been told that people were starving and we were going to drop some food because the fact they had no food, they had no electric, they had no fuel to light fires, and most of the trees had been cut down, and any damaged houses all the woodwork was gone, so we knew it was pretty desperate, but my recollection at that time was that the biggest thing was all the houses were flooded, where they living? And they’d all gone into Rotterdam and Amsterdam you see, on to the higher grounds. But when we went over in 85 and met the people, who were at that time there, then we found out what life was like for them, where they had nothing to eat and no heating, the men were taken away to work in Germany, and so the people at home were the ladies, old men, and young children, and the young children we made friends with, one lady in particular she used to go with her bike 5 days or 6 days, and come back with what food they could, but she told us money was no good then, they took out maybe a spare pair of shoes or some clothing, anything you could barter with the farmers to get something, a few potatoes off them or something, whatever they’ve got spare, but she did tell us about one time, she’d been away 5 days, and they were told when they were cycling, cycles had no tyres they were just on the rims, when they were riding, if they heard aircraft they had to get in a ditch and stop riding, because the aircraft would shoot up anybody on the roads. So they had that to contend with, and then on the way back they had to make sure that the Germans didn’t see them coming back because they would take the food off them, because they were short of food you see, and she said this particular time, ‘I’d been 5 days away and was coming back and I’d not managed to pick anything up at all, I’d got no food other than one farmers wife said well he’s got nothing to offer you this time so I can’t trade you with anything, but we have some cracknel left off some pork that we’ve had you can take that’ and she said, ‘that was all’ and when she got home, she said ‘I went in and crying my eyes out and said to my mum, mum all I’ve got is this bit of cracknel I’ve not been able to get any more food and her mam said well I’ve still got some bread left and Mrs so and so next door they’ve got nothing, so take that into them and give them the’ [unclear] so what she brought back for her family was given to the next family. And she gave us, we had her over here to England one year and she gave us a list she’s done in that winter a thousand miles going out different places for 5 days at a time and back, and she mentioned the place and how many miles and so on and so and so, and it totalled up to a thousand miles, as a young girl going out and that’s the sort of thing they had to do. But it was then in 85 that we got to know what it was really like for them, and in the video that I’ve got that was made in 2010 general, forget his name, the general that was a boy at the time tells a story him and his mates, they were out looking for wood and they went on to a, [hesitation] to get some wood off some houses in the banned area, and he said the Germans turned up, and he said, unfortunately on that particular occasion the German, one of the German soldiers fired his gun and it hit his pal in the throat, he touches that when he tells you, and it hit him in the throat and he collapsed on me, and he said he died in my arms, so that was, it was after 85 that we got to know these things and it really brought it home to you then what we didn’t know when we actually dropped the food.
DK: Terrible conditions they were living in, [pause]terrible conditions?
MS: Oh yes, yes, you see they had nothing the photographs, you probably, you might have seen them [rustling] one old chap is stratting about and he comes up with a bottle, looks like sauce and he dipping his finger and eating that, but the children were allowed to go into the churns that the soup was brought in and rake the food out you see, because they had to give coupons and it was a measured like ladle, what they brought out and that was just one in every family, and of course they couldn’t get the rest, they would get as much as they could and as far as they were concerned it was empty, and the kids were allowed to go in and, dive in and eat it.
DK: I’ll just finish, I‘ll just ask you one final question, how do you look back now on your time with the RAF because it was only, I say only, it was four years, it was actually a small part of your life, how do you look back on it all these years later?
MS: I am pleased that I volunteered and went into the air force into aircrew but my main memory is operation Manna that one operation has brought so much into my life with friends that we’ve met in Holland since 85, and I met this Dutch lady at Lincoln when we were interviewed, she was an eight year old girl at the time, and she lives at Cambridge, and I’ve already spoken, and she’s spoken to me on the phone since and she wants to keep in touch because, I don’t know whether you’ve seen the video, what was, Songs of Praise, how she greeted me then we had met and talked in the room before we went out to there, and then the interviewer, a girl went, well, she was talking about what life was like for her in the war, the BBC girl was in tears you know, she didn’t know exactly what it had been like and then we went outside and she was told, the Dutch lady was told now we want you to meet Maurice for the first time when we go down there we’ll decide what’s the best place to do, and then they tried two or three places round where the flowers were and then eventually got me to stand on the corner and her to go across and then come in and greet me, and oh she did, it was a proper greeting, she really hugged me and everything, afterwards we had to go back to the hotel, they wanted to do a bit more filming, and my daughter [unclear] where we’d been watching she got hold of my arm, the daughter to help me, and the Dutch lady said ‘he doesn’t need you now he’s got me to help him’ and she cared and helped me back up into the hotel, and they asked us to wait in the lounge, we’re just going to prepare the room, we wanted to do a chat and when we went in, there was two chairs like we are now and a round table, two cups of tea and two tea cakes, two small cakes on two -, and the interviewer said ‘now then, we want you to sit there and we want you to have a conversation just as like friends now’ she said ‘we’ve got the full story from you, so just if there’s anything you want to talk about to here or you want to talk to Maurice you can have a little bit of private conversation but you must not eat those cakes’ and we thought well dear me [slight laughter] you know and we had the cups of tea and she, well we talked to each other while they were doing this extra filming and then when they’d finished, they said ‘right that’s the end of the filming you can now eat your cakes, I didn’t want you eating cakes while I was filming you’ so that was why, and I said ‘well while we’ve been talking to you we’ve neither of us has had a cup of tea to drink, its gone cold’ and she said ‘don’t worry put the kettle on make them some fresh tea’ so we had fresh tea and ours cakes afterwards. The husband of the Dutch lady came to me and he said ‘while you were talking about my wife’ he said ‘I hear that you play organ?’ I said ‘yes I’ve got an organ at home’ I said, ‘and I play every other week at the chapel down in Colsterworth’ I said, ‘take my turn at, its every other week I play now’ and he said, ‘well, you said chapel’ so he said ‘if it was chapel it means your a Methodist’ I said ‘yes’ he said, ‘well, I’m a Methodist and I’m a local preacher down in Cambridge and I go to places that have got an organ but haven’t got organists’ and he said ‘I have to play the hymns’ so he said ‘I not only preach, I play the hymns at them places’ and he said, ‘it would be nice some mornings, Sunday morning’ to his wife he said, ‘it would be nice if Sunday morning we could come up when Maurice is on the organ and go to the service there’ so whether they will or not I don’t know, but I told the steward down the chapel, but he says ‘oh’ he said ‘we’ll make them welcome if they want to come’.
DK: Hopefully they’ll come
MS: Yeah, but -
DK: Ok well I’ll stop that there
MS: Yes
DK: Thats great, thanks you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Maurice Snowball
Creator
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David Kavanagh
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-06-26
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASnowballM150626
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:56:14 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
Maurice Snowball was born and educated in Sunderland. After school, he served an engineering apprenticeship with a local family firm and was a member of the Home Guard. Maurice was a keen amateur footballer and had hopes of turning professional, but aged 21, he volunteered to join the RAF as a flight engineer and was called forward for initial training at RAF Bridlington in December 1944.
He discusses his time in flight engineer training at RAF St Athan and subsequent duties as a flight engineer on Halifax and Lancaster aircraft with 1662 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Blyton. He recalls the operational duties with 550 Squadron, North Killingholme where he took part in four bombing operations - 2 of them at night raids (close to 9 hour round trips), and operations over Heligoland and Bremen.
He reflects on the differences he encountered as a flight engineer between the Halifax and Lancaster, how the Halifax was spacious and comfortable; the Lancaster cramped and only a small tip-up seat for his flight engineer position.
He talks about the main memory of his time in the RAF, Operational Mana, and his later conversations with a lady from Holland who was 8 years old at the time. He retrained as an MT driver when his Squadron was disbanded and was demobilised in October 1947.
Maurice later reaffirmed his affiliation with the RAF. In later years, he moved to Rutland and retired from his last job as a mechanical foreman at RAF Cottesmore in the 1980s.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Wales--Glamorgan
Contributor
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Chris Cann
550 Squadron
aircrew
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
flight engineer
Halifax
Home Guard
Lancaster
military service conditions
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Blyton
RAF North Killingholme
RAF St Athan
sport
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/692/9237/PBarnesR1701.1.jpg
3e4f8d44c9f6217fb8174f979017bf4d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/692/9237/ABarnesR170803.1.mp3
e1632569838eaa6a9f6a2e8d0a0159cd
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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Barnes, Robert
R Barnes
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Robert Barnes (b. 1923) He flew operations as a flight engineer with 50 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
2 Interviews
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-08-03
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Barnes, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DK: Right. So, I’ll just introduce myself. So, this is David Kavanagh interviewing Bob Barnes at his home on August the 3rd 2017. So, if I just put that down there.
RB: Right.
DK: I might occasionally look at it. It’s just to make sure it’s working.
RB: Yeah [laughs]
DK: So, what, what I wanted to ask you first of all was —
RB: Sorry. If I have, if you —
DK: No, that’s ok.
RB: If I don’t hear you properly it’s because I’m hearing a bit —
DK: Ok. Ok. What, what I wanted to ask first was what were you doing before the war?
RB: Well, I was in the last year at school and living in London. We were evacuated to Duke of Sutherland’s place near Guildford.
DK: Right.
RB: Thirty of us. They thought, they were expecting girls but but anyway we had the year and I came back to London. And I joined the ARP as a messenger and I did about a year on that. And then the Home Guard. Both the infantry and rocket sites.
DK: Right. Do you know how old you would have been then?
RB: Well, I left school at sixteen. And so, sixteen to seventeen I went to a Government Training Centre and was on engineering. And then I did a year or so with a machine tool firm who were renovating machine tools. And then 19 — [pause] I actually volunteered in 1943.
DK: Right. Ok.
RB: And I went to Cardington for an initial test.
DK: Was, was there any reason why you chose the RAF? Was there any particular reason?
RB: Well —
DK: Rather than the Army or Navy.
RB: No. The only reason, all my friends had gone in to service. Some had been lost. And I thought, well the Air Force, to be honest I was in a Reserved Occupation and you only had three places to go. As an artificer in the Navy. Which meant below decks.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Which I didn’t fancy. Or down in the mines which I didn’t fancy that either.
DK: No.
RB: So, just left the Air Force. But just really all my friends had gone in the services and I thought it was time I went. Signed on in, at Lord’s Cricket Ground and we had about six weeks in Regent’s Park area. Billeted in flats. We had our meals in the Zoo. And then I had six months, I think it was six months at Torquay.
DK: Right.
RB: And then on to St Athan for the engineering course. And then ’44, I went to Swinderby on the initial introduction to flying. And we were on Stirlings for that.
DK: Right. Had you met your crew at this point?
RB: No. I hadn’t got, I was just coming to that.
DK: Oh. Ok. Sorry.
RB: No. They allocated the engineers to the crew at Swinderby.
DK: Right. Ok.
RB: And —
DK: So, they’d already crewed up then.
RB: That’s right. Yes. And then we went over to — I forget the name now. Over for the transfer to Lancasters.
DK: Right. Was that the Lancaster Finishing School?
RB: More or less. Yes.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
RB: And I think, I forget how long I was there but then we went to, to Skellingthorpe.
DK: Right. Just taking you back a bit. What did you think of the Stirlings as an aeroplane?
RB: Well, I suppose it’s like every. With the Lancaster I was happy. I’d go anywhere in that. And I suppose to anyone who flew in Stirlings they’d have the same attitude. Although it was a bit more vulnerable than —
DK: Yeah.
RB: And my main memory of the Stirling was if we went to a height where it was cold we had pipes with heating coming through and sticking them down your jacket [laughs] But anyway that was the time when D-Day was going.
DK: Right.
RB: And then from Swinderby we went. I went to Skellingthorpe and stayed there ‘til the end of the war.
DK: And that was with 50 Squadron.
RB: That’s right. Yes.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And our skipper was a flight lieutenant in [pause] He was a flight commander at the time and then he became CO. And of course as a crew we didn’t fly all that many operations. We did eighteen together.
DK: Right.
RB: But if someone was ill on another crew then we did the extra trips.
DK: Can you remember the pilot’s name?
RB: Yes. He was Flight Lieutenant Flint when I, when I joined. And then he went to wing commander and he became CO of the squadron.
DK: So, he was the CO of 50 Squadron.
RB: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: Wing Commander Flint.
RB: Yes.
DK: Oh right. What was he —
RB: I think he was well known although I didn’t realise at the time. He had a George Cross for rescuing a navigator in a Blenheim, I think it was.
DK: That’s what I thought. Yeah. I recognised the name when you said.
RB: Yes.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
RB: And —
DK: What was he like then?
RB: Sorry?
DK: What was he like?
RB: Well, he wasn’t a person who you made friends with but he was fair. And strict as far as the flying went.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And as a crew we worked pretty well worked together. We were a bit of an odd crowd. One from, the navigator was from Liverpool.
DK: Yeah. Can you remember — can you remember the crew’s name? The navigator’s name.
RB: MacLeod.
DK: MacLeod. Yeah.
RB: Then the two gunners. Tombs and Johnson.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Tombs was a Cockney and I think Johnson came from the Midlands somewhere. And the bomb aimer. He was also from the Midlands.
DK: Right.
RB: He was another Johnson, I think. And myself.
DK: Right. And the wireless operator. Can you remember?
RB: The wireless operator. Yeah. [pause] I can’t remember at the moment. But it might come back as we go through.
DK: Ok. So, so you got on well as a crew then did you?
RB: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Yeah. Yes. The —
DK: Did you, even though he was the CO of the squadron did you socialise at all?
RB: Various. He didn’t socialise with us but on occasions when we were stood down we’d perhaps go in to Nottingham and have a night out.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And that would be the rest of the crew. Not, not the navigator. But the bomb aimer and the gunners.
DK: So, get — could you just talk a little bit about what your role was as the flight engineer? What your job was?
RB: Well, the training they gave us at St Athan was completely new to me because I knew nothing about engines and that was the main part of the course. But in the air we were responsible for the fuel side and according to the book, in the handbook that we got we were supposed to know everything about the, all the aircraft.
DK: Right.
RB: But I, I don’t think we learned all that [laughs]
DK: But you, you knew the important part about the engines and the fuel.
RB: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And watching the instruments. See. Keep an eye on them. Make sure they were going alright. We had one occasion when we were running up for, in the morning before going on a raid. And we’d started up the engines. And of course I was looking at the instruments and then I suddenly looked downstairs and the ground crew was jumping up and down. And we’d got steam up from a valve for the coolant that had got stuck.
DK: Right.
RB: So we had to shut that down. But apart from that they [pause] we didn’t really have much problem with the aircraft itself. The ground crew did a good job.
DK: Did you still go on that operation with the coolant problem?
RB: With the —
DK: The coolant.
RB: Oh No.
DK: No.
RB: No. They settled that in the —
DK: It wasn’t fixed for you to then take-off.
RB: No.
DK: No. No.
RB: No. We were ok. And then that more or less happened all the way through. The only time that [pause] I went on a briefing side for one operation and I went out to the runway where they, where they had the waving the aircraft off. And we had the 61 Squadron. One of their aircraft it went off and then it circled around and for some reason something had gone wrong and they landed down. Everything went up. The only, the rear gunner was left on the edge of the crater. So, overall my view of the operations was that it was a bit of a lottery whether you survived or not.
DK: So how many operations in total did you fly?
RB: Eighteen.
DK: Eighteen. Can you remember any of the targets?
RB: The — ?
DK: The targets.
RB: Well, that was a problem really in those days because bombing was not an accurate thing. They’d mark the site.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And if the flares got put out or the wind took them away so you had a creep affect. And whether you hit the actual target or not was a —
DK: No.
RB: You wouldn’t know.
DK: Were most of your operations in daylight or, or night time?
RB: I’ve got a logbook here.
DK: Ah. You’ve got the logbook.
[pause]
RB: That’s all the training.
DK: Right. That’s all — so, you were with 1660 Conversion Unit then.
RB: Sorry?
DK: 1660 Heavy Conversion Unit.
RB: Yes.
DK: 1660.
RB: Yes. Oh sorry.
DK: So, that’s at Swinderby.
RB: Syerston.
DK: Syerston.
RB: Swinderby then Syerston.
DK: Right. Ok. So, Syerston and then Swinderby.
RB: Yes.
DK: Right. Ok. So, there’s your pilot there then. Flint.
RB: Yes.
DK: Flight lieutenant then.
RB: Yeah.
DK: So in green is the war operations then. So, red. Red’s at night isn’t it? And green —
RB: That’s night.
DK: Red’s night and green is daylight.
RB: That’s daylight.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Yes.
DK: So, that’s 19th July ‘44. That’s in France. Creil. C R E I L. That says PFF Pathfinder Force poor.
RB: [laughs] I’ll just get my other glasses.
DK: Ok.
[pause]
RB: Getting blind as well as deaf.
DK: I can, I can read it to you. It’s ok. So, just going through this then we’ve got 19th of July 1944.
RB: Yes.
DK: War operations. And it’s a flying bomb dump near to Creil in France. And it says PFF poor. So, that’s Pathfinder Force poor.
RB: Yes. That’s, that was the, I forget what that was now. PFF. I think that was to do with if enemy aircraft were around.
DK: Right. Was that the Pathfinder Force?
RB: Sorry?
DK: Was that the Pathfinder Force?
RB: The — ?
DK: Pathfinder Force.
RB: I can’t remember now.
DK: You can’t remember. I think it probably is. So, then you’ve got —
RB: Let’s see where that was, shall we?
DK: So you’ve got PFF poor there but the next raid PFF good. I think that’s, that is the Pathfinder Force.
RB: Flying bomb.
DK: Yeah.
RB: That might be the Pathfinders. I’m sure. Yes. Yes.
DK: The Pathfinder. Yes. Yes.
RB: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
DK: That’s saying PFF is poor.
RB: Yeah.
DK: PFF good on that one.
RB: Yeah.
DK: So the next raid is 20th July ’44 and it’s the railway marshalling yards in Belgium.
RB: Yes.
DK: PFF good. And then July the 24th.
RB: St Nazaire.
DK: St Nazaire. Oil storage dumps. July the 25th St Cyr Airfield. That’s C Y R.
RB: St Cyr. Versailles.
DK: Yeah. Versailles. Cyr. St Cyr Airfield. July 26th — that’s the railway junction and marshalling yards in France.
RB: Yes.
DK: And the 31st of July war operations.
RB: Reims.
DK: Reims. Reims. Yeah. Good results it says.
RB: Yes.
DK: And carrying on. So August the 16th —
RB: Yes. Stettin.
DK: Stettin. Built up area. So, August the 19th the Pallice. La Pallice.
RB: Oil storage.
DK: Oil storage. And then August the 31st — flying bomb dump again.
RB: I can’t remember where that place was.
DK: All on the French coast somewhere. For the, for the recording —
RB: Yes.
DK: I’m not going to try and pronounce this but I’ll spell it it’s B E R G E N E U S E. That’s somewhere in France.
RB: Yes.
DK: So, you landed back at Ford then. You didn’t get back to base.
RB: Yes. Well, on that operation we had the wing commander’s bomb aimer with us. And we were just coming away from that site and there was a single shot and as luck would have it the bomb aimer caught shrapnel in his head. And that’s why we landed at Ford.
DK: Was it, was he ok?
RB: Well, I didn’t keep up in touch with him. It’s like everything else. People were injured or went on a flight. Once they’d gone.
DK: That’s it.
RB: That was it.
DK: So, you got a replacement bomb aimer presumably.
RB: Well, that was on the way home fortunately.
DK: Right. Ok. Ok. So, then 24th of September 1944. Target — defensive enemy positions at Calais.
RB: Yes.
DK: And that time you were diverted back to Westcott.
RB: Yeah.
DK: So then, 6th of October. Target — Bremen.
RB: Bremen.
DK: Built up area. Yeah. And then the 1st of November. Target — Hamburg. Synthetic oil plants.
RB: Yes.
DK: Then 4th of December. Heilbronn. That’s H E I L.
RB: Heilbronn. Yeah.
DK: H E I L B R O N N. Heilbronn. So, that was the area bombing then. The target area. Then 30th of December —
RB: Yes.
DK: That’s, that’s Germany again isn’t it?
RB: That was when the troops were advancing on.
DK: I’ll spell this for the benefit of the recording. It’s H O U F F A L I Z E.
RB: I think on that because the troops, they weren’t sure where the troops were.
DK: Yeah.
RB: We, we went, we were briefed for the operation and then it was called off. We then had breakfast. Bacon and egg. Brought on again. Back to the mess for another meal.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And this happened three times [laughs]
DK: You had three breakfasts.
RB: Yeah. We were egg bound by that time.
DK: So, so the target was German troops in salient.
RB: Yes.
DK: So it was tactical bombing of the German troops.
RB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. And just here it says here on the 30th of December operation, it says severe icing conditions.
RB: Yes.
DK: So, did that cause any problems to your aircraft?
RB: Not really. We had the heating system which helped to get rid of it. But you can hear the bits flaking off.
DK: And then 4th of January 1945 war operations. Target — Royan. R O Y A N. South West France. German troop concentrations. And then again, 6th of January German troop concentrations in the salient. They were being hammered a bit weren’t they? So, 13th of January 1945 — Politz. P O L I T Z. Oil refineries. 14th of January — Marsberg. Oil refineries again.
RB: Yeah. They were two long flights.
DK: Politz is in Poland isn’t it? I think.
RB: Sorry?
DK: Politz. Isn’t it in Poland?
RB: I’m not sure exactly where but it was certainly —
DK: Well, in the east. Yeah.
RB: It was in the east.
DK: Yeah.
RB: In the eastern area.
DK: And then on the so that’s the 13th to Politz and then the 14th to Marsberg
RB: Yes. Merseburg.
DK: Merseburg. Sorry. Merseburg. Merseburg. And it mentions here concentrated flak. Diverted.
RB: On that one we were Window crew. So, you went around once dropping the Window and then came back to do the second trip.
DK: So, you dropped, so you dropped your bombs on the second time around?
RB: That’s right. Yes.
DK: So, you had to go over the target twice?
RB: Yes. And then with two long trips.
DK: Yeah. Well the one on the 13th of January. That’s eleven hours five minutes. And the one on the 14th of January that’s ten hours [pause] So, I think that’s all of your operations there, isn’t it?
RB: There was bringing ex-prisoners back.
DK: So, that was your last operation there then. So, then you went on to Operation Exodus.
RB: Yeah.
DK: Do you, do you remember picking up the Prisoners of War?
RB: On that one.
DK: Yeah. The 26th of April 1945.
RB: That one we were actually service crew.
DK: Right.
RB: So we didn’t bring anybody back on that one. But on this one we brought.
DK: So, there’s another trip.
RB: Yes.
DK: Brussels again.
RB: So, we stayed the night at —
DK: Yeah.
RB: Westcott.
DK: So, on the 26th of April ’45 it actually says you returned with twenty four ex-POWs. So, what sort of states were they in?
RB: Well, they were very quiet. We didn’t really have a lot to do with them. We just kept in touch with them. Seeing they were alright on the flight. But they were quiet on the main.
DK: Yeah. So another Exodus then on the 6th of May. So, at this point the war has ended then.
RB: Yes.
DK: You did a trip to Italy then after the war has ended.
RB: Yeah. That was to bring more [pause] more troops back.
DK: Troops back. Yeah. That was Operation Dodge, I think, wasn’t it? Bringing the army —
RB: Yeah.
DK: Back from Italy. And then that’s it. So, that was your last operation here. Well, not operation. Your last flight I should say. 28th August 1945. So, did —
RB: We had, that was one of the few occasions when we had any problem with the aircraft. The wireless operator had smoke coming from his area.
DK: Oh right.
RB: And we thought we were going to have two or three days in Pomigliano.
DK: Right.
RB: But they did the dirty on us and got it ready [laughs]
DK: Would you have liked to have stayed a bit longer then?
RB: Yeah. Well, we went to [pause] because we were near Sorrento.
DK: Right.
RB: And we hitchhiked to a junction. And then we got another hitch to Sorrento. We had a meal there. And I, we had, we didn’t see a lot of Sorrento but the main thing there’s no sand there. It’s as a result of the Vesuvius eruption.
DK: Oh right. Ok. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
RB: And there was all dust really.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
RB: But —
DK: So that was on, that was on the 27th of July 1945.
RB: Yeah.
DK: And you come back from Italy then with twenty.
RB: Twenty persons.
DK: Twenty passengers. People on board.
RB: Ex-soldiers.
DK: So, they were soldiers.
RB: Yes.
DK: Coming back from Italy. Yeah.
RB: And I was with another pilot.
DK: Oh right. Yeah. So, that’s Flight Lieutenant Lundy. So had Flint left by this point then? Because you did the Exodus —
RB: Yes.
DK: Once with Flint there.
RB: Yes.
DK: But the Dodge flights were with Lundy.
RB: I’m just looking to see the other pilots we were with. There was one. That was another one.
DK: So you’ve got Groves. Flying Officer Syd Groves, Flying Officer Wells and Flying Officer Boyle.
RB: Boyle.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
DK: So it’s eighteen operations.
RB: I think the rest were — there was Flying Officer Wells.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Another. Another officer there.
DK: Arden. Yeah. So you flew with a number of different pilots.
RB: That’s right, yes.
DK: But did you have the same crew and just a different pilot or were they –
RB: Sorry?
DK: Did you have the same crew and a different pilot?
RB: That was at the beginning.
DK: Right.
RB: We did the twelve. Well, yeah the twelve operations with our own skipper.
DK: Right.
RB: And then the rest were these.
DK: Right. Ok.
RB: Odd ones.
DK: So, the first twelve were with Flint.
RB: Yes.
DK: And then the other six with various other pilots.
RB: That’s right. Yes.
DK: Were you, were you ever attacked by German fighters at all?
RB: Sorry?
DK: Were you ever attacked by German fighters?
RB: No. The only time when we took evasion action we weren’t sure. and we had the rear gunner — he gave a warning and we did a corkscrew. But apart from that — no.
DK: And can, can you recall the aircraft being hit by flak at all?
RB: Well, as I say there was that one when the bomb aimer got hit. And I myself because, because we had the blip. The [pause] on the windows we had the, where you could look out and see down.
DK: The blister.
RB: That’s right. Yes. And I was looking out at, we had some flak coming up and I felt a little something going, graze the head. But that was the nearest I had to anything to do with the flak.
DK: So you got hit by a little piece then.
RB: Just a little bit. Yeah. So I was dead lucky.
DK: Yeah.
RB: But after all it was all dead lucky really. I knew you had the — you were given a course in the briefing and you had to turn at certain points etcetera. And some pilots, they get ahead of time so they wanted to lose it and they’d be flying across the stream. No lights at all.
DK: No.
RB: So whether anybody got put down by a crash or —
DK: A collision.
RB: Collision. I don’t know. But it could have happened.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And then we had another. The aircraft had returned from the, from an operation and they still had their bombs on board. And the ground crew were putting this aircraft to bed and something happened. Up it went and the ground crew were killed. So you never knew from the time you took off ‘til the time you got back to bed.
DK: So, that happened at Skellingthorpe, did it?
RB: That’s right.
DK: The aircraft exploded.
RB: Yeah.
DK: And a number of the ground crew killed.
RB: That was the ground crew. Yeah.
DK: So how do, how do you look back in your time in the RAF now then?
RB: Well, it was certainly interesting. But I don’t think bombing as such is the beginning and end of a war. And there’s Johnny Johnson, the bomb aimer, he got the MBE or OBE.
DK: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
RB: And I thought myself because I’d had the clasp for Bomber Command and I thought that was a better idea because that was for operations.
DK: Yeah.
RB: But I always thought that the MBE and all those Birthday Honours were for services to civil life and of course I had reservations about —because things weren’t accurate. There were probably innocent people getting killed.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And, and there was an aspect that, well you got on with the job. You couldn’t do anything about that but at the same time I didn’t feel it was quite right. And having seen some of the bombing in London when we were living there and some of our friends got bombed. Nothing to do with the war. So from that aspect I’m not sure about bombing at all.
DK: No.
RB: But there we go. It was a job they wanted done.
DK: Yeah.
RB: You did it.
DK: So what was your career? Did you leave the RAF at that point then or —
RB: Yeah. I left. I only did four years. The two years of the war. That’s 1943 to ’45. And then I had a spell at Hereford. And then there was an admin course. And then I got posted to West Africa. And I was there for a year.
DK: Right.
RB: And when I came back the — that was demob time.
DK: And what, what was your career after that? What did you do?
RB: I’ve been a draughtsman for most of the time.
DK: Oh right.
RB: On the electrical side. I joined what was [Bridge Johnson Hewstone?] when I came back. No. I went to Napier’s first of all. And I was doing drawings for design etcetera. And it was then I went to Bridge Johnson Hewstone because Napier’s were getting rid of a few people.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And then I was with [pause] they, they moved to North London. And then they closed that down. They moved up to Blackpool.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And I was redundant then. I went to an electrical. Honeywell Electrics.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And then we were living in Hertfordshire at the time. And the [pause] then I got a job at Luton Airport with Hunting Aircraft.
DK: Oh right.
RB: And then they moved. So, and I finished up with the, an Italian firm Snamprogetti on, they were petrol installations.
DK: Right.
RB: And I was there and that was the finish of work in ‘87.
DK: So, just going back a little bit now if I may. I asked you about the Stirling.
RB: Yes.
DK: And what it was like to fly. What was the Lancaster like to fly?
RB: It was, I suppose one would say it almost flew itself. It wasn’t a comfortable position as far as the engineer was concerned but —
DK: Yes. As a flight engineer did you used to sit down or were you standing up?
RB: Yeah. We had a seat.
DK: Yeah.
RB: That you could fold up from the side.
DK: Right.
RB: You sat beside the —
DK: Pilot.
RB: The pilot yes. And you had the undercarriage and throttles which we helped with the take off.
DK: So, so when the pilot’s taking off then you’re helping with the throttles.
RB: Yes.
DK: And would you raise the undercarriage when you were up or would he do that?
RB: Yes. Yeah.
DK: You’d do that?
RB: As far as the throttles were concerned the pilot did the initial take-off thing, but you followed him up and when he got to the stage he was wanting full blast then you finished it through to the end.
DK: Right.
RB: And after that he, apart from synchronising the engines the pilot had control.
DK: Control. So on your right then you’ve got all the various dials.
RB: That’s right. Yes.
DK: And what are those dials telling you then? Are they —
RB: That was fuel contents. I forget what the rest did. That was the main thing that we were interested in.
DK: So your job is always to make sure you’ve got enough fuel to get back.
RB: Yes. Because you had to transfer fuel through from one tank to another at one stage.
DK: Right. And what about landing though, did you help the pilot land at all? Or —
RB: With the flaps. He’d call for the flaps and you’d operate that one. But apart from that the pilot was in control.
DK: Yeah. So, were your pilots very good then? Were they? Mostly?
RB: Well, some took a few chances I think [laughs] There was one, whether he actually did it or not they reckoned he did the loop the loop in the Lancaster but I take that with a bit of salt.
DK: You mentioned just before I put the recording on about somebody who was smoking.
RB: Yes. But that was the navigator but —
DK: Because you’re not allowed to smoke on the aircraft are you?
RB: Well, certainly not with our skipper.
DK: No.
RB: Well, it was so silly really. I mean, you had this main spar and the navigator sat just forward of it.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And there was a valve. So if you had a leakage goodness knows what would happen.
DK: Oh right. So the pilot smelled the smoke then did he?
RB: That’s right. Yes.
DK: Did he tell him off?
RB: Yes. And he was, he was another flight lieutenant.
DK: But I am correct in saying that regardless of rank the pilot is always in charge isn’t he?
RB: Well, yes. As far as we were concerned. Yes.
DK: Yeah. So you might have other crew that outranks him but the pilot’s still in charge.
RB: Could be. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
RB: But I don’t think it happened very often.
DK: So you were quite pleased with Flint then. You thought he was a good —
RB: Sorry?
DK: You thought that Flint — Flint was a good pilot.
RB: Oh yes.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
DK: I know who you mean. He’s the holder of the George Cross isn’t he?
RB: Sorry?
DK: He’s got the George Cross.
RB: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Yeah. I only realised that [pause] I was looking at an Antiques Roadshow I think it was and they were at Lincoln Cathedral. And he was there with the, with these medals that he’d got.
DK: Oh right. So did you stay in touch with the crew after the war?
RB: No. The only, I did at one time. They, they were doing a Memorial at Skellingthorpe.
DK: Yeah.
RB: And I offered help but they didn’t take it up. And when they had the actual ceremony I went up there but I didn’t get involved in —
DK: Right.
RB: In anything, and I met the squadron navigator who had been on 61 Squadron as well as 50. And I saw the skipper. He was marching up with the crowd to a meal or something and I waved to him [laughs]
DK: That was —
RB: That was the only time that I actually saw him to speak to.
DK: So you did — that’s Flint you waved to.
RB: That was Flint. Yeah.
DK: Did he wave back?
RB: Yeah.
DK: Oh.
RB: Well, he shouted out, ‘Are you coming up for — ’
DK: Yeah.
RB: But I wasn’t sure whether I was going to make it or not.
DK: No.
RB: But the only other time I saw him, when they did the Memorial in Green Park in London.
DK: Right.
RB: I went up to that.
DK: Right.
RB: And it was quite a hot day and —
DK: Yeah. I was there.
RB: Were you?
DK: Yeah.
RB: And because I was a bit daft really. I didn’t have any hat or anything. And I I wasn’t feeling all that well and in the end so I didn’t get a chance to speak to him but —
DK: That was a shame.
RB: But he was in a invalid chair. A bit hunched up then. And I think it was either that year or the following year that he died. So I didn’t get in to speak to anybody after that.
DK: No. What did you think of the Memorial at Green Park?
RB: Well, it’s quite impressive.
DK: Are you pleased Bomber Command are being recognised now after all these years?
RB: Well, yes. It’s fair enough. I mean fifty five thousand people gone. And —
DK: But obviously there’s the two big Memorials now. There’s the Green Park one.
RB: Sorry?
DK: There’s two Memorials now. There’s Green Park and the new one in Lincoln.
RB: And the one in Lincoln. Yes. Yes. The one, the one I saw in Lincoln my friends were going up to Leeds and I said , ‘Would you give me a lift to somewhere near Lincoln and leave me there and you go on up.’ And they said, ‘No. We’re not going to do that. And they went up to the actual site.
DK: Oh right.
RB: Of course it wasn’t open to the public.
DK: Right. You saw it close up though did you?
RB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Well, it stands right out.
DK: Yeah.
RB: There’s a hotel nearby which —
DK: So, you haven’t actually been yet then to see it close up.
RB: No.
DK: Oh. I’ll have to try and arrange something then.
RB: Because they are running the tours for them.
DK: Running the tours.
RB: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
RB: I might do that at some stage.
DK: Yeah. I’ll have a word with them when I get back. Because obviously we’ve got the main opening in April so hopefully you can come along to that.
RB: Yes.
DK: Yeah. Oh, ok then. I think that’s that’s everything. That’s been very interesting.
RB: No exciting moments.
DK: Trust me it’s all very exciting. I always like the logbooks. How do feel looking back at this thinking that was you?
RB: Sorry?
DK: How do you feel looking back in this logbook thinking that was, that was you? You did that.
RB: I’m sorry?
DK: How do you look feel looking in the logbook knowing that you did that?
RB: Well, I’m glad I did it. If only we sort of remember all the people who I’ve known and lost. And after all you’d have surviving these is a matter, as I say of luck. You can be on the last flight. Gone. Or you can come into the squadron, you do your training, go on the first flight.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Never got to know them.
DK: Yeah. Can I just —
RB: But I may have got some photos of the crew.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
[pause]
RB: Some misguided person sent me that book [laughs]
DK: For the recording it’s, “How To Fly a Second World War Heavy Bomber.”
RB: [laughs] It covers the Stirling, Halifax and —
DK: Yeah. As if you didn’t know.
[pause]
RB: Now, there’s the training flights.
DK: Right. Ok. You’ve got a photo here. It’s, so it’s A flight, 4 Squadron.
RB: That was at Torquay.
DK: Number 21 ITW.
RB: Yeah.
DK: Torquay.
[pause]
DK: Oh, there you are. RG Barnes.
RB: Yeah.
DK: So, you’re one two three four five six seven. One two three four five six seven. Is that you there?
RB: That’s it. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Oh right. Ok.
RB: That’s the crew.
DK: That is. Yeah.
RB: That’s skipper.
DK: So that’s, that’s your Lancaster there.
RB: That’s right. Near
DK: That’s T.
RB: Well, we flew in different aircraft all the time. There’s no one aircraft allocated.
DK: Because 50 Squadron’s codes were VN, weren’t they?
RB: Sorry?
DK: 50 Squadron’s code were VN.
RB: That’s right.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Yes.
DK: Oh wow.
RB: That’s another one.
DK: [unclear] That one. LN29. Oh, they’re great these photos are. So, can you, can you name the crew here?
RB: That’s the bomb aimer.
DK: Bomb aimer.
RB: Johnson.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Navigator — Macleod. That’s me.
DK: Right.
RB: Skipper.
DK: So, that’s, that’s Flint.
RB: Flint. Yes.
DK: Yeah.
RB: Tombs. That’s Johnson. And I still can’t remember the bomb aimer’s name.
DK: Or was that the wireless operator?
RB: Wireless operator.
DK: Ok.
RB: Yeah.
DK: Right. I know the [pause] Yeah. That’s, that’s T as well isn’t it? The reason I mention this is you know the Royal Air Force’s Lancaster that’s still flying?
RB: Yes.
DK: Well, they’ve painted it in new codes as 50 Squadron’s VN T. So, I think they’ve put it in the markings of your old aircraft.
RB: Oh.
DK: VN T. I’ll ask them.
RB: The only time I’ve had a [pause] we had a neighbour where I was living in, before coming here and he was an engineering NCO at Abingdon. And they were renovating a Lancaster there.
DK: Yeah. It would be the same one.
RB: So, and he said, ‘Would you like to come over and have a look?’ So —
DK: Did you go on board?
RB: [laughs] Yes.
DK: Right. What did you think seeing it again after all these years?
RB: Sorry?
DK: What did you think seeing it again after all these years?
RB: That brought back memories.
DK: Ok. I’ll turn this off now. I think we’ve said enough but thanks very much for your time on that.
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 Robert Barnes. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-03
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABarnesR170803, PBarnesR1701
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:49:29 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Barnes was working in a Reserved Occupation and so knew the only way he could join the RAF was to volunteer for aircrew. Before he volunteered he was also a member of the ARP and Home Guard. Robert trained as a flight engineer and was posted to 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. Robert’s pilot was James Flint DFC GM DFM who became the Commanding Officer of 50 Squadron.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Germany--Merseburg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
50 Squadron
Air Raid Precautions
aircrew
bombing
civil defence
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
Home Guard
Lancaster
memorial
navigator
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF St Athan
RAF Swinderby
RAF Torquay
Stirling
training
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/817/10800/PFawcettK1701.2.jpg
687b0968eb23c82bd9e8d7d593d8a53b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/817/10800/AFawcettK170926.2.mp3
0e974eecf09d6a19823e3903c4fcb309
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
Fawcett, Ken
K Fawcett
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ken Fawcett. He flew operations as an air gunner with 617 and 227 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-09-26
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Fawcett, K
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DK: This is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Mr Kenneth Fawcett at his home on the 26th of September 2017. I’ll just put that there. What I’ll do is if I —
KF: Switch it on and off.
DK: Yeah. I can switch it on and off.
KF: Yeah.
DK: And if I’m looking down I’m just making sure it’s still working. Ok. Ok, what [pause] just having a look at the, at your bits here I’m just wondering if we could go back a bit and just ask you what were you doing immediately before the war?
KF: I was working with the Post Office.
DK: Right. So what made you then want to join the RAF?
KF: Because I didn’t want to be called up to the Army or the Navy. Is this on?
DK: Yes. Yeah.
KF: Sorry.
DK: No. That’s ok. That’s ok.
KF: During the wartime you were called up at eighteen. If you didn’t make any preference beforehand you were posted to either, you could go in the Bevan boys which were the miners.
DK: The miners. Yeah.
KF: You could go in the Army, the Navy or the Air Force. If you volunteered for any particular job then you could take that as, in your choice. So a number of us, six of us went off to the Recruiting Centre and made our choices. Three of us joined the RAF as aircrew. Two joined the Navy. And one joined the Army.
DK: And were these six, were they your friends then were they?
KF: They were all my working colleagues.
DK: Working colleagues from, from the Post Office.
KF: From the Post Office.
DK: Right.
KF: And we were then, having made our choices we were left to be called up eventually as we got nearer to eighteen.
DK: And then what happened then? Did you have to go off for your initial training somewhere? Or —
KF: Well, you were called up eventually.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And then you were posted to, I joined up at the Lords Cricket Ground in London.
DK: Yes. Yeah. I know it well.
KF: Do you?
DK: Yeah.
KF: That was an ACRC Recruiting Centre.
DK: Alright.
KF: And you went down there and you were billeted in the empty luxury flats in the area.
DK: Right.
KF: And we dined at the zoo restaurant.
DK: Right. Yes. Yeah.
KF: In Regent’s Park.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And then from there you went on through the courses.
DK: So what was it like then? Was this, would this have been the first time you’d left home or —
KF: Yes. Yeah.
DK: So after your initial at Lords Cricket Ground where did you go on to after that?
KF: You were then sent to 17 ITW at Bridlington.
DK: Right.
KF: Which was like a, an introduction to the, you did the square bashing.
DK: Square bashing.
KF: And kitting out and one thing and another.
DK: What did you think of the square bashing?
KF: Came naturally because I’d already done two and a half years in the Home Guard.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
KF: So that was, I joined the Home Guard when I was sixteen. And at seventeen, eighteen and, seventeen, eighteen and a half you were called up.
DK: Right. And what year would that have been?
KF: ’43.
DK: ’43. Yeah.
KF: September ’43.
DK: So, after Bridlington where did you go on to then?
KF: After Bridlington went to Northern Ireland.
DK: Oh right.
KF: Which was the Air Gunnery School.
DK: Right.
KF: And —
DK: So, by this time they’d already decided what trade you were going to be in.
KF: No. That was decided for you at, at the Doncaster Recruiting Centre.
DK: Right.
KF: I had to go for PNB. Pilot, navigator, bomb aimer.
DK: Right.
KF: And then while I was waiting for call up I realised or I found out that to become a pilot was a two year course and being ’43 and being eighteen and naive I wrote to them and asked them for to reassign me to the shortest course which was air gunnery.
DK: Right.
KF: Because at that time I had ambition to get in the war.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Stupidly. But so they did and of course I got called up to go to a Gunnery School.
DK: Right.
KF: So Northern Ireland. Bishop’s Court —
DK: Right.
KF: Was an Air Gunnery School with Ansons.
DK: Right. So, when you got to the Ansons then would that have been the first time you’d actually —
KF: Flown.
DK: Actually flown.
KF: Fascinating really. Because what they did was they took seven pupils up in an Anson and I was fortunate to get the co-pilot’s seat.
DK: Right.
KF: And in the Anson the pilot said, ‘There’s a handle down by the side of your seat.’ You know it do you? And he said, ‘You wind it up and you watch the lights and when they turn green we’ve got them locked.’
DK: Can you remember how many times you had to turn the —
KF: About a hundred. And of course I’m down here winding this and looking at the lights and by the time we I looked up we were about a thousand feet up in the air. So I never saw my first —
DK: Take-off.
KF: Take-off.
DK: Oh no.
KF: But it was interesting.
DK: So, what did you think of the Anson then? Was that [unclear]
KF: It was, it was interesting because it was my first flying and funnily enough I, we used to get kitted out with a flying suit and parachute and I said to the instructor one day, ‘You never bring a parachute. Why is that?’ He said, ‘I’ll tell you, son,’ he said, ‘If you jumped out at this height you’d never survive.’ So we were always down time taking parachutes. But that was only an aside, you know.
DK: So what would you, at the Gunnery School then were you introduced to the gun? The guns you were going to be using before the first flight.
KF: Yeah. You had to learn all the parts of the gun.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And you had to be able to strip a gun down and reassemble it.
DK: So, can you remember what type of weapons they were?
KF: It was a Browning 303.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Air cooled. And the Anson had a gun turret on.
DK: Right.
KF: And you took your turn in the gun turret and the ammunition belt had been tipped. The bullets had been tipped with paint of different colours.
DK: Right.
KF: So that you may be designated the blue tips. And when you fired at a drogue that was being flown by another aircraft, when the drogue was taken to the ground and counting the holes in the drogue the blue paints would show up and you’d be credited with those hits.
DK: Yeah. Was it something that came naturally to you?
KF: Well, being in the Home Guard for two years I’d been firing Bren guns and Thompson sub-machine guns and throwing grenades and, and anti-tank mortars. So, you know at sixteen and seventeen we were playing soldiers anyway.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So with ammunition and firing it became second nature.
DK: So, after the Gunnery School then where did you go on to next?
KF: That’s what I got this for.
DK: Ah. Say for the tape that’s your force’s logbook —
KF: Sorry.
DK: That’s ok.
KF: Bridlington. Oh yes. Bridgnorth. 1650 Conversion. No. Number 1, Elementary Air Gunnery School at Bridgnorth in Shropshire.
DK: Right. So that was more advanced.
KF: That was more advanced training. More square bashing. More fatigues and what have you.
DK: Right. And what aircraft were based there? Was that —
KF: No. There was no flying there.
DK: Oh right. Ok. So it was purely just gunnery training.
KF: In fact, I think I’ve got these the wrong way around. It was London, Bridlington, Bridgnorth and then [pause] yeah. I haven’t got them in order. 12 Air Gunnery School. 17 OTU. That was at Silverstone. So, yeah. We did Bridgnorth and then [pause] That’s right. Bridgnorth and then Silverstone.
DK: Right.
KF: 17 OTU.
DK: Right. So, Bridgnorth first. Then Silverstone.
KF: Yeah.
DK: And that was 17 Operational Training Unit.
KF: Right.
DK: Right. And, and is that where you would have met your crew then? All the rest of your crew.
KF: We were taken to a station in the Midlands. I forget the name of the one. And you were taken into an assembly room and there were twenty pilots, twenty navigators, forty gunners because there are two gunners to a crew.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And twenty wireless operators. And the pilots were told to wander around and go to each trade and select a member of a crew. If a pilot approached you and asked you and you didn’t like the look of him you could say no. If you liked him you’d say yes and then he would go on to find a wireless operator or the, whatever crew he hadn’t yet selected.
DK: And this was all mixed together regardless of rank.
KF: Yeah. Completely.
DK: And just by trade.
KF: And you were entirely free to say yes or no to the guy.
DK: How did you think that worked? Because it’s quite unusual in the military. It seems a very relaxed way of —
KF: Oh, it was. It was unique to the military. Instead of being told you would do this or that you were given the choice because I think in the sense that if your life was on the line and you didn’t like the guy you were going to have to live with you were given the option of declining. Although face to face it’s a first instinct. If you sort of, it’s an attitude when you first meet somebody.
DK: Yes.
KF: You have a feeling.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And this fella came along in dark blue because the Australians were, were in dark blue uniform whereas we were in light blue. And he came along and asked if I cared to join his crew. I looked at him and he had his Australian colleague with him who was the wireless operator and I just thought oh it’s different. ‘Yeah. Ok.’
DK: Ok. Just for the tape can you remember their names?
KF: Yeah. Ken Allen.
DK: Ken Allen was the pilot.
KF: Was the pilot.
DK: Yeah. And —
KF: And he was from Melbourne in Australia.
DK: And the wireless operator?
KF: And the wireless operator was a Bill Eudey.
DK: Right.
KF: He was Australian. He was from Melbourne.
DK: Right.
KF: And the pilot at that time was a flight sergeant.
DK: Right.
KF: He subsequently got promoted to commissioned rank.
DK: Right. And can you remember the name of the second gunner that joined your crew?
KF: Yeah. Mike Clegg. Mike Clegg from [pause] Rotherham.
DK: Right.
KF: In Yorkshire.
DK: We’re missing one. Is the other one the navigator?
KF: The navigator was a guy from London. But subsequently we lost him because he couldn’t keep up with the training.
DK: Oh. Ok.
KF: So we had a different navigator when we eventually went on to ops.
DK: And can you remember his name?
KF: His name was —
DK: We can come back to it. It’s alright.
KF: Yeah. I’m looking. Where’s the photograph?
DK: Is he there?
KF: No. That’s, that’s have you got this to switch off or not?
DK: Yeah. I can pause it. It’s ok.
[recording paused]
DK: Right. So looking at the photograph here from right to left.
KF: Mike Clegg.
DK: Mike Clegg. Yeah.
KF: That was the navigator.
DK: Yeah.
KF: He was from Preston. That was the flight engineer. Ken Mepham from Manchester.
DK: Ken.
KF: Mepham.
DK: Mepham. Yeah.
KF: That was the second bomb aimer because that first bomb aimer Kirk Kent.
DK: Right.
KF: Had a nervous breakdown during the course of the ops.
DK: Oh. Ok.
KF: So he came back with the photograph.
DK: Right.
KF: But he was on our twenty seventh op.
DK: Right.
KF: So he did twenty six and then he did twenty seven to thirty six. That was Bill Eudey, the Australian wireless operator.
DK: Right.
KF: Ground crew. Ground crew. Ground crew. And myself.
DK: And who’s that down there?
KF: That’s the pilot.
DK: That’s the pilot. And the pilot’s name?
KF: Ken Allen.
DK: Ken Allen. So these are two bomb aimers then. That one and that one
KF: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And he had a nervous breakdown.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Right.
KF: He was on the train going home on leave. He was on the train and had a collapse on the train. So he was off then for several weeks.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And then we finished our tour while he was having hospital treatment.
DK: Right. With, with the replacement bomb aimer.
KF: With, yeah.
DK: Right. Ok. So if I could just take you back to the Operational Training Unit then. Number 17.
KF: 17 OTU.
DK: 17 OTU.
KF: Silverstone.
DK: So what type of aircraft were you training on then?
KF: Wellingtons. Twin engine Wellingtons.
DK: And what did you think of the Wellington as a, as an aircraft?
KF: We went from Silverstone. We were there for a week and then we were sent to Turweston, which was the satellite airfield where there were also Wellingtons. On the morning we arrived, about 11 o’clock we went to the mess. We had lunch. We came out and we were going up to the flights and it was in a lane and we heard a Wellington landing. So we went to a gap in the hedge, watched the Wellington land and take off again on circuits and bumps.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And sadly the pilot pulled the plane up too steeply, stalled and crashed. So our first sight of a Wellington was one coming down on its tail and all eleven onboard were killed.
DK: That was —
KF: So we, we looked at the pilot and thought how clever is he?
DK: That must have made you all a bit nervous about what was to come.
KF: Well, you didn’t get nervous really. You just simply thought well, but that was the first we’d saw of the Wellington. You know.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Anyway, we, we eventually did some of the training there. Then we were sent back to Silverstone to complete the training.
DK: Right.
KF: So each trade was working with the pilot as a student pilot.
DK: Right.
KF: With a trainee, with a instructor alongside.
DK: So you’d have the instructor pilot, your pilot as trainee and the rest of the crew there.
KF: That’s right.
DK: So had you decided which gun position you were going to take?
KF: Well, on the, on the Wellington there was only a rear turret.
DK: Right.
KF: There was no mid-upper turret. And we weren’t particularly designated to any particular one. So throughout the tour we used to switch.
DK: Right.
KF: Sometimes I’d go in the mid upper turret. Sometimes I’d go in the rear turret.
DK: So this training then at the OTU that was mostly circuit and bumps.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Cross country.
KF: Yeah. Yeah. It was mostly really for bomb aiming when the Wellington would fly over the predetermined bombing range on the, on the coast. Used to fly out to the coast at Lincoln.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And near the Wash somewhere. And the bomb aimer would then drop the practice bombs and he would get a qualification depending how good he was.
DK: And at this point can you remember were you beginning to feel confident with your crew? Or were you beginning to gel and —
KF: Oh yes. You got on very well. If you hadn’t got on well you would apply for a move.
DK: Right.
KF: But no. We all got on fine and eventually you did everything as a crew. When you went to the pub you all went together. And when you went for a meal you all went together. Basically.
DK: Yeah.
KF: But your crew because your lives depended on each other you became quite associated with one another.
DK: So after the OTU then where did you go on to then?
KF: Lanc Finishing School.
DK: Right.
KF: Where the pilot was particularly trained to switch from twin engine to four engine.
DK: And would that be the point when your flight engineer joined you?
KF: That’s right.
DK: Yeah.
KF: No. Sorry. There was, before the Lanc Finishing School there was an OT.
DK: It was at the Heavy Conversion Unit.
KF: That’s right. Yeah. Convert. Conversion Unit.
DK: Can you remember which Heavy Conversion Unit it was?
KF: Wigsley, Wigsley.
DK: Wigsley. Yeah.
KF: Yeah. And —
DK: And was that —
KF: That was the conversion from twin engine to four engine.
DK: Right.
KF: And then from there we went to the Lanc Finishing School to give the pilot training from radial engine to Lancaster.
DK: So, at the Heavy Conversion Unit what four engine bombers —
KF: Stirling.
DK: Stirlings. Right. Ok. And what did you think of the Stirling?
KF: Well, not being the pilot particularly, we were passengers.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So each aircraft didn’t matter to us particularly.
DK: Yeah.
KF: As gunners.
DK: And on the Stirling did you train in the mid-upper and the rear turret?
KF: Yeah. There was the mid upper and rear.
DK: Yeah. So after the Heavy Conversion Unit on Stirlings you then went to the Lancaster Finishing School.
KF: The Lanc Finishing School.
DK: For the pilot. For the Lancaster.
KF: That’s right. For the pilot to convert.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And I’m not sure what stage, before Lanc Finishing School or after you were posted to a particular group.
DK: Right.
KF: And we were fortunate in the sense that we were posted 5 Group which was considered the elite group of the Bomber Command.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
KF: Because 5 Group was at Grantham.
DK: Yeah.
KF: With —
DK: Ralph Cochrane.
KF: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: Yeah
KF: Yeah.
DK: So you were quite pleased about that then, were you? Did they —
KF: Oh yes. Yeah.
KF: Yeah.
DK: Because to be sent on the Lancaster as opposed to the Halifax.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Because you know the Halifax was slower and it was more vulnerable. So to get on to Lancasters we were quite happy.
DK: And then your first squadron was?
KF: First?
DK: Your first squadron.
KF: 619 Squadron.
DK: Yeah.
KF: At Dunholme Lodge.
DK: Dunholme Lodge.
KF: Just outside Lincoln.
DK: Yeah.
KF: It’s now a school. I think.
DK: Yeah. I actually drove through there quite recently.
KF: Did you?
DK: it’s all farms now.
KF: Is it?
DK: The airfield’s long gone. Right. So this was your first operational squadron then?
KF: 619 was. Yes.
DK: 619, at Dunholme Lodge. And did you like the squadron as you joined? Was it —
KF: It was very basic.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And you were in Nissen huts, and there was sufficient beds in one Nissen hut for two crews. And one crew would have one end of the room.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And the other crew would have the other end of the room and you just simply got on with each other. But sadly, very often the crew in the other end of the hut would go missing so another crew would come in. And that was the [pause] you just shrugged and —
DK: Yeah.
KF: Tough. Sort of thing.
DK: So on your first operational squadron then can you remember much about your first operation?
KF: My first operation I was called to operate with another crew.
DK: Right.
KF: Yeah. One of their gunners had gone sick so I was called up to make up their crew.
DK: Yeah. Would you mind if I close the door? There’s a bit of drilling going on outside.
KF: Is there? Yeah.
DK: Yeah. It’s picking up on the [unclear] is that alright?
[pause]
DK: That’s it. Somebody had a, somebody had a drill going.
KF: Did they?
DK: Yeah. Sorry. So your first operation then you flew with another crew.
KF: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
KF: It was a daylight op to Le Havre submarine pens.
DK: Right. And at, so as an extra gunner then where did you actually sit because you couldn’t obviously both get in the turret. Did you just sort of swap places with him?
KF: At what stage?
DK: Well, you’re with another crew at this point.
KF: Yeah, but their gunner had gone sick so I was sitting in his turret.
DK: Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. I thought you meant —
KF: He wasn’t flying. He wasn’t flying so I took his place.
DK: You were a replacement gunner.
KF: I was a replacement gunner.
DK: So how did that make you feel then? Flying out with a different crew then on your first operation?
KF: You just got on with them. You just simply fitted in and they accepted you and you accepted them. There was no, no embarrassment at all.
DK: Yeah. So when was your first operation then with your actual crew? Was that the next one?
KF: The next one was a daylight to Brest. That was a, so throughout the whole tour I had always done one more than they had —
DK: Right.
KF: You know, I was one ahead of them. It was interesting because when I came back, ‘What was it like? What was it like?’ And of course when you flew from Lincoln to Le Havre this was in September and of course D-Day was in June.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So you flew over the Channel and saw the battleships shelling the French coast.
DK: Right.
KF: It was quite spectacular because it was daylight.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And of course Le Havre was a short hop over France so you weren’t in too much of a, you got the odd ack ack but nothing special.
DK: So as your operations have progressed then can you remember the different targets you were sent too?
KF: Oh yeah. Yeah. I remember them all really.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Not necessarily in order but the first, the third operation was a night one to Munchen Gladbach.
DK: Right. So that would have been your first time over Germany then.
KF: This was the first time over Germany and of course it was spectacular because it was night time and you saw all the fires and the explosions and it was all like a bit of a firework display. In fact, I called the navigator and I said, ‘Terry,’ Terry Fellowes, that was the navigator —
DK: Terry Fellowes. Right.
KF: Terry Fellowes.
DK: Terry Fellowes. The navigator, yeah.
KF: And he was always in, the navigator worked in a curtained off area.
DK: Yeah.
KF: With lights on.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And the lights had to be shielded from outside to save giving your position away. So he looked out and he blamed me after that. He said, ‘I wish I’d never looked out,’ he said. And he said throughout the rest of the tour he never did look out.
DK: Look out.
KF: But of course as gunners we were seeing everything, you see.
DK: Yeah. So, as a, as a gunner then this might sound a silly question but what was your actual role as part of that crew? What was your job?
KF: Your main basic job was a lookout. Particularly in the dark because you’d have seven or eight hundred aircraft all flying along in the dark with no lights on and you particularly had to have good night vision.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Because you could see, you might be flying along for a while and suddenly see some sparks and when you looked up you discerned another aircraft only fifty, sixty feet away. So you’d then call the pilot up. Warn him that there was another aircraft to the port or starboard. Wherever. And he would veer away slightly and you would sit, then you would tell him yes ok you were out of range. And of course you were looking out for enemy aircraft. The difference in the dark sky is very minimal between seeing something and not seeing something.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So you had to have good night vision to see a black shadow against a slightly less black background. And then you had to recognise the shape. And if the shape was an enemy aircraft you’d got to decide whether to move away or attack or whatever. If he was doing no harm you left him alone because he had a bigger gun than you did.
DK: Right. So the intention would be you wouldn’t want to draw attention to yourself if you saw an enemy aircraft and he wasn’t behind you.
KF: If he wasn’t, if he wasn’t aware of your presence you kept schtum because if you fired your gun every fifth round of the belt was an incendiary. And it was an incendiary to aid you to know why you were firing. But at the same time it gave your position away.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So that if you fired when you didn’t need to and then the enemy aircraft could say, ‘Hello. I didn’t know you were there. I’ll go for you.’ So you kept quiet. If he saw you and you attacked, he attacked then you’d call the pilot up and call him to veer and corkscrew port or starboard. If the aircraft was coming in from the starboard you dived in to him.
DK: Right.
KF: If he was diving from the port you dived in to him. And the pilot, you’d call the pilot up and just simply shout quickly, ‘Corkscrew. Starboard. Go.’ And the pilot never stopped to ask. He just went.
DK: Right.
KF: And then he did a corkscrew. You know what a corkscrew is?
DK: Yeah. I do.
KF: And he’d do the corkscrew until you felt you’d got rid of him and then he would get back on to course. And the navigator then would curse and swear at you because everything had gone up in the air. His plan, maps and pencils and everything else shot up in the air.
DK: Yeah. So, you were actually attacked by German aircraft.
KF: Oh, you could. Yeah. On several occasions.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
KF: So you, you simply got out of the way because they had cannons which had a six hundred yard range.
DK: Yeah.
KF: We had 303s which had a three hundred yard range. So if you fired at him he could stay further away and hit you and you couldn’t reach him.
DK: Did any of these German attacks ever damage the aircraft or did you always always manage to —
KF: Not, not to, well I say not to our knowledge. We sometimes came back and there was holes in the aircraft. Whether they were shrapnel or bullet holes you never really discerned.
DK: Yeah.
KF: The ground staff would have known because they were having to repair them. But when you got out of after coming back from a raid there were very often holes in the aircraft from either bullets or shrapnel.
DK: Right. But you never came back severely damaged though.
KF: Not severely damaged.
DK: No.
KF: But the amazing thing to me was that seven of us in an aircraft. We came back with holes in the aircraft but none of them ever hit anybody. Not one of the aircraft, not one of the crew was hit with any bit or injured.
DK: Right. So how many operations did you do with 619?
KF: We did nine with 619.
DK: Right.
KF: And then they wanted to form a new squadron so they took the best or the experienced crews from 619 and they also took the experienced half the crew, half the squadron and the other half was taken from a squadron at Bardney and they were sent to Strubby. And then from Strubby we went down to Balderton where we formed 227 Squadron. And then from ten ‘til thirty six we did at Balderton.
DK: Right. So you did thirty six operations altogether.
KF: Well, a tour was thirty.
DK: Right.
KF: And every four weeks of flying you were sent on ten days leave. So we thought right if we do twenty eight we’ll go on leave for ten days, come back, do two and we’ll get to our next leave. So we were being clever to get two lots of leave in quick succession.
DK: Yeah.
KF: When we came back from the twenty eight ops thinking we’d two to do and we arrived back on station and we were told that they had increased the tour from thirty to thirty five because of the bad weather down the training line was stopping new crews coming up the line. So we had seven to do.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And sadly when you went to the flight and looked at the casualty board while we’d been away somebody had done thirty one and shot down. Thirty two, shot down. If they had finished their tour at thirty they would have survived.
DK: They’d have survived.
KF: So there was a bit of an ironic situation.
DK: How did that, can you remember how that made you feel at the time?
KF: Well, you’re invincible at eighteen. Anybody else was going to.
DK: Yeah.
KF: When you saw an aircraft being shot down over target you just simply said, ‘Well not me. Tough mate.’ You know.
DK: So you did, so the rest of your crew did thirty five but you did the —
KF: I did the odd one.
DK: Extra one at thirty six, yeah.
KF: What I didn’t realise until much later was that I could have called off at thirty five but I carried on with my crew without question.
DK: So, could, could you talk through sort of what an operation would be like. A night time one. Presumably they got you up quite late during the day and then you’d, would you do a sort of training mission during the day with the aircraft? Or —
KF: Yes. You did what they called the pre-flight test.
DK: Right.
KF: You would, the morning would [pause] in the morning the pilot would go to the flights and look at the Battle Order. If he was on and the aircraft he was designated to then we would go out to that aircraft and make sure everything was in working order and then he would do a pre-flight test of about ten minutes, fifteen minutes. Check that it was, sounded all right. The radio operator would contact base and make sure —
DK: Yeah.
KF: The radio was working. And we would just make sure the guns were, were working. We didn’t actually fire them but you made sure that the mechanism was working. And then you landed. Then you went to a meal. Then you would come back and get briefed. And then you would go to the aircraft and wait for take-off and then when the green light went up you took off.
DK: What was it like at the briefings though when you saw what your target was going to be? Was it —
KF: Well, you went in to, all the buildings were Nissen huts.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And this was the biggest style of Nissen hut. And you went in and it was seated. Benches and chairs. And you were looking at the stage and the whole of the back of the stage was covered with a big curtain. And when the CO and the briefing crew came along you stood up to attention. The guy, the CO told you, ‘Sit down.’ And then the curtains were drawn back. And then you would see the whole map of Europe and a tape would be from base to the target.
DK: Right.
KF: During the course of the day you established from the ground crew how much petrol they were putting in. If it was a little, a small amount they could put more bombs. If it was a long target, a long range target it reduced the amount of bombs you could take because there was more petrol.
DK: Petrol.
KF: So if the petrol load was high you knew it was a long way.
DK: Yeah.
KF: If the petrol load was low you knew it was a shorter one.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So when you looked at the map you have a preconceived idea that it was going to be a long one or a short one.
DK: Yeah.
KF: If it was long one it was obviously going to be in to, in to Germany. One particular one was Gdynia. Which was in Poland.
DK: And that was your longest.
KF: Ten and a half hours that one.
DK: Ten and a half hours.
KF: Five hours out and five hours back. And but if it was a short one it would be something like Le Havre or Brest or —
DK: Yeah.
KF: Any of the occupied countries. You know.
DK: So before, you had a pre-flight meal presumably before you went.
KF: Well, you just had a normal meal.
DK: Yeah.
KF: But as aircrew you were privileged in that you could have as much milk as you liked.
DK: Right.
KF: Where, I’m talking, that’s surprising but milk was in short supply at the time. So being privileged you could drink as much milk as you liked. You could eat, you could ask for anything you wanted from catering.
DK: Yeah.
KF: That was available.
DK: So basically you get the green light and off you go. For take-off then where were you? Were you in the turret or were you in the —
KF: You were in the turret.
DK: Right.
KF: But you had to centralise them and, and not swivel them because that would unbalance the aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
KF: When you were taking off. The pilot could feel you if you were swinging the guns about. So you sat with your guns centralised.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And you just took off down the runway and got airborne. Once you were airborne then you could swivel your turrets.
DK: Yeah. And what was that like though? Being sort of dragged backwards as it were.
KF: Didn’t really, didn’t I don’t think there was anything. It’s just like sitting on the train backwards.
DK: So you would be in the turret for the entire time.
KF: Oh yeah. You never. It wasn’t wise to leave the turret.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So you stayed in it. But if you were over friendly territory there was in the aircraft there was what they called an elsan which was a chemical toilet. And if needed to go to the loo you could go.
DK: Yeah.
KF: But being in a flying suit as the gunner you had four layers of clothing on.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So you would, you made sure you didn’t need to go to the loo.
DK: Yeah.
KF: You made sure before you put your suit on.
DK: Yeah.
KF: That you’d drained yourself.
DK: Did you have electrical heated suits?
KF: Yeah.
DK: You did. Yeah. And were they any good because I’ve heard different stories.
KF: Oh yes. They were good. No. They were good.
DK: Yeah.
KF: In fact, sometimes they would, I remember once getting my foot slipper was getting too hot and there were studs at the back of the heel fitting on to the suit, and I just disconnected it.
DK: Yeah. What was it like being in the rear turret then? Was it, because you are cut off from the rest of the crew. Was it a little, a little lonely there? Or were you —
KF: Well, you could always call up on, on the intercom. You never felt. I mean the rear turret was behind the tail so you were hanging over the back and you could see the tail struts were out here somewhere.
DK: Yeah.
KF: You’re out in space really. You’re in a, in a Perspex dome.
DK: And do you remember much about as you reached the target and the bombs dropping and what happened to the aircraft then?
KF: Oh yeah. I mean the pilot, the navigator in particular, to get seven hundred aircraft over the target they were all give a different direction to come in so that they weren’t all falling over one another. So every aircraft would come in at a certain time at a certain angle to make sure that they all dropped over the target but they were all zigzagging about. So you would be [pause] the navigator would tell the pilot what course to fly. He would fly the course. Then eventually he would see the target because it had already been marked by the Pathfinders.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Or it was already in flames anyway. So as you approached the target on the heading that you had already been given, no, the navigator had been given. At the height the bomb aimer would be laying on the front nose looking through the bombsight and as he got closer to the target he would direct the pilot. The navigator would fall out of the equation and the bomb aimer would take over and tell the pilot, ‘Left. Left. Steady. Right. Steady.’ Got him on. And then when the pilot, when the bomb aimer was over the target he would press the tit, shout, ‘Bombs gone,’ and the aircraft would lift up. You could feel it. But what you had to do as gunners you had to make sure that the guy above you wasn’t directly above you dropping on — several aircraft got lost on targets by other aircrew dropping their bombs on the aircraft below.
DK: So, as, as the bomb run was happening you were looking up there and there and there right up to —
KF: Well, you were looking left, right and centre. And if you, two aircraft on the route from base to the target some aircraft would be two minutes later than they should have been or two minutes earlier. So there would always be a little bit of congestion over the target.
DK: Yeah.
KF: The worst thing that could happen when you were over the target was not being able to drop the bombs and then you were shouted, ‘Bomb bays closed. Go around again.’ So you had to go around again whilst everybody is shooting at you. Because the guy above you was going to drop his bombs on you.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And so you would tell the pilot and he would drop back a bit and then the guy above you would drop his bombs past you. But sometimes because the guy above didn’t want to go around again he wouldn’t care that you were underneath him.
DK: Yeah.
KF: He would drop them and hope they didn’t hit you. But that was one of the hard facts of life.
DK: So you dropped your bombs on target. You were heading for home now.
KF: After you’ve dropped your bombs the bomb aimer and the pilot had to continue for another thirty seconds on a straight and level course to allow the flash, photo flash to trigger over the target and it took a photograph of where the bomb aimer had dropped his bombs.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And then after thirty seconds of level you could fall off and then the navigator would give the pilot a course to set for home.
DK: Yeah. So you’re setting back for home then. How, how are you feeling as you approached the airfield? Was it a sense of — ?
KF: Well, you left the target but you still had to be alert.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Because when if an enemy aircraft was above you he could see you silhouetted against the flames below.
DK: Right.
KF: So he could come down on you when he, and what he would often do was go under you. There was a bit of a fallacy that the rear gunner is in the most endangered position.
DK: Right.
KF: Not necessarily so because an enemy aircraft depending on which angle he’s coming at you isn’t necessarily going to kill the rear gunner first.
DK: Right.
KF: He could come in from the side and as you possibly well know there was what they called schrage musik. And the enemy aircraft had a gun —
DK: Yeah.
KF: At an angle. And he would come underneath you and fire into the wing.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Where the petrol tanks were. And the first you knew of it was where the wing took off. You know. And so periodically you would get the pilot to tilt over so you could look underneath and then look underneath again.
DK: You never saw anybody coming up to shoot you from below then when you [unclear]
KF: No. No. No
DK: No. I guess, yeah, so when you got back home then what was the feeling as you got back off an operation?
KF: You were only relieved when the wheels touched down. You were always looking out for, at one time, particularly during the end of the war a lot of the German aircraft used to follow the bomber crews in when their airfield was lit up and they were landing on the runway. When they were wheels down and flaps down.
DK: Yeah.
KF: They were at their most vulnerable because they couldn’t manoeuvre and the enemy pilot who’d followed him in would then shoot him down and several aircraft sadly were lost —
DK: Right.
KF: On the approach to the runway. So you never gave up until you actually wheeled down.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And hit the runway.
DK: Yeah. Is it ok if I have a look at the old logbook? [pause] I just wondered if I have a look at the various operations there.
KF: Red were night ops.
DK: Red for night ops. Yeah.
KF: Green were daylights.
DK: So that —
KF: And black was flying.
DK: This is just for the recording. So that’s the Lancaster Finishing School.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Syerston. So then 619 squadron. So that’s Allen. Your —
KF: Flight Sergeant Allen.
DK: Your pilot. So, that’s the first operation was to Brest. Wasn’t it?
KF: Yeah
DK: So with a different pilot. Franks.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Yeah. [unclear]
KF: And then the next one was Le Havre. Was it Le Havre?
[pause]
DK: I’ve got Darmstadt.
KF: Sorry?
DK: Darmstadt.
KF: No, that’s, there’s another one.
DK: Oh, here we go. Le Havre.
KF: Later on. That’s it.
DK: Gun positions.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Yeah. So the Brest operation was on the 2nd of September.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Then Le Havre.
KF: That was the first one with my crew.
DK: The first one with your crew. 10th of September. And then the 11th of September your first night operation to Darmstadt.
KF: Darmstadt. That’s right.
DK: So there’s Darmstadt. Munchen Gladbach.
KF: And then Munchen Gladbach.
DK: So most, most of the German cities here aren’t there? Ops to Bergen. Was that —
KF: Norway.
DK: Norway. Right.
KF: Norway.
DK: So that’s with, that was Balderton. So you joined Balderton with 227 Squadron in October ’44. [pause] So there’s a Dortmund Ems canal.
KF: Yeah.
DK: So that was two operations there then.
KF: Oh, we went there several times.
DK: Several times. Right.
KF: The idea was you, there was a high point between Dortmund and Ems.
DK: Right.
KF: And the idea was to break the banks, drain the canal and none of the barges could travel from Dortmund to Ems.
DK: Right.
KF: With material for the war production. So they kept going back and of course when they built the, when they repaired the dam and the water went back in again you went back again and burst it again.
DK: Right.
KF: So that’s why we kept going back to the Dortmund Ems Canal.
DK: You went there on the 4th of November. Then again the 6th of November.
KF: Went back three or four times I think.
DK: Yeah. Then Munich, 27th of November.
KF: Three times to Munich.
DK: Three times Munich. There’s a recall there I see. The Urft Dam.
KF: Urft Dam. Yeah.
DK: U R F T Dam. Yeah.
KF: Gdynia.
DK: Gdynia.
KF: That was Poland.
DK: Yeah. So Gdynia was on the 18th of December. Oh. So you did Munich on the 17th of December. And then Gdynia the next day. The 18th of December.
KF: Yeah. Two long ones. Because Munich was right down in the far end of Germany.
DK: Then the 30th of December there’s ops to I’ll spell this out for the recording H O U F F.
KF: Houffalize.
DK: ALIZE. Houffalize. The Dortmund Ems Canal again on January the 1st.
KF: Yeah.
DK: So, Houffalize again.
KF: You see, Royan. That one is a coastal town in France.
DK: Right.
KF: And when the D-Day landing took place they went down. The Americans went down the peninsula and Royan was in a German garrison but because the Americans went down so fast they were —
DK: Cut off.
KF: Cut off.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And the French were complaining that the Germans were going out in to the countryside and rustling for food and one thing and another so they asked for, and the garrison was too big for the French Resistance to take on so they asked us to go down and —
DK: Bomb them.
KF: Bomb them. But the point I’m getting around to is that the briefing by the meteorological officer was completely wrong, and when. Because it was only a pocket in France and the country around about was already occupied by us —
DK: Yeah.
KF: We didn’t do a deviation. We went straight to the target. The wind speed given by the meteorological officer was wrong and there was a huge tailwind which got us there early. And we flew over Royan about six or seven minutes early for the bomb aiming, for the bombing and there were no markers down so we didn’t know where we were. So when we’d over shot the target we had to turn around and come back because it was fatal because every other aircraft was still coming.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So there was and we lost several aircraft in crashes.
DK: Collisions.
KF: Albeit there was very little anti- aircraft.
DK: So that was Royan. R O Y A N. And that’s January the 4th.
KF: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. In France.
KF: Well, if we’re going back one if you look back at December [pause] December we were out on New Year’s Eve. December 31st. 30th.
DK: No. That’s the 18th there.
KF: Sorry?
DK: 30th. Yeah.
KF: That was the, that was—
DK: Houffalize.
KF: The [pause] when the Germans broke through. You know the Battle of the Bulge.
DK: Oh, the Battle of the Bulge. Oh right. Ok.
KF: That was the Battle of the Bulge.
DK: Right. So that’s —
KF: And what date was that?
DK: 30th of December.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Houffalize.
KF: The night before the New Year. Night before New Year.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. So Politz.
KF: Politz.
DK: Politz on —
KF: That was in Czechoslovakia.
DK: Yeah. So Politz again there. Dresden on the 13th of February.
KF: Yeah.
DK: Do you remember, do you remember much about that?
KF: The famous Dresden raid.
DK: Do you remember much about that operation?
KF: Nothing special. Just another one. It was only afterwards that we, I mean that was this is what really appalled me. If you remember Harris. Bomber Harris, you know.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
KF: You know. He got no credit for doing what he did because after the war everybody was saying, ‘Look at the damage you’ve done. Oh terrible.’ So even right up until when was the Battle of Britain, not the Battle — the Bomber Command Memorial.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Seventy odd years later.
DK: Yeah. 2012 that was. Yeah.
KF: And what I’m saying is really nobody gave you credit for what you did.
DK: No.
KF: And in fact, I’ve an opinion. I’ve a theory that we did Germany a favour in a, in a odd way. When we knocked everything out of Germany I mean we flew over Germany after the war to look at the damage and it was, you might have seen photographs yourself.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
KF: They had nothing. So they had to renew everything with new equipment to get back on their feet. And we gave them thousands. And America did. To save them going over to the Russian sphere.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
KF: We pumped millions of pounds into Germany. They got all completely new equipment.
DK: Yeah.
KF: New factories. New houses. New, new buildings.
DK: That’s it.
KF: We’re coming back to all our old clapped out aeroplanes and trains.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And infrastructure. And Germany then went to be a very renowned engineering country.
DK: Yeah. It was the West German economic miracle wasn’t it?
KF: That’s right.
DK: But of course it was financed by the Americans and Volkswagen. Yeah.
KF: Volkswagen. Volkswagen was saved by the British Army.
DK: That’s right. Yeah.
KF: They ran it for several years after the war.
DK: Yeah. True. So then —
KF: But people forget that.
DK: Yeah.
KF: I mean Germany today in my opinion is ruling Europe.
DK: Yeah.
KF: By economic means. Whereas it tried to do it —
DK: Militarily.
KF: By military means.
DK: Yeah. So just going on then into March ’45. So you’d then got, I see the Dortmund Ems again. March the 3rd. Harburg on the 7th of March. And a place near Leipzig on the 20th of March. So, would that have been your last operation then?
KF: What was that one.
DK: Leipzig, Poland.
KF: No. That was —
DK: Bohlen.
KF: What date was that?
DK: March the 20th.
KF: No. Bohlen was the last one.
DK: Yeah. Bohlen. Yeah.
KF: Oh. Near Leipzig.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Bohlen. That was the last one.
DK: So your last operation then March the 20th.
KF: Yeah.
DK: Bohlen near Leipzig.
KF: That was their thirty fifth. My thirty sixth.
DK: Right. So that’s B O H L E N.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Yeah. So the war’s come to the end then and did, did you [pause] what happened to your crew then? Did they all split up?
KF: When we finished operations. The two gunners. Myself and my other mate we were sent back to Silverstone as instructors. What you [pause] if the war had lasted longer if you did thirty ops then you did six months rest. And at that six months you were sent to a training base to train up the crews coming up the line. And then you went back for another thirty. And then you could opt out altogether or volunteer for more.
DK: Yeah.
KF: But being, being the end of the war we were at Silverstone as instructors when VE day came up.
DK: Was there any plans that you might go out to the Pacific afterwards?
KF: We were then sent to Cranwell with a view to training for Tiger Force.
DK: Yeah.
KF: But fortunately while we were at Cranwell VJ day came up.
DK: Were the atomic bombs a bit of a relief?
KF: So, oh yeah. Funnily enough there was always a fear that dropping in, dropping over Europe if you were shot down.
DK: Yes.
KF: And you could get out if you could out. Dropping out over Germany and either trying to get back through the escape channels or getting captured didn’t bear the same risks or fears that if you dropped over Borneo.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And going, thinking of going out to Japan.
DK: Get caught by the Japanese.
KF: Or the Japanese theatre you kept thinking of the bloody jungles and dropping in the trees and God knows what, you know.
DK: So did you manage to keep in touch with your crew after the war?
KF: Sadly no. It’s always with hindsight.
DK: Yeah.
KF: I suppose some crews did keep in touch but life was so quick and so you moved so quickly that we, we dispersed.
DK: Right.
KF: And didn’t keep in touch. But years later I got in on my computer and I found what they were called in Australia the Odd Bods Organisation. Have you heard of it?
DK: No. I haven’t. No. No.
KF: The odd bods. There was a lot of Australian crews, members and they flew from RAF stations. Some of them went to an Australian, purely Australian squadron.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So when they went back to Australia after the war those who weren’t in the Australian squadron formed a group called the Odd Bods.
DK: Right. Right.
KF: They were the odd crew members —
DK: Yeah.
KF: In the British. And I got through to them and I found in their website a Roll of Honour and saw Flying Officer Allen.
DK: Oh right.
KF: Who had died. As a civilian of course.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
KF: Years after this is. So I got in touch with the secretary on the computer and asked him if I could get in touch with his widow.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And I said I also knew Bill Eudey who was the wireless operator.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
KF: So he said, ‘Oh, he’s also died.’ So he said, ‘Yes, I’ll get in touch with the widows to see whether they’re happy for you to communicate with you. And they came back and said yes.
DK: Oh good.
KF: So I got in touch with them both. One was on the computer.
DK: Yeah.
KF: One wasn’t.
DK: Yeah.
KF: The pilot’s wife wasn’t computer literate so I kept in touch with her by correspondence.
DK: Yeah.
KF: But sadly since she’s died.
DK: Right.
KF: The wireless operator’s widow I speak to every morning on, every Saturday morning on Skype.
DK: Oh excellent. That’s —
KF: We have a chat you know.
DK: Yeah. There’s some good aspects to new technology isn’t there?
KF: That’s right. Yeah. The flight engineer when you got to the OC, OC [pause] whatever. Conversion Unit.
DK: Yeah.
KF: That’s when you picked up the engineer.
DK: Right.
KF: So we picked up an engineer. A flight engineer from Manchester.
DK: At the Heavy Conversion Unit.
KF: At the Heavy Conversion Unit.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And he eventually moved to Australia.
DK: Right.
KF: So I tried to get in touch with him. But he had died.
DK: Right.
KF: And these are all about ten years ago.
DK: Yeah. Oh, that’s a shame.
KF: So I’ve got in touch with his widow. But then she’s since died. You know.
DK: Yeah.
KF: This is what time does. We all go off the end at the end.
DK: Eventually. So all these years later looking back at your time in RAF Bomber Command how do you feel about that period of your life now? Looking back on it.
KF: How do I feel?
DK: [unclear]
KF: I suppose really being one of the fifty percent that lived you know you feel relieved that you, as I said earlier none of us got wounded at all.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So we were lucky in that sense and to survive as well was also another bonus, you know. But you see people began to get this attitude of we were cruel. We were [pause] so they didn’t want to know you. They don’t say directly but there was that undercurrent.
DK: Yeah.
KF: That you did. I mean the RAF Bomber Command was the only arm of the services that fought throughout the whole of the war.
DK: Yeah.
KF: The Navy never went out of bay, err out of port unless they had to.
DK: Yeah.
KF: The Army got defeated at Dunkirk and had two years where they were completely reforming.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So the RAF Bomber Command were the only group that kept the war going.
DK: Yeah.
KF: When everybody else was marking time.
DK: Yeah. That’s very true. Ok. I’ve just got one final question. I know I asked you this before but for the recording could we, could we just go through the crew again. Is that alright?
KF: Sorry. There’s one.
DK: Have you got one with the names?
KF: I’ve got one with all the names on. Let me go upstairs again.
DK: Are you ok doing? Are you sure? Is that alright?
KF: I’m trying to think where I put it.
DK: It might still be on the table. Put that on there again. So left, so left to right that’s Charlie Clegg.
KF: Yeah.
DK: Terry.
KF: Terry.
DK: Fellowes.
KF: Fellowes.
DK: Then it’s the rigger there presumably.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Harry Reeves. The rigger.
KF: Yeah. Harry Reeves.
DK: Then Charlie Tudor, flight mechanic.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Then Sergeant Ken —
KF: Mepham.
DK: Mepham. That’s M E P H A M.
KF: That’s right.
DK: He was the flight engineer.
KF: Yeah.
DK: Then Jack Barton.
KF: Yeah.
DK: The second bomb aimer.
KF: That’s right.
DK: Yeah. Then Pilot Officer Bill —
KF: Eudey.
DK: Eudey.
KF: E U D E Y.
DK: E U D E Y. Then Corporal Scotty Scott.
KF: Yeah.
DK: Who was a fitter. Flight Sergeant Ken Fawcett.
KF: Yeah.
DK: Which is your good self.
KF: That’s right.
DK: You’re listed there as the mid-upper gunner. Yeah.
KF: That’s right. Well, the gunner. We used to do both.
DK: Yeah. And then Flight Sergeant Kirk Kent.
KF: That’s right.
DK: And then kneeling is —
KF: Flying Officer Allen.
DK: Flying Officer Ken Allen.
KF: Ken Allen.
DK: The pilot. So just going back to Kirk Kent did you ever find out anything more about him as his, when he was ill or —
KF: No. No. Things are [pause] wartime you didn’t take the same personal interest in, you simply they were there or they weren’t there.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Whilst he was in hospital we were flying operationally so we didn’t have time to bother.
DK: Right.
KF: How he was or who he was or where he was.
DK: Right. Ok. And —
KF: Movements were so fleeting.
DK: Yeah.
KF: You just came and went. People. You didn’t, you didn’t get —
DK: On that point, just one final thing as a crew did you all used to socialise outside?
KF: Oh yeah.
DK: What did you do then? Do you go to the pubs and —
KF: Yeah. You go down the pub together.
DK: Yeah.
KF: You wouldn’t necessarily all go together.
DK: No.
KF: At Balderton the air, the air [pause] the station.
DK: Yeah.
KF: The runways and all that were over the A1.
DK: Right.
KF: The living quarters were about a half a mile away down a country lane. What they used to do was to disperse everything so that if there was an attack on it everything wouldn’t go together.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So that if the living quarters was always away and the mess and everything else was away.
DK: Yeah.
KF: So you would get from the, you would simply walk or sometimes you could get a station bicycle.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And you’d cycle from one place to another. The living quarters were down a country lane which if you went down about a mile down the road was in to Balderton village.
DK: Right.
KF: Where the pub was.
DK: Right.
KF: And that was either you went to the mess or you went to the pub.
[recording paused]
DK: Well, thanks very much for that. That’s been absolutely marvellous. It’s been just over an hour.
KF: I don’t know whether it’s me or what but when I did the Duxford one they said it would only take about a quarter of an hour.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And when we ended up it was about an hour and a bit.
DK: An hour and a bit, yeah. Well, this one’s an hour and a bit so that sounds about right. Ok. Well, thanks very much for that. I’ll switch off now.
[recording paused]
KF: Flying fortresses were coming back from the daylight.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And the air was full of Maydays. They didn’t have separate navigators on every aircraft. They had a lead navigator and a back-up navigator and when they turned everybody turned.
DK: Yeah.
KF: But when they came back in dusk and it was getting dark they were panicking because they couldn’t, they didn’t have navigators to get them home.
DK: They hadn’t navigated in the dark.
KF: That’s right.
DK: What did you feel about the Americans then? Were you sort of in awe of them? Of what they were doing. Or think they were daft.
KF: Only in awe in the sense that going out one night when they were coming back they were flying a slightly, you could see them in the dark and dusk you know.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And there was holes, and the tails were flying off, wings were hanging off, engines were hanging off. And I mean they took an awful lot of hammering but that was partly their own fault because they simply wouldn’t. They didn’t. You see we were individual and we could fly. We could turn off target. Off course.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And get back on course because the navigator knew what he was doing.
DK: Yeah.
KF: But when they came off course very often they were isolated and they were picked off.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. So you preferred the way the British did it then. At, at night.
KF: And when you see most of the documentaries they were always showing daylight raids by American Fortresses.
DK: Yeah.
KF: As if the Bomber Command didn’t exist.
DK: Yeah.
KF: Because everything that the bombers, the did the Americans did was in daylight.
DK: And they could film it.
KF: So the cameras could film it.
DK: Yeah.
KF: But at night time there wasn’t a lot of material.
DK: No. Did you, did you ever meet any of the American aircrew at all?
KF: No. But mind you I will admit that when some of our aircrew parachuted over an American airfield or crash landed on an American airfield in an emergency —
DK: Yeah.
KF: They usually come back loaded with, they were taken to the PX store.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And they were give free hand to take what they wanted.
DK: Oh right.
KF: So the guys used to come back with a load of goodies that we’d never seen for years.
DK: They were very generous then, were they?
KF: Oh yeah. Yeah.
[recording paused]
KF: But they were funny because they couldn’t discern very often when an aircrew crashed anywhere near the American field. They were apprehended.
DK: Oh right.
KF: And treated as if they were Germans.
DK: Right.
KF: Because the Americans didn’t always recognise an RAF. They had to convince them. And then they would allow them to ring the squadron.
DK: Yeah.
KF: And call for the transport to come and bring them. Once they realised they were British then they treated them.
DK: Yeah.
KF: With generosity. But they very often used to because the German Air Force blue was similar to ours.
DK: Right. Right. So they had to be wary to start with.
KF: But the Americans were quite naive you know.
DK: Well, you’d think they wouldn’t make that mistake wouldn’t you?
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ken Fawcett
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AFawcettK170926, PFawcettK1701
Format
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01:06:22 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Ken Fawcett worked for the Post Office and served in the Home Guard for two and a half years having signed up at sixteen. He joined the Royal Air Force at Lords Cricket Ground in September 1943. He initially requested pilot training but realising the duration of training Ken transferred to air gunner which enabled him to join a squadron much sooner. Ken trained at No1 Elementary Air Gunnery School at RAF Bridgenorth and No 12 Air Gunnery School at RAF Bishops Court in Northern Ireland. He recalled gun turret training in Anson aircraft using ammunition tipped with coloured paint so that his accuracy firing at towed target drogues could be assessed. Following gunnery training Ken transferred to No 17 Operational Training Unit at RAF Syerston flying Wellingtons, he recalled his first sight of a Wellington was a training flight stalling on takeoff and crashing with the loss of all crew members. No 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Wigsley brought four engine training in Stirling and Lancaster aircraft in preparation to joining 619 Squadron in 5 Group. Ken’s Crew included: Pilot Ken Alan and Wireless Operator Bill Eudey from Australia, Bomb Aimers Kirk Kent and Jack Barton, Gunner Charlie Clegg, Flight Engineer Ken Mepham and Navigator Terry Fellows. On completion of nine operations with 619 Squadron at RAF Dunholme Lodge his crew were transferred to 227 Squadron at RAF Balderton, they completed both daylight and night operations and Ken recalled seeing capital ships shelling the French coast during the D Day invasion. He described a typical operation from pre-flight test to returning to base and how they would quiz the ground crew as to how much fuel was loaded, this gave an indication of the duration of the operation that evening before the official crew briefing. Ken gives a vivid insight into the role of the rear gunner as a lookout scanning the darkness for both friendly and enemy aircraft, trying to discern dark shadows against a dark sky or sparks from an aircraft’s exhaust. The danger from collisions or another aircraft dropping its bombs from above was ever present. Opening fire he described as a last resort given the range of the enemy fighter’s cannons were twice that of his .303 machine guns, so stealth he stated was the best policy. On completion of 36 operations Ken was transferred to No 17 Operational Training Unit at RAF Syerston as an instructor and then to RAF Cranwell in preparation to join Tiger Force in the Far East. VJ Day led to the cancellation of Tiger Force before he completed his training.
Contributor
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Jim Sheach
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Shropshire
France--Le Havre
Germany--Darmstadt
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Northern Ireland--Down (County)
Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
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1943-09
1944
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
1654 HCU
17 OTU
227 Squadron
619 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bomb struck
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
civil defence
Cook’s tour
crash
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
Lancaster
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Balderton
RAF Bishops Court
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Cranwell
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Silverstone
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
take-off crash
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1034/11406/AMinnittPB170314.2.mp3
de81edc494e14a67df6220d791edcd59
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Minnitt, Bruce
P B Minnitt
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Bruce Minnitt (1923- 2020, 1232347 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 211 and 244 Squadron Coastal Command and with a Ferry Unit in the Far East.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-14
Rights
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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Minnitt, PB
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: Right. I’ll just introduce myself. So, this is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Bruce Minnitt on the 13th of March 2017 at his home. If I just pop that down there. You'll see me keep looking down.
BM: Well, I'm not familiar with all these modern gizmos.
DK: No. I’m not [laughs] I'm not either to be honest. The technology hasn't let me down yet but there is always a first time. So if I keep looking down I’m just making sure they're both going. It says one’s going there. So what, what I’d like to just ask is just a few questions and whatever and just sort of get a bit of background. First of all, what I would like to know is what were you doing immediately before the war?
BM: Thinking that the war started in September 1939. Well, let's getaway a little bit in so far as our age is concerned. I was born in 1923.
DK: Right.
BM: So that made me when war broke out in 1939 I was sixteen.
DK: So you were still at, still at school.
BM: No.
DK: Ah. Right. Ok.
BM: I left school fourteen days after I was fourteen years old.
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: So my education has been sadly neglected during my lifetime and as it happened upon leaving school I was very fortunate because fourteen days after leaving school I had a job.
DK: Oh right.
BM: But my grandfather owned the local village shop and my father of course was part of that concern and I got a job. Ten shillings a week. It was wonderful for the hours that were put in.
DK: And that was working in the shop was it?
BM: And I was working in the shop as a —
DK: Yeah.
BM: A lad with an apron around me and I was [pause] I enjoyed it and the experience did me good because after a couple of years my father arranged for me to go to Lincoln and I got a job as a sort of an apprentice working for the best grocers in Lincoln. I used to think they were the best grocers because they had a couple of nice little vans and I used to drive around Lincoln. I was only sixteen —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Years old. I didn't have a licence of course. We used to drive all around Lincoln. No problem. Never, never got bothered by anybody and so I had a couple of years of experience in that and then I went back home and very soon I joined up. I actually volunteered, myself and another friend when we were both [pause] How old would we be? Seventeen and three quarters. I joined up in February.
DK: Was there any, any reason why you chose the RAF? Was —
BM: Well yes of course. I mean it was so glamorous, wasn't it? I mean, we were always going to be Tail End Charlies. I joined up as a, at least I thought I joined up as a tail gunner.
DK: Right.
BM: On bombers. I mean, in 1940, ‘41 rather they were looking for bombers because the high point of the fighters had gone. I was trained as, as a fighter.
DK: Right.
BM: On singles.
DK: Right.
BM: And I did, then I did a navigation course on Ansons and, in Canada whatever. And then we came back from Canada to this country and the first thing of course that I had to do was a conversion course.
DK: Just, just stepping back a bit your, by this time you’ve, you’re a pilot then are you?
BM: I was. Yes. I got my wings in Canada.
DK: Right.
BM: But it didn't matter really whether I was a fighter pilot, bomber pilot or whatever.
DK: Right.
BM: I think they used to move us around as and when required. I mean the fighter era really —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Was in 1940.
DK: So, what, what was the first type of aircraft that you were trained on?
BM: The first one that I actually went and did my original training on and got, went solo on was a Magister.
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: Now, I don't whether you've heard —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: Of those.
DK: I know the Magisters.
BM: Magisters. A lovely little —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Biplane.
DK: Monoplane. Yeah.
BM: Monoplane. And we did that at Reading.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: Woodley.
DK: Yeah.
BM: At Reading. And it was just about deciding whether you were fit to be able to fly an aeroplane or whether you’d got the confidence to, to do it.
DK: So were there sort of aptitude tests?
BM: That's what it was.
DK: It was. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And we had to be able to, I think the basic test was you had to do your solo in the maximum of twelve hours.
DK: Right.
BM: I think that was what happened. Well fortunately I think what was I? Eight and a quarter or something like that. I had a little bit of an aptitude for it but I always remember my instructor. I thought at the time, well he was a very brave man. How old was I? Eighteen. Sending me off in this plane on my own up there and I always remember thinking, ‘My God, I've got this bloody thing up here. How am I going to get it down again? [laughs] And —
DK: Were they, were they very good, the instructors?
BM: Well —
DK: What were, what were the instructors like?
BM: I think they had to have a lot of faith.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And —
DK: So can you, can you remember how many flights you had with the instructor before you went solo?
BM: Well yes, I did about seven and a half, seven [pause] I haven't unfortunately I think it was about seven and a half I think.
DK: Seven and a half hours was that?
BM: Hours.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: Dual flying.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: Before they said, ‘Right.’
DK: ‘Off you go.’
BM: ‘Off you go.’
DK: So what was your feelings then when you went off by yourself for the first time?
BM: Well, I thought what a damn fool I am [laughs] going up with this aeroplane on my own up there. Nobody to help me. No radio. Nothing like that. I couldn't shout, ‘Help.’ You know, ‘What do I do now?’ And I thought I’ll just try and remember what he told me. All the different checks you go through.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Had I got them all right? And I came and landed. It must have been reasonably alright because he said, ‘Off you go again’ so off I went and did another circuit and bump and came around and he said, ‘Ok.’ And that was that. Still did a little bit of flying. Only a time or two after that before we got moved on.
DK: Right. So you got moved on from Reading then.
BM: We got moved on from Reading.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And our, our first EFTS —
DK: Yeah.
BM: I'm not going to try and confuse you with letters.
DK: That's ok.
BM: Elementary Flying Training School.
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: Which was in Newquay.
DK: Right. Ok. So, Reading and then Newquay.
BM: I went to Reading.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And then Newquay. And it was an Elementary Flying Training School but we never did any flying. It was all, you know pounding the streets of Newquay and that.
DK: Square, square bashing.
BM: I did the six months down at Newquay and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And well it was some hard work but I still enjoyed it because the weather was decent. We used to play a lot on the sands and that sort of thing, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BM: We enjoyed that. And then we went from EFTS. I’ve missed some out. My memory is I can’t remember what my own name was.
DK: Don't worry.
BM: I’d moved to Canada then.
DK: Right.
BM: We’d done our ground stuff. I think actually they got a little bit fed up of me because we got moved up to Heaton Park near Manchester.
DK: Right.
BM: It was sort of a transit camp. You go there before you get sent here, there and everywhere and I used to break out of the camp at night and I’d come out on the train and that sort of thing. I remember no one occasion I went back after a weekend at home which I shouldn’t have been because I had no passes and I jumped straight into the arms of the military police. I went through the wall in the, in the park at Heaton Park. A lot of lads had found that out. We jumped through this hole and there were four or five of blooming military police stood on the other side.
DK: Did you, did you get into trouble over that then?
BM: Well, ‘Report to the adjutant 8 o’clock tomorrow morning.’. So I got a week confined to camp for that.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Well, what they used to make us do you put a heavy pack on your back and you had to run around the blooming park. The perimeter of the park.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Which wasn't funny. And then probably have to go back to the orderly room and polish the floors and all that. Well, I went, I saw some leave passes on this adjutant’s table while I was there. I thought, oh, you know he might not miss a few of those. So, I put some of these leave passes in my pocket and while I was there I got, he’d got the old stamp. You know, they used to stamp them. That's fine. And I got a mate of mine he could sign them for me.
DK: Yeah.
BM: His name was Squadron Leader Fred Bowls or whatever his name was [laughs] and it was all very nice but unfortunately one of these weekends I went home using this pass [there was nothing to do] we were a few weeks at Manchester. It was a bank holiday weekend. Well, that was the worst thing I could do because all military traffic, leisure traffic was stopped for the weekend. The civilians were all very much in need of all this traffic and I went home on this weekend and of course again the military police, ‘Where's your leave pass? What are you doing?’ Well, I’d got a nice little leave pass there which I showed them it. ‘There you are corporal.’ ‘Very good. Carry on.’ I said my grandmother wasn't very well so I had to go home and see her before she died.
DK: Oh dear.
BM: I had to. There were a lot of poorly grandmothers around in those days and it was a bad weekend to go. And as I’ say there were other weekends. The last weekend I got the opportunity was when I went and jumped through the wall in to the loving arms of the military police. Anyway, shortly after that we got posted and we went off to Canada.
DK: Do you remember much about the trip over to Canada? Were you on a, can you remember which ship you were on?
BM: Well, I don't remember. But I do, what I do remember it was, it was amazing really we had two battleships.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we had four cruisers, and we had ten destroyers and that was going the other way. And it took us three weeks to get to St Johns, Newfoundland.
DK: Right.
BM: From Glasgow we went actually and we went right across Canada. Saskatchewan, Manitoba and all the rest of it. Lovely people the Canadians.
DK: What did, what did you think about Canada when you got there?
BM: Oh, it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic because you see you must remember that this was 1941, the beginning of 1942 when we got [pause] and everything was rationed of course.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we didn’t have white bread. It was all this stingy old brownish bread and everything like potatoes and milk. Poor old milk were about ninety percent water. I know there is a lot of water in it anyway but most of it was water and it was miserable old stuff. We got across to Canada full cream milk, the food was fantastic. Lovely white soft bread. We thought we were in heaven. And every station that we stopped at and it took us a long time as we were going across Canada there was always a group of lovely ladies came out on the platforms to welcome us and give us fruit and I mean, we hadn’t seen an orange or a banana or anything like that for, for years. And all of them made these wonderful offerings and eventually we ended up at a little place beside the Alaska highway in [pause] north of Calgary. Alberta.
DK: Alberta. Yeah.
BM: And about a hundred miles north of Calgary and it was a real old-fashioned place. There was no roadways or anything like that but it suited us and what we liked about that place which we hadn’t experience in England everything was laid out in, you know in lateral squares.
DK: Yeah. Yeah
BM: So you had a job to get lost.
DK: Right.
BM: Really, I mean it was —
DK: The grid system.
BM: We had a wonderful navigator. Unless, of course and we did have it happen one young fella he was going north when he should have been going south and [laughs] of course he ended up, if he’d kept on going he would have been at the North Pole but of course he ran out of fuel very easily. Then he had to walk back to get back but that was all part and parcel of the experience —
DK: So what —
BM: Of learning.
DK: What sort of training did you then have in Canada?
BM: Well, we went onto Stearmans in Canada.
DK: Right.
BM: That was our first one. This little place called Bowden, and a very very very very safe stable aircraft. I don't know whether you’ve ever seen the, sort of realised the make of aeroplane that there were but these Stearmans were like a big Tiger Moth.
DK: They were biplanes. Yeah.
BM: Biplanes.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Very stable. Very very safe. And you could, you could drop them in from a fair old height and, you know they would just bounce. Well most aeroplanes would, you’d buckle the undercarriage up. That was the biggest problem you know with would be pilots was the judgement in landing an aircraft.
DK: Right.
BM: I mean anybody can take an aeroplane off. You’d open the throttle and keep it straight and off you go. It’s a different kettle of fish when it comes down to judging that height.
DK: Right.
BM: Just get it down and drop it in nicely. And there were more people I think got failed for that particular fault.
DK: Not being able to land.
BM: Couldn’t judge the distance.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: To drop it in. And —
DK: So –
BM: Failed because of that.
DK: At this time are you flying solo again or have you got —
BM: Oh, we, oh yes we got so we were flying solo. And I did quite a lot of hours. There was a statutory number of hours.
DK: Right.
BM: Whether you were good, bad or indifferent you had that to do. And when you reached a certain standard than the whole lot of you, fifty bods usually in a, in a flight would get moved on to the next stage and we went on to the SFTS then.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: Yeah. And —
DK: SFTS. Yeah.
BM: You did [laughs]
DK: Yeah.
BM: And at that point we went on to Harvards.
DK: Right.
BM: So we were still training to be fighter pilots. We were still on singles. Now, the Harvards were a wonderful aircraft and we then did a full course on the Harvards. Funnily enough it just made me remember we went to Zimbabwe for a holiday several years ago with a cousin and we were going around Zimbabwe and we went into a museum in Bulawayo.
DK: Right.
BM: One day. A little museum with a few aeroplanes in it and there was a beautiful Harvard in there.
DK: Oh right.
BM: They’d had, they had this Empire Training Scheme.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Which was really —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Out in South Africa. Rhodesia as it was then. It wasn’t Zimbabwe and they did the same course. A lot of the lads went out from this country out to South Africa did the course there and then moved up to the Middle East.
DK: Yeah.
BM: It was much easier for them to get posted in to some sort of military unit in the Middle East. Either in the Western Desert or —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Wherever they went. And it just reminded me that Harvards were, were in South Africa just as much, well not as much they were so very busy with training aircraft in Canada. They did a wonderful job and the Canadians are forever in my heart and I have always wanted to go back full for a holiday.
DK: Right.
BM: To take my wife back after the war. We never got there. Anyway, we came back when all this was over. Well, I’m jumping a bit before we got there. When we’d done the training on the Harvards a group of us got moved from there to Navigation School.
DK: Right.
BM: On Prince Edward Island. PEI as they used to call it. And it had got a job to [pause] it was alcohol free. You know, it was like the old what's the name that they had in New York, didn't they? The —
DK: Oh, the prohibition mission. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And they had the same thing on Prince Edward Island. The only way we could get any decent drink and that was invariably it was rum, good thick rum. And we didn’t cope with it [phone ringing] and we could buy this in the mess.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we had to get a licence to buy any alcohol off service premises.
DK: Right.
BM: You know, because there were like alcohol stores where you could buy stuff on licence.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: But you wouldn’t just go in and, ‘I’ll have a pint of beer missus,’ or whatever you know. You, you had to buy it on licence. But we got all we needed anyway.
DK: Yeah.
BM: So we did this course and then we came back when it was over down through the eastern side of America. I forget the name of the States now down north of New York. Then came back to New York and we came home from New York.
DK: Right.
BM: Actually.
DK: Did you actually stop off at New York. Or not —
BM: We got on at New York.
DK: You got on at New York. Yeah.
BM: Yeah, because we came down by train.
DK: Right.
BM: From Prince Edward Island. From Philadelphia, was it was one of them.
DK: Right.
BM: New England.
DK: Right.
BM: It doesn't matter. Anyway. And we got on at New York and came back from there to Liverpool in seven days.
DK: Right.
BM: It took us three weeks to go out.
DK: Yeah.
BM: The same journey. Well, it wasn’t the same journey really because we were just over. We still lost one by the way. We still lost a troop ship going out. With all these ships looking after us we found more escorts than we had people to go, bods on them because we were going the other way.
DK: Right.
BM: And of course, at that point then the Americans were in the war. They joined up pretty well straight away in 1941. Well, December ‘41 is when they came in didn’t they?
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: So it would be ’42. And we got the Empire, Empire Air Training Scheme going and we were going the other way. Anyway, we came back and it took us a week and it was said, now we’ve no way of knowing whether it’s true or not there were twenty thousand troops on that boat.
DK: Wow.
BM: On the Princess Elizabeth. And it was the first time, not the first time that we came in but it was, it was used for civilian traffic before it was actually launched as a passenger vessel.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Because it was launched at the beginning of the war, wasn't it? The Queen Elizabeth.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And interesting really. We slept in the swimming pool. There was no water in it. We got these palliases and it was plenty warm enough even in winter. And —
DK: So was the convoy attacked at all on the, on the way back?
BM: Do you know it didn't have one escort.
DK: No.
BM: Not that we saw anyway. If it did it kept out of sight.
DK: Right.
BM: We’d no escort whatever with the Queen Elizabeth and it was, it was forever never, never took a straight course. But it was said and of course everything we got was all rumour. We didn't know whether it was true or not that it was doing about thirty knots all the time and it was too fast for a U-boat.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: You know, there was no way they were going to catch it unless, you could get four or five of them like a pack. And it was maybe difficult to get away then but whether it actually got attacked I don't know but it certainly did fire its guns. It might have been in practise I don't know. It had got some massive, massive guns on as big as a warship.
DK: Right.
BM: And also they’d got dozens, literally dozens of anti-aircraft guns. I mean the Elizabeth was a big ship.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: There was a lot of space there to look after and they did a wonderful job. They got us back but of course we went back to a bit of nice English food having had all this wonderful food all the time we were out in —
DK: You had a bit of a shock then, was it? Coming back to this.
BM: Oh yeah. Coming back to this. So then we did [pause] from there we went, moved on to training on Oxfords.
DK: Right.
BM: Twin engine planes.
DK: Can you remember where you were based then? Flying the Oxfords?
BM: Well, you know my first place really was South Cerney in Gloucestershire.
DK: Right.
BM: There was South Cerney and there was Bibury. We did different sort of out-stations like we, one was at Lulsgate Bottom. I remember that one because it, it actually became Bristol Airport.
DK: Right. Yes. Yes.
BM: Eventually.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Lulsgate Bottom. And it was, it was a bit tight because the A5 ran right alongside. You know the way Scampton does? You’ve got the A15 pretty well right —
DK: Yeah.
BM: At the end of the runway. You’ve got the A5 there at Bristol and I remember on one occasion I was awaiting my turn to take off because invariably you flew on your own even in a twin engine aircraft and he came in to land and just touched the top of a furniture waggon and the furniture waggon went past on the A5 road and the runway was just over the hedge and he just, he just touched it. But he, and I was stood there waiting and he carried on and landed OK but I should think the driver of the vehicle had a —
DK: A bit of a shock.
BM: An enlightening experience.
DK: Yeah.
SM: Has he mentioned about the Americans when he was in Canada? Flew in to —
BM: No.
DK: No. No.
SM: There was a flight of Americans came in. They all crashed didn’t they? Couldn't land.
BM: Oh, well this was in Canada.
DK: Canada. Yeah.
BM: Yeah.
SM: With the frost.
BM: Oh, we had a few experiences. We were, at that period we were going through part of the winter.
DK: Right.
BM: Well, Canadian winters were rather strong —
DK: Yeah.
BM: And one weekend, over one weekend while we were there we actually had eighty degrees of frost. It was [pause] I've got to get this right. Fifty degrees below zero was eighty two degrees of frost.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: It was cold.
DK: Right.
BM: It was. And bearing in mind we were flying Stearmans which were open cockpit.
DK: Oh yeah.
BM: And we used to have a, some chamois leather face masks with three pairs of gloves. Silk gloves, woollen gloves, leather gloves. All of it and you are only allowed to fly for twenty minutes.
DK: Right.
BM: That was it. Because of frostbite. You could easily get frostbite.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You were wrapped up like a Chinese monkey and when your time was up you had to come back and land. Get out. Otherwise you would just freeze up.
DK: Right.
BM: It’s sensible I suppose really. And of course, everything was frozen up. You didn't know where the runways were. It was just solid snow and that. On one occasion, this wasn't of course public knowledge but the Americans were supplying the Russians with aircraft and, because we had a photograph of a Flying Fortress with a Russian Star on it. We had, we had 5 Airacobras. Do you know what they are?
DK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: Yeah. They —
DK: Single engine fighters.
BM: One of the early [ tricycle ] undercarriage planes.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And five came in one after the other. Coming in for re-fuelling on the way up.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Up to Alaska.
DK: And to Russia that way presumably.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we were right on the Alaska Highway. The side of the Alaska highway and it would take them up to [pause] I forget the names of the places now. Anyway, they’d go up to Alaska and then over the —
SM: Bering Straits.
BM: Bering Straits.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And come down in to America that way. They didn't have to fly them across long stretches of water. Long stretches of snow instead. But these five Airacobras they came in and they couldn't pull up because it was on a shortish runway with a fair amount of wind and the brakes wouldn't, they wouldn’t, I don't know, they just, I mean we could see them doing it. You slid right down the blooming runway such as there was and, on this occasion, came down, landed and there was the old Alaska Highway such as it was but it had all snowed up. But we did have a hedge. The first one went straight through the hedge and the other four followed him just boom boom boom. So we had, we ended up with five Airacobras in somebody's field.
DK: Oh dear.
BM: But they didn't do an awful lot of damage.
DK: No?
BM: Really. They did some damage obviously.
DK: Yeah.
BM: But didn’t do such a lot of damage.
DK: Nobody, nobody hurt then.
BM: They weren't very popular. But I mean, you couldn't blame the pilots. They’d absolutely no chance and I mean once the wheels were on the ground that was it. They just kept on sliding.
DK: Yeah.
BM: They’d no grip. But just another [laughs] funny incident. Not quite on the same day but we, we had one or two lads up doing navigation exercises in Ansons. Well, they weren’t flying them. They were there navigating them. Learning how to navigate. And this, as I say this little runway they couldn’t get the aircraft down. It wasn’t a case of getting it down and making it stop down. They couldn’t get it down.
DK: No.
BM: Because an Anson just used to float on the wind you know. Like a butterfly when it was coming in and you’d get down just a few feet off the ground and you couldn’t get it to come down and stop down. You cut the engine off about somewhere at Dunham Bridge and you could [laughs] you’d come drifting in and in and in. And it went around and around. I’d seem one of them. I don't know how many times it went around but it went around a few times before it did eventually get down. And I think he was actually landing at Lincoln and then coming in [laughs] It was, it was a funny incident really watching them. But anyway we were on about these Airacobras. That was quite interesting. They’d all got the Russian Star on them.
DK: Yeah.
BM: I think if the English public had known that they’d got the Russian Star there really it would, it would be after. It would be after Russia actually came in officially.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: In to the war but not all that long afterwards.
DK: 1942 wouldn’t it when the Americans supplied.
BM: It wasn’t that that long after.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Because they’d actually got to get all the aeroplane [pause] well they weren’t converted. You had them all prepared.
DK: Yeah.
BM: With the proper markings on and all that sort of thing. All these Russian aircraft and the, but they weren't, we didn't see any that I can remember Russian transport. Land transport, you know. Big heavy armoured vehicles and all that sort.
DK: Yeah.
BM: But we did get the aeroplanes. But anyway to come back to where I was we were watching these aircraft do aerobatics at the end of the A5 at Lulsgate Bottom.
SM: Before you say that dad have you mentioned you lost your leave as well didn’t you in Canada? Which wasn't your fault.
BM: Lost me what?
SM: Leave. When someone had been smoking. Can you remember? You had to stay in camp and everybody went in to America.
BM: Lost my leave.
SM: Yeah.
BM: We don't talk about such things as that, Simon.
SM: Yeah. That wasn't your fault, was it. Can you remember?
BM: There was all sorts of things were my fault. I was forever getting myself locked up.
SM: It doesn't matter if you’ve forgotten.
BM: I have. I have.
SM: But he did. He lost his leave.
DK: Lost his leave.
SM: Somebody had been smoking and everyone [pause] they didn’t own up.
DK: Yeah.
SM: And —
DK: You got the blame for it.
SM: Dad got the blame for it and they all went on to, into America on their leave and dad had to stay on.
DK: Oh dear.
SM: On the camp.
BM: Anyway, I did this. This training.
DK: Yeah.
BM: At two or three different small aerodromes you know that —
DK: Yeah.
BM: That were where the main aerodrome had sort of landing grounds and there was, Bibury was another one.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Near Gloucester that we did a bit of training. Oh, I think we did, that one was blind landing, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You had to, without having any visual you had to come in. I don't know whether anybody has ever told you how they do it. Or did it. I mean there are all these modern gizmos today.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: I mean, they can do it but in those days you did it with like Morse Code. A series of, you’d got a dit dit dit dit dit on one side. Then on the other side of the landing as you were coming in da da da. And then you had to get them to join up. You were doing this totally blind. You were just seeing the instrument and you could —
DK: You’re hearing the noise in your ears.
BM: Yeah, we were hearing it.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And it had got a constant sound so you got the dit dit dit and the da da da. You could [daaaaa] and when it all —
DK: Came together.
BM: Came together then you knew you were actually on the line. It was very simple but it, it worked, you know. You’d get people down. It didn't tell them how high they were but at least it got them in. Got them down. I mean later in the war they got all sorts of gizmos they were using for landing. There was one system called BABS. It used to amuse us because my wife's name was Babs and they’d got this —
SM: Still is dad.
BM: They’d got this landing. Anyway, we did all this series of different training. When it was all completed then of course you got together. You got navigators, bomb aimers.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Pilots and all the rest of it and you went too [pause]
DK: The OTU.
BM: You've got it, you know. Yeah. And we were sent as a group up to —
DK: Can you remember meeting up with your crew and how that happened?
BM: Well, it was at, that was the way it was done. They would put in a big room I suppose the numbers, equal numbers that they required so many bomb aimers, so many wireless operators, this that and the other all and you just sorted yourself out. I mean if you saw somebody looking a bit like a lost sheep and you’d know what, what job he had whether he was an observer or an air gunner you’d got a —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And then say, ‘Ah, we want, we want an air gunner in our crew.’ Or, ‘We want a navigator.’ Or whatever. But even sort of —
DK: Did you think that was a good idea of getting your crew together because it seems a bit random?
BM: It was very much random but [pause] how else would you do it? I mean you wanted so many bomb aimers. You wanted equal numbers bomb aimers, navigators, pilots. You wanted more air gunners.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Because most aircraft had got at least two —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Lots of air gunners on.
DK: You've got, you’ve got no idea how good they are at their —
BM: No.
DK: Jobs though, have you?
BM: They might have been bloody useless. And in fact, some were.
DK: Yeah.
BM: I suppose that did happen but once you’d got them you’d got them.
DK: Yeah.
BM: They formed part of your crew and —
DK: Can you remember which OTU you were at?
BM: Yeah.
DK: Or where it was?
BM: Number 6.
DK: Number 6.
BM: Silloth.
DK: Right.
BM: Near Carlisle.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And you see Coastal Command flying Wellingtons I never told you that had I? Anyway, you didn’t have a lot of choice it was a, we were Wellingtons —
DK: So you were, you were literally posted to a Coastal Command OTU.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Yeah. It wasn’t until that point we’d got away from being trained as [pause] Oh yes it was. Of course, it was because we had to do a conversion course as pilots from singles.
DK: Right.
BM: On to multis, you know. And we did that —
DK: So was this —
BM: Through Oxfords and —
DK: Was it a bit of a shock then that you weren't going to be the fighter pilot? You were going to be put on bombers?
BM: Well, I mean everybody —
DK: Or larger aircraft.
BM: Everybody realised that basically the fighter’s war was over. I mean a lot of the lads were lost. By that stage of the war they were then getting they were wanting bombers.
DK: Right.
BM: Fighter bombers. They did want fighter aircraft but more or less working in safety situations.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Really, you know guarding other bombers and being —
DK: Not being, not being offensive then.
BM: No.
DK: Yeah.
BM: No. No. Not —
DK: So you met your crew then. What did you think of them personally? Did you, were they a good crew?
BM: You know there’s a more reliable statistic.
DK: You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to [laughs] I can soon turn the recorder off.
BM: I think that’s the easiest way.
DK: If you want to something [laughs] Ok. Fair enough.
BM: Yeah. You get, you get a mixed bunch really.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: You’re bound to do and there weren’t many crews and I did know one that, there was one crew which they, all of them seemed to be smashing fellas.
DK: Right.
BM: You know, they really were and they all appeared to know their job. But they were very decent fellas. But you see you got such a mixed bag. I mean, we had an Australian navigator for instance. We had a, a second pilot who was a Cockney. A Londoner. Another one who was a Cockney who was a wireless op/air gunner. We had a radio, w/op from Belfast. They were from all over the blooming place you know. They were such a mixed bag. Well, you usually used to find that people coming from similar areas you know would gel —
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: A lot better. You know, like two or three northerners for instance.
DK: Yeah.
BM: But again they would stick together. Which may not have been a good thing in some things. It didn’t help mix everybody up but they were. Anyway, we did that. I had one little incident where we was a little bit alarming in the course of doing this. Way out in the Atlantic there’s a little rock. Nothing else. It’s an island made of rock and seagulls and it’s called Rockall.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: You’ve heard of it.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: It was quite a long way out in the Atlantic and it was used as a navigation training exercise.
DK: Right.
BM: You had to, a good training point for the navigator because he was the one who was responsible for it. Make sure you got to the right point and you, and you had to photograph it because we all carried a big —
DK: Prove you’d been there.
BM: So to prove that we’d actually been there.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Some would say, ‘Well, yes, we got there boss.’ Alright. No, you had to prove that you’d actually —
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we got a little bit under fuel, the shortish side and we came back and we knew we weren’t going to get back home so everybody, well the navigator sketching out as fast as he could the nearest convenient place that we could get down on and we got down. We came in to land off the coast of Scotland. A little place called Port Ellen. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of it but —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: All they’d got there was a few sheep. Didn’t even keep any aircraft there. It was an emergency place for anybody who was in trouble for any reason and then there was a hut in there.
DK: Yeah.
BM: We, we put in there for the night. We got refuelled. Had a night there listening to the flaming sheep bleating all night [laughs] And then we filled up and went off again the next morning. But it, it can be a bit hairy being out in the sea there.
DK: Yeah.
BM: It would be a bit wet if you —
DK: Finding out you were running low on fuel.
BM: If you didn't make it. You get back. You quite a long way to come at that point down the West Coast of Scotland around the sort of northern tip of Ireland.
DK: Right.
BM: And then came in and up to Solway Firth.
DK: Yeah. So was, was it at the OTU then you first flew the Wellington?
BM: Oh yeah.
DK: Right.
BM: You wouldn’t get any opportunity to fly it before then.
DK: No. So that was —
BM: That was the first time you ever flew as a, as a crew.
DK: As a crew. So how did you feel about the Wellington then because it was quite a bigger aircraft than you'd been used to up until then?
BM: Oh, yeah. Well, they were actually discarded ones from the, that had been on bombing.
DK: Right.
BM: So you could imagine that they —
DK: So they were a bit rough.
BM: They were a bit rough alright. One particular occasion we were doing a training exercise and we came in and landed and we’d no brakes at all. We couldn't. There were no way we were going to pull up before we’d go through somebody's chimney and we came down towards the end of the runway and all you could do was accelerate a lot.
DK: Right.
BM: On one side. I think it was on the portside and swing it around. Nothing to hold it back on the other side, you know. You was —
DK: Yeah.
BM: And then eventually you’d run out of steam but if anybody got in your way it was really awkward but they were such a clapped out blooming aircraft. They really were but they weren't as bad as we had on in many respects as we got on Ferry Command. There were some dodgy ones.
DK: So from the OTU then were you then posted to an operational squadron?
BM: No.
DK: Right.
BM: We did the, we did the OTU and then we got, we got sent back. We got sent to Haverfordwest.
DK: Right. OK.
BM: So that was one end of the country to the other nearly and we got down to Haverford West and it's a long way down there you know to Haverfordwest in those days because you had to come to London.
DK: Oh right.
BM: Out of London and then oh —
DK: Then back out again.
BM: Blooming heck. Anyway, we got down to, and we were just getting off the train down at Haverfordwest Station. A little old station down there and there were some MPs out on the platform. ‘What's gone wrong now?’ And they were giving us out forty eight hour leave pass and a warrant for the train.
DK: Right.
BM: They said, ‘Well, you've got forty eight hours leave.’ And we’d just come all that blooming way from God knows where. So I had to get back on the train, back to London, back up, well to Newark as far as I was concerned. Two lads were able to get off at London because they came from London.
DK: Yeah.
BM: But, and another lad, I’m moving on a little bit but we came back. Got back to Newark and I actually walked home to my wife. She wasn't my wife then. My fiancé. Just down the street here. I walked home from Newark station.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Quite a fair old walk. Got in at 8:00 o'clock in the morning. I walked in and said, ‘If you want to get married we're going to get married tomorrow.’ And that’s the first —
SM: He did. Yeah.
BM: It was the first she ever knew about it. We never discussed it but —
DK: That’s the way to do it.
BM: And I was —
SM: Yeah, but you knew you were going to be posted dad, didn’t you? You knew you were going to be posted away at that stage.
BM: Oh, aye. I know. Anyway, we fixed this up we were, we were going to get married. Well, a lot of pandemonium and all the rest of it. We had at that stage my wife’s house. In those days it happened quite a bit where you got service people were billeted —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: On somebody who had substantial accommodation. My wife was a farmer's daughter so they considered that they had enough square space to accommodate a couple of senior officers and they had a Wing Commander —
DK: Right.
BM: Who was the CO of the engineering outfit. Engineering officer at 5 Group.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: On Lancasters. And he was billeted up there. I used to get along with him like a house on fire. I didn't call him Bill and Fred and all the rest of it but, and this he treated me you know with respect and of course I did him. I mean a senior officer. And he said, my wife and the family were obviously going down to Nottingham to do some shopping. He said, ‘I'll take you to Newark.’ I mean, I had a wing commander, you know, I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ And he took them all off to catch the train at Newark Station. All the way there apparently because I wasn’t there, all the way there he was trying to persuade her all the time, ‘Now, are you sure you want to get married? You’re a bit young,’ and all this, that and the other, you know. She said, ‘Yes, we’re getting married.’ She wasn't twenty one of course, I wasn't either and anyway off they went to Nottingham and they came back and it was arranged that we would meet the officer and train and he got back to the train. And then of course in the meantime I think it was realised we didn't have a licence to get married and they’d got forty eight hours. So, and Saturday was already on its way. They kept the train waiting on Collingham Station while they went and hunted out my mother and my wife's mother to get their written permissions —
DK: Right.
BM: On the, on the licence application to be able to get married. So I went to, all the passengers on the train were enjoying this bit of drama. So I did that and then we carried on on the train. I went up to Newark. To Lincoln trying to, of course this was late in the day. This was teatime to get the rest of the particulars and we had to get a licence. Seven and sixpence and of course it was sod’s law it was Saturday and these sort of bods don’t work on Saturdays. But we went and hunted them up my sister and me and we got this blooming chap. Registrar of births, deaths and marriages. He was very good actually. We got him fairly late on in the evening and I said, ‘Well, I’m going abroad in a couple of days.’ I mean, this was happening all the time obviously.
DK: I was going to say I imagine it so—
BM: And he was, he was —
DK: It was quite common.
BM: So he fixed us up with a licence. Seven and six pence and that was, that was that. We got married the next day on the Sunday.
DK: Right.
BM: We’d got the vicar primed. There were no banns. Nothing like that. And my wife did a wedding breakfast. Wonderful for her. There were sixty people there present. All these had been notified in the previous twenty four hours.
DK: Yeah.
BM: My own father didn’t know, you know. I thought we’d better ring him up and tell him his son is going to get married. Anyway, we got married and had a sort of wedding breakfast and then off we went to Nottingham for a honeymoon and we came back on the Tuesday morning and we were back to London and back to Haverfordwest and that was our wedding. And two and a half years later I saw my wife.
DK: Right. So you did know you were about to be posted overseas then at this point did you?
BM: We did but we didn’t know —
DK: Where?
BM: Until actually we were on the train on the station.
DK: Right.
BM: At Haverfordwest.
DK: Right.
BM: We didn’t know.
DK: And that’s why you got the forty eight hours leave then.
BM: Yeah, we had the forty eight hour leave pass.
DK: [unclear] leave. Right.
BM: They didn’t give you much did they?
DK: No.
BM: Forty eight hours and —
DK: You had, you had no idea where you were going. Just that you were going overseas.
BM: Just that we were going.
DK: Right.
BM: That was it. And of course, a certain number of days and you were back. So —
DK: Can I just ask what rank were you at this time because you mentioned you —
BM: Oh, I was an air marshal or something like that, I think. I was a Sergeant.
DK: So you were a flight Sergeant then at that time.
BM: He’s there look.
DK: Ah. Oh right.
BM: That’s me. Good looking fellow wasn’t he?
DK: Yeah.
BM: Well, the woman was a good looking girl.
DK: Good looking lady.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Ok. So you were a flight Sergeant at that point then.
BM: Well —
DK: Sergeant. Yeah.
BM: I suppose so. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Ok. So you’d gone back to Haverfordwest so you're now going overseas. So where did you —
BM: Yeah.
DK: Where did you go then?
BM: But we didn't know where.
DK: Yeah.
BM: They didn't give you a lot of information out and they said, ‘Well, you will be taking a new aircraft to Morocco.’
DK: Oh right.
BM: Rabat in Morocco. So we had to fly —
DK: And this was a Wellington was it?
BM: That was a Wellington. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Brand new. And of course what happens next? We were waiting for this and somebody went and smashed it up. They were doing an air test on it and smashed it up so they held us back. Not very long. Three or four days or something like that they kept us back. Until another one became available.
DK: Right.
BM: We got that. Took it down to Southampton and gave us all the instructions to get it to Rabat.
DK: Right.
BM: Which was a circuitous route to say the least because we had to go out to, we had to try and avoid France.
DK: France. Yeah. Spain.
BM: Spain. Portugal. All the, because we hadn't any ammunition.
DK: Right.
BM: They sent us out with his blooming brand new Wellington. We got all the guns we needed on it.
DK: [unclear]
BM: But there were no ammunition. We’d no ammunition because we had to load the thing up with as much fuel as you could get.
DK: Right.
BM: You know, you needed all that. You couldn't be wasting space on bullets.
DK: Right.
BM: And but allowing though if you happened to see a few Focke Wulfs come on you, on your tail but anyway we flew through the night and it would be —
DK: Did you go direct to Morocco then or —
BM: Did we —?
DK: Did you go direct to Morocco or stop on the way?
BM: No. We flew, oh sorry we flew direct from Southampton. We went out over the Channel Islands.
DK: Right.
BM: And we were alright being fairly closer in to France but we never went over any, any land.
DK: You didn't stop at Gibraltar or anywhere.
BM: No. No.
DK: You went all the way to Morocco.
BM: No. We didn't. We very nearly did but it was accidental. We came in towards, we thought, the navigator thought we’d got to Gibraltar and we did and then we suddenly realised Jesus better get out of this or else. They were a bit handy with the, with the loose cannon you know if they didn't have proper warning.
DK: Oh right. You weren't expected.
BM: Turn around quick.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And head out to sea to get a few miles behind us and then we went down, turned to port again and went further down across Northern Africa.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Morocco to Rabat.
DK: Right.
BM: From, that’s where we parked the plane and —
DK: So were you officially with the squadron now?
BM: No.
DK: Oh right.
BM: No. We were in transit.
DK: Ok.
SM: You had an incident didn’t you when you landed?
BM: We were, well actually it was rather interesting. We knew we were, we were getting dangerously short. We were living, or were flying on fumes pretty well.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Jesus. Keep paddling on and we got, we actually came in to land and we looked down and we ran out of fuel. It was cutting it a bit fine but the coincidental part of this was that a corporal came out in a little fifteen hundred weight truck to the end of the runway. We couldn’t get any further unless somebody was going to push us and he said, ‘What’s the problem?’ We’d no fuel and I looked at him and bloody hell. I went to school with him.
DK: Yeah?
BM: Yeah.
DK: The corporal who had just pulled up?
BM: I went past his, he was a farmer’s son.
DK: How strange.
BM: I went past it yesterday funnily enough. At Leverton. And he was, he was there, he wasn’t there but I don’t know whether their still, the family are still there now up to this day or, I don’t know.
DK: Did you both immediately recognise one another then?
BM: Oh aye. He recognised me and I recognised him because you’ve got to bear in mind that.
DK: Strange.
BM: This was in 1942.
DK: Right.
BM: Would it be? No. It was ’43. The end of ’43. We’d have not been from school long either him or me, you know.
DK: Yeah.
BM: It weren’t, we weren’t talking sort of years back so we hadn’t got to remember far back and he was, he was at school with us and there he was.
DK: How strange.
BM: Shepherding aircraft at this, on this blooming runway at Rabat. Anyway, we parked the plane up there and then we got instructions to move on via American transport plane I think.
DK: Right.
BM: We went sort of down the coast of Morocco and Algeria. We went to, stopped at an American aerodrome at Algeria and it was all sort of in transit.
DK: Right.
BM: And from there we moved around again and we moved across to Italy. To the heel of Italy.
DK: Right.
BM: Near Taranto. What were we talking about?
DK: Right.
BM: Yeah. No, it’s Taranto isn’t it? Right down in the coast. Grottaglie they called it.
DK: So, what were your thoughts about North Africa then when you got there and —?
BM: North Africa?
DK: Yeah. What was it, what was it like?
BM: A bit dry [laughs] but we didn’t really see a lot of it. I mean and unfortunately of course in those days we didn’t have much money to go out and buy cameras.
DK: Right.
BM: If we could have got cameras we couldn’t, we couldn’t buy film.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You couldn’t get the blooming stuff. I’ve got very few aircraft, very few photographs taken really of wartime and that sort of thing. But anyway we got across to Grottaglie.
DK: So the Americans were flying you across then.
BM: The Americans actually you see they landed on the west coast of Africa.
DK: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And they attacked it from —
DK: Operation Torch.
BM: The west and we were coming up from —
DK: Yeah.
BM: The Tobruk area. And [pause] Montgomery’s lot were meeting with the American.
DK: Yeah.
BM: What was his name? General, was it Mark Clark?
DK: [unclear] Yeah.
BM: Anyway, they went coming from, we were behind the Americans at that stage. They were moving into Africa and we only had to have a couple of spots in our squadrons and there was really no need to have done that if they could have found an aircraft with sufficient bods on it to fill it up to —
DK: Yeah.
BM: You know, to take it to —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Exactly where you wanted to be.
DK: So having arrived in Italy then, the heel of Italy are you, had you been allocated to a squadron at this point then?
BM: Yeah. We were on, we were on route right from our transport instructions. Our transport officer right from where we landed in Rabat.
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: But then sort of under the control of a transport, you know a designated transport officer.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And he would just move us on from place to place and we were on 221 Squadron.
DK: Right. And 221, they were, they were flying Wellingtons again I assume.
BM: Yeah.
DK: And they were part of Coastal Command.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Or Middle East Air Force.
BM: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Coastal Command.
BM: I mean I've never actually been on any other aircraft until I got to Ferry Command.
DK: Right.
BM: It was always, my operations were always on Wellingtons. I did a tour of operations except one.
DK: Right.
BM: I was one short of completing.
DK: Right. So, and these were all from Italy then.
BM: Yeah.
DK: All these operations. So how many operations did you actually do?
BM: I should have done thirty and I did twenty nine.
DK: Right. Ok. So for Coastal Command then what what sort of form did those operations take?
BM: What?
DK: What were you actually doing on those operations for Coastal Command? What was your role as it were?
BM: Well, I suppose to a large extent it was reconnaissance.
DK: Ok.
BM: Shipping and troop movements and that sort of thing. But we always, we carried bombs and guns and pretty well every time we came back we’d line somebody up with a few bombs. But across and Greece —
DK: Right.
BM: Yugoslavia. Albania.
DK: So most of, most of your operations then they were actually were over land.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Rather than over the sea.
BM: Oh Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.
DK: Right.
BM: There were very little operations actually constantly over water. We were over water but I mean we were, we were attacking, if we knew they were there E-boats and that sort of thing and light armoured boats. We never encountered any heavy stuff.
DK: Right.
BM: And our biggest commercial boats would be about what? Six or seven thousand tonnes?
DK: Right.
BM: They weren’t massive big things you know because they were on basically on, on transport. On coastal transport you know.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Port to port and that sort of thing.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Right around back by Trieste and Venice and back down the Italian coast but on, on one occasion we went across to Greece. We pretty well got through our designated number of trips to different places. Some of them were interesting, some of them were a bit sharpish but we never flew very high.
DK: No.
BM: We never did any of this twenty, twenty five thousand and stuff for it. If you knocked off the five it would be nearer. We [laughs] we had about —
DK: So what sort of heights were you?
BM: Five. On average about five thousand feet.
DK: Oh right.
BM: So we’d get a good view of what was going off down below. You know when you think about it we did a fair bit of chasing e-boats and that sort of thing. How do you tell a difference between an e-boat and an MTB for instance?
DK: At that, at that height.
BM: When it’s dark.
DK: Yeah. At that height or dark, it would be difficult.
BM: I thought at the time well I’m damned sure that wasn’t a blooming German. I reckon he was a Navy man that we just dropped some stuff on but it happened because we couldn’t tell one from another. If they didn't, if they didn't put up a rocket —
DK: Right.
BM: Or anything to warn us that you know that —
DK: You dropped a bomb.
BM: It’s a wrong place to do it or whatever.
DK: So you didn't have necessarily specific targets you just flew out.
BM: Yeah, and —
DK: Saw what was there and —
BM: Dropping them on, we were taking photographs.
DK: Right.
BM: Of what there was and where because obviously the military ones at that moment and used our own discretion.
DK: Really. So that your main role then was really intelligence.
BM: Basically.
DK: Reconnaissance type of thing.
BM: You know intelligence and reconnaissance.
DK: And if you saw something —
BM: Yeah. And if there was something which was obviously —
SM: Bomb it.
BM: Foreign.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You know you would, you’d just line them up. We did this on [unclear] I mean [unclear] is a lovely place to go for a holiday.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: But not if somebody is dropping some unpleasant stuff on top of you. And it was, it was summertime so short nights and that sort of thing. Getting broad daylight when we left and we came back. You had to bear in mind that nearly every time we went we went on our own.
DK: I was going to ask that. Were you just flying singly?
BM: We didn’t go as part of a group.
DK: Right.
BM: Two at the most.
DK: Right.
BM: You know. There was never big numbers of aircraft involved and we set off from Greece to come home and all of a sudden we were getting [pfft] coming past us [pause] And the rear gunner had said nothing about anybody chasing us or anything like that and we’d got two ME109s coming up behind us giving us a belt up the rear. And they actually shot out the port engine and the fuel. They did the, with doing the engine they did the hydraulics because the flaps, the undercarriage, the guns, everything was driven by that port engine.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: With hydraulics.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And if they did that that was goodbye Mary and they shot all this lot up and we ended up without any flaps, without any guns really, and we before we even knew anything was happening to us. You know there were guns, bullets were coming into us before we realised what damage was being done. Anyway, we put one engine out. Had to do. Stopped it so we were lucky the other one didn’t stop as well because the fuel was, you know floating backwards and forwards between one engine and another. But the, we had a, an American Marauder.
DK: Right.
BM: I don’t know whether you’ve ever —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: They were one of the early tricycle undercarriages.
BM: Yeah. Twin engine plane.
DK: Fighter bomber.
BM: Yeah.
BM: Twin engine thing. But the Americans apparently didn’t like them because they were stuffed full of guns. They’d guns coming out of them in all directions.
SM: You mean the Germans didn’t like them.
BM: But they were —
SM: Yeah.
BM: Very strongly armed.
SM: Yeah.
BM: And he’d seen this because there had been a number of aircraft had been on this exercise and he’d seen it so he told us afterwards and he came up and the, these two 109s didn’t hang about then. They don’t like Marauders because Marauders have got .5 guns on them.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we were all 303s which were like a, like a blooming peashooter. Anyway, the [pause] he came up with us. We’d no radio. Couldn’t talk to each other so he got busy flashing with his aldis lamp.
DK: Yeah.
BM: What the hell was he talking about? It was a job to understand what was, what was going backwards and forwards. Anyway, the gist of it was, ‘Are you ok?’ You know. Well, fortunately we were very fortunate indeed the navigator had just been nicked a bit but other than that nobody else got hurt and ok, so we carried on and eventually we got back to Bari, on the coast of Italy.
DK: Right.
BM: We headed for the nearest one that we could likely to get down at and it happened to be an American occupied station.
DK: Station. Yeah.
BM: And it’s only got a shortish runway on it and we came in to land on one engine, flaps down, undercarriage down. You’re not supposed to fly on, ought to be able to fly on one engine with all the hydraulics down. It won’t do it and it did. And we came around over the harbour nearly taking the masks off some ships which were in the harbour. It was really close to because you can’t do an overshoot with a lot of space. We came around again and came in a little bit slower and I think we were sort of trying to make sure that we got in the first time but we didn’t because we were halfway down the runway we were still airborne on a short runway. We tried to get around again and we got in. We came in to land low, lower and a little bit slower and we came in and damn me we put down and both tyres had been shot out and we didn’t know it. You can’t tell when you’re flying the blooming thing.
DK: No.
BM: If you looked out of the, you know but you weren’t bloody looking out and doing a bit of window gazing but both tyres and damage to the aircraft. Both tyres had been, we were told this when we got down but it was too late then because we’d no radio. You couldn’t, you know they couldn’t talk to us which was unfortunate and strangely enough when we came in the second time there were several blood waggons, ambulances, fire engines and that sort of thing lined up on the side of the runway so they were expecting somebody to have a bit of a bump. And the American, and as we came past where they were parked up on the end we could actually hear them. I could hear these, these blood waggons. You know they started up [whirr] As we were going down the runway they were behind us and of course the aircraft just went [pfft] That was it. The tyres were a bit empty. So it rather, apart from other damage that had been done by the bullets and that sort of thing it smashed it up a little bit.
DK: Did it remain on the undercarriage or did you —
BM: No. It collapsed.
DK: It had collapsed. Right. Ok.
BM: Yeah. You know, with flat tyres —
DK: Yeah.
BM: It does tend to do that.
DK: Yeah. It collapses on to the belly of the aircraft.
BM: Yeah. On to the rims.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And then I think the wheels went so we didn’t stop to hang about and have a look. Anyway, our CO —
DK: So you were all, you were all ok then when you got out.
BM: Oh yeah. Yeah. We got out as fast as we could get out. Get the lid open and get out and let them sort it out.
DK: Was the aircraft on fire at this point? Or —
BM: Well, I expected it to be.
DK: Yeah.
BM: But I realised that it was unlikely because you could smell petrol. It was unlikely to happen.
DK: Still didn’t want to hang around though did you?
BM: Because they were right behind us.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You know, they were going as fast as we were down the runway so, and a number of them as well. They’d got foam. I got hit with the blooming foam, with some foam as I was getting out. I didn’t mind that but couldn’t get out the top. Anyway, our CO he got in touch with the authorities on this aerodrome and he said, ‘I’ll come and fetch you.’ So he came down in his Wellington to pick us up. Oh, I didn’t tell you we’d moved up to Foggia.
DK: Yeah.
BM: From Grottaglie. Only on a sort of a temporary posting. We weren’t there many weeks because it was nearer a target point of view from Foggia than it was from Grottaglie. It was halfway up the country.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: And the Army were just moving further up. They’d got up to Rome and were moving slowly up. So we got moved back again to Grottaglie after that but we went back, they flew us back to Foggia. We’d one more operation to do to complete a full tour of operations and they gave us a weeks leave. A bit odd but I wasn’t going to turn it down because we, it was a weeks leave. There was a pass but we had to make our own way, our own transport. We had to hitch it. Oh, I am, I’m so sorry. Would you like a cup of tea or a cup of coffee?
DK: No. I’m fine thank you. Yeah.
BM: Really?
DK: Seriously I’m fine.
BM: I’m sorry about that.
DK: No. Don’t worry.
BM: My wife —
DK: I had one before I came out.
BM: My wife’s got dementia but, she’s very very deaf as well. She likes to keep out of the way. Very difficult for her.
DK: Ok.
BM: Anyway, we hitched across the country from Foggia to Sorrento and of course the roads were up, the bridges were up.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Italy is a country with a lot of bridges and a lot of rivers at [pause] We got there. We got to Sorrento eventually. Had a weeks leave. A lovely place Sorrento and [pause] have you ever been?
DK: I have. Yes. Yes. A few years ago.
BM: Been up in the Blue Grotto?
DK: Yes. Yeah.
BM: Lovely place.
DK: Yes.
BM: To go swimming there. Anyway, same sort of trip back and after a week got back to Foggia and we were, at that point we were billeted in tents. We were always in tents. All the time I was in Italy we were always in tents and we were in amongst a lot of grape vines. You know everywhere there was blooming just coming, just coming eatable.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Well, barely eatable really. They were still very green and I got a lot of diarrhoea. Not a good thing to be flying an aeroplane when you’ve got diarrhoea.
DK: No.
BM: At all. Anyway, we —
SM: Was it your navigator that did the same thing?
BM: No. No. I was, I was the only one who got —
SM: Right.
DK: Diarrhoea.
BM: The wireless op got a bad cold but I don’t think the others were affected really. In fact, I never even saw them eating grapes. They maybe thought they were too sour. They really were very sour. They weren’t ready. They weren’t ripe. I got this and I had to go to the MO because we were down to — [ chiming clock] — Shut up you. It did you see when you talk to them right, you know.] And I had to go to see the MO because we were all down for an operation that night. The last one. I said, ‘I’m not fit to fly. I can’t fly. I’ve got the screamers. No good at all.’ He said, ‘Right. I’ll stand you down.’ And the wireless op said, well he’d got a very bad cold and he weren’t fit. You can’t use oxygen or anything like that when you were —
DK: No.
BM: It was unfortunate. So we stood down and got a replacement pilot and wireless op. Sent them off. They went off and that was it. I never saw them again.
SM: They didn’t come back.
DK: So all of your twenty nine operations then they were all with 221 Squadron.
BM: 221.
DK: Right.
BM: And that was it.
DK: And that was, the twenty ninth was the only time you were attacked by another aircraft then.
BM: That was all. Yeah. This was all due to being attacked by these —
DK: Yeah.
BM: FW 190s coming back from Greece. It all developed from that.
DK: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And —
DK: So, so at that point you’ve come back to the UK have you? Or —
BM: After that?
DK: Yeah.
BM: No. No. I finished and it was obvious they couldn’t trace the aircraft. That was the main thing. They were trying to trace it and there was no trace of it whatsoever and in fact, I’ve got a letter from the, from the War Office Records saying that extensive searches had been done for this aircraft and there was no sight or sound or record of where it was. What had happened to it.
DK: So this was the aircraft you should have flown on then?
BM: Yeah.
DK: And and the rest of your crew were —
BM: All down there.
DK: So —
BM: So there was two of us alive.
DK: Right. So your crew went out with a different pilot and a different —
BM: Different wireless op.
DK: Wireless operator.
BM: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And they were just never seen again.
BM: And they were never seen again.
SM: Maybe they were lucky grapes.
BM: How lucky can you be?
DK: Yeah.
BM: But another thing I’ve never mentioned either was that the air gunner went home on a forty eight hour leave when I did.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Same thing. He got married the same weekend, on the Sunday. Never saw his wife again.
DK: Right.
BM: After he went back.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: After the forty eight hour leave was up.
DK: Yeah.
BM: He went back and that was it.
DK: So as the —
BM: That was the length, sorry, that was the length of his marriage.
DK: Yeah. Blimey.
BM: One weekend.
DK: So at this point you, you knew then that the rest of your crew was missing.
BM: Yeah. And in fact, their names are inscribed on the War Memorial at Malta.
DK: Right. Yeah.
BM: And also at Runnymede.
DK: Runnymede.
BM: So the Middle East Air Force run the Malta one. I don’t know why this was done twice but I had no control over it. That’s where it is. I haven’t seen it at Malta but I have seen it at Runnymede.
DK: Do you know where they were flying too? What the operation was to or [pause] When they went missing?
BM: Yes. I do. I do. I’ve got it on a letter. I’ll give it to you in a minute.
SM: Ok.
BM: Will you go and fetch it for me, Simon? If you would. It’s in the kitchen. In a red book.
SM: Ok.
BM: On the table.
[recording paused]
BM: So we’d some, interesting I suppose is not quite the right word.
DK: You didn’t know this other pilot then that they flew out with.
BM: I’d never met him before in my life.
DK: No.
BM: I didn’t know who he was but he took my place and if he’d been a regular crew member —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Thank you. Thank you.
[pause]
BM: So, after that of course I was without a crew and they [pause] they sent me back to Egypt.
DK: Right.
BM: I came back by train down to Taranto. Then by boat. Came by boat over the water to [pause] I think it was Alexandria we came to.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And from there I went and did another OTU. Started that again with another new crew in Palestine.
DK: Wellingtons again.
BM: Wellingtons again.
DK: Again. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: I tried to get a transport, a transfer on to Hurricanes.
DK: Right.
BM: I wanted to go back to —
DK: Fighters.
BM: Fly the [pause] But they wouldn’t let me. Actually, I’ve started doing a bit of a journal. Memoirs. There’s still a lot to do at it but —
SM: Yeah. I‘ve given David, it’s just a brief summary of that.
BM: I’ve got about, I was hoping to include about fifty photographs. Yeah. I must tell you this that my father did a memoirs.
DK: Right.
BM: In the First World War and he actually won a Military Medal and a Military Cross.
DK: Oh Right.
BM: On the Somme.
DK: Right.
BM: He got a Military Medal as a corporal at a place called [unclear]
SM: [unclear]
BM: Eh?
SM: [unclear]
BM: Oh, was it?
SM: Yeah.
BM: His French is better than mine. And then a year later he was back on the —
SM: No, it wasn’t a year dad. It was two years later.
BM: Two?
SM: Yeah. He got his first one in 1916.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Yeah.
SM: As —
DK: As a corporal.
SM: As a corporal.
BM: Yeah. Corporal.
SM: And —
BM: He got commissioned in the field.
SM: And then he went to Italy and he came back. Within a mile of where he won his first medal he won the second one —
BM: He got, he got —
SM: As an officer.
BM: No, he got a Military Cross.
DK: [unclear]
BM: And he was an officer then.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: He won the Military Medal and the Military Cross.
SM: He was lucky to survive.
BM: Yes. And he wrote at the age of eighty five something like this.
DK: Oh right.
SM: Well you’re ninety three and you’re doing —
BM: In fact, its yonder on that stool Simon. By the looks of it.
SM: Have you found that letter yet?
[pause]
BM: Look at that fella.
SM: I know. Are you looking for a particular letter dad?
[pause]
BM: There you are. Look. “Christmas Greetings and good wishes from the Royal Air Force Middle East.”
DK: Middle East. 1944.
BM: 1944. I’m looking for this blooming letter [pause] I’ve got it somewhere.
SM: Well, do you want me to look for it while you carry on chatting?
[pause – rustling papers]
BM: That’s your mother.
SM: Yeah. Let me have a look, dad while you carry on talking.
BM: There’s a, there’s a, there’s a letter from the —
SM: The War Ministry.
BM: Yeah.
SM: Let’s have a look then.
BM: Whether I’ve got it in the right book.
SM: Maybe not.
BM: Might be another one.
SM: Let’s have a look.
DK: So you’re at, so going back you’re now in Palestine.
BM: Oh I went to Palestine.
DK: You’re back in Palestine with another OTU.
BM: Hello.
SM: Hello mother.
DK: So you’re getting another crew together at this point then are you?
BM: We got that and when that course was complete we we went down from Port Tewfik at the end of the Suez Canal down to Aden.
DK: Right.
BM: In a troop ship. A lovely quiet gentle journey that was. We enjoyed that. The best part of the war up to that point and I learned to play Bridge as well.
DK: Oh right.
BM: The three fellas could play Bridge and they wanted a fourth. I could play cards but I couldn’t play Bridge. I’d never played Bridge. Anyway, right. Three days then. Very enjoyable. We got to Aden and then I got sent from Aden by Dakota, had to get up to Aden and then go up in a Dakota to a little island called Masirah which is just short of the Persian Gulf.
DK: Right.
BM: It’s up the Indian Ocean off the coast of Oman just before you go around the corner and go up the Gulf. That was 244 Squadron.
DK: Right.
BM: And we posted there and we got basically the same sort of job. Shipping reconnaissance in dhows, you know [laughs] you know, watching for smuggling but fortunately they didn’t shoot back at us.
DK: How many trips did you make with 244 Squadron then?
BM: I only did four.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
BM: And then that was it.
DK: Right.
BM: Because the way that came about I got a rather nasty dose of sinus. I’d been in Palestine, and in hospital in Palestine rather, in Tel Aviv. I had about ten days in hospital with sinus. I used to get it pretty badly but anyway I had another dose and got to Queen Elizabeth Hospital In Aden and it was a thousand miles from where I was in Masirah to Aden and they laid on especially converted Wellington again to fly from Masirah down to Aden.
DK: Right.
BM: Especially laid on to take me a thousand miles.
DK: Oh right.
BM: And I was in there again ten days in this hospital and when I was better I had a call to the adjutant and he said, ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you.’ He said, ‘Which do you want first?’ I said, ‘I’d better have the bad news first.’ He said, ‘Your squadron’s being disbanded.’
DK: This was 244. Yeah.
BM: He said, ‘Its just been disbanded,’ and he said, ‘You’ve been posted. You been posted to 36 Ferry Unit in [ Allahabad ] in India.’
DK: Right.
BM: And he said, ‘Your crew has been disbanded. Gone.’ They had apparently gone back to Cairo. To Egypt apparently. And he said, ‘The good news is you’ve been promoted to warrant officer.’ I said, ‘Oh well.’ Which do you want first? [laughs]
DK: So you were sent then to 36 Ferry Unit.
BM: So I got posted to 36 Ferry Unit.
DK: Right. Based in India.
BM: From the hospital in Aden. I didn’t go back to Masirah.
DK: Right.
BM: Flew straight there.
DK: To India.
BM: To India. Yeah. And I spent the next, what, eighteen months on 36 Ferry Unit in India. That’s alright because we didn’t spend much time at our own base. We were all over the place. You know, you’d maybe get sent back to Cairo or Heliopolis or —
DK: And what sort of aircraft were you ferrying about then?
BM: Well, as it happened I was in Dakotas but not as first pilot. I was the second pilot.
DK: Right.
BM: I was actually on Liberators.
DK: Oh right.
BM: They were four engine.
DK: Yeah.
BM: I liked flying those because in America everything was spot on.
DK: So you, while you were with the Ferry Unit then you were always as a second pilot.
BM: Not always as second pilot.
DK: Pilot. Yeah.
BM: It all depended on the availability of people to fly any particular —
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: Aircraft. And their ability to fly in any particular aircraft.
DK: So the Liberator was the first four engined aircraft that you flew.
BM: They were the first four engine that I flew. Yeah.
DK: And what did you think of the Liberators?
BM: For many things I liked them. They didn’t have the, they didn’t have the power that Lancasters and Halifaxes would have on two engines. You’ve got two engines you could nearly say well it’s goodbye Mary. They didn’t have, if you’d got any weight on at all you’d no chance.
DK: Right.
BM: But —
DK: So were you delivering new aircraft for the units then?
BM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: That was our main job was taking, moving new aircraft from MUs, service delivery points.
DK: Yeah.
BM: To say we’d go down to Ceylon with a new one and bring an old one back to Calcutta. Now that was all very well but some of these aircraft had never flown for several weeks or even months but stood out in the hot Indian sun didn’t do them a lot of good.
DK: Right.
BM: And [good morning. She keeps coming and having a look at us.] We had, early 1946 we had a stop put on Mosquitoes. I never actually flew a Mosquito. I always wanted to do but I never got the opportunity to. And there were two instances apparently where wings had fallen off. They reckoned it was because of the extreme heat that they’d been subjected to.
DK: Yeah. Like the glue.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And they were just stationed. Sat there in the sun and it subjected to a bit of extreme, you know, if they were doing a bit of manoeuvring and that sort of thing perhaps. A bit of extra strain on them. I don’t know what the reason was but anyway apparently two aircraft wings fell off and they put a stop on all movement of Mosquitoes.
DK: So at the war’s end then you’re in India still ferrying —
BM: Yeah.
DK: Aircraft about.
BM: Yeah. I mean the war ended, what was it? May 1945.
DK: Yeah.
SM: You’ve not mentioned about meeting up with your brother have you? While you were in India.
BM: Sorry?
SM: You’ve not mentioned about dad’s brother —
DK: Right.
SM: He was in the Army.
DK: Right.
SM: Flew out to, was it [Jahalabad] and you, he got him to impersonate RAF personnel. So he was, he stayed a week with my father.
DK: Yeah.
SM: And he was flying different aircraft all through the week. In fact, my father, this is my uncle told me that he went with dad was it on the Friday and were you in a Liberator at that time?
BM: Yeah.
SM: Dad took off and everything.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
SM: My Uncle Robin was next to him and dad said, ‘Right. Ok. You can take over now.’ He said, ‘Just follow the Nile.’ And they all went back in to the back to play cards.
BM: Well, they did —
SM: And this was an Army officer.
BM: They needed the experience.
SM: Oh, he’d flown that week with different people.
DK: Oh, that’s ok then [laughs]
SM: And he was impersonating an RAF. He’s not flying a four engine aircraft.
BM: He’d just been promoted. He’d done a course as a promotion from an NCO.
DK: Yeah.
BM: He was a sergeant then to a second lieutenant and he came and had this week with me at Karachi because I wasn’t very well. Not Karachi. At [Allahabad] and I couldn’t do a lot in those days but he, we finished up with several different trips in different aeroplanes. Dakotas and Corsairs, Liberators.
DK: So you put him in Air Force uniform as well then.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Yeah. We dressed him up as a navigator. Well, it made it easier you see as we were walking around the aerodrome. He didn’t get stopped. If you were a young Army officer they’d say, ‘What are you doing?’
DK: Yeah.
BM: And if you were a navigator he could walk in the mess and go and have meals and everything. It was —
DK: Wasn’t his own unit missing him or —
BM: Was he?
DK: Was his own unit missing him at all?
SM: He was on leave wasn’t he?
DK: On leave.
SM: That’s what was commented in the first instance his brother I know it was a big place.
DK: Yeah.
SM: Where everybody was flying in and flying out from but —
DK: Obviously, [unclear]
SM: This always amuses me. My father has told me this but he hadn’t told me the bit about the playing at cards bit and its only until I saw my uncle Robin a few months ago.
DK: Yeah.
SM: That he told me the other side of the story. That on this one occasion he went up with my father.
BM: That’s life isn’t it?
DK: Oh yeah.
SM: He said, he was trying to fly this four engine bomber.
DK: Yeah.
SM: Because, he said during the week he’d been flying two engine ones which manoeuvred a lot easier and he said he was all over the sky with this four engine because every movement he made was so slow.
BM: ’Keep, keep it level. What the hell are you playing at?’
SM: Yeah. Dad came back and said, ‘Oh, that was a rough ride.’ [laughs] But you know at that age you think bloody hell. The risks they took. Yeah. Didn’t give a damn.
BM: He enjoyed it. The little incident though that took place while he was there. Our CO, we had a bit of a scheme where good watches were in short supply. You know, you couldn’t just go and pick up a nice —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Omega watch or something like. A decent watch and he had a scheme where just once a year he would raffle off half a dozen. I don’t know whether the the NAAFI part of job organised the thing. They bought a half a dozen Omega watches.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Omega, you know were decent watches and he’d buy these and he would raffle them off. Well, anybody who wanted to go in the raffle it didn’t matter whether they were an officer, NCO, whatever they were they could put their names down and have it drawn it out and you’d get to get, you had to pay proper price for them but at least you had the privilege of getting one.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Which was even difficult to do that. So my brother Robin and myself both put our names down for a blooming watch and damn me if we didn’t get one. Out of six watches and hundreds of people who actually —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Put their names down for to get the raffle he and me got one.
SM: You both got one.
BM: Both got one.
BM: And we’ve still have them today.
BM: You still have them. Oh wow.
BM: I don’t use mine but the last time I had it it was it was going but it was losing a lot of time and he said he’d still got his.
DK: Oh right.
SM: I didn’t know that.
BM: That was 1946.
DK: Right.
BM: And they’re still going. Omega watches.
DK: You might just need it serviced.
SM: Yeah. I’ll get dad to do that.
DK: It would be worth doing.
SM: Yeah. It’s worth doing for nostalgia, isn’t it?
DK: Exactly. Yeah.
BM: I ought to write to them.
DK: Yeah. Hopefully a watch —
BM: I might get a free watch from them.
SM: We’ll get that sorted.
BM: Yeah. I’d do well to get a free watch didn’t we? We got two of them. Not one. We’ve got two circulating. I’ll tell you what though. A little tale of it it just reminded just recently Lord Mountbatten was Viceroy of India of course and we used to hear about him circulating and different things and on one occasion he came as a trip of inspection. He came to our unit to inspect not just us I mean we were only a very small unit and we got a, unless actually in Charingi in Park Street in Calcutta probably about twice as big as this room and that was it but it was ours and you know it was a very quiet little place. Anyway, he came to visit us on this particular occasion and he flew in, he had this own private Dakota. He flew in and a guard of honour was all out there on the Parade Ground there and called them to attention inspecting them and away he went. Job done. Half an hour later another one flew in. Another Dakota. Looked like an identical aircraft and it was his wife, Lady Mountbatten. She flew into this. Have you heard this tale before? I should doubt it. Anyway, she flew in and the same thing. Got the same guard of honour. Three rows of troops all out there, sort of thing and she inspected the first row and as she walked down the second row her lady in waiting walking at the back of her with our CO at the side of her and she suddenly bent down and picked up something and dropped it in her handbag and carried on down the next row and back. At the end of the third row off she went. The lady in waiting. Nicholas.
SM: Her pants had dropped off.
[laughter]
SM: She never batted an eyelid from what dad said.
BM: It’s true this is. She, she actually walked off that parade ground knickerless. Well, we’d have had a titter about it and her lady in waiting there I don’t know what [laughs] I was too far to see. I saw it happen. There was a few of us there who were watching the parade but we didn’t know actually, I couldn’t prove it was a pair of knickers that she actually dropped but it was. She’d dropped them off.
DK: Oh dear.
BM: And she never batted an eyelid.
DK: No. Well —
BM: She went up and down those three rows. Never said a word. Funnily enough about two days, three days later the [unclear] got the same incident in mind and I happened to be appointed the officer of the guard. All the lads would take it in turns, you know. We’d do a weeks duty. Officer of the guard and that sort of thing and being a warrant officer I had the same job to do as a, as a commissioned officer.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And as I said there weren’t many of us.
SM: He did turn his commission down by the way.
BM: I called them all, called all the guard to attention and turned around. Saluted the flag. All the guard pulled it down but the blooming thing didn’t shift. I stood looking like a fool looking at it waiting for it and it still didn’t. I looked at the bottom and there was nobody there to pull it down so I said [laughs] I had to turn around and say, ‘Carry on Sergeant.’ And off I went. I had a bit of a red face I can imagine. I had to spend the rest of that week on, on guard duty. Well in charge of the guard every so often. I mean we, we were a bit security conscious.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we used to go shuffling around in a, you know a jeep around the perimeter of the aerodrome and looking at different units seeing that you know they were all at different places out on guard with their rifles.
DK: So, how long were you in India for then?
BM: Well, I left in India in the end of June ’46.
DK: Right. Ok.
BM: And I came back.
DK: Back to the UK.
BM: By train to Karachi.
DK: Oh right. Yeah.
BM: And then by boat. I didn’t fly back.
DK: Right.
BM: I came back by boat from Karachi. Crossed the India Ocean and the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean and then all the way back to Liverpool.
DK: So did you spend much more time in the Air Force after that or were you demobbed?
BM: No. No. No. You see I was married.
DK: Right.
BM: I had a very quick fire marriage. I got married and it was two and a half years later when I saw my wife.
DK: Yeah. So you left, you left the Air Force at that point.
BM: I left the air force and went to, Cirencester I think was the DPC or the, you know the unit where they disbanded the [pause] I’d had five and a half years in the control of the RAF because I joined up in February 1941.
DK: Right.
BM: And actually I left the control of the RAF in August 1946.
DK: Right. So what did, what did you, what was your career after that then? What were you —
BM: I, well I became actually a retired peasant.
DK: Right [laughs]
SM: He was offered the chance to fly for the Canadian —
DK: Right.
SM: Not the Air Force. The civilian.
DK: Oh right.
SM: Which was a big honour.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
SM: Because everyone wanted to do that.
DK: Yeah.
SM: And mother wouldn’t go out. Not Canadian. Australian.
DK: Australia. What? Qantas.
BM: Qantas.
SM: Yeah. That’s —
DK: Right. Yeah
BM: Yeah.
DK: So you didn’t. You didn’t carry on your flying then after that.
BM: [clock chiming] It’s your fault. Yes. My wife didn’t want me to go and do it. I communicated with her and she said, ‘No.’ I’d been away a long time. ‘You want to come back and get some work done.’ I came back and I joined where I’d left off.
DK: Right.
BM: With my father’s little village business.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
BM: You know, as a —
SM: You did, you did rent a light aircraft for several years though didn’t you? You did fly again. You still flew.
BM: Well, yeah, I got a private pilot’s licence.
DK: Right.
BM: That’s a year. I think he reminded me because he came a time or two and —
DK: So you carried on flying for a few more years then.
BM: Yeah. I did a bit of private flying in an Auster.
DK: Right.
BM: As a friend of mine had kept it up at —
SM: He still has been flying until —
BM: Say what?
SM: I don’t know. The last two or three months.
DK: Oh right.
SM: My son flies.
DK: Oh right. Ok. So he’s still going up then.
SM: He’s still going up.
DK: Excellent.
BM: His his son is all over the blooming place. He went to Le Touquet not very —
SM: He was up in Scotland near Cumbernauld yesterday.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Where?
SM: Cumbernauld. In Scotland. Near Glasgow.
BM: Did he? He’s all over the blooming place his lad.
DK: Ok. Well, I’ll finish there. I think that’s really good. Thanks for that. I’ll just ask one final question. All these years later how do you look back on your time in the RAF? What’s your feelings now?
BM: Well, in some ways obviously there are some regrets. I mean I regret the opportunity to go to Qantas. They reckoned I had the experience, you know in the different aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And this, that and the other. And you know probably capable of doing it. But I didn’t do it and I’ve always regretted that.
DK: Yeah.
BM: I mean, talking about the experience. When we were out in India we got a signal from Air Headquarters which was in Delhi. Headquarters for our lot anyway. No. The Far East Headquarters were in Delhi. I got a signal, or my CO did. ‘Warrant Officer Minnitt is to go take the unit Expeditor.’ You know what they are?
DK: Yeah. Twin engine plane. Yeah. Yeah.
BM: Lovely aircraft. ‘And go to Delhi, pick up a senior officer and fly him to Munich.’
DK: Right.
BM: Which is a fair old way. Had to fiddle with fuel a time or two but the CO said, ‘You, you can’t do it.’ No. Let’s get this right. The MO said, ‘You can’t do it.’ Because I’d not been very well. But the CO said I could. You know, he said, ‘You can go and do it.’ And as I say we were more or less on personal terms. We were, we were such a small unit.
DK: Yeah.
BM: I mean, little instances crop up from time to time that you think about it but you said, ‘What are your feelings about it?’ Well, I enjoyed my time in the RAF I must admit. There were many instances which was, you might think well they were a bit rough but it happens. I mean one night for instance we, when we were at Grottaglie it was a bombed out hangars aerodrome. No roof or anything like that on them. If we wanted to see a film we had to wait until it was dark and then we would take our own petrol tin, a five gallon petrol tin and that was our seat.
DK: Yeah.
BM: You could sit on that and you could watch a film. It was alright. Better than nothing.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And we were doing that one night and looking at a Wellington take off and it was one of ours and he got to near the end of the runway and he just, he got airborne, he went down again and [pfft] Fully laden. Fully fuelled up. And we ran across to it and all we could find was a boot. Something like that you know.
DK: Yeah.
BM: There was nothing. With four thousand pounds of bombs and full tanks you’ve got no choice. And we don’t know why. He just didn’t have enough speed.
DK: He needed to take off.
BM: To get up. And we saw it happen. Just, I mean, these sort of things did happen. That’s part of, I wouldn’t say it was part of life but I mean it, they did happen and there you go. You live with it.
SM: Well one of your very first experiences dad was, if you remember —
BM: Eh?
SM: When you, before you joined up the RAF you joined the [pause]
BM: Oh aye.
SM: Not Dad’s Army. They didn’t call it Dad’s Army then.
BM: I joined the ATC.
DK: The ATC, yeah
BM: Artillery training. Was it auxiliary training?
DK: Air Training Corps.
BM: Something like that. Anyway —
SM: There was an aircraft wasn’t there crashed at Laneham.
BM: Yeah. It did.
SM: And you were the first there. Only as a young man.
DK: Yeah.
BM: This was the, well it was a squadron actually based in Lincoln. What was it? 1265 or something like that. I forget the squadron. And they’d got, they’d got this which I joined and I was in the Home Guard at the time. I was always in blooming uniform. From the Home Guard right from 1940. But a Hampden came around the river at Laneham where I lived and I was talking to one of my, the other side of the road and this big bang and we got on the bike and went to have a look at it and it had come around the river at Laneham very low and didn’t make the bend.
DK: Right.
BM: And it was a Hampden from Scampton. They bunged us in and again that was all little bits and pieces and this pal of mine I mean we went to, we thought we were good you see. We were in uniform. Home Guard. And we went to keep the spectators away from it all.
DK: Yeah.
BM: And all the rest of it and it was still bobbing off fireworks. Bombs, not bombs, bullets kept going off. Aircraft tanks exploding and that sort of thing. It was a right old mess. So eventually the RAF fire brigade turned up and some other I think there were one or two police came and didn’t need us around any longer so we just packed in and came home. But that was my first experience of flesh. Burned flesh. You get used to it you know. It happened from time to time. And so —
DK: Yeah. This this incident then obviously didn’t put you off joining.
BM: No.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Not at all.
DK: No.
BM: I mean, it was rather when that time came we went to what were the new barracks at Lincoln and, ‘What have you come for?’ ‘We’ve come to join up.’ We were seventeen when we did it, he and I. ‘What do you want to join up as?’ ‘An air gunner.’ ‘You want to join as an air gunner. Right.’ Filled in all the paperwork and I don’t know whether it was at that point that I said we actually went to Cardington. You know where they made the old —
DK: Yeah. The airship hangars.
BM: Airships.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And that sort of thing. And we did the actually, the joining procedures. You’ve got the filling in —
DK: Yeah.
BM: Give you your numbers and that sort of thing. My number is nearly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. It’s 1 2 3 2 3 4 7.
DK: And you still can remember it now.
BM: You see, very close to it. And he said, ‘Well, why don’t you remuster as a pilot?’ and I wonder sometimes wonder why. Why was that?
DK: I find that quite unusual actually because other sort of veterans I’ve spoken to they nearly all wanted to go in as pilots.
BM: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: But they crashed out for some reason.
BM: Yeah.
DK: And then remustered.
BM: Yeah.
DK: Under a different trade.
BM: Yeah.
DK: It’s unusual to hear somebody —
BM: Yeah.
DK: Who wanted to go in as an air gunner and ended up as a pilot. Yeah.
BM: We thought to be an air gunner you know it was all very glamourous and we were going to shoot them all down. Bang bang bang. They said, well that was, we don’t shoot them down but the, we went the other way. I’ll be honest with you. I left school at fourteen. My education wasn’t wonderful in those days and I finished and that’s basically is the reason why I wasn’t commissioned.
DK: Right.
BM: Because I was, you never found anybody commissioned who hadn’t been to a secondary school at least.
DK: Right.
SM: But didn’t you turn your commission down because you were going to be worse off?
BM: Oh, but that was later. That was when I was out in India. I was offered the opportunity to take a commission. That was in 1945. I thought well the war would be over by the end of this year.
DK: Yeah.
BM: No point in having it because I’m better off now as a warrant officer in the uniform I was wearing. The type of uniform, the perks I’d got.
DK: Yeah.
BM: The money I got and I was getting an extra bonus and that sort of thing. I was better off than I was as a flying officer never mind a pilot officer so I, you know I didn’t have any mess fees to pay and all that sort of thing.
DK: So you think then as you left school no qualifications at fourteen the Air Force was good for you in that respect.
BM: It was. It was good for me.
DK: Helped you learn and that —
BM: In that, in that respect. It must have been. I mean, as I say my education was, left a lot to be desired but it was made up in a way with the experiences that I’d got.
DK: Yeah.
BM: In different things and different parts of the world and that sort of thing and that I should never possibly have got in civil life. And I went around the world quite a bit. I mean, I went across the world that way. To Canada. The other side again.
DK: Canada. And then —
BM: Then came back the other way. Right across North Africa. Italy. Middle East. Palestine. Into Aden.
DK: Yeah.
BM: Masirah. India. [Allahabad] and then flying. I did quite a bit of flying into Burma and the war was still on then but places like [Agatara] [unclear] and delivering aircraft in to their places. Into their units and flying their old crap out back to the Mus. We used to go down to Ceylon quite a bit. We enjoyed it. I mean, it was like I just missed out on that opportunity of going to Australia but there we are. These things happen.
DK: Yeah. Ok then. Well, I’ll stop it there I think. Thanks very much for your time. That’s been very interesting. Thanks.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Bruce Minnitt
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMinnittPB170314
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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02:02:47 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Bruce Minnitt served in the Second World War flying Wellingtons on maritime reconnaissance in the Mediterranean and B-24s in India. When war started Bruce joined the Home Guard, and in 1941 when reaching 18 years of age, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force. He actually wanted to be an air gunner but was assessed as suitable for pilot training. His flying training was carried out in Alberta, Canada. After over two years of rationing, he enjoyed the improved diet he received in Canada. Flying in an open cockpit through a Canadian winter was particularly challenging. On his return to Great Britain, he was posted to No. 6 Operational Training Unit near RAF Carlisle to fly Wellingtons. He was then sent to RAF Haverfordwest, from where he was sent on leave for 48 hours before being sent overseas. Arriving home, he proposed, and married by special licence before returning to his unit. It was to be over two years before he saw his wife again. On return to his unit he was tasked with delivering a Wellington to Rabat in Morocco. From here, Bruce joined 221 Sqn in Southern Italy. He flew 29 maritime reconnaissance operations, but before what would have been his final operation, both Bruce and the wireless operator became ill and had to be replaced. His crew failed to return from their final operation. He describes one sortie when his aircraft was attacked by two Me 109s. With no radio or hydraulics, they were forced to divert and upon landing they discovered both main wheels had been damaged. Luckily, the airfield was aware of their plight and were able to dispatch immediate assistance when they crash landed. Allocated with another crew in Egypt, he carried out four further operational flights on 244 Squadron, and following its disbanding, Bruce was posted to 36 Ferry Unit in India. He spent the remainder of the war delivering B-24s to operating units throughout South East Asia. Bruce finally returned in June 1946 and having declined the opportunity to remain a member of the RAF, was subsequently demobbed. Whilst in India, Bruce met up with his brother, a serving army officer who was on leave. By disguising him as a RAF officer, Bruce was able to smuggle him on board to enable him to accompany Bruce on a delivery flight.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Wales--Pembrokeshire
England--Cumbria
Mediterranean Sea
India
Canada
Alberta
North Africa
Morocco
Morocco--Rabat
Italy
Egypt
India
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ian Whapplington
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
221 Squadron
244 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
civil defence
crash
Home Guard
love and romance
Me 109
military discipline
military living conditions
military service conditions
pilot
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Silloth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1052/11430/POatleyK1701.2.jpg
be795ca0b07853007aa77c562bfeb00c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1052/11430/AOatleyK170321.1.mp3
9f337a41a3840e6e82e8841355f9d0a1
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
Oatley, Ken
K Oatley
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ken Oatley (b. 1922). He flew operations as a navigator with 627 Squadron.
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
2017-05-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Oatley, K
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: I’ll just introduce myself, so, this is, this is David Kavanagh introduce, interviewing Ken Oatley at his home [file missing] borne, 21st of March 2017. So, I’ll just put that down there.
KO: Surely.
DK: Hang on, If I keep looking down I’m just making sure it’s still working
KO: Still functioning,
DK: Still functioning, yeah. It’s, it can be a bit temperamental at times, that looks, that looks ok. [unclear] that. I’ll just like to ask so first of all, what were you doing before the war?
KO: I was going to be a professional violinist.
DK: Really?
KO: My father, I won a scholarship to the Royal Academy when I was fifteen,
DK: Right.
KO: But I had no one to live with in London so I had to put it off for another year, then I had to take an examination that year to get the exhibition the year after that which actually brought me up too far close to the war and, even then, I had a year to go before I could get into the Air Force so I joined the Home Guard, did my duties as far as I could from then, and at that time, it was the 13th of September I think of ’39 that I was in headquarters and the phone rang and call out all the home guard, we’re anticipating the invasion immediately, so that passed over of course and October came and I thought, well, really it’s time and I just was old enough then to volunteer so I volunteered for aircrew in October of 1940.
DK: [unclear] back to me, when you were in the Home Guard, what were your sort of roles then? What were you actually doing, were you guarding anything or?
KO: No, I was in headquarters most of the time, but I had to take out messages or anything that required, you know, but I was there nights and so forth.
DK: So were you mostly young men there waiting to be called up or sort of [unclear]?
KO: No, no, they were all a lot much older than me.
DK: Alright. Alright, so you applied then to the Air Force, so
KO: Mh.
DK: It was always your intention then to,
KO: I always wanted to fly.
DK: Alright. Yeah, so did you actually go into pilot training then?
KO: Yes, in, I started flying in April of ’41, it was April so, anyway. And did the usual six weeks at Blackpool and then waiting for a course to come around they sent me to Northern Ireland guarding an auxiliary airfield there against the IRA and then in Maytime they sent me over then to Scone, that Scone, there was at, oh God! This is, my memory is, north of, in Scotland,
DK: Ah, ok.
KO: On the east coast top, anyhow that was the biggest town north. We were there prepared to go down to ITW then at Scarborough, by, by June then I was flying from Sealand on the wirrell
DK: What type of aircraft were you flying?
KO: Tiger Moths.
DK: Ah!
KO: Which I did, I loved flying and I had the aptitude for it and I really thoroughly enjoyed my time there, it was wonderful.
DK: What did you think of the Tiger Moth?
KO: Oh, I liked it very much and I, our last hour or two that we had on the course, my friend and I, we were supposed to be going out for three quarters of an hour flight at night in the evening, come back and report and then go back and do another three quarters of an hour so I said to my mate, well, this is a bit of a waste of time, I’ll meet you over the river Dee and we’ll have a dogfight, which we did. When time came to, to come back to report in, he disappeared and I thought, well, I don’t know where the heck I am [laughs], we wandered about somewhat for three quarters of an hour so I had, eventually I had to give up and I saw a farm with smoke coming out of the chimney and I decided, well, that looks alright so I made a forced landing into this field, knocking out a host of surveyors posts on the way down and a ditch that was half way across which I hadn’t noticed. Anyhow I landed there and a motorcyclist came in and I got out and spread my map on his handle bars and asked him where I was and he gave to, I was in the middle of Lancashire so I flew back and,
DK: You’ve gone that far south?
KO: Yes. So, anyway, I was up for the wing code the next morning,
DK: Were you able to take off out the field then?
KO: Yeah, I did, half the field
DK: Yeah, so that was
KO: It was,
DK: Damaged the aircraft?
KO: No, no, it was a bit dodgy, there was a wood at the end of the field and I just caught the width to the corner of it and I managed to get through, anyway we landed there and the next morning I was up in front of the CO and charged which it was going to be a court martial but he let me go on [unclear] cause I was the first one to solo [unclear] thirties so I thought, you know, I’m made for this and so I was taken off the Spitfight posting and ended up in Canada flying Oxfords. We were on the Oxfords for some while and then there was, Bennett was just do the Pathfinders setup and he had no navigators, only map readers really, observers, don’t tell him I [unclear], but he had no navigators so he took five pilots off of every pilots course in Canada, brought us home to do the Middle course on the navigators, then go onto flying,
DK: So, you were actually on a pilot’s course in Canada.
KO: Yeah, yeah.
DK: Got called off by Bennett,
KO: Yeah,
DK: Because he needed navigators,
KO: Yeah,
DK: How did you feel about that at the time?
KO: Not very happy, I must admit, but anyway.
DK: How were you chosen, was it almost a lottery or?
KO: Well, I don’t know, I think probably I wasn’t landing them very well. I came down [unclear], the approach was hundred percent, I touched down on the wheels, nice and quietly, as soon as the tailwheel had dropped, which off the runway we’d had, my instructor never once told me that I should be doing three point landings, never mentioned, then when the CFI took me up, I did the same thing and he then asked my instructor whether he’d taught me three point landings, of course he said, oh yes, of course he has, and so I was one of the five that got tucked out.
DK: So, it might have been poor training on the trainer’s part, not I suppose, [unclear]
KO: Well, I mean, it seems simple enough, things say you should be doing three-point landings. I landed quietly and smoothly, you know, and,
DK: And this would have been the Oxford, would it?
KO: Yeah, yes. Anyhow I came back home, nearly torpedoed on the way home.
DK: Can you remember which ship you came back on?
KO: [unclear] Dam and just out of Halifax I was on my sway hammock and there was an enormous bang, I thought, my God, we’d been torpedoed, and I bet, I was four flights down and I bet I was, tops of that before anybody else [laughs]. However, there happened to be a torpedo, a destroyer had come alongside and for no apparent reason, and he happened just to take the torpedo and the thing was sunk with all hands and we just carried on, there was fire
DK: You can’t remember the name of the destroyer that was lost?
KO: No, no, no.
DK: No. Did you actually see it go down or?
KO: No,
DK: No.
KO: But we were told.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But you see, we were in two passengers, well, one was obviously a passenger ship and we were in a sort of half and half but there were five hundred aircrew on board ships, then we had several destroyers flying around us all the way back across the Atlantic. It took three weeks coming home cause we went all over the place and got back to England and put me on the navigation course which we did one course at Grand Hotel, oh, Eastbourne,
DK: Right. Yep, yep.
KO: Six weeks and then we were sent off on a ship again, I thought, we are going back to Canada again, which I didn’t like cause I got engaged to a girl in Canada while I was out there. Anyway, we went to South Africa and I was, from start to finish it was nearly eight months, wasted out of my flying time, going down there, doing the course and coming back again and we spent three weeks at Clairwood race course in tents. Then they moved us to East London and we were there for another six weeks and while we were there I met somebody there quite out of the blue, he asked me what we did, what our hobbies were, said well, I played the violin, oh, he said, I know somebody who’d be interested in you so he took me up the road to this gentleman and he said, would you like to play me something? So I played him one of the better class pieces that I used to perform and he said, would you like to play with the municipal orchestra on Sunday? This was Thursday, so I did that and did that the following month, so that was the virtually, the last time I played the violin at all, really.
DK: So you never played it since then?
KO: No, not really, no.
DK: No, no.
KO: So, anyway we got back and messed about for ages and I did,
DK: How did you feel when all this was going on, you were going to South Africa [unclear] was there a certain amount of frustration or?
KO: Yes I, you know, it was very enjoyable,
DK: Yeah.
KO: But it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Anyway we got back and there was so many aircrew trained here messing about Bournemouth was full of them all the time, they didn’t know what to do with us, anyhow we ended up at Harrogate, we were sent off on a commander course to start with at Whitley Bay, six weeks and then they sent me up to Scone to sit in the back seat of a Tiger Moth with a [unclear] recently qualified pilot in front and I was another six weeks messing about there, well, that was barely started the navigation course properly so I don’t think I was gonna get there.
DK: Was navigation something you took to easily, was it?
KO: Oh yes, I was, no worries about that, and then I was onto OTU and from what I understand I was, uhm, was the top of the class in both flying and ground subjects and,
DK: Can you remember which OTU it was you went to?
KO: I can never remember the name of it, was north of Oxford.
DK: Right. Is not in there, in the logbook.
KO: It would be, I suppose. It’s more likely in the back of my pilot’s, pack of pilot’s
DK: That one.
KO: But in the back,
DK: Oh, right, ok. So, what year are we talking about now then? It’s,
KO: That’ll be ’42.
DK: ’42, alright. So that’s the Oxford, so that’s ’41, ’74, you are still flying in ’74.
KO. Oh that’s, that’s flying here.
DK: Right.
KO: It’ll be very, very close to, no, but it wouldn’t be in there, yes, on the back, on the back page, I got all the
DK: Ah, right.
KO: All the,
DK: Ah, right, ok, so ’40,
KO: In, here, up here.
DK: [unclear] ’43.
KO: And here.
DK: 16.
KO: 16.
DK: Ah, right, so, I’ll just say this for the benefit of the tape so it’s 16 OTU Upper Hayford. So you were there from the 10th of August 1943,
KO: Yeah,
DK: Yeah.
KO: Then we went onto Scampton and then to Swinderby.
DK: And that was,
KO: On Stirlings
DK: 16
KO: We did Wellingtons at
DK: 16 OTU
KO: 16 OTU,
DK: Yeah,
KO: And then we went on the Stirlings
DK: And that was at Swinderby
KO: Yes and then the Lancs
DK: Right, so, at 1660 Conversion Unit, Swinderby, that was the Stirlings.
KO: Yes.
DK: Yeah, and then at Syerston,
KO: Yes,
Dk: That was 5 Lancaster finishing school.
KO: Yes.
DK: So, at Upper Hayford was the Wellingtons?
KO: Yes.
DK: Yes, so what was your feeling about the Wellington then as an aircraft?
KO: Oh, fine and my pilot that I had there, although he hadn’t all that many arrows in, he was fine and we got on very well, our crew was first class and everything we did, we were quite well appraised for.
DK: So how did your crew get together then?
KO: Oh, we all, they put us in a hangar and said, I’m sorry, sort yourselves out, so to speak, you know.
DK: You just found yourselves a pilot,
KO: Yes, from
DK: Do you think that worked well?
KO: Yes, it did in our case.
DK: Yeah.
KO: I had an excellent crew and I was very sorry that we went on from there to Metheringham,
DK: Right.
KO: With Gibson squadron.
DK: 106 Squadron.
KO: And my pilot went on a Second Dickey trip with his, with a crew that were on their last operation,
DK: Right.
KO: And failed to return. So, we were sent back to Scampton again in to be recrewed. If they’d given us another pilot, which would have been more sensible, they split the whole crew up as far as I can [unclear] gave us another crew of odd bodies that they had and he wasn’t too bad, he wasn’t as good as my other pilot, you know, they were a little bit lumpy, but see my trouble was, my navigator’s seat was well back from the front and as I remember it seems I had a little office of my own now, the only,
DK: This was the Wellington,
KO: Stirling.
DK: Stirling, right, ok.
KO: And my only chance of talking to the pilot was on the intercom.
DK: Right.
KO: So I never was anywhere near him. It was when we got on to Syerston to the Lancaster, I was sitting right behind him as you realised and he had the most dreadful body odour that you could ever imagine, it really was out of this world,
DK: Oh dear,
KO: And so I took the crew up to the wing commander after we’d just sort of finished the early stages with the Lanc and I said, I can’t fly with this bloke, we all agreed, nearly court martialled, I [unclear] go for, go for a [unclear] you know and anyway we sent back to Scampton again and,
DK: So, you’ve gone back to Scampton for a third time.
KO: Yes, yes.
DK: Alright. When you, just going back to 106, you never met Gibson then, did you?
KO: No.
DK: I, just for the, slightly confusing that for the tape, just for the benefit of the tape, what I’ll say here is where you were, so initially it was Upper Hayford with 16 OTU from the 10th of August 1943, then it was Scampton 15th of December ’43, then 1660 Conversion Unit at Swinderby from the 8th of February ’44 on Stirlings,
KO: Yes.
DK: Then 5 Lancaster finishing school at Syerston,
KO: Yes.
DK: from 28th of March ’44, obviously on Lancasters, then 106 Squadron your pilot went missing as a Second Dickey, so back to Scampton again, then Swinderby,
KO: Yes.
DK: Then 5 Lancaster finishing school, Syerston again,
KO: Yes.
DK: Then back to Scampton because it’s problems with the pilot,
KO: Yes. On 106.
DK: On 106, and then on, I’ve got here, then onto 627, so that was, that’s the next question,
KO: Yes, yeah.
DK: Yeah, ok. So, you’ve complained about your pilot then and what happened then?
KO: Oh, they didn’t do him any harm or anything, I’m just, my memory gets so bad at times, other times I can go with, like, you know, what was the question?
DK: It was, you’re back at Scampton and you complained about the pilot, cause of the body odour,
KO: Yes.
DK: So what happened then?
KO: Well, straight away I was sent to Woodhall Spa from there.
DK: Right, ok. And that’s with 627 Squadron.
KO: 627 Squadron, yes.
DK: Yeah, ok. So, what were you flying at 627 then?
KO: Mosquitoes.
DK: Yeah. What did you think about the Mosquito?
KO: Oh, marvellous.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Yes, I, never complaints about the Mosquito.
DK: Was it a bit of a shock when you’ve gone from four engine bombers?
KO: It was lovely.
DK: Yeah. So you,
KO: Oh. Beautiful.
DK: So you never flew any operations on the four engine bombers?
KO: No, not again, no, no, no. It was all on the Mosquitoes from there on.
DK: Alright.
KO: And then of course the first, the move from Metheringham to Woodhall Spa was like chalk and cheese, you know, [unclear] it, well, every moment we, there we enjoyed the flying and the operational side of it and,
DK: Yeah.
KO: It was just something once in a lifetime, you know.
DK: What was Woodhall Spa like as an airfield then?
KO: It was big enough for what we wanted cause they were flying 617 from there as well so they had to cover the twenty thousand pound bomb weight on runways cause it was just a small camp, on the outside there was no main buildings to it at all, we were very much countryfied.
DK: Did you go to the Petwood Hotel at all?
KO: No, that was 617’s privilege that was,
DK: Ah, right.
KO: We were in the Nissen huts.
DK: [laughs] oh, ok.
KO: Which was a bit of a comedown.
DK: Did you get to know anyone of the 617 crew?
KO: I did but I can’t remember the names now. [laughs] Funnily enough, one of the well known ones that flew with Gibson on the dams, I went into the sergeants mess one day and he was playing cards with a table full of crews there for 617 and he said, can you lend me a pound? So, I lend him the pound, never expecting to get it back again, when I came out of the Air Force about four years after that, I happened to be standing in front of my restaurant in Northampton and who should come in? This chap I’d lent the pound to. So, I caught him and I got me pound back on it [laughs].
DK: [unclear] oh excellent, [laughs], well he did owe it to you.
KO: Yeah, having done the dams raid he was lucky to.
DK: Yeah. So, you can’t remember who that was then now?
KO: I, a flash came into my head, I got an idea whose name, was Monroe, was it?
DK: Les Monroe? Yeah, Les Monroe.
KO: Yeah.
DK: The New Zealander?
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah, yeah. He owed you a pound [laughs].
KO: Yeah. He just walked in the shop, not knowing I was there.
DK: Yeah.
KO: I just recognized, I said, hey you.
DK: I actually met Les a couple of times when he came over to UK, last few years. So, you’re now on a Mosquito squadron, so what was your actual role then as 627 Squadron, what were you?
KO: We were at 99 percent for marking, for main force.
DK: Right.
KO: And we were the only squadron that did what we did. We were way ahead of everybody else, and we had to dive, we introduced dive bomb marking which was not heard of before 627 Squadron was formed. But they started off the first two or three months joining in with the, flying backwards and forwards to Berlin in those days and then when we moved up with 617 Squadron, we started doing what we did, that was our thing, and that was flying ahead of main force and being there three minutes before the actual time we needed to be there because that was ten minutes between, let me try to explain it a different way, the flares, the target was illuminated by one or two squadrons of Lancasters from our station to drop thousands of luminating shares over the target area and five of us went out separately to the target and stood off until the first markers went down illuminating, lights went down and on the, dead on the spot, they were there ten minutes before the time for bombing and we went in, in that ten minutes under the flares, dive bombed the marker onto the target for about, well, anything from three, two, three hundred feet, from fifteen hundred feet and it was purely up to the pilot because he dropped the bomb, the had a china graph pencil mark on his windscreen and he, that was his only guide he had to drop his markers, and they used to put that according to how they saw it in height and that sort of thing that needed to be very careful and then we would drop off the markers at about two hundred feet, something like that.
DK: Two hundred feet.
KO: Well, we, we flew round Dresden at three or four hundred feet, probably five hundred feet for nearly ten minutes.
DK: Yeah, yeah. So, the illuminators went in first,
KO: Yes.
DK: They illuminated the target area.
KO: Yes.
DK: So you could then see where to drop your
KO: That’s right.
DK: drop your indicators by
KO: Yes.
DK: [unclear] moving on the target.
KO: Yes.
DK: And then the main force came in.
KO: After that, yes.
DK: Yeah. So, how was that controlled then? Was it?
KO: Just on timing.
DK: Literally on timing, so there’s no one there.
KO: No, no, no, no, we had to be there three minutes before the, ten minutes if you like,
DK: Right, yeah.
KO: Thirteen minutes, three minutes we had to get in our track in to go in and do our dive in.
DK: Right.
KO: That was just for error, for coming from, over from Holland down to Dresden, we had that little margin of difference, so at ten to the target, the Lancasters then came in, they had ten minutes to bomb on the markers that we had laid.
DK: So, can, just stepping back one bit, can you remember where your first operation was to then?
KO: Uhm, Bremen.
DK: Bremen. And how many operations did you actually do then?
KO: I, we did twenty-two operations altogether.
DK: Twenty-two.
KO: They were spread over a little bit but, see we only did, we had enough crews that we only did one every five.
DK: Right.
KO. We had thirty crew, thirty crew men on the, for fifteen aircraft and we only ever sent five aircraft out on an operation, so we had, there was, sort of,
DK: It’s quite a long period between flight then,
KO: Yeah, yes.
DK: So, can you remember when the tour started and when it ended, how long it was for, roughly?
KO: The first tour?
DK: Yeah.
KO: I’m having a particular bad day today, I don’t know why it is, but, oh Jesus! [laughs] I’m lost.
DK: Is it, will it be recorded in here anywhere?
KO: Yes, it was about, the middle, the middle of June-July of forty
DK: ’44.
KO: ’44.
DK: Ok, here we go, yeah, so, that’s 627 Squadron
KO: Yes.
DK: At Woodhall Spa.
KO: Yes.
DK: So, on the 25th of July
KO: Yes.
DK: ’44, so that’s all practice
KO: Yes. Our night operations were in red.
DK: Right.
KO: So, we did, only did one in every three.
DK: Ok, that way we’ll, so, that’s all practice so, uhm, cross country, practice.
KO: We practiced at least five times for every operation we did.
DK: Alright. Ok, so we got off ways to see if we got Gladbach, that’s Monchen Gladbach presumably.
KO: So, that was where Gibson got lost,
DK: Right, alright, ok.
KO: So, that was his own fault.
DK: [laughs] We’ll come back to that in a minute. Ok, [unclear]
KO: Yes, I think we did four in one week, which was an exceptional.
DK: Right.
KO: My first op was a day run to L’Isle-de-Adam, a bomb dump north of Paris. We had a fairly leisurely time as you can see.
DK: I see there is an awful lot of practice between the actual raids, isn’t it?
KO: Yeah, it was about five, one in five. Really, what brought that about was we had to have the aircraft on for that night, and they had to have a morning test before,
DK: Right.
KO: And we used the test to go and do a bombing run on the sands at
DK: [unclear]
KO: [unclear], yeah.
DK: So, navigation then and timing clearly needs to be very accurate.
KO: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But we didn’t do anything really, we flew, normal thing was that we flew out to Holland and turned from just over the coast of Holland, turned down to the, wherever we were going, from there it was, we had no troubles [unclear], we went more or less our own way, we knew what time we had to be there and that but.
DK: So, I think this is your first operation the 6th of October ’44 to Bremen.
KO: That was the first time when we used our dive bomb technique.
DK: Right, ok.
KO: It was, they didn’t know really what it was gonna be like and they told the CO that he wasn’t to go on that operation.
DK: Oh, alright. So, then you got the Mittelland Canal on the 6th of November ’44.
KO: They were easy.
DK: So, it’s got bolted flares over [unclear]. And then you’ve got, 21st of November the Dortmund-Ems Canal.
KO: Mhm, there were two or three of those.
DK: And then I’ve got here the 13th of December ’44, the Cologne and Emden ships cruisers.
KO: Yes, that was in, that was in the Oslofjord, but they moved them by the time we got up there and it was a wasted trip.
DK: So, this is [unclear] called off by marker one.
KO: Yes, well.
DK: So, it was a
KO: I can, this, as I was saying to my friend today, I’ve worried about that ever since and I cannot understand because I was absolutely dead on track all the way up there, I said the only thing I can excuse myself in is that the pilot was running ten miles an hour, he was on three hundred and twenty instead of three hundred and thirty and he would jump down my throat if I suggested that but I couldn’t find no other reason for being late cause we were dead on course for everything.
DK: Yeah, [unclear] this, that’s [unclear].
KO: That’s, that was stacked down for a purpose. Probably made a mess of it so.
DK: So, then we got 14th of January ’45 and it’s oil refinery at Mersberg. So, that’s and it’s got here two times one thousands, so that’s two one thousand pound bombs.
KO: Yeah.
DK: And the red target indicators. So that’s [unclear] what you’ve dropped and. So, then it’s 2nd of February ’45 Karlsruhe. It says target obscured by cloud. Sky marking only.
KO: Yes.
DK: So then, 2nd of Feb, Dortmund.
KO: Dortmund.
DK: It says one target marked.
KO: I’m doing well, aren’t I? [laughs]
DK: And then, 8th of Feb, Politz-Stettin, oil refinery. Stettin oil refinery, yeah. And then the 13th of Feb ’45, ops Dresden. Marker two. And then backed up, one one thousand pounder, red TI. So, just talking about that then, what actually happened on the Dresden raid? Was..
KO: Well, the, there was a trade wind blowing to start with and normally, starting off from home, we would climb to the operating height, going out and we would take a fix every three minutes and find an average wind which we would calculate to fly us on from there to Dresden. But this MIG wasn’t working particularly well and when we got to the turning point, it was a question of hops and choices to how you carried on from there. So I part guessed well I could [unclear] what I’d got already to choose from and then I realised that the thing that we had installed in the aircraft which I’d never used before, I’d never been instructed on because it was introduced while I was on leave, I thought, well, I’ll give it a go and see if I hadn’t have the charts with me and so, I took him, took him down on that, bearing as it was, there was a line running straight through Dresden that I could put up on the machine, that was terrible cause on a Gee box you had to two stroves running like that, but on this particular case, when I went on to the LORAN, it was like that and right across the thing as you couldn’t tell which was which, you had to take a guess at it and fortunately I guessed right and I didn’t navigate all the way down there. I just kept on one line and then I could, guide him down along this line all the way down to Dresden and then there was a one, there was another line crossing the second line there which went through Dresden and as soon as I kept switching backwards and forwards to that, and when that line came up, I said, right-oh Jock, we’re here now. We were three minutes early and doing the right one turn, another one [unclear] the arrival and then the main force came, we had the, the uhm, the squadrons that were dropping in there, illuminating flares came in at ten to eleven and we were just on the edge of the city, sitting there, waiting for them. We had to put those down and then we went in and dived in and we were just, just about to call out marker two, tally-ho, and number one tally-ho didn’t just in front of us so we had to go round again and
DK: So you, so marker one got his markers in first
KO: He was the flight commander anyway,
DK: Right, ok.
KO: So, couldn’t, he couldn’t
DK: Right. So, your markers then were the second to go.
KO: Yes.
DK: Right.
KO: Btu we were the most accurate.
DK: Right.
KO: On that.
DK: And how low would you’ve been when you dropped the markers?
KO: About three hundred feet.
DK: As low as that.
KO: Well, we were so low, that as we flew away from there, my pilot was looking back to see if he could see where they’d dropped and I had a shout at him because we were just gonna hit the spires of the cathedral, so I had to pull him up on that one. And then we just circled around Dresden for three or four minutes at five hundred feet and then we came home.
DK: And did you see much of the main force bombing then in that five minutes?
KO: They just started to bomb,
DK: Right.
KO: And I think they let a couple of four hundred, four thousand pounders off as we weren’t all that high and we could feel the, [unclear] get out quick now
DK: I just, for the benefit of the tape, I just read what it says here, so, 13th of Feb ’45, you took off at 2000 as, Mosquito F, so your pilot was flying officer Walker and your navigator so it says, ops Dresden, marker two, which you mentioned backed up, so is that meaning you backed up marker one?
KO: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Well, we got in, it was a football stadium
DK: Right.
KO: We got our marker in the football stadium.
DK: Alright, ok.
KO: And the others were in a bunch, nearly [unclear] a hundred yards,
DK: Yeah.
KO: Way but,
DK: So, your second ones down was actually the more accurate and then it’s got one thousand, so you got a thousand-pound bomb and red
KO: They were a thousand-pound flares.
DK: Oh sorry, so you dropped one-thousand-pound red target indicators
KO: Yeah, yeah.
DK: Sorry, yeah, so one thousand red target indicator. And you
KO: And the others all backed up after that.
DK: Yeah. So, you arrived back at 0540?
KO: I know my, my history today to you doesn’t sound very much but on my claim for a commission, my squadron commander and the camp squadron commander both put down that we were the best crews, one of the best crews of the squadron.
DK: Oh!
KO: We did do well, I mean, we felt that we, if we dropped our markers that was bloody well close on it and of course the last operation we did was at Tonsberg oil refinery at the
DK: Right.
KO: The, first up towards Oslo and
DK: So, were all the operations with Walker?
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. And was he a good pilot?
KO: He was a good pilot and he was good at dropping the bombs too. We were the best on that one as well. But, I know it sounds terrible, our successes and that sort of thing but sometimes they went right and sometimes they didn’t and sometimes if our radar wasn’t working up to scratch, we
DK: So, when you were briefed for Dresden then, it was just an ordinary briefing
KO: Yes.
DK: And an ordinary target.
KO: Yes. When I was allocated onto a new job I’d only been on the squadron about six weeks, two months when I was sent to RAF Wyton 1409 Met Flight
DK: Right.
KO: For a two week crash course on wind reporting then I found myself that we were doing a big operation in south Germany and we had to stop at Manston to refuel and my job then was to decide two hundred miles from the target whether it was gonna be satisfactory for the main force to continue on to attack the target and if I didn’t think it was gonna be satisfactory, my job was to call them out and send them home.
DK: So, you’ve gone out and checked the weather in effect then.
KO: No, that was all we were supposed to be doing,
DK: Yeah.
KO: But fortunately the fog came down and we were, the thing was called off. It was never reinstated again but I think that somebody up a loft had said, well, this is a bloody silly idea in the first place.
DK: That, was that with 1409 Met Flight?
KO: Oh, that was where I was sent for those two-week crash course.
DK: Right, ok. Ok, so you’ve done the training at 1409 Met course.
KO: What there was there of it.
DK: Yeah. So, you, did you get?
KO: I was
DK: Did you get back to Manston then or?
KO: Oh yeah, yes, well we uhm, I think we came in that night, I think we came into, probably into Woodbridge.
DK: Alright. Cause there’s one here you’ve been here the 12th of October ’44, it says from Manston, yeah. You went to Manston the day before. So that idea of going out early and
KO: Cause we used the wing tanks up, you see, we needed all the petrol that we could carry to get there and back so we’d use the wing tanks up going down to Manston until we had to refuel then and while that was being done, we were a little bit early, the fog came down and the whole thing was scrubbed.
DK: Alright. That’s what it’s saying here that you remained at Manston. Yeah. So, just going on here then, 16th of March ’45, Wurzburg, ops to Wurzburg.
KO: Wurzburg.
DK: Yeah, so you’re marker two. So, one thousand [unclear] red target indicator, one one thousand yellow target indicators,
KO: That’s what we carried.
DK: Right. But we carried a red, yellow and a green, as the Germans had a funny act of if the red ones went down they’d light another red one up somewhere away from it, you see, to distract it, so we’d have to go back in again and drop the green beside the red or whatever and
DK: Is this when you’ve got the master bomber’s there then that were telling
KO: Yeah, the master bomber’s up there.
DK: Yeah. So he’s then telling who, the rest of the main force who, which coloured markers to bomb. Has he mentioned you on the same operation that Gibson was lost on
KO: Yeah, yes.
DK: You didn’t know him cause he flew a 627 Mosquito force [unclear], didn’t he?
KO: Yes, yes.
DK: You didn’t meet him there then?
KO: I’ve met him on several occasions but, you know, not sort of personally, we were, [unclear] had social occasion or on one occasion he tried to, he came into our little bar, as you can imagine, we were in Nissen huts and they were all posh in and they came down to our officer’s mess and we, that was an airman’s hut actually, the whole mess, and the kitchen that was all part of it but we had no bar arrangements or that, so we had a builder of one of the boys in the squadron, so he built the bar and built a fire in there for us so we could have an officer’s drinking area. And one night my pilot and three Australians were in there having a drink and the door opened and Gibson appears and nobody sort of moved and he came, don’t you normally stand to attention and when a senior officer comes in? And they looked at each other, said, no, no, no. So, anyway, he created such a fuss, they grabbed hold of him, took him outside, took his trousers off and told him not to come in again. The next morning, there was an officer’s parade which he officiated, went down the line and of course the Australians all six foot something in their dark uniforms and my pilot who was a real dural Scotsman,
DK: This was Walker, was it?
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
KO: He was standing at the end of the line and he got him and he put him in the glasshouse for three weeks. So, he didn’t remain very popular with our crowd.
DK: Alright.
KO: So I was flying odd bits with anybody who was needing it, the navigator, flew all that three weeks when he was
DK: Well that, I mean, that meant you had another pilot you had to fly with then that. So you, you weren’t too pleased about that then?
KO: Well, we didn’t [unclear]
DK: Alright, ok. They were just
KO: I might have gone on a night flying test.
DK: Alright, so you didn’t do any operations while he was in [unclear]
KO: No, I mean, I had a very, very nice round of it really, I mean, some of the ops we did, we, yeah, you had to have your head on and I was, I was considered to be one of the better navigators although it didn’t sound like it. You know, you don’t know the circumstances of how things go.
DK: So, what was it like then if you were, you know, you are flying the Mosquito there, you’re over enemy territory, what does it feel like, it’s very dark and you’re being shot at?
KO: Well, we weren’t being shot at, that was just the point you see. Everybody else, the main force went out on allocated circuit. We went out, there was only five of us, we went out and more or less did it the way we thought we would, we didn’t stick to any plan as long as we were there sort of three minutes before the flares went down
DK: Right
KO: Thirteen minutes before the bombers came in. So rise up and up and when cross sort of thing on the machine I said right-oh, Jock, we’re here now and three minutes early, do a right one turn, wind off three minutes and that should bring us on time, that moment in time, the flares started to come down and we turned to going to find the thing and the number one saw it just as, we were just, there’s a story in my book there, he pressed the [unclear] just at the same time my pilot was just going to so we had to go off and go round again. And that happened several times and on one, where we had to bomb Wesel, because the commanders had taken over, they crossed the river there and they were outside of Wesel, we had to mark Wesel and we went, there was five of us, we went in and we had to put our markers on the, uhm, the, what’s, I don’t know what you call it, uhm, on the stone part of the pier sort of thing
DK: Alright, ok.
KO: On the river
DK: Yeah.
KO: And both our pilots [unclear] at the same time, both pressed the button, that cut out transmission then we couldn’t hear anything else. We went in, they went in, and we went in, dropped our markers at the same time and they landed in the same, virtually the same place at the same time so how far we were apart where we dived in there, we couldn’t have been more than twenty feet apart, never saw them and they didn’t see us.
DK: I’m just reading there from your logbook, so, that’s the 23rd of March ’45 and it’s ops to Wesel, army support. And you’ve marked with a thousand-pound red target indicator. So, you both dropped at exactly the same time.
KO: And exactly the same spot.
DK: Onto a pier.
KO: Yeah.
DK: On the river.
KO: Yeah. We didn’t realise what had happened until we got back.
DK: So then just going on here, I’m just reading this out for the recorder here, so, you then got the 10 of April ’45 ops the marshalling yard near Leipzig. So, backed up number two, thousand-pound red target indicator, carrying a thousand-pound yellow target indicator.
KO: Yes.
DK: So that probably would have been your last operation then, would it or?
KO: [unclear] read, read.
DK: Oh, ok.
KO: I know that [laughs] I found out that since that my sister married a family in Northampton, they’re apparently of Jewish extraction and they came down to the grandfather had had property in East Germany,
DK: Oh, right.
KO: And nobody knew where it was or anything and it wasn’t until after the war that they set the wheels rolling and apparently there’s two blocks of very luxury apartments and we’d blown one block up and so they only got reparations for the one, who’d been getting the rent for the other one [unclear] up until that time nobody came to the fore.
DK: Oh, hang on, there’s another op here, so, uhm, so Norway, so 25th of April ’45 Tonsberg, Norway.
KO: Yes, that’s the last one I did.
DK: That’s the last one, yes, so [unclear]. So at that point the war’s ended, how did you feel then?
KO: Well, that was about the first or second op I did from commissioning.
DK: Right. So you were commissioned at this point. Yeah.
KO: But I didn’t, I didn’t bother, we didn’t know what was going to happen to us though, where we were going to go, and what happened, what happened then lot of the Ozzies were sent home and we brought in some new people because there was the Far East war and we were going to take part in that and so we were going out there to mark for 5 Group, was only 5 Group that was going out there and we were the Pathfinder Force for 5 Group but we weren’t going to do our dive bomb marking there, somebody got the bright idea of using H2S and we would fly over the target two thousand feet straight and level for two minutes and drop our markers out. You know, that was a ridiculous idea, we wouldn’t even know where the bloody markers had gone and we would’ve much rather continue what we were doing previously and knowing where it was but.
DK: This would’ve been part of Tiger Force then.
KO: Yes, this was Tiger Force and we were supposed to be leading it.
DK: So, the atomic bomb’s dropped then, how did you feel that you weren’t now having to go out to the Far East?
KO: I was a bit disappointed in some respect because I rather looked forward to the exploratory flight out there really but on the other hand, see, there was a five hundred miles from Okinawa to the landfall in Japan,
DK: Yeah.
KO: And we didn’t have that great deal of overlap of petrol to do that, so we were waiting for Mark 40 Mosquitoes to come, which were pressurized and we were flying at forty thousand feet out, taking the trade wind to blow us there, then we go down and do our marking role for drop our markers whatever to do there and then we were gonna come back at sea level because the trade wind would,
DK: Yeah, yeah.
KO: Well that was what the theory was anyway, that would blow us back, blow us there and blow us back. Which we weren’t particularly thrilled with the idea.
DK: Oh, I can imagine.
KO: As you can imagine, sort of being dropped in the sea in the middle of the Pacific there.
DK: [unclear] Get blown back [laughs].
KO: [laughs] No, some people spark ideas, I don’t know.
DK: So the war’s ended then, what were you
KO: Yeah.
DK: You carried on [unclear]
KO: What happened then was, I was supposed to be leaving the [unclear] and they started sending the Ozzies back then because the war was,
DK: Yeah.
KO: Virtually finished then and they started importing a few other crews to come in, to go on the Okinawa job and [unclear] I was gonna say now, I lost the thread or something.
DK: So, the war’s ended, you’re [unclear] not going.
KO: Yes, so a lot of the new boys that they’d brought in were dispersed amongst other stations and so forth and we were just left to [unclear] we were the only crews that were taken out of the squadron and sent firstly to Feltwell and then, I can never remember the other airfield and then ended up at Marham,
DK: Right.
KO: On a bombing development unit. Now we were supposed to think up different ways of attack for future things, well, that was a waste of time really but that was all we were doing. All the rest of the them, down the squadron as it was left, cause they’d imported a lot of aircrew, and sent the Ozzies back, and they were sent to uhm, 19th Squadron, something like that,
DK: Right.
KO: And within months it was, they were all released from it.
DK: And what happened to yourself, then you, did you leave the RAF at that point?
KO: I was still on bombing development unit.
DK: Right.
KO: We just, from there we just five crews of us there.
DK: Yeah.
KO: And I stayed on till June and I was then pat to hand in me notice so to speak.
DK: So that would have been June 1946.
KO: Yeah.
DK: Yeah, yeah, you’re at Marham. So, you’ve left the Air Force in ’46 then. Yeah. So, what did you after that then?
KO: Well, it’s a bit of a long story really, I wanted to, I wanted to get engaged to one of the WAAFs in the squadron who was a parachute packer.
DK: Right.
KO: And I wanted to get engaged, this was at Christmas time, and I went home that weekend, took a photograph and my father said, no, you’re not marrying that girl. So, I sort of, I [unclear] a little bit, he said, no, you’re not going to marry that girl, if you do, he said, we shall sell the business up, we shall go back to America cause my parents were American born.
DK: Alright, ok.
KO: So, I said very briefly, well, that’s what you want to do, that’s what you left to do. Anyhow, they didn’t go back, the father bought a bungalow outside the town and I left myself thinking that this was the route I was going to take, that he changed his mind about being awkward and he bought two limited companies in Northampton and when I came out to take on the businesses which was a great help to me because I only had one other option which was to stay in the Air Force.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But that wasn’t very good because they really didn’t want anybody else in the, in there but that’s. So where I went and I was in Northampton then for five or six years working on the family business and then we divided up from there into the different companies and so forth.
DK: [unclear] The family business actually involve?
KO: A restaurant and bakeries.
DK: Oh, alright, ok. So, so looking back now, after all these years, several years, how do you feel about your time in the Air Force?
KO: I mean, for good or bad?
DK: Both [laughs]
KO: I thoroughly enjoyed it.
DK: Alright.
KO: No, it was a great experience, I learned a lot really from it, you know, and I wouldn’t have missed a day of my experiences there I mean [unclear] fly in the Air Force, when I came home and joined the local flying club and I was flying several hundred hours [unclear].
DK: So you did eventually get your private pilot’s license, then.
KO: I got my private pilot license, yes.
DK: Yeah. And, one other question I’ve got, did you know anything about the controversy of 627 Squadron moving from Bennett’s 8 Group to
KO: Oh, it was a bit of an argy bargy about that.
DK: Yeah.
KO: But, no, that’s what, what came away and that’s what we accepted.
DK: So, when you initially joined 627, you were part of 8 Group, were you, under Bennett.
KO: Yes. And 6
DK: And then moved to 5 Group under Cochrane.
KO: Yes. And 617 Squadron were on the same station with us.
DK: Right.
KO: So, it was quite a nice association really.
DK: Yeah. And you got on well with 617 Squadron.
KO: Oh yes.
DK: Yeah, yeah.
KO: Was a really good arrangement really.
DK: So, that controversy then, you just accepted you were going to another group.
KO: Well, that was all you could do really.
DK: Yeah.
KO: Hadn’t got a great deal of option [laughs].
DK: Ok. Well, absolutely marvelous.
KO: I’m sorry I’ve been so
DJK: You’ve been absolutely wonderful, brilliant, don’t worry, it’s useful having the logbook here cause we’ve gone through the various
KO: My memory seems to be worse at times than others and
DK: You’ve been absolutely marvelous, no, it’s been good
KO: Good. It’s been absolute rubbish from my point of view.
DK: That’s been good. Right, I’ll turn that off now.
KO: Ok.
DK: Ok, thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ken Oatley
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-21
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AOatleyK170321, POatleyK1701
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:03:33 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
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Initially too young to enlist at the outbreak of war, Ken Oatley served in the Home Guard until he was able to enlist in October 1940, when after initial training he undertook pilot training. After basic flying training he went onto Canada training on Oxfords. It was whilst there Donald Bennett was forming the Pathfinder Force. Five pilot trainees were taken from each course to retrain as navigators and Ken was selected for transfer. Eventually posted to 627 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa on Mosquito aircraft, Ken flew a total of 22 operations. He describes how 627 Squadron operated within Bomber Command operations, explaining how their role was to arrive and illuminate the designated targets for the following bombers. This included the operation on Dresden in February 1945. At the end of the war, Ken served with the Bomb Development Unit at RAF Marham, before being demobbed in 1946.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ian Whapplington
Peter Schulze
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-10
1945-02
1946
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Germany
Germany--Dresden
England--Lincolnshire
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
106 Squadron
16 OTU
1660 HCU
617 Squadron
627 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
civil defence
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Master Bomber
Mosquito
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
RAF Manston
RAF Marham
RAF Metheringham
RAF Scampton
RAF Sealand
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Woodhall Spa
Stirling
target indicator
Tiger force
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington