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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1068/11524/APeelE161018.2.mp3
eacf4f2401a4e09fb664da5db414fdf1
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Title
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Peel, Eric
E Peel
Description
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An oral history interview with Eric Peel (b. 1916, 1495430 Royal Air Force). He served as ground personnel during the war.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-18
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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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Peel, E
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Mr Eric Peel and the interview is taking place in Mr Peel’s home near Chester on the 18th of October 2016. Eric, could I ask you please to tell us a little bit about your life when you were at school, your family background and so forth.
EP: I went to a school in Liverpool called Granby Street School which was a council school. I left school at fourteen. My family, my father was self-employed. He was a tailor. During his time he ran three shops. I’d, as I say left school at fourteen. My father had paid a sum of money for me to be trained on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange. And it was on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange that I worked until — in the meantime the war had been declared. 1939. Which I would have been then seventeen. And I was always interested in aircraft because my grandparents lived not very far from Mildenhall where the England to Australia Air Race started from. And I had been taken there where we could speak to the Meteorological people about the weather which was quite an experience for a boy. And then at Liverpool Speke Airport was founded. And as a twelve year old I can remember walking there to see the opening of Speke Airport when the RAF came in with their flights of Hawker Hinds and all those aircraft. Then of course the war was going on and things were happening in the Cotton Exchange which wouldn’t have happened in peacetime. And one of the partners there was an officer of the Territorial Army and certainly wanted me to join the Liverpool Regiment which was a tank regiment. My father said, ‘Oh no you’re not. You’re not going in tanks.’ And of course I had this interest in aircraft and I was walking through and I saw an advertisement, a recruitment office actually, saying how about joining the RAF. Well that was, oh great. And so I went inside and came out having joined up in the RAF VR — the Voluntary Reserve. And they told me I’d just have to wait until the right time came. And I was actually nineteen when the, I actually got called up in to the RAF. And from there, the day I was called up I was, I went to Padgate and there at Padgate they gave me a number and a uniform. And after a few days off I went to Blackpool. And in Blackpool I had all the injections and those sort of things. But when I first enlisted I thought I was going to be an air gunner. And that’s what I wanted to be. I didn’t. Actually I was glad I was never an air gunner [laughs] but there we are. But I was told that because I wore glasses that I couldn’t be aircrew. And so they said, ‘But you’d do plenty of flying if you became an armourer.’ And so that was what I became. An armourer in the RAF.
JM: Could we just go back a bit because from what you’ve said you must have been growing up in Liverpool during the Liverpool Blitz.
EP: The beginning of the Liverpool Blitz.
JM: Do you have any memories of those Blitz days?
EP: Yes. I can remember as, I can remember I had to do a couple of nights a week on fire watch duty in the office on the Liverpool Exchange. And also I can remember going home and in the back of the shop where we lived there was an air raid shelter. One of the brick built air raid shelters which covered not only our family but members of the other shops around about. And we all went in there and I can hear the bomb, we could hear the bombs going off. I saw the big Customs House in Liverpool burned out and we’d hear shrapnel coming down from the anti-aircraft fire. And most of the damage that I saw in those early days was around the dock area. Although we had a stray bomb in a street not very far from us. It must have been a small one because it completely took out one house out of a row. You see, and that’s —
JM: Were there casualties?
EP: There weren’t in that house. No. But there were many casualties on Merseyside in those first —
JM: Yes.
EP: But I was in the RAF when they had their major raids.
JM: Right. Right. And would you say that those memories of the Liverpool Blitz did they affect your view as to the assistance that you gave to damaging German cities? Was it in your mind?
EP: They probably did at the time but my thoughts have changed a great, great deal since then.
JM: Well, we’ll come to that later on but I’m just interested to know how you felt at the time.
EP: Well, I can’t really recollect how I did. I mean I, I was eager to do my part that everybody else was doing. Which meant that I must have had a feeling against the enemy you see but I don’t really feel that I had any what I’d say bitterness. I thought I was doing what everybody else was doing.
JM: I think that’s quite a common reaction from the gentlemen that I’ve, I’ve met. I do, Yes. Tell us, can you tell us any more about Padgate? This was a major centre wasn’t it?
EP: Yes. No. No. I can’t — Padgate, yes was a major centre. I know I got off the, the train at Warrington. Not Warrington. Padgate Station, the first station out of Warrington and there, there was a lorry waiting because there was a whole group of people like me with a case and all in our civvies you know. I don’t think I’d been out of shorts very long [laughs] But and then we got corralled into the back of this truck you see and we were all taken there. And when we got there we got the first of the sergeant major. Somebody bawling at us to do this, that and the other, you know, and that.
JM: I was going to ask how you adapted to the rigours of service life.
EP: Well, I grew up in just a very, very short time. I’d been very much protected. I had a loving mother and father and very caring. And I think that, well I really I think I was like any schoolboy really that had just starting up in life. I wasn’t used to people swearing. In fact in the RAF was the first, I can remember this quite clearly the first place I ever heard a woman use a swear word. A swear word. You see. And yes within two or three days I was a different person. But we didn’t stay in Padgate many, only two or three days as I can remember it and we were off to Blackpool, you see.
JM: Which was a major centre for RAF training throughout the war.
EP: That’s right. And I went in there and was there not a long time and I was off to Morecambe.
JM: Right.
EP: And in Morecambe I did my square bashing.
JM: Where did you stay when you were in Morecambe?
EP: In digs. A landlady had about four or five of us in her house. And I can remember she, she was a sergeant major [laughs] Kept us in our place and wasn’t going to have us do this that and the other. And we had to be in by a certain time. And —
JM: And what was the food like?
EP: I suppose it must have been acceptable [laughs] I can’t remember much about that you see. But I can remember in the, I was tall, six foot one. That’s what they listed me as and I was always called out in the square bashing as the marker because of my height.
JM: Yes.
EP: My height you see.
JM: Yes.
EP: And then from the right size you know. And they’d go right —
JM: And the marker was the person who stood at one end of a line or one corner —
EP: That’s right.
JM: Of a square.
EP: Yes. That’s right. And so I always got that you know. I wished I hadn’t, you know. It was always nice, particularly a bit later on when I did my armourer’s training.
JM: Did you find the drill easy to learn?
EP: I think so. I mean I always did what I was told and I don’t think I had much difficulty. I wasn’t very athletic and some of the, the tougher stuff I wasn’t very keen on.
JM: I was going to ask you about that. Did you have to do assault courses and —
EP: Not at there.
JM: No.
EP: I did an assault course later on in the RAF which was on the station defence.
JM: Right.
EP: Yeah.
JM: Right.
EP: But that wasn’t in Bomber Command.
JM: Well, let’s, let’s move on then because at the moment you’re at Morecambe and you’re doing what is really basic training I guess.
EP: That’s right. And that was six weeks. I can remember it being six weeks. And in that, you know we did all the drill movements and elementary rifle drill rather than what I think a soldier might have done. And from there then I went to Weeton which was near Blackpool.
JM: Right.
EP: And there I did armourer guns course.
JM: Right. So by that time you’d already been selected for an armourer.
EP: Yes.
JM: Yes.
EP: What I’d signed up for in those early days in Liverpool.
JM: Right.
EP: yeah. And I did the armourer’s gun course.
JM: This is most interesting. Could you tell us please how that course, how that training took place?
EP: Well, it started by a little bit of engineering work in that we were given a piece of metal and tools and we had to make an adjustable spanner. And I mean I’d never done a thing like that in my life. I was only just learning how to use a pen you see and, and we had to make this tool. And I think that took us about a week. And we were instructed in that. And then we came then to actual guns themselves, in taking them to pieces. But we were started with the old Lewis gun.
JM: Right. Yes.
EP: You see, and, and the Lee Enfield rifles. And I can’t remember the name of the, the revolvers and things like that.
JM: Perhaps a Smith and Wesson.
EP: They could, yes, the good names.
JM: Yes.
EP: Smith and Wesson. That’s it.
JM: Yes. Yeah. Yeah .
EP: Yes. Things like that. And taking them to pieces and cleaning them and putting them together again. Looking for faults in them and all that sort of business. We also learned then things like grenade discharges which went on the end of your rifle, you know and all that sort of business. And there you had to get forty percent to pass out. Sixty percent to become a fitter armourer which was one grade up from an ordinary armourer. But that meant that you had to be in training for another ten weeks after that and I didn’t want that so I turned down the opportunity. Which in later life I regretted because that was the only way you get good promotion. You see. But no and I then having done that course I was then posted to 56 OTU. Operational Training Unit at Sutton Bridge which is in Lincolnshire.
JM: It is.
EP: Yeah. And that was an Operational OTU in Hurricanes. And there I actually worked on the Hurricane aircraft. Loading and reloading both ammunition and the guns you see. And, and having been at Sutton Bridge and then moving about with them a little bit I was sent on a completion course as they called it which was the bombing side of the armourers course where we dealt with bombs and all that goes, that makes up a bomb. And the loading of them in to aircraft and all that sort. And also the, what we called fireworks. The —
JM: Pyrotechnics.
EP: That’s it. That and with things like gun carting and all those things. And I went to Kirkham for that.
JM: Right.
EP: And at Kirkham I was then, I had my first bomber station and that was at 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds.
JM: I wonder, before we go on to that could we just go back to your, your time at Sutton Bridge because I’m interested to know were the Hurricanes and their guns were they easy to maintain? Did you have any regular problems with them?
EP: No. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I mean the guns came out regularly because it was an OTU.
JM: Yes.
EP: On operational charge.
JM: Yes.
EP: But so guns were firing every day so they were coming out every day and being cleaned every day. We were getting, we were mounting, the gun mounts were wearing. Of course that brought riggers in and working on that sort of thing. So guns were jumping the mounts and firing through their own wings.
JM: Yeah.
EP: You see and —
JM: I wondered because I associate Sutton Bridge with armament school. I wondered whether the guns were using incendiary rounds for marking and whether they actually affected the barrels of the guns.
EP: They were. Yes. There were incendiary bullets used in them because of — but we, we did fire on drogues.
JM: Right.
EP: And we did have a flight of Lysanders there that towed the drogues.
JM: Right. And I believe they painted the bullets so that when they went in —
EP: The bullets were dipped.
JM: Dipped.
EP: Yeah. They had a tray of paint and they coiled them and just —
JM: Oh I see —
EP: Dipped them in like that but —
JM: I often wondered about that. I imagined armourers painting the tip of each bullet but they just dipped it in.
EP: No. No. No. No. No. They just had a tray with usually red paint as I can remember it.
JM: Yes.
EP: Like that.
JM: Yeah.
EP: And as I say they drove all these up and just home, and you know, like that.
JM: And did you ever discuss it with the pilots there? Did they —
EP: No. No. No.
JM: You never saw them.
EP: No. With the Hurricane, in the Hurricane it was better because they were men who were coming to the end of their training. They were going straight from there to operational squadrons. And also we had the pilots who had been in the Battle of Britain and I actually flew with one that wore a leather mask his face had been so badly damaged. But he was flying again. And I can remember his name was Flight Lieutenant Gray and he, I was working on a, or had just worked on a Hurricane along with, I mean there were lots of us doing it. Don’t think it’s me. It’s a gang of us doing all this. And he just happened, said, ‘Do you want a flight boy?’ And he took me up in a Miles Master Mark 1 which had a Kestrel engine in it. Not the American engine. And that was my first aerial flight.
JM: To fly with a pilot with that background that must have stayed with you.
EP: Yes. And I never saw him again.
JM: Really.
EP: Never saw him again. He just, just, why he just put his hand on my shoulder, you know and I went in the back seat with him. I flew with Tiger Moths again but always in the front seat of a Tiger Moth.
JM: Right. Right. But fascinating. Now, can we go on now to the bombing aspect? Tell us please about the training you received in bombs and munitions.
EP: Well, we were, we first of all we were told the, what the bomb was made up of. I can’t remember now all the chemical names that went into it. And then we were told what exploded the bomb. Where we had the [pause] oh my mind’s gone. The thing that ignites it which was a tube of — well it was rather like a little pillbox and it had a tube and in the tube was the —
JM: Be an acid?
EP: The word would come to me. No. I can’t remember now. But yeah, the fulminated mercury. This was the, the, would be, go inside the bomb. Could either go in the nose or the tail. And we were trained on all that sort of business you see. We didn’t, didn’t actually handle it there. But what we did have was an all brass tool which was exactly the same as this thing that you ignited the bomb with. And every bomb, every bomb you had to put that in first because where they’d been manufactured they’d be greased and they could build up what was like very coarse Vaseline. And this was to protect them. But you had to get that out because if I mean you would get it so as it needed cleaning but if it hadn’t this fulminated mercury would have exploded in there. But if you put pressure on it.
JM: Right.
EP: You see and, and so that had to be done, and they’d, they’d teach, taught us how to do that. Then how to actually load it and then how to fix the tail. And then how that was attached the bomb carrier. The bomb carrier went in to the aircraft. And the only aircraft I ever worked on there was a Hampden. They never had a Wellington or a Lancaster in that course. And there, having trained with all that and a little bit on the pyrotechnics you went out to the squadron. And my first squadron was 103 Elsham Wolds.
JM: And when was it you arrived there?
EP: It must have been the winter of ’42 ’43. Yeah. But I wasn’t at Elsham Wolds very long before 3 flights — there weren’t many squadrons had three flights but 103 Squadron had three flights and we were moved to Kirmington. And Kirmington, when they moved they formed 166 Squadron of — 166 Squadron had been Wellingtons and the Lancasters of 3 Flight of C flight of 103 went there to form 166 Squadron then. And I went with it. But didn’t go with the aircraft. When I got there I was put in the bomb dump. And it was in the bomb dump I spent all my days after that. We’d sneak a go at the aircraft if we could but I mean we were always then — and all this business you see of what I didn’t say about the training we also there did the incendiary bombs.
JM: I was going to ask.
EP: And there, how they were packed and how we would pack them into containers and how they’d go into the bomb carriers as the bombs had done. And so we, we did incendiaries there.
JM: Could you just describe the incendiary bombs?
EP: If I [pause] yes. I would say they were eighteen inches long or something like that. Twelve — eighteen inches long. If my memory’s right they were eight and a half pounds in weight. And I think we had forty in a container.
JM: So they were like gigantic candles.
EP: That’s right. Is that, is that is that about eighteen inches? They were about like that. And like this but they weren’t round. They were — eights. Eights.
JM: Hexagonal.
EP: Is that, is that eight? [laughs] I don’t know. They were like that so one would pack against the other close up, you see, like that. And I think, I might be wrong here but I think there were forty in a container and I know that during my time working with them they were increased to a bigger size and a half. If they were that deep they went up and the container, we got bigger containers. So we were dropping more of them. And I spent a lot, I would say I spent two thirds of my time in bomb dumps on incendiaries. Loading and getting them ready for the aircraft.
JM: How were the incendiaries detonated?
EP: On impact.
JM: Right.
EP: Yeah. Because I have seen them go off where we are but they were also and these were introduced more I think in my time explosive incendiaries which did have an explosion in them but the explosion was ignited by the primitive compact. You see. Like that. That’s as I remember them now. I mean you’re drawing on things I’ve forgotten years ago.
JM: You’re doing well.
EP: Wanted. Wanted to forget as well.
JM: I’m sure.
EP: And, but as I say about, I would think three quarters of my Bomber Command bomb dump work was with the incendiaries. Packing and getting those. And as you said how did they go off? The bomb carriers we had weren’t always in perfect condition and if you turned them over you get one of those open on the floor. But fortunately that coming from eighteen thousand feet is a bit different from coming from five feet you see. Or bits like that. They were, [pause] they — I never knew one to go off having a container like that. I did know one go off to blow a man’s arm off but that was his own fault.
JM: Why do you say that?
EP: Because they were, the explosive part would break and they were, we were sitting out there in the — operations had either finished or weren’t on and there was one of these broken ones and he put the end of his cigarette light and it just went up. And I can remember I hadn’t been there very long. That was at Elsham Wolds. I hadn’t been there very long and it made me feel I had to go outside and be sick, and. Yeah. And like that. So they were very destructive.
JM: You sometimes see photographs of weapons, bombs being taken out to an aircraft and somebody has written something in chalk. Did that actually happen?
EP: Oh yes. Probably done it myself because other people were doing it.
JM: And what sort of things were written on the bomb?
EP: Nasty things. You know. And people would write a sort of from their girlfriends or something like that, you see. This is what you’d get in a, you know, on a —
JM: So there was a sense of revenge.
EP: Oh yes. There was there. Oh yes. That was quite common. I mean as I say the, the big, the thousand pounders and the five hundred pounders I had a, I’d say a third of my bombing was with them. And on those you that’s where you’d get them. Some of them had been written on them where they had been manufactured. I mean they’d come with it on. You see most of it that was done in the squadron was done with chalk. But you would get it done with paint. And that would be some that had come in, you see. And you’d also get messages on the tails done with some sort of pen or something of that sort. You know. But there we are.
JM: So, you, you were at Kirmington with 166.
EP: At Kirmington. Yes.
JM: And tell us a little bit about life at Kirmington. What was your accommodation like and when you were off duty what did you do?
EP: Don’t know. I don’t know. I know we drove out on our bikes if we got a standoff. Go out on our bikes to Grimsby. I can remember going like that. Of course that was another thing, the bike. We had bikes to go from our digs because we weren’t on the airfield. We didn’t live on the airfield. We lived in Nissen huts. Well, I would say quite a mile or so away from the airfield. But you’d go out on your bike and when you went to get your bike again it had been pinched.
JM: So you pinched somebody else’s then.
EP: Well that’s what went on.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EP: That’s what went on.
JM: ‘Cause Lincolnshire had quite a reputation for being a bleak place to serve. Was that your experience?
EP: It was bleak. Oh yes. And it were a place where the east wind and the snow could come down. And I mean they could be very, very hard and very, very cold. Yeah. And I spent quite a long time there. Yes.
JM: And what contact did you have, again with the Lancasters and the crews?
EP: There we didn’t have very much contact at all with the crews. We’d go along to see them taking off and in [pause] I think it would be Kirmington the entrance to the bomb dump, we had a big wooden hut and in there we had a fire and things there. And that’s where if we had a sergeant that’s where he’d spend his time. He’d walk around and see we were doing our stuff or if we were in a muddle he’d come and sort things out. Some of them were very good. Excellent. But we’d have in the, the fusing sheds we’d have, well I can only remember one corporal but a senior LAC would be there you see. And particularly in the fusing the time I spent in fusing you know you always had somebody there to see that you weren’t, you couldn’t be careless.
JM: No. You had to be very strict I imagine.
EP: Yes. We were. Very strict. And the detonators. Not fuses. The detonators. It’s just come to me. That’s right. And, and there they came. That was another job we had in the bomb dump was to examine all these things. They were, when the stocks came in you — that was set at a little building set apart which was for things like the detonators and those sort of things. And those detonators had to be handled very, very carefully. And we had a pair of tweezers but instead of the points going the other way because on the rim of this pill box which was in the detonator you put them in. They were made of brass. You couldn’t have anything that could had a spark in it. And your screwdrivers and everything else were brass. But you would put them in and that’s the way you would hold your detonator. Put it like that and you’d hold the thing, that would be and that’s how you put it into the back of the bomb you see. And then you had your pistol. I don’t know whether — yeah. They had the pistol, and amongst the pistols we had the straightforward ones but we had the time delay and we had the anti-handling pistols. There’s a story of an anti-handling pistol. Shall I tell you that?
JM: We ought to make it clear that a pistol isn’t a gun.
EP: No.
JM: It’s a component of the fuse.
EP: No. The pistol. The pistol is what fires the bomb. And it screws, and can screw in the nose of the bomb although very very seldom. In 1 Group and 3 Group it was nearly always in the back of the bomb. And that screws in the back. You’ve, you’ve put your detonator in. Then you screw that in. Then the tail goes in the end and in the tail there’s a pair of fingers which join up with the fingers which are in the back of the — and the wind, going down spins the firing needle right out. So when it hits the ground it goes forward and that hits the cap on the back of the detonator which fires the, the fulminated mercury which fires the bomb.
JM: That’s very clear. Thank you.
EP: Yeah.
JM: So tell us the story that you were going to.
EP: Yes. Well, you would get what were known as hang-ups and I was called one time by the sergeant, ‘Peel, come with me.’ And there’d been a hang up come back with an anti-handling device on it. So an anti-handling device you’d never touch. It was the only one I ever had any real sort of, real knowledge of. Anyway, we went out to this aircraft where this anti-handling, where this bomb was. A five hundred pounder. And it had been hung up in the aircraft. When the bomb doors opened it fell and it was on the ground you see. The aircraft was moved away from it and he said, ‘Come on. We’ve got to get rid of this,’ and he’d already got a hole, rather like a saucer. Not very big you see. And he said I want you to pack this — ’ and he had a, these days it would be a plastic bag but we had a sack if you like of gun cotton in it. And he had a discharger and a coil of cable. And anyway he’d arranged for this tractor and a trailer and between us we got, the three of us, we got this on the back of the bomb carrier. A bomb carrier. Not a trailer. And took it up to this hole that they had dug which was in the extreme part of the airfield. And we then rolled it off the carrier, rolled it down in to the pit. He sent me to pack it around with this gun cotton. And packed it all around the tail area you see where this anti-handling pistol was. Oh and the bomb and which it was there. And when we packed that around he then came and when he — I’d never done it before. I mean he said he couldn’t do it. He didn’t know how to do it. Nor did I. But he made this, and said, ‘Well, you do it.’ So I did it in the way we’d been told in training. Or as I remembered it being told in training. And he came and gave me the ends of the cable to put on the detonator. And then both of us went back and got down on the ground quite a long, long way from where it was. And he had the discharger and blew the thing up.
JM: I bet it went with a very big bang.
EP: It went with a very big bang [laughs] even though it was a five hundred pounder we could feel a tremble. Yeah. But that was my experience of an anti-handling device.
JM: Fascinating story.
EP: Yeah.
JM: Let’s have a pause there.
[recording paused]
JM: Eric, I must ask you were you ever scared?
EP: Yes. I was scared many times. I don’t think I was scared with the job I was doing. But I can remember laying, lying at night in bed when we’d finished duty and a Lancaster coming over and crashing on some other hut quite near to us. And I can remember being terrified that night. And I remember praying, ‘Oh Lord, get me out of this.’ I really was frightened that night because I could hear the screaming of the people. Not only the aircraft crew but the people in the hut. And if I remember rightly there were women involved as well. But that was nasty. And yes [pause] scared. It’s hard to say. I don’t know whether frightened and scared are the same. I was sometimes frightened of the orders that came and the people that gave them. Frightened that I might be on jankers for something or other. But I think yes I was scared. Many times. We’d get, we’d get incidents happen and I can’t really put my finger on them and say they were. I can tell you something which is in the RAF. Just a little while after this I’m talking about three of us in the bomb dump. We didn’t know at the time but three of us were called in to the armament office which was in headquarters on the station. Told to pack up and go. And we had to. We had to go, and we didn’t know what it meant. And anyway we had to just go back to the billet, get our kit, go to the station headquarters, get our pass and I went to RAF Locking. A hospital in, well Weston Super Mare. As I got to the station I met another one. One of my buddies. He’d been done the same. Going to RAF Hospital Ely. And why I can remember, I wanted to go to Ely because that was near my grandmother’s house in Suffolk you see. But he was there. And he told me that the third one had got, he hadn’t seen the third one had got a similar thing. And he, I don’t think he knew where he’d been sent to. And I went to Locking. When we got there they weren’t very pleased to have us there. It was the hospital and the officer commanding that station wasn’t very happy with us, with people like me being sent which was a rehabilitation. And there I was put in the station armoury who had a virtually retired flight sergeant. Lovely old man. Could well have been my grandfather. And a lady armament assistant. And I went as the armourer there. And on the station they had three sandbagged gun emplacement. And that was all I did for three months. Walked around these three sandbagged emplacements. Looked after this flight sergeant. Half a dozen or maybe more than that sten guns which were on the station. And that was all. And why I did that I don’t know. But while I was there a Stirling carrying a glider had to cast off the glider and the glider smashed in to the ground and it had twenty odd troops on board. Royal Engineers. And they were all killed. And on this Sunday afternoon it was going to the bridge over —
JM: Arnhem.
EP: Arnhem. Going to Arnhem. And on this Sunday afternoon I was called out. They brought all the bodies into Locking. And it was an old store. An old Nissen store and they were all laid out in that. And a RAF regiment had just started and the RAF regiment was, a RAF regiment officer, flight lieutenant. Hotel owner of the Isle of Man was there. And he, he called me and I was in the, in the billet. And he called me and he said that, ‘They’ve got a job for you.’ And he went with me and he’d got somebody, he’d got another sergeant from, I think a medic sergeant. And we had to go through because they were carrying all ammunition of various sorts. Hand grenades, stuff for blowing up bridges and they were Royal Engineers and had to go through all these bodies and there were bits of bodies and bodies with no heads. And I don’t want to go on really but it’s, that’s something that stuck with me all these years. And, but we had to get that before the people who were going to put the bodies in coffins could do it you see because there were all these explosives and they had to come out. And I will say that this flight lieutenant, he was lovely. He was like a father figure. And the sergeant was. And I can’t remember much about him but, but that was one of the worst incidents in my RAF career.
JM: You’ve told it with great sensitivity and respect. If something like that happened today people doing your job would have been offered counselling. Were you offered anything of that sort?
EP: No [laughs] No. And not long afterwards I was sent back to Bomber Command. This, this time to Scampton. And about four days in Scampton and they didn’t know what to do with me and sent me to Hemswell.
JM: Just up the road.
EP: Yes. Well, yes it was the satellite to Scampton in those days. Yeah. And there I was back in the bomb dump again. Yeah.
JM: But it is interesting that you saw such terrible things. And I want to ask you how did you get over that? How did you come to terms with what you’d seen?
EP: I don’t know. I don’t know. Joan would tell you that my first two or three years in the RAF she’d hear me talking and shouting in the night. But I don’t know whether it was that or just the whole of the other but even now occasionally I’ll get a smell. A smell of burnt flesh and that. Because I’d already seen the damage that, seen a tail gunner shot up. And you know the guns going out there. But I did, the few months that I was with 103 Squadron when I first went there I was with the aircraft there you see. With the Lancasters. And you would see, you know a plane like that come in with the tail shot up and a man just slumped there and then have to get him out you know. Then us have to get the guns and clean it all up.
JM: I’ve heard about that. It’s a grim story and you were involved in that.
EP: For the, yeah. And as I say when we, that was in C Flight of 103 Squadron. When we went to Kirmington I was pushed in to the bomb dump. Yes.
JM: Yes.
EP: Yeah.
JM: The other question that I would like to ask you, also a difficult one, did you think much about the effect of the bombs you were preparing on the enemy?
EP: I don’t think I did then. I’ve done many times since. In fact I still do. If, if I’ve got a, probably after this for several nights now I will think. But I, I think in the way, almost the way we almost rejoiced if it was a good raid. If we heard that all our planes returned or I mean we knew the planes of our own squadron stations didn’t return because I mean some of the stations had two and three. I don’t know if they had three squadrons but they’d have two squadrons on them. Yeah. But I don’t, I don’t think we gave it much thought really.
JM: It was a job you had to do.
EP: A job we did. And I mean when Alex told me you were coming all that went through my mind, ‘Well all I can tell this gentleman is that I did as I was told.’ And that I think is what we did really. We did as we were told. Did as we were commanded. Yeah. We met all sorts of people. Very nice people. Very nasty people.
JM: Tell us a bit more about that.
EP: Well, I don’t really know what to say. I mean — anyway.
JM: Would you like to stop for a moment?
EP: Well, yes. If you don’t mind. And then —
[recording paused]
EP: Great chaps that I worked with. The chaps that would help you. There were other chaps that — I don’t, I don’t think it came anybody that would be nasty in that way. I mean we held our own to one another. You’d make very good friends and you did miss them when you were posted to another place. What I haven’t mentioned and I think I ought to mention this, I went on another course as an armourer and I don’t think many armourers ever went on this course. I went on a course preparing to store chemical weapons. And I have on my arm here though it’s very, very pale now the mark of a gas burn which I went to a, on a course where there were about no more than about ten or a dozen of us on this course. In a little place near from Boscombe Down. In between Salisbury and Boscombe Down. I can’t tell you the name of the place. I can’t think I ever wanted to remember it. I don’t think it was anything that stuck because I went on this course and when I got back to the station and that would have been the last station I was on, that would have been on Hemswell we never had any facility for storing chemical weapons. Particularly mustard gas which were just in a, like a biscuit tin. A sealed biscuit tin. And the, to drop them they went in these containers. The same as what the incendiary bomb would go into. Go into that. And just impact on the ground would have burst the biscuit tin open. It was only just light, very light metal. And this was because it was believed that as the war was drawing towards an end the enemy could have used chemical weapons. And it was chlorine and mustard. And on this course which as I say was near, somewhere near Boscombe Down because they took us down to Boscombe Down RAF station which was an experimental station. And we went there and I think we just about sat in the truck all the time we were there waiting for something to happen which never did. But we used to go each day to this place there and have lectures on these bombs and how to handle them in there.
JM: Did you actually see the gas at all?
EP: I, we saw the mustard gas. That’s how I come to have.
JM: Right.
EP: This here. Because they showed us the effects of it and we were each supposed to put this on and then show the whatever the anti-gas was to be able to wipe it up. If in handling them you know you had one burst open and how to protect yourself from them, and we had to wear the actual suits that you had to wear which we’d say were like a plastic raincoat these day. You know, you’d have to wear one of those. But as I say when I went back to the station they didn’t know anything about it although they’d sent me on it.
JM: Yeah. Did you wear respirators when you were working with these?
EP: Not with the mustard gas we didn’t. But we did wear the chlorine but the chlorine were in like you’d see in a hospital with oxygen.
JM: Yes.
EP: Like that.
JM: Yes.
EP: And, but they never, they never released any of that. I mean when we, when we wore gas masks there only in gas mask training and we went through one of these places where you lifted the back up and took a whiff of it and that sort of business. Yes. But —
JM: Quite a frightening experience.
EP: That was all Bomber Command.
JM: Yes.
EP: And that was because, as I say it was thought that it might have to be used.
JM: So you went back to Hemswell where you saw out your war service.
EP: No. I was in, no sooner, I can’t remember VE day in the RAF. I think it was just an ordinary day. But not many days after that I went on two parades where squadrons were being disbanded. The two squadrons on. I think one of them was 150 Squadron. I can’t remember the other one. And they were disbanded. And then I was sent off to [pause] where did they send, was sent to dear? You do out here. Oh they were recruiting, recruiting RAF and WAAFs and I was made an acting sergeant to march these people around. And all I was doing was marching them to the square for the drill sergeants to take over and drill them. And do town patrols when people went out at night you had to — like Redcaps really but we weren’t Redcaps. We were acting. Acting unpaid. And there we did and also there I took WAAFs to Gaskell Street’s baths in Manchester. What’s the name of the place that’s just out here? Footballers buy their houses out there.
Other: Alderley Edge.
EP: No. No. No.
JM: Prestwich.
EP: No. Oh dear.
JM: So tell us please Eric about your demob from the Royal Air Force.
EP: My demob from the Royal Air Force. I went to Cardington. I went to RAF Cardington where the airships had been built and there they gave me a suit and a raincoat and sent me on my way. But I came home and I had my battle, I didn’t have my number one, I had my battle dress on as we were, just went as we were working. Came home. Went straight up to my girlfriend’s house. Came home you see and that was that. And when I look back on it well I made some good friends there but they weren’t friends that kept on. Perhaps that’s me. I, I’m not one for sort of joining old comrade’s associations and things like that. I was always a member of the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund. And I think when I got back my job at the Cotton Exchange had closed. All that had gone like the wind. And I did go to the RAF VR place in Liverpool when I got back and they weren’t very helpful. They didn’t really want to know. I think that the top of the matter was that there were too many of us that were just coming out and got no work to go to and were looking for help. And anyway, I just went the once and I felt that I was given the cold shoulder. You know, I said to you know to myself I wasn’t the right rank or all these sort of things you know. But there are times I feel that if I hadn’t had to go through those five and a half years in the RAF, six years, that life would have been somewhat different. I mean I’d have probably have gone straight through the cotton market. But as cotton went out to India perhaps I wouldn’t. You see. But as I look back now it’s given me a lot to think about over the years and a lot to, I think my own conscience. I couldn’t have been a conscientious objector. I know between right and wrong. And I think I would have had to. I don’t regret what I did. No. I don’t regret what I did and I think it helped me grow up. And I think it also made me so as I couldn’t just depend on other people all the time. I had to make decisions myself. And at ninety four I think it’s worked out all right and — yeah.
JM: Do you have any views on the way that Bomber Command was treated politically after the war?
EP: I did do. Oh, I still do now. I mean I, I told you we had our hut at the entrance of the, to the bomb dump. Right beside it we had a stand with a Lancaster in it and I mean I saw that change crews many times. Change aircraft many times where it would be our turn. He was one that didn’t come back. And people who, I mean some would just ignore you. Others would put their hand up to you or, or even shout a word to you and you’d that was perhaps the last word they ever shouted to an airman, you know. To another airman. So, I mean when I think of those sort of people I still do sometimes. Especially as my daughter, and daughter’s father in law is a man who did a couple of tours. You see, so I think of those as the heroes. And this is why when Alex said you know about coming to this. I thought I’ve got nothing to say, you see. They, they to me were the heroes and I mean for those people I shall always have the greatest admiration. I know there were some rogues amongst them but generally speaking, particularly after they’d done their first couple. And I think that, I think when they first came they were a little bit happy you know. You know. Thought it was going to be marvellous until they’d done one. Two. Yeah. But there we are.
JM: I’ve tried to take you through your service career. Are there any incidents or stories that I haven’t touched on that you’d like to record?
EP: I don’t think so. No. I don’t think so. I enjoyed the bit of flying that I had with them. But —
JM: Did you ever get to fly in a Lancaster?
EP: Yes. I did a trip in a Lancaster once. That was, and I worked on that as well. Not with bombs. With food. Err, oh hanna.
JM: Manna.
EP: Manna. Operation Manna. Hemswell didn’t fly from there but we were taken out from there to another, and I can’t remember the name of that station. In that area right close nearby. And we used to go there and bomb up with food. And one or two of us got the opportunity to go with them and we went on that. And —
JM: So you were sitting in the fuselage of a Lancaster —
EP: Sitting there. Sitting on an ammunition box by the wireless operator but was able to go back and stand under the astro and hold on to the, there. I’m sure the pilots did it on purpose to get us so that we’d fall down [laughs] They’d scoot. Yeah.
JM: What did you think of a Lancaster to fly in?
EP: Oh marvellous. Yeah. Marvellous. Yeah. Yeah. I always stand in awe if I see one go across.
JM: Yeah.
EP: You know. Yeah.
JM: Lovely.
EP: Yeah. Wonderful things.
JM: Were you offered the opportunity to go on what were called Cook’s Tours after the war?
EP: No.
JM: To see the bombed cities. I know some ground crews did that.
EP: No.
JM: I wondered whether you’d had that chance.
EP: No. No. I don’t know. Well, I think Hemswell, I don’t think any squadrons ever went back there.
JM: Right.
EP: I know, I mean I told you I was on the two that were disbanded from there.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EP: We did a big parade. A big military parade for that. But I don’t think because the last I heard of it was many years ago and it was a, they had these rockets there. Yeah.
JM: Eric, I think we’re bringing this interview to a close now. I want to thank you for giving me such a very detailed, balanced and very, very important interview. You’ve shown us a lot of the life of armourers and ground crew. Thank you very much indeed.
EP: 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 Eric Peel
Creator
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Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-18
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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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APeelE161018
Conforms To
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Pending review
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01:08:06 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Eric Peel worked in the Cotton Exchange in Liverpool before he volunteered for the RAF. He trained as an armourer and was initially posted to 56 Squadron at RAF Sutton Bridge where he worked on Hurricanes. He then was posted to 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds and accompanied the squadron when it moved to RAF Kirmington. Eric witnessed a number of cases of loss of life including a glider accident and recalled the sight of a Lancaster coming back with the rear gunner slumped in his turret. Eric loaded Lancasters with food for Operation Manna.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
103 Squadron
166 Squadron
bomb trolley
bombing
bombing up
fear
ground personnel
Hurricane
incendiary device
Lancaster
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Kirmington
RAF Padgate
RAF Sutton Bridge
service vehicle
tractor
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1070/11527/APercivalRA161006.2.mp3
aa91caf943ea7204a1d9e0d6b824cffd
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
Percival, Robert Andrew
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with (b. 1960, 8173900 Royal Air Force). He served served 1978 - 1987 including time with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight at RAF Coningsby and recovered 14 Merlin engines from Spain.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-06
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Percival, RA
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 6th of October 2016 and we’re in the home of Robert Percival to talk about his times in the RAF which is much later than wartime but it’s significant for the reasons that will come out as we talk. First of all though Rob what are you first earliest recollections of family life? And —
RP: Family life?
CB: Where you went to school and so on.
RP: Well, I grew up in a place, in a village, called Lymm in Cheshire. L Y M M. And that’s where my father was brought up as well. And I grew up there, went to the usual primary school and then to Lymm Grammar School. I was one of only seven pupils from the primary school that actually qualified, or passed the eleven plus as it was and went to Lymm Grammar School. And had some very happy years there. How much detail do you want me to go into?
CB: Yeah. So then what did, what did you specialize in then? In education.
RP: Oh, well my chosen, well what I specialized in or loved the most was maths and geography. Those were my favourite subjects. Passed a string of O levels and when my friends and fellow pupils at grammar school were thinking about university and what their next moves were I was unusual in that that didn’t really appeal to me to be honest with you. Largely because my hobbies, my main hobby at the time was that of car rallying. I was one of the youngest qualified rally navigators in the country. But in order to do that I had to contribute some of the costs. So my priority at the time was to, rather than go to university go for an income somewhere so that I could continue my passion for rallying. Ok. So, much to my parent’s, what’s the word, displeasure. My motivation was that I’d always loved aeroplanes and always wanted to be a pilot. My father was a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm. And I’ve a photograph of him in his uniform on his wedding day in the lounge. But he used to fly. He was on carriers. He did eighty two deck landings. He’s passed away now, bless his soul but I have his flying log books. And he used to fly Fireflies primarily and Avengers on HMS Centaur. And he was my role model in terms of discussions and conversations about aeroplanes. And that’s what I wanted to do. And I actually applied to be a pilot and went to the Aircrew Selection Centre at Biggin Hill when I was seventeen. Passed all the tests with the exception of the medical because I’m colour blind. Now, I actually knew I was colour blind but my father, who I think was also a little bit colour blind, he was, he was a pilot. And in his naïve, my naïve way we thought we could blag our way through it. He said, ‘You’ll be fine.’ And of course the tests were a bit more, what’s the word? Involved and substantial than when he applied to be a pilot and they said sorry sunshine but you’re not flying one of our aeroplanes. You’re colour blind. Big disappointment. So, you know, I was thinking well what do I do now? And I decided to go down the engineering and this is why my chosen path was the, was the ATechP. Technician propulsion. Because to do the traditional apprenticeship at RAF Halton again one needed to be not colour blind. So that was my chosen route and that’s, that was where my parents were not very pleased with me because they said, ‘Well you ought to be going in as an officer, you know. Otherwise it’s like working in a car garage.’ And me being a bit pig headed at the time and seventeen years old nobody’s going to tell me what to do, I joined anyway. So, in spite of their displeasure. So, that’s how I came about joining the RAF in the trade that, as I say, I did. I have to say I enjoyed the work in the RAF. I enjoyed my time there. I wasn’t, I didn’t have the right, looking back I didn’t have the right personality to be in that type of environment. You know, I wasn’t one to take orders lightly. And I was a bit of a, was a bit of a maverick I have to say. But I went to Swinderby, did the training, went to Halton. Qualified as a technician. Was posted to Coningsby.
CB: Tell us a bit about the training.
RP: The training at — well I did, the normal square bashing at Swinderby was my first insight into that. Which was, that was fine. I just went through the motions. From what I can remember I think it was only a matter of weeks at Swinderby anyway. I can’t remember exactly how long but I don’t think it was more than about three months at Halton. That was fine. I enjoyed that. And I enjoyed obviously my first time away from home. So, looking back at some of the things we did. I had a girlfriend at the time in Cheshire when I left. So I went home most weekends when I could. And my normal, to start with my normal thing was to thumb it home from Halton. And then back on a Sunday night. My parents were a bit worried about that but I could always gauge within ten minutes what time I was going to arrive home. And it was, you know, a good three hour trip. And likewise going back on a Sunday night. Set up my first business whilst I was at Halton actually and that was trading in cars. So I used to thumb it home on a Friday. Buy a car over the weekend in Cheshire or Warrington where they were cheaper. Drive it back on the Sunday. Do whatever needed doing to it and sell it. So that was, that was my life split between Cheshire and RAF Halton.
CB: And how did the training course run? What did they actually do to teach you aero engineering?
RP: It started off with basic engineering first and time spent in the workshop just seeing how cut out we were to be an engineer. I remember vividly having to file bits of sheet metal and mild steel flat within tolerances to see whether, you know you had the patience for doing that sort of thing. And then it was, got gradually got more and more complex. Introduction to the, you know the jet engines and propeller engines. Going through modules where you’d take parts off, strip them down, rebuild them, put them back on the engines. And got to the point where, if I remember right, we were doing a lot of work on the Jet Provost at the time. But yes it was quite, quite an intense twelve month course. Because as I say that was a fairly new category where you could do, you know the, it wasn’t quite an apprenticeship but you could do your specialist engines or airframes, and I chose engines.
CB: The Jet Provost was the standard basic trainer then. What balance did you have of activity between classroom and practical?
RP: As one would expect, to start with a lot of it was theory and classroom based and as we progressed through that course it gradually became more and more practical. And towards the end most of it was practical indeed. Yeah.
CB: So were you stripping down engines and reassembling them?
RP: Yeah.
CB: What were you doing and how did that work?
RP: You’re testing my memory now. But no, it was about exactly as you say. Stripping down engines and rebuilding them but it was very much in accordance with the manual. The manual was the, was the thing that you had to do everything in accordance with. And half the test was about could you stick to the manual and, because what we didn’t want was to build an engine and have some bits left over [laughs] So, so, no it’s all about the discipline of following the procedures as set out in, in the manual at the time.
CB: And there are a huge range of tools used in the RAF. How did they deal with that from a safety point of view?
RP: Well, it was drummed into us at the start that as you say there’s a lot of specialist and general tools and they were all on tool boards with shadow stickers behind them. So at the end of each, not just the end of each working day but the end of each job as well you had to make sure that all the tools were back in its dedicated position. And it was immediately obvious when any of them weren’t because you had this dayglo sticker gazing at you thinking there is a space here where there should be a tool. So that was how they were managed.
CB: And who were the instructors? Were some of them civilians or air force.
RP: Yes. Yeah.
CB: Or what were they?
RP: Yeah. It was a mix of civilian instructors who were usually ex-RAF and serving air force instructors at the time.
CB: And how did you know if the engine was going to work after you’d reassembled it?
RP: Well, we refitted it into the Jet Provost at the time and did the ground test. And I think having built the engine, sat in the cockpit, started it and ran through a series of ground tests. So —
CB: So the ground test would be running up the engine as though the pilot was doing it was it?
RP: Well, yeah but in every —
CB: With a checklist.
RP: That’s right. With every engine and aeroplane then any major job that has been done then it’s up to the technicians to go through those tests anyway so that’s even after training at Coningsby on the Phantoms and so on that, you know we went through a checklist of checks that we would go through to make sure that the engine was fully exercised at all states. From idle to max RPM. And reheat on the Phantoms to make sure that everything was within tolerances. Temperature, pressure and all the other indications.
CB: Now this was very much the jet age for the RAF and it still used Chipmunks. So how did you deal with the ordinary reciprocating engines? What was the process you went through there?
RP: Well, again we had a basic level of instruction on piston engines on Chipmunks that, you know we did some work on those and on propeller engines of all shapes anyway because a lot of, obviously the propeller engines were gas turbine jet engines. So we had an exposure to all of the different ranges of engines and, and styles. And of course with my time at Coningsby and on the Battle of Britain Flight I flew many times in Chipmunks anyway as a, on air experience. So that was quite enjoyable.
CB: What flying did you get at Halton?
RP: None. Because there is, at Halton there was a part of the course was an air experience flight in a VC10. But that happened to clash with my eighteenth birthday party back in Cheshire so I chose the birthday party [laughs] So I had to give up my place on the VC10.
CB: Right.
RP: Which was disappointing but I was —
CB: You’ve got to get your priorities haven’t you?
RP: Absolutely.
CB: Yeah. And at the end, how long was the training at Halton?
RP: If I remember right it was just over a year. It may have been twelve or thirteen months. It wasn’t a long course at all.
CB: And how did you know that you’d finished the course?
RP: Well, there was a pass out parade.
CB: Right.
RP: I was actually taken ill during my course. So the course I think was thirteen months. I was there a little longer because I developed a condition called quinsy. Which was a throat, where it was highly inflamed and because I was forced to take three weeks sickness I was actually back coursed.
CB: Re-coursed.
RP: Re-coursed on to, on to the next available one. Yeah. So that was an irritation.
CB: So, at the end of the course was there an exam? How did they do?
RP: Oh yeah. There were exams throughout but at the end of the course there was like a, you know final exams. Several final exams which, if I remember right some people failed to pass. No. That’s the wrong word. They didn’t pass. But thankfully I did. So yeah there was, you know, a celebration. A passing out parade. And then everybody got together in the classroom to be told where they would be posted to. And as you said nine hundred posted to Coningsby. And I thought where’s Coningsby?
CB: You came in as an AC2.
RP: AC2?
CB: Air craftsman second class.
RP: Well, I came in as a, the actual rank at the time was a junior technician.
CB: When you started?
RP: Yes.
CB: Was it? Right.
RP: So I left Halton with the rank of junior technician.
CB: No. No. I meant when you joined the RAF. You came in at what rank? At Swinderby.
RP: Well, that was trainee junior technician.
CB: Oh it was.
RP: That was always going to be the case.
CB: Right.
RP: Yeah.
CB: Excellent.
RP: Because I know that the lower ranks there was the SAC and, sorry LAC then SAC. And then they brought out this new category of junior technician.
CB: Right.
RP: Which did cause quite a lot of discontent among some of the existing ones. Largely because the technicians at the time previously had had to go through the ranks of LAC and SAC whereas myself and my colleagues went straight to technician grade and were actually paid considerably more. And that was what caused them to be quite upset about it.
CB: So you received your posting to Coningsby. Then what?
RP: Arrived at Coningsby and my posting was to a division called the ASF — Aircraft Servicing Flight which was, we had a couple of squadrons of Phantoms at Coningsby and then the Aircraft Servicing Flight was for more in depth maintenance and engineering work. So that we took the aeroplanes from 29 Squadron and the OCU, Operational Conversion Unit and, I think it was 43 Squadron at the time. We brought them in for, as I say the bigger services that the squadron couldn’t handle themselves. And that was my time there. I also, whilst I was there at the Aircraft Servicing Flight moved, or did a spell in engine records. And that was purely because the, I wanted to, I recognised that I’d left school with a string of O levels but I left before I did A levels and I thought maybe that was a bit of a decision made too quickly. So whilst I was at Coningsby [pause] sorry. I’m getting mixed up now. It was when I was at Wattisham. What I did was day release at the local college. Sorry it wasn’t at Coningsby. It was at Wattisham that I was in engine records.
CB: We’ll come to that in a minute then.
RP: Yeah. That’s fine.
CB: Right. So you went into engine records.
RP: Sorry, engine records. Just wind that back.
CB: Yeah.
RP: No, that was later on in Wattisham.
CB: Oh, it was. Ok.
RP: I came to it. Yeah.
CB: Right. So ASF is not the first line servicing.
RP: No. That’s, that’s second line servicing.
CB: Exactly. Yeah.
RP: Where we were doing engine changes and yeah when the squadrons went on detachment to Cyprus, Germany, where ever, they always took some personnel from ASF because they’d got the more in depth experience of, and not just actually doing the work but more in depth experience of judgements as well. When an engine had to be removed for instance.
CB: Right.
RP: The biggest example was you’re obviously aware of foreign object damage going down the air intake and damaging the compressor blades and turbines.
CB: Particularly birds.
RP: Birds. Yeah.
CB: Clothing.
RP: Bits of grit, bits of clothing and they always, and that happened regularly. Some of it was in, within tolerances and allowable but they always called on us and quite often me at the time to say whether it was outside limits and actually the engine had to be removed and, and repaired.
CB: So the Phantoms had what engine in?
RP: They had the Rolls Royce Spey. Well, as I said, yeah the Phantom had the Rolls Royce Spey but I also did the detachment to the Falklands. I was actually in the Falklands for seven months. And we had to send a squadron of Phantoms to the Falklands. But then that left a gap at home and they had to be replaced. So what happened then was we bought a squadron of American Phantoms which had the General Electric engine. So in a roundabout way I worked, I was, I was in charge of the Rolls Royce Spey engines to start with and then the General Electric engines for the, for the squadron. American ones which had been sat in the Nevada desert I believe for many years since Vietnam.
CB: So it was dry and they were ok.
RP: It was but the stories of, I’m glad I wasn’t there but I remember one particular guy who had a look at these and went down. Because the Phantom you could just crawl down the air intake. Go right down to see the, you know the compressor.
CB: Right.
RP: And the engine. And there were a lot of stories of guys going down there at the Nevada desert to check on these engines. Then appearing at a rapid rates of knots because there were rattle snakes.
CB: Oh really.
RP: Nesting in the air intakes because it was in the shade.
CB: Right. What was the performance of the planes and the reliability between Spey and General Electric engines?
RP: There were fors and against for both. Reliability was pretty much the same. The Spey apparently if I remember right was the pilots used to say was a bit faster at low level. The downside of the American ones with the General Electric, the downside was that you could see them for miles away because they did leave a trail of black smoke behind them whereas the Rolls Royce didn’t. So in those days you know the missiles were sort of fire and forget but as long as you aimed at the black smoke then —
CB: [laughs] Right.
RP: You know, the missile would find its target whereas the Rolls Royce ones didn’t present such a visual target.
CB: Ok. So how long were you at Coningsby?
RP: Coningsby. Six years in total.
CB: Were you?
RP: Including the detachments obviously and including my seven months in the Falklands.
CB: So what years are we talking about? We’re talking about you started in —
RP: Well, I joined the air force in ’78. So I would have gone to Coningsby the end of ‘79. Very end of 1979.
CB: Ok.
RP: Yeah.
CB: So you left there in ‘85/6
RP: Yeah. And then did —
CB: Then where?
RP: The remainder of my time at RAF Wattisham, Suffolk.
CB: Right.
RP: Again, that was on Phantoms.
CB: Yeah.
RP: And in Wattisham as I say, a chunk of that time was in engine records and that’s purely because I wanted to go to college and do a day release and gained a Diploma in Business and Finance.
CB: Oh.
RP: Which was —
CB: Which — where did you do that?
RP: Quite unusual. Which was what? Sorry?
CB: Which college?
RP: West Suffolk College in Bury St Edmunds.
CB: Diploma in — ?
RP: Business and Finance.
CB: Business and Finance.
RP: Yeah. Because it was clear to me that apart from the Battle of Britain Flight the most enjoyable time I had in the air force was in the Falklands. And it was clear that I wasn’t a career person for the forces. And that’s largely because of my personality. I didn’t like taking orders too much and also because my friends from grammar school were going in their direction and I was thinking well, hang on a minute they’re making lots of money and making a thing for themselves and my best mate at school was doing very well in business and I thought well I can. I was better than him. So, you know, I’ve done my time playing at it. Now, I’ll come out and get a proper job. And, and the fact is that nowadays things are much more serious with Afghanistan and Iraq and all the other conflicts that are going on whereas then, you know there was, ok they had the QRA Quick Reaction Alert because of the Russian incursions.
CB: Yeah.
RP: Every couple of days. But other than that there wasn’t any real threat other than the obvious the Falklands.
CB: Yeah.
RP: So, I think we were just, we were going through a period at the time. Looking back I think we were just playing at it. And the usual exercises. Sirens going off in the middle of the night. And all the old soaks who used to work in Germany saying, ‘Well, that’s not like real life in Germany. You’re just playing at it.’ [laughs] So, so —
CB: Tell us more about the Falklands. There you were still flying out of Port Stanley were you?
RP: Yes. Yeah. I, I spent a week at Ascension Island waiting until the Royal Engineers had extended the runway and then flew down on the air bridge on a Hercules from Ascension down to Port Stanley. Very exciting times they were. We refuelled twice on the way down. And, and then with the Phantoms we set up the air defence ring. I thoroughly enjoyed it actually in the Falklands.
CB: How long were you there?
RP: Seven months.
CB: Seven months.
RP: It’s only designed to be, I was told it was going to be four months but it turned out to be seven months. But no. I enjoyed that. And then [pause] yes.
CB: And that was when? This, this is ’83 or —
RP: ’83.
CB: Yeah.
RP: Yeah. ’83.
CB: After the conflict in other words.
RP: It was after the conflict. Because obviously, you know the Phantoms couldn’t use the runway until it had been extended. So, you know, the first couple of months was spent on an old ship that was moored in the harbour. That’s where I lived. Which I’ve got photographs of that. And then the remainder we actually lived on what was an ex-prison. Floating prison. Again, in the harbour. The Coastell they called it.
CB: What was the comfort like there?
RP: Not great. It was better than the ship. A lot of it, a lot of the discomfort was created by the angst between the army and the air force.
CB: In what way?
RP: A lot of the usual banter because the army squaddies at the time weren’t particularly bright and we used to take the mickey out of them and wind them up which made them very angry and they were fitter than the average RAF. So some of the things they used to do to wind us up were not very nice.
CB: It was a double wind up.
RP: It was. And for example, for example when, when I left the Falklands I sailed back to Ascension Island on the SS Uganda.
CB: Yes.
RP: An ex-hospital ship. And that was a really nice trip actually because I don’t know how long it could have taken us to get there but it, we took a lot longer than we needed to just to coincide our arrival at Ascension Island with the VC10 flight home. We only left Port Stanley on the 1st of January. I remember that. We left into a raging storm in the roaring forties.
CB: Yeah.
RP: Which lasted a couple of days. As soon as we got out of that into the sunshine mid-South Atlantic we throttled right back on the Uganda and then just cruised up at 4 knots up to Ascension Island. But going through the roaring forties I put a note on the notice board saying there was a snooker competition. When the ship was pitching and rolling all over the place. And yeah, I got a dozen army guys signed up for a snooker competition.
CB: [laughs] Well it fits doesn’t it? Yes.
RP: So, and then we got to Ascension Island and lots of stories there and even when we were just anchored at Ascension on the ship for a couple of days before I picked up the VC10. And you could, looking over the side of the side of the ship you could see the sea water piranhas. You weren’t allowed to go swimming off the ship because they were quite dangerous piranhas. The standard thing at the time was to get a bucket with an apple, drop it over the side. All these piranhas would go into it and then you’d pull it back up, pull the rope back up. And there was one Polish army guy who [laughs] I don’t know why I used to wind these guys up but I know he went down to the toilet to use the, and he was sat on, and I got this piranha, razor teeth and I’ve got a picture of one of them there and I just threw it over the top of the toilet door and this thing’s flapping around the toilet. ‘That’s it. I’m going to kill you.’ Usual antics that you know.
CB: Yeah.
RP: When you go.
CB: That forces people do.
RP: That forces people do.
CB: Disgraceful behaviour [laughs]
RP: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RP: And then he was doubly upset because when we left the ship to get on to the VC10 we left via helicopter. Whirlwind. And all the bags were in the net that was underslung under this Whirlwind. And when it, the army, they took the army’s luggage to be taken off the underslung net actually split and all their luggage dropped into the sea never to be seen again.
CB: Oh dear.
RP: Yeah.
CB: The piranhas ate the lot.
RP: We didn’t really laugh.
CB: No.
RP: So, so that was, yeah I enjoyed the Falklands. It was an eye opener for me.
CB: What was so distinctive about the Falklands from your point of view?
RP: Real life. It was, we weren’t playing at anything. It was real life and I went on a long weekend of what we called R & R because it was so noisy. Constantly noisy because the runway was made of PSP matting.
CB: Oh was it? Right.
RP: And it just vibrated every time —
CB: Right.
RP: Anything landed or took off.
CB: Pierced Steel Planking.
RP: Yeah.
CB: Just so — yeah.
RP: That’s right. And I took a team out because, because of the noise. There was one particular day off we had and I said, ‘Let’s, you know, let’s go and explore some of the Falklands.’ So we had to get permission at the time because of all the minefields that were around. And that’s what we did. And I’ve got pictures here of coming across Argentinian ambulances that had been riddled with bullet holes and I’ve seen, actually it was our guys that did that. And there was the deal at the time was you find anything, any debris from the war, you know, to come back and report it to the authorities there. Which we did. Went back a week later and it had all been removed. So yeah it was the fact that this was suddenly real life and you know.
CB: And were the Argentinians actually trying to probe in the air?
RP: Oh yes.
CB: All the time were they? So the Phantoms were busy.
RP: Oh yes. Yeah. And, and yeah and it actually taught me a lot about people as well. About how, how, what’s the different, how people can turn into something different in that type of situation where, you know there were a lot of people were actually hoping it would start up again to give them some action. And I was thinking you know this isn’t, this isn’t something to be proud of. But a lot of people were actually so bloodthirsty and so — what’s the word? Geared up to get back involved.
CB: What about the locals? What was their, what was the relationship with the Falklanders?
RP: That was fine. Yeah. That was all, they were all very grateful obviously. And just going on just my long weekend away to West Falkland. You know we flew there in a little puddle jumper plane and met a lot of the locals. And I remember we flew there, then a helicopter took us to some remote part of West Falkland and dropped us there and gave us a map and said, ‘Your nearest bit of civilisation is twelve miles that direction. We’ll see you there at dinner.’ It was great fun. It really was. Are you warm enough? Are you cold?
Other: I’m alright.
CB: Yeah.
RP: So I distinctly remember that being great fun. And suddenly the, that’s what it was. Rest and recuperation. A break from the noise and the vibration. So yeah I loved that. But —
CB: In the meantime they were building the new airfield were they?
RP: Yeah. At —
CB: Mount Pleasant.
RP: Mount Pleasant. Yeah. Well that, work on it had just started there when I was there. We were still operating from Port Stanley.
CB: So fast forward now. You come back on the VC10. Then what? Back to the grind.
RP: Back the grind, yeah. And back to Coningsby. And I was only there another few months at Coningsby before being posted to Wattisham. So my time on the Battle of Britain of Britain Flight was actually before. Just before going to the Falklands.
CB: Ok. So let’s just talk about that. So the Battle of Britain Flight had been formed a few years before. It was stationed at Coningsby.
RP: Yeah.
CB: What did you do for it? What? How was, how was it manned from an engineering point of view?
RP: Well, what happened was I worked for the Aircraft Servicing Flight which was positioned at the next hangar to the Battle of Britain flight. And I was always interested in the aircraft of the Battle of Britain Flight. Largely because again, you know through discussions with my father and the propeller aircraft that he used to fly in and so on. So I had good friends who worked on the Battle of Britain flight. So what clinched it for me was me pleading to actually get a joy ride on the Lancaster. Which, you know, I did. It allowed me to, in fact coincidentally that was flying to Wattisham to do a display and then flying back again. So yeah, I just went along to enjoy the ride if you like and got hooked there and then. And made it well known that I’d like to be either seconded or posted to the BBMF and it worked because when this role became apparent they came to me and said, ‘Would you like to do it?’ Which is, obviously I said yes. And that was to rebuild a number of, or strip down and rebuild a number of Merlin engines [coughs] pardon me, that came back from Spain. Then they could be spare engines for the Hurricane, the Spitfire and the Lancaster that all used the same engine.
CB: You mention Spain. So how does that come into the equation?
RP: Well, these engines were found in a cave in Spain. Each one. They were crated up and the story was that these were Merlin, Rolls Royce Merlin engines and the original intention was for them to be used in Messerschmitt airframes.
CB: Which they were. The Bouchon.
RP: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RP: So that’s how these engines became, were found in Spain.
CB: Who found the engines?
RP: I don’t know to be honest with you. I don’t know.
CB: And why were they in a cave?
RP: Well, they were hidden there. I think, from memory I think it was the Spanish Air Force that were looking to acquire Messerschmitt airframes and put the Rolls Royce Merlins in to them.
CB: Or they built the air frames under licence with Merlin engines but just curious how the engines came to be in a cave.
RP: I don’t know the history of that to be honest. I don’t know.
CB: Where was the cave?
RP: I didn’t actually go to the Spanish location.
CB: Ah.
RP: So I’m not sure where it was.
CB: Right.
RP: These were just brought back.
CB: What condition were they in? How were they packed?
RP: Visually, visually they looked in really good condition.
CB: In crates or what were they?
RP: In crates, yeah. They were crated up. Lots and lots of grease on them. Protective grease. They weren’t pitted. They looked like they’d weathered their time in the crates and in Spain very well. And myself and my boss if you like, I don’t know if any of these names are familiar with you. My boss on the Battle of Britain Flight was a chap called Chief Technician Pete Russian. He was, he was a real enthusiast. Pete Russian. Yeah. He was a real enthusiast. Another interesting fact about my time which I just thought of actually in the Battle of Britain Flight. They obviously, we obviously got to know a lot of civilian operators of Spitfires of which there were quite a number. And I just, it’s just dawned on me this, there was one Italian who had a Spitfire and a number of our guys went across to do some work on it to restore it to get it back in to flying condition. And I left just as that was being completed and I, when I went to visit Just Jane only a few years ago there was an engineer there who basically did what I did but Just Jane and he recognised my name. He recognised my name and he’d seen my name on the paperwork because he used to be on the Battle of Britain flight. He replaced me actually. And I actually asked him whatever happened to that Italian Spitfire? He said it was actually flown to the UK and then on to the US by one of the, by one of our favourite pilots at the time. A chap called Paul Day.
CB: Oh.
RP: Do you know — ?
CB: Yeah.
RP: Yeah. He was a great guy. Had some laughs with him. I’ve got some stories about him as well. Anyway [laughs] but yeah. Apparently, yeah I was pleased to learn that he flew that all in one go as well apparently. From Italy back to Coningsby.
CB: Amazing. The Merlins are of interest because of course the Lancasters had Merlins. As other aircraft did as well.
RP: Yeah.
CB: As you said. So what was the task with these engines? You got them in crates and they’re greased with greaseproof paper and whatever else they put on them.
RP: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: What did you do with them and how were they then handled?
RP: The idea was, was to have as many of these become a spare engine available to use on the Hurricane and Spitfire and Lancaster as possible. As I say as many to use because some of these did actually have some components missing so we, I remember we had to cannibalise a couple of the engines to get some of the missing components to make other ones complete. So that was, that was the task and it, it took quite a long time as well because some were found to be, whilst they were in generally good condition there were some cracks in them. So we had to get some NDT Non-Destructive Testing crack experts to come in. Once I’d stripped the engine down they would come in and, and just check the integrity of the components that we got.
CB: Fluorescein dye.
RP: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. There were various techniques that they used. One of which was that.
CB: And do you know which mark of engine they were, Merlin? Out of interest.
RP: No. I can’t remember to be honest.
CB: And whether they were suitable for all of the aircraft.
RP: Oh yeah.
CB: You had to be selective.
RP: No. No. No. Each one could be made suitable for any of the Merlin engine ones. Obviously not the Griffon Spitfire but, but for the —
CB: The [unclear] Spitfires and the Lancaster.
RP: And the Lancaster.
CB: Ok. So where was this work done?
RP: At the main hangar in Coningsby and also at Woodhall Spa. The engines were shipped to Woodhall Spa when complete. And whilst they were waiting for their turn to be stripped down that’s where we kept them.
CB: Then where did they go? Where were they stored after they’d been reworked?
RP: There was another. That was split between Coningsby and Woodhall Spa. I do remember that space was at an absolute premium. And I think obviously the Battle of Britain flight now has got a lot of focus and priority and, and at the time it was less so. It was the, it was the Phantoms and the Rolls Royce engines that you know took priority everywhere. So it was like we could, we were allocated a corner and then squeezed even further into the corner.
CB: So how were you doing this work? Were you interspersing it with your activities? With the Aircraft Servicing Flight?
RP: No. No. I was seconded.
CB: This was a, this was a specific task.
RP: Yeah. Yeah. I was they said to me, ‘If you want to take this job it will be dedicated to the Battle of Britain Flight,’ you know, ‘Leave the Phantoms behind.’ Absolutely fine by me so that’s what I did. Thoroughly enjoyed it. And, and what, not brought it to an end but for me was when I was told I was heading off to the Falklands. To —
CB: Right.
RP: Think about Phantoms again.
CB: Right. So the engines had been reworked. How were they run up after that? Were there special benches to run them up?
RP: No. No.
CB: Or were they never run?
RP: They were never run on a bench. When we, once we’d completed an engine we had to schedule it in to be run up on the Lancaster left inboard. Number two position. We had no facility to actually even start it.
CB: So it was always tested. Was each engine tested in the Lancaster then?
RP: Yes. Absolutely. Each engine was tested in the Lancaster.
CB: On the ground or did they fly it as well?
RP: Both.
CB: Right.
RP: But extensive tests on the ground first in accordance with, you know the manuals at, at the time in terms of you know the specific tests we had to do on that engine having started it and fired it up. So much was great fun. And then when it passed those tests it was, it was good to go for a an air test.
CB: So how much ground testing was there? How did it work and what period would it be? Would it just be ten minutes or were they running for a half an hour?
RP: No. No. No. No. No.
CB: Or what did they do on the ground?
RP: No. Testing my memory now. But it was, it was a good couple of hours.
CB: Oh was it?
RP: Oh yes. Yeah. And if I remember right what we did was rebuild one of the engines. Then start to rebuild another one. So we weren’t having to take out the number two engine on the Lancaster and therefore ground it each time we had one built. We, we’d have a couple of engines ready for test and when there was a gap in the, in the display over the winter then we could take the left inboard out and ground test both engines.
CB: So when it did the air test was that because it was going somewhere and they were comfortable with it?
AP: Well it —
CB: How long did the air test go on?
RP: The procedure was that it had to be ground tested first.
CB: Yeah.
RP: And then before it could be signed up as, off as operational. It had to go through the air test as well. You know things like they had to shut the engine down mid-flight and then be able to restart it again without any problems. And some things that you had to do on air test that can’t be done on the ground.
CB: Yeah.
RP: So, no that was quite an exciting time but each air test again lasted an hour. Three quarters of an hour to an hour. And on some occasions the engines because of the pressures to meet displays some of the air tests took place enroute to a display and the display actually happened subject to successful test of the engine mid-flight.
CB: But as they had been properly worked on by yourselves there was no real reason to think that they wouldn’t work.
RP: That’s right. Yeah. And from memory I didn’t ever have an engine I built fail an air test.
CB: So there were nineteen originally. Were all of them air worthy in the end?
RP: Well, I rebuilt, I’m trying to remember now how many. Probably half of those before I got the call to say, ‘You’re off to the Falklands.’ So as far as I know this other chap that I met on Just Jane he took over from me. Where he came from I’m not quite sure. Not a name I knew at the time. So somebody else carried on my work to be honest.
CB: The BBMF have more aircraft now then they did then. But what spares of engines did they have? Was there already quite a bank of engines?
RP: No. No. There was —
CB: Or were they getting desperate?
RP: They were getting desperate and Pete Russian and myself we went up to Prestwick. I remember that trip because there were quite a number of spares and engines lying around in Prestwick. But it really was literally going into a hangar, finding an engine that, you know or components that looked pretty much complete and saying we’ll have those and transporting them down. So, no. It really was looking under every stone for spares and for spare engines. And I remember bringing a couple back from Prestwick with him. [ coughs] pardon me. And in terms of components we were forever going to what they called rob the gate guards. There were a lot of Spitfires and Hurricanes on the entrance gates to stations. And I remember distinctly the number of them had still had air coolers for instance. And we went to Benson. Went to a number of places to, somebody had a register of what gate guards were where and just what components were still on it. But yeah we were forever going to various stations, taking the panels off, robbing the bits, putting the panels back on.
CB: Well, they weren’t going to fly again so it didn’t matter.
RP: Exactly. But that’s how desperate we were.
CB: Not then.
RP: That’s how desperate we were for spares.
CB: I’m stopping just now.
[recording paused]
RP: Yeah. There was one particular occasion when we were about to do engine runs on the Lancaster and it was one early afternoon. And we were just getting ready to do this and I took a phone call in the crew room from the guard room. And the chap in the guard room said, ‘I’ve got two guys here who used to work on Lancasters during the war and they’ve just turned up on spec. One lives in the UK and it’s his brother from Canada. And they’ve just turned up on spec to say is there any chance of having a look at the, you know the Battle of Britain Flight. The Lancaster.’ So I said, ‘Yeah, I don’t see why not.’ I checked it with Pete Russian my boss and he was fine. So we jumped in the Land Rover and picked them up. And a lot of the visitors that we used to get on the Battle of Britain Flight were ex-aircrew or people who, everyone seemed to claim to be an ex pilot. But these two guys turned up. Very genuine. Clearly ground crew, and got quite emotional. And at the time I remember saying to the guys, ‘We were just about to do engine runs on the Lancaster. Do you want to come on the flight deck while we do it?’ And there were tears streaming down their face. So we did the engine runs and the guy from Canada particular, particularly, you know we did what we needed to do and I said, ‘Can you remember how to do this?’ And he said, ‘I think so.’ And so with the engines turning we actually had him sat in the front left seat. He was crying his eyes out with nostalgia as he was going through some of the engine runs himself. And that was purely they decided to have a day out whilst he was visiting the UK and it turned into that. And they were so grateful that they insisted that evening on taking us all to the pub and buying everybody food and drink all night long.
CB: Fantastic.
RP: What a night that was.
CB: What’s your perception and recollection of people’s approach to the Lancaster? The ground personnel.
RP: In terms of what?
CB: Well, you’ve just talked about the emotion of these men. But what about the people on the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight? Did they have a very strong attachment? Some of it based on history of being with the aircraft.
RP: Yeah. Absolutely. And from talking to lots of visitors at the time you know that was very much the case during the war as well where the ground crew were passionate about their aeroplanes. Their components. Their, the work they’d done. And I suppose it’s like I know a lot of people who are passionate about the old car they keep in the garage. At the time the ground crew were passionate about the quality of the work they did and the preservation and looking after and protection of these old aeroplanes. And yeah, they took, they loved them. And the first thing that hits you when you get in these is the smell of the old leather and and so on. And you just, you become attached to it. Much more so than say the Phantoms. Yeah. Because you know they were at the time a dying breed and we just wanted to make sure that you know we did everything we could to keep them flying. And as I say the attachment was much more so than the modern, at the time, Phantoms.
CB: How did these two men describe their experiences?
RP: Well I remember them saying that they, because we were talking about this very subject in the pub. And they were saying that that was exactly how you know they remembered it during the war. When obviously they used to call them the kites. And when any, any of their kites didn’t come back because it had suffered, you know a shootdown or something everyone was very saddened. And this is what they were telling us. Everyone was very sad about the crew that had been lost. But actually just as sad about the aeroplane that had been lost as well because it was a, you know a piece of, a piece of art. And that was how they regarded it.
CB: And how did they describe their attitude to when the crew bent them?
RP: Anger. Absolute anger [laughs] And that happened on a fairly regular, you know basis. Whether they bent them on landing or they came back a bit shot up, you know. It was almost like blaming the crew for not being able to avoid being shot at. But yes it was exactly the same perception, attitude and connection with, with the aeroplanes.
CB: And how did you gauge their relationship with the aircrew?
RP: Total respect. The aircrew were always seen to be a bit aloof anyway. As they were with the Phantoms but, and rightly so, you know they were the aircrew and the pilots and you know there were every reason to be seen as godlike if you like. Total respect but also more respect of the fact that a lot of people took off at the start of a mission and didn’t return. So not just respect about the, you know the aircrew being aircrew and being the, you know, the pilot, navigator and so on but it was just about you know the sacrifice that these people often made when the ground crew didn’t. They’d just turn up for work again the following day. And I think that was, that was the respect bit.
CB: And so you saw them at Coningsby and then you were at the boozer afterwards.
RP: Yeah.
CB: And what other things did they talk about? These two chaps. In terms of their experiences in the war.
RP: I’m now struggling to remember but they they did talk about, a lot of discussion about the lives that were lost. About the aircraft that didn’t return. The speed of manufacture and the speed of deliverance of replacement aircraft as well. The whole country was pulling together and produced these things off the production line at the rate they were going at. That was very admirable as we say. Both of them, even the chap who was in from Canada who were both British. They both talked a lot about the, you know, the Americans arriving and the effect that had. More of the perceptions than what they saw the reality. Pinching all our girls and all of that sort of thing. And —
CB: Overpaid, oversexed and over here.
RP: That’s it. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And yeah, they were just reminiscing themselves and probably remembering things as they were reminiscing themselves.
CB: Quite. Yeah.
RP: But yeah it was, it was on a serious note it was respect for the aircrew because of the possibility of them just not coming back. Now that, that sort of respect I didn’t find in any of the Phantom squadrons. Because it was pretty much guaranteed and as I say there wasn’t really another conflict on the go at the time apart from the Falklands. So that, that was a very different experience that I valued on the BBMF to be honest.
CB: Yeah. I just wondered whether they also talked about their everyday lives on the airfield and what they were doing.
RP: Yes. They, they talked about that. They lived in fear of the station warrant officer.
CB: Didn’t we all?
RP: About being hauled in if you failed to salute or weren’t wearing, you know, the tie in the right way or, and in in that respect that was no different from being at Halton or Swinderby. That was exactly the same to be honest.
CB: So going back to your own experience you flew on a number of occasions in a Lancaster.
RP: Yes.
CB: Why would you do that and how many hours did you?
RP: I think I notched, can I just turn that off?
CB: Ok.
RP: I notched up. Oh sorry.
CB: It’s alright.
RP: No. I flew in the Lancaster on many occasions. And found that great for my preferred location because obviously on air test or just going along as a passenger once we’d finished the air test was in the mid-upper turret. That was, that was fine. Except that it was full of holes because it had been stop drilled. Where there was a hole in the crack in the Perspex they’d drilled it to stop the crack extending. So if you were flying through cloud or anything you did get a bit wet. I flew in the rear gunner’s position many times as well. That was quite interesting.
CB: How did you feel sitting in the isolation of the rear gunner position?
RP: Well, you couldn’t help but, you know, imagine what it must have been like during the war. Especially at night as well. In freezing conditions. So, yeah, I mean it’s an experience that you know most of the population don’t get to have but it was, as I say you couldn’t help but imagine what it must have been like. There were some hilarious moments as well. And I remember one of the most memorable ones at the time was flying in a three ship with the Spitfire, Hurricane and, and Lancaster and I was, on this particular occasion I was in the rear gunner’s position and flying along. Flying to Blackpool actually for something and it was always the station commander’s prerogative to pilot the Spitfire. And it was Group Captain Bill Wratten who was flying the Spitfire and I was just actually watching him and he threw the canopy back because it was a nice, you know, sunny day. And his chart — straight out the top of the cockpit. And he happened to be doing the navigation for the three ship. So we got to Blackpool and had a severe warning that if ever this was mentioned back at Coningsby there would be repercussions.
CB: As you do.
RP: Yeah. And in those days I do remember part of the standard equipment on the flight deck on the Lancaster was a pair of high powered binoculars.
CB: For the beach.
RP: No. It was so that when we got lost which we did regularly we could find a motorway and see which junction we were at. So binoculars were road atlases. I remember one where one of the old aircrew who’d died, it was his last dying wish that his ashes would be scattered over a beach in Skegness.
CB: Oh.
RP: And we did this on route to a display. And, and Jacko Jackson said, ‘Right. We’ve got literally a minute to fly around the beach.’
CB: Took it down did he?
RP: Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. And one of my oppos, the air frame guy whose name escapes me. It was his job to take the top off the ‘chute and put the ashes down and he couldn’t get the top off the urn. Jacko said, ‘Have those ashes gone yet?’ So he just chucked the old urn down. And it hit the papers when the kids were playing football on the beach with this urn when someone suddenly realised what it was. Yeah. Yeah. And you know and I do remember once flying through bad weather. We did get lost and Pete Russian insisted we all come out of our positions and sit with our backs against the main spar. Because it did get quite [pause] in fact he got in, I know he’s been around all over the place. He got in a bit of trouble because he always refused to fly in a Lancaster until it had done three or four flights after a major service. Just in case. But —
CB: So the practical consideration from an engineering point of view of flying in the Lancaster was what? The justification for the engineers to go in it.
RP: Well at the, from, well obviously it was a display so for example the Jersey air display was one of the biggest on the calendar at the time and that lasted for what? Three days. So had to have the, you know the ground crew just in case there were any problems because it took off or landed probably four or five times during that display. So just in case there were any problems there they had to have [pardon me ] ground crew to cover it. That was usually what it was for.
CB: Yeah.
RP: And Farnborough. That was another big one that we had to fly to. So, so that was the reason for the ground crew going.
CB: And whilst you were flying in the Lancaster were you always in a crew position or did you move about?
RP: No. Once you’d picked your position or nominated a position then that’s where you stayed. Unless, as I say, like the occasion when we were told to sit with our backs against the main spar. But, but no there was very little room in a Lancaster to move around. Normally if you did move around you banged your head on the framework anyway. So it was far better to stay there.
CB: Yeah. And what was the basic crew of BBMF for the Lancaster? The pilot and who else?
RP: Now then. Pilot and the number two pilot obviously in the right hand seat. The flight engineer. I’m trying to remember now. Radio operator. Navigator. And then whoever else was on board from, from the ground crew. I know, I know there were some characters there. Bandy Bill was one of them. Bow Legged Bill. He’d actually baled out from Lancasters twice during the war. Once over Belgium. So they all had stories to tell. But whilst we were on the Battle of Britain flight there was, there was one very memorable occasion when the Mosquito came in and obviously a crew of two were the visiting Mosquito crew from Hawarden. And the pilot and the engineer there and the engineer met up with Bandy Bill who they’d known from wartime and he decided to stay in the mess overnight. The Mosquito had to go back so the pilot of the Mosquito said, ‘Well, I’ve got a spare seat going back if anybody wants to come along for the ride and then make their own way back to Coningsby from Hawarden,’ Near Chester, ‘You know, can do.’ And in all fairness, I can tell you it was between me and Pete Russian the chief tech. Pete didn’t pull rank. He said, ‘Let’s flip a coin. One of us will go.’ And he won it so he went in the Mosquito.
CB: Fantastic.
RP: And the Chipmunk followed and brought him back. So that was just something I just remembered. Yeah.
CB: What’s your most memorable time in the RAF would you say?
RP: In the RAF? It must be flying along in a Lancaster and with the Hurricane and Spitfire either side. I enjoyed the Falklands but nothing equal to that feeling of, you know like not many people are going to get to do this. And I feel I’ve been very privileged, I think. Yeah. Absolutely.
CB: So after you qualified you were a junior technician. How did your rank move during your nine years engagement?
RP: Not very much. I obviously qualified as a corporal and then passed my sergeant’s exam. And just as I passed my sergeant’s exam that’s when I decided to leave because came my nine year point and they said to me, ‘Do you want to stay on?’ And I said, ‘No. I don’t think so. My liver can’t cope with it.’ So I decided to leave.
CB: So what was the choice for you when leaving? Of career.
RP: Well, I always knew what I wanted to do and that was to go into a sales role. Only because my mates at school had been, had got a nine year head start on me now. And the chap who was, I sparred against at school he was in a sales role and his area was Asia and Hong Kong. So I thought if he can do it I can. So that’s what I did. So I always knew what I wanted to do. I’d been to college. Become qualified with this Diploma in Business and Finance. And I spent, organised my resettlement time to go and work with a company and take my first sales role which is what I did.
CB: Where? Where was it?
RP: Geographically or —
CB: Well, the company.
RP: The company was called Pitney Bowes. And they sold office equipment and franking machines and things. And, and I went into that role. Technically I’d not even, I was top sales person there after three months and technically I’d not even left the air force. But it was simply because I just did what I was told to do and I was told if you do this, this and this and say these words you’ll be successful. And that proved to be true so I thought, happy days.
CB: And how did that progress?
RP: Very well. Yeah. I did very well with them. Won lots of sales awards. Overseas trips and so on. That branch, and that was working out of the Peterborough branch. We lived in Suffolk at the time. And that [pause] I moved from there to a company called Lex. The car group. But on, I was on the truck side. I was selling contract hire of trucks. And rapidly progressed through the ranks of Lex and to the training division. Trained up new people. Had an affiliation for sales and training and management and within a few years was running their management, leadership and sales training division. Five thousand people. And that’s been my forte ever since.
CB: So how long did you work for them?
RP: I was with Lex for eight years. Left there to set up my own business.
CB: Which is what?
RP: Well, at that time it was my own training company. Doing management training, sales training, leadership. Built that up. Sold it.
CB: What was that called?
RP: Percival Field Associates. And that was because I’d, one of my trainers was Chris Field and I took him from Lex. We set the business up. And since then we’ve had several other businesses that we’ve started or bought and sold.
CB: All in training? Or were you doing other things?
RP: A lot of training. A lot of it very closely geared to recruitment as well because my wife she was a nurse at Nocton Hall when I met her and left the air force to become a midwife. She did midwifery training at Basingstoke. A couple of years later she was gardening, fell out of a tree and broke her back. Which, she was ok. She had to have a laminectomy but it put an end to her midwifery days. So she went into business and rose to some very senior ranks in recruitment. So her recruitment and my training went very well together. So, you know that’s, that’s how it works.
CB: So what’s your business now?
RP: My business now is, my main business is Jigsaw Medical Services. And that’s purely because, you mentioned Oxford Brooke University. I’ve got a nephew who is twenty five at the end of this month. But he trained as a paramedic and, and he comes from Cheshire as well. And while he was training at Oxford Brooke he lived with us here and he was attached to Stoke Mandeville Hospital for his practical. And as he was coming towards the end of his paramedic course, you know, we said to him, ‘What are you going to do? You know. ‘Because your colleagues are going to be qualified as a paramedic and then they’ll do ambulance shifts and work for an ambulance trust. Do you want to do that or shall we pool all our resources and experience and set up a company that does it?’ So that’s what we did. And we financed the start of the business and that was what three and a half years ago and we currently own seventy ambulances, and —
CB: Do you really?
RP: And we, we support various NHS trusts. Yeah. We provide ambulances. Fully crewed with paramedics, ambulance technicians and emergency care assistants. So he’s got the paramedic knowledge. We financed him and its going great guns. We just recently sponsored a sporting event which was a charity event which lasted a month and involved lots of celebrities. So last week we were in Sicily working with Richard Branson and his family because its Richard Branson’s son organised this event. We provided all the medical cover. It was basically, they called it the Strive Challenge. A charity that started at the base of the Matterhorn at Zermatt and went down to Mount Etna in Sicily. All of which had to be under your own steam. So it was hiking, walking, cycling. The core team did the whole run but lots of celebrities went out and did two or three days at a time and they were raising money for this, for this charity called Big Change. So we went out to the start of it at Zermatt five weeks ago and then it ended in Mount Etna last week. So, and that was good for our PR because lots of endorsement.
CB: Huge exposure.
RP: From, from Richard himself. I was put in charge of his, looking after his mum, his ninety three year old mum for the day in Zermatt. His son Sam, his nephew Noah, his daughter Holly, his wife Joan. Yeah. We just moved in with them for a week.
CB: Fantastic.
RP: A bit of an experience. So, so yeah we’re just growing that Jigsaw Medical Services at a rapid rate at the moment. It does training. It does a lot for the military. We employ a lot of military people. People coming out of special forces and being trained up as paramedics themselves. So that’s what I’m heavily involved in now.
CB: How do ex-forces people fare in getting jobs after leaving the forces do you think?
RP: Very well. We have got a lot of ex-forces who are trained since leaving to become paramedics because that’s not recognised within the military. And I think it’s fair to say they are our best ambulance staff. Best paramedics. They really are and that’s because they’re very, they’re just used to being very thorough. Sticking to the rules. Following procedures. And just going the extra mile. And, you know we have a base in Stowe. Now, we, you probably know Stowe Castle. Yeah. That’s one of our offices and we have ten ambulances operating from there around the clock. And in fact I was up there just an hour before you arrived here, talking to some of the crews. And the jobs they get. You know, if you phone 999 you might get a South Central Ambulance turn up. NHS ambulance. Or it might be one of ours. Everybody just assumes it’s the NHS. But we comply. In fact, our standards have to be higher than the Trust anyway to avoid any sort of criticism or anything like that. So our levels of compliance and so on are great. But you wouldn’t know whether it was a Jigsaw Medical Services one or a South Central. And a lot of these people who’ve been the subject of an emergency call out for whatever reason come and visit. Send letters in of thanks and appreciation. And they never knew that actually they’d been looked after and treated by somebody who was still in the SAS or SBS or making that transition to civilian life. They just think it’s a regular, you know ambulance technician or paramedic. But some of these guys have seen more service and trauma then, you know than you would believe.
CB: Yeah.
RP: But they just, they obviously don’t talk about that.
CB: No.
RP: They just get on with the job.
CB: Just a final question. Going back to these engineers you showed around the —
RP: Yeah.
CB: BBMF Lancaster. What did they do after the war? Did you get a feel for how they progressed from the RAF? So the war finished. What did they do?
RP: From what I remember they didn’t do anything spectacular. Both of them. They left. After the war they left the service. I can’t remember exactly what they were doing but it was sort of middle manager roles and careers thereafter. Nothing spectacular. Nothing.
CB: Based on engineering?
RP: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Based on engineering. I think one of the chaps had his own small company but he ran it as a lifestyle company rather than, you know a desire to grow and sell or anything like that. Yeah. They were happy enough and really nice chaps but they were happy to just do more of the same day after day. You know, content with their lot if you like.
CB: Thank you very much. That’s really interesting.
[recording paused]
CB: A bit more memories then.
RP: Yeah. One final memory. We were at Jersey at the end of the display. And we were just leaving Jersey and we were all in our positions on the Lancaster getting ready to go and the Red Arrows took off before us. And I don’t know if you know Jersey.
CB: We’ve been.
RP: You’ve been. But the end of the runway is above the beach and I can’t remember what the beach is called now but the Red Arrows left in groups of three and as they took off they got to the end of the runway and then dropped down out of sight as they dropped down almost to beach level. And then you’d see them reappear again as they start to climb. So it was their bit of showing off which the Red Arrows did on a regular basis obviously. And I remember Jacko Jackson saying, ‘If they can do that so can we.’ And oh my God. And there was a deathly silence. And he said, ‘Right. Rob,’ he said to me, he said, ‘Will your left inboard engine take plus fourteen boost?’ I said, ‘Well [laughs] it sounds like we’re about to find out.’ So that’s what we did. Got to the end of the runway but in a very gently way dropped down a bit, out of sight a bit, and then plus fourteen boost on all four engines and then it climbed out after that. And nervous times. And he said, ‘Yes. Well done, A good engine.’ And I hate to think what would have happened if it had let go at the time.
CB: You’ve raised an important point here because in the war the Lancasters flew with one pilot. And the flight engineer next to him. And the take-off would start with the pilot controlling the throttles and then the engineer would take over. So could you just explain your comments there. So there is the term, ‘Pushing it through the gate.’ Could you just explain how that works and what the boost system is?
RP: Well, it’s, the boost system it just taking it to max RPM. And you know on an aeroplane and an engine that was forty years old at the time was quite a challenge to, it was almost like full throttle and red lining on a car. And that’s what they were doing at the time. But in terms of who controlled that, Squadron Leader Jackson was very much in charge as they say and he was the one. He was the controller. And —
CB: I’m really trying to get at what the aircraft, when it, what is the term, ‘the gate?’ Because in practical terms.
RP: I’m not familiar with that.
CB: Right. Well, so, right so the throttles would work normally up to a particular point and maximum power would be at, ‘the gate’ but you’d push it through to get extra more power. And so I just wondered if that was something you were conscious of.
RP: I’m struggling to think. I do remember —
CB: Because there was a limit to how far and how long you could fly the aircraft through ‘the gate.’
RP: Exactly. Yeah. I just remember that plus —
CB: And why would that be?
RP: Plus fourteen boost was, was the absolute, absolute maximum. As I say it was absolute full throttle in terms of thrust which as you say can only be done for a period of time. And that was an engine that I’d just rebuilt, fitted to the number two and of course the other engine, the other three had all been to plus fourteen boost previously.
CB: Yeah.
RP: This was the first time for this one.
CB: Yeah.
RP: And I just remember looking at the engine as we, as we were flying along thinking I just hope it hangs together [laughs] In fact we weathered out and we had to land at Northolt.
CB: Oh did you? Right.
RP: Because it was foggy. And that was another story because we all had duty free stashed away on the, on the Lancaster from Jersey. And then we had to land at Northolt because of the fog and get the train back to Coningsby and the duty free was confiscated by Customs.
CB: Very upsetting. Just back on the boost. What is the normal boost?
RP: If I remember right I think normal maximum is nine or ten.
CB: Right.
RP: Boost. Yeah.
CB: Ok.
RP: But I could be wrong on that.
CB: I know but it’s just a question of getting a perspective.
RP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Good. And boost means what exactly?
RP: Again, I’m —
CB: We’re talking about superchargers are we?
RP: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
RP: Yeah. It’s supercharge. It would be like the reheat on a, on a —
CB: Modern jet.
RP: On a modern jet. That would be the equivalent. You could reheat that.
CB: Yeah. Good analogy. Good. Thank you very much.
RP: Ok.
[recording paused]
CB: Ok. Talking about visitors to Coningsby.
RP: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RP: To the Battle of Britain Flight. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RP: I do remember we had on more than one occasion visitors from the Guinea Pig Club. People who’d been —
CB: We’ve interviewed two of those.
RP: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. They’re the people who had been burned.
RP: Exactly.
CB: Yes.
RP: And that was one that sticks in my memory. From the Guinea Pig Club. And also the famous story about a Spitfire that had taken off with a female person clinging to the tail plane. I remember her coming to visit as well.
CB: Did she?
RP: Yeah. So —
CB: So did she drape herself over the back of the Spitfire or not?
RP: I remember she, she sort of did in her old age. Just for the photographs. But yeah.
CB: Yeah. Terrifying experience.
RP: Some real characters. Yeah.
CB: Because the plane really did take off.
RP: Yeah.
CB: And it really did do the circuit.
RP: It did.
CB: And the pilot didn’t know she was on the back.
RP: Correct. Yeah. But the Guinea Pig Club. I remember those characters. You know, you had to have total respect for those characters.
CB: Did the Guinea Pig have any specific, what sort of specifics did he want to get in to with the Lancaster?
RP: No. They weren’t, they weren’t really doing that. It was more for the, it was just more for their annual, they had an annual visit if I remember right. And they were just treated very well in the mess.
CB: Right.
RP: I think they came along for that as much as, as, you know. All the questions they had they’d asked on previous occasions.
CB: Yes.
RP: They just came for their annual visit.
CB: Smashing. Thanks.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Robert Andrew Percival
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-06
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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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APercivalRA161006
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:22:17 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Second generation
Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Percival was the son of a Second World War pilot and so grew up with an interest in aviation. His application to join the RAF as aircrew was not successful so he chose the engineering / technician route in to the service. He was seconded to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight where he worked on the aircraft and took part in displays. He had the difficulty of finding spares and new engines for the aircraft but also had the pleasure of meeting veterans from the Second World War who came to visit the Flight.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Falkland Islands
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1979
ground personnel
Hurricane
Lancaster
RAF Coningsby
RAF Halton
RAF Wattisham
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1124/11616/ASimmsL160807.2.mp3
d03ad22f9baad15ec57a6d9bef25f216
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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Simms, Lester
L Simms
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Lester Simms (1924 - 2017, 1812002 Royal Air Force). He was posted to 106 Squadron at RAF Metheringham as ground personnel before he was posted to Rhodesia to be trained as a pilot.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-07
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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Simms, L
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GC: This is an interview being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive, my name is Gemma Clapton, the interviewee today is Lester Simms of 106 Squadron.
LS: Yes.
GC: Er, the interview is being conducted at [place omitted], on the 7th August 2012, 2016. I’d like to say thank you very much for letting me be here today.
LS: Right.
GC: Erm, can you just tell me a bit about life before the war and how you joined up, please?
LS: Er yes, I really had quite an interesting life, before it even started. I had the most terrible childhood, with two parents that should never have had, erm, should never have had children [laughs]. You want this too?
GC: Yes.
LS: With parents who should never have children. My mother was from a Welsh mining family, erm, Neath in Glamorgan, in South Wales, and my father was from a very rich family. He’d had public school education, it was a clash of different — I saw two different sides of life entirely before I even went into the RAF, erm, and one day, my father, who was a born Australian, just disappeared. I didn’t know what had happened, do you know when you’re young, you don’t know what’s going on, you take everything for granted as though this is what happens to everybody, but suddenly, my father disappeared. As it turned out, he upped left my, his wife, my mother and two, two boys and went back to Australia. Now what that period was, I have no idea. All I know is that some years later, we were living at a place called Nailsea in Bristol with my mother, my mother was a nurse, erm, I won’t tell you the bad side of my mother because I don’t think it should go down in writing.
GC: Okay
LS: But she was actually a nurse and an absolutely dreadful mother, erm, my brother and I were left alone at seven, eight or nine years old, I can’t remember how long it was, and we went to the ordinary common or garden, what were in those days known as elementary or council schools and I even can remember being ashamed of my mother, because I didn’t want the other children to see her, that’s how my young life was. But, suddenly [emphasis] one day, it must have been some years after my father had left home and gone back to Australia where he was born, erm, there was a knock on the door where we lived near Bristol, and my father just grabbed me by the collar, chucked me in his car and I never saw my mother again [pause]. In fact, I think ‘til I came out of the Air Force, I never saw my mother at all, so what happened, er, to my brother, I never did know. So what happened then was, I spent — my father was very itinerant, he moved all over the UK doing what he wanted to do, which was buying and selling motor cars, worked for some different companies, but I, I was all over, all over Britain, not going to school properly, with my father. He had a sister who was actually a multi-millionaire. One day I was told that I was going to a different school, so I was taken to Harrods, in London, completely kitted out, with things that I’d never seen in my life before, you know, a big trunk, and everything that, and sent to a public school, erm, Imperial Service College Windsor, which was the most dramatic thing for anybody to experience. There were, in fact, I remember, there were two Russian princes there, the Romanovs, what happened to them, I don’t know but, of course, the Romanovs all got, erm, killed in the revolution, but it was a school for, it was a school for ex-Army officers’ sons, Imperial Service College Windsor, which was next door to Eton in fact. Although it wasn’t Eton, but it was a very, if you like to say, a posh school, erm, this was very difficult for me to, to accept. You can imagine going to a school where they come, people would come from very rich stock and I’ve come from seeing what I saw and what I knew. My father was always, he was always, a sort of influence, influential, affluent sort of person, he was somebody who everybody would look up to, because he, he was six foot four tall, he’d been to two public schools, erm, he was also a, a cricketer, county cricketer and [pause] It was so, I suppose really and truly, I forgot my mother and took my father’s side in it. But anyway, to get on from there, I left that school in 19, in 19, I think I left the school, the war had already started, in 1939, and we moved with my father to a little cottage at Weybridge in Surrey, where funnily enough, Weybridge was, was the home of, erm, one of the aircraft manufacturing companies, and I was, actually on September 3rd 1939, I was at this cottage in Weybridge which was, maybe as the crow flies, or as the ‘plane would fly, maybe just a few minutes from Brooklands, which was an aircraft factory. On that day, it later turned out, I saw this German aircraft come down over my house and heard the machine gun going, and apparently, the aircraft workers, it was lunchtime, were all outside eating their lunches in the sunshine and many of them were shot up by this. It was a Heinkel bomber. I didn’t know anything about this, all I can remember was that aircraft with crosses on it, which I’d seen come right over my house, then heard the machine gun fire that’s why I never knew anything else, but that was at Weybridge. And then, from there onwards, I’d actually gone to school, so I’ve done it a little bit backwards, but sorry. Somehow then my, my brother appeared, I don’t know how, why or from where, I don’t know, my brother appeared on the scene and, erm, we were together for a while. Some of which, what happened, I can’t remember the, what happened in the interim years, to be honest with you, all I know is that when I was exactly 17 years old it went through anyway. I was with my father, I never saw my mother still, erm, it went through those years, and when I was 17 years old, which you can work out from the times there [laughs]
GC: Um
LS: I was born in 24, 17 — 1941, I volunteered for, I’d decided I wanted to be a pilot, my ambition, because I’d already got myself a motorcycle and I loved riding motorbikes, which I did up to about ten years ago actually, erm, I decided that I wanted to be a pilot. So I went along to the Air Force volunteer place, volunteered and said I wanted to be a pilot, they said alright, and in, I suppose [coughs], sorry, I suppose at the beginning of 1942, it must have been at the beginning of 1942, erm, they sent me to a place called Cardington in Bedfordshire, which was an RAF, it was the main barrage balloon centre of London, of Britain. It was, erm, I’ve forgotten, it was a Royal Air Force place, it had a certain flight num —squadron number, which I’ve forgotten. But, the RAF were using it as an aircrew recruiting centre for potential, potential pupils for aircrew. That was the pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, so I volunteered as a pilot. Everybody volunteers to be a pilot but it’s not so easy to get a pilot grading, you’ve got to, and I know for one thing, you’ll read in all the annals of the Air Force that, er, being a little bit of a snob, going to a public school, going to a university, got you into the flying in the Air Force and they wanted this kind of person in there so they could go and get killed pretty quickly. As it turned out, of course. But you did need to be, and the reason that, I know one of the reasons that I was selected for pilot training was as a result of the interview and the medicals I had. I was sent away, erm, oh sorry I missed a bit at the end of all this, ‘cause I’m going back a long time, so I don’t think I’m doing too badly at the moment [laughs]
GC: [laughs]
LS: [pause] I passed everything, I passed the medical, I passed the IQ test, everything else that you need, and you have to be something a little bit special to be a pilot, you have to have something about you to be a pilot, so, and I passed everything. So suddenly I was called in for the final interview there, at Cardington, I was called into the office, and a group of bigwigs was sat there with the scrambled eggs on the hat, as we use to call it. The top RAF officers had the gold on top of their hat, and they said, ‘Right, well, you have passed, you have passed your flying training, but unfortunately, you’re not old enough. We didn’t properly look at your age and you volunteered when you were 17, and you can’t come in until you’re 17 and a half’, so I had to wait six months. So I said, ‘Oh, what shall I do in six months?’ So they said, ‘Well, we’d recommend that in view of your interest in aircraft and flying, that you find an aircraft factory and see if you can work there’. Well, by strange coincidence, sorry, I’ll just turn this off now, by strange coincidence, I lived at Kingston on Thames. Now Kingston on Thames was the headquarters of Hawker Aircraft Company Limited, and I went along there seeking a job, explained to them who I was, and what I was doing there, and I was waiting to go for my pilot training, and I’d been recommended by the RAF to find someone like them. They welcomed me with open arms and they put me in the experimental department of Hawker Aircraft, and leading that was, leading that department, was a man called Sydney Camm. He’s one of the most famous aircraft designers in Britain, he designed the Hurricane, the Typhoon. I never actually saw Sydney Camm, but his office was there and I just worked under one of the top engineers there, and we did all sorts of interesting things, erm, mostly I was just a ‘gimme’, ‘gimme this’ or ‘gimme that’, and wherever I went [laughs] his name was Wrigglesworth, that’s all I remember about him, but one [bird clock chimes], very interesting thing, which was [bird clock chimes], which was very much, sorry, it’s a bird clock. [bird clock chimes]
GC: [laughs]
LS: [laughs] one very interesting thing that we did [bird clock chimes], which maybe you would like to perhaps record down there [bird clock chimes], is that we fitted the first, we fitted the first, we had the job to fit a Hawker Hurricane, with the first fifty millimetre canons underneath there. I went to a place called Manston, which is another famous bomber command, fighter command station. We went to Manston to do this [background noises], oh he’s ok [laughs], that’s alright, I’ll just have a drink. [pouring drink]
GC: Carry on.
LS: So, erm, I’m not quite sure now where I got to.
GC: The guns.
LS: As I say we, one of the, the most interesting job was — ‘cause the German fighters always had better armament than the British fighters though the Hurricane and the Spitfire only had relatively simple guns, and indeed Lancaster bombers only had the same guns that we used in rifles by the army, 303s. But they needed, they needed canons, which was what the German fighters had, so that we could, so that our aircraft could blow the German aircraft out of the war with canons rather than just bullets and so that’s why we fitted, what happened after that, I don’t know. All I know is underneath this Hurricane, we fitted two fifty millimetre cannons and that was the most important job I did there. But eventually in 1940, in September 1942, funny how I can remember the date, I was called to the Euston House in London and attested there, signed in as aircrew, and that started my career in the Air Force. Now, if you read any books on what happened to aircrew, initially, we all, even, there were grades of aircrew, there was PNBs, that was pilot, navigator, bomb aimer. They were the senior grades, but afterwards came wireless operators, erm, flight engineers, air gunners, all those people who were on a Lancaster, well there was seven on a crew on a Lancaster. So you had wireless operator, flight engineers and two air gunners and navigator. Sorry, the navigators were part of us, PNB was pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, but the rest were all the other grades that we used in flying, that’s, as I say flight engineers, bomb, flight engineers, erm, radio operators and air gunners. Anyway, so [pause] I was attested then we went, all of us, all aircrew, went to St Johns Wood in London, which was Lords cricket ground, and they’d taken over all around Lords cricket ground, some people were actually stationed on Lords cricket ground and were using the facilities there to introduce people, initially introduce people to the Royal Air Force. But I know we stayed in a block of modern flats and we went through absolute hell there. I mean, we were treated more like prisoners of war than people who had volunteered to give our lives, by stupid ex-ground staff training people, to train us in, in all the other things like marching and all stupid things [bell rings]
GS: [chuckles]
LS: Last thing you need when you’re up in the air.
GS: Yes.
LS: Right, so from there, this is the more interesting part now, I think we are probably coming to, sorry about this, you’ve got to get used to these darn things [background noises], otherwise I’d completely lose my breath through no oxygen [laughs]
GS: It’s alright.
LS: Then you, all you’ve got is a gasp [laughs]
GS: [Laughs]
Unknown: [Laughs]
LS: [Laughs] right, so then we spent, I’m not sure how long, probably a month or something, there being introduced. Right, so then at my time, you’ve then come to 1943. Now at that time, right up to that time, within a short time after that, probably within eighteen months, you’d be trained as a pilot and you’d be actual operational duties against the enemy, flying, flying to Germany and such. Wherever, wherever it was taken. I had actually, I missed a little bit, towards the middle of my flying training, they asked, ‘Did you want to be a fighter pilot or a bomber pilot?’ Well I never wanted aerobatics, I was never very, I didn’t, wasn’t enthusiastic about turning upside down and flying at ten thousand feet into a spin and then recovering. You wouldn’t have to do that with a heavy aircraft. So I choose bombers and that’s why, I went the second part of my flying course was SFTS, which was the senior flying training school. I would have gone on a different aircraft in a different, erm, different squadron if I’d chosen to be fighter command. That was even, in the same place in Rhodesia where I went to. Oh, course we haven’t got to that yet have we.
GC: [laughter]
LS: [laughs] Okay.
GC: He’s just trying to keep me on my toes.
Unknown: Yes [laughs]
LS: You could put this on the comedy hour!
Everyone: [Laughter]
LS: Okay so right. So then they had to know what to do with us, because the courses for pilots, for pilots was probably just, flying alone, was probably a year. But, as I said, the South Africa, Canada, Australia and Rhodesia were the main ones and we all had to wait for a course to be available. So what they did with us then, which happened to most aircrew, there was a place called Heaton Park in Manchester, which is very famous, erm, in the Manchester, it’s still going strong, Heaton Park. But we were sent to Heaton Park in Manchester, it was an aircrew holding centre, so they held us there until we could have a, a position to train as pilots or whatever else we were going to train as. But they couldn’t hold too many of us there, so when, I presume, when it became saturation point, they sent us, groups of us out to operational stations or to training then, you are then away from training aircraft, you’re then fully, fully occupied with operational aircraft. Which as far as I was concerned, would be Stirlings, Halifax, Lancasters or, erm, or those three. So, I dunno, we were there a few weeks at Heaton Park before they sent me out to my first posting, which was a temporary posting, prior to going to my flying training. And that was 106 Squadron, that was the Lancaster squadron at Metheringham. Now 106 Squadron was very closely associated, because it was next door, with 617 Squadron, which everybody knows is the Dambusters [pause], and 9 Squadron, which was another famous RAF, at Bardney they were. And from there, to a certain extent, I learnt what it was all about, although it should have frightened me, but it didn’t. Erm, I saw aircraft coming back being shot up, what I never knew was, I mean, we could lose three or four aircraft, it was only, it was only about twenty-two aircraft on each of these squadrons, but suddenly one or two would be missing. We were never told that, and incidentally neither were the other aircrew members of other aircraft, that their pals had been missed, they would have just missed them in the mess, maybe in the billets where they were staying, not, not see them anymore.
GC: Um
LS: Then people used to come in and take all their belongings and then they were sent back, all their belongings were sent back to their parents. So, I did learn a lot there. But what I did was, being a bit of a pub lad, erm, I palled up with one of the crews. Now they all went down to the local pub at Martin, which was right next to the airfield at Metheringham where I was, 106 Squadron at Metheringham we’re talking about now, I think you, that’s where I am, but next door was a village called Martin. Now in the normal way the aircraft, the airfield would have been called, it was taken over from farmland, the aircraft would have been called Martin, but it didn’t have a railway station, but Metheringham, which is the next [unclear] village, so they called it RAF Metheringham, but it wasn’t Metheringham at all, of course. But anyway, we come to the pub at Martin, which was The Royal Oak at Martin. I palled up with one of the crews, who’s, it’s a funny thing really, of course, I knew what they were doing, but I never realised that they were out to kill themselves, you know. ‘Cause I would meet up with Vic, his picture’s there actually [background noise], his picture’s there and I finally, because of doing what I was doing with 106 Squadron reunion and with the, erm, dealing with parental enquiries, anything that came to me, which is what I’ve been doing, I managed to find out he came from Barnsley, and I managed to find out actually, I found out his family. One of the, one of the daughters of his aunt sent me that picture and the aunt, who’s now well into her nineties, when she found out, ‘cause they didn’t know what happened. All they got was a letter to say that he’d been killed, erm, and where he was buried. He was buried actually in Durnbach, in a cemetery in Germany, we’ll come to that in a minute. But anyway, erm, I palled up with this crew and the interesting thing was, of course, when you were sent, I think there were six of us, sent out to this, this aircrew, just to get rid of us. Remember Heaton Park wanted us out of the way so they dispatched us, the first place was there, and then, of course, when you arrived there, you never had a job to do. You got no trade, you were waiting to be trained as pilots so they just gave us odd jobs, and some of the jobs were quite interesting. Of course, based at RAF Metheringham, was a system called FIDO, fog intensive dispersal of, which was, because in the winter, an aircraft couldn’t actually land at some of the airfields because fog would prevent the landings. So they, they created this thing, which was the whole length of the runway, the main runway, was a pipe surrounded, big iron, I don’t know exactly what it was, but big iron things like that and when an aircraft was coming in to land, it was petrol, they used ordinary petroleum, ordinary petroleum and they’d set it alight and the fog would go, because this massive, apparently it burned so many gallons of petrol in such a short time, but it would allow the aircraft to see the runway and land, and I can remember so often, so why I’m telling you this was, they said, ‘Well what are we going to do with you people?’ The commanding officer, so they gave us jobs, and one of them was to repair holes in the aircraft, sorry, not in the aircraft, in the runway, erm, and that was an interesting job, all kinds of interesting this time. I was one, the only one of my group ever who could drive, ‘cause I learnt to drive ‘cause my father always had cars and I learnt to drive when I was probably ten or eleven.
GC: [Laughs]
LS: So I could drive, so I was always the driver wherever I was and a driver was needed, I was always the driver. But anyway, so we used to go out to the airfield and we even had a concrete mixer, a mixer so we could fill the holes, we did all that. One or two adventures, I don’t think we need go into stupid things that happened, but, and then one day, this might be of interest ‘cause it’s quite funny, erm, two of us were appointed to paint the inside, which was called distempering in those days, that was the white stuff, it’s called emulsion now, but, but even private houses used, for the ceilings, it was called distemper. And they gave us this distemper and we first had to do the toilet, the men’s toilet and then afterwards we had to do the ceiling in the headquarters. Well the first thing that happened was, I had just finished distempering the men’s toilet, well the most famous, erm, squadron leader at Metheringham was Group Captain McKechnie and I was just finishing off in the men’s toilet, and the group captain walked in for a jimmy riddle, and he looked at me and he said, ‘What’s your name?’ I said, ‘Simms, Sir’, he said, ‘Looks a lot better Simms, well done’. And he sat there having a jimmy riddle and in the middle of his jimmy riddle he turned his head round at me, he said, ‘It smells better too Simms.’
GC: [Laughs]
LS: That was the group captain and he’s quite famous, I mean nobody knows[laughter], so anyway, that was the first, well the second thing that happened, the next day two of us were appointed to paint the ceilings, so we had two stepladders and then a plank going across the top. So, erm, we managed this, but one of the lads was at the other end and I was at this end. What I hadn’t realised was, he was on the other side of the ladder, with the distemper.
GC: [laughs]
LS: So I said, ‘I won’t be a minute’. [laughs] I got down, the ladder went up in the air, the whole bucket of distemper went everywhere [emphasis], we had to clear the whole, sorry, I remember it being absolutely hell. He was covered in whitewash ‘cause he’d gone right down in the middle of it [laughter], so that was the most interesting thing that happened there. But, getting to the more interesting points, I was posted away from there and as far as I knew, Vic was still there. I did on one occasion, I said, ‘Vic’, he was the rear gunner by the way, Vic, the one you’ve seen in the photograph, I said, ‘Vic, could you get me on a trip one day?’ I mean of all the stupid things to do, it shows, shows you the people like me didn’t appreciate what we were going to do in the future. I said, ‘Could you get me on one of these trips?’ He said, ‘I’ll ask the captain’. so I met him in the pub some nights afterwards, he said, ‘Oh’, he said, ‘You’re not allowed to come with us, it’s forbidden’. So, of course, I didn’t go and as it so happens he, I’ve worked it out afterwards, he came back off that trip anyway, but I disappeared, suddenly you were told you’re going somewhere else and I was taken away from there, I think probably after three months at Metheringham. But ingrained into my mind was an attachment, because it was the only real operational station I was sent to while I was waiting to go for my flying training, and 106 Squadron means a great deal to me, and that’s why I’ve run the reunions for the last four years, because the man who did it, died suddenly. His wife phoned me up, she said, ‘He just died in a chair’. And he wasn’t very old and he wasn’t ex-RAF, but his brother was and his nephew was, erm, and this is why I’m doing the job that he was, which he’d done for seven or eight years. But suddenly, he died and I sort of took it over, running the reunion, which I did for four years and also, erm, any enquiries that came in from 106 Squadron. We have a publication, Tom, I wonder if you, um, just this pile on the right, there’s some magazines under there, RAF magazines, just one of those. No, not that one, the printed ones [background noises], are they there? There’s a few of them there, just one of those. Yes, thanks. That’s our 106 Squadron publication, which comes out every three months, and you can see I’m there as the contact there.
GC: Yes. Um.
LS: So this is what I do, what I still do, although I don’t run the reunion side of it anymore. Running reunions is like trying to herd cats [laughter], it’s impossible. It is. Because you tell them when the reunion is and, ‘Oh, I can’t do that date’. Well I can’t change, so you just have to try to get people early enough, and if you do it too early, of course, they forget [laughter]. Anyway our reunions, which are very interesting, were held at the Petwood Hotel, which was the officer’s mess of the Dambusters, as you probably know, a very famous place, so every year, for the last ten years, we’ve had our reunion at the Petwood, which brings back fantastic memories. We’d go there on the Sunday, always at the beginning of July, and we’d stay there ‘til the Thursday morning, but on the Tuesday, Conningsby is where the Lancaster is, and the Lancaster flew over for us every year. The last two years it hasn’t flown because the engines been, one of the engines has been kaput, so we haven’t had it fly over. This time I wasn’t able to go because of this breathing problem which was in July, and so they had a Spitfire, ‘cause there’s Spitfires and Hurricanes based there, what’s left of them, are based there. As well as the operational crew, if the prime minister presses the button and Air Force are needed, that’s where they are, at Conningsby, you probably know that.
GC: Um
LS: But it’s true, they’re all ready to go if anything happens. But anyway, so, erm, the Lancaster is based there, this is where I’ve [unclear], but most people know that anyway. But it’s still, it’s still kaput. But so that’s it really, so I finished, not saying goodbye to Vic, but while I was out doing my flying training and sometime afterwards, out in, when I was out in Rhodesia, I got a letter to say that the crew had been lost over Stuttgart, erm, the only aircraft of our squadron that was lost that night. It was August the twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, over Stuttgart and I think, pretty certain it was shot down by German fighters. But the only one of ours, there were actually two hundred and fifty aircraft that took part that night but we had only got, we had nineteen, we had eighteen went out and, er, one didn’t come back and that was Vic’s, so I got that letter when I was out in Rhodesia, erm, to say that they’d been lost. Of course, reading a lot of books on Bomber Command, which I have been doing, in fact I think I am reading too many [laughs], I think I’m reading too many, erm, that I’ve found out a lot more about what happened, and, anyway. So, ok, so I will quickly now go back, then I was sent back to Heaton Park without knowing, Vic was still flying when I left, his crew were going, in fact he was killed, actually, I’m not sure when I actually left there, so I must have left there some, I’ve got a feeling it was September, went back to Heaton Park and then from there I went to a Halifax, the same thing again, they’d take us in there, hold us for a few days then send us out to another, just to get rid of us, while we’re waiting. So I went to another, to a Halifax conversion unit, because probably aircrew, when they change aircraft, they have to go to a conversion unit. So the Halifax was the other big bomber and that was one at Selby in Yorkshire. Nothing particularly interesting happened there, I think I was probably there for the same period as I was at Metheringham, one or two months. We were just there, I can’t even remember what we did, then I came back again, into Heaton Park, for the last time, but then was sent out to a flying boat squadron, in north of Scotland, Mill Town, Sunderland base. When we got there, there was six of us again and they said, ‘Right, we want a volunteer’. So I volunteer for anything. So, ‘We want a volunteer’. So they said, ‘Are any of you drivers?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’m a driver’, and they said, ‘Right, we want a volunteer to drive the, to drive the crash, erm, the crash vehicle’. So, well I didn’t realise at the time, of course, what it entailed but so I volunteered to drive this crash vehicle. It was a crash on the airfield or anywhere else in the vicinity, you went out, and tried to help, erm, and that was fine, I can’t remember what else we did, all I know, that I always had this crash thing, the crash vehicle, near me. Fact, we used to take it down the pub at nights [laughter], ‘cause we were on the radio, we used to go down the pub [laughs]. I remember one night, I’m trying to turn round, knocked somebody’s fence down [laughter] in this crash car. You couldn’t see out the back, it was a big thing. But anyway, one night, we’ve been out, we got the message on the radio, there’s been a crash at a place called Lhanbryde in Scotland, and we found it very quickly and they said it was a Wellington and it had crashed, and I saw things there that were absolutely dreadful. Just mangled bodies, and the people had already got there, ambulance people had already got there, erm, and I could see things that I, well, there was a young woman alongside me and I put my arm around her, I said, ‘Are you alright?’ She said, ‘I’m a nurse’, she said [laughs] So, anyway, I saw things there which you would have thought would have put someone like me, there was only two of us on this crash thing by the way, I don’t know what the others were doing, I don’t know I’ve forgotten, but I remember, I couldn’t eat anything for about three or four days after seeing what I saw, what I’d seen, it was pretty dreadful. But anyway, back into Heaton Park and then the next thing, something very interesting happened, really. I was due to go to America, for the flying school in America, I got the most tremendous dose of flu’ and the medical officer, I was due to go to America the next day and he said, ‘You can’t go anywhere, look at you’. I was steaming. He said, ‘Stay here, you can go on the next —’ so I actually went to Rhodesia, which actually was much more easy going than America was. It was much easier for me, for my flying training to go and, I’ve got the flying in my book there, but there’s nothing there that’ll tell you anything. It’s just my log, my hours, there’s no, you know, you’ll come across, you’ve probably already come across, aircrew members that did trips, you see their log books where they flew that night and the results, but I haven’t got any of that, because I didn’t do any operational training. So then, so that’s what actually happened, erm, I went out to Rhodesia, we, I won’t go into that, but there was something like three thousand people killed in flying training accidents, so I had two near squeaks, erm, which I got out of, obviously ‘cause I’m here. But flying things, once the instructor sent me up in an aircraft that had been declared kaput and he’d forgotten to record it. I took off, and the next thing, the screen’s gone black in front of me and I realised I had to get down quickly, but I mean on take-off, that’s the worst time for any aircraft to have a problem, because you just go straight in, but luckily the engine kept going, I went round and landed. And another time it was spinning and it wouldn’t come out of the spin. I had to induce the spin and then recover, but luckily on that particular day, erm, instead of flying at night for practice, what they did, so we didn’t, the instructors, the airfield and everybody didn’t have to acclimatise themselves for night flying, erm, what they did with a twin engine trainer, sorry, a twin seat trainer, you would have a hood over you, so you’d go up in daylight but as far as you were concerned, in the back seat, it was night, so they did our night flying training with the hood. So I had to recover from a spin at night, so I had to put it in the spin, which is quite easy to do that, you stall the engines so the aircraft goes like that, and then you have to, and then it goes around and around. So you do this at ten thousand feet, erm, and the instructor sitting in the front said, ‘Right, now put her in a spin’. So I did and it wouldn’t come out, it would not come out. When you’re in a spin, you put the joy stick right forward and full opposite rudder against, if you’re going to the right, you rudder, I’d done all that, it would not come out of a spin. So I was going, I often wondered, would I jump, but I knew then that I would jump, so I’ve put the night flying hood back, and the main hood back, so then out in the open air and we’re still going round, and all of a sudden, the instructor shouted out, I remember so clearly what he shouted, ‘I’ve got her, I’ve got her!’ he shouted out [laughs], and all of a sudden, he only did what I’d done so how he did it, I’ll never know, maybe he put a bit of engine on or something, but it wasn’t going to recover. So that was the only exciting part really, and when I nearly had it. There were other little things happen, but that happens when you’re training to fly an aircraft anyway. So that was it so, at the end of, that was on single engine, you never would go into a spin with twin engine aircraft, because we probably wouldn’t come out. So you just had to learn, it’s all about controls of the aircraft, that’s why you did all these things under any circumstances, really. So that was the end of my flying training there and that’s when, at the end of, we were due to get our wings, now we come to the end bit there [pause], they called us all, there was a hundred and twenty started on the course, there was sixty of us left, they said, ‘Right well, we don’t need pilots anymore, you’ve got a choice. Sign on for three years with four years on the RAF reserve’. So you go back into civvy life, but you’d be available for call up any time. Well I wanted to come back to the UK, which, in a way, was a shame, because at that posh school that I went to, Imperial Service College Windsor, erm, there was another guy, one of the pupils there was a Rhodesian and when we got to Rhodesia, first thing I did was looked in the telephone book and there was a Watman, one only in the telephone book. It was his parents and they looked after us so well. But he, John’s father, was the president of the Royal Tobacco Company of South Africa and he offered me a job with my own aircraft as a site manager, going all round the airfields, all round South Africa, as a manager. I didn’t, I should have done it, but I didn’t. So I would have had the chance to have stayed out there, but I didn’t, anyway, war went on and maybe I would have had to come back. So I just came back and I was demobilised, I came out of the Air Force then, and then, as I said earlier, which is written in that thing that you’ve got, erm I didn’t know what to do with myself. My father was an officer in the Army, he came out of the Army, he’d got, my father had got no sense of economics, in spite of the wealth of his family, he’d got no sense of economics at all. We often never had anything, not even food sometimes when he was around, ‘cause he gambled all his money away, he was a gambler. But he decided, he’d got dreams about when he came out of the Army, he was going to open a filling station and have at the back, chickens and animals and things, this was his sort of dream. But he’d got no sense of economics whatsoever and, luckily for me, I’ve got a pretty good sense of economics, and I could see things were going wrong. I tried working with him, um, but it didn’t work. So I thought, what the hell can I do with myself now, as I never really had a proper home with him, because it was his home, and that wasn’t a home at all. He had a girlfriend who I hated, but anyway [laughs], so I decided maybe I would go back in the Air Force and see. So I went back in the Air Force, I told you earlier, they didn’t want aircrew anymore, so, they offered me motor transport, so I said, ‘OK, I’ll take it’. So I joined on a short term contract of about two years, I think it was, erm, to go back into the Air Force again, I thought, well, then that gives me time, I was still very young, I was only nineteen I think, time to make my mind up and do things properly again in the UK. But erm, so when I was sent to my first MT division, again they said, ‘We’re looking for volunteers’ [laughs], so I said, ‘What for?’ They said, ‘No’. They said to me, ‘Would you volunteer for something?’ I said, ‘What’s it for?’ He said, ‘Bomb disposal’. So I said, ‘OK’. So I volunteered for bomb disposal, and I had that two years that I was in there, on bomb disposal, because the RAF were responsible for all enemy bombs on RAF territory, erm, all enemy bombs on RAF territory and all Allied bombs, jettisoned bombs, as the bomber’s coming in and it’s got to land, it sometimes would jettison it’s bombs on farmland, so, we were responsible for those, getting those up. And also, if the Germans had dropped bombs on our airfield, we were responsible for, and that’s what I did. And there were one or two adventures there which I don’t think I should bore you with [laughs]. What? Yes? Oh. [laughs]
GC: [Laughs]
LS: Well, erm, funnily enough the most interesting thing that happened at a place called Farnham, erm, yes I think it was called Farnham, place called Warren Wood, which was near Elsingham, I think it’s called, it’s on the road to Norwich, was a huge American Army bomb disposal dump there. The Americans had gone and left all their equipment there. Well, there was a lot of stuff left there, and we had to dispose of all that. The only danger, gosh it was dangerous, digging up bombs, when we got down to a bomb, the local press would come and look at us, down the hole with this bloody great bomb, standing there [laughs], but there was no danger really [laughter]. The danger was, was that the Americans used a bomb called a composition B bomb, which went off without a fuse, erm, and we had to deal with those. And what was done with bomb disposal, you would get the bombs, you would find, when I was based at Waterbeach near Cambridge, erm, we had Lakenheath nearby, which was a big area, so we could take these bombs up to the airfield there and instead of blowing them up, what you did was, you put like a metal saw on the top, which circulated, so you strapped it down and then from a remote control, you drilled a hole in this bomb and if it went off, it just blew the equipment away, erm, but then once the hole is there and the adhesive was inside, we just steamed it out. It was, we were at some very interesting places and it was the one place again where I was very lucky not to be killed, er, because, I’m not too sure this should be written, but amongst the bomb disposal people that was with us, there was about ten of us I think, now again, I could drive, so I was the driver, so I was always flicking around getting the food and stuff, but I also had to do the bomb, I had to do the bomb duties as well. Just because you were the driver meant you had an extra job, you didn’t get extra pay for that, but you had the extra job of being the driver, so I had time to walk around this site, and it was a big, it was a big wooded area. Well one day, I’m walking around, and funnily enough, a dog had befriended us, so I got very pally with this dog and I used to take it for walks. Where it came from, I never did know [laughter], and I was walking this dog one day in a direction which I think I’d never been before, and all of a sudden, I came across this big metal hut, which was called a nissen hut, they were round things, and I opened the door and it was full of stuff in there, all cases and cases of ammunition [pause]. Well now I’m coming to the bit which I shouldn’t tell you about, but we had one of our members, he was a cockney from Walthamstow, and during that time, women couldn’t get nylon, but a lot of the parachutes were made of nylon and we had these cases of these, they were called fragmentation bombs, they were about that size and when they hit the ground they fragmentated, the pieces went all everywhere and killed everybody but they came down slowly on these ‘chutes and they were nylon. So this cockney bloke, he’d learnt how to pull these ‘chutes out and cut them off [laughs], without them going off. So he got me cutting, pulling them out [laughter], and then he went off to London with boxes full of these bloody ‘chutes and sold them and came back with some money [laughter].
GC: [laughs]
LS: Well one day, this is where it happened, when I was walking the dog and I came across this building, I went inside there and there were these big [emphasis] things stacked up in one of the racks at the bottom, well, they were about that length and about that round and hanging out of one was part of a huge parachute. I thought, my God, I’m in here.
GC: [laughs]
LS: So of course, I pulled it out, and as I pulled it out, I heard the fuse go. So I ran like hell [emphasis] outside and the next thing, the bloody thing exploded, and the fire inside was just, all bullets were going off everywhere and we got a crash crew, two, and they were both bloody Irishmen [laughs], they were both Irishmen they were running this thing, and I ran all the way to this crash crew and got them out, and I said ‘Quick, there’s been an explosion’. They wouldn’t go anywhere near it. Well of course, I was the guilty party, so [laughs], so I grabbed the hose off them, went right up to the door with all these bullets, I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t feel fright, and I’m trying to squirt the hose in there, and there’s all these bullets going off. Had it been, what it was, there were two, when you, when the Lancasters went in, but these would have been from American Flying Fortresses, ‘cause it was an American base, you illuminate the target at night, A, if it’s a photograph that you wanted, it was the photo flash bomb that went off instantly, and the cameras were already aligned in the aircraft, so it took a picture either of the target or the damage that you’d done. That was the photo flash bomb, that was a big flash. But the photo flood bomb was on a parachute and that went off, but all it did was shoot the parachute out so that the bomb came down and was taking pictures on the way down. So they actually could take the, still, you know, it would be, sorry [unclear], otherwise my voice goes, might be a good thing [laughter]. So luckily for me, well, these two Irishmen, they still wouldn’t come anywhere near it, they were in the truck and I pulled the lead from the truck, anyway I went back to base, I never did see that spot again. But one day, two very official gentlemen came down to us while we were in Bomb Disposal, they were from the Air Ministry, they wanted to interview me. So, of course, I couldn’t tell them the true story, that I was helping this bloke go to London with this–– [laughter], I couldn’t tell them, so I denied it. Do you know, they interviewed me for two or three days, they came back and they said ‘Do you know why we’re back? Because we don’t think, we don’t know why, but we think you’re not telling the truth. Because there was no lives involved, and yet why did you risk your life to go and put the fire out?’ And they said ‘Why did you do it?’ And, in the end they, do you know, they came back two or three times, can’t remember how many times, but in the end, I said ‘Look, ok, there’s this guy here who’s got a market in London––’ and I told them the story [laughs]. No! No, I didn’t, no, I didn’t! Sorry [laughter], I never told them that, I couldn’t tell them that. I said ‘What had happened was I’d actually pulled the, I’d set it off accidentally’. I said ‘I did, I set it off accidentally’. So I was severely admonished, I never got any punishment at all, it would just go down as a severe admonishment, but, of course, had I told them the truth, which is wrong, I didn’t tell them the truth, it’s out there now [laughter], if two people arrive tomorrow, I’m going [laughter]. No, they really had a go at me, but anyway. Funny how Bomb Disposal was fun because you’re always on your own, you never, we had one officer and one sergeant, they promoted me to corporal because I was, had done what I’d done anyway, so I got some promotion, finished up as a corporal, at my second stage in the RAF. Erm, and there was probably six of us, I can’t remember how many, but certainly one of them was this guy from Walthamstow [laughs], was a right cockney. We used to come back with a few bob [laughter], and that was it really, I was eventually demobbed and that was the end of it.
GC: As I say, can you tell us a bit about Rhodesia, I know you trained out there. What was Rhodesia like at that time?
LS: Well, of course, Rhodesia in those days was very British. I mean, our nearest town was Bulawayo, we called it Bullafoo, I forgot my tea [sound of drinking]
GC: We’re alright as long as the house doesn’t fall down
LS: Um?
Unknown: What’s going on?
LS: I don’t know. I thought she was after Bailey. Oh, is it on?
GC: It’s alright
LS: Oh. So very British there, so Bulawayo, there were mostly black people, the local people in Bulawayo. But the first place I was at was Bulawayo, and then, when I changed onto the second grade of flying, it was called Salisbury, which was the capital of Rhodesia at that time. It’s now called Cranbourne, sorry, here comes my whistle in my chest––
GC: We’ll stop soon.
LS: Erm, it was called Salisbury. So I was actually stationed there. Would you pass me those, those, no the older books, next, no next one, yes both of them will do, Tom, thanks. So I was actually out in Rhodesia [book pages turning] when, these are personal photographs as well as the RAF photographs, I don’t think there’s anything to interest you. But look, there’s Salisbury on VE Day where I was. I’m told these photographs are worth a lot of money because nobody would have got those.
GC: Um
LS: So I was actually there when VE was declared, victory was declared, so we got involved in the celebrations in Salisbury, erm, and I remember buying those from somewhere or other.
GC: They look like, erm, they look really Colonial don’t they ‘cause––
LS: Yes.
GC: ––They are really.
LS: Oh, very much so.
GC: Yeah
LS: Well Rhodesia was very British, the whole of South Africa was, apart from the Dutch, the Dutch side of South Africa. There was the Dutch side, and then the British side, and the Dutch were very strong, of course, in South Africa and they still are. Lot of the South African people have got Dutch sounding names, but there were a lot of British, erm, British people there.
GC: Right.
LS: Erm, there were Dutch communities and British communities. But really, so it was mostly black people, the man who, the black man who looked after me was actually a Zulu, of course, they’re just a tribe, the Zulus, but he was a lovely man. He was a man who I could ask to do things when I was doing my flying at EFTS, which is the first one. erm, and he was, as I say, a Zulu, but I can’t really tell you a lot else about Rhodesia. It was very wild. You know, an amazing thing happened, I’m in hospital, about last Tuesday, and suddenly one of these black nurses came, she did something, I can’t remember, because I’ve got injections all over me where they were sticking these needles all over me, and all of a sudden, I saw Mombai written on her thing. I said ‘Are you from Mombai?’ so she said, ‘Yes’, I said ‘In Rhodesia?’ she said ‘Yes’. Now Mombai wasn’t even a village. Was there a problem?
GC: No.
LS: Oh, oh, this is while I was in hospital. I said, ‘I can’t believe this’, I said, ‘Are you from Mombai?’ she said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Well, before your time, probably your parents’ time, there was an airfield very near to Mombai and we used to take off the aircraft and at night, when I took off, you could see the native fires burning, ‘cause they lived in huts. You know, you could actually see the fires burning, but incredibly, the chances of me meeting somebody from Mombai was incredible, wasn’t even a village there, it was just called Mombai.
GC: Wow.
LS: The nearest place we used to go to was Bulawayo, which was seventeen miles away. I used to walk that a few times too, I never had a bike, we used to walk it at night.
GC: Is there anything else you can think about, erm, when you was back in England at Metherington, any other stories of your crew or your ground crew, or…
LS: Well, erm, probably is, it’s just a question of remembering, because my time was so varied, more than most people. Erm, I didn’t know many of the ground crew, erm, I think most I know, I mean Bomber Command, they had their own ground crew for each aircraft, you know, and at our reunion we used to have some ground crew members came back, but I think the last one died last year. He was a very interesting man, he was an armourer and he would arm the planes. I used to hear stories from him, but I never met any, even when I was on the operational stations, I didn’t meet any ground crew really. They were probably there, I was only interested in other aircrew and so there’s not really a lot I can tell you, erm, I’d have to go deep into my deep down brain [laughs]
GC: Well I’ll tell you what, I’d like to say thank you very much
LS: Alright
GC: I’d like to say thank you to Lester, to Holly, to Tom and to Bailey, erm, and it’s been a pleasure to meet you this morning. Thank you very much.
LS: OK, you’re very welcome.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Lester Simms
Creator
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Gemma Clapton
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-08-07
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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ASimmsL160807
Format
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01:00:18 audio recording
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Zimbabwe
England--Lincolnshire
Zimbabwe--Bulawayo
Zimbabwe--Harare
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
Description
An account of the resource
Lester tells of his tough early childhood, and his first experience of seeing a Heinkel bomber flying over his home in Surrey to attack the Brooklands Aircraft Factory. He tells of how he worked in the experimental department of Hawker Aircraft Company, a department lead by Sydney Camm, who designed the Hurricane and the Typhoon. Lester also tells of helping to fit cannons under a Hurricane fighter. Lester joined the Royal Air Force at the age of 17 and a half, hoping to become a pilot. He was posted to 106 Squadron at RAF Metheringham, which was a Lancaster station, but he also worked with Halifaxes and Wellington Bombers. Whilst he was waiting for his pilot course - which eventually took place in Africa - he worked with the FIDO system, and his jobs also included filling holes in the runway and painting. Ernest also tells of his time as a crash vehicle driver, in the motor transport unit and his time working in bomb disposal. Ernest also involves himself in 106 Squadron reunions and correspondence, a job that he is very proud to be doing.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
106 Squadron
aircrew
bomb disposal
crash
FIDO
final resting place
ground personnel
Halifax
Hurricane
Lancaster
pilot
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Metheringham
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1125/11617/ASindallTH170801.1.mp3
f9b061c7d247788b9204765b3f063b26
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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Sindall, James
James H Sindall
J H Sindall
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Timothy Sindall about his father, Wing Commander James Hepburn Sindall DSO (608158, 37365 Royal Air Force) and a photograph.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Tim Sindall and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-01
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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Sindall, JH
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 1st of August 2017 and I’m in East Horsley, in Surrey with Tim Sindall to talk about his father, James [unclear] Sindall, DSO. And we are going through all the details that Tim has amassed on his father’s life.
TS: Whilst my father James Heaven Sindall was alive, he in common with many others of his time very rarely spoke about his wartime experiences and yet I knew sufficient to respect him greatly for all he had achieved and was awed as to his unquestioned bravery in operations. After Madge, my mother, died at an all too early age, he withdrew into himself and sought solace in adventures at Salcombe for fishing, France, caravanning and Spain, a house he had built for him in an olive groove. He was careful as to those he accepted as friends for he was a handsome man and his neighbours never tired of trying to fix him up with solo female companions. But this was not what he wanted. He always welcomed my family to his house in [unclear] and he loved having us there for holidays, but he refused to install a telephone, so communications of other types relied upon the personal services. Only towards the very end of his life did I discover some tin trunks hidden under the stairs of the house where his sister lived and I didn’t have time to ferret around their contents until the end of the year 2010 when I came across his pilot’s flying logbooks, letters and other documents. These contained such a wealth of information that I simply knew that I had to commit time and energy in compiling his biography, not just for my own satisfaction but also for that of my family who had already begun to ask questions and to encourage my endeavours.
CB: Go.
TS: Chapter one in the biography is entitled flying begins between the years 1933 and ’36. James Heaven Sindall was born at home on the 12th of November 1909 at 41 Clock House Road, Beckenham urban district in the county of Kent to Annie Agnes Sindall and, formerly Heaven and Owen Sindall whose occupation was given as accounts clerk. The birth was registered on the 24th of December 1909 in the district of Bromley. James attended Worcester college Westcliff between 1922 and 1924 and then Eaton High School Southend from 1924 until 1927. One of his sports was boxing and we have a medal that he was awarded for his prowess in the sport. His civilian occupation after leaving school was as a clerk and include working for first, the Anglo International Bank EC between 1929 and 1933, then Novel Libraries Limited in 1934, and thirdly, the Bank of British West Africa between 1934 and ’35, all these appointments I believe to have been in London. But whilst he was working as a clerk, he joined the territorial army, the London regiment, the 14th, the London Scottish, as a private on the 20th of March 1929 and was promoted to Lance Corporal on the 16th of June 1932. He attended training camps annually between 1930 and 1933 but relinquished his appointment in January 1934 and was discharged on the 8th of July that year, quote, having been appointed to a commission in the RAFO and quote, RAFO means Reserve of RAF Officers. Whilst with the territorial army, James’s army number was 6666088. His military history sheet showed that his service was at home i.e. not abroad and that it counted as British, i.e. not India, and that its length was five years, 111 days. Now we move on to 1933, to a paragraph entitled flying training in Essex. The first flying records contained in a civilian pilot’s logbook begin just before the 9th of July 1933, the date of his second flight and show two dual training flights at Gravesend airport, each of twenty minutes. Subsequently, James undertook six further dual training flights, each lasting between fifteen and thirty minutes from Southend Airport in Gypsy Moth Golf Echo Bravo Tango Golf. An entry made on the 26th of June records landed plane ok, obviously with some pride. The last flight made in this phase of training took place in July at whilst still [unclear] includes the comment, take-off and landing solo, which to me seems to imply that captain [unclear] his instructor allowed James to manage the flight. We now move on to 1934, flying training sponsored by the Royal Air Force. The same flying logbook shows that James was at this time living with his parents and sister at Outspan, Nelson Road, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, a semidetached house that remained the family home until after he died in May 1991. Issue 34072 of the London Gazette, dated the 24th of July 1934, shows James being granted a commission in the Royal Air Force reserve as pilot officer on probation, class 1AA little 2 with effect from the 9th of July 1934. This was the same date when he was authorised to wear the RAFO flying badge. His personal number in the Royal Air Force was 37365. It would appear that James recommenced flying training on Tiger Moths at Hatfield in July ’34 being deemed ready for solo on the 4th of August but actually doing so in Golf Alpha Charlie Delta Echo on the 14th for five minutes. The exercise he performed were 6, 7 and 14 meaning taking off into wind, landing in judging distances and solo, in other words, probably just one, thrilling circuit. This allowed him to enter into the remark column first solo. He flew a solo again on the next couple of days but mostly however after that his instructor Cox took him through turn, spinning, glides and aerobatics, as well as the all-important take offs and landings. The ammunition of course on DH82 aeroplanes run by the De Havilland aircraft company Limited took 56 days to complete. His assessments for airmanship, air pilot, forced landings, cross country flights, and instrument flights were average. The chief instructor commented on the 12th of September, he has definitely improved throughout the course, his flying has been consistent, aerobatics require more practice, he is very keen and should make a sound pilot. 1935, We have Consolidation and the start of service flying training. The pilot’s logbook records that James flew Avro Cadet, Golf Alpha Charlie Tango Bravo three times from Rochford on the 17th of March, James flew with Glava again on the 8th of April from Rochford, diverted to Gravesend owing to rain. Flying training resumed on the 15th of March, when James was back at Hatfield, once again flying Tiger Moths solo. They were doing advanced forced landings, reconnaissance, instrument practice, spinning, loops, aerobatics, cross country and general flying. On the 27th of April, the logbook shows that James flying solo, quote, landed Luton to find direction and quote, five minutes later he was off again, flying under very low cloud back to Hatfield. The course ended on the 1st of May 1935 when ten hours total had been flown. This time his performance was assessed as average on all counts, adding, he is very keen, he displays ability, and with more experience should make a very sound and reliable pilot. Now, between the 8th of June and the 24th of September 1935, it would appear that James undertook several private flights in Avro Cadets flying Moth airplanes, three notable entries in the remarks column of the pilot’s logbook included, flying his first passenger on the 2nd of July a Ms Keithley who is possibly associated with a film crew and she joined him on seven other occasions in dispersed with film job, going to location, line take off etcetera for Wells film Things to Come. The second item was flying Madge her first flight. That was F O Madge Birchall who became my mother. This a twenty-minute flight made on the 6th of July must have been a wonderful moment, for three years later James and Madge were married and the third point was flying O Sindall, that’s Owen, James’s father to London and back on the 9th of July, almost certainly the first time he had ever flown. By the end of September, James has amassed forty hours and forty minutes dual time and forty two hours and forty-five minutes solo and the London Gazette dated the 10th of September ’35 shows James being confirmed in the rank of pilot officer on probation in the RAF reserve and then, in 1935, on the 22nd of October, the London Gazette shows James relinquishing his commission in the RAFO on appointment to a short service commission with the RAF to take effect from the 7th of October. His first posting was to the RAF depot at Uxbridge and then to number 6 Flying Training School at Netheravon. The first page of James’s logbook here shows that James’s RAF flying training proper began at number 6 Flying Training School Netheravon and entry at Reading records I certify that I understand the petrol system and that I know the action in the event of fire in the air, also the use of breaks on the Hawker Hart. His first instructional flight in a Tudor includes spinning and the second slow rolls and loops. His third flight was the CFO eyes test which could have been to ascertain or confirm that James had the potential to benefit from further instruction.
CB: Right.
TS: James was clearly very impressed with the Hart and wrote to his mother on the 2nd of November 1935, have been flying Harts, look, something like this, enclosed a picture of a Hart, not a good one, I intended to draw it but I could not do it justice so here’s a picture of a Demon, same makers and practically the same, the only difference being that the exhaust comes out under the lower wing as I have [unclear].
CB: Just doing that again.
TS: James was clearly very impressed with the Hart and wrote to his mother on the 2nd of November 1935, have been flying Harts, look, something like this, I intended to draw it but I could not do it justice so here’s the picture of a Demon, same makers and practically the same, the only difference being that the exhaust comes out under the lower wing as I have [unclear] and I fly it from the front office and not from the back. After crawling around at 70mph in the Moths at home, you can imagine the thrill of cruising at 130 and at full throttle speed of 160 to 170mph. Coming out of a spin, a Hart is pointing vertically downward and everything screams, wires, struts and me until she comes out. I have not had the time to look at the speed indicator, but it must register something horrid. The sticks tooks up getting used to, not like the usual straight at moving in all directions from the floor, sideways and forwards but hinged just above the lease for sideways movement and both together for fore and after. The top is a ring, a spade grip and the two little leavers are thumb leavers to push to operate the forward guns which fire through the propeller. It is great to hurtle around the sky so fast. As a preface to this letter, James had written, no doubt to calm his mother’s fears, always remember that with machines there is more safety the faster one goes. James’s flying training, which included aerobatics, instrument and lower flying, cross country and flair path exercises on Tutors, Harts and Audax aircraft continued until February 1936. He recorded that on New Year’s Day 1936, whilst flying solo in Audax K4393, he carried out a forced landing at Portham being flown back as passenger to Netheravon in a Tutor nineteen minutes later. He also recorded that on the course of a solo flight made in a Hart, he carried out loops, spins and stall turns, notwithstanding that spinning had not been part of the planned exercise. On completion of his RAF training, James’s proficiency as a pilot on type and his instrument flying assessment were both recorded as average with a note, that disregards the standard entry any special [unclear] in flying which must be watched, must look after his engine. No other outstanding faults. These entries were dated the 16th of February 1936 and he was then qualified for certificate B under King’s regulations at air staff instructions. On the 6th of March James was posted to number 64 Fighter Squadron stationed in the Middle East. Chapter 2, fighter aeroplane to the Middle East and testing parachutes 1936 to 1939. First of all, a fighter squadron in Egypt. On the 6th of March 1936, James was posted to number 64 Fighter Squadron that was stationed in the Middle East. The RAF history records that number 64 had reformed in Heliopolis on the 1st of March although for political reasons it had been announced as having reformed at Henlow so as not to disclose its true location. The squadron was commanded by squadron leader Patrick John [unclear] having been established by authority. Now the RAF Form 540 which is the operations record book states that the original intention had been to form the squadron under peacetime conditions as part of the RAF expansion scheme. It was to form in Egypt to relieve congestion at home and by taking advantage of the good flying weather in this country to become fully trained as quickly as possible. Its Demons, fitted with derated Rolls Royce Kestrel V engines had already been set out to Egypt where they formed D flights in number 6 Bomber and 208 Army Cooperation squadrons and these were transferred during March to number 64 Squadron. The next entry in James’s flying logbook shows that he’d been transferred to number 208 Army Cooperation Squadron being based at Heliopolis. The unit was seemed to have being carried up type and role version at area familiarisation training. On the 19th of March, he was given a 35-minute checkout in an Audax after which he was sent off solo for general flying, navigation, formation and landing practices. A separate entry dated the 6th of April 1936 reads authorised to wear the flying badge with effect from the 20th of February 1936. He signed this as pilot officer and it was countersigned by a flight lieutenant, O C A flight 64 Squadron. On the following page of the logbook the heading number 64 fighter squadron Egypt appears. The first flight which was also from Heliopolis was made solo with balance to assimilate the way to a passenger in a Hawk Demon K4516 that lasted for thirty minutes. Two days later James flew again for landing practice, this time with aircraftsmen turrets on board. On the 9th of April, the squadron moved to Ismailia, James being a passenger in a Victoria 6. It had been the original intention to move to Mersa Matruh east but, due to severe engine troubles, which all squadrons operating in the western desert had been experiencing, it was decided to keep number 64 Squadron at a less dusty aerodrome, a turret should be required for the actual operations. The squadron consisted of three flying flights of four aeroplanes with no reserves. Its strength was thirteen officers and 153 other ranks. With the Abyssinian crisis still on, the squadrons duties were to carry out attacks on enemy airfields and act as cover for bombers being refuelled at advanced landing grounds. However, until required to commence these operations, the squadron carried out on normal training whilst being kept at 72 hours readiness to move to Sidi Barrani whence operational sorties would be flown. On the 15th, James was airborne again for a local familiarisation flight and this was followed by practice force landing, aerobatics, formation and air to ground firing with the front guns. On the 27th of April, he flew to and landed at Suez at Little Bitter Lake airfields. On the 28th and 29th he recorded battle climbs, five thousand feet in four minutes, ten thousand in seven and sixteen thousand feet in eleven and then he recorded on another flight, five thousand feet in five minutes, ten thousand in ten and sixteen thousand in fifteen. On the 19th of May, James was regraded from acting pilot officer on probation to pilot officer on probation. May was spent practicing more air to ground firing by the front guns and those fired by an air gunner, formation flying, aerobatics, air to air firing and on the 16th he undertook a twenty minute test flight in a Vickers Valentia with sergeant Higgins. In June 1936 this training continued with visits to Mersa Matruh, Sidi Barrani, Solum and Amira. He flew to [unclear] on the 6th of June to enable the engine of the Valentia to be changed of, I think it must be a Hart which had forced landed there. Also on the 18th he flew in a Gordon 2617 for two hours on a target train mission to facilitate air to air gunnery. In July a number of flights were made to test engine air filters fitted to Demons and James carried out some flair path landings and the times to height that I recorded just now were probably associated with these air filter engine performance trials. Number 64 Fighter Squadron returned to the UK in August 1936 to form part of the fighter defences of London. James’s logbook showed no flying during the months of August and September. By the time he’d left Egypt, he had amassed sixty-five hours and thirty-five minutes solo flying on Demons. On the 22nd of October, James flew in English skies once again, in Bristol Bulldog 1961 Martlesham Heath checking up on landmarks. His next flight on the 10th of November included formatting with a flying boat over Felixstowe. Thereafter, his flights included formation landings, circuits and bumps, cloud flying, testing RT, that’s the radio telephone and aerobatics. On the 3rd of December he flew Demon K4509 over [unclear] and Bexley on a tactical exercise radar on London fog and smoke and this is the first time he’s recorded undertaking flying, probably in association with Bentley Priory, beginning to trial the air defence of Great Britain, the radar chain. On the 8th of December 1936, James was confirmed in the rank of pilot officer with effect from the 7th of October 1936.
CB: Now back in Egypt. No, ok.
TS: We’re not, we’re back in the UK. We’ve come back to the UK.
CB: OK, that’s fine. Keep going.
TS: 1936, the parachute test flight. January 1937 saw James involved in testing camera guidance and in rearming and refuelling exercises, followed by quick getaways and battle climbs. There were more raids on London exercises. On the 27th of January 1937, James flew for the last time with his squadron, his logbook recording his proficiency as a pilot on Demons as average. James moved to the home aircraft depot at Henlow where he flew again on the 9th of February in a Tiger Moth on a refresher test. He then began a series of flights as a second pilot on the tail of the Vickers Victoria a Virginia aircraft drop testing parachutes, eight on each flight attached to dummies. He also made eight solo flights in a Hawker Hind, on one of which he, quote, landed to retrieve map near Bournemouth, and quote, after having encountered bad visibility, mist and rain. In March he carried out sundry flying tasks in a Tiger Moth, Prefect and Hind. These tasks included map reading tests for sergeant pilots, air sickness tests for aircraftsmen, photography and high-speed parachute dropping. Typical entries read, from ten thousand foot, 265mph, twelve thousand feet, 295mph, pull out four to six hundred feet, engine can’t take it at two thousand eight hundred revs in the dive, cutting out, boost minus two. On the 17th and 22nd James records, general flying over flooded areas and on the 23rd, search for Green Tiger Moth Duchess of Bedford, lost since previous evening. A note at the foot of this page records, struts and portion of aircrew recovered from the Wash confirms from the Duchess of Bedford’s machine. In April, James flew to Sealand, recording to [unclear] a new aircraft, with regard to an Audax that he’d got, with a hundred and fifty LSI airspeed indicator, with two thousand two hundred and fifty revs cruising, then he returned to Henlow in the, the Blackburn after which he recorded flying Blackburn hard labour all the time. After flying Moth 1889 on air experience for parachute pull off, he made two more flights in the Fairey to Cardington and back. At the end of the month, James signed off the months flying totals for the first time as officer commanding parachute test flight home aircraft depot Henlow. May began with a short flight in a Fairey 3F, followed that afternoon by an entry in red ink, live parachute pull off from port wing, from Virginia K2329 and this excitement was repeated on the 28th. Later in life, my father elaborated on the technique used to test parachutes. The Virginia would take off with one parachuter standing on the outer part of the lower wing on each side, facing [unclear] and grasping the strap with both arms and legs. On approaching the top [unclear], in response to a signal given by one of the crew, both parachuters would turn to face forward and await a further signal whereupon each would then deploy the parachute, if the parachute deployed as expected, the increase force would pull the parachutist away from the strut and he would ascend to a normal landing. If the parachute didn’t open, then the parachuters would turn around again to face [unclear] and remain there until the aircraft had landed. It was important I was told that when facing forward the parachuter should not intertwine his fingers when deploying his parachute, otherwise the snatch force created when it opened would dislocate his digits. Empire Air Day, held on the 29th, was the highlight of the month. Before this, James was closely involved in rehearsals. He flew a second pilot in a Virginia that was used over Long Church as a target for attacks by three Gladiators. On the following day, which is 21st, he flew photographers from the local rag, before collecting fireworks for the Empire Air Day from Northolt. There were further rehearsals after that and on the 29th he flew Fury in a display handicap race, coming close forth, followed by a flight in which the Virginia took on the role of enemy aircraft, shot down by 54 Squadron. August flying began with Queen Bee Moth K, ferrying this aircraft to Sealand for shipment. Now, the Queen Bee was a modification of the highly successful and reliable DH-82A Tiger Moth. The main differences being that the Queen Bee had an entirely wooden fuselage and a fuel tank five gallons larger than the Tiger Moth. Queen Bees were first produced in 1935, in response to an Air Ministry request for inexpensive, expendable radio-controlled target drone for anti-aircraft gunnery practice. The front cockpit was fitted with conventional controls for a test or ferry pilot, while the rear carried the radio control receiver and pneumatically operated servers for the flying controls. Queen Bees were said to have been the first, full sized aircraft originally designed to fly unmanned and under radio control. September 1935 involved miscellaneous air tests. On the 10th, James flew to Netheravon in Fairey 2F for live and dummy drops in the making of MGM’s film Shadow of the wind. He [unclear] often doing flight with flight sergeant Smith and a gentleman called De Grue on board, James records live drop, use reserve parachute, just made it, later that day the latter named person was on board for another live drop, as was Naomi Karen Maxwell, both went off, quote, ok, with dummy unopened, unquote. On the following day, dummy drops took place through clouds but had limited success with one dummy landing a mile and a half off and another, quote, drifted fifty miles, unquote. Dummy drops were made from a Hind for the bystander magazine on the 17th, followed by a landing at Bassingbourn due to a thunderstorm. On the 18th, James was once again helping MGM make their film with Ms Maxwell and De Grue, both making live free drops. December 1937 offered very little in the way of flying due to a very bad visibility, rain and cloud. On the 3rd, James recalled his height as fifty feet, whilst very low flying. On the 8th, the remarks include damn cold, ice and snow on the ground, followed by b…. cold. On the 11th, the entry reads, fall after frost, low cloud, circuits and bumps, and on the 13th, hit three peewits taking off. On the 24th, conditions had hardly improved, thickish mist and [unclear] almost like flying in an iceberg. The last entries in this logbook relate to the 17th and 18th of the month, the remarks are regarding a flight from, Henlow to Sealand flowing Queen Bee over the top of clouds, came out in the middle of Wales. Then on the 18th, refuelled, land in Penrhos, hit post, damaged port [unclear], returned to Henlow by a train. We do note also that in 1937 the landing was made near Bournemouth to retrieve the map and near Aberystwyth due to a petrol shortage. All in all, the records by now showed an adventurous flying career in the RAF. James was promoted to flying officer on the 30th of December 1937. 1938, James was broadening his experience. He continued to fly from the home aircraft depot at Uxbridge as officer commanding the parachute test flight, flying the Prefect, Fairey, Queen Bee, Moth, Tutor, Magister, Hind and Virginia. In March, he carried out a number of high-speed runs in the Hind, recording variously 240, 250, 280 and finally 290mph. On the 26th of March, he took this aeroplane up to twenty-four thousand feet, recording times and boost pressures against altitudes as he did so. The maximum altitude he reached in forty minutes and forty seconds. April ‘38 seems to have required a mixture of flying that included passenger transfer flights, balloon chasing, cloud flying, circuits and bumps. On return to Henlow from Bircham Newton where they had gone for lunch, he or his pupil hit port errond on post. On the 6th of May, he flew a press representative to take photographs of pull offs presumably from a Virginia. Not much flying took place in September but on the 30th an entry reads playing silly Bees around cloud. Another flight in the Virginia shows flying around in November ’38 but then it went to add forced landing in fog on the 9th and fog turned back. Total flying in December was only one hour but there was a reason for this, for he married Ethel Madge Birchall, who preferred to be called Madge, on the 3rd of December 1938 in the parish church at Saint Andrews in South Shoebury in the county of Essex. James, a bachelor, was twenty-nine years old and his occupation was given as RAF officer residing at Henlow camp Bedfordshire. Madge, a spinster, was twenty-eight at the time of her marriage and had no work or profession recorded on the certificate. Owen Sindall retired was recorded as James father and Jasper Beasley Birchall, captain Royal Artillery retired as that of Madge, who had been residing with her parents at Newland, nurse Road, Shoebury, in the county of Essex. James left the parachute test flight on posting to Central Flying School at RAF Upavon at the end of March 1939. Chapter three, training new pilots and flying in the Battle of Britain 1939-1941. 1939, Central Flying School and of flying instructor posting. James arrived at Central Flying School at RAF Upavon in April 1939. The primary purpose of CFS was to train pilots to fly competently. These next couple of months were then spent flying Ansons, Hart, Tutor, Harvard, Fury and Oxford airplanes. He was also cleared to instruct on the link trainer. James began his postings as qualified flying instructor in July 1939, he took his first students for revision exercise on the 24th and in his logbooks he records all their names. The Second World War began on the 1st of September 1939. James flew the Anson once that month and had a refresher flight in an Oxford instructing new students and performed several solo, navigation and forced landing tests, as well as aircraft and weather tests. In a letter to his mother, James wrote on the 15th that they had overcooked some marrow jam and it was so thick that they could almost have used the toffee to stop up the mole and rabbit holes. The only war news they were getting came from the papers [unclear] that it was generally expected that air raids would commence fairly soon so it was necessary to, quote, keep the old respirator, anti-gas handy and quote, on the 19th of December 1939, the London Gazette shows James being promoted from flying officer to flight lieutenant with the effect from the 13th of December of the, of 1939. Flying training continued from Raf Hullavington at number 9 Flying Training Service School and March of that year 1940 saw the tempo increase with up to five sorties a day, often involving three or more aeroplanes. In a letter to his mother dated the 5th of March James wrote, I taxied onto another machine night flying the other night, broke my prop and his tail, managed to hush it up. James was clearly not the only one enjoying exciting flying for on the 16th he wrote, things go on here as usual, we are just at the end of our night flying program, one of the pubs by himself landed outside the aerodrome, it’s a four inch thick tree, he did say he brushed something, came through three hedges, hopped over the road and landed on his back on the aerodrome, as his usual he had not a scratch or a bruise. It was at night and although I saw it, I only saw his wingtip lights going up and down and over. Another pub took two soldiers up without permission in an Anson, which is a twin engine five seater, and crashed, smashed the aeroplane to bits and the three of them had a few cuts and a few bruises, it’s amazing, isn’t it? Beginning of June 1940 saw the commencement of number 20 course. In a letter to his mother, Annie Sindall dated the 4th of June, James implores her to persuade the family to leave number 46 Nelson Road, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex and get away to South Africa or if not, to Wales or Cornwall, to avoid the Nazi way of bombing, not a dozen machines as in the last war, but hundreds and coming in waves at about two hours interval. I’m making it sound awful, I know, but I’m not exaggerating, will you please do something now? It’s not even safe here. We have a station defence working day and night. As I said before, don’t worry about me. I may go anywhere and at any time. To stay in Leigh waiting to see where I go is madness. July saw the end of number 20 course and beginning of 22. Within that month an entry on the third, towards the end of the day reads dawn patrol, written in red ink. With the Battle of Britain about to begin, it would seem that preparations would be made to defend the defences. James wrote to his sister Dorothea who joined the WAAF and who’d been posted to Lincoln, James was expecting to be on lookout duty that night, which would have meant sitting on top of a water tower accessed by going up an open iron ladder which gives me the creeps coming down. An enemy aircraft had shot down a pupil early in the day, not one of his, and had machine gunned him as he drifted down, spoiled him too. They say that we caught the Hun later.
CB: OK.
TS: Participation and the Battle of Britain, which officially now ran between the 10th of July and the 31st of October 1940. On special interest, James flew a Hurricane II, apparently for the first time, on the 12th of September for station defence. On the 16th he again flew a Hurricane for station defence but with the additional words after Junkers 88, the whole entry in the logbook being underlined in red ink, his method of indicating an operational sortie. He flew a, probably the same Hurricane again for air tests later in the month. At CF 5 number 5 Flying Training School signed the monthly totals confirming that all these flights had been authorised. James wrote to his parents as follows, Dear mother and dad, I nearly got a Junkers 88 long range bomber yesterday. We have a Hurricane we keep ready for station defence and three of us were allowed to fly it, very occasionally, as we waste petrol. Anyway, the Junkers came over the camp at about five thousand feet and as I was doing nothing at the time, I grabbed my bike and peddled off to the Hurricane with my brolly over my shoulder, leaped in and started up and off. I chased away the way he had gone with my electric sights on and my guns ready. Of course, I didn’t catch him. He had had too good a start. I flew around at twelve thousand for a bit in case there was another and then saw another Hurricane going past towards Swindon. I followed him in case he knew of something but there wasn’t anything there. So I came back, maybe I get one someday. The Hurricane is grand, cruising at 200 and climbing at 160, I dive quite gently and got 360. No effort at all. Cheers. Love, Jim. 1941, James flew in the first three and a half months in the year but in April he flew a Hart to Benson and on to Hullavington before proceeding to number 12 Operational Training Unit at RAF Benson to learn to fly and operate Wellington bombers.
CB: OK.
TS: Looking back at the details that were in this particular letter, it does seem a little odd that performance information should have been written without perhaps being intercepted by a censor. Maybe James’s enthusiasm for writing this up got the better of him as indeed we shall learn later on when he was in India as it resulted on his being court-martialed following interception of information of by a censor.
CB: Brilliant. So, we are restarting now when we are at the OTU, 12 OTU Benson.
TS: Chapter 4, bomber operations over France and Germany 1941 to 1942. The London Gazette dated 11th of March 1941 shows James being promoted from flying lieutenant to squadron leader temporary. In April he arrived at number 12 Operational Training Unit RAF Benson opson to learn to fly and operate Wellington bombers. After two dual sorties, James went solo on the 25th of April, with wing commander Daddy for company. Both pilots swapping seats as they built up experience on what was termed local flying practice. The next page in James’s pilot’s flying logbook displays at the top line number 115 bomber squadron at Marham and in red ink operational. The first operational bombing sortie for all such sorties was numbered by my father in sequence and recorded in red ink was flown on the night of the 10th and 11th June. Operational sorties flown with the squadron in June, July and August were in Wellingtons, all believed to be in the Mark I C. The first flight made on the 10th and 11th of June with Bailey as the captain and James as co-pilot was to Brest to attack the Prinz Eugen, a five-hour flight all at night. On the 12th and 13th my father was in command and, I beg your pardon, it was Bailey still and my father as co-pilot, they attacked Ham, the marshalling yards. The following night, the 13th and 14th, my father flew his first operational flight of a Wellington in command. They attacked the Prinz Eugen again at Brest. On the 15th and 16th it was Cologne. They attacked the railway yards and they shot down one Messerschmitt 110. On the 17th-18th it was Dusseldorf, the railway junction. On the 20th and 21st Kiel, various battle motes. On the 26th and 27th Cologne, turned back by storm. And on the 29th and 30th Bremen, town blitz. In July 1941, operational sorties continued, on the 1st North Sea sweep for dinghy, on the 4th and 5th Brest and my father wrote in his logbook, bombed Lorient. On the 6th and 7th Munster, with the remark Coventrated. On the 7th-8th Munster, ditto. On the 9th and the 10th Osnabruck, short of fuel, crew bailed out. On the 13th and 14th Bremen, snow, ice, hail, sleet, rain. On the 15th and 16th Duisburg, returned early, aircraft not climbing. And on the 24th, Brest, daylight sweep on Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen and one Messerschmitt 109 F shot down. A letter relating to the bailout on the night of the 9th and the 10th of July which is, which I’ve referenced, which is the day after I was born, still exists, my father sent it to my mother and it reads as follows. Royal Air Force Marham, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, 12.7.41, the time is 05.30 and I have just come back from Abbington where I went with Doc Bailey to see one of my crew in hospital where he is with a broken leg. I had just read your letter which you asked me if I had a good party that night. We did, we went to Osnabruck and came back to find everywhere covered with cloud, cloud at ground level. We arrived back at the aerodrome at 3.30 in the morning, but were told to go to Abbington where it was clearer and we could get down. At 4.50 we were very short of petrol, so I tried at first the distress calls, but there was such a row going on in the air, everybody calling for help, that I could get no result so eventually I sent out SOS. We got an answer from Hull, they listen in for SOSs, who said go to Abbington, they then telephoned Abbington which took twenty minutes or so to say let these people in at once. Well, we contacted Abbington as soon as Hull told us to go there but as they did not know by then that we were in an SOS they just decided to let us take our turn with the other machines. At about 4.30 the engines cut and I pushed the crew out. I decide to stay on for a moment or two to let all the petrol burn up so that she would not burn when she crashed. Then a funny thing happened, it picked up again, and spluttered and banged and I was able to fly for another hour. It was due to the change in altitude weight with the crew gone. I flew north to get nearer the dawn and to put it down in a field if possible but came over cloud again so flew south to keep over open country. I could just see light coloured fields and nothing else. At 5.40 I saw an aerodrome flash SOS on the under recognition light and landed. As I was holding off the engines cut for good, there were thirty-six other machines there from other squadrons. My crew all landed safely, one in a group captains garden, except one who broke his leg. I saved the country twenty thousand pounds of an aeroplane, but I bet they don’t get me a commission of even 5 percent. I can’t write all this out again so will you forward it to mother when you write? On the 24th of July, the target was Brest, operational form 540 states, bombing from fifteen thousand two hundred feet, dropped one stick north east to south west over target, first bomb fell in water about ten yards from warship laying alongside the mole, burst from other bombs seem to burst around other ships about half a mile south west of Mull. Aircraft hit by flak in rear turret hydraulics, one Messerschmitt 109 F was successfully engaged and shot down in the sea. Two other aircraft of number 115 Squadron that took part in this raid were captained by sergeant Prior and by flight lieutenant Pooley. The first landed at St Eval and the second in Exeter. Now, I do vaguely remember my father telling me once that on the way back from Brest, on one of his sorties there, he had slowed down to formate alongside another British bomber that had suffered badly from enemy action and was barely able to stay in the air flying slowly. As that aircraft was so vulnerable to fighters, James felt that his presence along the side, might help to ward off any attacks. In the event, both aircraft made it home to the UK, following which the pilot of the stricken airplane was told that he would be in line to receive a medal, an Air Force Cross or Distinguished Flying Cross possibly. As I remember it being told, that pilot said that he would accept such an award if offered only if some similar recognition could be given to James who, by risking his own aeroplane and crew, had ensured the safe return home of both aircraft. Apparently, such an assurance was given. Sadly, there seems to be no record as to who the other pilot was and whether or not his resilience resulted in an award. What is without doubt is that no special recognition was given to James for his effort on that particular flight. It is possible, given that James flew St Eval on the 23rd of June to collect the crew of [unclear], that the protection he had provided to a stricken aircraft might have taken place on that the 24th. August operational sorties on the 8th and 9th Hamburg, ten tenth of cloud, no joy. 12th, Mönchengladbach flak over 14, 15 Hanover searchlights, 18-19 Duisburg. 27, 28 Mannheim, crashed near [unclear], crew bailed out with my parachute. According to the squadron form 540 the record for the night of the 27th -28th of August states, Squadron leader Sindall bombing from eighteen thousand feet, dropped all his bombs south to north, just south of the aiming point, burst was seen followed by a large explosion, aircraft had to be abandoned, all crew bailed out, well that’s what they said, and made successful descend, aircraft crashed and was burn out near [unclear], now at the back of my father’s logbook under accidents, he recalls a few more details, crew bailed out, no parachute left, crashed in a field burnt and in a letter to his sister Dodo written on the 29th of August, James gave a very detailed account of what occurred that night. Royal Air Force Marham, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, 29.8.41. Dear Do, you like exciting stories so here is one. We went to Mannheim last night with a 50mph wind behind us, cracked the target good and proper and set course for home. The wind against us put us off course a bit and we stouaged over Dunkirk where we got coned and I think it was there that a bit of flak holed one of my reserve tanks. We got to Marham and as we started to come in, so Jerry dropped a stick along the flair path. Control told us to go to Honington. Off we went putting on the one reserve tank and not both as I thought there are no gages for the reserves. Honington was dead and we could get no reply to repeated calls or there we were over the aerodrome, we saw what appeared to be a flair path some distance away so wandered off there but it went out. Then the engines cut dead at fifteen hundred feet I shouted to abandon ship and the boys went out in quick time. I stretched out for my para and found someone had taken mine. I flashed a torch to look for another but there wasn’t one. I swore hard and sat back and prayed like mad. Switches off, top escape hatch open, helmet off, landing light on and went straight ahead at 80mph. At first, I saw nothing but rain, then a field and another at five hundred feet, then a village over that, then trees, then more fields, very close now, then crash, crash, crash. I went for a six up at the front, feet in the air and an almighty wallop on the head, laying there wherever [unclear] had stopped moving I felt my head and to my horror in all the blood fair rushing out it was, a bit of my head came away in me hand. Holding my head steady so that my brains wouldn’t fall out I plogged my hankie over the hole and tried to get the right side up. I did then up and out of the top hatch to trip and fall face down in turnips and mud. Got up, I walked over to an incendiary bomb which was still burning, some of ours had stuck up and lit a cigarette advert for players. I thought alright but really honestly thought I was done. I sat by the bombs, it was warm in the rain, when, bang! The blasted thing blew up, it was one of the explosive ones, I only had one boot on, so I hopped along the field holding the hankie with one hand and smoking with the other. I sang and shouted as I went, proper daft I was, until I found a nettle or something with my bare foot, I only shouted then. At a safe distance I sat on a bank and waited for someone to put in an appearance. Then poor old J for Johnny started to burn, and I sat on the other side of the bank in case a high explosive bomb had hung up too. Various aircraft circled round and when it was quiet, I shouted for the Home Guard, fire watch, girl guides, WAAFs and anyone else I could think of. After I while I was still alive so up to the standard of the second field towards a church, they have graves there, which I could see by the light of Johnny. There was a ditch, then a road, no house at all. So I started walking until I came to a cottage, still see, [unclear] this time, my words, as I opened the gate, the upper window opened and a female said, what do you want? I said, there’s been a terrible disaster, and a shocking occurrence up the road. What’s that fire? My aeroplane. Oh, your aeroplane? I’m a parachutist now. Have you a telephone or where is there a doctor as I have a hole in my head? The doc is round the corner. Window down with a bang. He was and then I went to [unclear] hospital for stitches and bandage and here I am back at Marham once more wangling sick leave. The bit of my head must have been a bit of Johnny which I had broken off. So there you are, life is never dull, I’m due for six days about the middle of September so they may make it twelve days. Cheers, Jimmy. September ’41, operational sorties, just one, went to Karlsruhe, natives friendly. The operational sortie to Karlsruhe would appear to be the last operational flight James made within Bomber Command. In October, he flew Wellington again on a marker test and twice in formation, on formation flights, he also managed to carry out an air test in a Hurricane. There was no flying for the month of December. In January 1942, James made one flight, an engine test in Wellington 1645, this lasted thirty minutes and he just two crew members on board. In February he flew twelve times in five days on Whitleys in the beam approach training flight, accruing some eighteen hours, of which fifteen and three quarter were logged as instrumental cloud flying. He then flew as part in command three times in a couple of Wellingtons on local sorties and then he flew a Hudson from Port [unclear] to Kemble and a Wellington from Kemble to Lyneham, his grand total of flying hours now stood at one thousand, five hundred and twenty. He had no flying in April, May, June, July or August because he was on route to headquarters, New Delhi, India and James was not to set foot in Europe again for three years.
CB: What we know from all our experiences of all our fathers really is that they didn’t talk about what they did in the war but occasionally there were snippets that would come out perhaps in social situation so did you ever get any feeling for your father’s approach to things later?
TS: Not a great deal, my father became very reserved after the time when he left the RAF. His life had changed as my mother had died and I was now away joining the RAF myself and when I saw him on holidays for many years after that he never really talked to me about anything and certainly didn’t talk about the war. I think, in common with many people, who’d lived through it, they wanted to put that past behind them and get on with their lives.
CB: An interesting aspect of this perhaps is that you were in the RAF for many years, you had exchanged posting to the Royal Australian Air Force and when you came back and visited your father in Spain, what was his reaction to your urge to tell him what you’ve done? He didn’t want to know. Right, so moving on now to his next posting.
TS: Chapter 5, Air headquarters India 1942 to 1944. He was posted on May the 21st to from [unclear] 44 Group to West Kirby for posting to air headquarters India. On authority of Air Ministry postagram for duties in connection with a selection of sites for aerodromes, on May the 26th he travelled to Newport on to board the P&O steamer Cathay that had recently been converted into a troop ship in the USA. James left the UK on the 27th of May 1942, stayed through Freetown and Cape Town and arrived at Bombay on the 23rd of July. When he reported to headquarters New Delhi and he learned that the people that had asked the Air Ministry in London for a surveyor, not a general duties i.e. pilot bloke, can you please delete it? Anyway, a place was found for him on the training staff, will I ever get away from training, he said. And then the next three days was spent reading files to find out how Air headquarters functioned. In September, James arrived at Lahore, headquarter to 227 Group and then started visiting various squadrons, first 31 Squadron at the aerodrome. Later he left Lahore for Delhi and by 30 he was back in the office there. On the 26th of September, James was promoted to acting wing commander on the strength of the training staff. October the 1st went to [unclear] by road, into tribal territory up and down the pass, quite exciting, everybody had a gun except me. In January 1943, he reports on the first, not feeling too well, on the 4th he was felt really ill in the office, and this was the beginning of a long period when my father was affected by malaria. Not only malaria was rampant, but so was too was prickly heat and by February my father had contracted jondiss that resulted in three weeks sick leave. James applied for a couple of weeks leave having had none for two years. He remained in his quarters throughout April and in May went to Chakrata on sick leave. In August he started leave travelling by train to Rawalpindi where he hired with a friend a houseboat. Back in office in September, today we’ve been at war for four years, another two should finish it off, I hope. September the 18th very hot, could not sleep, on the 19th not feeling well, really ill, reported to the medical officer, malaria, into the British military hospital straight away, bad afternoon and night. In October, James learned he’d be posted to HQ 227 Group as wing commander training who’s assessed for being fit for duty. On arrival there, he felt familiar signs of malaria returning and was packed off at the hospital. As a result of that, he was downgraded and ranked to squadron leader war substantive. On the 23rd of October 1943, a colleague told James that a ladder to dad, James’s father, had been stopped, all males vetted before leaving the unit. On the next stage, James was yet experiencing familiar symptoms of malaria and had to take leave. In December, he arrived back in Bombay and waited for a posting. On the 11th, he heard that a date had been set for a court martial that would consider an alleged offence associated with the contents of a stopped letter that he’d been told about in October. On the 17th of December, James wrote, we saw an enormous comet fairly sizzle across the sky, never seen such a long tail. And on the 21st of December, the general court martial held at headquarters 227 Group Bombay was held. James was being charged with conduct prejudicial to good conduct and air force discipline etcetera. In that honour about the 13th of October I posted in Bombay a letter containing references to movements of Halifaxes and Lancaster aircraft in this country. The prosecution called the duty pilot at Delhi airport to say that one Lancaster had arrived on the 9th of October, no Halifaxes. As James had no defending officer, the deputy judge had a break whilst he instructed me how to conduct my case. He told me to say that the prosecution had not proven their case and therefore I had no charge to answer. I did so. Another break whilst the court considered it and I went again, not guilty, hurray! And my beautiful fireproof defence was never needed. So that was that. I came back to Karrian and had a quite evening doing the round of rat traps. I can remember my father mentioning this episode as I recall he had whilst delirious with malaria and the associated medicines written to the effect that hordes and hordes of Halifaxes and Lancasters had been flying overhead which was quite clearly a delusion. December the 22nd, I’m off to Bhopal to be present of a court, president of a court of enquiry into a crash at Bhopal or near there. What a wizard service this is, prisoner one day and president the next. It means I shall have Christmas at Bhopal. Should be good. December the 31st, the last day of ’43, and now I can see I’m due having next year, seems very comforting. James records that on the 2nd of January he decided to build a sundial outside the mess, using hard wood and an old celluloid computer, spending most of the afternoon marking in the times, North, South, East and home. There was to be small garden around it. On the 4th of January he decided the sundial required some to finish it off, a verse or something, so during the evening, he produced this, remember that the group responsible for his being there was 227 and they don’t pay much attention to our once. This is what he wrote. To those who have to or who care, put on their letters Callyan, little stranger passing by, pause a while let’s slip aside, for we who knew Bombay was heaven were posted here by 227. For company we lack it not, rats, snakes and mozzies are our lot, the sun beats down, no fancy given, we’re even there with 227. Time marches on in Solam state but awful thought if from the gate of India with [unclear] a ship sails home with 227. Of course, I’m prejudiced, said James in his diary, but I think it bloody good, I wish the OC of 227 could see it. He has no sense of humour. James later referred to this as the headstone of rank and sent a type copy to the editor of the journal of air forces, accompanied by a rather long sundial serenade. This was actually published in the journal, pages two and four of the Indian edition, volume two number two dated the 10th of March 1944, the only change being made that numbers 227 were changed to 527, so as to confuse the Japanese. On the 18th of January, James wrote, my posting came in with a mail, Poona for a fresh air flying a Wimpy and then onto ops, just what I wanted two years ago. Still it’s gonna be wizard, have to keep it quiet from Madge though. Wrote to Jasper telling him only. Three days later, James arrived at Poona and started his Wellington Mark X conversion refresher course, doing navigation, intelligence and lib trainer sessions. A red-letter day if ever there was one, I flew, actually flew myself in a Wimpy, first time for a year and ten months, not too bad landings either. On the following day, he took over the sea flight, when the CO went down with malaria, and found himself having to organise flights, air tests and training exercises with the navy. Chapter 6, number 215 Bomber Squadron, Jessore 1944. February 1944, operational sorties, in a Wellington he flew to Pru a six-hour night flight. James made four sorties in February. On the 2nd he wrote, I put up my 39-43 star ribbon as all Euro rifles ex-U have, ex-UK have. Note, this was subsequently to become the 1939-1945 star. On the 17th, James set off for Jessore at number 215 Squadron where he was to become Bee flight commander was met at the station by the squadron in Jeeps and a fifteen hundred weight truck on the platform, never had such a welcome anywhere, the party continued until 3.30. The next two days were spent meeting people and finding his way around and he flew in Wellingtons doing circuits and bumps. Then, on the 22nd, he flew his first operation in [unclear] bombing the [unclear] dumps with squadron joe’s captain. No opposition at all, took off in daylight and got back 11:00, flares dozens of them all over the place, [unclear] fires. After returning from a flight to Lahore to collect spares flying through an intertropic front, lots of extra flying, very wet on the 25th, he flew twice on the 26th, once to an overload test, and once doing circuits and bumps. The dairy records, quiet day and party in the evening. I was eventually debaged after putting up a stiff resistance, had a finger in my right eye, bruises and a bash on my nose. The following day the diary reads thus, due for ops this evening but the medical officer has put me on service [unclear] for two days on account of my eye. Had three accidents today, one, joe’s undercarriage collapsed and slid off the runway, two, starboard engine of A flak machine cut on take-off and it crashed and burned out a mile away, four dead out of five. I pulled out two bodies, the fifth crew member died on the 28th. Three, night flying aircraft with no flaps, went off the end of the runway, one hurt, what a day. March 1944, an operational sortie was flown to Anissakar aerodrome. The other squadron that was with them, number 99 of Liberators bomb went off to bomb Rangoon. On the Sunday night the 5th James took off in one of the Wellingtons to attack the town of [unclear] on the Irrawaddy but returned after twenty minutes when the port engine oil pressure dropped to below the minimum acceptable 70psi, makes you think by which I surmise he had in mind the recent loss of the Wellington due to engine failure just a few days earlier, just might have been repeated. After this, James had three weeks leave to stay in a bungalow as the guest of a maharajah with the aim of hunting tigers. On March the 13th he bound a boar on a first drive with one shot through the head, followed on a second drive by a dough and a stag [unclear]. James’s name was not drawn out to go on the tiger shoot, only two officers were allowed but one was shot by an American. April 1944 operational sorties on the 3rd and 4th all in Wellingtons he flew to Yaju, violent explosions, on the 5th and 6th to Akyab, four thousand pounder, dirty, 8th and 9th Mandalay four thousand pounder, on the 17th a seven hour journey air sea rescue Sandoway, found out ultimately that was unsuccessful although some of the air craft searching reported that they had found a dinghy in lights they were lost and the crew were never returned. On the 23rd and 24th they attacked Maymyo barracks missed it diverted to Fenny and on the 28th Kallowar daylight. On the 21st of May the entire squadron with the exception of two crews was detached to 3 Dakota squadrons to assist in supply dropping on [unclear] in the Arakan and Burma. I went with eight crews to a station north and operated over the [unclear] near to Kina Morgan area. The Dakota is a very nice aeroplane, I like it, did twenty trips, some in foul weather. Returned to Jessore on the 15th of June, having been away just over three weeks. Stayed at base long enough to collect clean clothes, we’d been in the jungle and off to Kolar near Bangalore for conversion onto the Liberator VI. Now, my father’s logbook entry show that before being attached to 117 Transport Squadron, he flew one operational sortie to Kalimo in Wellington [coughs] on the first of May. And the second [unclear] to drop a four thousand pounder at the Infa area on the 9th. Conversion onto the Dakota began on the 23rd with circuits and bumps, followed by loaded landings and flights with soldiers on board. The first operational sortie was [unclear] lake and the 29th of May with a payload of five thousand five hundred pounds. The average trip times were between four hours twenty minutes and just over five hours. And in this length of time he flew some 17 operational sorties to Indigoy lake so a total of seventeen operational sorties to various destinations, all in the space of fourteen days, all in the Dakotas, either air landing or air dropping, three fifths of the Dakota time count towards tour time. The RAF operational record for 117 Squadron states that one aircraft was lost in June 1944, the crew being part of a detachment from 215 Squadron who’d been helping us for a time. The machine was last seen approaching [unclear] when it was flying normally and there is no evidence to show why it did not return. The loss of this crew is much regrated as the 215 boys had been popular in the time they had been with us. The detachment later returned to their parent unit as did the C-48s manned by American crews. Each of these had done much to help the squadron 117 during a particularly arduous period. The last entry for June 1944 shows a flight back to Jessore at the end of the attachment in Dakota Whiskey with 29 crew. On the 10th of July James flew the Wellington to Kolar to join 1673 Heavy Bomber Conversion Unit to learn to fly and operate Liberators and the RAF 540 for July reads squadron leader acting wing commander J Sindall general duties pilot posted from 215 Squadron, squadron leader flight commander post to 215 Squadron wing commander post with effect from the 10th of the 7th ’44. Chapter 7 number 219 Heavy Bomber Squadron Digri 1944. On the 28th of July my father flew a Liberator under instruction from squadron leader Sharp, a familiarisation sortie with circuits and bumps and on the 31st after another circuits and bumps session he flew solo with his crew. In August James completed his conversion onto Liberators, that’s the B-24 Mark VI and his dairy showed that he returned to Jessore on the 21st of August and having been given command of the squadron with effect from the 10th of July. I settled down or tried to run things and dealing with a number of bloody-minded gunners. Six flights were made in September all in Liberators, two for fighter affiliation and others associated with communications, including the squadron move on the 15h to Digri with an expectation that they would join wing headquarters at Dhubalia later on. After the move, James and his squadron personnel set about settling in, finding that the mess was a bit of a mess, ha-ha, but not so bad as he had left behind in Jessore. There was on my father’s squadron a Canadian by the name of flying officer later flight lieutenant Frazer who wrote and published a book which detailed much of what took place on the bomber squadron at this time and in which he mentions my father by name. I will be quoting one or two little pieces from his book. Flying officer Fraser describes his first meeting with James thus 16th of September 1944. I must have met him before but now I see how [unclear] sitting with three others at the table right in front of me. Two I’ve met but not the one with three blue stripes on his shoulder tabs. Of course, that’s the CO, Wing Commander Sindall, I only saw him from a distance at Jessore but whilst I’m trying to give him the white silver, the wing co gives me a flip with his finger a-ha, I’m being summoned, I slide off the stool and say, yes sir, managing a quick nod to [unclear] at the same time, at least I don’t have to salute, you don’t unless you’re wearing a hat, which is lucky, I don’t know how I managed to holding a glass of beer in one hand and a cork bottle in the other. You’re Fraser, I believe, the CO says, not sounding that excited at the thought, you’ve met our [unclear], this is squadron leader Beaton, and flight lieutenant Williams, their nods are almost imperceptible, what’s all this about? Welcome to the squadron, from the wingco, still sitting he extends his hand. To shake I have to get rid of the damn bottle and the only empty place is under Sindall’s outstretched arm. When I put the cork there, he pulls his hand right back. He extends it again but cautiously reaching around the bottle, lightly concerned about knocking over my beer which is thoughtful maybe why his handshake is so limp. Standing before him, I’m been given a thorough examination by cool eyes in a solemn face. It gives me a chance to look him over too. He’s an older type of young guy into his thirties but not far into, dark hair, small moustache, good features with a firm chin, a sort of military look. He might even be a handsome fellow if he hadn’t tried smiling. In this climate, Fraser, at this temperature, do you really think alcohol makes sense at the Landshar when you don’t know what cause you may be, yet be asked to perform today? I glance at the table, all their glasses are filled with lemon limes, well sir, I didn’t expect a large bottle, well, [unclear] come very polished at all, so I just finished with, I guess not, sir. Then I say, you’ll be right, he said, but welcome to the squadron. October the 5th, one of the other squadrons, 159, did a low level daylight on the Bangkok railway, lost one aircraft unheard of, one ditched out the Cheduba island, we sent out aircraft daily and at night, we found it twice [unclear] lost it again. Today I’ve only got three aircraft [unclear], two are off at four, one should go out at eleven then we can do no more. [unclear] October the 13th, one aircraft at 0400, another one at seven, they will be the last, I’ve no more aircraft. October the 14th, it’s amazing how the ground crew do things, I was able to put two aircraft in the air. October the 15th, no joy with the air sea rescue, it’s been called off, poor devils. I recall my father saying that with so many crew members wearing shoulder flashes because on his squadron there were members from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, eight Canadians, fifteen Australians, half a dozen each from New Zealand and South Africa, one from the States, one from Brazil and one from Fiji. There was also one Indian equipment officer and several [unclear] followers. But with so many crew members wearing shoulder flashes displaying their country of origin, my father had some made up with England that the British could wear. November ’44, operational sorties. On the 2nd to [unclear], weather good, two thousand two hundred miles, it was a twelve-and-a-half-hour flight, all at night, twelve thousand feet, fifteen hundred pounds of bombs. On the 26th, [unclear], a marshalling yard, leading a formation of twelve aircraft. And then Fraser wrote, on the 3rd of November, action at last, not for me, the squadron, just four crews, but 215’s first ever bombing trip in Liberators. I didn’t hear it until this morning, sitting in the shade behind the flight shed, we saw them circle the field for landing, strange there’d been no take offs that we knew about, within minutes three more, Roy Williams who runs Bee flight when O’Connor’s away came out of the office with a field glasses, Liberators? Four of them? Whizzo! The crews were on a mission last night. Mission? What mission, we clammered? We didn’t hear about any op. Aircraft V, that’s O’Connor, Roy says mostly to himself, glasses pointed at the runway a quarter a mile away, good landing, Percy! Now B, that’ll be [unclear], here comes Jimmy Ross, very nice Jim, where’s the fourth? Alright there he is, that’s the wingco, whoops! Hold it straight, James! Ok, you’re down. Even without glasses, we could see that wing commander Sindall put another dent in our runway. A good pilot in other respects, he is famous here for terrible landings. Not that if you bumped or anything to be ashamed of, maybe we are even a bit proud of the CO who can make jokes about his bounces. Everyone’s excited and full of questions, where did they go? What was the target? But the answer is, really, did the CO and two flight commanders go on the same mission? Well, they did, William shrugs, maybe because it was an unusual target, shipyards at Vin, well, was there, Burma? No, further east, French Indochina. Before Fraser flew on his first operational flight, the wing commander started the meeting with a little speech, I guess it was intended as a pep talk but it didn’t come over like that because Sindall is more of a low key type, wouldn’t go for razmataz stuff, mostly he just wished us good luck, for those going on your first operational flight, just remember you are well trained crews flying an excellent aircraft that is exceptionally well armed. If you remain alert, keep your wits about you, you should have no problems whatsoever. The sortie went well and the crew enjoyed their operation. In the days before the raid at [unclear] on the 26th, James carried out bombing practice on the ranges and practiced formation flying with pilots of 99 Squadron. This culminated in his leading of the twelve [unclear] formation. Some bombs fell west of the [unclear] outside the target area but many bursts were observed on the tracks and station buildings causing a heavy and secondary explosion with much black smoke. The weather was good and no opposition was encountered. In December on the 10th, James flew with his crew to [unclear] Bangkok railway, trail-busting eight hundred feet and also [unclear] railway station, five hundred feet, heavy anti-aircraft opposition, rear gunner killed, two thousand five hundred miles on a fourteen hour mission. The squadron form operation says that it was sergeant Day that in Liberator Lima who was killed by shrapnel from a small calibre shell fired from the ground, I can recall my father telling me that after they had landed he carried out the task of removing his rear gunner’s remains from the turret not wishing to delegate this to anyone else. We should of course remember that Kanchanaburi is that featured in the Bridge over the River Kwai and there was a letter received from a KJ Porter from New Zealand who was a prisoner of the Japanese at this time, naturally we were all scared when bombs began to fall and some bloke’s nerves were in a bad state already but I personally and some of our mates welcomed the sight of those big birds floating over seemingly all powerful and indestructible as this was the first, real sign to us that the Allies were now on the offensive and the end was in sight. Perhaps just as well we never knew you were flying down from India but imagined you were using captured bases around Rangoon or thereabouts a few hundred miles away. When I lay on my back in a shallow monsoon rain outside our hut by the Kwai bridge, it gave [unclear] commentary on the raids, the adrenaline surged, and I thought, now these bastards are getting some of their rain back. The great thing was that you appeared just when morale was at an all-time low and gave us a much-needed boost, so I feel we are indebted to you. Number 215 Squadron moved from Digri to Dhubalia on the 27th of December 1944. Chapter 8, number 215 Heavy Bomber Squadron Dhubalia 1945. James flew only once in January 1945, he went to [unclear], little opposition, earthquake, number 28 Korak railway yards, these were both in February, no opposition, in March on the 11th, two Rangoon dams, leading formation, dam accurate, flat [unclear] but also damn accurate and on the 19th to Nanyen railway yards, two thousand four hundred miles, that was another fourteen and a half hour flight, on the 24th they went to [unclear] again, Uk dumps, very hazy, just made it, flat fool proof, this time they dropped seven thousand five hundred pounds, on the 29th Rangoon, Japanese army headquarters with a seventh brigade, good [unclear], large lumping [unclear] but accurate, eight thousand five hundred pounds. There was a letter that he received from the AMC, Air Marshall Keith Park, who’d only recently been appointed Allied Air Commander in Chief, written to all officers commanding squadrons and upgrading them for not maintaining the efficiency of wellbeing of service personnel regarding messy and he said, that it seems to me that some units pay less attention to the wellbeing of their men than we did to our horses when I was a junior officer, it was a matter of pride in those days that we got the very best rations and fodder for our men and horses and a little bit extra yes for luck. I’ve got the letter still and in it my father’s written in blue crayon with an end, with an arrow pointing to the word horses, with [unclear], when I was at Poona, so I don’t think he took it too seriously. April 1945 operational sortie to Kaykoy, Bangkok area, individual aircraft in a gavel, first time this was attempted in South East Asia, weather good, bombing good on railway yards, two thousand four hundred miles and dropped six thousand pounds and that was another thirteen and a half hour flight. On the 10th of April the airfield was struck by an unexpected hurricane, the aircraft were mainly alright although most had shifted into wind and on the 13th Wing Commander Sindall announced to air and ground crews the intention to divert to Dakota transport aircraft under combat cargo task force, training to begin immediately so suddenly everyone was changing from operating the Liberators which they were quite happy with to becoming a transport squadron. Everyone was a little stunned. But still there was a visit from Air Commodore Melash CBE RC Air Officer commanding 231 Group and he spoke very well of his regret at the squadron’s departure and his appreciation of the excellent work they had done, wishing every success for the future because Sindall also was leaving to go home and then it was not long before the time came to go back and wing commander Buchanan arrived to assume command of the squadron on the 28th of the month and then Sindall entered in his final logbook the following in May, 2nd of June in the Liberator self to [unclear] one hour. On the 4th in the Liberator Karachi with sixteen passengers, eight hours fifty, on the 5th with the crew Shaima Cairo fourteen hours ten, and on the 6th Cairo Malta Lyneham. I can remember visibly my father looking out of the lounge window one day when I saw someone I did not recognize open the little gate that connected the pathway from the front door to the pavement and calling out mummy, mummy, there’s a strange man in the garden and then recall well as my mother rushed to the door and they fell into each other’s arms. Issue 37119 of The London Gazette dated the 8th of June 1945 shows James being mentioned in dispatches and the London Gazette promulgated on the 20th of July 1945 that James had been awarded the Distinguished Service Order. The citation reads, this officer has served in both the European and the Far Eastern theatres of war, during his first tour of duty he attacked many of the most heavily defended targets in Germany. Now on his second tour of operational duty, he has taken part in many sorties against targets in Burma and on numerous supply dropping operations. Many of these missions have involved flying over difficult terrain in adverse weather. Wing Commander Sindall has at all times displayed outstanding organising ability and great devotion to duty. He has lead his squadron on many low level daylight attacks against the enemy’s lines of communications and rolling stop and has always pressed on these attacks with skill, courage and determination. By alongside the [unclear] of the DSO at the end of the war my father now wore in order a 39-45 star, the aircrew Europe star, the Burma star with rosette depict his entitlement to the Pacific star, the defence medal, the war medal 1939-45 with oak leaves to depict his being mentioned in dispatches, later on, much later on I, his son, was able to add the Bomber Command clasp to his 1939-45 star, and a photograph of my father after he returned from Southeast Asia, shows him wearing a wound stripe, a vertical bar above the right rank on the left seam of his number one dress. That’s the only record I have of his wearing band. He then served on the staff of the Air Ministry in Whitehall from the 15th of July 1945 until the 23rd of June 1947 in the post of bomb ops, bomb operations 1. War against Japan ended on the 14th of August 1945.
CB: It was really good, thank you very much.
TS: I cut back on a lot of.
CB: Now of course, while you were away, you with your mother were staying in England, what were your, you were very young at the time, but what were your recollections of the happenings of the time?
TS: I have only one very clear image in mind, bearing in mind I was about three years old, and that was because we were living alongside Southend-on-Sea, we were in the firing line for many of the doodlebugs that came over and also there were many comings and goings of aircraft. I have one clear image and that was from within the iron cage that my mother and I slept in every night on rugs underneath the kitchen table. My mother going to the French windows, pulling back the curtains and looking out and beyond her silhouette I saw lots of lights which were most probably anti-aircraft gunfire and searchlights and maybe some explosions, that was my only memory of activities in the war. But we were not alone, we were accompanied all this time by Remus, a cocker spaniel, he’d entered our family about two years or so before the start of the war and he lived for a good length after it but Remus was the first early warning system we had of the approaching enemy bombers. I don’t know the reason why but I put it down to the fact that the engines that powered the German bombers made a different sound to those of our aircraft and then Remus associated that sound with the discomforting bangs and explosions and flashes in the sky and therefore used that as the early warning for us. One other remembrance I have and I suspect it was on V, Victory in Europe day, when my mother and I went down to the seafront [unclear] and there were a line of American army trucks and they were all in a very high and happy mood and one thing we were able to do was to make a voice recording on a little, tiny disc and I think I sang a song or recited a poem but that no longer exists unfortunately but that just reminds me of the euphoria that existed at this moment as people were so pleased that in Europe the war had ended.
CB: Brilliant. Thank you very much.
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Interview with Timothy Sindall
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-08-01
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASindallTH170801
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:41:46 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Timothy Sindall is the son of James Herbert Sindall DSO, whose career as a pilot in the Royal Air Force started in the mid-1930s. Following the discovery of all of James logbooks, personal letters and newspaper cutting, Timothy has put together a biographical account of his father’s career. The logbooks have provided a detailed account of aircraft and sorties flown. Letters to family give detailed accounts of various incidents, including one where he was forced to crash in Norfolk and another where he faced a court martial. A letter from a former prisoner of war who worked on the Burma railway describes how morale amongst prisoners raised when operations against the Japanese reached them. His first logbooks commence with him being a civilian and then joining the Royal Air Force qualifying as a pilot in 1936. At the outbreak of the war, he was posted to the Central Flying School to train new recruits. In 1941, he was posted onto Wellingtons at 115 Squadron at RAF Marham and then in 1942 he was sent to Air Headquarter in India. Much of 1943 was lost when James contacted malaria. 1944 saw a return to operations, when he was posted onto B-24s of 215 Squadron. Bombing operations throughout South East Asia were then carried out. Post war, James served in the Air Ministry.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Burma
France
Great Britain
India
Bangladesh--Jessore District
England--Norfolk
France--Brest
Bangladesh
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1936
1941
1942
1943
1944
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ian Whapplington
Peter Schulze
115 Squadron
12 OTU
215 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
crash
Hurricane
military discipline
Operational Training Unit
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Benson
RAF Henlow
RAF Marham
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2468/11768/AWhymarkR171103.mp3
d15b6bbb5d4a4b59a1d617d0068cd018
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Whymark, Jack
John Percy Whymark
Description
An account of the resource
X items. <br /><br />The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Whymark DSO DFC (1920 -1945, 616289, 53481 Royal Air Force) and contains a<span>n oral history with his son, Robert Whymark. </span><br /><br />He flew operations as an air gunner with 103 Squadron and was killed 04 October 1945 during Operation Dodge. <br /><br />The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Graham Thurlow and Robert Whymark and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan. <br /><br /><span>Additional information on Jack Whymark is available via the </span><a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/230288/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-03
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Whymark, JP
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
[his log book, correspondence, documents, objects and photographs].
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RM: Tactical.
JM: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin and the interviewee is Mr Robert Whymark. And the interview is taking place at Mr Whymark’s home in Little Haywood in Staffordshire on the 3rd of November 2017. Robert, could you please tell us a little bit about your background and your awareness of your late father’s service.
RW: Right. Thank you, Julian. Very firstly my thanks to the IBCC for this opportunity and all the volunteers that are doing the work. I’m Bob Whymark. Only son of Jack, or John as he was christened. He was also known as Johnny. Flight Lieutenant John Percy, but we don’t talk about that, Whymark DSO DFC RAF. He was an air gunner. Robert is a name slightly out of the family tradition. I’m not sure where that come from. I don’t know of any others but the surname is originally Breton I’m told. We could claim 1066 and all that if we did the connection. There was a Robert de Whymark who was the Sheriff of Southend in 1086. They say everybody’s descended from a royal so we might be Harold the III’s lot. He was a big friend of William the Conqueror. However, more realistically we are immediately down from a load of farm labourers in Norfolk and Essex. I’ve gone back about mid-1700s. My dad’s father went to school with my other gran, my mother’s mother in the1890s in the village. My dad was born 10th of January 1920 in Grays, Essex. He had a sister nine years younger. He seems to have been quite bright because he got a scholarship to Palmer’s Boys College for secondary education. His first job was at the Bata Shoe Factory in Tilbury which was seven miles each way on a push bike. Rain or shine. Character building as we called it. He joined the Royal Artillery Territorials when he was fifteen, 1935 to ’38. And then he went into the Air Force in October of ’38 as a ground crew mechanic armourer. He went to St Athan for a mech’s course. I followed twenty-six years later in 1964. His first posting was 17 Squadron Hurricanes at Debden and Martlesham Heath. He was also on the Allied Air Strike Force in North West France, Le Mans, Channel Islands. The same time as Dunkirk was going on. He had to burn the Hurricanes as they French wouldn’t give us any fuel. He was evacuated in July 1940 and went air gunner for safety reasons as he told my mother. He’d gone to school with my mother. They had boys and girls separate schools with a fence between them of course. His best friend was somebody called Mervyn who married Eve who was my wife- my mother’s best friend. There’s more on that at the end of this tale. So, he went aircrew. Evanton in the Cromarty Firth was an air gunner’s training place and Salisbury Plain. There were two areas there. Twenty-four hours of flying time later he was put on first tour with 149 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall. December ’40 to April ’41. He was a Wellington rear gunner. He did fifteen ops from December to March over Europe. The first five all ended in some sort of tears. One with two crash landings, one shot up by anti-aircraft fire and two diversions for fuel. Then there was an outbreak of peace until operation number fifteen over Cologne where they were coned in searchlights for six minutes. I spoke to a guy who’d been coned at twenty thousand feet for about four and he said he’d never felt so helpless in all his life. After that 148 Squadron was formed in Kibrit which is on the Suez Canal. They also went to Malta. This again was on Wellingtons. April to September ’41, he did two hundred hours for a tour so that ended up as thirty-nine ops. He did twenty-four ops in North Africa. A lot of Benghazi’s and Malta in the thick of their bombing. They were actually bombed by a Junkers 88 on landing and ran off into the quarry which snapped the Wellington in half. People who know how they are built, which is rather like the Forth Bridge know that was quite an achievement. They also discovered when they got back one time that a shell had gone through the fuselage side to side. Didn’t explode of course. Nobody noticed. He then came home by troop ship from Suez, stopping off at Aden, Durban and Trinidad. He then had about two hundred hours of instructing duties at RAF Manby and West Freugh near Stranraer February ‘42 until October ’43. This was while the Battle of Berlin was on so he may have been rested from that or else I wouldn’t have been here. He did have one off operation mid-way November ’42. They used to take training troops and boost up the number of crews for some raids. He was detached to RAF Syerston, 106 Squadron. There was an American pilot who’d come up through Canada and over, Joe [Curtin?] He had a DFC from his first op which was while he was on pilot training. They’d been hit by a phosphorous shell in the cockpit and it blinded him for a while. The flight engineer kept it going and then he landed it. He got another DFC later on before he was killed. This was Guy Gibson’s squadron before the Dam Busters. Their op was to Danzig. Or Gdansk Harbour. It was ten hours fifty-five minutes in November of ’42 as a rear gunner. He went into Leconfield for fuel. So, it was fairly tight because it was only twenty minutes hop over to Syerston, between Newark and Nottingham. Back to West Freugh. Promoted to warrant officer and then at the end of that was commissioned. His second tour was from February ’44 to May ’44. Quite quick. 10 squadron- 101 squadron, sorry. RAF Ludford or Mudford as it was called, Magna. He did twenty ops in less than three months. The last one was his number sixty, the night I was born, 20th of May ‘44. He got a DFC for this tour. The first one was to Leipzig and there were seventy-nine aircraft missing which is about three hundred and fifty-three men, I think. No. Four hundred and fifty-three, I beg your pardon. He then flew in DV290 Lancaster five times. Once to Berlin, seventy-three aircraft were lost then which is four hundred and seventy-five people. The same, same as Afghanistan over fifteen years. Now, while those deaths were obviously terrible it does give a perceptive. Four hundred and seventy-five in less than eight hours. The Nuremberg raid — he should have been killed twice on that — ninety-seven aircraft were lost including the photo Mosquito the next day, plus eleven that crashed in UK on recovery. So, about six hundred and fifty people there. He’d flown in DV290 so many times he wrote it down again for that raid. It crashed at Welford near Newbury. They were all killed. Over the target they were nearly hit by a Halifax on its bombing run. He had to side slip. He also had a do at Aulnoy which was a railway yards in North East France. They were coned for nine minutes at six thousand feet with, “accurate flak” as he put it. A night fighter pilot got seven aircraft in two sessions there. He was cruising the searchlights. When the ack-ack stopped our crews knew that night fighters would come in. He must have been down refuelling when they were in the lights. Nobody knows how they got away with that. Another tactic the night fighters did was to attack the mid-upper gunner first as he couldn’t help the rear gunner. They did say that the rear gunner was the loneliest job in the aircraft, and I’m sure it was, but the mid-upper wasn’t that mid, it was quite well back and he could fire backwards. So, they took him out first if they could. The only time he’s recorded attacking anything was at over Schweinfurt where they were attacked by a Junkers 88. He said he fired three hundred and eighty rounds and hits on the fuselage. He didn’t claim anything and they were damaged by flak. He then did a gunnery leader’s course. And then third tour, which nobody could make you do, was from September ’44 to October ’45. That was on 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds. The main runway is now the slip road up to the Humber Bridge. It’s almost all Severn Trent Water. A heavy gravel type company operates on the main field and there’s a big industrial estate. One hangar is left. The big one. They can’t get that down. He was a mid-upper gunner on all of these trips. He was gunnery leader so he didn’t have a dedicated crew but was still busy. He started daylight ops then as well. He did a few Manna, Exodus and Dodge operations. That was dropping food to the Dutch, Exodus was re-pat of prisoners of war and Dodge was bringing people back from Italy. He did eighty-one ops but as he was grounded in January by the big boss he didn’t record all of them. Two or three veterans I’ve spoken to have said he was probably up to ninety-five or ninety-seven. His DSO citation says that he flew with weak or disturbed crews. Not a good idea I don’t think. There was a Canadian crew. [ Sachs?] was his name. It doesn’t say whether they were weak or not but he flew with him six times on the trot. Then he changed crews and they both went off to Dessau near Berlin and Sachs was shot down. His DSO for this tour was one of eight hundred and seventy to the RAF. As he was not a captain it was very rare, if not unique for a flight lieutenant to get that medal. Probably the leadership element came from his appointment as gunnery leader. He was then killed October, yeah October the 4th of 1945. This was a Dodge operation. He and the pilot were going mental doing admin, the pilot said. I’ve got a letter from him to his nephew. They picked up nineteen women passengers at Glatton or Honington, Peterborough Airport now. It was a filthy night. Many aircraft turned back to Istres, Marseilles, as did they after an electric storm and engine trouble, they radioed. I’ve spoken to crew members on this operation and they confirmed the weather. I’ve spoken to the navigator of the other aircraft that was with them and they were the last to talk to the aircraft. They were posted missing. Nothing was ever found. Six crew, seventeen ATS and two nurses were lost. A week before, twenty-five passengers, male, had been, went missing. Same area — plus a crew of six of course — same weather conditions. And a month later the same numbers. So, three Lancasters, ninety odd people all vanished within six weeks. No trace of any of them ever found. One of the girls was a Lance Corporal May Mann. She was engaged to a Warrant Officer Basil Henderson who was on General Alexander’s staff. And this is where Mervyn comes back in. He was waiting in Naples, Pomigliano for my dad. Basil was waiting for his fiancé. Basil had been the filter warrant officer for General Alexander’s staff and Mervyn had spent the whole of the North African Campaign trying to get past him. Basil eventually met my mother through correspondence over this accident and they got married in 1948. I was four. I remember Mervyn turning up, took one look at Basil, he spoke just like Lionel Jeffries, and he said, ‘Oh gawd,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose you’d let me in here either.’ That’s my first memory. That’s the family link if you like. Basil died in 2008, my mother in 2014. My dad of course, when he was twenty-five. He would have been ninety-eight in January. I’ve been through his logbook, I think he should have been killed about thirty-seven times properly. All raids were difficult, in fact even flying was because of crude navigation equipment — not the navigators — technical problems, maintenance was difficult, weather, and they used to say, lastly, the enemy. But he had some scrapes and lucky escapes by changing crews or aircraft or what have you. They say that for every one hundred aircrew, fifty-one were killed on ops, nine were killed in UK training type crashes, three were seriously injured, twelve were POWs, twenty-four survived. Now, if you’re very sad you’ll have totted that up to ninety-nine. I can only assume that the one spare bloke went AWOL or something like that. However, that’s the basics of his story. I — all I know is that I have no memories of him. Luckily, he met me. I know many people who were killed, their fathers were killed before they were born etcetera. So, we had a little bit more than they did.
JM: Thank you. Thank you very much.
RW: Alright. That was —
JM: Was, was your decision to join the air force in any way influenced by your father’s career?
RW: Yes. About fifty percent. I was at grammar school. I did two years in the fifth form to achieve four GCSEs. Mainly because of these guitars we’ve been talking about and I was trying to be Eddie Cochrane really, and I missed any sort of technical training. I was too old for an apprenticeship. I had a couple of years at the telephone manager’s office, telephone engineering, and then went in the Air Force as much for the education as my dad. But certainly, that was that. My stepfather had no problems about talking to me about it. He said — I remember him when I was four saying to me, ‘I want to marry your mother but I’m not going to make you change your name because of your dad.’ Well, I didn’t know anything about him then of course. But I found out later on. Mervyn, my dad’s best friend from school was a big help. He tidied up some puzzlement I had about this last accident because my mother had the idea that my dad had been pulled out of bed because somebody had broken their leg playing football or something. Well, he’d obviously had time to arrange it. In fact, they were all up at Brigg on the Monday. On the weekend before they had a big dance, probably for VJ-Day. She was up in Brigg, stayed probably at the White Hart. They all piled off back on Monday morning. He telephoned her to say that he’d be down on the Saturday. Of course, they took off on Wednesday, crashed on Thursday morning. The pilot was a big friend of his. He’d just been picked to be Bomber Harris’ personal pilot and he’d done some — he’d got a lot of hours but there’s not much about him, so I don’t know what he was up to. He may have been slightly clandestine. He’d written a letter to his family, I think they were in Leeds, and he said, ‘We’re going mad, Jack and I, so, we’re off to Naples’, he said, ‘I’ll see you on Saturday for my great coat.’ Right, he had a very young brother who didn’t have any kids ‘til he was about thirty-seven. So, he had a nephew of the pilot who’s the same age as some of my kids. He’s about fifty now. And all he knew was, his uncle — he thought he flew Lancasters, and he found the 103 site so he wrote to David Fell, the historian then. He passed it all to me and we emailed and I said, ‘Your uncle’s service number was —’ this that and the other. And it was weird talking to this lad. That I knew more about his uncle than he did. Now, we’d been brought up in just south of Middlesbrough because Basil was a Durham lad originally. He was living down in Harold Wood at this — during the war. ,He moved back up north. I said, ‘Where are you?’ to this nephew of Jeff Taylor’s, the pilot. And he said, ‘Oh. We’re in Thirsk.’ Which was about eight miles from where we were living. And he came over one Christmas Day and he had a crew photo and this letter. It’s a bit poignant. And I helped him a lot I’m glad to say. I’ve got a pile of research from all the veterans on 103 and other historical branches. They had my dad down as second pilot in one letter. So, I queried that, and they said, ‘Oh, he may have been in the bomb aimer position,’ because this last — these Dodge ops were part of bringing back the 8th Army who were about to mutiny. It was called Dodge because some cretin at Air Ministry decided they’d dodged D-Day by daring to be overseas for six years all through North Africa. I hope he was —had it explained to, you know. So, that’s what they were doing there.
JM: So, the nurses that were on board. The women that were on board. Do you know what they, what they were doing? What was their role?
RW: Seventeen were in the ATS. Army auxiliary.
JM: Territorials.
RW: Territorial girls. They were sort of secretarial I believe. And drivers maybe. They were all — they’d been right through the North Africa Campaign from Tunisia right through. My stepfather was at Dunkirk. He got off the last ship from a jetty. Didn’t have to do any wading out. Because he was a Durham lad it upset him because the Durham Light Infantry were left as a rear guard. He wouldn’t talk about that. I persuaded him to give me his medals to get mounted and we found he’d been mentioned in despatches three times. Which was — he was in the Supply Corps.
JM: Very unusual.
RW: So, that was one down from a decoration frankly and so on, but he was well thought of. He didn’t get back from Italy until 1946. They lived in Warwick Road opposite Earl’s Court and we moved. That was my first sort of basic memory is up from Chadwell.
JM: Can I —
RW: Yeah.
JM: For the tape. Can I just clarify, my understanding is that on occasions the Lancasters might well be full of Italian POWs going home, and when they got to Bari or to Pomigliano then there would be British servicemen coming back to the UK.
RW: Yes.
JM: And it was this route that these ladies were on when the aeroplane went down. It was the return journey.
RW: No. Going.
JM: They were going.
RW: Going.
JM: Right. So, they were going out to Italy.
RW: Yeah. It has been put in some research that was, not stolen from me, but passed on without my knowledge. I corresponded with a Canadian guy who’d been at Elsham in ’42 and he wanted to know if anybody knew anything of that era. I said, ‘Well, I don’t but you might be able to help me.’ Told him that story briefly and he crossed it over that we were coming back. They were coming back.
JM: That’s fine.
RW: But they were actually going out.
JM: Yes.
RW: Now, the army I’m convinced had lost these girls. They’d been up to Liverpool twice on, for a troopship which would have had to come right out around the outside of Ireland because of the mine fields that were still about. They weren’t reported missing ‘til this troopship docked a fortnight later. The army would not release any information. Basil, on the staff of General Alexander couldn’t find anything out. And his — this girl’s mother, Mrs Mann, she put an advert in the paper and my mother was told about that so they corresponded. I’ve got a lovely letter from Mrs Mann about this and she’s saying ‘We couldn’t find anything out. We’ve written to everybody.’ And my mother was able to put her in the picture immediately. In fact, this Mrs Mann was more — as — concerned about my mother losing her husband of course. And so on. They were living near Harold Wood.
JM: Another aspect of it which is interesting and I don’t understand clearly is we are now in peacetime —
RW: Yes.
JM: It’s the October of 1945. The war has been over some months and yet the Lancasters were still carrying gunners. Why was this? Because you would have thought that had they not had those there would have had room for more passengers.
RW: Yeah. I’m not — I don’t think they’d removed the guns but that wouldn’t have affected the number of passengers. My dad was basically doing admin. I think he was virtually on a jolly as we call it.
JM: Right.
RW: Hence this bomb aimer’s position. Crowd control or what. I’ve seen how they load up the Lanc for that when I was instructing at Cosford. They’ve got a museum and there’s a big clump of them in the middle and then they go front to back for weight and balance. So, fifteen was in the bomb aimers position. It would be a cosy little fit. Sixteen was right at the back by the toilet you know. Which was no fun. There were nineteen passengers. So, there was a number fifteen. So, it’s nineteen to one whether my dad was sitting next to the, this ATS corporal, my stepfather’s fiancé. Which would have been a bit spooky.
JM: Yeah.
RW: Her middle name, funnily enough, was Eleanor. Which my stepfather said he never knew. He had her shoe brushes as a souvenir which was what you used to do. My mother was Eileen and my dad called her Eileena. And he always said that if he knew he was going in he’d shout her name out. Now, she says that on the day, Thursday morning, she sat upright in bed thinking she’d heard his voice. And then they got a phone call that night from a friend of his at Elsham. He said, ‘Look, they’ve gone missing. I’ve asked them not to send this awful telegram,’ which they did. He said, ‘I’ll come and see you. I’m on my way to Ramsgate. I’ll drop in on you at Grays,’ near Tilbury, in Essex. Now, that’s a bit of a trek by train and stuff for him so that was very good. He turned up on Saturday morning with my dad’s father and it all came out. He’d got the full chapter and verse by then.
JM: Yes.
RW: But the army would not tell anybody anything for some time.
JM: My understanding is that the passengers in the Lancaster would sit on simple seats and they had no oxygen which would have —
RW: Yes.
JM: Limited the height at which they could fly at.
RW: Yes.
JM: Is that correct?
RW: Yes. And the heating wasn’t brilliant either. But they were both — there were two of them with passengers from Honington. I beg your pardon. That should be Conington. It was because of Honington and Coningsby they called it Conington. I hope I’ve got that right. Yes. It was an American B17 base so they knew. The, Glatton, was on the other side, there was a grass strip for Spitfires and such. Different accents. Yeah, they were sitting on rudimentary canvas seats or their kit bags. You’d think something like that would have floated up to the top but it didn’t. Three times.
JM: Do you have a theory as to what caused your father’s aircraft to crash?
RW: They did report to the other guys that they were down at two thousand feet. I went off the point there because I spotted that mistake. They were down at two thousand feet. They were in a filthy electric storm. The other two, ten minutes behind. The other aircraft was in pitch black but clear, if you understand that. They could see Corsica so they knew they were that far. They crashed off Cap Corse which is the north point of it. There are sort of pot holes in the sea so there’s — the three other crews saw an explosion or fire on the sea, they knew what they looked like of course, and they plotted a latitude longitude which I’ve plotted myself. There was a misprint in one of the reports which made it east-north-east of Cap Corse which was too far, too close to Italy. It was the other way, west-north-west. And that was that. But as I say, they were both low down. The rest of them — there was about twenty aircraft up that night going — they went over high level because they were on oxygen and whatever. Yeah.
JM: So, it might well have been weather related.
RW: Well it was —
JM: The electrical storm may well have been a factor.
RW: Yeah. They were struck by lightning. Or, they did report engine trouble so they were turning back to Marseilles they said.
JM: Robert. Thank you very much.
RW: Ok.
JM: Is there anything you wish to add? You’ve given us a very, very, thorough account.
RW: Right. Good. Thank you very much. No. If anybody wants to get in touch by all means. I’ll pass my — I’m on record with the IBCC people. And, Julian, I’m sure will be able to —
JM: Yes. Absolutely.
RW: Tidy up the link.
JM: Yes.
RW: But I’ll be delighted to help anybody with any further information or questions.
JM: Thank you very much on behalf of IBCC. Thank you very much Robert.
RW: Thank you.
JM: Thank you.
RW: Cheers, Julian.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Robert Whymark
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Julian Maslin
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
2017-11-03
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AWhymarkR171103
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:30:54 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
North Africa
Poland
France--Cape Corse
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
Poland--Gdańsk
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945-10-04
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Whymark’s father John ‘Jack’ Whymark took part in three tours of operations. Initially Jack was trained as a mechanic and was posted to 17 Squadron at RAF Debden and RAF Martlesham Heath. He then volunteered for aircrew and trained as a gunner. He was posted to 149 Squadron, 106 Squadron, 103 Squadron and 101 Squadron. He was killed when his plane flew into a storm en route to Italy as part of Operation Dodge.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Emily Bird
101 Squadron
103 Squadron
106 Squadron
149 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Hurricane
killed in action
Lancaster
missing in action
Operation Dodge (1945)
RAF Debden
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF Manby
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Syerston
RAF West Freugh
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1010/11777/AWilliamsVD170403.1.mp3
8a621ee7029aea31c03d42b2eea0d61f
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
Williams, Vivian
V D Williams
Vivian David Williams
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-04-03
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Williams, VD
Description
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Two items. An oral history interview with Corporal Vivian Williams (b. 1920, 616291 Royal Air Force) and one photograph. Vivian Williams served a a fitter with 56 Squadron at RAF North Weald and various training units.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Vivian Williams and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is Monday the 3rd of April 2017 and we’re in Fiskerton in Lincolnshire talking with Vivian Williams about his life and times. What are your earliest recollections of life then, Vivian?
VW: A new house I should think. We lived in a small village called Tonyrefail — T O N Y R E F A I L where they had they, they had built, just after 1920, a new housing estate. It was semi-detached houses most of them, and they were rough cast in those days. And they had a bathroom. That was another something I remember. And they were, well at that time they were ten years before their time you know. And so that was one of the highlights. The next one was the oil lamp in the middle of the table. It had this gold filigree base, cast iron base, and a beautiful blue resin. Then shortly afterwards — yeah, that was, I must have been about four then. And shortly afterwards they actually put electricity in. As early as that, you know. And I can remember fooling about watching the electrician doing it, you know. And they had the old tumbler switches on and you screwed the cap off you know. The front of it off. And so I saw the bloke doing this and he was poking around with a screwdriver when he was connecting all the leads up. So I put my mother’s scissors in there. I leant on a chair, put my mother’s scissors in and got knocked across the room. Why I didn’t get killed I don’t know [laughs] but it was what kids I suppose. And I’d say the next big thing was the 1926 strike. And we were kept alive on charity in those days. And after that we moved to Pontypridd and stayed there until I was left school at fourteen. Elementary school. And then I was the only one in the family that could get a job. Because you got a, you went down the mine, of course everybody went down the mine so you went down the mine at fourteen and you went with a skilled man called a collier for five years. And then when you were nineteen they give you the sack and they’d give him a new boy. So, I said to my mum, I’d finished school at the end of July when the August holidays break up and, ‘When am I going to go down and get a job?’ And so she said, ‘ No, you’re not. You’re going up to London to live with my gran.’ So that was the next move. Up to London. And then the family moved up seven months later and we settled there. Had various jobs. Usually outside jobs because I couldn’t stand the factory you know. And, and then in 1938, in 1938 I joined the Territorials and I was on a searchlight detachment for a year. And then I said — I got fed up with that. I lost my job because just before, at the end of 1938, around about 1938, just say the end — they had a, had a slump in engineering and you couldn’t get a job anywhere. On the Great West Road where I worked. The factory there and all the factories were putting people off. And I was on shift work and they put off our shift. And the other shift went on to day work with the rest of the factory. And they sacked sixty four of us. You went to get your pay on Friday night and they gave you your cards. Your pay and your cards straightaway. Not an hour’s notice even.
PW: Which firm was that?
VW: Tecalemit they were lubrication specialists. Because cars in those days had umpteen grease nipples all over the chassis and everywhere. And it was an industry on its own, you know. And I was home for about three weeks getting under my mother’s feet and I said to our corporal, met corporal, I said, ‘I’m going to join the army.’ Because I just had to get away, you know, and nobody could get a job just then and so he said, ‘Don’t join the army,’ he said. He said, ‘I’ve done fifteen years in it and it never did me any good,’ and he said, ‘Join the RAF.’ And I said, ‘No. I can’t join the RAF.’ Because those days to get in you had to have a school certificate which I presume is something like four or five A levels you know.
PW: O levels.
CB: O levels rather. And he said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘You’d be surprised.’ So I went up to Adastral House where you applied. And I found that they had started an expansion scheme in the RAF and had created new trades and a flight mechanic, which is what I was, was one of them. And they just dragged you in by the short and curlies you know. And that was it. And I was in the RAF then for — well ‘til the end of the war. I did what, because this was July ’38, so I did seven and a half years instead of the six that I signed for. But, yeah —
CB: Where did you go to join the RAF?
VW: The recruitment depot was at Aldwych near The Strand. And it was called Adastral House. So I, that was the first place I went to in the RAF. We were there overnight and, no, we were sent home and go back the next morning. Picked up the train to West Drayton. And that was the induction depot. And that’s where we were sworn in. Had our hair cut. They gave us ten bob which we thought was very nice. Except it was only an advance on your next weeks’ pay. They never told us that [laughs] The next morning we went to Uxbridge for our square drill. Did all our square drill, at Uxbridge.
CB: How long did that last?
VW: Twelve weeks.
CB: So in addition to drill what else were you doing?
VW: There. Nothing really. Oh we had, the only other thing that happened we had two weeks off completely because they had the scare in September of 1938 and we were filling sand bags. And nobody ever hears of it but we was almost on alert you know, then. Then we put the complete automatic telephone exchange in. We were humping all the, carrying all the various bits and pieces for 11 Fighter Group which was right behind our dining hall. And of course it’s down steps. Lots. Have you seen the hill? The complete thing is in the hill. And we were only allowed to carry all the equipment and everything to the top of the steps and they had their own team then that took it down in to the bottom. So we never saw the inside of it at all.
CB: This was the underground fighter control.
VW: Yeah. 11 Group.
CB: Position.
VW: 11 Fighter Group.
CB: Yes. It’s open to the public now.
VW: Yeah. It is is it?
CB: It is. Yes.
VW: Yeah well. I humped all the cabinets and all the equipment that went down in there. And we had a fortnight off for that.
CB: Right.
VW: Yeah.
CB: So you’re doing drill. Did you do PT?
VW: Oh yes. Oh yes.
CB: Now what about classroom work?
VW: No. Just drill. We did just drill. PT. We did. We had — they give us an introduction to show that you were in the RAF. And they had two old fuselages, just fuselages, in the MT section and they were bolted to the wall, or chained to the wall but the engines were serviceable. And they used to just take us over there and after about a fortnight and show you. This sergeant and his corporal starting them up you know. But no it was just drill and ceremonial drill and we —
PW: Tell them about running those engines. Starting those engines.
VW: Oh yeah. They, the funny thing we were down in Old Warden and they had a — what was that one they started Phil?
PW: Oh that was a Camel.
VW: A Camel. And he started it by swinging the prop in reverse. And this is what the sergeant used to do. Swinging it in reverse. And we heard later on that he got killed doing it. But yeah but that was the only diversion if you like. The rest was just drill. Drill all the time.
CB: And you had twelve weeks of that.
VW: Yeah.
CB: In total.
VW: Well, yeah except for the –
CB: The two weeks.
VW: Two weeks I was out. Yeah. But we lost that.
CB: At what stage did you know what trade you were going to take?
VW: Oh right from the first. Because they said, give me the choice of being a flight mechanic or a flight rigger. And I said I’d be a mechanic. So that was put on your docs straight away.
CB: And when did they describe what was involved with that?
VW: Oh at the first interview.
CB: Right.
VW: At Adastral house, you know.
CB: So what was it that the flight mechanic was designated to do?
VW: As a mechanic he was responsible for the day to day maintenance of whatever engine or aeroplane he was put on.
CB: So after Uxbridge where did you go then?
VW: Well, we went down to Manston in Kent. But it was on a course that was actually obsolete but we were a small flight. Instead of being a hundred and forty four we were only sixty four and I think they lost us somewhere and they posted us to Manston on this course which was three weeks on engines and three weeks on air frames and as I say it was called a fitter’s mate’s course. You were only qualified to hand the spanners out, you know on that one. But it was obsolete anyway and then from there we went to Henlow in Bedfordshire to do a basic engineering course for six weeks there. And then from there we went to St Athans. Got to St Athans on January the 16th in 1939. And they were, we were there until the end of July and — close to the end of July and then we were given eighteen days leave. And then I was posted to 56 Squadron. Fighter squadron. And at North Weald on Hurricanes.
CB: When you were at St Athan that was basically an engines course was it?
VW: Yeah. It was. Yeah.
CB: So what variety of engines did you deal with then?
VW: Pegasus. Bristol Pegasus and Rolls Royce Kestrels. And of course the Kestrel was obsolete then wasn’t it?
CB: Did you have any Merlins there? Or —
VW: No. No. No.
CB: So the first time you came across Merlins was when you went to the Hurricanes?
VW: Well, we had three. We had three Hurricanes there. That was the nearest I’d came come to the Merlin. But to work on, no. It wasn’t until I got to 56 Squadron. As I say that was my job. I was responsible for the day to day maintenance of the aeroplane that they put me on which is actually hanging in the roof of the South Kensington Museum.
CB: Is it? Right.
VW: And —
CB: It survived that long
VW: Yes. Phil would know.
PW: It’s a miracle survivor.
CB: It’s a Mark I Hurricane.
PW: Yes.
VW: Two.
CB: Mark 2 is it?
VW: Yeah.
CB: Right.
PW: No, it was a Mark 1 dad.
VW: Was it?
PW: Yeah. it’s L1592.
VW: Yeah.
CB: So what was the serviceability like of the squadron? There were how many aircraft in the squadron first?
VW: There was twelve aircraft.
CB: And what —
VW: Two flights of six.
CB: Yeah.
VW: Twelve aircraft. A flight and B flight. Yeah.
CB: And what was serviceability like?
VW: Very good because they’d only been equipped with new Hurricanes some months before I got there and I think they didn’t fly very often but I think they must have been restricted. Looking back. You know, for saving the fuel because, you know, they knew what was going to happen. But they would only fly perhaps two hours a week.
CB: Amazingly low.
VW: Hmmn?
CB: Amazingly low.
VW: Yeah.
CB: So what —
VW: They had to keep their hours in, you know.
CB: Yes. The pilots had to keep enough hours.
VW: Yeah.
CB: To be able to qualify.
VW: Yes. That’s right. For their logbook.
CB: So how much leave did you have at the end of St Athan?
VW: Eighteen days.
CB: Oh eighteen days.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Right. So we’re in August.
VW: Yeah.
CB: When you get to North Weald.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Right. And how long did you spend in North Weald in total?
VW: We moved. The squadron moved in October. Yeah. In October and we moved to Martlesham Heath in Suffolk. They were, they were on convoy duty for the convoys. Shipping in the North Sea. They had a sector to patrol.
CB: Right.
VW: And, but we, but everything was very quiet. Very quiet, you know. They only had one, our own squadron only had one tussle with a reconnaissance flight, you know. A Dornier. One of the Dorniers’. Something like that and that’s the only time we saw the gun patches blown off the guns, you know, like that. But other than that it was very quiet. We had nothing very much to do at all. Just wait. They just did patrols and nothing else.
CB: So you got there in October ’39.
VW: Yeah.
CB: How long did you stay with that squadron?
VW: Until Christmas.
CB: Right.
VW: I only stayed with them six months altogether.
CB: Right.
VW: The first six months of the war.
CB: Then what?
VW: Then I went on a conversion course to be a fitter.
CB: Where was that?
VW: At Hednesford in Staffordshire.
CB: To be fitting what?
VW: Pardon?
CB: A conversion course to be a fitter.
VW: Yeah. That meant that —
CB: Specialising in what?
VW: Yeah. But you were only allowed to do certain things as a mechanic. Like, as I say, the day to day maintenance.
CB: Right.
VW: Which was nothing much more than filling the tanks and doing the ground runs in the morning. And then while, when I first went there they used to have all the cowlings off on a Friday morning. Just once a week.
CB: Right.
VW: Just to see that nothing had fallen off. Or you know, nuts loose on the, the exhaust stubs. Check them all around and that sort of thing. And mostly it was observation.
CB: Yeah.
VW: You had the run every morning. You would check the, just check the mag drops and that.
CB: So you’d run them up every morning.
VW: Oh yeah.
CB: How did you make sure that plugs didn’t oil up? Because if all you were doing was running it up. Did the plugs oil up doing that?
No. No. You didn’t get plugs oiling up at all.
CB: So you didn’t do plug changes because the planes weren’t flying enough.
VW: Oh no. No. Because that wasn’t my job. But when I went on a conversion course as a fitter.
CB: Yes.
VW: Instead of being on the flights.
CB: Yes.
VW: Out on the aerodrome. We were in the hangar and we you doing inspections. And these inspections came around at pre-determined intervals. And then of course you did things like plug changes and oil filters.
CB: Oh, they were done then. Right.
VW: Yeah. And well anything that was going. Anything that could be done on the station and we couldn’t do a lot because we were a mobile squadron and we had to be away completely in an hour and forty minutes.
CB: Oh did you?
VW: Yeah.
CB: Right.
VW: Shifted. Gone. So our stores was in a big box in one of the annexes in the hangar, you know. Instead of the usual thing of a separate building.
PW: Yeah.
VW: Like you get. But we had to carry everything with us.
CB: What were the trucks that you were using for that? Crossleys.
VW: We had, we had a three ton Albion lorry. Yeah. And a Bedford artic flat bed. And that took all our stands and that you used for propping up the plane when you’re doing jobs on them you know and that sort of thing. Any equipment that we had which was very little so we couldn’t do a lot. But as a fitter you were qualified then to go into what they called maintenance and you just went into the maintenance hangar and you did whatever was scheduled as maintenance on that particular aeroplane or that particular engine.
CB: So, on this course at Hednesford.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Then that was on specific aircraft. Which one was that?
VW: No. No. Just engines.
CB: Just in general.
VW: Just engines in general. Yeah.
CB: Ok. How long did that last? The course.
VW: Well from Christmas. Christmas ’39. I went there on Christmas Day 1939. And we left there to do, did part of the course there and we finished it off at Cosford. And I carried my [unclear] when we went there. Somewhere about halfway through the course. And we left on the 30th of May and I got posted to the Channel Islands. Because that’s the first flying school that I went to. The School of General Reconnaissance. And they were at Guernsey. But we were only there a fortnight. We had to get out anyway because the Germans were coming in. But we should have, the flights were at Guernsey and we should have been posted to the parent unit which was at Thorney Island. And they mixed it up again so we had another fortnight’s holiday on Guernsey until we had to pack up and go. And went back to Thorney Island there [pause] We were there at Thorney Island [pause]
PW: What dad’s not telling you —
VW: Until — we were there, I can’t remember when we left but we were there but we were there while Dunkirk was on.
CB: Right.
VW: Because everybody had to have, no matter where you went you had to have a Lee Enfield and fifty rounds of ammunition.
CB: Oh.
VW: Everybody. Everybody on the station was armed. You know. Ready for anything like that. And we left there to go to a place called Hooton Park up near Liverpool. Well Wallasey. And the day after we left they flattened the hangar.
CB: At Thorney Island.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Did they?
VW: Yeah. Flattened it. So we were dead lucky there.
CB: Well, Dunkirk was the end of May so perhaps you went to Thorney Island a bit earlier — to Guernsey a bit earlier than that.
VW: [pause] Yeah. It’s a long time ago.
CB: It doesn’t matter.
VW: Yeah. It’s a long time ago.
CB: It’s all around the same time.
VW: Yeah.
CB: What — at Thorney Island what were you supposed to be servicing there?
VW: Ansons.
CB: Oh right. These were shipping reconnaissance were they? Or what were they doing?
VW: Well, it was the school. It was called the School of General Reconnaissance.
CB: Oh I see. Right.
VW: It was. It didn’t have a squadron number.
CB: Yeah.
VW: It was the School of General Reconnaissance.
CB: Ok.
VW: And shifted us up to Hooton Park.
CB: Yeah.
VW: Which was just across the Mersey from Speke Airport.
CB: Right.
VW: And from there we went to Blackpool. We missed the blitz on Liverpool.
CB: Right. How long did you stay at Hooton Park then?
VW: Oh just a matter of a couple of months I should think.
CB: Right.
VW: And then [paused] we were posted to Blackpool. And that’s a date I remember because when I was posted from Blackpool to South Cerney in Wiltshire.
CB: Yeah.
VW: It was on the 18th of October.
PW: Gloucestershire.
CB: Yeah. That’s where I joined the RAF.
VW: Sorry?
CB: That’s where I joined the RAF.
VW: Where?
CB: South Cerney.
PW: South Cerney.
VW: Yes [laughs]
PW: 1 FTS.
CB: So, so, yeah. 18th of October ’40.
VW: Yeah.
CB: At South Cerney. What was happening there? This was a different unit was it?
VW: Oh yeah. That was 3FTS. Number 3 Flying Training School. We were doing conversions. Taking the pilots from the Empire Air Training Scheme. Canada and South Africa.
CB: Oh yes.
VW: And converting them from like Harvards onto twin engine Oxfords. Airspeed Oxfords.
CB: Right.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Because these were people all destined for bombing. Bombers.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
VW: They were introduction to multi engine.
CB: Yeah. And how long did that last? That posting.
VW: That posting lasted till Christmas again. 1942.
CB: Right.
VW: Nearly two years there.
CB: And during that time you were dealing with the, what were the engines on the Ansons?
VW: The engines? Oh the Cheetah 9s.
CB: Cheetahs. Yeah.
VW: Cheetah 9s. And then when we left South Cerney we went to 17 AFU. Advanced Flying Unit at Watton in Norfolk and we were on Masters 2s. Fighter trainer.
CB: Did they have other planes as well?
VW: No. Just them because we did engine changes all the time. I was in, in the maintenance hangar there was a fitter.
CB: Yeah.
VW: I passed out as a fitter so I was in the maintenance hangar and we did what — they used to come around to the maximum number of between inspections and we just changed engines all the time.
CB: It was quicker.
VW: Yeah.
CB: What were the engines?
VW: It was easier for us to change the engines and send them back to places like Alvaston in Derbyshire and they did a complete overhaul of them.
CB: Right.
VW: In the factories.
CB: What were the engines?
VW: Mercuries. Bristol Mercuries.
CB: So how long at Watton? So from Christmas ’42.
VW: To [pause] now my dates are a bit [pause] I can’t remember my dates after that.
CB: Ok. Where were you posted to after you’d finished?
VW: At Watton?
CB: At Watton.
VW: We cleared out everything. All our backlog we cleared that up and the Americans moved in and it became a bomber ‘drome then I suppose. One of these bombardments groups would be there. And it was all grass when we were there and they put thousands of tons of cement in one hangar and they put obviously concrete runways in, but we’d gone by then.
CB: So personally where did you go to?
VW: We went to a little ‘drome near Crewe called Calveley. C A L V E L E Y. Calveley. And doing the same thing there. Training pilots, you know. A lot of them from overseas. Australia. New Zealanders. And then we went —
CB: What were the planes? What were the aircraft there?
VW: Master 2s.
CB: Right.
VW: They were the same squadron like. 17 AFU.
CB: Oh right.
VW: And then we went to Spitalgate near Grantham. That was 12 FTS. Yeah.
PW: No. 12 PAFU.
VW: Oh yeah. Yeah. Probably yeah. Yeah. Advanced Flying Unit. Yeah. And from there we moved up to, that would be around about the end of 1944. And we went to Hixon in Staffordshire. Hixon. And was there about two months and then I got posted to Lyneham on Transport Command. That’s when I finally got out of flying Training Command. That’s when we went to Lyneham. And we were flying Yorks there.
CB: At Transport Command.
VW: Transport Command. Yeah.
CB: What were you doing at Hixon?
VW: Just on the same, 17AFU. Doing the same thing.
CB: Yeah.
VW: But not much at all.
CB: Right. What was the aircraft? Because it was an Advanced Flying School. What was the aircraft were they using?
VW: Oh the same as we had at Grantham.
CB: Oh.
VW: They were Blenheim 4s and they were obsolete too.
CB: Yeah.
VW: The first time I saw them was at Martlesham. One of the first bombing raids of the war and it was a flight of five from two squadrons, 110 and 107 and they flew over and they bombed the islands off the German coast. Silt and Bochum. Like that. And they surprised them, 110 Squadron, Yeah. They surprised them and lost one. When 107 Squadron’s five went over they lost four out of the five. That was some of the very early casualties.
CB: And that was from Martlesham.
VW: Yes. Yeah. I think they hadn’t got that much of a range and I think they were at Wattisham and they lobbed down at Martlesham and filled the tanks up.
CB: Right.
VW: Topped the tanks up. Yeah. But — and then I was demobbed from Lyneham.
CB: When was that?
VW: January the 26th 1946.
CB: Right. How did you feel about that?
VW: Actually, I was enjoying myself and we were, I was a corporal and I was offered to be made sergeant if I signed on. My wife put her foot on that and, ‘No. Not likely,’ she said. ‘You’re coming home.’ By that time we had my daughter and Phil and his younger brother who is just over from Australia. And they were there so she’d had the three of them from 1940. My daughter was born, and he was ’44.
PW: I was ’44 Ted was ’46.
VW: And Ted was 46’
PW: Yeah.
VW: So I had to get home and take my responsibilities.
CB: So the rank of sergeant eluded you.
VW: Oh yeah. Yeah.
CB: But you’d looked forward to that had you?
VW: Well yeah because I was enjoying myself there. It was a very nice station and also we had chances of — they used to fly out as far as Japan, you know, taking engines and equipment to all the stops that Transport Command from Lyneham used to stop at. They used to go from Lyneham to Gibraltar. Gibraltar to Cairo West. From Cairo West to somewhere in what was then Persia, Iraq.
PW: Habbaniya.
VW: Yeah. And then Karachi and then Singapore. But they did fly, I remember they flew a prop to Japan. I think it was for the Lancaster. You know. That went all around the world after the war.
CB: Oh yes.
VW: They were trying to sell them.
CB: Yes.
VW: You know, so they were on a promotional tour and they had several with a prop in Tokyo. And they flew the prop out there.
CB: Yeah. The Argentinians bought fifteen.
VW: I didn’t know if they sold any.
CB: They did. Yeah.
VW: Because it wasn’t all that long. Well I say it wasn’t all that long. They [pause] I was at working as a civilian on the Maintenance Unit at 5 MU at Kemble.
CB: After the war.
VW: On Lancasters.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And it wasn’t, I was there for about a year and we would bring them in from the, from the service and they would examine them. The inspectors would go over them to see what was wanted to be done and they had a list of things to be done. And then they would mothball them to a certain extent. Put them out and then when the RAF wanted them they’d bring them back in to our hangars, the preparation hangars. And we’d do everything that was on the list, like that. And they’d go back into service. New paint job. And, but that didn’t last very long and the next thing they were out on the park and they just chopped them up. Got rid of them all.
CB: Well how full was Kemble Airfield? How full was it with these things?
VW: How?
CB: How full? How many aircraft on it?
VW: Oh. Must have been about a hundred I should think.
CB: Oh right.
VW: Easy. And Hants and Sussex Aviation just took, they broke them all up.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And took them for scrap. And we say now there were rows of four Merlin engines there all over the place and if they’d seen them today. The people who need them, you know.
CB: Yeah.
VW: They’d cry.
CB: Yeah. I bet.
VW: Should be here somewhere.
CB: I’ll just stop the, stop this for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: We paused just for you to get your prized screwdriver. Could you just describe. We’ve just had a picture of you with it. Could you just describe the background of it? Please.
VW: Yeah the screwdriver is basically a Merlin blockstud.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And the ends have been re-formed to make it into a chisel. And the handle is carved out of, shaped out of a solid block of aluminium. And the machinist shaped the handle and then he put, he drilled it to take the squared end of the, the square taper in to that. And he put the shank, the stud in the lathe and — the other way about. The handle was in the lathe and this was in the turret of his capstan lathe like that.
CB: Right.
VW: And he just pulled the capstan handles and —
CB: Put it straight in.
VW: And it never moved.
CB: No.
VW: At all.
CB: Now that engine stud. How would that have been formed in the aircraft? On the engine. Because you had the block and the head separate didn’t you?
VW: Yeah.
CB: So how, how did this work.
VW: This end was screwed in to the crank case. All you got was the crank case itself with the holes in it to take this and that was screwed in to there. Then you slide the cylinders on, right. So the end, this end, threaded again would protrude above the top of block.
CB: Yes.
VW: And then the head itself would slide down over that as well and this is just long enough then so that you get enough thread on the end to take the nut that holds the whole lot together. The three pieces together like that.
CB: Ok.
VW: And it’s in a block like that because it’s a V engine. So you have two rows of these down one side and two down the other side like that for the other block.
CB: So getting the block on is a heavy job.
PW: Yes.
VW: Well it’s yeah but —
CB: Sorry the cylinder head I meant to say.
VW: The cylinder is not so bad. Getting the block is the bad job because you have to introduce six pistons in to the bottom of the cylinders.
CB: Yes.
VW: As so all six have got to be in the right place and you’ve to gently feed them in, feed the rings in. Squeeze the rings to go in and then you just work it down very carefully because what makes it worse it’s on an angle anyway, you know, like that.
CB: Yes. A V12.
VW: It’s suspended you know and the block is on an angle going down because of the V of the engine.
CB: Yes.
VW: But — yeah.
CB: So these wet liner engines are they?
PW: Yeah.
VW: They, well Phil knows more about them then I do.
CB: They are. Effectively that’s why you’re putting in the —
VW: Yeah.
CB: Cylinder and then putting the head on.
VW: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
VW: Yeah. Because —
CB: Ok. And then for each part of the V.
VW: Yeah.
CB: Because these are V12s you’ve got six cylinders. Each. How many studs are there per cylinder?
VW: Four.
CB: Right. So that’s twenty four.
VW: Yeah.
CB: And you’re trying to thread the head over that.
VW: You’ve got rows like a porcupine.
PW: It’s like there are four studs per cylinder.
VW: Yeah.
PW: But between the cylinders the studs are shared.
CB: Right.
PW: If you can imagine.
CB: Yeah.
PW: You know, you have four studs for this one and then two of them become two of the four for that one.
CB: Right. Ok.
PW: So you got fourteen studs on each side.
CB: I see. Ok.
PW: Yeah.
CB: Right.
[recording paused]
CB: Now, when you were at Lyneham what was the excitement you had there?
VW: I was in a little section. And I had a gang of four airmen and they were split into groups of two in a little workshop alongside the hangar. And when the, the engines had done a certain number of hours in the aeroplane they were taken off the whole, what we called a power egg right from the wing, the front of the wing, you know from the firewall.
CB: Yeah.
VW: The big bulkhead.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And they’d take the lot off. Just undo all the connections and then they’d put it in a special stand with four wheels and they’d bolt them in there like that. And then they’d link them all up together and then the David Brown would bring them up to our place.
CB: A tractor.
VW: Yeah. Bring them all to our place and I went up two of them. And the other corporal in the hangar he would have the other two for his four blokes. And they used to have two on each and then we would take the engines out and then renew any, anything that controlled our pipes. You know. Various things in the, that was left, you know, in the engine bearer. Any oil pipes, fuel pipes, coolant pipes, perhaps put a new coolant tank in which is just over behind the prop. Anything like that that had to be renewed. And then put a new engine in, like that. And then they’d go back in into hangars straight on to the Yorks.
CB: Now the York was essentially a Lancaster with a different body. What about the engines? Were they different?
VW: It had Lancaster things on it didn’t it?
CB: Were the engines the same as the Lancaster?
VW: Well, no not really because they were Merlin 24s that we had.
CB: Was that more powerful?
VW: No. I don’t think so. Were they Phil?
PW: They were slightly more powerful yeah. The general run of the mill Lancaster Merlin was twelve fifty horsepower or thereabouts.
VW: Yeah.
PW: And these were, I think they were slightly more. About fourteen hundred so a little more powerful. But they had different characteristics. The supercharging was slightly different on them. So, you know the York’s flew a different profile to the Lancaster and the engines were suited to that characteristics.
CB: And they didn’t fly so high.
PW: Didn’t fly so high.
VW: Yeah they went through.
PW: Yeah.
CB: So fast forward now to Kemble. So you’re a civilian there with 5MU. How long did that last?
VW: Two years.
CB: Then what?
VW: This isn’t — do you need this?
CB: Well, it’s just to know what people did after the war really.
VW: Oh yeah.
CB: Because you learned a lot in the war that you didn’t know before.
VW: Yeah.
CB: How did that impinge on your career until your retirement?
VW: Yeah. Well I went straight into a garage you know, because knowing engines. And I had four years, yeah, four years in the garage. That brought me up to 1950. And the Suez Crisis happened.
CB: ’56 that was.
PW: No. You’re getting confused with Berlin dad.
CB: So 1948 was Berlin. So the Korean War was 1950. Did you called in to the Korean War?
VW: Maybe. That was —
CB: I’ll stop that just for [pause] yeah go on.
VW: The — anyway the petrol went back on the basic ration.
CB: Yeah.
VW: So lots of people took their cars off the road and they sacked twelve of us.
CB: Right.
VW: In the garage. Because they had no work. I went to the, what they used to call then the Labour Exchange for a job and they said, ‘What did you do in the war?’ I said, ‘I was an aircraft mechanic.’ They said, ‘We’ve got a job for you,’ and they sent me out to Kemble. To the MU. And I was there for two years. And then I had various jobs. Short term. Taxies. I drove a taxi. And then I went from there to driving milk tankers for the Co-op Milk Department. And I had six years. No. Eight years. Eight years with them.
PW: A long while with them.
VW: Eight years with them. And actually in the first year wasn’t on the tankers. It was picking up the milk from farms in churns. You know. And then I went from that on the tankers for what we used to call long distance. Our long distance was a hundred miles a day I think at the most. Because you covered all the south of England. But yeah, and in 1962 I went into the factory in Swindon building motor bodies for British Leyland. And I was there then ‘til I retired.
CB: Which was when?
VW: 1984.
CB: So just to get the sequence because we changed it slightly. Did you go from Lyneham into working as a garage mechanic?
VW: Yeah I —
CB: Before, before you went to Kemble.
VW: Oh yeah. Well that was when I was demobbed.
CB: Yes.
VW: From there.
CB: Yeah. Ok. Right. I got it the wrong way around. What year were you married?
VW: 1940. Yeah.
CB: And how did you meet your wife?
PW: Teenagers really.
VW: We were fifteen when we married because she was just nine months older than me so we were both about fifteen. Yeah.
PW: That was when you met wasn’t it?
VW: Pardon?
PW: That’s when you met.
VW: Yeah.
PW: Because you said when we were married [laughs]
VW: Oh no. When we first met. Yeah. We married in 1940. Sheila was born in ’41.
CB: She lived near you.
VW: Pardon?
CB: She lived near you did she, is that how you —
VW: Yes. In the locality yes.
CB: Yeah. Good. Right I’m going to stop there for a mo. Thank you very much.
[recording paused]
CB: So just, just going back a bit Vivian.
VW: Yeah.
CB: When you were in the Territorial Army and you working at Tacalemit
VW: Yeah.
CB: What did you do in the Territorial Army?
VW: I was on a searchlight detachment and we, we had a ninety centimetre light and we had six lights altogether and I was on, I was always on what was called the home light. So I was on the centre and all the other five, yeah the other five, they were three or four miles away in a ring around as me in the centre. Like that. They were disbursed about three or four miles. And we used to have two girls fly a Dominie from, a Dragon Rapide in Croydon as the target. So the the detachment would be two spotters laid out at forty five degrees from the light. They are there. The lights here. I’m on the end of the long arm with the wheel, the wheel elevates it and to go around you just walk forwards or backwards, you know, like that. Very primitive. And then I had an earpiece and we had a telephone line to what they called the sound locators. They were sort of wooden horns. And they were on a stand and you could move them that way or around. You know.
PW: Azimuth.
VW: Circular movement you know. And also you’d get the elevation to get the sound. And then there was a corporal who was, lance corporal who was in charge and he was shouting in the other ear. And so you know we didn’t know where we were half the time and it was like [Fred Carnell’s?] outfit. It really was. All the other lights were all over the sky like waving corn you know. Like that. And then the girls would, they’d be flying without navigation lights, you know and they’d get fed up and switch the navigation lights on [laughs] and everybody was on to them.
CB: And suddenly you’d get them. Yes.
VW: And we’d cone them in the aeroplane you know. Great stuff. And they would switch the navigation lights off again and we were all lost. We were all over the sky again you know.
CB: These wooden detectors were pre-radar weren’t they?
VW: Oh yeah.
CB: So this was the only system they had.
VW: They came out the ark I should think.
CB: Yes. And they didn’t work.
VW: No. No.
CB: So how often did you actually acquire a target with a light?
VW: I don’t think we ever acquired one at all. Only when they switched the navigation lights on [laughs]
CB: [laughs] Right.
VW: And I was on that for about nine months I suppose.
CB: Yeah.
VW: We used to go out to aerodromes. Down to Aldershot, you know. Any military establishment like that. We used to go and spend a weekend.
CB: You’d take the lights.
VW: Take the lights.
CB: Yes. And how —
VW: And then we’d — pardon?
CB: All six would go would they?
VW: Yeah. And the lorries that they were transported with were Tilling-Stevens Petrol Electric.
CB: Right.
VW: You might, I think you’d have to go online to find them.
PW: Yes. You would.
VW: They were — that’s what they were called. Petrol electric. How that worked I don’t know but they would, they had this damned great generator on them. And we used to [pause] then he had a long cable. Oh it must have been about fifty feet at least. And he’d got to link up this cable so you don’t hear anything of the generator going at all. And [pause] and as I say I’d be on the home light and as I say we never, never really caught one at all. We were always all over the sky you know. Only when the girls switched the nav lights on. But it was, it was fun really. We were having a good time. You know. Not really working at it you know.
PW: Not taking it very serious.
VW: For us it was so impossible to find them.
CB: Well it was always peacetime wasn’t it so there wasn’t exactly an incentive to do a lot.
VW: Yeah. Yeah we used to go and do aerodromes and army.
CB: What was the unit called?
VW: The unit was called [pause] my army number was 2052042. Sapper. Sapper Williams. 339 Company. 26th London Electrical Engineers. R E, Royal Engineers. We come under Royal Engineers.
PW: Only the army.
VW: Yeah [laughs] yeah.
CB: This is before they really got the searchlight detachments operating.
VW: Well then they had the big ones you know.
CB: Yeah.
VW: They also had a hundred and twenty sized. A hundred and twenty centimetres but they were the same, just a larger light. And they were carbon arc lights. And then of course I went on crush guard somewhere near Spalding and they had a searchlight detachment there and it was a radar controlled light. This was some years later in the war. And it was radar controlled and it must have been a hundred and eighty, nearly two hundred metres, you know. Like that.
CB: Centimetres.
VW: Radar controlled.
CB: Yeah.
VW: That was I don’t know how successful they were but we were bloody hopeless.
PW: Pretty good.
CB: So you enjoyed it.
VW: Oh yeah. The Terriers. You know. It was adequate. It was an opportunity to get dressed up.
CB: Yeah.
VW: We used to get a few raspberries here and there, you know. Saturday night soldier.
CB: Yeah.
VW: But no I quite liked being in a crowd you know like that. In the company. Yeah.
CB: And when you joined the RAF how different was that?
VW: It was, it was much the same. I liked being with the company of other people. You know. I quite liked it in the early times you know, like that. And it wasn’t until I come across — I ran fowl of this engineer, warrant officer. That spoiled me for the RAF and I wasn’t interested after that.
CB: So what happened there? When was that?
VW: What?
CB: When did you meet this difficult person?
VW: October 1940. Yeah. October 1940.
CB: So what happened there?
VW: Well the School of GR was at Blackpool and they got posted to South Africa and — but they had this idea that you were going to get your wives out there so you had to be earning a certain amount, certain level of pay to cope with the cost of living out there. And I wasn’t. I was thruppence a day short because I wasn’t an LAC then. And so there was twenty of us I think that got then posted to different units in the UK. And I went to South Cerney. And I was there two years. You know.
CB: But you mentioned this warrant officer.
PW: This guy was —
CB: What was the significance of that?
VW: Well he was the engineering warrant officer of that and he, we just got off on the wrong foot. And I became bloody minded and I was always in trouble. I was always up on a charge. And in the end the engineering officer had us both in the office and he got as much of a bollocking as I did there, you know. He said it himself, he said, ‘This has got to stop.’ He said, ‘Getting him on,’ me, ‘Putting on a charge on trivial things,’ he said, ‘It only makes a man bloody minded.’ And he coined the phrase.
PW: And he was exactly right.
VW: And, yeah, and after that instead of being recommended for your classifications you had to take a board so he couldn’t do anything else but give me the opportunity to have a board. He comes up to me in the hangar and he said, ‘You’ve done very well.’ It took him a lot to actually congratulate me on it. It must have been hard for him.
CB: Dented his pride a bit did it? And the result of the board was what?
VW: I became an LAC then. And then a little while later I got posted from there to 17 AFU at Watton. And the engineering officer said, ‘What’s that thing on your sleeve?’ And I said, ‘It’s a good conduct stripe.’ He said, ‘How long have you been an LAC?’ I said, ‘Not very long sir.’ And he said, ‘Right,’ he said, he said, ‘You should have been a corporal by now, you know, at least.’ And I said, I didn’t, I just sort of bluffed it over, you know. Didn’t say what had happened obviously.
CB: No.
VW: And he said, ‘We’ll soon do something about that. And then in two months I was a corporal.
PW: I bet he found out what had been going on.
VW: I don’t know, he must have, yeah.
PW: ‘Cause it would have been, it would have been on your records.
VW: He must have looked on my docs. On my records.
PW: On your records.
CB: Trouble is that warrant officers are difficult to challenge.
VW: Yeah. Yeah. And the thing was you see then you were getting, frequently getting overseas postings. Well, we were, I was actually living out in Cirencester. Being a married man.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And so they, the sort unspoken rule then was that all these overseas postings were filled by single blokes. You know. And he was living out as well so you know we were in the same boat. He couldn’t treat me any different you know and so we got away with it like that. Made it so much easier.
CB: What would you say was the most memorable point about your RAF service?
VW: Memorable. Oh my first flight.
CB: Because we haven’t talked about that. So, ok, so first flight.
VW: Yeah.
CB: What was that?
VW: In a Magister. We were supposed to have an air experience flight at the end of the technical course at St Athans but there were so many entrants there, you know. People coming off the courses. They were pushing them through as fast as they could and they just didn’t have enough aircraft to give everybody this air experience flight. And that was in a Magister. So we got to the squadron on 56 Squadron and suddenly one of the NCOs there found out that none of us airmen had flown. And our CO was quite surprised you know because we were in the air force. We obviously should have had at least had, as I say the air experience flight. The initial flight. So our CO borrowed a Magister from somewhere. And each pilot then took his crew up. And bring up and then all the way back and that was the best thrill I think I’ve ever had. You know.
CB: Right.
VW: And most memorable that was. Frightened I to death but I was hooked after that and I used to fly in anything on air test. A lot of blokes, you know would say you know, ‘I won’t fly in that bloody thing you know.’ But if a pilot went up I would.
CB: Yeah.
VW: I just loved flying. Still do.
CB: How many hours do you reckon you got on doing those air tests?
VW: I must have done seventy or eighty air tests and they ranged from ten minutes to an hour on the Lancs.
CB: Yeah.
VW: At Kemble. That’s the way to fly. On the Lancs.
CB: Now the RAF was actually desperate for air crew. Particularly early on. So people were asked if they’d like to volunteer. What happened to you?
VW: Well, as I say, you know I just — they just put my medical back a month but they said, ‘We’ll keep your posting open,’ but I never heard any more, you know, at all. And I didn’t push it because my wife said no.
CB: Can we go fast backwards a bit? So how did you come to volunteer for aircrew in the first place?
VW: To get away from that engineer warrant officer.
CB: Right. Good.
VW: The attitude in the hangar. I just lost interest in it you know. That’s how he affected me. I thought I couldn’t do anything right. Although a lot of it was my own fault but no.
CB: So when you —
VW: Actually you see then they were losing so many aircraft towards the end of 1942, or the middle of 1942 and I thought then, I mean I could have been posted to Stirlings or something like that.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And I wouldn’t have stood a hope in hell’s chance of coming through it.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And I hadn’t, my daughter then she was born. She was born in 1941 so — he wasn’t born till ’44. But —
CB: So after you volunteered what was the next step? What did they do?
VW: Oh I just got posted away.
CB: No. No. They — what I meant to say was when you volunteered they then gave you some tests. So what was the first thing they did?
VW: Well you were posted away on a gunner’s course.
CB: Yes.
VW: And, and you did that and I don’t know — perhaps their way of thinking. But you didn’t get your medical until you’d finished your gunner’s course. But our MO just took it into his mind, ‘Oh I’ll give you your medical now.’ You see. When we were clearing out our what’s the name, flew around.
PW: Yeah. You go around getting cleared from the station.
VW: You go around station and clear everything you know like that. Of course one section is the MO and as I say if he hadn’t given me my medical then I’d have gone through, you see.
CB: Yeah.
VW: I would have gone to the air gunner’s course and then back up to Penarth to the medical before I got sent on the, on the conversion course because I would have been the flight engineer.
CB: What was the hiccup with your medical?
VW: The fact that I had this paralysis.
CB: Where?
VW: And he knew how long it would last.
CB: Where? What?
VW: Before it, my face came back to normal again you see, like that, and he said, ‘We’ll keep your posting open,’ but they never did and we never pushed it.
CB: ’Cause you wife wasn’t in favour.
VW: No. No. She wasn’t.
CB: Unsurprisingly.
PW: If you knew my mum you’d understand just how much of a brick wall that was.
VW: Yeah. I mean —
CB: But looking back would you have liked to have converted to aircrew?
VW: I would have liked to yes but looking back —
CB: Ok. So —
VW: I could weigh up the chances looking back.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And then never even thought about being shot down.
CB: No.
VW: Or anything like that.
CB: No. You were invincible.
VW: In retrospect, I mean I would, I could easily have been one of fifty five thousand.
CB: And which planes would you have wanted to have flown in?
VW: Oh the Lancaster. Yeah definitely. A Lancaster. Because the other went — I only know one of them. He was my mate there at Cerney. Name Lou Boyd. An Irish kiddie and he went and he did his conversion course at Swinderby.
CB: Right.
VW: On Lancs. I don’t know where the others went. I mean on one of them, on one of them.
PW: 1660.
VW: One of them was the sergeant in the hangar and he was thirty five
PW: Yeah.
VW: And he was the same as me. Just didn’t like our warrant officer. Never got on with him. And he went. Yeah thirty five he was.
CB: And how many ops did he do?
VW: I don’t know. I lost touch with all of them. I really did.
CB: Right.
VW: I only met Lou once. He came back and sorted us out and he was half way through his first tour then.
CB: So he —
VW: That was the, they told us when you lose an engine from mechanical failure. You don’t see it. You don’t realise it. The engine is not working.
CB: Because it’s wind milling.
VW: It’s wind milling.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And the thing is that it windmills. The revs stay the same.
CB: Do they?
VW: Yeah. The revs. The oil pressure stays the same, and that. You don’t get anything off the dials to indicate that it’s not running. The pilots afterwards said that there was, he felt a slight drag on that one side. But the first indication the engineer got, the flight engineer was the oil temperature goes down.
CB: Right.
VW: But everything else is the same bar the oil temperature.
CB: Because the pilot can feel it yawing.
PW: Just a little.
VW: Yeah but he would just take that as the engines getting a bit out of sync. Perhaps. You know.
CB: Right.
VW: Like that. Yeah.
CB: Actually that’s a point. How, yes, on the ground did you go through the procedures for synchronising the engines.
VW: Well you get the throttles and your boost gauges as near as damned synchronised and then when it comes to revs you [pause] you set the revs by synchronising the two. Either starboard engine or the two port engines or two starboard engines. So you get one engine up to what do you call it [pause] economical cruising. And then you look through the propeller. The inboard propeller so that it’s superimposed on the inside of the outboard propeller and if its strobes they’re out of sync.
CB: Right.
VW: And you use then the prop control.
CB: The pitch.
VW: Pitch controls.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And when that stops and it’s superimposed and just stops inside the other and then you do the same with the other side. With the other two engines.
CB: Just going back to your earlier point— if you lose an engine, you feather it and put it in —
VW: Yeah. You can feather it yeah.
CB: And what pitch can you put it in. What is the description of the pitch that you can put it in?
VW: Neutral.
CB: Right.
VW: Because it’s just the blades are just dead on to the slipstream.
CB: Yeah. The side of the blades.
VW: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Yes. Good. Thank you very much. We’ve done really well.
PW: I really enjoyed that.
VW: Is that ok?
CB: Absolutely fascinating.
VW: You can edit. Edit it.
CB: They will but the fact is that they will be letting you have a cd. Listen to it and if you want to alter anything you can let them know.
VW: Yeah.
CB: But eventually they will edit it. Initially they will copy it.
VW: Well I shan’t bother.
CB: Now, you may remember what I said to you was it would be helpful if we’d any supporting stuff. That picture.
PW: The photograph that’s up there. Just on the end.
CB: That would be really good if we could borrow that. Yes. Have you got your wedding picture handy?
PW: No. We haven’t at the moment.
VW: No. We can’t find it.
CB: If that can come later.
PW: No. Dad hasn’t got it.
PW: I will find the pictures for you.
CB: Will you?
PW: And I will sort this one out as well.
CB: So there’s just one other form then which is to say that you’re happy. You authorise them to donate a copy of the picture and let you have the thing back.
VW: Yeah. That will be alright.
CB: Ok. How did you come to settle in Fiskerton? You were never stationed here.
VW: That’s another story in itself. We were, Phil got demobbed from.
PW: Waddington.
VW: Waddington.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And settled here in Metheringham and we used to come up on weekends for a weekend like that and we liked it up here.
CB: Yeah.
VW: And —
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 Vivian David Williams
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-03
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AWilliamsVD170403
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Vivian joined the Royal Air Force in July 1938 as a flight mechanic and served for seven and a half years. After square drills at RAF Uxbridge and a course at RAF Manston, he did a basic engineering course at RAF Henlow. After six months at RAF St Athan working on Bristol Pegasus and Rolls Royce Kestrel engines, Vivian was posted to 56 Squadron at RAF North Weald on Hurricanes and their Merlin engines. He spent six months at RAF Martlesham Heath before doing a conversion course to be a fitter at RAF Hednesford and RAF Cosford. Vivian was posted to the School of General Reconnaissance on Guernsey and Thorney Island before going to Hooton Park and Blackpool, followed by No. Three Flying Training School at South Cerney. After two years, Vivian went to No. 17 Advanced Flying Unit at Watton, where he changed engines on Masters. He went on to RAF Calveley, RAF Spitalgate and RAF Hixon before going to Transport Command at RAF Lyneham.
Vivian was demobbed in January 1946. After the war, he worked for a year on Five Maintenance Unit at RAF Kemble.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cheshire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Essex
England--Gloucestershire
England--Kent
England--Lancashire
England--Blackpool
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Shropshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Wirral Peninsula
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Guernsey
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Channel Islands
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938-07
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:20:43 audio recording
Advanced Flying Unit
fitter engine
Flying Training School
ground crew
ground personnel
home front
Hurricane
Lancaster
mechanics engine
military service conditions
RAF Calveley
RAF Cosford
RAF Grantham
RAF Hednesford
RAF Henlow
RAF Hixon
RAF Hooton Park
RAF Kemble
RAF Lyneham
RAF Manston
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF North Weald
RAF South Cerney
RAF St Athan
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Uxbridge
RAF Watton
searchlight
training
York
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f30d3800a9add74d25c21305677bf364
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
Arrowsmith, Les. Flight
Description
An account of the resource
15 pages of newspaper cuttings relating to 1930's aviation. It includes record breaking flights, and aircraft types including the Hurricane, Battle and Ju 52.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Arrowsmith, HL
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-22
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
Hurricane
Description
An account of the resource
An air-to-air view of a Hurricane, taken from the front.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One newspaper cutting on a scrapbook page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SArrowsmithHL571013v10015
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
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.
Hurricane
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/698/16128/YBattyAHD619060v1.1.pdf
68467f50181fdf59c5667936342db5ff
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
Batty, Dennis
Arthur Henry Dennis Batty
A H D Batty
Description
An account of the resource
Twelve items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Arthur Dennis Batty DFM (1920 - 1941, 619060, Royal Air Force) and consists of his diary, letters and documents. He flew operations as an air gunner with 226 Squadron. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Christine Aram and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Dennis Batty is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/201592/">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
2015-10-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Batty, AHD
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[back cover]
[page break]
[front cover]
[page break]
[inserted] Retourne á Monseiur [sic] D. Batty á l’ aerodrome du Champagne
Signature
[page break]
OPERATIONAL TRIPS
MAY. 20th 1940.
P/O REA BATTLE P6601
Night trip to FLORENVILLE to Bomb Marshalling yards and oil tanks a.a fire like Belle Vue.
MAY 23RD 1940
P/O REA BATTLE P5468
Night trip again to FLORENVILLE got a few bullet Holes etc.
[page break]
May 25th 1940
P/O REA P2161.
Night to AMIENS bombing main crossroads + trying to block all main roads from the North bags of searchlights but ok otherwise.
NEXT TRIP P/O REA TOOK CHALKY WHITE AS A.G. + DIDN’T RETURN. REPORTED PRISONERS
[page break]
May 28th 1940
P/O Heywood, P2161.
Daylight – to AMIENS to bomb Bridge over Seine which jerries were crossing got shot up a bit.
June 2nd 1940.
P/O Heywood, P2161.
Daylight to Recco [sic] front jerry lines in SOMME area not too bad at all.
[page break]
7th JUNE 1940
P/O Heywood, P2161.
Daylight – Objective is town named POIX But just as we are nearing it another aircraft came out of the blue + the frenchmen open up from the ground I thought the aircraft was a Hurricane + flash the letter of the day + he turns away + then I see the crosses + realise
[page break]
It is an ME 109.
Ground defences also wrap up so we try again + are attacked again by ME 109 + I have a shot at him + he has a go at us both missed + he went flying by so we dive for the deck + belt along at 0 feet for home pretty exciting.
[page break]
8th June 1940
P/O Heywood P2345.
Same as yesterday POIX daylight only different aircraft get there this time but anti aircraft fire is getting damn accurate these days
13th June
P/O Heywood L5468
To bomb tanks refuelling in the
[page break]
FORÊT DU GALT with incendiaries, this must have been a trap, it was about 4 in the afternoon when we got there + we were last on the target + as we approached we could see the woods were blazing merrily + BLENHIEMS POTEZ’S BATTLES + HURRICANES were having a glorious time when suddenly the
[page break]
Ground defences opened up + about 30 Messerschmitts came diving through the clouds + the sky became devils playground 4 Kites went down in as many minutes hadn’t time to wonder who was in them as ME 109 came at us but we got in a cloud + dived soon after dropping our bombs right across the
[page break]
Fire + belted for home low level. found out Herbie Kirk was missing + Arthur Asker But they ducked the jerries and got back 2 days later in an ambulance,
15th June – FRANCE PACKS IN RETURN TO ENGLAND AND THEN IRELAND. NOW OPERATIONAL TRIPS ARE A FARCE NORTH AND SOUTH PATROLS .
[page break]
[inserted] ATTACHED TO WATTISHAM. [/inserted]
22 JUNE 1941
SGT HENSON BLENHEIM Z7310 SEA SWEEP TO COAST OF HOLLAND – BORKUM. Met a Dutch boat + bombed it but undershot, so made 3 runs machine gunning it.
24TH JUNE 1941
SGT HENSON BLENHEIM Z7310
SEA SWEEP. OFF COAST OF GERMANY. 20 MILES AWAY SAW NOTHING.
[page break]
25TH JUNE.
SGT HENSON BLENHEIM Z7310
DAYLIGHT SWEEP. CLOUD DOWN TO DECK SO COULD FIND NO TARGETS
26TH JUNE.
SGT HENSON BLENHEIM Z7310
Daylight raid, target near LILLE, fighter cover, but weather was duff just past DUNKERQUE so we had to come back, a little light + Heavy flak + a a. fire
[page break]
27th JUNE 1940
SGT HENSON BLENHEIM. Z7310.
[blank space]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
2 [indecipherable word] Jerry green quarter up 2000 yds.
[deleted] Jerry [/deleted] forming to attack Jerry attacking from green quarter up
turn starbord [sic] turn starbord Go Go
Steeper Steeper
attack broken
straighten out straighten out
[page break]
2 Jerry Reforming Port beam attacking singly
Turn Port Turn Port Go. X 600 yds 300 yds
[page break]
attack breaking [underlined] Straighten out [/underlined]
Search Search
Jerries dived into clouds
[page break]
[blank page]
[calculations]
[page break]
AMO. A416/40
27-5-1940.
[blank space]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[inserted] [underlined] PALS LOST [/underlined] [/ inserted]
NAME SQN HOW
SPUD MURPHY (63) KILLED N/F
JOE WILKES (88) KILLED N/F
BILL DAVIES (226) KILLED N/F
GOSSY WARD (226) FRANCE PRISONER
NOBBY CLARK (226) MISS P KILLED
TOMMY DIXON (226) PRISONER
CHALKY WHITE (226) PRISONER
DUSTY MILLAR (226) M.P. KILLED
KEN JONES (226) PRISONER
BERTIE LITTLE (226) M.P. KILLED
P/O HEYWOOD (226) KILLED ON FIGHTER
[PAGE BREAK]
[INDECIPHERABLE WORD] TURNER (226) M.P. KILLED
JIM MCMASTER (226) KILLED ON PATROL
[PAGE BREAK]
[inserted] SGT
D Batty
No 226 Sqdn
Royal Air Force
FRANCE [/inserted]
[inserted] RETOURNE Á MONSEUR D. BATTY.
Á L’ AERODROME DU CHAMPAGNE – ANGLAIS [sic] –
REIMS. MARNE [/INSERTED]
[page break]
[back cover]
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
Dennis Batty's diary
Description
An account of the resource
Diary of Dennis Batty 20 May 1940 to 27 June 1941 listing his operations over France and Germany in Blenheims and listing aircrew lost.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dennis Batty
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jan Morgan
David Bloomfield
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One diary
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Diary
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
YBattyAHD619060v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Amiens
France--Champagne-Ardenne
France--Dunkerque
France--Marne
France--Poix-du-Nord
France--Reims
France--Somme
Germany
Germany--Borkum
Great Britain
England--Suffolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1940-05-20
1941-06-27
2 Group
Battle
Blenheim
bombing
Hurricane
killed in action
Me 109
RAF Wattisham
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/17106/LHollisAN124522v1.2.pdf
6bdf3d962aff2148ccc8110ac086f315
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
Arthur Norman Hollis’ Royal Canadian Air Force pilots flying log book
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Canadian Air Force pilots flying log book for Arthur Norman Hollis, covering the period from 12 December 1941 to 3 May 1946. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Clewiston, RAF Little Rissington, RAF Wattisham, RAF North Luffenham, RAF Swinderby, RAF Skellingthorpe, RAF Westcott, RAF Lulsgate Bottom, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Cranwell, RAF Turweston, RAF Hereford and RAF Hong Kong. Aircraft flown were, Stearman PT17, Vultee BT13a, North American AT6b, Oxford, Wellington, Manchester, Lancaster, Martinet, Tiger Moth, Hurricane, Master, Sunderland and C-47. He flew a total of 28 night operations with 50 Squadron. Targets were, Stuttgart, St Nazaire, Berlin, Cordouan, Essen, Kiel, Pilsen, Stettin, Dortmund, Duisberg, Wuppertal, Dusseldorf, Bochum, Friedrickshafen, Spezia, Gelsenkirchen, Cologne, Hamburg and Milan. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Flying Officer Gilmour.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
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 Canadian Air Force
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LHollisAN124522v1
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Czech Republic
China
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Poland
United States
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Czech Republic--Pilsen Basin
China--Hong Kong
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Herefordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Rutland
England--Somerset
England--Suffolk
Florida--Clewiston
France--Gironde Estuary
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wuppertal
Italy--La Spezia
Italy--Milan
Poland--Szczecin
Florida
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1943-03-11
1943-03-12
1943-03-22
1943-03-23
1943-03-27
1943-03-28
1943-03-29
1943-04-02
1943-04-03
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1943-04-16
1943-04-17
1943-04-20
1943-04-21
1943-04-26
1943-04-27
1943-04-28
1943-04-29
1943-04-30
1943-05-01
1943-05-04
1943-05-05
1943-05-12
1943-05-13
1943-05-14
1943-05-30
1943-05-31
1943-06-11
1943-06-12
1943-06-13
1943-06-20
1943-06-21
1943-06-23
1943-06-24
1943-06-25
1943-06-26
1943-06-29
1943-06-30
1943-07-03
1943-07-04
1943-07-08
1943-07-09
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-26
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-08-12
1943-08-13
1943-08-15
1943-08-16
11 OTU
1660 HCU
29 OTU
5 BFTS
50 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
British Flying Training School Program
C-47
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Lancaster
Manchester
Martinet
mid-air collision
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Cranwell
RAF Little Rissington
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
RAF Turweston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Wattisham
RAF Westcott
Stearman
Sunderland
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1279/17556/PPearceAT16040016.2.jpg
51971bf8827938a1570c6e9bac9fff52
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1279/17556/PPearceAT16040017.2.jpg
d528a2b2b15a37da545d68209c676da9
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
Pearce, Arthur
A T Pearce
Description
An account of the resource
140 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Arthur Pearce (1874945 Royal Air Force) He served as an air gunner with 12, 170 and 156 (Pathfinder) Squadrons and completed a 44 operations. After the war, on 35 Squadron he took part in the June 1946 Victory flypast over London and a goodwill visit to the United States. It contains his diaries, memorabilia and photographs.
The collection also contains an album concerning his post war activity with the Goodwill tour of the United States.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Steve Allan 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
2015-12-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Pearce, AT
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
Lancaster, Spitfires and Hurricane in formation
Description
An account of the resource
A Lancaster (PA474 operated by the Battle of Britain Memorial flight) with squadron letters KM (44 Squadron) leads a Hurricane on nearside and three spitfires (one in photo reconnaissance camouflage) on far side. Below are town buildings and open countryside.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPearceAT16040016, PPearceAT16040017
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The Times
Hurricane
Lancaster
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1292/17612/PPearceAT16030015.2.jpg
5f37b7dfe557ccaf72e7a73e43fd105a
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Bomber boys were bang on the target
RAIN and poor flying weather nearly “scrubbed” the R.A.F. Victory fly-past over London yesterday, writes a “Sunday Chronicle” reporter who flew in the wedge formation of the Lancaster bombers belonging to the famous No.35 Pathfinder Squadron.
But, despite the poor visibility, I saw from 1,300 feet the surging Victory crowds.
Whitehall and Trafalgar Square were a sea of white faces framed in splashes of colour from flags and bunting. Along the Mall, the blue square of the R.A.F. marching column was just coming up to the Saluting Base – at what seemed a snail’s pace.
The fly past of 307 planes, which may be one of the last formation flights by R.A.F. and Fleet Air Arm planes for some years, was led by a tubby Battle of Britain Hurricane, piloted by the Unknown Warrior of the R.A.F.
His identity will never be known because he will symbolise all living and dead Fighter Command pilots.
The Timing was split-second
I was an operation of split-second timing.
The Lancaster Formation left the ground at Graveley, Hunts, aerodrome at 30 second intervals. They flew over Cambridge, turned at Dittisham to Colchester, and over the mud flats of the Colne Estuary to Maldon.
They were guided by the unseen hand of ground control interception, used in operations to spot German aircraft in the Battle of Britain.
At Romford the sky darkened, at Leyton fine rain started falling, and the weather worsened steadily during the run up to London.
As the planes left Buckingham Palace and passed over Kew, the leader, Wing-Commander A. J. L. Craig, D.S.O., D.F.C., shouted through the inter-comm [sic]: “Good show, chaps; the weather couldn’t have been worse, but you were bang on target.” It was just like the old days coming back from a raid on Germany.
Won Seat By Toss Of A Coin
The pilot of my plane was Flight-Lieutenant Ken Clarine, who won the D.F.C. on his second operation, and twice brought home his plane with the nose smashed in.
His only other passenger was a pretty W.A.A.F., L.A.C.W. Jeanne Forbes She earned her trip by working overtime for two months on the squadron’s V-Day preparations.
In the next aircraft was a 28-year-old W.A.A.F. Sergeant, Edna Coate, who won her seat from her friend, Sergeant Sally Speere, by the toss of a coin.
But this is not the last Victory Fly Past of No. 35 Squadron. On July 5, they leave for America as the only representatives of the R.A.F. in the U.S. Army Air Force Day and Victory celebrations in New York, Washington and other American cities.
[photograph]
[photograph]
[photograph]
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
Bomber boys were on target
Description
An account of the resource
Top right - newspaper cutting notes that rain an poor weather nearly led to the cancellation of the RAF Victory fly-past over London. Report by correspondent airborne in formation. Fly-past of 307 planes of RAF and Fleet Air Arm. Notes that 35 Squadron will shortly leave for goodwill tour of the United States.
Left top - photograph of Lancasters parked in line on airfield.
Left middle - air-to-air view of formation of six Lancasters.
Bottom left - air to ground view of Waterloo bridge over Thames in London.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1946-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three b/w photographs and one newspaper cutting mounted on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPearceAT16030015
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1946-06-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Bradley Froggatt
aerial photograph
Goodwill tour of the United States (1946)
Hurricane
Lancaster
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1272/17684/BBrookerWHBrookerWHv1.2.Pdf
24729bb5b19388c22accd4ab9136516e
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Title
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Brooker, William Harry
W H Brooker
Miller James
J Miller
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. The collection concerns brothers in law James Miller (b. 1919) and
William Harry Brooker (b.1920). It contains propaganda leaflets, two photographs, a NSDAP Car flag, documents and a memoir.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Ann Brookfield and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-04-02
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Brooker, WH-Miller, J
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] INTRODUCTION [/underlined]
This is the World War II service history of RAAF Flight Lieutenant W H Brooker, who was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross, and also mentioned in Despatches.
After the War Service he was awarded a Diploma of Accountancy and was admitted to the status of AASA and is Certified Practising Accountant. [inserted] AUDITOR 3335 [/inserted]
He was born at Lameroo South Australia on 3rd April 1920. He completed his education in 1934 and was awarded the Dux of the Lameroo Higher Primary School.
Typed for Mr Brooker by Mrs Rhonda Copper
[page break]
[underlined] MY HISTORY WITH BOMBER COMMAND OF THE RAF [/underlined]
I will commence at the beginning of my time on the RAAF, and my World War II service in Bomber Command.
I volunteered for aircrew in the RAAF about June or July 1940, and was called up for the service about 27th February 1941. The entry at that time was called 12 Course: this means the Empire Training Scheme commenced about Jan/Feb 1940, representing an in-take each month. Training took place in Australia, Canada, Rhodesia, Kenya and South Africa. I believe some training did occur in England; but most English trainees were sent overseas, mainly to Canada. I do not think any came to Australia.
The trainees were allotted to specific courses – Pilot, Observer/Navigator, and Wireless Operator/Air Gunner. Certain numbers of Australian trainees were sent to Canada, but after some initial training of about 6 weeks in Australia. The courses for pilots were held at Initial Flying Training Schools. Observers/Navigators went to other places, and Wireless Operators, Gunners went to other places also. The whole course took each category about 6 months. I went to Pearce, WA for initial training – then Ballarat for wireless training, then to Pt Pirie for gunnery, and flew in Fairey Battle aircraft. Observers also went there for bombing training.
I believe that flying training was not undertaken in England, due to the airfields being required for offence, and defensive purposes, and probable to give the rest of the Empire something to do, and of course, the space available.
Of course another reason is the terrible weather in England, especially in the winter months, and the industrial haze. Visibility was very much impaired. In fact, flying training at Operational Training Units (OTUS) could not be undertaken for several days at a time.
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The training in Australia to passing out stage, and the awarding of wings and promotion, took about 6 months. Some were promoted to the Commissioned rank of Pilot Officer, while the remainder became Sergeants.
I believe most of the newly qualified personnel were sent overseas to the United Kingdom, while a lesser number were retained in Australia, to become instructors, or go on to Squadrons, where they would have had to undergo further training on the aircraft, with which each Squadron was equipped, and of course the duties and tactics of the Squadron.
Those who graduated as in gunnery without wireless qualifications, had to go to England, due to Australia not having a need for them. Our gunnery duties were performed by the wireless/air gunner, but only in Beauforts.
Those who went to England were drafted to the Royal Air Force operational training units, for a course of instruction on the aircraft that they would be flying, on operations. These courses lasted several months due to the poor weather. In Australia it would have been about two months or less.
The main OTU for Australians was No 27, located at Lichfield in the Trent Valley. There was also a satellite airfield located at Church Broughton – near Derby.
Bomber Command had about 5 or 6 of these stations. There are located towards the midland, or centre of England, and in Scotland. In fact due to bad weather, several courses were transferred to Lossiemouth, Scotland. I should have said that on arrival in England, we were sent to holding units to live, until vacancies became available and the various OTU. Australians went to Bournemouth on the Channel coast; later this holding unit was transferred to Brighton. I spent about 2 1/2 months at Bournemouth.
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I and several others arrived at 27 OTU Lichfield, in the Trent Valley, on 13th January 1942, but were immediately transferred to a satellite holding camp about 20 miles away. It was a farm called ‘Kings Standing’, supposedly owned by the Prince of Wales. It was very poor, cold, wet and snowed; however we were only there for about 3 or 4 weeks. You can now see that there was a terrific lot of waiting and wasting of time. It would seem that the flow of personnel was quicker, than the absorption rate and getting personnel into operations.
Eventually my group got into real training at Lichfield with classroom subjects on the aircraft, being Wellington Mark IC, being taught the various parts and stations in the aircraft, and of course gunnery. We had a ground rear turret with two Browning 303 machine guns, with belt feed at the rate of about 1150 rounds per minute. The turret could be rotated and the guns elevated, and depressed. We did go to a firing range with turret mounted on a trailer, and being of hydraulic operation, it was powered by a Ford 10HP engine. The ammunition was stored or packed in four containers within the turret. The turrets could be used to measure the wind shift. The guns were sighted on an object on the full beam, and there was a scale on the fixed part of the turret ring, that gave a reading for the Navigator. These engines were widely used for powering searchlights, and as hauling winches for barrage balloons and anti aircraft guns.
Besides being taught gunnery, we had subjects on parachute drill, harness and handling of parachutes, and stowage; entry and exit from aircraft; aircraft identification and recognition; ditching procedure and dinghy drill; how to speak to; and answer the other members of the crew, and the correct patter, or other matters.
Ground subjects would have been aircraft recognition during day and nights. It was necessary to identify between a Messerschmidt 109, Hurricane, Spitfire, Beaufighter Mosquito, V Junkers 88, and later a US Thunderbolt and Focke Wulf 190. We were told of tactics, when caught in searchlights and anti aircraft fire, barrage balloons, and icing of wings (it changes the shape of the aero-foil). Also exits for parachuting and ditching, and getting into the dinghies.
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Also getting into the aircraft on the ground and out, while the engines are running; persons were known to walk into a spinning propeller.
At the end of training at an OUT [sic], the crews were sent on a cross-country exercise. One of the final was at St Tugwell. They flew to St Tugwell, an uninhabited small island in the Irish Sea.
The bomb aimers were able to drop several live bombs, and after that the height was reduced, so that the gunners could fire at the rocks and seagulls.
Reporting to the pilot and crew on what was observed, such as flash, searchlights and attacking fighter aircraft. Of course other categories were undergoing their specialist training, on ground subjects.
After a few weeks, pilots were told to get a crew together. This was done by approaching people they knew. First selection was probably Navigator, and then Wireless operators. At this state [sic] I must say that some navigators became bomb aimers, and had to get used to gunnery at short notice, as they occupied the front turret; and last, the rear gunner, unless he had become known to others. This made up a crew of 5.
Pilots would have had a mixture of ground subject and actual flying, as the latter would have taken longer, especially in the poor weather. The crew of the Wellington would have been made up of instructor pilot, trainee pilot, instructor wireless operator, and instructor rear gunner. The training was what was called circuits and bumps; ie take off circuits and landing taxiing, about 6 times in a lesson.
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[underlined] HISTORY OF BOMBING OR DROPPING BOMBS FROM AIRCRAFT [/underlined]
This had its beginning during the First World War. At the end of the War the British had to decide what direction the Armed Service should go, and in view of the post war reconstruction for the civil population, made it necessary to cut back in finances from the armed forces.
For example, the army commands decided that tanks were only a passing phase; similarly machine guns, and that money would not be spent on those two branches.
Aircraft had been under the command of the Navy and Army, and these two arms would like to continue that way. The Navy and Army were much against aircraft becoming a separate arm of attack or defense, even after WW1, although on 1st April 1918, the Royal Air Force was established as a separate arm. The Army and Navy were against it, probably due to the great expense that was necessary to provide aircraft and all the support activities.
It was after the war that many countries were put under the control of France and Britain. Several of these came to Britain, Palestine, Trans Jordan, Mesopotamia (Iraq) etc. The French got Syria and Lebanon, and we (Australia) got New Guinea. The three armed service were permitted to express their desire and cost. The RAF won, due to the personnel, costs and efforts. This is when aerial bombing both by day and night was developed. It created great opportunities for flying, training, development of aircraft, bombs, and of course the accuracy and development of release mechanism, and the bombsights.
The pilots who took part in these operations [inserted] w[/inserted]ere the same personnel who, on their return and in the 1930’s became the senior officers to command the RAF during World War II. Such names come to mind as, Charles Portal, Arthur Harris, and the Hon. Peter Cochcrane, Lord Trenchard.
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After passing out of the OTU the crew reverted [inserted] were posted [/inserted] to the various squadrons equipped with
2-engined aircraft. This was before the 4-engined machines became available in greater numbers. The type we had were Mark 111 Wellingtons with Bristol Hercules radial engines, with sleeve valves 14 cylinders in two rows. They were faster than we had trained on, and had 4 gunned rear turrets; and ammunition was stored in bins about mid way along the fuselage, and came along in chutes to the turret, up through the floor. These aircraft were also equipped with GEE, a radar navigation aid. This meant that the navigators had to be trained.
On arrival at the squadron at Snaith, Yorkshire, the new crew were sent on short training flights to become accustomed to the new surroundings, and the later aircraft and engines.
At OTU our crew consisted of four Australians, Sergeants and English Pilot Officer. The first operation was for the new pilot to do a second dickie trip with an experienced crew.
It was on this trip that our pilot became very sick, and had to be taken off operations. He later was discharged, but was accepted by ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary). These pilots ferried aircraft from maintenance depots to squadrons etc. Two well-known pilots were Amy Johnson and Jim Mollinson.
These pilots became very expert and versatile and could fly many various makes and types of aircraft.
I was on the tarmac when two ATA pilots came to take two Beaufighters away – one was a woman. But the two aircraft were different; one had Bristol Hercules 14 cylinder radial engines in two rows; the other had Rolls Royce V12 engines. I heard them say, “I have never flown one of those”. So they decided the woman would take the conventional one, with the radial engines. So the man got the manual out and started perusing it; then said “Well, if I get into trouble I will read it then”.
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This resulted in us being a headless crew; however it did not last for long, and we got an English Sergeant, who proved to be very good. He was a spare who had lost his crew when he was off; be he had about ten trips to he credit, so we had him until he clocked up his 30 trips for the tour. He was the pilot who took our next pilot on his second dickie. We were matched with an Australian, he was a Flight Lieutenant who remustered from ground duties and kept his rank.
We have better wireless equipment. All aircraft of the RAF were equipped with an automatic signaling device, known as Identification Friend or Foe (IFF). This was uses over England, and after crossing the North Sea or English Channel, was switched off to prevent the Germans homing on to it. On the return it was switched on when nearing the English coast. Failure resulted in the anti aircraft batteries starting to shoot.
Our first sortie was to Emden on the night of 22nd June 1942 from 23.25 hours, for 6 hours 15 minutes uneventful.
The second sortie: 25th June 1942 from 23.30 hours for 6 hours 40 minutes to Bremen. On the way back we were caught in a cone of searchlight; at about 14,000 ft we twisted etc and lost height and I could fire at searchlights. We were hit by light tracer flak, and sustained a hole in a petrol tank at the top.
The next operation was termed “Gardening”, and consisted of dropping mines in the Kiel Canal, from about 700 feet, on parachutes so as not to damage them and keep them live, until a ship passed over them. We carried two at about 2000 Ibs each. This type of attack was fairly frequent and rendered substantial results. The time was 3 hours 50 minutes after take off at 0145 on 8th July 1942.
All my operations were at night.
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The next trip was on the same day, and with take off at 23.35 hours to Wilhelmshaven for 5 hours 35 minutes. We were chased by a Mersserschmidt 109 but were able to take evasive action.
Still during July we went to Duisberg three times. On one occasion we sighted a Junkers 88 twin-engine night fighter, but we took evasive action. It was the tactic not to allow an attack before the range closed. Of courses we do not fire; the tracer bullets would have shown our position. It was said that the Germans, on identification of the bombers, did not want to take on the four guns.
On another mission on 11th August 1942, we went to bomb Mainz from 2215 hours for a flight of 6 hours 30 minutes. We saw several aircraft go down. One was on fire and we saw 3 parachutes appear. The rest of this story had a sequel. I was sent on a gunnery course, and we were asked to tell of our experiences; so I mentioned the parachutes, and sitting next to me the person said, “I was one of them”.
To continue, he landed safely in France and was rescued by the French, and he was passed on to various locations, and was back in England within 19 days. This resulted in him not being used, to fly over France and Germany again.
Other sorties were to Frankfurt; during the trip I saw a Focke Wulf 190, a single radial engine German fighter. It was the first sighting of this type of aircraft at night. All crews were interrogated on their return. My story resulted in me being called by the Intelligence Officer the next afternoon.
We went to Kassal, Saarbrucken twice, Karlsruhe, Bremen (sustained holes from flak, anti aircraft fire), Duisberg and Bremen again.
Mine laying among the Friesian Isles twice, and St Nazaire (Bay of Biscay)) twice, Saarbrucken again.
Lorient mine laying.
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On 8/11/42 at 1740 hours we went to Hamburg for a flight of 6 hours and 30 minutes. You will notice that take off was quite early and this could be achieved due to the less hours of daylight. This was my thirtieth operation and resulted in me being ‘screened’, the term used for term expired aircrew.
The crews were quite often broken up and sent to operational trainings as instructors for a rest period. I went back to Lichfield, Staffordshire. I was sent on a specialist course at a training unit to do an air gunnery instruction course, which lasted about 2 months. On completion of the course I returned to Lichfield, but after a few days I was sent to the Satellite Church Broughton airfield, as an instructor. The station was not very large, only about ten aircraft, being Wellingtons. It was not very far from Derby. There was one activity of interest there being the testing of Gloster Meteors Mark 1 and Mark 11, being pure jet aircraft. As an aside, there was a Wellington fitted with a jet engine in the tail of the fuselage as test aircraft. Part of the test was to feather the two piston engines, and fly just of the jet, I believe it was quite fast.
The Commanding Officer was an Australian Wing Commander, Ken Baird from Ballarat, an early appointment of an Australian.
On 3/10/1943 I was sent on a short gunnery course of 3 weeks, mainly flying against attacking aircraft.
At the end of October, I was sent to a heavy conversion unit, to meet a new crew of Australian and one Englishman, to be trained for Lancasters. The five Aussies had just passed out of 27 OUT on Wellingtons at Lichfield. The Englishman was our Flight engineer who had remustered from a fitter. This course took about two months; part of familiarization on the ground and flying take off circuits, landing, and later cross-country, mainly at night.
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In fact, our first 4-engined flight was in a Halifax for about 3 trips. It can be mentioned that the instructor pilots were, of course, screened from operations and could fly either Halifax or Lancasters. We were at two stations in Lincolnshire at Skellingthorpe and Swinderby. Our conversions finished on 23/12/1943 and we were posted to 463 RAAF Squadron at Waddington, Lincolnshire about 3 miles south of the city of Lincoln.
We were one of the foundation crews of 463, which was formed by taking several crews from 467 RAAF, and then building up to about 20 crews each. 467 had been stationed at Bottesford, which is a bit further inland, and was a new war-time airfield. Waddington was and still is, a permanent station being built up during the First World War. In fact it was an airfield before WW1. The citizens of Lincoln are very proud of Waddington airfield, and the staff have in more recent times been granted the freedom of the city.
As an aside, Lincoln has been classed as a City for several hundred years. The lord Mayor carries the title of Right Worship; even the lord Mayor of London only has the title of Worshipful. The Australian Sister City of Lincoln is Port Lincoln.
Our operations with 463 Squadron commenced on 2/1/1944; but we did not complete the mission due to icing, and could not gain the height of 20,000 feet, so we returned, as we could only reach about 12,000. So we jettisoned the load safe over Holland. The next trips were to Brunswick, Magdebur, then 4 to Berlin. On the second to Berlin we shot down a Focke Wulf 190 single engine fighter from a range of about 40 yards. The trips took about 8 to 9 hours.
Other targets were Liepzig, Stuttgart twice, Schweinfurt, Augsburg.
After these I went to the Central Gunnery School to partake in a specialist course for gunnery leaders for three weeks during the month of April.
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On my return to 463 Squadron my crew was still there, they had survived about 10 operations; this put us about level in the count. They had to do 30 sorties and I only 20.
The targets now switched from Germany to France.
8th April 1944, we bombed an airfield near Brest. Other targets were Lille (railway yards), Boug Leopold, St Martins camp, gun emplacements at Cherbourg. These were coastal batteries and you can now see we were preparing for the “D” Day landing on the 6th June 1944.
It might be mentioned that larger bombs were capable of splitting the gun barrels, and more accurate.
The strategy was to put coastal batteries out of action and to hamper transport to the French coast. Also to put the Luftwaffe out of action, which was virtually achieved by D Day – done by attacking airfields and destroying the aircraft on the ground, and the facilities.
Another target was the railway marshalling yards at Saumur. We did not drop our bombs, but were ordered to return with the load, probably due to an earlier wave about to destroy the target.
3rd June we bombed a wireless station at Cherbourg. The bomb loads would be increased for those close targets, and be varied to high explosive 500 pound. The load would have probably been 16,000 pounds – 8 tons. The petrol would have been reduced from 2154 gallons to perhaps 1000 gallons.
The weather was very poor in early June; and landing barges etc were loaded, and took refuge from the high seas around Isle of Wight. The weather cleared toward the 5th June and improved further to permit the landings and flights to be made.
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Our target was gun emplacements at Pierre du Mont. Our take off was at 0243 on 6th June and took 4 hours 29 minutes. After bombing we headed southwest to be clear of other operations. On the return, an American Thunderbolt fighter followed for about 10 minutes, probably a bit lost, to access the course home.
Again on 6th June at 2319 yours [sic] we went to a road junction at Argentan, this was to delay the German reinforcements coming to counter the allied armies in Normandy.
Other sorties were to Rennes railway yards and Orleans railways. The latter on 10th June was my last of 52 missions.
Then on leave when returning to Lichfield.
Here I can mention that once aircrew personnel had commenced operations, they were granted leave of 1 week every 6 weeks, and this continued until the end of the war.
Aircrew was given a special flying meal before an operation, and a similar one on return. The menu was always bacon and eggs. Some crew members were given coffee to drink and biscuits to consume during the flight. However this was a bit difficult to handle – take off gloves, pour out into top of thermos flask in total darkness, and minus 40 degrees Celsius. Of course there was always the danger of an attack. The crew had to be on the watch and alert at all times. The gunners rotated their turrets from side to side all the time, and the mid upper could do a complete circle. The only crew member not watching the sky was the navigator, he was the only one in a lighted cubicle. The pilot would also need to watch the instruments, and the Engineer to keep checking the fuel levels, for the amount and transfer and for cross feeding. He had to complete the log.
The wireless-operator stood looking out the astrodome, if he was not required to listen out.
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After take off, the strategy was to climb to our operating height of about 20,000 feet to be above the range of light anti-aircraft fire, and increase the inaccuracy of the fire from larger caliber guns, also perhaps to make it more difficult for fighter aircraft.
Depending on the route to the target, we could still be climbing over the North Sea, but if the route were over Northern France, Belgium, Holland the climbing would have been over England.
The heavy anti-aircraft gun fire was close, when the puffs of black smoke from the shell bursts were at around our level; and closer if you could hear the shell bursts about the noise of the aircraft; and a real close one when the smell of the burst could be smelt even when an oxygen mask was worn.
Oxygen masks were worn all the time, because of the microphone for the intercommunication, within the aircraft. Oxygen was put on at about 5000 feet, although no real effects would be felt until about 10,000 were reached. It was usual for the pilot to call up each crew member about every 15 minutes. If no answer was received it was usually the wireless operator who would go to the position. The mid upper gunner was able to see whether the front and rear turrets were moving.
There were small portable oxygen bottles for use when crew members had to move about.
Searchlights, which I must mention briefly, were used to locate flying aircraft and could illuminate up to 20,000 feet, to aid night fighters and anti-aircraft fire. If searchlights had locked onto an aircraft and then went off, it was sign that a fighter attack may occur. In some instances a large number of lights may lock on; this was disconcerting, as they had a blinding effect and upset the pilots view of the instruments. The most frightening was if the aircraft was under cloud, as each light threw a shadow of the aircraft on the clouds.
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Up to now you may have been wondering how it was decided as to where the targets for Bomber Command would be aimed.
There were Committees of the Chiefs of Staff of the three services, and strategists, as to what would retard the enemy and aid other forces-army-navy. Such targets would be listed. Some that can be mentioned were shipping ports, u-boat facilities, transport, war factories, oil and mining, army, navy and Luftwaffe installations.
There were some targets that may be hard to hit, out of range; others the amount of damage that could be caused and the effort to be incurred to repair it. Bombing an airfield may not be of great result unless aircraft and buildings were destroyed. Bomb craters on the airfield could be reinstated within a few hours.
Alternatively factories could put out of action, or output was substantially reduced for several weeks, or remain as production reduced, for a considerable time.
Oil refineries would have to suffer direct hits and are reasonably small in unpopulated areas.
Populated areas did suffer damage and civilian deaths. This put a strain on other civilian activities, and caused the workers to miss out on work attendance while they attended to home type duties.
Having damaged a highly productive war production area such as the Ruhr Valley. After a series of raids such damage would take some time to repair, and bomber efforts would be directed elsewhere for some time, before it was seen to be useful to revisit those targets.
You will see that the targets that I’ve attacked were an attempt to retard the German war effort, and to take the war to the German people. There were some targets that were attacked that were an urgent nuisance. Like attacking the pocket battle ships as they progressed through the English Channel, and the battleship Bismark as it proceeded in the Atlantic.
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The Chief of Air Staff would have a short list of targets that should be visited provided the conditions were favourable.
The Squadrons would be notified by about 10am that operations were to be prepared for; this would include petrol load, bomb load and types of bombs. Other personnel would be advised of the target and route to be taken. The routes were planned to miss the heavily defended areas, and also to avoid night fighter airfields in close proximity.
The battle order was prepared and posted, so crews knew who were involved. After lunch the pilots and navigators were called to the briefing room for a pre briefing as to target and route. The pilots left early, while the navigators took an hour or so to prepare their charts.
Depending on the time of take off, the timing of the full briefing was fixed when all crew members attended. The Wing Commander named the target and showed the route; the Navigation Officer expanded on the route.
The Intelligence Officer told of the defences etc. The Meteorology Officer (not necessarily an RAF officer) told of the weather for take off etc, along the route, at the target area, the return route and landing.
The wireless operators were given the details of call signs and wave lengths etc on flimsy rice paper so that it could be eaten to destroy it.
During the afternoon an air test of an aircraft could be undertaken, especially if an aircraft had had some special work performed on it. This was limited to some degree due to the petrol being topped up, and the bombs had still to be loaded. The aircraft should be loaded if possible in daylight to observe the blackout.
Security – as soon as the operation was announced some telephone services around the airfield were cut. Public telephones in the base and in the streets and messes were cut.
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All aircraft were dispersed around the airfield to isolate them from an attack and to minimize any damage. It was therefore necessary to have buses or covered trucks with seating, to take the aircrews from the hangars or briefing rooms etc to the aircrafts.
On the return the transport picked up the crews to take them back to the briefing room for interrogation as to their efforts. Every aircraft carried a camera to photograph the result of their bombs. Flares were released to light the target as the bombs dropped, and the camera would run with shutter open until the falling time had elapsed. These photographs were assessed and the crews were told of the result.
In addition photography reconnaissance aircraft were dispatched to be over the target in daylight and take more photographs. Various aircraft were used such as Spitfire, Mosquitoes etc. A Murray Bridge pilot was on one of these units, David Rice. I believe he flew a Spitfire.
Spitfires were specifically prepared, no guns, no armor plate, to reduce weight. The rivets on the fuselage were rubbed down flush to reduce drag and the fuselage polished, no paint.
We were issued with special flying underwear and heated flying suits. The pilot, flight engineer and navigator were in a heated section of the plane, did not need anything special. We were also given an escaping kit to be used in the event of coming down in Europe. The kit contained a compass kit, buttons, war rations etc, money appropriate to the area over which the route took us.
Lectures were also given as to what to say when under enemy interrogations upon capture. The usual period of interrogation was only a day or two before transfer to prisoner-of-war camps.
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If you were able to evade capture, information was given as to how to behave and of course to obey the French Resistance, as to the route to be taken and how to travel. Of course Switzerland was a haven and arrangements were made to repatriate personnel. Another place to head was Spain, but it was further and the mountain range a barrier.
Information was also given to be wary of allied persons who become friendly and quizzed of secrets etc of operations. There were several known RAF personnel who had become stool pigeons, and were given favours by the Germans for information gleaned.
One of these was an RAF man called Flying Officer Metcalf-Freeman. The story of his end was that upon his arrival back in England he was arrested and put into prison for trial. Of course the pictorial media had a field day over this. Fancy a hero, after being in a POW camp for several years, not being allowed to return home to see his wife and family etc. Who saw the film – “The Great Escape” there was an informer in that.
During 1944 Waddington had two crews who become the newsreel photographers. These were both Australian crew. The 35mm camera was mounted in the front turret and the plane carried an extra person who probably gave some instruction to the front gunner. The film was a record of the bombing, and was shown in the London cinemas the next afternoon. One of the pilots was Keith Schutz from Kapunda or Eudunda, and now resides in the Modbury area.
The bomb carrying capacity of the several bombers was:
Wellingtons 4000 Ib crew of 5
Halifax 8000 Ib crew of 7
Mosquito 4000 Ib crew of 2
US Flying Fortress 4000 Ib crew of 10
Lancaster 16000 Ib crew of 7
Stirling 8000 Ib crew of 7 or 8
Now you which aircraft was the most effective for crew number involved.
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[underlined] Aids to Bombers [/underlined]
I mentioned GEE earlier. This was a radar device which had three transmitters in England separated by 100 miles or so. They each sent a signal that was picked up by the set in the aircraft, and the signals inspected on the screen, showed a position that could be plotted on a specifically prepared chart, to give the position over the earth. It was very accurate but its range was only 400-450 miles. The Germans devised a method to partially jam it. We were able to bomb on the position given by GEE.
Later a radar device came into being known as H2S. It was self-contained radar fitted to the underside of the fuselage and it scanned the earth like map reading. It would distinguish between water, land, and gave a picture. It could pick up ploughed fields against trees, forest or meadow. Not every Lancaster was fitted with it, and only squadrons used for making targets.
Talking of special squadrons. There was the pathfinder force made up of well-trained and experienced crews. They went off a few minutes before the main force with the purpose of locating the target, marking it with coloured flares or bomb blasted. They then flew around to assess the marking and report to the main force by RT as the aiming point.
Later developments were for the location and marking to be done by a Mosquito and even by Leonard Cheshire in a Mustang. These were done at lover level.
Another development was to use Mosquito night fighters to accompany the Lancasters, with the aim of getting the German night fighters. This operation was referred to as Intruders, and was quite successful.
18
[page break]
Some Mosquito bombers were fitted with a radar device known as Oboc. This was a navigation signaling system to correct the pilot’s course over the target-bombing run. It had a system of lights in the cockpit to indicate bombing run, and bomb bay doors open, and dropped the bombs, After that the pilot closed the bomb bay doors and turned for home.
A few Lancasters in 1943 and onwards were fitted out with extra wireless and media receivers and transmitters.
They carried extra crewmembers that could speak German, and listened out to hear the German ground controllers and night fighters. They were to give countermanding messages or false messages to confound the night fighters and send them off in the wrong direction. They would have known the target and route. This was called A.B.C. airborne cigar.
Another devise was called Tindal and this was a method of transmitting a noise over the German wavelengths so that the WT & RT (Wireless Telegraphy & Radar Transmission) could not be used. The noise was generated by a microphone fitted to one of the engines. Later it was fitted to the wireless operations gene motor, which was just as effective.
One of the most successful devices was called Window. This was a large number of tin foil strips cut to a certain length and about 1/16” wide. The length of the strip was cut so as to jam to enemy radar, to such an extent that the screens were a total blur of colour and could not show a target, and put the ground, night fighter and anti-aircraft radar, out of action. I think the first target was Hamburg and resulted in great destruction. Even the bitumen streets were alight. The wireless operator fed those bundles out through the flair chute when the target was being reached.
The aim was to cause the conflagration caused by the incendiary bombs. The bomb load consisted of blockbusters, incendiaries and high explosive.
19
[page break]
Incendiaries were packed into containers about 50-60 per container.
Just a short portion on the Commander in Chief, Air Chief Marshall, Sir Arthur Traver Harris. Some people did not like him because of his manner in some instances. However, these people in high places had to be very careful what they said about him and to whom.
We must not forget that Churchill and quite a number of others recognized he was a champion. This was even agreed and echoed by Roosevelt, General Arnold etc and later by Eisenhower when he was supreme Commander European theatre.
Bomber Command was divided into five main groups and all the Commanders were well-known and proven officers and had served with Harris for many years overseas and at home.
With the defeat of the Dutch, Belgians, and French etc and after the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk in 1940; only one force carried the war to the German people. This was Bomber Command, especially from 1942 to D Day, commanded by Harris.
METRIC CONVERSION
Feet to Metres x 0.3048
Miles to Kilometres x 1.609
Gallons to Litres x 4.544
Pounds to Kilograms x 0.4536
20
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Title
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World War II service History of Flight Lieutenant WH Brooker DFC
Description
An account of the resource
WH Brooker volunteered in June or July 1940. He was called up on 27 February 1941 and trained in Pearce, Western Australia. On transfer to UK there were delays in further training.
Initially he served on Wellingtons at Snaith. He describes individual operations starting with Emden. After 30 operations he was transferred to an Operational Training Unit as an instructor, firstly to Lichfield then to Church Broughton. He then transferred to a Heavy Conversion Unit, training on Halifaxes and Lancasters, based at Skellingthorpe and Swinderby. He was then posted to Waddington with 463 Squadron, RAAF. After several operations he transferred to a specialist gunnery course before returning to 463. Bombing operations were switched to France to assist in hampering German reinforcements after D-day. He describes the various roles of the crew during a flight and how targets were decided by the High Command. He concludes with aids to bombers -GEE, H2S, Oboe and Pathfinders. Also he describes counter measures such as ABC, Tidal and Window.
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WH Brooker
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20 typed sheets
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eng
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Text. Memoir
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BBrookerWHBrookerWHv1
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Australia
Western Australia
Victoria--Ballarat
Great Britain
England--Bournemouth
England--Brighton
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Kiel Canal
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Friesland
Germany--Hamburg
England--Lincoln
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Augsburg
France--Brest
France--Lille
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
France--Cherbourg
France--Saumur
France--Orléans
France--Rennes
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Victoria
France
Germany
Belgium
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Hampshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Sussex
France--Saint-Nazaire
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Georgie Donaldson
27 OTU
463 Squadron
467 Squadron
Air Transport Auxiliary
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
Beaufighter
bombing
Fw 190
Gee
H2S
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
incendiary device
Ju 88
Lancaster
Me 109
Meteor
mine laying
Mosquito
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
RAF Bottesford
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Lichfield
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Snaith
RAF Swinderby
RAF Waddington
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945)
searchlight
Spitfire
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1307/18375/PBradburyDC17010030.1.pdf
2f41dc495175da2b7758ba82596305ad
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Bradbury, Denis Carlos. Scrapbook
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PBradburyDC1701
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-22
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
49 page scrapbook containing photographs and cuttings concerning Denis Bradbury's training, operations with 514 Squadron, his time in the Far East, and visits to see the remaining Lancasters at RAF Coningsby.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
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Page 30 of D C Bradbury Scrapbook
Battle of Britain Memorial Flight over London
Description
An account of the resource
Air-to-air shots of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight over London for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations.
Photo 1 - Lancaster flanked by Spitfires over the Thames. The Houses of Parliament and London Eye are visible behind.
Photo 2 - Lancaster, four Spitfires and one Hurricane taken from slightly under and behind. The photographs are captioned with general information about the Battle of Britain and the aircraft.
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2012-08-28
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Two colour photographs in printout on album page
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eng
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Photograph
Text
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
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Great Britain
England--London
Temporal Coverage
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2012
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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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PBradburyDC17010030
Hurricane
Lancaster
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1307/18393/PBradburyDC17010041.1.pdf
2c505736cf783a2fe2e34648ba94640d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1307/18393/PBradburyDC17010042.1.pdf
ce981c286973b36d0940a40b81f8ddd3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1307/18393/PBradburyDC17010043.1.pdf
d48b320749bc04ff2cb8efe46b902f43
Dublin Core
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Title
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Bradbury, Denis Carlos. Scrapbook
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PBradburyDC1701
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-22
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
49 page scrapbook containing photographs and cuttings concerning Denis Bradbury's training, operations with 514 Squadron, his time in the Far East, and visits to see the remaining Lancasters at RAF Coningsby.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
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Page 41, 42 and 43 of D C Bradbury Scrapbook
Lancasters at RAF Coningsby
Description
An account of the resource
Photo 1 - inside the hangar at RAF Coningsby. Two aircraft are visible and it is annotated 'BBMF Hanger [sic] prior to the Canadian Lancaster being towed in'.
Photo 2 - a front image of a Spitfire in the hangar.
Photos 3 and 4 - Denis Bradbury chatting to the Canadian aircrew.
Photos 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 - Denis Bradbury and the Canadian aircrew receiving copies of a book. They are captioned 'Chatting to Canadian aircrew and signing complimentary copies of my book'.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Date
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2014-09-16
Format
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Ten colour photographs on three album pages
Language
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eng
Type
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Photograph
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Royal Canadian Air Force
Temporal Coverage
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2014-09-16
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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PBradburyDC17010041; PBradburyDC17010042; PBradburyDC17010043
aircrew
hangar
Hurricane
Lancaster
pilot
RAF Coningsby
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1186/18578/SWatsonC188489v1-1.2.pdf
41dce93a36a706458878ffce711dc143
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1186/18578/SWatsonC188489v1-2.1.pdf
78bceef44f30c4e1a4f2d533cd690cd9
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Title
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Watson, Clifford
C Watson
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. Two oral history interviews with Flying Officer Clifford Watson DFC (1922 - 2018, 1384956, 188489 Royal Air Force), a memoir, his service and release book, and a scrapbook containing photographs and documents. He flew operations as an air gunner with 150 and 227 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Clifford Watson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-28
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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.
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Watson, C
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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Photograph
JUST ANOTHER TAILEND CHARLIE
CLIFF WATSON DFC
HUNTINGDON
JUNE 1989
[page break]
[underlined] SEQUENCE [/underlined]
[underlined] File [/underlined] [underlined] Page [/underlined] [underlined] Location [/underlined]
[underlined] GROUP O [/underlined]
D 3 Joining up [underlined] AC2 [/underlined]
4 Babbacombe - 11 ITW Newquay [underlined] LAC [/underlined]
8 Troopship HMT Mooltan - Freetown - Capetown
G 7 Southern Rhodesia - Bulawayo [underlined] LAC [/underlined]
8 EFTS Belvedere Scrubbed TIGER MOTHS [underlined] AC2 [/underlined]
10 A/G Course, Moffat ANSONS [underlined] LAC-Sgt [/underlined]
11 Polsmoor Transit Camp [underlined] Sgt [/underlined]
J25 14 HMT Monarch of Bermuda
15 West Kirby - Bournmouth
17 25 OTU Finningley - Bircotes - WELLINGTONS
18 30 OTU Hixon - Sieghford
19 Leaflets to Paris
Wedding
J26 21 West Kirby - HMT Johan Van Vanderbilt
K1 23 Algiers - Blida - 150 Sqdn WELLINGTONS
K2 27 Fontaine Chaude (Batna) [underlined] FIt/Sgt [/underlined]
LT 32 Kairoaun
LU 35 On leave in Tunis, Chad in Jail
MT 46 End of First Tour - 47 raids
47 2 BPD Tunis - 500 mls. by lorry to Algiers
HXM Capetown Castle - Greenoch - West Kirby
NS 49 Screened 84 OTU Desborough
50 Norton, Sheffield Discip. course
53 W.O - 6th June D Day [underlined] W/O [/underlined]
OS 55 Aircrew Pool, Scampton - HCU Winthorpe STIRLING
56 Syerston Lanc. conversion LANCASTERS
P 57 227 Sqdn. Bardney – Balderton [underlined] P/O [/underlined]
60 DFC [underlined] F/O [/underlined]
63 End of Tour - VE Day
Q 67 Redundant - Photographic Officer, Farnborough
68 u/t Equipment Officer 61MU Handforth
[underlined] GROUP 4 [/underlined]
69 Lager Commandant, Poynton prison camp
2W 75 Civvy Street, Whitehaven Relay Service [underlined] MR [/underlined] .
79 Development Manager, Metropolitan Relays London
44 83 To Kenya, Kirksbridge Farm, Kiminini Kitale
48 85 HM Prison Service Asst. Supt. gr2
555 95 Civil Aviation Radio Officer
556 Mbeya Radio Supt.
557 103 UK leave PMG1 – Flt/RO lic. C. & G.
670 104 Eastleigh - Mwanza
107 Royal visit
680 113 UK leave
114 Entebbe Telecomm. Supt
115 Kisumu
700 123 Nairobi Comm. Centre Ast. Signals Officer
720 129 UK leave
750 134 Nairobi HQ & retirement
800 135 Laikipia Security Network
96 151 Pye Telecommunications, Cambridge Project Engineer
[page break]
[underlined] ILLUSTRATIONS [/underlined]
12A Air Gubber Coiurse 24 CAOS Moffat
15A Finningley Reg. Whellams
20A Bride & Groom 1/3/43
CW in flying kit
CW & HF at Richmond
26A Stan Rutherford with Hilda & Cliff at Richmond
Bill Willoughby (NAV) at Whimpey port gun position
Bill Willoughby & Stan Chatterton in their pits at Blinda
44A Pantelleria target photographs
48A CW with Mum, Barnoldswick
Skipper & B.A. with Hilda at Richmond
Skipper & Hilda at Richmond
48B Skipper& [sic] B.A. with Cliff at Richmond
Stan Rutherford in the snow, at Bircoates
Outside Chalet at Blida
Wimpey at Kaircan
48C At Richmond CW & Hilda
52A Warrant Officer parchment
54A three of Aircrew peeling spuds at Scampton incl. Frank Eaglestone
56A F/O Forster DFM 2nd tour Nav.
C.W.
W/O Foolkes at rear of NJ-P
64A Crashed Remains of 9J – O
64B F/O Cheale, F/O. Bates
S/Ldr Chester DFA with F/O Cheale, W/O Foolkes & F/O Forster DFM
64C More of 9J – O
64D F/O Ted (Ace) Forster DFM, CW & W/O Pete Foolkes
64E CW with rear turret of 9J – O
CW with motor-byke
Sgt. Geoff (Doogan) Hampson, Flight Engineer
64F Newspaper cutting
Start of Second Tour – Frank Eaglestone, Ted Forster & Pete Foolkes
More of 9J – O
64G Ted Forster Ready for Gerry?
Lunchtime over Homberg [sic]
64H P/O Bates (My last tour Skipper)
Part of F/O Bates’ usual crew
64J F/LT. Maxted (Gunnery Ldr) Pete Foolkes and F/O Sandford (spare gunner or Sqdn Adj?)
More of 9J – O
64K Doogan again
More of 9J – O
64L DFC Citation
64M Apology from H.M.
64N F/O Croker’s Lanc. on Torpedo dump at Wyke
Christmas Dinner at Wyke
Reverse of Pete’s Xmas Card 1989
Part of F/L Croker’s letter with Xmas Card
66A-H Examples of Battle Orders
[page break]
[underlined] DEDICATION [/underlined]
The section dealing with my R.A.F. career is dedicated to Lady Luck who shows no compassion, is completely immoral and yet cannot be bought.
After a remarkable interview on television recently, Raymond Baxter asked of Tom Sopwith "To what do you attribute your tremendous and unparalelled [sic] success over such a long period?” In his 94th. year he replied “Luck, pure luck”. His reply was the same when asked again at his 100th. birthday party.
This must apply to every aspiring aviator, and I was no exception.
[page break]
[underlined] THE EARLIEST YEARS [/underlined]
My first ten year or so were spent in Yorkshire, having been born on the [deleted] 22nd [/deleted] [inserted] 11th [/inserted] of February 1922, at 45 Federation Street [inserted] the home of my paternal Gt Grandparents [/inserted], Barnoldswick almost opposite nr. 26 where my Grandparents lived, and about two years after my father was demobbed from the Kings Own Yorkshire Light lnfantry after the Great War. My sister Winifred Sofia was born almost two years later on the 2nd. of January 1924. About that time the family moved to a shop at 33 Rainhall Road where my father established a wireless business. I attended the infants school only 50 yards away, often joined by Winifred.
At the shop, my father built radio receivers of the "Tuned Radio Frequency" type, (TRF), a good 10 years ahead of the superhet. At the same time he held one of the first radio amateur licences in Yorkshire, with the callsign 2ZA. His aerial was a wire to the top of a 50 ft. pole in the back yard and starting with a spark transmitter his first radio contact was with another amateur in Colne, whose transmitter output was connected between the gas and water pipes, He had no means of measuring his frequency but thought it was somewhere around 300 KHz. (1000 metres) He soon progressed to using valves and gradually higher frequencies, though almost everything was really trial and error. When communication progressed to "working" other countries the prefix G was added to UK call-signs. He once told me that his first telephony transmission was achieved using a GPO carbon microphone in the aerial circuit. The only receivable broadcast wireless station at that time was the BBC's 2LO and when people heard it for the first tine there was indeed great wonderment and excitement
In 1926 came the general strike. Money was very scarce and people were hungry. There was no money coming in and the shop closed down. The family moved to a house in Rook Street, close to the railway bridge and opposite the cobler's [sic] wooden workshop. Most of us wore clogs in those days, with leather tops and laces, and iron-shod wooden soles.
Before going to war my father had served an engineering apprentiship [sic] , and worked with steam engines. With outstanding debts at the shop and a wife and two small children to support, he volunteered to work with L.M.S. railway company, and drove a train between Barnoldswick and I think Skipton. The engine was pelted with stones at some of the bridges and he was very unpopular with the strikers, althought [sic] many of them were quite happy to use the train. Thus the family was sustained and he received a letter of thanks and a medalion [sic] from the chairman of L.M.S.
When things returned to normal the family moved again, to nr. 14 School Terrace in Dam Head Road and Winifred and I attended the infants and Junior Schools across the back street. My mother was able to resume working at the mill as a cotton weaver with her sisters Molly and Annie. Their brother Jim -my uncle- was a 'twister', that is he connected the cotton threads on the warp to tails ready for applying to the loom for weaving. The noise. in the weaving sheds was deafening and weavers were quite adept at lip reading. This had a great influence on their broad northern accent. Most weavers operated six looms, loading manually the weft into the shuttles before changing them. My uncle Charlie -the brother of my paternal grandfather=- was a manufacturer employing about a hundred people running 500 or so looms. I remember the big warehouse doors and the lift which was operated by water pressure. To go up, just turn on this tap!. Going down transfered [sic] the water back into a holding
[page break]
tank. There were two offices, large wooden boxes, one on each side of the big doors and just under the ceiling. Accessed by ladders. One office was for uncle Charlie and his clerk, and the other for the more junior staff. When I called to see them in 1941 I noted the intercom. system between the offices. It comprised, at each terminal, two empty Lyle Golden Syrup tins one for speaking into and the other for receiving. they were connected by two lengths of taught string which vibrated the diaphragms being the bottoms of the tins. I was surprised at their effectiveness. There was also a loop of string pulled manually between the two places with a small box attched [sic] for transferring documents. I was impressed. Uncle Charlie said he would consider changing the strings after the war.
At School Terrace my father carried on building wireless sets in the attic and also helped his friend Tom Shorrock who owned the local radio relay service. This comprised a wireless receiver and amplifiers connecting some hundreds of houses with a pair of bare wires to loudspeakers at a cost of ninepence per week for each loudspeaker. The idea appealed to my father and he was able to instigate some technical improvements. By then the wireless manufacturing industry had become well established and radios became readily available. My father had paid off his debts and was discharged from bancrupsy [sic].
At this stage we moved into a new house at 25 Melville Avenue. which was nearer to Fernbank Mill for my mother but also had an inside toilet and bathroom. It also had electricity mains in place of the more customery [sic] gas lighting. An electric soldering iron must have seemed luxurious after heating a copper bit on a gas ring.
Our school was only a few minutes walk from home. Gisburn Road Council School. I remember it and the teachers very well, Mr Alfred Green Petty.the Headmaster, Miss Housen who tought [sic] music english and poetry, and above all Mr Heaton who tought [sic] arithmetic, citizanship [sic] and physics. Miss Housen did not think much of my efforts, I couldn’t sing and disliked poetry, but I got on fine with Mr. Heaton, who also tought [sic] my father over 20 years earlier. Over a fairly long period he gave me extra homework in arithmetic most nights, generally a problem or two and he checked the results next day. It was almost private tuition and thanks largely to him, I excelled in the subject. I think children’s attitudes' in the main were very different to those of the present day. Discipline was strict by consent, not fear. Reward was achieved by effort alone and there was friendly competition between us. Most of us got the cane for some minor offence like climbing over the school wall, in my case refusing to stand in the front of the class and recite ‘the wreck of the Hesperus’. We did respect our teachers.
About this time we moved to a house in Headingley for just a few weeks and then on to. Fence, which we knew as wheatley Lane. During that period my father was working in London at Stag Lane fitting the electrics in Rolls Royces. My mother worked at the cotton mill nearby and Winifred & I were looked after partly by Mrs. Ingham who had a sweet shop. Our stay in Fence was also [deleted] m [/deleted] of short duration.
Tom Shorrock was a friend of Mr. Ramsbottom who was struggling with a one programme radio relay system in Keighley. He already had thriving electrical business and Tom introduced my father to him. So we moved yet again, to Keighley, and my father became Engineer and Manager of Ramsbottoms Radio Relay Service in the centre of Keighley. From 33 Lister Street, the Receiving and Amplifying Station the wires branched
[page break]
out on the roof tops in all directions. By then there were two BBC programmes, Home Service on 342 mtrs, and the Light Programme on 1500 mtrs, so they converted to two pairs for two programmes. We were living at 25 Lawnswood Road but soon moved to a new house at 21 Whittley Road. I recall helping Leslie Wright – Dad’s foreman to erect a garage which cost £7.10.0 to house the new Austin 7 which cost £75 taxed and insured. The other personality I remember well was Walter Spurgeon, chief wireman.
Winifred and I attended Holycroft Council School. Some of the lessons were by listening to the radio, an innovation in those days, and it was my job to check the radio was working, each morning.
It was in Keighley that Mrs. Alice Kilham, my father’s secretary came on the scene. She lived in Oakworth with her daughter Mary, her husband being in a sanitorium being treated for TB. During very cold winter around 1933 the snow was six feet deep and they came to live with us at Wittley Road.
Winifred and I were in the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts respectively and we decided to take the Signaller badge which meant sending and receiving the morse code. We were told the speed required was 12. Having established a battery and buzzer, and a morse key and headphones by the beds in each bedroom, we soon memorised the code and communicated with each other, quickly reaching 12 words per minute. Eventually we progressed to 18 words per minute and then went to take the test. Only then did we find that the speed required was 12 LETTERS per minute, not words. 12 letters is only 2 words per minute. However this faux pas proved very useful about eight years hence.
After just a few years in Keighley, the system was working well and no longer presented a challenge. My father was approached by a group of businessmen from Norwich who were interested in the “wired wireless” system. They were owners of radio busineses [sic] who felt they shouId have a stake in the competition and bank managers hoping to earn a quick buck. All the bank managers were Yorkshiremen. So Norwich Relays Ltd. came into being with premises in St. John Maddermarket, and my father became Engineer and manager, taking with him his secretary and foreman Lesley Wright from Keighley. Allan Moulton joined the firm and was responsible for obtaining wayleaves, that is obtaining permission from owners to put wires on their property. He was a popular figure in Norwich, his main qualification for the job was that he played cricket for Norfolk and knew most people who mattered. Leslie died whilst in his thirties in Norwich.
Once again we moved house, to 119 Unthank Road, and Mrs. Kilham and Mary moved into a cottage in Blickling Court near Norwich Cathedral. Winifred I went to the Avenues Council School initially but not for long. I remember getting a prize for my ‘lecture' on how a TRF wireless worked, showing them the working radio I had made. Probably not very accurate but there was no-one present who could contradict me, fortunately.
At 13 I changed to the Norwich Junior Technical School in St. Andrews. Soon after we moved house yet again to a new house, “Wayside", in Plumstead Road, on the boundary of Norwich Aerodrome. Winifred then joined Mary at St. Monicas private school. On Saturday mornings I attended Art School on the top floor. I achieved very little there, the art master quite rightly concentrating on pupils who showed some potential. For an enjoyable two years we concentrated on technical
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subjects, woodwork, maths, physics, Chemistry, mechanics, technical drawing, metal and woodwork etc. The masters I remember well, ‘Chemi’ Reed the principle, Mr. Abigail, Mr. McCracken and Mr. Lishman. At the end of two-year course I transfered [sic] to Unthank College in Newmarket Road, joining the 5th. form. This was big change for me, the emphasis was on classical subjects, in English literature we spent a whole year studying Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream and Spencer's Fairy Queen. I couldn't: get interested in either but I later achieved a credit in the School Certificate by answering questions on A.G. Street’s Farmers Glory which I read in bed the night before the exam. Mr. Bertwhistle the English Lit. master was furious. For Physics and Mechanics I had tuition from Mr. Horace, the Principal's son and on Wednesday afternoons I visited “Chemi” Reed's house at 33 Britannia Rd. for tuition.
In early 1939 my father, Mr. Moulton and Mrs. Kilham acquired six run-down relay firms and the Nuvolion loudspeaker factory in South London from a Mr. Olivisi, a Frenchman. My father moved to Stretham to a flat in Pullman Court and Mrs. Kilham and Mary and to duCane Court in Balham where the Moultons also had a flat. My mother and Winifred moved to a house in West Norwood and I became a boarder at Unthank College. Soon after taking the School Certificate I joined my mother in London and we moved to a flat in New Southgate. I became articled to George Eric Titley, a Chartered Accountant in St Paul’s Churchyard, commuting to the city 6 days a week by underground. Rail fare was tenpence return per day and I was paid ten shillings per week. Fifty pence in 2004 currency The firm was Gladstone Titley and Co. at 61-63 St. Pauls Churchyard and I was the junior with qualified accountants Joe Oliver, Clarke and Jenkins, and Miss Miller the Secretary. It was amusing 6 years hence when I barged into a Board Meeting at 69 Lavender Hill, Sqdn/Ldr Jenkins still in uniform was sitting there when F/O Cliff Watson appearedstill [sic] in Battledress. Jenkins was called up in 1940 as an Account Squadron Leader.
On the 3rd. of September 1939 War was declared and any plans we all had for the future were kiboshed. During the blitz in 1940 to be nearer my father and to help out at Relays we moved home to Ascot Court in Acre Lane, Clapham.
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[underlined] JOINING UP [/underlined] .
The outbreak of war found me as a clerk articled to a Chartered Accountant in St. Paul's Yard. London. At the age of 17 1/2 it went without saying that within a year or two my occupation would be changed way or another. In the family Radio Relay business men were already leaving to join to Forces. My father was on an army reserve and expected to be called up at any time. I felt my best course was to abandon accountancy for the time being and try and help out; so I joined the firm as a General Factotum. During the Blitz on London my job was fault-finding and replacing the overhead lines, knocked down by Jerry bombers where buildings and whole streets were destroyed. The Radio Relay Service, a two programme four wire system in those days, linked the BBC with some tens of thousands of homes in South London, homes where the radio was never switched off. The system carried air raid warnings also. All too frequently the radio was interrupted by an announcer at Scotland Yard with “Attention please, here is an important announcement, an air raid warning has just been officially circulated". There were occasions when bombs were dropped before the sirens sounded, but never before the announcement was made on our Radio Relay System.
September, aged 18 1/2, I found my employers were trying hard to register me as being in a reserved occupation. The Manager, Allan Moulton, had already been successful in his own case, which was reasonable. Someone had to run the firm and my father had sailed off to Abbysinia [sic] in March. At the time I was working literally 18 hours per day and my fifty bob per week hardly paid for digs.
On a very rare afternoon-off I was walking down Kingsway and tried my luck at the R.A.F. Recruiting office. One look at an applicant for aircrew wearing glasses brought an instant decision from the man at the door. I walked along the Strand and down Whitehall, and having removed my spectacles tried the Royal Navy. I completed the application form and was told that I would be called for interview eventually, but there was a very long waiting list.
I tried the R.A.F. again about a week later having left-off my spectacles for several days, and an application form for training as a pilot was completed. Had I previous flying experience? Yes. Fortunately I was not asked for details, as a passenger with Alan Cobham's Flying Circus might not have carried much weight. - In 1936 we had lived at a house called "Wayside” in Plumsted Road, Norwich, on the Mousehold aerodrome boundary, with a panoramic view of the aerodrome, and I was fascinated by it all like most boys of my age. It was to be three months before I heard from the R.A.F. - the Navy had missed the boat – I was to report to the Aircrew Selection Board near Euston station, on the appointed day about a week hence, for 'medical and academic examinations'. The letter added that in the maths exam `log tables but not slide rules are permissable [sic] ’.
The great day arrived, and at 8.30 am. with about 80 other applicants we were told there would be three one hour written exams, Maths, English and General Knowledge, followed by a medical and a brief interview. Maths was a typical 5th. form end of term test, and English an essay with a wide choice of subjects. General knowledge was mainly common-sense. One of the questions I recall; "Is the distance from London to Warsaw nearer 100, 600 or 2000 miles?”. The Medical Exam was carried out by about 6 examiners, probably Doctors, on a production Iine basis.
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Then the interview after a delay of some hours. Three uniformed R.A.F. officers who had obviously been places in previous wars. "Why do you want to fly"? I have forgotten the particular piece of flannel I used, but it brought no comment and another member of the Board fired his shot, "Which is colder, minus 40 Centigrade or minus forty farenheit [sic] ? Instant answer to that, I'd hear. it before somewhere. The third member asked "that does your Father do" I replied "He is an officer in the R.A.S.C. fighting the Italians in Abbysinia [sic] ". This brought a chuckle from two of them for some reason and the interview was over. I would be advised by post of their decision after the exam. results had been studied.
A week later I was told to report to Euston for attestation, actual reporting for duty would follow after some weeks. There was a brief ceremony and I was given a document which stated that " AC2 Clifford Watson 1384956 has been accepted for training as a pilot in the R. A. F. and is to be prepared to report for duty of a few days notice". It went on to state further that his teeth should receive the earliest attention, one extraction and two fillings.
About three months later my call-up papers arrived, and meanwhile I had met two other local lads whose paths had converged with my own and were to stay parallel for the next six months or so. Raymond Colin Chislett, the son of a Battersea butcher, .and Tom King., of Wandsworth. The three of us reported to the R.T.O. at Paddington and joined a party bound for Babbacombe near Torquay.
During the week at Babbacombe we were issued with uniforms, introduced to drill and Service discipline, lectured on the history of the R.A.F. and told something of what the future held for us. We were made to feel that we really belonged and were indeed priveleged [sic] to be chosen to follow in the footsteps of 'The Few'. We were perhaps more than a little naive to think that we were all destined to become fighter pilots, but we were made to feel that the fate of England and the empire rested entirely with us. The Bombers were taken for granted and were not in the forefront of than news at that time. In any case we Londoners had seen our Fighters in action and - we admit it - imagined ourselves in their shoes. There was a tremendous urge to get on with it and to make a success of it. A great sense of urgency prevailed. I remember well that first day in the Royal Air Force. We were advised to write down our Service numbers so we wouldn't forget them, and above all, we had strawberries and cream for tea. The last I saw of strawberries and cream for about eight years, and as for forgetting one's Service number...! Perhaps it was intended as a joke, but we were taking everything very seriously. At the end of the week there was another Pep talk, very well delivered by a Squadron Leader - and equally well received. He remarked that about Babbacombe, people will say "Never in the History of human conflict, have so many been burgered [sic] about by so few". A misquotation of those immortal words. He went on to say that the two most important weeks in your R.A.F. careers are the first and last, and "you have already survived 50% of them, Good Luck chaps, and have a good trip". There was probably a lot more feeling and sincerity behind those words than we realised at the time. He had seen it all and been there 'in the last lot'. "Have a good trip” was to have real meaning in due course.
A short journey by train took us to no. 10 Initial Training Wing at Newquay for 8 weeks of ground training. We were accommodated in
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Trenance Hotel, one of many taken over by the R.A.F. Another hotel was used for lectures in Navigation, Airmanship, Aerodynamics, Engines, Aircraft Recognition, Signalling, R.A.F. Law and Administration, etc. etc. some drill and P.T., and swimming in the local baths. The sea and beach were out of bounds due to mines and other surprises awaiting the enemy. I had to concentrate hard in the classroom on everything, except signalling. The required speed for sending and receiving morse was 12 words per minute and I had been happy at 18 w.p.m. in the Boy Scouts.
The 18 w.p.m. came about through a misunderstanding. My sister Winifred (a Girl Guide) and I were learning morse for our Signaller badges and were told that a speed of 15 was required, so we practiced until we were competent at 18. It was only when we took the test that we learned the required speed was 15 letters and not words per minute. However this mistake was now serving me well.
The only part I did not enjoy was the cross-country runs, but someone had to be in the last three. After two weeks we were told now that we had smartened-up a bit we would wear white flashes in our caps so we would not be mistaken for real airmen.
There was great speculation as to where we would go for flying training. Maybe stay in Britain, or was it to be Canada, U.S.A., South Africa or Rhodesia, and was there not a possibility of it being Australia?. Meanwhile we must concentrate on passing the current hurdle, it could not by any means be taken for granted that we would all pass the course. In fact after only four weeks, four out of the original 50 were "scrubbed" - a new word to add to our rapidly 'increasing vocabulary.
After about 5 weeks we were issued with some flying kit, boots and Sidcot suits, goggles, helmet and a full issue of gloves - silk, wool, chamois and gauntlets. 4 pairs worn together, and a fifth, electricalIy heated, yet to came. We were not to know that it would be 15 months before we wore any of this. I doubt whether our destination was known to anyone at I.T.W. except that it was overseas somewhere. Seven days embarkation leave and the entire course was posted to West Kirby, no. 1 P.D.C., near Birkenhead on the Wirral. We were joined by about 300 other u/t Pilots from other I.T.W.s and it was just a matter of waiting for the draft. There were parades each morning and we were allowed out of camp at mid-day. It was here that Tom, Ray and I teamed up with John Heggarty, a u/t Pilot who had been at 11 I.T.W. in Scarborough. He was from Birkenhead, of Anglo/French parentage. The four of us visited Liverpool every evening, a place crowded with Navy, Army and Air Force types mostly in transit to somewhere or other. Scores of ships were loading in the Mersey, but after a couple of weeks it was a special train for us to Greenock on the Clyde for immediate embarkation on the "Mooltan", a merchant ship of same 30,000 tons. Our 350 were accomodated [sic] on "D" Deck, just above the water-line, where we spent most of our time, not by choice but by order. Some slept on the mess tables, others under them, with the top layer of bodies in hammocks, a crippling device. To realise that hammocks were the traditional sleeping arrangements for British sailors left me unimpressed and I felt that something far more superior could have been devised. However, navies of many countries seem to favour them. Once aboard, there was no going back. On the second day aboard we were tugged down the Clyde and next morning counted over 40 big ships steaming very slowly in a north-
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westerly direction out at sea. Obviously we were bound for Canada, hence the heavy flying kit .and four pairs of gloves. A week ought to see us in the St. Lawrence. How wrong we were. the convoy was shepherded by some very impressive naval ships, Cruisers, destroyers etc. and Sunderland flying boats were in constant attendance for the first few days. After three weeks of steaming in all directions, first into the freezing cold, then warmer and finally very hot indeed, at 0500 one day the engines slowed and finally stopped; a rattling of chains and then silence. All very dramatic but a buzz on the P. A. system told us we had arrived in Freetown. Portholes were to remain closed. We may go up on deck but on no account were we to remove our shirts nor buy anything from the natives. By mid-day the temperature below decks was almost unbearable and there was no respite from that for a further two weeks. Salt water showers were available at all times, it was just a matter of stripping and walking through the shower. No need for a towel, but in any case that was reserved for absorbing perspiration and we became accustomed to the salt water. Food on board was very good under the circumstances. Two orderlies from each "table" would collect it from the galley (vocabulary still improving) and dish up, and after the meal two more orderlies would clean the tables and wash up. The chores were shared on a roster basis at each table, and each had some duty to perform every few days. We were very fortunate in that we were cadets and not yet real airmen we spent some of our time attending lectures in the second class lounge. We estimated there were about 3000 troops aboard. There was lots of talent for the almost daily concerts. A daily newssheet called "DER TAG”, together with the P.A. system kept us up-to-date with the news. The 9 o-clock news was a must.
Five weeks out of Liverpool it who getting cold again, even below decks, and greatcoats were essential deckwear for the endless lifeboat drills. There were lifeboats but for most of us it was a matter of parading on deck near a stack of Carley floats. The subject was better not discussed, there was no satisfactory answer to abandoning ship.
The Mooltan carried one gun mound at the stern above the propellers, manned by a RoyaI Artillery crew in transit. It seemed to be of about 4" calibre but was not fired during our voyage. It was said the deck would cave in, but this might have been an exaggeration. There were also two ramps off the stern for depth charges of which there was a supply near the ramps. The sixth week was really cold and wet and we estimated our position as somewhere in Antarctica. We then turned more or less north and after a total of seven weeks dropped anchor late one afternoon a few miles out at sea, with much speculation about our location. At about 7 pm. the shore was like Blackpool illuminations. Wherever we are, don`t they know there's a war on? A buzz on the P.A. system told us we would be disembarking next day and our British currency would be of no use to us in this foreign country. We should hand-in all currency, and get a receipt which would be exchanged for local currency when we got ashore. Next morning we entered the docks and disembarked. It was only then we found we were in Durban and were taken straight to the Transit Camp at Clairwood. The army contingent remained on-board and were understood to be bound for action in the Middle
East. So we had arrived in South Africa, and a very congenial and pleasant place it turned out to be.
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[underlined] SOUTHERN RHODESIA [/underlined] .
Clairwood Camp was just a few miles from Durban and there we spent 7 days, very enjoyable, but for the first two days, stoney broke. We had handed in all our money aboard ship but it was to be 10 days before it was exchanged for local currency. However, we seemed to get into Durban every day and we were made very welcome in the Service canteens and clubs.
Before I left England, I was given a card which stated that LAC Cliff. Watson was the son of a respected member of the Battersea Rotary Club and any co-operation afforded to him would be greatly appreciated. I noticed the Rotary insignia at the doorway of a Barclays bank in Durban and asked to see the manager. Could I please borrow £5 and I would refund it as soon as I was paid. 45 years later I would certainly not undertake such a venture. It happened to be the first Friday in the month which was the day of the monthly Rotary luncheon. The three lads from Battersea were invited to lunch and each given £10 on condition that we did not refund it. This was hospitality indeed. Several times in Durban we were entertained by the local people, and of course the environment was completely strange to us, so were the bunches of bananas, pawpaws and other fruits.
After about a week to regain our land legs, we embarked on a train and steamed north. The train was a coal burner and we were aboard for 3 days bound for Bulawayo. Food on the train was really first-class. At one stage we were told to disembark for a spot of exercise [sic] and whilst this was in progress the train moved off. We were marched in a direction at right-angles to that of the train and met up with it about an hour later. This was my first experience of African trains, and the 4-berth cabins, rather superior to even today's "sleepers" in Britain. Looking back on it 35 years later when I was concerned with radio communications between trains and stations in the U.K., - my firm was trying to Introduce a communications system-, I recalled chatting with the Radio Officer in his Radio Cabin on the train whist he was on the morse key in contact with the station at Mafeking. It was many years later that communication with trains in Britain was established.
After a very pleasant three-day journey, we arrived in Bulawayo and buses took us to Hillside Camp, formerly the Agricultural Show Ground. We were accommodated literally in what had been the Pig Sties. These were merely wattle poles supporting corrugated iron roofs with hessian round the poles to represent walls. The whole structure was whitewashed and with plenty of fresh air the accommodation was ideal. There must have been about 600 trainee pilots at Hillside Camp, and we embarked on a second I.T.W. course of ground training. There was however a single Tiger Moth on which we learned to swing the prop. and start the engine. So at last we had sat in an aeroplane although it wasn't going anywhere. At least it was supposed to be anchored down, but an Australian did taxi it a hundred yards or so after an evening of celebration.
Our stay in Bulawayo was certainly very pleasant, we visited Cecil Rhodes grave at Matopas, the ancient ruins of Zimbabwe, spent weekends on farms, enjoyed the swimming and so on, but our minds were on the war of which we were not feeling a part. Pearl Harbour had brought the
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Americans into the fray, several Capital Ships had been lost and things were going badly 'up north'.
In January came a very welcome posting, to 25 E.F.T.S. (Elementary Flying Training School) at Belvedere, on the outskirts of Salisbury. Here the day started at 0400 and we enjoyed tea and toast of our own making before assembling at 0425 for two-mile march to the airfield. By 0500 half the course would be standing-by for flying and the other half lectures and more ground training. Breakfast was between 0900 and 1030 hrs. which included the 2 mile march each way, and after breakfast the two halves of the course changed over. Flying started on the sixth of Jan. with what was to be a typical day, with 30 minutes of flying instruction at 0515, and lectures after breakfast. Addresses by two ex-fighter pilots F/O Newton and a Flight Sergeant whose left leg was in plaster. The following day I managed to get in an hour’s flying with P/O Bentley, concentrating on turns, glides and climbing. From the outset the instructor frequently cut the throttle without warning sometimes deliberately putting the aircraft into a spin. then telling the pupil to get on with it. My next flying session was with Ft/Sgt Oates as P/O Bentley was on leave and in six weeks of flying instruction managed 12 hours with 7 different instructors. A final three hours was spent with F/O Newton in one hour sessions and I was full of confidence and looking forward to the C.F.I.'s test the following day.
Maybe in retrospect I was over confident, even though most of my friends had been "scrubbed", including Hancocks, Robinson, Morgan, King, Barlow, Vivian, Bolton, Friend, Britton, Jones and Fry. Having made what I thought were two acceptable circuits and landings, the C.F.I.'s final remarks were "Sorry old lad, but as a Service Pilot you make a bloody good rear gunner". I did not regard these as being the words of the Prophet, but so ended my career as a u/t Pilot after 9 months in the R.A.F.
All was not lost however, like all the others whose Personal file was stamped "wastage", I found myself at Disposals Depot, which also happened to be at Belvedere, and in good company. All of us were sadly disillusioned and disappointed at failing the Pilot's Course, and the reasons given for the apparent failure were seldom accepted. Where do we go from here in the long term was the main question, and the opportunity to influence this came at an interview at Group H.Q. in Salisbury. The only guidance came from others who had already had their interviews and were awaiting a posting. The alternatives appeared to be many, we could opt out completely and remuster to ACH GD, reduced to the lowest rank of Airman 2nd. Class and thence take pot luck with no trade and no personal ambition. But we had joined the R.A.F. with too much purpose for this to be acceptable. We could apply for training as Observer which at that time embraced both Navigator and Bomb Aimer duties, but we were meeting chaps just starting that course who had waited six months for it after failing the pilot's course, and this indicated that it could be a year more before we qualified. The most logical answer appeared to be the Air Gunner Course which lasted only six weeks, and apparently with hardly any waiting list, so in less than two months it seemed we could become a sergeant with half a wing, not quite what we set out to achieve, but a far cry from where we stood at the time.
At the interview at Group H.Q. I asked why I had failed and was shown the comments made by my instructors. With the exception of the
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C.F.I.’s comment they were all favourable and I became a little argumentative. For the first time I learned that on the C.F.I. test I had climbed at less than full throttle but at the correct air speed with the normal rate of climb. What I should have done apparently was give it full throttle, keeping the correct air speed and letting the rate of climb take care of itself. On the training aircraft the emphasis had been on speed and rate of climb whereas it should have been on speed only and full throttle.
I remarked that the C.F.I.'s aircraft was more like a Gladiator than a Tiger Moth. The alternative careers were as we had deduced amongst ourselves and I applied to remuster to u/t Wireless Operator/Air Gunner and to do the A/G course as soon as possible. This was approved on the spot, and my file was endorsed “Watson requests an A/G course merely for the quickness in getting onto ops." I was supposed to start the course the following week.
It was to be three months before I was actively posted to Moffat to do the Air Gunner Course, and the greater part of this was spent on leave, returning to camp periodically to check progress. We had only to walk along the road away from town to be offered a lift which generally meant spending the rest of the day with new friends, and quite often arranging to spend a week or so with them. It was on the 15th. of Feb. Tom King and I were spending 10 days leave with our hosts Mr. & Mrs. Bedford at Poltimore Farm, Marandellas that we listened to Churchill's speech, with the dreadful news of the fall of Singapore. This led to a general discussion on the likely future plans of the war and it was generally felt there would be an allied landing at Dakar with the assistance of the French, and the forces would move north and then east to catch Rommel in a pincer movement. Not too far out in our argument, only 2000 miles, but we had the general scheme and timing right. Later we were shown around the tobacco "barns" where 12,000 leaves were drying in each of 10 barns. My diary records that "one of the most interesting things we were shown was the castrating of 300 pigs" A rather messy business", perhaps I was less squeamish in those days. Later about 2000 head of cattle were dipped including 3 wicked looking bulls. The two children tried to keep us amused, and with great success. We repaired their bicycles, small car, swing and dolls' house furniture, the dolls house being about 20 feet square. We carved out the names Wendy (8) and Cliff (20) on a tree and really began to enjoy the Rhodesian way of life. We cycled over to Chakadenga Farm and had tea with Mrs. Nash and also met the local jailer. We tried to repay all this kindness by making ourselves generally useful, and I recall changing the oil in Mrs. Nash's Chevrolet and repairing the lights. We also refitted the long-wire aerial on the house radio and refurbished the engine house which accommodated the lighting plant and batteries.
We tried to spend.as much time away from camp as possible, our idea being 'out of sight, out of mind'. Occasionally the S.W.O caught up with us and we were detailed for guard duty on the aerodrome, a 12 hour guard working 2 hours on and four off. The complete guard comprised 6 airmen, 4 on standby in the guard room, one cycling around the aerodrome and one standing in a sentry box at the side of the double gates which were normally closed. There were neither fences-nor ditches linking the gate posts and it was easier to drive a car onto the airfield on the wrong side of the gate posts than to bother with the gate. Generally the Orderly Officer carried out his inspection about 7.pm. but on one
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occasion suddenly appeared about 3 am. from the direction of the airfield and drove up to the main gate on his way out, parking so near the gate it could not be opened. I turned out the guard, which took about 5minutes and we were treated to a tirade and lecture covering several subjects including how utterly futile the guard was. One of the chaps said “you are absolutely right Sir" which made matters worse and he stormed back into his car. The headlights had been left on and the car wouldn't start, so we leaned our rifles against the sentry box and pushed the car backwards so we could open the gates. Finally the entire guard pushed the car forward and it started without trouble, but headed back towards camp. We decided to remain at the open gate, and a few minutes later the car returned at great speed, and disappeared through the gate in a tremendous cloud of dust without further formality. We had good laugh but it did little for the morale of chaps whose ambitions had been thwarted and who felt they were wasting their time in the R.A.F. and, even more so in guarding a gate which had no real purpose with blank ammunition and rifles which it would be too dangerous to fire. By the end of March the aerodrome guard was taken more seriously and comprised 24 Europeans and about 60 Africans, which meant the remustering aircrew trainees were on guard every few nights. I was given the job running the Post Office and Stores which exempted me from guard duties but also curtailed my leave periods.
On the 3rd. April Tom King and 20 others were posted to 24 C.A.O.S. at Moffat, near Gwelo, about half-way between Salisbury and Bulawayo, for their Air Gunner Course. The intake was 50 per month and we wondered where the other 40 had come from. Meanwhile Ray Chislett the other member of the Battersea trio- was doing extremely well at Cranbourne flying Oxfords. Root and Robertson were killed the previous day in a Harvard whilst officially on practice instrument flying but actually beating up a tree and misjudging matters
On the 1st. of May, I was posted to Moffat and started the A-G course. Things seemed to be happening in our favour at long last; and had been delayed because of a large influx of remustered ground crews who had got out of Singapore just in time, and also another large influx of Aussies for Air Gunner training. It was good to see Tommy King pass out as a Sgt. A-G and for Cpl. Luck to receive his commission.
On Sun. the 10th. of May there was a church parade in best blues and khaki topee, held in Gwelo. Two days later L.A.C. Chick Henbest, u/t A-G ex u/t Pilot shot a large hole in his own aircraft's tail. When he as charged with the offence he brought an expert witness, the Station Armament Officer ! - to state that such a thing was technically impossible. The Air-Gunner training was partly intergrated [sic] with that of the Navigator's, and on the 13th. May on such an occasion 'Ace' Buchanan and another A-G, piloted by Sgt. Reed, force-landed near QueQue and were missing for 5 hours
In the four weeks at Moffat we carried out 9 hours of Air firing in Anson aircraft using a Vickers Gas Operated gun of .303 calibre. This was mounted on a Scarfe ring with the gunner standing and firing at a drogue towed by a Miles Master aircraft. 200 rounds were fired during each exercise [sic] , the 3 "pans" of ammo. having been filled by the gunner and then 'doctored' by an armourer with faulty rounds, and other simulated faults. The only turrets available were on the ground, and comprised an ancient Frazer Nash, Daimler and electrical Boulton & Paul. A total of 4 hours was spent in them. We were supposed to swing the
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turret aiming at moving light images on the wall but in practice the bulbs in the ring-sights were all faulty.
On the 29th. May we graduated and were presented with brevets and tapes. The course was posted to Capetown but I had to report to Salisbury to give evidence at Gooding's Court Martial. Gooding had stolen my Agfa Carat camera and scores of other items in Bulawayo. Meanwhile on the news, 1000 Bombers over the Rhur [sic] again and 37 missing. A few days previously the very first raid on this scale was made on Cologne with 44 aircraft missing. The Middle-East war was becoming more intensive and in Russia Jerry was in real trouble, but we seemed a very long way from it all.
One of my friends on the Pilots course was Ian Smith who lived in Salisbury and with whom I used to go looking for buck in the early mornings. Ian had failed the course like most of us but being a Rhodesian had obtained his discharge locally and joined the Southern Rhodesia Light Battery currently at the K.G. VI barracks. I went to the barracks in the afternoon and saw Norman, and was introduced to Solomon, Slim and other Rhodesians in the S.R. Army Medical Corps. After tea in the mess we went to the local bioscope to see 'East of the River'. On the 13th. of June I managed to get another 19 days leave which was spent with Mr. & Mrs. James at their farm at Gilston, about 16 miles south of Salisbury. With three Aussies we had a wonderful holiday, riding, cycling, tennis, swimming, all at the farm. We rode up to the bushman's caves in a copje 4 miles into the bundu and photographed them. To the Aussies it was like being home and I concluded there was no alternative to this sort of life.
On my return to Disposals Depot my stolen camera was returned to me and I found that Gooding was on yet another charge,- stealing a W/T Set - . A few more days leave to say cheerio to all my friends in Salisbury, and I returned to Gwelo to find that I was posted to Bulawayo to give evidence at the Court Martial. I stayed with Mr. & Mrs. Rose for a week or so and spent some time at the Cement works where Mr. Rose was Manager. I was offered a job there if I would return after the war and for a long time this formed the basis of my post-war plan, but a great deal was to happen before that time came. The Court Martial was a very formal affair, and Gooding was charged with theft on about 45 counts. He had not disposed of anything he had stolen for personal gain, and pleaded Kleptomania. He was sentenced to dismissal from the R.A.F. after immediate return to U.K., and recommended for psychiatric observation. He survived the war, certified unfit for Military service and resumed his career with a firm of solicitors in Surrey. The case was finished just in time for me to join the rest of the course on the 1st. of July at Bulawayo station. In Gwelo I had bought a tin trunk which was now nearly full of presents, pyjamas for Hilda, stockings for Mum, embroidering material, tobacco, cigarettes, jam and so on.
After a 55 hour train journey we arrived in Kapstaad and enjoyed Iunch with John Heggarty before joining another train to Retreat and the drive to Polsmoor Transit Camp by bus. It rained heavily for a couple of days and the activity was just one big reunion. I met friends I had not seen since Newquay. Dicky Aires and Jack Frost were there as Sgt. pilots, Howard Iliffe (1090111) and Bob Hildred also, having trained as pilots at George, in the Union. Arthur Brittain a Sgt. Observer and Stewart Evans who was in the Officers Mess at Kumalo. In the next four
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weeks we spent most of our time in Capetown, making a beeline for the Soldiers Club. The welcome we received from the South Africans was positively overwhelming, and people were literally queueing up to entertain us. On the 4th. of July a group of four of us including Ray Chislett and two Maltese soldiers met Mrs. Williams and had tea at her flat. After tea we motored out to a vineyard and got quite merry on four glasses of their own wine. On the way out one of the tyres was punctured and it took us less than three minutes to change the wheel. In the evening we went to the Odeon Bioscope at Seapoint with complimentary tickets which appeared from out of the blue. Howard. Iliffe, John Heggarty and I spent a great deal of time together in Capetown where Howard & I met two young ladies. One of them, introduced as Cheri de la Chene said she was French and had spent five years in Paris, but she could not understand my efforts at speaking French. John Heggarty had quite a brainwave and I introduced him as a member of the Free French Forces,-L'Aviation Francais Libre-. John was absolutely fluent in native French and soon discovered that Cheri was neither French nor a University student, but a schoolgirl of 14 at the Convent. Whilst in Capetown I met Binedall with whom I used to correspond before the war, and he gave me a large matchbox which I left with Mrs. Williams' mother to be collected after the war. I have left it rather too late. The climb up Table Mountain with Ray was very interesting and from the top we had a wonderful view of Muizeuburg. This reminds me of one night during a trial blackout at Muizenburg, Heggarty and I met Mrs. Macbeth who invited us to dinner on the following day. We gladly accepted and on arrival at the house next day referred to her as Mrs. Shakespeare. This was laughed off and we spent a very enjoyable evening. After dinner we went to a show in Muizenburg and met a lady who had lived near Battersea Park. In 1952 in Mbeya in Tanganyika I was talking to another 'Radio Ham' in Muizenburg arid mentioned my faux pas with Mrs. Macbeth's name. He said he was living in Mrs. Macbeth's guest house and she had related the story at dinner only a few days previously. Stuttafords of Adderley Street provided a very interesting experience for Heggarty and me. We wandered into a tea-room the likes of which we had never seen before, it seemed the ultimate in luxury. We asked mildly for just two cups of tea but up came the whole works of silver teaset with lots of pastries and cakes. We said no thankyou, really, just two cups of tea, but the lady was adamant. We said it was jolly nice but funds were limited and the cakes were beyond our means. She said she would be very cross if we didn't have at least half a dozen cakes and then gave us a bill -for 1/3d. Fixed charge for two, she said. Wonderful people, it was embarrassing at times. We called in a Milk Bar for a milkshake and they insisted it was on the house. We would buy a bunch of grapes for a 'ticky', -3d- and they refused payment. One Saturday Ray and I spent the day with the Brandt family who lived at Rosebank . We went for a run with them in the car in the afternoon, round Table Mountain and took some very good photographs. They also drove us to the Lion Match Company's factory in Capetown, where we were given a tour - and quite a lot of labels- a wonderful finale to my first trip to Africa.
After meeting up with our old friends whose paths had taken many different ways and finally converged, but not without the loss of several due to accidents, the resentment at failing the pilot's course had just about worn off. The original crowd of rookies at Newquay were still basically together and covering all aircrew 'trades'. Someone had
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[photograph]
[underlined] AIR GUNNER COURSE [/underlined]
[underlined] APRIL 1942 [/underlined] [underlined] 24 C.A.O.S. MOFFAT, GWELO. [/underlined] [underlined] S. RHODESIA [/underlined]
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[underlined] POSTSCRIPT [/underlined]
The A/G course was rather an anti-climax after the concentration and determined outlook on the pilots course. Most of us felt we had wasted our time and had been let down.
During a "lecture" on the Browning gun by Cpl. Paddy Gilligan he noticed correctly that my eyes were closed and pointing to me, yelled "You, what was I saying?", I replied "You were saying 'as the breach block moves to the rear the cam on the rear sear rides along that on the barrel extention [sic] . . . ' There followed a discussion on my detailed phraselogy [sic] and he wound up by shouting "Your problem Watson is you don't speak effing english". I replied that I try to speak the King's english Cpl! and that did it, he swore to fix me. Study of the Browning gun comprised learning parrot-fashion the sequence of events and other odd statistics such as effective range and rate of fire. There was a drawing on the wall which gave us some idea of what it looked like, but the Browning was something for the future, the R.A.F. currently uses the V.G.O. or so we were told. The following day Gilligan told me to go to the billet and make sure the African had cleaned all the lampshades, including the one in his little room. This I did and two hours later reported they were all clean. The next day with no preamble I was told to report to the Orderly Room immediately. I was marched in to the C.O. and charged with failing to carry out an order, and also making a false report. Gilligan gave evidence and said the lampshade in his billet was filthy, I could not have checked it. The C. O. accepted this and I was given a severe rep. and 7 days jankers. I went straight away to the billet and I asked the S.W.O. to accompany me. He delegated a Sgt. Clerk and together we checked the offending lampshade. Sure enough it was filthy. I found the african cleaner and he swore that he had cleaned the shade but the Cpl. had then made him change it for one in the next but where they were all dirty. We all trooped next door and saw that all were indeed filthy except one.
The Sgt. could see what Gilligan was up to and endorsed my written report addressed to the C.O. which also applied for redress of grievance. The result was that my Severe Rep. was cancelled and so was the balance of the jankers.
At the end of the course the exam. papers were marked by Gilligan and he gave me 61% in all subjects which was the absolute minimum for a pass. Again I wrote to the C.O. and he agreed that Gilligan was up to his tricks again. He changed the exam. results to an average of 93% If I had not been so argumentative I could very well have "failed the course"
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to fly the thing, but there was a lot of other work to be done also. A cutting from the Rhodesia Herald whilst at Moffat spelt it out:-
I wished to be a pilot,
And you, along with me;
But if we all were pilots,
Where would the Air Force be?
It takes guts to be a gunner,
To sit out in the tail,
When the Messerschmitts are coming,
And the slugs begin to wail.
The plot's just a chauffeur;
It's his job to fly the plane;
But it's we who do the fighting,
Though we may not get the fame.
If we must all be gunners,
Then let us make this bet;
We'll be the best damn gunners
That have left this station yet
Nearly half a century later it does seem somewhat corny.
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[underlined] OPERATIONAL TRAINING. [/underlined]
And so to the 2nd. August 1942; we boarded HMT J/6, The Monarch of Bermuda and were shown to our cabins, stowed our kit and were issued with passes to go ashore until 1500 hrs. A last look at Table Mountain and Kapstaad and at 1630 on the 3rd. we left South Africa, hoping and firmly intending one day to return. The 10 day voyage to Freetown was a very pleasant cruise, escorted by two Battle Cruisers and three Corvettes and accompanied by The Empress of Russia, we ploughed along at a steady 12 knots. Our favourite pastime was reading the inter-ship messages on the Aldis lamps. Among other things we learned that one of the Empress's boilers was u/s and shut down. Which limited the speed of the whole convoy. There were several U Boat warnings during daylight and these coincided with lifeboat drills, which were taken very seriously.
The accommodation was very good, all the R.A.F. NCOs being accommodated six in each cabin. The cabins were equipped as they had been for luxury cruising pre-war, each with a toilet room with saltwater shower. The portholes remained open the whole time, but this time we were on 'A' and not 'D' Deck. In the Sgts Mess Italian P.O.W.'s waited upon us, and make a very good job of it. All fatigues are carried out by them and they caused no trouble at all. The vigilance of the Polish guards probably influenced that, their bayonets being fixed ALL the time, and there were few words passing between the guards and prisoners, just a few gestures with the bayonet. The Poles had been in action since August 1939 and were a long way from home, first defending their country, evacuating to Yugoslavia, and then making their way to Abadan to join the British. There were 1800 Italian prisoners aboard, mostly captured in Bardia and Tobruk about two years previously. They were a meek and miserable-looking lot. One of our 'stewards' who we called 'Grandpa' was a Cpl Major, and had medals for the Bolshevist and Abbysinian [sic] wars. He spoke very little English, but excellent French, and in return for a few cigarettes made me a bracelet in which he put photos of my fiancee [sic] , Hilda, and me. The material was similar to duralumin and he claimed it was a piece from a shot-down British Bomber in Abbysinia [sic] , a most unlikely story. His only tools were a pen-knife, a razor blade and a 4” nail for engraving. The Italians were confident the Axis would win the war and were expecting Stukas, Fokker Wolfe Condors and 'U' Boats to appear at any time.
There were several hundred European civilians aboard, mostly evacuees from Alexandria and Cairo, who seemed to think they owned the ship. Many of them were ducked during the Crossing the Line ceremony, we claimed exemption, being old timers at that sort of thing!!
There was some form of entertainment almost every evening; mainly variety concerts organised by the troops. During one of these I recall a wounded ex 8th-Army Soldier impersonating Stanley Holloway in his Northern accent with a poem,
"The Reason Why"
The unity of Empire .is seen in ships galore,
As they plough in convoy fashion, to Britain's island shore,
Across the world's big oceans, around continents as well,
The Bulldog breed keeps up the creed that history will tell.
We've roughed it on this convoy, we've lived like herded sheep,
Yet all can see, it's got to be, if freedom's cause we'll keep
We're mixed like breeded cattle, the R. A. F. as well,
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That R.A:F. who two .years ago Just drove the 'uns to 'ell.
They say the good ship Monarch, J6 her tag, goes back to Afric [sic] shortly,
but always behind that Flag.
The Flag we're fighting Jerry for,
the Flag of which we're proud,
the Flag which may be a tattered rag,
but with honoured blood endowed.
In that environment and atmosphere this was pretty stirring stuff.
On the 14th. of August we dropped anchor in Freetown. Just as a year ago, it was very hot and humid, with an overcast sky. This time we were not restricted to below decks, but enjoyed the freedom of the ship and were able to trade with the natives. Sunderland seaplanes were seen patrolling out to sea, with Walrus amphibeans [sic] doing about 60. m.p.h., around the harbour. There was lots of signalling between ships and we could cope with the morse, but the semaphore was too advanced and clever for us.
Sunday the 16th at 0600 the Monarch and the Empress slipped out of Freetown and rejoined the Royal Navy out at sea. We were a little concerned for an hour or two, as the sun was rising on the port beam, but we eventually turned right and the sun returned to it's proper place, astern. We expected to reach England by thursday, but rumours of the invasion of France were rife and my diary actually records that this might delay us a little!. The general topic of conversation was what would it be like going through Customs. We were advised on the P.A. system to hand in any unauthorised arms and ammunition, including loot taken from the enemy. I had 3 kitbags, a tin trunk, suitcase and issue R.A.F. webbing and packs, and somewhere in that lot was 25 lbs. of sugar, 10 lbs of tea, 8 pairs of silk stockings, 2 dress lengths, 15lbs. of jam, lady's pyjamas, 2000 cigarettes and other dutiable material. I also had a very small .22 revolver in my pocket and decided to risk it. It was really a toy, hardly a weapon of war. In the very early hours of the 26th. of August we docked at Greenoch. An hour later our party of 240 or so assembled on deck with a mountain of kit, all newly trained sprog aircrew sergeants. The train pulled in to within 100 yards of the ship and in less than 30 minutes we were on our way by train to Glasgow, then on to London. Whilst changing stations in London, I telephoned the office, BATtersea 8485, at 0730 and was disappointed that Hilda was not yet at work!
We arrived at no. 3 P.D.C. Bournemouth and moved into luxury hotels, expecting to be sent on leave immediately, hardly worth unpacking, but this was not to be. We were interviewed several times, medically examined, kit reorganised and generally messed about for a week. According to my pay book, I was a Sgt. Air Gunner, u/t Wireless Operator, and at one interview I was told that this could not be so. Either I could stay as a Sgt. A-G or lose my tapes and become an AC2 u/t Wireless op., eventually doing a wireless op. course. It was emphasised that the whole business of training was highly organised into streams, and once in the main stream it was better to drift with it rather than to try and change course. Streams could not cross, but only merge. All very academic and enlightening so it was agreed that u/t wireless op. would be deleted from my paybook, and of course, having done a couple of tours as a rear gunner I could always apply for a wireless course.
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That's what the man said and I was in no position to argue, 'Just a couple of tours'.
A week later we were on leave, and Hilda met me at Waterloo after just over a year apart. We had a few hours in London before going up to Barnoldswick to take my mother by surprise. After five rather hectic days of visiting relatives and friends we returned to London and met Hilda's parents and relatives, for just one day before returning to Bournemouth.
We were billeted in an attic at Ocean Lodge and took our meals at the Vale Royal. The food was the most unappetising and uninteresting we had seen in the R.A.F. so far. Life in Bournemouth consisted entirely of parades, square bashing, P.T. drill, lectures and swimming, each activity taking place some miles away from the previous one.
Bournemouth was full of sprog air crews, 90% Sergeants, few realised what the future might hold, and; in retrospect, I don't recall even thinking about it.
We were clear of Bournemouth on the 2nd. of October, and posted to 25 O.T.U., Finningley. near Doncaster.
The first 14 days were spent in lectures, practical work on guns in the armoury, and in firing on various ranges. We were introduced to the FN20 rear turret and relieved to have the opportunity of stripping the .303 Browning guns. We who had trained in Rhodesia did not advertise the fact that we had never actually seen a real Browning gun, only a wooden model, all our air-firing having been carried out on V.G.O.'s [Vickers Gas Operated) guns. We had spent several hours in a turret on the ground in Rhodesia. A Boulton & Paul electrically operated mid-upper type as fitted to a Defiant but bearing no resemblance to the rear turrets of Wellingtons and Whitleys.
11th. November was relatively peaceful at Finningley. In the world outside the Allies had landed in North Africa and occupied the coastal strip from Casablanca, through Oran to 50 miles east of Algiers where the big build-up was taking place. Jerry was being pushed towards Tunisia and Rommel's Afrika Corps was in full retreat in Libya, having been pushed out of Egypt, The Huns marched into hitherto unoccupied France and hard fighting was still going on in Stalingrad. Madagascar was in British hands. My diary records that Jerry lost over 600 aircraft in two days, according to the B.B.C. Nearer home I also recorded that "I flew today for the first time with my pilot, Sgt. Rutherford, and with Sgt. Bishop, W/optr., on circuits and bumps. Our Navigator Allan Willoughby is at Bircotes doing cross-countries". For some of us the pace was slow, and some of the time was spent in 'Brains Trust' sessions. Here a team of experts would sit on the platform and questions on any subject would be asked by the rest of us. In reply to the question "How do you think we should deal with the Huns after the war?", the M.O. replied "Castrate the bloody lot, the R.A.M.C. could do that in only a couple of weeks". Most of the discussions however were in a more serious vain. Over this period the weather was not very good. No 14 Course crews have been helping the Landgirls digging up potatoes and 12 Course chaps were heaving coal, We then had coal and coke allocated and delivered to our billets, which eliminated the need to pinch it from the Officers' Mess. we were accomodated [sic] in the peace-time married quarters close to their Mess.
One of our Wimpies from Bircotes crashed into a Beaufighter near Caernarvon where my sister was stationed in the W.A.A.F. There were no
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[photograph]
[photograph] [underlined] REG WHELLAMS [/underlined]] 1333520
[underlined] AT 25 OTU FINNINGLEY [/underlined]
(10 FORSTER RD. WALTHEMSTOW E.17 )
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survivors. A Defiant crashed near my home in Barnoldswick and we pressed on with the routine of local flying, stripping nothing more interesting than guns, and lectures and so on.
My diary records that on the 9th. December, after a little over two months we were taken by lorry to Bircotes to fly as a crew. Losses were high, on a Bullseye on London we lost three aircraft. One of them apparently ditched without trace near the French Coast, the only clue to this being their dinghy which would have been released automatically striking the water. A second crew headed by Ft/Lt. Anneckstein crashed into the watch office, killing the Bomb Aimer who was stretched out in the bombing position. A third crew crashed on landing at Bircotes, without fatality, but with the crew rather shaken-up. We were living Nissen huts about 2 miles from the 'hangars' and 3/4 mile from the in the other direction. The place was a sea of mud in parts and we generally washed AFTER breakfast for some reason which eludes me after 45 years
One point in favour of Bircotes, it was on the Great North Road and just before Christmas I enjoyed a 48 hr. leave with Hilda in London! I met Tommy King in Battersea who was a Rear Gunner on Halifaxes with three ops. to his credit, all to Italy. A brief respite and back to Bircotes. The flying aspect was proving more interesting now, I could see a little beyond my own situation and get involved to some extent in the general carry-on of working as a crew. We had a first-class Skipper, Sgt. Stan. Rutherford, a down-to-earth tough New Zealand sheep farmer. Our Navigator Allan Willoughby from the West country whom we regarded as the Academic member of the crew, but who suffered greatly from air sickness. On those occasions our Bomb Aimer Stan Chadderton from Liverpool took over the navigation without any problems. Stan trained as an Observer - which included both Bomb aiming and Navigating in the U.S.A. and we were thus very fortunate in having a standby navigator. Our Wireless Operator Harry Dyson was from Huddersfield possibly the socialite of the crew, and fancied his chances in the rear turret, giving me a welcome change on occasions.
I started the New Year well by having four runaway guns, over Missen, the bombing range, splattering a main road. The safety catches were 'off' and the guns ready for instant action almost all the time the air, and the reason the guns fired has not been fully explained. I vaguely put it down to a build-up of hydraulic pressure in the triggering system. This did not fool the Armourers who put it down finger trouble on my part - literally.
By the 7th. of Jan. we had completed all our day-flying details of cross-countries, bombing, air firing etc. and were suddenly posted to 30 O.T.U. Hixon, in Staffordshire to complete the night flying excercises [sic] . It took three days visiting various sections to obtain signatures on a Clearance Certificate before we were free of Finningly [sic] , and the after we arrived at Hixon, we were despatched to the satellite airfield at Seighford. A week later we were still without aircraft at Seighford and when the Skipper, Navigator and W/op went to Finningley to collect one, Stan Chadderton & I took French leave and shot off to see respective Hildas. It was on that leave that Hilda and I decided to get married and arranged for bans to be called in Seighford and Battersea.
On the 24th. Jan, our night-flying excercises [sic] almost completed we enjoyed a new experience. We were put on the battle order and briefed for an attack on Lorient. Everything was rushed and finally when
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boarding the aircraft -which was u/s-, the raid -or our part in it- was cancelled. We were to have dropped six 500 lb. bombs in 10/10ths cloud and were warned about the fighters and lots of flak. We found later that the Americans had bombed Lorient in the afternoon followed by 121 aircraft of Bomber Command that night. One Stirling was lost. In early Feb. we were doing a 6 hour cross-country operational excercise [sic] simulating a real trip and towards the end of it were joyfully bombing what was thought to be our target on the bombing range. After dropping two sticks of 11 1/2 lb. practice bombs the "target" lights were extinguished and although we remained over them for a further 20 minutes they did not come on again. Thirty minutes later "W" William landed at base amid great consternation. Apparently the O. C. Night Flying had thought we were lost and had been sending up rockets. These were seen by the Stafford Fire Brigade who came dashing out to Seighford expecting a major disaster. On reporting to the Watch Office the Skipper was congratulated upon a successful bombing attack on Hixon aerodrome.
A few nights previously Jock King and crew had crash-landed on the Yorkshire moors. They were over the North sea, badly iced up and losing height gradually until they ran out of it on the moor. The aircraft was a complete write-off and the Rear Gunner very badly injured by the Brownings crashing into his chest. On the 7th. Feb. the whole crew went to the local church and heard the Banns called. Two aircraft were lost from our unit the previous night, one piled straight in at Hixon, all killed, and Sgt. Browning bounced off the runway and finished upside down in the adjacent field. The 11th. Feb. was my 21st. Birthday and the Crew got absolutely sloshed in Eccleshall. It was a memorable party and the Skipper and Bomb Aimer got themselves lost on the way home and spent part of the night in a ditch. On the 14th. we completed the last of our cross-country details. The pages of my diary covering this trip are indistinct having been submerged in water in 1949, but there were problems. The first 4 hours were spent on accurately flown courses, but there was difficulty in keeping to specific heights. The aircraft seemed to climb and alternately lose height for no explicable reason and this distracted the Skipper from the required accuracy. Eventually with only 60 gallons of fuel indicated, the Skipper called "Darky Darky this is Nemo xx .....". Up came a 'gate' of two searchlights and signalled the direction of a friendly runway. 10 minutes later we all developed an instant inferiority complex, we had landed at Wyton, the home of 109 Squadron Pathfinders. One Wellington Mk.111 bombed up with four small practice bombs, was parked amid Lancasters, Mosquitoes and B17 Fortresses. However we were made very welcome and at 0400 hrs. thoroughly enjoyed the bacon, egg, fried sausages, toast and marmalade etc. Had I known then, that 40 years hence I would be retired and settled within 4 miles of Wyton I would have been a happier man. Aircraft on the first raid of the war had taken off from Wyton. The next two weeks were very active with little actually achieved. We were briefed almost every day for something which was cancelled every time but with one exception. We were told to do an air test on an aircraft which was parked near the perimeter fence. The rear turret was almost touching the fence at the other side of which was a haystack and chicken coop. The ground was muddy and rather more revs than usual were needed to free the wheels and move the aircraft forward. The hurricane strength wind created completely demolished the hen coop and the haystack, and many of the hens became airborne as never before. There
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was no time for recriminations however, on landing we went straight to the briefing room and learned we, were on a Nickel that night. The Oxford Dictionary gives a different meaning, but to Air Crews 'Nickel' is a generic term for a bum fodder or leaflet raid. It did imply that someone had some confidence in us, maybe. The target was Paris.
At last we were over enemy-occupied territory, still on our side of the Rhine, and still a long way from it, but we were getting nearer and there was no lack of confidence, at least initially. Problems developed, first my ring-sight ferrel broke off, so there was no hope of accurate aiming if attacked, then my intercom microphone ceased to function. The fault was later found in the Rotating Service Joint below the turret. We had a standby signalling system of push button and lamp, but that too was out of order for the same reason. I could hear the skipper calling me on a routine check but had no means of replying. Receiving no reply, Barry Dyson crawled back to the rear turret to check up, not knowing what to expect. He had overlooked the fact that we were at 15.000 feet - the highest we had been at that time- and almost passed out due to lack of oxygen. He reconnected his adapter to the system just in time. He was also inadequately clothed for a temperature of -18C but putting 1800 lbs of leaflets down the flare chute restored his circulation. Di banged on the turret door and we exchanged greetings. He returned to his office and reporting my situation to the Skipper. Meanwhile I was incommunicado for the rest of the trip, but I could hear the others conversing. Shortly after that I felt the rotation of the turret was becoming sluggish and I tried to fire a short burst. Three of the guns fired one round each and then stopped, but number one was working. I cocked and recocked the guns several times, tried firing them manually and eventually three were working. I fired a short burst and regained a little confidence. An hour after leaving Paris the turret rotation would not respond to the hydraulics so I ensured that manual operation was still possible. I knew that to bale out I would have to open the turret doors, then the aircraft bulkhead door, grab my parachute pack, drag it through both doors and into the turret, rotate the turret onto the beam, fit the 'chute, open the doors, disconnect the intercom and oxygen and go out backwards. I decided to give it a try except for actually bailing out - and decided it was probably not feasible in the time available, but I did get the parachute into the turret and tucked it down the side. I learned a lot that night, more had gone wrong in my department on that one trip than during all my training. Di learned the odd lesson too, to wear more clothing in case he had to move away from the hot air system under his table.
The following day we were advised that our O.T.U. course was completed and the Skipper was asked to state the crew's preference either to join a squadron bombing Germany or to go overseas. Our preference for Germany was unanimous; after all, I was getting married and most of us had already been overseas!. And so we went our separate ways on 7 days leave
March 1st, 1943 perhaps the most important day of my life, Hilda and I were married. Staying at Hilda's home I took my cousin Frank to Trafalgar Square and showed him the Lancaster bomber, then on to St. Pauls Churchyard where I used to work and showed him a Stirling Bomber. He was thrilled with London and with the aircraft in particular. At 1pm we met Mum and Topsy at duCane Court and lunched in Balham, and whilst Mum and the others went to meet Hilda's folks, I went on to the Church,
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St. Mary's in Battersea. Some years later when I saw the photographs I realised I was wearing a white shirt with my airman's uniform. Hilda joined me at the Alter [sic] and looked absolutely lovely in her white wedding dress. The service was grand and the organist played two hymns. The church bells remained silent, they were reserved for signalling a possible enemy invasion. We enjoyed a wonderful reception at Hilda's home and on Monday we went to Lancing on honeymoon, the guests of Mr. & Mrs. Pittock at 10 Orchard Avenue. After a few days at Lancing I returned to camp and somehow organised more leave. At 0300 on the 10th. however the police delivered a telegram-which stated "Report to Hixon immediately, posted overseas". I tried to convince them that it was a joke on the part of the crew, and I was not stationed at Hixon in any case. However, at 0700 Hilda accompanied me to Euston where we said goodbye on the platform for the last time for several months at least. One night spent at Hixon, and the following day we travelled by train with two other crews to no. 1 P.D.C. West Kirby.
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[photograph] [photograph]
1st. MARCH 1943 (WHITE SHIRT) 25 O.T.U. FINNINGLEY
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SECOND HONEYMOON SEPT ‘43
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[underlined] SECOND TIME TO AFRICA [/underlined]
At West Kirby we handed in our blue uniforms and were issued with army Khaki battle dress and tropical flying bowlers and helmets. Within a few days we embarked on a Dutch Vessel, the Johan van Vanderbilt in the Mersey, and were allocated first and second class cabins still equipped to. peace-time standards. Service in the Dining Hall was fabulous, staffed by natives from the Nederlands [sic] East Indies. The cuisine was superb, there was white bread and butter and sugar on the tables. A full breakfast at 0800, a peacetime lunch at 1300, tea at 1630 and dinner at 1900. Coffee was available in the Snr. N.C.O's lounge at any time during the morning. The Army Privates' quarters were similar to those we had experienced on the Moultan, sleeping in the same place as they eat, scrubbing everything by 0830 and with lots of bull. They had to wear greatcoats at all times whilst on deck and carry their life-jackets and water bottles. They not only manned the guns but were also detailed for lots of guard duties. Everything seemed to be guarded, but the reason was generally obscure. The cabins were shared with the Army Snr. N.C.O.s and they felt it quite a change to enjoy such comfort. The main topic of conversation was speculation about our destination, North Africa, Middle East or Far East? At a lecture on the 20th. March a senior Army Officer gave us a talk in the big second-class lounge, a very interesting run-down on the state of the war in all theatres. He dealt at some length with the North African campaign and said that very shortly the 1st. and 8th. Armies would meet and a few days after that Jerry would be slung right out of Africa. He wanted to dispel all rumours that we were part of a force invading the south of France. I cannot recall whether we were actually told in so many words, but we expected our destination was either Algiers or Bone.
The armourment [sic] on the Johann was comparatively small. We had about 10 Lewis guns, .303 calibre, and a naval gun at the stern, all manned by the army. There were about 16 ships in the convoy, with troops and cargo, protected by 5 Cruisers and Destroyers, and 2 Corvettes. Not as impressive perhaps as in August 1941, but a more wartime environment.
It was a feeling not entirely new to us, we knew by calculation that it was the 21st. of March and we were sitting comfortably in the First Class Lounge enjoying a coffee, but whereabouts on the Atlantic ocean was the ship? We know we had been heading east all morning so the chances. were we are heading for Gibralter [sic] , it was not warm enough for Freetown to be our destination. Where we were bound was open to speculation like most other vital factors affecting us. What were we going to do when we get to wherever it was? We were a Wellington crew which did not rule out finding ourselves on a Boston or Mitchell doing close army support work. And what after we had completed a tour of ops.? Chad the Bomb Aimer and Di the Wireless op. were both keen to remuster and train as Pilots. Allan Willoughby said he was 'marlish' and quite happy to carry on navigating. I felt the war would be over before we had finished our first tour. The Skipper said little but probably thought we were a bunch of dreamers, comparing us with his sheep back in N.Z.. We were not in fact approaching Gibralter [sic] , we had passed through the Straits during the night.
At 0300 on the 22nd. we were approaching the minefield off Algiers and were attacked by a Ju88 torpedo bomber. We heard the Johan's guns open up
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and the Windsor Castle received a direct hit from a torpedo on her stern, three members of her crew being killed. She also lost her steering and means of propulsion. Efforts were made to tow her into Oran without success but she sank at 1700 the same day. The Service personnel and remainder of the crew were taken aboard destroyers. Hurricanes arrived within minutes of the attack, but just too late and not ideal aircraft for the job at 0300 hrs. My diary - written up a few days after the event,- refered [sic] originally to The Duchess of Windsor and this was changed a few years later to the Windsor Castle.
There was no longer any secrecy about our destination. Di said the R.A.F. had opened an O.T.U. in Algiers, and we were destined to do another course. There were lots of rumours, but one fact was established, we had been in the R.A.F. over two years and we felt it was high time we did something towards the war effort.
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At 0300hrs. on the 23rd. March we were paraded on deck thankful for our greatcoats, which we were still wearing with great discomfort when we disembarked at 1100. A brief stop at an Aircrew Reception Centre, a large hotel on the sea-front, before going to the Aircrew Pool at Surcouf, about 30 miles from Algiers. There was no great feeling of urgency here, the Allies had landed at Algiers on the 6th. of November and the Germans had already been driven some hundreds of miles, to the East.
It was just a matter of waiting, something that most servicemen became very good at. We could not take the initiative and start our own war, but could only make the best of it. Quoting from my diary, "Life at Surcouf is perfect, we share the officers' mess and enjoy typical French peacetime meals. Lots of Bully Beef but the Chef - a French Civilian - certainly knows how to camouflage it. Our chalet is literally on the beach and the sea never more than 20 yards away. We could swim all day long without the formality of swimming trunks, or walk around the village. Sometimes we hitch-hike Into Algiers". There was very little to do in the village, and I recorded that I found the French very unhelpful and generally impolite. We all carried side-arms of course. There was practically nothing to buy except strange local booze, the Americans had seen to all that when they passed through, and the bars seemed to be open all the time. Algeria was, politically, a part of Metropolitan France in the eyes of the French, it was home to many Frenchmen, and they probably realised it might never be quite the same again. After a three-week rest at Surcouf we reported to 150 Squadron at Blida, about 30 miles south of Algiers. This place was most certainly at war, there were Wellingtons, Hudsons, Hurricanes, Commandoes and Albacores for squadrons of Bomber, Coastal, Fighter and Transport Commands, and the Fleet Air Arm. With the exception of Transports and 142 and 150 Wellington Squadrons, all aircraft were controlled by Coastal Command. We were part of the North Africa Striking Force - so we were told. Life was good at Blida, most of the food was tinned and we enjoyed eggs and bully beef every day in the mess. Generally in the evenings we would have a fry-up of eggs and bread with more bully on the primus stove in the billet. The Mess Hall was used as both dining hall and lounge. The arabs wandered round the camp selling eggs and oranges but prefered [sic] to exchange them for food -- more bully beef.
The currency in use was the French Franc with an exchange rate of 200 to the £1 sterling in which we were paid. BMA (British Military Authority) notes were also in use but the most popular currency outside the town was the tin of bully. We were billeted in chalets formerly the peacetime living quarters of the French Air Force. Each chalet had four large rooms-and accommodated two Wellington crews. It was very pleasant to sit out on the verandah [sic] . My rather battered diary records that on the 28th. March 1943 we were discussing what we proposed to do on completion of our first tour. Rather naive, we would have little or no say in the matter. We had been allocated an aircraft, "F" for Freddie, but it was a case of one crew to one aircraft and its present owners had not quite finished their tour and were reluctant to part with it. For two days they had been bombing and straffing [sic] a large German convoy bound for Bizerta which was not left alone even when part of it had docked. We finally took over the aircraft and for five days were airborne for several hours each day. On the afternoon of the 5th. April we took off
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in "F" for Freddie for an hour's fighter affiliation excercise [sic] with two Hurricanes. Employing violent evasive action to make things difficult for the fighters, we crossed the coast about 10 miles east of Algiers at 3000 feet and passed directly over a British destroyer. The Navy was wide awake and saw a heavy bomber being chased by two Hurricanes, immediately opened fire on us with considerable light flak. The pilot of a third Hurricane which was on an operational patrol saw the mini-battle and joined in. When he saw that one of his chums was only 100 yards from my rear turret and happy to stay there, he realised that we were in a different ball game, peeled off and, carried on with his patrol, finally returning to Maison Blanche.
On the night of the 6th. April we bombed the Marshelling [sic] yards at TUNIS, with 3500 lb. and 54 30 lb. incendiaries. We bombed in one stick from 8000 ft. and surprisingly were held in searchlights which we lost at 3000 feet. Not a very good effort on our part, the bombs overshot the target but hit the aerodrome 3 miles north according to the timing point photograph. All 28 aircraft returned safely, two of them damaged There was little light flak but some heavy stuff said to be radar controlled. For an hour on the return journey I changed places with Harry Dyson, our Wireless op. On the 7th. we attacked troop concentrations at night making several bombing passes at low level and finally coming in very low firing 7 Brownings. Chad the bomb aimer used the two guns in the front turret, I had four in the rear and we carried beam guns on these occasions. Only the front gunner could see what he was firing at. One aircraft of 142 Squadron, G George was shot down by light flak. On the 10th. we raided MONSERRATO aerodrome in Sardinia, an aircraft was seen over the target with navigation lights on, visibility was good and we moved away hoping the runway lights would be switched in. The aerodrome remained in darkness and we dropped our bombs singly. There was no light flack from the aerodrome to worry us, and the aircraft with lights on was not seen again. After a further 30 minutes of stooging about we returned to Blida. There was a reasonable amount of heavy flak which we learned on return had downed one aircraft of 142 Squadron. - 2 in 2 nights-. On the way back a searchlight opened up a few miles ahead and the skipper put the nose down so we were at 2000 ft. when we passed directly over the searchlight. Stan Chadderton in the front turret opened fire and the Skipper told me when to open up, aiming straight down. The light stayed on after we had passed, pointing vertically, maybe we did a little damage, probably not. Inside the aircraft however, the dive had caused the Elsan lavatory to come loose and scatter it's contents over the floor.
The following morning, fearing the wrath of the ground crew when they saw the Elsan, we stayed in bed until noon and breakfasted in the billet. Eggs and fried potatoes, fried bread and tinned pears and fresh oranges, served by the wireless op. and rear gunner to the Skipper and the rest of the crew still in bed. In the afternoon we were stood down and Joe Shields (Sgt. Rimmer's Rear Gunner) and I went into Blida to try and find presents to take back to England. The bigger French shops were all closed - no stocks- and we scrounged around the Arab quarters, without success. I mentioned earlier that we always carried side-arms and several times we were crowded by the Arabs. Production of the revolver dispersed them but it could have been very tricky.
On the 14th. April we raided MONSERRATO for the second time, the first run-in at 8000 feet and then 6000 feet. Direct hits were seen on
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the aerodrome this time with 1000 and 250 pounders. No incendiaries were dropped but 10 minutes was spent 8 miles north of the town dropping leaflets. The leaflets were the "laissez-passer" type printed in German instead of the more usual Italian. An aircraft over the target area sporting an orange light seemed to be signalling to a searchlight. We assumed it was acting as a decoy for a night-fighter and the only one of us keeping an eye on it was the navigator standing at the astrodome.
The rest of us searched the allocated parts of the sky according to the book!. All our aircraft returned safely and reported good aiming. Photographs confirmed the success, but we had borrowed "M" Mother which was without a camera. The return journey was uneventful and crossing Mare Nostrum Di tuned in to the 9 o-clock news from London. The announcer Alvar Lidell read "Algiers reports that the R.A.F. Strategical Airforce in North Africa has continued to batter aerodromes in Tunisia and Sardinia, damaging runways and destroying aircraft on the ground, without loss to themselves". Someone remarked "That's one way of looking at it"!. Actually a few nights ago 142 Sqdn. had lost 2 in 2 nights. 150 Squadron had lost one but the crew bailed out. Four of the crew managed to get through the enemy lines but the Rear Gunner was wounded and there was no news of him for several weeks.
The docks at TUNIS received our attention on the night of the 17th. April, with very careful placing of 500 and 250 pounders. Direct hits were observed in the docks area and there was concentrated heavy flack. It didn't worry us, we were well below it at 6000 feet. There was lots of light flack mostly concentrated on an aircraft displaying red and green navigation lights. At one stage this aircraft came to within 600 yards on the starboard beam and we converged to about 300 yards. We clearly identified it as a Wellington and gave it a long inaccurate burst from the rear turret. On this occasion every fourth round was a tracer. The nav. lights were extinguished and the aircraft was not seen again. There was no satisfactory explanation as to the identity of this aircraft. A captured Wellington perhaps acting as a decoy but attracting most of the flak. Possibly one of ours with the lights switched on accidentally, one shall never know. Two aircraft are missing, piloted by Sgt. Chandler of 150 and Sgt. Lee of 142. One sent out an SOS and ditched but there was no signal from the other. On our return to Blida there was a blanket of cloud over the whole area and our 23 aircraft were diverted to Maison Blanche. One aircraft was known to have a damaged undercarriage, which collapsed on touch-down and was a write-off but there were no injuries. Road Transport was waiting to take us the 30 miles or so back to Blida and we finally got to bed at 6 am. We shared the lorry with Sgt. Leckie's crew who had bailed out over Tunisia on the 14th. The Squadron Leader had flown to Sousse and brought them back to Algeria. Leckie had himself crash-landed the aircraft with no hydraulics and only one engine, somewhere in Allied-occupied Tunisia.
On the 23rd. April my diary records a tedious week of activity which achieved very little. Every day we were briefed for a night op. and every day we did our Daily Inspections and air tests, but in the late afternoon the Sirocco came up suddenly and the trips were cancelled. During the week, two Albemarles crashed on the runway, both from Gibralter [sic] carrying supplies which included mail from U.K.
Our uniform since leaving West Kirby has been British Army Khaki but with shoes and no putees. Our R.A.F. blue shirts with collar and tie and also blue forage caps were not exchanged. We have no tropical
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kit and it is getting very warm here. Our aircraft "F" for Freddie, has been grounded all week with "G" George, both with a trimming box problem. The policy is still one crew to an aircraft, and we enjoyed a very easy week. On the 28th. we managed to borrow "D" Donald and bombed DECIMONANU again, this time with a 4000 lb. 'blockbuster’ and a few incendiaries for good measure. After bombing we stooged around for 30 minutes having a close look at fires on the ground. Searchlights waved about apparently aimlessly and the light flack with tracer seemed equally haphazard. At 3000 feet we were caught by one searchlight and within seconds were held in a cone of five. The lights were dazzling and the three of us manning guns all fired point blank, it being impossible to aim. In theory a combined rate of fire of over 8000 rounds per minute should have hit something worth while, but after a very short burst my four guns jammed, a problem seldom experienced. At only 3000 feet we were quickly out of range of the searchlights. We were over Blida at 0700 hours which was covered in fog and diverted again to Mason Blanche. We were not very popular at Maison B, everyone had-their own problems which were not always appreciated by others on different types of aircraft performing widely differing types of work. We were in bed at Maison B. by 1000 hrs. probably without the knowledge of the 'owners' of the beds who had spent the night in then; and there we stayed until 1700. The tinned steak pie for tea made a very welcome change. Our aircraft "F" for Freddie still had a faulty-trimming box.
It was only in the air we were able to listen to the Radio News from London, although we had a reasonable supply of current newspapers brought out by the steady stream of aircraft from U.K. On the 29th. we logged another trip to BIZERTA, this time in "T" Tommy with a 4000 pounder. Take-off was at 0005 hours and the weather the worst for flying we had yet experienced in Africa. The target was the docks and all was unusually quiet. The coast-line was visible through about 4/10ths cloud and on our first run over the docks we dropped incendiaries. Positive identification of the target, so round again to release the 4000 pounder which the press were refering [sic] to as 'cookies'. It seemed that over Germany the lads were dropping 8000 pounders. The flak and searchlights opened up simultaneously and was relatively intense. We found later that we were the first to bomb. Some had difficulty in finding the target due to cloud and the enemy was trying not to attract our attention. Again there was low cloud at Blida and we were diverted to Maison Blanche. Two aircraft were lost on the Bizerta raid, one landed at Bone (now renamed Annaba) with one engine u/s, and a 142 Sqdn. aircraft did a belly-landing on the grass at Maison B. On our return we found that Sgt. Leckie, operational again after being shot down in Tunisia, had crashed into the mountain immediately after take-off. Another 150 Sqdn aircraft crashed on take-off, barely getting airborne, and it was assumed that he had engine failure. Two of the crew actually survived the explosion. It had been a fateful night, we were briefed for take-off from west to east, with a left turn onto course. Just before take-off a strong wind developed from the west causing the duty runway to be changed from 09 to 27 and we took off from east to west. Sgt. Leckie turned left instead of right, straight into. the Atlas mountains, all killed instantly. Our own Bomb Aimer Stan had flown on a raid with Sgt. Leckie only two nights previously. When I revisited Blida on business in 1978 I was astonished to appreciate just how near those mountains were to Blida aerodrome..
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[photograph] WITH HILDA & THE SKIPPER SEPT ’43 RICHMOND ON THAMES
[photograph] BILL WILLOUGHBY NAVIGATOR AT THE PORT BEAM GUN POSITION
[photograph] NAVIGATOR & BOMB AIMER IN THEIR PITS
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The following morning an aircraft of 142 was seen to be making a peculiar approach, and just before touchdown. one engine cut and the other was going flat out, resulting in a spectacular disintegration at the side of the runway, in which no-one was seriously hurt. By the end of April we had four aircraft all Wellington Mk.10s equipped for carrying 4000 pound bombs. Bomb doors had been removed and they were said to have a special main spar.
On the 5th. May it was farewell to Blida, the war was moving east. Each crew was issued with a First World War Bell tent and this together with official stores and personal effects was piled into the aircraft. I remember the Wireless Op. Di and I putting our (stolen) palliases [sic] aboard for our Ground-crew passengers to rest on during the flight. A very thoughtful act on our part said the Skipper. It was just that Di and I intended to sleep in the manner to which we were accustomed. Our destination was Fontaine Chaude, about 250 Kms. ESE of Blida. About half way in deference to our guests we opened a tin of spam and served slices of spam followed by stewed plums from a large tin we had been hoarding. Our destination was a stretch of desert near a tiny village. After landing we pitched our tent and organised our palliases [sic] into beds with the help of a dozen or so empty boxes. Meanwhile vehicles were arriving with our squadron personnel, more stores, aircraft and by late evening we had a small township. A small marquee served as a Sgts. Mess and on the first evening we enjoyed stew and green peas followed by pears and real cream. These had been provided by the Americans on an emergency basis. The following day was spent partly on an aerodrome inspection. The war had passed through Fontaine Chaude and it was possible the Arab scavengers had overlooked bits of war material which could do damage to aircraft, particularly the tyres. There were no runways, only sand with some coarse grass.
Back to war next day and Group Captain (Speedy) Powell briefed us for a raid on TRIPANI, a naval base in Sicily. We were 30 minutes late on take-off due to delays in bombing-up. We carried only six 500 pounders instead of eight, and some incendiaries. We were 20 minutes behind the bomber stream of 26 Wellingtons. 'The bomber stream'!. This was an expression used by a newly joined crew who were very displeased with having to finish their tour in North Africa after starting it over Europe. They treated our desert war with some contempt after their recent experiences over Germany, but were reported missing about three weeks after joining us. We were in cloud shortly after take-off and nearing the target came out of it at 12,000 feet. We moved over towards a concentration of heavy flak bursts and the bomb aimer thought he had found a pinpoint through breaks in the cloud. The bombs were dropped into the area of flashes and fires on the ground but it was not a satisfactory raid. We lost two aircraft. One was seen to go down in flames over the target having been coned by searchlights. Sgt. Pax Smith, a New Zealander and crew ran out of fuel in pitch darkness and had strayed too far to the west, over Algeria. My diary records "They bailed out in an airmanlike manner but the Bomb Aimer was concussed and the Rear Gunner broke both legs on hitting the ground and rolling down the side of a hill. Three of the crew are in the rest camp at Constantine and the two inured in hospital in Algiers".
The reader might be surprised at apparent navigation errors such as this, but the only nav. aid available was a QDM (course to steer) to reach in this case Algiers, which would not have helped. We had no M/F
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Beacons on which to take bearings. The Navigator worked on his dead reckoning plot backed up by a visual pinpoint from the bomb aimer map-reading if visibility was suitable. Quite often the only aid was the Rear Gunner taking a drift reading from his turret. Over the sea the Wireless op. would drop a flame-float down the flare chute, which would burst into flames on striking the sea. The Rear. gunner would rotate his turret and depress the guns, holding the flame in his ringsight for ten seconds, then read off the drift on the indicator by his side. There was sometimes a drift indicator in the 'Nav. Office' also. The same procedure was used over the desert during the day using a smoke bomb in place of a flamefloat.
We learned that Sgt. Leckie who was killed hitting the mountain was Commissioned two weeks before his death and had also been awarded a D.F.C. for his crash-landing in Tunisia. So Sgt. Leckie was really P/O Leckie D.F.C. and didn't know it, but the end result was the same. He and our own Skipper, Sgt. Rutherford 416170 R.N.Z.A.F. had been great buddies for a long time. (or what was regarded as a long time in those days)
May 10 my diary states, a Boomerang lastnight. We took-off with a 4500 pound payload for delivery to PALERMO, the Capital of Sicily. About 30 min. after take-off the petrol cover on the port fuel tank came open and the Skipper had great difficulty in keeping the left wing up. There was no option but to jettison half the bomb load in the sea and return to base. There was an enemy air-raid in progress at Bone and we kept a few miles to the east of it with the I.F.F. on. Our own night-fighters operating from Maison Blanche were known to be very active and we had great faith in our I.F.F. We were first back of course - not really having been anywhere!- and we waited for the others in the debriefing tent. To no avail, they had been diverted and returned the following afternoon. We enjoyed an afternoon and evening off, and went by lorry to Batna, a small town about 30 miles from our base. There was little to be seen and nothing to buy and no sign of any social activity. Conversation with the natives was difficult and they were not interested in the war.
On the night of the 12th. it was the turn of NAPLES again, 21 aircraft with 90,000 lbs. payload bombed within five minutes of each other. It was a lovely night, visibility 30 miles and not a cloud in the sky. As we approached Naples we could clearly see Mt. Vesuvius and convinced ourselves we could see the thin column of smoke drifting from it. Our last pinpoint on the way out was the Isle of Capri and we gave it a short burst of .303 for good measure. A futile act but the guns had to be fired occasionally. At NAPLES we went straight in, the target was clearly visible and the one stick straddled the railway yards and industrial area. My diary records that flak was intense and said to be some of the hottest in Europe, and reading that after a lapse of 45 years causes me to question the authority for such a statement. It was a small target compared to some of those in Central Europe, and the 40 searchlights at Napoli were quite effective, but would have been more so if it had been dark. All our aircraft returned safely after a 7 1/2 hour flight, not a bad effort for Wimpies with no overload tanks. As the W/op describes it, we climbed into our pits just as dawn was breaking. By 0900 we had the option of discarding our mosquito nets and being pestered by the insects, or enjoying a turkish bath due to the heat. Our 1916 vintage bell-tent was reasonable for our crew of five although in earlier times it accomodated [sic] , goodness knows how, 22 soldiers.
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At about 1400 we were happy to get airborne again on an air test where we could cool down, but at 1700 it was briefing again. A "maximum effort" - another phrase. imported from our colleagues bashing away in Central and Northern Europe, on CAGLIARI, a port and industrial town in Sardinia. All 26 aircraft were over the target area within minutes of each other, again visibility was near perfect. Bombing heights were staggered and we bombed from 6000 feet. Our 4000 pounder landed just north of the railway yards among some tall buildings and started a fire. Our W/op Harry Dyson claimed at debriefing that he could feel the heat from our own fire when we turned in again to see the damage. Di was prone to exaggeration by this time, perhaps due to frustration of monitoring broadcasts from Base and seldom touching the morse key. We came back over the target at 2000 feet and the flames were leaping high. We could still see the flames from 70 miles away at 8000 feet on our way home. Listening to the B.B.C. we learned that American bombers had raided Cagliari earlier that day, "wiping the place out". They also claimed they could still see fires burning when they reached the African coast. In daylight too; our W/op was not alone in the exaggeration stakes. However, it was a very satisfactory raid. We were in a shallow dive when the bomb was released and is thought to have scraped the fuselage under the aircraft where there was damage to the geodetics and six feet of fabric had been torn off.
On the 15th. our crew was stood down for 24 hours and I received four letters from Hilda, the first for many weeks. At this rate of completing ops I should be home in less than three months. It was very tiring night after night, particularly as is [sic] was not possible to sleep comfortably in the heat of the day. The target was PALERMO, and three of our 25 aircraft failed to return, including Sgt. Rimmer, and Sgt. Alazrachi, the latter a Free French pilot. It is not known what happened to any of them except that one aircraft was seen to go down in flames over the target. Rimer's Rear Gunner was Joe Shields, one of the best, and the crew had been with us since O.T.U. at Finningley. Polfrey the Navigator, Cave the Bombadier [sic] and Jack Waters the Wireless-op, all very keen types.
On the 16th. it was our turn to make a fragment of history. For the very first time, the R.A.F. bombed ROME. Rome, we were told was an open undefended city, and we were briefed to fly from the mouth of the River Tiber, over the city dropping leaflets, and return at 5000 feet dropping more leaflets, then bomb the LIDO DI ROMA near the mouth of the Tiber. Our first bomb went in the river and the last one in the sea, but the rest of the stick neatly straddled the buildings at the Seaplane Base. Over the city itself, there was considerable light flack with tracer, aiming point- blank without result. Not bad at all far an open undefended city, but we were forbidden to display any hostility except dropping leaflets. Even the lids of the Small Bomb Containers loaded with leaflets were secured with wire so as not to fall on the Romans. Later the B.B.C. claimed there was no flak over Rome.
An easier trip the following night which after the event gave me a slight suggestion of a guilty conscience for the the [sic] very first (and last) time.
"Your target" said the Group Captain, "is the German 'U' Boat refuelling Base at ALGHERO, in Sardinia, put paid to it". Our bomb load was 7 x 500 pounders, 4 S.B.C.'s of 30 lb. incendiaries and 2 x 250 pound bombs. We overflew the target at 4000 feet and first dropped several sacks of
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leaflets. These were in Italian and told the people of Alghera that when we very shortly occupied their country and liberated them from the beastly Germans, they would be treated better than ever before, provided with medical aid and food, and every other possible benefit. All we need is a little co-operation and understanding from them. Having spread the gospel, we made three bombing runs over Alghero, at 3000, 1500 and 700 feet, all perfect O.T.U. practice type runs. On the last bombing run, Allan Willoughby manned the port beam gun, Dyson the front turret and the [deleted] the [/deleted] three of us fired our 7 Brownings at point-blank range into the chaos below. The sole opposition comprised two small-calibre machine guns which were soon out of action. Maybe it was a U Boat refuelling base, but only in the sense that it was a small fishing village and happened to have a jetty where drums of oil could be trundled down to a U Boat at the end of it. Our vision of a Sardinian type Lorient or Brest was soon dispelled. The BBC reported 'our bombers based in North Africa attacked targets is Sardinia lastnight'.
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For a couple of days our conversation had centred around an incident over the Lido di Roma. A seaplane base consists mostly of water; on our first run over it we had difficulty in locating the buildings and were hoping to see a tidy straight line of parked seaplanes. The Skipper decided to drop a flare and asked the Wireless Op. to arm no. 1 of 4 already in position in the flarechute. As he removed the safety pin the flare ignited and the top part of it shot through the roof of the aircraft with flames pouring out of the lower end, streaking past the rear turret.
The blinding light startled Stan Chadderton at the Bombing panel and he instantly jettisoned all the flares, undoubtedly preventing a major disaster. How easy it was to be shot down by one's own flare.
According to Intellegence [sic] reports, there were 1,100 casualties in our raid on Cagliari on the 13th., most of them having been caught by a single bomb. This figure is highly suspect but it originated from an Italian report.
On the 21st. it was a stooge over Sicily with 18 250 lb. bombs.
A convoy was within range of the Ju88 Torpedo bombers based in Sicily and our task was to try and keep them on the ground, or if they did manage to take off, prevent them from making an airmanlike landing on return. Aircraft took off singly starting at 1700 hrs.; we were the 24th. at 2045 hrs., with two others to follow. A direct flight to Castelvetrano, identify the aerodrome and one bomb away, then set course for Ciacco, same procedure, and on to Borezzo. If a flare path is seen anywhere give it priority and stooge around in that area for a while. All the bombs were dropped on the three targets and no flarepaths were seen. We concluded there were no enemy landings or take-offs, but one aircraft was seen to go down in flames into the sea; probably Sgt. Williams of our squadron who was on his first mission from Africa, although he had done several over Germany. At Castelvetrano there was lots of light flak using tracer, and we felt the heavy flak in some areas was predicted. We were not experiencing the 'thick carpets' of flak ever-present over Germany, perhaps ours was more personal, just a few batteries carefully aiming at one or two Wimpies.
It was all go, and on the 23rd. we did an easy 3 1/2 hour trip. 2 hours of which was over Africa. We crossed the Tunisian coast and reached Pantelleria 20 minutes later, an island only 7 miles in length with an aerodrome on the western side. Visibility was poor, but we went straight in and dropped 4,500 lbs. in one stick. These were plotted later as just to the south of the aerodrome. We cruised around out at sea for 20 minutes at 7,000 feet, studying four barrage balloons clearly visible at 5000 feet. On our return however there was no support for this theory from anyone else and we were told it was only heavy flak. This was of course quite possible, in poor conditions and with tired eyes imagination can take over. Within a week however, it was generally accepted that the enemy were deploying barrage ballons [sic] although not in great numbers. Most of our aircraft were not fitted with cable cutters on the leading edge of the wings. Pantelleria was an easy trip and we were advised that it would count only as half a trip towards our 35. We had generally assumed the first tour was 30 trips but it did not seem to worry anyone. The day. after the Pantelleria trip, the Squadron mascot, Wompo, or Wimpy. a pedigree Heinz 69 was killed in action. Whilst he was
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merrily chasing some small creature he was accidentally hit by a jeep driven by F/O Langlois, a pilot of 150. He was so badly damaged that one of the lads put him down with his Smith & Wesson .38.
On the 24th. we staggered off the desert in "F" for Freddie heading for Sardinia carrying eight 500 pound bombs and some incendiaries and it seemed ages before we reached even 100 feet. I was not aware of the drama in the front office, both the Skipper and Bomb Air were struggling even to keep us airborne. At about 500 feet it was not possible to maintain height and the Skipper had no option but to lighten the load quickly. Two 500 pounders were released and seconds later there was a tremendous bang from down below, but the aircraft began to maintain height. We were just within sight of the Sardinian coast with the engines overheating when the Skipper jettisoned the remaining bombs and nursed the aircraft back to Fontain Chaude. That was our second boomerang. Had we been carrying a 4000 lb. cookie the episode would have had a very different ending. By the 2nd. of June we had completed 6 more trips and moved camp further east, to Kairouan. Our patch of desert was about 6 miles west of the walled City, said to be the fifth most holy in the Moslem world. The place was very dry, and the well 100 yards from our tent was out of bounds. The R.A.M.C. and the Afrika Korps had both marked it as poisoned by their repective [sic] enemies. It was said to contain human remains, but tests carried out just before we moved on showed the water had not been polluted and was 100% fit for drinking. Meanwhile our water was delivered by two water bowsers each of which travelled 30 miles east to Sousse several times each day. Many years later the record shows that neither the Germans nor the Allies polluted any water supplies. After all, both hoped to recapture them and put them back to their own use. On the first night from Kairouan we were credited with one more trip, having completed two halves! That is, two trips to PANTELLARIA.
We took off in waves of 3 or 4 throughout the night, arriving over the target 45 minutes later. Our aircraft was "C" Charlie which carried one 4000 pounder. On the first run in we overshot, but came round again and in a typical OTU practice run, Stan Chadderton placed the bomb neatly in the centre of the small town. A 45 minute flight back to base and an hour's respite whilst the aircraft was checked, refuelled and bombed up, then the mixture as before.
On the 27th. we were piling into a lorry to go out to the widely dispersed aircraft; the nightly German raid on Sousse was in full swing when a single Ju88 came over to look at our flare path. He was clearly visible and stooged around at will for about 10 minutes before making a run at about 1000 feet dropping 3 bombs in a salvo 300 yards from the Sgts. mess. Nothing was hurt except our feelings and there was no material damage. We had no A-A guns, so the Luftwaffe did not receive the same energetic welcome handed out to us. We relied on Beaufighter squadrons for defence. The R.A.F. policy was reasonable, as the aircraft were dispersed over a wide area and a single stick of bombs would be ineffective against a single aircraft as a target on the ground. We took-off half an hour later for a tour of Sardinia, again with a payload of eighteen 250 lb. bombs. Our only brief was to stooge around between aerodromes and generally make a nuisance of ourselves. There were no allied troops in Sardinia yet so no special care was called for. Our bombs were expected to be released on aerodromes, searchlights and guns. The
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main object was to keep the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica on the ground. These trips were not very popular and provided good practice for Ju88 night fighters. We were stood down on the 3rd. June after doing two ops the previous night. We slept all morning and in the afternoon crowded into a lorry and went to the seaside. Monastir, near Sousse and we had our first baths since leaving Blida. We were in good company and had Mare Nostrum to ourselves with tens of thousands of other Allied troops. I have been there several times since and always think of the mass of naked troops in the sea. A good target for the the [sic] German aircraft? Not really, the scores of light A-A guns made it a very dicey target. The Allies must have had well over a thousand aircraft of different types in the area. The Arab town of Monastir was out of bounds to the Army but not, for some probably invalid reason to the R.A.F. We had a 'shufti' and two of us invested in a sort of haircut. Most of the inhabitants seemed to be French, Monastir having been the fashionable part of the Sousse area,
The night of the 4th. June was an unlucky one for 150 Squadron. We lost three of our 16 aircraft on the ground without intervention from the enemy. The aircraft were bunched fairly close together, having been bombed-up and ready for take-off. During a final check, a Bombadier accidentally released a flare which lay on the ground. He dashed off to find an Armourer to make it safe but within minutes the flare ignited. Within 15 minutes the whole area was ablaze and three aircraft, M Mike, A Able and P Peter, each complete with over two tons of bombs and full petrol tanks blew up. Our aircraft which was to have taken us twice to Pantelleria that night 'N' Nuts, together with seven others, was severely damaged. About half the squadron went to Panteleria [sic] , 2 half-trips and in full moonlight reported a couple of Ju88's circling the island. One aircraft returned with about 40
square feet of fabric torn off.
The following night a new target was added to our growing list, SYRACUSE in eastern Sicily, only a little light flak was encountered, and it was just a matter of bombing the water front. Our main task was in fact to drop leaflets on several of the coastal towns, working our way anticlockwise round Sicily. We passed slightly to the west of Pantelleria on the return leg and saw the Wimpies from the Western Desert squadrons bombing the island.
The exact words written in my diary are "bashing hell out of the island".
Our own Group Captain - "Speedy" Powell also went to Pantelleria but complained that his bomb did not explode. We riled him that it went into the sea. We were now seeing a great deal more of the British army and the Americans and we were realising just what small cogs we were in all the activity. We had an American guest with us when he ran us over to the Ops. Room in his personal jeep to collect lastnight's aiming point photograph. He noticed in the caption at the bottom of the photograph "280 deg.T" and remarked "Geez, mighty hot up there aint [sic] it?". It refered [sic] to our course, not the temperature, but we did not add any further complication to trying to explain.
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in the next 12 days we carried out only two raids, the first an easy one to PANTALARIA [sic], which surrendered the following day, and the second to a new target, MESINA [sic], the straits between the toe of Italia and Sicile [sic] . on the way out we passed very close to our favourite island and across Sicily to the target. The target was already marked with 14 flares by the Western Desert squadrons, and for the first time in North Africa that part of the job was done for us. I noted at the time that "the A-A defences were baffled by the number of aircraft over the target at the same time. There were 34 aircraft and only F/Lt. Langlois ran into trouble. He was caught in the searchlights from both sides of the straits and dropped from 11,000 to 2,000 feet to escape them. In doing so he flew through the balloon barrage, but without further incident.
My diary has recently been opened for the first time in over 42 years, so I have not pondered over its accuracy. 34 aircraft simultaneously over the target probably did seem like a thousand bomber raid to us!. Our Bomb Aimer that night was Ft/Lt. Casky, our own being in jail in Tunis. After our last trip to 'the' island we went to Tunis on a 48 hr. verbal pass. The Skipper had the trots, which we all suffered from time to time, and he tried to rest in the tent nearest the toilet trench. Willoughby the Navigator, Stan Chadderton Bombadier [sic] , Harry Dyson the Wireless Op and myself, Rear Gunner. We were each issued with two boxes of American "K" rations, and hitch-hiked first to Sousse and then to Tunis. The first leg was in the back of an Army lorry and the main leg up the coast road by R.A.F. "Queen Mary" which carried about a hundred of us. The whole trip took only 6 hours. The town of Tunis had been in Allied hands for 4 days and there were still a few Germans in hiding. We had given no thought to accommodation which did not seem to be important. Leaving Stan and Di in a canteen abandoned by the Germans, Wally and I eventually found an hotel near the docks area where we were able to book two rooms. I cannot recall the name of the hotel, but the address was 49 Rue de Serbie. The hotel was in very poor condition, no water, all the windows had been blown out, doors smashed, walls cracked and so on. No catering but we had our 'K' rations. Opposite the hotel was a bombed church and all around the buildings were either destroyed or severely damaged. The docks had been our main target in Tunis, and they were destroyed, with all the warehouses practically levelled out. One cargo vessel was beached and two others rested on the bottom. The Arabs were mostly friendly and told us the bomb damage in town was done mainly by 4 engined bombers is daylight, which let us off the hook. The European French were not so friendly, possibly many of them having lost comfortable homes. Some were quite abusive verbally but to others we managed to explain that we flew Chasseurs, pas des bombardiers. In our minds we had liberated the people of Tunis - and the rest of North Africa - from the Germans. We did not fully appreciate that the Arabs saw it differently. The Inglisi and Americans were no different to the Germans and Italians, and they in turn did no less for them than the French. They lived for the day when they would be left to manage their own affairs. In our wanderings around town we met a Tommy who was a Prisoner of War on a ship which had. been bombed at night a few miles out of Tunis. The ship was Italian, homeward bound and had been straffed [sic] by Spitfires during the day. The ship was spotted by two Wellington crews during a night raid on the docks, and the ship was
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bombed, then straffed [sic] from a few hundred feet. The vessel came to a halt and the 20 or so Germans and Italians abandoned ship. Three of the several hundred British prisoners had been regrettably killed in the action and all the others managed to get ashore in lifeboats and floats in the final days of the Axis evacuation of North Africa. The ship was without lights which should have been carried. Another 8th. Army private told us he was a P.O.W. being transferred from a lorry onto a boat about a week ago when about 30 Spitfires and Kittyhawks arrived and caused chaos with their 20 and 40 mm. cannon. The guards were overpowered and most of the 500 or so P.O.W.’s managed to get away. He spoke highly of the fighter pilots, convinced the attack was a very well-planned sortie to release the P.O.W.'s., not just to blaze away at anything German that dared to move. He could very well have been correct,
On our last evening in Tunis the four of us shared a battle of wine with a meal at a roadside cafe. When we were paying the bill we found there was money left over and asked for another bottle of their excellent wine. As the wine was brought over, a Sgt. M.P. standing behind us shouted "no more wine for them", after which Stan told him to mind his own business. The M.P. then grabbed Stan's arm and held it to his back, but seeing threatening movements from the rest of us, released it. Stan then turned quickly and thumped the M.P. who promptly disappeared. Shortly afterwards two R.A.F. Sgt. S.P.'s came is and asked if we had had some trouble and if so would Stan like to put in a complaint to the Provost Marshal? This seemed like a good countermeasure to a possible charge made by the Sgt. M.P. and Stan accompanied the two R.A.F. S.P.’s to the Provost Marshal's office. In reality this was the jail and as they entered the door the Sgt. M.P. set about Stan who gave as good as he got. But this was inside the jail, Stan was at a big disadvantage and about to spend the first of three nights in it. The jail was is fact next door to our hotel is Rue de Serbie. Willy and I did not suspect that Stan was in trouble, we assumed our S.P.’s were just being helpful, so we sat down again with the bottle. Perhaps Di's conscience was not quite so clear, and when he saw the S.P.'s coming he made himself scarce. We caught up with him later asking an M.P. where he could pinch a Jeep. The M.P. humoured him and directed him to an American car park with lots of Jeeps, but Di had seen a tramcar and decided to pinch that instead. Fortunately the tramcar was off the rails, and he changed his attention to the French tricolour on top of a derelict building. He climbed the building and removed the flag, then Willy and I managed to get him back to the hotel. Di's condition was not due to a session of heavy drinking, we had seen very little of anything alcoholic for a long time and two glasses of local wine would have been more than enough to really get him going.
The three of us hitch-hiked back to Kairoaun and reported the loss of one Bomb Aimer to the Skipper. The following day Squadron Leader Miller D.F.C. flew to Tunis and demanded Stan's release from jail. He had a major row with the same Sgt. M.P. who started it all and who was asking what authority the Squadron Leader had. The Squadron Leader pointed to his 2 1/2 rings of rank and the D.F.C. and asked the M.P. whether he thought they were scotch mist. Stan was released and back at Kairoaun was charged with causing an affray, resulting in a Reprimand. The Sgt. M.P. was charged and given a Severe Reprimand and reduced to Corporal.
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By the 16th. of June we were operational again as a crew. the target was again NAPLES, a 6 hour 15 min. stooge and rather tiring. There was a full moon and visibility was 25 miles. We could clearly see Pantelaria [sic] to port, and later, north of Sicily, the small island of Maritimo, just the tip of a mountain sticking out of the sea. The Isle of Capri provided a good pin-point. Over the target area there was 9/10ths. cloud so we bombed from above the flares. Flak was moderate and widely spread. There was slight consternation when one of my turret doors fell off for no apparent reason. I wondered what else would fall off but everything else seemed to be intact so it was just a matter of strapping myself in - which according to the book should be so in any case. Just after "bombs gone" I reported a twin-engined aircraft starboard quarter up at 1000 yards. The Skipper started to weave gently. and Di went to the astrodome position to search above the horizontal whilst I -theoritically [sic] at least-- concentrated on below the horizontal. This is not an easy task when the rear gunner is expected to ignore one fighter leaving it to his colleague whilst searching for others. Di became somewhat emotional to say the least, said it was not a fighter but merely flak, and then went on to give a commentry [sic] on searchlight activity and flak at least - by then- five miles away, and of only historical interest. Whilst in a turn to port the other aircraft was directly astern and I identified it as twin engined and without the high tail fin of the Wellington. The Skipper did a diving turn to starboard and we lost the other aircraft. Di claimed it was another aircraft not to be confused with the one he identified as flak! Normally Di stayed at his radio position, it was better that way. On the return journey, either there was a raid on Trapani or someone had strayed off-course. On the 18th. it was again to SYRACUSE, an exceptionally clear night, almost no cloud and a full moon. We could have dispensed with the flarepath on take-off and we felt as if we were doing a day trip. Over the target there was tracered flak up to 7,000 feet and we were geared up to bomb from 5,000 feet. We expected night fighters, and even day fighters, so went straight in at 5000 feet, bombed and straight out again, down to 3,000 feet for a quick tour of several nearby small towns and villages where we dropped leaflets. We were glad to get home that night, such met. and lunar conditions were hazardous. SALERNO again on the 21st, a routine trip, but on the 24th. of June I got a message to call at the 'Orderly Room', which in reality was the bell tent next to the C.O.'s tent. There was great discussion on which particular crime had caught up with me, but it was all very innocent. I came out of the bell tent as a Flight Sargeant [sic] much to the annoyance of the Sgt. Skipper and the three other Sgts. in the crew. It didn't help very much when I told them they need not call me Flight Sgt. ALL the time, just once in the morning and again in the evening.
In the early hours of the 26th. June we bombed the naval base of BARI in S. E. Italy, and it was an almost complete fiasco. It was not possible to see the ground due to haze, and the Western Desert aircraft had dropped the marker flares in the wrong place. Fires were started over an area of about 60 square miles, maybe one or two on the target by sheer chance. The target was a small oil refinery built especially to deal with the crude oil from Albania. Important to the Axis because that particular oil needed special treatment which, we were advised, only Bari could provide. We were now spending more and more time over the Italian mainland, for the first time we were seeing concentrations of
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lights in the form of a triangle which were assumed to be Prison and Internment Camps. On the way out we saw Trapani being bombed by our colleagues from the Western desert. The following afternoon it was too hot to sleep and I flew with Sgt. Whitehouse, a new pilot from Britain, in a brand new aircraft, 'D' Donald. We traced the path of the 8th. Army to beyond the Mareth line, at about 2500 feet. There were few battle scars; It was hard to appreciate that this was a place of such dreadful carnage so recently.
Kairouan was placed out of bounds due to Typhus, and there was nothing in the walled city to tempt us to ignore the order. The Arabs were less friendly and our revolvers were not looked upon merely as a taken of authoriity [sic] . According to a report in a Daily Mirror which took a few weeks to arrive, the lads were reported to have been given a hearty welcome by the French people in the Holy City of Kairouan. Actually there were only a handful of French remaining. Another Daily Mirror headline we found amusing was "BLOCKBUSTERS ON BIZERTA". It went an to say that "Lastnight our Bombers based in North Africa again pounded Bizerta; During the entire raid, blockbusters were dropped at the rate of one every two minutes. Absolutely correct, it was a raid from Blida, but it did not say that the raid was of 2 minutes duration and that we had only two aircraft able to carry the blockbusters. However, we looked forward to reading even an old Daily Mirror and to listen to the B.B.C. when airborne. Some of the stock phrases brought a chuckle at times 'Fires were left burning..', "Rear Gunners straffed [sic] the target..." "All opposition was overcome.." "Many two ton blockbusters ...." etc. etc, It appeared far more impressive in print than in reality doing it. Generally all we saw were explosions and dull red glows, tracer coming up and curving away passed us, and being blinded sometimes by searchlights. We did not picture at the time the loss of life down below and the damage caused to factories and buildings of all descriptions, in any cases, mostly houses. Straffing [sic] was invigorating and served to let off steam, but the supporting arithmetic was disappointing. An aircraft travelling at 180 m.p.h. (264 feet per second) over a target 360 yards in length would take 4 seconds to traverse the target. A .303 Browning has a rate of fire of 1200 rounds per min., the four in the rear turret having a combined rate of 4800 per min., or 80 rounds per second. There is time only for a 4 second burst of 320 rounds - not a lot - The Reargunner sees nothing of the target until it is passed and needs to be told when to open fire by someone in the front office. On straffing [sic] details it is likely the front turret with two guns, and one beam gun would be in use, increasing fire power by 75%, Possibly even a four-second burst once experienced at the receiving end might cause the enemy to duck next time we come by. This was an acceptable technique along a straight road. The aircraft was often fitted with two beam guns, one on each side, but only one was manned. Vision was poor from the beam positions and normally we would pass to one side of the target with one wing low. The gun on the other beam would have been aiming upwards. On the 28th 150 Sqdn. was stood down for 24 hours, but the previous night we paid a visit to SANGIOVANI on the southern toe of the Italian mainland: This was a daylight trip with four squadrons of Wellingtons to the train ferry terminal, a dock or lock which the ferry would enter and the water level be adjusted such that the level of the rails on land and ferry coincided. The train would then be shunted an or off the ferry as required. Flack was intense for
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Italian targets and there were trains both on-the ferry in dock and onshore. The whole lot was successfully reduced to a shambles but 6 of our aircraft failed to return. Our heaviest loss yet in a single night.
The 30th. of June was Willie's birthday and we celebrated it over MESINA. According to the B.B.C. we are blitzing both sides of the straits, Mesina to the west in Sicily and Sangiovani on the Italian mainland. The straits are only 3 1/2 miles wide, and carry the greater part of all enemy traffic to Sicily, entirely in German control with concentrated light flack [sic] from both sides and from ships in the middle. A trip lasting 5 1/2 hours.
The whole crew is beginning to feel the strain of long periods of intense activity. Although most of the memories are of the actual bombing ops., that was only a part of it. Aircraft had to be inspected daily on the ground and also air tested ready for the next trip, before bombing up. The Navigator had to prepare his flight plan prior to take off and this was done also on the many occasions when trips were later cancelled. All of us spent at least some time in the Intellegence [sic] Section to keep up-to-date with the position of the front line and the general trend. It was perhaps in some ways easier for us than for our counterparts in Europe. We had fewer distractions. There was no looking forward to a pint in the local pub. nor getting home to the family for a day or two. Not even the local cinema. There was very little booze to be had, I seem to remember a ration of one bottle of beer per fortnight which I used to take up on an air test to cool it down, and then give to the Armourers after landing. The batman was not going to ask "which suit and shoes are you wearing tonight Sir? " as he did later at Spitalgate. Evening wear was the same as for the rest of the day, shorts, perhaps a shirt, certainly no socks, and sandals on the feet. On the few occasions when we went out of camp we generally wore khaki battledress which we wore also of course on ops. I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep my eyes open at night for long periods, and finding it very tempting to rest my head on the guns and have a doze, but to do so would be absolutely unforgiveable. The Skipper was under an even greater strain and a six hour trip was 6 hours of concentrated effort. On one or two occasions he dozed off for maybe just a few seconds, but fortunately by his side most of the time was Stan Chadderton the Bombardier who very quickly realised the position and watched points up front. The amount of nattering in the air was on the increase, also. It was standard procedure to use oxygen at night regardless of altitude, and the microphones with their electrical heaters were built-in to the mask. Everyone was connected to the intercom system all the time except for the Wireless op. who was able to switch out his own connection when using his radio. Microphones were switched as required by individual wearers. The Skipper's microphone was switched on all the time and so too was the Rear Gunner's in danger areas. Procedures were relaxed somewhat in our particular theatre of war; we could get along quite nicely without oxygen below 10,000 feet and I don't recollect flying much above that height. Whenever I reported anything Di dashed to the astradome [sic] and objected. If the rotation of my rear turret was not rythmical [sic] both the Skipper and Navigator objected. The turret and guns presented an assymetrical [sic] shape to the slipstream with a consequent rudder effect. If I kept the turret facing starboard for too long the aircraft would do a gentle flat turn to starboard. Meanwhile the Skipper was trying to maintain a course determined by the
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Navigator who was keeping a watchful eye on his compass, perhaps not appreciating that it was the rear gunner making things difficult. Although the sides of the turret were clad with perspex, it was difficult to see through it with the degree of clarity required. In fact the perspex in front of the turret had been removed to provide a clear vision panel. Even on the ground the whole crew was getting very irritable with each other. For almost a year we had lived worked, ate and near enough slept together almost without a break, the same endless routine, and anything to which we could look forward seemed an awful long way off. Whose turn to carry the water, became a very important issue at times and would lead to an argument [sic] . After some very harsh wards we would agree that it was stupid to argue about such a trivial issue, which in turn led to a bigger argument on who started the argument in the first place. I remember Chad the Bombardier putting paid to the row one day by getting off his bed - known as a pit - and announcing "Well, I've get to go for a **, anyone care to join me'? The loo comprised a trench, 20 feet long, several feet deep and about one foot wide over which one crouched. There was a choice of direction in which to face, and one or two of the bigger chaps preferred to straddle the trench. There was no need to interrupt a conversation in going to the toilet.
By the end of June the length of tour was clarified. First it was to have been 30 trips as in Britain, then it had been increased to 40 as some trips were not very hazardous, then some of the trips counted only as halves, and the tour was again changed to be 250 hours of operational flying. The Western Desert tour was said to be 40 trips or 250 hours, whichever was the less. However, there were other things to think about. Sgt. Lee and two other pilots were paraded before the whole squadron Air Crews and called "Saboteurs" by the Group Captain, having between them written off five aircraft in taxiing accidents. Group Captain 'Speedy' Powell was a very keen type and conducted all the briefings himself, was generally the first one off the ground and first back in time for debriefing. Whilst we were resting he would sometimes return to the target in an American twin boomed lightning to try and assess the damage - or find what we had actually bombed!
On the night of the 30th. June we were stood dawn and watched 142 Sqdn. take off for southern Italy. The starboard engine of one aircraft cut a few seconds before the aircraft should have get airborne. The aircraft swung and crashed into a jeep which was waiting to cross the 'runway', killing both American occupants and breaking it's back, a complete write-off. My diary makes no mention of the fate of the crew. We had just been issued with a new aircraft, 'B Beer' and I spent most of the day cleaning the guns and turret which were still all greased up as when they left England. Normally this work was carried out by the Armourers, but I was expected to take an active interest in the guns and turrets. The guns were removed, stripped, soaked in petrol, thoroughly cleaned and reassembled, replaced in the newly-cleaned turret and then harmonised. In Britain the harmonising of guns was carried out by placing a board at a predetermined distance in front of the turret and adjusting the ring-sight and guns to line up with specific paints or circles on the board. In North Africa we placed a can or any handy object on the ground 300 yards away and pointed the guns and ring-sight at it.
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Another day-off on the 2nd. July and Jumbo Cox, a Navigator on 150 Sqdn. and I hitch-hiked into Sousse and spent a few hours in the sea. After our dip we queued for 20 minutes at a huge marquee and enjoyed the most wonderful mug of tea of all time. I have thought many times in the last 40 years of that mug of tea.
The 4th. of July turned out to be the-hottest in temperature we had experienced for a long time. We had bombed TRAPANI in the very early morning. Intensive flack and searchlights with tracer up to 5000 feet. At 2000 feet the temperature was 95 Farenheit [sic] and not much lower at 9,000 feet, our bombing height. I was wearing only trousers and a shirt and was soaked in perspiration. Even the slipstream felt hot when I put one hand outside. Apart from the oppressive heat, it was a routine trip, and we managed to sleep most of the following afternoon, in 130 deg. in the shade. The wind was from the south-west, straight off the Sahara, and several airmen passed out with heatstroke. Metal parts of the aircraft were too hot to touch and a Wellington on the ground of 37 Squadron went up in flames. On the night of the 6th, we were briefed to attack aerodromes in Sardinia, and Sgt. Chandler piloted the first aircraft off. Both engines cut immediately after take-off whilst his undercarriage was still lowered. With full fuel and bomb load he somehow managed to avoid the inevitable and landed in a cultivated area at the end of the runway. Some of the crew suffered minor injuries, but it was 40 minutes before the rest of us were given a green to take-off. The wrecked aircraft was directly under the take-off path. Seven aircraft failed to get off the ground, including ours, all due to engines overheating after running for over 40 minutes on the ground. We had also lost air pressure for the brakes. Of the aircraft which did take off none was successful in finding the target, flouted by bad weather over Sardinia. Sgt. Valentine was above 10/10ths cloud with engines overheating and deemed it necessary to jettison his bombs "over the sea". We were not generally briefed with the positions of Allied shipping convoys, but were routed away from them without being given the reason. Sgt. Valentine decided to return by the shortest route and when has bombs whistled down on the convoy the Navies took a very poor view and let fly with everything they had. This was a well-established practice on the Navy's part, so there was no cause for complaint. In all, that night was a waste of 30 tons of bombs, 4000 gallons of petrol and over 150 flying hours.
On the 7th. we visited an aerodrome at COMISO in Southern Italy, delivering 4500 lbs, of bombs. It was a new target to the R.A.F., and apparently undefended, Only three of us managed to locate it and we were lucky in the timing of our 3 flares in obtaining a pinpoint. We obtained good aiming point photograph which showed our stick of bombs had straddled the dispersal area, with the last two landing in the olive groves.
Nearly half a century later I wonder why we did not use the radio for communicating with other aircraft in providing mutual assistance. We had no V.H.F. but the TR9 H.F. R/T would have been adequate. Observing Radio silence I feel was taken to extremes, our signals might indicate our presence to the enemy, but they were aware of that in any case. They might home onto us, but our transmissions would have been brief and on a frequency initially unknown to the enemy. They were not equipped to respond fast enough to information gleaned by monitoring, neither was the area covered with direction-finding
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stations. I feel this was one of the matters where a principle had been established and which was not reviewed often enough under changing circumstances.
On the evening of the tenth of July, just before briefing we heard aircraft engines and it was like being at a cinema show. Wave after wave of Dakota transports thundered overhead on their way to Sicily. It reminded me of the film "An Engishman`s Home" and the massive formations of German bombers, but these aircraft were American and British and were definitely not making a film. At briefing Groupie put us in the picture. "Accurate timing and accurate bombing, more so than ever before" was his opening phrase. We were briefed to bomb a specific part of SYRACUSE whilst paratroops were being dropped close by and other paras were already in position ready to capture our target immediately after the bombing. Flares were dropped accurately and the target successfully bombed, although some bombs went in the sea because of its close proximity. We noted a very large fire at Catania and "a number of queer lights which suggested fifth column activity" according to my diary. 45 years later I wonder how I reached that conclusion. Looking down from about 9,000 feet on the southern coast of Sicily on the return journey, we saw the Navy shelling the coast and several searchlights on shore began to sweep out to sea. One of the searchlights located a ship and held on to it, whilst the others went on sweeping. From another ship there were just three flashes of light, and seconds afterwards, three flashes on shore, one in front of the offending searchlight, one slap on it, and the third behind it. That was one searchlight out of action, and the others switched off in sympathy. The Navy carried on firing without further interruption. My panoramic view of the action from nearly two miles above gave no indication of the destruction and agony caused by those three shots.
The following, night it was the turn of MONTECORVlNO in western Italy, a new German aerodrome. Over the target we narrowly missed colliding with Jack Alazrachi in `Q' Queenie. His starboard wingtip scored our port wing and my diary records "a very shaky do". Our stick straddled the aircraft parking area and we took an excellent aiming point photograph of 15 aircraft an the ground. It was later confirmed officially that our two squadrons destroyed 40 aircraft and damaged many more.
On the 13th. at briefing, Group Captain Powell grinned and glanced down at his flying boots and said "Yes chaps, we are in for an interesting trip, Jerry is landing a massive convoy at MESINA and we are instructed to smash it." We went out at 6000 ft. above sea level which, over Sicily averaged about 2000 feet above ground. I found it difficult to concentrate on a formal rear-gunner type search, there was so much activity. Ground detail could be seen very easily and the Tactical Air Force was observed bombing all over the island. There were flares everywhere, bombs creating havoc, flak barrages and intensive shelling by the Navies. Over our target, the flak was intense but scattered. Sgt. "Pax" Smith's aircraft was holed, something went through his bombing panel and made two big holes in the front turret. This crew, like most did not include a full-time front gunner, the Bombardier occupied the turret as and when expedient and on this occasion had just returned to the second dickie seat when the aircraft was holed. One aircraft was seen to crash and another, in flames, exploded on hitting the ground. At debriefing we learned that one Wellington of 142 Squadron was missing,
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and this was manned by six officers, five of whom had completed one tour over Germany. The sixth, flying as 'second dickie' was on his very first trip.
Another new target to us, on the 15th, CROTONIA, an aerodrome on the east coast of the toe of Italy. A routine trip out, good visibility and straight in to the taget [sic] . There were four flak batteries, but Sgt, Mickie Mortimer was just ahead of us and his first stick silenced all four. Our single stick straddled the aerodrome and enlarged the existing fires among aircraft on the ground. We stooged around for a little while watching aircraft blowing up and more bombs adding to the havoc on the ground. When all was quiet we dropped to 250 feet and went in with guns blazing and between us fired about 4000 rounds into the fires, We must have hit something. There were dummy fires to the north and south-east of the aerodrome, very unreal and no-one was fooled by them. On the way out of the target area we were followed. by an aircraft sporting an orange light, and at one stage took light evasive action, but he did not attack. Several other rear gunners reported the same experience, non [sic] was actually engaged. We were routed back round northern Sicily, as usual Trapani was being attacked and other targets nearby were being bombed. We were hoping to see the 142 Sqdn. aircraft with the blue light which we nearly shot down returning from Salerno. The Bombardier in the second pilot's seat reported two aircraft ahead, one with a white light which we assumed to be a decoy. We expected the aircraft to allow us to overtake, and whilst the one with the light drew our attention his chum would sneak is from another dirction [sic] . We lost both the other aircraft for a minute or two, then the aircraft with the light - this time a blue one - reappeared on the starboard bow at about 500 yards. Meanwhile Chad had taken over the front turret, but held his fire. He identified it as a Wimpey. The Skipper altered course and we passed about 100 feet below the Wimpy. I got a plan view of him and confirmed the identification. As he fell behind I flashed dah dah dit, dit dit dit on my inspection lamp. There was no reply from the other aircraft but it landed 15 minutes after us and taxied towards 142 dispersal, On that same trip two of us saw an aircraft at 800 yards on our port quarter up which closed in to 500 yards. He was at too great a range for our .303s, but we were ready for an instant dive to port. He surprised us by turning away to port at about 400 yards, and again two of us identified it as a Wimpey.
Enemy aerodromes continued to take up most of our effort, and on the night of the 17th. it was three hours each way to POMIGLIANO near Naples, passing round Vesuvius with it's dull red glow. The target was initially very quiet and consequently not easy to locate. On our first run in at 6000 feet, we were a few minutes early, but dead on time at 4000 feet on our second run. We were caught and held in searchlights, and the light flak was point-blank. Allan Willoughby claimed he could smell it when the Skipper asked him for a course for home after the second run-in. When Stan the Bombardier announced that we still had nine 250 pound bombs aboard, someone suggested we should jettisson [sic] them on the town. Allan suggested we strike at a village a few miles ahead but Stan refused to drop them anywhere except the aerodrome at Pomigliano. The third run-in was at 5000 feet and the searchlights got us again as soon as the bomb doors were open. We were in a cone of eight and it seemed we had the aerodrome to ourselves. The bombing was accurate and we lost height to 2000 feet, all quiet again. My part in all this had
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really been that of a passenger listening to and witnessing the drama, and I was not popular when I suggested to the Skipper that we go back at low level and put a few lights out. Chad was in favour and had the front turret in mind, Allan was not keen and didn't like the smell of flak, and Dyson thought the idea was 'plain stupid'. Dyson was probably right for the wrong reason, but the Skipper was thinking we had got away with it for well over 30 trips so far, and there was no point in tempting providence. A three hour stooge back to Blida with nothing but silence on the intercom. Other aircraft were seen in the circuit and our TR9 radio was out of order. This was a very low power transmitter/receiver operating between 4 and 8 MHz. and used by the Skipper to contact Air Traffic Control at Base. If we still had an acceptable reserve of fuel we would have gone away and returned in 30 miniutes [sic] , but fuel was low and the Skipper decided to land without any formalities or delay. This aroused the wrath of the Flight Commander who tore a terrific strip off him next day. Our report at debriefing was very different to that of Sgt. Whitehouse and crew, who said it was a wizard O.T.U. run, bombs slap on the runway, no flak, no searchlights and the whole thing was 'a piece of cake'. He had in fact been to the wrong aerodrome, Crotone, which we had pranged on the 15th. where the defences stayed silent in order not to attract attention. - an old Italian custom -. The reason for the accuracy of the searchlights was a layer of cloud at 10,000 feet, a full moon and clear visibility. We were silhouetted against the cloud even without the searchlights.
Two nights later Sgt. Whitehouse, this time officially and with the rest of us, went again to CROTONE. We were all very tired and I found it difficult to keep awake. Visibility was 15 miles with a nearly full moon and on the way out for long periods we actually enjoyed the visible company of other Wimpies. On arrival at CROTONE we were surprised to see fires already started and spent a good five minutes in ensuring that it was indeed the target, Two bombing runs were made, at 3000 feet and 1500 feet, dropping nine 250 pounders each time. The bombs were seen bursting among aircraft on the ground, some of which were already ablaze. 400 yards from the burning aircraft was a small wood which had obviously been hit and was burning merrily. My diary records "from the ground it would have seemed like Nov. 5th.
Rockets were going up and verries by the score.
Someone had pranged a pyrotechnic store."
We made a third run at 200 feet and spent some 1500 rounds at the aircraft on the ground. Other gunners did the same. We were amazed to find everything so easy, and no opposition as far as we know, our raid on the 15th. should have given them a good idea of what to expect. There were no dummy fires and still they make no effort to disperse aircraft. The absence of fighters was strange; even day-fighters would have been very effective under those conditions. One crew reserved an odd bomb for the village south of the arodrome [sic] . It had a 36 hour delay and landed in the centre of the village. Not a very nice thing to do, and an act certainly not in accordance with our leaflets. Sgt. Pax Smith the intrepid Kiwi was on the last trip of his tour and elected to hit a railway bridge near the coast. It also had a' 36 hour delay fuse and missed the bridge by 50 yards. The British army was not at all happy with Smithy's effort, they planned to use the bridge within a week or two and were going to some considerable trouble to make sure the enemy
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didn't blow it up. They hadn’t counted on Smithy, but fortunately he wasn't quite up to scratch an that last trip.
One night off and then back try the 'Big City" , the capital of Italia, not to be confused with the really big one, the Capital city of Deutchland, with which there was absolutely no comparison. It was over two months since we had been to Rome, and it was still supposed to be an 'Open, undefended City'. Our specific target was PRACTICA DI MERE, an aerodrome just to the southwest of Rome. The Groupy had made it very clear at briefing, that nothing must be dropped on Rome itself. The target would be marked by flares positioned by W/O Coulson of 142 Squadron. We had no target map but the the [sic] aerodrome was plotted on the map of Central Italy - probably half million scale -. As we were passing the island of Maratimo, Chad was in the second dickie seat, map in hand and decided to get a clearer view of Maratimo by opening the sliding window at his side. The map disappeared out of the window, but with Allan's D. R. navigation we reached the target as Coulson's flares went down. Target marking at that stage of the war in Italy was in its infancy and was carried out with flares designed for lighting up the ground. These were very different from the coloured Target Indicators used to such great effect over Germany. Bombing was not particularly accurate, but well clear of Rome itself, where there was plenty of light flak and searchlight activity which exploded the myth about an undefended city. This activity extended down the Tiber to the Lido di Roma, where the Radio Station was still operating. The Vatican was blacked out very effectively
On the 25th. we started 8 days leave, taking an aircraft back to Blida for an engine change and major inspection. We took advantage of the stores at Blida and were issued with new uniforms, shoes and anything we wanted, just a matter of signing for it, it was two years before the system caught up with me and I was debited with the cost.
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[bearer document in English and arabic]
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[photograph]
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TWO OF OUR AIMING POINT PHOTOS
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The first three days were spent in Algiers with Harry Dyson at the Hotel Radio Grand but the inactivity - or something - was too much for Harry so we returned to Blida, only to find the rest of our party had adjourned to the rest camp at Surcouf. I spent most of my time in the next few days in Blida, partly with a French-Arab family Iloupcuse Moka Mourice Bijoutier, at 11 Rue Goly, Blida. 30 years later I was able to find the area but no-one recognised either the name or the address. Like most places, Blida had changed a lot in the intervening years. I remembered it as an almost typical French village, beautifully clean, tables and chairs outside the cafes, and a very pleasant atmosphere. After 20 years or so of independence it was a very different story, and I thought a rather sad one. I made several excursions into Algiers where the Yanks had become very well organised. They had-taken over and re-organised six cinemas, all with continuous shows for about 12 hours per day, and open house to Service personnel. I visited all six. The N.C.O.'s Club in Rue d'Isley was our base camp in Algiers, where we enjoyed endless cups of tea and cakes. The Malcolm Club, exclusive to R.A.F. personnel provided a good hot meat each evening. It was on this leave that I visited the local Match Factory at Caussemille, being an ardent Philumenist - collector of matchbox labels-. The factory was at that time owned and operated by the French and I was given a conducted tour of the factory. Most of the labels presented to me at the factory are in my collection to this day. My next visit to the factory was 37 years later, when I met with a very cool reception. The French had gone long ago, only their name remained. In that area of Algiers, all the street names were written on the street signs in Arabic except one, Caussemille. This was the name of an old French or Belgian family of match manufacturers possibly difficult to translate into Arabic. I met several of the chaps from the Rhodesia training days, one had joined Coastal Command and was detached from 'U.K. to Maison Blanche on White Wimpies. It had taken him six months to complete 100 hours and he was rather gloomy about the next four hundred to complete his tour. He was in fact rather nervous, his job being mine-sweeping; I asked him "what height do you fly at?" He replied that `it was a two-dimensional job, no such thing as height'. Causing magnetic mines to blow up by flying over them at very low level could not have been very pleasant. Maison Blanche is now known as El Beda, the International airport of Algeria, not so well organised as it was in 1943, and not half so busy! Blida aerodrome is the Headquarters of the Algerian Air Force and is a prohibited area to foreigners.
At the end of our 8 days in comparitive [sic] civilisation, we were glad to collect our newly serviced Wimpey and return to Kairouan. I was immediately recruited to fly with Sgt. Stone to MARINA DI PAOLA. We stooged over northern Sicily is daylight and very close to Trapani our old favourite which had been severely bashed about. During the invasion it was subjected also to heavy Naval shelling. Being with a different crew perhaps made things more interesting, seeing how they reacted to various aspects, and I thought they had a rather strange and formal appoach [sic] . We did not see our bombs burst and our photoflash failed to go off. There was none of the usual binding we experienced with our own crew, everyone was pleasant, courteous and cheerful. At debriefing Group Captain Powell said "Good Show chaps, I expect you are glad to get onto ops at last, and that's the first one done". I was speechless but thinking about their next 44, maybe they were also. I can see "Speedy Powell" very clearly making
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that statement, a memory revived recently in the film "Target for Tonight" in which he was the Flight Lieutenant taking the briefing; the same very distinctive and distinguished voice.
On the night of the 4th., the crew not feeling particularly refreshed after its leave, our target was BATTAPAGLIA. It was daylight almost to the Italian Coast and we arrived with 20 minutes to spare, circling the target area. 'Bang on time we dropped the flares, but there were no bright lights'. The twenty minutes of sight-seeing had upset the routine and the flares were dropped on 'safe', and therefore failed to go off. We still had two flares so went down to 3000 feet and dropped the bombs through 9/10ths cloud using individual flares. 90 seconds after bombing, Stan identified the target 4 miles ahead. We had neither bombs nor flares left, and were depressed at putting up such a rotten show on what turned out to be the last trip of our tour. We could have done a spot of straffing below cloud, but instead called it a day.
The following night we waved the boys off to MASINA, and we felt rather sad that we were no longer operational. Sqdn. Ldr Garrad and crew were also no longer operational, having failed to return from MASINA. Someone suggested staying and doing another tour, but Dyson thought the idea was "stupid" - like most other ideas - and with deep regrets we said cheerio to our friends on 150 and 142 Squadrons, and climbed in the back of a lorry bound for Tunis. Pax Smith and Mickey Mortimer and crews were with us and we sat back and enjoyed the scenery, some taking pot-shots at nothing in particular with their revolvers. We had in fact lots of unofficial ammunition of 9mm. calibre, captured from the enemy. This fitted nicely into our .38 Smith & Wessons and differed from the .38 ammo. only in that it had no ejection flange at the end of the cartridge. This had the effect that we could use captured enemy ammo. but they could not use ours because of the flange.
We arrived at no. 2BPD in Tunis just in time for dinner and a cold shower, the first shower for about nine months. During our week or so in the Transit Camp, we had a sort of parade each morning and then were free for the day. It was on one of these parades that our Skipper's name was called to approach the C.O. "Sir, 416170". With no prior warning, the citation was read out and he was presented with the D.F.M. Next it was the turn of Mickey Mortimer to march up and also receive a D.F.M. I seem to recall that he did a somersault before saluting in front of the C.O., or was it a back somersault after receiving the award? either of which today seems quite incredible. Pax Smith had already received a D.F.M for his earlier exploits. My one other recollection of the Transit Camp was an old Italian Water Tanker which was used as a static water tank. It held 10,000 gallons of water and must have weighed over 53 tons when full. All 24 wheels were firmly embedded in the sand up to their axles. It was when we departed from Tunis by lorry for Algiers that one of the Canadian officers decided to hitch-hike back to U.K. and to rejoin the party at the Reception Centre. I learned later that he flew first to Algiers with the R.A.F. and then flew to U.K. with the Yanks. He was an old hand at that sort of thing, having hitch-hiked from Blida to New York and back with a colleague in less than a week.
Meanwhile the rest of us travelled the 500 miles to Algiers by lorry along the coast road, and after a few days in the transit camp boarded a troopship, the Capetown Castle, a passenger liner of the Castle line. We were accommodated in 4-berth cabins with full peace-time fascilities [sic] .
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each cabin was allocated one Italian P.O.W. who slept outside the door, and attended to the cleaning, dhobi etc. We were not impressed by the Italians as fighting men, but had no complaints of their ability and willingness in the job they were then doing. It was a very comfortable voyage and we lived it up in a manner to which we were certainly not accustomed.
After a very pleasant and restful 10 days or so we disembarked at Greenoch and I recollect forming up on the key [sic] prior to joining a train for Liverpool and West Kirby. A rather pompous redcapped Military Policeman called us to attention, right turn, at the double, march! It was more astonishment than lack of discipline which caused everyone to stay put. He was told to get his knees brown and get a few other things too, and we walked to the train, deliberately out of step. Our first steps back in England were certainly not going to be at the double ordered by Red Caps.
This was my fourth visit to West Kirby, where we were rekitted, saying cheerio to our Khaki battledress and tropical kit, documents checked, medical exam. and then disembarkation leave. It was at West Kirby that our Crew was really disbanded, very sad after working as a team for so long, but another phase of our careers was completed.
Of the Crew? Stan Chadderton was commissioned on his second tour and we have met several times in the past 40 years, but I have no news of the Skipper and the rest of the crew. Stan met the Skipper, then a Flight Lieutenant at Brise [sic] Norton at the end of the war on his return from a German P.O.W. camp. We can only hope he returned safely to New Zealand and was able to return in the farm. Allan Willoughby is thought to have ended the war as a Squadron Leader.
My association with the Wimpy was not yet over, however, it was still in use in large numbers in the U.K. for operational training, and was to remain so until the end of the war. More "Wimpys" were built than any other operational. bomber.
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[document from C-in-C]
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[photograph] C.W WITH MUM BARNOLDSWICK
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[photograph] HILDA WITH THE SKIPPER AND BOMB AIMER
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[photograph] [underlined] WITH THE SKIPPER & BOMB AIMER – SECOND HONEYMOON SEPT. 1943 [/underlined]
[photograph] [photograph]
[underlined] AT OUR CHALET AT BLIDA [/underlined]
WATSON – RUTHERFORD- DYSON – CHADDERTON & PADDY (MORTIMER’S FRONT GUNNER)
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[underlined] OUR 150 SQDN. SKIPPER SGT. STAN RUTHERFORD 416170 RNZAF [/underlined] [underlined] A WIMPEY AT BLIDA [/underlined]
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[photograph] AT RICHMOND SECOND HONEYMOON
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[warrant officer parchment]
52A
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[underlined] Screened [/underlined] .
September 1943 saw me at 84 O.T.U. Desborough, a Flight Sgt. with 43 ops under my belt, and that wonderful feeling of being ex-operational. For the next six months or so I was to be a "Course Shepherd", responsible for 12 Air Gunners. Desborough was a typical Operational Training Unit where, in the main, newly-trained aircrew were introduced to operational aircraft and the techniques of dealing with the opposition which was by no means limited to the Germans. There were three courses running simultaneously which gave ample scope to the Captains in making one of their most important decisions, that of selecting their crews.
For the first two weeks or so the training comprised mainly lectures and familiarisation with equipment. Air Gunners were generally able to make an early start with the flying where even on circuits and bumps an extra pair of eyes was to advantage.
The Course Shepherd ensured the smooth-running of the Air-Gunners training. There were specialist instructors for lectures on subjects such as guns, turrets and tactics, but the C.S. supervised their flying aspects and work on the range, in detail.
I particularly enjoyed the Fighter Affiliation sessions, where trainee gunners would take over the rear turret whilst being attacked by one or two Miles Masters or any other "Playmate" who could be cajoled officially to co-operate.
I would stand at the astrodome guiding the gunner with the timing of his advice and instructions to the Pilot. The standard evasive action (referred to later in 5 Group as "Combat Manouvre [sic] ") was the corkscrew, well known to, and anticipated by, the enemy, I might add that until I arrived at 84 OTU I had never even heard of the corkscrew. During the OTU excercises [sic] the fighter pilots were generally sporting enough not to press home their attacks with too much determination, but to allow the bomber sometimes to 'escape', thus giving the rear gunners - or some of them-- the false impression that they actually stood some chance of survival.
I felt quite at home in the "Wimpy" and encouraged the pilot to throw the aircraft around, and make the corkscrews rather more violent to simulate a real attack, where a quick getaway was the only solution to survival. For fighter affiliation excercises [sic] , the turret was equipped with an 8mm. Camera Gun, fitted in place of one of the four .303 Browning machine guns, the remaining three Brownings being de-armed. Each gunner plugged-in his own personal film cassette, and results were assessed the following day in the cinema.
Air firing excercises [sic] were supervised, where the speed of the Wellington was reduced, and a Miles Master would overtake about 3 or 400 yards abeam, towing a drogue. The gunner would be authorised to fire when the towing aircraft was outside his field of fire. He would then fire off about 200 rounds from each gun (five 2-second bursts), at the drogue. It was more than likely that air firing during his initial training had been carried out using a single gun not mounted in a turret. Air to ground firing was limited to a single exercise on a range near the coast, there being little scope for this type of work for heavy bombers over Deutchland.
Not very popular with the coming of Winter weather were the exercises at the firing butts or range. Six trainees would each be given a rear turret, together with four belts each of 200 rounds. He would
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mount the guns and fit the ammunition belts. Take-off procedure with safety catches 'on', then firing a few short bursts, landing procedure, clear the guns, etc. . Generally a few faulty rounds were deliberately built-in to create gun stoppages which the trainee had to clear. Finally he removed the guns from the turret and stripped and cleaned them ready for the next trainee.
All this took about three hours and it was on one of these sessions that unpleasantness developed with one of the trainees. Of the 12 Air Gunners in my little flock, eleven were Sergeants and one was an Acting Pilot Officer on probation. Like the others, his previous flying experience was limited to about 8 hours, and he had not yet been within 10 miles of an operational aircraft. He had been top of his course at Gunnery School and granted a Commission. I found that one of the Sergeants had fitted the guns in the turret and armed them with the belts of ammunition for him whilst I was busy with the others. He had managed to fire-off the rounds, and eventually, with some assistance the guns were removed. He flatly refused to clean the guns, claiming that it was an inappropriate task for an officer. I put it to him that although on a squadron the guns would be lovingly cared for by the armourers, he must still be fully au-fait with every aspect of guns and gunnery. He firmly refused to touch the guns and soil his hands and I told him that unless he gets on with it, we should be late for lunch. Four of the sgts. each took a gun and cleaned them. Some very cryptic comments were made by the Sergeants and I told the Ag. P. O. he was foolish. Later that day, to my absolute astonishment, I was marched in front of the C.O. and charged on a form 252 with insubordination. I was advised that an N.C.O. does not give orders to officers and I replied with something to the effect that I was the instructor and the officer the pupil, giving orders was an essential part of the job. Nevertheless, I was severely reprimanded. I had on several occasions applied for a posting back to operations, and the following day the Station W.O. told me my request had been granted and I was going to a squadron at Norton, near Sheffield in Yorkshire. Which squadron and with what type of aircraft was unimportant. I had never heard of Norton, bit hush-hush they had said. I should have realised that something was amiss, I was not being posted, but only detached. On arrival at Norton I found I was on an Aircrew Refresher Course which I was slow to realise was a correction or discipline course, a form of punishment. There were about 150 aircrew at Norton, from Flt/Lts to Sgts, almost all operational or ex-operational. At least I was among friends.
The day started with a call at 0600, on parade at 0630 , march to breakfast and an inspection at 0730 with greatcoats, followed almost immediately by a further inspection without greatcoats. This was followed until 1800 by sessions of drill, P.T. and lectures, with a break for lunch. Drill was just ordinary uninspiring square -bashing, wearing aircrew-issue shoes, and not boots. The instructor, said to be an L.A.C. Ag-Sgt. shouted commands and abuse, and was indeed very smart and probably efficient at his job, but utterly ignorant and useless off the barrack square. There was no rifle drill, and requests to introduce it were rejected. It was too easy for us to obtain .303 ammunition. P. T. was equally uninspiring and great emphasis was placed on recording improvement in performance as the training progressed. Lectures were farcical and covered most aircrew subjects, including navigation, gunnery, bombing techniques, target marking, etc. etc. There was not a
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flying badge among the instructors and obviously none had any flying experience in any capacity. No-one could possibly take the lectures seriously and there must have been some hair-raising answers in the written tests. The main problem was that at the slightest provocation one could be put on C.O.'s report. This was not a formal charge - which would have been on record - but an interview with the C.O. which would generally wind-up with an award of an extra 3 weeks at Sheffield. My policy was to keep my head down, or in modern parlance, to maintain a low profile. I generally managed to be near the back of the classroom and in the rear ranks on the drill square trying to be invisible. We were allowed out of camp after 1900, with an inspection at the gate, but lights out was at 2200, not allowing much scope. Most evenings were spent in the mess comparing notes and discussing our "crimes"; the instructors were conspicuous by their absence. I recall no-one admitting to flying or taxiing accidents, or misdemeanours whilst flying. Most of the reasons seem to have been absence without leave probably through boredom-, saying the wrong thing in an off-guarded moment or making someone more senior look silly. There was no connection between Norton and aircrew who were alledgedly [sic] L.M.F. or those who were reluctant to fly. Rather than charge a man formally with an offence, the easy way out was to send him on a "refresher course" with no reference to alleged crime or punishment. Operational aircrew discipline is often quoted as having been unique. All jobs were carried out with the same degree of dexterity, and responsibilities in the air within a trade were the same irrespective of rank. The Pilot was the Head Man, whether Squadron Leader or Sergeant. In the air, there were no formalities. The Pilot was 'Skipper' and no-one called anyone 'Sir'. This was generally so on the ground within the confines of the crew, but if it was a non-crew matter or there were V.I.P.'s about, a low-level type of formality might be introduced. Neither was there time for formality in the air where an attack may start and finish - one way or another - in seconds or less. On sighting a fighter at 300 yards a Rear Gunner in a film picked up a microphone and was beard to say "I say Skipper, I think we are being followed". A Guardsman might come up with "Permission to speak Sir", but life's not like that in the air.
Nearing the end of the 3-week course at Sheffield came the farcical final exams. I sailed through everything except P.T. where we were required to run 100 yards in 14 seconds. I was feeling fitter than I had for many years, but that 100 yards took me 17 seconds. Not good enough, try again. The second attempt took 19 seconds and the third attempt 24. I was told that "we would keep doing it all bloody night until I achieved it in 14 seconds". I merely said there was no point in attempting the impossible and I refused to carry out an unlawful order. So for me it was C.O.'s report next day. The C.O. said it was within his power to grant me an indefinite extension to the length of my course. I realised that to argue was probably futile and I recall being contradictory by saying something to the effect that "I have nothing to say except to remind everyone there is a real war going an out there and the sooner some of us get on with it the better". I don't know why I said it or thought what it might achieve, but I was easily provoked. I was awarded an extra 3 weeks at Sheffield, and was very surprised next morning when I was issued with a railway warrant to leave that morning with the others on my "course". I was convinced this was a mistake and succeeded in remaining invisible until I was well clear of Sheffield.
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Most of us felt the invasion of Europe was imminent and we had discussed our plans in the mess within earshot of the 'instructors'. When the balloon goes up, we return to base regardless of the opposition on the grounds that it was our duty to escape from captivity. In retrospect this was not entirely logical thinking but it might have influenced the C.O., I don't know. As far as I know there was no mass exodus and I have no idea how or when R.A.F. Norton was finally closed down. Suffice to say that it was a disgrace and an insult to aircrew, it would have been far more British to charge a man if he had allegedly done something wrong rather than take this easy way out. In general, training and lectures were taken very seriously by air crew and it could be claimed that the type and standard of lectures at Norton were in fact dangerous. Most of us realised it was just a load of absolute rubbish and did not take it seriously, and we had learned long ago to assess the value of the spoken word relative to the background and qualifications of the speaker.
The question of L.M.F. is an even more deplorable but entirely separate subject. Books have been written about it and it became a highly controversial issue. There were indeed some chaps who took such a bashing they felt they had had enough and to continue would increase the risk to the aircraft and crew or even crews. Most other operational aircrew have no less respect for them for admitting it and asking to be excused. L.M.F. and R.A.F. Norton were totally unconnected.
However, feeling very fit physically, and mentally ready to deal with the Ag. P. O. who knew all about the form 252 but couldn't strip even a Browning gun, I returned to 84 O.T.U. Desborough. A written request for an interview with the C.O. was given to the S.W.O. within minutes of arrival. I saw the Gunnery Leader and learned that I was to resume charge of the same course but less the sprog officer who was last seen on his way to Eastchurch as L.M.F and unsuitable for operations. I found later that he had been reduced to the ranks. It seems the other instructors had given him a very hard time all round, and particularly with combat manouvres where he was sick every time he flew. It was just not done to issue 252's but his chances of survival were improved. The C.O. agreed later that a mistake had been made and on paper my case had been reconsidered and the severe rep. withdrawn. Sheffield could not be undone and would have to be written off to experience, but he would see if he could hasten my promotion to W.O. and a posting to a real squadron.
At this time, the O.T.U. instructors were all crewed up and ready to back up the operational squadrons if necessary. Many of us were getting restless seeing a great increase in ground activity to the south and southeast. Lots of real aircraft, Lancasters, Halifaxes, Mosquitoes, Gliders etc. etc. and our status with the Wimpies as ex operational did little for our ego, making us feel like the 'has beens' we really were.
At about 0200 on the 6th. June, now a Warrant Officer, I was Orderly Officer and asleep in the duty room. The Duty Officer, a Ft/Lt. was flat out in the other bunk. A message was delivered marked "Top Secret" and I awakened the Duty Officer. He told me to open it. The message caused his to open a sealed envelope from his pocket and his exact words were "Christ, it’s started". 'It' was "Operation Overlord". Within a minute the Tannoy was blaring "All Duty Flight personnel to their flights immediately" 'All sreened aircrews to the Briefing Room
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at 0500," and so on. There followed a day of intense activity; air tests, bombing up, briefing, changing the bomb load, rebriefing, and the job of Orderly Officer went completely by the board.
In July, the great moment arrived, and our complete second tour crew of five was posted to Aircrew Pool at Scampton en route ultimately to a 5 Group Squadron.
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[photograph]
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[photograph] AT AIRCREW POOL SCAMPTON AUG ‘44
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[underlined] SCAMPTON [/underlined]
For Wellingtons we were indeed a complete crew, but we were not destined for Wellingtons, but Lancasters, and we needed either a Navigator or Bomb-aimer and another Gunner. Our Pilot and Observer had already completed tours on Blenheims and were good material for Mosquitos. They said cheerio on our third day at Scampton and were posted to a Mosquito Conversion Unit. The remaining three of us had ceased to exist as a crew and had become “odd bods”. We began to feel like members of staff but eventually we went our individual ways. Indeed I was put in charge of the Night Vision Centre for two months, until I met a pilot who was a Flight Lieutenant with a tunic that had obviously seen some service, and he had over 3,000 flying hours to his credit. With him was a Flying Officer Observer plus DFM, obviously clued up and who looked the academic type, a cheerful Flying Officer Bomb aimer and a Pilot Officer Rear Gunner. Four clued-up characters forming the nucleus of a gen crew. Somehow or other I became their other gunner and we were joined by a second tour F/Sgt Wireless operator and a Sgt. Flight Engineer ex fitter. A few days later we were posted to Winthorpe to 1661 Heavy Conversion Unit and settled into a course on Stirlings, flying together for the first time as a crew.
Familiarisation with a four-engined aircraft was the main purpose of the course; important to the skipper F/Lt. Chester who had been a Flying Instructor on Tiger Moths in Canada for a long time. He was about 8 years older than the rest of us and we were happy with his rather more mature approach to the job. The Flight Engineer, Sgt. Hampson, whom we called Doogan for no apparent reason, had flown on Liberators over Burma and nothing seemed to worry him unduly. F/O Pete Cheale was successful on two or three practice bombing sessions, and to F/O Ted Foster DFM it was all just routine stuff. F/Sgt. Frank Eaglestone’s radio was the same as on his previous tour, the good old R1155 and T1154 (still in service in 1960). The Rear Gunner was P/O Harvey who nattered endlessly about a chunk of flack [sic] still embedded somewhere about his person, and his first tour in general. He knew it all, or thought he did, but it soon became apparent that his experience was very limited and he had yet to do his first trip against the enemy. Because of this I insisted that he should have the mid-upper turret, and as Senior gunner, pulling a negative seniority in rank, I would take over the rear turret. He didn’t like that at all, and he left the crew. What became of him I don’t know, but Flt/Sgt Foolkes appeared from somewhere and took his place. Pete was one to take everything in his stride and was welcome to either turret. He preferred the mid-upper, possibly finding it more comfortable, being much taller than the average rear gunner. As for me, one rear turret was very much like another, the same Frazer Nash FN120 we had used on the later Marks of Wellington. A few mod cons perhaps, such as Hot air central heating in the turret. I recall that when we touched down on the runway at Winthorpe, the rear turret was still over the graveyard on the other side of the main road.
Whilst at Winthorpe, I found that 150, my old squadron, was about 20 miles away at Hemswell. I paid them a visit, but their only real link with the 150 of North Africa was the squadron number. 150 Squadron had been disbanded in Algiers though it’s final station was Foggia in Italy. I left
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it at Kairouan just before the move to Italy. Later it was re-formed with Lancasters and in theory had been in action since the beginning of the war, having been at the forefront with Fairey Battles in 1939-40 in France.
After about three weeks of routine and not very demanding training we graduated to the “Lanc” Finishing School” at Syerston. There we converted to Lancasters with about 14 hours flying, circuits and bumps, the odd practice bombing exercises, fighter affiliation and a Bullseye over London, co-operating with searchlights. Just what the Londoners down below thought of this aerial activity without an air raid warning was probably misconstrued. We were still in one piece, feeling fit, very confident and ready to join a squadron.
Our next move was to Bardney, near Lincoln, about 160 bods, and judging by their ranks and gongs, a rather experienced bunch, mostly second tour types. Bardney was the home of 617 and 9 Squadrons, rumours were rife of course. Were we obvious replacements for 617, where prestige was high and directly proportionate to the losses, - the highest in the Command? Our luck held, we were to become a new squadron, 227, just an ordinary Lancaster Squadron to enhance the might of 5 Group. It transpired that we were to become “A” Flight, and the Skipper was promoted to Squadron Leader. Meanwhile “B” Flight was forming at Strubby.
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[underlined] 227 SQUADRON [/underlined]
The first op. by aircraft of the newly-formed 227 Squadron was on the 11th. of October 1944 and most of us at Bardney were not even aware of it. Only three aircraft of "B" Flight, forming up at Strubby, were involved, a short early afternoon trip to FLUSHING. Three nights later "A" Flight provided three aircraft and "B" Flight four aircraft on a more typical raid by 240 aircraft of 5 Group on BRUNSWICK. The Squadron was beginning to take shape and on the 17th., two aircraft of "B" Flight joined 47 others on a short excursion to breach the dyke at WESTKAPELL. Two nights later was a 5 Group effort to NUREMBURG, with "A" and "B" Flights providing seven and five aircraft respectively. This fourth raid by 227 aircraft was only "A' Flight's second involvement, the aircraft and crews really becoming attached for this purpose to 9 Squadron.
On the 21st. October we were transferred to Balderton, at the side of the A1 near Newark and joined the crews of "B" flight.
Our Skipper had been promoted to Sqdn/Ldr. in command of "A" Flight, and was very such absorbed in getting his half of the squadron organised and operational, with little time left for actual flying. Our crew was kept busy in their respective sections, particularly Navigation, Bombing and Wireless, but there was not a great deal to be done in the Gunnery office: The Gunnery Leader was Flt/Lt. Maxted who occupied a small office in a sectioned-off Nissen hut. It was barely furnished with a desk and a few chairs; posters on the wall amplifying the vital issues and a notice board. The state of readiness of each aircraft and gunner was displayed with a record of daily inspections completed. The D.I. 's were an important part of the routine, and the gunners generally took part in the air tests prior to bombing up.
Our first mission as a crew was to Bergen in Norway. It was also a personal first trip for the Skipper, Bomb aimer and Flight Engineer. It was my 46th. op. but also my first in the mighty Lancaster. The Navigator, Wireless op. and Mid-upper gunner were all veterans having carried out their first tours on Lancs.
Our flight out over the North Sea which used to be called the German Ocean by some was uneventful, and Bergen was approached from the east at 10,000 feet. With the target ahead and in sight to those in the front office, all was quiet except for engine noise through someones [sic] microphone which had been left switched on. Peace was shattered by an almighty bang and shudder, confirming we had been hit, and the nose of the aircaft [sic] went down. I was forced against the left side of the turret unable to move, and found later the speed had built-up to over 370 mph. The Skipper was shouting for assistance. Ace the Navigator somehow managed to crawl forward a few feet and found Doogan with his head in the observation blister admiring the view of Bergen above. The Skipper had both feet on the dash trying to pull the aircraft out of the dive. The only control Ace could reach was the trimming wheel on the right of the Skipper's seat and he turned this to make the aircraft tail heavy. The nose came up and so did the target. The Flight Engineer added his contribution by exclaiming "Coo, i'n' [sic] it wizard". That was his opinion, but we were heading straight up the fiord and Ace brought this to the attention of the Skipper very smartly. Our height was down to 1500 feet and Ace and the Skipper somehow managed to turn the aircraft through 180
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degrees without hitting either the sea or the hills. Still tail heavy, we gradually climbed away to the west, and for the first time I saw the target, dead astern, always a welcome sight, and I set about sorting myself out from the intercom. leads, electrical heating cable, oxygen pipe and also checking that the turret doors would still open. Silence was broken about 100 miles from Bergen by our brash young Canadian Bomb Aimer, Pete Chiele, "Skipper, we still have the bombs-aboard". I think It-was Ace, who pulled the jettison toggle. At least my turret seemed intact and I took the opportunity of the lull in the drama of opening the turret door with my elbows, leaning backwards into the fuselage and making sure I could reach my parachute pack. Then a quick reversal and I was again "on the job” after a break of less than ten seconds. On the Wimpey and Lanc. the Rear Gunner had a choice of exits, either through the rear escape hatch inside the fuselage, or direct from the rear turret. I was well rehearsed in the latter method, first to rotate the turret dead astern, using the manually operated handle if there was no hydaulic [sic] pressure, then to open the sliding doors. These never failed to open on practice sessions, but an axe was provided inside the turret just in case. Then to remove the parachute pack from its housing and drag it carefully into the turret, placing it above the control column. Off with the helmet complete with oxygen mask, intercom, 24 volt supply and associated pipes and cables and also the electrical heating cable connector. The parachute pack was then clipped on, the turret rotated onto either beam, lean backwards and push with the feet. The alternative exit gave one more room to manouvre [sic] , but the escape hatch itself was rather narrow for a Rear Gunner wearing his full flying kit, particularly the 1944 version of "Canary suit", so-called because of its colour. There was also the phsychological [sic] aspect of deliberately entering an aircraft which was probably on fire. On the Wellington Mk1C with an FN20 turret and only two guns, there was provision to stow the 'chute pack inside the turret. Also the doors were hinged, opening outwards and they could be jettisoned. Although I mentioned being well rehearsed, drill was carried out with the aircraft stationary and upright, not quite the same as in an anticipated emergency bale-out. My only excuse for claiming the checking of my 'chute as practice was that I felt I should be doing something more useful than just sitting there, whilst there seemed to be so much happening up front. There was even more drama unfolding, the Wireless op. had passed a coded message to the Navigator instructing us to divert to Holme on Spalding Moor in Yorkshire, but only the W/op was issued with the code-sheet of the day. The Skipper did not receive the message in plain language until we were in R/T contact with Balderton, which was closed due to thick fog or very low cloud. However, the Navigator knew our exact location and there was fuel in the tanks. Eventually we re-joined the tail-end of the gaggle and landed at Holme. I recall spending the rest of the night on the floor in the lounge of the Sgts. Mess. The following morning we took a walk around the hangars and Doogan chatted with some ground crews who were changing an engine on a Halifax. He actually told then they were not going about it properly and their reaction was quite startling and informative.
Our second trip as a crew was two days later, to WALCHEREN in daylight. This was more reminiscent of our raids from North Africa except that 110 aircraft, including 8 Mosquitoes, took part. From North Africa our "Maximum Effort" had been two squadrons, a total of 26 aircraft, which
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seemed a lot at the time!. 12 aircraft from 227 took part, each having its own specific target, ours being a gun battery which was already completely submerged in water when we arrived. Just ahead several aircaft [sic] were bombing the sea wall and the Skipper decided to back them up, bombing from 3500 feet. The wall was breached and the sea poured through, but our bombs were all fused for delayed action which would not have amused the natives. In fact too much damage was done which, according to a story in Readers Digest, took over six months to repair. However, the main object was to silence the German artillary [sic] and this was achieved. This particular trip had been our introduction to the "formation" known as the "5 Group Gaggle". Pilots were not very practiced at Straight and level flying, it had been seldom recommended, and it seemed to me as a Rear gunner that everyone weaved along in the same direction, taking great pains to stay as far away as possible from other aircraft, but remaining in the stream.
Two days later Ches. and Co. joined 16 other crews from 227 on an afternoon excusion [sic] to an oil plant at HOMBURG. The ground was mostly obscured by cloud and visibility at 17,000 feet was poor, about three miles. Approaching the target a Lancaster in front of us was hit by flak and one engine was on fire. The aircraft passed below us and the fire was extinguished, but its no. 2 engine was stopped. It remained just behind us until we were over the target. The target was marked by 8 Mosquitoes of 8 Group, but marking was scattered over a wide area and out of the 228 Lancasters only 159 bombed. Results were poor, a recce. next day showed that most of the bombs had hit the industrial and residential areas. One Lancaster was lost, due to flak.
The following night 15 aircraft of 227 joined a total force of 992 aircraft on DUSSELDORF. Our Skipper flew as Second Dickie to F/L Kilgour, and the rest of us kicked our heels. This was the last heavy raid on Dusseldorf by Bomber Command, and 18 aircraft were lost. F/O Croskell and crew failed to return, our first 227 Sqdn casualties, but news was received shortly afterward they were safe in Allied hands. They were operational with the squadron again in Feb.
On the 11th. of November, we surprisingly found ourselves on the Battle Order for an evening raid on the Rhenania-Ossag oil refinery at HARBURG, close to the battered Hamburg. This was a 5 Group effort with 237 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitoes. 7 Lancasters were lost, including 9J"S" with F/O Hooper and crew. F/O Bates' crew reported that "oil tanks were seen to explode at 1924 hrs". but German records make no reference to the oil tanks, only that 119 people were killed and 5205 others were bombed out. Flak was not intense and the bombing appeared to be mainly on target. There were fighters about but the return journey was uneventful for us. Once again we were beaten by the fog at Balderton, and as our new F.I.D.O. was not yet operational, we were diverted to Catfoss. The night was spent in the chairs in the Sgts. Mess, but the officers among us were luckier to find beds.
For most of the following four weeks we were without either a Skipper or a Navigator. The Skipper was detached "on a course" and then spent a couple of weeks on a Summary of Evidence. Ace the Navigator was detached to Newmarket racecourse to clue up on some new equipment or technique. For three days I was detatched [sic] to Waddington as a Witnessing Officer at a Court Martial, which I found depressing. It seemed that at Waddington there had been an old car which was used by anyone who could find some petrol to run it. It was the property of an unlucky aircrew
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member who failed to return one night. The car was very useful, but whilst having neither licence nor insurance it was eventually involved in a serious accident, and the R.A.F. took over where the civilian court left off.
0n the 6th. December I had a letter of complaint from my mother, enclosing a newspaper cutting from the Barnoldswick & Earby Pioneer, showing a photo of me and referring to my award of a D.F.C. Why had I not told her? I don't think she ever believed me when I claimed that her letter was the first I knew of it. On Dec. 11th., with Ace still at Newmarket, we became 'Dambusters' - of a sort - for the day. Bomber Command Diary states " "233 Lancasters of 5 Group and 5 Mosquitoes of 8 Group took part. Hits were scored on the dam but no breach was made. 1 Lancaster lost". The squadron diary reflects a successful sortie, in that direct hits on the dam wall were observed, but the 1000 lb. bombs were too small for the purpose. My own recollection of the raid was quite different. We were stooging along just above cloud in company with scores of other Lancasters when the others were seen to be doing a 180 degree turn. Within seconds the sky within my range of vision was empty and in all directions no-one could see another aircraft. The mid-upper and I advised the Skipper that we were now unaccompanied and for 20 minutes we tried to impress upon him that we were extremely vulneruble [sic] (or words to that effect). We were just a few hundred feet above and silhouetted against a layer of stratus and I asked him to fly just inside the cloud, or at least just to skim the tops, but he replied that it was too dangerous, too much risk of collision. The mid-upper gunner agreed, collision from Gerry fighters. Vocabulary worsened and finally the Skipper realised we were 40 minutes and over 200 miles from the rest of the gaggle, we turned round. It has been suggested that as Flight Commander he must display a press-on attitude, and we were all in favour of this, but there was no-one around to impress and it was pretty obvious to the gunners that either Frank had missed a diversion message or we were in the wrong gaggle. Bomber Command Diary disproves the latter, but there is still uncertainty in my mind about that particular operation. Both Pete in the mid-upper turret and I realised that if we were attacked by fighters the Skipper would not take the slightest notice of our requests or advice. We were not disputing that the Skipper was in charge and the one who makes the decissions [sic] , but in our situation he had no choice other than to take advantage of the cloud. We regarded this as an expression of no confidence in the gunners, and we made it very clear to him both then and later that it was no way to finish a tour.
It was 10 days before we flew again, our 6th. trip with 227 embarking on their 22nd. trip as a squadron. The target was the synthetic oil plant at POLITZ, in the Baltic. 207 Lancasters and 1 Mosquito were detailed, including 13 Lancasters of 227. Two from 227 experienced mechanical failure and aborted soon after take-off. This was a long stooge, and 3 Lancasters were lost, plus a further 5 which crash-landed in England. The raid was successful, the main chimneys having collapsed and other parts of the refinery being severely damaged. On return to eastern England we were again unable to land at Base due to weather, and were diverted to Milltown, in Scotland. Fuel gauges were reading zero or less when a weary Ches. and crew finally landed after a trip lasting 10 hrs. and 15 minutes. F/O Croker in 9J"K" wound up at Wick, in Morayshire, his aircraft being so badly shot-up it was declared
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a write-off. The following morning we flew to Wick to join F/O Croker and crew and give then a lift back to Balderton. Among others, there was a Met. Flight at Wick, equipped with B17s, Flying Fortresses. It was their job to climb to a great height, making Met. observations, and some of their trips exceeded 12 hours duration. I recall the armourers at Wick cleaned and polished our three turrets and 8 Browning guns without being asked, and making a very good job of it too. Everyone was provided with beds, and it seems the officers were so comfortable the Skipper decided to stay at Wick over Christmas. The town of Wick was "dry', no pubs, but among the N.C.O's, this made no difference, we had no money with us. Normally on a diversion we didn't need any money, but for a several day stop-over it was embarassing [sic] to be absolutely without. We would like to have taken our turn in paying for the drinks is the Mess. I seem to recall trying to obtain an advance from Pay accounts without success, accompanied by the other two W/Os in our crew. I was reminded of one incident at Wick by Ace, our Navigator; We were not like most other crews, sticking together as a crew. The Commissioned officers kept to themselves, the three Warrant Officers maintained their own little triangle, and Doogan prefered [sic] his own company despite the W/O's efforts to get him to join us. It seems that one night at Wick we carried him and his bed outside and he awoke next morning in the middle of the parade ground which was covered is snow. I have no personal recollection of this, but there it is in black and white in Ace's book, 'Just Another Flying Arsehole'. We returned to Balderton on the 27th., with 14 of us aboard, and did not see the ground until we actually touched down. For the first time we landed with the assistance of FIDO, which was probably very scary for the pilot. In the rear turret I just got an impression of landing in the middle of a fire.
The following night we missed a trip to OSLO, our squadron providing only 5 of the force of 67 Lancasters. On the afternoon of the 30th. we were briefed for an evening take-off to HOUFFALIZE, a total force of 154 Lancasters and 12 Mosquitoes. German Panzers had broken through the American lines in a desperate attempt to thwart the Allied advance, in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. The weather gave the Germans the advantage, low cloud and thick fog prevented the 2nd. Tactical Air Force from playing its part to the full. With almost 100% Allied air superiority in the area, Typhoons and other fighters operating on a cab-rank principle responding in seconds to detailed requests from the chaps below, Gerry was learning what it was like to be at the receiving end of the slaughter he started is 1939. But not for that few days at the end of 1944 in the Fallaise gap. The close proximity of Allied troops called for great accuracy in bombing and straffing [sic] , and this was not possible in the prevailing conditions. Because of the bad weather in the target area, take-off was postponed every few hours but we were eventually relieved to get airborne about 0230. Conditions over the target were quite impossible and the flares dropped into the murk below probably caused hearts on both sides to miss a few beats. Some crews did bomb, but Chas. quite rightly felt it was too risky. We had not been briefed for any secondary target so our bombs wound up in the Wash. Finally, we landed at about 0830 after 24 hours of effort of one sort or another. Nothing really achieved, but at least we had tried.
It was about this time that my father visited the Squadron for a few days. He was a Captain in the R.A.S.C. recently returned from East
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Africa and awaiting release on medical grounds. He was very impressed with what he saw but we could not obtain authority for him to actually fly with us. On the Sunday morning he watched our parade and later mentioned that as the W/O called out names, one Ft/Sgt responded to at least five of them. Also that some were in best blues, some in battledress, one or two with greatcoats and one even with a raincape. Two were actually standing on parade with bicycles ready to shoot off somewhere immediately after the parade. His thoughts at the time were how can such an undisciplined lot perform any serious task. Later that morning sitting in the Gunnery Office, gunners came in with more of a wave than a salute, a brief word from them and I would put a tick on the board against their aircraft. I explained to my father that this was their way of reporting that their turrets and guns had received and passed the daily inspection. After lunch in the mess he noticed a great deal of activity and movement, and a clear but quiet sense of urgency. He asked what was happening and I showed him the Battle Order.
The following day he said how wrong was his first impression. Everyone had a job to do, they know what was required of them and they got as with it without any shouting of orders or people stamping around. I was Duty Gunnery Leader that night, as was my lot quite often over that period, and was able to show my father what made a squadron tick. He thoroughly enjoyed his stay, but I don't think he met the Skipper. In fact I don't think we saw anything of our Skipper during the whole month of January, by the end of which 227 had completed 33 ops. "A” Flight Commander's crew had totted up only 7 as a crew and some of us were not at all happy with this performance. On the 2nd. Feb. F/O Bates was short of a Rear Gunner and I could have kissed him when he asked me to deputise for WO Bowman. This was an experienced and popular crew who had already completed 14 trips of their second tour. Bowman was in fact the only one outside our crew I had known a year ago. We had carried out our first tours together on 150 Sqdn. Wellingtons, and he was the only other 227 bod with an Africa Star. I cannot recollect why he was not available that night. Our target was KARLSRUHE, a 5 Group effort of 250 Lancasters and 11 Mosquitoes, of which 19 were from 227. Cloud up to 15000 feet and the consequent difficulty in marking caused the raid to be a failure. 14 Lancasters were lost, including 9J"D" with F/O Geddes and crew. The total effort of Bomber Command that night was 1252 sorties. Targets included Wiesbaden's only large raid of the war, and Wanne-Eickel, neither attack was regarded as a success. Very little was achieved that night for a loss of 21 aircraft.
On the night of the 7th. Feb., F/O Bates was airborne again with 11 others from Balderton in a total force of 188 aircraft, to the Dortmund-Ems Canal. All 227 Sqdn. a/c returned safely, but 3 were lost in all. I was not with him this time although W/O Bowman was not available. After about 5 hours sleep the Battle Order for the coming night showed 18 crews from 227 sqdn., including F/O Bates, with F/O Watson as Rear Gunner. It felt great to be doing something useful. The weather en route was clear and there were still fighters about, largely responsible for the loss of 12 Lancasters, but the bombing was extremely accurate. According to Speer, the German armaments minister, the oil refinery was kaput for the reminder of the war and a big setback to the German war effort. All 227 sqdn aircraft returned safely, one, F/O Edge's 9J"B" having aborted with problems on 2 engines and landed safely at a farm in Norfolk. It was in fact F/O Bates’ 18th. and final trip on
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227 sqdn., a very satisfactory finish. It was a satisfying night too for 'our own' Navigator, Ted Foster who flew as a 'spare Bod' Navigator with F//Lt [sic] Pond. On the 14th. Feb., 6 weeks into what surely must be the final year in the war against Germany, we were no doubt startled to see our Skipper and crew on the Battle Order. A 5 Group effort, the target was ROSITZ oil refinery near Leipsig [sic] , a force of 232 Lancasters and Mosquitoes, including 12 from Balderton. Our aircraft was 9J"H" and a couple of hours or so after take-off the Skipper found he could not come to terms with his magnetic compass, the performance of which was erratic. An hour or so later the Giro compass also started to play up and fortunately the Skipper did accept the advice of the Navigator and turned back, navigating solely on "Gee" back to base. It was not possible to carry-on navigating to the target on "Gee", we would have [inserted] 14/2/45 Rositz [/inserted] been out of range long before the target was reached. 9J"G" skippered by F/O Tate had engine trouble just after take-off and returned on three engines. We were the second aircraft to abort on that trip. There were some ribald comments next day when the Instrument Section reported there was nothing wrong with either compass. The comments were not facetious however, no-one would seriously accuse either the Skipper or an experienced Navigator like Ace of pulling a fast one. Both I am quite sure would have preferred to take part in the destruction of Rositz This was in fact the Skipper's final trip, although we did not realise it at the time and still regarded his as our Skipper for the next two months.
The record shows that in the following four weeks Ace did three spare bod trips whilst the rest of the crew passed the time somehow. The spell was broken for me when F/Lt Hodson asked me to take over his rear turret on the 14th. of March. Ace had already done his last bombing raid although he too might not have realised it at the time. His grand finale, quite fitting was a daylight 1000 plus Bomber raid on DORTMUND on the 12th. of March, as Wing Commander Millington's Navigator. It was also to be the Wingco's final trip before swapping his duralumin pilot's seat with a little steel armour plating at his back, for I think a wooden one in the House of Commons where his back was probably just as vulnerable.
Our target was another oil refinery, at LUTZKENDORF, a typical 5 Group effort of 244 Lancasters and 11 Mosquitoes, 15 of the former being from Balderton. We enjoyed the company of F/O Howard as 2nd. Pilot. In fact five aircraft from 227 Sqdn. carried 'Second Dickies' that night. Out of a total of 18 aircraft lost, two were from 227 Sqdn., both with Second pilots. It was feared by many that carrying a Second Pilot increased the risk, but I did not share this concern. The Second Pilot it is true would take the place of the Flight Engineer who would either stand between the two pilots or sit on the dickie-seat. Some drills had to be slightly modified for the occasion, but I would have thought the presence of an extra bod would tend to put the others more on their toes. The crew I was with were on their 18th. trip and had been with the Squadron from the outset. Nothing untoward happened to us, there was the usual flack and searchlights, maybe fighters but one saw none. Bombing seemed reasonable well concentrated and photo-reconnaissance next day showed that 'moderate damage' was caused.
On the 7th. of April the squadron completed its transfer to Strubby, and was detailed for action the same night. I was favoured to fly once more with F/Lt Hodson and crew, LEIPZIG again, this time to the
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Benzol plant at MOLBIS. 13 Lancasters of 227 joined 162 others and 11 Mosquitoes, all from 5 Group. The weather was good, bombing accurate, and the oil plant put completely out of action. No aircraft were lost and the raid was considered a 100% success.
After a few hours sleep we were briefed for an attack on LUTZKENDORF, the same target as on the 14th. March. It had been attacked the previous night by 272 aircraft from 1 and 8 Groups who caused only moderate damage. I was detailed to fly with W/O Clements and crew who were on the 5th. trip of their first tour, in 9J"Q". On take-off the starboard outer engine failed and Ace who waved us off said he saw the aircraft sink to within a few feet of the ground; but that few feet made all the difference and the Skipper was able to gain height gradually until it was safe to jettisson [sic] the bombs in the sea. The trip was aborted and a safe landing made at Strubby. Subsequent inspection showed a fuel leak from no.2 port tank and oil leaks from the two outer engines. 242 aircraft were on this raid, and 6 were lost, but another oil refinery was put out of action for the rest of the war. The 19 aircraft put up by 227 all returned safely and were diverted to the west because of weather.
Two nights later, on the 10th. I was again with W/O Clements, to the Wahren Railway yards at LEIPSIG. The force of 230 aircraft comprised 134 Lancasters, 90 Halifaxes, and 6 Mosquitoes, of which 1 Lancaster and 1 Halifax failed to return. Immediately prior to take off I had trouble with the turret sliding doors, they wouldn't close, but I rotated the turret onto the port beam as was general practice for take-off with the doors open. This was spotted from the ground and the Skipper was told on R/T soon after we were airborne. I had to get out of the turret and through the bulkhead door to fix them, but finally managed to get then to slide. If I had failed to fix then nothing would have made me admit it, it would just have been a little draughty. The trip went very well, the marking was accurate and the bombing concentrated. Some flak and plenty of fighter flares about but we saw no fighters. It was a quiet return trip and all 227 aircraft returned safely.
That was my last trip and also the last for W/O Clements and crew. It was the 57th. involvement by 227 Squadron which was to carry out 4 more bombing raids, terminating with BERCHTESGADEN itself, on the 25th. of April. The war in Europe was virtually over, but our impression was that 5 Group was to form the nucleus of Tiger Force to help finish the job in the Far East and we would be a part of it. It was with these thoughts that I went on leave on the 26th. April, a spare bod without a pilot, but still expecting to fly again with the squadron..
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[photograph]
[photograph]
[photograph]
64A
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[photograph] [photograph]
F/O. CHEERFUL CHEALE R.C.A.F.
[photograph] [photograph]
F/O BATES F/O PETE CHEALE (BA) W/O PETE FOOLKES
S/LDR CHESTER (PILOT) F/O FOSTER
64B
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[photograph]
[photograph]
[photograph]
64C
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[photograph] F/O. TED FOSTER D.F.M.
C.W. PETE FOOLKES MID-UPPER
[photograph] [photograph]
64D
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[photograph] CLIFF’S OFFICE
[photograph]
[photograph] OUTSIDE OUR DES. RES.
C.W. & GEOFF HAMPSON (FLIGHT ENG
64E
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[newspaper cutting of D.F.C. award] [photograph]
227 SQDN W/OP – NAV – MID- UPPER
[photograph]
64F
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[photograph] [underlined] TED (ACE NAV) FOSTER D.F.M. BALDERTON NOV 44 [/underlined]
[photograph] [underlined] RUNNING UP ON HOMBERG 1/11/44 AT LUNCHTIME [indecipherable word] [/underlined]
64G
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[photograph] [underlined] F/O. BATES [/underlined]
[photograph] [underlined] F/O BATES W/O JENNERY (NAV) SGT. WESTON (FLT. ENG) [/underlined]
FEB 45
64H
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[DFC citation]
64L
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[letter from HM George VI]
64M
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[Sgt Mess Wick Christmas Menus 1944]
[photograph]
F/O CROKER’S LANCASTER AT REST IN TORPEDO DUMP XMAS ‘44
64N
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[inside of christmas card]
CHRISTMAS CARD FROM PETE IN CANADA
64P
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[photograph]
STIRLING AT H.C.U. WINTHORPE
[photograph]
AT BLIDA
[photograph]
LANCASTER AT SYERSTON
74A
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[letter of introduction to airfield manager in Iran]
154A
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[photograph]
F/LT. MAXTED (GUNNERY LEADER) PETE FOOLKES & F/O SANDFORD (SPARE GUNNER OR SQDN ADJ)
[photograph]
TED FOSTER WITH BITS OF 9JO
[photograph]
64J
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[photograph]
GEOF. HAMPSON FLT. ENG.
[photograph of 9J-O]
[photograph of 9J-O]
64K
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[christmas card]
CHRISTMAS CARD FROM PETE IN CANADA
64P
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[typewritten letter]
[underlined] PART OF F/L CROKER’S LETTER WITH XMAS 1990 CARD [/underlined]
64Q
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[location map for 1994 reunion]
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[underlined] FINAL LEG [/underlined]
Recollections of events in my final 15 months in the R.A.F. are reasonably clear but somewhat hazy of detail and of the order in which they took place.
I was still with the Squadron on VE Day, the 5th. April, on leave in London with Hilda. I recall going up to Leicester Square by tube train with my father, Alice and Hilda to join the celebrations and actually walking back the five miles to Lavender Hill in the early hours. This would explain why I had no knowledge of the Victory Parade at Strubby until I was shown a photograph of it many years later. I was on leave again in London in early August when the Americans dropped the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and suddenly the war was over. I was still in uniform and had to await my turn for demob.
I have no recollection of attending a Reselection Board when I was made redundant from flying, nor of actually leaving the Squadron. I think my first posting after the Squadron was to Gravely, as a Squadron adjutant. I had always thought that the Squadron was 106, but according to the Bomber Command War Diaries 106 was never at Gravely [sic] !. There is no mistaking the actual station, however, it is only 4 miles from my present home and parts of it are still recogniseable [sic] . I was astonished to find many years later that 227 Sqdn had transferred to Graveley about the 8th. of June and was disbanded there on the 5th. of September. I was there for about 6 weeks during which time we closed the Sargeants’ [sic] Mess and did a very little paper-work. We had neither aircrews nor aircraft, it was just a matter of holding office and very little else!. I probably spent most of it on leave.
I then became a Photographic Officer u/t and did a very interesting course at Farnborough which lasted 8 weeks. One of the instructors was a Sgt. Peter Clark, a leading Saville Row fashion photographer before the war and Hilda’s first employer. I went on leave yet again and was eventually told to report to 61 M.U. at Handforth in Cheshire as a u/t Equipment Officer. I duly reported to the Station Adjutant at Handforth feeling very much out of place. Of the hundreds of service types around only the ex-Air-Crew were in battle dress, the others were either in best blues or dungarees. I had always thought that battledress was the working uniform of the R.A.F., but it was not so at Handforth. I felt more as if I was in the Luftwaffe. The Station Adj. took me to see the Chief Equipment Officer, who was a Wing Commander and this feeling became even stronger. I reported formally and the C.E.O. said “And what the hell are you supposed to be?”. Those were his exact words and I did really wonder whether we were in the same air force. I replied that “I am here as a u/t equipment officer Sir”. “MM what’s your trade?” “Rear Gunner” – without waiting for the ‘Sir’, he exploded and almost shouted “That’s not a trade, it’s General Duties”. He was technically right but raising his voice unduly went on to add “You are supposed to be able to sit here and do my job, you’d feel a bloody fool doing my job, wouldn’t you!”. Fascinated by the smirk on his face and hypnotised by the Defence medal on his breast I just stood there in disbelief at this outburst and quietly laughed. “Well?” He wanted an answer and I said in a rather light vane “Yes Sir I would, but less of a bloody fool than some would have felt doing my job for the last three years”. That was it, he stood up and said “Right, come”. We went along the corridor and straight in to see the Station Commander, a Group Captain. The WingCo[sic] was very agitated and without preamble
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told the Groupie of my ‘gross insubordination’. He recited the dialogue in accurate detail and the Group Captain asked for my account. I agreed with the C.E.O.’s account but said that I was provoked, there was no reason for his outburst and I grinned only because I didn’t think he was being serious. Invited to comment the WingCo said he had been affronted by my being improperly dressed. I made no further comment and the Groupy told the WingCo that he would deal with the matter. The WingCo saluted and left, and I thought I was for the chop. The Group Captain sported R.F.C. wings and had obviously seen his share of action. He stood up and extended his right hand in friendship. “Sorry old chap, I didn’t get your name, do sit down”. I was back in the R.A.F. He asked “Where were you in Africa?” Not an idle question, followed by “Did you know Group Captain Powell?” Yes Sir, he was our Base Commander of 142 and 150 Squadrons, Speedy Powell of “F” for Freddie”. Speedy had been the Briefing officer in the film ‘Target for Tonight’. I mentioned some of his exploits and finally his loss, and the Group Captain was distressed. He told me that like the other 12 ex-Air Crew on the station, I was a square peg in a round hole, but to make the best of it and to go back to see him if I had a problem. In the mess that evening I met the others and soon found we were all on duty every day and every night. u/t Orderly Officer, then Orderly Officer, and through the whole range of Asst. Duty Officer, Duty Officer, Fire Picket, in-line Fire picket, Cyphers, Security, etc. etc. Only the ex Air-Crew Officers performed these tasks and after two weeks of this we agreed something must be done. One period of 24 hours I was Duty Cyphers Officer. This was just a title, there was neither Cyphers Section nor Intellegence[sic] Section and I found that for almost all the duties we were allocated there were no instructions. Several of us individually addressed the Station Adjutant in writing and one even enquired whether he should draw-up his own set of procedures for inclusion in Station Standing Orders. For reasons that could only have been sour grapes, there was a measure of ill-feeling between the ‘permanent’ equipment and Admin officers, and the air-crew types. Many of the former had spent the entire war at places like Handforth, and there is no doubt they did a vital job, and maybe were still doing it. In our case, the war for us was over, and after our experiences of the last few years there was a limit to the amount of being messed around that we were willing to accept. We discussed having fire drills with real fires and creating a few incidents for practice, but finally we drew lots and two of us applied through the C.E.O. to see the Group Captain. The C.E.O. refused permission so we made our request through the Station Adjutant. This was approved and we told the C.O. what was happening, we were being “imposed” upon from a great height. He called in the Station Adj. and told him that all Air Crew Officers would go on indefinite leave the following day. He told the two of us to ensure that all application forms were with the Station Adj. by 3 pm. And for me, it was straight to Whitehaven, in battledress.
I had applied for release from the Service under “Class B”, having an immediate job to take up which would in itself create work for 5 other ex-Servicemen. Hilda was in fact holding the fort in Whitehaven, and nothing came of the application.
It was about four months before I was recalled to Handforth, and immediately detached to no. 7 Site at Poynton to take over as Equipment Officer i/c and also as Officer i/c. the Prison Camp. There was an Equipment W/O running the Stores with about 200 Airmen and I agreed with him that it could
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stay that way. The Stores comprised 8 massive hangars full of equipment. I regarded my main job as O.C. the Stalag with its 1000 P.O.W.’s (750 Italian and 250 German) and my staff of 15 Air Crew N.C.O.s who had all been kriegsgefangener themselves. The Senior German prisoner was a Warrant Officer who spoke excellent English having studied it for 5 years in prison camps. Most of the prisoners, including the Italians, had been taken in the Western Desert. The Germans were very smart indeed, in contrast to the Italians, and the two axis partners had as little to do with each other as they could arrange. Gangs of prisoners were guarded by some of the 200 Airmen, supervised by ex-AirCrew NCO.s. The prisoners were not interested in escape, there would have been no point, but I put an immediate stop to their sneaking out of camp at night to try their luck. The German and Italian messes were separate from each other and staffed by R.A.F. cooks. The Germans asked if they could do their own cooking and I agreed but with nominal supervision of two airmen in case we had visitors. I made the same arrangement for the Italians but initially they refused. I appointed one of the Corporal Majors as Senior Iti [sic] and made him responsible. I threatened to fully-integrate them with the Germans if there was any nonsense, and with that some of them nearly burst into tears. They were a lazy shower. I had the Officers’ Mess all to myself, but that’s another story. It was a very cosy three months, with most long week-ends spent in Whitehaven where Hilda had taken-over the Relay system. It was also a tremendous anti-climax to the previous five years.
Eventually when the magic number 26 came up, I reported to R.A.F. Uxbridge for demob. and collected my pin-striped suit and a cardboard box to put it in. I realised then that my career in the R.A.F. was initially over. Straight to Whitehaven by train, still in battledress.
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[underlined] FIRST TOUR TARGETS [/underlined]
[table of targets and bomb loads]
71
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[table of targets and bomb loads continued]
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[underlined] 2nd TOUR [/underlined] [underlined] 227 SQUADRON [/underlined]
[table of targets and bomb loads with additions]
[underlined] 227 SQUADRON [/underlined]
After flying Beaufighters from Malta the Squadron folded in August 1944. The new Squadron was formed in 5 Group on 7/10/1944. Flying Lancasters from Bardney, Balderton and Strubby. Flew 815 sorties and lost 15 aircraft (1.8%) in 61 raids. 2 were also destroyed in crashes.
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[underlined] Back to Civvy Street [/underlined]
By early 1946 the great transition from War to Peace was taking place and many of us were gradually realising that we could now plan some years ahead with a very good possibility of surviving to carry them out. Of my colleagues at Metropolitan Relays, only Reg. Weller had paid with his life, having been killed in action in Italy, with the army. Allan Cutbush had been taken prisoner at Tobruk and spent some time in a prison camp in Italy. Eventually he escaped and spent a couple of years as an Italian farm worker. Soon after the invasion at Anzio he rejoined the Allies and had the greatest difficulty in convincing them that he really was a Private in the Royal Signals. Alan was first to be demobbed and rejoined the firm as manager of a newly aquired [sic] group of branches in the Mansfield and Retford areas. George Holah had left in 1939 to join the army, and spent the next six years in India, returning as a Major in the Indian army complete with an Anglo-Indian wife and family. George did not return to Relays, but joined the Metropolitan Police, and in 1975 was a Clerk in the Central Registry at New Scotland Yard. How he managed to transfer from being a private in the British army to a Commissioned Officer in the Indian army I don’t know, assuming it actually happened. I have not met George since 1939.
In June 1945, my father, Mrs. Kilham and Mr. Moulton bought privately another run-down radio relay system, West Cumberland Relay Services, Ltd., in Whitehaven, and I was invited to develop it. Although Germany had capitulated, the war was not yet over. Japan might have seemed a long way off but was still our Enemy and the job had to be finished. Meanwhile Hilda moved to Whitehaven and set-up home in the flat above the shop at 49 Lowther Street. Colin was then 9 months old and it was a further year before I was demobbed, but during that period I seemed to have spent most of my time in Whitehaven. Hilda kept the Relay ticking over, with very limited assistance from the staff, until March 1946 when I was given indefinite leave on compassionate grounds.
The relay was well and truly run down, with about 400 subscribers each paying 1/3d per week for two radio programmes. It was losing money fast, the entire network needed rewiring and the amplifiers and other equipment were just about a write-off. I had with me the name-plate from my office door at Poynton. One of the German prisoners had made it for me, a notice which proclaimed in Gothic characters
Obr. Lnt. Cliff. Watson D.F.C.,
LAGER COMMANDANT EINTRITT VERBOTTEN
I put this on my new office door, but drew a line through the bottom line.
Sorting out a fault on a 100 watt amplifier, I asked the engineer, Joe, for a soldering iron, and he said he never used one but preferred the special solder in a tube, which he handed to me. In that single sentence he had proved to me that his technical knowledge was just about zero. I demonstrated the solder’s futility by proving that it was not even an electrical conductor. Consequently all the equipment was full of dry joints and I spent a whole night in soldering connections. The stuff Joe was using out of a tube was for repairing small holes in pans and kettles. I was very disappointed in Joe, his technical
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knowledge was effectively less than zero. The next weekend he claimed to have worked all day Sunday clearing a line fault. He had deliberately caused this fault on the previous morning and I traced and corrected it myself within an hour of his doing so. He had shorted out two wires on our own roof and on Monday morning went straight onto the roof to remove the short. I was there waiting for him and sacked him on the spot for sabotage and dishonesty.
I thus took over the technical side but also looked closely at the system of collecting and keeping records of accounts and customers. The only record of payments was in the collector’s field book and there was no record of where the customers or relay installations actually were. I spent a week with the collector who was very reluctant to assist, and Hilda and I drew up a set of records and established a working system. In the next two weeks I found so many fiddles and had proof of so much skulduggery that I sacked the collector without notice. I found installations where the user claimed to have made one outright payment to the collector who had pocketed the money, a hundred or so loudspeakers recorded as being “on loan” which had in fact been paid for and all manner of other private arrangements. The collector was easily replaced, and Mr. Fee joined us. I was fortunate too in meeting Bert Wise, ex Royal Navy P.O. Telegraphist who had been on Submarines, and who took over the technical aspect including the outside lines. Bill Campbell, ex Royal Army Service Corps driver/mechanic was very quickly trained on installations and line work, assisted by John Milburn, a school leaver. John had a very broad Cumbrian accent and initially I found communication difficult, “As gan yam nar marra” meant “I am going home now chum”. I felt I ought to be replying in French or something other than English.
Bill Campbell’s first job was to take the train to London and bring back a vehicle. It was a new Hudson NAAFI wagon completely fitted out by Met. Relays and full of cable, bracket insulators etc. My first act was to buy a set of maps covering the area to a scale of 1:10,000, and display it on the wall. The idea was that if we could establish exactly where we were we stood a better chance of knowing where we were going. A basic plan for the overhead lines was derived and we worked as a team, stripping out old wiring, checking and replacing where necessary, and keeping a record of installations connected. When an installation was serviced and documentation complete we fitted a capacitor in the loudspeaker for technical reasons and a new programme selector switch. The capacitors were to prove very useful later. The service we had to offer at that time was poor, and although it was gradually improving, we were spending far too much time on fault-finding, diverting us from the main program. Within a month it was very clear that our top priority was to rewire and re-equip. I managed to convince the London Office of this and they sent me a team of 3 wiremen from London, led by Dennis Horton who was inherited as a foreman at Mansfield, complete with two Dodge trucks and tons of installation materials. For four months this team concentrated on rewiring for four programmes, gradually reducing and finally almost eliminating the line faults.
The receivers and amplifiers were at Harras Moor in a cottage, but this was at the end of a two mile line, too far from our main load. We ran a 6-pair cable the whole distance and used these as 600 ohm lines, to feed five 1 KW amplifiers at Lowther Street. A bank of 6 AR88 receivers was installed at Harras Moor and two “straight sets” on loop antennas for the BBC Home and Light programmes. In town we had 210v. DC mains and had to fit rotary
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invertors. We also installed a 9KVA petrol/paraffin engine-driven alternator for use during power cuts, which were all too frequent. I could never understand how the grid system could sustain power through seven winters of wartime industrial production and as soon as the war was over we had to live with power cuts. Harras Moor was providing us with four good radio channels, Home, Light and Third BBC, Radio Eirein, Luxembourg, Paris, New York and others from around the world. We were getting organised and I was able to concentrate on sales, keeping our own gang of three busy on new installations. Within two years we had 2,200 installations, including the two Music Halls, cinemas, and all the factories. In addition we were doing more than 90% of all the Public Address work in Cumberland, some of which were quite memorable. At Grasmere Sports the events included a Fell Race and the first year we gave a running commentary over our P.A. system. The runners were out of sight near the top of the fell, so for the following year we applied to the Post Office for permission to use an H/F radio link to cover the gap. This was refused, “you will have to apply for a telephone”! The following year Bert Wise and John Milburn climbed the fell with an Aldis Lamp and battery, and established themselves where they could see the runners at the top and the ‘ops room’ on the showground. I too had an Aldis lamp and Bert flashed me the numbers of the runners as they reached the top of the fell. This delighted the spectators but completely upset the bookies who alone had the complete information in previous years.
The Post Office were also upset, claiming they had a monopoly on signalling, but declining to put it to test in court. I suggested that to try and licence boy scouts to signal in morse code with torches was ludicrous. I enjoyed the atmosphere of these events and went to quite some lengths to obtain the appropriate marshal music. At a Conservative Party fete one particular rather rousing piece was played several times and I was asked by a retired General why the Hell I kept playing the Red Army March Past.!!
A month after taking over, Hilda and I went for a walk - with the pram - to Hensingham, about three miles inland, and I was surprised to see Relay wires between chimneys and lots of downleads. I had not expected to find another system so close and I checked at some of the houses, asking who provided the system! I was told it was owned by a builder called Leslie but it hadn’t worked for several years. Leslie was the fellow from whom the company had bought West Cumberland Relays, and on checking with him I found it was part of the ‘system’ we had taken over. Further search showed a line of poles stretching for about two miles across the fields which had originally linked the village to the lines in Whitehaven. It also showed that a whole area of Hensingham had no electricity, ideal for relay. There was already a big housing estate and this was being extended, and I decided there was adequate potential in the village, but to replace the trunk route to it would be too expensive. We compromised by obtaining four modified 50 watt Vortexion Amplifiers and four receivers from London. Fred Wright brought them by road in his small van, the logo on the side of which was “Radio Trouble-shooting Service”. I did my very best to put up a case for keeping the van, to no avail. The next day we installed the equipment in an air-raid shelter at Hensingham, as a temporary measure, and immediately started connecting subscribers. Within a few weeks the wiring reached the side of the village where the lines from Whitehaven went across the fields, and we began to replace one pair all the way to link with Whitehaven. With this in operation on the third channel we were able to switch
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off one of the Hensingham amplifiers. Later all four programmes were fed from Whitehaven and the station in the air-raid shelter dismantled. The amplifiers were put to use at Whitehaven Hospital and the Workhouse. Both places were wired for 4 programme relay, but at the flick of a switch microphones could be switched in for announcements, and in the case of the latter, to broadcast concerts from the stage.
It was at Hensingham that I found a row of about 30 terraced houses, all without electricity and all wired with three twin cables of different sizes. This rather intrigued me and I enquired further. Most of the houses had battery driven wireless sets which used a 75 volt dry battery for H.T., a 2 volt accumulator for L.T. and a 9 volt grid bias battery, and in one case I found one of these sets without batteries but connected to the 3 pair cable. The old lady owner said it had not worked for several years. I quickly found the man who recharged the accumulators and he confirmed that the cables I had seen were once used for providing power supplies to radios. I think the system must have been quite unique. Shortly afterwards, the houses were connected to the relay system. My only regret is that I didn’t buy up those radios and store them for 50 years. As more and more installations were connected on the Woodhouse estate, the load on the five mile line gradually became too heavy with a corresponding reduction in line voltage and therefore volume. To overcome this we rented an air-raid shelter from the British Legion on the estate and fitted 4 amplifiers to take the load. These were fed from the incoming line itself, but for emergency use we also fitted receivers. Later the receivers came in useful for about three months during reconstruction of an area over which our main line had been fitted. One of the radio dealers found that we were using local receivers and that they were subject to radio interference from vacuum cleaners, so he had a sales drive in the immediate area of our receiving station with rental vacuum cleaners at 1/- per week. Reception gradually deteriorated but after three months of emergency operation our main line was again complete and the receivers switched off. Reception then was near perfect on our system and dreadful for the rest when the vacuum cleaners were being used. He had put a lot of time and money into trying to wreck our system, and had a double-fronted shop in Lowther Street, but I was sorry to see his shop with a bicycle in one window and a Bible in the other when I left Whitehaven..
On a new housing estate where 5 new houses were commissioned each week, we took a gamble and wired them all. When the first tenants moved in the loudspeaker was playing and the tenant’s radio problems were resolved. After 3 or 4 weeks I would go along and generally sign them up. Some of them of course compared it to their own ‘wireless’ if any, which could not possibly reach our standard of reproduction and reception. There are very few places in and around Whitehaven where we had not fitted microphones and radio, and after reaching near saturation in two years there was little scope for further development.
Whitehaven had been a very satisfying experience, but was marred by the Williams Pit disaster where 160 miners were trapped underground and lost their lives. John Milburn’s father was among them. It was traditional for the eldest son to take over where the Dad left off, and we were very sorry indeed to lose John. Hilda had run the office and “showroom” assisted later by Connie Sim from St. Bees. Bill Campbell was still our mainstay on the lines.
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I handed over to Bert Wise, still wearing his Navy P.O.’s hat, and moved to Wandsworth as Development Manager for Metropolitan Relays. A flat was available for us above the shop at 111 Garratt Lane, but on arrival we found it occupied by squatters. For several weeks we lived with Hilda’s parents until the squatters moved to the second floor and we took over the first floor. They were a decent couple in their forties, and had been desperate for accommodation. Our shop had been empty so they moved in, knowing that when an eviction order was issued by the court, they would be allocated a council house or flat. It was a short-cut to the top of the housing list, and the firm had to go through the motions of demanding court action. The ground floor was established as a showroom, even with T.V. in the window, an impressive amplifier room and an office with the same old sign on the door, Lager Commandant!
The original plan was to develop the area working outwards from Garrett Lane and to use the linesman from H.Q. at Lavender Hill, but there was line work to be done from the very outset and it was this part of the job which would be the limiting factor in our rate of progress. I insisted that we employed our own gang of wiremen. Bill Cutler was my wayleave expert, and having planned the main basic routes of our main lines, it was Bill’s job to find out who the landlords were and to obtain their formal permission to fit our wires on or over their property, generally between chimneys. The easiest way was first to sell the relay service to the tenants and their order was used as the reason for our request to fit the wires. We started to run four main lines, no.1 along Garrett Lane to link up with the Lavender Hill system at West Hill. No 2 made a beeline west along Garrett Lane to a Council-owned housing estate which at the time had no electricity. No 3 went due south to Southfields and along Merton Road, over the Redifon buildings and on to Putney, and No. 4 went north towards Wandsworth Common. Everyone on the staff except me, but including Bill Cutler and the linesmen was given five shillings commission for each new customer they signed up. The average wage at that time was £7 per week (in London) and there were few days when the gang did not hand in the paper-work and deposits for customers they had signed up and probably already installed in addition to the day’s work allocated to them. Quite often we would have thousands of leaflets distributed to houses in a particular area which was proving difficult but which they needed to cross.
At about this time, my father retired and went to East Africa, settling at Kirksbridge Farm, Kiminini, 10 miles west of Kitale on the Kakemega Road, and about 260 miles from Nairobi.. He sold his controlling interest in Metropolitan Relays to Seletar Industrial Holdings, Ltd. and their representative, Colonel Slaughter, took over as Chairman. Mr. Moulton became Director & General Manager and I was Development Manager with sufficient shares to qualify for a seat on the board. At the time T.V. was still in its infancy, though beginning to catch on, but the main background entertainment would be the wireless for some time to come. Transistors were still in the experimental stage and Radio Relay provided an alternative to cumbersome and relatively expensive valve radios, with near perfect and trouble-free reception. As Development Manager I made sure I was not bogged down with routine day to day running, and at the outset established a reliable Manager at Garrett Lane, Jack Thompson, whose knowledge of the business was gleaned entirely from Bill Cutler and myself with on-the-job training. Bill had been with Radio Relay since about
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1930, except for during the war when he was a technician in the R.A.F. on Link Trainers.
I was asked to have a look at Yeovil in Somerset and see whether it appeared suitable to establish a relay system, and if I felt it so justified, to spend some time there making a detailed study. I spent a week studying the layout of the town, types of housing, probabilities of future development, the people and their attitudes and in discussion with the Borough Surveyor and Town Clerk’s office staff. I realised that Colonel Slaughter had been a senior army officer and also a senior civil servant for a long time, and that my future relationship with him depended to a large extent on the impression he gained from my first formal report. I recommended that it was a border-line proposition and included a financial budget for 5 years. It would be three years before the system was breaking even and this was too long. The Capital required was too high unless the system was subsidised by another well-established branch. I felt we could find better places to apply our efforts. The Colonel decided to have a look for himself and I went with him to Somerset a week later. Alone, he met the Council officials concerned and one of them agreed to support our application if a relative of his was given a seat on the board of the new company!. I had known of that before the meeting but thought it better not to be involved, nor to include thoughts of that nature in my report. The Yeovil proposal was dropped and I turned my attention to Maryport.
Whilst Bert Wise was on holiday Bill Cutler and I went to Whitehaven for two weeks to relieve him and also to investigate Maryport.
I had known Maryport for some years and I already knew that it would be a goer from the outset. With lots of Council houses (no wayleave problems on them), a working type population, even with an element of communism. It had known major unemployment and soup kitchens and was still a little Bolshie.
We had many friends in the area and a good popular working system in Whitehaven as an example. In that two weeks I produced the same type of report as for Yeovil, but recommended we should go ahead immediately. We saw the Council Officials and agreed a draft agreement with them, found suitable accommodation for a shop in town and a receiving station just out of town to which we could run our own lines. Two weeks later I returned with the Colonel and together we met the Council Committee and completed formalities. From then on it was all systems go. Bill Cutler asked if he could get it organised and he did a very thorough job, using the labour and resources from Whitehaven. He stayed on as Manager and a few years later took-over Whitehaven also when Bert Wise ran-off with his secretary, Connie Sim.
Meanwhile Garratt Lane was running smoothly, and number 1 line had reached East Hill. In a junction box on the wall of a block of flats we had two four-pair cables, one from Lavender Hill, and the other from Garratt Lane, and on an experimental basis we linked the two together, isolating the line at Garratt Lane. We were thus able to monitor the Lavender Hill system in our Control Room, providing their service to our installations on the way. The Garratt Lane amplifiers were fed by Post Office line from Lavender Hill, and each amplifier could provide 1 kilowatt of audio power, sufficient for 3000 loudspeakers. Most of the loudspeakers were switched to no. 2 channel, the Light Programme, still referred to as the Forces programme by the majority. Channels 3 and 4 were very lightly loaded and we were able to switch off the Garratt Lane amplifiers on these channels for most of the time. At that time my family
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home was the flat above the showroom at Garratt Lane, and was guarded by Rex, a huge Great Dane/Alsation [sic] hybrid. Only Hilda and the children could handle it, presumably because they fed it regularly, but everyone else - including me - had to be very cautious.
Eventually it took a bite out of the Manager’s wife and was returned to Battersea Dogs’ Home.
I was spending more time at Garratt Lane where progress was losing momentum, and extending our no. 3 line over West Hill to East Putney was proving difficult. Near Putney Bridge, still a mile from our lines was a highly suitable area of small houses and it was going to take a year to reach them at our current speed. Without much fuss we established a station in the basement of a shop in the middle of this area, using 4 receivers built by Fred Wright’s dept. and 4 small 50 watt Vortexion amplifiers. This station was identical to the one fitted at Hensingham. We then had a sales drive in that part of Putney with the emphasis towards West Hill, and in 4 months were able to link the two systems.
I was interested to recall that for monitoring our four programmes we used a modified aircraft type automatic bomb release mechanism. This was a uniselector type of relay unit which clunked round and changed programme every 30 seconds instead of releasing bombs.
All my staff were ex-Servicemen and there was a dynamic no-nonsence [sic] approach. In contrast to this, our General Manager Allan Moulton based at Lavender Hill, had a stock answer to any serious proposal for action put to him, of “Wait a little while and see what happens”. My attitude was that we know what we want to happen and it wont unless we make it. He didn’t like my Lager Commandant notice on the door either but there it stayed. In 1948 the war was not forgotten by most of us and many satisfactory business deals were made in that spirit of comradeship and trust.
In Feb. 1949 I found that someone called Fry had studied Belfast on our firm’s behalf and had strongly recommended starting a relay service there. The report came to me quite by accident and at the same time I found he was surveying Bath, introducing himself as Development Manager in Relay Association circles. I tackled Colonel Slaughter about it and he said it was news to him, but he took it up with Moulton to whom Fry was reporting. I found that Moulton resented the fact that I was responsible direct to the Chairman, and also that my contract detailed my renumeration including commission which was the £1500 per year, 4 times the average wage. To clear the air we had a formal meeting and I put forward my prediction for future development. I forecast that within 2 or 3 years a general rundown of the system would be inevitable with the increase of television; further that it would be prudent to reduce expenditure on “wired wireless” and to develop the rental side of both radio and T.V., but to reconsider with Fred Wright - who was not at the meeting - the policy of manufacturing T.V. sets. My prediction became factual and was influenced also by transistor radios of which we had no knowledge at that time. There was 33% Purchase Tax on most things including T.V. sets. This was payable at the point of sale and not on rentals. As our sets were never sold but remained the property of Met. Radio & T.V. Rentals Ltd. no Purchase Tax was payable. This loophole was soon to be closed, as forecast, and tax was payable on the rental itself. It became cheaper to buy sets from the big manufactures than to actually make them.
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The Colonel remarked that as Development Manager I was really saying we should stop developing, and I agreed. This set the scene for further discussion well outside the intended scope of the meeting. The Chairman asked Moulton for his views on likely technological advances, but Moulton had none and said we can only try and stay afloat, seeking support from Fry. The Colonel shot down Moulton completely and asked Fry to detail his relevant qualifications. After a silence Moulton was told to study the content of my prediction and not to go off at a tangent on development nor without reference to him. Fry was sent packing and the meeting was closed. I learned quite a lot from Colonel Slaughter, he had spent a long time in the Royal Engineers and one of his attributes was building a flat-bottomed boat on the Nile, one of the biggest in service. His personality was such that when he looked up and down disapprovingly at an obvious ex-Serviceman leaning over a bar, the man immediately took his hand out of his pocket and squared himself up. I actually saw this happen in Maryport, he had that effect on people. (That was in 1948, it might not be the same over 40 years later).
No more was heard of Fry, and I never did join the Board, I was too busy getting on with the job, but it was time for reflection. I realised that when my father was Chairman he had the engineering and technical aspects at his fingertips and he took care of them. He was succeeded by the Colonel who was a business-man but who had no backing on the engineering side. My brief was the Development of the Radio Relay Systems, I regarded technological changes as a matter for the General Manager, Moulton, but I was not responsible to him.
I met the Colonel again privately and I said it seemed that I was Development Manager in a firm which was not going to develop any further. Although there was plenty of routine work to be done I felt the Electrical Trades Union would soon start making things very difficult as it was doing in the Post Office. In view of the probable technological changes, I felt that Colonel Slaughter would rather sell-out than try to steer a ship without a rudder. I was being rather outspoken but straightforward and the Colonel approved of this. I told him I would like to call it a day and try my luck in Africa, Kenya was said to be a land of opportunity. If that failed there was always a job in Bulawayo 2500 miles further south of the Cement Works with Mr. Rose.
The Colonel agreed I could leave when convenient but if I wanted to return within 6 months, to drop him a line. It was four years since the war in Europe had ended. Britain was changing and so was the attitude of many people some of who were very disillusioned. Hilda and I agreed it was time to make a move.
And so in July 1949 I went to Africa for the third time, but with Hilda and the two children, not knowing what sort of a career I was seeking, but nevertheless full of confidence, and still with my Lager Commandant board.
The following year, Colonel Slaughter retired and Seletar’s controlling interest in Metropolitan Relays was sold to British Relay Wireless which later became Vision-Hire. Within a further 12 years the wired-wireless or Relay industry in the U.K. closed, being overtaken by technology.
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[underlined] KENYA [/underlined]
The flight to Nairobi was a very pleasant trip by Argonaut, calling at Rome, Benina, - which we had known as Bengazi [sic] -, Cairo, Khartoum and Entebbe. On the last leg of the flight we flew very low at times, quite unofficially to give us our first views of big game from the air. The flight was very enjoyable, in very easy stages, and in retrospect the Argonaut was about the most comfortable aircraft we were to fly in, in our many subsequent flights to Africa. It was I think the first and only time we travelled in first class.
We were met in Nairobi by Duncan Fletcher, a friend of my fathers, and spent the night at Torr’s Hotel, in Delamere Avenue, the leading hotel at that time. The Stanley Hotel across the road was being refurbished to become the New Stanley, and within a few years Torr’s was closed and became the Ottaman [sic] Bank. I recall the strawberry and cream cake for tea at Torr’s for which it had been famous for many years. The following day we journeyed the 260 miles by bus to Kitale. This was a road we would take many times in the years to come. The first half was tarmac, 100 miles of which from the top of the Nairobi escarpment, through Naivasha to Nakuru, having been built by Italian prisoners of war. From the top of the escarpment there was a wonderful view of the Rift Valley and Mount Longenot [sic], an extinct volcano, and to the west over the plains towards Mau Forest and Kisumu. The bus took us down the escarpment, dropping about 2000 feet to the floor of the Rift Valley, passed the little Italian church built by P.O.W.’s, and northwards past Lake Elementita and Nakuru, then the rough murram road to Kitale. The journey took about 10 hours, but was far from tedius [sic], there was so much to be seen.
Kitale seemed like a typical american western type of small town, the roads were not made up and the sidewalks were made of wood. Many of the buildings were made of timber clad with mabati - corrugated iron - and most europeans wore khaki drill. We were met at the bus station by my father and completed the remaining 9 miles of our journey to our new home, Kirksbridge Farm, Kiminini where a guest house had been built for us, about 100 yards from the main house. Colin and Wendy, aged 6 and 4 were introduced to the Ayah, the african nurse, called Nadudu, who spoke only Swahili and her tribal language, Kitoshi, but within a matter of days was communicating without difficulty with the children. Nadudu had her own rondavel, a thatched roundhouse on the lawn at the side of the guest house, and took care of all the children’s needs.
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[underlined] Hoteli King George [/underlined]
Life on the farm had provided a welcome anticlimax to just about everything that had gone before, but it could hardly be a long-term solution for a young couple with a growing family. We did not appreciate at the time the serious effects of the political unrest and changes which were beginning to take place. We thought that common sense would prevail and most of us felt we had a good working relationship with the Africans; only a misguided few claimed to really understand them! Neither Hilda nor I felt we were achieving a great deal on the farm and we agreed it was time to look further afield.
In April 1950, after almost a year in Kitale, I responded to an advert in our national newspaper, the East African Standard, for Prison Officers. Salary £550 per year, uniform and furnished accomodation [sic] provided, generous leave etc. Military experience advantageous, with the rank of Asst. Supt. of Prisons. One pip! At least the job would get us to Nairobi where most of the action was, and we would have an opportunity to look around, but it was also to give me an insight into a very different and often sordid aspect of life. My application was successful. Our family, Hilda and myself, Colin and Wendy, with Paddy and Jeep our two Alsations all crowded into the Austin A70 and once again made the now familiar safari to Nairobi. 150 miles of murram road, through the Transnzoia, and the plains around Eldoret settled almost entirely by South Africans from the Union, winding around ravines to Mau Summit, up and over the 11,500 ft. mountains at Timbarua to Nakuru then 100 miles of luxurious tarmac through Naivasha with its flamingoes [sic] , passed Elementita an extinct volcano, up the escarpment to Nairobi. The tarmac road was built by Italian prisoners of war in W.W.2, the best stretch of road in East Africa. We also took with us Edward Ekeke, an African driver who had been with my father in Abbysinia [sic] during the war. Although a Kikuyu he was a trusted servant, and if left alone by the politicians and other agitators would have stayed loyal, but tribal and other pressures on chaps like Ekeke were great, and in retrospect it was foolish of us to trust them. Ekeke returned to Kitale with the Austin for more personal effects and re-joined us after a few days. I think he must have finally returned to the farm by 'taxi', as the african buses were called.
As it claimed in the advert., accomodation [sic] was provided. It could have been described as a three-bedroomed chalet, the walls and roof being of mabati (corrugated iron), and was built on stilts about a foot off the ground. We learned that is [sic] was originally built at the other side of the prison and had been carried to its current location by 200 prisoners. As far as I remember, we moved straight into the 'house', and roughed it until Hilda made it comfortable. There was a bathroom, but the loo was a 'thunderbox' at the end of the back garden with a bucket which a gang of prisoners dealt with about 5 am. every day. The kitchen was a Colonial type near the back door, with a wood stove, and an adequate supply of kuni (firewood) provided by more prisoners.
The prison was totally enclosed within a high stone wall, designed to hold 700 prisoners, but with a prison population of about 1900 Africans, 180 Asians, 20 Somalis and 12 Europeans. Quite separate was a small compound for the Wamawaki, (women), with about 20 African and 1 Asian inmate (in for murder but only men were eligible for hanging, so she was serving life). The whole 2000 or so were in the care of about 9 European officers and 200 African Askari. The
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Officer i/c was 'Major' Martin M.C., W.W.1 Veteran,as [sic] Snr. Supt., his number 2 was Henry Thacker with 3 pips as a Supt. Henry spoke fluent Kikuyu in addition to Swahili, and in fact had a Kikuyu 'wife'. He had been in the Prisons service for 36 years at that time and sported one medal ribbon, on his right breast. Legend had it that it was awarded by the Royal Humane Society after he saved a cat from drowning, but Henry was on a totally different wavelength to other Europeans. Sid Swan with 2 pips was i/c the stores and accounts, having spent the war in the Kings African Rifles, and having been demobbed as a Major. Other junior officers like myself included Bunty Lewis, rather effiminate [sic] but nevertheless an ex Royal Artillery officer who had a Kenya-born wife; Paddy McKinney, a large hairy ex Irish Guards Sergeant; Jimmie Vant, ex Kings African Rifles, the son of a Keswick lawyer turned Kenya farmer. Jimmie and his wife Dulcie regarded themselves as Kenya settlers and claimed to spend most of their time at the ranch on the Kinankop, hence their landrover vehicle. Another officer, Whitehouse who joined about the same time as me seemed to spend most of his time off sick and did not stay with us very long. There were three other officers whose names elude me but they were all ex-service, and all lived just outside the wall of the main prison.
The Duty Officers i/c worked a shift system, 0600 to 1800, assisted by a "day-duties" officer during more or less office hours. The Duty Officer was responsible for the day to day activity in the main prison. We were each armed with an enormous ancient revolver of 0.45 calibre and six rounds of ammo., issued by Mr. Thacker. I objected to the rounds of ammo., pointing out they were dum-dums, the bullets having been filed down to within 1/8" of the cartridge cases., and they contravened the Geneva convention. I remember Henry saying "there is nothing in the Prisons Ordinance about the Geneva Convention, and that's all that matters"! We were ordered in writing to wear the revolver in its holster at all times when on duty, and I thought of my four Brownings of long ago to deal with one enemy, compared to a ridiculous revolver in a compound with nearly 2000 potential enemies. It was in fact general practice, strictly unofficial, to carry the revolver but to leave the ammunition in the safe, and the prisoners knew this. I did carry a loaded Czech. .25 automatic in my pocket of which the prisoners were not aware. Some months after I joined, the Snr. Supt. inspected Paddy's revolver and put him on a charge for not carrying ammunition, "contrary to station standing order number something or other". Paddy was eventually charged before the Commissioner of Prisons and pleaded not guilty, asking to see the written order. This was produced and the charge dismissed. The order refered [sic] to the revolver only, and not ammunition. All very childish, but Paddy of the Irish Guards was not one to be messed about. He produced his dum-dum bullets to the Commissioner who was astonished, and all the dumdums were withdrawn. Paddy also pointed out how ludicrous it was for a lone officer to carry firearms in a crowd of hundreds of prisoners, but the order remained. He was a likeable fellow and when the C.O. quoted the book of rules, Paddy made a detailed study of it. In addition to the Prisons Ordnance, we also had Station Standing Orders which gave Paddy ample scope for playing the barrack-room lawyer. He was seen one night at a party in the Military Police Snr. N.C.O.'s mess, and was put on [deleted] a [/deleted] two charges by Martin. Before the Commissioner he was charged with sleeping off the station and drinking whilst on duty. Again Paddy asked for the rule-book and pleaded not guilty. The book stated that an officer would not sleep off the station whilst
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on duty. Paddy agreed he had been at the dance all night and did not in fact sleep anywhere! case [sic] dismissed. Station standing orders also stated that an officer would not partake of alcoholic drink whilst on duty, but a further order stated that an "officer was deemed to be on duty at all times". It therefore followed that all Prisons Officers were required to be completely teetotal, and that was an unlawful order. Martin had met his match and was told to edit Station Standing Orders.
The day started at 0630 by unlocking the European cells and counting the inmates, whilst the Askari dealt with all the other prisoners. There was no point in an escape attempt by Europeans, they would not have got very far before being picked up, but for other races it was a different matter. They were guarded very closely. The four main racial groups were quartered separately for sleeping and eating, their customs and diet and indeed their whole culture differing considerably. Only the Europeans slept on beds, the others were not interested and prefered [sic] the floor, some with very thin mattresses. The Europeans wore shoes, the Somalis heavy boots, Asians wore flipflops and the Africans stuck to their bare feet which were generally tougher than any footwear. European food was probably similar to that in U.K. prisons, and with each race having its own traditional food, this was not a case of discrimination, each prefered [sic] its own. Each group also provided its own cooks. Some of the Asians in fact opted out of Prison food and had it sent in, but it was very thoroughly checked. Uniforms differed too, some compromise between standard prison garb and ordinary native dress. Europeans wore K.D. slacks and shirts with arrows printed on them. Africans wore white shirt and white shorts held up by string.
Two or three hours were spent in the early morning preparing prisoners for court, generally about 50 of them. Some were on remand, and others were convicted prisoners who were required to give evidence in cases where they were involved as witnesses. In the late afternoon all were returned to the prison possibly with changed status. The paper-work had to be watched very carefully, confusion could arise where one prisoner might have a conviction warrant on one case, a remand warrant on another and possibly a production order to appear as a witness in an entirely different case. It was not unknown for a prisoner to be involved in two cases under different names. Language sometimes presented a problem. The courts conducted the business in English and Kiswahili, but there were many tribal languages and quite often interpreters had to be employed. One such case was when 60 prisoners of the Suk tribe were charged with murder having massacred the District Commissioner and his staff of 12. The only interpreter who could cope with the Suk language translated into Kitoshi, and a second one translated from Kitoshi into Swahili. All 60 were hanged at the prison in due course. They seemed very young to me and I doubt if they really knew what it was all about. They were the ones rounded up by the Police after spears had been thrown at the D.C.'s party from a crowd of 2000 whilst he was reading the Riot Act -literally-.
Relationships between officers at the prison were generally very good, with the exception of Martin who thought he was playing soldiers and Thacker for whom we felt rather sorry. 36 years as a prisons officer must have warped his mind somewhat. After about two months I decided to be like the other officers and wear my medal ribbons, and that was when I first fell foul of Major Martin. He asked me what the first medal was and I told him. He said he
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had not authorised me to wear it and I laughed and said I didn't need his authority, the King's was good enough. Shortly after this I was on duty when 45 new African prisoners were admitted, but there were 50 warrants. Some were convicted on Capital Charges, (murder, manslaughter, rape etc). My Chief Warder had signed for 50 bodies and 50 warrants, but there were only 45 bodies. It was 5 pm and my obvious priority was to determine which 5 prisoners were missing. It took until 6.30 to sort it out, no-one was missing, the Court was at fault in issuing two warrants each to five prisoners, instead of one warrant and one production order each. Only then did I get around to locking up the European prisoners for the night, 30 minutes late, and I entered this in the log. The next day an Asian prisoner complained to an Asian Official Prison Visitor that the Europeans were not locked up until 6.30 whereas the Asian prisoners were locked up on time. This was racial discrimination and the official visitor reported the matter direct to the Commissioner. I was charged by Martin for failing to carry out a particular standing order in that I failed to lock up the Europeans at 6 pm. 'How do you plead?' saith [sic] the Commiss. 'I don't', I replied, 'I request the case be taken by the Member for Law & Order'. He was the member of Legislative Council equivalent to the U.K. Attorney General, and this was a genuine option available to an officer charged before the Commissioner, same sort of procedure as an Airman on a 252 asking for a Court Martial rather than take his C.O.'s verdict. The Commissioner suspended the charge for the time being and asked Martin why the charge was brought. I was then asked why I had failed and I said that I was the Officer responsible and in unusual circumstances I concentrated my action in what I considered the most important aspect, which was resolving the problem of the 5 apparently missing prisoners. I consider I acted correctly, regardless of Station Standing Orders. Martin said he had not known that and I suggested that he should read the duty log before signing it as seen, next time. I also suggested that an amendment be made to the standing orders to the effect that nothing contained therein would prohibit an officer from using his initiative when he felt it necessary. Anyhow, I went on, it is an unlawful order in any case, and that will be my alternative defence with the Member for Law & Order. The commissioner was intrigued and read out the order "You will lock-up the European prisoners at 6 pm.", looking to me for comment. I said it was an impossible order, locking-up people involves work which takes time, 6pm is a moment of time in which by definition no work can be done. I said the whole set-up is childish and the Commissioner asked Martin to withdraw the charge. It seemed I had joined Paddy in his war of attrition against Martin.
Our two alsations, Paddy and Jeep had settled-in very nicely, with only their hereditary training. Their self-appointed task of guarding Hilda and the children was unending. When the family was inside the house, one guard would remain with them whilst the other maintained watch on the verandah [sic] and patrolled outside in the garden. When the children were in the garden whilst prisoners were working in the area, either Paddy or Jeep would deploy themselves between the two groups. Only by instinct our dogs knew the prisoners were not to be trusted and were watched very carefully, but the African askari were regarded as allies. The prison was very close to the boundary of Nairobi National Park, and grew cabbages two feet in diameter in what must have been some of the most fertile land in Kenya, receiving all the effluent from the 2000 odd inmates. Late one afternoon an african prisoner in a work gang fancied his
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chances and made a run for it, sprinting along the road passed [sic] the house hotly pursued by about six askari. The askari were at a disadvantage wearing heavy boots and jerseys, but they were joined by Paddy and Jeep who caught up with the prisoner and arrested him in the Game Park. When the askari caught up with them they found the prisoner literally with his pants down, leaning exhausted against a post supporting a notice "Stay in Your Car, Beware of Lion".
It was essential but sometimes difficult not to become involved emotionally with the prisoners, almost all of whom had in their eyes suffered a grave injustice by winding-up in jail. One afternoon whilst I was on duty the Chief Immigration Officer, a Mr. Pierce, came to the prison and required me to serve a Deportation Order on a European Prisoner, Major Melbourn. I read the document first and found that Melbourn had been declared an 'undesireable [sic] immigrant' and was therefore to be deported within 5 days. Melbourn had in fact served about 12 months of a three year sentance [sic] for bigamy and would be required to complete the term in the U.K. He was 'undesireable [sic] ' because he had changed his job without permission. I remarked that this was a very lame excuse for such drastic action. After an exchange of views I said I had not sought his permission when I joined the Prisons Service and he advised me to do so without delay! A few days later I was detailed to escort the prisoner to Mombasa, and hand him over to the officer i/c of the prison at Fort Jesus. Meanwhile I had studied all the Melbourn files and they showed a good example of how a fellow could slip up over small technicalities which produced major consequences. Melbourn was a British Army officer serving overseas for almost the entire war. During the Blitz, his wife was in a Convalascent [sic] home in Liverpool which received a direct hit and she disappeared without trace like many others. He had been drawing a marriage allowance in the normal way and eventually reported to his C.O. that it should be discontinued because he believed his wife had been killed in an air-raid. He was advised that until he had proof of this the allowance would continue. He should have applied to the courts for it to be deemed that his wife had been killed but the environment of the Burmese jungle and other wartime pressures were not conducive to that sort of logic and he let the matter rest. After the war he made enquiries in Liverpool without result, and was eventually released from the Army having served for 30 years. Several years later he became engaged to the daughter of the French Consol [sic] in Nairobi, and when they were married he declared that he was a bachelor. They were Catholics and had he referred to himself as a widower, there could have been difficulties and the authorities would have required proof in any case, which he could not provide. Soon after the wedding someone who had been a clerk in the Pay Corps spotted the reference to 'Bachelor' and thought it rather odd that Melbourn had claimed a marriage allowance during the war. He reported this and the subsequent enquiry led to Melbourn being charged with bigamy and convicted. Whilst it was essential that justice must be seen to apply equally to all races, Europeans were the Bwana Mkubwas and were supposed to set an example. White men in jail were an embarassment [sic] to Government and wherever possible they were returned to the U.K. Melbourn had slipped-up on a second trechnicality. [sic] In the U.K. After [sic] demob. he and two ex-Army colleagues, all of whom had served in East Africa in 1945, decided to establish a business in Kenya, and the three applied for Entry permits, Employment passes, Dependants [sic] passes in two cases, and Residence permits. Complete with ambitious plans for the future and proper documentation
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the trio arrived in Nairobi and set about organising their new enterprise, one of the first acts being an application to register the name of their company. Whilst this was 'going through channels' problems came to light which could not have been foreseen and their plans had to be abandoned. Melbourn remained in Nairobi and obtained employment, and his two colleagues returned to U.K., disillusioned by the red tape. Whilst looking for a reason to declare Melbourn an undesireable [sic] immigrant the application for permission to work with a firm which did not exist came to light and provided the necessary ammunition.
On the night train to Mombasa Melbourn was very chatty, we were both in civvies, he was allowed to use his own money and I felt the best policy would be to let him have a few drinks and to sleep it off. He undertook to behave and understood that at the first sign of being unco-operative he would be handcuffed to his bunk. He told me his story which was the same as gleaned from the files, and added that he had made arrangements to escape at Suez and join the sister of one of the Somali inmates. I handed him over at Fort Jesus, wished him luck and had a look around Mombasa before returning to Nairobi on the night train. About two months later we learned that he had indeed jumped ship at Suez and was working as a Newsreader at Oomdemaan on Egyptian International Radio Broadcasts. I bought some brass plates from him in Nairobi which today are displayed at Wendy's home in Cherryhinton [sic] , and which remind me of the injustice metered out to one who served for 30 years in the British Army.
Another European prisoner, on remand, had been arrested for vagrancy. He was a British merchant seaman who felt like a change, had legally entered Kenya with proper documentation and had taken a job driving a native bus. The authorities deemed this was not a suitable job for a white man, declared him undesireable [sic] and deported him, by ship. He would have been quite happy to have joined a ship at Mombasa as crew-member or paid his own passage. He most certainly did not meet the definition of vagrancy, he had more than adequate means of support. I recall his bitterness when he said it was fair enough to drive a bloody army lorry for five years but not an african bus.
For nearly six months I relieved Ron Woods as officer i/c the Tailoring section of Prison workshops, whilst he was on home leave. In the workshop 200 prisoners beavered away sewing and stitching, 100 with sewing machines and the other half working by hand. We produced uniforms for all Government departments and also for prisoners and were allowed to undertake private work for anyone willing to provide their own material. One of the European prisoners had been a tailor in civvy street and he was very helpful. There was also a 'mechanical workshop' employing about 100, mostly producing articles in metal for Gov't departments, but also repairing and generally working on motor-cars. I took the opportunity of turning them loose on my father's Packard and they did a very good job. The Tailoring section even produced some seat covers for it without being asked. Shortly after the car was finished, a Salvation Army Major came to me and said that Johnson, a European prisoner who had worked on the car, had seen the light after several months of Bible study and was now determined to go straight. He was serving five years for armed robbery, having held up a taxi in Mombasa. The Major asked for my support for his application to the Parole Board and was in fact going to great lengths to secure the Prisoner's release. I declined my support, and told the Major he had been spoofed, Johnson would never go straight. However, the appeal
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was successful and Johnson suggested to me the night before his release that for a small fee he could arrange to 'steal' the car and drop it over Nairobi escarpment for me. Such were the people we were dealing it, [sic] [inserted] with [/inserted] but what finally became of him I don't know.
After several months we moved to a much nicer house in the prison officers' compound. Hilda was doing photographic retouching and finishing work in the city for Arthur Firmin, and life was without undue pressures. On saturday [sic] evenings we occasionally went to see our friends George and Iris Dent at the Oasis pub. George was an engineer with the Army Kinema Corporation and a very keen 'ham', VQ4DO, ex ZS6DO. At their parents' Pub George showed films which provided entertainment. This was before the days of television in Kenya. It was on the evening of one of our visits we were sitting in the Dent's home, Wendy was stretched out asleep on the couch and Iris's little boy was playing with his toy cap-gun. This reminded me that the pain in my rear was caused by my .25 automatic in my trouser pocket, so I moved the gun to my jacket pocket. Iris saw this move and said it looked a far nicer gun than her .38 and asked to see it. I handed it over, having checked there was no round up the spout and it was on safe. To our absolute astonishment, Iris cocked it, off with the safety catch and fired. The bullet demolished the leg of the couch less than a foot from Wendy's head. The song "Pistol-packing mamma" didn't seem at all funny any more. Colin was with us and had attended Nairobi Primary School for about two months. Wendy was looked after during the day by Nadudu, the Kitoshi ayah we had taken with us from Kitale. The children called her Bundudu.
With the withdrawal of the British Army from Kenya, George and Iris returned to South Africa, George taking up employment with the S.A. Broadcasting Corporation. Today the Oasis pub is thriving, still on the main Mombassa [sic] Road and close to Nairobi airport at Embakasi.
I was concerned only with Nairobi prison, but there were prisons in 8 or so towns, backed up by several camps. Later when Mau Mau really got under way, there were many more much bigger 'internment' camps. Some of them in my day were known as rather tough places. Hard Labour was still the prerogative of the courts; It meant exactly that, and was invariably stone breaking. A gang would be given a task of smashing up a number of very large boulders and feeding the fragments through a screen before putting them onto a lorry. Only when the task was complete would they be marched back to the living area. One of our camps was at Lokitong, about 450 miles north of Nairobi, and it frequently happened that prisoners had to be returned from there to Nairobi to attend court. There was no telephone, the only communication with the camp was was [sic] by a telegram to Kitale prison and thence a letter by bus and camel to the camp. It was generally a three-week process, so six weeks was needed to produce a prisoner from Lokitong to a court in Nairobi. I put up a written suggestion that in the absence of telephones we should establish a number of radio stations. I could undertake to establish the stations myself using ex-army 21 sets, maintain them and also to train the operators. The suggestion was submitted through Mr. Martin but addressed to the Commissioner, and according to the Chief Clerk went straight into Martin's waste paper basket. A few days later I delivered a copy direct to the Commissioner's office with a covering letter with my estimate of costs, about £100 per station plus my time and travelling.
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I promised instant communication with the camps but it was too revolutionary and there was no provision in the budget for it. About four years later the job was done for them by the Police at a cost of £700,000 with recurring annual expenditure of over £100,000. A lot of money in those days. Jimmie Vant became the Prisons Dept. Telecommunications Officer with no knowledge whatsoever of the subject. He didn't really need any, all the work was carried out by the Police which was staffed entirely by technicians on secondment from the U.K. Home Office. Such is the price of progress and sophisticated over-engineering. No doubt in the 1990s they will be able to spend even more millions and do the job via satelite [sic] .
Returning home one afternoon having collected Hilda and two other ladies from the city, and Colin from school, we found the prison surrounded by armoured cars and light tanks with hundreds of Police and Army personnel. Apparently there was a rumour of a pending mass breakout, but it was only a rumour. I regarded it as a show of strength for the benifit [sic] of the unruly.
The job in the Prisons Service was like no other I have held either before or since. It was work which started and finished according to the duty roster and activity was determined and limited by the various orders laid down. For every minor detail there had to be a written authority. The Prisons Service had become established about the turn of the century and the antiquated system did nothing to inspire enthusiasm. On one occasion Paddy Mc.Kinney and I were taking a five minute breather in the office and enjoying a coca-cola, when Martin came in and without preamble ordered us to put leg-irons on Mchegi, then stormed out again. Mchegi was a "casi kubwa", a 6'3" Kikuyu in a condemned cell. The leg-irons were a reprisal for Mchegi's offensive the previous day. Martin, on his round of inspection had moved aside the 6" square observation panel in the door of Mchegi's cell to look inside, and received the full force of the contents of the choo (night soil!) bucket in his face. Mchegi was awaiting hanging and had nothing to lose. He was a very dangerous individual who had already killed and because of his violance [sic] often remained in his cell during excercise [sic] periods. Putting leg-irons on this tough character was a formidable task and Martin knew that. Paddy startled me by suggesting that I should open the door of Mchegi's cell, and he would wait at the open end of the corridor where it entered the prison yard. I replied that I would rather he opened Mchegi's door and I would wait in the yard. However, Mchegi had no personal animosity towards me and Paddy's complete plan appeared rational. I opened the cell door with the greeting "Mjambo Mchegi", and he stepped out of the cell, seeing a clear passage to the prison yard and beyond to the open gate in the outside perimeter wall of the prison, with neither officer nor askari in sight. Mchegi recognised his chance to escape and made a dash for it. It was at the end of the corridor that Paddy stepped out hit him and simultaneously an askari tripped him up. Before Mchegi recovered four askari had rivetted on the leg-irons and dragged him back to his cell. A few minutes later Paddy and I were finishing our cokes in the office when Martin came in and remonstrated, "why haven't you carried out my order?" Paddy said we had done so and Martin exclaimed "impossible". When Martin was told just how it had been done we were both on a charge once more. The Commissioner reminded us that striking a prisoner was a very serious matter but when Paddy said it was the preferred alternative to shooting him, there was no answer, and the matter was dropped. Mchegi gave no more trouble and apologised to Martin for his indiscretion, and
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Paddy saw to it that Mchegi received his full ration of excercise [sic] time in the prison yard. It was about three weeks after the choo bucket incident that Paddy was in the yard and attacked from the rear by a prisoner with a pair of 12" scissors. Fortunately Mchegi was watching and although still in leg-irons tackled the assailant, overcoming him just in time. Paddy was still cut, but there was no doubt that Mchegi had saved his life. He took a great interest in Mchegi and asked why he had been a condemned prisoner for so long, just waiting for the death sentance [sic] to be carried out. Paddy saw to it that the stabbing incident received a great deal of publicity, and eventually Mchegi was released from jail. Some years later I found he was a Snr. Warder at the prison.
About the same time, a new recruit joined us, with the same rank, Asst. Supt. Gr.2, but we found his salary was in fact 2 increments (£120 per annum) higher than ours and we wanted to know the reason why. We were told that he had been in the armed services and was awarded two increments for war service. We, apparently, had been under the average age of entry for the Prisons service at the time of our war service. Our next move was to try and compare our respective efforts during the war, but the new recruit was very reticent about his service career, and somehow didn't seem to speak the language of the soldier. It was several weeks later we found he had been in the German Army and the rest of us felt this really was too much. Regulations on war service increments however did refer to the "armed services" and made no mention of which side a fellow was on. We were not still fighting the [deleted] a [/deleted] war, but we were a uniformed service after all. The Gerry could see he was not wanted and resigned.
After 12 months as a Prison Officer I was very disgruntled with the way of life and went to see the Commissioner and gave him one month's notice. This he accepted and on my return to the prison I was handed a letter terminating my appointment with immediate effect, signed by Martin.
I then set about thinking of another job, there was lots of scope and on the air next morning my father suggested I should go and see Joe Furness who was Director of Civil Aviation. Later that day, in prison uniform, I called to see the Personnel Officer of D.C.A., one Bert Leaman, and found there might be a possibility of joining the Telecommunications section, and arranged an interview for the following day.
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[underlined] CIVIL AVIATION [/underlined]
In April 1951 I joined the E.A. Directorate of Civil Aviation as a Radio Officer on a salary of £610 per year. I had no relevant qualifications for this job but I could cope with the morse code at 25 words per minute and had aquired[sic] a general background of aviation during the war years! The first two weeks were spent at R.A.F. Eastleigh studying the workings of the Telecommunications and Air Traffic Control systems, after which I was posted to Mbeya near the Tanganyika/Northern Rhodesia border at 6500 feet above sea level. The journey down to Mbeya was by road, 900 miles, and in the middle of the rainy season. Much advice was received, “all the hotels are closed”, “the roads are waterlogged and blocked”, “there is no petrol beyond Arusha” and so on. We decided to do the trip in four short stages of between 200 and 300 miles per day, with night stops at Arusha, Dodoma and Iringa.
Our 1949 Ford Prefect, KCC13, with 60,000 miles on the clock was reshod at a cost of £10. Recapped tyres were the vogue at that time, a practice which has since stopped, being said to be dangerous. However, those recaps. did 22,000 miles on some of the worst roads in the world, without problems, before being replaced, a better performance than the original new tyres. With the car loaded with household equipment, and with Colin and Wendy lying on blankets near the roof of the car we headed south down “the Great North Road”. The first 100 miles was tarmac and no problem in the pouring tropical rain. Always to the south of us -dead on track- were towering thunderheads of cumulo [sic] -nimbus, but nearing the end of the tarmac the rain stopped. Indeed for the next three days the rain stopped falling about twelve hours ahead of us, but also remained on our tail. On the second day, deep ruts in the road caused a broken rear spring near Dodoma, but this was repaired overnight at George’s Garage; very well equipped with spare springs was George. Crossing the hundreds of fords, or drifts was exciting and at times quite hilarious, many being over 100 years wide and comprising merely a strip of concrete 10 feet wide on the bed of the river. Most of them were covered by water, hiding the concrete and the only clue to its location was provided by the poles at each side of the drift. More often than not the river bed at the side of the concrete was worn away creating a drop of a foot or so. A piece of thick wire fixed to the front of the car together with a vertical line on the windscreen, could be lined up with the centre of the two distant poles. By ignoring everything else and having implicit faith in the navigational instrument, we always reached the other side without going over the edge. Without this blind faith there would have been a tendency to keep a little to the up-stream side of the drift. To go over the edge on the other side could have been disastrous. In two places on the second day we were really bogged down in mud but we quickly mastered the technique of driving in reverse over the worst parts, thus becoming front-wheel drive. The most interesting village we passed was Kondor Arangi, between Dodoma and Iringa, on the third day. A beautifully painted and spotlessly clean Arab village, probably unchanged for centuries and almost completely independent of the world outside. After over 35 years I can still recall the aroma of freshly-baked bread, and the welcoming atmosphere of the village. On through Iringa and the final leg of 250 miles of the beautiful scenery of Southern Highlands, completely unspoilt by development. After a night at the Iringa Hotel, we had made our usual early-morning start and reached Mbeya by mid-day. Straight to the Railway station in
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Mbeya, a typical East African Railways and Harbours station complete with platforms, but the nearest railway lines and trains were over 400 miles away. A search for Paddy and Jeep, our two alsations, which had been put on the train five days previously in Nairobi, was to no avail. It was to be a further three days before they reached Mbeya, very hungry and very thirsty. After a night in ‘Links’ Salter’s Mbeya Hotel we inspected our new home at the airport. Known as Wilson Airways Rest House, built in 1932 for use by British Airways – before the change of name to Imperial Airways, and B.O.A.C. – It was ‘U’ shaped with 2 kitchens and 10 bedrooms. No electricity of course but a dozen or so paraffin lamps took care of the lighting problem. An african [sic] was provided to carry water from a tap about four hundred yards away to keep our small tank topped-up. The house was very convenient at the side of the runway, actually the grass landing area. It was very pleasant to sit on the verandah[sic] where there was a wonderful view of Mbeya Peak. We had only two neighbours, the Claytons from Burnley who were ‘refugees’ from the groundnut scheme at Kongwa and now in charge of a tipper unit with the Public Works Dept., and Bwana Grigg, an old-timer who had been a prospector and was then a Weights and Measures Inspector.
Mbeya was our home for 2 1/2 years, the aerodrome had been up-graded from a one-man to two-man station open from 0600 to 1800 hrs. every day. My colleague was George Hanson, who originally hailed from Selby in Yorkshire, an ex-wireless operator in Royal Signals during the war who had joined E.A. Posts and Telegraphs as a Radio Officer in 1947. George had spent 3 years in Burma during the war and returned to Selby in 1946. To find his fiance [sic] in the arms of two Italian prisoners. According to George he gave the Italians a thrashing – which would have been very true to character – and left them with their heads jammed in the railings, to be released later by the fire-brigade. The Law caught up with him and George was given a dressing -down by the magistrate who said “We don’t want ruffians like you in this country”. George claims he told the magistrate to get some service in and his knees brown and the case was adjourned. At that time the Crown Agents were recruiting for East African Posts & Telegraphs Dept. and George felt it was time to emigrate. All aeronautical communications were handled by E.A.P. & T. until the end of 1950 when they were taken over by the Directorate of Civil Aviation. George and I had to cover 84 hours each week between us, thoeoretically[sic] a 42 hour week, but there was no provision for sickness, local leave, and the many chores which required both of us, like being in three places simultaneously. We were assisted by an african [sic] wireless operator, a Kikuyu 1200 miles from his home, a cleaner, a watchman, and a diesel mechanic, Kundan Singh Babra, all of whom lived on the station. George and I agreed our individual responsibilities, we would each carry out our 42 hours per week on watches, which included R/T to aircraft on HF and VHF, an aerodrome control function, W/T to Nairobi as required, originating meteorological reports each hour and coding them into Aero format, and customs duties. In addition, he would deal with all the admin., and I would see to the technical aspect of keeping the station on the air.
The station had been established in 1932 and the original Marconi M/F Beacon, a type TA4A was still in use and in immaculate condition. We had a stock of MT16 valves enough to last for another 30 years. We also had an ex-South African Air Force T1190 of 1933 vintage, fitted in 1940, and four ET4336 transmitters for working aircraft on R/T and Nairobi on W/T. Everything was in very good condition and gave me no problems. Our “office” was at the D/F
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(direction finding) station, and was fitted with one of the original DFG10 Marconi recieivers [sic] .
We could not see the runway from the office, which rather limited our scope in controlling it.
Each week, Mbeya had only 4 East African Airways scheduled Dakotas and Loadstars, on the Nairobi-Dar es Salaam route, plus a Beaver of Central African Airways from Blantyre in Nyasaland and one R.A.F. transport from Johannesburg to Nairobi. There were also up to a dozen or so charters which sometimes arrived with little or no notice. Our M/F Beacon was the only navigation aid for some hundreds of miles in all directions. The D/F Receiver was not in use and had a faulty power unit. This I serviced and used the receiver for monitoring Tabora’s M/F Beacon. We were operating also on 6440 KHz, the Salisbury F.I.C. channel, unofficially, to keep in touch with the Beaver aircraft which were not fitted with Nairobi F.I.C. channels. This proved very useful and also gave us a rapid link with Salisbury Ndola and Blantyre. One day and R.A.F. Anson called on [underlined] 6440 [/underlined] and reported his MF/DF receiver, - in his only [inserted in margin] NOT 6440 BUT 5190[?] [/inserted in margin] navigational aid – out of order. He was over mountains, - he hoped – in cloud, could we give him QDM’s, (courses to steer) on M/F ?. I told him to transmit on 333 KHz, the standard frequency for this purpose, and it took only a few seconds to retune the DFG10 to this frequency. For the next 2 1/2 hrs. I gave him a QDM every three minutes. The weather was bad and the aircraft eventually landed at Mbeya, staying overnight. The Navigator was visibly shaken, he did not know his position, only that if he acted on the QDM,’s he would eventually reach Mbeya. Only after landing could he calculate his ground speed, about 70 knots. On arrival over Mbeya the crew were able to see Mbeya Peak above cloud, This was five miles to the North of us and with a cloud base of 3000 feet above the aerodrome they were able to descent and land. All this would of course have been totally unacceptable to a civilian aircraft which would have possibly returned to it’s starting point. The R.A.F. aircraft without any Nav. Aids had really no option. Some weeks later we received a letter from the R.A.F. thanking us for the assistance we had given the Anson crew in providing M/F bearings thus preventing a possible disaster, etc. etc. Unfortunately this letter was also copied to D.C.A. H.Q. with another asking if the facility could be retained. The next mail brought a letter from our own boss, the Director of Civil Aviation.. “Whilst complimenting and thanking you for taking the initiative on this occasion…”. The letter went on to point out the legal significance of giving information to pilots and of undertaking to provide a direction-finding facility with 20-year old equipment and no spares. I made sure I could provide an alternative power supply of 2 and 130 volts which did not take much imagination and adapted some modern valves – type 6C4 – with bases to replace the original 1930 vintage triodes. There were not used in my 2 1/2 years in Mbeya and we continued to give bearings to the R.A.F. unofficially. About 2 years later a Pye VHF set was fitted together with a D/F antenna and also a modern Redifon M/F Beacon, both with an effective range no better than 25% of the 1932 equipment. This was not the fault of the manufacturers. In the case of the D/F the reason was the difference in propagation characteristics and with the M/F Beacon it would have been better to retain the original 1932 Marconi type antenna.
I have no notes of this period, but memories are many. I recall seeing a Cheetah on the grass landing area we called a runway, whilst carrying
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out a runway inspection. As I approached, the cheetah ran off. My foot was hard down doing 58 m.p.h. just behind it, but the cheetah gradually drew away. Daily inspection of the ‘runway’ was necessary. Ant-Bear holes appeared quite often, and just one of these was sufficient to wreck an aircraft. Africans had free access to the runway except when aircraft were actually using it. One evening a grass fire started and swept first along the windward side of the runway where the grass was long, and then crossed it in a line of flame and black smoke the whole length of the runway. Hilda and I were on foot at the other side of the runway and witnessed literally hundreds of snakes fleeing from the fire. There were lots of snakes and other creatures in that area which after all was open African bush. This was again highlighted at 6 am one morning when I drove to the D/F station and opened up the radio. It was still dark and there was a very pungent smell of pigs. I assumed there was a dead animal outside but within a few minutes it was daylight and having established contact with Nairobi on w/t and confirmed there were no overnight disasters requiring my attention, I went outside to investigate. There were elephants all over the place, standing there, and looking just as surprised as I was. I made a strategic withdrawal smartly into the D/F station and bolted the door. On my way to the office I had met the African nightwatchman who was waving his arms about and saying something about ‘tembo mningi sani”. The word Tembo was generally associated with Elephant Brand Beer, which was more a part of everyday life in our immediate area than the animal after which it was named. I assumed he had been drinking and thought no more of it. The africans too were soon awake and trying to chase the elephants out of the maize, throwing tin cans, stones and even pangas at them. Three africans were killed in the process. Meanwhile I telephoned the police who said it was not their shouri (affair), “tell the Game Warden”. It was then 6.15am. and the Game Warden would not take the matter seriously, claiming I was drinking too much, “see the M.O.”! There was a scheduled Dakota due at 7 am. and I asked the pilot to overfly the runway and make sure there were no elephants on it, and this he agreed to do. I gave him the surface wind and QNH and landing clearance, and he came straight in and landed, without checking. He too thought I was not being serious about the elephants. It was mid-day before the elephants left of their own accord and moved back towards the mountains to the south. The Africans said the elephant movement was a sure sign that Rungwe, our local dormant volcano was about to erupt, and the elephants had already received warning. They took me to the fire trench round the Shell petrol dump which was 10 feet deep, and showed me the alternate layers of volcanic ash and sandy soil, starting at the bottom with four inch layers. At the 5’ level about 8” layers, gradually thickening as compression decreased to a 12” layer of ash and finally, 18” of soil at the top. There was no record of the date of the last erruption,[sic] probably some hundreds of years ago. We did experience several earth tremmors [sic] in Mbeya, but it was a nice life and we decided to stick it out!
Colin and Wendy were attending Mrs. Maugham-Brown’s infants school in the town and were making very good progress. Hilda was doing retouching of photographs for Arthur Firmin which were sent to and from his Nairobi office by air mail. It was in Mbeya that I built my first amateur transmitter with bits and pieces from the junk box, and was soon in daily contact with the outside world on the morse key.
On the sixth of Feb. 1952 I called my chum in Liverpool as usual and he told me that all U.K. stations were closed for the day in deference to King
[inserted] G6YQ George [/inserted]
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George VI who had died during the night. Later that day Hilda and I went to Mbeya School to see Colin, expecting the football match to have been cancelled. I expressed my surprise to the Provincial Commissioner (the King’s direct representative) that the Union Jacks were not at half mast and the game still on. He told me not to spread rumours and he would deal with me after the game. Just after half-time a Police askari despatch rider drove onto the field and gave the P.C., who was referee, a message. The P.C. stopped the game and announced that the King was dead. He was very annoyed indeed that I had received the message direct from U.K., many hours ahead of the official channels. Mbeya had a local telephone service which did not connect with any other. It was also at one end of a single-wire line of about 1000 miles which was used for passing telegraph messages. This linked about 30 places ‘up-country’ with Dar es Salaam, the Capital. There was no other way officially of telecommunicating with Mbeya. It so happened that I had a pair of ex-military amplified telephones, which were battery powered, press-to-talk operation and which gave an amplification each of 20 dB (100 times). I sent one of these to Jimmie Waldron in Dar es Salaam and by arrangement he called me one morning at 0545 on this line. We had a first-class conversation which was truly remarkable. This was possible only because the operators at the 30 or so other stations were still asleep, and not interfering. I have no doubt this particular exploit would compare very favourably with the record longest telephone conversation over a single wire and earth, if indeed a record has been established.
George Hanson and I got on very well with each other, both being from Yorkshire and both being ex-Service, but eventually his tour of 2 1/2 years was completed and he was succeeded by Doug. Clifton, who was ex-PTT and R.A.F. ground wireless operator. We moved into the cottage vacated by George and family, near to the transmitting station, and I ran a mains cable underground between the two. This gave us 230 ac. Power for 12 hours a day and at night whenever the radio beacon was required for overflying aircraft.
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One quiet morning the Provincial Commisioner [sic] asked me to his home to discuss a problem, and on arrival I was told that the Governor, Sir Edward Twining was convalescing in Mbeya, having just arrived, but could stay only if he could speak regularly with the Chief Secretary in Dar es Salaam. The Police and Posts & Telegraphs Departments had already been approached and could not assist. I was authorised to cut clean across any rules and regulations in order to set up a communications channel. Back at the D/F Station I sent an official message on the Aeronautical W/T channel to CHF ZHTD (Officer i/c Airport Dar-es-Salaam) asking him to pass a message to Jimmie Waldron, P.T.T. Chief Engineer’s office. I told Jimmie of the Governors request and the powers bestowed upon us, and that I would call him on 7151 KHz which was just above the upper limit of the amateur 40 meter band. I would install a receiver at the P.C.’s house. Would he advise me of his transmitting frequency. Meanwhile I got the local P.T.T. to connect my second aerodrome telephone line to the second line to the P.C.’s house. This automatically provided a microphone for the P.C. and enabled me to make a simple connection to my amateur transmitter at the airport. Half an hour later I received a message on the aeronautical channel “Loud and clear on 7175, Dar es salaam calling you on 8775. A check on my local receiver and indeed there was Jimmie. I then drove to the P.C.’s house and retuned the receiver to 8775, and we had first class duplex communication. A lady’s voice came on “Is that you George?” “No Love, this is Cliff”. “Oh dear, this is Lady Twining, is my husband George there please?” I handed him the telephone and restrained myself from saying “It’s for you George, I thought your name was Edward”. For the next two weeks the link was in constant use and another letter of thanks was sent from D.C.A. in Nairobi.
Why the fuss one might say, but in 1952 it was the very first time [inserted] H E [/inserted] H.H. the Governor had spoken by private radio telephone to his Chief Secretary from outside Dar es Salaam. This was another ‘first’, also on an amateur basis.
At Mbeya Post Office I was introduced to the Manager of New Saza Gold Mine, which was about 100 miles north of Mbeya. He said his radio link with Mbeya had not worked for four years although experts from all over East Africa had tried to fix it. It was a simple w/t link to Mbeya Post Office where there was an operating position and transmitter set up on 3900 KHz which seemed to be a reasonable frequency for the job. “Fix it and you can name your price”, and I agreed to have a go on a ‘no pass, no fee basis’. I first set up a spare DCA transmitter keyed from the D/F station, rather than rely upon co-operation from the Post office. My own DCA operator would monitor. I called the local Post office from the aerodrome but there was no reply. This was the rainy season and it would be a three hour drive through the bush to New Saza, so I lost no time over the Post Office and set off in my Ford Prefect complete with two amateur transmitters and two receivers, any combination of which could do the job if all else failed. On arrival, their station appeared to be working and with adequate output, but I soon found the output stage was doubling to 7.8 MHz. and not amplifying straight through 3.9. A higher tapping on the coil fixed that and I called Mbeya Post office. No reply. Then I called ZEQ3, my own office at the D/F Station and my operator came up trumps. We were in contact with
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Mbeya. I asked my operator to ring the Postmaster asking him to kick his wireless operator. He found the transmitter had the wrong crystal in it and the receiver was also detuned. Having corrected this, all three stations were in contact. The station receiver at New Saza was a pre-war ‘straight set’, that is, not a superhet, and was not ideal, so I added one of my own receivers. In addition, I fitted a second operating position, with my own equipment and separate aerial, as a standby. The manager was delighted and I was rewarded handsomely. Only once in the next 18 months did I need to visit New Saza for a minor fault. Electrical and mechanical power for the mine was derived from a very old wood-burning steam engine of pre-1914 vintage and German manufacture.
On the road about half way to the mine, was Chunya, a typical American-type western one-horse town, the main street being unpaved and 200 feet wide. The place was almost derelict, a few prospectors still panned for gold in the stream, but in years gone by it had supported a population of over 2000. There was a Police post which sported a telephone connected to Mbeya Post office. The overhead line ran at the side of the ‘road’ and I had this in mind for emergency use. A field telephone was part of my standard safari equipment in the car. Later on I carried a transmitter on the aeronautical H/F channels in addition. Communications was often the key to survival.
One very hot day, about noon, George Blodgett, an American tourist, took off from Mbeya in his Cessna 180 with his wife and another passenger, continuing their round-the-world holiday. The aircraft carried the same load as when it took off from Dar es salaam without problem a week or so previously. But Dar was at sea level, and Mbeya at 6500 feet. Dar had a proper concrete runway with a clear flight path. Mbeya had a grass ‘runway’, much shorter and with a small hill at one end and a mountain within 4 miles at the other end. It was the slight banking to avoid the small hill which caused the aircraft to stall and plough along the ground, writing itself off. It took me several minutes to reach the wreck, to find a bewildered trio shaken-up, but physically unhurt. There was a strong smell of petrol which came from a 5 gallon can INSIDE the aircraft. The can had a hand pump and hose which fitted on the drain cock of a fuel tank inside the port wing. Transferring the petrol was achieved by opening a window and leaning out to fix the pipe. This rather surprised me as George was a very experienced pilot and was in fact the first to cross the Andes in Peru, solo, where some years later he went missing without trace. His life-story was written up in Time & Life and referring to his accident in Mbeya, it said he had crashed in the bush and the Despatcher from Mbeya trecked [sic] all night to reach the aircraft, to find George and his passengers surrounded by lions and tigers. Lions were a possibility but the only tigers in Africa are [deleted] a few imported ones in captivity. [/deleted] [inserted] in West Africa and are not tigers as we know them. [/inserted]
Mbeya was a peaceful place, and to a large extent we were able to plan our lives. Occasionally we became involved with the local tribesmen, particularly after one of their frequent skirmishes. Generally a small group would appear at the house bearing the injured on bicycles with blood all over the place, and asking me to take the casualties to hospital. The first time this happened I took them by car to the African Hospital and not really knowing the system, gave them my name. Some weeks later I received the bill. Subsequent deliveries were made in the name of Ramsey Macdonald!
Soon after joining DCA I noticed on one of many flight plans received the name of Iliffe as Captain of an incoming Dakota. When the First Officer
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called me on VHF I requested him to ask the Captain if the number 1090111 meant anything to him. Back came the reply, affirmative. I gave him my first service number 1384956 and after he had landed, went over to the Terminal Building to see him. There wasn’t much time for reminiscing but he marvelled that I had remembered his first service number. It was on a pay parade in Bulawayo that Howard’s name was not called with the others in alphabetical order. It was called at the very end when he gave his ‘last three’, somewhat disgruntled, as “Sir, One one bloody one”.
We had seen a great deal of each other on the troopship going to Durban and until our ways parted at Belvedere where Howard got his wings and my records were stamped ‘Wastage’. After his training at Belvedere, he completed S.F.T.S. on Oxfords and in U.K. converted to Dakotas. His war was on Transport Command, flying Dakotas. We met several times in the next 15 years, the last time being in 1965 when Howard was the Captain of a Comet of East African Airways returning to the U.K.
After 2 1/2 years in Tanganyika our tour was finished and we were due for 6 months leave in U.K.. We opted to travel by air rather than sea but did not realise when making the decision that this referred to trunk travel to U.K. from the International Airport of the territory in which we finished our tour. It was unlikely that we would return to Mbeya after leave, my successor expecting to stay for the full 2 1/2 years. All our effects were crated up whilst we spent the last week in Mbeya Hotel. The car was left with the Postmaster and Paddy our Alsation [sic] boarded with Mrs. Maugham-Brown. And so with four children, Christopher a baby of 4 months, we said farewell to Mbeya at the railway station, not by train but by diesel-powered bus - referred to as a ‘taxi’ by the Africans. The first leg took us the 250 miles through Southern Highlands to Iringa, where accommodation was reserved at Iringa Hotel. The next day was very similar, by another ‘taxi’ to Dodoma. The drivers were Africans, probably ex-Kings African Rifles, and their driving was of a very high standard considering the state of the road. There was some tarmac in the towns, but otherwise the road surface was graded murram, a well-packed reddish sand. This was apt to become corrugated after rain and scarred with deep wheel ruts. Ruts made by lorries could be quite deep and dangerous to cars with little clearance below. The ‘taxi’ took us direct to the railway station at Dodoma where we had been advised to request compartments as near to the engine as possible, where the sway is minimum. The first job was to wash all the nappies and as we had two compartments it was easy to sling a couple of lines and hang up the nappies to dry. It was very hot in Dodoma, and the carriage windows were all open because of the heat. In the evening the engine got up steam and the train moved off amid clouds of thick black smoke, most of which seemed to come in at the windows. For 18 hours we chugged across the plains with its tens of thousands of many different types of wild animals, gradually descending to the coast and becoming progressively hotter. Arriving in Dar es Salaam at about 4 pm., the temperature in the shade was 120 deg.f. and it was a great relief to flop onto the beds in the air-conditioned hotel. The evening was spent in trying to clean up our clothing and indeed ourselves, with Christopher’s nappies hanging on lines in the hotel room. The nappies dried within an hour but were still filthy. After a browse around the big stores in Dar, we handed in our 480 lbs. of baggage and placed ourselves in the capable hands of B.O.A.C.
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Our flight home was by Arganaut, [sic] 16 hours flying, stopping at Nairobi, Entebbe, Khartoum, Benghazi and Rome. Plenty of seat room, excellent food and a very comfortable flight. One engine developed trouble approaching Italy and we were delayed for 24 hours in Rome. The Romans were hostile to the British at that time, I cannot remember why this was so, but we enjoyed a conducted tour of Rome and first-class hotel accommodation. At breakfast next morning I thought I recognised a fellow at the next table. He was under the same impression and when he spoke to us there was instant recognition. He was the B.O.A.C. Rep. in Rome and we had seen a great deal of each other on the squadron in North Africa. He was then W/O Woolston, a pilot on 150 Sqdn. We arrived in London 24 hours late, but there were no complaints. B.O.A.C. had made the trip very enjoyable.
The greater part of our leave was spent in London with Hilda’s parents, and I took the opportunity of spending 12 weeks at the School of Telegraphy in Brixton, for an Intermediate C. & G. in Telecomms and a P.M.G 1st. Class licence. I was also on a course of Dexedrine to reduce my weight, eating very little and actually losing it at the rate of 1lb. per day, for 44 days. Peter Gunns, another D.C.A., Radio Officer had been at the school for 6 months and was doing the complete 12 month course for a P.M.G. second class licence. I decided to give it three months and take the first class ticket. The Principal at the school advised against it, almost everyone first obtained a second-class ticket before trying for a first. For three months I swatted hard, long into the night and then went to Post Office H.Q. in St. Martin-le-Grand and applied to take the P.M.G.1 licence. The Chief examiner asked to see my second-class licence and when I said I didn’t have one, he said “look son, try for a second class and if you pass, come back in a few years time and try for a first”. I replied that I was not interested in anything second-class and he shrugged his shoulders and booked me to take the exam. three days hence. The exam. took from 9 am to 5 pm., written and practical and was quite intensive. The final part was the morse test at 25 w.p.m. and the examiner was wearing an R.S.G.B. tie. I took a chance at the end of the test and sent, on the key ‘QRA? De VQ4BM’ and after an exchange of greetings he asked me if I was returning to Kenya. I replied “yes, but only if I pass this exam”. He sent QRX3 and left the room, returning with a smile and said “strictly off the record, you could book your ticket”. The next three days were taken up with City & Guilds exams, and I was delighted when my P.M.G. licence arrived by post. The following day, feeling on top line, Hilda and I went to M.C.A. Headquarters at Berkeley Square and I applied to take the Flight Radio Officer’s exam. I found this was held only twice yearly and by sheer coincidence the next one was the following day. I was told to just fill in the form, pay £3 and come back at 0830 the next day. I saw the Chief examiner and told him I wasn’t quite prepared for the exam. at such short notice, it was many years since I had studied the S.B.A. and Navigational aids. He told me not to worry about them and to check through the last 5 exam. papers, copies of which he lent me. They could be bought openly from the “shop” downstairs, but this was already closed. He also said “bear in mind that everything has its own natural frequency”. I spent until 5 am next morning making sure I could answer all the questions on those papers, and doubly sure of the compulsory questions. I noticed that
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year 4 had the same compulsory questions as year 1, and year 5 the same as year 2. Year 6 was to be my lot and if this was to be the same as year 3, on cathode ray tubes, all would be well, and I had a couple of hours sleep. It had taken me a long time to realise what the Chief Examiner had meant by “it’s own natural frequency”.
The exams were spread over a period of two days and I failed two of them. The first was a three-minute test writing down the phonetic alphabet and I wrote “Alpha bravo coca delta foxtrot golf hotel etc.” The examiner looked over my shoulder and remarked “what on earth have we here, have you never heard of able baker Charlie?”. I thought this was a catch and I said “yes but that went out three years ago when I.C.A.O. introduced this one”. It seemed that Britain was three years behind the rest of the world on this simple issue. I had however quite rightly failed on R/T procedure. All went well on a simulated flight from Manchester to Jersey when I received a chitty that both engines had stopped and we were on fire. There was already a M’iadez in force from another aircraft and I broke radio silence and put out my own “M’aidez” without the Captain’s authority and that was the end of the exam. FAILED! on two counts. I had passed two three hour written papers, a two hour practical exam., an hour’s morse at 25 w.p.m. and failed on two ridiculous details. I said I was sufficiently experienced to anticipate the Captain’s instruction to send out an SOS but the book does say that only the Captain has the authority. However, I paid another £3 which I could by then ill-afford and resat the two parts the following morning. The licence came by post a few days later. The R/T Procedure test was the same as before, and when we reached the point where I had put out my M’aidez I just sat tight. I heard the other aircraft transmit his SOS again and it was acknowledged by Jersey Approach. Without authority to transmit an SOS I could not break radio silence according to the regulations and I continued to sit tight. One minute of real time was equivalent to 10 minutes of ‘flying’ and after 30 minutes of theoretical flying time I removed my headphones and placed them on the table. The examiner did likewise and asked me what I thought I was doing.
I just said “swimming to the surface”. He laughed and said O.K. at least you didn’t originate a M’aidez. In the practical M.C.A. exam the equipment in use was the T1154 and R1155 and the main object of the examiner seemed to me to be one of getting me confused, argumentative and thoroughly rattled. Thanks maybe to the dexedrine I realised what his game was and remained very calm indeed. He admitted afterwards that he was trying to get me rattled, remaining calm and composed was all important in the air!. I cast my mind back 10 years but said nothing.
Meanwhile Peter Gunns was still plodding on and becoming very discouraged. I urged him to take the PMG2 the following week, there was little point in further delay. I spent a week with him going through every paper set for 5 years, and he was successful in the exam. A few weeks later we returned to Nairobi together. About 10 years later Peter died of a heart attack whilst on night duty in the Nairobi Communications Centre. He was taking a short break and read in the newspaper that Pinnocks had folded up. He had £15,000 invested with them, and the loss was too much to bear. After a few weeks at Eastleigh I was posted to Mwanza on the southern shores of Lake Victoria, again in Tanganyika.
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Our car, a Ford Prefect KCC13 (new price £400) and Paddy our alsatian, were nearly 1000 miles away in Mbeya and I was able to scrounge a flight as supernumery [sic] crew with East African Airways. The return journey by road with Paddy took 30 hours non-stop except for refuelling and for half an hour at dawn when driving was dangerous. The work in Nairobi was operating air/ground channels on R/T and W/T and also at the D/F station giving H/F bearings to aircraft on the Khartoum and Johannesburg sectors where navigation aids were few and far between. It transpired later that the D/F station was adjacent to the Mau Mau graveyard. I recall one day looking out of the door and seeing the police askari guard fast asleep with his loaded rifle on the ground beside him. More for security reasons than mischief I took the rifle inside the building and it was still there when I closed the station at 1830. But there was no sign of the askari, so I put the rifle in the loft of the small building, intending to do something about it next day. Somehow I forgot all about it for two weeks and then handed in the rifle at the R.A.F. guardroom and questioned why the police had taken no action. The askari had just disappeared without trace.
Once again our household effects were packed into crates, and despatched by ‘rail’ to Mwanza. We had exchanged our Ford Prefect for an Austin A70 and motored via Kitale (my father’s farm) to Kisumu where we boarded the M.V. Rusinga. The Rusinga ploughed clockwise round the lake shore calling at Musoma, Mwanza, Bukoba, Entebbe, Jinja and complete circle to Kisumu. Her sister ship the M.V. Usoga called at the same ports, but went anti-clockwise round the lake. A third ship, the M.V. Sybil was smaller and more or less a reserve vessel. Lake Victoria was the second largest inland sea in the world, and became the largest when its level rose 8 feet with the building of the dam at Jinja a few years later. The voyage of about 200 miles took a very pleasant 30 hours with one halt at Musoma. We were met at Mwanza Port by Johnny King who I was relieving. He said he expected to return to Mwanza in 6 months as it was his station and his wife’s father was Government entomologist permanently stationed there. His wife’s family were German, very domineering and forceful. I didn’t mind the mother’s clay pipe but took an instant dislike to her Bavarian-type husband. I insisted upon a proper formal take-over at the airport which was just as well, and the proper storage of King’s personal effects at P.W.D and not in the transmitter room. For a couple of weeks we stayed at Mwanza Hotel and then moved to a delightful house at Bwiru, facing north with a wonderful view over Lake Victoria. Palm trees in the foreground, paw paw trees in the garden and - we discovered much later - leopard in the hills at the back of the house. The water supply came from a storage tank half a mile up the hill via a metal pipe on the surface of the ground, and was always hot enough for a bath without further heating. The water had to remain in our roof storage tank for some time before we could regard it as being a cold water supply. Water and electricity could not be taken for granted in East Africa, but the house was connected to the town electricity supply.
The airport was a fairly new one about 10 miles east of town, by the lake shore, the single runway 18/36 being of grass. It was a neat little place, the transmitters being in the room below the Control Tower with two diesel engines and fire station being in a custom-built building 50 yards away. The
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transmitters were two RCA ET4336s, a G54 Redifon M/F Beacon and an ex-R.A.F. T1154. In the Control Tower was a Pye PTC704 VHF set with a direction-finding antenna. There were only 6 scheduled aircraft per week and an average of about 10 charters. This was a ‘one man’ station and my working hours were long. Perhaps the highlight of the tour was the four-day visit of H.R.H. Princess Margaret. The ten mile road to town was ‘tarmaced’ [sic] a few days before her arrival. The original murrum (red sand) surface was first graded and then covered by a quarter inch layer of chippings and sprayed with tar. The cost was £11,000 which was charged to my aerodrome maintenance vote. For the few days of the visit the road looked really superb, and then just a few days later it rained and the remains of the “tarmac surface” were cleared away by grader, the surface reverting to murram once more.
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Every effort was being made by the Administration to make the Royal Visit a success and the costs were covered somehow. The M.V. Sybil was in dock for 6 months at Kisumu being completely refitted so the Princess could spend just a few hours on the lake. An R.A.F. Shackleton flew down from Aden to provide an escort for the Sybil. Four radio stations were established on the boat, each with an operator, to contact the Police on H/F W/T, Aircraft on VHF, Mwanza Airport on H/F R/T, and E. A. Railways & Harbours. Just about every vessel afloat on Lake Victoria seemed to be milling around outside the harbour waiting for the Sybil and the Princess. A Widgeon aircraft, the only amphibean [sic] in E. Africa, was detailed to position itself at the end of the runway at instant readiness for take-off. The Shackleton took-off to patrol an hour before the Sybil was due to leave harbour, Captain Chris Treen positioned his Widgeon and stayed put with engines idling. All the Sybil's radios were tested and people were getting excited. We were then advised that it was a case of not tonight Josephine, H.R.H. had a headache, the trip was cancelled. The Shackleton, looking remarkably like a real Lancaster landed on my murrum runway, and the Widgeon had to be towed in backwards, the engines having over-heated.
In company with all the other Colonial officials I had been given six pages of foolscap telling me how to address the Princess and how to conduct myself in the Royal presence. There was also an application form for a Permit to be at the airport for her arrival and another application form regarding my being presented to the Princess. It was the two application forms which bugged me. I refused to apply for a permit to enter the airport where every aspect was my responsibility, if anyone denied me access, be it on their own head. "Before applying to be presented", the write-up stated, "You must qualify under at least one of the following headings:-
1. Be a Government Servant on a salary exceeding '£x'
2. Be a serving officer of H. M. forces,
3. Be a retired officer having held a rank above 'Y'
4. Hold a Civil Decoration equivalent or senior to an M.B.E.
5. Hold a military decoration.
6. Have already been presented to another member of the Royal Family.
There was virtually an order to apply if one qualified and this decided me to ignore the whole issue. I was not in favour of the pomp and circumstance and the relatively vast expenditure involved, and I was never any good at playing charades and other party games.
Just before the Royal Visit a gang of workmen turned up at the airport and were starting to fit a toilet suite in the 'Crew Room'. This was a small room where aircrews could relax and enjoy a little privacy between flights. Toilet facilities were quite adequate without specially converting the crew room for the Princess. I vetoed the plan, and finally the toilet wing, already with four Asian type and four European type loos was enhanced with one new and rather superior loo. The superloo did come in useful however; whilst the Princess was inspecting the guard of honour, the bare-chested Engineer of the Widgeon aircraft appeared inside the Terminal building,
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looking quite incongruous in his filthy shorts and sandals. I told him to keep out of sight until Princes Margaret had left. He did, and hid in the superloo. After the visit, someone fixed a royal coat of arms an the door to which I had the only key. I was tempted to replace the heraldry with a replica of the board made for me by one of the German prisoners at Poynton. written in Gothic characters "Lager Kommandant, Eintritt Verbotten".
The Royal Visit was the highlight of the decade for Mwanza, the road to the aerodrome was closed for three hours and all the Police were concerned only with the visit. It was during that three hours the villains broke into many European houses. We lost all our shoes which were not actually being worn at the time, some clothing, and all our clocks including a time-switch I had just repaired for someone.
There was one charter aircraft based at Mwanza, the Widgeon piloted by Chris Treen. It was a very busy aircraft, being an amphibean [sic] , going relatively short flights mostly around the lake shore. Chris had a full-time engineer who was not very co-operative, and the operation proved to be uneconomical although Chris tried very hard. He was on Transport Command during the war and later flew in the Berlin Air Lift, then flew the Widgeon from U.K., 6000 miles to Mwanza. The airline had its moments, on one occasion the Provincial Commissioner was climbing out of the aircraft at Ukerewe Island into a dingy which collapsed and he was nearly drowned. Submerged rack. and crocodiles added to the excitement
One of the busiest aircraft at Mwanza was a Miles Magister which, was owned privately and which has also been flown out from England by its owner, an official of the Lint & Seed Marketing Board, who also had an Aircraft Maintenance Engineers' licence. It became the main asset of the Mwanza Aeroclub and was very active at weekends.
The tribe an Ukerewe Island had it's own language, and the story goes that the District Officer studied the language and wrote a dictionary and grammar for it. Having done so he applied for the £60 per year "language competency allowance", and to qualify had first to pass the Official Colonial Office exam. in the subject. The Colonial Office department which organised such matters was duly asked to prepare an exam. and find an invigilator for it, but was not given the identity of the candidate. There was no record of anyone being able to speak the language, and they approached the obvious source, the District Officer Ukerewe. As a part of his normal chores he was pleased to prepare the two papers as 2 hours of translation each way between English and the native language of Ukerewe. On arrival in U. K. on leave, he received a letter from another Colonial Office department, addressing him by name and asking him to invigilate at as examination, giving the venue and date. Shortly after, yet another office wrote to him advising him that an examination had been arranged and wishing him luck in the exam. He hardly needed it, reporting as directed in his official capacities as both invigilator and examinee. Not only that, but he had also prepared the examination papers. He was the only European who knew the language and he got his £60. per annum. The common language with the natives was of course an up-country impure Swahili, as in all parts of East Africa.
I had studied Kiswahili in the Prisons Service and from books, but the grammatical version was spoken only at the coast and on the radio. The
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Africans in the Prison Service and those I worked with spoke the up-country version, almost completely ungrammaticaI. The further one went from the coast the more it became a matter of joining words together. Nevertheless, it was an interesting and descriptive Ianguage. Beautiful words like 'maradadi' which in fact is an adjective meaning 'beautiful', and 'tafadahali', said to mean 'please' , but I never actually heard an African use it. ' Asanti' meaning thankyou was frequently used. Calling someone a "shenzi" hardly needs translation.
The Caspair Lake Service operated daily. Based at Entebbe, a DeHavilland Rapide flew to Kisumu, Musoma, Mzanza, Bukoba and back to Entebbe. It called at Mwanza three times weekly and remained on the ground for 4 hours. Paddy O'Reilly was the most colourful of the pilots and on one occasion was missing when the aircraft was due to take-off. He had borrowed a native canoe and paddled out into the lake for some peace and quiet. He was very soon asleep and when he awoke he found he was two miles off-shore without a paddle. He was soon rescued and took off two hours late.
I had a very good African Assistant at Mwanza, Zepherino Shija, and he was a tremendous help in making things run smoothly. In fact my African staff were all good types, far from home, politicians and the trouble-makers to be influenced by them.
It was at Mwanza that I really became involved with radio repairs, and once I had repaired a few, word quickly spread and I was inundated with them. Many of the 'dukes' -shops- in town sold radios but hadn't the vaguest idea how they worked or how to repair them. Most of the radio owned by the Africans were powered by dry batteries, using a 4-pin plug on the power lead which was very often forced the wrong way into the socket on the battery. This instantly blew all four valves for which the shops charged 25 shillings each. I bought valves for 3 shillings each in quantity and sold them in sets of 4 for forty shillings, throwing in a new and better type plug. I must have repaired over a thousand radios in two years, plus many bigger sets for Europeans. Before very long I met Mr. Manning, the American Head of the African Inland Mission in the Province, and he showed me a room full of equipment, domestic radios, car radios, record players, tape recorders, transmitters, P.A. ampIifiers etc. etc. Every item was faulty. I was invited to repair what I could, keep what I wanted and throw out anything that was past it. Three trans-receivers were very attractive and they needed only setting up. Independent transmitter and receiver units powered from 115v a.c. but with rather limited frequency coverage of 5 to 8 MHz. I used them on the air for a couple of weeks and they were then taken by road to African Inland Mission stations in the Belgium Congo where they had a network on 7150 KHz. These sets were to prove very useful within a few years during the Congo rebellion which came with "Independence". It took me 6 months to empty the room, and all except three or four units were returned to use within the Mission organisation. Those three or four units caused a misunderstanding with Mr. Manning. I said "These units are U/S, best place for them is in the lake", and I could see that I had upset him. He associated my expression 'U.S' . with Uncle Sam, or the United States, but when I explained it meant ‘unservicable’ in English Service jargon a crisis was avoided.
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I met a fellow called Nawotsey, supposed to be a Belgian, who was making a fortune killing crocodiles for their skins. He had just about wiped them out on Lake Rukwa. His technique was to use an infra-red lamp and sniperscope at very close range, typically six feet. His equipment gave a lot of trouble and I charged him well over the odds for repairs. In reality he was German, and ex-German army. There were many of them in ex-German Tanganyika but few had the guts to admit it, and there was not a nazi among them, in theory.
Eventually one of the dukas offered me £50 per month cash if would stop doing radio repairs. This was not far short of my salary and quite a compliment, but not accepted.
We became very friendly with one German, Dr. Schupler, who had been a wartime Medical Officer in the Luftwaffe. He was serving in Dresden the night of the 13th. of February 1945 when it was attacked by over 800 R.A.F. bombers, followed by over 300 American Fortresses the next day, causing between them 137,000 casualties including an estimated 50,000 killed. A doctor somehow seemed to be in a different and acceptable category, but our talks had reminded one of a period I had almost forgotten, and about which I had stopped thinking. One good point in East Africa's favour, there was very little to remind us of the war. A row of ribbons perhaps on a police uniform, or a retired senior type using his old rank, but there were few occasions when we compared, notes on our respective war efforts. The Germans were supposed to be super-efficient, a myth already exploded, but in the main they were still mostly distrusted.
Mwanza was a peaceful place, there was only one murder during our 2 years residence, and that was committed by a mad african from Dodoma, 400 miles away. I could not have visualised at the time that within twentyseven years this nice little airport would be bombed by the Uganda Air Force. I can picture now the little bakery where the murder was committed. It was in same road just before we left that a hyena was running down the road to meet us. We were in the Austin A70 which already had a damaged right. wing and I put on full speed. We met the hyena head-on, relative speed about 70 and he was thrown completely over the car. He lay on the road for about two minutes, then picked himself up and loped off into the bush. We had ringside seats watching an interesting battle between hyena and baboon one evening. Our bungalow was on the hillside and the bedroom windows on one side were 15 feet above ground, and level with the tops of the pawpaw trees, heavily laden with fruit. The baboon were taking the fruit and being attacked by about a dozen hyena which were being thrown around by the baboon. The fight finished suddenly for reasons best known to the combatants. They might have sensed the presence of a leopard, which was very likely, but we were not aware of the leopards ourselves until a few weeks later. In the middle of one night we were awakened by a scuffling outside the window and there was the most obnoxious stench. There was the so-called laugh of the hyena and a deep sawing sound which we were told was a leopard. It seemed that a hyena had been dragging an old carcass along when it was disturbed by a leopard. The carcass was dropped outside our bedroom window and later one of them returned to collect it. Apparently baboon are the favourite diet of the leopard and everything including baboon and leopard dislikes the hyena. One of them cornered a neighbour’s dog in our garage and
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chewed off it’s vital parts before help arrived too late. Snakes too were in abundance around Mwanza, and a European girl had been crushed, but not fatally by a python near the lake shore. One of the houseboys hacked a monitor lizard to death, thinking it was a snake. Hilda recalls the occasion when I encountered a leopard on the driveway to the house and I got out of the car to tell her!. There was the occasion too when Paddy, our Alsatian was aware of a leopard outside the front door and Paddy's hair literally bristled. The leopard was probably aware of Paddy's presence also. I was away in Nairobi at the time
Some months before the end of our tour, we received a telegram from Les with the sad news that Hilda's father had died. At about the same time the Kenya Education authorities informed us that as we were no longer resident in Kenya, Colin and Wendy would have to leave Kitale School. The alternative was Kongwa, a school established at the time of the groundnut scheme, a British Government fiasco then almost fully wound up after wasting eighteen million pounds. Kongwa was about 400 miles away and difficult to reach from Mwanza, and as it would be only a temporary measure in any case, we felt it better that Colin and Wendy should return to U.K. We saw them off on the Dakota on an hour's flight to Entebbe where they were met by Flossy and Pi Reed. The following day they flew to London and stayed with Mum at Korella Rd., in Wandsworth.
In early June `57 it was time for home leave again and once more we packed all our household effects into huge crates ready for shipping to our next station which had not yet been decided. I had been promoted to Radio Superintendant [sic] in Mbeya and later to Telecommunications Supt. having passed departmental exams for the two lots of promotion. I was finally relieved by Sailor Seaman who immediately objected to the long working hours. The way of life on the outstations had a great deal to commend it. There was no television but we always had a good radio set. There was not the pressure we were to experience in later life and we made our own entertainment. It would be nice to go round again.
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Before leaving Mwanza I had ordered a VW Beetle on the home leave scheme stipulating the date and time that I would collect it in London. This resulted in a considerable saving. The cost was £330 delivered London whilst the price in East Africa was £1250. Colin and Wendy were already in Britain, only John and Chris were with us on this trip. From Mwanza we should have returned via the capital, Dar es Salaam, as we did from Mbeya, but for some weeks I had been pointing out the futility of the extra 1600 miles via Dar, when the the [sic] aircraft would go via Entebbe in any case. Sanity prevailed and we flew by DC3 to Entebbe, a nice lunch at the Lake Vic. and a 10 hour flight to the U.K. with one stop at Benghazi. I think that was our first trip by Jet aircraft, a Comet. I have flown in many jets since then, but none as comfortable and roomy as the Comet. The following day we went to Lower Regent Street and collected our new VW Beetle, which came into the showroom one minute ahead of schedule. I was very impressed by the German organisation. I was taken into a workshop and given some useful tips about the car which was to serve us well for over 200,00 miles most of which was on murrum, our reddish East African sandy soil.
In the following six months we made good use of the car, visiting my mother in Barnoldswick, the Yorkshire Dales, and whilst up north had a rendezvous avec Ace (Ted) and Mary Foster, Ace having been our second tour Navigator. Ted recalled this many years later and remembered an incident in a Southport restaurant. We were sharing two tables with Ted and Mary and their three children, making a party of 4 adults and 7 children. Ted alleges the waitress exclaimed “By gum are these all yours?” and claims I replied “No, they are from the local orphanage, we are just taking them out for the day”. She said that was right champion and gave us a discount! I went to Liverpool also and en-route noticed that a Police car had been right behind me for several miles. I slowed down to 30 for the next five miles and eventually the blue light came on and I was stopped. “What speed were you doing Sir?” An instant reply, “29.5 m.p.h. “The officer agreed with that and said “Why, it’s a lovely road and there’s no speed limit. When you slowed down from 80 to 30 we thought you had a problem, enjoy your visit Sir”. I had a “Visitor to Britain” sticker on the back which was supposed to help a little. In Liverpool I met Stan Chadderton, our First tour Bomb Aimer. I called at Stan’s house and his wife Hilda directed me to the Gladstone Dock where Stan was working, I seem to remember being introduced to his boss and Stan was given the rest of the day off. We adjourned to the Lord Nelson Pub and reminisced well into the night about our efforts in North Africa.
We had made another acquisition whilst in Mwanza. Clearly a base was needed in Britain even if my work was to be in East Africa. Les told us of a house in Glyn Neath called Glaslyn going for £1850 on the balance of a 999 year lease. I offered to buy it if the freehold was available. It was very quickly ours at a total cost £1910 and £25 solicitor’s fees. Hilda’s Mum moved into Glaslyn and Colin and Wendy had already joined her. Glaslyn was a comfortable and handy sort of place, only a few hundred yards from Aunt Doll’s cottage.
In early December I was told to report direct to Entebbe Airport to relieve Henry Day in charge of Telecommunications. I wrote to P.W.D. in Mwanza and asked them to send on our boxes and car by Lake Steamer to
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Entebbe, and completed other arrangements. Just before Christmas I handed over the new car to the A.A. near Tower Bridge and paid £75 for shipping it to Mombassa [sic]. Then with our four children and a mass of baggage we once again booked-in at Victoria Air Terminal and shortly afterwards we realised we had just been home for six months and were then in Entebbe. The Comet aircraft was flown by Howard Iliffe, 109011! but I discovered this too late to meet him.
At Entebbe we were met by Henry Day who had been in charge for six months in an acting capacity and he made it clear that as he was now demoted – with loss of acting pay – I could not expect any co-operation from him. For 10 days we stayed in the Lake Victoria Hotel, luxurious but not at all homely and with it’s population of some hundreds of cats living on the roof. We then moved into a house with a red mbati (corrugated iron) roof. Between the ceiling and the roof was a foot of sand and if the builders had been designing an oven it would have taken some beating. The red iron absorbed the heat from a tropical sun and it was retained by the sand. Entebbe was a pretentious place, not the capital of Uganda, which was Kampala 20 miles north, but where most of the senior Gov’t officials lived. The airport was a minor one to U.K. standards but trying very had [sic] to appear important. I found the whole place docile and yet offensive, “toffee-nosed” is the phrase which comes to mind. The job itself was not at all demanding, I had a team of about 8 Engineers including Frank Unstead and Gibby. Also three Radio Officers including Henry Day and several Africans to operate the teleprinters and radio links to Nairobi. There was little for me to do personally. Airport Management was taken care of by Uganda Government officers. The East Africa High Commission, of which the Directorate of Civil Aviation was a part, was responsible for Air Traffic Control and telecommunications. About six airlines had their own Station Managers and there was a great deal of empire building which led to over-manning and inefficiency. An individual’s importance was determined by the number of his subordinates and the extent of his warrant to incur expenditure. There was a great deal of ill-feeling too, between the officers of Government and those of the High Commission, later more appropriately renamed the East Africa Common Services Organisation. The latter was responsible for all communications in Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika, except for the actual maintenance of roads. It included E.A. Posts & Telegraphs, Railways & Harbours, Fisheries, Meteorlogical [sic] Depts., Civil Aviation and several Medical Research establishments. Politically, the scene was complex, Kenya was a “Colony & Protectorate” – some of each – Tanganyika was a Protectorate with a United Nations mandate and Uganda a combination of twelve Kingdoms formed into a ‘State’ with 12 Kings, a Prime Minister and also a President. It had its political problems but they were not mine. Dickie Dixon was Senior Air Traffic Controller and therefore Officer i/c Navigational Services in which capacity I was his deputy. As I was not at that time a qualified Air Traffic Controller, this led to friction, and as I have already implied, Entebbe was not a happy place. The crunch came when I was told by Dickie to compile all the Annual Confidential reports, including those for Air Traffic Controllers. I told him that I did not think it proper that I should report on officers whose qualifications I did not hold myself. He should do them himself and I would write them for all the Telecommom [sic].
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staff. The previous year he had reported on the Telecomms staff and I disagreed strongly with his findings in one case, that of Gibby who, he wrote, “was slow in carrying out a job”. He was indeed slower than most, but was also the most thorough engineer in the Department. When repairing an equipment he not only repaired the current fault but also brought it right up to the manufacturer’s specification. My personal relationship with Dickie deteriorated rapidly, and rather than speak to me he would write me memos. In one of his many memos he “required” a technical explanation of a particular problem, and I replied to the effect that “as the conductivity between the two points was less than half a mho, this was inadequate for proper operation”. He wrote to my Chief in Nairobi complaining that I was taking the Mickey, and this brought him a rude reply. I could have referred to “a resistance greater than 2 ohms” instead of “a conductivity less than half a mho”, which would have been more helpful, but I made my point.
One major problem at Entebbe was the absence of schools for European children, and Colin and Wendy had to go to Nairobi and Kericho respectively, as boarders. This would have cost little had I been stationed in Kenya and paid the statutary [sic] Education Tax, but as I was stationed outside Kenya and had not paid the Kenya tax I had to pay the full boarding fees. I was not alone in this of course, it was a problem for all families of the E.A. High Commission living in Uganda.
However, I learned that in June 1958 Dinger Bell was finishing his four year tour at Kisumu in Kenya, and I managed a transfer for myself, handing-over Entebbe to an officer returning from a U.K. leave. At that time we had two cars, and I remember taking the Austin A70 to Kampala and selling it in a bar to a consortium of five Africans for £25, each chipping in with a hundred shillings. We travelled to Kisumu by road, our effects going by lake steamer. It was an easy day’s drive round the north-east shores of Lake Victoria, through Jinja, with its crocodiles at the source of the Nile. This was in the days before the level of the Owen Falls dam was raised by eight feet. It was refreshing to arrive at Kisumu, and we were pleased with everything we saw. We spent the first week in the hotel, then moved in to Dinger Bell’s house at 55 Mohammed Kassim Road, near the African Broadcasting Service transmitting Station.
Kisumu Airport had been established about 1932, and had, like Mbeya been a scheduled stop on the Empire Air Route of (the original) British Airways. The lake was ideal for the Empire Flying Boats and our staff pilot, Capt. Casperuthus had many stories of flying Hannibal biplanes into Kisumu. During the Second World War it was taken over by the R.A.F. and used extensively by Catalina amphibeans [sic] and Sunderland seaplanes. R.A.F. aircraft of most long and medium range types were regular visitors, together with the 3-motor Junkers 52 transports of the South African Air Force. With two excellent murrum runways and four hangars, it had seen some service one way and another.
The Control Tower was a small two storey building of 1932 vintage, the ground floor being taken up completely by the transmitting room. The first floor comprised the Control “tower”, a small office, and store. Originally there had been a second floor with a glass top for good all-round vision but this had been removed at the end of the war and replaced with a tiled roof. The second floor became the loft and housed the VDF antenna. I
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found the transmitters had been sadly neglected for many years. Two RCA 4336 types were used on R/T., a third on W/T., and a new Redifon GR49 NDB. There was also a dual transmitter which was not on the inventory and which had in fact been ‘liberated’ from a Catalina, before it joined the other two scuttled in the lake at the end of the war. This set was the best of the lot, and certainly my favourite. It was complete with a 110v ac supply of 600 Hz, not 60 and within a month I had modified an old T1190 power unit to drive it. The M/F section was put into use in place of the Redifon beacon, and the H/F section performed wonderfully on the amateur bands.
Being a ‘one-man station’ my working hours were long, 7 days a week and seldom a whole day off, but I had a workshop and bench and put my waiting-for-aircraft hours to very good use, mostly repairing domestic radios. The transmitters were giving a lot of trouble. As an example, whilst tuning a rotary inductance on a 4336, a two inch nail providing an electrical contact dropped out and had to be bodged up again. The GR49, although nearly new, was using modulator valves at the rate of a pair every two weeks due to a missing relay and associated wiring which had actually been left out at the factory during production. Fortunately there was a good old T1154 which acted as a standby for all transmitters except VHF, so I was able to take each transmitter in turn out of use for as long as was necessary whilst I overhauled them. As this progressed I was enjoying the practical work and decided to make use of a three-foot cabinet which was not on charge. (I inherited quite a lot of useful ‘junk’ at Kisumu!). At the Fisheries office on the lake shore, also on the airport, I found that a vehicle had demolished a rondaval (a 12 ft. diameter building constructed of aluminium). I volunteered the services of my crash-tender crew to clear up the mess and to take away the wreckage. A few days was spent by the crash crew in cutting the best of the aluminium into 19” panels of standard sizes, and suitable chassis. One of the ET4336 transmitters was going to be off the air for several weeks waiting for spares, and in order not to delay my overhaul programme I built a two-stage transmitter on one of the 3 1/2” panels. This was a 6V6 crystal oscillator driving an 807 to a dipole antenna. The operator at Nairobi reported our signals as very good and better than they had been for a long time. 20 Watts in place of 400, but it was the dipole antenna in place of a random length of wire which made all the difference. Within three weeks the 3’ cabinet contained 4 transmitters and was providing all services except VHF and M/F Beacon. The overhauling programme was completed, the official transmitters finally tested and then switched off. For the next 18 months we operated almost trouble-free. My monthly engineering reports to H.Q. in Nairobi were mainly negative and referred to “routine preventative maintenance only”. However, Sid Worthy, Chief Telecomms. Engineer was not fooled, and in due course he wrote and asked why my monthly electricity bill was only a quarter of what it had been for many years. Before I had plucked up enough courage to reply, Sid arrived unannounced and went direct to the Transmitter room, finding the four big transmitters switched off. In the Control Tower he saw my all-purpose cabinet, and to put it lightly, he was not amused. I suggested to Sid that we should make our own single-purpose transmitters and dispense with the old uneconomical general-purpose types. He agreed there was no good technical or financial argument against this but what would he do with his army of 50
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or so engineers? He compromised and allowed me to leave my own equipment in use provided I removed it a month before I left Kisumu.
One of our friends at Kisumu, Jimmie Sanson was a very keen constructor of model aircraft and several he had made were lost in the lake. His final model was a rather superior type with six-foot wingspan and single engine using alcohol as fuel. The rudder was radio-controlled on 27MHz. and the aircraft made some very impressive flights at the airport. On one occasion it went up to about 2000 feet before it ran out of fuel and for almost an hour Jimmie kept it turning over the airport. The aircraft was trimmed slightly nose-heavy but apart from turns, he had no other control. Eventually it was so far down-wind that it was lost to sight and last seen heading for the mountains. After a period of calm, the wind changed in the early evening and Jimmie and I were standing outside the Control Tower lamenting his sad loss when one of the crash Crew shouted “Bwana, Ndegi ndogo narudi”. His eyesight was far superior to ours, we saw nothing until the aircraft appeared over the end of the runway and actually landed, after a record flight of over three hours. Up-dating the radio control was the next stage and two months and about £200 later an eight function system was completed, giving control of the engine, elevators, ailerons and rudder. The machine could then be made to taxi out, take off and carry out aerobatics. The engine was used in short bursts and as there appeared to be a permanent thermal over the runways during the warm days, thirty minute flights were quite routine. Eventually the aircraft was lost over Lake Victoria and probably joined the three Catalinas on the bottom. Perhaps one day a Catalina will be recovered from their fresh-water grave, but the Sanson special was lost for ever..
My official work ran quite smoothly, with a little excitement occasionally. At 3 am one night, Nairobi Flight Information Centre phoned and asked me to open up the VHF and call Alitalia 541 which was three hours overdue in Nairobi, from Khartoum, and with no radio contact for four hours. I sped through town doing over 70 m.p.h. to my Control Tower, switched on and called the aircraft. There was a weak signal in reply and I managed to get a class C bearing of 270 degrees. A second transmission confirmed this and I told the operator he was probably over the Congo, but certainly well to the west of Kisumu. I told him QDM Kisumu 090, but the pilot would not agree and said he was east of Kisumu, not west, and approaching Mombassa [sic]! His signals faded right out and I telephoned F.I.C. asking them to log the QDM of 090C that I had passed to the aircraft. After half an hour, whilst F.I.C was sending frantic messages to all points west, I heard the aircraft calling Kisumu and was soon in good contact giving QDM’s, his signals gradually improving. It was just 0530, 20 minutes before first light when I heard the aircraft and sent out the boys to light-up the gooseneck flares. Then he was overhead and decided to carry on to Nairobi. This was rather disappointing, and in fact the wrong decision, his endurance being insufficient for any further diversion. I was told much later that the Captain and Navigator had a row before take-off and were not on speaking terms. The aircraft was a DC8 and the Italian crew and passengers had been very lucky indeed. The police followed me through town and I was charged with speeding, but the fine of 60 shillings was refunded later by the court when the urgency became known.
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Some weeks later Nairobi F.I.C. phoned again, about 4 am., an Air Liban DC6 from Cairo was lost and was not within the scope of Nairobi VDF. The aircraft had made a brief contact on the area cover VHF through Lodwa, and another aircraft north-east of Kisumu had heard the DC6, but of course had no idea of range or direction. This time I went through town at a more reasonable speed, opened up the radio, and called Air Liban. The crash crew was called out and the boys started dispensing paraffin and setting out the flares right away. I called Nairobi on 5680 H/F R/T to establish my station was on the ball, and every two minutes called the Lebanese Airlines aircraft. About 20 minutes later the aircraft replied to my call and I gave him a QDM of 225, and was satisfied there was no risk of it being the reciprocal. Three minutes later I measured 230 and then 235. He said his Giro compass was u/s and his magnetic compass erratic, and that he would use a standby giro, set to my figure. He turned 10 degrees to port and the QDM increased, 10 degrees to starboard and the figure decreased, so he was heading for Kisumu, and not going away from it. The bearings were given every two minutes and were reasonably steady, and after about 25 minutes the pilot said he thought he could see the coast, meaning the shores of Lake Victoria. It was still very dark but a clear night (not a contradiction of terms) and the boys hurtled out to light up the goosenecks. I told the pilot the wind was north-easterly at 15 knots, he was down wind, duty runway 06. I reminded him of the very high ground 2 miles to the north of the airport and he replied “O.K. Bud, Thanks a lot, I’ll come straight in on 24, hope youv’e [sic] got some gas, we shure [sic] ain’t [sic]”. A few minutes later he made a good landing and parked outside the 1932 wooden terminal building. The Captain of the Air Liban DC6 was an American pre-war Veteran. I had completely forgotten to tell the East African Airways agent but did so at 0545. There was no catering at the airport so he found some buses and the passengers were taken to the hotel. I was also late in phoning the police who dealt with immigration, but they hadn’t a clue how to deal with 60 international transit passengers. Similarly, it was a new experience for Customs, so both departments decided to pretend it hadn’t happened.
The Captain asked me to tell the non-English-speaking African Shell Assistant to put 3000 gallons of 100 octane into the tanks. I translated to the startled assistant “Bwana Mkubwa anataka gallon elfu tatu, pipa sabini na tano”. That was 75 drums of petrol to be pumped by hand. Finally he compromised with 400 gallons, but it was still quite a task, even with only 10 drums.
The Captain was concerned about the limited fuel and lack of a reliable compass and we double-checked that the met. conditions to Nairobi were near perfect. A scheduled DC3 of East African Airways came in at 10am. And was taking off for Nairobi at 11 am. The two pilots talked together at length and studied the map. The DC6 took-off three minutes after the Dakota and the two remained in visual contact until Nairobi was in sight. Surprisingly, the DC6 did not carry a radio compass for M/F but relied entirely on VHF, which, in East and Central Africa was quite inadequate.
I was criticised by DCA for not informing them in detail of progress, and was conscious of this at the time, but had I done so, they would have confused the issue with lots of advice. A civilian airliner without a reliable compass would be a major issue. I operated an “aerodrome
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advisory service”, not being an Air Traffic Controller. F.I.C. would have tried to control my detailed activity, but with a bit of common sense, things worked out well.
The visit of Her Majesty the Queen Mother to Kisumu went off smoothly except that two European Police Inspectors on the airport main gate refused permission for me to enter without a permit. One of my passengers, an R.A.F. Wing Commander leaned out and said he was the Queen’s Pilot, better open the gate old chap. Police had been drafted in for this event from hundreds of miles. I remember little else about the Royal Visit, or it’s main purpose. On these occasions most of the senior officials climbed in on the act, establishing their own importance.
I do remember in detail the visit of Billy Graham. My brief from the organising committee was to provide the Public Address systems. The main system had to cope with an audience of 30,000 people, with three microphones for which I borrowed a 300 watt amplifier from Twenche Overseas Trading Co. in Nairobi and used my four 100 watt loudspeakers. In addition there were six other systems for separate areas where the audience spoke only their tribal languages. Each of the six would hear Billie Graham plus one interpreter translating into the appropriate tribal language for that particular group. There were nine microphones on the platform for the evagelist [sic] and 8 interpretors [sic]. In addition the Post Office ran a special line about a mile at the end of which they connected a candlestick type of telephone with a carbon microphone and place it with my nine microphones. This relayed the proceedings to another mass meeting in Nairobi. The microphone was ineffective until I connected the P.O. line direct to the main amplifier output via a suitable transformer. Billie Graham had a very efficient team. Harley and Bonnie Richardson are two I remember, both very hard working and leaving nothing to chance. They were backed-up by representatives from most church denominations.
The following Christmas, the missionaries approached me again, could I use my loudspeakers at the Church to simulate bells on Christmas morning. An interesting proposition, and someone had written to Bradford Cathedral to scrounge a tape of the Cathedral bells. I had to edit the tape considerably, as every two a rich Yorkshire-accented voice was superimposed with “You are listening to the bells of Bradford Cathedral”. I set-up the amplifier and loudspeakers at the Church at about 7 pm. On Christmas-eve and tested the system with a record of carols. Within minutes, people began to gather and joined in. The Vicar asked if I could connect a microphone and in no time at all he was conducting an impromptu carol service with a bigger congregation than he had enjoyed for a long time, well over 1500. At 7 am next morning I relayed the bells of Bradford Cathedral, but could not resist pre-empting them with a verse of ‘Christians awake’. The loudspeakers were in constant demand and were in use every day for two weeks during H.H. the Aga Khan’s visit. Events included H.E. the Governor’s barazas, opening a ginnery and so on, all official requests from the Provincial Commissioner. I was spending so much time away from the airport that I fitted a TCS12 Transmitter and a good H/F receiver in the car to work aircraft and keep in touch with the airport. At the African hospital I fitted a receiver and 50 Watt Vortexion amplifier imported by my father, and installed 30 loudspeakers round the wards. This was followed by a similar
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job at an American mission hospital about 30 miles from Kisumu, but more ambitious with microphones, tape recorder and record player. At the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Kisumu I fitted an amplifier and loudspeakers with microphones on the Altar and pulpit. Another system was fitted at the African Community Centre in Kisumu and one way and another I was kept very busy indeed.
The transmitter in the car was used also on the 40 metre amateur band to keep in touch with my father and amateur chums in Nairobi and other parts of East Africa. On one occasion Tom Mboya took an interest in it and was quite impressed. Tom was a Luo by tribe and a party leader of the Kenya African Democratic Union, a very nice chap with an attractive wife Pamella [sic], daughter of Mr. Odede, a Kisumu lawyer. Tom wanted to buy the transmitter but for me to sell it to him would not have been wise. Later Tom was shot and killed in Nairobi.
Kisumu was fairly well populated and within 10 miles or so of town we saw very few wild animals. The two exceptions were the protected herd of impala in Kisumu township and the hippo which abounded on the lake shore. They came ashore at night to graze and I encountered them on the aerodrome several times. One rather amusing occurrence, the airport was wide in area and Africans frequently trekked across the runway and even drove their cattle over it at most inappropriate times. On several occasions I impounded the cattle after due warnings and charged the owners with trespass under section 69 of the Colonial Air Navigation Act. When I found the offenders were getting six month’s imprisonment and losing their cattle, I stopped charging them and the Police insisted upon taking over this task. Finally they agreed to drop the practice, when I told them that I doubted whether the Colonial Air Navigation Act really applied in Kenya and in any case I had invented the content of section 69. However, the runways had to be watched carefully and checked every time there was an aircraft movement.
One morning at Kisumu a uniformed Prisons Askari I had known at Nairobi Prison in 1950 came to my Control Tower and after a smart salute handed me a note saying it was from Bwana Mkubwa ya Ndegi. It was from Commander Stacey-Colles R.N. Ret’d., my former boss and previous Director of Civil Aviation. He had arrived at Kisumu Prison only two hours earlier, and was serving a three year sentence. He had been found guilty of receiving money, a refund of an airline ticket issued by the High Commission and which he did not use. At the time he was in Britain having travelled home on a complimentary ticket from Air France. The official ticket was handed in to East African Airways and a refund obtained which was paid into his bank instead of the High Commission’s account. He claimed no knowledge of this and most of us believed him. He would not prejudice his career and Navy pension in this way, someone had fixed him. The note was a list of things he wanted, which I soon assembled and took to him at Kisumu prison, where I found I knew the Prisons Officer from 1950. A very embarrassing situation. I met Stacey and gave him the radio, writing materials, money, cigarettes and cakes from Hilda, on the first of many visits. Three days later the Askari was back with a long message in code for Muriel Pardoe, his former secretary in Nairobi. I sent this off straight away on the aeronautical W/T channel, addressed to HKNCHQPA, the ICAO address which would reach Miss Pardoe from any airport in the western world. HK was Kenya, NC Nairobi City, HQ DCA
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Headquarters and PA Personal Ast. To the Director. The code was in five letter groups with a double substitution of letters, a similar system to that used during the war.
The message was decoded by Muriel who obtained whatever it was Stacey was asking for and gave it to Capt. Casperuthus who was DCA pilot of the Avro Anson. Casper gave it to the Controller at Wilson airport who passed it to a pilot about to depart for Kisumu. The pilot handed it to me at Kisumu and I delivered it – whatever it was – to Stacey in prison the same day. Three days later the radio set came back to me with the askari, not working. Two of the valves had been swapped over, and I noticed a piece of paxeline had been fitted neatly inside the bottom of the set, forming a false bottom. Under it was a note asking me if I could fit a B.F.O. into it. This was a beat frequency oscillator and Stacey could want it for only one reason, to monitor morse, probably on the Prisons channel, to see what was happening. There were two spare holes for valve holders on the chassis and plenty of space for fitting a mains power supply, vacant in this case because it was a dry-battery receiver. I fitted the B.F.O. as requested, and also another valve as a flea-power transmitter, using just a channel freq. crystal about 6.5 MHz and a tuned circuit on the anode. Maybe 50 mW output, I had no means of measuring it, but I tested the set at a range of 2 miles using 3 feet of wire for an aerial it was received at the control tower. The morse key was just a matter of touching a wire to the chassis. I returned the set to Stacey personally and explained the switching of the B.F.O. and transmitter keying. He was delighted and agreed to be very careful, taking absolutely no-one into his confidence. About six weeks later I met my former colleague the Prisons Officer in town and he told me there was some concern over the prisoners getting confidential information before he received it himself. He quoted that a week ago a prisoner asked if he could change cells and share with a particular prisoner who would be transferred to Kisumu with three others on a date a week hence. He said the four arrived that day, how could the prisoner have known a week ago? It should have been obvious, there were many ex-service personnel who were good W/T operators and the Prisons Radio on 7 MHz could be monitored by anyone, the signals being in plain language morse. I said nothing. Stacey’s frequency was monitored at my office where I had a similar tiny transmitter. It was used at a specific time of day on only two occasions for test purposes, but he found it satisfying and consoling to have a personal and totally clandestine link to the outside world. It gave him a great deal of satisfaction and from my point of view did no real harm. Stacey was a great organiser and motivator.
The African Inland Mission in Mwanza had colleagues in the Sudan [author indicates with X and page footnote that it is Kisumu not Mwanza] who visited Kisumu frequently in their Cessna aircraft. They desperately needed two transmitters in the Sudan but were not able to obtain import permits. They could however get a permit to re-import a transmitter if it had been sent out of the country for repair. I suggested to them that they should send me a piece of otherwise useless equipment which might look like a transmitter to the uninitiated and send it to me as a transmitter for repair, together with the appropriate paper work. This was done and in an antenna tuning unit they brought me, I built a 10 Watt transmitter without changing it’s outward appearance in any way. A few weeks later a second one was built and the two did a very useful job in the Sudan for about six
[KISUMU NOT MWANZA]
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months until the African Inland Mission stations there were closed, and the missionaries withdrawn. The missions’ aircraft were also licenced on that frequency and I contacted them occasionally. It is most reassuring to be able to communicate with someone in times of trouble, and plenty of folks in Africa were in that situation.
But trouble was also brewing in the Belgian Congo, just across the Lake. Six months earlier, the Belgian Government had advised the missionaries and other settlers to leave, but many were dedicated to their work and some felt they were quite indespensible [sic]. The Belgiauns [sic] had handed over the reins of Government and administration hurriedly to a totally ill-equipped and unprepared Congolese. The consequences of withdrawal by the Belgians were clearly predictable but they succumbed to political pressures from all directions. There was human slaughter on a big scale, and the only information coming out of the Congo was on the frequency of 7150 operated by Mission stations, and also shared with East African amateurs. It was in Kisumu that I received a message from a mission at an Agricultural Station which read:-
“We are being menaced by 100,000 hostile savages. We have their chief as hostage and expect annihilation within one hour. We have ammunition but no guns, please advise Kamina”.
The amateurs among the DCA staff in Nairobi, of whom Viv Slight was one, had set up a W/T link to the Belgian Coast Station at Ostend, using a communications booth in the D.C.A. Communications centre and a powerful DCA transmitter at R.A.F. Eastleigh.. I relayed the message direct to them on the aeronautical W/T channel, and Nairobi passed it straight to Ostend, with a steady flow of other messages. Ostend relayed it to Brussels who passed it to the Military where it was relayed on it’s final leg back to Africa, to the Belgian Paratroop Base at Kamina. Within 20 minutes of my receiving the message at Kisumu, the paratroopers were airborne and the Agricultural Station was liberated. Hardly had I cleared the message when I received a correction to it which advised:
“Not one hundred thousand savages, only ten thousand”
When I passed this to Nairobi, the reply was “What’s the bloody difference”
There were many such stories during the evacuation of Europeans from the Congo. Uganda was the main escape route and DCA Nairobi asked that any aircraft available and pilots who could make it, should get to Entebbe and help in the evacuation regardless of Certificates of Airworthiness and Pilot’s licences. One of my ex-pilot friends evacuated about thirty people in several trips in a Rapide aircraft. The last aircraft he had flown was a Beaufighter during the war. Some thousands were got out from the Congo, one way or another, mostly via Kampala and Kisumu. The Kenya Girls’ High School in Nairobi (known as the Boma) was turned into a Medical Reception Centre the records of which show the dreadful experiences and medical remedial action taken. Wendy reminded me that she and all the other girls who were not taking G.C.E..s were sent home a week before the term was due to end, to maked [sic] room for the refugees. At Kisumu I met many who came out by road. Two middle-aged ladies came to my Control Tower and one phoned her parents in
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the United States with a terrible story of pillage and rape. A third, more elderly, who had three American Doctorate degrees – Medicine, Divinity and a PhD. – had devoted her entire working life to helping and teaching Africans, but she said a lifetime had made only a superficial advance from their savagery.
Most of our memories of Kisumu were of happier days. There was an excellent social club but we were not members due only to the lack of time. The children made good use of the swimming pool, the lake being too dangerous, not only with its hippo and crocs. but with Bilharzia and hook worm. Hilda enjoyed her painting and drawing and we even managed to take a few photographs.
After nearly three years at Kisumu, Colin was still at the Prince of Wales School in Nairobi and with Wendy at the ‘Boma’ we were not seeing very much of either. And so a transfer was arranged and we packed up our household once again and moved to Nairobi, to a lovely house in Nairne Road, near Wendy’s school.
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[underlined] D.C.A. HEADQUARTERS [/underlined]
It was then June 1960, the Mau Mau emergency was still with us, but 84 Squadron had finished their bombing of the Aberdares which had raised the eyebrows of a few ‘hasbeens’ like myself. I had talked with the crews of the R.A.F. Lincolns some time earlier at R.A.F. Eastleigh and it all seemed very unreal to me. Perfect weather, ceiling and visibility generally unlimited and no enemy opposition from either the air or ground. Bombing over the bush was a matter of a timed run at a specific speed from a firmly identified point on the ground. Hardly a challenge for the Chaddertons and Fosters of this world and I don’t know what comprised a tour. It reminded me of O.T.U. where I saw the log book of a fellow-instructor with 40 ops. to his credit. His first tour ops were shown in the normal way, Benghazi 0340, Benghazi 0345, Benghazi 0342, Benghazi 0350, about 6 pages of Benghazi and no other target. But then, there are those among us who never bombed B.G., so the song goes. I could visualise the log books with several pages of ‘Aberdares 0125…”. Some of the Africans reckoned it was “mzuri sana” (very good) for the terrorists, the bombing just laid on a supply of fresh meat without their having to hunt for it, but there was probably more to it than that.
My place of work was the Communications Centre in the High Commission Building, on the top floor, above the Inland Revenue office. My duties were those of Telecomms. Supt. i/c a watch, responsible for the operation of the telecommunications system. We were not really concerned with aeroplanes, only messages about their movements. We had Radio Teleprinter circuits with Johannesburg, Khartoum, Der es Salaam, Entebbe, and Gan, and teleprinters on line to R.A.F. Eastleigh, Wilson Airport, Nairobi (Embakasi) and the Flight Information Centre next door. Our internal communications, that is within East Africa, were mainly by W/T links, to Iringa, Songea, Mbeya, Mwanza, Tanga, Dodoma, Arusha, Kisumu etc. Every teleprinter link had a standby W/T channel and most of these were resorted to in the early mornings, about 4 to 6 am. Brazaville [sic] and Leopoldville in the Congo were only on W/T but there was little traffic to the west and none to the east except Gan. With Gan, we operated an emergency channel with a test message every twenty minutes, to supplement the R.A.F. network if required, but they seemed to manage quite well without us. We handled about 20,000 incoming messages per day in the Tape Relay Centre, and apart from one or two all had to be relayed out again and logged. We also had three ground to Air operating booths, two of which were always manned, working aircraft, one on HF/RT and the other HF/WT. The European Radio Officers preferred the latter, where often three messages per minute were handled for long periods.
As soon as an aircraft left, say, Khartoum, a message would be sent on the Fixed Service by RTTY to the Tape Relay centre which should reach F.I.C. within a few minutes of being originated, requiring two relays, at Khartoum and Nairobi Tape Relay Centres. The system was that the pilot would not need to call Nairobi until he reached the Flight Information Region Boundry [inserted] Boundary [/inserted] at 4 degrees North, as Nairobi F.I.C. should have already received all the information by teleprinter. However, this being Africa and therefore supposedly not very efficient, the pilot would call Nairobi as soon as he could after take-off, on HF/RT. On the older propeller jobs, (the real aeroplanes), this would have been
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carried out by the Radio Officer on W/T., where just a few groups in code meant a great deal, for example:-.
ZGU de VPKKL Nairobi this is VPKKL
QTN STKM 0201Z I departed Khartoum at 0201 GMT
QAH 24 TTT QBH My height is 24,000 ft. below cloud
QRE HKNA 0718 I am estimating Nairobi Airport at 0718
QRX FIR I will call you again at the Flight Information Boundary
The Radio Officer would write those 14 groups onto a pad and his Clerk would put two copies through the hatch to the Air Traffic Controller.
The Clerk would spend most of his time putting carbon paper between the pages, it was fast going during the busy periods, but was even faster before HF/RT was introduced.
The aircraft would remain in constant contact with Khartoum on VHF until it reached 4 deg. N. when Nairobi would become responsible. Many aircraft were still using W/T at the time. There was no really conscious use of code, it was as commonplace as plain language and to a radio operator the two were synonimous, [sic] as were the many technical and other abbreviations. One example which comes to mind was at a Board of Enquiry into an accident where an aircraft had crashed into Mt. Kilimanjaro. An elderly judge asked the Ground Radio Officer if there had been any radio message, and the R/O replied “Yes, I last worked the aircraft on C.W. at 0247” “What is C.W.?” asked the Judge, and the reply “C.W. is Charlie Whisky your worship” and the Judge nearly gave up, maybe thinking whether Irish or Scotch.
Some Radio Officers preferred to transcribe the morse and speech messages straight onto a teleprinter which produced a simultaneous page copy in front of the controller, but this method was not very popular. With several aircraft calling at the same time it was easy to make a mistake but too slow to correct it on the teleprinter. The F.I.C. Controller operated the VHF himself. The whole set-up was very well thought out and we were very well equipped. Communications were our line of business and we were highly organised.
The tour of duty was rather longer in Nairobi, where one had to work for 4 years to earn 6 month’s leave, compared to only 2 1/2 years in Tanganyika. I believe there was some reduction for the Kenya coastal strip. These were the rules established when East Africa was supposed to be an unhealthy and hostile place, and most of the Europeans were Administration officials. I always felt the home leave terms were over-generous, as we also enjoyed three weeks of “local leave” each year with railway warrants provided to any part of east Africa. Where there was no railway to our particular ‘holiday resort’ or we chose to travel by car we could claim car mileage costs. Most people preferred to go on leave by sea, depending upon the time of year, possibly home on a 10 day voyage via suez, returning on a 3 week cruise via the Cape of Good Hope, on Union Castle liners. Some preferred the long way round both ways, spending as much time at sea as possible and thus economising
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on accommodation costs in the U.K. My only experience of sea travel had been the four troop-ships and Hilda claimed she couldn’t swim; we wanted to spend as much time as possible with the folks back home so we chose to travel by air every time.
Within a year of our return to Nairobi, June 1961, political unrest was well to the fore and getting worse. Alice, my step-mother, was a Senior Secretary to an African Minister in the Secretariat, and felt it was getting too dangerous to remain. Luigi and Mary had already retired to Italy and Alice was preparing to join them. Most of us were expecting the balloon to go up at any moment and people were getting jittery. We had been close to the hiatus in the Congo and the more recent mutinies of the armies of Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda, and Europeans were beginning to leave. The weight of evidence of impending disaster was overwhelming and towards the end of June Hilda returned with the four youngest children to U.K., Colin remaining at the Prince of Wales School as a boarder. Alice and Brian returned to Italy shortly after and my father moved in with me at Nairne Road. My father and I had become very involved with emergency communications for the settlers up-country, which dominated our lives for the next few years, but this is a story unto itself and is dealt with in the chapter “Laikipia Security Network”. The mutinies referred to occurred soon after the British Forces had left Kenya, and the emergency was declared officially over. Some European Service personnel remained as advisers to the Kenya army - there was no Kenya Navy and the Kenya Air Force existed mainly on paper but with a few light aircraft. We awoke one morning to the news that the three separate armies many hundreds of miles apart, had thrown out their European officers and declared themselves independent of any authority. Within 48 hours and before they could organise themselves and cause any damage, very small forces of British troops appeared simultaneously near Nairobi, Jinja and Dar es Salaam, subdued and disarmed the lot, without any loss of life or limb. I recall a cartoon in the East African Standard, showing Jomo Kenyatta with both arms raised to paratroopers dropping from aircraft and the caption “How good it is to welcome old friends” - His arch-enemies for 10 years or so. I saw several hundred African soldiers sitting on the grass at Wilson Airport with three European soldiers guarding them with machine guns. There was a large pile of rifles and other weapons nearby, also guarded.
Life was not all traumatic, however, we had the occasional laugh. One of our officers, MacDonald, was on official leave of absence quite frequently and we understood he was masterminding a very hush-hush communications link direct to U.K. from Government House and even satellites had been mentioned furtively. This was before the days of the Sputnik when satellites were a part of science fiction. He was one of the [underlined] firt [sic] [/underlined] to retire and as he was leaving he let us into the secret. Mac. had indeed spent a great deal of time at Government House. He was a master baker and was responsible literally for the icing of the cake. He told us also that when he joined the Dept. he stated that his qualifications included a final City & Guilds Certificate. They did, he confided, as a Master Baker, but not in telecommunications.
One Sunday morning in October on duty at the Comm. Centre I found my African Supervisor was monitoring Reuter on teleprinter, and looking over his shoulder I read on the page copy that thousands of Africans armed to the teeth were surrounding the High Commission building and holding hostage the
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Europeans working inside. The report gave more detail of riots and demonstrations and gave the impression that we were really in trouble. I went out through a window and onto the flat roof of the High Commission building and gingerly looked over the parapet entitled to expect a hail of bullets. On the road was a police car with two officers watching a group of about 20 Africans, some of them supporting two banners on which was written “Wazungu Rudi Uliya” (Europeans return to Europe). That was the extent of the demonstration reported to the entire world in Reuter’s message. Had it occured [sic] in Cambridge it would not even have received a mention in the free local papers.
My tour of duty ended in December and I relinquished the house, my father moving into Plums Hotel. A nine hour flight to London, and I was home for Christmas.
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[underlined] Dec. ’61 ON LEAVE [/underlined]
Hilda and Anne came to London and I met them at Paddington. We intend to spend a week with Joan and enjoy a holiday in London, but Hilda had a rather worrying cold so we limited our stay to two days.
The next six months or so were spent on leave. With the exception of Colin who was in the R.A.F., the whole family was together in Wales at Glaslyn. My father was in Nairobi, and his regular letters referred to increasing unrest. He was working flat-out in building the ‘Watson Wonders’ and he asked me to take back 500 B7G valve holders and 150 modulation chokes
In May ’62 I said goodbye to the family and returned to Kenya. As I was unaccompanied, Sid Worthy the Chief Engineer asked me if I would housewarm for him whilst he was on his 6 months leave. This meant that he paid the rent but could just walk out without packing up his household and walk back into the same apartment on his return. There was a tendency for senior officers who were permanently based in Nairobi to try and retain the same house or apartment once they had found the right one. Rent was in fact 10% of salary and it was well worth it. My father moved in with me and together we carried on with the transmitters, having rented a workshop next to Stephen Ellis in Victoria Street. After only 3 months in the apartment I received a letter from Sid telling me he was returning immediately, could he please have his flat only a few days hence!. The following morning we were going up-country and I could see my father was a more than little depressed. He was driving like a madman down the Nairobi escarpment and I insisted that he let me do the driving. He told me he had to go to Mombassa [sic] next day, having received a telegram from Alice that she and Brian were returning on the Union Castle. This was supposed to be a surprise to him and I did not doubt that it was so, but Alice admitted later that she had in fact booked return tickets on the homeward trip. She had been totally dishonest in her statements about her intentions which had resulted in Hilda and the children staying in Wales. Our safari was cut short and we returned to Nairobi the same day, a 500 mile round trip. Alice’s return meant a complete change in plan; clearly she and my father expected to share my accommodation but with Sid’s return they had no option but to move into an hotel again. They were lucky in obtaining a couple of rooms at Plums, after only two nights in the flat. I moved into Woodlands Hotel, but applied for a housing allocation as my family had decided to return to Kenya. Hilda and the children rejoined [sic] me and we moved into a house at Likoni Lane, resuming a normal life except that it was dominated by the Laikipia network and work at the Comm. Centre. Within a year of my return I was promoted to Asst. Signals Officer and took over from Mike Harding As [sic] Officer in charge of the Communications Centre. This I had tried to avoid for a long time, not the responsibility, but the working hours. The new post meant working office hours and for the first time in my life I was working a five-day-week. On watches it had been a four-day cycle of say monday afternoon, tuesday morning and all tuesday night, then off duty until friday afternoon. The 2 1/2 days off within every 4 days had suited me very well and was a very popular roster with everyone. Office hours curtailed my visits up-country except at week-ends, but I did have every evening free. Very soon, each European Radio Supt. In charge of a watch had an African trainee assistant. Shortly afterwards one joined me. They were all supposedly bright boys from Secondary School and we delegated the routine work to them as much as possible. Their presence was resented by the old-timers among the
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wireless operators, who knew what they were doing and were very good operators, but their educational background was inadequate for the senior posts. Africanisation was the policy dictated to us and we bowed to the inevitable. I trusted most of my Africans, and there were about 180 of them working on the 4-day Watch roster at the Communications centre. Although many of them had served with the British Army both during and after the war, I could not completely lose sight of the fact that some had taken part in the Lare massacre when an African village was set ablaze and almost everyone slaughtered as they tried to escape. The majority of my staff were from the three main problem tribes, the Kikuyu, Meru and Embu, and a few of the Luo tribe from Nyanza.
My father’s farm had been abandoned long ago. It was not possible to obtain reliable labour during the Emergency, and the whole of the European settled areas was to be handed over to the Africans. There were already very few farmers left in the Trans-Nzoia and the Eldoret areas, the latter being mainly from South Africa. The Laikipia farmers were the last to hold out, except perhaps for the bigger ranches near Athi River.
Our next home leave was in June 1964 and the story of my activity over the three years leading up to it is synonymous with that of the Laikipia Security Network. The network seemed to priority over everything, but lives were at stake. Occasionally Hilda and the Children would go up-country with me, and one memorable week-end was spent with Tony Dyer and Family at their lovely home facing Mount Kenya. One afternoon Tony asked the children if they would like to go to a polo match and they took off in Tony’s Cessna from their own front door, landing at the side of the pitch. One of Tony’s sons was killed some months later whilst taking a gun out of the back of his vehicle. It was never discovered how the gun came to be loaded and with the safety catch off. Hilda and the children stayed too at the farm of Dr. Anne Spoerry, at Ol Kalau. Anne’s loo was a traditional type in the bushes down the garden, very comfortable and lined with bookshelves, full of the Lancet and other medical journals. Anne was a wonderful character. Only once did we go to the coast for a holiday, and this was two weeks spent at Likoni, near Mombassa [sic]. Unfortunately we chose to go in the rainy season but it was a welcome break. We took Chippy, our cockerel, and it followed us around everywhere, afraid of absolutely nothing. Chippy returned home one day in Nairobi with a broken beak and was unable to peck for food. Fortunately Jean and Dick Chalcroft came to stay overnight with us and Dick fitted a new lower section to the beak with the plastic resin we used in making dipole aerials.. It took an hour to cure, or set, and Jean and Dick held Chippy during that period, and again whilst they filed down the surplus plastic and polished the result. Chippy was ravenous and began to feed straight away, but was very aggressive towards humans, except for Jean and Dick, who took him back to their farm at Molo. I saw Chippy several times after that at the farm, lording it over the hens, and not another cockerel in sight.
One day I bought a petrol/paraffin engine-driven alternator and a bank of batteries, a complete 32 volt lighting set in fact, too good to miss for £25 in Nairobi. The dealer said the engine wouldn’t start although it had just been thoroughly overhauled. I knew that Jean and Dick were without power on their farm although their house was wired for a 32 volt DC system such as this. I knew too of Jean’s prowess with anything mechanical and I took the whole lot straight up to the farm at Molo. At 10pm. on the Saturday Jean started stripping down the engine whilst I was linking together the 26 alkaline cells
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and checking the house wiring connected to my car battery. Jean, assisted by Dick slogged on until 5am. in the light of an Alladin lamp, but she had discovered the trouble long before that. The timing was exactly 180 degrees out of phase. At 5am, just before dawn, the batteries being flat, Jean cranked the engine which roared into life, literally, we were deficient of a silencer for the exhaust. The batteries were taking a charge and we changed from petrol to paraffin and switched on a few lights in the house. The following evening the Chalcrofts were very proud of their lighting system. That sort of effort and co-operation did give one a great deal of satisfaction.
My recollections of work in D.C.A. over that period are very few.
We seldom talked of the war, but in the middle of one night I somehow got chatting to the F.I.C. Controller, Sqdn Ldr. Anderson DFC & Bar, who had also been in 5 Group on Lancasters. Andy said we were sometimes like a lot of sheep, he recalled one night having reached his ETA, all was very quiet except that markers had been dropped 20 miles to the south. Within minutes bombs were crashing down so Andie turned south for five minutes and joined in. Next day it was found that the target was 20 miles north of where most of the bombing had taken place. My reply was just “Politz”, we had done exactly the same thing, followed the flock. We talked together of flying during the war, several times, but my memories of the actual events are more vivid now, after 45 years, than they were 25 years ago. Perhaps because there was not a great deal in East Africa to remind me of it, compared to today, living 4 miles from Wyton on the approach to Alconbury. To see the Lancaster of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight fly over gives me rather more than a lump in my throat at times. Pathfinder House is not what it was with Don Bennet, either, it is now the place where I pay my rates, but they at least have a picture of a Lancaster on the wall near the Cashier’s office. A couple of years ago I asked one of the cashiers why it was called Pathfinder House, she had no idea, I asked what the aeroplane was and the answer was the same. I let the matter drop.
I had taken over the comm. Centre from Mike Harding who had retired prematurely, and his immediate predecessor had been “Bing” Crosby, ex Royal Signals. Bing was in Headquarters just along the corridor and came into my office every day to inspect an object pickled in a sealed jar which he had left on the shelf when he was promoted. Although he urged us to take good care of it, he used to look at it and say to it “You useless ruddy thing”, or words to that effect. Finally, on retirement, he came and collected it and let us into the secret, with the parting words “Oh don’t worry, the other one’s fine, you only need one you know”.
Alice and my father had left in May for Italy, to stay with Mary and Luigi. My own feelings were that he should have stayed in Kenya, possibly up country with Jean or with one of his many other friends among the Settlers. He had worked unceasingly on the network for over 4 years, but Alice insisted upon their return to Europe. In June ’64 it was time for home leave again. We were reluctant this time because there was so much happening up country and we expected it to be our final tour in East Africa together, unless I returned and carried on with communications on a commercial basis. This was still an option, communications had kept me very busy and with lots of ‘job satisfaction’, but it was DCA who had paid my salary. I still had a family to support, and there was a great deal of uncertainty in Kenya. And so it was we flew to London yet again, and joined Hilda’s Mum at Glaslyn.
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[underlined] ON LEAVE June 1964 [/underlined]
Before leaving for Wales we bought a second-hand Vanguard from a dealer in Putney which was to prove very useful in the next few months. At the end of our leave it was sold to the local Policeman for the same price.
A month or two before we returned, the house next to Aunt Doll had become vacant and was put on the market for £500. It was small and in shocking state, but a real snip so we bought it. Five months was spent in refurbishing it, building a bathroom, kitchen, replastering, new fireplace, rewiring etc. I remember John mixing at least a ton of concrete manually, he was a tremendous help. Electricity at the house had not been used for many years, and what little wiring remained, mostly twin flex, we ripped out. Electrical contractors quoted £900 to rewire, which was totally ridiculous, and finally John and I did it in one day, having spent about £50 on materials through an advert in Exchange & Mart. We tried to buy the field - or even part of it - at the back - of the house, but our lawyer said it was quite impossible to find out who owned the land. Many years later it transpired that it had in fact been owned for at least a hundred years by members of his own family.
Visits were paid to my other in Barnoldswick and to Joan and Ken in London, but the greater part of my leave was spent on the ‘new house’.
At the end of April Hilda’s Mum moved into her new home and made comfortable. From the house there was a wonderful view of the mountain separating the Neath and Rhonda valleys, with the river within 25 yards in the foreground. Perhaps it is only fair to mention the road between the house and river, but when the bypass was built a few years later this road carried little traffic.
In November ’64 I returned to Kenya unaccompanied, and being so, moved into Woodlands Hotel. The following day I was in touch with Laikipia and also back at work. I relieved Mike Harding as Asst. Signals Officer in Headquarters, Deputy to ‘Spud’ Murphy who was Telecommunications Officer (Operations). The job was just a matter of dealing with the steady flow of paper-work. Every piece of paper coming in was registered in Central Registry and filed by the Clerk. If he couldn’t decide which file to put it, he would open a new one. The file was then delivered - and booked out - to the officer thought to be the one who should deal with it. The officer would either add his comments as a minute and pass on the file to someone he thought might not return it to him, or if he felt he was authorised to make a decision, draft a letter for his immediate superior. Very occasionally, on an external matter he might even sign the letter “for the Director of Civil Aviation”. I was expected to finalise all matters concerning the operational aspect of the Telecommunications side of DCA, including all staff problems, their examinations and promotions.
Europeans were leaving the Directorate almost every week and being replaced by Africans. Those with African proteges training to take over the senior posts were most vulnerable. The Africans thought it was easy to sit back and authorise someone to go on leave, or to promote or reprimand another. The newcomers could read the many returns and forms but whereas a European officer could do every job subordinate to his own, the assistant had neither the experience, qualifications nor ability to do those jobs. In some cases the African was promoted and his former boss remained as his assistant. It was
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obvious who did the actual work. I found the work uninteresting, mainly it seemed just a matter of going through the motions and staying out of trouble by being non-committal, which was completely out of character. My main thoughts were with the 5190 Network, something that really mattered.
Sqdn. Ldr. Anderson was still with us and when he went on two week’s leave to the coast he asked me to sleep at his house, which made a welcome change from staying at the hotel. At about 3am on the third night there was a hullabaloo outside and a pounding on the door. “Police, open up”. I opened up, 9mm. Mauser ready, to be greeted by an African Police Inspector and about 15 Askari with enough weaponry to start a rebellion. Andy had told the Police he would be away for two weeks and would they please keep an eye on the house? I told them he had asked me to sleep there but they were not convinced. All my documents were at the hotel and eventually the Inspector ‘phoned the Acting Director of Civil Aviation at his house - Dickie Dixon, my old antagonist from Entebbe. Dickie was not amused, he never was, with me, but the Inspector was satisfied. A few nights later, about 10pm. I was lying on the bed reading, the house in darkness except for a small reading lamp. I heard footsteps on the gravel outside and quickly extinguished the light. I heard a key turning in the lock of the pateo [sic] door. By this time I was off the bed and standing at the bedroom door, left hand on the hall light switch and my Mauser in the right, cocked and with the safety-catch off. When the outside door opened I switched on the light and was startled to identify the intruder as Jimmie Sanson, whom I had not seen since we were in Kisumu. If he had been carrying a gun I might have blown his head off before it became unrecognisable. Andy had done it again, asking Jimmie also to keep an eye on the house. That night my car had been in Andy’s garage. On the following nights I left the car in full view outside, and with the a few lights in the house switched on.
For several years I had held one of the very few Flight Radio Officer Licences in the Department and frequently flew as Radio Officer first on the Anson VPKKK and later on its replacement, the Heron. On my last trip on the Heron we did a “tour of inspection” with visiting officials from ICAO in Montreal. Whilst supposedly inspecting the runways here and the Met. Station there, a V.O.R., D.M.E. and other aids to Aviators, in reality we enjoyed a visit to Zanzibar, flew around inside the Ngoro-ngoro crater, an extinct volcano well stocked with wild life, witnessed a specially-staged lion kill in Tsavo West National Park, and entered into the spirit of a very expensive ‘Cook’s Tour’. A few weeks later I did another tour of airports, inspecting the Telecomm. aspect and also giving morse tests to operators who were otherwise already qualified for promotion. I knew most of the staff and the stations also. 16 years previously I had first visited Iringa, which was then run by ‘Blossom’, Mrs. Brown, the only lady Radio Officer in DCA. Blossom was an ex-WREN officer who had specialised during the war in Japanese morse. I think she told me there were about 120 characters in their morse alphabet, and she used to transcribe in Jap. characters for hours on end. It was someone else’s job to translate them into English. Blossom had left some years previously. The morse tests were interesting, first the candidate sent for 10 minutes at 25 w.p.m. of 5-letter and figure groups, which was recorded on tape. The second test was 10 minutes of plain language, and the third receiving for 10 minutes of automatic morse. The fourth test was for the candidate to receive the morse recorded in the first two tests, without telling them of it’s origin. Many complained that the
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fourth test was unfair, the morse being very poor and difficult to read. Some found it difficult to believe the poor morse was their own! In general, the morse was, in fact, very good, most of the old-timers having been British Army trained, during the war.
Soon after the invasion of Zanzibar I flew there in the DCA Anson piloted by Capt. Casperuthus. The two Air Traffic Controllers had been deported to Mombassa [sic] and almost all the Telecomms. equipment was faulty. The teleprinter on line to Dar es Salaam still worked, however, and this was taken over by an African from Tanganyika. Zanzibar and Tanganyika became known as Tanzania and for the very first time customs and immigration formalities were introduced between the two. I recall paying customs duty in Dar es Salaam on 200 cigarettes bought in Zanzibar, although the price was the same in both places, and duty had been paid already to the same authority, the new government of Tanzania. There was no rational explanation to some of the politics in East Africa. Rumours were rife that a huge Russian biplane bomber made secret trips at night without contacting DCA, the aviation authority, and the machine was said to be in a particular hangar. We were intrigued by this and taxied very close to the hangar, a ‘deliberate mistake’, and took photographs of the aircraft. It was a biplane about three times the wingspan of a Tiger Moth, but we were not able to find anyone who had actually seen it airborne.
By May 1965 I was recovering transmitters from Settlers who were leaving the country, and these sets were more than meeting the demand for new ones. I felt that by the end of the year there would be very few Europeans left, and in that atmosphere of intense anti-climax I gave 6 months notice of my retirement. The leave earned would take me to just over my 44th. birthday when compensation for loss of office would be at its peak. Looking at this in more detail, compensation would have been reduced by £2,000 per year of delay. There was really little choice but to go.
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[underlined] JOB HUNTING [/underlined]
I returned home finally on the 11th. of November 1965 and joined Hilda and the family at Glaslyn, except for Colin who was in the R.A.F. in Aden. My father and Alice were settled in Voghera in Northern Italy. There was plenty of time to look for a job, as I was on full pay for about six months and could not really afford to start work until April. Had I started before that, it would have meant paying income tax at the U.K. rate for the previous year on my world income, so I was advised, probably wrongly.
I wrote many letters, one offering my services to O’Dorian of Redeffusion [sic]. They were at that time considering establishing a Radio Relay system in the African areas of Nairobi. Other firms were also interested and the City Council was monitoring a pilot scheme which I.A.L. had fitted about a year previously. The pilot scheme had been put out to tender and my father had submitted a bid to provide for a four-program system. The contract went to I.A.L. on the grounds that they had shown confidence in Kenya by being established there for many years and were a reputable firm. My father was invited to comment and said I.A.L.’s presence was nothing to do with confidence, they were wholly-owned by B.O.A.C. and were there to do aircraft radio maintenance for E.A. Airways also owned by B.O.A.C. As for being a reputable company, so are Marks and Spencers but like I.A.L. they have no experience in Radio Relay. I had seen the pilot scheme at Kaloleni. Each house had a loudspeaker on the wall with volume control, and the system was wired in D8 cable and flex, with no protective devices. Reception was poor and quality was that of a typical bus station P.A. system. I gave O’dorian [sic] a detailed report of what I thought could be achieved in Nairobi and also the whole of Kenya, together with the engineering detail, resources required, budgets etc. The report was mainly the result of my father’s efforts of two years previously, updated. I included my report of I.A.L.’s one programme pilot scheme the performance of which could induce the Council to reach only one conclusion about Radio Relay. One of not to bother with it. Transistor radios were then on the market at 40 shillings giving good world-wide reception, Moscow being a necessity. I mentioned too the near to impossibility of collecting payment from individual subscribers. Payment would have to be made by the authorities. O’Dorian thanked me for my interest and appreciated the report and said he would be in touch. About a month later he wrote again and said they had decided not to pursue any interest in Kenya.
I also tried West London Telefusion who I knew at working level in 1947, and had an interview in Blackpool with their M.D., and Personnel Manager, for a new post as Development Manager in Taunton, Somerset. The job was to establish a cable T.V. system. I was offered the job after a prolonged interview and at a good salary. I accepted there and then and was advised to start looking for a house around Taunton. Only the starting date was uncertain, but they agreed to confirm the appointment in writing and provide a detailed Terms of Reference. I was very surprised indeed a few weeks later when a letter from Mr Wilkinson said he was very sorry but had decided not to proceed with the Taunton project and all development was under review. I realised that cable TV was popular in fringe areas but more and more repeaters were being provided and the need for cable was reducing all the time. I am writing this in 1993 and the concept of cable TV has developed from the 1966 “amplified aerial” to a single coaxial cable providing over 30 T.V. channels, radio and telephone, and
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most recently, scanned T.V. Security Systems. The technological advances in Relay since its inception in my father’s time, around 1928 have meant many fresh starts for the industry.
I had an interview with Aero Electronics at Crawley – to whom I had a letter of introduction, and was offered the job of Development Engineer & Manager! I felt this was aiming rather high. The interview took place in a large country house, alongside which was a fairly new factory with lots of activity, and a sketch of which appeared on Aero Electronics letter heading. I later found that the factory had no connection with Aero Electronics, which was in fact a one-man show. The job would have been responding to overseas enquiries received mainly via the Board of Trade, designing a system and providing equipment, winding up with a quotation. On the face of it a very interesting prospect, but with no back-up of any sort, and relying upon other firms’ equipment. I felt it to be somewhat dicey, particularly when I was asked if I could type! I had to say it was a job for a team, not one man.
From Crawley I went to see G.E.C. at Coventry for interview as a “Production Team Leader”. The job turned out to be the leader of a team of about 12 assemblers and wiremen constructing telephone exchanges – one at a time. I was shown one being assembled and spent an hour with the Team Leader on one particular exchange which comprised thirty 7’ racks of relay panels, counters uniselectors, jack fields etc. As far as I could see it was just a matter of ensuring each item was in the right place and wired-in correctly. Turning down the job was the right decission [sic] for the wrong reason. There seemed to be thousands of people around all moving at the same time, and the environment depressed me. Although I was only vaguely aware of it at the time, that type of system would be giving way to electronic exchanges within a year or two.
Next stop was Redifon in Wandsworth, who were advertising for Test and Installation engineers. The job was described accurately but was basically testing H/F and M/F equipment at the end of the production line, with very occasional trips into the field on installation and commissioning work. There was great competition for the field work. I was offered the job but the Personnel manager told me to think very carefully, Wandsworth was a terrible place to live in. I was given two weeks to think it over, and turned down the offer. I asked the Personnel Manager what happened to the job I was offered in 1957. The requirement was for an engineer who had a PMG1 licence to operate on ships and an MCA Flight Radio Officers Licence to operate on aircraft. He was to take equipment to sea and into the air to ensure there were no problems, and if there were, to resolve them. That job really appealed to me and could very well have become what I cared to make it. Maybe. He looked up my file and told me the vacancy was not filled and the post was withdrawn.
I saw a job advertised for a Telecommunications Engineer for Gambia, 18 month tour, £3500 per year + 25% gratuity, and applied for it. A week later I was called for interview. I didn’t think there was the slightest chance of this happening, having applied out of interest and an expences [sic] paid trip to London. The interview went well and soon after my return to Wales a letter arrived asking me to confirm my acceptance on a salary of £2500. I was in a quandry [sic], I didn’t really want to go to Zambia, but wrote to the Crown Agents and pointed out the discrepancy between the advert of £3500 and offer of £2500.
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They regretted their mistake in the advert, and on those grounds I was able to decline
I applied for an advertised post of Signals Officer at the Ministry of Aviation’s Communications Centre at Croydon for which my D.C.A. experience fitted me well. The interview went off very well and I found that in some respects E. Africa was more up to-date than was the practice at Croydon. At the end of the interview they said they would write to me. About a week later their letter arrived and advised that I had not been selected but only because a more senior post would shortly become available and I was already short-listed for it. Good news indeed, but having heard nothing further after four months by which time we had moved house to Cambridge, I wrote to them. In their reply I was told that the letter offering me the job had been returned to them marked “Gone away”. As Communications Officer in charge at Croydon life would have been rather different.
Becoming more and more disillusioned with U.K. I went to see the Overseas Services Resettlement Bureau at Eland House, Victoria. I saw a Mr. Williams who was ex-Malaysia P.& T and we chatted for a while about the prospects of settling down to a job in the U.K. I had to agree that after 18 years in East Africa I was not impressed with what I saw in Britain nor with the people who occupied it, it was a vastly different place to the one I had left in 1948. He was quite right in saying that I first had to decide whether I wanted to stay and if so to make the best of it. What job did I want? I told him I had hoped to join Pye Telecomm’s technical sales dept. I knew Pye aeronautical equipment and felt I could fit in there, but had written and been advised there were no vacancies. “Did I still want the job?”. Having replied yes please he picked up the phone, and said “get me Ernie Munns at Pye”. Moments later he greeted someone in what I assumed was Malay, then switched to English “look Ernie, I’ve another bloody Colonial here, thinks Pye’s the ultimate., When can you see him?” We agreed 2pm the following day at Pye Telecommunications, Newmarket Rd., Cambridge. More words in Malay between them and he wished me luck.
I liked the friendly environment at Pye and was interviewed by Ernie Munns, head of Systems Planning Dept. and his deputy, Cyril Foster. The interview was constantly interrupted by the telephone and people barging in for instant decisisons [sic]. I recall Ernie asking whether I would be prepared to write a paper for a semi-technical customer on the relative merits of conventional VHF links and Tropospheric scatter and I said “yes”! Fortunately the phone rang and both interviewers were involved, which gave me a few minutes to think about it. I had heard of Tropo-scatter, but that was about all. I awoke to the question of “how would you go about it?” I replied that I would read up the subject in the Pye library. It must have been written up many times, I would study it and probably be able to quote a learned authority. I agreed that I didn’t know all the answers, and Ernie said “Thank god for that, one or two around here think they do”. I was told that my application was opportune, if I joined them I would be in the Aeronautical team headed by Cyril, which was currently preparing a factory order for equipment to re-equip 22 airports and several other sites in Iran, plus a lot of other orders for aviation equipment. Basically the job was block-planning of systems to meet the customers’ operational requirement, prepare quotations, to engineer the job in detail and to project manage the order to its conclusion. This was the sort of job offered by
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Aero Electronics but at Pye there was full backing from experts in all fields. The second part of the interview was with Cyril and the Personnel manager who said he would write to me with the result. The letter arrived a few days later offering me the post at £1250 per year and to start preferably on the first of April. This was gladly accepted. Hilda and I went to Cambridge and after a week’s run around by Estate Agents we found a nice 4-bedroomed house at 14 Greystoke Rd. near Cherry Hinton which was to be ready by the end of March.
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[underlined] AT PYE TELECOMMUNICATIONS [/underlined]
The first two years at Pye were spent as a Project Engineer in Systems Planning Dept, not in the Aviation team as hoped, but in Duncan Kerr’s team doing general systems. Also in the team were Jim Bucknell, Ian Douglas, and Mike Bavistock who had also joined Pye on April first. Duncan was away most of the time drumming up contracts with the Scottish Police forces but on our first day Mike and I did meet him briefly and he gave us two pink files. ‘Take one each’ said Duncan. ‘Turkey 10th Slice is now an order and needs a flimsy, and the Libya quote needs revalidating’. Mike and I hadn’t a clue on Pye methods and we decided to work together, providing a mutual back-up. It quickly transpired that we had something in common, Mike had been in the Gambia for three tours whilst I was in East Africa. I told him of my experience with the Crown Agents for the Gambia job and he had seen the advert for what had in fact been his post. He was not amused when he saw his £2500 a year job advertised with a salary of £3500.
Of the 36 people in the department, no-one was particularly helpful, in retrospect mainly because they were themselves under great pressure and had problems of their own. I saw the Chief Clerk, - later known as the Admin Group Leader – and said ‘Duncan wants me to do a flimsy, what’s a flimsy?’ He was most unhelpful although he was responsible for the admin. aspect of many hundreds of them. His philosophy was that he wasn’t going to help anyone who was on a bigger salary than his own. I had to go to Export Sales to find out what a flimsy looked like. It turned out to be an all-singing and dancing instruction to every dept. detailing all the action required in designing, manufacturing inspecting packing shipping and invoicing and even installation of a customer’s order. All the information available was entered on the forms and circulated around the departments. The initial circulation was programmed to take six weeks. The system was designed in detail and all the engineering information added with ammendments. [sic] Eventually there were so many ammendments [sic] I had to completely rewrite the flimsy after six weeks, and finally there was an issue 4. The job was eventually engineered by Dickie Wainwright – ex East African P.& T., following a departmental re-organisation, and I picked it up again at the delivery stage having moved to the Systems Installation Dept.
My performance on my first task in Pye was not at all brilliant, and about 18 months later when the installation was finished I issued a memo entitled “Lessons Learned on Turkey 10th Slice”. I started with saying that a week of training in Pye methods would have saved a great deal of cost and misunderstanding and went on to discuss the contract itself. The contract stated that ‘The Turkish Version of the contract shall be deemed to be the official version’, and it seemed there were many anomalies all to the advantage of the Turks, in particular to our agent, a chap called Avidor, who in fact translated the Turkish contract into English!. The system originally quoted was for a microwave chain the length of Turkey with a dozen or so links carrying teleprinter and telephones. We were awarded only the links, the radio parts of which were main and standby. One rediculous [sic] requirement in the Turkish version was that they wanted the main link in one place and the standby in another. We were providing main and standby transmitters etc within a link, not a completely seperate [sic] standby link. The whole thing was quite rediculous, [sic] no
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wonder it was given to one of the new boys and everyone else steered clear. The title of the contract simply meant that it was the 10th slice – or part – of a multi-million dollar allocation of N.A.T.O. funds. I don’t know how many slices there were, but one was enough for us.
With Mike’s first job, revalidating a quotation might on the face of it seem more straight-forward. It is just a matter of extending the date on which the offer expires, or is it?! The engineers who did the quotation with many versions over a period of 10 years, and the half dozen salesmen involved over different periods had all either left or moved on somewhere. Now they were all out of picture, it was Mike’s job, and he was on his own. Revalidation implied that he must thoroughly understand the customer requirement. The quotation comprised 18 volumes of A4 size, each 2” thick, plus a mountain of minutes of meetings and correspondance [sic] over a period of 10 years. Undertakings made in good faith years ago could well be quite impossible to honour, requiring endless variations to the tender document. Every change required approval from others in Pye. Every aspect had to be checked. Equipment from other manufacturers was included and confirmation of availability and price had to be obtained, every move documented and absolutely every aspect of the tender was Mike’s direct responsibility. When I think back to those days, I remember how every letter and memo originated had to be written out in longhand for the team’s typist to action. I understand the office system did not change in the next 25 years although there is much less of it. Mike asked me to sit in at his very first meeting on this project, the main purpose of which was to put him in the picture and answer any queries he might have. One item in the quote was ‘2 years Bavister £2000’ What’s that asks Mike. The finance dept man said it’s an accountancy term, just leave it in but add 10%. Two others had totally different ideas and finally a fellow woke up and said “I’m Bavister, I’m supposed to go out there for two years to help the customer”. There followed a discussion on the price of whether it was 2 or should be 20 thousand and which department accepted the responsibility. Mike asked why we are using scramblers bought from Redifon at £1200 each when we can make them. It turned out they were actually ours, produced in Cambridge for T.M.C. who sold them to Redifon who in turn mounted them on a panel with their label, and sold them back to Pye at about 10 times the price.
The Libya communication system itself was very good, a policeman on a camel with a hand-held portable could talk through a local Base station and several UHF links and an HF SSB link to his HQ 3000 miles away if required. Mike Bavistock saw the project through two revalidations and the tender’s final acceptance, and the production stage, over a period of 4 years. He went on to do many other big projects before deciding to resign and return to Africa to try and regain his sanity.
When I joined the department, one half prepared quotations and everything else with the exception of the detailed engineering. The other half were responsible for engineering and nothing else. The system was sound, one person should not have to divert his thinking from conditions of sale to pricing to shipping to the specific connections on a 131 way socket. After a while the system was changed whereby one man did the lot, and with a dozen or more projects on hand at any one time constant re-orientation was getting me down and I asked for a transfer to Systems Installation Dept. Meanwhile I pressed on
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doing many quotations and made sure I did not get involved with detailed engineering design or anything else which could delay my transfer. In fact I feigned some excentricity [sic] and got away with it. The pressure however was high and there was a great deal of jeolousy [sic] and backbiting in the department.
At one stage I did a couple of Fireman’s callout schemes and these were done on the electric typewriter by a typist who normally did only the conditions of sale. The only difference was in the number of base stations and portables, and the finance. Together using the same basic tape we could rattle off a quotation in half an hour. We made about 20 spare copies and sent them to Home salesmen who were not already in the know, to help them secure orders from their local fire services. This was very rewarding to Pye.
One monday [sic] morning I was given the job of providing a quotation to meet a requirement for the Yugoslavian police, to be ready by 4 pm on friday [sic] . It was a big job and I would have three chaps to assist me but I was not to make a start until the go-ahead was received from International Marketing Dept. At 2.15 pm I was told to forget it, it would not be possible to complete it in time. On Wednesday at 10 am I was told the job was on and vital, top priority. Drop everything and get on wth [sic] it. I would not have any assistants and would have to complete it myself. So one man had two days and two nights to do a job which was too much for 4 men in 5 days and 4 nights. I worked almost non-stop, all day and all night, mostly at home, and on the thursday [sic] I asked for a typist to be available for friday [sic] night. By 5 pm on friday [sic] the document was ready for typing, a very long technical description and equipment schedules. The prices had not been agreed with the finance dept, so I used standard Export price with 15% mark-up for luck. No signatures of approval were obtained from Snr. Management although a quote for over £100,000 needed signatures from three Directors and finally the Company Secretary. I did ‘phone Bert Ship who was responsible for determining delivery time and I put 5 months instead of his 9. The typist did not materialise, and as a last resort I took an office typewriter to my daughter Wendy’s home and she typed it overnight.
At 7 am on the saturday [sic] I assembled a batch of relavant [sic] publicity material and technical leaflets, and made 10 copies of the whole document, four of which I signed and gave to the Salesman at 9 am. He translated the Technical Description and schedules into Italian on his way to London Airport by road and to Milan by air. It was retyped into Italian on the Sunday and presented to the client in Rome on the Monday [sic] , by Pye Italy. A month later the Salesman told me we had got the job and thanked me, but there was no other official recognition. I was amused to have signed it myself, having cut through all authorities and proceedures. [sic] One copy of the file was circulated around for approvals by Mike Loose and this was completed a few days before we got the contract. Not all jobs were like that.
One particular quotation was done for Frank Mills, a salesman responsible for dealing with government departments in Wales. I had first known Frank when he was Provincial Police Signals Officer at Mwanza in Tanganyika when I was in charge of the airport. Prior to that he had been a Radio Officer with D.C.A. in East Africa. Frank had told me of his lucky escape when he went to Musoma on a routine inspection. An african [sic] sold him a live snake in a sack for a shilling and Frank decided its skin would make a good present. An 8 foot python for a shilling. First the python had to be killed and whilst still in the sack was placed in an empty 40 gallon storage drum. A pipe was connected between his
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landrover [sic] exhaust and the drum, and the engine left running. After an hour the python was removed and made ready for skinning, but first let’s take a few photographs. Off came Frank’s bush jacket, and the python wound round his chest and neck, with Frank gripping the snake’s head and looking it square in the eyes. The photos were taken and the snake lowered to the ground. It was sweaty work and Frank sat on the back of the landrover [sic] drinking a cool beer. After a few minutes the python slid away into the bush. However, Frank had arranged to collect the quotation at 1.30 pm. and as the hour approached it was ready in triplicate except for the three front labels. All the typists and secretaries were enjoying their lunch break, most of them sitting at their desks knitting or reading. Not one of them would type the labels, so I used a spare manual machine and typed them myself. It was their right to stop work between 1 and 2 and they would excercise [sic] that right regardless of everything else. Most of them didn’t speak to me for weeks. This childish attitude was only too prevalant [sic] throughout the organisation and was completely foreign to me. However, Frank collected his quotation and we had a short chat about old times. Tragically he was killed in a road accident next day whilst on the way to see his customer with the quotation.
After my 2 years or so in Systems Planning, Bill Bainbridge one of the two Field Controllers in Systems resigned to start his own business, Cambridge Towers, and I was fortunate in succeeding him. At the same time Harry Langley Head of Systems Installation moved into Sales and D.A.D. Smith took over as Manager of Systems Installation Dept., (S.I.D.). I got on very well with Harry Langley, he had been with the Kenya Police as a Radio technician seconded from the Home Office. Howard (Jimmie) James was the other Field Controller and between us we managed all S.I.D. projects, mainly installing and commissioning systems in the field, about 60% being overseas. In theory we had a Project Engineer heading each Installation team but as each was involved in several jobs at any one time it was never possible just to sit back and let the P.E. get on with it. He was likely to be abroad when most required.
[underlined] IRAN [/underlined]
One of the first jobs allocated to me in S.I.D. was the Iranian Airports project, Pye being a member of a consortium with Marconi, C & S Antennas, Redifon, G.E.C. and S.T.C. All came together as the Irano-British Airports Consortium to re-equip the major airports and aviation facilities in Iran. This was the project mentioned to me at my interview when applying to join Pye and Cyril Foster and Allan Breeze had devoted their last two years entirely to it, and much of 5 years before that. Allan in fact eventually went to Iran to commission the F.I.C. console. I had a great respect for him when we went to Iran together and whilst I was struggling along in French he was talking in Farsi with the hotel staff. He had been quietly studying it in Cambridge and could even read it, which was a tremendous achievement.
I became suspicious when I received a memo from D.A.D. Smith the Departmental Manager enclosing a change-note and asking me to confirm that we could still carry out our installation committment [sic] in Iran for the £85,700 he had quoted. A change-note was a notification from a Lab. making a minor change in the design or manufacture of a piece of equipment. In this case it refered [sic] to a resistor which would make no difference to anything except the parts list.
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[photograph of the head and shoulders of a man]
[Arabic writing]
[stamp]
[Arabic writing] G. Watson [Arabic writing]
[signature]
[Arabic writing] JSB/100/14/6/T [Arabic writing]
154A
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Not “will the change-note make any difference?” His subtle phraseology was making me responsible for the whole installation amount, not just a possible minor differe [deleted r [/deleted] nce. His figure was derived by taking 5% of the factory transfer price of the equipment which had no real relationship to the cost of fitting it, and was totally unrealistic.
I studied the draft contract and drew up an installation plan, and after a few days replied to my manager that “if the work can be carried out in the 12 month time scale as in the contract my estimate of costs is not £87500 but £250,000. I believed the work would take at least 5 years, it would not be possible to co-ordinate the many scores of officials with their different loyalties and the organisations involved. The final cost could very well be double the £250K. The end customer was the Iranian Director General of Civil Aviation, represented by Aerodrome Development Consultants Ltd., (A.D.C.) apparently a private firm, but wholly-owned by the then British Board of Trade and staffed by their officials. They were more than loyal to their Iranian masters.
After a great deal of arguement [sic] with A.D.C. and other Consortium members about methods, division of responsibilies [sic] , consequential losses and costs etc., the quotation was accepted including my price of £250K, and the contract signed. I was to live with that contract for exactly 10 years and have been sorely tempted many times to record the frustrations, stupidities and almost impossible business of working with the Iranians whilst retaining any degree of sanity.
It was the custom in Pye at the time, and a very good one, that before work was started on a major quotation, the comments of people with recent similar experience were sought as to its desireability, [sic] and with the question “Do we want the job?”. The file, an informal one came to me and in answer to that question I wrote in a light-hearted moment, “pas avec un barge pole.” I didn’t know that our masters Philips in Holland were involved until a minute came from them asking ‘vos ist ein barge pole’? This surprised everyone as the Dutch generally have no sense of humour where money is concerned.
One year from the signing of the contract, bang on time, we airfreighted the 26 racks of equipment and a mass of other material for installation at Meherabad airport, a direct flight from Stansted to Teheran where it was to be fitted. The pilot spent 36 hours under armed guard first for not having a “Certificate of no objection” from Iranian Airlines and secondly for paying a parking fee for only a 12 hours stay. There were many problems with that first consignement [sic] which provided a good pointer to the difficulties to follow. It was 12 months before the equipment was released from Customs and then it was stored in the open air outside the Meherabad receiving station for 6 months. Soon after that first air shipment I returned to Iran and spent 6 weeks studying the first 12 airport installations, including Meherabad, and re-formulating detailed plans. Meherabad was the main International Airport and included the Flight Information Centre. One problem at the F.I.C. was how to fit a 24 ft control console manned by 6 people whilst maintaining a full service on the old console which occupied the same floor space. In addition the contract stated that 12 racks would be fitted in the old equipment room on the fourth floor and 14 in a new equipment room on the second floor. This really was quite impossible and I was keeping the problem to myself. When I was discussing with the Iranians the work involved in their own equiupment [sic] room,
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they became extremely worried because their wiring was an absolute shambles with hundreds of multipair cables actually threading their way in and out and through racks which we had to replace with no interuption [sic] in the service.
They finally startled me by laying down the law and insisting that we stay right out of their old equipment room, and they would knock down walls between six offices on the second floor to house all 26 racks. This area was very close to FIC and made our job not only possible, but easy. Also the change was their firm requirement and we charged them £17,500 extra for the priveledge [sic] .
On Kushi Nostrat mountain, Marconi were to fit a Radar scanner, which we were to link to Meherabad by a 7GHz link, but the only way to reach the site was by helicopter, unless one was a mountaineer. There were no civilian helicopters in Iran and it was only when I put the problem to A.D.C. that I found the Radar stn. was to be at Kushi Basm and not Kushi Nostrat, a totally different mountain. This had an access road and Meherabad was a line-of-sight path of 32 miles. At a critical distance was a salt pan and we were supposed to go round this desert on a dog leg using a microwave link repeater. There was no suitable location for the repeater because of the “change” in location of the Radar site. This resulted in another variation to contract for a frequency and space diversity single link, less equipment than in the original contract but we got away with charging £18,000 more. Some of the problems were pathetic, others amusing. When I checked the earthing and lightening arrestor system at Meherabad I found the one inch copper earth lead was terminated not with an earth mat in the ground but to a spike stuck in a concrete plantpot on the first floor verandah. That was and probably is still there and highly dangerous. Incredible but true.
At Bandar Abbas Airport I prepared a detailed installation plan which together with others was discussed later at a monthly progress meeting in London. It bore no resemblance to a plan prepared by Redifon two years previously and we realised that since Redifon’s visit a new airport had been built about 9 miles away. More variatons [sic] to contract. There were 260 of them finally. At Bandar Abbas, the port of which was the main base of the Iranian Navy, I was with the Provincial Governor, an Iranian Air Force General and the Airport Manager. All three agreed it was permissible for me to use my camera. Later when an army corporal confiscated the camera they all denied it and simultaneously lost their ability to speak fairly good english, resorting to french in discussion with me. I had already met the works manager in charge of the extensive building operations who spoke excellent english and was apparently all-powerful. He not only recovered my camera from the army but also gave me a fine selection of photographic prints together with detailed architect plans of all the buildings. I did not see the three senior chaps again but the works manager put a car and driver at my disposal. I think he must have been related to someone important, maybe the Shah-in-Shah, or maybe he was a member of the secret police, there is no knowing.
A consignment of Redifon transmitters was held up in Customs for over two years with a documentation problem, and even the fixer employed was quite ineffective. To clear through customs it was necessary to get 120 signatures and rubber stamp impressions on the release document and this had to be done in a single day. This was finally achieved after the Shah had decreed that the equipment must be released, but the chap on the gate seemed to resent this interferance [sic] and refused to release it. The document with the signatures was out
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of date the following day so the man’s boss supported him and the equipment remained a part of the scenery. A week or two later, another department came into the act and gave notice that if Redifon did not remove it within 7 days, it would be sold off by police auction. Redifon did not appreciate my suggestion that we should go to the auction. The problem had arisen because one small item of equipment was refered [sic] to as a “tone transmitter”, the word transmitter being anathma [sic] to Middle east types. It did not appear on the schedule [deleted] d [/deleted] of approved tranmitters [sic] and was regarded with grave suspicion.
It took four months to amend the contract to exclude the tone transmitter and substitute a tone oscillator, - the same thing -, but even then 36 copies of the invoice had to be changed and re-submitted.
The Consortium offices belonged to the G.E.C.O.S. agent who kindly trebbled [sic] the size of them at the Consortium’s expence [sic] . All the members’ staff in Iran moved in and made themselves comfortable. About three weeks later a gang of workmen with demolition equipment reduced the new buildings to rubble and said “sorry, no planning permission”. Two months later the lawyers proved that all the proper authority and permissions were completely in order. The gang returned and said “sorry, ok you build”.
Despite all the red tape in Iran it was generally possible to get results eventually, the main difficulty was often finding out just which palms had to be greased. Our man in Iran for three years was Mike Cherry and he was successful in getting an amateur radio licence, with the call-sign EP2MC. Mike fitted an SSB125 transceiver in the office in Teheran and I was in daily contact with him from both my house and the office in Cambridge. By using very carefull [sic] phraeseology [sic] I was kept right up to date with progress in the field.
I was talking with Mike from the office one evening on 14 MHz when Dr. Westhead the Chief Executive came in and asked who I was talking with. I replied “to Mike Cherry, our man in Teheran, Sir”. He grimaced and said “Ah well, ask a stupid question..” The public telephone system to Iran was diabolical most of the time. I used to book a call for 4.30 am the following day and take it from home, which saved a great deal of time in both places. Teheran time was 2 1/2 hours ahead of U.K. On most occasions the Post Office telephoned several times during the night to confirm the call or advise of delays, which was very tiresome.
Monthly progress meetings were held in London, and at one of them I was asked to quote for additional work at Esfahan during the 2500 year celebrations, which were to take place before the new equipment was fitted. They required to talk with aircraft and I suggested they should do so on a mobile set which would be quite adequate. Our team would already be on site with the mobiles so without any fuss I quoted £300 which was put forward. At a board meeting a week later this was confirmed and the Pye member of the Board, Pat Holden who was also our International Marketing Director promptly withdrew it as I had not gone through the proper channels. The next day he sent for me and instructed me to cancel my quotation, and with a great thumping of the table told me to increase it £3000. Then followed a lecture that “we are here to make money, add a nought”. I told him the job would take about an hour and £300 was more than adequate. £30,000 was utterly rediculous. [sic] I told him “I was doing no such thing, put it in writing through the head of my department and meanwhile you are clear to return to earth”. I then excused myself and left him
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to it. I returned to my own desk 20 minutes later to find a note asking me to go and see the boss, not surprisingly. I told him exactly what had happened and he laughed. I said I thought I had burned my boats with Pat Holden and David Smith my boss said “far from it, he admires you for standing up to him and asks you to forget it.” I took no further action in this and in the event there was no income at all, but the job took only 30 minutes for one engineer.
Another equally challenging job was the installation and commissio [deleted] m [/deleted] ning of a UHF system within the London Stock Exchange. This employed 520 adjascent [sic] channels. The Base Stations in the basement comprised a transmitter and receiver for each channel, all being combined into one “radiating feeder”. About 600 pocketphones on the Stock Exchange floor were used by dealers working into this system. An invitation to tender for this job had been received by Pye about two years previously and comments invited from all technical departments. It was unanimously agreed that the job was quite impossible and must not be attempted. Pye did not quote for it and the contract was awarded to S.T.C. Mobile division. Nearly two years later Pye or Philips aquired [sic] that organisation and half the installation had been fitted. About 60 channels were in use and very unsatisfactory. Dealers received messages intended for others and signals faded out at the crutial [sic] moment. Firms were receiving wrong messages and transfering [sic] and buying shares erroneously through these faults. The task of bringing the job to a conclusion was allocated to me and I chose my favourite team of Nick Fox, Aussie Peters and Jack Faulkener.
There was a local Service Dept. depot at the Stock Exchange of four engineers who were struggling to get the system working and we took over from them. On arrival there was a flap on, a dealer had acted on a false message and bought some tens of thousand shares for which he had no client and he was stuck with them. He said he was going to sue Pye for his loss. He dropped that idea next day when he sold them at a profit. The main problem was loss of signals into the pocketphones on the Stock Exchange floor but we were not allowed onto the floor during dealing times to make tests. Eventually we were given an ultimatum to either fix it or remove it and face an enormous claim for damages.
This was very serious indeed and I reported back to Cambridge. The Engineering Director, Frank Grimm showed me a copy of his comments of two years ago when he said the job was quite rediculous [sic] and impossible, and that was the end of it. No-one wanted to know, “It’s your problem Cliff, get on with it”. So it was back to the Stock Exchange, and I demanded permission to see for myself what was actually happening by being on the floor during dealing hours, otherwise there was nothing more we could do. The Chairman gave permission, quite unprecedented and we were then able to make a more scientific approach. We stayed on that evening and with Jack Faulkener in the basement at the transmitters we measured signal strengths which were astonishingly high and with no blind spots. Jack reduced the base station transmitter power at the input to the antenna system until even with the antenna completely isolated the signals were far more than adequate. This provide the mathematicians were all wrong and we were all barking up the wrong tree. We then carried out the most elementary test of all, whilst receiving properly on a pocketphone we transmitted on other pocketphones – on other channels – at a distance of ten feet. We had found the reason for the problem, simple R/F blocking which should have been checked in the Lab. at a very early stage. That evening we modified 6
[page break]
pocketfones [sic] , fitting a 2 pf. capacitor at the receiver input and completely bipassing [sic] the transmitter output stage. They worked perfectly, and with no blocking even at 2’ distance between portables. We had found the answer and the next day, friday, [sic] we recovered all the 160 pocketfones [sic] and over the weekend modified the lot. Everything worked as it should and the customers were delighted. We had received no co-operation from anyone in Cambridge but word soon reached Cambridge that all was well. We deliberately kept them in the dark until I issued a formal report. I had of course no authority to modify equipment but deliberately flouted this on the grounds that someone had to do something constructive or we would have been thrown out of the Stock Exchange. It did not improve my popularity with the people who could influence my career.
In 1979 after being responsible for some dozens of major projects three more Field Controllers were appointed, Dave Buller Mike Simpson and Clive Otley and I felt that a change was long overdue. Relationships with the Departmental Manager and his yes-man deputy Joe were deteriorating rapidly. I transfered [sic] back to Systems Planning Dept. and overnight became a specialist in Radio Frequency propagation. I was in a small team headed by Dave Warford, and including Lewis Wicker and John Ewbank, and a trainee. Our job was to plan Radio Links and area coverage systems, within the parameters laid down by D.T.I.
At the outset my knowledge of R/F propagation (or Electromagnetic Radiation) was limited to my practical experience of what had been achieved and what had failed to work. The theoretical aspect was highly mathematical but fortunatly [sic] the subject was well written up and the principles well established. Dave Warford and Lewis Wicker were a great help in getting me onto the right lines.
A typical job would be a request from a salesman asking whether a radio link on a particular frequency band would work between two specific sites and if so what aerial height would be required? The first step would be to study the Ordnance Survey maps of 1:50000 scale, and plotting all the contours on the direct line between the points. From this information a profile of the earth’s surface would be prepared including the earth’s curvature
[inserted] To be continued [/inserted]
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[underlined] Dresden 13 – 14 February 1945 [/underlined]
At the end of January 1945, the Royal Air Force and the USAF 8th Air Force were specifically requested by the Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff to carry out heavy raids on Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig. It was not a personal decision by Sir Arthur Harris. The campaign should have begun with an American daylight raid on Dresden on February 13th, but bad weather over Europe pre-vented [sic] any American operation. It thus fell to Bomber Command to carry out the first raid on the night of February 13th. 769 Lancasters and 9 Mosquitoes were dispatched in two separate attacks on Dresden and at the same time a further 368 R.A.F aircraft attacked the synthetic oil plant at Bohlen near Leipzig. A few hours after the RAF raids 311 bombers of the 8th US Air force attacked Dresden. The following day (15 February 1945) the USAF despatched 211 bombers to bomb Dresden and a further 406 bombers on the 2nd March.
As an economic centre, Dresden ranked sixth in importance in pre-war Germany. During the war several hundred industrial plants of various sizes worked full-time in Dresden for the German War machine, Among them were such industrial giants as the world famous Zeiss-Ikon AG (Optics and cameras). This plant alongside the plant in Jena was one of the principle centres of production of field glasses for the Armies, aiming sights for the Panzers and Artillery, periscopes for U-boats, bomb and gun sights f or the Luftwaffe. Dresden was also one of the key centres of the German postal and telegraphic system and a crucial East West transit point with its 7 bridges crossing the Elbe at its widest point.
In February 1945 the war was far from over. The Western Allies had not yet crossed the Rhine, Germany still controlled extensive territories, and Bomber Command lost more than 400 bombers after Dresden. The war was at its height, the Allies were preparing for the land battles which would follow their crossing the Rhine, the Russians were poised on the Oder. This destruction of Dresden meant a considerable reduction in the effectiveness of the German Armed forces.
The Germans followed Hitler even after the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1945 when its horrors were broadcast to the world. They continued to follow Hitler even after they watched the thousands of living skeletons from concentration camps being herded westward in early 1945.
A quote from former POW Col H E Cook (USAAF Rtd) "on 13/14 Feb 1945 we POWs were shunted into the Dresden marshalling yards where for nearly 12 hours German troops and equipment rolled in and out of Dresden. I saw with my own eyes that Dresden was an armed camp: thousands of German troops, tanks and artillery and miles of freight cars …. transporting German logistics towards the East to meet the Russians.”
[signed] Jim[?] Broom [/signed]
[page break]
[curriculum vitae page 1]
[page break]
[curriculum vitae page 2]
[page break]
[autographed photograph of Lancaster bomber]
[page break]
[history of Jack Railton and Emma Sharpe]
[page break]
[history of George Henry Watson]
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[history of Herbert Kilham]
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[history of Herbert Kilham continued]
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[photograph of male]
[page break]
[history of George Henry Watson]
[page break]
[history of Jack Railton and family]
[page break]
[history of Jack Railton and family continued]
[page break]
[history of Cliff Stark’s early years]
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[letter from LMS railway to C.W. Watson page 1]
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[letter from LMS Railway to C.W.Watson page 2]
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[letter from LMS Railway to C.W. Watson]
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
Just Another Tailend Charlie
Description
An account of the resource
A memoir written by Cliff Watson divided into 20 chapters.
The Earliest Years.
Born in Barnoldswick, then in Yorkshire, now in Lancashire in 1922. His father ran a wireless business until 1926. He describes his years at schools and a move to Norwich. The family then moved to London where he started an apprenticeship as an accountant.
Joining Up.
Cliff left the accountants to work in his father's radio business. Initially he was rejected by the RAF because he wore spectacles. He reapplied and passed various written, oral and medical examinations. Initial training was at Torquay then Newquay. Once training was complete he sailed from Greenock to South Africa.
Southern Rhodesia.
After acclimatisation in South Africa, Cliff and his colleagues were put on a sleeper train to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Training commenced on Tiger Moths but he was 'scrubbed' or rejected. He was reselected as an air gunner and completed a course in Moffat, also in South Rhodesia. Hospitality in Rhodesia and South Africa was described as generous and excellent.
Postscript.
Cliff describes a run-in with a training corporal who took a dislike to him. Despite faked evidence he proved his points and emerged with a clean record and passed his exams.
Operational Training.
In August 1942 he sailed back to the UK. He was sent to Bournemouth for assessment, then on to RAF Finningley for training then RAF Bircotes for operations. Next was a move to RAF Hixon and its satellite airfield at Seighford. He married Hilda on 1st March 1943 during a week's leave.
Second Time to Africa.
He was then sent to West Kirby, Liverpool to join a ship sailing to Algiers, for further training. Their destination became Blida where they started operations on Tunis and Monserrato airfield. They then moved to a desert strip to the east by 250 kms. From there they continued operations into Italy. Later they moved to Kairouan and continued operations into Italy, mainly Sardinia and Sicily. Each operation is described in great detail.
He has included a letter in Arabic with instructions to take the bearer to British soldiers for a reward. At the end of his tour they sailed back to Greenock.
Screened.
After some leave Cliff's next posting was at Operational Training Unit Desborough where he helped train new gunners. Due to an argument with an officer he was sent to RAF Norton for correctional training. On his return his case was reviewed and the severe reprimand was removed from his record.
Scampton.
Scampton was Cliff's next operational base then Winthorpe for its Heavy Conversion Unit on Stirlings, followed by Syerston on Lancasters then Bardney.
227 Squadron.
Cliff joined 227 squadron at Bardney. Again he covers in detail each operation. His flight was later transferred to Balderton. During this period he was awarded the DFC.
Final Leg.
His squadron was transferred to Gravely at the end of the war. He did a photography course and was transferred to Handforth. There was little work, some unpleasantness and eventually a period of extended leave, a spell at Poynton looking after prisoners then demob.
Back to Civvy Street.
Cliff returned to Whitehaven to revitalise a radio company. He gives great detail about the improvements made. Later he set up a similar enterprise at Maryport. Wired radio services were set to become less popular and financially worthwhile so seeing the writing on the wall he decided to emigrate.
Kenya.
Cliff and family flew to Nairobi, then bus to Kitale where his father was.
Hoteli King George.
Dissatisfied with life on his father's farm, Cliff took a job as a prison officer. He and his family moved to Nairobi. He relates several stories about prisoners and their better qualities but in the end he gets restless and leaves.
Civil Aviation.
Cliff joined the East African Directorate of Civil Aviation in April 1951 as a radio officer. He and his family were relocated to Mbeya, 900 miles from Nairobi. His skills as a radio engineer were well used in this remote location. After 2.5 years the family returned to UK on leave. On his return he was posted to Mwanza, also in Tanganyika. He describes in great detail a royal visit. They left on leave in June 1957 and collected a VW Beetle for transport to Kenya. Their next move was to Entebbe. This was not a happy posting and led to a transfer to Kisumu in Kenya. After three years they transferred to Nairobi to spend more time with their children, who were at boarding school there.
D.C.A. Headquarters.
His role here was Telecomms superintendent. He describes in detail the operations of his section. This was an unsettled period in Kenya with many Europeans returning home.
Dec' 61 on Leave.
Leave was spent at their house in Wales then in May 1962 Cliff returned alone to Nairobi. His family did return later. By this time his father had abandoned his farm and was building radios.
On Leave June 1964.
He bought another house in Wales and spent his leave restoring it. His wife's mother moved in. In November 1964 Cliff returned alone to Nairobi. he left within a year due to the worsening situation.
Job Hunting.
Several electronics firms were approached offering Cliff's services. He attended an interview with Pye who quickly offered him employment.
At Pye Telecommunications.
He found his colleagues unhelpful. A great deal of time was spent on a Turkish quotation that had been in progress for 10 years. A quotation to the Iranian Directorate of Civil Aviation contained complications leading to Cliff revising the quotation. Later there was a complicated installation job at the London Stock Exchange. Eventually Pye pulled out from the bid but a rival company won it, only to be taken over by Pye. At first the system was troubled but after a simple modification it worked perfectly.
Dresden 13-14 February 1945.
A one page description of the bombing of Dresden.
Curriculum Vitae.
Cliff Watson's CV, dated 1976.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cliff Watson DFC
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1989-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
192 typewritten sheets and photographs
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
SWatsonC188489v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Huntingdon
England--Yorkshire
England--Norwich
England--London
England--Torquay
England--Newquay
England--Birkenhead
Scotland--Greenock
Sierra Leone--Freetown
South Africa--Durban
Zimbabwe--Bulawayo
South Africa--Mahikeng
Zimbabwe--Harare
Singapore
South Africa--Cape Town
England--Bournemouth
France--Paris
Algeria--Algiers
Algeria--Blida
Tunisia--Tunis
Italy--Sardinia
Italy--Cagliari
Tunisia--Bizerte
Italy--Monserrato
Italy--Decimomannu
Italy--Trapani
Italy--Palermo
Italy--Naples
Italy--Rome
Italy--Lido di Roma
Italy--Tiber River
Italy--Alghero
Italy--Castelvetrano
Italy--Pantelleria Island
Tunisia--Sūsah
Italy--Syracuse
Italy--Messina
Italy--Salerno
Italy--Bari
Italy--Comiso
Italy--Crotone
Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco
Italy--Paola
Italy--Battipaglia
England--Desborough
Norway--Bergen
Netherlands--Walcheren
Germany--Hamburg
Norway--Oslo
Belgium--Houffalize
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Berchtesgaden
England--Whitehaven
Kenya
England--Yeovil
Kenya--Nairobi
Kenya--Kitale
Tanzania--Mbeya
Tanzania--Mwanza
Uganda--Entebbe
Kenya--Kisumu
England--Cambridge
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Zimbabwe--Gweru
Zimbabwe
South Africa
Sierra Leone
France
Algeria
Tunisia
Italy
Netherlands
Germany
Norway
Poland
Belgium
Tanzania
Uganda
Iran
North Africa
Germany--Nuremberg
Iran--Tehran
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Germany--Homburg (Saarland)
Tunisia--Munastīr
Tunisia--Qayrawān
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Cumberland
England--Devon
England--Hampshire
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Norfolk
England--Northamptonshire
England--Somerset
England--Lancashire
Italy--Capri Island
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
Peter Bradbury
109 Squadron
142 Squadron
150 Squadron
1661 HCU
227 Squadron
25 OTU
30 OTU
5 Group
617 Squadron
84 OTU
9 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Albemarle
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
B-17
B-24
Beaufighter
bomb aimer
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
C-47
Defiant
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
ditching
FIDO
flight engineer
Flying Training School
Gee
ground personnel
Halifax
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Hurricane
Initial Training Wing
Ju 87
Ju 88
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
mess
military discipline
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Mosquito
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
prisoner of war
RAF Balderton
RAF Bardney
RAF Bawtry
RAF Catfoss
RAF Desborough
RAF Eastleigh
RAF Farnborough
RAF Finningley
RAF Graveley
RAF Hemswell
RAF Hixon
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Milltown
RAF Norton
RAF Scampton
RAF Seighford
RAF Strubby
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Wick
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Wyton
searchlight
Spitfire
sport
Stirling
Sunderland
Tiger force
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/834/18759/MGeachDG1394781-160401-17.2.pdf
4e86b84e014290b881c256fceb680e00
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geach, David
D Geach
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/218400/"></a>52 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer David Geach (1394781 Royal Air Force) and contains his diaries, correspondence, photographs of his crew, his log book, cuttings and items relating to being a prisoner of war. After training in Canada, he flew operations as a bomb aimer with 623 and 115 Squadrons until he was shot down 24 March 1944 and became a prisoner of war. He was instrumental in erecting a memorial plaque to the Air Crew Reception Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. <br />The collection also contains a scrap book of photographs.<br /><br />Additional information on his crew is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/218400/">IBCC Losses Database.</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Harry Wilkins and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Geach, DG
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Front Cover – Blank]
[page break]
[underlined] AIRCRAFT RECOGNITION. [/underlined]
[cascade diagram denoting aircraft recognition points]
[page break]
[underlined] BRITISH FIGHTERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] SPITFIRE. [/underlined]
[list of Spitfire recognition features]
[underlined] HURRICANE [/underlined]
[list of Hurricane recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] DEFIANT. [/underlined]
[list of Defiant recognition features]
[underlined] BEAUFIGHTER. [/underlined]
[list of Beaufighter recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] WHIRLWIND. [/underlined]
[list of Whirlwind recognition features]
[underlined] ROC [/underlined]
[list of Roc recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] FULMAR. [/underlined]
[list of Fulmar recognition features]
[underlined] GERMAN FIGHTERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] ME 109E. [/underlined]
[list of ME 109E recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ME 110 [/underlined]
[list of ME 110 recognition features]
[underlined] HE 113. [/underlined]
[list of HE 113 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ITALIAN FIGHTERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] FIAT CR42. [/underlined]
[list of Fiat CR42 recognition features]
[underlined] FIAT G 50. [/underlined]
[list of Fiat G 50 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] MACCHI 200. [/underlined]
[list of Macchi 200 recognition features]
[underlined] BREDA 65. [/underlined]
[list of Breda 65 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] BREDA 88 [/underlined]
[list of Breda 88 recognition features]
[underlined] AMERICAN – BUILT FIGHTERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] MOHAWK [/underlined]
[list of Mohawk recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] TOMAHAWK. [/underlined]
[list of Tomahawk recognition features]
[underlined] AIRACOBRA. [/underlined]
[list of Airacobra recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] BUFFALO [/underlined]
[list of Buffalo recognition features]
[underlined] GERMAN FIGHTER. [/underlined]
[underlined] F.W. 187. [/underlined]
[list of FW 187 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ENGLISH COASTAL COMMAND. [/underlined]
[underlined] WALRUS. [underlined]
[list of Walrus recognition features]
[underlined] LERWICK. [/underlined]
[list of Lerwick recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] SUNDERLAND. [/underlined]
[List of Sunderland recognition features]
[underlined] CATALINA. [/underlined]
[list of Catalina recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] GERMAN COASTAL AIRCRAFT. [/underlined]
[underlined] DO 18. [/underlined]
[list of DO 18 recognition features]
[underlined] DO 24 [/underlined]
[list of DO 24 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ITALIAN COASTAL AIRCRAFT [/underlined]
[underlined] CANT Z 501. [/underlined]
[list of Cant Z 501 recognition features]
[underlined] ENGLISH ARMY CO-OPERATION. [/underlined]
[underlined] LYSANDER. [/underlined]
[list of Lysander recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] GERMAN ARMY CO-OPERATION. [/underlined]
[underlined] HS 126 [/underlined]
[list of HS 126 recognition features]
[underlined] FIESLER 156 [/underlined]
[list of Fiesler 156 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] BRITISH BOMBERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] BLENHEIM IV MODIFIED. [/underlined]
[list of Blenheim IV recognition features]
[underlined] HAMPDEN [/underlined]
[list of Hampden recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] MARYLAND [/underlined]
[list of Maryland recognition features]
[underlined] MANCHESTER. [/underlined]
[list of Manchester recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] WELLINGTON. [/underlined]
[list of Wellington recognition features]
[underlined] WHITLEY. [/underlined]
[list of Whitley recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] FORTRESS 1. [/underlined]
[list of Fortress 1 recognition features]
[underlined] HALIFAX. [/underlined]
[list of Halifax recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] LIBERATOR. [/underlined]
[list of Liberator recognition features]
[underlined] STIRLING. [/underlined]
[list of Stirling recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] GERMAN BOMBERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] HE IIIK MK V [/underlined]
[list of HE IIIK Mk V recognition features]
[underlined] JU 88 [/underlined]
[list of JU 88 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] F.W. KURIER. [/underlined]
[list of FW Kurier recognition features]
[underlined] ITALIAN BOMBERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] FIAT BR20 [/underlined]
[list of Fiat BR20 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] CANT Z 1007 BIS. [/underlined]
[list of Cant Z 1007 BIS recognition features]
[underlined] CAPRONI 135 [/underlined]
[list of Caproni 135 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] CA 310 [/underlined]
[list of CA 310 recognition features]
[underlined] GHIBLI [/underlined]
[list of Ghibli recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] P 32. [/underlined]
[list of P32 recognition features]
[underlined] SM 79. [/underlined]
[list of SM 79 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] SM 81 [/underlined]
[list of SM 81 recognition features]
[underlined] DIVE BOMBERS [/underlined]
[underlined] CHESAPEAKE (AMERICAN BUILT) [/underlined]
[list of Chesapeake recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] SKUA. (BRITISH) [/underlined]
[list of Skua recognition features]
[underlined] Ju 87B. (GERMAN) [/underlined]
[list of Ju 87B recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] SM 85. [/underlined]
[list of SM 85 recognition features]
[underlined] RECONNAISSANCE [/underlined]
[underlined] HUDSON [/underlined]
[list of Hudson recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] TROOP CARRIERS [/underlined]
[underlined] BOMBAY (BRITISH) [/underlined]
[list of Bombay recognition features]
[underlined] Ju 52 (GERMAN) [/underlined]
[list of Ju 52 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] Ju 90 (GERMAN) [/underlined]
[list of Ju 90 recognition features]
[underlined] BRITISH TORPEDO-CARRYING AIRCRAFT [/underlined]
[underlined] BEAUFORT (COASTAL COMMAND) [/underlined]
[list of Beaufort recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] SWORDFISH (FLEET AIR ARM) [/underlined]
[list of Swordfish recognition features]
[underlined] ALBACORE (FLEET AIR ARM) [/underlined]
[list of Albacore recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] FLOAT PLANES. [/underlined]
[underlined] SEAFOX (BRITISH). [/underlined]
[list of Seafox recognition features]
[underlined] GERMAN FLOAT PLANES. [/underlined]
[underlined] HA 140. [/underlined]
[list of HA 140 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] HA 139. [/underlined]
[list of HA 139 recognition features]
[underlined] HE 115. [/underlined]
[list of HE 115 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ITALIAN FLOAT PLANES. [/underlined]
[underlined] CANT Z 506B. [/underlined]
[list of Cant Z 506B recognition features]
[underlined] BRITISH AIRCRAFT. [/underlined]
[underlined] BLENHEIM 1 (FIGHTER) [/underlined]
[list of Blenheim 1 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] HAVOC (NIGHT FIGHTER) [/underlined]
[list of Havoc recognition features]
[underlined] FALCO 1 (RE2000) (ITALIAN FIGHTER). [/underlined]
[list of Falco 1 (RE2000) recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] RE 2001 (ITALIAN FIGHTER) [/underlined]
[list of RE 2001 recognition features]
[underlined] BALTIMORE 1 (AMERICAN BUILT BOMBER) [underlined]
[list of Baltimore 1 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] GERMAN BOMBERS. [/underlined]
[underlined] DO 172. [/underlined]
[list of Do 172 recognition features]
[underlined] Do 217. [/underlined]
[list of Do 217 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ITALIAN BOMBERS [/underlined]
[underlined] CA 313. [/underlined]
[list of CA 313 recognition features]
[underlined] SM 82 [/underlined]
[list of SM 82 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] MOSQUITO (BRITISH GENERAL PURPOSE). [/underlined]
[list of Mosquito recognition features]
[underlined] HA 142 (GERMAN FIGHTER.) [/underlined]
[list of HA 142 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] ARADO 196 (ITALIAN FIGHTER) [/underlined]
[list of Arado 196 recognition features]
[underlined] DO 26 Bo (V or 5) [/underlined]
[list of Do 26 recognition features]
[page break]
[underlined] PECULIARITIES OF AIRCRAFT [/underlined]
Cockpits, Turrets, Radiator, Prominent External Fittings
[underlined] LIST OF TECHNICAL TERMS [/underlined]
Aerofoil
Aileron
Airscrew
Aspect Ratio
Boss.
Camber
Chord
Cockpit
Cowling
Dihedral Angle
Elevator
Fin
Fuselage.
Gap.
Leading Edge.
Nacelle
Rudder
Spar
Stagger
Streamline Body.
Sweep Back.
Tail Unit
Tail Skid & Wheel.
Undercarriage.
Wing.
Anhedral Angle
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[underlined] HYGIENE. [/underlined]
[underlined] LECTURE 1. [/underlined]
[underlined] PERSONAL HYGIENE AT HOME & ABROAD. [/underlined]
A daily wash is essential, as dirty skin encourages vermin & causes septic wounds, wash hands before each meal & after using latrine. Hot bath once a week, short hair, brushes & comb washed each month. Sweating of feet armpits etc. wash daily local bathing with water with few crystals of potassium permanganate. Prick blisters with cold needle, previously sterilised by heating, squeeze & paint with iodine.
Make uniform fit – no chafing, air uniform Blankets washed at least once a year, pillow slips & sheets every fortnight. Underclothes each week. Ensure adequate drying facilities, see boots fit, air socks.
[underlined] Effects of Heat [/underlined]
Heat stroke – hot moist atmosphere & tight heavy clothing – so keep fit wear suitable clothing, plenty of drinking water available.
Sunstroke is heat stroke caused by direct rays
[page break]
of sun on head or back of neck, wear suitable [inserted] clothing [/inserted] & anti-glare glasses & same as for heat-stroke.
[underlined] Effects of Cold. [/underlined]
Frostbite, - loss of circulation & feeling in fingers, toes, ears, & nose, spread up hands & feet if severe. Symptoms – dead feeling & appearance of affected parts, may later blister. Exposure to cold & unsuitable or tight clothing, damp underclothes, lack of body movement. Lack of oxygen at high altitude, lack of food & drink. Well rub affected part to restore circulation, don’t warm at a fire.
Trenchfeet [sic] – type of frostbite, pain swelling, blistering of feet through standing in cold or wet & tight clothing round legs. Wash & dry feet & legs before going in wet trench, then warm whale oil rubbed until skin dry, dry socks.
Airsickness – dose of calomel at night 24 hours before.
March in line & step between 80 & 140, halt each hour, loosen equipment, drinking water available
[page break]
every 7 1/2 miles, wash inspect & treat blisters on feet at end of a march.
[underlined] Personal Hygiene in Hot Countries [/underlined]
Flying in open machines wear flying topee [sic] & tinted goggles, in closed machines carry them in case of forced landing.
All wounds & scratches tend to become sceptic, treat with iodine. Most tropical diseases are conveyed either by insect bites (tics sandfly [sic] mosquito) food & drink, organisms getting under skin (guinea worm) or heat.
[underlined] Mosquitos (Malaria & other diseases) [/underlined]
At sun down mosquito comes up, so then keep arms & legs covered, see mosquito net secured & none inside it. Paraffin, Bomber Oil, Clymax, Sketofax, on exposed skin keep away mosquitos. Drain stagnant water or cover with oil, avoid swamps & valleys, cut or burn undergrowth. Spray living quarters with FLIT three times a day. 5 grains quinine a day – keeps malaria away. Never walk in bare feet, wellingtons or 2 pair socks – shake bedclothes before getting in bed, shake
[page break]
boots & clothes before dressing – for insects, snakes & scorpions. Wash & boil underclothes frequently. Don’t eat rindless [sic] fruit or uncooked vegetables. Regard all water & minerals as unsafe unless from authorised source. Dont [sic] leave food & drink without adequate covering
[underlined] Snake bites & Scorpion Stings. [/underlined]
If on limb immediately apply tourniquet on heart side of bite, with clean knife make cross shaped incision 1/2 inch deep & 1 inch long. Rub in crystals permanganate of potash. Seconds count. Stimulants [indecipherable word] volatile, hot tea or coffee, encourage patient to suck & spit out poison. If hypodermic syringe inject above, below, each side solution water & permanganate. If venene – antidote available inject half contents of an ampoule into bite after injection then rest outside. If neither permanganate or venene available, wound must be deeply cauterised. Remove tourniquet after 1/2 hour if breathing fails administer artificial respiration
[underlined] 3 Rules for Tropics [/underlined] [underlined] 1 [/underlined] Never lie down with your abdomen uncovered [underlined] 2 [/underlined] Avoid constipation [underlined] 3 [/underlined] Never take alcohol until after sundown.
[page break]
[underlined] LECTURE 2. [/underlined]
[underlined] WATER [/underlined]
Over half body weight is water, 3 – 5 pints lost daily, sweat, urine, breath & [inserted] faeces. [/inserted] Minimum water requirements in permanent stations 20 gallons per man per day, in temporary camps 5 gallons per man per day. Increase these quantities in hot countries & on march 2 pints – 7 1/2 miles.
[underlined] Source of Water. [/underlined]
Sources of water in order of purity :- [underlined] 1 [/underlined] Deep Wells (artesian or otherwise) [underlined] 2 [/underlined] Springs, [underlined] 3 [/underlined] Rain Water, [underlined] 4 [/underlined] Centre of large lakes [underlined] 5. [/underlined] Midstream in rivers [underlined] 6. [/underlined] Small streams [underlined] 7 [/underlined] Near Banks of large lakes [underlined] 9 [/underlined] Near banks of rivers [author indicates this should be preceded by No 8] [underlined] 8 [/underlined] Shallow Wells [underlined] 10 [/underlined] Ponds.
Water derives impurities through minerals it flows through & suspended matter. Clarification of water is by sedimentation, filtration. Purify by Boiling, purification by filter, slow & unsatisfactory for field purpose. Chemicals – chlorine most used. Mixture chlorine & ammonia – make chloramines, chloramination [sic] used in R.A.F. water trailer.
[page break]
In field small quantity chloramine placed in airman’s water bottle after hour safe to drink One 15 grain tablet – 1 pint of water, also 2 drops iodine If poison chemicals in water must be certified by M.D. Water sources in the field must be policed to prevent pollution & drinking from unauthorised sources. Separate supplies for, drinking, cooking & ablution must all be labelled. Clean water bottles & don’t have ice cream unless sanctioned.
Catchment or water source should be fenced in & bathing prohibited. Line wells & keep covered. Springs fenced in, water from streams & lakes should be collected as far out as possible. Areas on bank should be marked White – drinking & cooking, Blue – animals & Red ablution – in that order upstream downwards
[underlined] LECTURE 3 [/underlined]
[underlined] ACCOMODATION AND CONSERVANCY IN THE FIELD. [/underlined]
Man requires 1000cu ft fresh air per hour. Air can be changed 3 times an hour without a draught. Standard bed spacing 60sq. ft per man with 6ft
[page break]
horizontal wall space. Minimum of 45sq ft in war-time. Beds – head to foot, infection extends 12ft with loud speaking & 24ft on coughing, sneezing or shouting. Ventilation may be natural or artificial. Ventilation inlets should be 5ft from floor, remove black-out screens at day-time. Keep windows open, & see black-out doesn’t interfere with getting fresh air at night.
Wash basins – 14% Baths – 1% slipper, & 4% foot & shower baths. Ablution benches 9ft long 1 – 50 men. Heated drying rooms for wet clothing should be available. 9sq ft of floor & 20 inches run of table per man is laid down. Washing up facilities provided. Conservancy 6 seats – 100 men in permanent station latrines. Tented camps if in circular tents not more than 15 in a tent Flaps face away from prevailing wind, brailing looped each morning, & on leeward side in bad weather. Floor boards raised each week, ground cleaned and aired for at least an hour.
[underlined] Sanitation in the Field. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Adequate supply of safe drinking water.
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Protection of food from contamination.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] Ventilation of hutments, tents or other quarters.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] Ample arrangements for washing & disinfectation [sic] of airmen and their clothing.
[underlined] 5. [/underlined] The disposal of excreta, refuse & waste products.
[underlined] Selection of Camp Site. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Keep away from towns, villages, in hot countries. Swamps marshy ground & banks of streams.
[underlined] 2. [/underlined] A good water supply near at hand is desirable.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] High ground is essential for drainage, steep slopes are difficult for transport, very high ground is too exposed, sites occupied by other troops within two months should be avoided.
[underlined] Camp Layout. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Front of camp should face prevailing wind.
[underlined] 2.[/underlined] Sleeping accommodation should be in front.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] Kitchens and messing accomodations [sic] to one side.
[underlined] 4. [/underlined] Ablution area to the other side.
[underlined] 5. [/underlined] Conservancy area should be situated to leeward i.e. behind.
[page break]
[underlined] Field Conservancy. [/underlined]
Daily production faeces per man is 58 ounces, urine [ditto mark] [ditto mark] is 50 ounces. Three types of latrines in common use :-
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Shallow trenches for camps not more than 3 days duration. 5 for first hundred men, 3each additional 100. Measurements 3ft long 1ft wide & 2ft deep. Sides slightly undercut – 2ft between trenches. When trench finished cover with oiled sacking or oiled paper, turf replaced, & L in white stones.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Deep trenches for 3 weeks. Measurements 10ft long 3ft wide 6-8ft per 100 men as in shallow trenches Soil removed 6” deep over area 4ft front, back & sides of trench. Sacking soaked in crude oil, loose earth mixed with crude oil & beaten down. 2 wooden battens placed front & back edge of trench & a front 18” high erected, top with 5 seats, back 5ft high. Screen in front of latrine, & roofing, duck-boards [indecipherable word] wood must be tongued & grooved to make fly proof. Disinfecting should not be used on this type.
[page break]
[underlined] 3 [/underlined] Bucket latrines in billeting areas, railway stations & in rock where impossible to dig latrines. Buckets smeared inside & out with crude oil & lids. Shallow trench – urinals, less than 3 days 10’ – 3’ wide 6” 1 – 250 men Trough – any period High backed galvanised trough 8ft long raised 2’ 3’’ – sloping to drainage pipe 1 – 100 men Funnel – pit 4ft square funnel each corner – 2’ 3” 12” wide & covered with guaze [sic] 1 – 100 men. Buckets placed near barracks at night, emptied & cleaned each morning
[underlined] LECTURE 4 [/underlined]
[underlined] FOOD, COOKHOUSES AND COOKING. [/underlined]
Essentials, Fats, Proteins, Carbohydrates, Mineral Salts and Vitamins. – Unit M.O. sees diet each week. Sweetened tea good restorative. Food should not be kept where live or sleep, near latrines, or exposed to flies. Must be kept in flyproof [sic], ratproof [sic] stores & not touch sides. Don’t eat tin foods that are blown, rusted or dented, & dont [sic] have fresh milk in hot countries liable to disease. Avoid alcohol & tobacco if possible. Nicotine depresses the heart & interferes with its efficient
[page break]
action thus leading to palpitations on exertion & shortness of breath. Nicotine aggravates tendency to gastric and duodenal ulcers. Aggravates nasal catarrh and heavy smoking over prolonged periods may cause deterioration in vision, also reduces ones ceiling several thousand feet.
[underlined] Cookhouses. [/underlined]
On one or other side of camp & away from latrines. Camp cookhouses should be shelters of timber and corrugated iron or asbestos sheeting one side open, & face away from prevailing wind. Should be a closed building when fly-proof, floors drained & impermeable to water to allow for scrubbing. Cookhouse drains supplied with grease traps, tables etc. cleaned. Swill & refuse must be kept covered & arrangements made for prompt removal. No one must be employed who has had typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, or dysentery or who is suffering from V.D. Before airmen are employed in handling of food, they must be interrogated & examined by the M.O.
[page break]
[underlined] ATMOSPHERIC AIR. [/underlined]
Oxygen comprises 20.9% and Nitrogen 78% of air, this is the same at all altitudes. At 18,000ft the pressure is half of that at sea level, and at 25,000ft it is a quarter. (Sea level pressure 760mm of mercury, 18,000’ 380mm & at 25,000’ 190mm) Oxygen exerts 1/5 of pressure at all heights (Sea level 160mm) etc. The pressure of air cannot be greater in the lungs than outside, yet space must be allowed for Carbon Dioxide. So make up of air in lung root is 100mm Oxygen 580mm Nitrogen 38mm Carbon Dioxide 42mm water The amount of oxygen must remain constant in order to saturate the blood at all altitudes. Mental efficiency, accuracy, & freedom of movement, are considerably reduced, at heights without oxygen, about 20,000ft in rarified [sic] atmosphere. Nitrogen is apt to change into a gaseous state & form gas bubbles in the tissues which attack the joints, first generally the right shoulder.
Number of cylinders at pressure of 100lbs per sq inch which supply gas sockets. If cylinder hit by a
[page break]
bullet will explode & splinters do damage. If let 7/8 out of everyone, wont explode, only break when hit. If doing lot of work adjust oxygen supply at about 5000ft more e.g. 90000’ instead of 15,000’. Plug the mask into nearest sockets. If baling out disconnect oxygen last of all, take good breaths, & pull rip-cords [underlined] immediately [/underlined]. If use oxygen, less liable to frostbite, for keeps up circulation to more, ears etc. If flying in bomber at 10,000’ft or over for an hour or over must use oxygen, if fighter pilot & climbing at a rate of 1500’ per minute must use oxygen.
[underlined] Blacking Out. [/underlined]
Occurs mainly in diving & tight turns, Human can stand 4.5 to 5 times the normal gravity. When pulling out of steep dive, centrifugal force increases, & gravity increases to that ratio as well. Weight of body, I.e. blood, muscles, etc all become 5 times their normal weight. The blood pumping organism has to pump to eyes & brain & fluid 5 times the weight, with no increase in its strength, so blood tends to flow back
[page break]
to heart & lungs. At a certain time, blood is unable to reach the eyes, & blackout occurs, but as the brain is above, it still functions, but if dive is continued, unconsciousness occurs. If in tight turns should lean forward, & bring up legs so shortening length blood has to flow, in this way some people can stand 10 & 11G. When straighten aircraft out, sight generally returns. In a climb to height pressure on middle era is greater [inserted] than [/inserted] that of external ear & drum forced outwards. In a dive drum is forced in by greater pressure outside, if dive too much ear drum is torn & deafness results. If sudden pain in eras diving, & can’t rid it by blowing, must descend at 7,000ft stages.
[underlined] First Aid Satchel. [/underlined]
Fighter plane – 1, twin engine have 2, in big planes may have 6, crew have to know where they are kept. Pair of scissors, First Field Dressing (guaze [sic] pad, sterilised, & length of bandage) St. John’s tourniquet, (block of wood, string & bandage) use it when other methods failed.
[page break]
Packets of lint, 2 Bandages 4 yards long. Packets of cotton wool, safety pins, adhesive tape, 2 triangular bandages, & 2packets of gauze, 2 tubes of burn jelly, 3 tubes of iodine.
In fire in an aircraft keep on helmet, goggles, gloves etc & as much clothing as possible to protect you from flames. Also in F.A. packet – tube of quinine. Tube of aromatic chalk & opium. Tube of aspirins. Tube of No. 9. Tin of Fulmonic Ampoules. This does away with all pain.
[diagram of Fulmonic Ampoule]
For fracture immobilise joint beneath & above fracture.
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[underlined] LAW AND ADMINISTRATION. [/underlined]
The Army, Navy and Airforce [sic] Act.
The Airforce [sic] Constitution (1917).
The Manual of Airforce [sic] Law and Kings Regulations.
[underlined] AIRMENS PRIVELEDGES [sic]. [/underlined]
[underlined] WILLS [/underlined]
An airmans [sic] will may consist of a document not attested (as a civilian’s will must be) e.g. a private letter to the person intended to benefit under it, or to someone else stating his wishes. Also a mere verbal statement of his wishes is sufficient if such a statement can be proved to the satisfaction of the court. To establish the validity of such a will it is not necessary to prove that he was aware he was making a will or had power to make one in that manner, but it must be shown that he intended to express deliberately his wishes as to the disposal
[page break]
of his property in the event of his death. Such a will is revoked (like any other will) by his subsequent marriage. It continues in force until revoked or superceeded [sic] unless its language shows an intention that it should take effect only for a limited period and in the event of the testators death during a warlike engagement
There is a special R.A.F form of will (Form F276) and there is also a space for a will on Page 8 of the airman’s pay book Form 64. Officers have no personal exemption.
[underlined] DISCIPLINE. [/underlined]
[underlined] Relations with the Press. [/underlined]
Any statements regarding general matters are made through Air Ministry. Statements regarding Wings and Units are made through Wing. H.Q, Squadron H.Q. etc. An airman must always be on his guard when conversing with a representative of the press.
[page break]
[underlined] Responsibility of Officers in General (1077). [/underlined]
Any officer has at all times to be obeyed. He is responsible at all times and anywhere for the maintenance of good order and discipline.
[underlined] Treatment of Subordinates (Clause 1078). [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] An officer of any rank will adopt towards his subordinates such methods of command and treatment as will not only ensure respect of authority, but also foster the feelings of self-respect and personal honour, which are essential to efficiency.
2 An officer will not reprove a W/O or N.C.O in the presence of other airmen, unless it is necessary for the benefit of example that the reproof be public.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] W/O’s and N.C.O’s will be guided by the foregoing principles in dealing with each other and other airmen. They will avoid any intemperate language and offensive manner.
[underlined] Criticism of Superiors Para (1080) [/underlined]
If criticism is heard – stop it.
[page break]
[underlined] Communication and Interview with Air Ministry Officials Para (1085) [underlined]
[underlined] 1. [/underlined] No correspondence on official matters may pass between airmen and A.M. officials
[underlined] 2. [/underlined] All applications for interviews etc. must pass through the Commanding Officer of the Unit. If an airman has to go to the A.M. he must always have a letter of authorisation.
[underlined] Bankruptcy Para. (1089). [/underlined]
Bankruptcy, and failure to meet debts must be reported to the C.O. and it will be decided if the commission is to be continued.
[underlined] Gambling (Section 1094). [underlined]
Gambling in any form is forbidden in the R.A.F.
[underlined] Intoxicants (1095) [/underlined]
The introduction of wines, spirits, etc, into barracks or like places is strictly forbidden. Corporals and airmen may be permitted a pint of beer with their dinner.
[underlined] Civil Employment (1096). [/underlined]
Officers and airmen must not accept directorships
[page break]
be paid consultants or agents fees unless such positions were held before appointment.
[underlined] Concealment of V.D. (1102). [/underlined]
Any airman contracting V.D. must report it immediately. Failure to do so is a criminal offence.
[underlined] Witnesses in Private Law suits 1103. [/underlined]
If a witness, an airman’s name and unit is given, and it will then traverse the usual channels, C.O. etc. An officer or airman must refuse if asked to appear as an expert witness, if pressed then report the matter.
[underlined] THE AIRMAN. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 Dress [/underlined] [underlined]
At all times must be correct.
[underlined] 2 Discipline [/underlined]
Every airman must obey all orders without question.
[underlined] 3 General Deportment. [/underlined]
Airman must salute at all times. All officers holding commissioned rank.
[underlined] Airmen’s Messing Committee’s etc. [/underlined]
Airmens [sic] Messing Committee comprises of the President A.M.C.
[page break]
1 N.C.O or a W/O. Senior Cook and a representative of airmen. The [deleted][indecipherable word] [/deleted]committee meets once every week.
[underlined] Airmen’s Diet. [/underlined]
Consists of, 4 1/2ozs Boneless Beef or 6oz of Beef or Mutton per day. 12oz of Bread per day. 2/7oz Tea per day. 2oz sugar per day, 1/4oz salt per day – these are basic rations.
[underlined] Basic amount from the NAAFI. [/underlined]
4/7oz cheese per day 1oz of jam per day, 9oz Bacon per week 1oz of margarine per day. There is also a commuted ration allowance. A rebate of 6% is allowed but this is spent on the welfare of all airmen.
[underlined] Service Institutes [/underlined]
Really began in 1800 – pedlars and bagmen used to follow the troops round. In 1863 a Regimental Canteen was formed, the idea being to provide as much as possible for the soldiers. In 1894 a Canteen and Mess Co-operative Society was formed. The society bought up stores in bulk to stock camp canteens.
In 1917 an Army Canteen Board was set up which was later joined by the Navy. It became
[page break]
the [deleted] [indecipherable abbreviation] [/deleted] N>A>C>B> and it also ran a R.A.F. canteen. In 1921 the N.A.A.F.I. was set up.
[underlined] Objects of the N.A.A.F.I. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1. [/underlined] To supply all messing requirements other than those supplied by service sources, for the airman’s mess.
[underlined] 2. [/underlined] To provide a club for corporals, L.A.C’s, A.C.1’s &A.C.2’s, apprentices and boy entrants where they may read, write, play games and hold entertainments etc. and where they may obtain refreshments and articles of common requirements at reasonable prices.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] To supply by means of a rebate on purchased money for the station institute funds.
4 To supply families of officers and airmen with household requirements at reasonable prices.
[underlined] The N.A.A.F.I. Policy. [/underlined]
Controlled as to a policy by a council of twelve – 4 Army, 4 Navy and 4 R.A.F. The board of management consists of three civilian business men and one officer from each service. Locally, a committee is formed consisting of one corporal two A/C’s sometimes
[page break]
a Flt/Sgt. or a Sergeant. An officer is at the head of the committee.
[underlined] Organisation of the R.A.F. [/underlined]
[hierarchical diagram showing, in order] R.A.F. R.A.F.R. Reserve of Air Force Officers Special Reserve R.A.F.V.R. A.A.F
[underlined] The Ancillary Services. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Princess Mary’s R.A.F. Nursing Service.
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] Education Service.
[underlined] 3. [/underlined] Construction staff. Directorate of Works.
[underlined] 4 [/underlined] A.T.C.
The Government of the R.A.F is vested in the Crown and the command is in the hands of the Air Council.
[underlined] The Air Council. [/underlined]
The Secretary of State for Air (President of the Air Council) appointed by the Prime Minister.
The Permanent Under Secretary of State for Air (appointed by S.S.A).
[ditto mark] Parliamentary [six ditto marks] ([three ditto marks])
Chief of Air Staff appointed by the King.
[page break]
Air Member for Personnel and Air Member for Supply and Organisation, and Air Member for Training, are all appointed by the secretary of sate for air. He may also appoint from other members.
If anything goes wrong in Parliament regarding air matters the Secretary of State has to defend.
[underlined] Home Commands. [/underlined]
Bomber, Fighter, Coastal, Training, Army Co-operation, Balloon, Maintenance, Technical Training.
[underlined] Commands Abroad. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Aden [underlined] 2 [/underlined] India [underlined] 3 [/underlined] Mediterranean 4 Iraq [underlined] 5. [/underlined] Far East [underlined] 6 [/underlined] Middle East [underlined] 7 [/underlined] Trans-Jordan [underlined] 8 [/underlined] Palestine.
A command is usually commanded by an Air Marshal or Vice Marshall – known as A.O.C. in C. Groups are territorial units and are concerned with group personal operations. A Group is commanded by an Air Vice Marshal or a Senior Air Commodore. Wings & stations come directly under Group and are commanded usually by Group Captains.
[page break]
[underlined] STATION ADJUTANT. [/underlined]
Is the confidential officer of the staff room, responsible for filing documents, leave passes and warrants, issue of D.R.O’s & Wing Standing Orders, maintenance of discipline, charge sheets, R.A.F. service papers, goods, drill, billeting etc.
Each Wing is divided into 3, 4 or 5 squadrons. There are 3 flights of 5 machines in a bomber squadron and 4 flights of 3 machines in a fighter squadron. The squadrons are commanded by by a Squadron Leader, and each squadron is divided into a number of flights & each i/c flt/comdr.
[underlined] COURTS MARTIAL [/underlined]
All confessions must be made voluntarily. The court can only charge & find him guilty of the offence he is in court for. A prisoner need not answer any questions that may reflect upon his wife or family.
[underlined] COURT OF INQUIRY. [/underlined]
Convened by Air Council or A.O.C or Officer Commanding Its purpose is to collect intelligently & systematically facts
[page break]
concerning minor crimes or other offences.
A court of enquiry need not express their opinion at a trial if [underlined] not [/underlined] asked.
[underlined] AIRMAN’S DOCUMENTS. [/underlined]
Each airmen has two sets of documents, first original documents, medical etc. kept by Air Officer I/C Records seldom out of his possesion [sic]. Other is Service Documents, these contain all details of airmans [sic] service life. Very important & must be kept with care, & fairly endorsed with unbiased opinion of character.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined] Airmans [sic] Record Sheet (active service) Form 1580
[underlined] 2 [/underlined] General Conduct Sheet – Form 121.
3 Medical History Envelope Form 48.
In [underlined] 1 [/underlined] have official no, name rank, R.A.F trade, date of birth, religion, occupation in civil life. Last enlisted current engagement, type of reservist, whether married etc Next of Kin, then section 1. In 3 columns :- Unit from which Unit to which Date of Effect [indecipherable word] movements and casualties.
[page break]
Section 2 – 3 columns :-
Promotions, Acting appointments, Remusterings [sic] Authority Description of Appointment
Section 3 – entitled Good Conduct Badges. 4 columns Authority 1st 2nd or 3rd Good C.S. – Awarded Deprived, Restored, Date of effect Section 4 – entitled Character & trade Proficiency (to be assesed [sic] on every occasion on which an airman is struck off the strength of the unit). E.g. on posting, admission to hospital, death, etc. Rank/Character/Trade Classification/Proficiency [letters A B C underneath] /Whether Specially Recommended, Recommended, or not Recommended for promotion/Date/Signature & Rank of Commanding Officer. Section 5 – Decorations, Mentions, Special Commendations by A.O.C’s etc.
Assessment of character when leaving station & at Dec 31st every year.
[page break]
Form 121 – General Conduct Sheet.
Unit & Place/Date of offence/Rank/Cases of Drunkeness/Offence/Witnesses/Punishment Awarded/Date of award or order dispensing with trial/By whom awarded/[indecipherable word] & Rank of Officer making entry with remarks & date.
All offences put on sheet except, [underlined]1 [/underlined] Sentence of a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, if a fine (except for drunkenness), and no imprisonment has been imposed in default therefore, bound over, or if case has been dismissed with costs, if R.A.F. name been disgraced, Wing Comdr or over authorises entry should be made. [underlined] 2 [/underlined] One day’s C.C. or one extra guard or picket [underlined] 3 [/underlined] Admonition. These sheets are destroyed if entries on them [underlined] 1. [/underlined] Completion of 6 months from the date of attestation, [underlined] 2 [/underlined] After 2 years expiration of the last punishment [underlined] 3 [/underlined] When attaining substansive rank of sergeant [underlined] 4 [/underlined] When transferred to the reserve. New sheet marked – “Sheet Destroyed on – Date – under K.R. 2154
[page break]
Form 48 – Medical History (Confidential).
Contains, [underlined] 1 [/underlined] Contents of envelope [underlined] 2 [/underlined] Medical Category [underlined] 3 [/underlined] Inoculations [underlined] 4 [/underlined] Vaccinations [underlined] 5 [/underlined] Dental Treatment [underlined] 6 [/underlined] Spectacles & Surgical Appliances [underlined] 7 [/underlined] Blood Group.
[underlined] PUNISHMENTS OFFICERS MAY ADMINISTER. [/underlined]
[table of punishments]
POWERS OF A COMMANDING OFFICER.
Every C.O. must see that the charges against an airman are investigated and dealt within 48 hours. Every investigation must be made in the presence of the accused who can
[page break]
question or bring witnesses or demand the proceedings be taken on oath.
[underlined] 1. [/underlined] C.O. can dispense case to proper R.A.F. authorities (Refer to higher authorities).
[underlined] 2. [/underlined] Adjourn case to reduce evidence in writing. Accused can be tried by Court Martial but he must be asked if he agrees to his punishment, without knowing what it is.
Courts Martial
Accused must be allowed communication with his friends, legal advisors, and he must be given a copy of the charge, so he can prepare his defence.
When an officer is charged he must be charged by an officer of similar rank, except for drunkenness when any officer may.
Kings Regulations and Air Ministry Orders must always be at hand at court martials. The president of the Court Martial is responsible for all proceedings. Rules of evidence is the same as ordinary courts of England.
[page break]
[underlined] A. [/underlined] Only the charge must be proved
[underlined] B. [/underlined] What facts are known.
[underlined] C [/underlined] All innocent until proved guilty, the prosecution must prove the case.
[underlined] D [/underlined] Admissability of facts (opinion is not evidence neither is hearsay.) Wife of prisoner can only give evidence for her husband, not against him. Witnesses must not be asked a leading question.
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[blank back cover]
[page break]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
RAF Training Notes
Description
An account of the resource
A book of lecture notes covering British, German, Italian and American fighter, Coastal, Army co-operation, bombers and dive bombers.
Notes on Hygiene, Water, Accommodation and conservancy in the field, Food, cookhouses and cooking, Law and administration.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Geach
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
78 pages of handwritten notes
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Training material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MGeachDG1394781-160401-17
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Regia Aeronautica
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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
Steve Christian
David Bloomfield
aircrew
B-17
B-24
Beaufighter
Blenheim
Catalina
Defiant
Do 18
Do 217
Do 24
Halifax
Hampden
Hudson
Hurricane
Ju 52
Ju 87
Ju 88
Lysander
Manchester
Me 109
Me 110
Mosquito
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
sanitation
Spitfire
Stirling
Sunderland
Swordfish
training
Walrus
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/834/18873/YGeachDG1394781v2.2.pdf
60427241f61034da5e5899391012c1a2
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geach, David
D Geach
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/218400/"></a>52 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer David Geach (1394781 Royal Air Force) and contains his diaries, correspondence, photographs of his crew, his log book, cuttings and items relating to being a prisoner of war. After training in Canada, he flew operations as a bomb aimer with 623 and 115 Squadrons until he was shot down 24 March 1944 and became a prisoner of war. He was instrumental in erecting a memorial plaque to the Air Crew Reception Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. <br />The collection also contains a scrap book of photographs.<br /><br />Additional information on his crew is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/218400/">IBCC Losses Database.</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Harry Wilkins and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Geach, DG
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] S.O. Book 136. (Indexed) [/underlined]
Code 28-74-0.
G [crest] R
[circled SUPPLIED FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE]
T. 1599. Wt. 10569. 16,500 Bks. 2/38. P.I.
[page break]
[underlined] BOOK 1 [/underlined]
COMMENCING MY LIFE IN THE R.A.F. UP TILL THE END OF I.T.W.
[page break]
[underlined] Monday February 9th. [/underlined]
Something gave me the wild idea, of trying to keep a diary of my life in the R.A.F. and try is the right word, for I doubt if it will last more than a fortnight. I was sworn in as a U/T Pilot last August & have been waiting until to-day when I at last entered the R.A.F. My first day is now over.
Five of us from work, met & arrived here at 10 A.M. Bill Wren was separated from us, as he is an Observer, then Frank P & Frank B, were put in Flight 6, whilst Len Bacon & I went in Flight 9. We hung about this morning at Lords Cricket Ground, filled in numerous forms, & had a quick medical. Later we marched to the clothing stores, this is a converted garage, a big place, & out of it recruits were pouring with, kit-bag
[page break]
articles of clothing, on their arms, & tin helmet on their head, a most comical sight. Inside we hurried from counter to counter & emerged in the same rag-a-muffin state as the others, the evacuation of Dunkirk had nothing on us.
We marched to our quarters then, a big block of flats, called Hall Rd. [indecipherable word], & then to dinner. It was then 4-30 P.M. & I had been since 8 a.m. without a bite. Food isn’t too bad not cooked well though. After, we went back & made our beds, & checked the kits, then we were found to be in the wrong room, some corporals fault, so we undid the beds & dragged them away. We had to stay in to-night other nights we have 5-30 – 10.30 off Sat, 1.30 – 23-59 Sun 12.30 – 10.30. Lights out are at 11.0 p.m Reveille 6 A.M. I’ve written a fair bit about my first day so being tired I’m off to [deleted] bed[/deleted]. bed.
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[underlined] Thursday Feb. 12th [/underlined]
Our first week is well under way now, it’s a swine in the morning, reveille at 6 A.M, & we should be washed, dressed, shaved, beds made, room swept, kit cleaned & at breakfast by 6.30. Its pitch black & we have to queue in the dark & cold for about half an hour before we get in the dining hall, its underground. As I said before, food is none too good. Our day consists mainly of marching, lectures & drill. Weve [sic] had 2 hours Morse & have to receive 4 w.p.m at the end of the week, & 2 hours maths yesterday & 2 tomorrow, exam is at end of week also. These exams decide whether we go to I.T.W or Brighton (for further training) or stay here a bit longer. Had a lecture by Group Captain – name is Gillighan was a Kent cricketer
[page break]
decent chap – at Swiss Cottage Odeon. Haven’t been home or out any night yet.
[underlined] Friday Feb 13th [/underlined]
We no longer jump out of bed at reveille, we’re all dog-tired & half-asleep in the day. Had our final 2 hours Maths to-day & then the exam this afternoon, we went to Regents Park Zoo for it. Funny to sit & watch lions walking round, while doing maths. Dont [sic] think I did too well, guess its Brighton for me. [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] Tailor saw our uniforms Wednesday, & we took them to the stores for alteration yesterday. Got them back to-day & all tried them on, doesn’t look too bad, all nice & new though. We have to scrub our room to-night for C.O’s inspection to-morrow. Dont [sic] think I mentioned it,
[page break]
we have to put our 3 ‘biscuits’ (small mattresses) with blankets & 2 sheets in certain order & position, & towel laid on bed every day, & if anything’s an inch out theres [sic] hell of a row. Am meeting Mary at dance to-night if I can make it.
[underlined] Monday Feb 16th. [/underlined]
Got to dance with Len Bacon, & saw the old pals at office, only had 1 1/2 hours there. On C.O’s inspection he saw a pair of boots on a bed instead of under, & a case in sight, so he declared the room disgraceful, & we stayed in for our Saturday afternoon, washing doors, while every one else had gone out or home. I just managed to catch Mary in time at Holborn Stn. & we went to the ‘Globe’ & saw Evelyn Williams in his play “The Morning Star” Got back by 11-10 P.M. On Sunday we
[page break]
marched around trying to find a church for church parade, as the one we should have attended didn’t hold 1500 like they claimed. The padre was decent & only said a prayer lasting 3 mins so we would be able to get home early. Booked out & was home at ten to one. All asked hundreds of questions. Mary came over, I slept most of time, arrived back at 10-10.
Yesterday was busy day, went to Odeon for lectures in morning, did P.T for first time in the afternoon, in gym kit, pretty cold. Then gas lecture & had to march & drill with bare necks, & no greatcoats in the street. Regular swine our corporal, tiny chap too, guess he’s after his third stripe. Wrote letters
[page break]
this evening. We’ve got our inoculations to-morrow, & we’re in a funk, according to the tales we’ve heard most of the chaps faint on the spot. Also on guard all night so we should be in a sorry state by Wednesday.
[underlined] Tuesday (afternoon) Feb 17th [/underlined]
Well our inoculations are over, & they’re not too bad so far. Marching there we saw a couple of fellows who had had it, being helped along, so it didn’t cheer us. We had two in the chest and Vaccination & Blood Testing in the arm. About three or four came over groggy & faint in our flight, we’ve got all the afternoon off until 5-30 p.m when we parade for guard, our arms are beginning to stiffen, & our chests ache so will need something to get us through it.
[page break]
[underlined] Thursday Feb 19th [/underlined]
Feeling quite A.1 again now, we did our guard, although by Army Regulations, we should have 48 hours off after inoculations, 44 of the flight had light duties – like pickets etc. & had the usual nights ‘sleep’, but I happened to be one of the unlucky ones, and I with five others did guard at the door, 2 on & 4 off, & got snatches of sleep somehow but was half asleep all yesterday. Light day though only fitted for oxygen masks & collected identity cards & discs, my plate in it looks as though I’ve all the cares of the world on my shoulders. Today we had our first pay parade, terrific amount of waiting etc. all for 30/-. This afternoon we had a lecture by the padre, a
[page break]
real decent fellow, a pilot of the last war incidentally. He particularly impressed upon us that many of us would come off the pilots course a
& finish as an [deleted] bomber [/deleted] observer or W.O.P. – Air Gnr. Marched half-way round London & dashed to Abbey Lodge for a medical. Somehow I didn’t have to have one as my last was only six months ago, four others were in the same position. So am looking forward to a quiet night and a good bath, tonight if I can make it.
[underlined] Tuesday Feb 24th [/underlined]
Have let this slip for a bit, so have lot of writing to do. Same old bind marching, drilling etc. & cursing the corps. guts, in the C.Os inspection the gas-capes weren’t rolled with the buttons dead in the front. Maybe this sort of stuff will
[page break]
make us better pilots, I don’t quite see how though. Got home alright Sat & Sun, stood waiting for an hour before Church parade Been trying to get our thirteen pieces of webbing into one for the march past on Wednesday. We assemble it, roll the gas capes dead to 15 ins, & then have to take it down, put it together again, nothing but messing around. Have been shown films of engineering, inventions, road-building, & farming, so were [sic] beginning to wonder what were [sic] here for, anyway we sleep through them. We do P.T in Regents park, talk about brass monkeys, were nearly frozen. Had to parade in full webbing & kit packed to be inspected to-day, & stood for an hour in it, our backs were nearly broken
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We were supposed to have an Inter Flight Drill competition to-day, but the C.O said we were the smartest [inserted] - ? [/inserted] easily, so it isn’t being held. We should worry about the honour, our corp. will be a good way to getting his third stripe, out of our sweat, but will find nothing extra in our pay packet. Every other flight have their grading results, but 9 Flight, last as usual, has nothing. We might get our posting to-morrow – expect we’ll all be for the Sunny South. We’re leaving here Saturday anyway, & are confined to camp Friday night, so it will be good-bye to A.C.R.C. or assie-tassie as they call it, we won’t weep tears over leaving anyway, wonder if anyone will do the corporal on a dark night.
[underlined] Thursday Feb 26th [/underlined]
Still preparing for this march
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past, it still hasn’t come off. We spent most of yesterday standing around in our full pack & webbing until in the afternoon we were inspected by the Squadron commander. He found various little faults as usual, & we had to stay in to correct them, I with 24 others were ordered to have hair-cuts, they even have Air Force regulations for this – no hair should be longer than two inches. Then we had to wait for our pay books making the time 8.30 P.M. I was going home to say good-bye but it was then impossible. My night vision is above average, only a couple of others had that, doubt if it will mean anything.
Had our posting results to-day, I’ve been graded C, that’s passed signals, failed maths,
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so I’m going to Brighton. Out of those from work, Bill Wren & Len Bacon are going to I.T.W, & Frank P, Frank B & Ken Wyatt are coming with me. Our famous flat 32 (we’ve been in more trouble than any other flat in the building, had the honour of being the first flat to be kept in by [deleted] him [/deleted] [inserted] Caesar [/inserted] is well split up. Ken, Ray & Frank are going to one I.T.W (incidentally Ken went sick to-day & that defers his posting) Len & Tom to another I.T.W, whilst Pete, Ernie, George Mike & Bill, & myself head south. “Taffy” & Ralph aren’t posted yet for they are undergoing eye training. We shan’t be sorry to leave this place, but its a shame our flat couldn’t stick together. We’re waiting for another inspection to-day, by the Squadron Comdr. If we’re kept in to-night
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there’ll be almost a riot. An order has come through that we have to acquaint ourselves with the Group Captain’s car, & salute it every time it passes in the street. I guess that is supposed to shorten the war somehow. [inserted] – Farmer and then Bill Wren is for Brighton like me. [/inserted]
[underlined] Three Hours Later [/underlined]
C.O’s inspection now over & wonder of wonders he said, we were about the best he had seen & it was a [underlined] very good show [/underlined]! So we’re free now at four ock, [sic] so am going home at 5.30 when we can book out, & enjoy the last night with the family and Mary.
[underlined] Friday Feb 26th [/underlined]
This is the last entry I shall make at A.C.R.C. we leave tomorrow morning, the times of departure will be announced to-night. We have just finished packing
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& its a hell of a job to get everything in our packs. Tomorrow we all go our various ways, its a shame really to break all the crowd up, for they’re all decent chaps, wonder when we shall meet again. Felt the first twinge of pride in the R.A.F, that the Fl/lt was always lecturing about, yesterday, when after all our sweating & cursing at the corporal, we marched along, the smartest turn-out there, I guess it was for our own good after all.
We have done nothing but hang around to-day, its been nice & easy for a change. I’ve been posted to ‘M’ Flight at Brighton. I wonder what kind of a place it is and what the fellows are like, still I’ll know soon enough. Seeing its our last night I guess all ‘Flat 32’ will go out on the beer & wake up feeling awful to-morrow – well next time I write will be at Brighton.
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[underlined] Monday March 2nd [/underlined]
We’re now at Brighton & are viewing it with mixed feelings I don’t like it so much as A.C.R.C. Our billet is the Hotel Metropole & is a fine big place overlooking the sea. There are three others in this room, Frank P, Bill Monk, who was in my flat at Hall Rd, & a chap named John, who came off a WOP/AG’s course. The room has bare stone floor which isn’t so bad, but there is no heating, & no wash bowl, & about four roomfull’s [sic] of fellows use the one opposite, that makes about 25 chaps to one wash-basin. All windows & doors are open throughout the day & a perpetual gale sweeps through.
This seems to be a worse place for red-tape – we have a stronger word for it. I’ll give a few examples, we have to green
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blanco the respirators – against K.R’s by the way – which makes them an evil green & destroys their water-proofing ability. White blanco our flashes, do own P.T shoes all over with blacking, even John who has brown shoes. A coat-hangar is issued & the gas-cape is hung in a certain manner – different to that at A.C.R.C. – over it. The blankets etc. are folded the same, but sheets must be rolled & flattened until they are the same thickness as the blankets. Towel is laid out touching the biscuits & kit-bag laid under the bed with end of it in line with edge of towel. Boots & P.T shoes & water-bottle are stood in order at the foot of the bed. The mug – issued to us – is placed in the centre of the towel, with knife handle downwards in centre, spoon on the left & fork on the right, oh! & the handle of the mug must point to the right. All this & 67 miles across this water – Jerry is training like hell to smash us.
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The food here is cooked by women however, & is decent, we actually had [underlined] egg [/underlined] & bacon for Sunday breakfast. No church parade yesterday & after 12 we viewed the town & sea, visited a cinema at night, lot longer show than in London. I am now in ‘B’ Flight, & there are 151 in this, our day is from 7.40 parade. – then classes from 8 A.M. till 12-35 & 2.0 P.M. till 6.15 P.M. so were [sic] gonna be busy. With all this cleaning etc. we won’t have many evenings out either. Fellow in room opposite heard his brother – Spitfire pilot – was killed on ops’ yesterday, so applied for compassionate leave. C.O was away so they told him to wait until to-day & some pilot officer (ground staff) airily remarked “Oh: well weve [sic] all got to go sometime you know”. He got leave to-day. Well will see what life is [inserted] like [/inserted] here this week.
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[underlined] Thursday March 5th (morning) [/underlined]
It is a difficulty to find a moment to make entries in this diary, down here. Out time is fully occupied, parade 7.40 then classes at 8-0 till 12.30 with 1/4 hours break, we queue for dinner then, & parade again at 1.40 for classes at 2.0 until 6-15 when we queue for tea. It is like a school for we change from Signals to Morse or Lecture etc every hour. We certainly have enough Maths, and I only pray I’ll pass the exam. Queuing for meals is better than Hall Rd, it winds in single file right up the stair-cases to the 5th floor, but they certainly get rid of them quickly.
Our room is on the 5th floor & we have 145 stairs to climb each time. The routine of blanco etc. hasn’t been as binding as we thought & time passes quickly.
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The C.O. doesn’t seem too bad after all, a bit strict but he’s fair. The chaps billeted in the Grand Hotel next door have a worse time than us, their food isn’t so good, & the squadron-leader they have for a C.O. well – I spoke to some fellows who were on ‘Jankers’ & asked their offences. One got 7 days jankers for a tunic button being dirty, another two had 7 days one for speaking and the other for looking round when they had been ‘Standing at Ease’ for half-hour. On an inspection this C.O. takes a piece of string with him & runs it up the blanket pack & if its 1/4” out [deleted] they get [/deleted] of the required width they get a warning & 3 days fatigues, if it happens to be 1/4" out again – jankers. All these little trimmings are added because ours is supposed to be a disciplinary course.
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One good thing, we’ve had nothing like the amount of “square bashing” I expected. I’ve got a huge lump like a tumour [deleted] come up [/deleted] [inserted] appear [/inserted] on my left knee, so I reported sick. The M.O. felt it & said it was nothing, & when I asked if it would go away he replied he doubted if it would, - it didn’t trouble him as long as it doesn’t injure my body in any way that would prevent me doing the job the R.A.F. wants, it reminds me in a disgusting way of breeding cattle. Its strange really because most of the M.O’s are really decent & know their work from A – Z & look after you ever so well.
Did my first guard here Tues. night, I was black-out patrol, a nice early ‘mike’, I had usual sleep. Owing to being on guard though, I missed swimming in the Organised Games afternoon, and I regretted that a great deal.
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[underlined] Saturday March 7th – (afternoon) [/underlined]
One week is now over, had our first real drill period on Friday, but was nothing compared with that at A.C.R.C. On Thursday after I had made the last entry we went to the ‘Princes’ Hall, a ball-room taken over by the R.A.F, & had a lecture by a Wing-Comdr. from Air-Sea Rescue. We had heard most of the stuff before but he gave us some interesting tales. Out of 1800 rescues made only 2 have worked perfectly from the time of ditching to the rescue, snags nearly always crop up. Another time a Hun pilot landed in the drink in mid-Channel, & E-boats & our H.S.L’s both went for him. The Messerschmitt escort shot up two of our boats & the crews took to the life-boat. So we sent three Hurricanes
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who shot down one Messerschmitt, & chased the other two back. So along came 12 Mess & back went our 3 Hurricanes, Fighter-Command didn’t like it so up went 12 Hurricanes & ding-dong it went. Meantime the Navy had sent our surface craft to clean the Channel of E-boats – so a small war waged all over one man. It only ended with coming darkness, for both sides had reinforcements standing by, & because an E-boat picked up the Hun. Some of the things they have on these rubber dinghies are still hush-hush. One is an invention which marvellously changes a quarter of a pint of sea-water into [underlined] drinking water [/underlined]. Another was a tin of soup & you lit a small tab on the top with waterproof matches & in 7 mins there was a can of hot soup. A small wireless is now included & they are experimenting with a
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rocket-kite to be fired from a pistol to carry up the aerial about 200 ft. Other gadgets such as floatable torch, floatable knife certainly make it a wonderful achievement. Had our usual quota of maths & signals. Today because a couple of rooms were dirty on inspection, we were all confined to barracks this afternoon & this evening, but cheers! its now been cancelled. I’m off to try & find a photographer’s to record this ugly dial.
[underlined] Tuesday March 10th (afternoon) [/underlined]
Had a look round the town Saturday, visited photographers, & then we finished with visit to cinema. Sunday was a nice restful day, with [underlined] egg, [/underlined] bacon & sausage for breakfast again, then church parade. There is a lot less hanging around for the Church parade than at A.C.R.C.
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In the afternoon we spent a lovely lazy afternoon, lounging on a seat in the sunshine, on the prom. I filled the afternoon by writing, a letter to Mary & sun-bathing at the same time. A short alert was sounded, first I’ve heard for ages, only gun fire was heard in the distance. On news it was announced that a Heinkel was shot down at Worthing by the convoy we had seen pass through. A M.T.B & a cable-ship were hove-to here most of the day. There is ample opportunity for aircraft rec. here as numerous types are constantly skimming the houses. Sunday evening was spent in the usual cleaning routine. A good part of Monday was spent in drill, but was most enjoyable in the sun, its marvellous the amount of people who stop to stare, we’d be the envy of all buskers. There’s certainly no war –
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- effort noticeable among a throng of pleasure-seekers, & nice wealthy people who have left the noise of bomb-battered London. Two hours were spent this morning in cleaning the room to the nth degree for Wing-Comdr’s inspection. Marvel of marvels he found no faults & some late passes were actually issued. I collected the photographs to-day & they were so lousy I promptly destroyed them. I have a break now as it is Org Games this afternoon & I intend to go swimming.
[underlined] Wednesday March 11th (dinner-time) [/underlined]
We had an enjoyable swim yesterday afternoon, in a small sea-water baths 25 yds by 10 yds. There were 90 of us in it, but when it cleared it was pretty comfortable. In the evening we went to the Theatre Royal, where the management allow us in the 3/6d seats for 1/-
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pretty decent of them. The show was “Other People’s Houses”, I had seen it at the Ambassadors, but this was a good performance. One point I forgot to mention [deleted] was [/deleted] in the previous entry was that on Monday we set up a record for dressing, washing & making bed-packs. We slept until 7.20 & had to parade at 7.40, boy! did we move but we made it alright. Yesterday they tried to catch us napping without our respirators, by letting tear-gas loose without warning, but we got through alright. Today its been pouring all day, & I guess we were down for drill, for we’ve been hanging about doing nothing, so I seized this opportunity of making this entry. Some baa-lamb annexed our electric light bulb last night & substituted another dim one, so it looks like a raiding expedition for us to-night. Ah! dinner-time I’m off.
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[underlined] Friday March 13th (morning) [/underlined]
Usual programme of maths, signals, drill etc. beginning to get keyed up for the exam on Tues, one moment I think I can certainly pass & then the next I can’t see how I can possibly do it, still we’ll just have to wait and see. Its Friday 13th to-day & although I’m not superstitious, I’m wondering if Fate has any surprises in store. We all returned from our ops’ Wed. night complete with bright new bulb, no casualties though a few narrow squeaks. The fellow who is the sorry owner of the dim bulb, will now do some switching & so it goes on.
Yesterday all the airmen down here that could possibly be spared, paraded for the Wing march-past. We all paraded just by the Aquarium on Marine Parade, & then all marched past
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the Wing Comdr who takes the salute. This bright idea & waste of time originates from him only, and the dais he stands on to take the salute, was built just for that purpose, of, concrete, bricks & steel, all materials needed for the war-effort, at a cost of £120. Then a semi-patriotic address followed, in which he excused the petty rules, such as position of drinking mug etc. as training to make us good pilots. He is the one responsible for blancoing the respirators, some of these pocket dictators make me sick. Still maybe it will end one fine day, & we’ll really get cracking on what we joined up for.
Last night I was on guard & got fire-picket, 2 0n, 4 off, as usual. We cut for different guards & with my usual abomidable [sic] luck, I drew a 3 & last guard, so only had 4 hours sleep, well I’ll never be able to make that up so will probably fall asleep in classes.
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[underlined] Monday March 16th (morning) [/underlined]
The week-end seems to have flown by, it usually does, but this week-end has gone [deleted] unuas [/deleted] unusually quickly, due to the fact no doubt, that both our Maths & Signals exams are to-day. Signals is next hour & Maths this afternoon, naturally were [sic] in a blue funk, still maybe all will come right in the end.
We’ve met no end of fellows who’ve passed here, gone to I.T.W, then they gave them a similar exam, right away, heaven knows why, & there chaps [deleted] made [/deleted] [inserted] came [/inserted] a cropper & back they came. This is about the easiest course to become discouraged and ‘browned-off’ on. Here are we desperately wanting to fly & fight, & they do everything they can to stop you, & cause failures by exams which have no bearing on the course. Lord knows how many, excellent pilots-to-be have been put off, just because
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they were rusty on Equations or another minor branch of Maths. It certainly drives me into the frame of thought, that it is impossible to even be a pilot.
Frank & I had a most pleasant surprise yesterday, when Ken Little & Frank Jose, shouted to us on the prom. They were on their annual leave & had started on a cycling holiday, & their first stop was Brighton. It was like a bolt from the blue to see some-one from the office down here - & fairly knocked us back. Frank B then came along, & we three listened to all the news they had of the office. Ken was attested for the R.A.F last week, so we gave him all the ‘gen’ on our course.
A terrific amount of activity was going on here yesterday, with planes whizzing around, M.T.B’s scurrying along with convoys, a miniature invasion almost. ‘A’ & ‘C’ flights have been drafted for overseas, I don’t know whether I envy or pity them.
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[underlined] Wednesday March 18th [/underlined]
Well our exams are over now, I managed to scrape 100% in Morse, the other three also got through, we’re all hanging on now just waiting for the maths results, its pretty binding. Tuesday saw us taking another exam, this time the Gas exam still it was pretty easy & it doesn’t count with posting. The rest of the day was usual routine.
On Wednesday afternoon we had the Organised Games, & being as it was persistently raining, they abandoned football, rugger & swimming & we were all supposed to go on a 5 mile run. The prospect of running through the rain had no attractions for us, so about 9 of us stayed in a room until the transport had left, luckily there was no roll-call. The buses were supposed to take them 5 miles.
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out & they had to run back, half of them jumped out at the first corner. This evening we’re going to a Wing Concert at Prince’s Hall – should be good.
[underlined] Friday March 20th [/underlined]
Feel bucked now, our results have arrived, all four of us have passed, & we went on posting parade. Once more the splitting up begins, Frank & Bill are going to 8 I.T.W Newquay, John is staying here for a week, whilst I am going to 12 I.T.W at St Andrews. Phew! what a journey its over 500 miles from here & I guess we’ll move off to-night. Guess we’ll have to struggle with the packs and everything once more, still we should be able to snatch some sleep, one of the fellows said its supposed to be under snow there – Anyway I guess we’ll know soon enough, I’m a bit sorry to leave this station it
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has been fairly ‘cushy’ considering, & besides missing old Bill & Frank, I shall be at a station without another fellow from the office for the first time. A week ago Ken Wyatt was taken to hospital with a temperature of 103o & he’s still no better – poor chap. I don’t know where Bill Wren is posted to, he’s on this floor.
The Wing Concert on Wednesday, was an excellent show, & they only had a week to rehearse it. The C.O & his wife were there and they enjoyed the cracks made at him. About the biggest laugh came when in the middle of an act a fellow in pyjamas came out rubbing his eyes & enquired “Anyone seen a broom?” – we shall certainly remember Brighton by this cry. For in the morning when we have to sweep our rooms in a short space of time, there are about 5 brooms to
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70 rooms, hence the plaintive cry. Another pet phrase is “You’ve had it,” meaning its your lot” “or your end is in sight” thats [sic] about as near as it can be translated. One fellow in his gas exam said “Apply anti-gas ointment to a mustard gas burn within two minutes otherwise – you’ve had it.” Ah! well I guess I might as well draw this diary’s life at Brighton to a close, it goes on a 4 – 500 mile journey to-night, like me it is certainly seeing life. Well the next entry will be made in the land of the heather.
[underlined] Monday March 23rd [/underlined]
Here I am safe & sound across the border, & the week-end and introduction to our course are now over. The actual travelling time was 19 hours for the journey we paraded at 4.45 p.m Friday at Brighton & reached St. Andrews dead at noon Saturday. There
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wasn’t a great deal of hanging about which is so usual on postings – but the night express to Edinburgh was 2 1/2 hours late owing to thick mist. It was my first visit to Scotland, & I expected very rugged scenery, but being on the East Coast the countryside is very pleasing.
St Andrews is very old-worldly, & the architecture seems a trifle grim to my English eye, but it’s a very nice town. We have a comfortable billet in a nice small hotel named Abbotsford. Oh! by the way I forgot to mention our journey was accomplished on 3 small sandwiches, a pork pie – our rations & 6d sustenance allowance – they certainly think we’re tough here. To resume everything is top-hole here – the food, accomodation, [sic] beds & a hundred other small details that can make or mar a billet. If we’re lucky
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& don’t fail our maths exam on Weds week, (& I’m praying to the Lord that I don’t for I want to stay on this course) then we complete a ten week course & go on a weeks leave at the end of it.
The course itself means constant swotting from the word go, we take our exams in Aircraft Recog. – we have to know 86 types – Signals – 6 w.p.m in sending & receiving both buzzer & Aldis lamp – Navigation, Law & Administration, [inserted] Anti-Gas [/inserted] Hygiene, & Armaments. We’ll certainly have to get cracking. We started work to-day & have to know 27 types of planes at the end of the week & as I know practically nothing about it I’ll have to make it somehow. The drill here is very lively 140 to the minute all the time for marching [deleted] bu [/deleted] but as the air is very bracing it should keep us fit, also we have 2 Organised Games a week.
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The officers & N.C.O’s here are very decent & the C.O. seems a sport, our corporal is a real decent guy, a Scottish Rugby international – Barry – we also have a Middlesex cricketer here so were [sic] among stars.
We had 2 hrs maths to-day we only have 10 hrs before the exam Also we had our first tuition on the Vickers G.O. Gun to-day & the corporal came out with one of the smartest cracks I’ve heard – we asked when the guns we use for dismantling were last fired - & he said he guessed it was when Pontius was a Pilate (pilot). Very neat I thought. Also they are absolutely keen on cleanness & this squadron is a crack-one & we never wear great-coats – being as it is fine weather its alright now. Well I guess I’d better get cracking on some home-work, & some button-cleaning then a bath & off to bed.
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[underlined] Thursday March 26th [/underlined]
There is not a lot of time to keep a diary at this station either, but I’ve managed to grab this opportunity of bringing it up to date. We are now approaching the end of our first week in St. Andrews, & its about the [deleted] easiest [/deleted] [inserted] best [/inserted] place we’ve struck yet – some of the fellows who have 3 years service in think the same. We have Tues & Friday afternoons off for organised games & Saturday afternoon & Sunday, so things are very pleasant. Mind you with our lectures & everything we certainly have to work as well – but there’s no cause for complaint.
The food is still excellent although I don’t care for the porridge, still I don’t think it is “pukka” Scotch porridge so I can’t criticise their famous body-building diet.
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We have been cracking at aircraft rec. this week & are supposed to know 27 [inserted] planes [/inserted] by Monday, that means know them perfectly. We’ve also had 2 lectures on the Vickers Gas Operated Gun – still we’re not troubling about any of those until we pass or if we pass our maths. I don’t think the Maths tuition we get here is as good as Brighton, still that was a Maths course. Exercise abounds – we get a tidy quota of drill & games, our P.T. instructor is sick at the moment. Last night seven of us went rowing out into the bay, we got in before darkness fell. It was grand, the sea was fairly choppy, & we rose & pitched like a cork – the sea certainly has its attractions. I also went for a sail on our Games afternoon Tues. – as my knee is still ‘whoozy’ &
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I didn’t chance football – and we went a hell of a way out, & the Beauforts from the nearby drome made dummy attacks at us.
Today saw us doing a 3 1/2 mile cross-country run, the first 5 will compete in the Wing run. Our crowd kept together & stayed just with the front few for most of the course to satisfy ourselves we could do it & then dropped back. Only the Wing run is on a Saturday & were [sic] sure we’ll be doing something important then. The inspections here are about the strictest I’ve met, both personal & room inspections. They certainly keep one looking smart & insist upon smart walking always as well. If we stay to finish this course we should be well licked into shape. Guess I’d better get on with some studying now.
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[underlined] Monday March 30th [/underlined]
Our first week here is over now, there should have been a ‘D’ Flight come in here Saturday but it was cancelled, so we still have the place to ourselves. Which is very nice seeing we have plenty of food & all is nice & cosy. We covered a good deal of ground with our lectures & had plenty of work to do in the evenings, at present we’re concentrating on Maths for we have that exam Wednesday. So we’re offering up our prayers for we don’t wish to be taken off the course now.
Friday was our second games afternoon, but I didn’t do anything in particular, for I’m having trouble with the knee again. Incidentally I reported sick with it to-day, & the Sqdn Ldr who is the Chief M.O. told me it was
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unusual, so he thought it might be a torn ligament protruding, & I have to report again in 4 days, & might see a specialist.
Saturday afternoon we decided to walk across the links to – an operational ‘drome there, & get a look round. We splashed through all the mud where the tide had retreated, to try and make a short cut, & then over ploughed fields. We never reached there however, & were just starting a 4 mile tramp along the road back when two W.A.A.F’s gave us a lift in a lorry – bless ‘em. I had a crack at dancing in the evening & found various things different from the English way, but we got on alright. Church parade was over Sunday by 10.0 A.M. – we have a good padre he certainly has faith. – In the afternoon I was deciding to
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try to learn the ancient game of ‘gowf’, we couldn’t find any golf-balls though, so it squashed the whole idea. Today an Air-Marshall came visiting, he saw us when we were in the hall seeing slides for aircraft rec.
Well I certainly feel A.1. & on top of life here & eating like a horse. Yesterday evening we had a fine ‘scratch’ game of soccer on a smooth stretch of sands – we get plenty of exercise in every way. At [deleted] pres [/deleted] [inserted] the [/inserted] moment we’re practising for a drill competition, though I doubt if we stand much chance of bringing it off. It was a Scotch holiday or else just a merchants holiday to-day & all shops were closed and lots of bagpipe skirlings came from the University. Ah! a final plunge into the maths book, & with Gods Help next time I write I may have safely negotiated the exam
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[underlined] Wednesday April 1st [/underlined]
I am making this entry whilst on fire-picket, this is an easy guard duty at this station also, I was lucky enough to get this last week as well. We have [deleted] long [/deleted] nothing to do as long as we stay here & about 10.0 – 11.0 the Orderly officer generally turns us out on a practice fire. Last night they were turned out at 9-30 & 4 were missing, - they are on fatigue’s tonight. Then they had the shock of their lives for at 11.0 the Wing Cmdr, the Earl of Haddington by the way, arrived & turned them out. Half of them didn’t know where the appliances were or how to use them, but I don’t think any complaints were made.
We didn’t do anything out of the usual yesterday morning – an extra maths period was given us.
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The afternoon was our Org. Games afternoon, but owing to the weather – it rained on & off all day – no games were arranged. So Bob, Bill & I went out in a rowing-boat, there was a hell of wind & current running, & then a beauty of a storm descended on us. We could only run before it, & when it lifted we were drenched through, & a good way from the harbour, we had to row like the dickens to get back.
This morning we took the exam at 8-30 A.M. & I think all our room got through – thank the Lord – for we didn’t want to be split – it wasn’t so bad. For two hours to-day we’ve been on rifle drill for a lot didn’t know any when mounting guard – it reminds me of the days in the H.G. – a bind though – Blast that’s the O.O turning us out must dash off –
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[underlined] Saturday April 4th. [/underlined]
The last few days the weather here has been dull & squally, & we’ve had to drill on the sea-front in driving rain – we got thoroughly soaked yesterday. Today was a decent day though & we had the drill competition – as I thought, we didn’t win it but we were by far the newest flight in it. We were complimented by the adjudicating officer on our show & he said it was better than his regiment could have done - & he was a Lt-col in the Seaforth’s so all was not lost.
This week we had a dental inspection & practically everyone is a ‘victim’, I have to have about 2 filled, & the ‘executions’ started Thursday – I think my turn is on Monday. Now our maths are over we have commenced our Navigation, which is the main
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subject in our course. the other night we had some excitement in a rowing-boat Bob & Bill, & myself were out together, & were having the deuce of a time keeping into the bay against a strong current & wind, when suddenly a storm broke. It rained & then hailed, & being as we were in jackets we we [sic] drenched, but the worst part was we were swept out from the harbour. When the weather cleared it took us about 3/4 hour to row back, the boat-man told us when he saw us go, he was about to [deleted] settl [/deleted] set out in the motor-launch. For two cadets were all but drowned the week we arrived. Still it was fun.
A new flight, ‘D’ arrived from A.C.R.C. to-day. It seems they are mainly D grade – all grades are posted to I.T.W’s now, not like us – still I think they lose
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by not going to Brighton. It will seem a bit crowded here now. My knee seems better although not cured – but I have finished with sick parades. We had another 4 mile run on Thursday – if this keeps up we might be able to give Wooderson some tips.
Looking back I find I haven’t mentioned who the five other fellows in this room are. Ron is from Goodmayes, Carl from Yorkshire, Alan from Maidenhead, & Bill & Bob from Glasgow. So actually I am the only one from London. The other night Bill got muddled in the dates & the night he should have been on guard he was playing golf. He was placed on a charge, but luckily got away with only 3 days ‘jankers’. Well its Easter Saturday to-day & I guess ordinarily I would be working so I guess I’m a lot better here.
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[underlined] Thursday April 9th. [/underlined]
Been pretty busy this week & had no time to keep this up-to-date. Our lectures have become more concentrated lately & we have had a lot of evening work to do. We are rapidly progressing in our Navigation which promises to be an interesting subject. Our drill seems to have been shelved lately – most probably on account of the uncertain weather. On Monday though, when Corporal Barry was taking us the Sqdn Flt/Sgt crept across the golf-course & took us for drill. He did everything in his power to make us mess it up as much as possible. Its impossible to describe it, but orders barked unintelligibly, constant marching backwards & forwards – anything to bind us.
Our games Tues afternoon I played rugger in a drizzling rain, and was well knocked about – I was
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just recovering from those aches & pains when I had to attend the dentist & had two teeth drilled. To complete the day in the afternoon we were given 2 inoculations – 3 times as strong as those at A.C.R.C. and it certainly shook us. I know my arm ached like the very devil, & the mild attack of fever we had gee! it was - & still is awful. This morning we felt sick, & hot & cold by turns, although we are recovering now, our arms seem to be locked with pain. Tomorrow I return to the tender care of the dentist for another filling.
This morning 12 fellows were put on a charge for being in bed 1/2 hour after reveille (one was in our room – Ron) they all got 3 days jankers – tough luck seeing they felt queer. Bob has obtained a week-end pass & his girl has leave – so he’s home to Glasgow – he hasn’t seen her in uniform she joined the [deleted] AA [/deleted] WRNS – 4 months ago.
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[underlined] Sunday April 12th. [/underlined]
Taking advantage of our one real restful day in the week, I am making this entry. The latter part of each week always passes far more quickly than the first, for Friday afternoon is reserved for games & Saturday afternoon & Sunday are free so we don’t overburden ourselves with work then. My visits to the dentist are at an end, & he declared me ‘finished’, in exactly what sense of the word I don’t know. My arm is less painful now, so I am beginning to feel A.1. again.
During the past week we have had 8 A.T.C. officers attached to the Sqdn – to get an insight on R.A.F. life. One took us for drill the other day he was quite O.K. – On Saturday we went out onto the dunes and had our first experience at reading
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Aldis lamp – I progressed none too well. The same day we also elected our C.F.C. ([deleted] chief [/deleted] [inserted] cadet [/inserted] flight commander), who takes control if the corporal is absent. Our P.T.I. – a corporal – has returned from sick leave - & he looks a nagging baa-lamb, guess we’ll see him tomorrow. We have also a Law test in the work we’ve covered – that stuff wants some stomaching.
The time is beginning to slip by though, & our leave approaches, what a day that will be. This week-end we’ve spent a good deal of time over on the putting green – but owing to a high wind – no good scores were recorded. I guess Bob will be back from Glasgow soon, its getting late. Also Ron – he obtained a day pass to see his brother in the Navy just docked at Queensferry. I expect they’ll both come back cursing the all too short time – Had Maths results this week I got 93% only 1 failure in the flight.
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[underlined] Thursday. April 16th [/underlined]
I happen to be on fire-picket to-night, we only get it every tenth day, now that ‘D’ flight are here. The weather has been glorious lately, I guess it will be a fine spring, short summer, & long winter again. We are well up to schedule with our lectures, so most of our time this week, has been spent on P.T etc. The P.T.I. is a decent chap after all – Irish - & we’ve had some good times. Nearly every day we’ve been down to the beach and had exercises & games. We strip down to shorts & slippers and its grand to dive about at rugby touch in that sun.
On Wednesday we went on a 7 mile route march, it was a very warm day, & we certainly welcomed the 15 min break at the turning-point. The beer is pretty good around here, but I guess
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anything would have gone down nicely then. We must [inserted] be [/inserted] beginning to toughen up now though for we hardly felt any ill effects or aches & pains.
On Wednesday night we had a surprise, in the middle of the night the air raid siren was sounded. The alert only lasted for about half an hour and no events were recorded. We are now doing Morse on the Aldis Lamp & find it more difficult than the buzzer – though I guess it’s a case of becoming used to it.
We have been feeling pretty tired during the day-time lately, & frequently falling asleep. I was intending to have an early night to-night, but as we have our gas exam to-morrow, I suppose I should get cracking on swotting up my notes.
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[underlined] Monday April 20th [/underlined]
Have just started our fifth week here at the end of this week, we will be exactly half-way through our course, time certainly flies. Which reminds me its about time I got really down to swotting each time I look at the work it seems more. Now that our Anti-Gas exam is over we took it on Saturday we have resumed our Armaments, we’ve practically forgotten the little we knew of the Vickers. A pal of mine at 8 I.T.W. Newquay wrote & told me they have changed to the Browning about twice as much to learn, don’t know if we will. ‘D’ Flight take their maths exam on Wednesday they were given an extra weeks tuition being as they haven’t passed any exams yet.
We had a lousy piece of news on Friday, at least it was for us, Corp. Barry has got his third stripe & is being posted from
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here. He is on leave at present, I think he’s going to Brighton – what a bind for him – bags of bull, thought I guess it wont be as bad for him as it was for us. We’re sure raving to lose him a real white man. – I wonder what kind of a D.I. we’ll get in his place.
St. Andrews holds its Warship Week this week & it was officially opened on Saturday with processions of the three services & bands, mechanical stuff driven by the Poles. Then followed a galaxy of Home Guard, O.T.C. A.T.C. A.R.P. W.V.S. & every single thing imaginable right down to the tiny “Cubs” & “Brownies”. There were two good pipe bands there – really smart, the only hitch was their timing was a good deal faster than that of the Polish brass band, who have a very slow step & it rather complicated matters. everything went off very well though.
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We spent the usual lazy Sunday, except for in the morning when we had to be ready with gas capes rolled, steel helmets on & all in readiness for a gas alarm. Then we surged out onto [deleted] [indecipherable letters] [/deleted] the green opposite & hung around for 3/4 hour. Whether they think we will be warned in advance of a gas attack & be able to have our kit ready I don’t know.
Today we had a thrill when we were issued with our flying kit, I suppose we wouldn’t be natural if we didn’t. It packs out a kit-bag & there are still some items left out & it is valued at over £50, our battle-dress was also issued. Should we fail to pass our exams we will have to hand all the kit back, which won’t be so good. The stuffing in the Triple lining is certainly warmth-giving we were literally sweating, still maybe at 20,000 feet its none too warm.
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[underlined] Thursday April 23rd. [/underlined]
The weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse today, and we have been pessimistically assured by local inhabitants that although St. Andrews is reknown [sic] for its bracing weather, it is by no means fine weather, so we are unfolding our ground sheets in readiness. The other day after rugger touch on the sands, we were allowed in the sea to wash our feet, & a few hardy chaps took the plunge. They assured us it wasn’t too bad, but it reminded me of the Arctic too much so I guess I’ll bide awhile before taking the first dip of the year.
On Tuesday it was Bill’s 21st birthday but as he had visited the dentist that day & had 3 teeth removed he didn’t feel up to a celebration so we postponed it until to-night. For three nights running now there have been clashes between C & D flights, & good old-fashioned pillow fights & raids.
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They are not so gentle as one reads of in School Stories, & last night, 2 of our fellows had teeth knocked out, one his mouth split, & one K.O’d. Still its great fun – we nearly had it on Wednesday though – somebody had what they considered a brain-wave & got 3 stirrup pumps in action. The Orderly Officer came up & caught us amidst a mass of water, & we should all have been charged by the Sqdn Ldr next day, but it was dropped.
They have made a rule that everyone must play some game on games afternoons – as a good few were always giving it a miss. On Tuesday they had some photographers from the Picture Post here to take some photos of the R.A.F. at work and play. We have almost finished our Hygiene, & the Law & are being tested in them next week. 7 failed Anti-“Gas but they resat & then passed”, for a change I wasn’t one of them.
[underlined] Sunday April 26th. [/underlined]
Our course is precisely half over & we have now reached the end of the fifth week & have another five weeks to go, as the last week consists of exams, we have four weeks of studying left. Bob has been happy, for his girl friend is on leave from the W.R.N.S. & came down here to spend 3 days, I think she returns to-morrow, he’ll be down in the dumps alright then. Different flights are constantly arriving here & we are getting quite senior, in fact we are the senior flight in 3 Squadron. ‘B’ flight arrived the other week & comprise of 1 W/O 4 sergeants 9 corporals 18 L.A.C’s, & A.C.1’s with a few A.C.2’s scattered around.
We celebrated Bill’s 21st birthday on Friday night, at the Conservative Club, & got slightly merry. That isn’t a bad club, but there’s an excellent
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club, called the “60” club, one of the most comfortable places I’ve been in. They had a ball at the Town Hall to close Warships Week – admission 10/- needless to say there was a scarcity of R.A.F. – I don’t know how much St. Andrews achieved I think they reached the mark though.
I had the misfortune of being on guard last night, and the orderly officer a canny swine, must have found out that between 7.30 & 9.30 some of the fire-pickets were always over at the N.A.A.F.I. Anyway he turned us out at 8 p.m. & two fire-picket fellows were missing – needless to say they’re on a charge, unless they can produce a perfect excuse.
On Monday we are having a test in Hygiene, & on Tuesday a test in Law, I don’t see the point of learning that stuff, but the powers that be have decreed it, and who are we to argue with such.
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[underlined] Wednesday April 29th. [/underlined]
The end of the month is on us, & in 2 days time we’ll be saying, “This month we take our exams”, as we begin to realise that we have only 3 weeks left to get moving with our studying, bags of panic are visible. We had our Hygiene test, but the Flt. Comdr put the Law test off – luckily for us as we know sweet fairy ann on that subject – I guess our sins will find us out.
For the Games afternoon yesterday as there wasn’t much on the programme Bill & I decided to walk 6 miles to the aerodrome of L –. We were lucky to get a lift right into the station & spent a pleasant afternoon looking over the kites & standing by watching the patrols take off. Boy! would I like to be on ops’ right now. Especially now our bomber boys are giving the Hun such a pasting at
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Rostock and Lubeck.
I had a letter from my pal at home today, & he’s finally received his papers for the Navy which was always what he wanted. I guess he’s as bucked as I was when I got into the R.A.F. The lucky beggar won’t have to go through all the bull-shine & exams like us though. Still I expect all that comes under our disciplinary course - & makes one obey orders without question which is very necessary in this game.
We are wondering if we can reserve some compartments on the London Express when we go home. As there are a good few of us travelling on it & we dont [sic] fancy a 10 hour stand. There has been a colossal wind blowing here lately & it makes Aldis Lamp reading a hell of a job as our eyes start swimming – I’m not so hot on that lamp. We have only had one period of P.T, & a cross-country run was cancelled so we’re not grumbling.
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[underlined] Sunday May 3rd. [/underlined]
Usual routine has brought another week to an end, time certainly is passing swiftly. This week, the Wing Commander began interviewing our flight with regard to recommending them for commissions. At an I.T.W. the Flight Commander, the Squadron Leader, & Wing Comdr. all make separate decisions whether a cadet is fit for a commission or not. My interview with the Wing Comdr. may come off to-morrow.
The weather is still glorious here, & after 2 hours P.T. & games on the beach, Friday Morning, some of us took the first dip of the year. I enjoyed that swim, although it was very cold. At present the bottom of the open-air swimming bath is being scraped, so we cannot swim in that, although I prefer that to the sea. It is sea-water & is filled every tide. But there are no waves one can get a decent swim in.
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‘D’ Flight received their maths results this week and it shook them rather. Eleven of them came a cropper, and out of those only four have been granted a second try. Two of the failures are remustering W.O.P./A.C.s and two are taking straight A.G’s. The remaining three had such a low percentage in the exam that they have been taken off flying training altogether.
The usual flight photograph was taken at the beginning of the week, but owing to the extremely strong sunlight it didn’t turn out too well, still we’ve had it. Alan managed to get an introduction to a [deleted] [indecipherable letters] [/deleted] flying officer on Beauforts at L-. Today he was taken up for 1 3/4 hours on torpedo dropping exercises, and he returned here full of it – boy! is he lucky. Owing to the fact that they are doing ‘ops’ most of the time it looks as though we will be unable to have a ‘flip’ – which is a disappointment to us.
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[underlined] Wednesday May 6th [/underlined]
Although we were assured by our Flt/Comdr that this would be a very stiff week and we would have lots of studying so far it has been the easiest week of our course. A lot of time-wasting subjects have been inserted even though we are only 3 weeks from our exams. Today we were supposed to go clay pigeon shooting & accordingly they sent 10 at a time down, but all they got was one hours instruction. Then they had a squadron photograph taken right in front of the club house, with a terrific wind blowing sand across the exposed links. So I guess half of the people in it will come out with closed eyes & distorted faces. One flight is taking there [sic] exams this week & go on leave Friday, so we have to have our Navigation in a temporary class-room which isn’t so hot.
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On Monday we had an Aldis lamp test and partly owing to climatic conditions, & partly myself I hardly received any of it. I have heard it ‘pukka gen’ that one really has to pass this exam & there is no wangling through – so I’m panicking alright. For a failure means not getting ones LAC & waiting here until we pass – which at this rate seems about Xmas. The other evening we had some boxing bouts, & my opponent had done a fair amount of it in peace-time. Still I acquitted myself fairly well, he split my lip, & I split his, & made his nose swell, so it was nice and friendly. As a minor distraction I have been inducing the hairs upon my upper lip to form into a moustache lately, but the results don’t seem too promising. I should have been on fire-picket tonight, but Mac asked me to change & go on tomorrow, as there was a lot of coal for them to shovel I willingly agreed.
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[underlined] Monday May 11th [/underlined]
Another entry into this rapidly growing diary of mine, and another week has slipped swiftly past. The room was half empty last week-end as Ron had a week-end pass to go and see his brother at Queensferry, and Bill and Bob slipped home for the week-end. Today we heard the far from pleasant news that our baa-lamb of a flight-sergt. who takes squadron parade, had been promoted to Station W.O. This shook us, & we’ll certainly have to watch our step. He sports the shoulder-title CANADA, although he may have seen those shores for about a week, certainly no more by his lack of accent, his disposition. Which reminds me it was our turn to be inspected by the Squadron-Leader to-day & after he had passed us, I nearly fainted when somebody pointed out, I’d omitted to wipe the dried polish off my buckle.
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Today we were given the most staggering piece of news & most momentous for us, we’ve ever received. The Sqdn. Ldr. told us all that the Air Command had decided that a second pilot in a bomber was a waste of a man as he was seldom used. He is to be withdrawn & a specialised man in bombing replaces him. He is the Air Bomber & in future Observers will only do Navigating & be Navigators. Should a pilot be wounded the crew are to fly it home on the automatic Pilot & then bale out at the base, & leave the kite to crash. It seems a fine waste of a £40,000 bomber to me. This of course we were told cuts the pilots required down to about half, & as they will have all those in reserve from the bombers, it will be a great chance if we even get a pilot – in fact we might never get a chance to fly at a Grading School – this certainly [indecipherable word] us I can
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tell the world.
Should the pilot be wounded & is a stretcher case – Lord knows what they’ll do for ‘em, they can’t let them crash. Why the obvious solution to train second pilots as air-bombers as well didn’t strike them I don’t know. For if he isn’t needed as a pilot as they say, well he carries his bombing duties out as they want. Then should the pilot be hit which is by no means uncommon, he is at hand to bring the aircraft back safely as the Air Bombers course is only a 60 week one it wouldn’t be much to add on a pilots course. Still I guess the powers that be have decreed it - & it is so. It isn’t our place to criticise knowing nothing about it really, but we can’t help but imagine the scheme is devised by some-one behind a big desk at the AM. However I’m praying to the Lord I will still make a pilot – but it seems awfully remote now.
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[underlined] Sunday May 17th [/underlined]
Haven’t been able to make an entry in this diary at all in the week, owing to hectic work. We only had two easy breaks, one on Wednesday when we went clay pigeon shooting, I just struggled along with an average score. Then on Friday we went on the range with .303’s, I had better luck then & managed to get 108 points out of a possible 125. My last card was the best – 10 rounds with no support – I got 8 bulbs & 2 inners. We have just about finished our Navigation syllabus, & will be able to get in a weeks revision before the big event. There is only a weeks practice on the Aldis Lamp left & we still aren’t able to pass the tests. It’s always the way on this course, bags of exams and bags of panic before them all. Still with luck we’ll see those ‘props’ yet.
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Our Flight Commander has started a childish sceme [sic] of points for the tidiness of rooms. The rooms are already smart & in order as this is compulsory, but he knocks off points for silly little things, a room which is obviously bad, often has its faults missed, & he has a most erratic system of points. It amuses us rather than irritates. Apart from these systems however, he is a really decent chap, and would do anything for us.
I was employed digging the garden the other night for speaking in the ranks. The chap with me, had had a good share of ‘jankers’ here, & was often in trouble. This time it proved his last punishment here. For he had 14 days for playing cards in church – quite a rip. Anyway as well as this he has been taken off the flying course. So to use the familiar term – “He’s had it”.
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[underlined] Wednesday May 20th [/underlined]
Today marked the beginning of the last week of intensive studying. Our flight-commander has drawn up a chart of our work throughout the week & we are getting lots of general study periods – and we need them. Lately we have had a great number of lamp receiving periods & although I am not able to pass tests I am getting a bit better. Alan was on fire-picket Tuesday, & was preparing to get ready for parade, when he had a great surprise. The corporal shouted for him & when he went down he found his brother standing there. He is a Spitfire pilot at present on delivery, & he brought a Spit. up to the nearby ‘drome and dropped in to see Alan, & stayed the night at a hotel. Alan promptly got his fire-picket changed and went out for the evening with him. They had a fine time.
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I visited the cinema on Saturday for the first time since I’ve been here, it was a neat little place. The film was “Rebecca” very old, but very good, & as I had missed it before, I took this opportunity of seeing it. Preparations are going ahead for the flight supper, next Monday, it should be pretty good. It’s a party & carousal combined with the Flt/Cmdr & Sqdn Ldr. there – but they’re both good sports. They have managed to get the radio going now & we are able to catch up with the swing music before proceeding on leave. I have arranged with Mary to book seats at two shows, so I should enjoy my leave, I only hope the weather remains fine. We have filled in the forms for our railway warrants, gee! if only we didn’t have to take all these exams before we went it would be heaven. Still such is life in the RAF.
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[underlined] Sunday May 23rd. [/underlined]
Our last clear week is over, & now we commence the fateful week of examinations, oh! well sink or swim we go on leave Friday. I think we should do alright, although we are not excellent at the subjects, still with God’s Help we’ll get through them A.1. We have the Aldis Receiving exam Monday, so it’s a bit of a baa-lamb to start off with, then come the rest of our Signals exams on the next two days. On Wednesday we have Armaments, then Thursday is a big day with Aircraft Rec. Law & Hygiene, this is a big sweep & leaves only Navigation on Friday. That is the one that is worrying me most.
It’s a funny thing we have done 9 weeks of binding for these and in one swift rush they will be all over and done with, anyway I intend to forget the word
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examination when I’m home and settle down & have a really good time. I’m glad Mary has managed to get her summer hols. at the same time. If we get embarkation leave after Grading School, that supposing with the help of the Lord we fly, I’m hoping she will be able to get more time off then, still its miles & miles ahead.
They are talking about what times the trains are from St. Andrews Friday, as they are only letting 10 travel on each train, to relieve congestion. This seems tripe to me for we can all come back together that makes no difference, & anyway there are only 53 in the flight & not all are going the same way. I hope that us who are travelling to London are able to get on a train early enough, to enable us to start queuing in Edinburgh to catch the [deleted] E [/deleted] London Express.
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[underlined] Friday May 29th [/underlined]
The great day has arrived at last, all the exams are over, though not forgotten, and in a few hours, we will all be proceeding on our various journeys, but each to the same place – home. It seems a long while to go 4 months without leave, & I guess it is really. I was right in the assumption that once the exams had commenced, time would fly by and it most certainly did. Last Sunday Ron took some snaps of us & of view-points around here, he’s just collected them and they came out ever so well.
This morning has been one mad rush, we were up early, and it would fall to my luck to have my turn to clean the wash-bowel, so I had to hurry alright. Promptly at 8.30 we were sitting in the Navigation rooms and we
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commenced the Navigation paper. It was a fairly stiff one, the stiffest we’ve seen for a while, but I think I’ve got through, I hope we all have. We dived in the Y.M.C.A. for the usual cup of tea, and paraded at 11 A.M. for pay, we drew a fortnights, being the week of leave, then we were paid £1 for ration money. After that we were given our passes & railway tickets, and there was nothing more to do but wait for our train, so here I am hanging around until 4.5 when we say goodbye to Scotland for a brief while.
I’m still praying that the weather will break as this doesn’t seem any too cheerful, still who knows it may turn out fine. I can see way across the valley a puff of smoke leaving Leuchars so it must be our train, & I must fly, next time I open this our treasured leave will be over.
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[underlined] Monday June 8th. [/underlined]
Back in harness once more, and naturally feeling ever so sorry that its over, especially as Mary has another week’s holiday & will have to spend it by herself. I had a grand time & marvel of marvels the weather broke at the beginning and we even had a heat wave, I never expected that, it looks like my prayers were answered alright. The journey to London was uneventful, we arrived Kings X – 8.10, an hour late, we had [deleted] a [/deleted] seats & that was worth queuing for. Returning to Edinburgh we arrived 40 mins late for no apparent reason, seeing that it was perfect weather, & we were on time up to Berwick where we stopped on a deserted part of the line for a quarter of an hour. The train from Leuchars should have gone
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at 8.35 P.M. but it waited for us, and we caught the last bus from Leuchars and arrived here at 11.35. We were dead tired, & hungry so after satisfying that need we made our beds & turned in.
This morning found reveille at 6.15 again, but we were so tired that we were unable to get up. Later I got up & started to shave (we all missed breakfast) when I was horrified to hear “On Parade” shouted, Bob & Bill dashed around & I rushed my shave & how I got down in time I don’t know. Then to put the tin hat on it, the Flt/Comdr. inspected us, just back from leave & not unpacked or anything, I thought that a bit thick. As my buttons weren’t cleaned I was put on fatigues tonight, still we can’t grumble. I’m only glad there wasn’t a room inspection right
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away, as my bed wasn’t made, and all my shaving kit was lying around.
We weren’t to be spared though for the Wing/Comdr. decided to have a room inspection so everyone had to fly to unpack & sort things out & get the general layout ready. Then we were paraded for the things we have been waiting for the exam results. Only 3 failed Navigation, one of them unfortunately being Ron Cooling in our room, they are going before the Sqdn/Ldr. tomorrow to see if they can have a second chance, I hope they get it. My marks were Navigation 80% Buzzer Sending 100% Buzzer Receiver 97% Lamp Sending 90% Lamp Receiving 97% Aircraft Recognition 100% Law 87% Hygiene 88% Armaments 90%. Then Anti-Gas & Maths results were added mine were 66% & 93% respectively, this gave me a total percentage of 89 9/11%. We should be posted as L.A.C.’s soon & then if we are lucky our prayers may be granted & we really might learn to fly.
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[underlined] Thursday June 11th [/underlined]
It is now a fully fledged Leading Aircraftsman who is writing this. Yes, our posting in D.R.O’s came through & we were issued with our ‘props’ & spent most of our games afternoon Tuesday engaged in sewing them on. As at Brighton they qualified us for expert house-keepers so we will be in the expert gardeners class when we leave here. Most of our time for there is not much for us to do is spent in knocking the garden into shape. I must confess that I haven’t put much time in, but I don’t see the sense in it. We are just doing anything that may enter our Flt/Comdr’s head, we had a route march of 8 miles on Wednesday at a pace of 130 per minute & to make an impression upon our return into the town he quickened the pace to 184.
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The only subjects we still take [deleted] is [/deleted] are Navigation, Signals & Armaments. At Navigation the course officially is “Revision”, but we have been bound rigid with lectures on the stars, gee! the flight lieutenant is a bit of a dope but he sure is a wizard astronomer. At signals we have done some Aldis receiving, and have learned a little of the Browning gun at Armaments.
We [deleted] h [/deleted] will have a lot of guards & fire-pickets to do when ‘D’ flight go on [deleted] g [/deleted] leave this Friday I guess. I was on fire-picket Tuesday night but we chanced it & slept up in our rooms. On Wednesday our room managed to get down for breakfast for the first time. On Tuesday we were up at 7.20. so I guess the effects of our leave are wearing off & were [sic] falling into the easy routine again, - gee did I say easy then I’ve developed the old soldier style already.
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[underlined] Sunday June 14th [/underlined]
So ends our first week back here, & it has drawn itself out so much it seemed like a month. The weather has been lousy, cold & rain & I’ve developed a beauty of a cold, having to muck around in the garden. The other day we had to fill in a pro forma stating our order of choice as to which other categories of air-crew we wished to remuster to if we failed as pilots. It appears we go on a Grading Course to Perth or Carlisle where we should go solo. We then get 7 days leave and are sent to an ACDC (Air Crew Distribution Centre) where we are told whether we are to become pilots or not. Somehow I’m afraid that there isn’t much chance of ever wearing a pair of wings, but I’m praying to the Lord that I might be one of the lucky few to get through.
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‘D’ flight have gone on leave & we watched them go with envious eyes. On Friday night special posting came through & 12 of our flight were on it, in a way I’m glad I wasn’t for they went straight away for 12 days embarkation leave yesterday, & the posting is supposed to be to Rhodesia. Bill, Bob, & Alan were on it, & Ron is being re-flighted & given another chance at Navigation (with the other 2 chaps that didn’t pass) so that leaves Carl & myself the only ones left out of our room. The eternal process of splitting up of friends always occurs in the R.A.F. I marvel how the chaps in the “Thin Blue Line” so luckily managed to stay together all the time.
Yesterday we had a most interesting 2 hours at navigation, it was on a machine called the
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Map Tutor. We were given a strip of cardboard with a section of countryside on it 30 miles long and 3 miles wide. We then saw it slowly slipping by on this machine painted on a moving roll of linen & we gazed through a glass panel & it gave exactly the same effect of looking out of an aircraft. Various exercises were given us to carry out such as E.T.A’s fixes etc, they even put a sheet of cotton wool over the glass with a few holes in it to give a cloud effect. It was an interesting machine, & beneficial too.
They have cut out the fire pickets & are having six on guard so that means we do just 2 hours each, no 2 on & 4 off etc. thank the Lord. – Today is Allied Nations Day & a procession has just passed similar to that of the Savings Week, the R.A.F. cadets swinging along in it with bags of ‘bull’.
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[underlined] Tuesday June 16th. [/underlined]
It has come at last, out of the blue a posting came. 9 of the remainder of the now depleted flight are going to Perth Grading School. While 19 more of us, including myself, “Knocker” Davies & most of the boys are going to Carlisle. So once again we are crossing the border though only just. It is No 15 E.F.T.S. I wonder what life is like there, we’ve heard that life is a lot easier than anything we have struck yet.
These last two days have been fairly easy ones for us with nothing to do. Five of us were put on to sand shifting for no apparent reason, & then at our break-time we weren’t allowed to
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go out. So we climbed up the face of the building in at a window & got out that way. Of course there was a stink about it & we were on fatigues all the afternoon.
In some ways I shall be sorry to leave St. Andrews for it is a nice place, yet I am feeling rather cheesed after 3 months here. On Sunday just as I entered church a voice behind me, called my name & turning round I saw one of the chaps from the office. I knew he was in the R.A.F. I never dreamt he would come to St. Andrews, it seems out of touch with everywhere so, To cap it all who should I bump into in the Y.M.C.A. but Ken Wyatt. He had been at Brighton ever since
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we left there. He was in ‘dock’ with pneumonia & had a bit of a hard time, then he went home for 14 days sick leave. His face was well sun burnt & he [deleted] ac [/deleted] certainly looked the picture of health, it’s a shame that he is 10 weeks behind in his course though, through the illness. Naturally he was all athirst for the gen regarding his course & his exams, so we gave him some & told him it wasn’t a quarter as bad as fellows made out.
Ron Cooling & the other two who are being re-flighted expect to go Thursday, and are pretty cheesed about it. I guess I would be too, being in their position, fancy having to face another 10 weeks up here, Ron has also been told by the Signals
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master (who always was a binder) that he will have to take his Signals [deleted] Couse [/deleted] Course again, for he failed on Aldis Receiving.
This morning we received our back pay for our ‘props’ & drew the magnificient [sic] sum of £5, quite a small fortune for us. In the afternoon we had to tog up in our best blue, for an inspection & farewell address by the Wing Commander. Tons of bull & he only dashed round to make sure our ‘props’ were sewn on. A flight of Poles were also there & it was interesting to watch them being inspected. They stand at ease until the inspecting officer reaches the man next to them, then they snap rigidly to attention, wait till the officer looks at them & then passes to the next chap, then they
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stand how they like once more.
The squadron leader came over in the evening & shook hands with all of us & wished us “Good Luck.” He is a real decent chap one of the best, if not the best officer I’ve ever met. We certainly were lucky to be in 3 squadron for our sojourn here. Our flight comdr. too gave us each a farewell chat & some useful tips & an invitation to look him up at any time at his home. It’s a pity we cant keep the same instructors all through our training – still there it is.
Well, time is flowing by and I must turn in for the last time here, & say goodbye to all the ground training & look forward to the real stuff. So with thoughts of ‘kites’ ‘solos’ ‘wings’ & various other magical dreams I say Good-Night.
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CONCLUDING BOOK 1 AND MY GROUND TRAINING
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[blank page]
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
Book 1, Commencing My Life in the R.A.F. up till the End of I.T.W.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Geach
Description
An account of the resource
First of David Geach's diaries, covering training in London, Brighton and St. Andrews from 9 February 1942 to 16 June 1942.
Format
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One handwritten diary
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
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Text
Text. Diary
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
YGeachDG1394781v2
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Brighton
England--Newquay
Scotland--Edinburgh
Scotland--Glasgow
Scotland--South Queensferry
Scotland--Perth
England--Carlisle
Scotland--St. Andrews
England--Sussex
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-02
1942-03
1942-04
1942-05
1942-06
aircrew
Beaufighter
bomb aimer
entertainment
faith
ground personnel
Hurricane
Initial Training Wing
killed in action
military living conditions
military service conditions
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Spitfire
sport
training
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/834/18899/YGeachDG1394781v5.2.pdf
10162827a32d552c966e4454065fa9f0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Geach, David
D Geach
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/218400/"></a>52 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer David Geach (1394781 Royal Air Force) and contains his diaries, correspondence, photographs of his crew, his log book, cuttings and items relating to being a prisoner of war. After training in Canada, he flew operations as a bomb aimer with 623 and 115 Squadrons until he was shot down 24 March 1944 and became a prisoner of war. He was instrumental in erecting a memorial plaque to the Air Crew Reception Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. <br />The collection also contains a scrap book of photographs.<br /><br />Additional information on his crew is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/218400/">IBCC Losses Database.</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Harry Wilkins and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Geach, DG
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
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GOVERNMENT OF CANADA
NO. 288
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[underlined] Wednesday 17th March. [/underlined]
Back in England again, gee! its great to be home, I don’t know how fellows must feel being overseas 10 years or so, 8 months was enough to make me feel really thrilled at the sight of old England again. Beg pardon! I should have said Scotland, for it was up the firth of Clyde we slipped and anchored off Greenock. It was a nice morning & the fields & hills looked really pleasant in the sunshine. As we slid along we were shot up by Hurricanes and Martletts from the Auxiliary Aircraft Carriers. There were quite a few of the latter, converted merchant men turned into A.C. Carriers, quite large some of them. Beside this, the usual swarm of naval craft lay around. Destroyers, & corvettes slipped past, & occasionally the sleek black hulk of a submarine would slide along; in the distance. There was a Catalina station, with quite an amount of activity going on. One of the “Cats” landed quite close to us in a flurry of foam, nice looking jobs! We anchored just by three aircraft carriers & the modern battleship Howe, there was quite an amount of Aldis flashing, but far beyond our limited 8’s. I was glad I was on guard as I had a fine view, whilst all the others weren’t allowed up on deck.
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We docked on the 15th about 3 pm and it was 24 hrs. before we got off her. Being as there were no large docks as at Boston & New York everyone had to be taken off in lighters, & there were a good few thousand to go ashore. The lighters seemed like little toys alongside the Queen Elizabeth, although in reality they were quite large two funnelled vessels. Pumping oil in was a large tanker she really was a size, a smart looking American ship, with the T of the Texaco Oil Coy. on her funnel covered by the grey war paint. We struggled into the boat in full webbing lugging the kit bag, that everyone had crammed with cigarettes, chocolates, cosmetics, & heaven knows how many with stockings, for everyone at home. Quite a delay ensued before the lighter was packed to capacity, then away she went. My God as we passed alongside the Q.E. we could get an idea of her size, she was immense. As we drew further away, & saw the cluster of ships around her, dwarfed to doll size, looking like a duck with a swarm of ducklings we realised what a prize it would make for Jerry U Boats. No wonder they had claimed to have sank her, that made us laugh when we were on it. She really had a rakish cut, though, and as we neared the dockside, gazing back through the [deleted] Deff [/deleted] half mist, I was glad I had had the opportunity of travelling on the two largest ships afloat.
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On the dockside we had the inevitable hours wait with packs, full webbing on, but being as it was our priviledge [sic] to moan we indulged in it to the full, & were cheered by it. The troop trains were drawing away and at last our turn came. Comfortable seats were taken, our mass of webbing crowded everything out of the way but nobody worried away we [deleted] wend [/deleted] went, into a lovely drizzling evening, it may sound dim, but were we glad to see the rain again, after months of continuous snow without a drop of rain. It must have appeared depressing to the Canadians, raining on their arrival, bearing out tales of the island when it always rains, that they had heard, but to us it was home & heaven. Everyone waved out of windows & from streets as we slid along, everything was so friendly. Some of the fellows tackled the canned rations they had of Beans & Hash etc. but I stuck to the Biscuit & Sweet ones. Into Glasgow we rattled, onto Edinburgh when the NAAFI gave us tea on the platform, & so to Harrogate. Here we were assembled in the [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] dim light & pushed into lorries & away we went to Pannel Ash, three miles out of Harrogate to a large school. Here we whizzed around getting bedding & filling forms and having an eagerly awaited breakfast. However I am getting tired so I’ll continue in my next entry.
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[underlined] Sunday 21st March [/underlined]
As I said we arrived here at Pannel Ash, about 5.30 AM. on the 17th & they told us to be on parade at 8 A.M. to start the whirl of kitting, form filling and heaven knows what else before we went on leave. It sounded a line of bull to us, but the magical word leave was enough to keep us moving. We rapidly discovered that there were two of the biggest b-s I have seen here, & the two most influential. No 1 the C.O. and No 2 the W.O. I can truthfully say the C.O. or Sqdn/Ldr was the most illiterate fellow I have ever seen holding a commission. They say [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] he was an N.C.O. pre-war & just got a lucky push. The W.O. vies with him for our hatred, he is a fat red faced guy & a real nasty piece, just loves to catch one of us N.C.O’s with something wrong. It is something like a Gestapo purge, they are [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] possessed with the idea, that because we have come back from overseas we are no longer fit for aircrew, are a pack of scare-crows, are unruly & undisciplined etc. etc. Admittedly the Guards could give us a few points on smartness but hell! we haven’t had time to get back into the rut of drill again. Our job doesn’t depend on whether we can drill smartly either, a point which they always try to hammer in.
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We have whizzed about filling in reams of forms, kitting up to the English scale once more, this was a scream Some of the fellows had thrown away nearly all their service kit in order to make room for their presents, & they certainly had some 664B action. When they can’t think of anything for us to do, we drill, with the C.O. binding continually. The latest purge is haircuts, & as mine hasn’t been trimmed for about 6 – 7 weeks I’m right in the line of fire, guess I’ll need a lawn mower on my mop. On the evenings that we can get away we generally walk into town to see a show, the trouble with this town is it is [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] lousy with aircrew. When we first arrived we were so tired that we got some bed hours in, & wrote letters with the old 2 1/2' stamp on again. It was quite good to write a letter, & in a couple of days get a reply come buzzing back. The family & Mary had a surprise as they didn’t think I would be home for a couple of days, Mary is trying to get leave at the same time as myself. We should be going on leave pretty soon now, yippee! will we hit the high spots, & guess I’ll be glad to hand over their presents after lugging them quarter way round the world & guarding them, ah! well it wont [sic] be long now.
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[underlined] Thursday April 8th [/underlined]
Time certainly has flown by, but in a glorious fashion, since I made my last [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] entry. In the last couple of days we got packed, stowed our flying kit, & personal kit in the in the cellars & were all ready to move. The great day was Wednesday the 24th. and the coaches came to take us to the station. All the A.G.’s had gone a couple of days before, but only for 7 days, as they needed them, I felt sorry for them as we were all getting 14. After some waiting the train drew in, & we piled in heartily, it was well organised, all the London fellows were in one train those going South, Portsmouth etc in another, & Midlands & North a third. We got a good seat & old Fred Porce was opposite me so we arranged to travel on the Met to Plaistow together. On the journey we dozed & ate a little of the rations, & thought & made plans of what we would do on leave, then finally we drew into London, bang on! Fred had a monster kit bag crammed with tinned goods, & it certainly was a weight, we both had to drag it along to get on the Met. Sinking into a seat, not daring to remove our packs, for fear we wouldn’t get them on again, we soon became wedged, & I had the devils
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own job to struggle out, when we reached my station. It was really great to get home again, there was a great welcome, everyone saying things together & I know, I forgot lots of the things I wanted to tell them. Mary & my sister certainly were enthusiastic over the cosmetics, most probably be run in for hoarding.
Leave time as usual simply whirled by, shows & films, different people to see, & places to go. I saw Frank Pritchards mother, apparently I just missed him at Greenock, he went back on the Queen Elizabeth, they must have embarked the morning after we disembarked. Life always seems to be like that just missing people, well, I hope he likes Canada, one thing he won’t get the hellish winter conditions I had. I could kick myself missing the mildest winter England had for 17 years, & catching the coldest Canada had for 19 years. Anyway time flew, & yesterday it was time for me to return, they ran a special train for us, good show, & at 5 PM I met Norman & all the boys, & back we travelled swapping stories of leave. Harrogate once more, & in the Grand Hotel, where we were billeted when we arrived from Hastings, & so here I am.
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[underlined] Wednesday 14th April [/underlined]
We are ‘squaddied’ now, (placed in a squad) and waiting for the lectures to commence. Still the memories of our leave keep coming back to torture us, in heaven knows when we will be home again. Won’t be till after O.T.U. I’d wager, some fellows say we get some after AFU but I doubt it. Most of the fellows here whilst they are waiting for a posting are sent to Whitley Bay on a 4 week Commands Course with the RAF Regiment, I don’t quite know whether I relish the idea or not. The first few days we were back we didn’t do anything merely route marches, occasionally if we had a decent fellow in charge we would lay down in a field for the afternoon, but that wasn’t often. That state of affairs rarely lasts long however & we were soon put in a squad and commenced lectures. These are held at the Majestic Hotel, & we parade and march there each morning and afternoon. The lectures themselves are the same as they are anywhere the inevitable Signals, Armaments, Aircraft Rec, & Bombing Theory, they certainly cheese us, & I have a hell of a job to keep awake.
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There is quite a bit of P.T. as well, & we always have to run up to the Crag or thereabouts then turn off, for a general town of Yorkshire, around 5 miles or so. A fellow who was already in our room when we arrived, (a pilot on singles) is on the permanent P.T. squad, this is a hell of a racket. You are put on this when you have finished all the lectures. They parade in the morning in P.T. kit, or more often than not trousers, vest & jacket, then after roll call, go for a run by themselves to the Cing Café & sit there gazing at the view, & eating scones & supping tea till nearly dinner time, then they trot back for their midday meal. In the afternoon they repeat the process, maybe add a game of football, if they feel energetic, always ensuring that they finish in plenty of time for an early tea, & a quick get away to the cinema. Still you can’t blame them, they’ve been here nearly four months & I’d be really fed up.
Looking around at the thousands of aircrew here, & hearing of the thousands of Canadians & Australians at Bournemouth it amazes me. All these aircrew hanging around waiting to get onto operations and they can’t, & it goes right to the
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bottom of the ladder, to the fellow just joining up for aircrew who has to wait nearly a year after he has been accepted, to get into the RAF. If only we could clear the bottlenecks & get all these fellows on ops’ what a mighty bomber fleet we should have. Surely it isn’t the shortage of aircraft, we should be turning out enough by now. It must be a bottleneck at O.T.U. & AFU & not enough to cope with the flow of crews, or the most likely explanation they have been piling up here, owing to there being limited flying during the winter. I daresay there will always be the same situation here, though. As for myself I’m quite content, we have a decent room, Norman, Henry, Jack, & Ron & myself all together. There’s a wash basin in the room & a bath room next door, which is good. The food isn’t bad either, it is a rush for meals now that we are on [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] lectures. There isn’t much to do in town but go to the cinema I have been six nights running, but there’s nothing else available. One thing about coming in at night the lights are switched off at 10.30 PM by a master control, so we always creep in, in the dark, stumbling over things. Rumours of leave here are as prevalent here as at any other posting centre, but after a while we discredit them all.
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[underlined] Wednesday April 21st [/underlined]
Norman, Harry & myself are still here, but Ron & Jack are at Whitley Bay now, getting that cave man complex on the North Sea now. The went off in the traditional RAF style full webbing etc, & kidding us about our getting posted up there when they had nearly finished. Us not to be outdone assuring them, that there was an AFU posting on the way & they were merely clearing the dim ones out. I wouldn’t mind betting we’re “joes” though & get sent up there shortly. In the meantime we are just continuing with lectures, we have had one period of wet dinghy drill. We went in the swimming baths, belonging to a school, now occupied by the Civil Service. Being as the changing accommodation in the boxes is inadequate a lot of fellows changed on the spectators seats at the far end. There are a lot of full length windows, & as the boys changed & stood there in the altogether, quite a lot of the female Civil Servants opposite found a sudden lack of interest in their work. We have to don full flying kit and Mae Wests, & as a crew jump in & swim to the dinghy & climb in. It wasn’t so bad in the water, but when one went to climb into the dinghy, their weight
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soaked, with water, became apparent, & it really was a struggle to get aboard.
I have been with Norman to visit his Aunt & Uncle living here. His Uncle is in the Civil Service & took us to their club they have on the Ground Floor of a Hotel. Its a nice place with refreshment bar, dance hall, games & card rooms, we went to a nice dance there the other day. It is so nice to meet someone like that, because Harrogate is a hell of a place if one knows nobody. Being as it is crammed full of aircrew & soldiers, every place of entertainment is bound to be packed. There is nowhere to go but the cinemas really cos the dances are pretty dear. Most probably with the idea of keeping the services away, because the citizens really resent the troops being here, & hate the war being forced on them. It really is a “Forget the War”, town. The solitary Y.M.C.A. & a couple of small Forces Canteens do sterling service, but are overwhelmed & can’t cater for all their customers This leaves the troops at the mercy of the money grabbing café owners. The Copper Kettle being one, 2 small sausages & a few chips being 3/6’, out of an ordinary soldiers 2/6 a day its not even funny. Yes this town certainly wants re-organising & a few of the rackets squashed.
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[underlined] Tuesday 27th April [/underlined].
We are on the point of recommencing our flying in England we have arrived at our Advanced Flying Unit, at Bobbington near Stourbridge. So we did steal a march on Ron & Jack after all, I bet they are annoyed about it, but still most probably they will be posted soon. They called us all out together all our little clique, & when they said Bobbington we jumped for joy as most of us are Southerners and didn’t fancy going up North again. There was quite a dash around & quite a bit of bull with kit inspections & parades, clothing parades, & Heaven knows what else. Bags of waiting around & queuing as usual, arguing and scrambling for different things. At last all was done & our kit was left downstairs in the lobby ready to go next morning. We went out in the town to have a last night celebration, I am a bit sorry now that I have left there, as it was pretty good there, and I had some decent times with Norman’s Uncle & Aunt. Still there it is the training system doesn’t worry about individuals, & it is the only way I guess. Anyway after that last night we staggered in rather merry & noisy stumbling through the pitch black corridors of the hotel.
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Up the next morning bright and early, early anyway I dunno so much about the bright. With bull to the last we had to parade in full webbing and march to the station. We got fixed up on the train O.K. & commenced our first stage of the journey to Leeds. It was crazy weather, raining like anything, when we arrived at Leeds we were going to have a stroll around but the weather deterred us. The train to Birmingham was crowded & although we had a carriage reserved, bags of civilians crowded in & as there were elderly women & women with babies, we gave them the seats, but boy! was it a squash. At Birmingham we darted around unloading the kit & dashing over to another platform to catch the Wolverhampton train. We were beginning to look like porters after lumping the kit around all the time. The train had to wait a few minutes until we had loaded everything, the guard was a bit peeved but there was nothing he could do. Off we bowled and then found we had left Norman behind, nothing could be done then so on we went. At Wolverhampton there was a lorry waiting so we loaded it all on & climbed on the kit. We were rather shaken by the distance we were from the town through miles of country lanes until we finally arrived here.
They say that first impressions are often misleading, & I hope so, because our first impressions of this place is that it is a bloody awful station. We are in a damp Nissen hut with a concrete floor, that clouds of white dust rise from on the slightest stir of anything. Being ‘pupils’ as we are termed we aren’t allowed to eat in the sergeants mess, they say it isn’t large enough. We may go into there for letter writing etc. after 5.30 P.M Our meals are in the airmen’s mess, and we queue up amongst all the a.c’s and it is no exaggeration that we get less food than them. I have experienced it many a time the WAAF has given the fellow in front a ladle full, & had one ready for the next chap. Then looking up & seeing they are aircrew they tip half of it back. The mess is terrible and so is the food. All this we have found out in our few hours of being here, tomorrow we start the course. Our ablutions is a place not finished, no bowls or mirrors, just a line of taps containing freezing cold water – grim isn’t the word for it. By all accounts aircrew are disliked on this station by all & sundry from the Groupy downwards, we meet him tomorrow. – Norman has just rolled in he followed on the next train, had quite a shock when he found we had gone.
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[underlined] Sunday May 2nd. [/underlined]
We have been here long enough to dislike the place entirely, & the sooner we leave here the better for all of us. On our first day we met the W/O in charge of the school, Alves his name is, & we didn’t take much of a liking to him. He gave us quite a few warnings with a long list of “Donts”, [sic] & impressed upon us how the “Groupy” disliked aircrew and was always ready to catch them out, then he marched us off to see the big noise himself. All the time he was marching us along in threes he was binding “Stop that talking”, and “Swing those arms”, just like the old I.T.W. back again, it gets a bit cheesing at this stage. We had the ‘welcome’ address in the station cinema a rather bare place that is still undergoing completion. The Groupy bore out all the stories we had heard about him, a rather mean faced individual. During the talk he broke off three times to tear a strip off a poor M.T. driver who had the misfortune to be starting his lorry & drowning the old man’s voice, what a type. Quite a lot of his talk was devoted to the subject of WAAF’s we weren’t to go around with them or associate to any given extent, & if he caught anyone near the WAAF site it would be too bad. Anyone would think it was a convent here, still from what I’ve seen of the WAAFs here, I can’t see anyone wanting to associate with them.
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Our day is quite a long one here, we rise & have our icy wash then dash over to the airmen’s mess to queue for our “breakfast”. Back to the hut to dash around making up our beds & sweeping the floors, then on parade at the unearthly hour of 7.45 A.M. Even at I.T.W. we went on parade at 8 A.M. nowhere have I seen it as early as this, a quarter of an hour doesn’t sound very much, but one can pack an awful lot into it in the morning. Lectures are from 8 AM. to 10.15 then a quarter of an hours break, lectures from 1.30 to 5 P.M. a half hour for tea, then back for an hours lecture 5.30 to 6.30. The latter is the worst of all I think, we have to dash from the classroom to the mess, which takes about 6 mins, queue for our meal, bolt it down then dash back to the classroom, all in half an hour, we’ll all be suffering from indigestion before long. Unless the instructor taking us is willing to let us off a little early then we are unable to catch the 6.30 p.m. bus into Stourbridge.
Each day we have an hours P.T. & there is a mad F.O. for the P.T. officer, at least we call him mad, he is one of these very keen types he used to be a champion swimmer before the war. The first
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time we went over the assault course, it was pretty gruelling. Twice round a half a mile track then into a veritable maze of climbing over walls, crawling under wire, balancing along poles ten feet high. One part was swinging along on a single rope across a pond until we were able to wrap our legs around a tree & pull ourselves in. The P.T. instructor a Cpl that was showing us got about three quarters of the way across to the point where the rope sagged the most & there he fell in. He had his long blue P.T. trousers on too, boy! did we laugh, needless to say he didn’t join in. Twice we have been on hellish long cross country the P.T. officer being bang on at running cracks along at a hell of a pace. Then he binds us because we dont [sic] do so well & shoots the bull about being fit for flying etc. We bind him back, & tell him to have a crack at aircrew it is quite a scream. The trouble is we generally arrive back at about 12.45 & have to wash & dress & dash for dinner in three quarters of an hour, so invariably we arrive back late for classes.
The NAAFI here is a pretty good one, we have our break there, they have a good selection of cakes. In classes we are doing all the old familiar Bombing Theory over again, & using the Bombing Teacher. We do our flying on Ansons, seems we are never free from them, I’m really cheesed of winding that undercart up & down.
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Yesterday, May Day, was our day off, not because the RAF favoured the Labour Party, but it just happened that way. After quite a bit of wangling they finally granted us the priviledge [sic] of getting off an hour earlier [inserted] Friday [/inserted] There was a bus running at 5.30 P.M. & we went into town on that & there caught a bus to Birmingham, we were able to book beds at the Services Club that night. Jimmy Selkirk, Harry & I went out on the beer as Norman had gone by train to Oxford as his fiancé was there spending her leave. We eventually found a pretty low dive & finished the night there. The next day we wandered around for awhile, then went to a cinema, & travelled back on the 9 P.M. bus to catch the 10.30 P.M. from Stourbridge to the camp.
The other day we had our flight photograph taken, we all agreed to look cheesed in it, to register our disappointment of this place, & it came out pretty well. We have been to the station cinema here, they charge us 1/- it isn’t too bad, if only they didn’t have rows of old seats on the same level. Because if one is sitting a fair way back it is impossible to see over all the heads on the same level as yourself. I wonder if we will get leave after this place, I hope so, there are the usual rumours floating around, first we will then we wont, [sic] I guess we wont [sic] know till it arrives.
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[underlined] Sunday 7th May. [/underlined]
I should say roughly half our time has passed here, as most chaps remain here a [deleted] fortnight [/deleted] [inserted] month [/inserted] anyway roll on the next fortnight, & lets get to hell out of here. It is a fairly hum drum existence with the lectures & so forth. On Monday we had a pleasant diversion in the form of wet dinghy drill, in Stourbridge baths, I rather like it as we are able to swim about afterwards – Turning the large bomber dinghy over when one is in the water with full flying kit, will be some job in the North Sea, I reckon. It isn’t too bad in the baths, but then there is no rough sea or wind to contend with.
The F/Sgt in charge of us is a pretty good guy, pretty quiet, & got quite a bit of service in, he is thoroughly cheesed with the station. Beside the famous old Theory of Bombing lectures he takes us on the Bombing Teacher. We were up there the other day & looking from the open window, when old Alves went dashing past. Tom Alan commented “Old Alves is on the warpath”, boy! he must have had keen ears because he called us down & bound us rigid. For the Gunnery lectures there is an F/O A.G with a V.F.M. he is a Welsh chap, shoots a fair amount of lines, but is really a good type, his lectures make a welcome break. For the aircraft rec. there is a nattering little sgt A.G. who absolutely cheeses everybody, nobody likes him. The other chap a tall F/Sgt is a good egg though, livens up the epidiascope slides with an occasional nude woman.
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The map reading periods are O.K. too. the F/O who takes us did his tour out in Abyssinia, I believe it was on Valentine or some obsolete kites. Thinking of it, it must have been a pretty easy tour, but he is a good chap, a Flt/Lt D.F.M. who is also there, shoots bags of lines, but they are worth listening to & at this stage, we are ready to lap up all lines. A chap who ‘nattered’ to us the other day about ‘ops’ in the Middle East, said at the beginning of the campaign, the crack Italian liner Rex was in the harbour at Tobruk. They were briefed to attack & did so, but they were made to bomb with 25 lb H.E. naturally they were like pin pricks, & that night she whipped up steam & was away. An Air Commodore was slung out of the RAF for that. We went out on a lorry the other day for practical map reading, & drove around the lanes, stopped & had to find where we were & make tactical sketches. About three times we did this, & then had to change into our P.T. kit, that we had brought, leap out of the lorry & run the 3 miles back to camp. It rather reminded me of the hunt with the hounds leaping from the van & tearing down the road. We have been on Groupie’s parade, & he certainly is down on aircrew, the parade was a real bully one, bags of shouting & everything. He whizzed through the permanent staff without saying much, & when he came to us, he went really slow & bound practically everyone rigid, & the W.O. almost wore his pencil out, taking names.
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Yesterday was our day off again & once more we spent it in Birmingham. We were unable to get in at the Services Club & had to go to a large house converted into a hostel, it was pretty good. This week saw the commencing of our Flying here, I made three flights all day bombing exercises. The first one was Wednesday, & came off alright, there is a village fairly near the range & that made me twitter. It is a bit more awkward to bomb from the kite than from the Canadian Anson, because there is no perspex panel in the nose. Also the sliding panel is metal, not perspex, this necessitated having it always open, causing quite a draught. On Friday Harry Jamieson & I did two more flights with an ex-operational pilot F/O Ryan. It was pretty grim because he hadn’t the technique of the steady bombing runs, like the regular B.G pilots. The kite would be bouncing around necessitating us giving corrections & sometimes we would be nowhere near the target so we had to call ‘Dummy Run’. He would scream & bind & curse like the clappers, & said “It’s a bloody good job you’re not over a target”. That kind of stuff never gets anybody places though, & only leads to a bad exercise. We do a few of these Day Bombing trips, maybe some Night bombing, & then some Night Combined exercises. These are only cross countries but they give them the high sounding titles. We’re beginning to get really cheesed with all this training, no wonder chaps get stale, & lose all their interest & enthusiasm.
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[underlined] Friday 14th May. [/underlined]
Life still flows in its uninteresting way, we have done some map reading trips. We go on a small cross country of 3 legs, with the pilot & 3 B.A’s each who map reads one leg of the trip. They are O.K. if you get a decent pilot, who puts the Forces programme on the intercom, & is fairly tolerant with the map reading. I was up with ‘Taffy’ Evans & Norman Griffin the other day & we had a binder! Poor old Taffy chopped in the mire, by losing himself completely. The pilot was one of those tricky individuals who would fly the aircraft so a village was directly under the nose, & out of sight, & then ask you suddenly where it was. We coped anyway.
I had a good laugh the other day, whilst standing by in the flight hut for a day bombing exercise. There were a couple of chaps from the previous course there, also detailed for a bombing exercise. Like us all they weren’t very keen on it, but the antics of one of them kept me in fits. He was small with dark wavy hair, & a perfect cherub face, chubby rosy cheeks etc. looking about 17. Every few minutes he would pop to the door & gaze at the sky. Any cloud, no matter however small, was greeted with a beaming smile & the exclamation “Wizard” drawing out the last syllable, as it meant there was a faint hope of the exercise being cancelled.
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Whilst every time the sun burst forth he would scowl & slump disconsolately back in his chair, resigning himself to Fate. In the end they took off & so did we.
The lectures are still as binding & unvarying. Yesterday our “Chiefy” was taking us on Bombing Theory & although he is a good chap, he is a real lousy lecturer. Bombing Theory being one of the driest subjects in itself he succeeded in putting half the class to sleep in a quarter of an hour. Then a Sqdn/Ldr Education Officer from Group slipped into the room, & after listening for 10 mins, took over the lecture. For the next half hour, it even became quite interesting, & some points were cleared up, which I for one had been doubtful over for a long time.
So far rumours that we will not get leave at the end of the course have gained strength, I hope they turn out false. When the last few days arrive W/O Alves gives the Senior Man a list of the O.T.U’s to which we are to be posted & then the course is left to sort them out amongst themselves, I hope we get some decent ones.
Norman has had an old cycle of his sent up, it is quite handy for getting around on, and half the course use it. It might be a good idea to get one if I land on one of there really dispersed drones I hear about. I played a game of football earlier & am just beginning to feel the effects, so I’ll have supper at the NAAFI & turn in.
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[underlined] Thursday May 20th. [/underlined]
We had our day off on Tuesday, & a crowd of us caught the bus outside the camp into Wolverhampton. The morning was spent looking around the town & then after dinner in a nice little café we found a decent park & spent the afternoon. After tea in the Forces Canteen above Surton’s we got down to a steady pub crawl. I have never seen a place like it, for so many girls of 16 – 17 in the pubs. Old Pete Rawlings had quite an amusing encounter with one, but this is not the place to disclose it. Anyway after closing time, four of us wandered around in a happy stupor till we sobered up a little & realised we had better look around for means to return to camp. We finally phoned a taxi who took us right into the camp, & off we bowled to bed.
As far as the flying part goes we are on the last stages, that of day and night cross countries. I don’t know which one the greater bind the latter gets it by a narrow margin, I think. It will be a relief to get to O.T.U. & go on a really organised X country. So far I have been on two day trips & five ‘scrubs’, it is an inoffensive word – ‘scrub’, but conceals a lot. When we are due for a day X country we hand our names into the Guard Room & then at 5.30 or 6 AM an S.P. rudely awakens
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us, to tear off for early briefing, breakfast & take off at 8.30 A.M. – there are afternoon X countries but I haven’t had the luck to get on one yet. It is binding to get up, see the rain, & knowing in advance it will be scrubbed, tramp 10 mins through the rain to the briefing room, & wait until they inform you officially it is cancelled. Now we are getting wise & only two going up, one with Norman’s bike to nip back & arouse the others if by chance, flying is on.
On a night cross country, our main function is winding the undercart. Actually we are supposed to do some infra red bombing, but no-one has been known to see the target, the pilot hates stooging around, & the navigator is chomping to set course. Consequently we sit & shiver in the darkness, maybe once in a while giving a beacon position to the Navigator, or taking over the controls while the pilot dives to the back. We had a little excitement on one trip when the weather was closing in over the airfield when we returned, but we got in O.K. The only good thing about it is we sleep the next day, & it breaks the monotony. A kite crashed the other day killing the occupants, they weren’t on our course. The S.S.Q. backs onto our billets though & the blood wagon was outside with the bodies in while they were getting things ready inside. It was a fairly sobering thought, but I guess we shall see more of it, the closer we get to ‘ops’.
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[underlined] 25th May. [/underlined]
Once more a change of address, I am now at my O.T.U. at Hixon, Staffs, having arrived here today. Most of us came here, some went to Whitehead & four to Lossiemouth. ‘Taffy’ Evans has gone to Whitehead & ‘Buntie’ Rogers, Norman, Jimmy, Harry, & most of our clique are still together. Naturally the Lossiemouth posting wasn’t wanted, there being no Scots on the course, so it was drawn for, I thanked the Lord my name didn’t come out of the hat.
Anyway the usual clearance procedure was got through & we were driven by lorry into Wolverhampton this morning. There was a couple of hours to kill before the train & we spent them in town. Although the distance from Bobbington to Hixon isn’t so great as the crow flies it took us a few hours by train with the changing. Transport came out after we phoned from Stafford station, & I was surprised to find the airfield was 8 miles, out from the town, at least – somebody had told me it was nearer than that.
We are all in the same hut, they are not Nissan huts, but kind of asbestos boarding & wood, on concrete bases, much better & larger than the Nissan hut. Each collection of huts is called a site & given a number, the site with the mess etc. is called Command Site, these sites are dispersed over a wide area, & are a considerable distance from the airfield. Apparently a cycle is a very handy thing, Pete Rawlings has one now.
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A course arrives here every fortnight, & we are No 17 course. After nearly a fortnight of ground training terminating with exams, we commence flying, by this time we have ‘crewed-up’ of course. This is the stage where we crowd of Air Bombers will finally split up, because inevitably after each of us joins a crew we shall go about with them, I shall be sorry, because we have been together a long while, but this breaking up of friendships happens again & again in the RAF as ours is an odd course number (17) we move to the satellite airfield, Seighford, when we have completed our ground training & finish our O.T.U. there. It is situated the other side of Stafford & is more dispersed than this, but there is a lot less discipline, as chaps say who have been there.
As usual on arrival at a new place, we have been pumping all the fellows that we can find on the various aspects of the course, & every conceivable thing attached to it. We haven’t collected much ‘gen’ yet though, beyond the fact that we parade outside the mess, after breakfast tomorrow, with the rest of training wing personnel, & then the S.W.O. will march us to the Training Wing for roll call. Apparently this is an everyday procedure & is fairly strictly adhered to. I have written off the letters to home & Mary as usual on arriving at a new station, with the address & what gen is available, & now I’ll close this entry and get into bed I think, then tomorrow I’ll start one of my last stages towards a squadron.
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[underlined] June 1st. [/underlined]
Things have changed somewhat since I last wrote. I have just returned from a compassionate 48 hr pass, which I went on when I received some very bad news from home. The C.G.I. said that I would have to revert back a course, so I am staying here on 17 course, whilst the boys on 17 go over to Seighford. We would have broken up anyway so maybe it is just as well this way. They finish their ground training this week and then my course commences the following week.
This O.T.U. course lasts approximately 3 months, after the fortnights ground training, it is all flying training with an occasional lecture slipped in. Half of the time, (the first half of the 3 months) is day flying, & the other or second half night flying. The exercises are similar in each case, we commence circuits & bumps with an instructor, then after our pilot has flown solo with us as a crew, we complete our circuits & bumps without the instructor. Then day bombing with a ‘screened’ or instructor pilot & a ‘screened’ Air Bomber after the first exercise, we do the rest alone, there are quite a few of them too. The same procedure is followed for gunnery & fighter affiliation, although most of the actual firing exercises are done with four gunners & a ‘screened’ gunner in one aircraft. Then we do a cross country with a ‘screen’, & afterwards another couple by ourselves, each longer in duration.
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The same procedure is followed for night flying, as far as is practical. Then at the end of the course comes the pièce de resistance – a leaflet [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] or “nickel” raid on France. I hope we are able to do one, as sometimes the weather prevents it & crews do a “bullseye” instead. This is an exercise over England, combining Fighter Command & the ground defences, except ack ack naturally. It isn’t that I am all that keen to see what the other side of the Channel is like, but I think it affords quite good practise, before going to a squadron and the real thing.
From what I have seen of the actual station here it isn’t too bad. The mess is about 8 minutes walk from our site, & the food is pretty good, (a lot better than Bobbington anyway) it is laid out fairly well too, & the waitresses serve us sitting down. The ante room & billiards rooms are quite large, & the station cinema, isn’t too bad, they are improving the latter I believe. Getting in & out of Stafford is rather a snag, there is a liberty bus from the Guard Room of an evening, but we are required to book seats the previous day by dinner-time, & as we rarely know that far ahead if we are going in, it is generally by taxi that we arrive there. At the moment I am acting as runner in the Discip Office until the next course commences, I wonder what sort of chaps they will be. Pete Rawlins has crewed up with the pilot that I originally had, he seemed a decent chap.
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[underlined] 8th June. [/underlined]
Well, I have been on the course nearly two days now. There wasn’t much for me to do last week stooging around in the Discip. Office, so I was given a 48 hr pass over the weekend. So I said goodbye to all the boys as they moved over to Seighford during the week end, though I shall see Norman a couple of times in Stafford if we can arrange it. I was lucky travelling into Stafford, I had just come out of the Guard Room with my pass, when an MT Corporal said “Going into Stafford, Sarge?”. So in I travelled in style, lolling back in the Groupie’s car, the driver was going to meet the Groupie at the station.
When I returned yesterday I had expected to find the billet empty, but I had switched my things to the corner bed, just on the off chance, somebody might roll in. They certainly had – a whole room of Canadians, pilots, navigators, and Air Bombers. On the whole they seem a pretty decent crowd, pretty noisy, but full of life and really generous & anxious to be friendly, I like Canadians quite a lot, anyway. I had to smile, because as soon as they found I had been on the previous course, they kept asking me all sorts of ‘gen’ about the course, in exactly the same manner as I had done a fortnight earlier. It was precious little I could give them. Then today we started the ground work, it was exactly the same as my first few lectures on the last course, they follow a strict pattern here.
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[underlined] June 13th. [/underlined]
I have arrived at a stage which will play a most important part in my immediate future – I am crewed up. In a bomber a man’s life is wholly in the hands of his crew members, and the closer they are together, and the better they are as a team, then the more chance of survival they have. I [deleted] a [/deleted] had always understood that considerably rare, and quite an amount of time was allotted at O.T.U’s for the purpose of selecting crews. Hixon has proved the fallacy of it, everyone starts the course separately as a course of pilots, & course of navigators or Air bombers – W/Ops etc. They remain in their classes for the first lot of lectures and hardly have any chance of meeting the various other categories of air crew, the only chance being in the mess or the billet. Suddenly like a bolt from the blue it is announced that everyone must be crewed up in two days or else they will be allocated by the instructors into a crew. A mad flap then starts, people go wandering about, staring into each others faces, vainly trying to sum up whether a person will be an asset to crew up with – or otherwise. Having experienced this on the previous course, I thought it best to let matters take their own course.
Friday night, I was sitting in the mess, after writing a few letters, having a quiet drink & waiting for the sandwiches to arrive for supper. At the next table to me, were two Canadian
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pilots from my billet, McCann who slept next to me & Cecil Kindt who slept opposite McCann. They had been drinking for a while and were both pretty mellow, as Kindt went out to get some more drinks he [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] leant over me and said, “Mac said would you join him at the next table”, so I moved over to where McCann was sitting.
We chatted for a couple of minutes, then he asked if [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] I was crewed up with anyone. When I replied in the negative, he said “Well how would you like to sling in with me, and be my bomb-aimer?” I rather liked him, and so I had found a pilot. Cecil Kindt returned with the beer and we had a drink to it. Well, I think I had better put on record my impressions of Mac, as he is always called, & the other crew members. Len McCann, though I’ve never heard anyone call him Len, is only about 5’ 4”, and almost as broad. He said he has lost a lot of weight over here, & that he weighed 220 lbs in Canada, so he must have been tubby. For his weight & size though he isn’t so very fat, he has some superfluous flesh but is extraordinarily thickset under it. The amusing part of him is his neck which is very short & seems almost as thick as his shoulders are wide, actually he takes an 18 1/2" collar. The other fellows often call him for no reason at all, just to watch him turn around.
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He cannot swivel his neck as we do, but has to lift his shoulder & turn as one would with a stiff neck, yet the action is not a slow one; he takes all the kidding in very good part. In features he strikes me as very similar to the comedian Lou Costello, having the same cheery round face & turned up nose. He had his hair cropped right short in Canada & now stands up in a mass of wiry black bristles. With a short bristly moustache this completed my description of Mac, with whom I shall be for long time – I trust.
I asked Mac if he had a Navigator, & when he said he had one in mind, I told him of another one, who seemed quite a ‘gen’ chap to me. He was a Canadian & Mac knew him & told me he was a real farmer, & that he always ‘nattered’ nineteen to the dozen, so we didn’t ask him. On my advice Mac tackled the navigator he had in mind, just in case somebody else should snap him up. Nobody had, and he became our navigator.
His name is Ken Price, also a Canadian, and I cannot give a better description than say he is the exact image of Gary Cooper. It may seem as though I am rather a film fan, but the resemblance is remarkable. He is tall & lean, very quiet and reserved, and seems a thoroughly decent chap all round. By all accounts, from what the other navigators say he is a darned
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good man at his job.
Then this afternoon Mac introduced me to the wireless/op. he had chosen. Bill Bowery is his name, and he is English coming from Sunderland. He seems quite a keen type and knows his gen, his broad “Geordie” accent tickles us, but it is nowhere near as broad as Jimmy Selkirk’s was, or others I have heard. In appearance, he is about 5’ 8” well set, with straight auburn hair, brushed down, he seems to have an expression as though puzzling or enquiring over something, & that may be a good thing. Anyway there are four of us now, we shall get a rear gunner in a day or so, & the five of us do O.T.U. together.
Mid/Upper Gunners do their Gunnery School somewhere and then join us at the end of the course, generally in time for the “Nickel”. As we are flying Wimpeys there is no accomodation [sic] for them, & it would be a waste of time their coming here all through the course. Also in Fighter-Evasion Tactics the Rear Gunner gives all the instructions, as the co-operation between the pilot & him is the result of their training at O.T.U. The remaining member of the crew, the Flight Engineer we will pick up at our Heavy Conversion Unit, and then we will be a full crew of seven. I hope the other three members will be as good as these, & we should have a rattling good crew.
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[underlined] Thursday 17th June. [/underlined]
On Monday we found ourselves a rear gunner. Mac had noticed a chap who looked pretty keen, but I had heard him ‘nattering’ away and didn’t go much on him. I had another one in mind, fairly similar in appearance to the above mentioned one, and pointed him out to Mac, so he told me to go ahead and contact him.
Nobody has asked him to crew up, and he agreed to pitch in with us. He is a pretty decent kid, he is only 18, I know I’m only 19 myself but he looks very young and he is only about 5’ 5” and slimly built. He is a Londoner and comes from fairly near me, the most important thing, he seems to know his ‘gen’ on gunnery pretty thoroughly. His name is Johnny Watson.
So there we are the five of us, who will do O.T.U. together as a crew and pick up the other two afterwards. Somehow I can’t help wondering sometimes what lies in store for us, and the ability of a crew counts for such a lot in emergencies. Still ours looks pretty good to me, even though it does seem rather early to say it.
At the moment we are completing our ground lectures, and then tomorrow we start our exams. They aren’t actually long ones, or terribly important, although if one makes a pretty poor showing they are liable to be put back a course. The only subject
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I am hazy on is gun turrets, I had hardly any instruction on them at B. & G. School, then here a couple of hours were devoted to it. As it happened I was at the back of a crowded class room, and the diagram being on the wall, well I just couldn’t see a thing.
We have had some lectures together as a crew although for the majority of them we remain in our aircrew categories. There is an old Wellington Mk I in the Airmanship Hangar, & is sitting on supports, so that undercart drill can be carried out. We scramble all over it, learning the positions of various things, petrol cocks, escape hatches, crash positions, oxygen bottles, dinghy releases, & a 101 other things necessary to learn in an aircraft. A couple of times we have scrambled out of it, on dinghy or baling out drill – hope I never have to use either. The Wimpey is a real battered old thing, but it was used for the “1,000 bomber” raid on Cologne. Apparently to make up a 1,000 aircraft they called on all the old kites at O.T.U’s & anything that could get airborne was used. If the public had only known some of the old kites that were used they would have had a shock.
The airmanship instructor, Sgt Peacock, did a tour on Lancs as a mid/upper gunner and saw quite a bit of action apparently. One would think he would at least get a crown at the end of the tour, but his is well overdue.
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[underlined] 21st June [/underlined]
‘Midsummer’s Day’ – it certainly has been glorious weather too, I’m afraid the long daylight evenings mean later day flying for us and consequently less evenings off. We officially started our Flying Course today, though our crew weren’t on today, we commence our circuits and bumps tomorrow.
The results of the exams were posted up today. I had done well in everything but Turrets, on which I made a horrible ‘boob’ – it was as I expected Macgillvray the Canadian pilot opposite me in the billet was cursing because his Bomb Aimer, another Canadian named Dodson, had come bottom in the B/Aimer course. Apparently Dodson is a bit of a woman chaser, & didn’t bother staying in to do any swotting for the exam. Macgillvray was giving forth “He wants to get down to some studying instead of getting on the nest so much”, and so forth. The most amusing part is that Macgillvray is one of the biggest wolves I’ve known. He has a stock of Tangee lipsticks & cosmetics, with a few silk stockings which he uses as bait for the women, - he says. I have never known him to part with anything in the fortnight he has been here & he has been with a couple of women. It is dead funny to hear Mac slang him about them, as Mac has very little time for women. He isn’t a misogynist but he just doesn’t bother. Anyway most of his remarks although screamingly funny are quite unprintable.
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We are all in ‘A’ Flight, a whole course comprises a Flight which goes round in strict rotation, as the courses commence Day or Night Flying. Our Flight Commander Sqdn/Ldr. Ford seems quite O.K. he gave us a welcoming natter, and was very much to the point regarding keeping the crew room tidy, punctuality etc. still he is quite right in stressing these points. This afternoon I squeezed in an hour’s practise on the Bombing Teacher. There is a system here where the various aircrew categories each have to put in so many hours practise on exercises relating to their own particular aircrew duties Bomb Aimers have to do 20 hours in the Bombing Teacher, 10 hours on the Link Trainer, and 6 hours operating a secret navigational instrument. Navigators have to spend quite a few more hours on this instrument than we do, and also take a certain number of astro-shots. W/Ops have to get [deleted] [indecipherable word] a stated number of Q.D.M’s fixes etc. & Gunners get so many hours, spotting turret training, and other exercises, I haven’t found out what the pilots do yet. All the exercises which are carried out on the ground, that is practically everyone’s except the W/Ops have to be fitted into our spare time. That is when we are hanging around the crew room & not flying, then we can nip across & tick off an hour in the Bombing Teacher or the Link. During the rest of the course, although we are flying most of the time, we still have some lectures, as crews on matters of general interest & importance.
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[underlined] 27th June [/underlined]
Sunday again – although it is very similar to all the other days of the week, here. We have a Church Parade, first thing, all the pupils fall in at Training Wing and then march to the airfield, along the perimeter track, to a temporary parade ground outside a hangar, its about 1 1/2 miles from Training Wing. Anyway all the station is on parade there, & we take our place, the Groupie then rolls up for the flag hoisting, inspection and so forth. The flag is flown on a double line & pully attached to the extension of the hangar roof, where the door slides back into. Today the S.P. that was doing the flag hoisting pulled the flag up O.K. then when he gave a pull to unfurl it at the top nothing happened. He pulled & pulled & still no joy, the poor devil got very red in the face as the Groupie was waiting to give the order “General Salute”. However there was nothing else for it, & shamefacedly he hauled it down, & not daring to risk it again, pulled it up already unfurled. After the salute we had to march off in squadrons to another hangar where the pulpit was an RAF lorry covered with the Union Jack and a piano, for hymn singing on. When this was over we were marched off dismissed, and then everything carried on as in a normal day. On all stations when flying is done there is no break for Sundays as they had in the peace time RAF, funny how one almost loses track of the days that way.
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Although we are still on the circuits and bumps stage we are about at the end of it, and will soon be onto some more interesting exercises. All of the crew except the Navigator fly on circuits & landings, & he is lucky not to, it gets pretty binding after the first hour or so. When we first started a ‘screened’ pilot flew with ‘Mac’ giving him the ‘gen’ and everything, and after a little while let him go solo. We were a little apprehensive, in case the short time given, wasn’t enough to let Mac become acquainted with the new cockpit layout. However everything went O.K. and then we continued on our own with circuits & bumps. It hardly seems as though we are off the ground before we are getting ready for the approach & landing. Some of the landings we bump up & down quite a few times & Mac [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] refers to these as the “Grasshopper Blues”. I sit in the collapsible seat, for the second pilot, & it is O.K. seeing everything that goes on, but I wouldn’t like to be in the W/Ops position, feeling the bumps & jarrings, without seeing what was what. For some of our circuits we go over to Seighford and do them there. Actually if we could fly continually we could do them all in a couple of days. However in order to make the aircraft go round, & keep all the crews at the same stage in training, we are allotted the same length of detail. Sometimes a crew does get ahead of the others by luckily striking good weather every time, & never scrubbing an exercise through snags.
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[underlined] July 4th. [/underlined]
American Independence Day – I expect all the Americans around here are making whoopee. There are always a lot in Stafford, they come from the large transit camp at Stone, a small town 6 – 7 miles from here. All American aircrew, I believe, entering or leaving the country pass through there.
We are making steady progress on the course, we have managed to get three bombing exercises done, we are a bit ahead in that respect but behind in Fighter Application & a couple of other things. As I said before it is a matter of luck sometimes the kites are U/S & that puts us behind on that type of exercise for a while, it pretty well evens up at the end though. On the first bombing exercise we went up with a ‘screened’ pilot & a ‘screened’ bomb aimer. Mac had never made bombing runs before, it is only pilots that have been instructors, & staff pilots at B & G schools who have that experience. The ‘screened’ pilot was there to instruct Mac on how to make the corrections of course, that I asked for, & various other little points. There wasn’t very much need for the ‘screened’ bomb aimer, as bombing is very similar on whatever aircraft one flys in. The main point, he was there to point out, was in the method of giving corrections of course. In Ansons the pilots could flat turn them, thus the sighting angle was practically round when you gave “steady”, and a good pilot could hold it practically as it was. However a Wellington has to have banked turns, consequently if the bomb
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aimer waits till the target is in the drift wires of the bomb sight & then gives “Steady” – the pilot flattens out and the target is then way off to one side, so it requires some practise to estimate when to say “Steady” thus making the target come into the drift wires when the pilot flattens out.
Poor old Mac has a hell of a time on run ups, he is so small that he can just see out of the windscreen. He watches the target whilst making his run up, & then when I give a correction, he slides down in his seat to kick the rudder bars, & his head is below the windscreen level, so then he has to pull himself up again to look out. He told us he is actually just under the height standard for a pilot but flannelled his medical.
We did a low level bombing exercise yesterday, & once more took up the two ‘screens’. My first bomb overshot by about 300 yds, & so did the next, I checked every setting on the bombsight, & all were correct, so I called the ‘screened’ bomb aimer & told him, & he could find nothing wrong. So I tried the third one & that was 300 yds overshoot again, then I realised I was taking a line of sight with the back & fore sights as for high level, whereas for low level bombing the back sight, & front beads are used. I told the screen & he told me to carry on & they would make the exercise a grouping one. That is by maths they discount the different sighting & work out where the bombs would have landed, using the front beads. The exercise came out to 47 yards so it ended O.K.
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[underlined] 10th July [/underlined]
The time is slipping past and we are well on the way to finishing our day flying. We had rather an amusing incident the other day, amusing that is to everyone but Mac. He always taxies rather swiftly & as we were passing the control tower, we reached the part where the perimeter track, dips a little. Consequently we gathered speed and started to swing, instead of throttling back & braking, Mac decided to open up the opposite throttle to swing us back. However he over-corrected and we swung back across the perimeter track & onto the grass the other side, in the direction of the runway. Again Mac opened the opposite throttle, and again over-corrected, & we crossed the perry-track once more & raced towards a hangar. Mac clamped on the brakes for all he was worth but it wasn’t enough, the hangar doors were fully open, & we struck the edge of them with our port main plane & sent them thundering across. It must have shaken the people inside to see the hangar doors suddenly move swiftly. From our point of view it was quite amusing, one moment there was hardly a soul [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] in sight, then with the same effect as if someone had kicked an ant-hill, people came pouring out from the hangar, & clustered around the kite. The pièce de resistance was the fact that we had cut clean through the ropes that held the Groupie’s flag & this was now drooped nonchalantly over our astro-dome. – Groupy took a dim view of it. Poor Mac sweated blood, but he only got a strip torn off, but the kite had a mains-plane changed.
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[underlined] 17th July [/underlined]
We had an enjoyable night in Stafford this week, as usual we got set into a regular pub crawl. Old Mac is all against this, he likes to get settled in at one pub and stay there all night drinking steadily. His words of wisdom are “Jeeze, you’re wasting valuable drinking time, going round looking for other pubs, - sit here”. I have never seen anyone drink so much, and affect them so little, it is amusing. He can knock back the pints and I have never seen him, what you might call drunk, merry yes, but inebriated – never. His personality is amazing everyone everywhere gets to know him, & all like him, he will sit and ‘natter’ with people for hours, and tell the most amusing stories of his life in Ottawa, and recount anecdotes of his numerous friends. He certainly is a tonic to have around. While we were in Stafford we saw the Gunnery Leader, he is an Aussie Flt/Lt, and a real lad when he is sober. Now he was out on the beer, evidently, & was strolling down the High St, with his hat on the back of his head, a dingy old battle dress on, & swinging, a gent’s black umbrella, rolled up (where he got [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] it from I dont know). On his other arm was a real brassy blonde – he certainly doesn’t give a damn.
All our bombing exercises are finished and two of our three cross country trips, I have one more gunnery trip to do, and so has ‘Nipper’, thats [sic] what we call Johnny now. I rather like the Air Firing trips which are carried out in Cardigan Bay, then
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they generally fly to Rhyl, & fly at about 30 – 50 ft just a little way out from the shore. There are always lots of holiday makers there. Cecil Kindt had a strip torn off the other day, through an Air Firing accident. They were sent out over the Wash to fire so many rounds into the sea, this in itself is pretty boring and the gunners always look round for some sort of a target. His rear gunner spotted some sort of an old hulk and fired at it on a couple of runs. Apparently it was a wreck & their [sic] were a couple of divers, & salvage men working on it, & one leapt into the water, because of the bullets. God knows how the rear gunner didn’t see them, anyway they got the kite’s letter, phoned to the shore, & by the time Cecil landed the pressure had been put on Sqdn/Ldr Ford as he gave it to Kindt hot & strong.
Macgillvray has been providing laughs all round with his amorous adventures. Not so very long ago he met a nurse in Nottingham, a very nice girl by all accounts, a widow, anyway it wasn’t long before Macgillvray was staying at her flat. However he couldn’t get to Nottingham very much so he began associating with a WAAF Sgt here on the camp. One thing about him he admits openly what he is after, anyway she wasn’t that type, but after a little while with Macgillvray she was. Now she is crazy over him, & runs about after him, whilst he is very off handed. At the same time he meets an A.T.S. girl, on leave who lives in a house, a couple of hundred yards from our billet. It didn’t take him very long to string her along
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as well, so there he is with three strings to his bow at the same time – no wonder he looks a wreck. The amusing incident arose the other night when the WAAF Sgt saw him coming out of a corn field with this blonde A.T.S. She was furious & drinking with him the next night she said “Don’t let me see you with that – tart again,” which for her is a very strong word. Jokingly one night she said she was the “Three-hook Wonder”, hook meaning Stripes, Macgillvray, & Mac, who also knows her well, immediately changed it to the “Three-Hook Blunder,” & later cut it down to “The Blunder,” & so it has remained – poor girl.
They are a pretty decent bunch of fellows in this hut, we have had a little reshuffle in order to get crews together. Some of the original Canucks are in other huts, whilst Johnny, & Bill are now in here so we have all our crew. Macgillvray has his Navigator – Lance Weir, & his Bomb Aimer Dodson, both Canadians in here. Weir is a really decent chap, very quiet spoken, some of the boys kid him & call him “Toody-Fruit,” because he has a habit of rubbing talcum powder over his body. Frankie Allen, pilot, Yelland, navigator, & Tom Hughes – bomb aimer, all Canucks form another crew. Hughes is very decent, I have only one pair of pyjamas & when that was at the laundry he saw me dive into bed in the altogether, & asked the reason. When I [deleted] said [/deleted] [inserted] told [/inserted] him he tossed me a Canadian Comforts pair & said “Keep it, I’ve got five other pairs”, it was good of him. Their rear gunner Rose, an English chap is here, a small comical fellow, they call him John L. after the boxer Sullivan, because he wears long pants like him. Cecil Kindt, with Sam Small, navigator, and Macdonald, b/aimer, all Canadians, complete the hut.
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[underlined] 22nd July [/underlined]
We are now the senior course here, and have now moved on to become the ‘night-flying’ flight, tonight we expect to start our night circuits & bumps, some of the chaps commenced last night. They hoped to squeeze us a 48 hr pass in between the end of day flying & the start of night, but we were a little behind as a course through unavoidable incidents, so we had had it! I am sorry the day cross country trips are over, as I really enjoyed them, we generally flew to Rhyl, and I camera-bombed the pier. Then drill was done as if we were on an ‘op’ & that was our coast we were leaving. We then flew across to the Isle of Man which separated the enemy coast, & I would camera-bomb the quay at Ramsey. With a brilliant sun, & flying in our shirt sleeves everything looked lovely. The sea was a sparkling blue and invariably there would be a huge convoy spread about, a never failing source of interest to us. However we had been warned to keep well clear of them, as the naval gunners were very trigger itchy, and one of our crews had been fired on by an aircraft carrier. We would fly across the Isle of Man, head North, then turn in at the English coast once more, & return to Cannock Chase for a bombing exercise of 12 practise bombs on the range, & then return to base. The rations were pretty good, we always saved our tin of orange juice to drink on a morning after the night before it was very good, I suppose we will get the same on night X-countries.
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On the first one we had a ‘screened’ pilot, then the next one did by ourselves, the third & largest, we carried a full bomb load of 250 lb H.E’s filled with sand, except one which was live. This I had to bomb on a sea range with and photograph the splash. We had a ‘screened’ bomb-aimer/navigator on this one, an F/O pretty decent chap. [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] [inserted] He [/inserted] asked Mac if he would let him do some tight turns over his home in Aberystwyth as we were passing over it. Mac agreed but quickly retrieved the controls when he saw we were almost stalling.
For night flying we report to the flight just after 6 P.M. to see what is on, naturally it is broad daylight then. Then if we are not on till late we can go to the Station Cinema, as we did last night. It is the usual effort, it is in the lecture hall, when we first came the cinematograph was mounted on a large table, so if one sat well back, the noise of the machine drownded [sic] the sound track. Now they have built a brick projection box, and have provided a wooden platform for the dearer seats – with the usual front two rows reserved – Officers Only.
Looking back at my last entry, I see I have forgotten to mention ‘Pinky’ Tomlin. He is a Canadian Bomb Aimer, but his pilot, & navigator are commissioned, & his W/Op & R/Gunner are in another hut so he is ‘one alone’. He is pretty tubby & really loves food, he bought himself an electric [deleted] plate [/deleted] [inserted] heater [/inserted] to use as a grill, & cooks things from the numerous parcels he receives from home. He was a scout master back in Canada – not a bad chap, rather hail-fellow-well met.
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[underlined] July 30th. [/underlined]
Night circuits and bumps are almost completed for us – Thank God! – they really are binding. We follow exactly the same procedure as with our day flying, first of all with an instructor, then Mac solo’ed and we carried on by ourselves. The first couple of times were O.K. but then it grew monotonous staring out into the blackness, with just the circuit lights to relieve the unbroken darkness. I suppose an artist gazing at them would murmur “Pearls cast upon a black velvet background”, but to us they mean “Keep me under your port wing, and fly at [symbol] 1,000 ft.” The Dren lighting takes some getting used to, the flarepath lights are only 15 watt bulbs and are hooded and secured to give a 15o vertical, and 40o horizontal spread of light, only in a down wind direction. Consequently one can only see them, immediately facing into them, as soon as we have taken off we can no longer see them. It was funny when Bill first saw this, he is generally working on the radio, then he looked out of the astro-dome for the first time on night take off, and called on the A/T “Hey! they’ve switched off the flare path now we are airborne”. Johnny has the worst job, sitting right at the end of the kite, cramped in his turret, and feeling all the crashes and jars of landing far more than us. Every now & again, I go lurching along the catwalk with coffee for him. Bill was quite eager to sit in the cockpit, so I change places with him sometimes & listen to dance music on the radio.
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We get more time off now than we did on night flying, our day off now becomes a night off. So we have the day off after night flying, then that night off & the following day until 6 P.M. Should night flying be scrubbed the night before, then one can make two nights and two days out of it, providing one hasn’t put in a pass. On a couple of days off we have been into Birmingham and stayed at the Services Club. At least we did the first time, the second time they were full up, so we had to doze in arm chairs & so forth. Mac took me into the American Red Cross, I didn’t think we could go in there, but it was O.K. The food in there is very good indeed, I believe it is sent over from the States. I took Johnny in there on our second visit and he thought it was an excellent place, they are certainly superior to our Services Clubs.
There is another instructor in the Bombing Section now, a Sgt Bomb Aimer, just finished his tour of ‘ops’, Sgt Mason his name is, quite a decent fellow. He gave us a ‘natter’ on what life was like on a squadron at the moment. It certainly cleared up a few points and provided a shock. According to him it is a pretty odds on chance that a crew will get the chop before finishing a tour. On his squadron only about 4 crews finished, as far as he could recollect all the time that he was there. It certainly isn’t a rosy future anyway, still there’s always the chance we will be one of them to come through.
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[underlined] 5th August [/underlined]
We have only about a fortnight left before we finish here, one crew became well advanced so they were sent over to Seighford onto 17 course the previous one to ours. At the moment we are on Night bombing exercises, and somehow we always seem to be ‘joed’ for the very last detail. Consequently we hang about all night waiting to take off, and finally get the exercise in between 6 & 7 A.M. when it is beginning to get light. Then we arrive back in the hut to find all the others are up and have been for hours – they nicknamed us “The Dawn Patrol”.
Our first prang on this course occurred the other night. There have been some major prangs on other courses while we have been here, and a few minor ones [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] on our course, this was our first major one though. We were circling the airfield waiting to land, when we saw a kite overshoot, prang and burst into flames, not far off the end of the runway, we couldn’t see much detail at all. So we continued to circle and await instructions, then all lights were extinguished and we were ordered to land at Seighford. Over we went and lobbed in then with three others crews, and naturally were wondering what had happened.
We had a meal in the mess, & then as there was nobody around to fix us up with beds, we had to doze on chairs in the mess. After breakfast, which was quite early,
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we decided to sleep on in the ante-room, as Hixon was going to phone when we were to return. However the C.M.C. had locked the ante-room, & said it was always out of bounds in the morning, and would make no exception for us – nice type. So we had to sit on the grass outside the mess for a couple of hours.
I met Derek Ashton over there, they will be finished in a day or so, & so would I if I had still been on that course. I couldn’t have had a better crew than what I have now, though. Ashton said they liked Seighford better than Hixon as there was no ‘bull’ there and it was a lot easier to get into Stafford. The only snag is, it is far more dispersed than Hixon is.
We didn’t get back to Hixon before 1 P.M. as we were held up for brake pressure. It turned out to be Carr’s crew who had pranged. They were making a flapless landing with an instructor, owing to trouble with the flaps. The instructor was flying it, and he approached too fast, overshot didn’t make it, and crashed on the railway lines, when the kite immediately caught fire. Luckily they were all unhurt except Sgt Mann, the ‘screened’ bomb aimer, he was burnt slightly on the face, and has been admitted to hospital for a short while. It seems Fate that he should get through a tour unscathed and then have this happen at O.T.U.
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[underlined] 12th August [/underlined]
Only a week to go, and then most probably we shall fly over enemy territory for the first time – on a ‘nickel’, I hope we do one anyway. The course is split practically in half with the first half slightly ahead of the others – we are in the latter. I said goodbye to Norman and the boys on 17 course, when they came over here, they have to get cleared here as well as at Seighford. Pete Rawlings was chatting to me about his skipper, he was the one I would have had on 17 course. He said he was a damn good pilot, but he would ‘natter’ such a lot on the inter-com. – I should have hated that.
We certainly get good meals on night flying, they have opened, a place especially for us near the cinema. It is a pukka little cook house, with a Cpl & two WAAFs, just for our flight. The Cpl is a good type & we get steaks & eggs for our flying meals, it is bang on. Although we are not supposed to officially, we go there for supper, if there is no flying detail for us that particular night. There is a real craze for cards now, & Hughes, Mac, Bill, Johnny & myself & various others, often play Blackjack & Pontoon, of a night if we aren’t on. We start in the evening & play till the small hours & then stagger down to see what Flying supper is. The Canadians are fond of playing “Shoot”, & have a school regularly in the locker room.
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If night flying is scrubbed for everyone, most of the boys turn in at 11 P.M. or so, in order to have the next day free. However Mac & a couple of others hate getting to bed at that time, preferring to turn in late, & sleep the following day, as if night flying was on. They generally get Pinky Tomlins, electric heater out, & cook things out of their Canadian food parcels. Mac is really amusing when he gets nattering about “Chicken soup with noodles”, & “weeners” & various other Canadian foods. Naturally they kick up a fair amount of noise, and the boys trying to sleep shout out uncomplimentary remarks to Mac, as he is generally telling an anecdote or a story about back home. Then he immediately bellows back “- this is a night flying hut, get out of that bed, you lazy so & so”. The amusing part is the following day, when they are all up & about, & Mac is trying to sleep through the noise. He will sit up & shout “Quiet, let a guy get some sleep”, & they laugh & generally Hughes will give him a shake & say “Come on McCann this is a night flying hut”, & various cracks until Mac aims a boot. They are a good bunch of boys though.
Another good thing about this night flying is that we don’t bother about the C.O’s billet inspection every week. We just put a notice on the door “Night Flying Hut – Do Not Disturb”, & funnily enough nobody does.
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[underlined] 19th August. [/underlined]
Our O.T.U. Course has now ended, the perk was last night when we did a “Nickel” to Rennes. The first lot of our course left a few days ago, they had to do a ‘bullseye’ exercise to finish as there were no “nickels” laid on. They got 10 days leave, & posted to Lindholme to go on Lancasters, that is where we will go, everyone goes onto Lancs from this O.T.U. We had another cross country to do, the usual long stooge right up to the Orkneys, with airfire and bombing at Caernarvon – what a farce.
Yesterday we were told that all the remaining crews would finish with a ‘Nickel’ that night, & we have to take up the kite we would be flying in and Air-Test it. The tail trim proved to be U/S on ours & another was put on, with another crew air testing it. At evening time we assembled in the intelligence room for briefing, it was a pukka briefing, like they have on a squadron, with the Sqdn/Ldr Intelligence Officer taking it. Then the C.O. & a couple of other officers said a few words, & briefing was over, they even had an S.P. on duty outside the door. We put all our personal belongings in an envelope with our name on it, collected our escape kits & foreign money, then off to the locker room to dress.
Half of the crews were going to St. Malo, and the rest of us to Rennes, we were flying the same track & course to Isigny at the base of the Cherbourg peninsula, & then to Avranches our next pin point, where we would continue our various ways. Soon we were all dressed, then into the crew bus & out to the kites.
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They were lined up together, & as R/T isn’t allowed on any ‘ops’ take-offs, a yellow verey was to be fixed from control for the signal to start up engines, then a green verey, when it was time for the first kite to start taxying out. The photographic vans drove out with the camera magazines, & the LAC, rather a gigolo type, who handed up mine, uttered the famous words “Wish I was coming with you”. Suddenly up went the yellow cartridge & the ground crews leapt into action, and the roar of engines shattered the summer’s evening. Johnny then called up to say none of the lights would work in his turret, & the spare fuses had no effect. This caused quite a flap, ‘bods’ went dashing everywhere, & both an armourer & a fitter came dashing along when it was a job for an electrician. During this time the green verey went up & the first kite taxied out, Macgillvray was next, on our right and he waved to us, as they went out, we were still waiting there as the kites on our left followed Macgillvray out, & soon we were sitting there alone. The Groupy came whizzing over in his car to see what the electrician was doing, but at that time one came along with the fuses that had to be changed inside the fuselage. So everything O.K. at last, we taxied out by ourselves, the others all having taken off. All the officers were on the control tower and they waved as we went past, then onto the runway, a green from the A.C.P. and off we went. The others were circling base to gain height, & there was 10 mins to go before setting course, so we were O.K. for time. We set course with them, & made up our height by the first turning point.
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It was quite dusk as we crossed the coast near Southampton, & it was quite dark when Ken said “We’re getting near the enemy coast”. I strained my eyes to peer through the darkness, & after a little while made out the long narrow neck of land, that I had memorised so well as the Cherbourg peninsula. Then I saw my first flak, the sudden whitish flashes on the ground, & after a brief while, the flashes (like twinkling lights but not so harmless). I felt a sense of false confidence, as it seemed remote from us, but the truth was there wasn’t very much flak, and nobody would have worried much. I told them we were starboard of track, & we altered course & soon crossed the enemy coast. Johnny said there was quite a bit more flak going up at the chaps behind us.
I pinpointed the river at Avranches, & after a while we came to the dropping place, it was 15 miles S.E of Rennes owing to the wind. We had to follow the bombing procedure, & drop them by a distributor in order to space them out. A sudden shout from Johnny caused a flap, & as he said “There’s thousands of them floating everywhere,” I cursed him as I wanted to give the order “Close Bomb Doors”. Eventually we shut him up and returned to base. It was an uneventful return journey, & we landed tired but happy (admittedly mainly because we were going on leave). Carr got quite a bit of flak over St. Malo.
We slept in this morning for a while & then got going on our clearance chits. Mac has met the Mid/Upper who has joined our crew, but the rest of us haven’t seen him yet. Tomorrow morning we will complete our clearance chits, then off on 10 days leave, before going to a Con Unit. So goodbye to Hixon.
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[underlined] 29th August. [/underlined]
Since I last wrote various changes have taken place. On the morning of the 20th, the day we [deleted] went [/deleted] left Hixon, we reported at the Adjutant’s office for our warrants & passes. He came out very apologetically & said a last minute change of posting had occurred, we were to go on Stirlings & report to a Con. Unit at Woolfox Lodge, after [underlined] 6 [/underlined] days leave. Losing four days leave didn’t seem too good to us, also we had heard pretty duff reports of Stirlings on ‘ops’. Still off we went – the orderly room had told us the Con Unit was near Cambridge & the warrants were made out to there.
I caught the evening train back, but when I went to the Cambridge R.T.O. they said Hixon Orderly Room had boobed, & Woolfox Lodge was near Stamford. As there were no more trains that night, I had to spend the night in the Nissen hut there, rather grim. In the morning I met Johnny & Pinky Tomlin, & we travelled to Stamford, we had to change at Peterborough and there met some more of the boys. At Stamford we phoned for transport, but it was a few hours before it arrived and we had [deleted] dinner [/deleted] lunch in the George Hotel. Mac & some of the others arrived here yesterday and are in the hut near to ours, and today we have been tramping around with our arrival chits, but as the course commences for us tomorrow we won’t bother to finish them. This course has already been on a couple of days, they were as unprepared for us, as we were for coming here.
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[underlined] [deleted] August [/deleted] [inserted] September [/inserted] 5th. [/underlined]
First, I had better bring my crew up to date, as we have a full crew now. Don Keeley the Mid-Upper Gunner, who joined us as we left Hixon is tall & very dark, his face has been sunburnt so much it leaves one with the impression almost of an Indian, he is quiet a good looking chap & seems very decent. Our engineer was allotted to us by the Engineering Leader, and is a Welshman, Jack Barker. He is about 5 ft 5” with a cheerful face, & crisp wavy hair, we haven’t had a lot to do with him yet, as quite naturally he still goes around with the engineers who came with him as a course, from St. Athens, I think I can safely say that we have got a very good crew, though.
This station is far more dispersed than Hixon was. It is cut in half by the Great North Road, to the East of the road is the airfield itself, whilst to the West are the living & communal sites. Our billet is a quarter of an hours walk to the mess, then from the mess it is a 20 min walk, to the other side of the airfield where training-wing is. There are no ablutions on the sites, and washing kit is stolen if it is left in the ablutions by the mess, so we wash from an old rain water tub at the back of the hut.
We have a ground course of a week to 10 days here, comparable to that at O.T.U. only bringing newer work into it. At last I have met the MK. XIV Gyro Bombright, the one I shall actually use on ‘ops’ – it certainly is a bag of tricks. In a day or so we will have our exams, & then commence our flying on Stirlings.
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[underlined] 14th [deleted] August [/deleted] [inserted] September [/inserted]. [/underlined]
The exams are over, everyone passed O.K. and we are now underway with our Flying Conversion. For the engineers, this is when they fly for the first time, as they pass out from there [sic] training school, and come straight here to be crewed up, without ever having flown before. It seems pretty hard on them, to have only a few hours air experience before they arrive at a squadron and go on ‘ops’.
Stirlings are the largest 4 engined bomber there is, and the cockpit is certainly a height from the ground. They have a long undercart, & it is quite a common prang, to see an undercart wiped off, as the aircraft have a tendency to swing & if one brakes severely & swerves, the undercart is quite likely to go. I have to fly as second pilot in there, and attend to boost, revs, flaps & undercart, it takes both of us to get the kite off the deck & they take a hell of a long run.
For a lot of our circuits and bumps we flew over to a Yankee airfield, they had Fortresses. We used to fly there for 2 hours or so & then return. Before Mac had soloed, he was taking off there, & the kite swung viciously & shot across the grass straight towards a Fort. There were some mechanics working on it, and they looked up to see a Stirling thundering at them, without pause they leapt off the wing, fell over picked their selves up & dashed off. If it hadn’t been dicey, it would have seemed ludicrous, however, the screened pilot took a hand, pulled at the controls, & we took off right over the Fort. Mac soloed O.K. a little later, & now we are on X-countries.
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[underlined] 22nd [deleted] August [/deleted] [inserted] September [/inserted] [/underlined]
Our Con. Unit is nearly over, & we shall soon be on an operational squadron, different instructors speak in glowing terms of their old squadrons, & advise us to try & get posted there so we don’t know where we are. At the moment we are commencing our night X country period, this is a tricky airfield to taxi on at night.
Macgillvray has been going out with a WAAF M.T. driver here, & at last it seems like the real thing he is talking seriously of marriage. When he left Hixon, “The Blunder”, went into Stafford with him to stay the night, & then spins a 48 hr pass with him at the Strand Palace. Macgillvray was half & half about telling her to go, however when he arrived here he wrote, & told her he didn’t want to see her again. She wrote back & said as soon as she got a pass she was coming to have it out with him. Then a letter arrived yesterday saying she would arrive in the evening, & would he meet her in town. Macgillvray religiously stayed in camp all evening, & every now & again the phone would ring for him, it was her, phoning from Stamford, & it was really funny to see him keep telling chaps he wasn’t in. Suddenly, the boys came in with the news, she had come out on the 10.30 P.M. bus, & fixed up with the WAAF Officer to stay the night. Macgillvray was off to his billet like a shot. [deleted] Next [/deleted] [inserted] This [/inserted] morning, the Blunder, was in the dining hall, early, & waiting behind the servery, when Macgillvray came in, she dashed out, & told him exactly what she thought of him, in a loud voice. Everyone listened interestedly, & the cooks even ceased serving in order to hear clearly, Mac went deadly white, & after a while walked out, with the Blunder behind. Anyway that was exit to the Blunder. We’ve certainly had some laughs here.
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[underlined] Wednesday [deleted] August [/deleted] [inserted] September [/inserted] 29th. [/underlined]
At last the time has arrived, and what a time I have had to wait for it, 2 1/4 years ago I volunteered for aircrew, & right up till now I have been training for the real job, & we have arrived at last on a squadron. It is a new squadron just forming, No 623, and we are stationed at Downham Market with No 218 squadron. We left Woolfox about 8 AM. on Monday, and caught the 9.15 AM. to Peterborough, where we arrived about 10.15 AM. Deciding to spend the day we trooped out and started off with a large meal in the Silver Grill, a very satisfying start. During the afternoon we looked over the Cathedral, and afterwards went to the cinema to see Tyrone Power in “Crash Drive”, pretty good. Another large meal at the Silver Grill then off on the 6.46 PM. to Downham Market. Naturally the trains were late and we reached Downham Station around 10 PM. & phoned for transport. When it arrived we threw the kit on, we were getting rather cheesed with it by now, after lumping it on & off different trains, and out we went.
It was rather a grim reception, they told us we couldn’t have a meal, & then we found out there was no accommodation for us. So we drove round in the dark in a lorry and they found room for us in ones & twos with the erks, it was pretty grim organisation.
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They locked our kit up in a hut, my overcoat & groundsheet amongst them, so of course it poured of rain during the night & the next morning. Being as the station is all clay like most of the Fen country, it was one helluva mess. Like all Bomber Stations it is horribly dispersed, & we tramped around miserably in the wet, with our arrival chits. The mess was large and new, & very bare, & the food just happened to be pretty grim, so I’m afraid we took a rather poor view of the station, things look a little better now though.
There is a rigged up cinema & I believe they have occasional shows there, but there isn’t a lot of entertainment available. The town [deleted] of [/deleted] or village of Downham is only 15 mins walk from the mess, but there isn’t much life in there. They have one rather ancient cinema with old films & a dance hall, that is always over crowded & 21 pubs, the latter is over shadowed by Stamford’s 63. I don’t think we will be going in there very much. There were three crews arrived from Woolfox together, Pete, Macgillvray & ourselves, Carr is travelling down too today, as he hadn’t finished his flying at Woolfox. We are binding for leave as most crews get it on arrival but our efforts haven’t been successful so far. Our first two ‘ops’ here are mining trips & the pilot was a second “dickey” (pilot) trip, before we start we have to do a bullseye though.
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[underlined] Monday 4th October. [/underlined]
Things are looking quiet a bit better now, the mess seems comfortable, & the food really is good. Up till Saturday we didn’t do much, mainly hung around & had a few lectures, & got our kit into the parachute section. This is a new idea, they have a large room, with lockers, & hang our kit up properly, to dry etc, also testing it each time, then when we want something we go & ask for it & they bring it out. If they have found any stuff U/S they tell us what it is so we can change it, it’s a good scheme. The essentials such as chute, harness, helmet, boots, & ‘K’ type dinghy, are laid out already when the crew is on ‘ops’. No waiting or anything its quite a good scheme. We drew our electrical kit & our new flying boots, from stores, there [sic] boots are the new type with leather boots as bottoms, they have a knife in the side to cut the upper off, should we land in enemy territory, & thus leave a fine pair of walking boots.
On Saturday our bullseye arrived and we were briefed in the afternoon for a 7.50 PM take off. We got away a few minutes late but with no mishap & climbed over the drome then set course for Bedford, this was the starting gate of the bullseye. About 15 mins after we left there, we were coned by about 20 beams & passed on to other cones. We were diving all around the sky but we were
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held pretty well for around 10 – 15 minutes, before we got out. At Portsmouth we were held for around 2 minutes, & again at Beachy Head, then we headed for the target – London. We came in over Croydon & Lewisham to run up to our target, Westminster Bridge. There were about four cones in action with about 30 beams in each, and they all had a kite in, jerking like mad. Whilst they were occupied we were able to slip in smoothly on our bombing run without interference. The searchlights blinded me a bit though and I was unable to get a good line of sight on the bridge, but took the photographs. The black out of London was pretty grim, there were bags of lights about, & the docks were clearly lit up along the river & so were the main railway stations. I don’t think I would fancy an attack on London though, the defences seem pretty hot. After London we went to Bedford again where the bullseye finished, so we had no engagements with fighters. From here to base then up to Goole and back on another I.R. stooge. It was pretty nippy & poor Johnny & Don in the turrets were frozen stiff. There were hardly any fighter interceptions I guess the fighter boys didn’t feel like playing. Anyway back to the bacon & egg, the usual natter with the other crews on various points & then off to bed, for a nice lengthy sleep.
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When we got up at dinner time yesterday it was to be told that we were operating that night – mine laying, it rather shook us. Briefing was at 4 PM. & we learned we were going off the Frisian Is. (a fairly short trip) & taking 6 x 1500 mines. Back to the mess in the bus for the operational meal, then over to the billet, where like old men we clamber into our long flying underwear. Even though it is all pure rayon lined it makes me itch, just not used to long legs & sleeves I guess after jockey shorts & singlet. Our next move is back down to the dressing room in the parachute section, where we collect our kit. We never put the stuff on otherwise we would sweat moving around & then it would freeze when we got up & defeat the clothing. Out to the kite in the bus then, dump the kit on the grass & everyone climbs in for their last minute check of their equipment. Whoever D.I’d the first turret did a poor job, because the reflector sight was left on & the guns weren’t loaded, so I got cracking on those & tested the tuner, then climbed down for my initial bombing check. The engines were run up, tested, then shut down again & we climbed out for a smoke and sign our various forms. The Wing Comdr & Sqdn Ldr drove out to give last minute tips & see if there were any snags, then we all climbed aboard again, fully dressed now, all hatches closed, & taxied out.
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The first aircraft was due off at 7.35 and took off dead on time, we were third, got the green from the ACP opened up & away we went. They are a bit of a job to get off with a heavy load & we didn’t miss the trees by much but we made it. We set course for Cromer, where we were leaving the coast, at 1500 ft, we were staying at that height so Jerry couldn’t pick us up, then climbing to 5,000 ft at the last moment to avoid any flak ships. Everything went fine, poor old Ken was sick again, he certainly has guts to keep flying and navigating when he is often queer. We had to climb quickly at the mining area, & the revs wouldn’t increase for the minute, consequently we nearly stalled. At 1500 ft with that bomb load we would [deleted] dive [/deleted] have dived straight into the waves, it was touch & go for a minute but worked out. The mines were dropped, one [deleted] f [/deleted] could feel them drop, & back we went. When we got back to Cromer there were lots of searchlights & they picked us up, but shut off when we flicked our nav lights on & off. They suddenly coned a single engine kite so we watched it like hawks just in case, there have been a lot of intruders around this area. There was a large fire about 50 miles off the port bow, enemy activity maybe. We landed O.K. though were interrogated & off to the mess, when the siren went so we had just dodged it, still we were safe then. A bang on supper then off to bed for another good rest.
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[underlined] Thursday 7th October.. [/underlined]
Life is proceeding along fairly smooth lines, and we are pretty well settled in. The other night when we did our mining trip, the main force went to Kassel. Clarc Carr went with another pilot to get his second ‘dicky’ trip in. The pilot he went with had 23 trips in & was on the point of completing his tour, but they never returned. Poor old Clarc, he was one of the best chaps I have met, he never got in a temper with anyone, yet he was pretty tough, it’s a shame that such fellows have to go. It really shakes us when fellows we have been with for a long while get the chop, brings it home the hard way. They have sent his crew home on 3 days leave, I don’t know what they are doing after that, whether they are returning to ‘Con’ Unit to pick up a new skipper, or stay here as ‘spares’, the former would be better I should think.
Speaking of spares they grabbed Don, our mid upper to go in somebody else’s crew on Monday for the raid on Frankfurt, as their m/u.g had gone sick. It was rather a nerve I thought both asking a crew to fly with a chap they didn’t know, & worse for the gunner to fly with a strange crew. They did the same thing to Smith, Macgillvrays rear gunner, if they keep this thing up they will
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soon be doing away with the crews & just have a pool that they draw on, I always thought that if somebody was sick in a crew the whole lot was declared U/S. there is a word they have when referring to men they call them ‘bodies’ or ‘bods’, & how right it is, you are just merely a figure on paper. Every morning the big noise walks into the flight office & asks the flight commander “How many crews have you, fully operational?”, and then demands those that aren’t be made so in as short a time as possible. That is all they are interested in, is, how many crews have they available for an ‘op’, regardless of how much flying you’ve done, just recently some of the chaps have been on the main force 3 out of 4 nights. Anyway all kites returned from Frankfurt O.K. and Dan gave us a vivid description, it was very interesting but I guess we will be seeing all we want of it very shortly.
Tuesday night we were on ‘stand down’, but Wednesday we were briefed for a long mining trip to La Rochelle, right down near the Spanish border. There was a hell of a front expected at base around 6.30 so they were rushing us off at 5.50 & come back to meet the front over the Channel & battle through it. There was severe icing from 7 – 15,000 so we had to try & climb above it, not an easy job in a Stirling, the extent was possibly
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right up to the London area as well. The briefing & everything was terribly rushed & we tore around in a mad flap to get everything done, and we were all dressed & on the point of going out to the kite when they scrubbed it, what a life, tonight we were in it again but it was scrubbed once more.
Last night I decided I would see what Downham was like so I ambled in with the boys & was I cheesed. I had seen the [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] film on at the little cinema, so all there was to do was sit in a smokey pub, & swill lousy beer. At last the smoke made my eyes ache so much I came home. Macgillvray was on a short mining trip last night, & a Picture Post reporter was going along. They sent down 4 camera & news men, & took photographs of them having an operational meal & were going to take bags more in the kite, but it was scrubbed, what bad luck, a chance like that only comes once in a life time. The traditional RAF bull was in evidence, for the photograph they had a spotless table-cloth, cream crackers on the table, & a Cpl WAAF waiting on them. Actually we queue up for our meals & a long one at times & eat of [sic] bare dirty tables, & the only biscuits we see are hard dog ones. – We did our first day flying, here, today, took two kites up on air tests, we were doing a loaded climb but that was scrubbed, at least we know what the drome looks like in daylight now.
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[underlined] Sunday October 10th. [/underlined]
We look like having our first leave in a few days we are officially due to go at 0700 hrs on Thursday 14th, until the following Tuesday midnight. The chaps generally get away on the Wednesday, & if they are very lucky & they aren’t on ops on Tuesday they get away Tuesday afternoon which is pretty good. I only hope we are that lucky, Mac has to do a second dicky & if he gets that in tomorrow night we may be on ops the following night (Tuesday) & mess things up a bit. Should it be scrubbed tomorrow, Mac will go Tuesday & we can go Tuesday afternoon, I am afraid we are unscrupulous enough to hope that the weather is lousy tomorrow night. He has got his Flight through at last, & is now ‘Chiefy’ McCann, it is well overdue, but the Canadians get back pay on crowns, one of the numerous ways they are better than the RAF, so he has about £16 back pay to come. The comical part is that after all this waiting & binding now it has appeared in P.O.R’s the stores have no crowns so he is unable to wear it – poor Mac.
Friday night we went on our long mining trip, off Bordeaux in the estuary of the Gironde. We took 4 1,500 mines a fair weight, our all up weight was 69,784 lbs. The briefing was at 6.0 P.M. it shook us but they were having a late take off because the room was nearly full & they were waiting for it to die down as the German fighters have an easy time in the bright moonlight. The bus took
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[inserted] [newspaper cutting showing a WAAF with a mine] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
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us back [missing words] as our operation [missing words] wasn’t until 8.45 we had bags of time to fill in. Lots of Forts went over then & we watched them the next day we learned they had been to Bremen. We had our egg & at 10.25 the transport took us back, we didn’t have to struggle with our kit as we had taken it out in the afternoon. The run up & testing commenced, then shut down while we donned our kit & start up once more. We took off bang on time & 5 mins later set course. Old Petch who was the only other one beside us going swung on take off & hit his undercart against some iron rails for fog lighting & they wouldn’t let him take off, consequently we were the only ones from this station that went.
It was practically 10/10ths cloud down to the coast, it cleared there & I was able to get a wizard pin point on Selsey Bill, our crossing point. The moon was like a searchlight & we felt all naked illuminated up there, it set quite a bit after they told us it did, because there was the time of setting as seen by a ground observer, whereas we were at 12,000 ft. The cloud built up more & more over the Channel until it was 10/10ths again on the French Coast and we were unable to pin point. It remained like that most of the way, the least it was, was 7/10ths, approaching the target area it began
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to clear & I got down into the bombing hatch ready. I was determined to get my night vision up to scratch because if we couldn’t pin point we had to bring the mines back. The green indicator target on the VCP was glaring on my vision panel like a searchlight so I piled my long cushion over it. Then I wanted to see my target map so hopped to switch on the light for a brief second, next the cushion fell down & the light glared again, I dove back at that. I was hopping around like a rubber ball, & sweating lest I should miss the coast & be unable to pin point. Suddenly I saw it, it was pretty dark, I could make it out clearly though, then we passed out to sea over the first island & swung out to rear to clear the island defences. Then altering course we swung in for the mainland once more, I was straining my neck, thats [sic] the worst of the Stirling bomb aimers window, the Lancs have a beauty. After a bit I made it out we were heading up the Gironde estuary, so we made a left hand turn & came bang on the corner of the estuary, which was our pin point. Setting course on a D.R run we dropped the eg O.K. & set course home. Just after we left the flak began to open up on the islands & one searchlight probed around, but they weren’t near us.
Stooging along happily with thoughts of home & bed we were shaken by a show of
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flak suddenly thrown up. We had got a little port of track & were too near Nantes, they had some accurate heavy flak down there, because of the Fort raids on the U Boat Bases. Anyway they were too accurate for our liking the first burst exploded with quite a crash underneath us & burned the kite a bit. We did some hectic weaving & finally got clear, it was a sticky moment though that predicted stuff is deadly they reckon to get you on the first burst. Nothing happened on the way back beyond sighting another Stirling, the cloud thickened over England, & when we reached base they diverted us to Tangmere, although we could have got in. So we had to fly back all the way we had come down to the South Coast. Arriving there after 6 hrs 40 mins flying we found 11 other Stirlings there. We had a meal, & the guy told us you can sleep as long as you like they gave us good accommodation, boy! we needed sleep. Hardly had we laid our heads down when they dragged us out saying we had to return right away. Then we had to wait 3 hours before we were re-fuelled & away. Two squadrons of Typhoons scrambled while we were there, straight off down wind a lovely night. Flying back to base I could hardly keep my eyes open we had had no sleep for nearly 36 hours. We certainly slept well on return. Today there hasn’t been anything doing because of the lousy weather. Jack Spackly & Ron Winnitt have arrived here, they were with me from Manchester & all through Canada, I was glad to see them arrive here, they are in 623.
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[underlined] Sunday October 24th [/underlined]
It is a fortnight since I last made an entry but I have been on leave during that time, & following my maxim of never letting work interfere with pleasure I made no entries in here. I had a fine leave, Mary was able to get the time off & that made it just right we saw a couple of shows, popped around to a few friends & had a wizard time. There was one disappointment overshadowing it though, Ken didn’t come on leave with us, it all began a little while before - . A fair number of times through his earlier training, so he tells me, and during the time we were with him at O.T.U. and on Conversion Unit, he was sick during trips. He tried hard, by doing everything he knew to overcome it, but unsuccessfully. Then on our first mining trip to the Frisians he was sick at the target area & we had to rush to drop them & there was a fair flap resulting as I have previously mentioned in the kite nearly stalling in. Poor Ken, he reckons he is to blame but I don’t think he has anything to worry about, out of the lot I think he did his job the best & the smartest. He was sick a lot on the long mining as well so he reported sick a couple of days afterwards to see what the M.O. could do.
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He was given some Anti-Air Sickness capsules, & tried them without effect, so the M.O. grounded him for a little while. Then they took Ken’s case up a little more & the Wing Comdr said he would have an interview with him. This was the position on the day we were going on leave Tuesday 12th, Mac also hadn’t done his second dicky trip. So Ken was hanging around all morning waiting for the Wing Co to say he would see him, & we were worried in case he wouldn’t catch the 3.51 London train with us. We left him waiting at the camp & told him to whizz down on his bike if there was a chance of catching the train, if not, to follow us down on the later train. On the road we got a lift to the railway station in an army lorry & had a cup of tea in the café next door. Waiting on the platform later, the [deleted] [indecipherable letters] [/deleted] train was almost due in, when Ken came dashing up. Everyone was overjoyed because we thought he had just made it, but he told us the Wing Comdr. had cancelled his leave and he had to remain behind to get 15 hrs Fighter Affiliation in, to see how often he was sick & then go before a Medical Board. My God! as if anyone wouldn’t feel lousy after 15 hrs. Fighter Affil. Also with the weather as it had been, a stinking yellow fog, there didn’t
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appear to be much chance of flying. It was a hell of a twist all the way round, and poor Ken was on the receiving end. There was nothing to be done, however, so off we had to go without him. I felt pretty rotten though seeing him standing there watching us go on leave, & having to ride back & spend a week by himself.
As I said previously I had a fine time, the days flew swiftly as they always do, & the last day arrived. I had arranged with Johnny to meet at 5.30 in Liverpool St to catch the 5.40 P.M. However he arrived up from Bristol early & came over to my place, so we travelled up together, & met Jack on the station. The train was very crowded & we had to bunk in the luggage room, at the first stop, Bishops Stortford, lots of people got out & we got a seat easily. At Cambridge there was about a 20 minute wait so the three of us got out for a cup of tea. A porter told us it wouldn’t be going for a while yet & we had plenty of time. We were only in the canteen for about 3 minutes and as we emerged, saw the train about a quarter of the way along the platform. I broke into a sprint with Jack about 10 yds behind and Johnny 10 yds behind him. Down the platform we raced, porters shouted out “Clear the Way”, and people skipped
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nimbly aside, luckily the platform was fairly empty. Some people shouted encouragement, other shouted “You’ll never make it”, but unheedingly we pounded quickly on.
One American soldier told us it was just like the races, first I flashed past, and he turned to watch me when Jack whizzed by. As he swivelled his head to watch him Johnny shot past, so he ran after us to see the result. Down the whole length of Cambridge platform we raced & closed the distance to about two yards, I had already selected the door I was jumping for, when we reached the blacked out part of the platform. There were no lights at all & it was as dark as the pit, I tried to maintain speed but cracked against a pillar and spun around like a top. So the chase was abandoned & we stood watching the tail light disappear into the darkness. We were in rather a fix as all our kit was on the train, none of us had hats & Johnny had no belt either. After hunting around & getting wrong directions from a few people, we contacted a porter, and old sweat from the last war, who was very helpful & took us to a fellow, who sent off a wire to the different stations telling them to take our kit off the train & send it to Downham. That done, with certain misgivings as to whether it would work out we went over to the A.T.O.
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Here we phoned the camp and told them we would be arriving late & fixed things up. That done we adjourned to a nearby pub & treated our helpful porter to a few. After that it degenerated into a regular crawl, hatless & hands in pockets we rolled round Cambridge. Greatly warmed by the beverage, we didn’t notice the hardness of the bunks, & I didn’t suffer as I did on the previous occasion I slept at Cambridge ATO. We travelled on to Downham on the 8.13 AM. next day & arrived about 9.15. As I feared they hadn’t any of our kit there, so I thought “Goodbye to that”. It rather shook the S.P’s in the guard room when we rolled up with no hats or anything, they didn’t say anything, though, I shudder to think what would have happened at a training unit under similar circumstances. Within an hour of arriving back we were flying on an air test, maybe they thought we would forget how.
We haven’t done much since arriving back, the weather has been pretty rough. The situation regarding Ken appears pretty obscure, he didn’t get much flying in as he predicted, now he is just hanging about to see what the score is. I hope they wont [sic] take him out of the crew he is such a decent chap. Its growing late & the other guys are binding for the lights out, so I guess I’ll put more next time.
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[underlined] Thursday 28th October [/underlined]
The weather still remains duff, after days of rain, it has changed into pretty thick fog every day. The last time we flew was over a week ago when we did a loaded climb in “D”, we now have I for Ink, instead of D. For the time being Ken is out of the crew, we are all praying it wont [sic] be for long although we have another decent chap in his place, Les Gray another Canadian. The whole situation is pretty vague, Ken himself feels he would rather not go on in case he should be sick one time & we wandered into a flak area whilst he was sick. As for us, we would put implicit faith in him whatever happened, & I just hate to lose him. So nobody knows what is going to happen, we’re just keeping our fingers crossed.
To keep ourselves amused now quite a bit of our time is spent in seeing films, I have seen a couple of decent ones on the camp recently. The other day they had the power off all day, no electric light, wireless or anything, I certainly think they ought to get there [sic] fingers out with the lighting in the ante room, it is very dim. Last night seeking amusement further afield, Mac, Jack, Don, Johnny & myself went in the liberty bus to Kings Lynn. We had a good meal when we arrived there, & then saw a decent show, coming out from there, Jack, Johnny & myself
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went into a dance, while Mac & Don went to the Duke’s Head for a meal. I think they had the best of the deal, because the dance was pretty corny, & then when it finished at 10 P.M. we were tramping all over the town trying to find a place with something to eat without success, it was pretty grim.
We got back to the bus O.K. & off we went, by this time a thick mist had rolled in, add to this the fact that our driver had a fair number of drinks under his belt, & we went weaving all over the road. It wasn’t long before we went into the ditch, & a fellow raised a laugh by asking “Does this count as an op?” We lifted the thing out of the ditch, then he found he had taken the wrong turning so back we had to go. It took us 1 1/2 hours to travel a 25 minute journey, we heaved a sigh of relief when we arrived back here. It would be that night too that they had an ENSA show at the camp and who should be in it but Pat Kirkwood, I would have liked to have seen it. Our next leave is due on the 24th November & I have written to Mary & told her to book some shows up. It is rather a long chance, that we will be there on time, even providing all goes well. Still I think it is worth trying. Ah! well I’m tired we didn’t get much sleep last night so I’ll turn in.
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[underlined] Monday November 1st. [/underlined]
Friday was just one of those uneventful days, though the mist seemed to have lifted a bit, a few very keen types were speaking eagerly of the prospects of flying, but the main horde, including all of our crew, nearly, retired to the mess early & buried theirselves [sic] in the newspapers, springing up eagerly to get in the dinner queue. That evening we went into town to see an Abbot & Costello film, it wasn’t bad, with a simple meal of fish & chips, we wandered back, what an uneventful life this is. Saturday was no better, but we really put some work in on the kite harmonising all the guns. We made quite a job of it, having Bill & Jack run backwards & forwards with the harmonisation board. The only thing that marred it was the fact that both Johnny & myself broke our lateral levelling screws on the reflector sights, necessitating harmonising them over again. We have been informed that it is nigh on impossible to get any small nuts & bolts of that type, so we are waiting for them, meanwhile the kite is unable to go on ops without the two reflector sights harmonised. So a kite has to stay back because of two nuts & bolts. Just a classic example of the important part played by the small cogs in the big wheel.
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Yesterday the weather seemed to be better, but there was nothing doing in the morning so we put in quite a bit of work on the kite. In the afternoon though there was a sudden flap, to get as many aircraft airborne as possible, so off we went for our air test. We have a new kite now I Ink instead of D Dog that we used to have, yesterday was the first time we had flown in it. She seemed a pretty decent kite, if we can do a loaded climb on it, & see how much height we can get out of it, it will be O.K. In the evening I just remained in the mess & went over to the hut early, I just seem to be in a state of lethargy here, with no inclination to do anything. We tried to get the fire going in the hut, these stoves are grim things at times. All the time we are chopping fences down & scrounging wood & ‘borrowing’ coal from out of the dump opposite. Most times that we light it, huge clouds of smoke belch out in every direction and there is a frantic rush for the doors to breathe some fresh air in. Last night was an exception though, the fire lit right away, & it gradually warmed up until it was giving out a heat like a blast furnace. It isn’t very often that we get it to go like that though, still I am nearest to it, I had that in view when I chose my bed.
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Today we had quite an interesting time, the morning we spent going round the bomb dumps. Practically all the bomb aimers went out, and at the dump we saw how the carriers are fixed on, & then at the firing point how they are flared. It was quite a sight in the dump to see all the rows of bombs laid out in their rows behind the blast walls. The corporal who was giving us the gen set a 4 lb incendiary off for us to show us how they went, boy they certainly burn, they seem better than the ones the Jerries dropped on London in the blitzes. We handled all the equipment & all of it was quite different from the stuff we had been taught throughout training all that was obsolete a good while before. Finally we went out to the kites to watch them bomb up & then try the various ways of releasing hang ups, it was quite a useful morning.
This afternoon we flew again, to level the bomb sight, & then to continue to Goodestone for a bombing exercise. It went off pretty well, but I don’t know how they are going to figure out where bombs are where, because we didn’t have 3073’s and didn’t inform the range as we dropped each one. As there were at least four kites bombing, they seemed to be showering down. Most certainly there will be some news in the morning.
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[underlined] Thursday 4th November. [/underlined]
There has been some flying recently but not a lot we have been up on a couple of air tests but on the whole the weather is still rather grim. We have been putting in quite a bit of work on the kite, Johnny, Don & myself have had our guns out & cleaned them. They were in a hell of a mess as they were packed with grease, then somebody borrowed our kite & the dope of a bomb aimer fired my guns, mucking things up well & truly. We have got them back again now. Tuesday afternoon they gave us a stand down, its funny no sooner do they say stand down & the fellows have started trekking into the different towns, when the old sun comes out & things are fine again, I bet they gnash their teeth.
All of us except Mac caught the 2.3 P.M. into Cambridge, had a look round, & a decent tea then booked our beds in the W.V.S. Afterwards we saw a show, then diving into a pub for a drink we landed in a flight passing out party. They had just finished their exams at Cambridge I.T.W. & were celebrating, when we entered somebody said “Here’s the gen boys”, at which I nearly fell over. Still they plied us with free beer so that was bang on, they also asked quite a bit about their future training & ‘ops’. Maybe quite a few lines were shot, but we had enough shot at us
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during our training so it was our turn. They all had bright blue uniforms, ‘bully’ white belts, close cropped hair, a general sprog appearance altogether. I shudder to think I was like that once, though not to such a degree, but I was & so must everybody who goes in for aircrew, we didn’t notice anything strange then. They had various toasts & I’m afraid I smiled a little cynically when one chap said “Goodbye to all exams and binding”. Still we had a good time, followed by a meal in a nearby café & then to bed. We rose at 7 AM. & went round to another W.V.S. place for our breakfast, then from there to the station to catch the famous 8.13 AM. to Downham.
They were taking a squadron photograph, & naturally Jack & I had to roll up late and miss being in it – such is life. Last night they had an ENSA show to which we went and surprisingly enough it was quite good, we almost got in without paying, but not quite, it would have helped our financial status quite a bit. Today we had to take the Flight Commander’s kite up an [sic] Air Test it, a doubtful priviledge. [sic] The bind was it was 12 midday when they rang the mess and told us & we were already in the dinner queue, so out we had to go & tramp back to the flights. We came down fairly late so didn’t go back again, but phoned into town & booked our seats for the cinema it was a good film, though I’d seen it before.
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[underlined] Sunday November 7th [/underlined]
Friday was quite a busy day, in the morning there was a smashing lecture by a Dutch F/O who had been shot down in a Lanc. & had got back from Holland. We had been listening to him for about 10 mins & lapping every word, when they came in and dragged us up for flights affil. typical RAF. The bind was there were two crews in the same kite, ourself [sic] & Bennett. We stooged around for over an hour but the fighter didn’t show up, so back we had to go, I was pretty cheesed about missing that lecture though. They put us up again in the afternoon, & after a bit of stooging around, boy! that fighter could fly. I sat in the Wops seat all the time, listening to “Music While You Work” poor old Bennets Engineer was sick, he must be quite a lot because he had a paper bag ready with him. I felt a bit grim once or twice, because they were really throwing the kite around. I am O.K. if I can see out to see whats [sic] doing, but if I am in the middle of the kite unable to look out then its rough.
Ken has gone on leave at last, this was the one he missed when we went, he has gone to Iver, Bucks & to London. I have told him to pop in at my house I hope he does. Meanwhile he has let me ride his bike which comes in very handy at this blasted place. Friday
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night it was given out on the radio that F/Sgt Aaron who used to be with 218 had been posthumously awarded the V.C. The citation said his courage had never been surpassed, & by jiminy they were right. In absolute agony & with severest wounds he had diverted the kite on from Turin to N. Africa, where he died 9 hours after, it was a marvellous show! The air bomber who flew it & landed it, belly landing, with 4,000 lb still on received the C.G.M. & most of the crew the D.F.M. They arrived back from Gibralter not long ago, with tins of sugar & heavens knows what else besides.
All our trips recently have been in other kites ours was U/S, when we came down from a flip they found the tail plane was only secured with about 3 nuts & bolts, we nearly had it that time. Yesterday it was put serviceable again & we had to take her up for a couple of hours. It had rained cats & dogs in the morning so there was a stand down & we were the only joe’s flying, & Saturday afternoon too. We were caught in some hellish storms but dodged them, then found parts with clean weather, & played tag with the cloud tops it was good fun. I broke a bigué and then we couldn’t get the undercart down, so poor old Jack & Bill had to set to & wind it down. We all held our breaths when we came in but it didn’t collapse & we were O.K.
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The Wing Cmdr was attacked by a JU88 on a gardening trip to the Baltic the other night, & they claimed it shot down. Who is to dispute them, I bet they went nowhere near the thing, as everyone else thinks & its popular talk that the Wing Cmdr. may get a gong for it whether its true or not I don’t know. There is something funny going on Stirlings haven’t operated against a land target for a month now, & there are all sorts of rumours going around. We are going on Coastal Command, are going out East, are converting onto Lancs, are towing gliders, are only going to do mining trips, these are but a few of the speculations floating around, there certainly seems to be something in the air. The most obvious solution I think is they are waiting until a .5 mid under gun is fitted, we also have to operate this, quite a few jobs we have now.
It has been bitterly cold all day today, whilst harmonising my front guns I gashed two fingers & I didn’t feel it, nor did it start to bleed for a good while, my fingers were so frozen, it’s a real touch of winter. There are two fires in our huge ante room & that is the only method of heating the place. Consequently there is a circle of fellows packed tightly around it, & another circle around them waiting for someone to vacate a chair at which there is a mad rush. The rest of the fellows just have to hover around hoping to catch a glimpse of the fire or of moving into the outer circle.
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[underlined] Thursday 11th November. [/underlined]
The cold weather continues, it takes ones breath away just walking down to the flight, I am glad there are no ‘ops’ on from this station nowadays. I wonder what is happening, it certainly is funny, Stirlings off ‘ops’ all this time, must be something behind it all. The rumours are flying as thick as ever, but nobody has any definite ‘gen’ at the moment. We will find out in due course I daresay. Yesterday we went on rather an interesting trip, an Eric, which is a daylight bullseye. Naturally the only defences we had to combat were fighters, & we didn’t have any engagements, so everything went smoothly. Our route took us across London three times, & pin pointing became very interesting, as I found the various places I know. The balloons were quite a sight, flying at their operational height, there seemed literally hundreds of them. Old Father Thames looked grand in the sun with the boats chugging slowly up & down, there was a fair amount of shipping off Tilbury & Grays & a convoy at Southend. At Chatham there were a fair amount of naval vessels, but nothing like peace-time. We followed the Thames up to attack our target Tower Bridge, there was a certain amount of difficulty in finding this owing to cloud that had rolled across. We eventually made it though.
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Being used to stooging along by ourselves at night it was a novel experience for us to see about another hundred bombers all around, on the same course & height. It was rather tricky at turning points, some kites E.T.A’s would be due slightly before one’s own & they would turn & come cutting across, diving underneath, or lifting above, there must be some close shaves at night, which the darkness hides. When we returned to base the weather had changed down so we had to stooge around for a bit, but we landed quite safely.
Our leave is due on the 24th, and we are beginning to make our arrangements, praying to the Lord, that nothing crops up & we lose it. I had a letter from Bill today, saying that old Bob Blackburn, who was in our room at I.T.W. had got the chop on his 13th over the Ruhr. He always maintained there was nothing in superstition & insisted on third lights, I guess it was just Fate that it should be his 13th, I hope he managed to bale out safely. We lost a crew the other night on a long mining off the Spanish border, Johnston was flying with them as rear gunner, it was his first trip. He was in Carr’s crew that is the second one gone, these mining trips certainly don’t seem to be such a stooge nowadays.
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[underlined] Sunday 14th November. [/underlined]
What a hum drum life this is, & a cold one. Rush for breakfast, fight to get a wash basin then trudge down to the flights. Knock around in the Bombing Office for a while to see the score then out to the kite for a D.I. It’s a hellish cold job polishing the perspex on the first turret, especially the outside I have to mount a rickety iron ladder, & perched up there 25 ft in the air polish away vigorously with frozen hands, each movement causing the ladder to sway. We generally continue to get back to the flights at 11.15 AM. in time for the NAAFI van. Then back to the mess, with more chances than one of being called back for an air test, just as we are about to go into dinner. The afternoon’s procedure is very similar, if we aren’t flying, it is link or Gee, Astro or something, until we scuttle back to tea. Over to the billet, then, to coax a fire into the stove & all huddle round it. Gangs of fellows scour the immediate vicinity of the huts for wood, posts are pulled up & everything of an inflammable nature seized upon. There is a huge coke dump opposite & every evening sees a dozen fellows or more filling buckets & other articles. These stoves are quite our pride & we take an experts delight in raising a large fire in a short while.
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If we aren’t writing letters we are listening to records on a gramophone that Bill managed to ‘borrow’ from the W/T section, I wish we had a wireless here, though. Sometimes we attend an ENSA show, the one this week wasn’t so bad. Friday afternoon we had a stand down so Jack, Johnny & myself bowled into Cambridge again, following the routine of our previous visit, but not having the luck to fall into any flight parties again. So far this month we have gone in quite a few flying hours the weather has been lousy on quite a few trips. Last night we were stooging round in a rain storm trying to find a bombing target before we were recalled, Saturday night, too. The other day Mac, Johnny Don & myself went up with Wiseman’s crew for Air to Air firing over the Wash. After landing & unloading the blasted ammo. when it came to my turn the Martinet ran out of fuel & had to return.
The other day on our Air Test, Mac feathered the starboard outer to test it, but couldn’t unfeather it. After a few unsuccessful attempts we gave up & landed with it feathered, & got down O.K. too. If it isn’t the undercart refusing to come down, its something else. Still old I Item is quite a good kite now, & we can get a fair turn of speed from it.
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[underlined] Thursday November 18th [/underlined]
Quite a lot of things have happened in the few short days since I made my last entry. First like a bolt from the blue came the news that the squadron was being disbanded. It was quite a shock we are supposed to be moving to Chedburgh shortly & there given individual postings. Everyone is thoroughly cheesed about it, we were just getting settled in here too, all the top bags, Bombing, Nav & Gunnery Leaders are fine fellows, one couldn’t wish for a better bunch, I guess that’s typical of the RAF when one gets a piece of cake, they aren’t allowed to eat it. 214 squadron which is at Chedburgh is coming here in our place & we are gradually breaking up. They say we are converting to Lancs & if so it may be time that Stirlings are gradually dieing [sic] out of Bomber Command & the Lancs taking their place. If we are moving in a few days, as the tale says, then it will mess our leave up, after all our arranging, its driving me nuts, we never get a leave that works out smartly. Johnnie Smythe a Nav. from Sierra Leone has had a letter from the people there saying they want to adopt 623 Sqdn. & have collected 100 to £150,000 for our benefit – phew! that’s over £250 per head ground & air crew, of course it would be used for the betterment of the squadron, building a wizard crew room, & various other things.
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The Wing Cmdr. has been up to Group to raise Cain, I don’t know if he has had any satisfication, but I & everyone else hope we stay here together. Monday night we had our Sqdn party, strictly bachelor, the air crew paid for it all, & invited the ground crew to show their appreciation for their maintenance of the kites. There was lots of beer & everyone was happy especially old Mac he was well under, a gang of them started down the mess before the party, then rang Downham for a taxi to take them to the party 200 yds away. There was a championship table tennis match between a couple of top notches in peace-time & then the winner issued a challenge. Ginger Morris who used to play for England, had been waiting for this to just bowl out & beat him. The only fault was Ginger had been imbibing heavily & consequently could hardly see the ball, so lost easily. At 10.30 P.M. it broke up and Mac got in at 5 AM. he had wandered over to the mess to shoot the bull & fell asleep there.
Poor Johnnie has been feeling grim and was very bad the other day & went sick, & they chopped him in dock with flu. Jack was also feeling bad but has recovered, but Don is in bed very queer & I feel it myself, what a crew, but this place is enough to give people all the illnesses under the sun.
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Tuesday night, six Canadians came & gave a concert show, they were a travelling party all [indecipherable word] & they put up quite a performance too. Last night there was an ENSA show which I thought rather good, so we haven’t done too bad for entertainment. Today held a big shock for quite a few people, Group came through to say there was a big do, & 218 & 623 were on the main effort. All crews available were put on, & after 6 weeks they thought it was a laugh & a joke, but realised it was true. Mac was due to go on a second dickie with Sqdn/Ldr. Overton, but it was scrubbed at the last minute as Overton’s Navigator was sick. Petch has gone with Flt/Lt. Willis, & Macgillvray with Flt/Lt. Nesbitt, I hope the morning saw them all back safe & sound. Apparently we are still an operational squadron, but for how long is the question. There is also a fair amount of mining & a new crew is taking our kite, so Don & I were out there this afternoon checking on the turrets.
The other afternoon we had a wizard lecture from a Lieutenant in the Navy. He had quite a few experiences to recount he had been on the Greton in the Graf Spee battle & in the U-Boat War, & seen quite a bit of excitement in the Med., he was very interesting to listen too. [sic] His story showed both sides of the picture too, we weren’t always winning. He said a good word for mining, the results of which were definitely assessed as 1 ship sunk every 11 mins which is good going.
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[underlined] Sunday November 21st. [/underlined]
The squadron definitely is disbanded, though in the meantime it is fully operational. The Wing Co. leaves on Dec 6th to some O.T.U. I believe. Sqdn/Ldr Smith adding his D.F.C. to his D.F.M. is going to an O.T.U. also, - as a flight commander, he has both his tours completed now. The Navigator Leader has already gone, & the Wing Co. has been asking crews what squadrons they would like to be posted to, but nothing is promised. Anyway it appears we are remaining in 3 Group & not going onto Lancs, so that is one theory squashed. Right now we are just praying that nothing will crop up to cheat us of our leave, there are only two days to go. We have arranged to get on the 11 AM pay parade Tuesday & hope to catch the 11.48 AM London train.
Three kites were lost from here on Thursday’s trip to Ludwigshaven – one from 218, & two from 623. Poor old Ray Bennett was one, Johnny Smythe was his Nav. I only hope they baled out, F/Lt Wallis was the other & Petch was with him on a second dicky. That leaves only Macgillvray & us with complete crews from Hixon. P/O Ralph & F/Lt Nesbitt turned back with engine trouble, so it wasn’t too good for 623. It was even grimmer on Friday night, they were going to Leverhulme or something a small place just north of Cologne, & a pretty easy trip it turned out.
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623 only managed to get two kites off the deck, & there was hell to pay, there was quite a bit of finger trouble, though. They said Group sent through the bomb load too late, but then it was the armament officers first experience of bombing up for ‘ops’. Bombs were being sent out to kites that were U/S with engine trouble when others were standing there with engines running merely waiting for bombs, consequently most of them never got off in time. They told one chap to take off 5 mins after time & catch the force up, he told them what to do. Another just got off & set course over the runway in his take off. Wiseman was waiting for one more 1,000 lb H.E. when the Armament Officer said that’s O.K. take off without it, this made the C. of G somewhere in the region of the rear turret – Wiseman’s reply was rather flowery. So poor old Mac didn’t get off again & still has to get his second dicky in. All the kites got back safely but were diverted owing to local fog, one of 218’s was pretty shot up by flak, and pranged at Chedburgh. The kites that were on mining also returned safely. Nesbitt has been told that his tour is completed now, so they are screening him after 24 trips, still that’s enough for anyone, and if I had that number under my belt I would feel very contented.
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Johnny seems a lot better now, we have popped in to see him each day, & he is having a regular rest cure, he intends trying to come out tomorrow as he doesn’t want to miss his leave – nor do any of us – keen types. Ken & I went to the camp cinema the other night, quite a good show but the place is like an ice box. There is a real fiasco here, the water supply is being cut right down, apparently the camps normal consumption is 52,000 gals a day, & the water company will only supply 10,000 gals daily, until their reservoir rises. Consequently all water on the sites is cut off & we cant [sic] have any baths or showers, & now we have been informed we are not supposed to wash or shave in the mess ablutions. This means not washing or showering day in, day out, I wonder what the M.O. thinks of it! There are a couple of water carts that come round the sites & people fill up old cans etc. Even of we hand round all cans we are never on the sites, our whole day is spent down the flights or in the mess. The whole situation is preposterous and it’s a pretty poor show for an RAF camp.
I went into town last night, for the first time for over a week, it was a real pea souper of a night & we muffled right up. The film was quite a decent one, & a drink after made a little break out of the monotony.
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[underlined] Wednesday December 1st. [/underlined]
Another fair interval since I last made an entry, & for the old reason that I have been on leave, we arrived back last night. After all the sweating & heartbreaking we eventually got away on Tuesday, & we did sweat as I will account. On the Sunday, before going on leave, when I last made an entry there had been rumours of something big coming off the following day, as all Ground Crew N.C.O’s had been ordered to have their kites in really tip top condition. Monday dawned a thick misty day, visibility wasn’t more than 50 yds, Jack & I danced for joy as Mac couldn’t possibly do a second dicky that night & we would definitely go on leave on Tuesday, what a fine world it was. Down at the flights a rude shock was awaiting us there was ‘ops’ on that night & Mac was going as second dicky to Sqdn/Ldr. Overton. Everyone thought it must be a farce, it was bound to be scrubbed, the Met reckoned it would clear though. However out we went to the kite & gave it a thorough D.I. because Sgt Ralph was taking it. Gradually the weather cleared, and gradually our hopes sunk, because if Mac got his trip in we would be definitely on “ops” the following night instead of on leave. Every few moments we would gaze at the cloud formations & the fast disappearing mist & try to cheer each other up, although we all felt we had had it.
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We had found out all tanks were to be filled that meant Berlin or Italy & it all pointed to The Big City. Briefing was at 2.30 P.M. & off they went & I went out to the kite again, Johnny was still in dock as his guns had to be checked but Johnny Hyde the Gunnery Leader was out there to do them. At this time the sky clouded over really black, & everyone was certain the Met had boobed. When large drops of rain fell I could have danced for joy, but as though the Met had exercised a superhuman influence the skies miraculously cleared as take off time grew near. The crew came out to I Item & I spoke to the Air Bomber for a bit & happened to see the Nav’s charts, & Berlin it was. I wondered whether Mac was twittering inside, Overton was taking Les Gray, our Nav. who had only done a Nickel before. What a task without even having done a Mining to navigate to Berlin & back. When the actual take off started the weather wasn’t too good but they went, they scrambled at 5 P.M. & set course 5.30 P.M. with our best wishes. During the evening five kites returned early but old Mac wasn’t amongst them, they were mainly 218’s kites too. So off we went to bed, hoping to hear old Mac come banging in at about 2 AM he did. It had been a fairly quiet trip he said, cloud cover all the way, & no fighter sightings. Les’s navigation had been bang on & he was personally congratulated by the Groupie.
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There had been a lot of reporters and photographers there & someone said a B.B.C. chap, lots of lines were shot anyway, we listened to all the story & then sank back asleep. When the morning came it seemed as though our luck was really out, it was clear as a bell. Jack & I grabbed two bikes & dashed down to the Flights to see whether we were on or not. What an anxious half hour that was, the Wing Co. rang for P/O Ralph who was acting Flt/Comdr. then & he came out with lots of papers etc. our hearts sank, but then he said “Nothing on, only mining” we could hardly believe our ears. Back we tore & dressed up for pay parade & a speedy get away. We reckoned without Pay Accounts, with their typical efficiency they paid us at 11.45 AM instead of 11 A.M as it was supposed to be. So we missed the 11.47 train, still nothing mattered then we were off & going home. Scorning the RAF food we had a dinner in Sly’s Café then a drink & homeward bound.
I had a fine leave although the weather wasn’t so hot, that night (Tuesday) it was Berlin dunno if any Stirlings went but we didn’t send any at all. During the leave I saw quite a few shows, among them the new film “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, also read the book, both very good. We arrived back O.K. without any incidents we only stopped 5 mins at Cambridge so couldn’t recreate our previous escapade.
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Johnny was looking very seedy going home, as he had only come out of the dock that day, he wangled round the M.O. He came back looking fit though, we all seemed to have reduced our colds. Ken had been down to Pastow for his Medical Board, & has been taken off flying. So we have definitely lost him, it is goodbye to a fine Navigator & one of the finest fellows it has ever been my priviledge [sic] to meet. We are lucky to have an equally good chap to fill his place they are much alike in many ways. Old Jack Yardley the W/Op who is in our hut & also suffered with air sickness went down with Ken & he is also off of flying.
This morning we did the inevitable Air Test, it always happens the day one returns from leave. I Item is still here, someone buckled a wing tip whilst we were away, there are only four kites left now, they have ferried all the others away. So we should be leaving in a few days, but where to nobody knows yet, rumours are flying as thick as ever. One thing that is definite 214 Sqdn are arriving here on Monday so we will have to leave by then. It is so cold as anything today, there was a frost like snow this morning. If this weather continues & gets worse during the winter I would welcome a posting to Italy or somewhere warm. Talking of warmth, I think I’ll turn in, bed is the best place to warm anyone up.
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[inserted] [newspaper cutting about the raid on Berlin with a photograph of the crew led by Flying Officer Wiseman, and including Sergeant Twydell, engineer; P/O Craig, Sergent Foreman, Sergeant Copley F/Sergeant Brasington, F/O Theriault, and Flight Sergeant Macgillvray, second pilot] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
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[underlined] [missing words] December. [/underlined]
The cat is out of the bag, & there were a few surprises in the bag too, the gen has been dished out as to where we are all going. We all leave tomorrow on the 2 P.M. train, except for those who were due for leave & they went today, (our luck was in we were the last ones to get away, all leave was cancelled after we went). The Wing Co. went a few days ago to 90 Sqdn at Tuddenham, & P/O Ralph, Macgillvray & somebody else are going as well. After all this time then we are parted from Mac, it’s a pity, we two crews have been together a fair while, we are the only ones from Hixon now. By the by. Macgillvray appeared in the newspapers, there was a large photograph of old Wiseman & crew being interrogated upon their return from Berlin, & Macgillvray was in as second pilot quite celebrities now. That B.B.C. chap was here he gave a hell of a ‘bully’ story after the 1 P.M. news the following day.
To resume we and about six other crews are off to Waterbeach to convert onto Lanc IIs. As they have Hercules engines, we wont have Jack, as he won’t have to take another course. Four or so of the crews have gone on leave, today as they are due for it & they arrive there a week after us. It came as quite a surprise we all thought we were set on Stirlings, it will be quite a
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bind, circuits & bumps & screened cross countries all over again, oh hell! There is a squadron there as well 514, I wouldn’t mind being put on that, pray to the Lord we are. Four chaps are being transferred to 218 Sqdn. Overton & Wiseman are amongst them, they say Overton will have to revert to F/O. Nickie Nesbitt went back to P/O & Vickers the Engineering Leader did also, daresay they will have ‘em back again soon though. Some of the postings were to 199 & 149 Sqdns I believe. Last night we were put on the main effort, right in the middle of getting cleared from here, quite a flap. It was only 2, 4 & 6 tanks and 8 x 1,000 lbs & 6, x 5,000 lbs, as it must have been to these rocket gun emplacements they are building to shell London. It was scrubbed though, the minings went & poor old P/O Puch got the chop, his B/A Sutherland was a good guy, they were only an a short mining, too, quite shaking.
The latest Berlin raid where they lost 41 two war correspondents are missing, one got back though, gee! if they were paying that reporter £200 for going on a mining trip, heavens knows what those boys were raking in. One thing is sure from the way the Lancs are operating nearly every night whatever the weather, our tour will be over pretty soon one way or the other. We were paid today & finally cleared from here, last night we went into town to the dance & to the Crown for a farewell ‘do’ before we said goodbye to the hallowed precincts of Downham.
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[underlined] Thursday December 9th. [/underlined]
This entry is being made at Waterbeach, another new station this is my eighteenth station since I have been in the RAF, like Crosby & Hope I certainly get around. We left Downham Monday dinner time, and in the rush I missed saying cheerio to Ken, and was sorry but I have written to him. As usual when they tell you transport will be waiting, there was none, so we walked it was about 15 mins to the billet. The tales of the billets etc. being good inside the camp are quite true, the only snag being we aren’t in the camp. Our quarters are in the inevitable huts “Con Sight” as we call it though it is listed as Conversion Site. The Con Unit (1678) is almost entirely separate from the squadron we have our own mess about 5 mins walk from the hut. The food is good, better than at Downham, but the mess is bare, empty & cold. Not being many crews here either, it is generally isolated, & not very cheering. The squadron have a smashing mess in the camp, with living quarters above, very handy, wish we were in it.
I think the most shaking thing is that breakfast finishes at 7.45 A.M. right on the dot, so we have to be up really early. Then breakfast over we wash & are supposed to be at the flights at 8.15 A.M. It is a 25 min walk too, so we have to start out in time. There is [underlined] P.T [/underlined] 8.15 till 8.30 AM. then lectures.
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The walking is rather a bind as we didn’t expect it here, poor Mac is looking somewhat slimmer, as he lost his bike at a [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] wild party, before leaving Downham. Tuesday was occupied with filling in the arrival chits as usual, then yesterday & today we have had ground lectures, weather permitting we may commence our circuits & bumps tomorrow. There was nothing new in the ground work, the bombing side of the Lanc. is simpler than the Stirling. We carry cookies on there now, there is no second pilot, so I have lost my comfortable seat. This is compensated by the much better bombing compartment, there is a fine huge vision panel in the nose, no more straining one’s neck to get a line on the target. One also enters the turret from the bombing compartment, so there is no chance of being locked in the turret. The performance of these aircraft are pretty good, especially speed & climbing power.
Tuesday afternoon we went into Cambridge, there is a pretty decent bus service to & from there. In the village there isn’t a lot of life but a couple of decent pubs do a good trade. I have just heard from Bill Taylor, & he tells me poor old Jack is missing now, he was on the same squadron as old Bob Blackburn who is now reported killed. Its pretty grim to hear of the old pals getting the chop, wonder if I’ll be alive at the end.
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[underlined] Monday 13th December. [/underlined]
The weather at this place is as bad as at Downham, I didn’t think there could be another place as bad. Mac’s day circuits & bumps are now complete & we are ready for a day cross country which finishes the day flying & then on to night c & b’s. I rather like the lay out of this station, it is very neat and compact, of course that is because it was a peace time station. I wish we were billeted in the camp although I understand the food in the permanent mess isn’t as good as in ours. On Friday the Duke of Gloucester came down to inspect the camp, we knew a full 24 hrs before who it was, the old grape-vine certainly defeats security. On the Thursday morning the Bombing Leader asked us who it was as he wasn’t able to find out. Our six crews were joined for a cheering party we had to line up opposite a line of WAAF’s at the gate & cheer when he left. I haven’t been on P.T. yet I have a hard enough job to get up in the mornings. Mac has managed to scrounge an official bike now, that is one thing he moves fast for. Every Wednesday they have a C.O’s parade and march past, there is a fair amount of bull here considering they have an operational squadron, I guess it is because they have the Con Unit still, yes, the more I think of it, the more easier 623 appears.
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[underlined] Tuesday December 21st. [/underlined]
We are now back on an operational squadron again, 115 Sqdn at Witchford near Ely. Our course finished here last [inserted] Sunday [/inserted] night and yesterday & this morning we were completing our clearance chits. It wasn’t such a bad place, & the work was pretty easy, the ground work was nothing new at all, except a new photo flash fuse. Our first flip was a day cross country at 23,000 ft, a really binding trip, 10/10ths all the way, just sit there and freeze about 25o below. Then after the night circuits and bumps, we were on a Bullseye, Sunday night. Or rather a Flashlight exercise, because the I.R. bombing is abandoned over London, & they have a target of three red lights to simulate T.Is, & at various distances of a couple of miles altogether were white lights flashing various Morse characters, so on the photograph, one could tell in theory how near the bombs would have landed. That trip was a cold one as well but we had a hot time with the defences, a solid belt of searchlights all the way round, & a hell of a cone sight over the target, we were picked up on our bombing run & they sure dazzled me. We rather preferred to remain at Waterbeach with 514 Squadron owing to the compactness of the station. They don’t operate such a lot, the other night they landed at Downham Market, practically all kites were diverted. It was a black night, & the Met boobed badly, all England almost was fog bound, & we have heard from reliable sources that 65 kites either crashed or had to be abandoned owing to weather. With the 30 kites lost that made 95 kites, the public will never know of that.
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The transport brought us by road from Waterbeach it is 13 miles & when we reached Witchford there was a howling gale & the rain was lashing down. Nobody knew where we were supposed to be billeted & we were driving around the place, dashing in & out of huts, until soaked to the skin, we eventually found one. Roger’s crew is in the hut with us, we are on 4 site & it is about two miles from the mess. I have seen some dispersed stations but this is the worst of them all, the mess is a 30 min walk from the flights as well, we certainly use Shanks Pony here, it is killing Mac he hasn’t done so much walking for ages. The usual thick mist is everywhere that is the trouble in East Anglia. Everything about the station & squadron seems to be grim, at one time it was a happy squadron & contented, but this station has got everyone down a lot; they have only been here 3 weeks. To give a typical example of the way the place is run, they moved here via Berlin. The crews were sent off to Berlin from this base & on return had to land here, what a fiasco that must have been, tramping round in the dark trying to find billets etc. Leave here is about every 12 weeks, its incredible, they don’t appear to worry whether you have any or not. There is no operational meal before ops, just tea & a couple of sandwiches & the rations are pretty small, & no coffee. No transport is organised to take us into Ely, & there are hardly ever stand downs, there appears to be a complete lack of interest in air crew, oh! well I’m too cheesed to write any more.
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[underlined] Monday 27th December. [/underlined]
Xmas is over now, & I’m none too sorry really, it wasn’t a lot to shout about. Now we are settled down a bit better, but its hard to shake off the feeling of being cheesed here, everyone is, the old chaps of 115 Sqdn, the fellows on 196 the sqdn that was here before, & ourselves the mix crews from 623. The Bombing & Engineering Sections are in the same room, the Bombing Leader is a decent chap, but I don’t see how you can get to know the other bomb aimers, they don’t make any advances or anything. We flew the second night we were here on another Flashlight exercise, & were getting around O.K. but as we were running in towards London for the target, all the searchlights began homing us away from London, so we realised there was an air raid in progress, & beetled back to base. There they told us over the W/T to continue with our exercise & we had to beetle up North & keep cracking around. The trip took us 6 1/2 hours & they didn’t give us any rations at all, I was absolutely frozen, & had an electric waistcoat on, but that didn’t keep my legs warm, I was glad when we landed. On Thursday night, Mac did his second dicky they have to do them on these kites as well, of all places it was Berlin again. Thats [sic] two second dickeys he has done there now, packing ‘em in alright. I think it is a terrible feeling waiting around for them to come back I would rather go myself, he returned O.K. there was one missing from here.
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On Xmas Eve afternoon Bill & I cycled the 26 mls to Waterbeach & back to collect the Xmas mail for about a dozen fellows, we could have used a truck coming back. That night we all went into Ely to the Lamb Hotel to commence the celebrations. What a night it was, & what a head I had next morning. On Xmas Day the officers mess invited us over in the morning then came over to our mess in the afternoon, it was more of a drunken brawl than anything else. Bags of broken bottles & glasses, it is grim like that, we were supposed to serve Xmas dinner to the airmen, but I felt too grim to go across. Our tea that night was really wizard, it was served buffet form, & there were sausage rolls, cakes, pastries, sandwiches, sardine on toast, spam & chopped egg, trifle & cream cake it was grand! There were two fights, because tempers were rather frayed after drinking. Afterwards we all tramped into town to have our Xmas Dinner for the crew, in the Lamb Hotel, it was pretty good, we were in bed pretty early that night. Boxing Day was very quiet, we had our turkey dinner at 7.30 P.M. it was well served, afterwards there was a dance in the mess. There wasn’t a single decoration in the mess for the Xmas just lovely & bare. Anyway that was the end of the festive season, & this morning we donned battle dress once more & got cracking on the same old grind.
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[underlined] Thursday 30th December. [/underlined]
We have made a start at the squadron now, they don’t waste a lot of time, last night we began ‘ops’ here with a trip to Berlin. The pre-briefing was at 1.30 P.M. & Les & I got cracking on the maps and charts before all the crews arrived at 3 P.M. for the main briefing. Our route was worked out to try to bluff Jerry in believing the attack was being carried out on Leipzig or Magdeburg. We went straight for those places and as Mossies opened the dummy attacks on both towns we suddenly turned north & headed for the “Great City”. Taking it on the whole it wasn’t a bad trip twenty kites lost when over 700 were sent.
The trouble with these early take offs is that we don’t get a meal before we take our kites away & start dicing. At the end of briefing there is a mad rush to grab a cup of tea and a couple of sandwiches at the back of the room; then down to the locker room to change. Out we lumber to the transports, & they take us to the waiting kites. Here we dump all our heavy kit & climb in to check all our equipment & run the kite prop to see everything is bang on. Then we shut her down, & climb out to complete our dressing, a few minutes for a smoke for those that need it, then 20 minutes before we are due to take off we climb aboard again & start up. As the time approaches we taxi out & take our place in the line, then one by one [missing words]
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Round & round we circle, then as the time for setting course arrives we make the last circuit and away we go. By this time we are at about 13,000 ft & generally by the time of crossing the English coast we are a little [deleted] of [/deleted] over 15,000 ft. I carry out all my Bombing checks & put the front guns on Fire, all ready for something, we begin our vigilance here, as the German fighters often operate right across the North Sea. At our turning point we are at our operational height of 20,000 ft, & we set course for the Dutch Coast. Approaching the coast the flak can always be seen coming up from Texel or other equally well defended spots. The cloud was 10/10ths awarding us a natural protection from the searchlights.
Every now & then along the south some place would start throwing up flak, if it came close we weaved but generally didn’t bother. Quite a few times a fighter would drop three flares, lighting up quite an area of sky, if they were too near for safety we corkscrewed quickly, with everybody searching the sky carefully. The searchlights would also shine on the clouds in large concentrations causing us to be silhouetted to any fighter above. Two markers were dropped on the route to guide us away from hot spots, we didn’t see the first, but the second at Leipzig was plainly visible. The dummy attacks had commenced & there were some red & green T.I’s & a few bombs, they were certainly throwing up some flak, we had to nip in between Magdeburg & Leipzig, it was very warm & we got away as soon as possible.
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Just after leaving Leipzig I had a momentary panic when three ME110’s came whizzing past us going the opposite direction to Leipzig, I guess they came haring back later when Berlin opened up. We were running into a head wind coming up to the target & I thought we were never getting there; the T.I’s were burning there, & the cookies exploding, & the flak was pouring up, although it wasn’t too heavy; but we never seemed to be getting any nearer. As we eventually approached I could see the glow of a large fire reflecting on the clouds. Then “Bomb Doors Open” – “Running Up”, “Left Left” “Steady” “Bombs Gone” “Bomb Doors Closed” & away we went. The return journey was much the same as the outward, but we found the W/Op had turned the inter-wing balance cock the wrong way & we had lost 200 galls. So we had the worry of whether we would be able to make it or not. We crossed the English coast O.K. and were trying to make base, when the fuel warning lights started to flicker meaning we were almost out. There we were at 400 ft to [sic] low to bale out & unable to use up petrol to climb, just expecting the motors to cut at any moment. Suddenly a drome appeared & we screamed in there without announcing or anything but we were down & that was the main thing. It was a P.F.F. place Warboys, we didn’t get the egg there & had to sleep in a chair in the mess, so it wasn’t so good, next morning we flew back to base, & had a badly needed sleep. There was one missing from here which wasn’t so bad, however that was our first major ‘op’ over.
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[underlined] Monday January 3rd [/underlined]
Well that’s another year gone and 1944 is here, I wonder if this year will see Germany out of it, somehow I doubt it, though I think she will be well on the way. Last Friday ‘ops’ were on, so we had visions of seeing the New Year in over the other side. Briefing was at 3 P.M. again and the target was Frankfurt, it was an attempt to fool the Jerries and make them think we were going to Berlin, somehow I don’t think it would have been successful, anyway just as briefing it was scrubbed and we didn’t cry over it. There was a New Year’s Dance on in the gym, so we went there and got pretty merry, eventually getting into bed around 4 A.M.
Getting up well the worse for wear in the morning we were shaken to find there were ops on again that night. Pre briefing was 1.30 P.M. but the main briefing wasn’t until 9 P.M. there being an operational meal before we took off. The target was once more Berlin, this time we were going in from the north with a dummy attack on Hamburg though I wasn’t so sure that that would fool them. Take off was at a quarter to one in the morning a hell of a while to wait up till. This time they sent the fighters out to meet us and the fun started right over the Dutch coast. The flak was as eager to greet us as ever.
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About 10 mins after we had crossed the Dutch coast I saw a burst of tracer go streaking across the sky then suddenly flames burst out on a Lanc & she slowly peeled over & went spiralling down through the clouds, then a few seconds later a huge glow shot up – poor devils. It couldn’t have been more that five minutes afterwards when Johnny the rear gunner screamed “Corkscrew Port”, I thought “here it comes” & gripped on. I guess whoever they are they all feel a bit of panic at such moments, I know the flesh on my back crawled as I kept anticipating the feeling of bullets ripping into my back. However we dodged him, it was a JU88 who came screaming down and fired a burst at us, he broke off the attack though. The flak in the target area was quite a bit heavier this time & it was really close, the return journey took us a fair bit longer as we were pushing against the wind. There were quite a lot of fighters lobbing down three flares at a time, it certainly is a hell of a feeling when one is battling along in the dark, & suddenly one is lit up as plain as daylight, & the feeling that every fighter in the sky is leering down at you is no fun. Mac generally swears and corkscrews viciously. We got back to base without mishap, shot the lines at interrogation then trotted off to another bacon & egg meal. There were 28 missing on that raid out of about 450 kites so it was heavier losses, none were missing from here which was good but 3 didn’t take off, and 3 turned back. ‘We got to bed at 10.30 A.M.
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At 2 P.M. we were awakened by the Tannoy blaring for all Navigators to report to the briefing room at 4 P.M. for pre-briefing. My God! there were ops on again & we were feeling nearly dead from lack of sleep already. It certainly set me back when going into briefing the target map showed Berlin again, gee! three times in five nights to the Great City it was pretty rough. Take off was at 12.20 P.M. because we were fighting to avoid the moon, even then it wasn’t set when we took off, but it had set before we reached the enemy coast. Things were pretty lively because there was a ninety mile an hour gale blowing and we had to go straight to Berlin, with no dummy attacks, & boy were they ready for us. For miles around the target it was like day with lanes of flares and kites whizzing around. It certainly was hectic over the target, I was expecting a fighter attack at any moment, & when the bombs had gone I got in the front turret & scared old Mac by flashing the guns backwards & forwards. Altogether we were in the thick of it for nearly 25 minutes it seemed like 25 years. I thought we would never get clear of there. It took us 2 1/2 hours [deleted] for [/deleted] to reach the target & 4 1/2 hours returning, because we were battling almost head on against the gale, it seemed an eternity before we reached the French coast. We reached base O.K. & tumbled in at 10.30 A.M. & boy! did we need the sleep, we lost one from here & I believe 27 on the whole effort.
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[underlined] Saturday 12th January [/underlined]
Its quite a while since I wrote here, but as usual I have been on leave in the meantime. There were no ops on the Tuesday after I last wrote, but on Wednesday there were. It was to Stettin & the route was all around Norway & the Baltic, then the stream suddenly headed south to Berlin, where Mossies started a dummy attack & the main force suddenly swung west to Stettin. The trip was terribly long 8 hr. 32 mins at the minimum & it was cutting it fairly fine with a full petrol load. At the last moment the route was lengthened by another three quarters of an hour, so that if we had made the trip we would have landed in the North Sea, consequently all Lanc IIs were scrubbed, the I’s & III’s went though & only lost 15 I wouldn’t have minded going. The next morning at two hours notice we were told we were on 7 days leave & had to rush around to get away that day.
We returned Thursday night, & got to bed about 1 A.M., then as it was the 4th day after the full moon, we were sure there would be no ops. Because 4 days before & 4 days after the full moon is the moon period & there are no ‘ops’. However Chopper Harris shot us up by putting ops on, after the morning air Test we dashed off for dinner then Les & I went back for 1.30 pre-briefing. The target was Brunswick, the place that the Forts went to a couple of days previously. They attacked aircraft factories about 20 miles from Brunswick, & we attacked the town.
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It was a real daylight take off, & when we were approaching the Dutch Coast it was quite light behind us, so I was expecting a head on attack. The weather was quite clear so the searchlights were active, there was quite a cone on Texel, & three large dummy fires as well, they must have quite a faith in the dimness of Air Bombers to bomb there. Our route took us quite close to Bremen, & there was a T.I. marker there cascading yellow. Later as we were getting close to the target we had to come really close to Hanover, & they were pretty active there. She had a hell of a lot of searchlights and if anyone strayed across the old flak would poop up. The attack started when we were a quarter of an hour from there, down went the T.I’s & up came the old flak. At briefing they said it would be pretty quiet, and that the Americans had destroyed 150 fighters for us – lovely it sounded. However there was quite a bit of flak and damned accurate, & more fighters milling around there us & other crews had seen before. I saw four kites go down in flames, [inserted] & burst [/inserted] on the ground, it was really grim. There was a lovely fire burning a huge thing with the green T.I’s in it, then a minute later our load went crashing down to help the conflaguration. The return journey wasn’t so bad there were numerous red flares dropped that burnt for a very short [deleted] [indecipherable letters] [/deleted] while, not like the usual fighter flares. We landed at 10.20 A.M. came butting back to beat the moon rise, we lost Blackwell & Christianson two senior crews, which was pretty grim, 38 [missing words], it certainly was no easy raid.
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[underlined] Tuesday January 18th. [/underlined]
The weather certainly is grim, we haven’t flown since Friday, there has been a thick fog, and these last two days it has rained, but tomorrow promises to be clear so I guess there will be ops on then. According to the Press the Brunswick raid was fairly easy, they certainly harped out some guff, one of them said there were no fighters over the target & the Luftwaffe was fooled. I was looking at the official list of combats & sightings over the target, & there really were some. One chap from here claimed a confirmed & a probable. Three times over the target Bill the W/Op. happened to knock our huge nose light on, it put five years on my life, ‘cos the first time nobody knew who did it, & I was crouched there with my hands over it, & cursing like a madman. F/Sgt Foggarty who was with us put up a damn good show, over the target he was attacked consistently for half an hour by fighters & an engine (stbd inner) hit by cannon shell. He feathered it and it fell right out, he came down from 23,000 ft to 7,100 ft before he could pull out, & had to stay down low all the way. He sent out an SOS because he thought he wouldn’t make it, & the Jerries followed our homing procedure identically. They homed with searchlights to a ‘drome in Holland, lit it up & gave him a green, luckily his Gee operated and he battled off in a hurry. He crash landed with 3 engines, one bust tyre, no flaps or brakes, & nobody hurt. The engineers right arm & leg were rendered useless over the target & he carried on, but they both got a gong. Beside the two we lost we had three kites written off through fighter attacks, Waterbeach lost two. Dimmock was one of them he came back from leave with me the night previously.
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[underlined] Monday January 24th. [/underlined]
Still no more ops, in a week, at least no ops that we have completed. Last Thursday we were on the Berlin trip, it seemed a pretty good route, but there was a terrific long sea leg up to Denmark. I hate that, I don’t mind baling out over land ‘cos you have some chance, but there is no sense in baling out over water as by yourself in a Mae West, a chap wouldn’t last a couple of hours. So the only thing is ditching, then if the kite is out of control & we are unable to ditch, we’ve had it. However soon after taking off we couldn’t see any other kites & Johnny & I were picking up opposite drifts from what they should have been. Suddenly Mac checked his compasses and found they were all haywire, we were well off track, and crossed the coast at Ipswich instead of Cromer. Then trying to steer a straight course we went round in a huge circle. It was impossible for us to go on so we tried to jettison fuel in order to land. Mac & Jack tried to jettison fuel to bring our load down, but were unable to do so. We had to jettison the cookie, and flew sixty five miles out from the coast & let her go. So back we went, & were we cheesed, & hate a turn back, it was our first. Jimmy Rodgers returned earlier with a U/S rear turret & W/O Robbins with a U.S Rev counter, Anderson got lost & bombed Wilhelmshaven & I believe F.O Ogden came back after 4 1/2 hrs we were airborne 2 hrs. We lost P/O Canning, on his 19th trip.
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The following night we were going to Magdeburg, with a dummy attack on Berlin, by 15 Mosquitoes, & 20 Lancs (dont [sic] fancy that). There were 690 kites detailed, quite a few for a place that size, we were taxying out, & were almost at the flare path when the kite in front of us became bogged, it was old Howby in F, Freddie. The dim of an ACP let us get right on top of it, before flashing a red, so there was no room for us to turn & go round the perimeter in time to take off. There were other guys in the same position as us & there we all sat whilst the minutes ticked by & we were scrubbed, did we curse. In all eight kites didn’t take off & we lost one, Waterbeach lost four, which was grim, and they say six returned early, I don’t know if thats [sic] right, if so only six kites got to the target & back, it certainly was a chop raid.
Hardwick the chap who was at OTU with us has 5 weeks more [deleted] week [/deleted] grounded, he is cheesed. He gave us some news of fellows at OTU. Doc & his crew are P.O.W’s poor old Cecil Kindt had the chop, Chiefy Young is a P/O with 15 in & his navigator Shields has his W/O they have [deleted] [indecipherable letters] [/deleted] been doing O.K. Bouchard is O.K. with 9, old Towne is in jail, stripped for beating up a town low level. Mac met, Pat Macguire, who was Petch’s Navigator, in London, he said Petch was killed outright. They have an English chap who was a staff pilot in Canada. Ray Bennett was killed outright, but Johnny Smythe his dark navigator is a P.O.W. I don’t know about the rest of the crew.
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[underlined] Sunday 30th January [/underlined]
Everything was peaceful until Wednesday & then ‘ops’ were on again, bags of twitter, we beetled out to old G George to see everything was bang on. The weather wasn’t too hot & everyone was sure it would be scrubbed. When we found out it was Frankfurt, we were certain we wouldn’t go as before we had been briefed for it & hadn’t gone, sure enough it was scrubbed. The Forts went there the other day though, (yesterday in fact) 800 bombers, they certainly must have wanted to rub that place out. However the following night (Thursday) we were dicing once more & it was the old Faithful Berlin again. It seems strange but I have on obsession for that place, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I like it, that would be plain dumb, but I am less disturbed when we go there than anywhere else. Why I am at a loss to explain as it is the longest & hardest trip we will ever have to do. All I know is I wouldn’t mind doing quite a few there, I hope it isn’t a fateful fascination & we get the chop over there.
We had a strong westerly wind blowing behind us & the outward trip only took 2 1/2 hrs, whilst the return took 5 1/2 hrs. Our journey wasn’t too bad, we had a nasty moment when Les told Mac to turn on a course of 037o & Mac thought he said 137o. We were on it for 2 minutes before I saw a Lanc. cut across us & I queried our course.
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This caused us to stray over, Brandenburg I believe it was & by jimini their predicted flak was damned accurate. It burst at the dead same height about 200 yds in front & another lot off the starboard beam. Another few seconds & we were flying through the black smoke puffs. As we saw the P.F.F. flares go down (they were a couple of minutes early) the first fighter flares dropped. Some of the kites had obviously arrived early & been stooging around, waiting for zero hour, because the flak had been going up for a while already. By the time we arrived, we were in the blasted last wave as usual, there were scores of yellow fighter flares making a lane into the target & another one out of it. There was one fair sized fire going but not so big as I have seen, just after the W/Op watched my cookie go through the clouds he reported a huge explosion. I smile to think it might have been me, but one can never tell what happens in a concentrated attack like that.
Two minutes after the bombs had gone, Don the Mid Upper spotted a fighter, & called to Johnny to watch it. Then we heard Johnny’s excited voice over the inter-com, “Its a JU88, he’s coming in he’s crossing over now, get ready to corkscrew port, - corkscrew port go”. I was scrambling up to the front guns & just reached there in time. Our corkscrew was so violent that neither of the gunners were able to open fire, it also
[page break]
must have surprised the Jerry because he overshot above us, & skidded in a stall turn about 200 yds away from our nose. I remember thinking “My God what a bloody size he is”, somehow I had never realised how large a 66ft wing span was for a fighter. Anyway he was in the wing right & a no deflection shot my fingers squeezed & I nearly whooped with joy, when I saw the tracer striking the rear of the port engine & the [deleted] sp [/deleted] mainplane between the engine & the fuselage. Then he dived down to port at a hell of a speed & my little bit of fun was over. It shook me that I was the one to open the attack, as the B/A’s don’t often get a crack. I think it rather shook him to be fired at from the front as he didn’t break away there again.
The battle really started then, & it was a battle too. Up he came from underneath, & Johnny yelled “corkscrew” & opened fire, we could hear his guns shattering, & we were zooming around the sky. Johnny said he hit the port engine again, as I hit it previously & some sparks & flames shot out then subsided to a glow, I think everyone thought we had had it then, though I must hand it to that fighter pilot he really had guts. Round he would come firing right in close & both our gunners would return the compliment. We were corkscrewing violently all the time and my stomach felt as though it was being torn apart & my head smacked against the perspex. Mac & Jack were both thrown against the
[page break]
[inserted] [two newspaper cuttings of the Berlin raid from two eye-witnesses] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[inserted] [newspaper cutting regarding the 12th major bombing raid on Berlin] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
roof too. Every now & again a huge stream of tracer would pour across the top of us, & my mouth was dry with fear as I saw the cannon shells exploding at 600 yds. The gunners would be shouting “Corkscrew keep corkscrewing – here he comes again,” then the guns would chatter & we’d roll around. When it came to the break aways I kept praying he would come up to the front & I could get another crack but he never did. I would yell “Where is he?” each time but he would dive right down underneath & they would lose him, it was a separate sighting & attack each time. He made 7 attacks on us, I thought it would never end, on the third he hit us in the elevator trim. Then on the fifth attack a cannon shell exploded in the port wing & bullets ripped through the port inner nacelle. Though we couldn’t tell where the damage was we could only feel the hits. However we gave him quite a bit of punishment, we all hit him, & on the seventh attack, the glow in his engine suddenly became brighter & he dived down & that was the end of the attack, we claimed him as a probable. The whole engagement lasted 18 to 20 minutes it seemed like years, I had one moment of real fright in it. In the middle of a corkscrew with squirts of tracer everywhere I felt a violent blow in the left leg & thought “Hell, I’ve been hit” but it was all the heavy bundles of window that had shaken loose & crashed on my leg.
[page break]
We were at 18,500 ft when the attack started & were down to 13,000 ft at the end, the corkscrews were so violent, the Elsan came right out & was all over the floor & the ammo from one of Johnny’s tanks was all out. My God I was really thankful we had seen that through, one doesn’t often get continuous battles like it. Mac had a fair amount of work with no elevator trim but there was nothing vital hit and the kite flew O.K. We managed to get back on track but we were pretty late, everything went pretty well until it came to the part we squeezed between Frankfurt & the Ruhr. Everything was O.K. until some wicked predicted flak shot up about half a mile to the starboard, there were only three bursts then suddenly there was a Lanc. with flame pouring from the nose & three of her engines. She held her course for a short while, then swung round in a huge circle, came behind, assumed course for half a minute or so then plunged down, I hope they got out. I thought the return journey would never end, I hate it as long as that. We came out pretty well south of track, but we were back O.K. a fair few landed away through lack of fuel. The bullets that ripped through the port inner [indecipherable word] punctured the tyre, but we didn’t know, and landed with a flat tyre, swerved off the runway & there we were. The crash wagon & blood wagon tore out, & they insisted on us riding in the blood wagon.
[page break]
The M.O. insisted upon giving us some capsules, to make us sleep that night & wouldn’t let us go on ops the next night. He knew his ‘gen’ because when we woke we were pretty dizzy & weak from their effect & couldn’t possibly have operated. It was Berlin again, another 8 hr effort, it was a shambles here. They only got 9 out of the squadron airborne, & 2 of these returned, leaving 7 to go on to the target. Out of these 7 we lost 2 which is pretty grim, F/Lt. Aarvin & P/O Tyn were the ones missing. From the night before we lost F/O Harris & F/Sgt Morris, old Morris had been with us at Downham, they said he was in a dinghy, at least he was going to ditch, but they heard no more. Friday night, the RAF Bomber Command Band gave a performance here & was very good, Saturday there was a stand down we went to a camp dance. G George is U/S for a fortnight or so & we were going to take another kite tonight but they were so short of kites they couldn’t put us on. We are right hard up for kites now, two had a head on crash when taxying, nobody was hurt, but the kites are really ripped up. Another had incendiaries through it, they only sent 11 tonight, it was Berlin again, Chopper is really pushing ‘em in again. Old Foggarty has been awarded the DFM for the show he put up, I thought he would. So 623 has made a start here anyway. I wonder if we will be going to Berlin much more I should think it must be pretty well smashed up, they haven’t been able to get photographs for awhile.
[page break]
[inserted] [newspaper cutting saying that the Battle of Berlin is almost won and suggesting that Breslau may be the new Capital.] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[duplicate page]
[page break]
[underlined] Monday February 7th. [/underlined]
A week has elapsed since I last wrote, a week of doing practically nothing. That Sunday raid on Berlin was the last op there was, we got eight kites off I believe, & lost poor old F/Lt Hicks. He was the Asst. Flight Commander in our flight, a [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] ‘Newzie’ & a good chap it was his 24th. There were no ‘ops’ then for a few days & then the moon period commenced. Our kite won’t be serviceable for nearly three weeks so they have given us J Johnny, Hicks’ old kite it was U/S & he took another when he got the chop. Sqdn.Ldr [indecipherable name] the ‘Corkscrew King’ had a real do. They had a contact on the Monica & instead of corkscrewing as they were told he asked the gunners if they could see anything. They were looking down & said “No”, & a fighter sitting about 10o up gave them a long burst while they were straight & level. He raked them right along, the rear turret smashed, the mid upper had about 20 fragments pass between his legs. A couple of cannon shells exploded in the fuselage, the [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] D.R. Master Unit was hit, a large hole in the main plane, one prop damaged, Boy! they were really shot up. The only one who was hurt was the A/B who had a small piece of flak in his behind. We have been informed that the old Groupie has detailed us for an hours circuits & bumps for the bad landing we made returning from Berlin. That was with a burst tyre. God knows what he wants, I don’t even believe he knows we were shot up.
[page break]
[inserted] [newspaper cutting regarding the raids on Berlin] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[inserted] [newspaper cutting with a photograph of a Halifax III] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
It seems pretty definite that the German [indecipherable word]. is evacuating from Berlin to Breslau, its another 200 miles to the South East, surely they wont go there from here, it would be about a 10 hour trip. There is some talk that the tour is being reduced to 25 ops as they are pretty grim now with the Berlin trips, it seems pukka ‘gen’ I hope it is. During the week we have been doing loaded climbs on J to test her starboard outer now it has to be changed. We have also been trying to get some GH Bombing in but the weather isn’t so good. Yesterday we had the day off, they are giving crews a day off during the moon period. Johnny & I went home catching the 1036 AM. Sunday, & travelling back on the 8.20 AM. Monday, I had a wizard time.
On Saturday night we lost a kite on the Bullseye, it was Bishop who was at Downham with us. Poor old Jack Speechly was the Bomb Aimer, I had known him 18 months ever since Manchester, we did our training in Canada together, he was a rattling good chap. They had an American pilot with them, they were all killed, & they don’t know how it happened yet. The crash was found with them all in it, its really grim. That’s three of the crews that were with us at Downham gone now P/O Whitting Ginger Morris & now old Bishop, boy! I only pray we see the tour out & so do all the others. There’s nothing much happening, consequently there isn’t much to make an entry of, think I’ll snatch an early night.
[underlined] Sunday February 13th. [/underlined]
The moon period has definitely finished now and our period of rest is over. Once more ‘Chopper’ whipped a day off the end of it, we were briefed for Berlin & were out at the kites with about 30 mins to go before take off when it was scrubbed. The reason being the bad weather at base on return, it was pretty grim, & was a [deleted] poo [/deleted] wonder it wasn’t scrubbed before. I wouldn’t have minded the trip, because for a change it was a long trip out, & a short trip home. Last minute scrubbings are worse than some ‘ops’ I think after being keyed up all that time, still it shows there is still some of the Big City left there.
We haven’t done much this week, as the weather has been pretty duff, most of the time we tried some GH Bombing nothing came of it, owing to climate conditions. The other day we were up in a hell of a snow storm, all the time we were running before it & trying to find a way out. All the countryside looked pretty Christmassy with a coating of snow over the fields & villages. As I was in the rear turret all the time I was more interested in keeping warm. Our turrets got in grim condition during the moon period and we had to work like the devil all day to get it in shape. I was late for briefing through it and had a hell of a flap trying to get my tracks & maps all ship shape.
[page break]
All Jimmy Rodgers crew went to Cambridge on Friday, as two of [deleted] Jim [/deleted] Bishops crew were being buried there. It is terrible really four of them were married & a couple engaged, old Bishop was only married at O.T.U., I would never get married in war time for that reason. Looking at it soberly with all the chaps getting the chop it seems a hell of a mugs game still there it is.
There has been a fair amount of entertainment this week, we had a night out in Ely with a wizard meal in the KUMIN Café. On Wednesday night there was a dance in the gymnasium, then Thursday night we had a big social in the mess. They even went to the extent of polishing the floor, & in our grim mess that really is something. It went on until 1 AM. & there was bags of beer & eats, the food was very good, marzipan cakes, sausage rolls etc. £25 was allowed for it, so it should have been good. On Saturday there was another dance but I was cheesed with that & don’t think I will bother going again.
The siren is going now & there is some gunfire, be quite comical now, with us refraining from bombing Berlin owing to the met. here, & the Jerries using the same conditions to bomb us. They have left the bombs on the kites & only drained the tanks to 1500 so it looks as though they will be parking us along tomorrow. I guess now they have started again, Chopper will try & really finish Berlin, hope he doesn’t finish us.
[page break]
[inserted] [two newspaper cuttings regarding the continuing raids on Berlin and their effect] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[duplicate page]
[page break]
[underlined] Thursday 17th February. [/underlined]
All was quite [sic] until Thursday, when ‘ops’ were on again, & there it loomed on the briefing room chart, the [deleted] G [/deleted] Big City once more. It was another daylight take off, quite a sight to see all the kites streaming over the coast at Cromer. The first leg was a terrific long one up to Denmark, & it was quite light most of the way, but luckily got dark by the time we were crossing the coast. Those Danish islands can certainly poop up some flak, & I was glad when we hit the Baltic Coast. The last leg to the target was a terrific long one, straight to it, I couldn’t see that the Jerry would be fooled regarding the target, even though there was a spoof attack on Frankfurt-on-Oder. The P.F.F. boobed by sending the flares down before zero hour, & the flak certainly opened up. It was the heaviest I have seen there, I think he was relying more on that than his fighters. Running up I could see about six Halifaxes beneath us, they seemed quite happy as the flak was all bursting between 18 & 21,000 ft. We were carrying just one 8,000 lb cookie, which is quite a goodly size, it was handy in the way that immediately I said ‘Bombs Gone’ Mac could whip the Bomb Doors shut.
Bomber Command was trying new tactics this time the 1st, 2nd, & 3rd waves went one way, & we in the 4th & 5th waves went a bit south of them along another route. The idea was to split the fighter forces, & I think it succeeded we only saw two all night, one ME110 just after
[page break]
[inserted] [two newspaper cuttings regarding the raids on Berlin] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[inserted] [newspaper cutting about obliterating bombing techniques]
[page break]
leaving the target flashed across our nose. We ran into some flak though, getting off track a bit we stooged right over Magdeburg. Beside window there were two huge packets of nickels to throw out so I was sweating like anything shovelling it all out. Not much happened on our return journey apart from a few fighter flares & some rockets. We saw a kite go down in flames over the North Sea, I should hate to get the chop right back there. Two were lost from here, F/S Whyte who had 16 trips in & F/S Ralph who was with us at Downham. He had Pinky Tomlin, Petch’s old B/A, who arrived with a new skipper F/O Nice, beside losing his B/A he lost his rear gunner who went as a spare with Whyte. I hate this spare business they always seem to get the chop.
Yesterday we were briefed for Berlin, then scrubbed, then again tonight & were out at the kites before being scrubbed, the weather was terrible both days, yet they wait till the last minute before scrubbing it. We were read a message from Chopper Harris C in C. congratulating us on the progress of the Battle for Berlin. After the usual flowery comments on our ‘courage & steadfast spirit’ he said we were well ahead of schedule in the obliteration of the capital. He also said the Allied Command considered it the most important battle of all land, sea or air battles fought & yet to fight in the war. There was a long list of reasons of its immediate need to be liquidated, & he said he had to rush us to finish the job as the lighter nights and the Northern lights would soon be making their appearance. Well I hope there isn’t many more trips to be done there.
[page break]
22
[underlined] 60/520 [/underlined]
8
196
2443
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
Book 5, Return to UK
Description
An account of the resource
Fifth and final diary kept by David Geach chronicling his time training and on operations. He writes about his return from Canada on the Queen Elizabeth then his training in England which began with arriving at the Posting Centre in Pannal Ash, Harrogate. He was then posted to AFU Bobbington, training on Ansons. From there he went to O.T.U. Hixon and satellite station Seighford training on Wellingtons. He then went to Flying Conversion Unit Woolfox Lodge to train on Stirlings. Once training was complete he was posted to RAF Downham Market on 623 Squadron flying Stirlings on operations. When 623 Stirling squadron was disbanded he was transferred on to Lancasters. He was posted to Flying Conversion Unit 1678 at RAF Waterbeach to train on the Lancaster and then on to RAF Witchford where he undertook operations over Germany, including a number on Berlin. Covers the period 17 March 1943 to 17 February 1944.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Geach
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One handwritten diary
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Diary
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
YGeachDG1394781v5
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Scotland--Greenock
Scotland--Glasgow
Scotland--Edinburgh
England--Harrogate
England--Whitley Bay
England--Bournemouth
England--Stourbridge
England--Birmingham
England--Wolverhampton
England--Stafford
Canada
Ontario--Ottawa
Atlantic Ocean--Cardigan Bay
Wales--Rhyl
England--The Wash
England--Nottingham
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Isle of Man
England--Cannock
Wales--Aberystwyth
Scotland--Orkney
France--Saint-Malo
France--Rennes
France--Isigny-sur-Mer
France--Cherbourg
France--Avranches
England--Southampton
England--Stamford
England--Cambridge
England--Peterborough
England--Bedford
England--Portsmouth
Netherlands--Friesland
England--Cromer
France--La Rochelle
France--Gironde Estuary
France--Nantes
England--King's Lynn
Italy--Turin
North Africa
Gibraltar
England--Thames River
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Berlin
England--Ely
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Hamburg
Norway
Netherlands--Texel
Germany--Bremen
Denmark
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Brandenburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Hannover
England--Sunderland (Tyne and Wear)
Poland--Szczecin
Poland--Wrocław
England--Southend-on-Sea
Italy
Atlantic Ocean--Firth of Clyde
Poland
France
Ontario
Germany
Netherlands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Bedfordshire
England--Durham (County)
England--Essex
England--Hampshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Northumberland
England--Sussex
England--Staffordshire
England--Worcestershire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Warwickshire
England--Selsey (West Sussex)
Wales--Caernarfon
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
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Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-03
1943-04
1943-05
1943-06
1943-07
1943-08
1943-09
1943-10
1943-11
1943-12
1944-01
1944-02
115 Squadron
149 Squadron
1678 HCU
196 Squadron
199 Squadron
214 Squadron
218 Squadron
30 OTU
514 Squadron
623 Squadron
90 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aerial photograph
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
B-17
bale out
bomb aimer
bombing
Catalina
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
entertainment
fear
flight engineer
Gee
ground personnel
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
incendiary device
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 2
Me 110
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Mosquito
navigator
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
Nissen hut
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Downham Market
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Hixon
RAF Lindholme
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Seighford
RAF Tangmere
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Warboys
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Witchford
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Red Cross
sanitation
searchlight
Stirling
target indicator
target photograph
training
Typhoon
Victoria Cross
Wellington
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2115/19295/PPaineGH16010022.1.jpg
fb8c697f835e536e35f246ba5b134a10
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
Paine, Geoff. Album
Description
An account of the resource
52 page photograph album of his service in Southern Africa.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-20
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
Paine, GH
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
Thornhill
Description
An account of the resource
Thrree small photographs, first shows group of individuals crowding around a wireless set, captioned 'VJ Day Thornhill'.
Second showing Askari bugler, captioned ' 'Lights out' Askari guard Thornhill'.
Third showing Hurricane on the ground captioned 'Thornhill's Hurricane'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three 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
PPaineGH16010022
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe--Gweru
Zimbabwe--Thornhill
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-08-15
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-08-15
Hurricane
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/691/20281/LBarnesJ[Ser -DoB]v1.pdf
a3e3d4ddf01f980e35c432f7d0e24561
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
Barnes, J
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. Two log books belonging to Flight Lieutenant J Barnes. He served as a pilot instructor and flew operations with 630 and 106 squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sue Barnes 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
2016-01-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Barnes, J
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
J Barnes’ pilots flying log book. One
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for J Barnes, covering the period from 10 December 1940 to 6 march 1946 and 24 September 1948 to 2 march 1951. Detailing his flying training, Instructor duties, operations flown and post war flying duties. He was stationed at RAF Staverton, RAF Ternhill, RAF Upavon, RAF Netheravon, RAF Watton, RCAF Kingston, RAF Tatenhill, RAF Wheaton Aston, RAF Market Harborough, RAF Swinderby, RAF East Kirkby, RAF Metheringham, RAF Lindholme and RAF Rochester. Aircraft flown were, Tiger Moth, Master, Avro Tutor, Hurricane, Battle, Harvard, Anson, Lysander, Oxford, Wellington Lancaster and Chipmunk. He flew one daylight and one night operation with 630 squadron, Targets were Pilsen and Flensburgh. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Wing Commander Grindon. He flew 8 operation Firebrand and one Operation Dodge to Bari with 106 squadron.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LBarnesJ[Ser#-DoB]v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Czech Republic
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
England--Gloucestershire
England--Kent
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Shropshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Flensburg
Italy--Bari
Ontario--Kingston
Czech Republic--Plzeň
Ontario
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1948
1949
1950
1951
1945-04-16
1945-04-17
1945-04-23
1945-08-28
1945-09-29
1945-10-01
106 Squadron
14 OTU
1660 HCU
630 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
Battle
bombing
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lysander
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Lindholme
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Metheringham
RAF Netheravon
RAF Staverton
RAF Swinderby
RAF Ternhill
RAF Upavon
RAF Watton
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1297/20289/LBoltonJD67631v1.1.pdf
bd5b0871e283106a18a5f4bd648c05e2
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
Bolton, J D
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. The collection concerns John Derek Bolton (915543, 67631) and contains two Log books and squadron maintenance log containing a memoir. He flew 80 operations as a pilot with 455, 571, 608 and 162 squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by David Bolton 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
2017-09-06
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
Bolton, JD
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
John Derek Bolton’s Pilots flying log book. One
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for John Derek Bolton, covering the period from 18 October 1940 to 11 December 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown, instructor duties and post war flying duties. He was stationed at White Waltham, RAF Watchfield, RAF Cranwell, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Swinderby, RAF Waddington, RAF Skellingthorpe, RAF Wigsley, RAF Finningley, RAF North Luffenham, RAF Upavon, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Woolfox Lodge, RAF Bitteswell, RAF Warboys, RAF Oakington, RAF Downham Market and RAF Bourn. Aircraft flown were, Tiger Moth, Oxford, Anson, Hampden, Magister, Wellington, Whitley, Lysander, Master, Douglas DC3, Ventura, Lancaster, Martinet, Defiant, Mosquito, M18, Spitfire, Proctor, Hurricane, Auster and Beaufighter. He flew a total of 80 operations which included 30 with 455 squadron, 1 daylight and 29 night operations. 13 night operations with 571 squadron, 28 operations with 608 squadron, 27 night and 1 daylight, 9 night operations with 162 squadron. Targets were, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Essen, Ameland, Wilhelmshaven, Hannover, Munster, Wangerooge, Mannheim, Aachen, Cologne, Lorient, Bordeaux, Lubeck, Bremen, Berlin, Gottingen, Scholven, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Wanne Eickel, Karlsruhe, Brunswick, Kassel, Nuremberg, Osnabruck and Stralsund.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LBoltonJD67631v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Berkshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Rutland
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Lorient
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Göttingen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Lübeck
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Stralsund
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Netherlands--Ameland Island
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Wangerooge Island
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1941-09-07
1941-09-08
1941-09-11
1941-09-12
1941-09-15
1941-09-16
1941-09-29
1941-09-30
1941-10-01
1941-10-02
1941-10-12
1941-10-13
1941-10-23
1941-10-24
1941-10-28
1941-10-29
1941-10-31
1941-11-01
1941-11-04
1941-11-05
1941-11-08
1941-11-09
1941-11-30
1941-12-01
1941-12-27
1941-12-28
1942-01-06
1942-01-07
1942-01-08
1942-01-09
1942-01-10
1942-01-11
1942-01-26
1942-01-27
1942-01-28
1942-01-29
1942-02-07
1942-02-11
1942-02-12
1942-02-21
1942-02-22
1942-02-23
1942-02-24
1942-03-09
1942-03-10
1942-03-11
1942-03-13
1942-03-14
1942-03-24
1942-03-25
1942-03-26
1942-03-27
1942-03-28
1942-03-29
1942-04-06
1942-04-07
1942-04-10
1942-04-11
1942-04-12
1942-04-13
1944-06-22
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-26
1944-06-27
1944-07-05
1944-07-06
1944-07-07
1944-07-10
1944-07-11
1944-07-20
1944-07-21
1944-07-22
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-15
1944-08-16
1944-08-17
1944-08-18
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-08-28
1944-08-30
1944-08-31
1944-09-01
1944-09-04
1944-09-05
1944-09-06
1944-09-07
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-10-01
1944-10-02
1944-10-06
1944-10-07
1944-10-10
1944-10-11
1944-10-16
1944-10-17
1944-10-23
1944-10-24
1944-10-29
1944-10-30
1944-11-08
1944-11-09
1944-11-25
1944-11-26
1944-11-28
1944-11-29
1944-11-30
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-11
1944-12-12
1944-12-15
1944-12-16
1945-01-04
1945-01-05
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-03
1945-02-04
1945-02-23
1945-02-24
1945-03-10
1945-03-11
1945-03-18
1945-03-19
1945-03-30
1945-03-31
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-17
1945-04-18
1945-05-24
1945-07-04
1945-07-24
16 OTU
162 Squadron
25 OTU
29 OTU
455 Squadron
571 Squadron
608 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Beaufighter
bombing
C-47
Cook’s tour
Defiant
Flying Training School
Hampden
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lysander
Magister
Martinet
mine laying
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
Proctor
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bourn
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Cranwell
RAF Downham Market
RAF Finningley
RAF Mildenhall
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Oakington
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
RAF Upavon
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Waddington
RAF Warboys
RAF Watchfield
RAF Wigsley
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Spitfire
Tiger Moth
training
Ventura
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1333/20548/PSearleROJ17030050.1.jpg
ca7f65aa85190c8d96e0dd6cb2da95a6
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
Searle, Rex. Album 1
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
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
Searle, ROJ
Description
An account of the resource
74 items. The album contains photographs and papers relating to Rex Searle's pre-war family life as well as his wartime and postwar service.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
RAF Aircraft
Description
An account of the resource
Six photographs from an album.
Photo 1 is a Spitfire ZX-K, annotated 'Spitfire'.
Photo 2 is the centre section of a Hurricane with an airman in the cockpit, annotated 'Hurricane'.
Photo 3 is a side view of a Vickers Victoria.
Photo 4 is a Hurricane 'The Mac Robert Fighter Sir Iain'
Photo 5 is a side view of an Me 108 in RAF colours.
Photo 6 is a Lysander
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six b/w photographs from an album
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
PSearleROJ17030050
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Publisher
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.
Hurricane
Lysander
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1333/20549/PSearleROJ17030051.1.jpg
5268b6468affd175b19487f47920a13e
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
Searle, Rex. Album 1
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
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
Searle, ROJ
Description
An account of the resource
74 items. The album contains photographs and papers relating to Rex Searle's pre-war family life as well as his wartime and postwar service.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
RAF aircraft
Description
An account of the resource
Six photographs from an album. Photo 1 is a side view of a Vickers Valentia, annotated 'Valentia'. Photo 2 is a side view of a Hurricane. Photo 3 is a general airfield view with an aircraft tipped on its nose. Photo 4 is a flyby by a fighter aircraft. Photo 5 is a front view of a biplane, annotated 'Hawker Hind'. Photo 6 is an airman standing at the front of a Blenheim.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six b/w photographs from an album.
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
PSearleROJ17030051
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Publisher
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.
Blenheim
crash
Hurricane
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1333/20550/PSearleROJ17030052.1.jpg
c19bc5ac1409fe499792de24ed7e5dc7
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
Searle, Rex. Album 1
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
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
Searle, ROJ
Description
An account of the resource
74 items. The album contains photographs and papers relating to Rex Searle's pre-war family life as well as his wartime and postwar service.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
RAF aircraft
Description
An account of the resource
Six aircraft from an album. Photo 1 is a Gloster Gladiator. Photo 2 is an airman wearing a pith helmet, standing at the front of a Blenheim. Photo 3 is a Hurricane. Photo 4 is a fighter aircraft tipped on its nose. Photo 5 is the same airman wearing a pith helmet, standing at the nose of a Blenheim. Photo 6 is a Hurricane.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six b/w photographs from an album.
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
PSearleROJ17030052
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Publisher
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.
Blenheim
Hurricane
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1333/20558/PSearleROJ17030074.1.jpg
135ef7925b9dde2804d304498dcc8b01
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
Searle, Rex. Album 1
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-25
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
Searle, ROJ
Description
An account of the resource
74 items. The album contains photographs and papers relating to Rex Searle's pre-war family life as well as his wartime and postwar service.
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
Airmen Relaxing
Description
An account of the resource
Seven photographs from an album.
Photo 1 is two men lying on their bunks.
Photo 2 is two men sitting and holding tennis rackets.
Photo 3 is five men leaning on a beach cabin.
Photo 4 is two men standing at the front of a Hurricane 'Sir Iain'.
Photo 5 is a man sitting on a wall.
Photo 6 is Rex Searle standing in front of a statue.
Photo 7 is eight men standing at the tail of an aircraft.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven b/w photographs from an album
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSearleROJ17030074
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Publisher
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.
ground personnel
Hurricane
military living conditions
sport