1
25
73
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1837/32695/PDammesJ1703.2.jpg
63e3f82009cb78b2dbf08d0bd377ca82
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1837/32695/PDammesJ1704.2.jpg
866aaed84e9a4155ded72b27b5bf3aa5
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
Dammes, Janet
J Dammes
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
2017-04-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dammes, J
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection concerns Bill Dammes And Gladys Monks. It contains photographs.
Bill Dammes served in the Home Guard and Gladys Monks served in the Land Army.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Janet Dammes and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Bill Dammes
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Dames in uniform. On the reverse 'Dad Bill Dammes During War 1939-45 Home Guard Normanton'
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDammesJ1703, PDammesJ1704
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
civil defence
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1815/32692/PCrawfordHF1704.2.jpg
b85a46cb5853493b7b6fc4cc001cec7a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1815/32692/PCrawfordHF1705.2.jpg
fe06a7458f6587d2c737e7291b410ebe
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Crawford, Jean
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
2017-03-22
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Crawford, HF
Description
An account of the resource
7 items. The collection concerns Jean Crawford (nee Taplin) and Hector Crawford and contains photographs and memoirs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jean Crawford and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Home Guard Edgcott
Description
An account of the resource
Ten men arranged in two rows. On the reverse 'Home Guard Edgcott U. Hall 1940's Tug of War Team'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCrawfordHF1704, PCrawfordHF1705
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Aylesbury
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
civil defence
Home Guard
sport
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1815/32691/PCrawfordHF1703.1.jpg
88febd201764e46932a64075ff125b73
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1815/32691/PCrawfordHF1708.1.jpg
d933db98da8db2bbd2eac08eb34f96b1
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Crawford, Jean
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
2017-03-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Crawford, HF
Description
An account of the resource
7 items. The collection concerns Jean Crawford (nee Taplin) and Hector Crawford and contains photographs and memoirs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jean Crawford and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
EDGCOTT HOME GUARD c. 1940
George Rawlings Dickie Holt Not known Albert Herring Ron Edmunds Alf Smith Walter Herring
Johnnie Jones Eric Carter Ted Herring Harry King Don Hodges George Campbell Ted Baughan
Les White Bunny Hill Bill Burgess Reg Herring Fred Herring Jess Hodges Percy Campbell W. Carter Bob Butler Cpl Seymour
Cpl George Shaw MO Marley Walker 2nd Lt George Judge Capt Sydney Herbert Major Woolf Lt Lawrence Broome Sgt Maj Court Sgt Jack Macer Sgt Hickman Pvt Griffin
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Edgcott Home Guard c 1940
Description
An account of the resource
A formal group of 34 men arranged in four rows. In the second image each man is named in a printed caption.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1940
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCrawfordHF1703, PCrawfordHF1708
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Aylesbury
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
civil defence
home front
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/722/31020/NBradfordS170703-02.2.jpg
a041ac3ceb5d498539551da8156857b3
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Bradford, Stanley
S Bradford
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with Stan Bradford DFM (1923 - 2017, 2216040 Royal Air Force) also includes his flying log book, service and release document, investiture ticket, newspaper cuttings and squadron photograph. He flew operations as a mid-upper gunner from RAF Scampton.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Stanley Bradford and Matt Ashamall and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-31
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bradford, S
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Photograph]
Photograph taken at Astley, on Wednesday, when a presentation was made by Lieut. A. W. Hartley, Commander of No. 2 Platoon “D” Company Home Guard, to one of the platoon’s former members, F. Ser[missing letters] Stanley Bradford, High=st., Astley who recently won the D.F.M.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Award to Sergeant Stanley Bradford by home guard
Description
An account of the resource
Nine home guard men and an RAF flight sergeant standing in line. A home guard lieutenant is making a presentation to Stanley Bradford in the middle.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One newspaper cutting with b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
NBradfordS170703-02
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Anne-Marie Watson
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
civil defence
Distinguished Flying Medal
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1764/30645/SJenkinsonPR1826262v10005-0001.1.jpg
0b517cc8286964812e30fe21ec49c902
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Jenkinson, Peter and Leslie. Peter Jenkinson
Description
An account of the resource
Fifty-three items concerning Peter Jenkinson who served as a flight engineer on 166 and 153 Squadron Lancaster and was killed with his crew on 28 January 1945. Collection contains official and family correspondence, photographs, biographies, newspaper articles, official documents, roll of honour and records of operations.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-24
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jenkinson, LP-PR
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Peter and Penelope Jenkinson
Description
An account of the resource
Two photographs. Top a full length portrait of a man wearing greatcoat and side cap with a mural in the background. Includes to the side a badge 'BAC' annotated 'Bristol Aircraft Company'. Captioned 'Peter Jenkinson in the 13th Gloucester Home Guard Bristol 1941'.
Bottom head and shoulders portrait of a man and women both in uniform with caps and a mural in the background. Captioned 'Peter Jenkinson with his sister Penelope at Honiton in 1941, Penelope was in the A.T.S.'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1941
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJenkinsonPR1826262v10005-0001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bristol
England--Devon
England--Honiton
England--Gloucestershire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
civil defence
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1110/26182/NSaundersRA-HE171003-02.1.pdf
89eae29857473fdfb7862dc643cd2b7f
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Title
A name given to the resource
Saunders, Roy and Honor
Roy Saunders
R Saunders
Honor Saunders
H Saunders
Description
An account of the resource
158 items. Oral history interviews with Roy Saunders (b. 1930) and Honor Saunders (b. 1931) and six albums of family photographs. Both experienced the London Blitz. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1638 ">Foreshaw and Carter Photos</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1639 ">Foreshaw Family</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1640">Roy and Honor Saunders</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1641">Saunders Family</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1642">Thorpe and Diver Family</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1643">Thorpe Family</a><br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Roy and Honor Saunders and 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
2017-10-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Saunders, R-H
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RETIREMENT OF LT.-COL. SHEPPARD
OFFICER COMMANDING 2nd BATTALION
ON March 31st, Lieut.-Col. E.W. Sheppard relinquished the command of the 2nd Battalion. This came as a great regret to all those who have served with him in the Home Guard during the last twenty-two months, not only because his cheery personality will be missed, but also because his retirement from active service has been hastened by ill health. It is hoped that the greater measure of leisure which he will now enjoy will be of benefit to him.
Lieut.-Col. Sheppard has served under four monarchs ─ Victoria, Edward VII, George V and George VI. From October, 1914, till May, 1919, he served overseas, was commissioned in the field to 1st Lieutenant and mentioned in Sir Douglas Haig’s despatches.
[photograph]
Upon the formation of the Southern Railway Home Guard, he organised and trained 4,000 men from an area covering 1,700 square miles, and on the day that his new Battalion Headquarters was opened, it was machine-gunned by an enemy aircraft only 50 feet up.
His fund of reminiscences, of serious as well as amusing occasions (mostly amusing), will enliven his retirement as well as be a source of entertainment to his former comrades both in the Home Guard and Continental Department.
To Lieut.-Col. E.W. Sheppard, on behalf of all members of the S.R. Home Guard, we say ─ Good-bye and Good Luck.
[photograph]
C.S.M SUGGITT,
Royal Sussex Regiment,
is the Permanent Staff Instructor attached to the 2nd Battalion. He enlisted in 1922, and has seen service in Turkey, Singapore, India, Egypt and Ireland. He went to France in 1939 and was wounded in the evacuation of Dunkirk.
[photograph]
Captain H.C. LEDGER,
2nd Battn.,
gazetted 1915 as 2nd Lieut. to 1st Home Counties Brigade, R.F.A., T.A. Served nearly four years in France. Recalled off T.A.R.O. August, 1940. Posted as Adjutant Quartermaster to 2nd S.R. Battalion in August, 1941.
[photograph]
Major C.T. BRETT,
Acting O/C, served in the last war in the Royal Marines. In June, 1940 joined Home Guard; became Section Leader July, Platoon Commander, August, Company Commander, October, 1940, and 2nd i/c of 2nd Battn. March 1941.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Retirement of Lt-Col Sheppard
Description
An account of the resource
Four newspaper cuttings.
The first refers to Lt-Col Sheppard's retirement. He was in charge of the Southern Railway Home Guard.
The three other cuttings refer to three men who served in the same home guard unit.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four newspaper cuttings
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
NSaundersRA-HE171003-02
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
British Army
Civilian
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Paul Ross
civil defence
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1376/24036/PFordTA17050013.2.jpg
7f610ff5e450ed2323f65b20e234b87c
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Ford, Terry
Ford, T
Description
An account of the resource
135 items. The collection concerns Terry Ford. He flew operations as a pilot with 75 Squadron. It contains photographs, his log book, operational maps, letters home during training, and documents including emergency drills. There are two albums of photographs, one of navigation logs, and another of target photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Julia Burke and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ford, T
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Terry and Arthur Ford
Description
An account of the resource
Terry and his father standing outside their house. Both are in Home Guard uniform.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFordTA17050013
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bristol
England--Gloucestershire
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.
civil defence
home front
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1365/22923/PThomasAF20010038.1.jpg
a1f9e298ca133b6540d85a2c4f3e9fd0
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Thomas, Arthur Froude. Album 1
Description
An account of the resource
An album containing 50 pages of photographs of Arthur Froude's family and his pre war career and service as a flight engineer with 90 Squadron. The album also contains family photographs dating from 1900.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thomas, AF
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Len Jones and an Atlantic convoy
Description
An account of the resource
Photo 1 is Sergeant Len Jones, Home Guard at Banwell in 1943.
Photos 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are ships forming up for a 1941 convoy from Boston. The photographer is Arthur's friend Cecil Reid.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six b/w photographs on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PThomasAF20010038
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Somerset
England--Banwell
United States
Massachusetts
Massachusetts--Boston
Atlantic Ocean
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1943
civil defence
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/163/22393/PBanksP15020024.1.jpg
463690a6c4fa8f51d5d99e44fff61d47
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Banks, Peter. Album two
Description
An account of the resource
The album contains a varied collection of photographs taken whilst based at RAF Feltwell from 1937 onwards. There are aerial views of Windsor and Buckingham Palace, Harrow aircraft, plus social and service events. Post-war he was transferred to Singapore via India and Burma. The album reflects his social life with occasional photograph of his service activities at RAF Seletar. His return to UK via Bombay at the time of Indian independence is recorded, followed by scenic shots round Wick in Scotland. Finally there are some photographs of Angkor Thom in Cambodia. It also contains pages from newspapers dated 18 and 19 June 1940. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
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
Immediate training for all men fit to fight
Description
An account of the resource
Main article - states all men it is possible to use in defence of Britain will be called up and trained immediately with or without uniforms or equipment. Other headlines: obey these orders in invasion, give |L.D.V more weapons. Children for Canada scheme, don't watch air fights - you may get hurt.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Daily Sketch
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1940-06-19
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One newspaper page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15020024
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
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.
childhood in wartime
civil defence
home front
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1257/17119/BWharbyGordonCWharmbyTv10001.2.jpg
7570f3c4d350300cbe490f1b0534f878
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1257/17119/BWharbyGordonCWharmbyTv10002.2.jpg
303c190d506800148a136ae6e4b8e1d7
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
Wharmby, Tom
Tom Wharmby
T Wharmby
Description
An account of the resource
13 items including nine photographs, two letters and biographical entries for five 199 Squadron personnel. Photographs and biographies are of Sergeant Tom Wharmby, including his wedding, and four of his crew members; Sergeant Ronald Hughes, Sergeant Leonard Waldorf, Sergeant John Guyer Wilson and Flying Officer Ronald Herman Downes Cook. Letters sent from Air Ministry to Sergeant Tom Wharmby’s widow concern the location of his grave and those of his aircrew at Harderwijk, Holland, their aircraft having crashed on 12/13 May 1943. <br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Carol Wharmby-Gordon and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br />Additional information on Tom Wharmby is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/124941/">IBCC Losses Database</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wharmby, T
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Sgt Tom Wharmby
Age 21 of 199 sqd 1236751
Tailgunner
Tom was born on the 6th November 1921 in Walkden Nr Manchester the youngest Son of Herbert and Grace.
Tom attended St Johns School and passed his scholarship at 11 yrs old, he then went onto Bolton commercial (lords) and won the honours gold medal of school in 1936. later when attending evening classes at Worsley Technical School and gained first place in the 2nd year clerical examinations in the union of Lancashire, to which he was employed by Cooper and Cooper as a chartered accountant.
He was known locally as a keen table tennis player and in 1935 played for the Bolton YMCA junior team, and later in the RAF played for the stations team.
At the outbreak of war Tom joined the Home Guards gaining his Signals Pass, He was sent to guard buildings during the heavy blitz in Manchester.
Tom signed up in the R.A.F.V.R on the 20th March 1941, he initially wanted to be a fighter pilot but was not accepted, so he went onto train as air gunner and passed operation training in Scotland, he was then posted onto Lincolnshire and took part in raids over U boat bases such as St Nazaire, raids over the Ruhr such as Essen, Dusseldorf etc..
Tom married his childhood sweetheart Edith on the 19th December 1942 at St Pauls Church Walkden, his bomber crew attended the wedding. His last home leave was at the end of April 1943, by 13th May 1943 he and his crew where reported missing. A telegram was sent to his Wife and in November 1943 he was presumed killed in action, for pension purposes ect and his personal effects were returned to his Wife. His Wife had anxious months and when the war ended in 1945 teams from the War Graves Commission went into Europe and in December 1947, his Wife received the news that his grave had been found in the Netherlands at Harderwijk General Cemetery along with his crew members. Eventually headstones were erected and his Wife was allowed to choose an inscription of 60 letters which she chose
INTO THE DARK THEY FLEW AND ON TO THE GLORIOUS MORN.
After years of waiting for news of his whereabouts his Wife never gave up hope, in hoping the crew had been taken prisoners and they would be home soon after the war ended, but that was not to be, like so many of Bomber Command.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Tom Wharmby
Age 21 of 199 sqd 1236751
Tailgunner
Description
An account of the resource
Tom Wharmby was born at Walkden, North Manchester. Mentions hobbies, schooling at St Johns School, Bolton Commercial and Worsley Technical School, his wedding and an accounting job at Cooper and Cooper. Details his military career with the Home Guard in Manchester during the Blitz and as an air gunner, training in Scotland before being posted in Lincolnshire. Mentions operations on St Nazaire, Essen and Dusseldorf. On 13 May 1943 he and his crew were reported missing and their graves eventually located at Harderwijk General Cemetery, The Netherlands.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BWharbyGordonCWharmbyTv10001, WharbyGordonCWharmbyTv10002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Scotland
England--Manchester
England--Lincolnshire
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Essen
Germany--Düsseldorf
Netherlands
Netherlands--Harderwijk
France
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Lancashire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-03-20
1942-12-19
1943-05-13
1943-11
1947-12
199 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
civil defence
final resting place
home front
Home Guard
killed in action
love and romance
memorial
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/17069/PHollisAN17010025.2.jpg
578a2084184ffffce0308967a2293fc9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/17069/PHollisAN17010026.2.jpg
9c8a4bd2bb7670ed73a9ca503ca76b5a
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
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
2017-11-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hollis, AN
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
A Hollis Home Guard
Description
An account of the resource
Full length portrait of a corporal wearing battledress and a tin helmet. He has a gas mask holder on his chest and a rifle slung on his shoulder. In the background a two storey house with windows and part of door. On the reverse 'A H Home Guard'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHollisAN17010025, PHollisAN17010026
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
civil defence
home front
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/17068/PHollisAN17010023.1.jpg
d18f2290932e66b8e11c700838010716
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/17068/PHollisAN17010024.1.jpg
6ed213ddcbcd508cc6bd2edaca97c44c
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
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
2017-11-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hollis, AN
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
A Hollis Home Guard
Description
An account of the resource
Full length portrait of a man wearing battledress with corporal stripes, also with side cap and sword. In the background a house with windows and part of door. On the reverse 'A Hollis, Home Guard'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHollisAN17010023, PHollisAN17010024
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
civil defence
home front
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1001/11343/MJosephD1576383-180522-21.2.jpg
7779b893da182f121e902672edd54846
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
Joseph, David
D Joseph
Description
An account of the resource
22 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant David Joseph (1576383, Royal Air Force) and contains his decorations, log book, memoirs, correspondence and a list of prisoners of war at Stalag Luft 4. He flew operations as a pilot with 76 Squadron from RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor until his aircraft was shot down on 18 March 1944 on an operation to Frankfurt and he became a prisoner of war. The collection also contains a letter to Mrs Ramsay about the loss of her son, Flying Officer Kenneth Ramsay and photographs of his final resting place. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Brian Joseph and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />Additional information on Kenneth Grant Ramsay is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/223173/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-05-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Joseph, D
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Crest]
In the years when our Country
was in mortal danger
DAVID JOSEPH
who served from 6th June 1940.
gave generously of his time and
powers to make himself ready
for her defence by force of arms
and with his life if need be.
[signature]
THE HOME GUARD
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
David Joseph's Home Guard Certificate
Description
An account of the resource
A certificate dated 'from 6th June 1940' awarded to David Joseph for his time in the Home Guard.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printed sheet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MJosephD1576383-180522-21
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Georgie Donaldson
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
civil defence
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6705/PJonesPW16010023.1.jpg
9794fdd397996cb2086e617dc37dbc62
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/6705/PJonesPW16010024.1.jpg
1af263da550358378912a09dadb37aa8
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones, Thomas John
Tom Jones
T Jones
Description
An account of the resource
62 items. An oral history interview with Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs, correspondence, service documents, aircraft recognition manuals, medals and a memoir. He flew operations as a flight engineer on 622 Squadron Stirling and 7 Squadron on Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection also contains an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2566">Album</a> of 129 types of aircraft. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Jones and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-12-04
2017-12-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, PW
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Three members of the Home Guard
Description
An account of the resource
Three quarters portrait of three soldiers standing by a railing in front of a brick building. Tom Jones is in the centre. On the reverse 'Homeguard '40 Birmingham'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1940
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PJonesPW16010023, PJonesPW16010024
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Birmingham
England--Warwickshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
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.
civil defence
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/126/1270/NCarterRH150629-02.1.jpg
368003914a60a4eaf181962e44d918c7
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
Carter, Robert Haywood
Bob Carter
Robert Carter
Robert Haywood Carter
Robert H Carter
R H Carter
R Carter
Description
An account of the resource
16 items. The collection contains an oral interview covering childhood and wartime experiences of Robert Haywood "Bob" Carter who was a farm labourer and auxiliary fireman during the war living close to RAF Dunholme Lodge. Documents including identity cards and clothing ration books for Robert Carter and Eva A Haire as well as a victory message from the King and prisoner of war camp money vouchers; newspaper article about an airman reunited with his wife after being a prisoner of war, Photographs of home guard and auxiliary fire service personnel in Welton and Dunholme.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Carter and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-29
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Carter, RH
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[photograph]
[inserted] [symbol] Bobs Dad [/inserted]
They were a fine body of men
On parade in Welton at around the end of the Second World War.
This picture, lent to me by Mrs Aderyn Walker of Ryland Road, Welton, shows members of the village Home Guard lined up in Lincoln Road, facing the church.
Aderyn’s father, Cpl Richard Glew, is on the picture.
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
They were a fine body of men
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph shows a group of home guard men on parade on a road in front of several stone buildings. At the front are two officers behind are three rows of men in uniform with side caps. Three men stand in front of the first row, the two outside men of this group have rifles sloped over left shoulder. The front right hand man has a arrow drawn on with caption 'Bobs Dad'. Article underneath explains that photograph was taken in Welton around the end of the war and was lent to the author by Mrs Aderyn Walker who's father is also in the picture.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One newspaper cutting
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
NCarterRH150629-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Welton (Lincolnshire)
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
civil defence
home front
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1094/PBubbGJ16010017.1.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bubb, George. Album
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The album contains photographs, propaganda, service material, memorabilia and research concerning George Bubb's service with 44 Squadron at RAF Spilsby.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bubb, GJ
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
George Bubb's Royal Air Force and Local Defence Volunteers documents
Description
An account of the resource
At the top a postponement of calling up for service document with G Bubb service number name and address. Dated 21 MAy 1941. States that recipient should report when ordered, In the meantime will remain in the reserve without pay or allowances and then gives instructions to remain in current employment. Where practical, ten days notice to report for service would be given. In the centre a red Warwickshire Local Defence Volunteer identity card. Outside cover is red with Warwickshire Local Defence Volunteers Identity card and instructions if found. Inside states that bearer G Bubb is member of volunteers. At the bottom a medical treatment chit From Royal Air Force Spilsby Station Sick Quarters concerning treatment for G Bubb, date unreadable.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three documents mounted on a scrapbook page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBubbGJ16010014, PBubbGJ16010015, PBubbGJ16010016, PBubbGJ16010017, PBubbGJ16010018
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Warwickshire
England--Lincolnshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
civil defence
home front
Home Guard
recruitment
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/105/993/PAmbroseBG1601.1.jpg
cdac676b07b3efabf981b58dc69e67da
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Ambrose, Basil
B G Ambrose
Basil G Ambrose
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-29
Description
An account of the resource
18 items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Basil George Ambrose (1923 – 2016, 1604870 Royal Air Force), his log book, a page from his service book and 15 photographs. Basil Ambrose was a flight engineer flying Lancasters with 467 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force from RAF Waddington between September 1944 and March 1945 and with 617 Squadron from RAF Woodhall Spa.
The collection was been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Basil Ambrose and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ambrose, BG
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
6 March 1942: Joined RAF as a trainee turner
Posted to RAF Sealand, qualified turner
Posted to RAF St Athan, Flight Engineer training
5 July – 8 September 1944: RAF Swinderby, 1660 HBCU, flying Stirling aircraft
8 September 1944: Promoted to Sergeant
22 – 26 September 1944: RAF Syerston, Lancaster Finishing School, flying Lancaster aircraft
29 September 1944 – 23 March 1945: RAF Waddington, 467 (RAAF) Squadron, flying Lancaster aircraft
Commissioned, promoted to Pilot Officer
November 1945 Promoted to Flying Officer
22 April 1945 – 9 January 1946: RAF Woodhall Spa, 617 Squadron, flying Lancaster aircraft
11 January 1946 – 15 April 1946: Detached with 617 Sqn to Digri, India Command
28 May – 1 July 1946: 617 Squadron RAF Binbrook
October 1946: 1604870 Flying Officer B.G. Ambrose released from Service
<p>Basil George Ambrose was born on 24<sup>th</sup> June 1923 in Derby Street, Reading, the youngest of five children. He attended Wilson Road School near Reading’s football Ground. In 1937, when he was just 14 years old, he left school and took up employment as an apprentice turner at the Pulsometer. He was paid five shillings a week, half of which he had to give back to pay for his indenture training.</p>
<p>Although engineering was a reserve occupation, on 6<sup>th</sup> March 1942, he was able to join the RAF as a trainee turner. On completion of training, he passed out as a Leading Aircraftsman and was posted to RAF Sealand. Whilst there, he applied, and was accepted, for Flight Engineer training at St Athan.</p>
<p>His first ever flight was memorable in that he took the opportunity to join an old family friend (a test pilot at St Athan) who was taking a Beaufighter up for an air test. While airbourne over the Bristol Channel he witnessed a long line of merchant ships, all nose to tail as far as the eye could see, the ships were readying for the for the D Day landings.</p>
<p>On 7the June 1944, he completed his Flight Engineer training and joined the HBCU at RAF Swinderby, before moving on to the Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Syerston. In September 1944, Sergeant Ambrose and his crew, now fully trained, joined 467 Squadron (RAAF) at RAF Waddington. </p>
<p>On just his second operational flight, tasked with destroying enemy field guns in Holland, his aircraft had to drop below the cloud base at just 4000 feet. Almost immediately, the aircraft alongside them was hit by ack-ack and went down in flames. Basil’s aircraft returned safely, but the mission ended in failure.</p>
<p>Just over a fortnight later, his first ever night operation proved even more eventful, one they were all very fortunate to survive. En-route to Brunswick, a fire in the cabin set alight the blackout curtains surrounding the pilot and navigator. Basil had to use two extinguishers to put out the fire. The events caused significant delay and at their estimated time of arrival on target, they were still approximately 40 miles away. By the time they got there all the other aircraft had gone through and were on their way home. Basil’s aircraft was now completely alone over the target and although they were able to drop their bombs successfully, the aircraft was illuminated by a whole cone of search lights from the ground, plus an enemy fighter aircraft was fast coming in from the port side. The skipper took evasive action by immediately putting the aircraft into a 5000 feet dive and Basil found himself pinned to the cabin ceiling by the ‘G’ force; conversely when the aircraft pulled out of the dive, he was forced down to the cabin floor. The evasive manoeuvre was repeated one more time before they managed to lose the searchlights and the fighter. The trip home was conducted at low level without further alarm. In all, Basil and his crew went on to record thirty operations together. </p>
<p>After 467 Squadron, Basil was commissioned as a Pilot Officer and was posted to 617 Squadron in April 1945. He was never to fly operationally again although with 617 Squadron he served for a brief period in Digri, India. Basil reached the rank of Flying Officer and was demobbed in 1948.</p>
<p>Basil returned to the Pulsometer and finally qualified as a turner. After a short period working in Birmingham, he settled in Reading with his wife Jean and two children. He continued to work in engineering, eventually moving into the engineering safety field. He retired from his final position of Chief Safety Advisor for Greater London Council in 1981.<a href="https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/war-veteran-still-swing-90-4802178"></a></p>
Chris Cann
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
Home Guard troop
Description
An account of the resource
28 Home Guard personnel sitting front row and standing in two rows behind. Troops are all wearing battledress with side caps. In the background a brick building. Captioned ‘Lance Cpl, Lance Cpl, Cpl, Sgt, Major, Captain, Cpl, Cpl’. Basil Ambrose's brother Gerald is seated at left of front row.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PAmbroseBG1601
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
civil defence
home front
Home Guard
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1908/36266/BPerryWRPPerryWRPv2.2.pdf
2d9a332b2c7e70c15dc51d7c6351a683
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
Perry, Pete
W R P Perry
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
2017-07-19
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
Perry, WRP
Description
An account of the resource
Sixty-nine items and an album sub collection with twenty-four pages of photographs.
The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant WR Pete Perry DFC (1923 - 2006, 1317696, 146323 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs, correspondence, memoirs and documents. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Helen Verity and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Me - William Roy Peter Perry DFC
Pete Perry's memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Memoir starts by describing early life and education in Tunbridge Wells before moving to Cornwall. Writes about beginning of the war. Volunteered for aircrew in Plymouth (which had been bombed the day before) shortly after his 18th birthday. Continues with account of early induction and training in the RAF. Journeys across the Atlantic to Canada where he continues his pilot training. Describes activities in Canada and return to the United Kingdom. Describes advance flying training at Ossington, and operational training and other activities at North Luffenham. Continues with heavy conversion unit on Manchester and Lancaster before posting to 106 Squadron at RAF Syerston. Goes on to describe activities and operations while on the squadron including a long description of operation to Turin. Awarded DFC at end of first tour. Mentions operations over Berlin when hit by anti-aircraft fire which set engine on fire. Goes on to describe activities as an instructor at 5 Lancaster Finishing School before going to 227 Squadron at RAF Balderton as an instructor. He eventually returned to 106 Squadron for a second tour in March 1945 where he did a further three operations before the end of the war. Mentions Tiger Force, Cook's tour and bring troops back from Italy. Concludes with life in transport command after the war. After demob in January 1947 became a civilian air traffic controller.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
W R P Perry
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-03-26
1941-04
1942
1943
1944
1945
1945-03
1957-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Kent
England--Tunbridge Wells
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Devon
England--Plymouth
England--Oxfordshire
England--Oxford
England--London
England--Yorkshire
England--Scarborough
England--Warwickshire
Canada
Alberta--Calgary
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
Germany
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Cologne
Italy
Italy--Turin
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Alberta
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Thirty-two page printed document
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Allocated
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BPerryWRPPerryWRPv2
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
106 Squadron
1654 HCU
227 Squadron
29 OTU
5 Group
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
B-17
civil defence
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Manchester
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Balderton
RAF hospital Rauceby
RAF Metheringham
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Ossington
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigsley
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Stirling
Tiger force
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
York
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/872/11112/AHodginM170810.1.mp3
12a01fdddf3f968172ae5cc483a6d41b
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Hodgin, Margaret
M Hodgin
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Margaret Hodgin (b.1932). She lived near RAF Fiskerton during the war.
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
2017-08-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hodgin, M
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SB: This is Suzanne Bellhouse interviewing Mrs Margaret Hodgin. We’re at Margaret’s house in Fiskerton, Lincolnshire. Margaret lived very, very closely to RAF Fiskerton during the war years and she’s going to tell us all her about her experiences and, and what she saw.
MH: Right. The first memory of me, of my, of the war time was my father digging a shelter in the garden and we used to be carried down because I was only seven and my brother was four. And we used to be carried down when the air raids came. But they were, we were quite fortunate where I lived for, being bombed. And, and then later on as the time went on they would, when we went to school we, at Reepham School which was the next village we had to go and walk or cycle about two miles and you always had to take your gas mask with you. If you didn’t, you got halfway there and remembered it, ran back home and my mum coming up the road with it. And, you know, and it’s so vivid what I can remember of all these things. And, and then when we were at school if the, if the siren went we would take, we’d no shelters there. We were taken to houses in the village. Everybody, you know my, me and my brother was taken to a house and all the other children and they used to put us under the, cupboard under the stairs and, and that was at school. And well then going on to the war days, you know to the aerodrome being built I can remember that being done. Now, because we was only two small fields away from the, the ‘drome you could hear the Lancasters revving up to be taken off, you see. Take off. And I used to hear them and run upstairs and open my bedroom window because if the wind was, whichever the wind was as it came our way it, they used to be parallel by my bedroom window, and I could see the crew, the pilot with all his gear on and the one next to him. And I used to write down because it was AE. The number of the ‘drome there was AE1 or, and so on and I used to write. I had a book and I used to write them all down. I mean I was about eleven by then when the, when the ‘drome was, was on. And then I used to try and keep awake at home at night to hear how many came back. And they got to know. Some of them used to actually wave to me. The pilot, because they knew because I used to open the window and really look out and wave and all the rest of it. But the thing is it’s so vivid in my mind that, all that. Well, one Sunday afternoon, and in those days you hadn’t, you had to make your own entertainment. Well, I used to read a lot and I was curled up in a chair reading a book and I heard an aeroplane revving and flew upstairs, opened my window and what was it? A German plane. And I was terrified because, you know it had got the sticker on the thing. And I went down, I said to my mum and dad, ‘It’s a German plane gone past.’ My dad wouldn’t believe me. He said, ‘It never was.’ I said, ‘It was.’ And because it had apparently, this is what we were told later it had got into the, into the rear, near ours to take photographs of the aerodrome and it had come down low to do it and it was just taking away again. But as far as we were told it was shot down over Lincoln. Past Lincoln. So, that was the end of it. To see a German plane going past. I mean to a child it was terrifying and that was a frightening experience to me. Anyway, yeah I used to do it all through the war. Listening for these planes. And I tell you I wrote a book. I put a book with it but I think my mum must have lost it because I haven’t got it now. I wish I had but I haven’t. And I, and I used to really be upset when there was any missing when they came back. And that was my experiences with the Lancasters, you know. But to see them right near your house was amazing really. Yeah. Yeah. It was good. Anyway, I think I’d better stop a minute now.
SB: That was brilliant.
[recording paused]
MH: The war to me was as I said at the beginning that my father built a shelter in the garden and down in the ground and all that. But when the ‘drome was built it was, it was compulsory to have an, I think it was called Anderson but I’m not sure if ours wasn’t called something else. And you had to have them in your house, these shelters and they were absolutely made of steel and oh quite big. I can’t imagine. From that doorway to about there’s big. And there were shiny tops of steel and then there were latts all underneath and my mum put beds in for us and they used to, but it was nearly, I mean I was only in a small house. It nearly filled your room but you had to have them.
SB: Yeah.
MH: Because we lived so near the ‘drome. Yeah. You couldn’t say no. Yeah. And then another experience I can remember so vivid was about the evacuees coming. Now, we didn’t have many because [pause] no this was before the ‘drome was built, these evacuees. And there was quite a big house near me, near us and this lady must have been a bit, I don’t know what you’d call her but she wouldn’t. She refused to have anybody and so they brought a girl to us from Leeds or Liverpool. I can’t remember which, which town it was. I know it was from Yorkshire. And she came to stay at our house. And my mum would bake. Had got some plums all washed ready for making jam because you did everything for yourself in the war and she’d never seen a plum or eaten a plum before and she was so excited with these plums. She was, she was ever such a nice girl. But we weren’t, we wasn’t forced to have anybody because there was, we’d three bedrooms and a boy and a girl, you see. So we weren’t. But they came and asked my mum if she’d have this girl because this lady refused but she was made to have her in the end. And she wrote to us for, oh and then when the aerodrome was built they had to go home wherever they were sent to because of the, it was just as dangerous here as where they came from they thought. But anyway she did write to us quite a bit after. Yeah. I remember that. And there was quite a few evacuees about and they all seemed to settle well. And, and that was that experience you know. And I can still see her in my mind. But with these plums, she was so excited about plums. What else was I going to tell you? Oh yeah. About the air raid. The shelter. Yeah. And my mum used to put us down. We used to sleep in there. And one day, oh and my mum used to help in the village hall. They used to do whist drives and dances and it’s only a small village hall. It, well it’s a church hall at Cherry Willingham and we, I used to go with her because she used to light fires, two fires in the, ready for the whist drive. And you used to, used to go and put some more coal on it. It was black you know. Everywhere. There were no lights anywhere. And it used to be so, because you know so dark and I can still remember that. And if you had a cycle you had a lamp on the front but it was all blacked out by about the size of a shilling in those days. I don’t know how they saw. But anyway. So, funny things. Oh, and on a Saturday morning us children used to collect the salvage as we called it from all the houses and put them in a shed and then it was sorted out. I don’t know what, what they did with it but anyway that was our Saturday jobs with wheelbarrows fetching all this salvage and taking it to this shed. And the grown-ups used to sort that out. My dad wasn’t sent for the war because he worked at the forge and it was, they did work for the war you see. I don’t know what they did. I can’t remember. And, and so we were lucky to have my dad at home when everything went and I used to be saying, ‘Don’t let, just tell dad to come in,’ if there was a raid, ‘Don’t let him — ’ and he would stand out listening. The men did. About watching the, you know all the hearing them more likely. The air raids were on, he’d say, ‘Oh, they’re bombing Coventry,’ and all that sort of talk. Yeah. But it’s so you know I think when you’re, it’s your young day you do remember but I think it was more vivid with it being the war that you do remember things so well. And what else is there to tell you? Stop it a minute.
[recording paused]
MH: And one day my dad had been around the Cherry Willingham village. Well, there was only about [pause] I wouldn’t know how many houses. Say two hundred houses in there then. Now, it’s like a small town Cherry Willingham is. And he was, he’d been somewhere. They had a [pause] a place up in the village where the, when the [pause] what do church wardens and all them went to sort the people out. We had a man lived next door to us. He was called Twiddy Espin and he was only a very small man. My dad always said the whistle, he used to blow the whistle all around the village when it, so you knew, or if you were showing any light with your, and my dad always said that the whistle was bigger than he was. And he did look after us though. He used to come all around the village looking if you showed any light. You know, because you had to have blackouts of course. And he was very good really. He was. Nice man. And then my dad was gone up to this place whatever it was. I don’t know what it was about. They used to meet up there. Some of the men in the village. And one day he was coming down the village and he got shot at by a German plane. And one of the, there was a barn from the farm that was in the village and it happened to have the door open and he went in there and so they missed him. Yeah. And that was frightening to think they’d been shot at. Yeah. Because you didn’t know if there were some German planes about. I mean we used to go out playing. And, and I never went out of Cherry Willingham all through the war. Only to school. Because my mum used to go to Lincoln to get your clothes and she would never take us in case there was a, a, you know the sirens went. And so I never went out the village and I always remember being nervous going out for a meal after because I’d never been used to it. And nervous of such a lot of things because you were so [pause] And we used to be playing out sometimes when it was snowing. Behind the church we used to have a slide down there. Sirens would go. Fly home quick. But we were very fortunate around here as regards being bombed. And I remember one day my mum, she used, she was doing her hair, I was in curled up in one chair, my brother in the other. My dad was at work. And we were going up to see about this whist drive place so she was getting herself ready for going. And all of a sudden, we didn’t know if it was a bomb or a plane had crashed. Blew the back, the door in, in the house and the windows really rattled and I think that was before the, the ‘drome though because my mum pushed us under the ordinary table. And when she looked she’d only got her head under about, you know that was hanging out of it. But they are so protective of their children aren’t they? Mothers. Most of them anyway. And, yeah that was very vivid to remember. I can hear it now. The window really rattling and doing. Yeah. It was [pause] That was another thing that we did. What else was there? That. And that’s about it I think.
[recording paused]
MH: Now, on the crescent was the WAAF quarters. All the huts where the, where the WAAFs lived on here. And, and then just further down the road some of the, they weren’t the crew people, they were the ground staff. They had their quarter down there and where later on in life I got married and they brought a knitwear factory into this village and it was the old recreation place for the, for the crews where we, where it was. And it just finished about four years ago. Maybe more, wasn’t it? And it’s still there. You know. But they’re going to pull it down and it seems very sad to me that they’re pulling it down now. But they’re going to build houses so that’s it. And that’s another thing that we did. Yeah. Yeah, it was there and I was there forty six years. Because my first husband died when I was forty eight. You was only twenty something, weren’t you? And I was called Canner then and now I’m Mrs Hodgin. I married my second husband in 19 — what was it? ’92. Twenty ninety two. Yeah. That’s another thing. That’s not nothing to do with the war though.
SB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
MH: On the ‘drome. And we never knew about to be quite honest that there was such a thing as dark people. And one day we, as I say, mum as I said used to help with the whist drives and dances. Well, a lot of the RAF used to come up to the dances and brought this dark lad with them. He was only eighteen and they made such a fuss of him and he was such a nice person. And I, and that was the first black person I’d ever seen. Well, all of us had really. But they were so kind to him you know. Really looked after him. I can remember that vivid. Yeah. And he was nice. What else did you say?
[recording paused]
MH: And we had some Americans. I think they were based at Cranwell. Was it? Cranwell aerodrome. And they used to come around in to the town. By then this was a bit after the war though, Shirley. Wasn’t it? And they used to, used to go into town and they used to give us chewing gum and all sorts. Sweets and things. So we were always pleased to see them around. Yeah. Yeah. They were good. Yeah. That was another thing in my life. Yeah.
[recording paused]
MH: School it would be. I was fourteen and the rationing was still on and I worked in the Cherry Willingham Post Office come shop and still rationed we were. And, oh another thing. In the war we were allowed four of us two pound of sugar a week, half a pound of butter and then it was your flour and whatever you had. And the margarine was awful. I couldn’t stand it. But my dad used to, didn’t like wasting food whatsoever and he used to say I’ve got to eat this margarine on my bread. I said, ‘I’d sooner not have anything on my bread.’ But my mum used to put her butter on my bread and [laughs] but we only had two ounces each a week and that was in the war, well it was right after the war as well quite. Until nineteen fifty something it finished. Yeah. And a lot of the people had quite big families in those days and they couldn’t afford all what they got so they used to give up some of theirs and then other people who were better off used to buy that you see. What was spare. And we never had any tinned fruit. There wasn’t such a thing then in the war. You couldn’t have bananas over three years old. Yes. And I remember when the war finished and the man who, the shop was nearly opposite where, where we lived and I can remember him bringing the first lot of bananas. Well, bananas for us. And mum did us some banana and custard and I always remember that. It was wonderful. They were the first bananas we’d had, yeah. As I can remember. Yeah. And then the sweets came off ration. You didn’t get many sweets in the war. Then they came off ration. The first thing I bought was a Mars bar. Yeah. Funny things. Yeah. So better switch if off.
[recording paused]
SB: On the buses.
MH: We used to have with them. So many RAF people in the buses used to come from Lincoln to pick us up to take us back to Lincoln. My mum more than me because I was a child. And you had a job to get on the buses because they were full of the RAF people. And there used to be conductress in those days and the bus used to be packed and they used to stand from the end of the bus right to the door and the conductress used to be hanging on like this. And the RAF if you was a child went on the bus at all they would always have you on their knees. It used to be absolutely packed. The buses. But now they’re not allowed to you see. But yeah, and that was, my mum often went out for a bus and couldn’t get on it. Yeah. It was strange that was. Yeah. It was packed up with there. The WAAFs. Yeah. I can remember. But this, as I was saying where I live now was the WAAF’s quarters and they used to be their recreation village hall, hall there. Well, then when it all finished they left. That was our village hall. It was a wonderful place and we used to have dances and all sorts in it. A nice big dance place it was. And then, then of course it’s gone now because this has been built but the shop. Yeah. It used to be just there where those houses were. That was. I can remember that. Yeah. But I used to like the WAAF’s uniform. And when I went to this Woodhall Spa.
SB: 40’s.
MH: 40s, was it? Yeah. I says, ‘I hope somebody’s dressed as a WAAF.’ So anyway this lady came up and I said, ‘Oh, do you mind me talking to you?’ I said, ‘I’ve always admired their uniform.’ And, oh she was a lady that organised parties for the whatever. I don’t know what. She’d got seventeen. Not them but all different uniforms and she says, ‘The only thing with the, with the — ’ which I didn’t know, ‘With the tunics is that they all fastened men’s side because they were all done for men. But then they had, the WAAFs came and they used those,’ she says, ‘And they were all fastened the wrong way,’ she said. Oh dear. I said, ‘Well, I’m still learning.’ Yeah. And she invited us to get but we didn’t get did we? So we’re going to go hopefully next year to it again. And, oh I did have a wonderful day there though. Everybody dressed and their hair done up how they used to have it in the war. Yeah. And the stockings with the line. You know. The seams up. That they got on. Yeah. I can remember wearing some of those and make sure your seam was straight. Oh dear. Yeah. Oh God. You’d better switch it off now.
[recording paused]
MH: In the villages you had to have what you called the Army. Things for the Home Guard. And my dad was in the Home Guard and they used to sort of do all, what do you call it on a Sunday morning? All get marching and doing. And I always remember, which is another funny thing is he couldn’t fasten his top hook and eye and I used to stand on a stool to fasten his button. And, yeah there was the Home Guard in the war. Yeah. That was good. Yeah. It was. There was all the men, elderly men who didn’t go to the forces or anything. And there was quite a lot of them used to go marching around on a Sunday morning. And they were there to protect us if the Germans had come, you see. So that was, and that’s all. That’s all I’ve got there. You’d can switch it off.
[recording paused]
MH: I always remember with it being so dark and when it was like November time we always had thick fog. And all of a, then they decided on the ‘drome to give a light for the planes to come in to and it lit all your village up. And I was terrified because of this fog light. Yeah. That was a strange thing. Yeah. That sort of thing. Yeah. That’s —
[recording paused]
MH: And I can remember also a couple living in Cherry Willingham and they had a car which was rare. For the war. People who weren’t, you know had nothing much to do with the war but he was connected with the war and they went through Scampton where Guy Gibson was and his dog. It had a name. I forget its name.
SB: N*****.
MH: And, and they were going past the entrance of the aerodrome on there and this dog ran out in front of them and they killed it. But they did stop and sort it out. But there’s been a film made of the, of Guy Gibson and on it it shows that, it says they didn’t stop. They were very upset because they did stop because, you know. But it was the dog’s fault. It wasn’t their fault. And they were a long time getting over the, of doing it never mind about being on the film that they didn’t stop. And, yeah and that was a sad thing. But, yeah.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Margaret Hodgin
Creator
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Suzanne Bellhouse
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-08-10
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Sound
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AHodginM170810, PHodginM1701
Format
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00:27:10 audio recording
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eng
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Description
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Margaret’s family lived in Fiskerton and her first memory of war time, when she was seven and her brother four, was of her father digging a shelter in the garden. The children would walk or cycle to Reepham school.
Margaret was about eleven when an aerodrome was built a couple of fields away. When she heard the Lancasters take off she would run upstairs to watch from the open window and wave to the crew. She would write the aircraft number in a book and lie awake at night listening for them to return. She remembered a German aircraft flying low to take pictures of the station and then being shot down over Lincoln. Margaret’s parents took in an evacuee before the RAF Fiskerton was built. On a Saturday morning the village children would collect salvage in wheelbarrows and take it to a shed where it would be sorted by the adults. She recalled the time when there was an explosion which blew the house door in. When Margaret was fourteen she worked in Cherry Willingham Post Office and shop. Margaret’s father worked at the forge doing war work and was also in the Home Guard. She remembered he had once been shot at by a German plane but wasn’t injured as he dived into a barn. Margaret’s mother helped with the whist drives and dances in the village hall.
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
childhood in wartime
civil defence
evacuation
home front
Home Guard
RAF Fiskerton
shelter
shot down
strafing
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/838/10830/AGoslingC180907.2.mp3
639de03fe257ad2fae5048ea550420f1
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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Gosling, Cyril
C Gosling
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Corporal Cyril Gosling (1923 - 2019, 1512679 Royal Air Force). He served as an armourer with 49 and 617 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-09-07
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. 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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Gosling, C
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SP: So, this is Susanne Pescott. I’m interviewing Corporal Cyril Gosling today at his home in Oldham. I’m interviewing today for International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive and we’re at Cyril’s home. It’s the 7th of September 2018. Also present at the interview is Cyril’s daughter Gillian. So, first of all Cyril thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me today.
CG: You’re welcome.
SP: So, do you want to tell me a little bit about life before the RAF? When were you born Cyril?
CG: The address?
SP: So, what date were you born?
CG: 1923.
SP: 1923.
CG: First of the seventh 1923.
SP: Brilliant. And where did you live then?
CG: Golden street. 47 Golden Street, Oldham.
SP: Oldham. Yeah. Yeah. And what was life like in the early years for you?
CG: A bit, a bit rough. I wanted to go into engineering but mother said, ‘Ooh it’s too it’s not for you that. I’m going to get you in a shop.’ A grocer’s shop who lived next door to me. Literally, you know. So, I finished up early on in this shop. The grocer’s shop. And that were alright, you know running around with a bicycle like I was doing. And then what happened to it? Now [pause] I finished up getting fed up with it. Complaining to mother. And this lady came into the shop. I were cleaning the, you know, all the equipment in the shop and this lady dashed in and said, ‘Can you give me a half a pound of bacon, I’m in a hurry.’ I said, ‘I’ve just stripped it down. The machine.’ And I said, ‘Well, because it’s you I’ll do it.’ But so, without a to do, without putting the machine together again I ploughed on. [stress] ‘Oh. I’m sorry I’ve just cut my finger [laughs]
SP: So, you cut your off finger on the machine.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: On the bacon machine.
GC: You were only fourteen, weren’t you?
CG: So, I finished up at hospital. We didn’t have a car in those days. I went on the bus to the Oldham hospital and I were getting off half way there and mum said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘Well, to the pictures. I always go to the pictures Tuesday afternoon. Because the shop’s closed.’
GC: On the way back.
CG: On the way back.
GC: From the hospital.
CG: Anyway, I sat through my normal journey, you know. When I come back she played heck with me and I got back home. I got through, sat through these films which I liked and she said, ‘You’d better go and see Mr Livingstone.’ That was the manager of the Oldham shop. ‘Why?’ ‘He’s in bed poorly.’ ‘Why, what am I supposed to do?’ And she played hell with me then. She said, ‘You go gadding out, go to the pictures and there’s poor Mr Livingstone in bed poorly.’
GC: With shock [laughs]
SP: Yeah. And that Mr Livingstone was the, ran the grocers’, the manager of the grocers.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. Yeah.
CG: And that’s it. So, I had to go around one or two people who heard about it got a shock, friends like. So anyway, I said, ‘I’ve had enough of this.’ War was just starting.
SP: Ok. Yeah.
CG: I said I want to join up.
GC: At the Local Defence Volunteers. Talk about the Local Defence Volunteers. Dad’s Army.
CG: Oh, that were it. Sorry. Yeah. I jumped in. Dad’s, you know, Dad’s Army. So, without any further ado I went to the local part of it asking for volunteers and I signed up there and then. And I said I worked for a store in Oldham. I volunteered. Anyway, I signed up and it was just like, like it is on television then [laughs] yeah.
SP: What sort of things did you do in the Defence League?
CG: It were just like it said on television.
GC: Dad tell them about when you thought a paratrooper had dropped down when you were on guard duty.
CG: Oh that.
SP: So, they thought, yeah, so in Oldham they thought there was a paratrooper arrived, did they?
CG: Yeah. And we were, we were based at [unclear] Barracks which is in Oldham.
GC: [Up the big hill?]
CG: Yeah. A group of [unclear] on there. And there were one bloke which always amuses me when it comes on. He would start by, like it was on, and he used to anything like this. He would say, ‘Don’t flap. Don’t flap,’ you know. And he was. Anyway, when I come through, he calls me, official, you know. So we’re up at the top there. And this bloke was always shouting, ‘Don’t panic. We’ll sort it out.’ Anyway, we went off. Four of us there. Four of us looking for this parachutist. And he called to me and —
GC: Denshaw.
CG: Denshaw over that way. Anyway, it seems daft now but we had search parties out. All looking for him. We never found him.
SP: They never knew what it was then?
CG: Not really.
SP: No. So, after the Defence League in Oldham you then decided to join up did you say?
CG: Yeah. Joined up.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Yeah.
SP: So, what, what made you decide on the RAF?
CG: It’s funny. I don’t know.
GC: They said that he’d got flat feet. The army.
CG: I, I don’t know. Passed me.
GC: Didn’t they tell you you had flat feet?
CG: Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Flat feet. So, they suggested the RAF.
CG: I fancied it.
SP: Yeah.
CG: But they turned me at down first.
SP: Right.
CG: Because I had flat feet.
SP: Right.
CG: Anyway, after struggling they accepted me. So, we went to Padgate which is, do you know it? [Crowmarsh?] Blackpool of course. Roughed it.
SP: So, what was life like in black, what was it like in Blackpool during your training?
CG: Well, all I can say, there were hundreds of young ladies chasing our uniform [laughs]. So, and then from there we went to Filey. You know it?
SP: Yes. Over to the east coast.
CG: Yes.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Yeah.
GC: His fitter’s course.
CG: Did our square bashing and what have you.
GC: Kirkham. You went to Kirkham to do your fitter’s course.
CG: Oh yeah. Sorry.
GC: Tell her about when you had to take your turn of doing guard duty. When you were patrolling around in that blizzard and you were all wrapped up.
CG: This is one of many things. This camp is, you know, for fitters. Teaching fitters. Anyway, it was winter and I were on guard duty in the camp. It was snowing and I marched up and down because it was, I were cold. Suddenly Filey disappeared. I didn’t realise. There was so much straw and I sunk into a big hole in the ground.
SP: Right.
CG: Fortunately, the corporal who was bringing a chap to replace me and I had all the equipment on me. Rifle, everything, you know. So, I was shouting out and he was shouting, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘In the water.’ And they dragged me out and it was so freezing out there. The corporal, he had a phone. I don’t know where that come from but he got, got me out, you know and leads to the M O station and they said, ‘You’re lucky. If he hadn’t have caught you you’d have been passed away.’ You know, it was in the hole because it was freezing. Anyway —
GC: You got two weeks survivor’s leave didn’t you?
CG: Yeah. I don’t know why I’m here. If they can do that to me [pause] anyway [laughs]
SP: So, what, what sort of things did you learn on the fitter’s course? What was the training?
CG: It was guns. You know, things like that. We went to the fitter’s camp to —
GC: That was your next bit. Eventually you moved to Scampton.
CG: Yeah.
GC: Where you were a fitter/gun armourer.
CG: Yeah. I were a gun armourer. Needed fitting a bit. Everything, you know.
GC: You had to make sure that the turrets on the planes were working and that the ammunition was laid out correctly.
CG: Yeah.
SP: So, what would it be like? So, did the, on an operation and the planes would land. Or pre-operation what would your role be? What would you do before the planes went out and when the planes came back?
CG: I had to load the guns. You know, with the ammunition. The turrets. Making sure they were working alright. Then we’d go out on trial runs over the sea. Over that way, you know. That way. And, well all of the, all the engines were [pause] oh it brought down one of the engines. Nothing to do with me actually but, and he, the pilot said, ‘Right. We’re in trouble here. One engine’s packed in. We’ve got to get back to shore.’ Well actually we were practicing these, with these engines and firing them to the —
SP: To the drogue was it?
CG: Yeah.
SP: When you went out practicing firing on the planes.
CG: Yeah.
SP: So, did you actually go on the flights with them for that?
CG: Oh yes. Yeah.
SP: Right.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. Was that to check that all the machinery was working?
CG: That’s right. We fired at a drogue. What they called a —
SP: A drogue. Yeah.
CG: [unclear]
SP: Yeah. So, the drogue was for you to, the guns to aim at, wasn’t it?
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Anyway, it [pause] he said we’ll have to jettison. He said we’ll have to get out of the plane. And what was it now. Like abandon ship kind of thing, you know. Anyway, we had the door open. Open the door, Jumped out. Anyway, when we looked across, we could see the shoreline like. They could see there were a trawler from one of the boats from [pause] what do they call the place?
SP: It’s alright. From one of the ports. One of the boats did you say could see you?
CG: Could see. Yeah. Could see it coming out fast because two of the blokes had dropped out.
SP: So, they’d baled out.
CG: Baled out. Yeah. And I didn’t go. I didn’t go. Two went and they got picked up. You could see them in the water. Anyway, he carried on then because he could see his men were alright, you know. We didn’t go back to, we went back to Waddington. That’s wasn’t ours. Scampton was our place.
GC: You didn’t jump because the pilot said it was ok, didn’t he?
CG: Yeah.
GC: He said everything was ok. Picked up.
CG: Yeah.
GC: So, you didn’t jump.
CG: Yeah.
GC: Saved you having a, saved you having a soaking in the sea.
CG: Anyway, it did, it did, it did crash land but it was only at Waddington. It’s not far away. Well it’s a big place.
SP: What was the landing like then because obviously you were coming in with a damaged, was it a damaged engine did you say? Yeah. So, what was that like for you to come in on a damaged engine?
CG: Well I were in the rear turret and I didn’t know any better and the pilot said, ‘They’ve shook me up so much,’ He crash landed actually because he come down and he finished up in doc for that. He was a nice lad. Because I dressed out in blue, hospital blue. Slouching around, you know [unclear]
SP: So, was anyone injured on the, was anyone actually injured on the landing or was everybody ok?
CG: They bumped me.
SP: Shook up. Yeah.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Ok.
CG: So it were, where did I go from there? Oh, I went in doc. In doc.
SP: So, you’d have to get back to Scampton.
CG: Oh yeah.
SP: Yeah. Was the plane repaired then at Waddington? Or —
CG: It were, yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: But I didn’t go in that. I got in the ambulance, you know, to the hospital
SP: Yeah.
CG: Take over. Sat back and enjoyed myself [laughs] Where did I go from there?
SP: So just about your time still at Scampton. So, you’d check the guns. You’d, you’d go on the flights to check that everything was working.
CG: Oh yeah, I was —
SP: Yeah. What would you do when you were on the ground during the day? What would be a typical fitter’s —
CG: Yeah.
SP: You know.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Armourer’s day? What would that be like for you?
CG: Firstly, the turrets. You know, the turrets. Automatic you know. We had to make sure they were all geared up. Working right. Fitted all the turrets with hundreds and hundreds of bullets and stuff like that. We had, we went back to Kirkham more knowledgeable you know, [laughs] Which was going to Blackpool because Kirkham — Blackpool. Kirkham. Any excuse.
SP: So, going for more training. Was that because things changed like different types of plane had different turrets, different guns?
CG: Oh yeah. Yeah.
SP: So, would that be going to be upskilled on different types of guns or did you have to just to keep your knowledge every year or something?
CG: Well, I kept going back to Kirkham to pick up. They’d teach you there. We just, not enough. They were sat up there.
SP: Right.
CG: On this, you know firing of these ground level, you know. We did that several times so I got [unclear]
SP: So, did you work with a particular crew or did you work on all the planes? Or were you linked more to one plane and one crew. Or —
CG: For the two. I were attached to two flights because I went to Scampton then and that’s where I were fully qualified.
SP: Right.
CG: You know, I were fully but —
GC: You had Hampdens. And then you moved on to Manchesters before you got the Lancasters. When you were with 49 Squadron, before you went to 617.
CG: I think I’ll put my hat and coat on.
SP: And go [laughs] So what were the, you know obviously some very early planes there with Hampdens and that. And Wellingtons. What did you think of those planes compared to your Lancasters?
CG: Rubbish. I must admit we landed several times. Crashed.
SP: On which plane? Was it the Manchester did you say?
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Horrible.
SP: Yeah. A lot of people said it was quite a very difficult plane.
CG: Yeah.
SP: So, you had a few crashes in that. On landing.
CG: Oh God. It were more or less a clapped-out rubbish aircraft.
SP: Yeah.
CG: You more or less landed them, you know?
SP: Yeah .
GC: Dad, you said often that you would see planes limping home in flames. And you’d see them coming in where the bank of trees was. And they were, they were very, it were very, your heart were in your mouth waiting for them.
CG: Oh yeah.
GC: Wasn’t it? You know. Whether they would make the runway.
CG: Yeah. This is now wartime. You know. Proper war time.
GC: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: I mean they come over, you know. Landing.
SP: Yeah.
CG: But, you know, they were your friends, you know.
GC: And the hydraulics failed didn’t they? And they belly flopped, and if you were in that rear gun turret you didn’t stand much a chance did you? In the back.
SP: So, can you talk me through one, maybe an operation that you’d watched go out and you were waiting to come back where there were some problems. What was that like? Waiting around for the planes to come back?
CG: Horrible. Yeah. You know. Especially if you see one coming and it had been shot at and it were all in flames going over the top of these trees. I don’t know why there were all these trees in the way. I saw all that, you know. But anyway, it was rough.
SP: So, did you see any that actually didn’t make it?
CG: Oh yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Yeah. Yeah.
SP: What was it like then on the base when —?
CG: It was horrible because the turrets were electric you know and if they’d shot up. The plane. The electrics didn’t shut off, you know. So, the person who was in that turret he can’t move it.
SP: Right.
CG: So, he’s stuck in there until one of his mates come from the mid-upper turret and winds it by hand. You know, the electrics are gone.
SP: Right.
CG: But —
SP: So was that the case for some of them where they couldn’t get to the rear gunner because of the electrics going.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Right.
CG: But, yeah [pause] happened anyway. We’re still, it was still like, how shall I put it [pause] it’s was all going ahead now with a proper war you know.
SP: Yeah.
CG: So, there was so many accidents, you know. I mean, I lost one or two friends you know. But they had been loading the bombs up. And they’d sit on them while they went out to dispersal [unclear] and there would be many accidents where it’s gone up. You know.
SP: So, the armourers would sit on the bombs as they went out to the planes. And what would cause the, the bombs to go off?
CG: I don’t —
SP: Just —
CG: I don’t [unclear] it. I think they were bouncing too much, you know. But they sat on them and went up with them.
SP: Yeah.
CG: I never did that.
SP: No.
CG: I went to dispersal on a bike.
SP: Yeah. And did you have a set dispersal point that you’d go to?. Were you allocated to a set dispersal point where you’d always go to and look after the plane that landed there?
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. And was that far away from where you were based?
CG: It wasn’t far and we used to, well we were given bicycles. Used to [pause]
SP: Yeah.
CG: But there was lots of things. Had to keep up with 58 Squadron. they were never, I’d never heard of that one before but it came from somewhere outlandish. I don’t know where it was but they parked them way out.
SP: Right.
CG: There must have been a reason for it because, well I know there’d be a reason for it. You know. What shall we say [unclear] we had flares you know.
SP: Fido? Was it the runway did you say, with flares?
CG: No. These flares. This was something to do with 58. Something. I think it was that. It’s gone now.
GC: 58 Squadron.
CG: Yeah. I’m not sure.
SP: Ok.
CG: But they were right out at dispersal but, and obviously they loaded it with the flares. And the bloke, it was dipping, and I remember that [pause] helping out because officially I was nothing to do with that squadron. I don’t know where they come from, but he pulls, he loaded this big flare. He set out and he got all the, blew that one up. It blew nearly every one of them up with people.
SP: Really, right.
CG: Yeah.
GC: Good job it were a bit far out. That’s bad isn’t it. So about three planes went up didn’t they?
CG: Yeah.
GC: Because the flare went off.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Right.
GC: And that were when they were on the ground.
CG: That’s right.
SP: And which airfield was that at. That was, was that when you were at Scampton or at one of the other —?
SP: Yeah
SP: At Scampton. Ok.
CG: Yeah. Nothing really, nothing doing.
SP: Yeah.
CG: I don’t know why a full squadron was on. On that Scampton crew. But they played it down of course.
SP: Well, you were at an airfield where obviously 617 Squadron were so —
CG: Yeah.
SP: You had quite a lot of inventive things going on there didn’t you, on that?
CG: Yeah.
SP: So, did you meet or see anyone at that time from 617 Squadron?
GC: He was in it.
SP: But any of the crew? Did you work on their planes then for 617 Squadron, on their practicing or —
CG: Oh honest, we were right. What it was they wanted to create a squadron and we had planes that they had and all, but mine was 49 Squadron. Apparently, they was told to create, to go around picking the best people up and create a squadron which was 617 Squadron. You know what it was, you know and they pinched two of my planes from 49 Squadron.
SP: Right.
CG: So, and then we moved over.
SP: So, you went with them because they wanted the best fitters as well.
CG: Yeah. Oh yeah. Put it that way, yeah. In fact —
SP: So, the planes that you moved over with from 49, were any of those involved on the Dambusters run itself or were they —?
CG: Oh yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Yeah. He was told to create —
SP: Yeah.
CG: A full squadron. Create a unit. 617 Squadron. So, they did all right. He had this dog [unclear] I’m losing it.
SP: No, you’re alright.
CG: Like a —
SP: Is this Guy Gibson’s dog?
CG: Yeah.
SP: Guy Gibson’s dog, N*****?
CG: Yeah. Oh N*****. Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: He got, he got killed didn’t he? I don’t know whether you read it but, our pilot —
GC: You used to take it for a walk.
CG: I’d take it for a walk.
SP: So was this part of your duties. To walk the dog.
CG: Yes.
GC: When he was, when Guy Gibson was out on duty he looked after his dog sometimes and took it for walks.
CG: And then some silly so and so [unclear] but another, a corporal had the job of looking after that dog.
SP: Yeah.
CG: And he let it loose and he got run over it, didn’t he? [unclear] but it got run over by a taxi outside the camp which [unclear] upset Guy Gibson.
GC: Well it would wouldn’t it?
SP: So, did you meet Guy Gibson then?
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Oh yeah.
SP: Yeah. Do you want to tell me a little bit about that? Meeting Guy Gibson. What was he like? What —
CG: He was alright. A bit, you know, stultified. Yeah. He were alright to talk to. Yeah.
SP: You saw Barnes Wallis knocking about, didn’t you?
CG: Oh yeah.
SP: Yeah. So, Barnes Wallis as well. So, so he went up to Scampton. To the base while you were there.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. So, what, what would a day be like working with the 617 Squadron, or the Dambusters? Because they were testing different things wouldn’t they? So, was your job slightly different when you were working with them to when you were working with 49 Squadron?
CG: Well, they had more flying tests because obviously part of it over water, skimmed over the water. We had to do that.
GC: You went over Derwentwater didn’t you? Where they did the test. You were low flying over there in the, in the tail of a Lancaster.
SP: So, you went up on your normal testing of the guns when they were doing the low-level flying.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. Do you want to tell me about one of those trips?
CG: There’s a big photograph of it in my bedroom.
GC: It’s in there.
SP: Well take a photo and put it with the recording but what was it like flying at that low level compared to when you’d gone up previously on the —
CG: Yeah. It’s funny when you went up for a test flight. By being right at the front of it you look as though you were flying, you were flying the plane, you know. Just like that. This was very low flying. And the pilot were in front of you, and he’d be only that far from it, and I’m saying to the pilot ‘Pick it up, pick it up. You’re too low,’ and he was, he was about that far from the ground. He gave that impression because he was just so low.
SP: Yeah.
CG: You felt like you were flying that plane you know.
SP: You were so close to the water.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: So —
SP: So do you know who the pilot was who you went with that day?
CG: No.
SP: No.
CG: I’m sorry. I’ve got it down somewhere.
SP: That’s alright. It would be one of the Dambusters guys doing their practice.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: And then we, we had some mishaps, you know.
SP: Ok. Do you want to tell me about any of those? What happened? The mishaps.
GC: Didn’t you say the Lancasters always had, you always thought they had a weak undercarriage and they tended to fold on landing.
CG: Oh yeah.
GC: Yeah. And that made you crash a couple of times didn’t it?
CG: Yeah.
GC: And when you were in the rear turret it meant you were thrown about a lot and you were black and blue.
CG: I finished up in hospital.
GC: You ended up at Blackpool again, didn’t you?
CG: In hospital. Yeah.
GC: In your hospital blue. Bruised. Blues. Said it was with the bruising and got the girl’s attention. He’s a right flirt.
CG: Apparently I finished with [unclear] with everything.
SP: So obviously there was problems with the undercarriage. What other mishaps were there with the other things?
CG: Sorry?
SP: You said there were a few other mishaps. Obviously, the undercarriage issues. Anything else?
CG: Yeah.
GC: Tell you some other bit of mishaps what about when the bombing was worse and you worked for three and a half days without sleep and you had to go and get some more bombs because you ran out.
CG: Oh yeah. At Scampton. We were there.
GC: Waddington.
CG: Waddington. We ran out of bombs so we got a big transport and went from Scampton down to the centre of Lincoln. Down by the cathedral. Pinched the bombs and come back through Lincoln.
SP: With all the bombs [laughs] through the centre of Lincoln.
CG: They acquired these. They were on the, they were loaded on these trailers and we were going back up the hill towards the cathedral. The last bomb, they weren’t bombed up by the way but it could have gone off.
GC: They were unarmed. Yeah.
CG: But it was these so-called mates of mine they were sat on these trailers again. On the wagons, you know. And it was going up the hill and this chap, he kicked the wedge from underneath this bomb and it started rolling from half way up the hill down to the bottom. ‘It’s a bomb. Get off the road,’ It rolled down the road. I can laugh now but —
SP: Some steep hills in Lincoln for that bomb to roll down weren’t there?
CG: It was. You’d have got, first you’d got it was, the bomb more or less rolled, only one road. Wedged it up. What do you call it [unclear] the wedges got thrown off so —
GC: What about the night when there was an attack on the base from German fighters and you digged up that tripod with the Lewis gun?
CG: Well, I mean, the, trying to pick my brains there. I created a Lewis gun which is —
GC: Strapped to the tripod.
CG: Yeah.
GC: To try and get the German.
[pause]
SP: So, you were telling me about the tripod that you made.
CG: It was just, yeah, we put, instead of firing one Lewis gun I put two together. Fired them both together, you know. But and I could, build it around and I got a tripod too. And I got the shock of my life. I was in this, you know. Flight, yeah. I didn’t think that it were about from here to in there.
SP: So about six feet away, yeah.
CG: With this German plane going past I could have shook hands with the bloke. It seemed my impression. And no matter what, everybody said it were me what shot him down.
SP: So, you shot at the plane. Was this a plane coming in strafing the —
CG: Yeah. It were German.
SP: A German one. Just on his own? One or was there more night fighters.
CG: Just one.
SP: One. Right.
CG: Yeah. So afterwards we heard that he’d been shot down. We all claimed it [laughs] And so we all hopped onto transport of all kinds. Went out. [unclear] where I pinched this gun, German gun. Naughty. He shouldn’t do that.
SP: So, you took the gun off the pilot? Yeah. What type of gun was it?
CG: [unclear]
SP: It’s alright. Yeah.
GC: You said before was it a luger. A Luger gun [unclear]
CG: Yeah. It was a Luger.
SP: Yeah.
CG: It was a Luger. I was thinking it was a bigger one but it wasn’t.
SP: So, you took that gun off him and when did you have to give it back. Straight away or —
CG: The civilian — not civilian but our —
SP: Military police.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: They took it off for an enquiry.
SP: So, you lost that.
CG: Yeah.
SP: So, did you get up to any other incidents with your firing or shooting?
GC: Oh, in promotion you were put in charge of the firing range at Scampton weren’t you? Tell them about —
SP: Sorry?
GC: When you got a bit of a promotion you were put in charge of the firing range at Scampton. And you know they had that stockpile of old grenades. Well, tell them what you did with them grenades.
CG: Oh yeah. I mean
GC: Springs had gone weren’t it?
CG: Scampton is an old, you know, well known and —
GC: They were rusty, them grenades. You’re going to knock it off.
SP: So, this pile of grenades Cyril. These were old that were rusty, yeah.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. What did you have to do with them?
CG: Well, they wanted to get rid of them. The idea was to get rid of them anyway. But they were really going off and it’s, the CO said he thought I had to, that there was three grenades and of course I was involved with armaments stuff that were fitted and clearing it. And it were, there were built a pit and I’m stood behind this bloke who happened to be a cook. He come pfft.
SP: So, he pulled the pin out.
CG: He pulled the pin out and threw it at me. Just a silly so and so, you know. Where did it land? Right at my feet. So quick as a flash I dived at it. Knocked him flat on his face. I mean. And it were up in the air and it went off.
SP: So, you kicked the grenade away and it went off.
CG: It was just like that. They put me through for an award but I never. I don’t know what happened [unclear]
[recording paused]
SP: So, Cyril you were saying as well that on one occasion you were issued with a 20mm aircraft cannon. So, do you want to tell me a little bit about that?
CG: Well, I don’t know where they got it from. It were my idea but I mean obviously we had smaller cannon. Like smaller than they have on ships you know. You know they were quite, you know and the thing is the spring on that that type of cannon you see them on the, on the ship. They’re like that.
SP: So, it made you judder. It was really powerful. Yeah. You’re showing me how you were really juddering it. Yeah.
CG: Yeah. So, I told them my bloke’s in charge of them. I said this one is going to vibrate so it’s a long barrel and it’s going to. You’re going to tie a rope around and you go down your side and you were there to hold it down. To, and then keep it down otherwise they’d be all up in the air. It sounds like brrrrr going on the left hand side, let go and it went up in the air straight over. See, there was a bank you were firing in to. But obviously by letting it go that it went up into the air. Anyway, the farmer he was following me, was er, round wondering what was happening, you know. And he was rather uncouth. He was swearing.
SP: So why did the farmer come around?
CG: He saw me, I, me who shot the cow.
SP: So, when the gun went up and it shot over the bank it had killed a cow. So were you in trouble for that or —
CG: I was. Yeah. But we pacified the farmer by volunteer begrudgingly and he obviously did this, and he come and this talk of where it was, he cooked. Cooked. And I said, ‘I can’t eat that. I’ve just shot him,’ and I wouldn’t but some did.
SP: Yeah. So, they actually ate it on base.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. Bring it round. So, you did everyone a favour that day didn’t you? They were getting some nice beef on that day. Yeah.
CG: A favour. There were some remarks about it.
SP: So, what was food like on base generally?
CG: Oh, it were alright because we were well established, you know. We were well doted on. Yeah. It were quite good.
SP: So, would you eat in the mess every day?
CG: No.
SP: No.
CG: No, it were mainly officers.
SP: Right. So, where did you eat during the day then? Was it just —
CG: Just [pause] we had our own place.
SP: Right.
CG: You know.
SP: So was it a hut designed for fitters.
CG: Yeah.
SP: And armourers etcetera. Yeah.
CG: Yeah.
SP: So that’s where you’d see your friends and that.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. So, what did you do on the days when you weren’t working? Did you get days off? What would you do on a day off?
CG: I, one of the chaps he got, he was being moved out of the camp and he had a motorbike. A rather expensive one and he was moving out the same day. Posted somewhere else and he had to get rid of this motorbike. I’d never had one in my life and he had about two hours to sell this. Anyway, it were a nice bike and I bought it for five pound. And I’d never driven a bike in my life, especially one like that. Anyway, I get on. This bloke showed me how to do it. [unclear] The bike were a livewire. You could call it. To go in to the café not café. You know where you eat.
SP: Yeah.
CG: And how am I going to get it to stop? ‘Cause it wasn’t that wide the path. Anyway, without any further ado I thought somebody open the door for me. And they did. I went straight in to the door on this side. Wrapped it up. So, I flogged it to somebody else.
SP: That was the end of your biking days.
CG: Two hours. Two hours I had to, I bought it, sort of thing. I’ve never had one since.
SP: No.
CG: No way.
SP: So, it wasn’t your transport into Lincoln was it, then?
CG: Yeah.
GC: Pushbike instead.
SP: So, yeah, you went on pushbike into Lincoln from then on, did you? You went on pushbike into Lincoln after those days.
CG: After that.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Yeah.
SP: And where did you go in Lincoln? Was there anywhere in particular all the ground crew would go?
CG: Yes. I’d say the ground but officers went there.
SP: Yeah.
GC: Dragging his brains now, trying to remember.
SP: Yeah.
GC: You’ve told me this many times and I’ve forgotten myself dad.
CG: Have you?
GC: That pub in Lincoln. What’s it called? I bet you don’t know.
SP: So, you’d mainly go in to a pub where everybody tended to meet in Lincoln.
CG: Yeah.
SP: So, what was life like in that pub? What’s a typical night like that? Mad?
CG: There might be fifty people.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Yeah. All of them mainly on bikes.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Oh, come on Gillian.
GC: Go on prompting. Put him out of his misery. He don’t know.
[recording paused]
SP: Ok. So, you remember the name of your pub? What was it?
CG: Yeah. This mate of mine. He opened a pub.
SP: And that was the Adam and Eve.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: And he used to bribe some of his mates to stand in for him so he could run his own pub, you know. Without any trouble. And all the officers knew, you know. He said they’re on duty that night but he wanted to be at this pub. So, he would slip, he would slip to, oh dear. So, he’d get as many as, roughly fifty, more sometimes.
SP: Yeah.
CG: I think he made a lot of money. He used to bribe ‘em.
SP: Yeah.
CG: But it were a laugh when we were all in because the roads, they all were on pushbikes on the road that way. All on country roads and it was a laugh were getting your mates on to, on their bike and push them off into it.
SP: So, this was after all the drinking. You’d have to weave your way back on bikes. Yeah.
CG: We had to.
SP: And how far was it? About.
CG: What? Back to camp?
SP: Yeah. About. How far back to camp?
CG: Oh, about seven. Seven, seven miles.
SP: Seven miles is quite a distance to wobble on a bike. Yeah. So, Cyril you were based at Scampton for quite some time with the armoury.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Obviously a key part of checking all those planes ready for the Dambusters raid. And obviously you were there at the time of the Dambusters raid and after and obviously saw Guy Gibson, Barnes Wallis and had actually taken the famous dog for a walk as well. So obviously some really important role, or a really important role by yourself during then. So, once you’d finished at Scampton you then ended up going to Canada. Do you want to tell me a little bit about that?
CG: Well, I was, I knew, it was explained to me that they wanted to destroy — what did they call it? Lease lend. British American stuff. They didn’t want it. They’d lent it to us. We didn’t want it. They didn’t want it. So, they decided all of it but we had the job of destroying it all. It was hundreds of thousands of dollars of [ brute? ] blown up. Everything. All new stuff. They just didn’t want it. We didn’t want it. We had fifteen blokes working. Destroying it, you know. New stuff. Flying jackets. Everything. It were a full time up. It dwindled off finally. You know. Then we started enjoying ourself.
SP: So, where was this? Where were you based? This was in Canada was it? You had to go over to Canada to destroy.
CG: Oh no. In the camp.
SP: In England.
CG: No.
SP: Sorry.
CG: Sorry. It were over there.
SP: Right. So over, yeah.
CG: They took us over there.
SP: So, you went over there to do the destroying and that. Yeah.
CG: Yeah. A base on a Canadian camp. But they had nothing to do with me. I were in sole charge of all, of all the information to me and I decided. The only thing is I were a fitter armourer not a bomb armourer. Things like, I had to fathom it out. Sort it out. How to destroy. Let it burn, burn, burn in big furnaces.
SP: How long were you in Canada for?
CG: I were there ten months.
SP: Ten. Ten months, right.
CG: In that time, I nearly went back because when I got out there it worries you. High up people you know. And as soon as they finished they packed in and went and they left me to look after everything, you know [laughs] Ridiculous.
SP: So, this was at the end of the war obviously.
CG: Yes.
SP: So how did, did you get de-mobbed then or —
CG: No.
[recording paused]
SP: So, Cyril we were just going to talk about your demob but before then we’ll talk a little bit about your time in Canada. So, on your days off I believe you went down to New York?
CG: I went New York, Chicago, Montreal, Nova Scotia. All over. And in New York we found out if you go to this place in New York this person was a multi-millionaire and he, we had it, just two of us being fed. You’ve never seen anything like it. You only see them on telly. All the stairs was divided up and all the gold. This chap a multimillionaire. And it was all genuine and we got it all free for a whole week. And we waited. Waited and everything. There was girls there. This older lady used to come in and she brought these young girls in. ‘Do you want to go anywhere in New York? Just tell me and I’ll get tickets for you.’ We got it, that flat. I’ve never seen in my life a staircase going like that. Just like that.
SP: And that’s just because you were in RAF uniform?
CG: Yeah. Precisely.
SP: Yeah.
CG: [unclear] I mean it was laughable. I’ve got to tell you the bit. These mates that got brought over here I used to say to them, they actually took over a cinema in the camp and this captain used to —
GC: It’s fine.
SP: So —
CG: Yes. She used to come up in a beautiful soft topped thing and I said to these mates of mine, and one said, ‘What’s on tonight?’ I said, ‘What’s on tonight?’ I said, ‘Just come here and look at this. My friends used to come up in a beautiful soft top do, and you only had to go from A to B and the first one comes along and said, ‘Are you English?’ Because the war had finished and they were all, you know, doing. And you were asking me what’s on at night at the pictures. I said, ‘You want an answer do you?’
SP: I believe you saw a few famous people as well while you were there.
CG: Oh, lots of them.
SP: Yeah. Anyone in particular you remember?
CG: Well, Bing Crosby and, he did the abroad. What was it? Bing Crosby. Frank Sinatra. And women. I don’t know I keep losing it. But in fact I’ve got photographs actually somewhere because this is just an hasty look. We’ve got a lot of them.
GC: Yeah. We have.
CG: Yeah. Photos of your time over there in America. Brilliant.
CG: Skated. That was what put me off this because she was so fit. A really fit person. Skated, skied up in the mountains.
GC: Jacqueline.
CG: I saw her, you know. Nice tan on her. And me [laughs]
SP: Yeah. So, whilst you were in New York and you were being treated because of your RAF uniform, in a very special way, you went up the Empire State Building as well.
CG: Oh yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. What was that like?
CG: Oh you know, it had had that fire in there. I think you mentioned it didn’t you? When I had come away from it. And yeah. We came away and we had this, this bloke had a camera.
GC: Telescope.
CG: A telescope. This were about a good mile away.
SP: So, you’d been up the Empire State.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Done all your views, come down and there’d been an incident where a plane had gone in to it.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Yeah. Well, this but was another one.
SP: Right.
CG: The one had already done that one.
SP: Right.
CG: Gone into it. This was another plane.
SP: Right.
CG: We’d come away from it. We’d come down. Come away. And we come across this bloke reporting it, and we asked and he said, ‘Oh there’s a plane crashed into it.’ It were another one. One of our own. A chap and his wife, she’d had to be, they’d had to be gone in to. I can’t believe it. Just think an hour before it could have been us in there.
SP: You’d have been up there. Yeah. Right. So, was this a small plane?
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah.
CG: I forget how much we put in. So many dollars in. It were a few. Crafty this bloke with the telescope.
SP: For people to look. Yeah.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Because there was a report that a B25 Mitchell in the fog had gone into it so obviously —
CG: Yeah.
SP: There were some problems around that time so —
CG: Yeah.
SP: But luckily for you, you were in the right place at the right time then weren’t you and you’d come down.
CG: But she said, [unclear] she laughed, when she looked. I said, ‘Oh no, no you outn’t,’ I said. Yes. Anyway, we got on very well then. She was as bad as Jacqueline which was my girlfriend.
SP: So, Jacqueline was your girlfriend in Canada. Yeah. From the family that were up there.
CG: Yeah. Yeah.
SP: Yeah. So, from, after America and then you went back obviously to and from Canada. You came home via Halifax via Nova Scotia, did you? Talk to me about your journey home from Canada.
CG: Funnily enough, yeah. We were going to fly home but we found out there was that plane, not a plane, a ship.
SP: This boat. The HMS —
CG: Yeah. Leticia.
SP: Leticia, yeah.
CG: That was just coming in. It was hours disembarking. And all them from out of that were from England and they were all women and they all had youngsters. You know. They’d got married over here and they were coming to, to live in Canada with baby.
SP: So, their, their boyfriends or husbands were Canadian.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Or American.
CG: Yeah.
SP: And obviously they’d met in the war, in England
CG: That’s right.
SP: And after the war they were going back to live with the families of their crewmen or army.
CG: Well these were, these were actually coming in.
SP: Yeah. From England. The ladies with their children.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Were coming in to Canada.
CG: Yeah.
SP: To live with the force’s, boyfriends and husbands. Right.
CG: We were just the opposite. They were traded. You know after we got off this, off our boat and they were going in the opposite direction. We were talking to them. Yeah. Where do you live? You know.
SP: So I believe you had some fun getting on your, was it on your train towards the ship. You nearly missed it did you?
CG: How did you know that?
SP: Do you want to tell me a little bit about that then?
CG: He put me off.
SP: Yeah. So, you were going to post a letter and —
CG: Oh yeah.
SP: You nearly missed the, oh you did miss the train, didn’t you?
CG: I did.
SP: So how did you catch it up?
CG: Well there was this taxi bloke he, he said we’ll drive, drop you off. He could see what had happened and he said, ‘I’ll try and catch your train up.’ No chance. Anyway, he dropped me off. Then the train [pause] and then we went about ten miles finding an express train. Anyway, we went to the station. It were only a poky little station. I thought it’s never, it’s never going to stop for me here. Anyway, the station master there was the only bloke I could see, and it were, you know, anyway, so I tried. No. I thought it’s not going to stop for me. Anyway, I thought I’d try. He went past me and nearly run me down in the train. But I got chewed up for that. Stopping an express train.
SP: So, you managed to get on.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Right.
CG: Well, the funny thing was I got on board this ship and one or two of my so-called mates said he’s tried to dodge out. He’s tried. All I wanted was to post this card. I said, ‘I want to post this card.’ ‘No, you can’t. You can’t get off.’ He was stopping me moving. You know, moving.
SP: Yeah.
CG: They were winding me up.
SP: So, you got on. How long did it take to get home? Can you remember how long it took on the ship? To sail.
CG: It were only a small ship that I got.
SP: Yeah.
CG: It were luxury because on board were all these women and girls with babies. They’d, they’d turned over like.
SP: Right.
CG: So, you could just imagine and they had the servants, you know, from here. So, we were, there were only fifteen of us and these blokes, English blokes who were more or less with these beautiful girls who’d come over. They were looking after then. They were looking after us then [laughs] honestly. It were like a cruise. It were beautiful. I know it was only a small ship but beautiful.
SP: So, you docked and then you’d go to your demob. Where were you de-mobbed?
CG: Liverpool. Yes. It be so daft. As a mate got out and he was going back with me. We were only, they were only handfuls. Anyway, he was just, you know like how can I make it right? Anyway, how shall I put it [pause] he could go back to his old trade.
SP: Right. Yeah.
CG: But it was when you go abroad and you have these people, you know checking your clothes and all that. What do you call them?
SP: It was like at immigration.
CG: Yeah.
SP: So you were coming in.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Coming in to immigration. Yeah.
CG: Yeah. But, well we didn’t say anything to this other bloke. There was immigration and we were winding him up. They hadn’t noticed ‘cause he’d got his uniform, you know all were in uniform. All the rest of us, nobody, but he didn’t know. And they got panicking because they’d brought cigarettes.
SP: Oh, so they had the cigarettes on them. Yeah.
CG: Millions of them.
SP: Yeah.
CG: And we passed word to this bloke, ‘You’ll have to watch it, Pat’ ‘Why?’ ‘This bloke’s on board doing —,’ and you know lot of cigarettes, all kind of things.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Anyway, the following morning he’s still on board. He still hadn’t checked up. His old mate was there and he were pulling his leg. He didn’t realise it. And the following morning his best friend were looking for him and the ship weren’t a massive one.
SP: Yeah.
CG: But the bay what it had gone in there were millions of cigarettes in boxes all floating around and what had caused it was this bloke saying, I believe this, what do they call them Gillian?
GC: [unclear]
SP: So, they’d all got wet, the cigarettes then.
CG: Oh yeah. They were all floating.
SP: Floating. So at least he got through immigration alright then. He didn’t get in trouble. So you were de-mobbed then. What did you go on to do after the war?
CG: [Francis. Francis’ at Hollywood.]
SP: Right. And what did they do?
CG: Engineering.
SP: Engineering.
CG: Yeah. Yeah.
CG: Which is what you’d wanted to do originally wasn’t it?
SP: Yeah.
CG: Yeah.
GC: You were a fitter though.
SP: Yeah.
CG: But I finished up inside the, and I also started building these transformers and what have you, massive things.
SP: Yeah.
CG: And I finished up going all over the place. I got married by then.
GC: You went working on ships, didn’t you?
CG: And I then, I was going on ships, planes all over England.
SP: Right.
CG: and Ireland. That were my job.
SP: Yeah.
CG: And I used to go, they used to be at Harland and Wolff’s building ships there and my job was to go out, check it out, making sure. We used to go north of Scotland on trials and stuff.
SP: Right.
CG: A bit different.
SP: So a lot of travelling.
CG: It was.
SP: Yeah.
CG: I used to fly there.
SP: Yeah.
CG: Part of my job.
SP: And is that what you did ‘til you retired then? Worked in engineering and that.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Brilliant. So obviously you worked in engineering until you retired. When you first got back and you were de-mobbed, I think you met your wife quite soon after the war.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Do you just want to tell me a little bit about that?
CG: Well we both liked dancing, you know and doing —
SP: Where did you meet her? Which dance hall did you meet her in?
CG: I forget what it were called but at the stores.
SP: Right. So, in Oldham.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. You met her there.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. Got married soon after.
CG: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. And what was your wife’s name?
CG: [laughs]
SP: And your wife’s name was —?
GC: Nora.
SP: Yeah. Your wife’s name was Nora. Brilliant. So, you met her. I think you told me it was love at first sight wasn’t it? Well Cyril it’s been really a pleasure to interview you today.
CG: Oh it is. I’m not. I’ve been losing it. I have. I can’t —
SP: Well you’ve got some fantastic stories there that we can share with people.
CG: Oh I have my [unclear]. Yeah.
SP: We’ll take you some photographs and I’d just like to thank you on behalf of the International Bomber Command for your time today. So, thank you very much Cyril.
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 Cyril Gosling
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Susanne Pescott
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-07
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. 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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AGoslingC180907
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:21:14 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
Cyril Gosling trained as an armourer at Kirby in Blackpool and was first posted to 49 Squadron where he worked on the guns and turrets. As part of his role he would go on flights in the bombers to check the guns accuracy by firing at drogues. On one occasion they had to make an emergency landing when the engine failed. He often rode on the bomb trolleys on their way to the dispersals.
Cyril was chosen to move to 617 Squadron as an armourer when the squadron formed at RAF Scampton. He met Barnes Wallis and knew Guy Gibson, often taking his dog for a walk. Cyril flew in one of the Lancasters as they carried out a test run over the Derwent Water dam. Cyril's memory of the day of Eder, Möhne and Sorpe operation was marred by a tragic event at the base. His friend had a 'dear John' letter from his girlfriend and took his own life in front of Cyril. After the war Cyril moved to Canada and was involved with the destruction of war equipment not longer needed. He was saddened by the fact that along with armaments, they had to destroy clothing which would have been gratefully received by families in England. During his periods of leave he and fellow RAF colleagues went to New York. They were treated in his words like 'Royalty' and put up in hotels for free and were introduced to Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Cyril also remembers going up the Empire State Building when later the same day a B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into it in during thick fog. Cyril return by Ship to England in September 1946.
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Great Britain
United States
England--Lincolnshire
Illinois--Chicago
New York (State)--New York
Illinois
New York (State)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
49 Squadron
58 Squadron
617 Squadron
animal
bomb trolley
civil defence
crash
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
ground personnel
Home Guard
Lancaster
Manchester
RAF Kirkham
RAF Scampton
service vehicle
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1100/11559/PRobsonJ1601.2.jpg
19e258c9684c390b15fb2ac64bac2a12
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1100/11559/ARobsonJ161121.1.mp3
75e8aed1b35d8fc10b572554cedd1c2d
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
Robson, Jack
J Robson
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. An oral history interview with Jack Robson (b. 1923, 10589943 Royal Air Force) and his training notebooks. He was a searchlight and radar specialist.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jack Robson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Robson, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SC: So that should now be recording. So, I can see that the levels are ok. So, we’re here on the, it’s the 21st of November today.
JR: Is it?
SC: It is.
JR: Oh dear.
SC: It’s the 21st of November. I’m with Jack Robson in your home with your daughter Marion. And I’m the interviewer, Steve Cooke, today. So, thank you first of all for inviting me into your house to hear your story. And you just tell me anything you can about first of all where you grew up and what you did as a —
JR: I’m a local fella.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I was born in born in Bulwell actually.
SC: Right.
JR: And then I lived much of my life in Netherfield. Married a Gedling girl. Lived in Gedling. And we moved here in ’54 and been here every since. And my wife died. How long? Its fourteen years now isn’t it? Coming up.
Other: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: St Valentine’s Day. Yes.
SC: Right. Yeah.
JR: Yeah. And I’ve been here sort of ever since.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And where am I?
SC: Did you have an interest in searchlight radar? Or —
JR: No. No. No.
SC: No
JR: I was called up and I —
SC: When? When were you called up?
JR: ’41.
SC: ’41. So quite early in the —
JR: Yeah. Well —
SC: Yeah. Fairly early.
JR: And, and I, I went in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. I, I finished in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and I asked to go into radar. It was called radio location then.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And, and we’d heard about it. Of course we knew nothing about it. What’s this? Of course the Germans would know about it so.
SC: Yeah.
JR: They — and I had to listen and I got, I went on a course and I learned radio work. And then radar as it became. Called radar.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And what I, I did several but the one I was particularly on because I worked on it was searchlight control. SLC. Or as they called it, ‘the girlfriend. Elsie.’
SC: Oh right. Yeah.
JR: Elsie. SLC — Searchlight Control. And, and it was a radar that controlled, well, used it for the searchlights.
SC: Yes.
JR: And it was one of these amazing things. You see you’d be following an aeroplane with searchlights, with the radar and for instance it may be low down and when it comes above — I can’t remember now what the figure was but probably fourteen degrees or something like that.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Above. Above level number five. There was, there were five switches on. It got the —
SC: Yeah.
JR: Big switch on the right hand side the searchlight.
SC: Yes.
JR: And he sees the pointer going around. Pointing at them. Also the elevation. It’s above angle and number one, the commander of the —
[knock on door. Recording paused]
JR: Well, we’ll say exposed and like pull the lever like you’d expect.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And invariably the radar’s been following it. Invariably the aeroplane’s in the beam.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Beautiful. Perfect.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And of course they, they used it actually for, one time they needed to expose to sight aeroplanes with searchlights for the gunners to fire. But the guns had radar themselves so they didn’t need it. But the searchlights were used for, used with aeroplanes.
SC: Right.
JR: Fighter aircraft. And so you, you, as I say you exposed on to enemy aircraft and lit them up and then they were attacked by, you hoped by —
SC: Yes.
JR: By fighters. Yeah. I never saw it happen but that’s what it’s supposed to.
SC: Yes. Did you train locally?
JR: No. No. No. Where did I go? I did my basic radar work in, radio work in Glasgow. And then I went to Bury where I learned the radar.
SC: Right.
JR: And —
SC: How long did that take?
JR: Oh. Five months.
SC: Five months.
JR: I think I was five months in Glasgow learning the basics. And then I had two months in Bury doing searchlight control. LW Light Warning. You know. Various radar systems.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But searchlight control and, and as I say I was on searchlights. I, I was in Devon. Clovelly was the troop headquarters of A troop of the 469 Battery of the regiment was raised in searchlights. But, well the reason they were Royal Engineers but they became part of Royal Artillery and they were, they were mostly Territorials.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Territorial Army.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And so the local Territorial battalion or whatever would be. Some of them would be searchlight.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I think number [pause] the local ones, the Sherwood Foresters. I think the Robin Hoods are the 5th. Is it the 5th? The Sherwood Foresters was the, was the Territorial —
SC: Yes.
JR: Battalion of the regiment.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And they were searchlights too.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. At, where was — I was —
SC: You’d done your training first in Glasgow. And then in Bury.
JR: And then in Bury. Yeah. And then I was posted to — well actually to the 2nd ack ack Workshops at Callington in Cornwall.
SC: Right.
JR: And I went down there and straight away I was posted to the 469 Battery which was, the headquarters were at Holsworthy in Devon. And I went with, off to the A Troop. The headquarters was at Clovelly.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Right.
SC: You know.
JR: Just on the coast.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. And I was at Clovelly but I had sites at, oh God places dotted over.
SC: Yeah.
JR: About a half a dozen sites with A Troop.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I used to look after the radar on there you see. And quite interesting. I —
SC: So what was your day to day life like?
JR: Well —
SC: Operating the —
JR: I would go around and do maintenance on the sets and things like that. Then there was, I remember, I remember — oh right, here’s one. I remember I was having my hair cut.
SC: Right.
JR: One of the lads was cutting my hair.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And of course it’s in daylight and still daylight but getting evenings. They stand to you see.
SC: Yeah.
JR: In other words they, they parade and, and they go through the motions and work the searchlight and all the rest of it ready for any action and apparently something got, went wrong because they found this out at a site and they rang up. I think, I think it was telephone. There was a wireless or there was telephone connections.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And they rang up and I with half my hair done answered the telephone and to-ing and fro-ing with this and sorted what the trouble out. I actually sorted it out over the telephone.
SC: Over the telephone.
JR: Yeah. They, and they, they told me the symptons of what was wrong and I said, ‘Oh. Has the drill sergeant been out today?’ Pause. ‘Yes as a matter of fact’ I said, ‘Did he take the cover off the receiver?’ Pause. Because we’re not supposed to. ‘Yes.’ And this, this thing is, it’s in a steel box and there’s a, well a primary sleeve comes out. You put your hand in —
SC: Yeah.
JR: And you can operate the gate control and the what not on the, in the set.
SC: Yes.
JR: But that’s all you can do.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But you can take the box off and get at it you see.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I said, ‘has the drill sergeant been? And he’s opened it?’ ‘Yeah. Yes.’ Reluctantly it came out. I said, ‘Well, if you look in you’ll find that a plug marked DR will not be in properly.’
SC: Right.
JR: And, and of course the set was a distance away. And he come back and he said, ‘You’re a blooming marvel,’ He said, ‘This thing wasn’t pushed it in. He put it and everything worked perfectly.
SC: Wow.
JR: And they thought I was marvellous.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And it was one of the simplest forms that you could imagine.
SC: Yeah.
JR: You know. But they, but my, my fame — not fame. My —
SC: Yeah.
JR: Soared you know. They thought I was great.
SC: Yes. Your status. Yeah.
JR: Oh yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yes. But I think I was the first to see Window.
SC: Oh right.
JR: I may. I may be kidding myself here.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But we’d heard about it.
SC: Yeah.
JR: We got the name Window.
SC: Yeah.
JR: You know what I’m talking about.
SC: I do. The chaff. I’m just going to put that down like that.
JR: Yes. That’s what they called it. Yes.
SC: Yes.
JR: Well, we’d heard about it and I was stationed at the time. I was stationed in Norfolk.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I’ll tell you where. I was stationed with, funnily enough I was with the 469 Battery in, in Devon.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And they were raised in East Ham. And in Norfolk I was with the 47 Battery. 470 Battery. Raised in West Ham. And it contained practically the whole of West Ham football team.
SC: Wow.
JR: Oh they were football mad. Oh. And oh yes it was. They called me out. I was, I was sleeping actually. They woke me up. They were working and they said, ‘We’ve got — something’s daft.’ And I went and had a look at it and the radar was just one mass of [unclear] You know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Just a green. I said, ‘You know what this is don’t you? You’ve trained it. You’re all —’ ‘What is it?’ ‘It’s Window.’ And I think it was the first occasion that the Germans used it.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I think probably I was the first person to see it.
SC: Wow.
JR: And that was in Norfolk actually. Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And it was Window. And they went into the action the, how you deal with Window and all the rest of it.
SC: And how do you deal with it?
JR: Well, you can’t actually because the radar is just picking up all these little bits.
SC: All the, yeah
JR: You just can’t. You, there are various things one can do. I mean, for instance the original jamming what they did is they picked up the radar signals and they broadcast on the same frequency from a set. The same frequency as the previous, so instead of getting the beep on your radar set you got just a mass of —
SC: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: But we worked out a system. Pressed the switch and JL it was. Anti-jamming. And actually you got a better signal. You only got that one signal.
SC: Right.
JR: From, from that that particular aeroplane.
SC: Wow.
JR: So, it didn’t work really did it? Really.
SC: No.
JR: But with Window what can you do with that?
SC: Yeah.
JR: Little bits of metal. Aluminium foil and there were just aeroplanes all over the show.
SC: Yeah. Yes.
JR: And I said, ‘It’s Window. Do you know what you do now?’ ‘Ah,’ but it, I think it was the first time they’d done anything.
SC: They’d seen —
JR: The first time I’d seen. And I think it was probably the first time it was used in this country.
SC: Right.
JR: And I was probably the first to spot it. I don’t know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I may be kidding myself there.
SC: And that would have been 1941 or 1942.
JR: Oh no. It would be ’43.
SC: ’43.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SC: So how long were you at Clovelly?
JR: Only months. And then I went, I went on a course and when I got back I found my, my company was in Callington but they’d provided these various batteries with people.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I was one. So when I got back I’d been replaced of course. And I got, went to another Battery. 335 Battery at [pause] where was 335 Battery?
SC: Was it still in Devon?
JR: Yeah. But South Molton.
SC: South Molton.
JR: That was it. Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Oh yeah. South Molton. Yeah.
Other: Dad you started as a, as a Home Guard.
JR: Oh, I was a Home Guard for a year before I went in the army. Yeah.
SC: Right. Tell us a little bit about that.
JR: Oh. Well, 1940 I was [pause] no I was seventeen in ‘40, I was seventeen and late May came. And we got all the tools and the Germans ran over us in France. Belgium and France and whatnot. And Holland. And, and Dunkirk happened and all the rest of it. Oh dear. And I’ll tell you this. I don’t know what it’s worth but we were in dire trouble. We’d been beaten. Kicked out of the continent. Dunkirk had happened and all the rest of it. But people still thought we’d win the war.
SC: Yes.
JR: You know. I can’t. There was no [pause] yeah. Yeah.
SC: No question.
JR: No. No. No. It was we’d go on and win the war.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And anyway where was I?
SC: Joining the Home Guard.
JR: Oh yes. The, the, there was all the troubles and what not and Anthony Eden broadcast on the wireless broadcast and he said we’re forming this. Calling it the Local Defence Volunteers.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And he said we want men between the ages of seventeen and sixty to apply at the police stations and join. So I rushed up to the police station and there was a crowd of other people there and the policeman comes in, ‘What’s going on?’ He had no idea of course. So he said ‘Well, I’ll get your names.’ Got a sheet of paper out and got the names. We became the Local Defence Volunteers. Later called the Home Guard. And we were, I think we could be quite be effective. We were obviously, people don’t realise that they’d, we’d be mopped up by a determined enemy. I mean a disciplined force would soon sort us out. But of course you’d delay them.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And in a war delay is dangerous.
SC: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: And so it did matter. But anyway —
SC: That was local was it?
JR: Oh yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. And I was in that for a year before I went in the army myself then.
SC: And did you train quite regularly?
JR: Oh yes. Yeah. Oh yes. And uniformed and all the rest of it. Yes.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And my first uniform was an armband [laughs]
SC: Yeah.
JR: But then we got, we did get uniform then proper.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And armed too. We got armed with American rifles.
SC: Right.
JR: .303. Three hundred. .300 rifles.
SC: Right.
JR: Similar to British P-14s. They were called P-17s and they fired, as I say .300 rimless cartridges. Yeah. So we had those and we [pause] well we’d have delayed the enemy. That said we would have done the job. And then I got called into the army.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I was, I finished up in the Ordnance Corps and trained to be a radar man. Which we didn’t call it radar then. It was radio location.
SC: Yes.
JR: But [pause] and, and I particularly did searchlight control and light warning in [pause] where did we do that? That was in Bury.
SC: Yeah.
JR: In Lancashire.
JR: And I was, I was posted to the second. The 2nd Anti-aircraft Workshop at Callington in Cornwall. And when I got there I was only there hours and I was packed off to be the resident at the 469 Battery. ‘A’ troop headquarters at Clovelly.
SC: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: And I was there for some while. Some months. Saw a bit of action there and whatnot. But —
SC: Tell me about the action that you saw there.
JR: Well, one of the actions was there was a dinghy. Aircraft in the, from an aircraft in the sea off Hartland and they, they had the searchlight on it all through the night.
SC: Right.
JR: Until they could be rescued. And, and I know that the searchlight at Hartland it wasn’t on the point exactly but it was near there. The searchlight. And it, it lit up the dingy until they could be rescued.
SC: Right.
JR: And I know that they ran out of [pause] you know searchlights is it’s an arc lamp.
SC: It’s an arc. Yeah.
JR: And I think, is it the negative pole burns down?
SC: Yes. One of them does.
JR: You have to wind it up.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And actually there’s an automatic one. It, you know feeds up.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But they ran out of carbons to burn them out. So they had to fetch a fresh lot, you know.
SC: A fresh lot of —
JR: Yeah.
SC: Rush them out to them because they were using them up.
JR: Yeah.
SC: Keeping these people illuminated.
SC: Because they would last about two hours I read somewhere.
JR: I don’t know how long they’d last now.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But, but they get used up.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And they had to send some out especially, you know. There was no emergency because they said, ‘We’re running out of carbons, send some more,’ you know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And someone would go out. No bother. But because they were using them up because they were illuminating these people.
SC: All night.
JR: All night. Yeah.
SC: Did they rescue them?
JR: Oh they rescued them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: It took a while.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And, yeah I remember that happening. Yeah.
SC: And was it in Clovelly that you, you did the, you were telling me earlier about the lights of the day and the verey lights. And you —
JR: Oh yes. That’s everywhere you see.
SC: You did that everywhere.
JR: What happens is they — every day a searchlight detachment. A dispatch rider would come by motorbike and give you the slip of paper which was the letters of the day and each hour they changed. The combination changes you know. Red, yellow, blue, green, white.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And no black [laughs]
SC: No.
JR: And these these these would be fired out of the aeroplane.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And they’d let you know they wanted help with the homing beam. And your homing beam was your, your searchlight was always pointing at the — you’d leave it so that the searchlight is pointing at some special place.
SC: Yeah.
JR: As I say when I was at Devon it was Chivenor which was the local aerodrome.
SC: Aerodrome.
JR: Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And what happens is the man on the lug arm which was, as you know a number four. He [pause] three times like that.
SC: Make it go up and down. Yeah.
JR: Then lays it not, not horizontal but close to horizontal.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Pointing for then, you know after a half minute does it again.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And of course the others are doing it so the aircraft knows he’s got to go there.
SC: Yeah.
JR: There would be help there. You know.
SC: Yes.
JR: But and I remember the first thousand bomber raid and apparently they sent everything over and stuff coming back had got no navigation equipment and all the rest of it.
SC: Yeah.
JR: There was no end of appeals for homing beams.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And the RAF always insisted that pilots who have asked for help must go around and thank the —
SC: The searchlight crew.
JR: Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And the searchlight crews obviously entertained them. Gave them tea.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And of course as one was, as one crew was, aircrew was going out another one was coming in because there were so many that had been helped and they ran out of tea, I know. But the army rose to the occasion and there was extra tea ration.
SC: More tea.
JR: And all was well but that’s how things were you know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And of course because the RAF insisted every aeroplane that is, that is helped the crew goes around and thanks.
SC: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: The result that the men on the ground know that this is vital.
SC: Yes.
JR: And we used to be in competition. If, see the letters of the day come down. Then the sentry on duty at night he hammers on the hut which wakes the Number 5 been designated and he’s still dressed. He’s asleep in bed.
SC: But dressed.
JR: But dressed.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And number 9. The sentry then hammers on the hut, wakes him up and rushes off to the Lister or whatever it is. The Lister generator.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And Swings it. Gets it going.
SC: Yeah.
JR: It’s a hundred yards away. And number 5 gets out. Whoever’s been designated number 5 gets up and he’s dressed. And he goes out to the Lister’s working, switches on and it’s always pointing. Left pointing at the —
SC: At the aerodrome.
JR: And so it gives the homing beam.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And the aeroplane said thank you very much and off he goes, you see.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And it works.
SC: It works.
JR: Oh yeah. Yeah. And of course it works because the crew come around. They say, ‘Thank you ever so —'
SC: Yeah.
JR: ‘You were a great help.’
SC: Yeah.
JR: And —
SC: I’m sure that saved many lives.
JR: Oh yeah. I’m sure it did.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I’m sure. Yeah. Yeah. Because apparently the thousand bomber raids were, I won’t say we were particularly but going out in to the Atlantic having flown over Britain you know, didn’t know where they were.
SC: Really.
JR: Because Britain was black.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I mean everywhere. People won’t realise this but there was black out and —
SC: It really meant completely black.
JR: It was dark. Oh God. You could get lost.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Oh you could.
Other: Did you fetch them back out of the Atlantic then?
JR: Beg your pardon?
Other: Did you fetch them back from —
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Apparently they were going, flying over Britain, ‘Come on back here. This is the way.’ And it worked. Simple system but it worked.
SC: Yeah. Simple but it worked.
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: So how many were there in a searchlight — do you call it a team or a battery? Or a —
JR: It’s a detachment.
SC: A detachment.
JR: And the detachment, a searchlight detachment is usually twelve men. It varies. And of course everybody could do everybody’s job.
SC: Yeah.
JR: You know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But they have a normal operation. They, they had the specified job.
SC: Yeah.
JR: So number was the detachment commander. What’s number two? God. Two and three. Four. What’s number four? Number four’s on the lug arm —
SC: Right.
JR: This is on the left of the searchlight.
SC: Yeah.
JR: See, I met two kinds of searchlight. The ninety centimetre and the hundred and fifty. And the hundred and fifty was mounted on. And was usually mobile.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Funny story about that [pause] I was — the searchlight it’s, you know it’s got to move up and down like that.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And it turns around. Now, there is a device on it. It’s a piece that’s loose. It’s fastened but loosely to the chassis. And it comes up and it fits. Fits around the pin on the searchlight. Put a pin in. And it holds the searchlight. I forgot to put it in and climbed on top of the searchlight and it tilted. Push it in, it’s a hell of a height. And I, and I hung on to the radar aerials. The radio aerials.
SC: Yeah.
JR: The jagis and hung on and she tipped up completely. And I found myself hanging there and on the end about eighteen inches off the ground and I just dropped off.
SC: Right. Just dropped down.
JR: But it’s quite a height. It’s — but when it swung over I was alright because I was hanging on. But I never did that mistake again.
SC: Yeah. No.
JR: Make sure you’ve —
SC: You’ve put the pin in.
JR: The pin in. Yeah. Yeah. And —
SC: So did you have a specialist job in that team? What number were you?
JR: I wasn’t in it. No.
SC: No. You were —
JR: I was just the radar mechanic.
SC: You were the radar mechanic.
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Right.
JR: And I had —
SC: Yeah.
JR: I was with the, usually in the back with the troop headquarters.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I went out to them.
SC: Oh you went to lots of different ones.
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I’m trying to think of things that, that happened there. Yes. I remember as I say once we got trouble. As I was having my hair cut. I remember I was having my hair cut. I got half way through it and I’d got to go on the telephone. A the field telephone it was.
Other: I think you’ve already had that story.
JR: Have I told it? Oh God. I get like that.
SC: That’s, that’s when you thought you were a superstar.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Because you got that. You knew how to fix it.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. It worked very well that did.
SC: Yeah.
JR: My reputation soared.
SC: Yes.
Other: Dad. Dad. You know you went to Glasgow. You were telling me a bit of a story about the landladies there.
JR: Landladies?
Other: Yeah. And how you got kicked out of a, out of a boarding house because some others would pay more money.
JR: Oh yeah. Yeah. That was it. We were in civvy digs in Glasgow. Me and another. Actually a Nottingham fellow.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Excuse me.
SC: Do you remember whereabouts in Glasgow?
JR: Yeah. Because many years later we went on holiday in Scotland and we were on a bus trip and we went down and I said, ‘We’re on Great Western Road.’ And we came down. I said, ‘I lived there. In that,’ and I pointed at the window of the room that I was in.
SC: Yeah. And what road was that?
JR: We were coming down Great Western Road.
SC: Great Western Road.
JR: And the street we were on was Rupert Street and we were number 5 so it was at the end. Of course all apartments you know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I said, ‘There’s my window. My bedroom window,’ as we went by.
SC: And then what happened? You got —
JR: Oh yeah.
SC: You were in civvy.
JR: Well what happened is that we used to go [pause] we were, were as I say in civvy digs and we’d got training at [pause] actually it was in the Electrical Trades Institute where were going to lectures. But we were being trained and we used, we used to go back. Me and Ken. He was a Nottingham lad. Came from off Derby Road. He [pause] he and I used to go back to our digs for a mid-day meal.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Very good it was. They were good digs they were. But when we were having them there was also a couple of sergeants came and had their meal as well. And our landlady found that these sergeants were in digs with a friend of hers which is why she had them for the mid-day meal.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And the sergeants would give the landlady a few shillings out of their own pocket. Apart from what the army paid.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And of course we didn’t. And she thought she’d rather have these sergeants. So, I don’t know what happened but, but we were hustled out and, and in trouble for it. I don’t know why. But we were in trouble for it.
SC: Right.
JR: Oh no. It didn’t matter much. I mean nothing, nothing untoward but —
SC: Yeah.
JR: But we went into, well compared with them they were terrible digs actually but it just shows you how it can be.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But you survive.
SC: And what kind of training did you do in Glasgow?
JR: Well, we did the basic. It was the basic. Teaching people. First of all they had to teach some arithmetic and stuff like that. And mathematics.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And there was, and then there was electrical stuff. All manner of electrical stuff.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But it was basically electrical stuff and you had civilian lecturers and what not. And then we went to an army school and I went to one in Bury. In Lowercroft Camp, Bury and we learned the radar there.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I did searchlight control and light warning.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And with the result that when I was posted from there I went to a search, to an ack ack company that dealt with searchlights.
SC: Yeah.
JR: So I was on searchlights.
SC: Yes.
JR: And I was [pause] I was with the 469 Battery and then I went. I went to Leicester on a course. When I got back I found I’d been transferred to the 335 Battery which was near South Molton.
SC: Yeah.
JR: In Devon.
SC: Yeah.
JR: The same regiment actually. And then I went on, went on another course and back to Bury and had a course there. And found out I’d been transferred from the 2nd ack ack company at Cannington to one at Norwich.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And when I went there I was posted out to a site at East Walton in Norfolk. On the King’s Estate in Sandringham.
SC: Oh right. Yeah.
JR: And it, well. Sorry. No, that’s not. No. No. And that was a troop headquarters again and one of my sites that I had was on the King’s Estate.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Sandringham.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I looked after searchlights there, you see. For a while. And that was interesting because the site I was on was actually American. American equipment, Sperry.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Quite different. And all the instructions were in French.
SC: Right. Why would it be in French?
JR: Because it had been ordered by the Americans err by the French from America.
SC: From America.
JR: But of course it had been intercepted when France fell.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And, and we took it on, you see.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But as I say everything, what was it, the petrol was l’essence. You know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: When you had to put petrol in and all the rest of it. But —
SC: Petrol in the generator. Yeah.
JR: Yeah. When it worked.
SC: Yeah.
Other: Is that where you lived in a stable?
JR: No. No. No. We lived in a Nissen hut.
Other: But you did live in a place where there was —
JR: Well, yes. I was at Chepstow. In this, on the racecourse there.
SC: Right.
JR: Used to run around the racecourse and beat any horse [laughs] Yeah.
SC: So you did proper army fatigues.
JR: Oh yeah. Yeah.
SC: And training.
JR: Really fit.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah.
SC: Yeah. And that was at Chepstow and you were actually in more or less stable.
JR: Oh. In the stables.
SC: In the stables.
JR: Billeted in the stables. It was interesting because the stables had wooden partitions when we started but they finished because we had stoves but we ripped the wooden partitions out to burn them.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. It was winter. It was cold. But yeah.
SC: And do, do you remember any other incidents with the radar? Because it was a lot of American bases in East Anglia.
JR: Well, as I say I was in East Anglia [pause] And then I, and then I was posted to Hucknall wasn’t I? Yeah.
SC: So how long did you stay around Norwich and in Norfolk?
JR: Oh only months.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I remember going on [pause] I didn’t have the same leave as the, as the Royal Artillery members you see.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And because I, I mean I had to be replaced by another person before I wanted leave.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And so I remember going. Having a weekend leave. Just a weekend. And I got back on Sunday night and I had to walk from King’s Lynn to East Walton where my headquarter — I don’t know. About fifteen miles I think it was.
SC: Gosh.
JR: Something like that. And I remember it so well because something’s going on. I stopped. Somebody, somebody following me.
SC: Right. Yeah.
JR: And when I got to, back to the head, to the troop headquarters where I was stationed it was a local bobby. And he’s followed me. And he said, and I’d been handed over by another and the bobbies were in the background. I didn’t know. I got the, there was somebody there. Someone following. But it was a bobby.
SC: Just checking up on you.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: What am I up to?
SC: Yeah.
JR: At, you know, I think it was about two or something like that in the morning.
SC: Yeah.
JR: What am I up to?
SC: Yeah.
JR: They didn’t interfere but they —
SC: No.
JR: But they were there.
SC: Yes.
JR: You know, you think to yourself my God. Because some of them. I remember at that place there was a local bobby came and told one of them off. He’d been, he’d spotted a wounded pheasant and he was after it. But the local land owner had also known about it and he was, and they came face to face. So he said, ‘What’s your name,’ and all the — and the local bobby came. He said, ‘He’ll be delighted that you’d told him the truth of where you were and all the rest of it, and I’ll go back and report to him. He’d be delighted that you’d done so.’
SC: Yeah.
JR: And he said, ‘Now look. If you’re doing poaching this is how you do it,’ [laughs] and he gave him a lecture in how to poach.
SC: How to poach.
JR: [laughs] The local bobby. Oh dear.
SC: Yeah.
JR: That was at East, I was stationed at East Walton then.
SC: Yeah.
Other: You weren’t always in this country though were you?
JR: Beg your pardon?
Other: You weren’t always in this country were you?
JR: Oh no. No. No. I went to India.
SC: How did that come about?
JR: Well, I said can I serve abroad?
SC: Yeah.
JR: I don’t know how they deal with it but eventually, I was stationed at Hemel Hempstead at the time and eventually I was posted back to my [pause] I was temporarily attached to the 24th or was it the 15th Workshop in Northampton. And then they moved to Hemel Hempstead. I was at Hemel Hempstead. In the workshops there. We were opposite Brocks Fireworks. The little huts where, you know trenches and huts.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Everything was very separate, you know. You were —
SC: Yeah.
JR: If you had an explosion they’d just blow.
SC: One small —
JR: One small place and only one person.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And they were opposite. And they were always banging and there was fireworks going off all the time and they were working with fireworks that we used in the services you know.
SC: Yes.
JR: Things like that. But they were banging and shouting all the time with them. Rather — when we were in Northampton we were next door to a factory that made Sten guns.
SC: Right.
JR: So we’d always hear Sten guns firing all the time.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Oh dear.
SC: So you went from Hemel Hempstead and that’s when you went over to India.
JR: Yeah. Yeah, well I was posted back to my Workshop which was at Arminghall in [pause] next to Norwich and then I found several of us had been posted to Hucknall actually of all places. Hucknall.
SC: Just up the road.
JR: And we were in a unit that were destined for overseas. And we, we got together. Formed a new unit. 469 ABS. Advanced Base Workshops. And we, we were in, in Hucknall for some weeks. You know, messing about. Playing about.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And then we were all loaded on to a train. We finished up at Gourock. On board a ship. And then the next thing we — oh God. Cold. Back up to the Arctic Circle and away in the mid-Atlantic. You know. In a convoy.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And then we sailed. Went to India.
SC: So what route did you take to get to India? You went on a troop ship was it? Or a —
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Yeah. So you went out into the Atlantic.
JR: Yeah.
SC: And then down.
JR: And we went to Gibraltar.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Got in to Gibraltar. I think we took oil on at Gibraltar. And then we went down to Africa, around Africa and over to India.
SC: Oh you went all the way down.
JR: Oh, the Med would be out of the question at that time.
SC: Of course.
JR: Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Although, I think they did clear it finally.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But we and we went, sailed to India. Called in at Bombay. “Welcome to India but mum’s the word.” You know, six foot high letters on the big warehouse. “Welcome to India but mum’s the word.”
SC: “Mum’s the word.” Wow.
JR: Yeah. You know. You remember that.
SC: So you got to Bombay. And then where did you go from there?
JR: We went to a place called [unclear] That was a, I suppose a transit camp of some kind. And that was interesting. Talk about futility. I was, I was given a duty. There were four of us. We were taken by lorry out into a desert. And there was a basha which is, it’s just pillars with a roof. No, no walls. And on it was a, and it was an iron stove. And alongside there was this tower, wooden tower about thirty feet high I should imagine with a ladder. And it was a top and six eight foot square. Like a boxing ring. And you climbed it and you were there and you were a fire guard. But we had no communication. We had, didn’t even have a flag let alone telephone or wireless or anything. And no transport. We were taken out there by a lorry. Dropped. And there was a man cooked food on the stove and then got on his bike and went somewhere. [unclear] And you could see lights in the far distance from some arrangement or other. But there was nothing. And how we got in touch with people I don’t know. It was just one of those futile, futile things.
SC: And what was your job?
JR: Just to look. See there were no fires about.
SC: Right.
JR: Well what was on fire in the desert I don’t know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: We could see tents in the defence. And — [laughs]
SC: Yeah. And how long did you do that for?
JR: That was just a night.
SC: Just a night.
JR: That was.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But we were there before we went to, we went to, Bangalore was our station then. That was nice in Bangalore.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Camped on the polo ground.
SC: Right. Wow. And what did you do there?
JR: Nothing really. It was just, we were just there. It’s the old, old business that sometimes there’s nothing doing but the fact that you’re there.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I always remember a friend of mine was [pause] he was called up and he did his training in the air force and then they kept him on for about an extra six months.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But it was the [pause] was it the Suez Crisis or something? About 1950 or something like that.
SC: The early ‘50s. Yeah.
JR: And he said, he said, ‘We were there doing nothing.’ Like this. I said, ‘You were there.’
SC: Yeah.
JR: Which is better than being at home and all the rest of it. You’re —
SC: Yeah.
JR: You’re mobilised ready.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Whatever may come, you know. But I mean he was there languishing. Doing nothing. What he thought.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But of course he’s, he’s mustered ready.
SC: Yeah.
JR: You know. He’s available.
SC: Yes.
JR: When you’re at home you’re hardly available are you?
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. But yeah.
SC: So how did you get on with the food in India? In Bangalore.
JR: Oh we had, we had British food mostly.
SC: Right. And did you have, have your own charwallah?
JR: Oh yeah. We — when we were in India there was four of us in a tent. Big tent. Four, four charpoys. Charpoys are beds.
SC: Yeah.
JR: They’re just this wooden frame on wooden legs and rope. Criss cross rope. You know. Diamonds. Criss cross across.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And then some up to form a pillow kind of thing. And four of these in the tent and we were the, on the end line, second from the top and it was a bit of a hill. And I remember the rain came. We’d got to dig trenches. Oh that was hard going. It was hard. Bit of a job. Gave it up, you know. We were lying on the bed. A bit of a rain. And then we were lying on the bed in the afternoon and hearing shouts and curses. Looked out and we were at the top. We were second row down. The end one. And the ground sloped away. And down below there were men working like mad digging trenches because the place was flooded.
SC: Because it was flooded.
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: So they tried to divert the rainwater.
JR: I, and I remember, I tell people and we were in a little tent. Two of us. And we’d got a double charpoy and the top bunk was only about this high. The bottom one down there. You know. Just room.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And both men lying on top of the, with all their kit because the tent was underwater. Well, the water was, when you looked out you see just see nothing but water. No land at all. You see people could, I know it’s only about eighteen inches deep but they’re you know in dips. People could easily get drowned, you know.
SC: Yeah. So this must have been during the monsoon.
JR: Monsoon. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. But — yeah.
SC: Do you remember anything else that happened whilst you were in Bangalore?
JR: Not really. I remember taking part in a, in a cross country run.
SC: Yeah.
JR: About three or four miles. I did quite well in it. We left the Americans standing. They were fat.
SC: Well, that’s [laughs] stayed the same then.
JR: Yeah. But the Nigerians beat us.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Oh God, they could run.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I had great fun.
SC: Yeah. And did you actually do a radar mechanic job whilst you were there?
JR: No.
SC: No.
JR: It’s the old old business. The army has a schedule. A unit has this. And one of them is to have two radar mechanics for this and you make up the numbers. And you find out there’s no equipment like that. There’s no equipment like that in India. The whole of India.
SC: Right.
JR: So what job have you got?
SC: Yeah.
JR: And eventually I found myself running the workshop control.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Because not knowing the job and I I found myself in this job running the workshop. Well, when I say running the workshop I mean the control of work through it.
SC: Yeah. So what did that, what did you do for that?
JR: Well, people would come in. Want this job doing.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And you know, someone, the Royal Engineer’s would have a pump and it’s you know the bearings shot or something like that so we would fix it up with bearings.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And give that back to them. And then I would see, they’d come to me first and, just to do the — and I don’t know. So it gets —
SC: Completed.
JR: Completed properly.
SC: And fixed.
JR: And you’re in control —
SC: Yeah.
JR: Of it you know. You know what’s happening.
SC: Yeah.
[Doorbell. Recording paused]
SC: Anywhere from Bangalore in India or did you stay there?
JR: Well, I went to Madras.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And places, villages, you know between Bangalore and Madras. And then the war ended.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And we found ourselves off to Singapore.
SC: Right.
JR: So I finished up in Singapore.
SC: So this was when the war ended.
JR: Yeah.
SC: Against — in Europe.
JR: Yeah. But then ended some months later against Japan.
SC: Against Japan.
JR: Yeah. And we were, we were preparing for the war like invasion of Malaya.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And we were water-proofing everything to make a landing in Malaya. I presume it was Malaya anyway.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And we did actually make a landing in Malaya. More or less as planned.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I think. And I finished up at Singapore in Malaya. I was there for about a year actually.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I worked out the [pause] I did actually. Yes. Worked out the workshop arrangements and did, did well like that.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah.
SC: And you were there for a year in Singapore.
JR: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Just about a year we were there.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Then I came home. I came home to —
SC: How did you get back home? Also on a ship?
JR: Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: We were, we were on the, sorry we were on the ship called the Andes. The south, it was the Royal Mail Line down to normally between Southampton and South America. But it was a hired trooper you know. We were, we were on the, on the Andes. And she made a splendid trip back from — about sixteen days back from Singapore when we were coming home. Quite quick.
SC: And did you come back through the Mediterranean?
JR: Yeah. Yes.
SC: You did.
JR: By that time —
SC: Through the Suez Canal.
JR: [unclear]
SC: Yeah.
JR: And whatnot. Yeah. Yeah. We came up. I remember the Med. It was a terrible storm. You could see, actually see the ship twisting.
SC: Gosh.
JR: A dreadful storm. And people were sick all over. The new people who had come on at Port Said. RAF. There was a big contingent of RAF joined us at Port Said. They were being sick all over the place. We were accustomed to the motion.
SC: Yeah.
JR: It was dreadful that was. It was terrible storm it was. I mean you could see the ship twisting.
Other: Is that where they, where was it where they turned the ship around?
JR: Oh that was, that was going to India. And I don’t know, we were in the middle of the ocean and it was stifling. And the captain turned the ship around and sailed the other way for half an hour to get some air into the ship.
SC: Wow.
JR: Dreadful it was.
SC: It was a very long route that you took.
JR: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Around the Horn of Africa.
JR: Yeah.
SC: Around the —
JR: Well the Med wasn’t safe.
SC: Safe. Yeah.
JR: But I remember coming home. It was Christmas Eve at, in Aden and the RAF came out in launches and went around the boat singing carols.
SC: Wow.
JR: Aden. And now it’s a free country isn’t it?
SC: Yes.
JR: Yeah.
Other: Have you mentioned Burma?
JR: Eh?
Other: Have you mentioned Burma?
JR: Well I was only there for a short while. That was all. It was visiting. That was all.
SC: Was that before Singapore?
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Right.
JR: But —
SC: So you went from Bangalore.
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: To Burma.
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: And what part of Burma were you?
JR: Oh only, only in the [pause] I’m not sure whether its India actually. Chittagong.
SC: Chittagong.
JR: I’m not sure whether it’s in Burma or not. It’s there anyway.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Yeah. And then you went from Chittagong to —
JR: Back to [pause] back to — no. We weren’t at Bangalore. Back to — near, it was somewhere near — what’s that port? Madras. Near Madras.
SC: Near Madras.
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And went there and my unit split up into what was called SMP Ship’s Maintenance Parties. And there would be parties of two or four people on landing ships and what not.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Going out all over the place.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And funny enough because many years later we were on holiday in Sutton on Sea and a fella comes with a family there and he’s friendly with the people who are in digs next to us. Anyway, and I said to this fella ‘Your friend’s a Scotsman’. He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘I know him.’ He was a Scotsman. We chatted and he, he, I said, ‘I know. I remember. You came back from a Ship’s Maintenance Party.’ I said, ‘I debriefed you.’
SC: Gosh.
JR: ‘Yes. You did. Yes. Yes. Yes.’ And oh yes. Yes. So we, you know it’s interesting. As I say you meet these people and many years later you recognise them and oh.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I’ve met one, two, three, four, five. I’ve met half a dozen people that I was in that unit with.
SC: Wow.
JR: Strange. A unit of about six hundred men from all over the country and I’ve met about six of them since.
SC: Since. Yeah.
JR: Yeah. In funny places.
SC: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: I was, immediately the first year I was demobbed it would be forty — it would be ’47 and I went to the Isle of Man on a holiday. And it was, I went on the night boat and it was bitterly cold so I went down in the bar to warm up. And the bar was one of these rectangular ones. Came out and around you know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I sat in a corner here and I looked across and in the identical corner was the old sergeant major. And he said he couldn’t make do in Civvy Street. He was going to join up again.
SC: Really.
JR: Yeah. He said, he said, ‘If I do it quickly,’ he said, ‘They’ll post me back to the old unit.’
SC: Right.
JR: Yeah.
SC: Small world.
JR: Yeah.
Other: Where did you have the POWs working in the workshop dad?
JR: India. We had a lot of Italian prisoners of war.
SC: Italian. Right.
JR: But when [pause] when Italy joined the, joined with us they become not prisoners of war. They became Surrendered Personnel.
SC: Right.
JR: That was a change of name.
SC: Right. I didn’t know that.
JR: From POWs to SPs.
SC: Right.
JR: Surrendered personnel.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And we had a number of them working. Vechi was the one I remember most. And he’d been captured in North Africa and he’d never been home since 1935.
SC: Gosh.
JR: He’d been in the invasion of Malaya err of [pause] what’s the place? Abyssinia.
SC: Abyssinia.
JR: In 1935. And he’d never been home. And this was 1945 would it be? Yeah. It would be ’45. He’d never been home. Never seen his girlfriend for ten years.
SC: Ten years. Gosh.
JR: And, Vechi his name was. I remember him. Spoke very good English. They had a very good canteen they did. Making their own drinks.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Their grappa and —
SC: Yeah.
JR: Oh yeah.
SC: And were there many of these surrendered personnel?
JR: Oh yes. There was quite a crowd of them there and we used them you see. And we were friends with them.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And this Vechi was a particular one. And we [pause] he was a particular friend. And it was so funny that was. We worked in, me and another fellow went from the unit which was on, camped on the polo ground. We went down to the 515 Command Workshop, Indian army and did some work there you see. And there was quite a number of these surrendered personnel in that place. And every now and again you’d suddenly hear someone singing opera. Italian you know.
SC: Wow.
JR: Aye. And beautiful singing too it was. Yeah. They were very good. And yeah. 515 Command Workshop. It was so funny because years later my [pause] I got my station superintendent and his wife were talking and they said something about it. I said, ‘Oh 515 Command Workshop.’ And they both were there you see.
SC: Wow.
JR: They said, ‘Well, I know it. On Brigade Road. Yeah. Yeah. I know it’. Yeah. I said, ‘I worked there for a while. Yeah.’ They were there for quite some time, you know. Met there and married. Yeah. Small world.
SC: It is. Yeah.
JR: I met half a dozen people that I knew in the army and my units I met in Nottingham sometimes.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Not necessarily from Nottingham but met a half a dozen which, you know considering the millions.
SC: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: Is quite good.
SC: How long did it take you to get back home from Singapore?
JR: Sixteen days.
SC: Sixteen days.
JR: It was, it was a record run by the Andes.
SC: Right.
JR: She was a fast ship. Belonged to the Royal Mail Lines down to South America.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And she was fast. And she, she made a very quick passage in sixteen days from Singapore to [pause] to — and I arrived home.
SC: Did you come back to Liverpool or Southampton?
JR: Pardon?
SC: Liverpool or Southampton.
JR: Southampton.
SC: Southampton.
JR: We got, we got, we arrived in Southampton and we stayed on the ship that night. We got off in the morning. Crossed. Crossed the dock and there was a train. And get in the train and we were off up to Farnborough was it? Somewhere like that.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I went into a room. They made me a book that I’d filled in. A book. And they were tearing pages out. Went around it and came out. Went in as a soldier, came out a civilian.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Still in uniform.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Then into a lorry to a clothing depot. Picked me clothes. I was allowed a suit, a raincoat, a hat, a tie, two shirts, two pairs of socks, a pair of shoes. I got them in a cardboard box.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And then I was put on the train. Came home. And I arrived home at quarter to midnight on the 31st of December.
SC: 1947?
JR: ‘6.
SC: ‘6. Yeah.
JR: And I saw the New Year in at home. Just.
SC: Wow. Just. Yeah.
JR: Yeah.
SC: And home was up here.
JR: Netherfield then I think. Yeah.
SC: Netherfield. Yeah.
JR: Yeah.
Other: Dad. Where —
JR: Yeah.
Other: Where did you get your injury?
JR: Oh. That was in Netherfield. Riding a bike in the blackout. You couldn’t see a thing and I ran into, they built brick air raid shelters, surface ones, on the road. And I was riding on this road and just went straight into, on a bike into the side of the wall.
SC: Into the side. Gosh.
JR: This piece of nose hanging out and whatnot.
SC: Gosh. Why did they build it there?
JR: All the doctor did was stick it back. Put some sticking plaster on.
SC: Really.
Other: I was just thinking that was your only war wound.
SC: Yeah.
Other: Cycling into an air raid shelter.
SC: Yeah.
Other: You’d think that they’d be a bit vulnerable stuck in the middle of a road.
SC: Yeah. It doesn’t seem a sensible place to put an air raid shelter but —
JR: Well, where did you put them?
SC: I don’t know. I suppose it’s the most obvious.
JR: Do you know the first air raid where we lived at Netherfield. I only found this out fairly recently. But do you remember where we lived there was that open space wasn’t there?
Other: Well, I can’t —
JR: On the corner of the street, the street there, one Cross street and this open corner.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I’d only learned recently that was full of houses. And they were all blown up in The Great War by, from, with a zeppelin.
SC: Gosh.
JR: Dropping bombs.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And I only learned that quite recently. I always wondered why is that open there?
SC: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
JR: I mean in this as it were you know normal densely —
SC: Yeah.
JR: Housed place.
SC: Yeah.
JR: It used to be houses there but they were blown up.
SC: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: And as I say I only learned that quite recently.
SC: Yeah. Do you, since you left the army do you go to any reunions?
JR: No. I don’t.
SC: Or —
JR: I joined nothing and I’ve done no, no reunions or anything like that.
SC: But you’ve met a number of people over the years that you’ve —
JR: Yes. I’ve said I’ve met a number. I met two on Colliery Road in Nottingham. And they were both in my unit. Two different fellas. And then I was, I was on a trolley bus going down to Trent Bridge and I climbed up, up to the top deck and dropped to the seat and just there was the old armament sergeant major.
SC: Gosh.
JR: Fanny. His name was Adams. Nicknamed Fanny of course.
SC: Of course. Yeah.
JR: And, ‘Fanny. Hello.’ We had a few minutes. You know, swinging the lamp.
SC: Yeah.
JR: As it were. Yeah. Yeah. He lived in West Bridgford and he was going home and I was going to Trent Bridge on the trolley bus. He was going home.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Walked over Trent Bridge into West Bridgford and so ran into him. Yeah.
SC: And what did you do after the war? What job did you —
JR: Oh, I went to the power station. Became, finally became station chemist at the power station.
SC: Gosh. At, at one of the local power stations.
JR: Yeah. Nottingham.
SC: Nottingham.
JR: Yeah. It’s not there.
SC: Right.
JR: It’s been knocked down.
SC: Yeah.
JR: These thirty years back.
SC: I was just thinking of Normanton on Soar as the only power station I could think of. But —
JR: Normanton. That’s, that’s —
SC: That’s way over to —
JR: Ratcliffe.
SC: Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe on Soar. Sorry. Yes.
JR: Well, there was one at Nottingham.
SC: Was there?
JR: Yeah. And next door to the colliery on Colliery Road.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Which of course is now part of the ring road isn’t it?
SC: Right.
JR: Yeah.
SC: And you worked there.
JR: And there is a, is a, it’s called Electricity Road or something like that. I don’t know but —
SC: Yeah.
JR: There was a power station there. Yeah.
SC: Right.
JR: And I was there.
SC: Right. Burning coal. Burning presumably coal. Local coal.
JR: Coal burning. Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: In fact we took, we had the colliery next door. We took all their output apart from twenty five tons of coal a week which used to go down to Coventry, I think. I think some place in Coventry wanted that particular coal.
SC: Really.
JR: It suited them and they had twenty five tons a week.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But we had all the rest.
SC: Yeah.
JR: We had our own coal waggons that were filled in in the colliery. Came around on to our side and sent empty. And back again. And some of them made two or three trips a day.
SC: Yeah.
JR: You know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And we had all their output. What would it be? About twenty thousand tonnes of coal a week. Something like that.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. I think it was. Yeah.
SC: And what did you start at the power station as?
JR: Chemist.
SC: As a chemist. You started as a chemist.
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: Yeah. And you stayed working there.
JR: Yeah. I started as assistant chemist. I finished up as the station chemist.
SC: The station chemist.
JR: Yeah.
Other: Dad were you in the power station before the war though?
JR: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Other: So, in actual fact you went —
JR: The station was built in 1925.
Other: Yeah. So you went back to the power station.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yes. The power station was there. You could see it and see it was a power station. In fact at the Festival of Britain they brought out a catalogue for the Festival of Britain 1951.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Anniversary centenary of the [pause] of the London, of the —
Other: Great Exhibition.
JR: Great Exhibition.
SC: The Great Exhibition. Yes.
JR: 1951. And they brought out a book and the chapter on power was headed by a picture of Nottingham Power Station.
SC: Nottingham.
JR: Because it looked like a power station then.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. Now power stations look as though they are just a box.
SC: Yes.
JR: With a chimney.
SC: Proper chimneys.
JR: Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But that looked like a power station actually.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And so I was there. Yes. Finished up as station chemist.
SC: Yeah. And you retired. Do you remember what year? Or roughly.
JR: Yeah. ’81.
SC: ’81. Yeah.
JR: It was the 31st of May 1981.
SC: So you’ve been retired for —
JR: Yeah.
SC: Thirty.
JR: I’ve got used to it now.
SC: You got used to it.
JR: Well, actually I got used to it by coffee time on the Monday after the Friday. Yeah.
SC: Good for you.
JR: I was made redundant.
SC: Right.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. In effect I was made redundant. I didn’t need to have been but [pause] I would have likely to have been seconded off to somewhere else.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And travelling in the winter. I thought no. So, make me, you know. So they gave me a nice package to finish with and —
SC: Yeah.
JR: And made me redundant.
SC: Yeah.
JR: How old was I? Fifty seven when I retired. So, you know, it’s not bad.
SC: That’s great. Yeah.
JR: And the earlier you retire the longer you live.
SC: Yeah.
JR: So what am I now?
Other: You’re ninety three, Dad.
JR: Ninety three.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I think I’ll last till ninety four.
SC: Yeah. When will that be? When will you be —
JR: February. Yeah. February.
SC: Oh right. Yeah.
Other: When did you see the, from Hucknall the plane flying over and you had a word with your friend? You know. About the [pause] you queried what was going on.
JR: I know what you mean. I had a good friend who lived in Watnall Road in Hucknall and he was, worked for Rolls Royce. Aero engines. You know.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And there used to be an aeroplane. It was a wartime business.
SC: Yeah.
JR: 1941. And I’ve seen it on the internet actually. I don’t know whether you could drag it up and look. 1941. And there used to be a [pause] a Wellington. That’s it. A Wellington. And it used to be going around the, circling around, around well home. Around here. Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Doing big circles.
SC: Yes.
JR: Coming over. And it was funny because it got something, instead of a gun turret at the back it had got some funny contraption and sometimes you could see smoke coming from it. And I saw my friend Bill Allen who as I say was worked for Rolls Royce. He was apprenticed at Rolls Royce in Hucknall and I said to him, rather interesting, I said to him, ‘I’ve seen this funny thing.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Oh that,’ he said, ‘That one is fitted with a Whittle engine.’ That’s the first time I heard the name Whittle.
SC: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: And he said, ‘That’s a Whittle engine,’ he said, ‘It’ll, it’ll revolutionise air transport.’
SC: Gosh.
JR: And of course it was a jet engine stuck on the back of a —
SC: Yeah.
JR: Of a Wellington aeroplane.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And we saw it at the time. you saw it and the propellers weren’t turning so it was just going along by the jet.
SC: Powered by the jet.
JR: Yeah. It was quite interesting.
SC: Because there was the test, there was a test bed and a test centre at Hucknall wasn’t there?
JR: Yeah. Yeah.
SC: For Rolls Royce.
JR: That’s where it was from. Yeah.
SC: So you saw the first jet propelled aeroplane.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Before they actually built the one that they really tested it in.
SC: Yeah.
JR: They built the special one didn’t they?
SC: Yes.
JR: A Gloster or something like that.
SC: The Gloster Meteor I think it was wasn’t it?
JR: Well yeah. Yeah. But anyway —
SC: Yeah.
JR: We saw this aeroplane. It was a, as I say a —
Other: Wellington.
JR: Wellington.
SC: A Wellington. Yeah.
JR: I was going to say not a Lancaster. A Wellington.
SC: Wellington.
JR: Two engine one.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But we saw them without the engines. Propellers not turning but still going.
SC: It must have seemed very strange.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. With this funny contraption on the back. You could see it. It was shaped.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And that. What’s that? Going like the clappers.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. That would be 1941 I should imagine. Before I went in the army anyway. Yeah. Still experimenting.
SC: Yeah.
Other: You wouldn’t see it over here though. Would it have be while you were at Bulwell, dad?
JR: No. Netherfield.
Other: Netherfield.
SC: Netherfield.
JR: Yeah. You’d see them about.
SC: Yeah. Well, that’s all been absolutely fascinating. If there’s anything you can, can you think of anything else that —
Other: I was trying to think of some of the stories —
SC: Yeah.
Other: That dad’s told me from time to time.
SC: Yeah.
Other: Just to prompt him.
SC: Yeah. I think we’ve captured a lot. A lot of things.
JR: I remember we knew that flying bombs would come over.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And we knew that there would be rockets too. Long before they came.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Long years before. Well years. Yeah. I remember going — I was stationed at Hemel Hempstead and I went to [pause] we were a party to Anti-Aircraft Command Headquarters in, near Watford. And we were fixing up a radar assembly. Very special. It was based on on the carriage from a GL. That’s a gun laying equipment.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Which had huge yagis and I remember they pulled them up with a rope and they moved up and down like that. And you know turned on —
SC: Yeah.
JR: And they were yagis which are [pause] a yagi. Do you know what a yagi is?
SC: I’ve seen the pictures of them. Yeah.
JR: Yeah, well they’re —
SC: Yeah.
JR: Well they’re, you know cross members.
SC: Yeah. The flight, yeah. Yeah.
JR: And they’re directional aerials.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And they’d got this. What’s this one? And he said, oh a Royal Artillery officer he said they’re going to send rockets up and we were using these to detect them.
SC: Wow. Yeah.
JR: I don’t know how far they went but, and I know that in the field opposite us was — what’s the name of them? The fireworks people.
Other: What? Who you mentioned earlier on?
JR: Yeah.
SC: Was it Brocks that you mentioned?
JR: Not Brocks.
SC: Brocks. The —
Other: I thought it was Brocks.
JR: Oh, was it Brocks? Oh it was a fireworks factory.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And they were firing maroons up into the sky and they were apparently parachutes and there was a bottle of air blowing a whistle. And you got [unclear] as they were dropping.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And apparently, we heard that there was going to be one of these on every building. Fire station, police station and whatnot in the areas where they expected a rocket to fall. Predict a rocket to fall. They would press a button and all these things would go off in that area.
SC: Gosh.
JR: To give you warning. Give you a few minutes warning before the rocket.
SC: Before the rocket arrived.
JR: I don’t know if this worked or not. This is what we were told anyway.
SC: There were all sorts of different ideas.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them mad and —
SC: Never heard of that one. Yeah.
JR: Some adopted and some not.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. I don’t think anything was adopted. Just had to sit and take it.
SC: Trying, yeah. Different things.
JR: Yeah. But this was long before they ever came.
SC: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: You know, nothing’s secret.
SC: No. They must have known that —
JR: Oh yeah. They knew something was coming and they were preparing something.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. I don’t know. You see. You see a little bit of it.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And you’re just a little thing in the middle.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And you see a little bit of it
SC: Yes.
JR: But you see a bit and then you only realise it long afterwards when —
SC: Yeah.
JR: You’ve seen the whole picture.
SC: Yes.
JR: When you’re allowed to see the whole picture you say, ‘Oh. I saw a little bit of it. Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Yeah.
SC: I’ll probably stop the tape now because I think that —
JR: About to run out —
[recording paused]
JR: James took me to, somewhere up north. Nottinghamshire. To a 1940s do. Was it Rufford? Rufford Abbey. Yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: That was it. And there was a fella dressed in a battledress. He said, ‘What do you think?’ He knew I was — I said, ‘Well, that’s wrong there.’ ‘What?’ And he’d got on his pocket here. And he’d got a button on it. I said, ‘There’s no button on that.’ He said, ‘Well, I put it on because —' I said, ‘No. That’s your, that’s your field dressing pocket.
SC: Yeah.
JR: ‘Oh. What’s that?’ I said, ‘Well, the top of the pocket, it’s an open pocket. The top is, has got a zigzag on it and it’s sewn on so it becomes tight. You can slip your field dressing in but you can’t get it out until you break that and —
SC: Yeah.
JR: Pull it out. And that’s your field dressing when you’re wounded. All it is is a big triangular bandage.
SC: Bandage. Yeah.
JR: And, ‘Oh,’ he said, he says, ‘I’ve learned something.’
SC: Yeah.
JR: He thought it was just a pocket and he put a button on it.
SC: Yeah.
JR: But no. It’s a specialised button for, specialised pocket.
SC: Pocket for bandage.
JR: For your field dressing. Yeah. Yours. No one else’s.
SC: Yeah. Yeah.
Other: You did have a lot of your friends killed during the war.
JR: Oh yes. Lots of friends killed.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Goes through them. And I remember going to some years ago now going to a Remembrance service at Mapperley Methodist Church. And the lady there said, ‘Are there any names you want me to remember?’ I said, ‘Where do we start? Have you got a bit of paper?’ ‘Oh. Go on.’ Georgie. Georgie Rose. Pete Robinson. Roy Edge. Gordon Davis. Slick Hayes. Nobby Burton. Nobby [pause] Oh dear. I’m forgetting names now but there’s no end of them.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Georgie Morgan. Albert Swain. You know. Ernie Webster. All these people. And you know the funny thing is I can’t see them as old.
SC: No.
JR: Mauled or white haired old men. I can only see them as young twenty year old lads.
SC: Yeah.
JR: As I knew them when they were killed.
SC: Yeah.
JR: Oh dear. What a waste.
SC: Yes.
JR: What a waste. George. George Rose was my particular pal. And when I used, when I came home and I saw his mother in the, on the village street she’d weep at the sight of me.
SC: Yeah.
JR: I’m not being funny there.
SC: Yeah. No.
JR: But she saw me and it hurt. George. Her only boy. Oh dear. And he was my great pal was George. And who was the first one on the street to be killed? Dennis Swain. He was the first one. He was killed in 1940. And then there was a great stream of them. Jackie Baldwin. Grace Girdleston’s brother. What was his name? Girdlestone. Billy Steele. Wilf Underhill, Jackie Baldwin. Oh dear. You know, these were your pals.
SC: Yeah.
JR: That you played with and what not. They were your pals and they got killed. No end of them. Gordon Davis. George Rose. Pete Robinson. Roy Edge. He was a nice lad. Little Joe. Never knew his name. He was always little Joe.
SC: He was little Joe, yeah.
JR: He was a little fella but he was a splendid chap. A Scotsman. He carried a, what do we call it? A chanter. It was a, it was a pipe off a —
SC: A pipe from the bagpipe. A chanter.
JR: A bit. You play it. yeah.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And you know —
SC: Yes.
JR: You get a sound. You know —
SC: Yeah.
JR: It was alright. It was fun. But he had that. I remember little Joe. As I say, I never knew his name but just little Joe.
SC: Yeah.
JR: And a nice fella he was. Killed.
SC: And this were mainly people you served with in the army. Yeah.
JR: Yeah. Yeah. Oh dear. Little Joe.
SC: Yeah.
JR: As I say I remember them as young lads rather than as they would be old men if they’d have lived.
SC: Yes. Of course.
JR: I wonder what they’d be like. Crotchety old men like me I suppose.
Other: They might not be crotchety. Who says you are? [laughs]
JR: Oh dear. Oh dear.
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 Jack Robson
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Steve Cooke
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-11-21
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
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ARobsonJ161121, PRobsonJ1601
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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01:26:40 audio recording
Language
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eng
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Civilian
Description
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Jack spent a year in the Local Defence Volunteers before he was called up in 1941. He joined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and became a radar mechanic. He trained in Glasgow on radio for five months and a further two months in Bury on Searchlight Control (SLC), named “Elsie”, Light Warning (LW) and on various radar systems.
Jack was posted to the Second Anti-Aircraft Workshop at Callington and then the 469 Searchlight Battery ‘A’ Troop headquarters at Clovelly. Jack also went to 335 Battery at South Molton. Describes a homing beam system to guide aircraft back to the airfield noting that many pilots came to thank the searchlight crew after the first thousand bomber raid. A searchlight detachment normally comprised 12 men with specific roles, but each could do the other’s job. The searchlights were 90cm or 150cm and the latter were normally mounted and mobile.
Jack was also stationed with the 470 Battery in Norfolk where he believes he was one of the first to see Window’s effect on radar. He was posted to East Walton and one site was on the Sandringham estate.
Jack was then stationed at Hemel Hepmstead, was posted back to Arminghall and subsequently Hucknall. He became part of a new unit, 469 Advanced Base Workshops, and went to India and Singapore. His return home was on the record breaking run on the Andes and was demobilised in 1947.
Jack then worked as a power station chemist in Nottingham. He recalls seeing the first jet propelled engine in 1941 in Hucknall where there was a test centre.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Spatial Coverage
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Burma
Great Britain
India
Singapore
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
civil defence
home front
Home Guard
radar
RAF Hucknall
searchlight
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/254/3401/AFisherLS150814.1.mp3
92f6b8ab71b7b2ca626a670b285dd0e0
Dublin Core
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Title
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Fisher, Laurence Sidney
Laurence Sidney Fisher
Laurence S Fisher
Laurence Fisher
L S Fisher
L Fisher
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Laurence Sidney Fisher (1091186 Royal Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-14
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Fisher, LS
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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SB: This is Sheila Bibb interviewing Laurence Fisher on 14th of August 2015 at his home in Canterbury. Laurence, to start off with can you just give me some general background to family life, where you were born, and how you came to join the RAF?
LF: I was born in Peterborough which was then the Soke of Peterborough and a friend of ours was a pilot in the RAF in France and came to stay overnight when he was travelling and I was in the Home Guard as a lance corporal and he advised us to volunteer for the air force so my friends and I went over to Northampton where we volunteered in advance of being called up. One of the options open to me was armourer. I wanted to be air crew but I was colour blind and as an armourer I needed some colour vision but not sufficient to bar me. When I was posted to the Middle East to Number 4 Re-Arming And Refuelling Unit but that in fact was left at 235 Wing which was at Sidi Barrani where I volunteered for air crew because I knew that they wouldn’t have the colour book and my colour test was map colours which I’d learned at school, the colour of a royal sovereign pencil which was bright scarlet and the colour of the orderly’s hair which was bright ginger so I was sent back to South Africa and trained there for about a year when we were required for first priority in the Middle East. So we were flown up the middle of Africa and stopped at Ndola in Northern Rhodesia as it was then where I was able to call in on friends who came back in their little car with the golf clubs in the back. Seeing me on their veranda said, ‘Whatever you do don’t tell daddy we’ve been golfing on a Sunday.’ So we flew on. Landed at Kisumu. Then on to Cairo where we were divided into two halves and our half was sent straight to the squadrons. I flew via El Adem to Naples where we had the pleasure of staying in a marble hotel and sleeping on marble isn’t ideal. Then on to Foggia. Now, 167 squadron was an elite squadron. The day after we left them they dropped arms to the insurgent Poles in Warsaw but to return to my story we didn’t like the idea of being sent back without doing any operations so I was deputed to go to the flight commander and, but I persuaded him to let us have the COs aircraft. The first op we did went well and we attacked Verona martialling yards. The second night we were sent out in bright moonlight to attack the Weibersbrunn German fighter station and they didn’t like it much but on our return we were jumped by a radar guided ME109 and its cannon fire and other armaments soon killed half of the crew but fortunately the aircraft was flying on George and so there was an opportunity to get out. Now of course I hadn’t been fitted into my parachute harness so I folded my arms across my chest and just hoped for the best and of course as the chute opened my arms were flung to one side. As I went down I was rotating in the air and could see the aircraft on fire gliding into a, a clearing between two stands of trees which stripped the burning wings off and put out the fire but by that time I was rather close to the ground because jumping from two thousand feet is not ideal and I guided myself in to the middle of a potato patch but a strong wind at ground level coming up the mountain blew me into a pine tree where I fell horizontally, breaking a branch with my shoulder and my head so that my flying helmet was full of blood. I had a look in my evasion kit but felt that the odds were too much against me particularly as I’d got rather loose flying boots on so I made the decision to go to the farmhouse and on my knocking at the door they opened a little flap and offered me seeded bread and some milk. I accepted these but I showed them the blood on my hand from my bleeding head and they let me in and sent for the landmacht so I met up with two other members of my crew in the police station the following morning. And then from Graz we were taken to Vienna by rail in a very crowded train and then on to the lens factory which was next door to the prisoner of war reception centre and there we were kitted out and sent off to Bankau in Upper Silesia by train. Cattle trucks of course. That was fine as far as it went but the Russian advance meant that we had to be moved so we were marched two hundred and fifty miles via the outskirts of Breslau to Cottbus just outside Berlin and there the camp contained Southern Irishmen who were all Welsh Guards. Naturally being Irish they’d be in the Welsh Guards and they were very good to us indeed. Gave us free, things that normally they would have charged cigarettes for. In the end we were liberated by the Russians and on the Americans giving the Russians the lorries we were transported to the River Elbe where we walked over a narrow footbridge with rather itching backs out of the Russian zone into the American zone where Lancaster bombers were used to fly us back to Oxford.
SB: Very good. What were your feelings when, when you were handed over to the police etcetera?
LF: When I was handed over to the police I had injured my foot slightly and was limping so I was left in the police station guarded by a landmacht and the other two members of the crew were taken off to the site of the crash where they saw the flight engineer lying on the ground. He had landed with the aircraft, probably in his seat and the impact had broken his neck. He didn’t know this, climbed out of the aircraft, walked a few paces and then fell dead and that was, that was a very sad thing really. My South African navigator, bomb aimer didn’t want the Germans to know that he could speak German so my school boy German came in to recover the pencil his wife had given him that the Germans had taken away with all the rest of our possessions. Then we were put into a German air, air force camp where we were all confined to one room and anything remaining of our aircrew equipment was taken away from us. We were rather afraid of not having sufficient clothing because we were in tropical kit but we were well equipped at Breslau by the, by the Red Cross. Yeah.
SB: It’s interesting there you mention the Red Cross. Had you had any other dealings with them earlier in the war or not?
LF: No.
SB: That was the first time.
LF: We had had no dealings with them earlier in the war but of course when we were prisoners of war we subsisted on Red Cross parcels and they arrived regularly until the RAF bombed the rail system so much that it broke down and we didn’t get any more. That lasted for about the last two months or three months of our captivity. We were fed as troops in barracks which meant a pint of so-called soup a day which was mainly cabbage and a slice of bread. That, that was the entire ration the consequence of which was I, a normal eight stone came back home weighing only five stone. During that time, during the march I was turned out of a straw field barn at gunpoint because it was too full according to the German regulations and had to sleep on an upper floor in chaff. Now, if you bury yourself in chaff it can kill you and I knew this so I was careful but during the night the temperature fell very low and I received what I think is called frost nip so that a certain disability exists but apart from that I, being young of course, survived far better than some of the older members.
SB: Did you, you say you had schoolboy German. Did you have any problems with communicating at all? Or -
LF: We were not allowed to learn German during our captivity. Although some people learned Italian. Learning German was considered a collaboration with the enemy but most of our goons who walked about among us spoke quite good English and I asked one what he was going to do after the war to which he replied, ‘Watch you rebuilding Berlin.’ That never happened fortunately.
SB: Did you have any idea how things were going?
LF: Ah. As among air crew there are wireless operators who could also make wireless sets in our camps we had several wireless sets and we got daily bulletins broadcast by the BBC which were read out to us. During one of these sessions a German officer came into the barrack to find about three hundred men standing stock still and silent which must have surprised him but of course the newsreader was warned of his coming and we soon began a normal buzz of conversation until he had gone when we listened to the rest of the news bulletin which included the American capture of Iwo Jima I remember.
SB: How did that affect you?
LF: Well we were certain. Well, our morale was high. Bear in mind this was 1944/45 and we received orders from London that we were not to try to escape because that would simply clutter things up unnecessarily but our morale was high because we could see that it was obvious that we were winning the war. We were lucky that we did. [laughs]
SB: Were there times that you wondered how long you’d be there?
LF: Well in those circumstances you live one day at a time because the need to know is one of the things that stops you learning a great deal about your fellows and telling them anything much about yourself so we had card schools. I myself taught English composition in the camp school. One of my friends took banking exams through the Red Cross until that was cut off but every day of course we always did a certain routine amount of walking in order to keep fit and that was an essential part of it and one thing, it passed the time and another thing it enabled us to remain fit enough to survive.
SB: Were there many outbreaks of illness at all?
LF: No. There were very few. We had a medical officer and his sole medical kit consisted of aspirin. The Germans themselves were very short of medications and their people fared no better than we did but I think our limited diet was a very healthy one and of course Breslau was in Southern Poland so that it was a fairly isolated camp on sandy soil which is obviously well drained. Chosen by the Germans because it was difficult to tunnel in and so mostly being young men we were very healthy.
SB: Going back to your time before you were actually captured, when you, first of all you said you were in Egypt. How long were you there for?
LF: I was there for a matter of a few weeks really. About two or three months because it was the time Rommel was approaching El Alamein and so although we were at Sidi Barrani which is 05 which is five kilometres from Alexandria I think we weren’t very far into the blue. We were moved back to a holding camp at Kasfareet and our unit, Number 5 Re-Arming and Refuelling Party was disbanded as being no longer needed. My experience of Kasfareet was of a padre wanting to involve me in Christmas celebrations upon which I told him that by Christmas I should be in South Africa of which he was rather envious.
SB: And when you got to Foggia what did you think of that as a place? At that time?
LF: Foggia was an enormous, ancient crater the whole of which had been turned into an airfield as far as I could tell. There were American squadrons as well as British squadrons there. As our stay there was so brief and as our tents were on the outskirts of the occupied zone I really know very little about it because when I arrived back I arrived back in the middle of the night of course so if you miss the [Garry?] taking you back to quarters you just didn’t know which way to walk. [laughs]
SB: So how long were you in Foggia before the fateful mission?
LF: I think we were there about a fortnight in all. Yes. [laughs]
SB: A short sweet stay then.
LF: Yes, that’s right.
SB: Right. If we think then to once you were brought back to Oxford what happened at that stage?
LF: Well, we were, when we were brought back to Oxford we were kept hanging about until it was getting dark at night when we were directed to our billets but the director had a sense of humour because in common with other flights we were directed to the WAAF billets and disturbed those poor girls in the middle of the night. They were able to direct us to our proper billets in no uncertain terms. So having, we were then disbursed to re-arming, to rehabilitation camp and I was there until I gained weight and until they were reasonably sure that there was nothing physically wrong with me. The whole experience took about two months and it was a really excellently run and excellently organised piece of work. After that we were taken around various firms which might lead to employing us but none of that was of any use to me as it happened.
SB: So when you were finally given the all clear where did you go and what did you do?
LF: Ah. After, after rehabilitation I was sent on ninety days leave and fortunately while I’d been a prisoner of war I’d still been paid so I had ninety pounds which was a lot of money in those days and I was able to go home and then think about what a future career might hold. I had the opportunity of remaining in the RAF but as a peace loving person I didn’t see I had a role in a fighting force in peacetime.
SB: So what career did you take up in the end?
LF: Ah I trained as, in emergency training in teaching and ended up at Christchurch College in Canterbury training teachers. Fortunately, I was able to take early retirement three or four years before I was sixty five and before I was quite outdated as far as the students were concerned.
SB: During your time in Italy and then in Germany and so on were you still able to get news from home at all from the family?
LF: I can’t recall having more than one or two letters from home but I wrote regularly. That I became quite used to. Nor did I receive any parcels from home as longer term prisoners did. Some prisoners had been in the cage for five years so the lines of communication had become established but as we were a newly formed camp just for air crew no lines of communication got established for us and we were lucky to get the Red Cross parcels that came. They were, you know, a valuable communication themselves although of course they received, they had no messages in them but the fact that they were the sorts of food we were used to was very important.
SB: So what did those parcels contain? Can you remember?
LF: Mostly, they were, the ones we received were American so we had a tin of Klim which is perhaps an anagram for milk, a tin of meat, a bar of chocolate which the Germans removed because they said it might be used in an attempt to escape. I don’t know whether the chocolate escaped eating but there was a pack, a pack of tea and very valuable to the Polish among us [vitaminski pilioul?] which were quite palatable but not very high food value and of course butter or margarine and the margarine was called Oleomargarine and I think oleo stands for oil. Tasted rather like that too. We used to trade with the Germans because cigarettes were also contained in the parcels and so was soap. Now those were very valuable commodities and we traded soap with the goons and once we’d traded with them we could report them and this would have led to dire consequences for them so that enabled us to build up trade and we got a certain amount of loaves of bread. The well organised among the escape committee got other things that would be useful in escape and one man even got a camera with some film but that cost a lot of cigarettes but we had a good supply of cigarettes and they were a powerful tool in trading with the Germans.
SB: So you’ve talked about the physical aspects of this. The injuries and the weight loss etcetera. How did you feel emotionally and mentally?
LF: When you’re on such a low diet you tend just to exist. Emotionally you kept on a very even keel because to be emotional cost effort. One of the things I did was to get hold of some Red Cross wool and needles and to re-finger a pair of gloves which were very useful in the German winter. But we had, we organised regular discussions and one of those I contributed to was to do with space travel in which I happened to be very interested. Of course our knowledge of space travel in those days was very limited indeed and one of the things I remember saying was that astronauts would have to have magnetic boots which I don’t think is the case. We also got the medical officer to talk about sex and his briefing was that he should tell us about the birds and the bees but he didn’t spend long on that fortunately [laughs]. But the school also occupied time and cooking for ourselves on the stoves in each barrack room with the potatoes from our soup was another occupation and also keeping the fire going with pieces of wood from our bed rolls but the time didn’t pass too slowly because there were card games and other games supplied by the Red Cross which were available.
SB: You mention the school. Who were you teaching there?
LF: Well, many of the men hadn’t taken more than elementary education and they wanted to keep their standards up in order to take exams either through the Red Cross if there was time or when they got back into England again so as a time passer the school was really very popular and it covered quite a wide range of subjects according to the qualifications of fellow prisoners of war but I, again, in the need to know, I only knew about the English section and a friend of mine took English grammar but he didn’t want to do English composition but I got sufficient paper from the man of confidence to enable those of my class which consisted of about fifteen men to write essays which I then criticised.
SB: Taking that on a bit further did the men actually write about their experiences or did they just write about things in general?
LF: Of course we were limited in to the subjects of composition and we stuck to the sort of compositions that would have been set in an English school. Nothing about their war service. Nothing about camp conditions. Nothing that could have been of possible use to the Germans had they seen it so that the compositions were rather literary really.
SB: Did they appreciate it?
LF: Oh the school was very popular. Very popular indeed and of course in those circumstances the authority of the teacher doesn’t always count for much. It was very much a matter of cooperation so that you can’t give orders as you can in an ordinary school. [laughs]This experience came, became quite valuable later in life when I taught adults.
SB: So, what, for you, was the highlight of your war experience?
LF: I think the highlight was knowing that the raid in which I had been involved had helped the Americans to reduce the output of the Ploiesti oilfields by about a third and the constant raids kept the oil down to that figure and while we were on the march from Breslau to Cottbus we passed a German tank of the latest mark stuck in a village, run out of a fuel and that again was heartening although we were careful not to show our appreciation to our German guards who were a bit touchy and didn’t like the idea of the march very much. The farms that we were quartered in were very limited in the amount of stock they had and they had to account for everything of course but we made sure they were a few chickens short by the time we left and they were very fed up because they knew they’d be paid for any damage we did in deutschmarks which wouldn’t hold their value very long.
SB: How long did the march take?
LF: The march was about two hundred and fifty miles and took three weeks. We had at the rear of the column, pulled along by those of us who were fitter than others a flat, a flat wheeled vehicle for those who just couldn’t walk any further and among those was the rear gunner of one of my opos who had hurt his back on coming down by parachute and he went into a German hospital because he could no longer stand the conditions. I wonder what happened to him?
SB: How many actually survived your crash?
LF: Half my crew were killed. Yes. The pilot I think was killed outright and so was the upper gunner. And the rear gunner, the navigator, bomb aimer and myself came down by parachute. The flight engineer I’ve already described. Probably broke his neck, got out of the aircraft and fell down dead as soon as he tried to turn his head which is what can happen apparently.
SB: You said two of them were sent on ahead of you because you’d hurt your feet, your foot when you -
LF: Yes.
SB: Were taken so did you catch up with them at all later?
LF: Yes. They were returned to the police station and of course the rear gunner and myself went to one camp but the navigator, being an officer went to an offlag and we saw no more of him.
SB: Did you have any contact with them after it was all over?
LF: I wrote to him because he was a South African mining engineer but I never got a letter back again.
SB: And thinking back now to your family when you finally got back how much had they been aware of what was happening?
LF: They’d received my letters but none of theirs had got through to me and I think they were very relieved to see me back especially as I was placed on double rations and had two ration books. When I got married, before rationing ended that didn’t allow me two wives. [laughs]
SB: Good try [laughs]. So if you think back over the whole, the war and your time afterwards how did your involvement in the war affect your later life? Or didn’t it?
LF: Well I think having seen so much of the world and such a variety of people with whom I had to get on when I was sitting the examination in armament for air crew having been an armourer I knew the Browning machine gun very well and in my examination answer mentioned a part that the examiner didn’t know of but he found it and as a consequence I was put to lecturing to other members of the flight who hadn’t done so well on the Browning gun by the armament officer and also to taking a group of Polish airmen who needed help in learning about armament and I think this led to my promotion from sergeant to flight sergeant within twenty two days which made me senior man which isn’t always uncomfortable, which isn’t always comfortable in the groups I was in but the Polish airmen when it came to the exam said they just couldn’t understand the questions which was very sensible of them. My experience of lecturing to the other members of my flight had followed my promotion in the Home Guard because I lectured to those who didn’t know, from a First World War army manual which I was given on armament. Ok.
SB: Yeah. So it seems to me that throughout your career at some point you ended up lecturing.
LF: [laughs] Yes.
SB: So it was perhaps natural that you went on -
LF: That’s right.
SB: To take that as a career.
LF: Yes. Yes I think that’s very likely. Yes. Always have had the gift of the gab I think.
SB: And do you think it had any impact on your family life when you married and had your own family?
LF: Well I think when you’ve been through near death experiences it concentrates the mind on the essentials of life and in bringing up my own children I’ve tried to look ahead to taking account what their qualities were, what they would be likely to be fitted for and my second son, he became a computer expert and my daughter became a social worker so that I think they followed in keeping to the basics of life as well.
SB: And you say your, one son was an MOD worker.
LF: Yes. Yes he was an electronics engineer in the Ministry of Defence. My daughter was first of all involved in Southwark, which isn’t the easiest place to work in, in adoptions and then in supervising adoptions in Southwark and has recently retired. She deserves a medal too I think. [laughs]
SB: Ok well thank you very much for that it’s been very interesting.
LF: [laughs] I love shooting a line. [laughs]
[machine paused]
LF: No I don’t think so. It’s too general to be -
SB: Well just explain -
LF: Really of interest.
SB: Just explain a little bit about it to me then.
LF: Right. Hang on a moment.
[pause]
LF: Upon arrival in prisoner of war camp one of the early things that one should do is to have a private conversation with the man of confidence. The man of confidence is a prisoner of war in whom his fellow prisoners of war have absolute confidence that he will not betray what they say and it’s a way of ensuring that all prisoners of war are in fact genuine ex-service men, prisoners of war and not German stooges. To the man of confidence you’re allowed to say things that you mustn’t say to fellow prisoners of war. In fact all the detail of your training and whatever and any observations you had about being shot down which might be useful to people who are still fighting. Now this was really quite important and I think it also gave people a sense of the cohesion of all being prisoners together on the same level. Now, I’ve spoken of wireless sets. The man of confidence was in communication with the Air Ministry. So we were told. And I think this was born out because through him came the message that we were no longer to attempt to escape and daily orders could come through which were quite secret from the Germans. How this was done of course I don’t know because I didn’t need to know but the Germans constantly searched of course for wireless sets but because these could be made up, for example, using the solder from the sealings on tins of food using wire and crystals supplied quite openly by the Red Cross which the Germans didn’t bar. Wireless sets would not appear to the uninitiated to be anything at all because they were dismembered and hidden as soon as the broadcast was finished. No prisoners, apart from those actually operating the wireless sets knew where they were except by misadventure and that’s the way it was kept so that interrogation by the Germans would not have been likely to have broken the secrecy.
SB: So the man of confidence, who put him in that position?
LF: The man of confidence was put in that position by the early members starting the new prisoner of war camp and they, there was a camp leader elected as well. In our case it was an Australian airman but, but because during his captivity he was promoted to officer rank he was removed by the Germans and we needed to elect another one which we did by an open ballot. There was also an office run by three or four senior prisoners who were responsible for all contacts with the Germans and some of those were selected because they were able to speak German. Of course we had daily parades and counting and it was against our interests to try and trick the Germans into miscounting and we didn’t do so because we had no need in our camp to conceal the fact that anybody had escaped. Yeah. I think that’s the lot.
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Identifier
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AFisherLS150814
Title
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Interview with Laurence Sidney Fisher
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
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:50:01 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Sheila Bibb
Date
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2015-08-14
Description
An account of the resource
Laurence Fisher grew up in Peterborough and served in the Home Guard before joining the Royal Air Force. He served as ground personnel before remustering as aircrew. He flew operations from Italy before his aircraft was shot down and he became a prisoner of war.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Egypt
Italy
South Africa
North Africa
Egypt--Sidi Barrani
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
Contributor
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Julie Williams
bale out
civil defence
Home Guard
Me 109
prisoner of war
shot down
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
training
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1357/22526/ACoxOV200131.1.mp3
c718a8bae9d15f63bb0f7d5b1f9da95d
Dublin Core
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Title
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Cox, Owen
Owen Valentine Cox
O V Cox
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Owen Cox, who served in Italy and ditched near Sicily.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2020-01-31
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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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Cox, OV
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RP: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln. The interviewer is Rod Pickles. The interviewee is Owen Cox. Also present is the niece of Owen Cox, Mrs Wendy Wood. The interview is taking place on the 31st of January 2020 at Mr Cox’s home in Honiton, Devon. Good afternoon, Ian.
OC: Hello.
RP: Ian? Owen.
OC: It’s nice to meet you.
RP: Thank you for inviting me in, in to your home. If you could start.
OC: Yeah.
RP: Perhaps you could tell us where you were born, and when you were born and your early life and how you came, what prompted you to join the RAF. But —
OC: I wanted to join the RAF when I was at school.
RP: And where were you at school?
OC: I was in the Kings School at Ottery St Mary. The Grammar School. And my parents wouldn’t let me join the RAF, and by various means I passed them all. I was only seventeen when war broke out and I joined the LDD. It’s even worse than Dad’s Army. And when I was eighteen I joined the Home Guard. The only difference was I had a different arm band. And when I was eighteen I went in the Recruiting Office in Exeter on my way to, during my lunch hours and the first thing that happened was the flight sergeant came along. He said, ‘Hello sonny, what do you want?’ That rather put me off. Eighteen, you know. A teenager being called Sonny. And so I said, ‘I want to join the RAF.’ ‘Oh yes? What would you like to be?’ So I said, ‘Aircrew.’ So he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Well, you nip home and get your birth certificate.’ So I said, ‘Well, I’m eighteen.’ He said, ‘You’ve still got to get your birth certificate.’ Then I was in trouble. Trying to get a birth certificate. How could I do it without my parents knowing why? So I’d just been on the Devon County staff for just over six months and I was put on the permanent staff after six months probationary period. So I went home and I said, ‘Mum, I want my birth certificate. I’ve been put on the permanent staff and they want my birth certificate.’ ‘Oh yes,’ you know, with a joys, got a job in those days because were hard to come by. And so I got this birth certificate and went in. Then I was offered, he said, ‘What do you want to be?’ The same flight sergeant. So I said, ‘Well, the same as last time. Aircrew.’ So he said, ‘There aren’t any vacancies.’ He said, ‘You can be a clerk g.d. or a driver.’ So I said, ‘Well, I’m a clerk already just up the road. I don’t like the sound of g.d,’ which is general duties I found out afterwards, ‘And I don’t want to be driving all over the country. So if you give me back my birth certificate I’ll nip somewhere where they will accept it.’ And then he came back and in the end he agreed that I could join the RAF. And so I went home that night and I said to my mother [pause] if I wanted to say anything controversial I used to wait until she was busy, you know, getting father’s meal or in the evening. And when she was in middle of that I said, ‘I’ve joined the RAF today, mum.’ She said, ‘Oh yes,’ and went on busy, you know. And that went on and it wasn’t until, oh when we first of all the Devon County Council if you more or less volunteered you had to get committee approval so that the job was vacant when you came back. It was a very good job that I did because I was a wreck when I came home. But if you were a conscientious objector you got the sack. Yes. It was like that. And eventually in November I got a letter. When I came home mother said, ‘There’s a letter from the RAF for you.’ So I said, ‘Oh, I expect that’s my calling up papers.’ ‘What do you mean calling up papers?’ I said, ‘Well, don’t you remember, you know.’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘Well, you’re always saying stupid things,’ you know, ‘And if you say anything like that we don’t take any notice of it, you know.’ So I said ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I was quite honest. I told you what it was.’ I told a lie about my birth certificate but that was all [laughs] And when father came home she said, mother, ‘What do you think he’s done?’ Father was rather exasperated, ‘Whatever has he done now?’ You know. She said, ‘He’s joined the RAF.’ My father said, ‘He can’t. He’s not old enough.’ So I said, ‘Yes, I volunteered, father.’ ‘Oh.’ He said ‘That’s it, and you can’t say anything about it,’ I said, ‘In the First World War you volunteered when you were seventeen.’ He said, ‘But I didn’t go.’ I said, ‘No. The only difference between you and me, I passed my medical and you didn’t.’ So, I won the argument, didn’t I? And in the January —
RP: What year is this then? The January of — ?
OC: The war broke out in ‘39.
RP: Yeah.
OC: ’40.
RP: January ’40. Oh right.
OC: January ’40, I got my calling up papers to go up to Blackpool and there were two Devon County Council members on the station with me. They were a lot older than me and they were called up, you know. And so we travelled up there and that was, that was quite an experience. It’s all in my book you know.
RP: So, was that just to, just to get you the uniform and everything? And then you got on to training from there, did you?
OC: Yeah. There we had to do square bashing first. And then six months afterwards I went to Yatesbury near Calne, near Swindon. And we had to get wireless up to eighteen words a minute, and I could. I took to Morse and I could do twenty quite easily. Send and receive. And I was posted to Plymouth.
RP: Right.
OC: And I was down there fourteen months and —
RP: Doing what? What were you doing there?
OC: Oh. Ground wireless operator waiting to go on the gunnery course.
RP: Oh right.
OC: They said, it’s very funny really, you know they said there weren’t any vacancies at the Gunnery Schools. That was, I thought to myself, my God what have I done now? You see, it wasn’t, they couldn’t keep up with gunners that had been wiped out, you know.
RP: Right.
OC: Not being very helpful.
RP: So where were you based in Plymouth for this then?
OC: Mount Wise.
RP: Mount Wise.
OC: Mount Wise.
RP: So the telecommunications side.
OC: In the end, after being put on a charge for being one day late from leave I went out into billets at Crownhill.
RP: Oh yeah. Yeah.
OC: And we were underground at Eggbuckland underground station. And, while I was undressing that’s how I got my name Inky. When I was on this charge I was wild. To think it’s my own fault, you know. I’d got the last day’s leave was this day and instead of that it was the day before.
RP: Oh right.
OC: So I was a day late and oh, I was in quite a bit of trouble there. I thought arrive at a station and before you say hello you’re in trouble. And out there I was very very good [ unclear] and oh when I was on, doing the, emptying my kit bag in this great block all to myself. A room all to myself in a block that was empty I emptied my kit bag out and there was a bottle of marking ink that burst all over my —
RP: Oh dear.
OC: Left shoulder. But when we went to the wireless cabin one of the WAAFs there, one of the wireless operator WAAFs was getting tea for the underground and everybody had taken their coats off, you see. So I took off my coat. Got this, the only clean shirt I had.
RP: Oh right.
OC: So she said, ‘You’re the new boy aren’t you?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘My name’s Griffiths. Always known as Griff. What are you called?’ She said, ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll call you Inky.’ That’s how I got that name.
RP: And that’s, that’s what you became.
OC: Yeah.
RP: So were you in Plymouth during the blitz then?
OC: No. Just after.
RP: Just after. Right.
OC: Yeah. I [pause] about, oh three weeks, a month after.
RP: Oh right.
OC: Yeah.
RP: So from Plymouth then when did you finally get to your gunnery course then?
OC: Fourteen months later.
RP: Gosh.
OC: I was down there, oh the other thing was that if you were a good wireless operator they tried to hang on to you.
RP: Of course. Yeah.
OC: And that’s why I was there fourteen months.
RP: You knew your Morse too well obviously.
OC: I loved Morse.
RP: So where did you go for the gunnery course then?
OC: First of all we went to air training for wireless sending and that was at Madley. We weren’t there very long. A horrible place. Then we went to Castle Kennedy near Stranraer.
RP: Oh my goodness.
OC: That was —
RP: Way up north.
OC: Yes. That would be December. December ’40. ’41.
RP: Yes.
OC: Or ’42. I can’t remember which and it would be in the book, but the accommodation there was rather luxurious. We used to have a Nissen hut that was, held about twelve people. Twelve or fourteen, I forget which. And it had one bulb one end and one bulb the other. Forty watt.
RP: Gosh.
OC: We’d got a tortoise stove in the middle and the supply of coal was half a sack a week. And if you didn’t pick it up pretty quickly somebody else did so you had none.
RP: Oh right.
OC: And we used to get wood. We were in the middle of a wood and we used to get any dead wood we can, and if it wasn’t desperate you used to get, break down something and get it.
RP: Yeah.
OC: And the railway went just by. We used to go out there and wave to the engine driver and the stoker of the train used to throw out huge lumps of steam coal.
RP: Oh right.
OC: And they used to do that. And when we were flying around we —
RP: So what were you training on? What aircraft were you on?
OC: The first time I was, was ever airborne was a De Havilland Dominie which is a De Havilland Rapide.
RP: Oh yes, I know.
OC: Civilian aircraft. Lovely aircraft. Twin.
RP: Twin wings. Yeah.
OC: Yeah. And then I was on Magisters for [pause] or in Magisters for the air training, and then we went up to Castle Kennedy and we were on Beauforts which was deadly and [pause] Now, now I’ve stopped.
RP: No. Don’t worry. We can, we can pause it there. Don’t worry.
[recording paused]
OC: I was posted to 13 OTU. As I walked in through the door, I’d been there two days and a fella from Honiton was walking out and we met. And the people that I was with said, ‘Oh, do you know him, Inky?’ So Derek said, ‘Who’s Inky?’ I said, ‘I’m Inky.’ And after the war we were at the Golf Club and everything, he always called me Inky. Never went back.
RP: Right.
OC: He died a few years ago.
RP: Yeah.
OC: A couple of years ago.
RP: Ok. So, anyway, you get to Bicester. You’re at the OTU. What aircraft are you now using there then?
OC: I was in Blenheims. And —
RP: What was a Blenheim like as an aircraft then?
OC: Horrible.
RP: Was it?
OC: Well, not horrible but it’s very difficult to explain really. For a wireless operator it was very difficult. You had like motorbike handles.
RP: Oh right.
OC: When you pressed them down like that your seat went down, your guns went up.
RP: Oh, I see.
OC: Then you could use your set.
RP: Got you. Oh, so the guns moved out the way so you can —
OC: Yeah.
RP: Got you. Got you. Yeah.
OC: Yeah. There’s a post comes down. There’s two cannisters of ammunition. One for each gun. And in behind there’s two little cases of coils. One was used for trailing aerial and one was to use for ordinary sending station, you know. If you used a trailing aerial that was for getting bearings. But you had to change. These were in two little boxes. They had wing nuts and you had to undo the wing nuts. Luckily they were attached.
RP: Yeah.
OC: To the case. Take out the coil, take out the one that you were using. Hold it in your lap, put the one that you picked out and put up. That one you put back in the bottom in case it —
RP: And all the time the aircraft’s —
OC: Oh, it was going. Then you, if anything happened well you had to drop the lot and curl up under. So while I was there I went under friendly fire the first time. We were just finishing our being crewed up. I was with a fella from Trinidad and one from Liverpool. They were both officers, pilot officers, and in the Blenheims there was only three in the crew and we were going out over the, before you left OTU they used to send you out over the coast after a big bomber raid in to see if there was any of any of our airmen had come down in the sea, you know. In the North Sea. We used to do a square search and come back. And we were just crossing the, I’d got permission to cross the coast and I thought well let’s get some exercise in with sending, you know back to base.
RP: Yeah.
OC: I did this, and all of a sudden the aircraft was being thrown all over. So I said, ‘Dave, what the devil are you doing? I’m trying to send Morse.’ He said, ‘If you looked out — ’ And there were puffs of bomb curling around the [pause] So I said, ‘Oh God.’ He said, ‘Did you get permission?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ So we belted out to the North Sea as fast as we could, did our section and coming back and I fired the letter of the day. It was yellow. I always remember [laughs] And peace reigned once again. So we went out and I said to Dave on that, ‘You’re coming in the same place as where we went out. They fired at us on the way out. What do you think they’re going to do when we come back?’ I said, ‘I’ve loaded the pistol again.’ And, but we came back alright. We reported it. I don’t know what happened to the ground crew but —
RP: You’d think they’d recognise a Blenheim.
OC: Yeah. Oh, we were supposed to be something like a JU88 I think it was.
RP: Ok.
OC: But they had swastikas all over them. We had roundels all over us. Top and bottom. You know.
RP: You wonder.
OC: You wonder. And well I wouldn’t be here if they’d had the things that they fired at you.
RP: If you’d been hit. Yes.
OC: Yeah.
RP: So at the Gunnery School. How long were you at the Gunnery School then on the Blenheims?
OC: Oh, the Gunnery School. I was only there about six weeks. Two months. Something like that.
RP: Then you were posted to a squadron?
OC: Then I was posted to OTU.
RP: Oh right.
OC: And I was there, oh and then we changed over to Bostons. That was a lovely aircraft. The De Havilland. Not the De Havilland. The Boston.
RP: Douglas.
OC: Douglas. That’s right. Douglas 3A. And we got a fourth member of the crew who was an under gunner who fired through the floor. That’s important because a bit later on and [pause] he used to lift up the flap on the door and he was attached by his monkey, what we called the monkey strap which was fixed to the aircraft and then he used to clip it on to his parachute harness and so he, if he got a bit excited he didn’t fall out, you know. I could never see why it happened because I mean it wasn’t that big. I suppose the length of that.
RP: Oh right.
OC: Not quite as long as that and they used to go back, clipped back and used to fire a Vickers gas operated gun through the floor but I mean by the time the enemy did that thing he was gone up past you so you wouldn’t have had time to switch it. I never saw that. I never saw him shoot his gun. And —
RP: So, you’re on, you’re on the Douglas. So how long were you at the OTU then?
OC: About four months.
RP: Oh. And that’s familiarisation is it?
OC: That’s moving from Blenheims on to Bostons. And then we went to Finmere, kitted up for overseas and we went down to Portreath in Cornwall.
RP: Oh yes.
OC: We had extra fuel tanks on them. On the aircraft. The guns were stowed, and all our kit was on the flap. So Jack, our gunner, under gunner was sitting on all our kit. And down in the, he saw nothing. I was up the top. And when you were in the Boston it’s a, it was a lovely aircraft. When you were firing your guns your feet were going that way, your guns were there. You had a swivel seat. You could swivel round and there was your wireless set.
RP: Oh right.
OC: And the Morse key, everything. And we went to Finmere. We were there about a fortnight getting used to this aircraft and one day they said to me, because of the new wireless set, ‘We’ll show you how it works.’ I said, ‘Oh yes,’ because we were to do our last what we called cross country and we went right down to Cornwall. Get permission to cross the coast up to the Irish Sea. Get permission to get back in to England and then back to base. And when I got down to Cornwall I couldn’t find the Morse key. Going this way and the Morse sets were here, and TR9 and I said, ‘I can’t find the Morse key. It was here this morning.’ Say it like everybody else you know. Couldn’t find it. I said, ‘Jack, come up and have a look. So he came. So, Dave the pilot said, ‘Well?’ I said, ‘I can’t. We can’t cross the coast,’ I said, ‘I can’t find my Morse key.’ So [laughs] Then he said, ‘Right. Abort.’ And we went back to base. Coming in I swung round all my wireless stuff was up there like everybody else, and I was just looking around and the aircraft came down like this, and in this came in [pause] six inches I suppose, nine inches and underneath this was a little square box with a button about the size of my thumb and I thought I’d never seen that before. I wonder what that is. Pressed the button. That was my Morse key. So I thought however could you send Morse on a button which was only coming up about this, above base. You had to go like this and every time of course the aircraft went down your hand went down with it, so you didn’t do it —
RP: Yes. You’re mixing it up, aren’t you?
OC: You couldn’t, you couldn’t send Morse on it. And so I said, ‘I found my Morse key.’ And when we they got back they laughed. And we used to have a board in the mess that said, “The sign of the irremovable finger,” which is Chad looking over the wall. Do you know it?
RP: Oh yeah. I know what you mean.
OC: And his hand was like this. And at the end this finger stuck up with [unclear] “Awarded this week to Sergeant Cox who couldn’t find his Morse key.”
RP: Oh dear, embarrassment.
OC: Yes. They used to say, ‘Have you got your Morse key this morning?’ Every time we went up near there. Yes. And also the Boston, the pilot, the w/op a.g. had a set of controls at the back. He had rudders but they were right up you know, you were up like this.
RP: Oh right.
OC: You couldn’t, couldn’t use it. Dave said, ‘Don’t bother about them. Just fly using everything else you’ve got there.’ I had a speedo and what height you were. Well, we were tipping, the trouble was you see oh that was done so that the pilot, if you were in trouble the wireless operator took the joystick as they called them from the side, jammed it in and you fly the aircraft. And very often Dave said, ‘Have some driving practice.’ You know. So, ‘Alright.’ Used to quite enjoy that. But of course the same thing, I was like this this and of course when you go like this this one goes that way doesn’t it? So you’re flying like this along. We were going down through the Bay of Biscay and went to, to give me some practice at that. So he said, ‘And we want to fly straight and level. We don’t want to be at an angle.’ I said, ‘Alright.’ Gradually of course I turned over and if I went that way it was even worse because it was just, it was harder to look out that window. And then we had a loop aerial that used to tune in to any station. You could get bearings on it and you knew what stations you were tuned in, you know. Music stations and all that. So I did that. Gave it to the observer. My readings. He said, ‘That’s an interesting, Owen.’ he said. Oh, they always called me Owen except the pilot who called me Cockles. And, and so I said, ‘Everything all right?’ He said, ‘Yes. We’re either in Germany or the middle of the Irish Sea which do you want?’ The [unclear] was on the Irish Sea.
RP: Oh, I see. Right.
OC: So I said, well I couldn’t be like that. Just couldn’t. And when we landed at Gib. Gibraltar. They found out that the loop, the loop aerial up there was turned. It was giving a, of course whatever instead of being nought there it would be, nought would be over here.
RP: Oh yes. Not aligned properly.
OC: Yeah. Not aligned. And I was angry at this.
RP: Because that puts all the readings out.
OC: Yeah. Oh, and another thing you have to do when you’re coming in to land you’ve got to have the aldis lamp, and send the letter of the day. Well, if you’re going this way, and you’re right or left handed whatever light you see you’re like this and then you stand up and see Europa Point, which is this point and if, if you’re not aligned on it all they see is a white light. So I undid my monkey strap, and was right outside almost, and I nearly fell out.
RP: Oh gosh.
OC: Yeah. And I just kept firing, pointed after that and when we got down —
RP: Hoped for the best.
OC: Jack said to me, ‘What do you think the ground crew are laughing at?’ I said, ‘Well, Jack we’re in shorts.’ Lillywhites you know, and, ‘Look at your knees and look at theirs.’ I said, ‘They’re just Lillywhites.’ But I was wrong. The runway at Gibraltar goes about six hundred yards out into the sea.
RP: I’ve seen it. Yeah.
OC: Yeah. And Dave brought it in as low as he could and as slow as he could to make sure because we were heavily loaded with all our stuff and everything and when the crew came up, as I jumped out they said, ‘Do you think you’ve lost anything?’ And my trailing aerial. I’d come in without winding it in.
RP: Oh dear.
OC: It had wrapped itself around a Naval boat that was passing, or anchored I don’t know which. Brought down that aerial, snapped off mine, and then I was so angry thinking that you know a trained man had done that. If I’d done it at OTU.
RP: Yeah.
OC: Yes. That would have been alright. I was still learning. But to be trained and that was went down wrong. I grabbed my parachute, pulled it out, but I caught hold of the rip cord. That one opened. So —
RP: Not a good trip.
OC: No. No, I didn’t enjoy that.
RP: So, from, from where had you gone from the OTU then, where were you now?
OC: From OTU we went to, we went to Portree.
RP: Portree. Then from Portree.
OC: Portree to Gibraltar.
RP: Oh right. And you were stationed in Gibraltar then?
OC: No. No.
RP: Just staging through.
OC: Yes. On our way to Sicily.
RP: Oh right. Right.
OC: And then we went down to Spanish Morocco. A place called Fez. And we stayed there. How the fellows lived there I don’t know. Sandstorms. And food used to go green from morning to night.
RP: Gosh.
OC: You know. And then we went across North Africa and landed at Tunis and that was an American station. And they’d rigged up hot showers. I mean not cold showers. Hot showers or cold. Whichever you liked.
RP: Gosh.
OC: And oh, they had and I always remember they said, ‘What would you like for a sweet?’ They’d given us some, I’ve forgotten what we had from the menu but I always remember peaches and cream.
RP: Gosh.
OC: I mean we couldn’t get —
RP: That’s a luxury.
OC: We couldn’t get that in England so that was fine.
RP: So was this leading up to the invasion of Sicily then?
OC: No.
RP: Not really taking part.
OC: They’d taken. That had finished.
RP: Oh right.
OC: That had finished about two or three weeks. We landed. And we slept under trees, on the ground. And then we went up to Gerbini Three which is on the Catania Plain and from there we started ops. And there was a, it was at the beach head at Salerno was it?
RP: Yeah. Salerno. Yeah.
OC: Salerno. And the Germans were coming down, bringing down Panzer divisions. And we were after three bridges the night we went out. Oh. Now, in our hut, you know, hut [laughs] tent there was Jack and myself, a gunner and a wireless operator, and in, and the same with another crew. And our pilot and observers were together in another crew.
RP: Oh right.
OC: Funnily enough. And Jack, our, both our gunners, the under gunners were called Jack and he was in hospital with dysentery so our Jack and myself used to take it in turns to fly with the other crew.
RP: Oh, I see.
OC: And I was flying as an under-gunner, not a wireless operator and we went on this raid and we hadn’t got, we were told it was going to be probably running mist or a bit of rain but it was the worst static storm I’ve ever seen even on trying to fly through it and we [sound of knocking] I don’t think it’s us. I think its next door. And they [pause] where was I?
RP: So you were on the raid in the static storm.
OC: Oh yes, and we climbed over it. Of course Jack and I were, well we all were cold, and we were frozen in the back.
RP: Yeah.
OC: Open top and bottom. And we came down the other side and we had three bridges. A road, rail and river and we went for the river bridge, and we got, as far as we could see two direct hits on it. First aircraft out. 5.15 we’d left. And so we thought there was another seventeen aircraft. They should be able to put paid to the other two. And coming back Mac said, he’s the pilot, he said, ‘We shall have to, if we run into that storm again we shall have to fly through it because,’ he said, ‘There’s no way have we got enough fuel to climb up above it and get back to base.’ And we started to fly through it and we got struck by lightning. All the intercom went out. Everything. The wireless went. Everything you’d think. Jack and I were alright at the back because we could talk to each other but the important people were of course the observer and the pilot. The observer was right in the front. Steel plating. Then the pilot’s got all his controls, steel plating behind him. Then you come to the bomb bay and the wireless equipment. Then you come to us. And we lost our way. And the pilot said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’ve got a choice. We either bale out or ditch.’ So I was, seeing as it wasn’t my crew I was what you would normally call spare, and I said, ‘Well, there’s four of us in this aircraft, and if you get two or more you don’t know what to do. So —’ I said, ‘I vote —' Vote. ‘But I’ll agree to anything that you say.’ Well, they all three voted to ditch. I said, ‘Fine.’ So I closed the door and stowed my gun and I thought to myself [pause] as I picked up all the verey cartridges, stuffed them inside my [unclear] and then, and the verey pistol, so I thought a few pyrotechnics. If they don’t get too wet somebody might see us. Well, we came down, and of course ditching is rather dangerous at the best of times but when you’ve got fifteen foot square high waves going along you don’t know whether you’re at fifteen feet or —
RP: And this was at night time.
OC: Yes.
RP: Yeah.
OC: Yes. It would be after 9 o’clock at night and I don’t know anything else. I can remember having a clout on the head, but I don’t remember anything else until I was in the sea. And I suddenly became conscious again and I heard voices. I tried to blow my whistle but I couldn’t. I didn’t have any breath. And I tried to shout. That wasn’t very loud. But suddenly I had hands grip me, and I thought I was being, coming in the dinghy and I thought, cor this is hard. I never realised the dinghy was as hard as this. Well, I had twenty one ribs broken or fractured, three fractures of the spine, severe compressed fracture of the spine, severe concussion and I lost my little finger. And as I went in I lost consciousness and I don’t know anything more until I came to in the hospital.
RP: And that was in Sicily? The hospital.
OC: In Sicily. In, yes Sicily, at Patti.
RP: Yeah.
OC: And these, these brothers that I got in they’d, it was a fishing boat not the dinghy that they pulled me up. The observer was right in the front. Well, he would have been smashed to pieces. And of course no one ever said anything but he was buried. His body was washed ashore ten days later. So I was told after this. And he was buried in Catania War Cemetery. And they never found Jock or Mac. The pilot or the w/op a.g. because they’d been strapped in and the aircraft was broken all in pieces and they would have been strapped.
RP: They’d gone down with the aircraft.
OC: They’d gone down with the aircraft. It was only because I didn’t strap myself in on the end of the monkey chain. I’d undone that. I said that’s, no, I don’t want to be dangling on the end of a piece of a cord.
RP: So this was off the west coast of Sicily then. Yeah?
OC: Yes.
RP: So, looking back then do you think the better option would have been to bale out?
OC: No.
RP: No.
OC: No.
RP: You don’t think so.
OC: Well, it might have been.
RP: Because of the rough sea.
OC: Rough sea. Yeah.
RP: Yeah.
OC: I mean my pilot that night, Mac had been right through the Battle of Britain. He was on Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain. When that was over he was given the choice of night fighters or medium bombers. He said, ‘I’m not stooging around at night looking for nothing. Then turn on the light and —’ He said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘I’ll go on bombing.’ He did.
RP: Was that your first sortie out of Sicily then?
OC: Pardon?
RP: Was that your first sortie?
OC: No.
RP: No. You’d done —
OC: I think it was my sixth.
RP: Oh right.
OC: Before this, before this raid we were thinking of doing a daylight raid. Well, no way could you do a daylight raid going out one at a time. You’d just be picked off like flies, you know. And so we went out in a box of six. And we were never flown in formation except from Comiso up to Gerbini Three. That’s the only formation flying. So they said, ‘Well, we’d better get some practice in.’ So we did. The pilot, the first there, we were in number two, three, four, five, six, and the first time we went off our nose wheel burst and the pilot upended the undercarriage and slewed into another aircraft.
RP: Oh dear.
OC: And so they said, ‘You hadn’t better fly tomorrow. We’ll have a rest.’ So we went out the day after that and then [pause] so we went up again. As we, we got back to base the leading aircraft slewed down, came up, hit our wing and about two feet of wing just crumpled down. Their wing fell off and they crashed and they all got killed. And that was the aircraft that we took out to Sicily. A brand new aircraft, you know. Didn’t —
RP: Oh dear. So you’ve been recovered. You’re in hospital. How long were you in hospital for?
OC: I was in hospital. This all happened within six days. I had three accidents on landing err take-off, a mid-air, and the ditching.
RP: All come in threes.
OC: Yes.
RP: Oh dear. That was bad luck wasn’t it?
OC: Yeah.
RP: Gosh.
OC: And, oh what was the question you asked me?
RP: How long were you in hospital for?
OC: That must be the 1st of October 1943. I got back —
RP: That was the ditching, yeah?
OC: That’s, yes, well, I was in hospital that night but I was unconscious.
RP: Yeah.
OC: And I went in. Then they transferred me from that hospital to number 1 Advanced Field Dressing Army Hospital and I was still unconscious. And about ten days after that I began to get conscious. Then I was, when I began to come to a bit, I couldn’t see. I was blind. So I said, ‘Shall I ever see again?’ I thought, oh crumbs, you know. Get over something and you’ve got something else. They said, ‘Oh, yes. We’ll do that. Don’t worry. He says, ‘It’s only a matter of days now that you’re conscious that it’ll come back.’ I didn’t know how it was going to happen but it did and then I realised I was paralysed from the waist down.
RP: Oh dear.
OC: And so I said, ‘Shall I ever walk again?’ They said, ‘Yes. Yes. We’ll get you alright.’ So then my sight came back so I thought well theyll get me walking again, you know. I had complete faith and they were wonderful. Wonderful staff. And one day the medical officer was coming around to do the, the chief medical officer of the hospital going around and he said, ‘If we can keep this fellow alive until midnight we should be able to pull him through. We’ve got every chance of pulling him through.’ So I thought, oh bad luck fella because the next place to me there’s a fella with his, this absolutely just two little slits for his eyes.
RP: Oh right.
OC: And one for his mouth. A primus stove had blown up in his face.
RP: Gosh.
OC: And I thought crumbs, you know. I felt sorry for him. Then the next thing I heard was, ‘Oh, and this afternoon we shall be removing the bandages from this fellows head.’ So they’d been talking about me and they said they should be able to keep me alive.
RP: Right.
OC: Pull me through.
RP: So when did you come back? When did you return to England then after that?
OC: A week before December.
RP: So you got, got back for Christmas.
OC: Before Christmas. Right.
RP: Yeah.
OC: I went on the, from landed at Portreath. I went to Plymouth Royal Hospital. I got up to Wrougton Hospital near Swindon and they said they were going to amputate my little finger but my own doctor saw that, did it. And in Tunis was one of the places I landed. I was there for over a month. I’ve never been treated so badly in all my life. And I didn’t have any clothes. I came back to England in a pair of gym shoes. I, when we went to Wroughton they didn’t have a pair of size eight shoes there so I came back to Honiton in a pair of gym shoes and then I put my own shoes on.
RP: So did you arrive back in Honiton for Christmas?
OC: Yes.
RP: Oh, ok.
OC: Yeah.
RP: And what did you parents have to say?
OC: I shocked them. And when the lads, I used to go to church every Sunday with the organist, and his young brother used to answer. Well, I used to go up every Sunday. Walk up to the house, it was a big white house up here behind the park and just tap on the door and walk in. I thought, well they don’t know that I’m coming so I’ll wait outside and tap. Young Edward opened the door, looked at me, slammed the door and went in. So I didn’t know what to do. The next thing I knew all the family came out to the back door. They said, ‘Edward said he thought he’d seen a ghost,’ and [pause] because I was just a bag of bones, you know.
RP: So did you stay in the RAF or were you discharged?
OC: Discharged. I, oh, so then I went from Wroughton. I wasn’t there that long. I was in a convalescent home in Loughborough for four and a half months and then I went to the Central Medical Board in London, and I went through five doctors there. And they told me to report to wing commander so and so at lunchtime, after lunch. So I said, ‘Alright.’ So I went down and we had a little chat and he said, ‘What were you doing before you came in the Services?’ I said. ‘Oh, I was a clerk with the Devon County Council.’ So he looked up. He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think you’d better go back to the Devon County Council. Be a clerk again back at the Devon County Council. You’re no further use to the RAF.’
RP: Oh dear.
OC: That’s how it ended [unclear]
RP: So how long was it before you got back to your normal good health as it were after all that?
OC: Years.
RP: It must have been a while.
OC: Yeah. I was sitting with my back to the wall and a bag of nerves now. Yeah.
RP: So did, did you get your job back with Devon County Council?
OC: Oh yes. Yes.
RP: Yeah.
OC: That was terrible. I couldn’t last a day. I used to go down on the fire watchers bed down in one of the committee rooms and lay on my back and very often I used to fall asleep. They used to come down and wake me up to go back to work again, you know.
RP: And yet for all that —
OC: Pardon?
RP: And yet for all that your ninety eighth birthday is coming up.
OC: Yes.
RP: It’s amazing and I mean that’s it’s an amazing story. I’m really, I’m privileged to hear you talk and I think that’s probably a good point to end on but I have to say thank you very much. It’s been amazing.
OC: My pleasure.
RP: Absolutely amazing. 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 Owen Cox
Creator
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Rod Pickles
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2020-01-31
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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
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ACoxOV200131
PCoxOV2003
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Pending review
Format
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00:54:08 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Owen Cox went to a grammar school in York and joined the Home Guard when the war started. At 18 he joined the Royal Air Force, although his parents were not keen. His initial trade was ground wireless operator (Morse), waiting to attend a gunnery school. He describes service life at RAF Castle Kennedy, living in a Nissen hut. Owen flew in Manchesters, Blenheims, and Bostons. He was then posted to Gibraltar, Sicily, then Morocco, and eventually Tunis, at a USAAF airfield. He recollects operations to the Salerno beach heads. In October 1943 his aircraft was struck by lightning: following electrical issues, they ditched at night-time. Badly injured, he was rescued by a fishing boat, then taken to hospital in Sicily. He had serious health consequences, including deteriorated eyesight. Owen was eventually repatriated and then discharged on medical grounds.
Contributor
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Graham Emmet
Julie Williams
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Gibraltar
Morocco
Tunisia
Tunisia--Tunis
Italy
Italy--Sicily
Italy--Salerno
North Africa
Temporal Coverage
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1943-09
1943-10-01
Language
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eng
13 OTU
air gunner
aircrew
Blenheim
bombing
Boston
civil defence
crash
ditching
ground personnel
Home Guard
Manchester
military living conditions
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Nissen hut
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bicester
RAF Castle Kennedy
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/768/10769/ADavidsonTA170717.1.mp3
91ab9c07f826cc5c96182de712fc028c
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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Davidson, Thomas Aiden
T A Davidson
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Tom Davidson (b. 1923, 1895266 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 466 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Davidson, TA
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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RS: Right. So, I just want to make sure that it is working. So, the timer is moving on so we’ll, we’ll make a start then. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. My name is Robb Scott and I’m interviewing Tom Davidson. We’re at Tom’s house at Washington, Tyne and Wear. It’s Monday, the 17th of July 2017 and it is ten past ten in the morning. Tom, first of all thank you very much for agreeing to do this with us this morning. We really do appreciate the time and effort you’re going to take with us today. I’m going to ask you one or two questions and then we want to hear your stories of the war and everything else around that. So, if we could make a start. Fairly straightforward Tom. If you could tell me where and when you were born and a bit about your background before the RAF please.
TD: I was born in Felling, Gateshead 1923. I was an apprentice engineer at Reyrolles, a big heavy engineering firm in Hebburn and war was declared three days after my sixteenth birthday. So I was an apprentice engineer. I’m pleased I’ve been asked to do this recording because it’s something I feel very strongly about. What men and boys and women went through in this country for peace and freedom must never be forgotten. I feel strongly about it because my only brother was killed also. But war is horrible. War is brutal. War is evil. But sadly sometimes war is justified and in my opinion World War Two was. I was just sixteen years and three days when war was declared and although we didn’t have TV or smart phones in those days I was well aware of the atrocities being carried out by Nazi Germany and Hitler’s ultimate aim to conquer Europe and to eliminate anyone who stood in their way or who didn’t match up to the idea of a true German. And in doing so they killed eleven million people. Eleven million men, women and children. At the time I was an apprentice engineer at Reyrolles, who were involved in war work and as such I was classed as being in a Reserved Occupation which meant I could never be conscripted in to any of the Armed Forces or Merchant Navy. Nor could I volunteer for them. I felt strongly that I wanted to do something to defend my country and my loved ones. I did get the chance at the time of Dunkirk when we were being evacuating from Europe. Winston Churchill, Prime Minister at the time appealed for all able bodied men, males rather between sixteen and sixty five to volunteer for the Local Defence Volunteer Force which later became the Home Guard. Better known as Dad’s Army I suppose. So I joined that and was in it until I joined the RAF. As the years went by and there seemed no end to the war due to the heavy losses suffered in Bomber Command the government decreed that men and boys, because you were just boys up to twenty one, in Reserved Occupations could volunteer to train as what we called PNB. Pilot, navigator, bomb aimer course. I immediately volunteered for it. I went down to what was known as Burton’s Buildings in Doncaster. Had five days of fitness tests, medical tests and intelligence tests and at the end went in front of an interview panel and I was accepted into the RAF to train as PNB. Pilot, navigator, bomb aimer. I was given my service number and put on deferred service until there was a training place available. However, at that time the four engine bomber had been introduced and there was an extra crew member was needed. So they created a new category. That of flight engineer, who’d be the pilot’s right hand man. Assist in pre and post flight checks, take-off and landing at the controls, be responsible for all the equipment on board, the pneumatics, electrics, fuel etcetera. And also I had to log the fuel consumption every twenty minutes. I received a request from the Air Ministry to consider training as a flight engineer and I accepted immediately. I reported to the Aircrew Receiving Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground. We did three weeks there being kitted out. Medical examinations again. Inoculations, etcetera. And then we went on a six week square bashing course, doing aircraft recognition and a little bit of maths and all that sort of thing. And then after seven days leave I was posted to St Athans which was the training school for flight engineers. I’d also like to point out at this time that all aircrew, Bomber Command aircrew were volunteers. Every one of us. I went down to St Athans. Trained as a flight engineer for about seven or eight month and then got my brevet. Flight engineer’s brevet and sergeant’s stripes. Got seven days leave and was posted to what was known as a Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Riccall near Selby where we trained with experienced aircrew who’d done, served their tours. And we trained there to become competent flight engineers with experienced crew. And then came the time to be given a crew. So I was, about thirty or forty flight engineers arrived at RAF Acaster Malbis near York. We were there for about two or three days. Lessons I suppose. And we were told this afternoon that we would meet our pilot and meet our crew. An aircrew selection was the most haphazard chaotic system out. They flung all the aircrew into big arenas. Let them mingle together and they sorted a crew of six out first. And it was very successful method despite that. I would say ninety nine point nine percent of the time. And then we were told we would meet our pilot and subsequent crew. And this is true this is. I know it sounds [pause] There were double doors at the end of the room we were in and they were opened and these pilots were crowded in there. And I got my eyes on this pilot and I don’t know why but I thought I hope he comes for me. And sure enough he walked straight across the floor. This is absolutely true. It was like two lovers meeting on a dance floor but there was none of that involved in it. And he came, we had a little bit of a natter and he said, ‘Have you got a pilot?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Would you like to be my engineer?’ And I said, ‘Yes. I would.’ And we hit it off from day one. He was a fantastic pilot. Same age as me. We were just, in fact he was three weeks older than me. We were both twenty years of age by then. He was a great skipper. Very skilful. Great captain. Firm but friendly. Determined to get back home to South Australia and kept the crew on their toes. But he was a wonderful, wonderful pilot. Then I met the rest of the crew. Six Aussies. It was a wonderful experience. It turned out we hit it off from day one. We had a wonderful bond formed on that day which lasted well even up ‘til February of this year. I still contacted the crew. Kept in touch with them all. Met them from time to time. Sadly the last one, the rear gunner died in February this year. However, we went back to what was known as a Heavy Conversion Unit where we trained as a crew. And then when we were considered competent we were posted thankfully to an Australian squadron. 466 Squadron based at Driffield. We did further training there. Fighter affil. How to dodge enemy fighters. Fortunately these were Spitfires and Hurricanes we were playing with. Then we were posted as I said on this squadron and we were ready for our first op. A day on a squadron consisted, we reported for duty at 9 o’clock in our particular sections. I went to the engineer’s section to discuss various matters. Maybe evaders. Talking to you. Then at 10 o’clock the dreaded phone would ring and you hoped to hear the engineer leader repeat, ‘Nothing on today. Tonight.’ You knew you had another twenty four hours to live. But invariably it would come through, ‘Operations on today.’ It going to be a daylight. It’s going to be a night operation. And how many aircraft. One of us would go along to the duty room and get the crew roster for the operation, and then you hope your name wasn’t on it but when it was you just had to get on with it. You saw the list and your procedure for that was roughly, as far as I can remember you wrote your last letter. You had your last meal which was always bacon, egg and fried potatoes on the Aussie squadron. And then you went to the briefing room. Find out where your target was and then you sort of put things in order. Emptied your pockets. And then you went out and wait for the crew bus to take you to the parachute room to collect your parachutes and your escape kit. I’d just like to point out the first day I arrived on the squadron I met this lad that had slept in the next bed but one for six month. He was ahead of us on the course and he was going out on his, what was to be his sixth op. We had a meal together. Chatted until he was ready to leave and that was the last I saw of him. They were all killed that night. That was the starter. So to get back to going on our first op. We were in this billet with a crew who were in, going in C-Charlie and I think it was their third or fourth last operation. Some of them knew each other from even from school days. But we were very friendly with them and they said, ‘Stay with us. Stay alongside us.’ It was a daylight raid. ‘You’ll be alright.’ They were in C-Charlie.’ So we boarded. I’d better tell you know because I was asked once, ‘Was I scared?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And I was asked again, ‘You weren’t scared?’ And I said, ‘No,’ I said, ‘I was bloody terrified,’ I said, ‘We all were.’ However, amazing thing was when I put the key in the plane to open up fear left you and your training took over because you had to concentrate every second. You had to have utter trust in your comrades and the crew and we were a good crew although I say it myself. We had, Pat insisted on us doubling up on different tasks. You know, I used to do, have a go in the rear turret and on the wireless just in case any of us weren’t available either through death or injury. So he, but he was a good skipper as I keep repeating. We set off. Took off for a raid on Sterkrade which was a raid I think it was synthetic oil plant, or a synthetic chemical plant. There were six hundred bombers that day. About thirty or forty mile from the target I saw this big black thing in the sky. I thought we’ve never been told about that and I hadn’t been on those tours over that part of the world to know what it was. But as you approached it was what was called a box barrage. Certain times Jerry threw up in a certain area and certain height everything they could. And I thought, well that’s stupid. We’ll just fly around it. But you didn’t. You were in the RAF. You had to stick to your flight path and the bombing run. And then we saw the planes getting hit. It was, it was a hell of a day that day. Anyway, C-Charlie was just ahead of us on our starboard side. I saw it get hit and smoke and flames coming out of it and I saw two crew jump out and a parachute open. But the third one must have jumped into a burst of flak because I just saw half. You know, a torso going past me. And then the plane setting on fire and burst into flames and exploded. And they were only, there were two didn’t get out. Six jumped out but two didn’t get out. Anyway, the next thing I knew was I saw the wireless operator crawling from his position which he didn’t have to leave over the target area. I switched my intercom on and said, ‘Pat, what’s the matter with Nev.’ and Pat, we went by Christian names although there was no idle chat on the intercom. He said, ‘Tom, are you alright? I’ve been trying to get you for five minutes.’ He said, ‘Is the port inner alright?’ And I looked and I said, ‘Yes.’ I looked again and said, ‘No.’ The red light was flashing. We’d actually been hit. So I told him to feather the engine to prevent fire or the propeller shearing off. I was actually sitting on top of the oxygen bottles and I had been physically sick. Whether it was with fear or shock or both I don’t know. But I saw, I think I was the only member of the crew that saw everything. Anyway, we carried on. Dropped our bomb load. Set off and of course well it left us stragglers behind all the other bombers. I thought every fighter in the Luftwaffe would be after us. But as we approached the North Sea and that there was about six Hurricanes. There was a few of us straggling. Picked us up until we got back to the UK. We landed that day. I remember when I jumped on the ground I thought God, I’ll never do it. Survive another twenty nine of these. However, we went for debriefing and that night I remember, I wouldn’t call it a dream, I think it was more a nightmare. I was driving to an RAF station, Usworth in a little RAF van. I was lying on the floor. The roof of the van was coming down on me and I woke up shouting, ‘I want to be out. I want to be out.’ I don’t think I was talking about I wanted to be out of the car. I think I wanted to be out of Bomber Command. But that was it. I had a few but never mind. We survived. Just to go back to C-Charlie. The flight engineer. They called him Peter Jack from Dumfries. We had our last meal together and he told me he was engaged to a girl just a few mile from where we lived. I think it was Willington Quay on Tyneside. He was expecting a silk scarf from her. Anyway, when we, the next morning when we went in the mess I saw where our letters and correspondence were kept and I saw this little brown parcel. Sergeant Jack. It was his silk scarf. There is a happy ending to that one which I’ll talk about later on. I’ll stick to the action. We went on many raids after that. We had some very scary moments. Some of them in this country. Not all. So, I’ll tell you some stories. Not in any particular order. But contrary to what I think is common belief we didn’t just drop randomly or anywhere. Every target, and we did thirty six, every target we did was either military or industrial. You took photographs of where your bombs would land and if you had too many misses, we, we didn’t, we were lucky in that respect. Our bomb aimer had been a flying, a bombing instructor. He was a flying officer. But if you did miss your target you had to what was known as an orbit. We had to do it two or three times being chased by fighters or searchlights and you had, which meant you had to climb with the full bomb load, do a full, outside of the bomber stream outside and that, if there was six or seven hundred, well it was a thousand at one time it was like driving up the, the M1 on the wrong side of the motorway with no lights on at night. A hell of an experience. We did it, as I say three times. We took, it was mainly when we’d been taking evasive action from either fighters or searchlights and you had to get onto your bombing run. Searchlights, although they couldn’t do you any damage were the most terrifying I found out. I thought it was just me but I’ve read about them and spoken to aircrews who felt the same. It was terrifying if they, what they called the master cone got on you. It was the blue one. Within seconds you’d get twenty or thirty searchlights on you. It lit you up and you just, that was it. We were caught twice, and again through Pat’s skill we got out of it but a most frightening experience. And you may have heard of the expression he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. Well, we bomber boys did that for two reasons. The first, well one reason was we had peashooters. 303s. Which were about I don’t know how many millimetres that is but roughly over a quarter of an inch. About seven millimetre peashooters. They had twenty millimetre cannon shells which shattering, were shattering the aircraft metal plates. And the second one was our range was, gunner’s range was four hundred yards. Theirs was up to about twelve hundred yards. So they had you in target long before we could do any damage. So the pilot had to do an evasive action which was called a corkscrew. And this is where the trust and confidence in crew members came in. At the crucial moment you would shout to the pilot, ‘Corkscrew. Corkscrew port,’ or, ‘Corkscrew starboard. Go.’ At the critical moment Pat would go into a dive and corkscrew. It was critical because if you went too soon they could veer off and chase you and if you called it too late well it was too late and you’d had your chips then, you know. So it was very critical that. It wasn’t a very welcome experience. G factor came into it a lot. But the Pathfinders were the ones who were down below. They would mark the target with target indicators. And if the winds or anything varied it they would just call out instructions to bomb somewhere to the left or the right of it. But it was very, very critical. They did a great job the Pathfinders. Two other hazards which you visit, visited and saw night after night was collisions between our own aircraft and bombs dropped. That was something really we had a great fear of was collisions because when you’re in cloud, particular at night and you know there’s four, five, six, seven hundred bombers there. You can’t see them but you knew they were there. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. But we got through it. We set off one evening which would have been a nine to ten hour trip deep into Germany. Chemnitz. And we were fitted with an extra petrol, fuel tanks. We dropped our load and making for home but we lost this extra tank. I used to do the fuel consumption every twenty minutes and I calculated on this occasion we were coming home from this flight we were going to run out of fuel before we got to the English Coast. So I told Pat these details. I said, ‘We’ll have to find, see if there’s a suitable aerodrome in the north of France we can land at.’ And I don’t want to do the Aussies any disrespect because I love them. Love them very, very much. But someone suggested we make for near Brighton. There were plenty of airfields there. Brighton was a Reception Centre for the Aussies when they came over and probably had happy memories there. But I said to Pat, ‘Pat, if we, if you try to make it for the UK I’ll be jumping out before we leave the French coast.’ However, again he trusted my calculations and we had a heck of a job finding a suitable aerodrome. We did find one at Juvencourt. It was an American one actually. It wasn’t in good working order but we managed to land at night and we landed and two engines cut out and the rest cut out. This is in the Australian War Museum Archives. It’s a true story. And it’s not often I could get Aussies to eat humble pie but they did on that occasion. Another nasty experience was we’d been warned for several ops that we may get intruders. You know, German fighters coming back with the bomber stream. On this occasion I was back changing the tanks over and I was off the intercom. And we had a set procedure when we landed, the pilot and I. And the crew just make for the exits and running out, jumping out making for a slit trench. Fortunately, I was the last one to get in. We’d been told there had been intruders at certain heights and they were just strafing the aerodrome. There was a slit trench near the parking bay where we were and we dived into that. Some of them squealed. I thought they’d been hit but as they told us later the ground crew used that as a toilet. Three of them. Well, you could say they landed in a mess but I was alright. But they strafed the ‘drome for about an hour and a half and we lost two that night over the aerodrome. Four of them were killed in one aircraft. They were in our billet. And they were losing height and the navigator came to the exit and the engineer was stood there. He was afraid to jump. The navigator was trying to push him out, you know. Getting. But he wouldn’t go so the navigator eventually jumped out. Sadly the engineer changed his mind and jumped out but it was too late so there were only two survivors from that one, you know. Another dodgy landing happened to us one night when they were trying a new, it was a brilliant light system which we used when it was very dark and that. Foggy. And when we came in to land we were the third aircraft down. The two previous ones had just hit the end of the runway. Unfortunately, before the flight commander could get the lights turned off and the original ones put on we touched down well short of the runway and there was a blinding flash and I thought we’d crashed into a forest nearby. But Pat managed to gain height and what had actually happened we’d gone through telegraph wires that had ripped the side of the fuselage, caught the bomb aimer from just outside his eye and ripped his side of his face open. And we were very very lucky to get through but again Pat’s strength got us through that one. Another very scary incident which happened in the UK was when we’d taken, when we were going on a morning op to Duisburg. We’d been having trouble with the starboard inner engine. Been out with the ground crew and that. But you didn’t like to call your operations off plus the fact you wanted to get through your tour. So we took her on a test flight. It was ok. Anyway, the time comes to take off. To set off. We were setting off to Duisburg and I was standing watching the panel to make sure that the dodgy engine wouldn’t let us down. So we got on to the runway. Got the ok to take off. Got the green light to take off and Pat set off along the runway to take off. And then I just saw the revs drop on the port inner. I yelled to Pat to abort take-off. Abort the take-off, which he did and it cut out. The port inner engine cut out. We swung off the runway. Bomb. Full bomb load but thankfully I’m telling this tale because the bombs didn’t go off. But that was very, very scary indeed but it just another case of trusting each other’s competence.
[pause]
Although we were all volunteers in Bomber Command aircrew and could at any time say we didn’t want to fly any more we’d be taken off flying duties immediately. We’d go in front of a tribunal. And in my case if I had decided I’d have been reduced to an AC2, discharged from the RAF with my documents stamped with big LMF. Lack of Moral Fibre. And then I would have been discharged from the RAF and sent back home. Gone back to my, finish my apprentice in the engineering company. It did happen on very, very rare occasions. I think there was about, out of two hundred and odd crews you’re talking seven times that. About four in our squadron. I remember one was an engineer and one was an Aussie pilot. I remember those two in particular. But even if I thought about it I would never have done it. I couldn’t do it. I still felt strongly even though I was married to the love of my life and my brother Frankie had, who was also a flight engineer had been killed on his first operation. I still felt the job had to be done. And I’m pleased I had the courage to stay in and not come out. A couple of stories which might be of interest. When we did these long flights into Germany it was suggested or advised even that if we got into trouble it might be better to make for North Africa rather than trying to reach the English Coast. So on these occasions and it happened to us on about four or five occasions we were given what was known by the rank and file as goolie chits. Because at the time there was a barbaric custom in Africa, North Africa whereby when, and this was from the 1920s and as far as I know the nineteen, early ‘50s it was still prevalent. If an aviator landed his private parts were cut off and sewn in his mouth. And although the reward was in Arabic, if this person, aviator, I can’t remember what it said now was handed in intact they would be rewarded with twenty five pound which had probably made them millionaire’s overnight. But it was always my greatest fear that I’d be found by an Arab who couldn’t read who had a dirty pair of garden secateurs in his hand. And the fear of that I think put us all off. We never tried to land in Africa [laughs] and to my mind, but it could have happened I don’t think many would have welcomed that opportunity to be castrated. But there you are. That was one story. Another just on a light hearted note was, concerns my wonderful wife Mary. I had this photograph in my locker and when I was going on ops I used to pick it up, give it a kiss, turn it and face the door and when I got to the door I used to turn around to say words to the effect, ‘I hope I come back to see you again, Mary.’ Which I did on thirty six occasions. We went on to have a wonderful life together. We’d been on our squadron I think when they brought the troops over they put extra cakes and rations in because we did very well and they had, they loved their fruitcake. Especially when they’d been out on the town or the village and they liked their hot cocoa and fruit cake. So I, in my daily letter to Mary I asked her this time if there was any chance of her making a fruit cake to bring back to the camp. She was at the time, she was an apprentice also at a ladies tailoress and dressmaker. Never done any cooking in life. Anyway, I brought it back and it was in a tin which she used to keep her best handkerchiefs in because there were no tissues in those days. And she kept her best silk handkerchiefs in this small round biscuit tin. Anyway, we came back this night and one of the crew said, because they’d all met Mary, the crew and I was the only married one in the crew, ‘What about Mary’s cake.’ So I got the cake out of the nice tin. Cut a piece off and I remember, I remember handing it to Bluey, our mid-upper gunner. I cut the other, another piece off to give to one of the crew. As I’m just about to hand that out Bluey shouts, ‘Tom,’ he says, ‘What the hell is in this? He says, ‘Taste it.’ I took a bite of it and it was [pause] well Mary I’m sorry I won’t say too much about it but it wasn’t pleasant. So one of them said, ‘Put it back in the tin,’ bearing in mind they’re Aussies, ‘Put it back in the tin and we’ll drop it over Germany. If it doesn’t kill them when it hits them on the head it will when they eat it.’ So it went back in the tin. We fastened it up as best we could and when I was operating our on the next trip, operating the Window chute, dropping the window down the window chute I got Mary’s tin with the cake and dropped it out. What happened to it we don’t know but Mary used to say it was her humanitarian effort to help the poor starving Germans. So I’ll take it on Mary’s word but it did actually happen. Coming back to Peter Jack, the engineer on C-Charlie who was shot down on our first op. After the war in one of the main streets in Newcastle I was standing outside this silk material shop. Mary, as I said Mary was a dressmaker. She was inside getting material and I was standing out in the main street and I saw this warrant officer walking up on the other side of the road but I didn’t pay much attention. And then he walked over towards me and it was Peter Jack. He’d been the only survivor of the crew. There was two who didn’t make it. They had a spare dickie. A spare dickie was a rookie pilot who, to get experience did his, did a flight just by himself with another crew to get the feeling of a raid. Two of them blew up with the plane. Six of them got out. One I saw with just a torso. And the only one that was taken prisoner was Peter. We don’t know exactly what happened to the other crew but I’ve a fair idea. And Peter did marry his fiancé from Tyneside. There was another peculiar, strange, unbelievable incident happened to one of our crew. One of our crew members. Pilot Joe Herman. We were on the same raid with them and they got hit very badly. Fires on, and baling out. Well, in our aircraft I used to stand with, the pilot couldn’t put the ‘chute on but the rest of the crew could. So I used to stand over the target area with the pilot’s parachute ready to hand to him. But on Joe Herman’s I don’t know what happened that night. The engineer was probably they reckon putting, trying to put a fire out. But his mid-upper gunner was standing with his parachute up. They all baled out except Joe and the pilot and then the plane blew up. And they were at seventeen thousand feet evidently. Joe has no parachute. He’s coming down. He sees something glistening, grabs it, this thing lets out a terrific scream. Yelling. It was his mid-upper gunner and he’d grabbed his legs and unfortunately one of them was broken. But thank God they both landed together. They were both badly injured but they survived and lived to their nineties. One of them, I think the gunner was killed in a motorbike accident but Joe survived right to the nineties. He was in a hell of a mess but, you know he survived. All that time there was that fear but as I mentioned earlier on your training. And it, it was, it happened to all of us, our training took over and you knew you had to concentrate for your survival and your crew. You wanted to come home every night. The fear left you. It probably came back over the target area but it was just something we had to face night after night. But as I keep repeatedly saying it had to be done. It just had to be done despite all the fifty percent loss of aircrew. And to come back to my brother he was shot down on 18th 19th of November 1943 and they didn’t find the remains until November 1947. They were reburied in Rheinberg Cemetery. But every time his wife went out for those four years, four lonely years she used to leave a place setting for him and a little note where she was going and the time she’d come back. And she did that even after she got notification that they had found his grave. It affected her mentally. It was a shame. She was a schoolteacher. And that was a tragedy of war. So I finished my tour and I’ll just quote if I may what my pilot wrote the day after. These are my pilot’s words, Pat Gillis. “The worst part of my story has now arrived as we would most likely be sent in different directions.” This was at the end of his tour. “As a crew we all realised just how lucky we were to have completed a tour of operations and still be in one piece. It was a miracle. As the captain of this crew I can say that the dedication each one of my crew showed in each of their duties they had to perform in their positions was A1. We were able to discuss so many problems put to us and then come up with the answers. It made my position as captain easier to consider and make all the final decisions. It is hard to imagine that a crew made of men, or at that time boys from three states of Australia and one from England could mould together and work so well as one team. It was a sad experience when we all split up and sent on leave. The six Australians were sent on extended leave which meant that every day we had to contact Driffield to find out whether we had been posted or leave extended. Tom Davidson our English flight engineer was taken back in to the RAF after being on loan to our Australian squadron of the RAF.” I’d like to go back to my first operation. When we touched down, as I said, I didn’t think I could make another twenty nine but I made another thirty six. But when you looked at the damage on the aircraft the size of the hole was about the size of house door in the port wing. How it missed all the controls, the electrics, the fuel, the hydraulics was nothing short of a miracle. And the next day the ground staff counted thirty three flak holes in the aircraft. This happened, of course you know on a regular basis. We got hit nearly every night. Some nights we were unscathed but most nights we had flak damage, some more severe than others and yet we were so so fortunate on the thirty six trips never touched any of the crew, never touched any of the controls. Which brings us around to talking about our pilot, Pat. We always considered him to be the best pilot on the squadron. As probably every other crew did with their pilot. But we felt we were the only ones who were right. At an ANZAC reunion two year ago at the old squadron at Driffield I was told by a historian, squadron historian that Pat was classed as being in the top five pilots on the squadron. Well, we had over two hundred pilots which put him in the top two and a half percent. But in our opinion, certainly in my opinion he was in the top one percent. He was a fantastic pilot. I kept in touch with him until he died and his wife, Peg. Now, I’m in touch with two of the family and we’ve met from time to time. And also I’m in touch with the rear gunner’s family. The rear gunner, sadly Bill died in February this year but I’m still in touch with his family. We had a great bond. It’s an experience I’ll ever forget. I don’t dwell on it. It’s only the last few years my oldest grandson got me to talk about it. But if I can just say at Remembrance time each year and I give a reading and place a wreath at our village Memorial Service about three or four days before Remembrance Day I cry a lot. A lot of memories come flooding back which I never think about really from one year’s end to another. But it’s not something. I’ve had a very very happy life. Wonderful seventy years with my marriage with my beloved Mary. And when I was finished with Driffield I was posted to an RAF station, but a Free French Air Force Training Unit up at Lossiemouth. It was a bit scary with them not always speaking English. Sometimes they broke into their French and we had a few accidents up there. Not communicating properly with the flight control. After that I was posted out to Egypt. But I was flown home on a compassionate. I asked for compassionate leave because our oldest son Peter who was only six months at the time wasn’t expected to survive bronchial pneumonia. But they flew me home on a compassionate posting. And although he was given up twice he survived it thanks to penicillin and he is now seventy, seventy two years of age this year. And then I was given a compassionate posting near home. And then before I was demobbed I was, went down to RAF Catterick to be advised on what we should do after, after demob and after four days testing, exams and all that I was advised to either go in for teaching or Civil Service. But in those days having grown up in a depressed area in Tyneside. Grew up during the Depression. Having an apprenticeship was a wonderful achievement and the thought of losing that if I didn’t complete it and not having a job, I didn’t have the courage to take up either of these suggestions. However, I finished my apprenticeship. Had a wonderful life. And I did eventually get qualifications teaching and finished up as an engineering lecturer. So I’ve had no regrets in life. I’ve had a wonderful life. My wonderful Mary and our three children, grandchildren. A very very rich life. Lucky to have survived. So I think that’s the end of my wartime experiences in the RAF. One of the lucky fifty percent who survived.
RS: Well, Tom. Thank you. That was very, very moving and a privilege for me to sit and hear. So thank you very much indeed for that. Before I end the recording is there anything else you want to talk about? Is there anything else that maybe has jogged your memory while you’ve been talking?
[pause]
TD: Just I think the bond that was forged between the crew members and particularly our crew was just something that I’ll never experience again. Our life depended so much on each other. Our trust in our efficiency and competence. But they were just a great bunch of lads. We got on so well from day one. I used to say I was, the number one crew in Bomber Command were lucky to have the number one flight engineer with them, you know. Such a great crowd. I’m only joking when I say that but it’s true [laughs] No. No. I think that’s about all, Rob. I could go on for quite some time but they are the relevant points to my experience. The things that matter. Things that affected me. But I’ve never suffered from what I saw. I think I’ve written about the things I won’t tell anyone. Not even my family. But I joined up to do it and we did it and that was it. I think that’s about all. And thank you so much for putting up with me telling that.
RS: Well, thank you very much, Tom. It’s now quarter past eleven and we’ll terminate the interview there. Thank you very much, Tom.
TD: Thank you, Rob. 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 Thomas Aiden Davidson
Creator
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Rob Scott
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-17
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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.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ADavidsonTA170717
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00:46:40 audio recording
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Civilian
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Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Description
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Born in Gateshead, Thomas was an apprentice railroad engineer. With the war beginning three days after his 16th birthday, Thomas feels very passionately about the British experience of the Second World War, as his only brother was killed. He claims to have been very aware of the atrocities of the Nazi regime and was inspired to volunteer, despite being in a reserved occupation. He joined Bomber Command following the introduction of four-engine bombers, creating the flight engineer job role, of which he trained for. Training at RAF St Athans for six weeks, he completed his Heavy Conversion Unit course at RAF Riccall, eventually joining a crew of Australians. Placed on 466 Squadron at RAF Driffield, he recalls pre-operations activities crew used to partake in, including last meals, chatting, and briefings. He states that he and his crew were entirely terrified until they got onto the aircraft, in which their mutual trust took over their fear. He recounts seeing several aircraft being hit on his first operation, with many having people he knew in them. He recalls having nightmares after his operations, alongside several near-death experiences, both on operations and around the airfield. He continues to explain the culture surrounding leaving the RAF, including the fear surrounding Lack of Morale Fibre and why he choose to carry on. Thomas recalls rarely talking of his experience and that it was only recently in which he opened up about the war. He believes that he was lucky to have survived but states that he continues to remember those who have passed away during remembrance days. He believes that he and his crew had a fantastic bond and that was the most important experience of the war.
Contributor
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Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1943-11-18
1943-11-19
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
466 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
civil defence
fear
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
home front
Home Guard
lack of moral fibre
military ethos
perception of bombing war
RAF Driffield
RAF Riccall
RAF St Athan
searchlight
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/622/10635/BPayneRPayneRv2.1.pdf
a90530e769feeb87faa075c28bdb865c
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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Payne, Reg
R Payne
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Payne, R
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. Two oral history interviews with Reg Payne (1923 - 2022, 1435510 Royal Air Force), his memoirs and photographs. Reg Payne completed a tour of operations as a wireless operator with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe. His pilot on operations was Michael Beetham. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Payne and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Fred Ball. Additional information on Fred Ball is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/100970/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.<a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/ball-fc/"></a></p>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-03
2017-08-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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BEFORE I WAS IN THE RAF
[underlined] Wartime Memories [/underlined]. Reg Payne
[deleted] 2 [/deleted] 2
I didn’t think of being killed whilst flying until I visited one or two crash sites in the Kettering area, some of them were German aircraft and I knew members of the crew had been killed when the A/C crashed.
I visited the crash site of a Blenheim Bomber which crashed in some sand pits, I rescued parts of flying clothing in the hedge row, and found there were still parts of human flesh mixed with the lambs wool.
Another aircraft crashed near a pond and the crew were all killed, bits of the Blenheim Bomber were still on the ground. A bunch of boys with caterpilts [sic] were shooting at something floating in the pond. As it came nearer to me I saw that it was, a human eye ball.
All this didn’t stop me from Joining the RAF to fly when I reached the age of eighteen yrs.
After two yrs of training as a W/OP Airgunner for two yrs I finally arrived at RAF Skellingthorpe 50 Sqdn on the outskirts of Lincoln. My brother two yrs older was also flying in the RAF, near by at RAF Fiskerton, also a W/OP, he had already flown a number of operations.
I was already a member of a Lancaster crew, and my pilot had to fly on an operation with another, before he could take his own crew on his own. After the operation was over we were glad that he had returned OK, and said that he didnt [sic] think the operation was as bad as he expected.
The next day I had a phone call from my mother to say that my brother was missing from the same operation that my pilot was taken on. She asked me if I could come home.
I visited our Squadron C.O. and asked if I could visit my mother, he refused to let me go saying that my parents would perswade [sic] me to stop flying if I did. I told him that I promised him that
[page break]
[deleted] 2 [/deleted] 3
I would come back and continue flying. My Mother and Father both told me to be very careful when I was flying so the C.O. had nothing else to say to me. Luckily later we found that the Lancaster that my brother was in exploded whilst flying and two of the crew, by brother one of them, were blown thro [sic] the perspex roof, although in a German hospital they were not killed.
After a few weeks my mother told me that Ron Boydon the fellow that I had done all my training with was reported missing from operations, followed by Arthur Johnson who I trained with. She told me that Mrs Boydon has been seen looking in peoples gate ways at night looking for her son Ron.
We didnt [sic] think much of our hut at Skellingthorpe with no washing arrangements, to do this we had to walk to the Sgts Mess some distance away.
On our first evening there Fred our Rear Gunner and myself cycled to Lincoln as we were told it was only a short bike ride.
We found a small pub called the “UNITY”,? it was quiet inside not many people in the room that we were in, just tow ATS Girls sipping their two drinks together across the other side of the room.
It was not until they got up to go that we spoke to them, they had to be in their quarters by ten o’clock, in a large house near the cathedral. We were ready to go ourselves and asked if we could walk back with them. They seemed a couple of nice girls and we arranged to meet them at an earlyer [sic] time the next night
Luckily we were not wanted for any evening duties and we were able to get away early and spend time with the two ATS girls until it was time for them to be in their billets by ten oclock [sic]
We spent time with the two ATS girls for a few weeks and both Fred and I found a close relationship with them, Fred along with Joan & myself with Ena, we all became very friendly, and met each other as early and many times as we could get away.
Returning to the large room of ours in our hut, we were
[page break]
4
surprised one evening when entering our large room that there was three extra beds in there, with lots of kit bags and luggage scattered about the room. We had three Canadian aircrew members added to our room who had just joined our 50 Sqdn.
They seemed to get lots of parcels from Canada, and told us we could help ourselves to any chocolates or fruit that we could see in the room they could not cope with it all.
However the Station Warrent [sic] Officer came in one early evening and looked around the room. He said the place looked like a rubbish tip and he would come to look at it each evening and we were not to go out until he looked to see how tidy the room was. At times he was late comming [sic] so it became late each evening for Fred and I to meet Joan & Ena, especially as they had to be back in their billets prompt at 10 Pm.
However one evening the Lancaster that the three Canadians were flying in failed to return and all their clothing and goods were taken out of the room, leaving our room neat and tidy again as it was before the Canadians moved in.
Now that our room was now so clean and tidy, the Station Warrent [sic] Officer said that he would no longer come to visit us each evening as he could see that the room would no longer be full of food parcels etc.
I never did know if the three Canadians lost their lives, but if they did all I could think was that it cost the lives of three men to allow Fred and I to go out early evening to meet our girl friends when we were not flying early evening ourselves.
Having the three Canadians possibly killed made it possible for Fred and myself to go out early and meet our ATS girl friends when we were not on duty ourselves.
Many of [deleted] Fred [/deleted] Ena’s ATS friends had lost their air crew boy friends, and never knew if he had lost his life or not
[page break]
5
Ena’s ATS friend Joan spent all her spare time with Fred Ball our Rear Gunner. Fred was killed when our aircraft was in flames and he didnt [sic] Bale Out.
Lots of Ena’s ATS friends had lost RAF Boy friends flying on operations and tried not to get attatched [sic] to them anymore.
Ena’s Mother came to Lincoln and work in the NAAFI as she was called up to do war work. She chose Lincoln to be near to her daughter Ena.
She had lodgings with a nice lady Mrs Fatchet in Winn St Lincoln. Next door to her was a young lady, that had a small baby, she had it in her arms as we watched the Lancasters flying off on another operation.
She told me that the babies [sic] father was an aircrew member that had been missing from operations for some time, and no one had had any news of him. I always felt very sorry for her as she watched the Lancasters taking off from the Lincolnshire Airfields.
When I knew we were on operations that night I would ring Ena around lunch time, and say to her, I wont [sic] be able to meet you tonight, but all being well will see you tomorrow.
She knew that we were on operations that night.
With my brother Art now a POW in Germany, only two of his crew surviving, my mother was worried what would happen to me. She already knew that our Lancaster was on fire over the Humber Estory [sic]and four members of the crew didnt [sic] have time to bale out and were killed. I went thro [sic] the clouds pulling one of the carrying handles and not the parachute release handle, luckily I pulled the correct one and my parachute opened and I made a safe landing.
We were asked to identify the four bodies in the crashed aircraft
[page break]
6
by one of the senior RAF officers, but not one of us wanted to identify the crushed up bodies in the burned Lancaster. We did’nt [sic] want to go near the aircraft.
On one of our ten operations to Berlin, a German night fighter attacked us and his bullets made a large hole in our Port wing. I thought it was smoke coming out of the large hole in the wing, but our flight Eng. said it was petrol coming from one of the large tanks in the wings.
Arriving back as far as Northamptonshire we were nearly out of Petrol and our Pilot decided to make a landing on the emergency airfield at RAF Wittering to save the extra miles to Lincoln. We circled the airfield, and were waiting for the runway landing lights to come on, expecting any time for the engines to shut down as the petrol had all been used. At last the landing lights came on and we were able to land with all the petrol now used up.
As we entered the Wittering office buildings, we heard the dance band close down and found that no one had been on duty, to turn on the Aircraft landing lights when Aircraft were in trouble and needed to land.
Returning from another of our operations to Berlin we were told to land at RAF Pocklington in Yorkshire, as there was a dense fog in the Lincoln area. We tried a few times to find the runway at Pocklington, but then were told to proceed to RAF Melborne which we found was also foggy.
After flying quite low for some time Michael found it in the fog and managed to land safely.
A large van driven by a WAAF picked us safely up and drove us to their crew rooms. In the fan she had a radio that could hear all of our aircraft calling and saying that they must land as they had little or no fuel left.
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One of our squadron aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed into a nearby farm house, the farmer and his wife were both killed, and only the rear gunner in the Lancaster survived. From then on all the Lancasters on the circuit trying to land were told to Head their aircraft out to sea and Bale Out, which they had to do.
The fog stayed with us for three days up in yorkshire [sic], and we could’nt [sic] return back to Lincoln. We had no washing or shaving items for three days or money to buy anything with, not even our toothe [sic] brush’s [sic] or razors to shave with, we had to stay with our lancasters until the weather improved and we could fly them back to Skellingthorpe.
We had a scare one morning, we had just landed after completing another of our operations, and taxied the Lancaster back to our usual dispersal. Michael Beetham then said to us all, OK everybody “All Switch’s [sic] off.” Before I could check all my radio and inter Comm switch’s [sic], there was a loud scraping noise like a van dragging along the side of the aircraft, followed by a heavy thud.
We all scrambled out of the aircraft and expected to see a small lorry or van firmly stuck to the side of the aircraft, but there was nothing any where near us. The Bomb Aimer went back to the Aircraft and opened the little inspection door panel that allowed him to look down into the Lancasters Bomb bay. He was shocked at what he saw.
A thousand pound bomb had been still in the bomb bay, it had not dropped with the others over the target. Its [sic] a good thing that it didnt [sic] hit its nose cap on the way down the bomb bay or we would all have been blown to pieces.
I’ve often wonderd [sic] how the bomb disposal crews got to remove the bomb without it blowing up the Lancaster.
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We landed early morning after a long trip to Berlin again and our ground crew asked how the aircraft had flown, we all said there were no problems with the aircraft and we all left in a hurry to get back to the Sgts Mess and get our breakfast before getting into bed and have our sleep.
After we were all awake again around tea time we were told that they wanted to show us something about our aircraft. Arriving at the dispersal point of our aircraft “B” baker” the ground crews pointed to a large hole in the port wing where a large bomb had gone thro [sic] and left a large hole you could look thro. [sic] Not only did it go thro [sic] the wing it also went thro [sic] a large petrol tank
Luckily the petrol tank was empty by the time we got to the target. There were three tanks in each wing and this tank was empty when the bomb went thro [sic] it. Had it been thro [sic] the one next to it which was full of petrol we would never have got home and finished as POW’s etc.
On one Berlin Operation as we were getting close to Berlin, I heard the engines on the Lancaster open up and felt the aircraft starting to climb. Our Bomb Aimer Les Bartlett shouted to Jock Higgins our Mid Upper Gunner and said, “Not yet Jock, wait until I say now.” I moved over to our Astro-Dome near my compartment and looked above and in front of us, and I saw straight away a German JU88 Night Fighter which had not seen us.
We flew closely underneath it and Les shouted “OK Jock NOW” They both opened up together and I could see the red hot bullets crashing into the German Heinkel Night fighters. Our Bomb Aimer bullets were being sprayed along its wing area, but I noticed that Jock’s the Mid Upper Gunner, his red hot shower of bullets were going into the cabin area where all the crew members were close together. The JU88 continued to fly steadyly [sic] on for some time whilst the bullets continued to enter the cabin area where the crew were based. After a short time after
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the German night fighter tipped over on its side, with smoke now coming from its engines and cabin area, as it fell lower and lower it was lost from my view.
The forward members of our crew said, that smoke and fire came from it as it plunged down to the burning city below it, and was certainly shot down.
What upset me though, that our bomb Aimer was an officer, and he received a medal for his shooting, but Jock who was only a Sgt received not even a mention.
[underlined] Frank Swinyard Navigator. [/underlined]
Frank Swinyard was a Flying Officer, we sat very close together, and we go on together very well. Frank was our Navigator. Frank and I worked together. He would ask me what stars I could see from the ASTRODOME close by me, when I told him the ones in view, I would take his sextant and read out the degrees & minutes for him to use on his Astro Graph. Also I obtained quite a number of radio bearings for him from distant Radio stations, this helped him to plot his position.
When we were diverted to another Air Base on the way home he would not worry about getting the Lancaster there, he could ask me to get him a QDM to the base, [underlined] QDM COURSE TO STEAR [/underlined] after another on or two, I could take him there.
My worst flying experience was not a bombing operation, but an Air Gunners training flight which we had over the Humber Estory [sic] part of the North Sea of course
We had our own crew of seven, plus another pilot and his two gunners, making ten men altogether.
From Lincoln we had to fly over the Humber Estory [sic] where a spitfire would join us, and in radio contact would continue to attack us whilst our two gunners would train their guns on it as it dived on them. We would then call the Spitfire Pilot & tell him that the other pilot and his two gunners were changing over and we would call him to begin attacking us.
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Cameras were fitted to the guns so the film could be shown after the exercise to see if the Airgunner was using the correct deflection in the attacks etc.
We had our full crew of seven on board the aircraft, along with the other pilot and his two gunners.
On boarding the Lancaster I noticed our Flight Engineer was’nt [sic] taking his parachute with him, I remember saying to him, wheres [sic] your parachute Don, and he said, it’s only a training flight Im [sic] not bothered about that.
The time of the year was January but it was a sunny day although the sea looked very cold should we ever have to land up in it one day, and I wondered, should I be wearing my Mae West. Looking down from the aircraft all I could see now was cloud, so I didnt [sic] know how far away the coast was should you have to use your parachute etc.
The other pilot and his two gunners were moving into their positions in the aircraft, and I noticed that our two gunners had now joined us at the rear of the Lancaster where we could see the other Australian pilot and his two gunners do their part of the exercise.
At the word GO. the Lancaster was taken in a very steep dive, Ive [sic] never seen one dive so steeply, but as it pulled out of its steep dive one of it’s engines burst into flames.
The pilot operated his extinguisher for the engine and for a little time we thought all was well, but after the extinguisher had finished its work, the whole wing seemed to be on fire, and Michael gave the order for all of us to abandon the aircraft. There were only two escape doors in the Lancaster, and ten men who needed to use them.
The Australian Pilot & his two gunners in the front of the aircraft started to bale out of the nose escape exit, as our Mid upper gunner Jock Higgins baled out of the rear exit, but damaged his ribs as he hit the tail plane. I tried to leave by the back exit, but the
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gust of wind blew me back again. I think I was given a push with someones [sic] foot that got me out of the aircraft.
As I fell thro [sic] the air there was nothing but cloud below me, and I didnt [sic] know if I was over the sea or the land.
I did a silly thing I was tugging away at the carrying handle of the parachute pack and not the release metal handle so by the time I had pulled the correct parachute release handle I had already gone thro [sic] the cloud.
A large part of the wing had broken off and was coming down behind me, I’m glad that it drifted away from me and didnt [sic] cut thro [sic] my parachute.
As I got nearer the ground I could see the coast a short distance from me, and I was drifting towards it, then there was a large crashing noise, and smoke and flame as the Lancaster crashed a few miles in land near East Kirkby Airfield and I was still drifting that way myself.
I finally landed in a large field and before I could get in a standing position I saw an RAF van coming towards me with two airmen in it. At the same time some one on a parachute coming down a short distance away landed in a dense spinney, I could hear the branches on the trees breaking as he fell thro [sic] them, I found out later it was the other Australian Pilot.
Our Lancaster had crashed close to East Kirkby Airfield, where I was taken to, there were four men in the aircraft when it crashed and I was asked if I could identify the bodies. I was told they were all crushed, and I just didnt [sic] want to look at them
Fred Ball our Rear Gunner would no longer come with me when I would visit Ena in Lincoln he had every chance to bale out the aircraft early but he didnt [sic] have the pluck to do this Jock Higgins hurt his ribs as he baled out and hit the tail plane, he spent a short time in the base hospital and made a good recovery.
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Following this air crash I would go into Lincoln to see Ena on my own.
Also I was introduced to Ena’s mother who was in lodgings with Mrs Fatchet in Lincoln, whilst working in one of the large NAAFI forces canteens in Lincoln.
Luckily I had plenty of time off when not flying, and during the cold winter day’s [sic] I could ride on my bike and visit Mrs Fatchet at her home in Winn St.
She always made me welcome and found me something to eat, she had a fish & chip shop next door to her so I could always pop in there during the day.
Before going on an operation taking six or eight hours flying time, after no sleep during the day, we were given Wakey Wakey tablets which we only swallowed just before we were airborne, there was no chance of a sleep during the day before going on operations, you didnt [sic] even know where the target was until the main briefing just you were airborn. [sic]
I was the wireless Operator in the crew of Lancaster LL744 VNB 50 SQDN. each morning after breakfast, if I had not been flying the night before, after breakfast I had to visit the Accumulator Store and collect two small but heavy accumulators, on my bike I would ride to our Lancaster, and replace them with the two in the aircraft. I then had to [inserted] VISIT [/inserted] the flight office and collect the form 700 and say the batteries had been changed Sign my name etc. and return the two batteries that I had replaced to the accumulator store. This had to be done by me every day unless I had been on operations the night before.
The batteries had to be changed each day, even if the aircraft had not been flown.
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During one operation the two gunners said how cold they were, especially the Rear Gunner.
Michael Beetham air pilot told me to see what the problem was, I had to put a portable oxygen [inserted] BOT. [/inserted] round my neck before I went down, you wouldn’t last long without one.
I could see straight away what the trouble was, the back door was open & a strong freezing cold wind was coming in.
The flight Engineer came down to help me, but together we could not close the door. There must of [sic] been a wind of over one hundred miles per hour coming thro [sic] the open door and the temp would be around minus thirty degrees.
With the help of I think the Navigator we managed to tie the door up but not fully closed, and leave a sharp knife there to cut the rope should we need to bale out.
One other night the mid upper gunner said his turret had frost all over it and he could’nt [sic] see a thing, he asked me to bring him an axe, I gave him one and he smashed the perspex from the front of his turret so he could see, luckily he had electrical clothing on and could only have the turret facing backwards.
We have a long length of rope close to the back door in the Lancaster, should a crew member loose [sic] an arm or a leg and we are three or four hours from reaching home, we could tie a torch on the wounded crew member, tie a length of rope to his parachute release handle and when passing a large German town or city push the wounded airman out the back door. His parachute would open and he would be seen with the torch and parachute. Hoping he would be rushed to a German hospital to have his life saved.
We called it The dead mans rope.
As a Wireless Operator whilst I was flying on operations I was given a frequency band on my radio to search, and if I picked up a German mans [sic] voice giving out instructions
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I would tune my transmitter to this frequency, and press down my morse code key, this would transmit the sound of one of our Lancaster engines on that frequency and blot him out. A Microphone was placed against one of the engines for that reason.
To prevent to [sic] many aircraft over the target at the same time and hitting each other, we were divided into two or three waves, First, Second, or third wave, we had our own height to bomb the target and the time over the target, but after a long flight to get there we rarely arrived at our time over target, it was not unusually [sic] for an aircraft to get an incendiary bomb thro [sic] its wing whilst over the target, from an aircraft above.
Whilst over the target area a senior RAF officer would be circling the city area, he was the “Master Bomber” he would be shouting out details of which colour’d [sic] flare’s [sic] to aim at, reds or greens etc. His language at times didnt [sic] meet up to an RAF Officer.
On one operation we were told to land at St Eval Cornwall on our way home, but during our flight I received a message, which said cancel Landing instructions “Return to Base” Unfortuneately [sic] the Wing Commanders Wireless Operator failed to get this message and they landed at St Eval. The only crew to land there.
All the Sqdn Aircrew were at the airfield when the Wing Comm landed back at Skellingthorpe to Cheer him home.
At our next briefing for an operation the Wing Commander said, Wireless Operators, make sure you get all the messages broad casts not like some clot I could name that misses them. His wireless operator stood up and said. If thats [sic] what you think of me sir, you
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can get some other Wireless Operator to fly with you tonight, and then started walking towards the door. RAF police at the door moved to stop him leaving, but the Wing Commander said let him go.
I’m glad I was’nt [sic] the Wing Comm Wireless Operator.
The Wireless Operator had an unusual name which you could remember and looking at a long list of aircrew who lost their lives on fifty Sqdn I saw his name on the list.
After breakfast if I found I was in operations that night, I knew that our Sgts Mess Phone was disconnected and to Tell Ena that I would not be able meet her tonight I used to cycle to a nearby village and us the public Phone Box (she always knew the reason why.
On one day when operations were detailed, I found our crew were not on the list of crews taking part.
I needed a few items such as soap & toothepaste [sic] etc and cycled into Lincoln to purchase them.
I found Lincoln rather quiet whilst in the shopping area with no local aircraft flying at the time.
As it became dusk winter time, all the local airfields were preparing for aircraft take off,
Suddenly I heard a heavy Lancaster taking of [sic] from Waddington, taking off with an overload, then another one from our Skellingthorpe, also from Fiskerton & Bardney, all these Lancasters were flying with an overload of bombs and needed all the power their engines had to get them airborn. [sic]
This was the first time I had been in Lincoln City to hear all the aircraft circling round Lincoln with a heavy overload of bombs, they needed all the power their engines had, to get them airborne. The people of Lincoln didnt [sic] seem to take notice of it I suppose they were quite used to it.
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Ena & Joan had given Fred our Rear Gunner & I a brass Lincoln Imp which they said would bring us luck, and told us not to fly without them.
I kept mine on my flying jacket so I always had it with me when I flew. Fred often removed his from his flying jacket and wore it on his tunic when he went out at Evenings.
One evening we had attended briefing for an operation, and were on our way to our aircraft when Fred told us he didnt [sic] have his Lincoln Imp with him, On arriving at our aircraft we told a ground staff member and he said he would collect it from our billet, after we gave him the hut number, and the position of Freds [sic] bed etc. Freds [sic] Lincoln Imp was on his tunic hanging up over his bed. First bed on the left as you go in the main door.
Off went the man in his van and he returned later with Freds [sic] Lincoln Imp which he had removed from Freds [sic] tunic
We all felt better after this, and we hoped it would make Fred more careful to make sure he always wore his Lincoln Imp.
It was a month or two after this that we had to do an airgunnery exercise with some extra members of the crew, during the exercise the pilot put the Lancaster in a very steep dive, which caused one of the engines and the wing to burst into flames. The Lancaster was overloaded with ten crew members taking part. Four crew members were killed when the Lancaster crashed and sadly Fred was one of them.
My bed was next to Fred’s and I didnt [sic] have a very good nights sleep, I lay awake for some time, looking up at Freds [sic] tunic which hung close to my bed the early sun light shone over Freds [sic] bed area, his tunic was hanging up above it, and the sun was shining on a small brass item on the lapel. I could’nt [sic] believe it, it was his Lincoln Imp and he was’nt [sic] wearing it again.
[inserted] PS I still wear my Lincoln Imp. [/inserted]
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I think my first fear of our operational flying was the Lancaster taking off and getting airborne.
At the briefing for the operation we were usually told we would all be flying with a thousand pound overload.
With a normal all up weight of bombs in the Lancaster it took a long run along the runway before the aircraft became airborn, [sic] but when they had added another thousand pounds of bombs on the aircraft it became that bit more stressful.
As the Lancaster began its way along the runway, the Navigator would read the speed it was travelling at, it needed one hundred miles per hour before it could take off.
Some times when the pilot could see that the aircraft was not going to reach that speed at a certain position along the runway, and the gate was getting closer on the throttle control, he would say to the flight engineer, “THRO THE GATE”, and the throttles were pushed that little bit more before the aircraft started leaving the ground.
[underlined] The gate had to be moved to get [/underlined] the take off speed up to 100 miles per hour.
We had an ELSAN toilet at the rear of the aircraft, but it was not used very much when we were flying. We all had our own metal cans close by us that we could use and they were emptied into the Elsan Toilet as we left the aircraft. The Elsan toilet was at the rear of the aircraft, and to get there in flight you needed a portable oxygen bottle to breath for the journey, and for all your layers of heavy clothing, and the temperature around minus thirty degrees you could’nt [sic] take your gloves off and touch anything.
Most of our flying time over Germany was around six to eight hours. Berlin was around eight hours which our crew flew ten times. We went there three times in five days. (Nights)
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In our pockets we had a bag of sweets, and a selection of money according to which country we were flying over. Also we had a map of the area that we could use should we have to bale out and find our way to safety.
If we had flying boots with high leather padding half way up to the knee, a knife would be in one of the boots so the tops could be cut off should you be shot down in Germany, or any enemy country, to make them look just like a pair of shoes, and not flying boots.
We also had water tablets in our pockets to use when selecting water from small streams, or brooks.
As the Wireless Operator I had to know the position of some of the stars, the Navigator would ask me which ones were plainly in view. I then had to use the Sextant and take a shot of the star asked for. This was taken in Degrees & Minutes and the correct time. From this the Navigator had equipment where he could plot his position
3.12.43 around lunch time Michael Beetham was instructed to take his crew to RAF Waddington to collect a Lancaster.
When we got there the Lancaster DV376 was already loaded with bombs and before we took it to our airfield, we had to go off and bomb Leipzig first, then take it to Skellingthorpe
During the operation we were attacked and damaged by a JU88, we were very short of fuel and managed to land at Wittering.
Another Lancaster from Skellingthorpe had to collect us the next day and take us back to our base Skellingthorpe whilst the Lancaster DV376 went thro [sic] repairs.
On the 29.12.43 we had to Bomb Berlin, and had a [sic] Incendiary Bomb through our Starboard Outboard Petrol tank and were lucky to get back home again.
We flew on operations to Berlin ten times, and in doing so, we lost 383 aircraft
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Our first three operations were to Berlin [underlined] 22.11.43 23.11.43 26.11.43 55 MISSING. [/underlined]
114 aircraft missing in our first three operations.
The inter comm system was powered by two smallish Lead Acid Batteries. Every morning, it didnt [sic] matter if the aircraft had flown or not these Lead Acid Batteries had to be replaced.
Each morning after breakfast, I as the Wireless operator, I had to visit on my bike the Battery Store. I had to collect the two batteries on my bike and cycle across the airfield where the Lancaster was parked. I had to change the batteries in the Lancaster. I then had to visit the flight offices and ask for the form 700 for our Lancaster.
I then had to sign it to say the batteries had been changed, then on my bike again I would return the two batteries that I had removed from the Lancaster to the battery store where they would be put on charge again.
This I had to do as the Wireless Operator every day, regardless of the day of the week or the weather. Even if the Lancaster had not left its parking site. The hardest job was finding the form 700.
If we were on our way back after an operation over Germany, and the weather was bad over lincoln [sic],”usually fog”. we would be diverted to another airfield which could be as much as sixty miles away from Lincoln.
To help our navigator, I would contact the airfield and ask for a QDM, a course to steer to reach them. By pressing down my morse key, the receiving station could give me a course to fly to reach their airfield, which I would then pass on to our navigator & the pilot.
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My Navigator was a wind finder, this because he was an experiest [sic] Navigator of around thirty years or more of age.
The winds that he found I would pass them on to 5 group, and these would be passed on to all 5 group aircraft in their half hourly broadcasts.
One evening I spent some time passing wind details to the 5 group radio people not knowing if the receiver was a man or a WAAF female.
In morse code I asked if the receiver was a male or a WAAF. I got a very short but strong answer,
In morse code I got, ([symbols]) which was a [underlined] G [/underlined] and an [underlined] S [/underlined]
The G & the S. was a short way to tell me to [underlined] get Stuffed. [/underlined]
When I attended de briefing after the operation, I asked if the 5 group radio operators tonight were male or female, and I was told they are all WAAF female operators.
All this gave us a lighter side of the serious thing we were doing in bombing cities in Germany ETC.
During our training days at RAF Cottesmore, we would be riding our bikes back to Cottesmore after an evening out at Stamford. Frank Swinyard our Navigator would ask me to point out certain stars in the sky, as he always asked me to do his astro shots for him with the sextant.
He had to make sure that I knew the star that he wanted Both he and our pilot (now Sir Michael Beetham) received the DFC. after war, but for us Sgts, there was nothing.
We always relied on my radio bearings when in trouble to get us home safely.
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When flying over the sea, I was taught to let my trailing aerial out, this hung down from the aircraft and [deleted] locked [/deleted] [inserted] touch’d [sic] [/inserted] the sea when the aircraft was flying at sixty feet.
If the pilot was flying over the sea and in the dark he could not see the water if he was going to ditch.
With my radio on, I would loose [sic] my signal as soon as the aerial touched the sea, and I would tell the pilot we are at 60 ft, and he would land the aircraft in the sea. We would call this ditching, “having to ditch”
When we were doing our training, flying as a crew on 14 operational unit at Cottesmore, I would tune my radio into one of the regular BBC programmes and we would all listen to some nice music, I would turn it down should our pilot want to give us instructions. Our cross country flights sometimes lasted two or three hours.
It became general practice for bomber crews to wear a white silk scarf when flying on operations, printed in black ink on the scarves [deleted] wh [/deleted] were the names of the German cities that the wearer had bombed. This went on for a short time until we heard that airmen shot down over Germany wearing one of these scarves, had one wound round their necks and hung on a lampost [sic] etc. This soon stopped us wearing them anymore.
By this time Ena my ATS girl friend and I had become very close to each other, she knew I was on operations, as I had contacted her & told her I would not be seeing her this evening.
However in the morning on the BBC news they would mention the RAF Bombing raid, then finish by saying sixty five of our bombers failed to return, and she could’nt [sic] believe it when I rang her the next day and said I will meet you again tonight.
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On a bombing raid to a large German city, the RAF Pathfinder Force would have arrived there and dropped marker flares for us to aim at, Greens & Reds.
Along with them would be the master Bomber, he would be in charge of the operation.
Green & Red marker flares were dropped all around the city and his voice could be heard telling us not to aim at the Reds, but hit the greens. I think what surprised me most was his bad language and his swearing.
I spoke to Michael Beetham and asked who was that man using that language over the target and he would say it was Wing Commander So & So.
I never thought that an officer such as Wing Co. would use language like that, I only heard it from Erks as we queued for our lunch.
The RAF bombers arrived over their targets in two or three different waves, each wave flew at a different height, should you be late getting over Berlin, you could have two hundred bombers dropping bombs from above. Our navigator F/O Frank Swinyard always urged Michael Beetham to get to the target on time.
There could be 500 ft between the height of each wave. One night we had a bomb dropped on us from above, it punched a large hole in one of our petrol tanks, passing thro [sic] the wing. We were lucky that the tank was empty, the petrol being used to get us to the target, should it have been the one next to it which was full, we would never have got back to Lincoln.
The wireless operator controlled the heat entering the Lancaster, you could never please all the crew. It entered the aircraft from the Engine Exhaust by the side of the Navigator, If I turned it up to please the pilot & Flight Engineer, the navigator would tap my knee and get me to turn it down a bit.
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[underlined] LANDING INSTRUCTIONS [/underlined]
When there was [underlined] two Squadrons [/underlined] based at the same airfield
This could involve over thirty aircraft wanting to land at their airfield, and most of them had only twenty minutes fuel left in their tanks.
[underlined] NUMBER [/underlined] 1 The first aircraft to arrive had to orbit at three thousand feet, and as he circled the airfield he would call out his position on the circuit such as “CROSS ROADS,” OR “BAKERS FARM,” “RAILWAY STATION”, then NUMBER 2 would arrive and call up and he would follow No 1 on the circuit shouting out NO 2 BAKERS FARM ETC,
After around four of five aircraft were circling at three thousand feet, number one would be told to circle at two thousand feet, but still shout his number and position on the circuit, until he was called down to one thousand feet, where he would call out, No 1 down wind, then he would call out No 1 Funnels, then No 1 “touching” “down” then No 1 clear as he left the runway
Our flying control would give the calling aircraft their number and instruct them when they could reduce their height as long as they all called there positions out whilst flying round the circuit
This would possibly go on for fourty [sic] aircraft to land. Our crews were trained to do this on night training exercises, to prevent aircraft running out of fuel whilst circling the airfield many times waiting to land.
My pilot, Michael Beetham (now Sir Michael Beetham) was told by one of the WAAF M.T. drivers that he could use one of the Commer vans on the airfield to check on the servicability [sic] of the aircraft. He asked me if I could drive a car, and on telling him NO. He then said, I have never driven a car.
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This came about because the Wing Comm. Spoke to Michael Beetham and said, now you have been promoted to a Flt Lt you will have the responsibility of checking the servicability [sic] of the Lancasters in “B Flight, but you can use one of the comer vans to get round the airfield. He didnt [sic] like to tell the Wing Commander that he had never driven a car before.
As the Wireless Operator I had the major hot air supply control close to my seating. Also it was close to where the Navigator spread his maps and charts to keep us on course.
The actual heat came from the flames of the port inner “Roles [sic] Royce” Merlin Engine, and were quite hot at times.
The navigator often got quite hot during checking his Course and direction, and signalled me to turn it down a bit, but after ten minutes or so the crew at the front of the aircraft complained at feeling the cold.
I could never please all of them.
Frank Swinyard FLT.LT. was our navigator, also he was a wind finder, from time to time he would find a wind & I would transmit it to our five group base
We must have had around ten aerials on the Lancaster, most of them small whip radar aerials, these had to be looked at before each flight to check that they had not been damaged by the ground crews
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During the bombing operations that we did to Berlin, I would look out of the astro dome and see areas of Berlin covered in the small incendiary bombs, the wide roads were plain to see running thro [sic] the city with all the buildings on fire each side of the roads.
At regular intervals the four thousand pound cookies would explode in the roads and that part of the wide road could not be seen any more, the whole area was covered in large cicular [sic] explosion areas, and the wide roads that were clear to see at the beginning of the raid, were not there anymore, just one large area of fire.
As we had no washing facilities on the site where we slept, we had to walk some distance to the Sgts mess, there we had washing and shower facilities. After we had been in the showers and dried ourselves we had to fold up our towels and put them back in our canvas hold alls, they never got dry, and were always damp when we used them.
Our canvas hold alls were hung on a long row of coat hooks in the shower room of the Sgts Mess.
After a number of weeks we were told to remove our canvas hold alls from the Sgts Shower rooms for a single day. During this time all the canvas holdalls were removed on a trolley that were [underlined] still [/underlined] hanging on the coat hooks, these hold alls were the property of the Sgts who were missing from operations.
When our Lancaster was taking off with an overload of bombs, I would see the flames comming [sic] from the port inner engine, and spreading over the leading edge of the wing.
It was only a few hours before that I had seen the petrol Bowser pumping petrol into the wings in the same area. And petrol running down the wings.
I felt easier after ten minutes of flight, only a small flame leaving the exhaust.
[page break]
26
During my time with 50 Sqdn at RAF SKELLINGTHORPE aircrew started wearing long silk scarf’s [sic] (pure white) on the scarf’s [sic] were printed in black marking ink the names of the German cities that they had bombed.
We were all proud of our scarves mine had the name of Berlin on it ten times.
This all came to an end when it was found out that aircrew who were shot down and were wearing one of these scarfs angered the german public, that the scarf was hung round the airmans neck and he was hanged from the nearest lamp post or tree.
I dont [sic] think I saw anyone wearing his any longer.
I still have mine in my wardrobe.
The pilot of the Lancaster sat in the front of the Lancaster on the Port (Left) side, behind him sitting at a large table was the Navigator, he needed a large table to spread his maps open so he could read his maps.
Also on the left hand side of the aircraft, behind the Navigator was the Wireless Operator, who had his large Marconi transmitter and receiver in a smaller table, along with his morse key for him to transmit his messages etc.
Also by the side of the Wireless operator was the Monica (aircraft Warning) Receiver which he had to keep his eyes on thro [sic] out the flight.
Down along the Starboard side of the aircraft were a number of box’s [sic] of “Window”. Window was small lengths of stiff paper, with a stiff metal like coating on the paper strips. The Bomb aimer in the nose of the aircraft would thro [sic] out a bundle every five or six mins or so, and each time he would call out Window.
A large blip would show on my Monica screen as it passed us by, and I had no need to shout a warning.
When I saw a blip on the monica screen & the
[page break]
27.
bomb aimer had said nothing, I would shout a warning, shouting “CONTACT” “STARBOARD QUARTER UP” our Lancaster would dive in a different direction and for the next few minutes everyone would search the sky until we were sure we were on our own again,.
The paper bundles of window strips were along the bomb bay floor in a row along the starboard side,
As our flight continued I would keep passing these bundles down to the bomb aimer in the nose of the aircraft, and as he said “WINDOW” I would see the blip apear [sic] on my Monica screen.
Its when I saw a blip apear [sic] on my screen and the bomb [inserted] aimer [/inserted] had not spoken that I shouted contact Port, should it be that, or Starboard if it was on our starboard side.
As a Wireless operator I had to tune my receiver to our five Group radio broadcast every half hour to see if they had any messages for us.
One part of my operational flying that I never felt easy with, was when we became airborne on an operation.
The Lancaster always had a one thousand pound over load and the engines needed every bit of power to get us airborn. [sic]
I would look out of my small side window and see the flames leaving the port engine exhaust, the flames were so long they even left large scorch marks on the wings, each side of the engine.
I knew that in those wings were over two thousand gallons of high octain [sic] petrol, the flames would burn the paint off the wings, each side of the engine. This continued until we reached the height we were detailed to fly at over Germany.
[page break]
28.
In our flying clothing pockets we had a fare [sic] ammount [sic] of French or Dutch money which we could use if we had to bale out of the aircraft over such as Holland or France. We also had a supply of water purification tablets to make sure we had drinking water. This all had to be handed back in to the Squadron after landing, which we were always glad to.
A little farther down the aircraft where the Navigator sat, and the Wireless operator, was the rest bed, quite a large bed where a crew member could be placed if he had been wounded.
It was also handy for placing spare heavy flying clothing, especially if I myself had to move into one of the turrets to take the place of a gunner if he had been wounded. I would need to wear some heavy warm clothing.
All our Wireless operators had completed an Airgunners course during his training and could man one of the turrets if need be.
During our crew training period at 14 OTU Cottesmore and Market Harborough we were detailed to do long cross country flights taking two or three hours.
I made this period a little more enjoyable by selecting some nice music on the radio and feeding it on to our “inter comm” circuit in the Wellington,.
Our crew always looked forward to this.
But when flying on our operations over Germany we needed every bit of information on the inter comm spoken, and action had to take place immediately
29.
Our Pilot Michael Beetham was concerned that we were always in bed at nights at a reasonable time.
He had nothing to fear for Fred our rear gunner and myself, as our two ATS girl friends had to be in their quarters before ten oclock [sic] at nights failing this they were not allowed out at nights for some time.
We only had a fifteen minutes bike ride back to our hut at Skellingthorpe, and were soon in bed.
Our ATS girls often gave us a sandwich or a slice of cake to eat on our way back to Skellingthorpe so we didnt [sic] go back feeling hungry.
During our operations and the long journey, our reward came when our Bomb Aimer decided which bunch of PFF marker flares he was going to aim att. [sic]
He would then say “Bomb Doors Open”, and a cold draft would fill the aircraft, then he said “Steady” Steady – “Steady”, and then “Bombs Gone”. You could hear and feel the “clonk”, “clonk”, as the bombs left their positions hanging in the bomb bay. The cold air left you as he said Bomb Doors closed.
We all felt better now we had no bombs on board, and the aircraft felt much lighter now all we had was the long journey home, hoping that there would be no fog over our airfield and we could have a nice long sleep.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Before I was in the RAF by Reg Payne
Wartime Memories
Description
An account of the resource
An account by Reg Payne of his wartime experiences. Too young to sign up at the start of the war he spent two years in the Home Guard. Training started at age 18 and lasted for two years. He served at RAF Skellingthorpe and his brother served at RAF Fiskerton. His brother was shot down and taken prisoner but Reg was not allowed to go home to comfort his mother.
He met his future wife in the Unity bar in Lincoln.
Reg survived a crash on a fighter training session when four of his aircrew died.
He also survived ten operations to Berlin. On one operation they were shot up and lost a lot of fuel and had to make an emergency landing at RAF Wittering where no one could be found because they were at a party, on base.
Arriving back on another operation they found everywhere fogged in but landed at RAF Melbourne where they had to stay for a few days until the fog cleared. They had no clothes to change into, no money and no toothbrushes.
After one operation they landed safely and on powering down the aircraft a bomb, which should have been dropped over Germany, came free and rattled down the bomb bay without exploding.
Once they came back with a large hole in the wing, made by a bomb.
On another op they shot down a JU-88 night fighter.
Bombing operations were directed by a Master Bomber who set flares.
Reg and Fred were given Lincoln Imps as mascots but the night Fred died he had left his mascot on another tunic.
He describes the landing procedures when 40 Lancasters arrive back at the same time, most low on fuel.
His navigator, Fl Lt Frank Swingerd calculated winds aloft and Reg transmitted these to 5 Group aircraft.
He describes the various operating areas of the crew on board the Lancaster.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Reg Payne
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
28 handwritten pages
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BPayneRPayneRv2
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Rutland
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
England--Cornwall (County)
Germany
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
14 OTU
5 Group
50 Squadron
aircrew
Blenheim
bomb struck
bombing
civil defence
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
flight engineer
ground personnel
heirloom
Home Guard
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lincoln
love and romance
lynching
Master Bomber
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
prisoner of war
radar
RAF Bardney
RAF Cottesmore
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Melbourne
RAF Pocklington
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF St Eval
RAF Waddington
RAF Wittering
sanitation
superstition
training
Window
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force